To the Editor:
As the newly elected chairperson of the Reston Community Center, I am providing the community a brief report on where we have been during the past year and where we hope to go in the coming year. To better clarify the current issues, this report also will include areas which have received community and press attention.

Small District #5 - This is a small tax district which is roughly concurrent with Reston. The district was established in 1975 at the request of the citizens of Reston who voted for the creation of a community center. Without this vote it is doubtful that Reston would have a community center as there are far more areas in Fairfax County without such centers than with them. The new center provided a variety of services and activities including an indoor pool, theater, woodworking, photography, meeting rooms and programs for all residents in the area. It is the full service community center, as opposed to simply a fitness center as is typical in most other areas of Fairfax County. Since Reston is not a specifically defined area, some disagreement exists over the precise borders. During the past year a group of three residents from Vienna and Oakton worked to strictly interpret the borders of SD5. As a result, our supervisor, Cathy Hudgins, voted in concert with the full Board of Supervisors to exclude these slivers of land in Vienna and Oakton. When the change took effect on July 1, 2006, the three directors who lived in the excluded area were no longer eligible to serve on the board of the RCC. Our supervisor used her authority under the pertinent regulations to appoint new board members to enable the board to continue to function effectively. While considerable time and effort has gone into the boundary issue, we anticipate this is largely behind us and we can focus on our central mission of providing world-class community services.

Tax Rate - The tax rate was 6.0 cents per $100 of assessed real estate value until a few years ago. It was then reduced to 5.2 cents and just recently the Board of Supervisors reduced it to less than a nickel — 4.7 cents. More extreme reductions called for by anti-tax proponents would be irresponsible. At the beginning of the year, our former board chairman and departing board members claimed that the RCC was operating in a deficit situation. Subsequently, based on underestimates of costs and overestimates of revenues, they maintained that projections showed huge surpluses growing in the future. Neither is the case. With the above mentioned Board of Supervisors’ reasonable reduction in the tax rate and increasing costs of building maintenance and repairs of the center’s facilities, we appear to be just about in balance. We will work to develop a comprehensive fiscal plan which will take into account capital improvement, maintenance, changing real estate values, the outlook for inflation and, above all, community needs. This is long overdue.

Governance - Three years ago the Board of the RCC and Supervisor Hudgins established a Governance Review Panel to study any needed revisions. After meeting for many months, the panel recommended several changes. Some recommendations, such as giving businesses a vote in the preference poll, were accepted; others were rejected. These proposals by the panel and subsequent consideration by the board was exactly as contemplated when the panel was formed. Unfortunately, much of the board’s time and energy during the past year has been expended on going over the same ground. This was an inefficient and costly use of the board’s time and we anticipate governance will not be an issue in the next year.
Programming, Capital Improvement Plan, and Maintenance - In addition to ensuring fiscal responsibility, programming, investment and maintenance are the central purpose of the board. We intend to place the focus on these pending appointment of a new board this fall; but we anticipate that this will continue to be the focus in the year to come. We need to guarantee that the physical plant of your community center is maintained properly and that required capital investments are made. We will listen to all segments of Reston — by location, by age, by ethnicity, and by income — to ensure that your needs are met. This should have been our focus in the past year; it will be in the next. Our new energetic, young, innovative executive director, Bonnie Freeman, will be given an opportunity to accomplish those objectives for which she was hired a year ago.

Hearings conducted during the past year revealed that Reston residents overwhelmingly support their community center and welcome the sense of community and the services which it provides. The fact that some outlying areas did not feel they were part of Reston does not lessen this fact. Real estate and business interests cite our unique sense of community as a selling point and our residents continue to support the vibrant community center which they voted for just 27 years ago.
The RCC’s programs will continue to include swimming, art, dance, exercise, photography, woodworking, after school activities, educational programs and festivals, as well as special events such as trips for seniors and the Martin Luther King Day celebration. We will see to it that our kids have swimming lessons, that our seniors can play bridge, that we have a site for our Reston theater group and the Reston Chorale and that our teenagers can participate in modern dance lessons. We will continue to provide these many programs so valued by our community. We invite your suggestions and look forward to seeing you in the coming year.

Roger Lowen
Chairperson, RCC

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