Reston Association Candidate Profile: John Farrell

RESTON, VA — Each spring, the Reston Association conducts elections to fill the vacant seats on its nine-member board. Reston residents will have the entire month of March to vote on the candidates they wish to represent them.

This year, four candidates are vying for the two at-large seats on the board. Patch asked each of the candidates to fill out a questionnaire so that they could share the reasons why they believe Reston residents should choose them as their board member.

Name: John Farrell

Position Sought: At-Large Director (3-year term)

Education: AB cum laude Boston College 1974; JD New England School of Law 1977

Occupation: Attorney

Previous or Current Elected or Appointed Office: President, Colonial Oaks Cluster HOA - present; Member, Reston Association Park and Planning Advisory Committee - past; President, Fairfax Girls Softball League - past; President, Candlelighters’ Childhood Cancer Foundation -past

What is the critical difference between you and the other candidates seeking this post:

Expertise, experience and experience

Expertise – The past 37 years has been spent advocating for homeowners and condominium associations; advising local governments, environmental groups, churches and hoas in Virgnia on local zoning law. I am the author of the leading monograph on Virginia zoning law and multiple law review articles on Va.condominium law.

Experience – For the past 6 years, I’ve served as President of the Colonial Oaks HOA where I’ve learned about the challenges facing Reston clusters and the strengths and weakness of the RA covenants process

Experience – During my service on the Reston Association Parks and Planning Advisory Committee, I visited each of RA’s 15 swimming pools; 52 tennis courts, 17 ball fields and 7 pavilions. My participation in the RA sponsored birdwalks enabled me to travel most of the RA’s 55 miles of trails and 1350 acres of open space. Restonians are truly blessed with an abundance of amenities.

What issues define your campaign platform?

• Preserve both golf courses in their entirety – all 18 holes
• Reopen Lake Thoreau pool promptly and in a cost–efficient manner. Keep all existing facilities open during their normal use seasons.
• Make the Metro apartments pay for using RA parks, paths, and facilities. Adding $1.1 million to RA revenues could reduce each of our assessments by $50.
• Obtain some of the pledged $25 million in developer recreational contributions to use to repair and improve RA amenities; and a commitment that all $25 million will be spent in Reston.
• Enhance two-way communication with membership by significantly reducing the use of executive sessions and inviting members to comment on issues during RA meetings.
• Preserve and enhance Reston’s commitment to being an open, inclusive community for all socio-economic groups at all stages of a family’s life cycle.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

As President of Candlelighters’ Childhood Cancer Foundation, I led a parent support organization of 40,000 families of children with cancer and their health care providers. All of these people were passionately committed to making sure that every child possible survived and that their siblings and parents were nurtured through the experience.

As President of Fairfax Girls Softball, I was part of the group that successfully lobbied the Fairfax Board of Supervisors to spend $100,000 for 10 years to bring the girls' facilities up to the same standards as the baseball fields. We cited the provisions of Title IX as part of our campaign. The result was so successful that Fairfax hosted national tournaments games.

If you win this position, what accomplishments would make your term in office a success?

• The permanent preservation of both golf courses in their entirety.
• The prompt reopening of Lake Thoreau pool and the preservation of all existing RA pools and other amenities.
• Inclusion of all Metro residential projects in RA.
• Acquisition of some of the $25 million in developer recreational contributions for repair and renovation of RA’s existing amenities.
• Conducting all RA business in public; reduce executive sessions of RA to a bare minimum; and implement two-way communication between the membership and RA.
• Establish a customer service culture within RA staff.
• Enhancement of Reston’s commitment to an open, inclusive community for all socio-economic groups at all stages of a family’s life cycle.

What is your vision for the Reston community?

The full realization of Bob Simon’s original concept of an open, inclusive community for all socio-economic groups at all stages of a family’s life cycle that lives, works and plays in harmony with the natural world around us.

Best advice shared with me was:

Actively Listen. You learn very little when you are talking.

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

My family had the good fortune to move to Reston in 1984. My 4 kids went to Terraset, Hughes and South Lakes Schools. They went to RA camps, learned to swim at RA pools and played ball on RA fields. Our cluster has been home to many kinds of families of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. That diversity has enriched all of us and truly makes Reston a unique and amazing place to live, work and play.

My passion for Reston actually began many years before I moved here. In 1965, like other 12 year olds, I was fascinated by coverage of the Gemini V mission sponsored by Gulf Oil. Gulf’s ads featured Reston, a planned Virginia community. In the midst of the Massive Resistance era, Gulf touted Reston’s housing for all socio-economic levels throughout a family’s lifecycle and the absence of racial covenants. Those ads set my life’s course: to study urban government in college and zoning and planning in law school.

Getting to raise my four children in Reston has been the fulfillment of a vision formed 55 years ago.