During their final meeting of 2024, members of the Fairfax County Planning Commission paid tribute to their colleague John Ulfelder, who is departing his post as the Dranesville representative.
Ulfelder “is very balanced in his view of all the cases,” Braddock District Commissioner Mary Cortina said at the Dec. 11 meeting. “He looks out for the people in his community as well as the rest of Fairfax County.”
Ulfelder was appointed by the Board of Supervisors in 2013 to represent the Dranesville District, which includes McLean, Great Falls, Herndon and the West Falls Church Metro station area. He has served as the commission’s parliamentarian.
“We will dearly, dearly miss you,” said Sully District Commissioner Evelyn Spain, who currently also serves as the group’s secretary.
A retired attorney and senior vice president for the real estate development company West*Group, Ulfelder chaired the Great Falls Citizens Association from 1997-2000 and then headed its land-use committee from 2001-2005.
He also served on boards of the Inova Healthy System Foundation, Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority Foundation, Great Falls Heritage Inc., the Nature Conservancy’s Virginia chapter, WETA, McLean Orchestra, McLean Project for the Arts, and a host of task forces and commissions.
Ulfelder was participating in the Dec. 11 meeting from his McLean home after having broken four ribs and damaged his lungs in a fall several weeks before.
“It hurts like heck,” he acknowledged. He reassured the commission, though, that he’s on the road to recovery.
Ulfelder told his fellow commissioners that while his term is expiring, his activism is not.
“I’m just going to show up and tell you what I think,” he said with a chuckle.
“You’re welcome any which way you want to give us your words of wisdom,” commission chair Phil Niedzielski-Eichner (At-Large) said.
Ulfelder is the second veteran member of the planning commission to retire in recent months. Peter Murphy, who had represented Springfield on the body since 1982, was honored in October for his lengthy service.
