Fairfax City Mayor Catherine Read will not seek a third term in an office she believes is “broken.”
Read announced her decision not to pursue a reelection bid this year before adjourning the Fairfax City Council’s meeting last night (Tuesday), stating that she has been honored to serve as mayor but criticizing the city charter that governs the role as “outdated and ill-equipped to meet the demands of a modern, 21st-century community.”
“As I prepare to leave this seat for someone else, I am committing myself to being an agent of change in improving our system of governance,” Read said. “I was active in city affairs long before becoming mayor, and I will continue to speak up when I am no longer in elected office … Now more than ever, defending our country’s founding principles requires engagement and effort beyond what many of us have been asked to give before.”
A Fairfax City resident since 2000, Read became the city’s first female mayor when she was initially elected in November 2022, beating Republican-endorsed candidate Sang Yi by fewer than 200 votes.
As mayor, Read has represented the City of Fairfax on several regional bodies, including the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG), Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC), Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA) and Northern Virginia Regional Commission (NVRC).
During her tenure, city leaders have prioritized housing and addressing homelessness as top concerns, establishing a homelessness task force in 2023 and breaking ground last fall on a permanent supportive housing project approved under Read’s predecessor, David Meyer. Read’s advocacy for affordable housing and mental health earned her an award from the nonprofit Pathway Homes.
When seeking reelection in 2024, Read told Patch in a survey that Fairfax City has also made progress on other issues core to her original platform, including economic development initiatives and expansions of the city’s sidewalk and public bathroom networks.
Decision follows year of clashes with city council
However, Read’s second term has been shaped by turnover in multiple key leadership positions and an often divided city council with five new members and Billy Bates as the only incumbent.
Developer Ox Hill Companies alleged that the city’s changing leadership was holding up its City Centre West condominiums — a claim disputed by the city. Meanwhile, under the current town council, votes on everything from redevelopments to planned trails and the city’s joint community and health center project with Fairfax County have become battles.
At the start of her second term, Read proposed that Fairfax City implement ranked choice voting, extend council terms from two to four years, and open up council seats for election on a staggered basis — steps she hoped would reduce turnover.
According to Read, Fairfax City is the last independent city in Virginia to hold elections every two years. A 2014 referendum asking voters if they would support four-year staggered terms, as recommended by a 2013 commission study, failed by a roughly 2-1 margin after former Rob Lederer and then-state senator Chap Peterson led an opposition campaign, the mayor says.
The council declined to move forward with Read’s proposal to add a similar referendum on term lengths to the November 2025 ballot, and their legislative program adopted in December only asks the Virginia General Assembly to amend the city charter to reflect the state-mandated shift to November elections, lift a $50-per-meeting limit on pay for board and commission members, and remove a 4% ceiling for the city’s transient occupancy tax rate.
The city council also unanimously voted at its Dec. 9 meeting to revise their rules and procedures to give themselves a consultation role in scheduling and setting each meeting’s agenda — duties previously under the mayor and city staff’s purview. The changes also stripped the mayor of a role in appointing board and commission members and selecting the city manager, and stated that the mayor doesn’t count toward the quorum needed for an official meeting.
Currently, the Fairfax City Charter authorizes the mayor to preside over and speak at council meetings, but “he” is only afforded a vote when the council is tied. The mayor can veto any ordinance or resolution passed by the city council within five days.
“Certainly there is more to this, but public meetings are the tip of an iceberg that no one sees,” Read told FFXnow. “Ultimately, the role of the mayor has been diminished in ways that do not serve the city. Hopefully the next mayor along with a significantly different dais can address how a charter from 1966 can be improved to meet the realities of 2027 and beyond.”
With their terms expiring on Dec. 31, 2026, the position of mayor and all six council seats will be up for election this November. Read expects multiple council members to not seek reelection — though none have officially announced their intentions — and she believes “several incumbents” who do run are unlikely to win.
“There could realistically be 7 brand new people in the dais in 2027 with no experience,” she said by email.
Read’s full announcement of her decision not to run in the upcoming Nov. 3 general election is below.
As we close tonight’s meeting, I want to share an important announcement: I will not be seeking re-election as Mayor of Fairfax City in 2026.
It has been an honor to serve in this role. Everyday, I have worked to uphold my oath of office and to serve this city to the very best of my ability. I intend to continue doing so for the remaining 351 days of my term.
Sitting in this middle seat with two different City Councils has given me a perspective that only twelve people in our city’s history have held before me. No combination of thoughtfully considered words could accurately convey or effectively communicate the complexity of the last three years, so I won’t try.
What I will say is this: our city charter is outdated and ill-equipped to meet the demands of a modern, 21st-century community. There have been recommendations by charter commissions in the past to make changes since its adoption in 1966, but apparently no political will to actually do so. From my vantage point of occupancy, the chair I’m sitting in is broken.
As I prepare to leave this seat for someone else, I am committing myself to being an agent of change in improving our system of governance. I was active in city affairs long before becoming mayor, and I will continue to speak up when I am no longer in elected office. I am deeply committed to supporting those who step forward to serve our democratic institutions at the local, state, and federal levels. Now more than ever, defending our country’s founding principles requires engagement and effort beyond what many of us have been asked to give before.
You will see me knocking on doors in the 2026 elections on behalf of candidates I support, and I invite you to engage in conversations about how we can move Fairfax City forward toward a bright, healthy, and prosperous future. I care deeply about this community—its residents, its businesses, and the exceptional city staff whose dedication makes our quality of life the envy of the region.
To my colleagues on the dais: I look forward to working together through the end of our term.
