With Only 2 Days to Go, 4 Seek to Qualify for F.C. Election
According to Falls Church Registrar of Voters David Bjerke, now four Falls Church citizens are working ahead of Friday’s deadline to qualify for the ballot in the special election to be held Nov. 5 to fill the seat on the F.C. City Council vacated by the resignation earlier this month of Caroline Lian.
Bjerke has told the News-Press that two of the candidates, Laura Downs and John Murphy, have submitted the required 125 signatures of registered Falls Church voters and other paperwork and have been qualified for the ballot. Two others, Brian W. Pendleton and Leandra Joy Bernstein, have submitted their certificate of candidacy and declaration of candidacy forms, but not yet the petitions with the required signatures.
Bjerke said that as of the deadline to file at 5 p.m. this Friday, he will be able to announce very soon after that who all the qualified candidates will be.
Rising Insurance Costs Put Affordable Housing at Risk
Developers have been ringing the bell about the rising cost of insurance for years, but now the din is deafening. The worst-case scenario: an end to affordable housing development, writes Bisnow.
Insurance costs have been rising faster for multifamily than any other property type, going up an average 26 percent from 2022 to 2023, and tripling or even quadrupling for some communities in natural disaster-prone areas.
Affordable housing developers that have rent caps to meet a certain area median income are increasingly finding themselves unable to build because revenue won’t cover the cost of insurance. They are also converting affordable units to market-rate rents to meet their premiums.
The pullback is exacerbating a 6-million-unit shortfall in low-cost housing. “If it spreads further, it could threaten to end affordable housing development as we know it,” Frank Woodruff, the executive director of the Community Opportunity Alliance, told The New York Times.
Cancer Specialists Name New Research Specialist
Virginia Cancer Specialists, the largest private cancer practice in Northern Virginia and an affiliate of The US Oncology Network, is expanding its clinical research program, it was announced this week. Neel Belani, M.D., a Medical Oncologist and Clinical Investigator, will join the research program, which is the largest and most comprehensive in the Mid-Atlantic.
Dr. Belani will see patients at the Fairfax Cancer Center, the practice’s flagship location. Dr. Belani completed his undergraduate education at Rutgers, New Brunswick before attending Rutgers Business School, where he focused on healthcare policy and administration. He then went on to attend Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, where he was a Gold Humanism Honor Society Member.
Dr. Belani completed an internal medicine residency at Brown University and a medical oncology and hematology fellowship at Temple University – Fox Chase Cancer Center. With a strong interest in thoracic oncology, he completed an observership at National Cancer Center in Tokyo, Japan.
Report Notes LGBTQ+ Athletes Shined at Olympics
It was noted this week that openly LGBTQ+ athletes competing at the Paris Olympics this month won 69 medals: 23 gold, 21 silver, and 25 bronze. “This would position ‘Team LGBTQ+’ as the sixth most successful nation, gay business CEO George Arison stated. As for the Paralympics, Outsports reports at least 38 out LGBTQ athletes won medals, also a record.
Another High School Football Death Stuns Alabama Town
As family and friends continued to mourn the death of Morgan Academy high school football player Caden Tellier on Monday, coaches around the state reacted to another tragedy, it was reported on the Al.com news website.
Tellier, a 16-year-old junior, died at University of Alabama Hospital on Saturday after suffering a critical brain injury during his team’s game against Southern Academy in Selma on Friday.
“It does nothing but put everything in perspective,” said Gulf Shores High head coach Mark Hudspeth, who has coached at both the high school and college level. “At the end of the day, this is just a game and that was a precious life.”
