“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.” – Abraham Lincoln

We live in an age of overwhelming information. Try to follow any topic being discussed by the Falls Church City Council, and a resident is confronted with the daunting task of plowing through the agenda of every meeting, viewing hours of video recordings, and reading many pages of documents. And that is only for one body of local government. A topic, be it a policy proposal or a development project, is also frequently reviewed by one or more boards and commissions with their own meetings, documents, and videos. While this information is publicly available online, it is not always readily accessible.

The purpose of the Falls Church Pulse website is to organize and curate information about key development and related housing, environmental, and other issues facing the City. Our goal is to provide original source materials, such as City documents, videos, and citizen comments submitted for the public record in an easy-to-navigate format.

In addition, Falls Church Pulse welcomes analytical pieces that synthesize and interpret data and provide investigative reporting in order to gain a better understanding of the issues before us. These bylined articles are original works provided by a variety of contributors.

To accomplish these tasks, we rely on City residents who follow topics of interest to them. These citizens have volunteered their time to curate and make available materials on this site and to further explore and analyze them so that we may all benefit. They have extracted source information and provided perspectives to allow us a quick read on that issue or project. This work can be viewed as taking “a pulse” on a topic, allowing readers to decide if they want to dive deeper and, perhaps, act on a subject of particular concern to them by speaking before the City Council, Planning Commission, or other boards and commissions, volunteering to serve on appointed bodies, or ultimately running for elected office.

If you are following a topic, consider educating your fellow citizens by suggesting documents, video clips, and other materials for this site. To contribute materials, including analyses of issues and their impacts, please contact us at fallschurchpulse@gmail.com.

The volunteer webmaster for Falls Church Pulse is Peng Si Highnam. The volunteer editorial team includes Mary Chaves and Edith Snyder. All are longtime City residents. Please let us know if you would like to join the editorial team.