RESTON HISTORIC BLDG SURVEY MTG @ TUE JAN 5

The Fairfax County Dept. of Planning and Development and Virginia Dept. of Historic Resources survey consultant Hanbury Preservation Consulting has completed their draft report and published it for community review on a Fairfax County webpage.  According to the official meeting agenda, Fairfax County Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn will welcome attendees, and the project team leaders will then brief the Reston community on the project and initial survey findings during a virtual meeting from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, January 5, 2021.  HCA Members and others can attend using a WebEx link, or via telephone at (844) 621-3956 with access code 179 469 1739.  The meeting will also stream live on Alcorn's YouTube webpage.  The 2019 kick-off meeting was reported in an earlier post on this website. 

The survey is a key element of Fairfax County's belated response to their tragic and avoidable 2016 approval of demolition of Bauhaus Architect and Professor Marcel Brauer's striking 1964 Reston American Press Institute Building that made way for yet more generic cookie-cutter townhomes.  The API building and many others were not on the County Inventory of Historic Sites because that deficient list then covered buildings only through about 1920.  Architect Charles M. Goodman's 1965 Hickory Cluster was an important focus of the current survey that will be used to inform government agencies and hopefully prevent future losses of early Reston significant Mid-Century Modern Architecture.

HCA BOD VACANCY NOMINATIONS DUE @ WED JAN 6

At their August 2020 Regular Meeting, HCA Directors appointed two Members as their preferred candidates to fill long-standing vacancies for full unexpired terms after resignations of two former Directors.  Such full-term appointments, however, were contrary to (1) accepted Amendments to the HCA 1964 Articles of Incorporation, proposed and ostensibly approved in late 1993, that allowed unexpired-term appointments to run only until the next scheduled election, and contrary to (2) recent previous Boards' decisions and practices based on acceptance of the amendments.

HCA then announced the election of only two Directors, rather than four (two for expired terms and two for unexpired terms) as required by the 1993 Amendments.  When a long-time Member identified this issue during the pandemic-delayed September 2020 Annual Meeting candidate nomination process, the Board further delayed the meeting to October 2020 while it sought formal legal advice.

 

That legal guidance, in addition to a shocking lack of official meeting minutes or other written documents and personal recollections from TWC or former 1993 Directors still residing in Hickory Cluster or nearby, led to the discovery that HCA could not confirm formal HCA Member approval of the 1993 Amendments or their registration as required with the State Corporation Commission.  In other words, without documented approval and registration, there were no legally-binding 1993 Amendments to the 1964 Articles of Incorporation.

But wait, there's more:  one unelected Director, appointed in August 2020 just before the September/October 2020 election, resigned recently and effectively created a third Director appointment circumventing an election.  This time, however, the Board did the right thing.  Through a mass mailing to all HCA Members ... still not posted on the new HCA website ... they offered everyone the opportunity for Board appointment.  The official self-nomination Statement of Interest form is due to TWC no later than 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, January 6, 2021.  Currently, Block 1 is represented by two Directors, Block 2 by no Director, and Block 3 by a voting majority of four Directors, out of seven Directors total.