BoS honors outgoing Mason Supervisor Penny Gross

The Board of Supervisors on Dec. 5 passed a resolution honoring outgoing board member Penelope Gross of Mason District, who is retiring after serving 28 years on the board.

“Penny played a key role in initiatives too numerous to mention to move Fairfax County and our entire region forward,” said Board Chair Jeffrey McKay. He particularly appreciated “her candor, her straightforwardness, and her tough love when it’s needed.”

Gross, who represented Mason District for seven terms, served as vice chair of the board and chair of its Personnel Committee and on many state and regional bodies.

She chaired the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments and the Northern Virginia Regional Commission and served as president of the Virginia Association of Counties and the National Association of Regional Councils.

The newly elected members of the Board of Supervisors, including Mason District representative Andres Jimenez, will be inaugurated at the Fairfax County Government Center on Dec. 13.

At Gross’ last Holiday Town Hall Gathering on Dec. 5, she said she plans to remain civically active after leaving the BoS. She has lived in Lincolnia Park for some 50 years.

Gross told a standing-room-only crowd at the Mason Government Center she has worked in politics her whole life, as a staff aide on Capitol Hill and on the campaigns of many elected officials, as well as in local government. “Constituent service is the same at any level. It’s the issues that are different,” she says.

A native of Eugene, Ore., Gross came to Washington in 1965 to work for Sen. Wayne Morse (Ore.), a staunch opponent of the Vietnam War, and later for Sen. Frank Church (Idaho). Morse, whom Gross referred to as a mentor, introduced her to her husband, Harold “Hal” Gross. Hal died Nov. 1 following a long illness.

One of the things Gross is most proud of during her time as Mason supervisor is the summertime Spotlight by Starlight concerts at Mason District Park and Ossian Hall Park.

Gross had been a PTA president in 1980 when she and her neighbors became interested in improving the newly opened Mason District Park, she recalled. That led to the creation of the still-active Friends of Mason District Park and summer concert series and the long-running Mason District Festival.  

The amphitheater was built in 1984, and when it was struck by lightning and burned down in 2004, that was one of the most devastating events in her life. She got the board to approve a motion the next day to get it rebuilt, which happened so quickly that the park only lost one week of concerts that summer.

At the Town Hall, Gross recounted some of the highlights of 2023:

• Most recently, she introduced the motion to approve collective bargaining agreements with county employees.
• Several pedestrian safety projects were approved for Culmore, including 12 streetlights, improved pedestrian signals on Leesburg Pike, and a reduced speed limit.
• Fire station 28 in Seven Corners was renamed Fort Buffalo and the new station on Sleepy Hollow Road is scheduled to be completed next year.
• The walkway on Sleepy Hollow Road is nearing completion.
• Construction is underway on the Alta Crossroads apartment project on Columbia Pike in Bailey’s Crossroads.
• Several vacant office buildings in Skyline are being repurposed as housing units where tenants can maintain a business, as well as live.  
• Construction should next year on the new Patrick Henry shelter in Seven Corners.
• The Board approved a Comprehensive Plan amendment to facilitate a multifamily housing project on the Food Star site on Leesburg Pike in Bailey’s Crossroads.
• Improvements have been completed at Hogge Park in Bailey’s Crossroads.
• The new Eileen Garnett Civic Space in Annandale opened.