RA President/Blogger Urges Restonians To 'Look At Our Community' (And Not Just to Turn In Neighbors With Red Mulch and White Stone in Their Yards)

In her latest post, our fellow "web logger," RA President Robin Smyers, takes stock of two recent uneventful issues that no one really paid much attention to at all.

When we reconvene for the September 24 meeting, we will have many, tough decisions to make that reflect what kind of Reston we want in the coming years. For example, – where will we choose to locate our next headquarters facility and how should we plan for both current and future Restonians as we continue to explore the idea of indoor recreation?

Our staff will be busy during August, compiling your opinions and ideas from our four community meetings. These were great sessions where we really heard from the community.

We'll say!

I also have a request of you. Between now and September, take time to get out and really look at our community of Reston. I ask you to consider our evolution from farmland and visions – many that have yet to be realized – to a community of villages, homes, businesses and recreation. You may not realize this, but getting Reston to where it is today has brought one challenge after another. There has never been what you might call “ smooth sailing.”

We'll say!

Smyers then lists a few pivotal moments in Reston's history, including this one:

In 1965, fewer than half of the 227 townhomes in Lake Anne had been sold because Reston was considered “too isolated, too overpriced and too liberal.” Later, several real estate agents would say that Reston’s idea of community was ahead of its time. Back then, people only wanted location and price. A decade later, they wanted community.

Then, as us filthy "web log" writers are wont to do, Smyers digs into the "web logger's" rhetorical bag of tricks to "bring it home":

Whether the leadership at the time was wrestling with the status of the community, or a drop in home sales, the duly elected leaders worked hard to maintain and advance the vision for the community that voters entrusted to their care.

We have a duty to see Reston as Robert Simon and others have – what it will be -- and not just what it is today. Just as our community was ahead of its time in 1965, we are responsible for keeping Reston ahead and not letting it lag behind.

Earlier, I called upon you to get out and see our community during August. As you tour, I ask you to really take the time to see the Reston that will always be ahead of its time. That’s why it’s always going to be a challenge for us to make decisions that sometimes don’t seem to be the best investments of today. However, I believe that if we trust the vision, we will find the same thing that Bob Simon found upon his 1984 visit – facing the challenges make for a good return on our investment.

We agree. And in that same spirit, we'd encourage the RA to think long-term as well. Why rent some generic class A office space for its new headquarters facility when it could instead get in on the ground floor of the Lake Anne redevelopment and become the anchor for a much-revitalized village center there? It might mean staying in the current, less-than-optimal space a bit longer, but in the long term, it would be worth it.

And instead of licking their wounds about the resistance to giving away open space for an indoor rec center, and downscaling the once-grand plans to a plexiglass dome over a couple of tennis courts, why not hold Fairfax County's feet to the fire and press for the full-featured indoor rec facility the community deserves to be built on county land -- and at county expense?

Leaders often have to make unpopular decisions. Like Bob Simon, the ones who are remembered are the ones that press forward with their big-picture vision even when they run into obstacles. There's a reason Reston doesn't look like Ashburn, and it has a lot to do with the fact that the overall vision for the community didn't change when initial sales were low and people complained about Reston being "different," or "liberal," or whatever.

Not a sermon -- just a thought.