Will Reston Go To The Birds? Or the Foxes? That's Up to You (Updated)

In a campaign that’s already more contested than the typical race for an RA board seat, we’re being asked to vote for an animal to serve as an “icon” for Reston. 

You see, the Friends of Reston, Public Art Reston, and the Reston Association decided that rhomboid-shaped high rises, apartments whose “contemporary” names lack vowels, and buildings painted the same color as embarrassed Smurfs aren’t “iconic” enough to capture the essence of our plastic fantastic planned community.  So they’re asking us to pick a “fun creature” as an icon for Reston, much as cities used to put up statues of various animals (like DC’s donkeys and elephants, or the Outer Banks’ wild horses). More recently, the folks at a certain Town Center tried to capture a similar bit of lightning in a bottle by asking folks to pick cute names for two nesting falcons, only to brutally censor the overwhelming winners—“free” and “parking.” (No truth to the rumor that the two misnamed birds subsequently wound up as a dinner special.)

But we digress. Reston’s earthiness makes up for its lack of timeliness, so this month we’re being asked to choose between a blue heron, a woodpecker, and a fox as our Official Icon (tm). The winner will be “fabricated into a cast” (think Han Solo at the end of The Empire Strikes Back) and auctioned off to support future public art projects in Reston. That’s great, but why limit ourselves to these three options? The contest welcomes write-ins, so here are a few suggestions:

• Deer. We see them everywhere around Reston, and as an added bonus, we occasionally get to shoot at them with arrows. Rad!

• Mosquitos. The constant companion of our lake-focused Live/ Work/Play lifestyle. As an added bonus, the statue’s proboscis could clench a written DRB warning about improperly painted gutters.

• Geese. Loud. Aggressive. Annoying! We’d put the statue on Level G-96 of the Metro parking garage as inspiration for drivers battling for the last spot at 8:59 am.

• Spotted lanterflies. These invasive critters are multiplying faster than new developments along the Toll Road.

• Weasels. Spotted at every county zoning meeting, the end.

Update: The fox it is.

This post was originally published in the Reston Letter.