By Brian Trompeter
Vienna officials in March held a dedication ceremony for the long-delayed replacement bridge linking the Washington & Old Dominion Regional Trail with the historic Freeman Store & Museum.
The Vienna Town Council completed one final task regarding the bridge Aug. 26 when it agreed to pay the contractor an additional $16,341 to close out the contract.
The contract’s final cost of $309,281 was 22 percent higher than the $252,732 originally approved by the Council in January 2022. Council members later adjusted the price to $292,640 to make up for unanticipated Fairfax County permitting requirements, further design work and additional construction expenses.
The additional $16,341 approved by the Council Aug. 26 compensated the contractor, Franco’s Liberty Bridge Inc., for having to remobilize for the project after the lengthy permitting process shut down the initiative for several months and led to further change-order costs.
Officials with the Vienna Department of Public Works sought the additional money at the contractor’s request, calling the amount “fair and reasonable.”
Council member Howard Springsteen lamented the project’s overall cost, which rose precipitately over several years as previous attempts to complete it fell through.
“Our staff hustled as much as possible, but nothing went right,” he said. “We’ve got to spend money to get things done.”
The Council approved the extra spending on a 6-1 vote, with member Sandra Allen voting nay.
Vienna Town Council Authorizes $2 Million for On-Call Paving, Traffic Marking in Fiscal 2025: Road maintenance is a never-ending chore, so the Vienna Town Council authorized spending up to $2 million with two contractors to perform on-call asphalt milling, overlay and traffic marking during fiscal year 2025.
The primary contractor, Author Construction Co. Inc., submitted a bid of $1,185,551, which was the lowest among seven received by the town.
Brothers Paving & Concrete, the secondary contractor, had the next-lowest bid of $1,454,600.
The companies will strengthen the existing pavement structure, correct defects and improve serviceability of Vienna’s roadways by milling and replacing the top 2 inches of street surfaces with bituminous pavement. (Bitumen is a dense, black, viscous, sticky form of petroleum that binds together aggregates, such as gravel, used in asphalt.)
Vienna to Publish Annual List of Delinquent Real-Estate Property Taxes: Following its usual practice, the Vienna Town Council on Aug. 26 voted 6-1 to publish a list of property owners who are delinquent in paying their real-estate taxes.
But it wasn’t unanimous.
Town staff provided Council members with a list of balances that were due as of Aug. 7. Those 10 properties owed a total of $44,987, an increase of $9,534 from a year earlier.
Officials attributed much of that overage to three properties on the list, which have been delinquent in their payments since before 2020. The town has placed liens on those properties, which is standard practice when bills are owed for two or more years.
After updating the list for payments made as of Aug. 26, Vienna officials will publish it in the Washington Times as well as on the town’s Website.
The town for years has collected at least 99 percent of delinquent taxes, and the collection rate in fiscal 2024 was 99.9 percent.
The Council also agreed Aug. 26 to write off 21 bills owing less than $5 apiece this year, which amounted to a total of $40.01.
State law requires the town’s treasurer (Finance Director Marion Serfass) to report the tax-delinquency list to the Council, which then has the option of publishing it, said Town Attorney Steven Briglia, who added that the list technically is published when it becomes part of the Council’s record.
Vienna officials do not wish to embarrass the offending property owners, but publish the list as a matter of transparency to show the public the town government is taking steps to collect taxes owed, Briglia said.
Council member Sandra Allen cast the lone nay vote against publishing the list, saying the amounts owed were a pittance compared with the millions being spent on various town projects and voicing concern about the latter issue.
“It is not a good economic time to be investing in pet projects,” she said. “This shows how out of touch our governments are with our residents.”
But some other Council members said they considered publishing the list to be a duty and that they did not wish to see bad behavior rewarded.
Council member Roy Baldwin said he had driven past some of the residences on the list.
“One theme among them is they’re all larger than my house,” he said.
Vienna Town Council Hearing to Discuss Proposed Flat Meals-Tax Fee at Special Events: To reduce aggravation for vendors operating food trucks, the Vienna Town Council will hold a public hearing Nov. 18 to discuss a proposed new process for meals-tax collection at special events hosted by charitable organizations.
Trying to collect those taxes – which pay for capital improvements in the town – based on a percentage of receipts submitted after the events has proved vexing for vendors and town staff alike, officials said.
Instead, town officials now are proposing a code amendment that would allow vendors who do not operate brick-and-mortar locations within the town to pay a flat fee up front. The agenda item did not list what the proposed fee would be.
