Mabry Drops Out of City Council race..

Just days after gathering signatures from citizens throughout Falls Church in order to have his name placed on the ballot for the City Council race, Sam Mabry asked the City's Registrar of Voters to remove his name from the ballot - citing "family reasons" to those close to him.

However, he reported to the Deliberation Falls Church website (http://www.dfccva.org/) that he withdrew in order to push his Charter Change referendum instead.

The Charter Change referendum seeks to limit commercial development within Falls Church. If passed, it would change the City's Charter to only permit development that falls into a narrowly defined "percentage" system: a development would have to be "no more than 40% residential and 60% commercial" in order to qualify. No special exceptions; no discussion allowed. If it didn't pass the percentage test, it would be a "No Go".

The referendum would effectively hamstring any future City Council from negotiating with commercial developers. It would also do more than that: it could stop any developers out there who may be considering Falls Church, from bringing their projects here in the first place. This type of "government by referenda" is a developer's worst nightmare. None would knowingly walk into such an anti-development climate.

Falls Church has faced this type of assault before: a Charter Change referendum was also on the ballot in 2004 ~ and it was soundly rejected at the polls by a whopping 67% to 33%. One can only hope the voters will again see through the referendum attempt, being sold to them as a "let the people decide" democratic ideal, which is a sham: It's simply bad government.

All things considered, it's probably a good thing for Falls Church that the author of such a bad piece of (attempted) legislation has dropped out.