The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-17)

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TUESDAY, MAY 17 , 2022. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/LOCAL EZ SU B

MARYLAND

A Montgomery County

teen is charged with

murder in a classmate’s

stabbing in January. B3

MARYLAND

Sen. Chris Van Hollen,

hospitalized after having

a minor stroke, expects

to make a full recovery. B8

OBITUARIES

Author Robert Goolrick,

73 , rose to prominence

with a memoir and also

64 ° 76 ° 79 ° 74 ° had best-selling novels. B6

8 a.m. Noon 4 p.m. 8 p.m.

High today at

approx. 3 p.m.

80

°

Precip: 0%

Wind: WNW

8-16 mph

“I um,” my son’s

text began, “forgot

the tickets.”

He was already

in the car headed

for his senior

prom at the

National Building

Museum when my

firstborn realized he’d messed up.

“Don’t worry about it,” his

friend said, with a smile that put

everyone at ease. “It’ll be okay.”

And it was. Because the friend

was a celebrity that night.

“Ian!!!!!!” one of the deans

hollered, as my son’s friend

appeared at the entrance Friday

night, ticketless.

“Ian!!!” everyone else yelled

and ushered the group in.

Everyone was expecting him, and

no one needed to check his

credentials. They were just

grateful he’d made it.

Ian Balutis, 18, had a banging

start to senior year, scoring his

first varsity goal for the Gonzaga

College High School water polo

team against the U.S. Naval

Academy team on Aug. 28.

Two nights earlier, I’d sat with

his mom, Tish Tucker, at senior

college night. We were terrified,

bracing ourselves for college

application hell. The boys were

elated, on the brink of

everything.

Two days later, Ian had a

headache and fever. His hands

and feet were tingling. His mom

took him to the emergency room.

He spent the next seven

months in hospitals.

“A re you going to the Mass for

Ian?” my son’s friends would ask

him, as they headed toward the

chapel to pray for their friend

once the diagnosis came, and

everyone — except my son —

realized how grave the situation

was. When Ian was absent for a

few days and didn’t return texts,

my son figured he was sick.

No one imagined the

SEE DVORAK ON B3

Teen’s spirit confronts

coma, t riumphs at p rom

Petula

Dvorak

BY REBECCA TAN

In the race for Montgomery

County executive, David Blair, 52,

has pitched himself as a candidate

with a track record of executive

leadership.

In forums and in interviews, he

has cast himself as someone who

“gets things done,” pointing to his

credentials as a former business

executive and head of a nonprofit

group, which he founded in 2019

after narrowly losing the Demo-

cratic nomination for county ex-

ecutive to incumbent Marc Elrich

(D).

But while Blair says on his

campaign site that the Council for

Advocacy and Policy Solutions

(CAPS) “created and executed on

numerous innovative initiatives,”

a review of his nonprofit found

that it fell short of reaching its

goals on several projects. Other

proposals to build out “attainable

solutions” to county problems

ended up as donations from

Blair’s family foundation to out-

side groups.

“I’m incredibly proud of the

work we did,” Blair said. Several

CAPS initiatives are ongoing, he

added, but he now runs the non-

profit part time to focus on his

campaign.

Three people who worked

closely with CAPS over several

years said the organization has

not achieved much of what it set

out to do or what it appears to

have achieved based on news re-

leases and campaign advertise-

ments. They spoke on the condi-

tion of anonymity because they

were not authorized to comment

publicly.

CAPS, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit,

seeks to educate residents on local

issues and serve as a “hub” for

addressing challenges Montgom-

SEE BLAIR ON B4

MARYLAND

David Blair says he gets things done.

Does his nonprofit work back it up?

BLAIR CAMPAIGN

David Blair, a candidate for

Montgomery County executive

and head of the Council for

Advocacy and Policy Solutions.

PHOTOS BY MICHAEL S. WILLIAMSON/THE WASHINGTON POST

BY ANTONIO OLIVO

O

n the corner of Confederate

Lane and Plantation Parkway

in the Civil War-themed hous-

ing development of Mosby

Woods, a Black Lives Matter

lawn sign faces the two street markers.

A few blocks away in the same

Northern Virginia development, other

signs urge neighbors to “Save Ranger

Rd!!” while cars bear parking permits

with the neighborhood’s l ogo: a Confed-

erate Raider on horseback charging

into battle with saber raised.

Mosby Woods, a quiet cluster of 523

homes in Fairfax City built in the

mid-20th century, is a community that

has grown divided over its identity as

the city council considers renaming its

Confederate-named streets.

For decades, street names that re-

flected Virginia’s Confederate past were

a sometimes awkward fact of life for the

neighborhood’s residents, in line with

the surrounding landscape of Civil War

battleground sites and historical mark-

ers, monuments and highways honor-

ing Confederate generals like Robert E.

Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

That changed with the murder of

George Floyd by a Minneapolis police

officer in 2020, which unleashed a

reckoning over systemic racism in the

country that, in turn, ignited a backlash

against perceived anti-White senti-

ments that has filled social media feeds

and fueled a culture war over race and

ethnicity.

Now, the increasingly diverse neigh-

borhood, named after Confederate

army battalion commander John S.

Mosby, that is otherwise a typical subur-

ban enclave — with summer block

parties and holiday decoration contests

— is another battleground, with the city

council set to decide in June whether

SEE STREET NAMES ON B2

Confederate roads stoke divide

In Fairfax City, streets names immortalizing Civil War

figures and symbols are splitting a 523-home community

TOP: Mako Honda and R yan Finley live at the intersection of

Confederate Lane and Plantation Parkway and want to see the road

names changed. ABOVE: Many of their neighbors want to retain

the names of the Confederate-themed streets, like Ranger Road.

BY JUSTIN GEORGE

Metro’s board on Monday ac-

cepted the immediate resigna-

tions of its top two officials, one

day after the transit agency an-

nounced that about half of its

train operators were found to

have lacked retraining and test-

ing required for recertification.

General Manager Paul J. Wie-

defeld was to have retired June

30 after six years leading the

agency. His departure was accel-

erated after the operator lapses

surfaced, a discovery that

prompted Metro to pull from

service 72 operators who have

been noncompliant for more

than a year. The move led to

longer delays for rail passengers

and brought widespread criti-

cism from the region’s elected

officials.

Chief Operating Officer Joseph

Leader’s resignation was also ac-

cepted Monday. Leader, a long-

time transit industry veteran

who previously worked in top

positions at New York City Tran-

sit, had been with Metro since

2016.

Metro’s board met in executive

session at 3 p.m. Monday, a

meeting that had not been on the

schedule as of last week. The

transit agency announced the

departures hours later.

Paul C. Smedberg, chairman of

the Metro board, did not respond

SEE METRO ON B5

Metro’s

top two

officials

step down

RESIGNATIONS

ARE IMMEDIATE

Criticism follows report

of lapses in training

BY GREGORY S. SCHNEIDER

richmond — The board that

oversees James Madison’s Mont-

pelier estate has chosen 11 new

directors recommended by a

group representing descendants

of enslaved workers, claiming a

milestone in diversity at a major

historical site.

Monday’s vote creates full pari-

ty for the descendants of the en-

slaved in the leadership of the

Montpelier Foundation, and

amounts to a sharp turnaround

from the b oard’s e ffort in March to

repudiate the Montpelier Descen-

dants Committee.

“It has been a long and not

always easy process to get to this

point, b ut one r esult of the p rocess

has been the identification of an

incredibly gifted and renowned

slate of new Board members,” the

foundation said in a news release.

Board chairman Gene Hickok,

who had driven the split with the

MDC, is s tepping down as his t erm

comes to a close.

“I am very pleased that the goal

of parity has been achieved and

that the Foundation has added

such distinguished new members

to its Board. I w ish the Board every

success in moving a head f or Mont-

pelier’s benefit,” Hickok said in a

written statement.

The new members include TV

journalist Soledad O’Brien and

the Rev. Cornell William Brooks,

SEE MONTPELIER ON B5

M ontpelier

reverses

stance on

leadership

Estate’s board will add

directors representing

descendants of enslaved