By Ken Knueven,

President, Reston Association Board of Directors

The dialogue we have been experiencing as part of the budget process has been healthy and beneficial on numerous fronts. One, being able to hear from members about their thoughts and viewpoints enables board members to have our fingers on the pulse of the community, and two, the questions raised help us to know what information still needs to be shared for clarification and to provide more information on the various entities involved in providing services to the community of Reston. One of the benefits of living in Reston is having so many different community organizations working together to provide a high quality of life for Reston Association members. That benefit is even more evident as we work to focus on harnessing the value of a collaborative community. We can combine our community energy and implement solutions which require a true joint effort.

Reston Citizen's Association (RCA) and the Alliance of Clusters & Homeowners (ARCH) represent different interests working toward the same goal; to provide the residents of Reston with a safe, inviting, active, enviable place to call home. We all know the challenges faced by the Reston community are complex and resist easy solutions. A perfect example of strength in numbers is how we are approaching the Phase One Comprehensive Plan for the Reston Transit Station Areas. As each group is greatly interested in the sustainability of Reston, how the areas will affect open space, mobility around town and how the transit station plan will be implemented, we all realized working together as one common voice makes us stronger. We each serve and represent Reston community members who are concerned about how the transit stations are going to affect their daily lives but speaking as separate disparate entities was only diluting the message.

Reston Association is hosting a meeting of this coalition on October 17th, 2013 from 7-9 pm at Reston Association Headquarters to discuss the plan, to share our thoughts and concerns and to hear from Reston residents on how it will affect them. Then, as one voice, we will share these thoughts and ideas with Fairfax County leadership. This is a model we can use for other issues going forward. We're not alone, across the nation, communities of all sizes are grappling with challenges that fit neither a single solution nor a single organization. Too often at Reston, we try to assign ourselves the burden of developing and implementing solutions that are beyond our grasp alone. Making a single entity solely responsible for a complex, hot issue is often a sure-fire way to dissipate community energy or to unite community energy against that organization. Let's celebrate the value of different voices, and different lenses looking at the same issue coming together.