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Message from the Chairman

Message from
Supervisor Kauffman

Letter to the Editor

Lee District Park Master Plan Comments Letter

June 2006 Stoneybrooke Grads

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Message from the Chairman

I say this every year but just the same, it is hard to believe another year of Stoneybrooke Sentinels has come to an end. Unlike usual years in which we look forward to a quiet summer and taking some time off, this year will present me and the board with continuing work on a number of issues. And I will spend the bulk of this month’s message providing updates on those issues.

First though, as is tradition, I would like to say thank you to some folks.

1. To the Board for their hard work and continued support. And all of you will be happy to know that the entire board has agreed to continue to serve next year.
2. To our Sentinel editor, Heather Martin. Thanks, Heather. You’ve done a fabulous job.
3. To Ruth Feist for continuing to be our Welcome Committee. You add a nice touch to our neighborhood.
4. To Alisa Mead, our web administrator. Our site is good, and getting better, thanks to you.
5. To Barbara Bougie, Susan Caldwell, Amanda Miller, Jennifer Avila, and Candace Litchford, for planning, organizing, and managing our kids events. Your creativity is refreshing!
6. To Kim Fairchild for planning and organizing our annual Spring Fling and Fall Bash. Vous lancez un parti impressionnant!
7. To Doug Drabkowski for his continued interest and efforts to spruce up our entrance walls. Thanks, Doug!
8. And finally, to Dana Kauffman and his entire staff, especially Debbie Wilson, Christina Manning, Linda Waller, Joan Clark, and Jeff McKay (actually, I think that IS the entire staff). You’ve all been an immense help to Stoneybrooke and we appreciate you all very much. Thank you!

And a couple quick notes for you.

First, don’t forget our annual Spring Fling on Saturday, June 17. This year’s event will be hosted by our good neighbors on Stone Mill Place and will feature catering by Red, Hot, and Blue with activities for the kids. Hope to see you there.

Congratulations to all of our spring grads, from both college and high school. There’s a whole bunch of your kids graduating this spring with all sorts of interesting plans. A complete list is included in this month’s Sentinel. Congratulations everyone and remember: the great philosophical question that now lies ahead of you, the real “chicken and the egg” question is: Is it more important to make money, or more important to have fun? Whatever you decide, remember to give some time back to your community, wherever you decide that is.

On to issue updates.

STONEYBROOKE CONVENANTS AND FAIRFAX COUNTY CODE
New residents, whether you are a new home owner or a renter, are obligated to read, understand and comply with Stoneybrooke covenants and Fairfax County zoning laws. We are seeing more and more issues with new residents, especially, and we are committed to working toward solutions that comply with code. Of course, the ONLY reason we do this is to ensure the high standard of living that we enjoy here in Stoneybrooke and, to ensure our property values continue to be commensurate with the market.

If you are a home owner with renters, understand that you are liable for the actions of your tenant.

Existing residents are obligated to do the appropriate research to ensure that ANYTHING they are doing with their property is in compliance with county code. And as I said a couple years ago: if you’re planning on a large project, you might want to do the neighborly thing and let your neighbors know BEFORE you embark on a project. A neighbor of mine recently contacted me to discuss a project they are considering in their yard. We had a very pleasant conversation, kicked some ideas back and forth, and agreed to keep talking. That sure was a lot easier than coming home from work to find a new project next to my back yard.

As a result of new and ongoing issues, the SCA Board has recently met with representatives from Dana Kauffman’s staff, as well as from the Fairfax County Zoning Department, to understand and weigh options for dealing with some of our issues. I am hopeful that you will see improvements in some of these issues throughout the summer.

TRAILERS, BOATS, RVS AND OTHER UNSIGHTLY VEHICLES
As you know, Fairfax County already bans heavy trucks from residential streets. These vehicles are also banned from your driveway. Unfortunately, we continue to see them. In addition, we are seeing more boats and trailers in our streets and many of you have contacted me to complain about these vehicles.

Our Board recently discovered a state law that allows us the authority to ban these vehicles from neighborhood streets. This authority however must first be agreed to by a majority of community residents and subsequently approved by the county Board of Supervisors. The SCA Board will be spending time this summer to consider this step and how we might proceed. Precedent has already been set in over 20 other communities in the county. So cheer up, there are a lot of other folks who are just plain tired of looking at a neighbor’s boat sitting in front of their house or a trailer blocking their line of vision when trying to pull out of their driveway. I SERIOUSLY doubt that we’ll have any problems securing the required number of votes.

LIGHTED FIELDS AT LEE DISTRICT PARK
Some of you might be aware that the county is revising the master plan for Lee District Park. This revision will be the first in the park’s long history.

Last summer, the Park Authority released a draft revision then held a public hearing in the fall. The hearing was very poorly attended. Then, as is normal, the Park Authority took the information gathered from the comments period and the hearing and went back to the drawing board.

Unfortunately, the second revision contained a big surprise. In the initial draft, the Park Authority proposed lighting one athletic field. In the second draft, however, the number of lighted fields raised from one to six.

The SCA Board had no comments on the initial draft as we did not believe there was anything being proposed that would have an adverse impact on our community. If anything, we agreed that the park needs some upgrading and welcomed the county’s interest. However, when the second draft arrived, we found ourselves opposed to lighting so many more fields than had initially been proposed. In response, we recently sent a letter to the park authority outlining our concern. That letter is reprinted for you in this issue of the Sentinel.

NOISE FROM THE STONE MANSION
Will this problem ever go away? We’re working on this, too.

You may recall last fall when there was a particularly loud party in (I believe it was) September. Already this year, we’ve had one Saturday afternoon with complaints about noise and another Sunday afternoon with a tour bus parked halfway across Stoneybrooke Lane.

Due to these problems, the SCA Board has contacted the park authority’s Historic Property Rental Services (HPRS) to request a meeting with their leadership. In response, the HPRS has sent back an email indicating they will meet with us sometime in mid-June. In addition, they have provided us with the cell phone number of their assistant director whom we can call if there is a problem. They have also sent a letter to their clients to remind them of their contractual obligations regarding noise and parking. That letter has been reprinted in this issue of the Sentinel.

If you’re hearing too much noise, please feel free to give me a call.

LIGHTING THE WALLS
We’re thankful to have something fun to work on this summer too. We will be meeting with commercial lighting experts to discuss how we can relight the lanterns on top of our entrance walls as well as light the Stoneybrooke lettering. In addition, the low “running” walls along South Kings Highway are in need of repair and so we will be looking for stone masons to complete the much-needed work.

I believe that should cover it for now. For those of you who are on my email distribution list, you know I’ll be in touch shortly. For the rest of you who get this by hard copy, I hope you have a great summer. I’ll be in touch in September.

Mike

Click here to read Lee District Park Master Plan Comments Letter

Click here to read the Letter to Stone Mansion Clients from Historic Properties Rental Services

Check out our list of June 2006 Stoneybrooke Grads!

Message from
Supervisor Kauffman

On May 8, we experienced a senseless, violent attack. The ambush and shooting at the Sully police station on May 8 are the kind of things we have become accustomed to reading about in Newsweek—a violent and seemingly senseless act somewhere in the county—not here in Fairfax County.

But it did happen here in one of the safest jurisdictions for its size in the United States. It turned our notions of safety and trust inside out. The police are here to protect us—not to be stalked and hunted, not to be victims themselves.

The initial hours, brought back memories of 9/11 as a nearby school and all the police stations in the county went into lock down—we didn’t know if there was one gunman or a threat to other facilities. My staff was told to either leave immediately or wait until the situation cleared. Our community land use meeting was canceled, and cruisers formed an outer wall around the Franconia station. Anyone listening to the radio or watching TV saw the same images repeated—like 9/11.

What lessons can we learn from this? Right now, there are more questions than answers, and we hope that as the investigation continues, we will know more. In the meantime, we have lost two dedicated police officers, Detective Vicky Armel and Master Police Office Michael Garbarino. Detective Armel was the first officer shot to death in the line of duty in the 66-year history of the Fairfax County Police Department. Please keep their families in your thoughts and prayers.

At the funeral service for Detective Armel I was reminded that for all the aura of "being behind the badge," our officers are our neighbors. The detective was every bit into crafts as my wife. It shouldn’t have surprised me—but at first it did. At Officer Garbarino’s viewing I spoke at length with his neighbor, a long-time active citizen in Centreville. She and Officer Gabardine regularly ran into each other while walking their dogs, and as long as their dogs would allow, they’d talk about how to make their community a better place. The officers we lost had real lives and real roots in our community.

Perhaps one of the main lessons to be learned from this tragedy is that we are indeed blessed with a "thin blue line" that is a model for police services nationwide. Our thin blue line is not a last line of defense. It’s a line that runs through our community and gathers its strength from its community roots.

Letter to the Editor

Dear Stoneybrooke Board of Directors,

Is there some way that our Board and community can rectify the long overdue problem of trash cans and recycle product at our curbs on a continuous basis?

Approximately two years ago, problems abound with our trash collection. We had two trash collectors with two pickups each, per week. Along with this, our small community experienced reckless abandon, accidents and irregular service from our trash collectors as well as trash cans at the curb all week long. On top of that unfortunately, our allegiances were separated into two camps, those for Mr. Weathers and the others with AAA. Who would have guessed that trash pickup could be such a volatile and sensitive topic, but it was. Month after month the issues were discussed with no one willing to budge. Then, through an unfortunate set of circumstances, Mr. Weathers could no longer do business in Fairfax County.

As the knowledge of his misfortune surfaced, it appeared that a solution was in the making for our neighborhood. Research was done and word came out from Mike Jurkowski and our Board, that Virginia Trash Service was willing to come into Stoneybrooke and fill the gap left by Weathers' going out of business. We were reminded of the problems and complaints experienced over the last several years. To that end, if everyone contacted Virginia Trash for service we could eliminate AAA, consolidate our service and have a community better served.
What a blessing to have this solution fall into our laps.

Gradually it became apparent that the problem was not solved but had gotten worse. Not only did we still have AAA servicing our community along with Virginia Trash Service, but now American Trash Service had picked up the Weathers' accounts and some of our neighbors were now using the third company. To our dismay, our small community now has three (3) separate trash companies serving the homes within our gates.

We have a beautiful, family-oriented neighborhood with most of us taking great pride in how our homes and yards look. Our quality of life is at issue and we need to address the subjects of trash and clutter. What can we do to resolve this problem?

Andi
Andrea R. Bethea