The Falls Church Insider All About the City of Falls Church, Virginia, For & By The Folks Who Live & Work There

When I told Matt Smith that I wanted to get involved in the community, he gave me a few ideas — including joining the cable access board — and said something to the effect of “if you really want to get involved, you need to look into the CBC.”  I won’t try to explain what the Citizens for a Better City is here.  AC did a good write up (post one, and post two) on the Falls Church Times.  Mike has his recent post here, asking CBC to lead.  The CBC even has a web site.

So, last fall I went to the annual CBC dinner.  I was eventually asked to join the CBC Advisory Board, a new and loosely formed group that is supposed to get together every few months to talk about the future of the City and CBC’s role.  Last night was my second such meeting.

There are interesting decisions to be made about the future of the CBC.  Mike’s rant about leadership isn’t far off — what do we want the CBC to be?  Is it relevant anymore?  Do newer residents in Falls Church know or care about the CBC?  What would happen if the CBC went away?

From my (so far limited) perspective, I believe that the CBC can be more relevant than ever.  Between the debates about mixed-use development and the challenges we’ll face with the growth of our schools (to name a couple of massively-city-altering topics) there are important issues on the horizon that need to be addressed.  People care about these issues and don’t know how to influence them. There needs to be a well-organized, energetic group dedicated to encouraging our most capable citizens to get involved in the community.

A core question seems to be: are there citizens out there who are willing — dare I say really want — to be involved in a group like the CBC, but aren’t aware of it?  Is it therefore a communications and outreach challenge?  Or has the makeup of Falls Church changed so much over the past 20 years such that people are too busy, disinterested, and passive to volunteer their time?

I’m cautiously optimistic.  I think that there are a lot of people who live in Falls Church in part because they want to be more involved in the community, and the CBC is in a great position to help them figure out how to do just that.