Dranesville Swaps a Precinct With Its Neighbor Under Redistricting

Redistricting of Fairfax County's nine supervisor districts was relatively painless for the Dranesville District which includes McLean, Great Falls and Herndon.

Dranesville lost the Colvin district located west of Route 7 and gained the Coates district on the west side of Herndon under the redistricting plan adopted by the county board of supervisors this week. Colvin becomes parts of the Hunter Mill District and Coates moves from Hunter Mill to Dranesville.

After each 10-year U.S. Census, the boundary lines of  the U.S. House of Representatives districts, the state legislature districts and the supervisor and school board districts must be redrawn to make them nearly equal in population.

Fairfax County now has a population of 1 million. That means each supervisor district should have approximately 120,000 folks each.

"I am very proud of Fairfax County and its tradition of approaching  redistricting in a nonpartisan way," said Dranesville Supervisor John Foust who is running for reelection.

"I believe that the process worked and that we minimized the impact on the residents and we maintained the community of interests that exists within the county," he said.

What does the precinct swap mean to his reelection chances:"It will not hurt my reelection effort," he said. "I have to introduce myself to the residents of the Coates precinct,” he said.

Republican Dennis D. Husch, a 27-year resident of Herndon and a former member of  the Herndon Town Council, is running against Foust in the November election.

Under the county redistricting plan adopted by the board, seven precincts are shifted to other districts, and three precinct boundaries have been changed. The board adopted one of the 22 plans developed by the citizens redistricting commission headed by Katherine Hanley, former chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.

Dranesville now consists of these precincts: Chain Bridge, Chesterbrook, Churchill, Clearview, Coates, Cooper, El Nido, Forestville, Great Falls, Haycock, Herndon No. 1, Herndon No. 2, Herndon No. 3, Hickory, Hutchison, Kenmore, Kirby, Langley, Longfellow, McLean, Pimmit, Salona, Seneca, Shouse, Spring Hill, Sugarland, Westhampton, and Westmoreland.

The changes  cannot be implemented until they are approved by the U.S. Attorney General, as required by the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965. Virginia is one of 11 Southern states covered by the Voting Rights law because of its long and sorry history of preventing black folks from voting.

The plan will be posted online, and it will be available for inspection at the Office of the Clerk to the Board of Supervisors from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays. The public may send comments on the county's plan to the U.S. Department of Justice by e-mail; by fax to 202-616–9514; or by mail:

Chief, Voting Section
Civil Rights Division
Room 7254 - NWB
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530