Man stabs woman in Seven Corners
Two Seven Corners residents are hospitalized in “serious but
stable condition” following a domestic-related stabbing early this morning in
the 6200 block of Wilson Boulevard, the Fairfax County Police Department
reports.
stable condition” following a domestic-related stabbing early this morning in
the 6200 block of Wilson Boulevard, the Fairfax County Police Department
reports.
When police arrived at around 1:15 a.m., they discovered a
40-year-old woman had been stabbed in the upper body by her boyfriend. The
45-year-old suspect was found inside the home with what appeared to be
self-inflicted stab wounds. The police are not releasing the name of the
suspect to protect the identity of the victim.
40-year-old woman had been stabbed in the upper body by her boyfriend. The
45-year-old suspect was found inside the home with what appeared to be
self-inflicted stab wounds. The police are not releasing the name of the
suspect to protect the identity of the victim.
So does ananyone who reads this blog actually think that Mason is not being ghettoized? It does not appear that new development is coming and cleaning this place up. It does not appear that the County has a handle on the District's decline. And it certainly does not appear that the many town meetings, planning efforts and good will has turned this cantankerous ship around. Every other day this blog reports another hideous crime and yet many of us cannot say to local leadership; enough is enough, we deserve better and this status quo is unaccepable.
Maybe this Thanksgiving we can all be thankful that no one gets shot or stabbed. Perhaps that is the best we can hope for in Mason.
confirmation bias, availability cascade, selective perception
Mason District is not a ghetto!
Neither is it a thriving community, with respect for county zoning laws, that attracts new businesses (other than restaurants, second hand stores, banks and title loan companies) and new middle class families. It has deteriorated significantly since I moved here a decade or so ago, and it’s very sad to see.
I moved here 11 years ago from California. It has been sad to see how this area does not seem to thrive like its neighboring communities. There are not a lot of great options for the middle class. There are lots of townhomes (great for young professionals and newly married), lots of lower income housing options, and lots of single family communities that are old and have not been updated. Most of the homes are small. Neighborhoods without sidewalks and that community feel to them, multiple families living in homes, tons of Maryland and DC plates on the cars (even though they reside here)give the impression of flop houses – except right outside the beltway on the outskirts of Mason District. The schools are on the low end of Fairfax County. So families don't want to be here. Crime seems to be on the increase. I don't care that we changed a high school's name but I would like for the academics to improve at that high school. We are known as a gang area due to MS-13. Illegals might not be the cause of all problems, but they are certainly not helping the gang issue or the schools.
Maybe you would be happier if you lived somewhere else.
Or perhaps we elect better people to improve the community, enforce zoning, etc. But, yes, we can keep encouraging the better residents to move out – since they seem to be doing so.
Will you people PLEASE go to the fairfax county demographic reports and ACTUALLY READ THEM to conduct some critical analysis rather than just relying on what you personally see as you drive in your one little corner of the world? The middle class is NOT fleeing. Real estate values are NOT plummeting (in fact, Mason had the HIGHEST year over year rise compared to other districts!). Population density is comparable to three other districts. We are NOT being overwhelmed with brown people. You want an interesting fact that's actually based on real data? the fastest growing demographic by a substantial margin is old people on a fixed income. You want to complain about drains on our economy – well there you go. I am all about being convinced that I am wrong, but all you people ever talk about is just personal experience – where is the data? Or is what I'm saying just to "painful" because it conflicts with your distorted world view?
I think Ellie should write about the abuse of yard sales in Mason. We have a house in Parklawn that continues to repeat this daily abuse of yard sales at 4010 Braddock Road FOR A DECADE!
Mr. Suggs was in the neighborhood for two or three years back in 2013 paying renters a cut if he could use their front yards all along Braddock Road in and outside of Parklawn as a place to sell appliances that he would ship in by truck every weekend. The police and local county government were hamstrung by this guy who knew exactly how to work the system outsmart zoning. That is after he worked the system in Hampton Bays and VA Beach. Finally a saint from the County/State business licensing board came in to save the day and educated the Mason police on how to put an end to this……..it took three years of futile phone calls to the police, Mason Govt and Zoning. Its not they didn't try, its the archaic zoning laws that have not been re-written since 1978. The good news is that those are being re-written but much of the damage has been done to some of our older neighborhoods, particularly from those kind of abuses, boarding houses and a complete disrespect for community and neighbor.
I look forward to the day that the County can tax by fine a penalty on these pariah homeowners, renters and absentee landlords to end this mutilation of our communities. These fines would probably cover all the costs of FCPS and then some. In addition to fines every County Attorney, District Supervisor, BOS Chair and State Delegate should be compelled as part of their job description to live next to one of these houses for a year to share in the pain.
We posted many stories about those yard sales. This is the most recent one. Follow the links to older stories. http://annandaleva.blogspot.com/2013/12/another-weekend-another-yard-sale-on.html
I would not say a ghetto – but it is certainly on the decline. There appears to me more crime, less economic development, etc. It extends beyond Culmore and the section 8 housing in seven corners. I have noted that our home prices have no appreciated as much as Alexandria or Arlington. It used to be because we did not have the public transportation options, but I think it is more than that. Our high schools are low performing for Fairfax as are a number of the elementary schools. We are not attracting those with families that want to put down roots. Many end up moving once they have school age children. You go to neighborhoods in Vienna and Arlington and you see families and children — LOTS of them. There is none of that here. It builds the backbone of communities.
Many people don't realize this and are surprised, but Fairfax County has lagged behind the nation and the region in recovering from the real estate debacle because there was a double blow with sequestration. I am in real estate and can tell you it's been harder, so you are not imagining the slow down here. But it is not just Mason, it's the entire county. There are pockets that are doing well, but generally we are still facing some headwinds. It is a bit better but still challenging. Also, since the state passed the "no proffer" legislation it has discouraged development so there is also that.
By what metric? foreclosure rates? FFX county is 1:3525 and the US avg is 1:1903, down >40% from last year. Demand? inventory is, and has been, extremely tight. https://www.washingtonpost.com/realestate/home-sales-and-median-prices-rise-for-january-and-february-in-northern-virginia/2017/04/05/95f87822-08f4-11e7-93dc-00f9bdd74ed1_story.html?utm_term=.981a1f7f65c0. Home values? jesus just go to zillow, enter in FFX county, look at the 5 year trend. Up 19% Please explain how our county is "lagging the nation." do you even live here?
Zillow is a consumer site and people who work in real estate don't go to Zillow for information. You are right that home prices are rising in some areas and there is little inventory available. Why do you think that is? People are still under water in many cases and can't sell. Some have been able to refinance at lower interest rates so thankfully foreclosure rates are down. The commercial sector is still struggling outside of the targeted areas of Tysons. There are good months, last winter was terrific because of the temperatures in February, but this is not a healthy real estate market. It is definitely better than it was in 2008. In both April of 2017 & 2016 in Ed Long's address to the Board of Supervisors when he presents the budget he speaks directly to the "lagging" real estate market here. My property taxes actually went down this year and yes I do live here.
You are completely incoherent. If you don’t believe Zillow, go literally anywhere else, you’re wrong.
I use MLS data, not Zillow. Zillow is a place for people to entertain themselves with real estate like HGTV. They pretend to be in real estate but have no agents, no listings etc. They might make the turn to brokerage but haven't yet. Hmmm… I wonder how many transactions they've closed. But you go ahead and trust them… I'll stick to my incoherent strategy of relying on real data.
You're cherry picking my argument – only one source was from zillow. You can find the same data in the FFX county annual reports, or trends and demographics data – or are you claiming that's fake news as well? Again, please convince me, Show me this MLS data that suggests we're lagging the nation, prove me wrong! How are we lagging? what metric?
Since you trust the county data, here are the budget summaries for the past two fiscal years. This is based on actual data, both from national sources as well as their own transactional data on every closed transaction… I've included the links.
FY 2018
http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/news2/5-things-to-know-county-executive-proposes-4-10-billion-fy-2018-budget/
3. Economic Factors Impact Our Budget
There are several economic indicators and factors that impact our county budget. Current examples include:
Sequestration and defense spending cuts continue to affect our economy.
High office vacancy rate in the county – over 20 million square feet is vacant out of 116.4 million; highest vacancy rate since 1991.
During 2016, the local real estate market underperformed the national real estate market.
Federal procurement spending in the county is 13.3 percent below the FY 2012 level.
There is uncertainty about the effect of the new administration on the economy, including impacts such as tax policy, the Affordable Care Act and immigration policy.
https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dmb/fy2017/advertised/fy2017-advertised-cex-budget-presentation.pdf
FY2017
Local Economy 9 The local economy underperformed the national economy from 2011 – 2014 Impact of sequestration Loss of jobs High office vacancy rate in the County – over 20 million sq. ft. vacant out of 116.5 million sq. ft. As of mid-year 2015, direct office vacancy rate was 16.5%, highest since 1991, when it was 16.8% Local real estate market is underperforming the nation Based on the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index, home prices were up 5.8% nationally through November 2015, but up only 2.1% in the Washington DC Metro area County’s FY 2017 real estate equalization growth lower than anticipated – half of what it was in FY 2016 and only a
… Glad you are doing well in this economy, not everyone is though no matter how badly you want to be right.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Who said I was doing well? even if I was, what does that have to do with anything? What does people not doing well have to do with me wanting to be right, something I never said. In fact, I like to be wrong – thanks for actually posting something to digest – now we can have an actual conversation.
So a couple interesting things worth noting in that brief. 1) You have to consider your audience in evaluating the data presented – this was given by the county executive to the BoS in order to sell their case for an FY18 budget. To me that says the data presented will be trying to drive the point that they need money. 2) Our discussion began because you made the comment that FFX county real estate "lagged" the rest of the country – so out of the 86 slide brief, a lot of it focuses on means of generating revenue through the tax base, and only makes a few claims regarding real estate performance relative to the rest of the country. The one I think you’ve focused on is the reference to case shiller, where they compare the DC region (2.1%) to national (5.8%). One thing worth noting is the fact that the rest of the country has far more ground to make up compared to the DC region. DC, while affected by the housing crisis, remained relatively insular to the crash due to job stability. If you look at the 10 year returns, DC performs substantially better than the rest of the country (-0.3%) for this reason. It’s a bit misleading of the brief to make this comparison you have areas of the country that have experienced a massive boom in real estate because their houses fell to rock bottom roughly ten years ago. Another thing worth noting is the case shiller index only does comparisons for the ENTIRE DC metro, which they conveniently leave out of the brief. So we cannot isolate Fairfax from this brief alone, you have to go to outside sources. Again, I’d point you towards the demographic reports for this data, which paint a very different picture compared to the messaging of this brief. Remember, this whole brief is making the case to sell a budget, it gains nothing by stating how wonderful Fairfax is. I’ll read more after turkey.
Belvedere Elementary was just awarded the honor of being a Distinguished Title 1 School, 1 of only 100 in the nation.
http://www.titlei.org/ds
https://belvederees.fcps.edu/announcements/current-belvedere-connection
if only we can telegraph this success into our local high schools and other elementary schools. The Belvedere population draws from some of the toni residential districts in Mason. You can go a few thousand feet and see an underperforming school. And a school district can and will kill your real estate investment.
Congratulations to the Belvedere School. You are doing something right in the hood to keep us from being ghettoesk.
That is fantastic. Hopefully that winning formula can help the other schools (Stuart). And a few of the elementary schools in Mason that are the lowest performing in the state.
Thanks Ellie and Adam for standing up for the district. We’ve got problems, sure. I’d like to see the crime rate going the other direction… I’d like to see redevelopment happen at a faster pace. And there are some other issues… but there is plenty of good as well.
The reason we moved into our home was we loved the location. we are inside the beltway and minutes from falls church, arlington, alexandria, and DC. I live right near 7 corners and am litterally less than 5 minutes from a BJs, multiple grocery stores, home depot, and tons of other retail, yet our neighborhood is full of 1/4 to 1/3 acre lots and single family homes with a wonderul mix of singles, younger families, older families, empty nesters, retirees. people are constantly enhancing and renovating their homes. few are falling into disrepair.
If you look for negatives, you will find them. It’s a season of thanksgiving. Try to find areas to be appreciative of and give thanks for that you may not normally do… If nothing else, I’m guessing that your commute is probably better than many others because where we live it would be a reverse commute (if going outbound) or shorter (if inbound). IMO, its a good mental health thing to do. too many people are living their life in anger…
You must share your meds or at least tell us where you are getting them. I see there is still a yard sale going on at 4010 Braddock Rd. It that where I should do a purchase?
Same reason we (and most of our buds) moved to the area. It was a location where we could afford a single family detached on a decent lot, proximity to a lot, nice community. After being here 9 years, we're thinking of moving, but will likely stay in the areas because your $ goes so much further here vice further in (and out surprisingly).
Well we wouldn't want you to move Adam, then we would not have anyone to argue with about our current state of the District and to provide such a treasure of data.
We all need to be thankful to Ellie for giving us a platform to have these lively debates for our District Government has turned a deaf ear.
The next election I will write Ellie in for Supervisor.
BTW I could not get my meds today for the yard sales seem to have ceased for the moment at 4010 Braddock Road. Maybe someone was reading the blog or they overdosed on those meds!
Belvedere has the distinct benefit of being a Level IV AP center. All of the kids that excel leave their home schools and go to Belvedere, leading to “brain drain” at their home schools. So, while good for Belvedere, it will be more impressive to me to see our schools close the achievement gap.
The award doesn't necessarily mean that the AAP students carried the others (I'm pretty sure that the AAP scores wouldn't count in that calculation, anyway, unless those students were also impoverished); it could also mean that the gap between higher- and lower- income students was closed and/or the school is doing an exceptional job serving special populations that don't typically excel in academics.