Community service has been central to Yasmin Shafiq’s life for as long as she can remember, from her high school stint as a teen representative on the Reston Community Center’s Board of Governors to her current commitments as a county government worker and an election officer.
A resident of the Herndon area now since 2004, she hopes to apply her varied past experiences to a new role as a candidate for the Herndon Town Council, whose six seats will all be on the ballot for the upcoming Nov. 3 general election.
The importance of public service and getting involved in her community were instilled in Shafiq when she was a kid, attending Sunday school inside a Herndon school building where her longtime mosque, the ADAMS Center, rented space.
“One of the earliest lessons that I learned as just a kid growing up in Northern Virginia from my Muslim community was that I’m supposed to leave a place better than I found it,” Shafiq said in an interview with FFXnow. “That’s kind of what I’ve been trying to do ever since in many different ways, and Herndon Town Council is just the latest way that I’m trying to do that.”
Championing affordable housing, walkability and a “people-first” approach to public safety, among other priorities, Shafiq’s vision for Herndon has been shaped by her background as the child of Bangladeshi immigrants who moved to Northern Virginia in the early 1980s.
Drawn to Reston by the needs of their jobs and the promise of quality schools, her father worked as a cab driver for Washington Flyer for more than 20 years, while her mother continues to work as a home day care provider, certified by Fairfax County.
The Reston and Herndon area has been “a great place to live,” Shafiq says, highlighting the Town of Herndon’s diversity and amenities like the Washington & Old Dominion Trail and other parks that inspired her passion for the environment.
A degree in crop and soil environmental sciences at Virginia Tech initially led to a career in environmental consulting before she decided she “needed my work to be more focused on my direct community.” That shift in focus turned into a parks-related job with the Fairfax County government in 2021.
“I think that parks and open spaces and public spaces are what make a community feel like home for people,” Shafiq said, explaining her passion for parks and the environment.
On top of serving on the ADAMS Center board for seven years and the Fairfax County Government Employees Union’s bargaining committee to help negotiate a historic labor contract for county workers, Shafiq’s past community advocacy work included volunteering with the Herndon Environmental Network, a group founded by local residents in 2011 to support environmental initiatives.
“I grew up doing service work in my community all the time, just for fun, so … I wanted to turn my passion into my daily projects, make it part of my daily work,” she said.
However, as Herndon and Northern Virginia more generally have become increasingly developed, Shafiq sees a critical need to be “very smart” about managing that growth and its accompanying challenges, including a limited housing supply and soaring costs of living.
Shafiq purchased a house last year, but she admits that she could only afford to live and work in Northern Virginia because she moved back in with her parents after college, allowing her to save up money that otherwise would’ve been spent on rent.
Her experience isn’t unique in the D.C. area. According to a recent report by real estate listing service Bright MLS, about 4.9% of households in the region, and 5% in Fairfax County, include an employed adult between 25 and 39 years old who’s living with their parents.
Though Herndon staff have started to develop an affordable housing policy, the town currently doesn’t require developers to provide units reserved for lower-income households — a gap that Shafiq cites as a major factor in her decision to run for a town council seat.
“One of my priorities is … expanding those housing options to keep Herndon affordable because we want to hold onto the people that make us valuable,” she said. “We have a beautiful diversity in our town, and we have a lot of young people, and I think that’s a benefit to a community to get it to grow and be dynamic.”
To Shafiq, holding onto the people who make Herndon valuable also means supporting the immigrants who now make up approximately 42% of the town’s population, per the U.S. Census.
As the child of immigrants, she says she understands the community’s trepidation when it comes to federal immigration enforcement, particularly as arrests have ramped up under the current Trump administration. In addition to believing the Herndon Police Department should continue limiting cooperation with ICE, she’s wary of the use of technology from Flock Safety, which provides automated license plate readers to both Herndon and Fairfax County police.
Though Flock has said ICE doesn’t have direct access to its data, it doesn’t prevent local and state law enforcement agencies with contracts from sharing data. Separately, officers have also reportedly used the cameras to stalk people, prompting the technology company to announce plans for new safeguards.
Calling for “people-first public safety,” as stated on her campaign website, Shafiq argues for a broader definition that goes beyond policing to include investing in public infrastructure, such as sidewalks, and social services.
“Sidewalks make people safe. Bike lanes make people safe. Community services make people safe. Good land use policy makes people safe,” Shafiq said. “But working with ICE does not make people safe, and I think we’ve learned that on the federal level, on the local levels, over and over again lately, unfortunately.”
Weeks after Shafiq’s interview with FFXnow, Congressional Democrats launched an investigation into ICE activity in Northern Virginia after a woman reported an agent pointing a gun at her in Bailey’s Crossroads and a man alleged that he was beaten while in ICE custody.
Other priorities on her mind include reducing administrative burdens and costs on small businesses, increasing access to public transit, and protecting and expanding on Herndon’s parks, trails and community spaces.
Many of her goals are shared by other town council candidates, including Space Force veteran Sabrina Bruce, Herndon Planning Commission Vice Chair Meron Yohannes and community organizer Josif Ezekilov. The quartet is running together, an informal partnership that Shafiq says emerged organically when she met Yohannes and Bruce at a town meeting.
“I feel like the Town of Herndon has a lot of potential. I really want to help it realize its potential, and I think when you when you are voting for someone, you really want the kinds of people who know how to move the needle on stuff,” Shafiq said.
“Unfortunately, in past town councils, the Town of Herndon hasn’t done quite enough for its population, and we need more people like myself, like Meron, like Sabrina, who are going to move the needle for the town.”
Current council members Cesar Del Aguila, Vice Mayor Clark Hedrick, Michael T. Lloyd, Kelvin Garcia and Alex Reyes are seeking reelection, as is Mayor Keven LeBlanc. Naila Alam is the only sitting council member not vying for another term.
According to the Fairfax County Office of Elections, other candidates who qualified for the Nov. 3 ballot include nurse Doug Mejia, Board of Zoning Appeals Vice Chair Stevan Michael Porter and Deltek marketing director Justin Britt. Porter previously ran for the town council in 2024 but was edged out of a seat by Alam, who received just 32 more votes after a recount.
