Fairfax County is considering renaming its community center in Bailey’s Crossroads after a mid-20th-century pillar of the Black community.
At a Board of Supervisors meeting yesterday (Tuesday), its first since July, retiring Mason District Supervisor Penny Gross proposed looking into renaming the decades-old Bailey’s Community Center after Minnie Peyton.
Peyton was the well-known matriarch of Springdale, a historically Black community in Bailey’s Crossroads that originated as a home to freedmen after the Civil War.
Peyton founded several local churches and donated land to the county, specifically for an elementary school for Black students. When the school was completed in 1956, per county tax records, Fairfax County was still segregating Black and white students.
Today, the land once occupied by the school is the site of Bailey’s Community Center and Higher Horizons Head Start Program, an early education facility founded in 1963.
Naming the community center after Peyton would be a fitting acknowledgment of her role in the area’s history, Gross said in a board matter.
The Springdale community in Bailey’s Crossroads had its beginnings as home to freedmen following the Civil War, and has nurtured hundreds, perhaps thousands, of families in the last century-and-a-half. As with many traditional Black communities, the residents erected a church and built a small elementary school to educate their children, but the neighborhood received few local services – no paved roads, no sidewalks, no public drinking water or wastewater infrastructure. There is a growing desire in the community to re-name the community center to honor Minnie Peyton and reflect its historic roots.
While advocating for the change, Gross acknowledged that “more research needs to be done” and requested that the Fairfax County History Commission “verify available documentation” before the switch.
Gross gave the commission a deadline of next summer to report its findings.
The Board of Supervisors approved the request unanimously, though no date or timeline was given on when the community center’s name might actually change.
This isn’t the only county community center to undergo a name change recently. In July, the Board officially approved renaming the Providence Community Center as the Jim Scott Community Center.
Scott was a former supervisor and represented the county in the Virginia House of Delegates for over two decades. He was most known for advocating for the state’s “motor voter” law, which allowed people to register to vote at DMVs, employment centers, and welfare offices. He died in 2017.
A renaming ceremony for the community center in Oakton will be held on Sept. 30.
The suspected driver in a crash that killed a pedestrian in Bailey’s Crossroads last month is now facing additional charges.
The Fairfax County Police Department announced today that 33-year-old Woodbridge resident Benjamin Lopez Encinas has been charged with aggravated DWI manslaughter and felony hit and run.
“Yesterday, detectives served the warrants on Lopez Encinas who remains held without bond,” the FCPD said.
Lopez Encinas had already been charged with a driving under the influence of alcohol for allegedly hitting and killing 26-year-old Luis Fernando Jimenez Rodriguez on July 8.
According to police, Lopez Encinas was driving east on Columbia Pike in a 2010 BMW when he hit Jimenez Rodriguez at the Powell Lane intersection.
Lopez Encinas didn’t stop at the crash site, but officers later located his vehicle in the 6100 block of Marshall Drive. Scanner traffic indicated that the vehicle was identified by blood on its front bumper.
The Woodbridge resident remains in custody at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center. After an arraignment on Friday (Aug. 11), he’s scheduled to appear in court for an adjudicatory hearing on the original, misdemeanor DWI charge on Aug. 31 and a preliminary hearing on the new felony charges on Oct. 25, according to court records.
Jimenez Rodriguez was the fifth pedestrian to die in a vehicle crash on Fairfax County roads this year. Since then, the total number of pedestrian fatalities has climbed to seven, according to the FCPD, with 86-year-old McLean resident Brigitte Forster as the most recent victim.
Image via Google Maps
An Arlington man was arrested in Alexandria yesterday (Tuesday) for a shooting incident that occurred in Bailey’s Crossroads earlier this month.
Fairfax County police officers were called to the Lion’s Den Lounge at 5820 Seminary Road around 4 a.m. on July 16 after getting a report of gunshots being fired.
Based on a preliminary investigation, detectives believe that 25-year-old Arlington resident Abdulkerim Halid fired two shots into the ground during “a dispute with a group of men in the lounge,” the Fairfax County Police Department says.
“Two adult females were injured from bullet fragments and debris,” the FCPD said. “They were taken to a nearby hospital for injuries not considered to be life-threatening. Halid was identified as the shooter, but he left the scene prior to police arrival.”
The FCPD arrested Halid “without incident” in Alexandria City yesterday with assistance from the Alexandria Police Department.
Halid faces two charges of reckless handling of a firearm, a Class 1 misdemeanor in Virginia that can be elevated to a Class 6 felony if the act caused “serious bodily injury.” A Class 1 misdemeanor carries a possible maximum sentence of one year in jail and/or a fine of up to $2,500.
He’s currently in custody without bond at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center.
(Updated at 4:10 p.m.) The long-fought activism of one local resident has culminated in the Fairfax County Police Department changing its approach to publicly identifying where crimes occur.
Arlington-based blogger Dave Statter announced on Wednesday, July 12 that Police Chief Kevin Davis has committed to having FCPD public information officers and social media channels use community names, rather than postal addresses, in public safety announcements, clearing up decades of confusion.
A crash in the Fort Belvoir area, for instance, will no longer be described as happening in Alexandria, when the city’s limits are almost 10 miles away.
(1) NEW: My battle of 40 years is over. 2 weeks ago @ChiefKDavis committed to having @FairfaxCountyPD stop using phrases like "Alexandria/Falls Church section of Fairfax County". Instead, they'll use community names within the county. As you can see it has already begun. (more) pic.twitter.com/wCy4tTeTHP
— Dave Statter (@STATter911) July 12, 2023
Known for his coverage of fire, EMS and police issues on Twitter and his blog, Statter argues that relying on postal addresses when informing the public of crime and safety incidents leads news outlets to share “imprecise” reports that associate murders or robberies in the wrong jurisdiction.
He says this issue is most relevant in Falls Church and Alexandria, two independent cities that share often unclear boundaries with Fairfax County.
The frequent conflation of the two cities with Fairfax County stems from the U.S. Postal Service providing a large swath of Fairfax County residents with Falls Church and Alexandria addresses, Statter claims. These addresses are provided to news outlets by PIOs when pinpointing the location of a crime, giving “people the impression that more crime was occurring in Alexandria [and Falls Church] than what was actually occurring,” Statter told FFXnow.
“The postal service created these artificial boundaries that don’t align with the real political boundaries that are on the map,” Statter said. “And you will often find a national story that says something that occurred in a town somewhere, but it really didn’t occur in that town — it was outside that town in a different jurisdiction. So it’s a problem that people have ignored for many years. I’m trying not to let them ignore it.”
The “general confusion” around city and county limits has also left many residents scratching their heads over where they really live and generated constant citizen inquiries to local governing bodies, Falls Church Communication Director Susan Finarelli says.
“People try to pay taxes to the city of Falls Church when, in fact, they live in Fairfax County,” Finarelli said. “…It is something that City of Falls Church government employees deal with all the time. I even copy and paste a statement of, ‘Oh, thank you so much for your email. Your address is actually in the Fairfax County part of Falls Church. Here’s how you can contact Fairfax County for that service.'”
To remedy this issue, which he says is not only endemic to Northern Virginia but the entire country, Statter has spent 41 long years advocating for PIOs and news outlets to instead use community and neighborhood names, such as Bailey’s Crossroads or Mount Vernon. Read More
Pedestrians were casualties of two separate vehicle crashes this past weekend, Fairfax County police reported.
A 26-year-old pedestrian was killed early Saturday morning (July 8) in Bailey’s Crossroads by an apparently intoxicated driver, and then, early this morning (Monday), a man was taken to the hospital after a crash on Fairfax County Parkway and Stringfellow Road in Chantilly.
The man wasn’t considered to be in life-threatening condition, but police described the crash as “serious” in a 12:06 a.m. tweet.
Officers are on scene of a serious car crash involving a pedestrian at Fairfax County Pkwy and Stringfellow Road. An adult male pedestrian was taken to the hospital in non-life-threatening condition. The road will remain closed while the investigation continues. #FCPD pic.twitter.com/tbqkdR3Axb
— Fairfax County Police (@FairfaxCountyPD) July 10, 2023
For the fatal crash, eastbound Columbia Pike was shut down for an extended period after the driver of a 2010 BMW hit Luis Fernando Jimenez Rodriguez at the Columbia Pike and Powell Lane around 2:13 a.m., according to the Fairfax County Police Department.
“Preliminarily, detectives determined that the driver of a 2010 BMW was traveling eastbound on Columbia Pike near Lincolnia Road when it struck a pedestrian,” the FCPD said.
The driver didn’t stop at the scene, police said. An officer who first arrived at the scene told a dispatcher that track marks stretched all the way to Barcroft Plaza, according to scanner traffic on Open MHz.
Police found the BMW in the 6100 block of Marshall Drive. Per the scanner, an officer identified it as the vehicle because he found blood on the front bumper.
The vehicle owner and alleged driver was Benjamin Lopez Encinas, 33, of Woodbridge, according to the FCPD.
Encinas has been charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and is now in custody at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center.
“Detectives continue to investigate the circumstances surrounding this crash,” the FCPD said.
Rodriguez appears to be the fifth pedestrian killed in Fairfax County this year, according to Virginia crash data, which shows that there were 16 pedestrian fatalities through July in 2022.
Concerns about the safety of Columbia Pike, which has now been the site of at least nine fatal crashes since 2010, have prompted Fairfax County to pursue some improvements, including a crossing beacon at the intersection where Justice High School student Lesly Diaz-Bonilla was killed in November.
Black residents have experienced worse health outcomes than other populations across Northern Virginia, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, a new report found.
Commissioned by the Northern Virginia Health Foundation (NVHF) and conducted by the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University, the Fairfax County section of the “Dying Too Soon” report found “stark” disparities across the county in the rates at which people die before the age of 75.
The report attributed the dramatic differences in life expectancies — from 76.5 years to 91.1 years — to an individual’s race, ethnicity and address, reflecting the influence of socioeconomic conditions on health outcomes.
According to the report, a lack of access to health care contributed to 66% of premature deaths in the county from 2015-2019 that were avoidable with preventative measures or treatment.
Throughout Northern Virginia, premature deaths are more concentrated within “islands of disadvantage,” where residents experience poor living conditions, higher mortality rates, and food and housing insecurity, the report says.
Residents of these neighborhoods are more likely to be people of color and immigrants, a disparity resulting from “the region’s history of segregation and systemic racism” and policies that “systematically block access” to health opportunities and increase exposure to unsafe health conditions, the report said.
Prior to the pandemic, Black people in Fairfax County had a premature death rate of 221.0 per 100,000 residents, exceeding the rates for white people (165.8 per 100,000), Hispanics (126.2 per 100,000) and Asians and Pacific Islanders (112.4 per 100,000).
Those disparities were consistent throughout the region, which “exhibits smaller racial-ethnic disparities” that other parts of the U.S., according to the report.
Though Fairfax County is often touted as one of the richest counties in the U.S., with a median income of $133,974, many of the wealthiest census tracts are located just a few blocks from islands of disadvantage.
In fact, the study says one census tract in Springfield has a premature death rate twice as high as that of a census tract in Franconia only two miles away. Each census tract also showed drastically different education and poverty rates and racial and ethnic compositions.
“I don’t think there’s a sense among the general public that these kinds of health inequities exist in a wealthy area like Northern Virginia, which in aggregate is doing quite well and has a very high quality of life,” Dr. Steven Woolf, lead study author and director emeritus of VCU’s Center on Society and Health, told FFXnow. “But when you zoom in like this to see what’s actually happening, neighborhood by neighborhood, you expose these these pockets of disadvantage that we want the public to know about.”
Census tracts with the highest premature death rates were in Seven Corners/Bailey’s Crossroads and Route 1 regions, according to the report’s summary. The study also reported that poverty rates in Seven Corners/Bailey’s Crossroads, Mount Vernon and Oakton “exceeded 20%, higher than poverty rates in countries like Estonia, Lithuania, Peru, Tajikistan, and Uganda.”
The Covid pandemic only worsened inequitable health outcomes, according to data collected in 2020-2021. The report says the county’s islands of disadvantage “experienced higher COVID-19 death rates,” and Northern Virginia as a whole saw “much higher” death rates among Hispanic and Black populations compared to Asian and white groups. Read More
Drugs have claimed another young life in Fairfax County.
Two 16-year-old boys overdosed on Sunday (June 25) — one of them fatally — in a car parked outside Aldi (5725 Columbia Pike) in Bailey’s Crossroads, the Fairfax County Police Department reported yesterday.
Officers were dispatched to the grocery store’s parking lot at 7:21 p.m. after receiving a call for two individuals found unconscious in a vehicle “with foam coming out their mouths,” according to a dispatcher.
“[The] caller did bang on the window. However, they are not responding,” the dispatcher said.
Emergency medical services personnel with the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department were dispatched to the scene around 7:23 p.m., per scanner traffic on Open MHz.
First responders began administering CPR and Narcan, a nasal spray that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. Responders were able to detect a pulse from one of the juveniles after two doses of Narcan, an officer told the dispatcher at 7:28 p.m.
Both juveniles were taken to local hospitals in conditions considered life-threatening. One person later died at the hospital, while the other “remains hospitalized in critical condition,” the FCPD says.
Preliminarily, police believe the overdoses are related to opioids, but that won’t be confirmed until toxicology reports are completed, a department spokesperson told FFXnow.
“The case is still under active investigation,” the spokesperson said.
Fairfax County has seen a surge in opioid overdoses since 2019, particularly among youth and often involving the drug fentanyl.
In the Fairfax Health District, which includes the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church, there have been 176 non-fatal overdoses so far in 2023, as of May 31, putting the district on track to potentially match or exceed the 304 overdoses reported last year, according to the county’s opioid overdose dashboard.
The dashboard doesn’t include fatal overdose numbers for this year yet, but there were 82 in 2022, down from 111 overdoses in 2021.
“If you feel you may have overdosed or are concerned someone around you has, please call 9-1-1 immediately,” the FCPD said.
According to police, symptoms of an opioid overdose include:
- Face is pale or clammy
- Breathing is infrequent or has stopped
- Deep snoring or gurgling
- Unresponsive to any stimuli
- Slow or no heart rate and/or pulse
- Bluish purple, or ashen skin color
- Fingernails turn blue or blue-black
Treatment and recovery services for drug addiction are available through the county at the Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services Board’s Sharon Bulova Center for Community Health in Merrifield. The center can be contacted at 703-573-5679 for an appointment, and walk-ins are accepted Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Fairfax County is moving to make two vacant properties in the Mason District available for development as affordable housing.
At Mason District Supervisor Penny Gross’s request, the Board of Supervisors directed staff on June 6 to schedule public hearings on potential transfers of county-owned land at 2859 Annandale Road and 5831 Columbia Pike to the Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority (FCRHA).
No official proposals have been put forward, but transferring the sites would enable the housing authority to review their potential for future redevelopment, according to Gross.
“My motions…were made to allow the RHA to perform due diligence on what type(s) of redevelopment might be appropriate for the sites,” she told FFXnow by email.
Located across a lane from the James Lee Community Center, the half-acre Annandale Road property in West Falls Church is currently undeveloped with some grass and trees.
While too small to support multifamily housing or public use, “initial studies” suggest it could be “an excellent site on which to develop affordable homeownership units, potentially through a public-private partnership,” Gross said in her board matter.
According to Gross, if a redevelopment moves forward, it will likely consist of single-family detached houses, which would conform with the rest of the block.
Providence District Supervisor Dalia Palchik thanked Gross “for bringing this forward,” noting that FCRHA has already begun discussing the prospect with the community.
Dubbed “East County Part B,” the 2.9-acre Columbia Pike property is adjacent to the future Alta Crossroads apartment building that broke ground in March. It includes Crossroads Interim Park, which brought recreational space and a plaza to Bailey’s Crossroads when it opened in September 2019.
“An opportunity exists on this site for the co-location of affordable housing, to include associated support services, underground parking, and possibly a childcare facility,” Gross’s board matter said. “The site’s location is ideal. It is within walking distance of public transportation, retail, and healthcare, and is accessible to vital services including schools, libraries, and parks, as well as other recreational and commercial amenities.”
Discussions about developing the area between Moncure Avenue and the Radley Acura dealer at 5823 Columbia Pike have been going on for almost 20 years now, according to Gross.
With construction on Alta Crossroads at last underway, Gross said it’s “an opportune time” to look at how to redevelop the park area. As indicated by its name, the Crossroads Interim Park was always intended to be a temporary use of the site, though Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay cautioned that community members may not understand that.
“Except for the concrete, we can take the things that are there and move it to another location,” Gross said.
The board sees both sites as opportunities to further its goal of adding 10,000 new affordable housing units by 2034. If the FCRHA opts not to pursue projects for one or both of the properties, their ownership would be transferred back to the Board of Supervisors.
The McDonald’s in Bailey’s Crossroads is a step closer to making some big changes, thanks to the blessing of the Fairfax County Planning Commission.
The commission voted unanimously on May 17 to recommend approval of several upgrades to the site at 5603 Leesburg Pike, including the addition of a second drive-thru lane and a 1,300-square-foot expansion.
Mason District Planning Commissioner Daren Schumate said that, after multiple deferrals of the vote, McDonald’s sufficiently addressed issues flagged by the commission and staff at a March 15 public hearing.
Schumate said the fast food company agreed to green building requirements and additional landscaping in response to the county’s concerns. The company also shifted a handicap parking spot slightly to avoid a tree that was near the spot.
“With that, it looks to me they’ve done good job of addressing concerns,” Schumate said.
However, the company did not agree to add a sidewalk that would connect the site to another property, because they argued it was out of the scope of the project. Staff concurred with the applicant, which has committed to providing a 10-foot-wide trail along Leesburg Pike.
Moving forward with the expansion would require the demolition of an adjacent office building, according to the application. The building was built in 1960.
An additional lane and ordering station is proposed with a median separating the lanes. Customers would enter the drive-thru area along the northwestern corner of the building and circulate clockwise to reach the drive-thru. The exit point is at the northeastern corner of the restaurant, according to the application.
To accommodate the expanded drive-thru, the company plans to redesign the parking lot. Existing parking spots on the eastern property boundary along the northern building facade would be removed to make space for a new sidewalk along Carlin Springs Road. The trash collection area would also be relocated further west of the parcel.
The applicant is seeking a 16% reduction in the number of parking spots required. Instead of 56 spaces, the applicant intends to provide 47 spaces.
The company also plans to install fully transparent windows, along with an outdoor seating area with chairs and tables at the front entrance of the building.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing on the application tomorrow (Tuesday) to determine whether it’s ultimately approved.
The site that currently hosts the Bailey’s Crossroads McDonald’s was originally home to the very first Roy Rogers. McDonald’s also recently moved to refresh its restaurant at 6729 Arlington Blvd, which is its oldest franchise in Fairfax County.
One man was killed and another remains hospitalized after a shooting yesterday (Sunday) at Build America Plaza in Bailey’s Crossroads.
Fairfax County police were dispatched to the 3800 block of South George Mason Drive for reports of a shooting around 2:19 a.m., the department reported.
“Two adult men were found suffering from gunshot wounds to the upper body. Both men were taken to the hospital with injuries considered life-threatening,” the Fairfax County Police Department said.
The man who died has been identified as 24-year-old D.C. resident Maurice Anderson. The other man was in critical condition, police said.
Witnesses told police that multiple people “were all arguing” in the shopping center’s parking lot after leaving a restaurant when the suspect fired multiple shots, hitting the two men, according to scanner traffic.
While initial calls offered no description of the suspect, detectives determined that he left the scene in a vehicle. The FCPD released images believed to be of the shooter yesterday afternoon.
The department is asking anyone with possible information about the shooting to contact its detectives at 703-246-7800, option 2. Tips can also be shared anonymously by phone (1-866-411-TIPS) and online.
By FFXnow’s count, this was the seventh fatal shooting in Fairfax County so far in 2023.
Detectives are on scene continuing to investigate. The second victim is in critical care and remains hospitalized. No suspect description at this time.
— Fairfax County Police (@FairfaxCountyPD) May 7, 2023
Photo via Google Maps
