Don’t it always seem to go,

That you don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone,

They paved paradise, put up a parking lot.

Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell

All contents copyright Save Browns Chapel 2009

What are they so afraid of?

In this RA Board election Reston Association (RA) and Reston Community Center (RCC) board members have taken the unprecedented step of attacking specific candidates and Save Browns Chapel the organization that endorsed them.  Bill Bouie and Bill Keefe, both RCC board members, wrote a recent letter to the editor “Slate of Reston Association candidates ‘frightening’”. In it they said “Reston Association is under attack” from a “special interest coalition” with a “specific, narrow “NIMBY” agenda” who don’t care about the community as a whole.  They called us “well-organized”, “well-financed” and “partisan” and stated that they were “frightened” for the community.  RA President Robin Smyers made similar claims in a widely circulated email.

Who are we and why are they so afraid of us? We are neighbors from all over Reston.  We formed our Coalition to Save Browns Chapel one year ago when we discovered that a joint task force consisting of RA and RCC board members had been meeting for months and had spent $100,000 on concept plans for an indoor recreation center at the site of Browns Chapel Park.  In March of 2009, the joint task force discussed details like the size and layout of the facility, class offerings and fee schedule.  They asked the site engineer to look into permits and voted to name the new facility “The Robert E. Simon Community Center”.  All of this took place before Reston residents knew anything about it and before we had the opportunity to give community input.

We started a grass roots movement of Reston residents united with similar beliefs including the preservation of RA parkland and open space.  We made a petition and built a website.  We quickly grew to 1500 strong. Far from being well-financed, we are not financed at all.  We are all volunteers doing this in our spare time.  We have collected contributions for a legal fund to pay the fees for a land use attorney (to whom we still owe money).  We dealt with the craziness of fighting our own homeowners association who was using our fees to fight against us.  We waged a David versus Goliath battle, against organizations that have big budgets and teams of attorneys at their disposal. Organizations that are supposed to be looking out for us.

Contrary to the claims of Mr. Bouie and Mr Keefe,  we are not partisan or affiliated with any political party.  We are not as they have suggested, a bunch of “conservatives” or “republicans” or “rich people”.   We are neighbors from all over Reston who care deeply about the community.  All of the founding members of our group are longtime Reston residents with strong ties to the community.  I personally am a second generation Restonian and have lived here for 25 years, in 4 residences on both sides of the toll road.   Like the others I can’t imagine living anywhere else.  We are here to stay, and that is why we chose to get involved.

We did come together over a specific issue, the destruction of a beloved park  We are not against indoor recreation.  We simply don’t believe that an indoor recreation center designed for all of Fairfax County has priority over a neighborhood park used by residents from all over Reston. You can call us NIMBY if our backyard is Reston as a whole. Of that we feel very protective.

The prospect of the destruction of Brown’s Chapel Park motivated us to become involved. . We decided to stay involved and to stay vigilant to make sure that nothing like that happened in Reston again. 

Clearly our grass roots coalition makes some people very unhappy. They are trying desperately to discredit us, to quiet our voice.  They view us as “harmful” and “dangerous”.  I have a different view.  Last summer we came together as a community.  For the first time in the history of Reston hundreds of people attended board meetings and community input sessions.  We found out that residents from all over Reston care enough to get involved to save their park and their money.   This is not a bad thing, it is a good thing.  We have nothing to hide, no hidden agenda.   We are fellow residents that want the best for Reston - our motives are clear.  Now I ask you: what are they so afraid of?