Do you think placing a Hilton Hotel next to St. James presents a problem?

These parents are paranoid luantics. If people had a realistic sense of risk they wouldn't make absurd comments about how hotels will mean their kids will be molested. That is just dulusional. These people need to see a therapist and take something to calm down and get real.

Perhaps you should take your own advice WmB and get some help with anger management. Whether or not these parents are being paranoid is a matter of opinion. The fact of the matter is, we as a society need to protect children the best we can.

First off, WmB, learn to spell so as to gain a little bit of credibility. And then, to call St. James parents "luantics" and "dulusional" is really off the mark. You obviously don't have children and therefore the prospect of molestation is not even an issue for you. You sound like a liberal weeny, spreading all the liberal feel-goodism and politically correct pap. Get a life! Joe Poels

As one who has been in the hotel business for many years, I agree with the parents of St. James. Not only is having a busy hotel a risk to young children from a safety and security standpoint, it could be a traffic nightmare due to construction, maintenance, delivery trucks, etc. in such a congested area.

WmB - fyi; one of the Parents at St James you call "Paranoid and Luantic" is the Chief of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Department of Justice. I would put more faith in his assessment of my childs risk than in your rant. Many of the other parents are leaders through out the Washington Region, they are in no way "dulusional".

WmB, you certainly demonstrate an extreme sense of naivety. As a professional with over 25 years of federal law enforcement experience, I can attest to my first-hand experience concerning the use of hotels as a means to facilitate crime. Hotels offer the criminal element a certain sense of security and anonymity and are often used to facilitate all types of crimes. My personal experience as a drug agent has shown that hotel rooms were used in approximately one-third of my cases. (Need I remind you of the famous video tapes showing Marion Barry or John DeLorean being arrested in hotel rooms?) Additionally, it is commonly known that hotels are often used to perpetrate prostitution, as well as theft, money laundering, technology crimes, alien smuggling, and many others. Quite frankly, the list of crimes is endless and the principal reason why most major metropolitan police departments have a “hotel squad” dedicated to combat crime associated with hotels. More disturbing is the fact that I sincerely doubt that the Falls Church Mayor and City Council would give one iota of consideration to the construction of a hotel near any public school and wonder why they fail to provide the same protection to a private (and arguably far more conservative) religious institution that has existed as a core of the foundation of this community. I pray that the city leaders heed the results of this poll and understand that their constituency has spoken very LOUDLY and CLEARLY. If they have not, I am fairly certain that the Hilton Corporation would understand.

Recent comments by panelists/experts with 30 years' experience in Community Planning and Development for Arlington County in response to audience questions on commercial development (hotels) next to schools (is this a good idea?) - Answer was a resounding "Yes!" This has been done with great success in Arlington and surrounding jurisdictions. Schools have developed partnerships with the surrounding businesses and allowed workers' children to enroll in day care and after-school activities, etc. Absolutely ZERO problems with "child molesters" making a run on renting surrounding hotel rooms! While it's always possible for child predators to frequent areas around schools, they are much more likely to prey on children in more crowded, less- supervised areas such as malls. I have heard St. James parents state that if a hotel is built on Broad Street (the major commercial corridor running through Falls Church, travelled by thousands of cars every day!), their children will not be safe walking home after school or to the Library several blocks away. My response: Why on earth would you let your child walk alone and unsupervised on a busy major street like Broad Street anyway? Even Park Ave. is only ONE BLOCK off the major thoroughfare of W. Broad Street (Route 7) through Falls Church. How about some PARENTAL supervision?? St. James school is located one block from Route 7 - again, a very busy commercial thoroughfare travelled by thousands of cars each day. It is not the City's fault that the school is located here. Is the City to NOT build a 100% commercial building along it's main commercial corridor?

I attended the EDA Forum on April 23d that JPinFC references, and he grossly mischaracterizes the panelist commentary. A speaker asked one panelist, Mr. Snyder, a highly regarded planner formerly with Arlington County, whether the City ought to take any precautions with development on Broad, given that St. James school is there. Mr. Snyder answered that Falls Church City ought to craft its zoning code to protect its elementary schools and provide proper buffering. He suggested the City might want to close the street next to St. James. A subsequent speaker, perhaps JPinFC, or one with an aligned interest, asked Mr. Synder didn't Arlington have Catholic Schools that were on major thoroughfares. Mr. Synder said there were, but he did not make the points JPinFC attributes to him. The St. James community is not opposed to all commercial neighbors. We just don't want a hotel next to the school. Happily, interested viewers can watch the video tape of the Forum on local cable and hear the actual remarks of the panelists, none of whom recommended a hotel next to St. James, but instead advised the City to replace parking lots on Broad Street with a mix of retail and services to support office workers by day and residences by evening and weekend. Shame on you JPinFC.

JPinFc – I initially shared some of your thoughts until I looked into the issue and read the tons of documents available. I suggest that you please invite the panelists/experts to speak at the public Planning Commission meeting on Monday night. The idea of forging an open and informed relationship between the City, the developer(s), the hotel, and the school sounds like a winning idea. I can’t even guess why this hasn’t happened. The following is what clued me into taking a better look into the situation. A pretty big hole and now a construction site is directly in front of the school. A commercial office complex and retail post office is going in there, I believe. I understand that it went forward without challenge from the school or parents. So that wiped out my NIMBY argument. Curiously, I went digging both into the available documents and dug a bit on my own. I came away with a better appreciation of the issues and can see some of the concerns being expressed. I don’t think it’s a good idea at this point. So perhaps the panelists and experts from Arlington could demonstrate their success and relationship between schools and hotels.