The Town Green Lavatory is Open for Business

I did not give my thoughts but I know I would not have asked for a backed-up toilet!

By 11am on Sunday during ViVa Vienna, the women's toilet would not flush. My three year old said it was "gross" but I refused to take him up on the offer to look for myself.

The other day, I saw some (unsupervised, naturally) kids horsing around on the Town Green fountain. Only a matter of time before one of them cracks a skull open and the Town (I mean, taxpayers) is sued.

Will there be any flashes when the kids fall and break their crowns?

"The other day, I saw some (unsupervised, naturally) kids horsing around on the Town Green fountain. Only a matter of time before one of them cracks a skull open and the Town (I mean, taxpayers) is sued."

What happened to those nice people with the blue security vests? Do we need a couple of TOV police officers stationed full time at the Town Green? The bill keeps going up. Whose idea was this anyway?

For example, does "carefully thought-out" mean that written minutes exist of the discussion to not put a fence along Maple Avenue as a safety feature? Or does "carefully thought-out" mean anything they want it to mean?

Did TOV really pay Lardner/Klein $250,000 for the design work? A simple lawn with a few shade trees would have been much more attractive. At least the Town Green brings back childhood memories---memories of neighborhood gardens full of porcelain figurines, with six-inch tall polar bears next to 12-inch tall squirrels. Incongruity is the name of the game. And now they are trying to shift the blame. That is priceless.

I've been trying to understand the design concept of the town green, but I can't. an assortment of paving materials that don't relate to each other, a collection of structures that don't relate to each other. a fountain dedicated to just about anyone & everyone. I don't get it.

Hey andy gomer floyd and aunt bee have been trying to fix a water main break at beluah and church st since 10 am today and know we have no water and they hope to have water by am but since they started church st is flooded from beluah to east st i have no faith at all in town services.I think they have no clue what they are doing and it is only geeting worse. You should come take a picture of the mess. I am ready to move and I have lived here my whole life. It's time to get the county over here to fix this mess. They will be lucky if they get it fixed by next monday. Get the inept people out of these jobs in the town if i did a job like these folks attempt to doI would not have a job.

IMHO, the fountain there seems "cheap". Go stand next to it up close. Yes, it wasn't inexpensive, but it seems like the design was thought out by people who don't do design. If we were going to have the first fountain in Vienna, shouldn't it have "wowed" visitors? It underwhelms.

It is now 4 am, 18 hours since the water main broke. A crew is apparently working on the problem but we do not have water. The TOV website states that in fiscal year 2004-05, "[t]he Water and Sewer Division responded to 42 water main breaks."

Note to "To Pontific8tor". What kind of flashes do you mean? The kind where your life flashes before your eyes just after a massive skull fracture, or the kind of flashes forbidden in the Freeman store?

IMHO, the fountain is rather unattractive. First, the pool of water is so high off the ground that one has to be standing right up against it to see it. The falling water is at knee level, so it's also not really visible unless one is crawling on the ground. The black granite doesn't evoke anything or relate to anything. Like so much Vienna design, I don't get it. Does anyone here actually like it? if so, tell us why.

Maud did not want a real fountain per se because she was concerned that coins being tossed into the fountain would mar up the stone work. As it is now it does look cheap, and there seems to be as much water on the pavers as there is in the fountain. I guess water is cheap for the Town? And remember Maud did not want a certain bike rack as well. Boy Cathy lots of input from the taxpayers or lots of input from Maud?

anne smith:

I like it. Not really for any particular artistic or specific aesthetic reason, but because it's new and ... "clean," for lack of a better term.

The only way I can describe it is this: when I first moved into my house, the "landscaping" consisted of 6 baby azaleas in front of the porch with a few rectangular flagstones as a walkway from the driveway to the house. My house was new to me, so I thought everything looked way cool.

As time went by, the landscaping started to bother me. So we had Merrifield come in and design some stuff and they put in a nice walkway and a bunch of liriope (probably spelled wrong) and other stuff (don't know what it's called) and a nice bush at the corner (don't know what that's called , either) and other stuff. They widened and reshaped the beds and put down fresh mulch around everything.

I came home that night, and was enamored with it. The newness and "cleanliness" of it all was great. It stayed that way for quite a while -- in fact, I continue to like it a lot, even years later ... but that "wow factor" has worn off, for sure.

The fountain and the rest of the Town Green is kind of like that for me -- I'm so used to seeing the Brooke Rental building with the ratty parking lot behind it, and the jungle alongside the bike path, etc., that the new space is very "new" and "clean" and "fresh" etc. to me. So I like it, just like I liked my new landscaping at my house.

Will that "love affair" turn out to be just a fleeting crush, and wear off? Dunno.

Make sense?

P.S. Yes, I understand how much it cost, the fact that there's no fence at 123, blah blah blah. But that wasn't the question. So please put the machetes and torches down. For now, at least.

I will say what I *do* like about the town green - the amphitheater is fine.

The look of the fountain just doesn't work in my opinion. The black granite with the etched wording sitting on the diagonal brown/white pavers and the school house bathroom - it all seems to have no cohesion.

I also do not like the yellow/brown/white stone wall that is the same as the wall near the Freeman House. It's just not that attractive.

No one feature was picked to set the tone. It was like everyone just threw in their favorite of everything not thinking about how it would all "fit" together.

It reminds me of the bizarre Sarah Mercer park. Why do we have that odd design which looks like a fake-stucco crown with the cobalt blue sun dial? It is really, really ugly and will not stand up to the test of time. Parks need to look stately and classic. They need to fit the environment. Nothing about that sitting area (which is WAY too hot in the sun) says classy or refined.

If you take what Adam said sans his personal property statements you could substitute VPC as the author.

thanks, Adam. I enjoyed reading your explaination. and yes, it makes sense. New is nice. but I agree with vienna mommy--no cohesion. the park should set the tone for future development, but there are so many different and conflicting design cues that it's impossible to use it as a guide for the next piece.

Was at Evolutions on Mill St. yesterday (Tuesday) around 5pm, and of course, there was no parking.

The Town Council has admitted that it (and I guess Cathy Salgado) never planned for parking and traffic management around the Town Green. They just assumed that folks would park on Church St. and Mill St., etc.

How do you plan what they call a "destination" without planning for visitor parking or traffic?

Incompetent fools.

The fountain is anything but "clean." It looks like a birthday cake with three over-sized candles. (And I wish Brooke Rental were still there because I could at least hope for something better.) For me, the main reason to point out the numerous shortcomings of the Town Green is that I support construction of a pedestrian bridge over Maple Avenue. I fully expect that the "aesthetics" of the Town Green will now be used by TC as a rationale for opposing the bridge. Such an argument would be risible.

Hey andy gomer floyd and aunt bee have been trying to fix a water main break at beluah and church st since 10 am today and know we have no water and they hope to have water by am but since they started church st is flooded from beluah to east st i have no faith at all in town services.I think they have no clue what they are doing and it is only geeting worse. You should come take a picture of the mess. I am ready to move and I have lived here my whole life. It's time to get the county over here to fix this mess. They will be lucky if they get it fixed by next monday. Get the inept people out of these jobs in the town if i did a job like these folks attempt to doI would not have a job.

Ok, first, the irony that you -- who types things like "geeting," and who tortures us with grammatical sewage like, "Get the inept people out of these jobs in the town if i did a job like these folks attempt to doI would not have a job" -- would call anyone "inept" at anything is staggering.

Second, please, I implore you: MOVE! I don't know who you are (since you clearly don't have the guts to put your name to your ramblings), but I do know that I won't miss you, and the absence of someone like you will automatically increase the number utils (wik it up, Einstein) in the area. So it's probably just best for everyone if you do it. Thanks!

Third, you're an ignorant fool. Unless you know how to repair a water main break, you should probably just shut your hole. Those guys are very, very good at what they do, and they work their asses off doing it. Clearly, you don't know the first thing about it, since you seem to think that each and every break can be repaired in a matter of a couple hours. By the time you logged on from the comfort of your home to share your illiterate ramblings, they had been working for 17 hours (and I see that, by the time of the next complaint, they had been working for 21 hours straight). At the time of your tantrum, they had spent 13 hours (according to your chronology) wet, dirty and tired ... to try to get YOUR water supply fixed. Correctly and safely.

See, jerk, I worked with a lot of those guys -- well, not in Water and Sewer, but in General Maintenance. But the property yard is relatively small, and over the years, you get to know who's good at what they do, and who is not. Those who are not are let go. Those who are good (hopefully) stay with the Town. I don't know who's on the crew that is/was out there, and it's likely that I don't know a lot of them -- I resigned in 1998 to go back to school. But I DO know that the guys running the show in W&S don't tolerate incompetence, and they are good guides and teachers. So I'm VERY confident that the job is being done correctly, but that it's a relatively complex repair job. But you wouldn't know any of that, would you?

People like you are unbelievable to me. These guys routinely get out of bed in the middle of the night to go fix stuff like this. They do it when it's FREEZING cold out. They do it when it's pouring rain. They do it when it's hot as hell. And they do a great job. And you come on here, 110% ignorant about everything, and insult them. You want someone to go take pictures of them while they work their asses off to fix the break? Hey, great idea, champ. How about you grow some jewels and post up your name and where you work -- I'll come take some pictures of you and criticize you. Hell, I don't even need to know what your job is -- or how to do it -- I'll just call you inept and incompetent, and demand that you be fired. So come on, "vienna resident," pony up the info -- what's your name and where do you work? I'll even burn a day of vacation to come do the photoshoot.

I've read other stuff on this site like this, although not couched in such illiterate terms, and probably not intended to be insulting, like "vienna resident" did with his post. Someone else said something like, "I mean, what am I getting for my tax dollars? My trash guys are great, but that's all I get." Last time we got a big snow, did you need to go to the grocery store to get some milk or some bread or some toilet paper? The reason you could get to the store is because the guys in the property yard worked all night to clear your roads with salt, sand and plow blades. I get the feeling a lot of you must rarely leave the Town limits, but I do, on a daily basis, and let me tell you, there is a NOTICEABLE difference in the quality (or even existence) of the snow removal efforts RIGHT when you hit the town limits.

Moreover, for your tax dollars, you have guys out there literally crippling themselves fixing broken sidewalks, curbs and gutters, catch basins, etc. Yeah, cry all you want about what you take to be the disrepair of the sidewalks, but I will tell you from PERSONAL EXPERIENCE that the guys in General Maintenance likely work harder than anyone in your families and go as fast as they can. There are a lot of sidewalks and curbs in town, so it takes a while to get to all of the problems -- and remember, YOU don't want to pay any more in taxes (in fact, you seem to want to pay less, right?), so exactly how do you propose they get fixed faster? Hire more people on a volunteer basis? Ask a contractor to come in and do it for free? Duh.

Anyway ... for your tax dollars, you also get pot holes filled and the streets otherwise fixed. You get your streets swept. If you'd stop and notice every once in a while, you'd notice the freshly cut grass on the medians and the amazing gardening around town -- who do you think does that? The Town Horticulturist and the Parks and Rec guys, that's who. You get police protection. You get a town prosecutor to make sure that the bad guys the police catch are appropriately fined and/or incarcerated for having broken the law (hey, that's revenue, too!) (of course, for your money, the town attorney also has to defend the town against lawsuits).

You get town vehicles that are gassed up and very well-maintained by the mechanics/techs in the garage (you know, so the police can drive around and patrol your streets, among other things?) You get your leaves picked up curbside in the fall, if you choose not to bag them. You get two special pick-ups per year. You can get wood/leaf mulch delivered to your house. You get street signs put up and maintained where they need to be put up or maintained. You get eroding creek beds -- that are eating up YOUR property -- rebuilt (at least this used to be something the town did, primarily in the summers ... not sure if they still do it). You get your nice holiday decorations put up and taken down in town. You get a community center to which you can take your kids to play and learn ... and in which you can vote for your champions of truth, justice and the Vienna way. You get your traffic lights maintained, and the bulbs replaced when they blow.

This is just the stuff I can think of off the top of my head having to do with the property yard (with a shout out to the community center and cops thrown in). It's not to mention the people in town hall who, despite what you think (and say ignorantly, like "vienna resident"), work extremely hard and competently -- I know THAT from EXPERIENCE, as well, as I spent quite a bit of time over there while working for Public Works, whether it was painting, or replacing light bulbs, or installing ceiling fans, or what have you. Over the years, having spent a lot of time in town hall, I saw how hard those guys and gals worked, just as I saw it in the property yard.

And oh yeah, you get your water mains fixed, as quickly as competency and safety allows.

See, you get a few things for your tax dollars. You know, you people really get me scratching my head, with some of the stuff you say. "I DON'T GET SERVICES!" "THERE'S TOO MUCH WASTE!" "LOWER MY TAXES!" "PUT SIDEWALKS EVERYWHERE!" Some of it is contradictory ("lower my taxes" and "put sidewalks everywhere," is a good example), some of it is wholly unsupported with any specifics as far as I can tell ("there's too much waste" -- okay ... where? Town Green? Is that it?), and a lot of it, at least as far as my EXPERIENCE dictates, is ridiculously and insultingly wrong -- see the paragraphs above for that. And PLEASE, spare me the complaining about whatever raises town employees got this year -- go hump a trash truck for a year or get down in a few freezing cold muddy holes at 3am or pour 15 yards of concrete in 90 degree 90% humidity heat for a year and then come back and tell me that they don't DESERVE those raises. Hell, I bet a lot of you complaining about the raises don't even know what the guys were making before the raises, or even what they'll be making after. You just want to complain ignorantly while you cloak yourself in internet anonymity. Well, good for you.

I pay somewhere, I think, between $1,500 and $2,000 in town real estate taxes every year. I KNOW what I get for my money -- I see it daily (because I choose to see it) and I've ACTUALLY DONE IT so I KNOW a little bit about the subject. On the other hand, I pay about $7500 -- give or take a few hundred -- in county real estate taxes every year. Now, please remind me what I'm getting from the county that is so much more valuable than what I get from the town ... ? Oh yeah, I have the privilege and honor of educating YOUR children in the county's public schools (since my boy won't be in public school for a few more years yet). Like I said, what do I get out of it? What else am I paying for? Police? Well, when I woke up a couple years ago at 3:30am to find a pick up truck rammed up against my front porch in the middle of my landscaping, it wasn't county cops that came out to secure the scene, investigate and have the truck removed. It was the Vienna Police. I know that when I got my speeding ticket on Park Street years ago, it wasn't from a County cop. And when I had my accident while delivery a pizza on Nutley, it wasn't a County cop that responded.

What else do I get? Pot holes fixed ... traffic lights maintained, etc.? Well, can I be like you guys and complain about how f-ing long it takes the county to get around to filling one pothole or replacing one burned out traffic light? They damned sure don't do it 5 or 6 times faster or better than the town, so why do I have to pay so much more for it? When I compare what I get from the Town with what I get from the County, the Town seems an awful lot like a bargain.

And no, this doesn't have anything to do with who my dad is -- it has to do with the fact that I've been a town resident for quite a while, and I've worked in the General Maintenance division for quite a few summers and then for two years full time after graduation from college. That is to say, it has to do with me KNOWING a little about what I'm saying, not just sitting in my comfy house at 11pm ignorantly insulting people I don't know and who do a great job for me. Even though I haven't worked there for 9 years, it was also insulting to ME, that crap you said, in addition to being insulting to a whole lot of very capable and good guys.

Although I WILL say that each year, I'm extremely proud on a personal level when I read in the Town newsletter that my dad has once again put together an award-worthy budget. And yes, he's another thing you get for your money.

Now, "vienna resident," maybe you can explain how you came into the expertise that you appear to think you have in the area of water main repair -- you know, the expertise that justifies you saying that the guys busting their asses out there for you are "inept." Or, maybe you should just pipe down and get back to work on your Hooked on Phonics tapes, 'cause you have a quite a bit of work to do. But please, don't shut up before you share your name and place of employment -- I'll make lots of space on the SD card, and set the Canon to super high-rez, so that YOUR incompetence comes shining through in the pictures.

Okay, now you can get out the machetes and torches.

p.s. 10 cool points to Historic Vienna if he posts this whole thing, and 20 cool points to anyone who actually reads the whole thing.

To All the whiners about HV posts:

The Pastor's Ass

The pastor entered his donkey in a race and it won. The pastor was so pleased with the donkey that he entered it in the race again......and it won again.

The local paper read: PASTOR'S ASS OUT FRONT

The Bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the pastor not to enter the donkey in another race.

The next day, the local paper headline read: BISHOP SCRATCHES PASTOR'S ASS.

This was too much for the bishop, so he ordered the pastor to get rid of the donkey. The pastor decided to give it to a nun in a nearby convent.

The local paper, hearing of the news, posted the following headline the next day: NUN HAS BEST ASS IN TOWN.

The bishop fainted. He informed the nun that she Would have to get rid of the donkey, so she sold it to a farmer for $10.

The next day the paper read: NUN SELLS ASS FOR $10

This was too much for the bishop, so he ordered the nun to buy back the donkey and lead it to the plains where it could run wild.

The next day the headlines read: NUN ANNOUNCES HER ASS IS WILD AND FREE The bishop was buried the next day.

The moral of the story is........Being concerned about public opinion can bring you much grief and misery...and even shorten your life. So be yourself and enjoy life... Stop worrying about everyone else's ass and you'll be a lot happier and live longer!

Anne that is the whole problem with any development in Vienna. There is no cohesion, no plan and no vision. Take Church Street for example, while we are all thrilled to have the new stores and Bazins the new brick building, while very nice, does not necessarily "match". Proving that this TC is a bunch of 2 year olds "I want what I want."

Adam:

No one is saying the services that we receive are sub-par - I'm rather happy with my interactions with public works.

But, if you do read on here enough you would know that the following most would like to do away with:

You get two special pick-ups per year. You can get wood/leaf mulch delivered to your house.

The mulch issue is horrible. I have friends who live right next to it and they are beside themselves with the noise & smell. And, no, these are not "town crony" type people - new to the town.

I understand that, vienna mommy. I actually thought about that/those issue(s) (mulch) as I typed, but I guess my point was more that it's still something. I can understand the mulch issue, for sure. I'm actually surprised that people use the wood and/or leaf mulch, to be honest.

As for the special pickups, people really want to get rid of that? Why? I rarely use mine, but man, they're nice when a real spring cleaning comes around and you need to ditch a ratty, dog-hair covered couch or something ... or after a garage sale when everything doesn't sell and there's a lot of stuff that isn't suitable for charity, for whatever reason.

Anyway, sorry to threadjack this away from talking about the Town Green, I guess.

In the county, where trash pick up is by private company, a company like AAA charges about $25 for a "special pickup" anytime you want one. And they take it the same week you call. the way the town does it actually encourages people to save up that stuff for the twice a year pick up, then unload it all on the curb where it sits sometimes for weeks & becomes a real eyesore.

>>new brick building, while very nice, does not necessarily "match".

What is there to match? The old flea-bitten run down shacks? Or Bukont's mis-sited frame and vinyl residential construction with styleless assortment of finishes and trinket features?

Adam, I read your support of Public Works three times: Once to see if it was worth reading, once to understand it and a third time to enjoy it. How many points? It made my understanding of the broken main monument at town green clear.

I have no idea how much the special pickups costs the TOV. But, my county friends survive just fine without their pickups.

It's a nice perk (yes, we use our two every year) but if my taxes were lowered, I'd take that over some of these "extras" we get living in the town. I feel like the extras are not that noteworthy and I just don't want to pay even more in taxes when I don't see anything new happening.

I don't get mulch from the town but I do get it at the dump. Takes a bit more effort (well, the drive out to Ox Road) but it's free.

It made my understanding of the broken main monument at town green clear.

I don't understand?

There are certain areas in the County that have trash/special pick up. I do not know the logistics, but I do know that when we lived in Falls Church (not the City) we received trash pu 2x a week, recycling 1x per week and we got a lot more than 2 special pu per year. It has been several years since I have lived there, but I do know that when I moved to Vienna I thought I clearly was not getting a deal for my extra taxes.

What does this mean:

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dpwes/specialpickup/default.asp

I missed Adam's questioning of the reference to the "broken main monument". Adam, you expressed great praise for the hard work in all kinds of weather by the town road crews. Now hidden in the art of creating the Vienna Town Green Monument, is a feature that looks like a street flooding from a broken main. I am pleased I do not have to draw a picture since you can just return to the TG and see it for yourself.