This was really well written and made me smile. It's true, older things are often more expensive to manage. Though I'm not even out of my twenties yet and feel like I require four door car with leg rooom and expensive make up!

Love! a bit depressing on the state of my own being - but it's life!

Karen, You've got it right! Love the message. Got me smiling this morning! Go Reston! Great place to live, work and play! Wait, have I heard that somewhere!? :)

Good point. It is all a matter of perspective. I am keeping my 16 pools, tennis courts, lakes, paths, and most of all WOODS!!!! I wouldn't trade it for ... well let's not put a price on it, I just might get charged that. HA!

Very well written, as always. Now I'll have to check into whether the haircut is a Rust Belt thing. Because I had that same one, in that same year.

On behalf of the Reston Association and its Board of Directors, I want to thank you for adding some perspective and humor to the assessment discussion.

Both the RA staff and the Board spent many hours in public meetings discussing how best to meet the needs of the community now and in the future.
In the end, we realized that we had to make the tough choices today to plan for the future tomorrow. It is our goal to align specific actions in the newly adopted 2012-2016 Strategic Plan with the 2012-2013 budget.

We believe in this way the vision the board has worked toward over the last two years - to ensure that the elements essential to Reston will be here for future generations – can be achieved.

Kathleen Driscoll McKee
President
Reston Association Board of Directors

Love the perspective you brought to this. Great article.

Good perspective but that is kind of comparing apples to oranges. 47 yrs is not old especially when it comes to a community, actually it is young. Reston is experiencing growing pains and it's Reston waistline is expanding more housing, more buildings, more rules to enforce, more traffic, metro coming, more money for RA; well except for RTC & it's surrounds not part of assessment fees, as I understand. Lucky for them to live, play, work in Reston and not pay the RA fees.

I don't really buy the 47 human years is the same thing as a town either. Oddly enough, just yesterday, I stumbled across a web site linked to a small town in Illinois that I lived in. The town is now 102 years old. I went through the photos the town govt . had put up and guess what....it looked almost the same as it did when I grew up there 40+ years ago. I was particularly pleased to see a photo of the old train station (now 100+ years old) still in use and looking just like it did when we used to take my father to the commuter train that went into Chicago.

If this town had been run like Reston and Fairfax County, developers and their subordinates in the County Government would have been demanding higher density, and certainly that now really cool looking 100+ year old train station would need to be "redeveloped."

There's a way to age gracefully and a way to age like a fool. You age gracefully by realizing you're getter older, accept the fact, and try to keep yourself up as best as possible. The other way is to deny the fact, get plastic surgery, get numerous implants throughout your body, dress and act like a wild twenty something so you can delude yourself into thinking the inevitable is occurring. Unfortunately, as town and regional area goes, my old town in Illinois has followed the former, whereas Fairfac County and Reston follows the latter.

...and it all costs a fortune.

Wow! Towns and buildings that age without any maintenance to them! Please share the secret. Our 20+ year old house needs to know! And I can use the same secret with my 4 year old vacation rental cabins. It will be super to just pocket all the rental money and fire my maintenance man.

Sorry for the sarcasm and please don't set a torch to me. Regardless of development or no development, roads/paths/buildings/bridges need maintenance, and it costs more today than it did 40 years ago.

I never said they didn't need maintenance. How did you ever even derive that conclusion? Everything needs maintenance. However, just because something needs maintenance doesn't mean it needs to be torn down or "redeveloped."

Excellent points and fun read!

Karen, thanks for the incisive and yet humorous comments. I especially concur with your observation re: those who want smaller government and don't understand the concept that, even though they may not use each and every service, it's good for the town. It's like not taking an interest in the school board elections because your children are not in school anymore. It's real simple, those people have a choice, they can move out and then they won't have to complain anymore. I'm sure the town they move to will run by itself with no funding, the roads will self-heal, the street light bulbs will change themselves when they burn out, the garbage will march by itself to the dump, and you won't need "Obama care" because your pre-condition will be accepted by your insurance company because you're such a nice guy. Reston is a forward looking community and those are the kind of folks who appreciate it the most.

All well and good when the unemployment rate was low. Was the base larger then? Since everythings is going up why not show me how much of the RA budget specifically gets used on bike paths, pools, roads and other improvements? How much of the money was from the fed or VDOT and what about RA salieries>?

That pdf does not tell me what it cost to run a pool, how much Ra money went into bike paths or how much money VDOT put up for the streets. No specifics I can make out? Totals don't help me if they are spent on what i consider to be wasteful projects show me a accounting breakdown pdf where the Ra monies were spent?

Excellent summary of the Reston lifestyle ethic, where it's about our community and green space as a whole, not the size of your house and back yard. Long live benign socialism!

Oh contrare Mr. Sogandares. I am not against pools, bikes paths... persay, I would like to see what the individual costs are. I assume the Board is able to stand up to public scrunity when it comes to said expenditures. I do object if the Ra is paying excessive amounts for anything. Should be able to answwer the question with a document. Salary paid, costs of improvement and maintenance costs is all I am looking for. Thanks Mr. Sogandares

So which country's model should we model our association after East Germany, Yugoslavia, Hungary, China or the Soviet Union?

If your inferring I said its a coverup my bad but you can reread my request that you have been so quick to reply to huh? I thought you and Karen had all the answers, I have looked at the pdf and there is no breakdown of costs so I will take your advice and approach the board with my concerns. Thank you!

will do!

RESTON ASSOCIATION
Budget Summary - 2011
Thats the site for the budget and it only helps to confuse matters.

RA would be happy to answer your questions. They are off for the holiday, as am I. Cheers.

12 days of vacation 2 days of personal leave and 10 days of sick time who still pays employees for sick time besides RA?

So am I correct in assuming then that one year of employment with the RA gets you 10 sick days, 10 holiday, 10 vacation days and 2 personal days? Also I find a lump sum for salaries nothing for each position do you have a idea where such info would be broken down per position? BTW Good Morning

Again, contact RA for more specific info.

When I moved to this area 12 years ago, I knew that I was moving to Vienna. I knew that Reston was right across the street. I knew that my kids would go to Reston schools which are a part of FCPS. It NEVER occurred to me to research the politics of Reston. I did not know who the founder of Reston was, and I did not know that Reston was "big government". I did not care and I still don't care. Now that I have to deal with Reston, I regret not researching Reston's political orientation. I do think Reston is very pretty with it's abundance of greenery.

Well, I indirectly have to deal with Reston Association. RA controls Reston, and most of the places I go to are in Reston. I figure RA has some influence on my life as a Vienna resident. I hadn't realized when I moved here that my kids would be in the "minority" at Reston schools only because I don't live in Reston. Reston pools, for example, are for residents of Reston. An example would be: My kids are going to school in Reston, most of their friends are in Reston, we join a pool in Vienna and my kids don't know anyone because most of their friends are Reston residents who join Reston pools and are involved in Reston's swim teams. That is just an example of how RA effects non Reston residents. Since Reston is such a planned community and likes it that way, I think it should be autonomous.

I did not know that I could buy a membership to Reston pools.

The entire RA budget is here: http://tinyurl.com/6m2qzlh. The 2012-2013 Draft was passed as final with a few minor changes.

Non-resident pool passes range between $345 and $610 depending on family size and whether you play tennis. One card gets you access to 15 pools and/or 48 tennis courts. Visit www.reston.org for more info.

Thanks Mike can you tell me how much the CEO, the President and the board members make in salary?

Does the CEO receive any salary. So the only people paid any money are the Attornies on a as needed basis?

thats more than the mayor of New York and La get in fact it's more than any member of the Senate or Congress exceptin the President and the Vice-President. Reston has a population of approximately 60,000?Anything seem a bit out of wack to you?

Who is Thomas J Burgess? Why does he get $501,923? Does he get paid this much every year? Will he get paid this much next year?

It appears that Mr. Burgess, an early Reston [Home Owners] Association director, received a one-time, lump sum payout of his retirement/pension.

Hmmm... $200K+ for Milton? What does he do? Over $500K on an useless website? What kind of IT services does RA require? Is that how much it takes to operate a site that is circa 1999 with a shopping cart?

I do not see Mr. Hopkins as a board member. What is it he does for his 100k plus? Over 6 million dollars in wages please tell me the top ten salaries, I am very curious!!

David earned 146,917 in 2009 from the RA that doesen't sound like volunteer work to me. Quit answering my questions without answers, maybe someone else can weigh in with concrete answers instead of web sites. 6,6 million dollars in wages and compensation is a question that shouldn't be that hard to figure out. Site when my question was answered or get out of the way.