Centreville — This past year, it had been my pleasure to represent Sully District on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. As my term begins its second year, I am issuing you a report on important 2016 milestones in Sully District and Fairfax County at large.
Early in the year, we hit the ground running with a review of land use process in Sully District. We facilitated a plan to streamline the development process and harness maximum resident input while saving staff time and legal fees. Simultaneously, we launched a comprehensive planning review of the Dulles Suburban Area Center. This is the first time such a review has taken place since 1991. I'm very pleased to have my predecessor Michael Frey leading the Dulles Suburban Area Advisory Group. The members have experience ranging from land use planning to transportation to airports. We recruited this team from across Sully District and they are currently in the process of reviewing and compiling recommendations for revisions to the comprehensive plan that will guide land use in our community for the next 20 years.
In my role as chair of the Board of Supervisor's Development Process Committee, I was pleased to oversee new regulations on permissible shape factors for new residential developments in the Residential Conservation and Residential Estate zoning districts. These regulations will protect current and future homeowners from overdevelopment.
Finally, we shuttled the final site plan for Wegmans through the approval process with minor modifications. I'm optimistic that this grocery store and shopping center will be positive additions to our community.
Our Human Services Bond passed in November. That bond includes funding for a new Sully Community and Senior Center. The senior center will be moved temporarily until the new center is constructed.
As Sully supervisor, perhaps my greatest responsibility is constituent service. When a major snow event hit our area in January, my office fielded over 1,400 constituent contacts. We helped identity for VDOT areas of the county that were overlooked. After the storm, we convened a snow summit to investigate what improvements could be made when the next storm comes.
During the budget discussions, I hosted a joint town hall with Sully School Board member Tom Wilson and we heard from many residents about the need to balance a small tax increase with increases in quality school and county services. After months of negotiation between my colleagues and myself, we raised teacher salaries $40 million and saved the taxpayers money in other parts of the budget.
The Board of Supervisors also made progress on the Police Commission Report. For my part, I met with community leaders and faith leaders as well as over 20 officers from the Sully police station to understand how our actions would effect each stakeholder. Because of my outreach, I was able to provide valuable edits regarding the release of officer names and annual review of the implementation of the Civilian Review Panel.
One of the most important projects I set to work on as soon as I took office was building out my team. I'm pleased to say that we've filled over 50 appointments to various county boards, authorities, and commissions. In November, Chairman Sharon Bulova joined me for a roundtable meeting with the Sully appointees. New positions come open every month so if you are interested in getting involved in the community this way, please reach out to my office.
Some of the best community activities in Sully District came as a result of teamwork. In July, I partnered with the Sully station police officers to host a Pokéthon and talk with young Pokémon Go players about how to play safely. Then in August, I continued Michael Frey's tradition of supporting the Starlight Cinema in Centreville and showing outdoor movies for families.
In transportation news, the Transform 66 Outside the Beltway project moved forward with VDOT making their selection of the private partner to finance, design, build, maintain and operate the project. We also authorized the preliminary engineering and partial right of way acquisition for Route 28 widening between the Prince William County Line and US 29. Finally, Governor McAuliffe came to Dulles Airport to announce a new $50 million investment over the next two years.
This year, we received ringing endorsements of the strong economic activity happening here in Sully District. We opened the first brewery in Sully — Mustang Sally — in May. Governor McAuliffe visited the district again to celebrate the expansion of CarFax in August. The Driver Rehabilitation Center of Excellence opened to wide media acclaim in November. In December, the Fairfax County Disability Services Commission awarded the Martha Glennan Disability Service Award to the Sully District small business I nominated — Wildflour Caterers of Chantilly.
It has been a busy year in Sully District and 2017 promises to be just as exciting.