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With the Falls Church City Council election set for Tuesday, Nov. 4, challenger Brian Pendleton is presenting his technology, finance and military experience as a distinctive combination for the four available seats.

Pendleton is one of three non-incumbents in the race, alongside Arthur Agin and James Thompson Jr. Incumbents Laura Downs, David Snyder and MaryBeth Connelly are also running.

An Arkansas native and former member of the Arkansas National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve, Pendleton completed several active-duty tours. He first came to the Washington area in 1997, later living in several other places before renting in Falls Church in 2010. He bought his Falls Plaza condominium the following year.

Pendleton has also lived in Arkansas, Texas, New Jersey, Arlington, Washington, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and London. He said he chose Falls Church after falling in love with its college-town atmosphere.

His academic background spans finance, business and technology. Pendleton earned a bachelor’s degree in finance and a master’s degree in information systems from the University of Arkansas, an MBA from American University and a Doctor of Science in cybersecurity from Marymount University. He has also served as a visiting professor of information technology and cybersecurity at Marymount.

His career includes more than 25 years in technical and management positions, with experience at Wal-Mart, ITXC Corp., Fairfax Water, technology startups and federal contractors. He describes his current work as artificial intelligence and security research.

Pendleton is also a partner at Tasaane Mgmt. LLC, which pursues AI and information-security contracts and is a minority woman veteran-owned small business. The company’s name means “tadpole” in Apache and honors his Native American ancestry through his maternal grandmother.

Locally, Pendleton serves as president of the Falls Plaza Condominium Association and sits on the Falls Church Board of Equalization. He has worked as a city election official since 2016.

Military experience shaped his view of public service

Pendleton said military service taught him to work toward a defined mission while placing service above popularity.

He sees elected office as another form of service, comparable in spirit to careers in the military, policing, emergency response and health care. His decision to run, he said, is rooted in a desire to help rather than anger at City Hall.

Pendleton also points to his personal circumstances as a perspective not shared by the other candidates. He is unmarried and does not have children.

Although he supports Falls Church’s schools, he said not having children in the system may help him assess both education spending and the city’s other responsibilities more critically.

Overhauling City Hall technology

Pendleton’s clearest priority is modernizing City Hall.

His concerns grew from his experience seeking approval for a home office and managing a $1.5 million reconstruction project at Falls Plaza. Both required extensive dealings with the city’s permitting and planning operations.

Pendleton argues that the city’s Enterprise Resource Planning system, Munis, is outdated. The platform began primarily as financial software and accumulated additional functions over time, including inventory and service-ticket modules.

He said the underlying system was designed roughly 25 to 30 years ago. Continued updates can extend its life, he argued, but cannot substitute indefinitely for technology designed around the current needs of a small government.

Pendleton has worked on ERP implementations as a contractor for the state of Arkansas and, more recently, for Moderna. He believes Falls Church should adopt a new system built from the ground up for smaller jurisdictions.

As an example of the current inefficiency, Pendleton said registering a home office required him to visit the Commissioner of Revenue, obtain a paper form from the permitting office and physically return that document to the commissioner. He also said the systems used by the Commissioner of Revenue and the city treasurer do not communicate as effectively as they should.

For a community that considers itself modern, Pendleton said, that lack of integration leaves Falls Church behind the times. Newer systems could improve efficiency while incorporating current practices for local government.

Seeking balance between schools and other needs

Pendleton’s finance and business experience also informs his approach to the city budget. He favors needs-based budgeting intended to balance school funding with other municipal responsibilities while avoiding tax increases.

His approach would identify essential expenses first, determine how much money remains and then decide which additional priorities should receive funding. He draws a distinction between immediate needs and wants that can be postponed.

Pendleton stressed that balancing the budget does not mean indiscriminately cutting education. He specifically supports adequate pay for teachers and staff, school meal programs, special education, music and the arts.

He spent nine years as a special education student and said those services were important to his development. Music and arts education also contributed to his later success, he said.

Diversity, affordability and environmental protection

Pendleton has Apache and Mexican ancestry through his mother’s family. He said his maternal grandmother was full-blooded Chiricahua Apache and his maternal grandfather was Mexican, though the family believes his grandfather’s parents had moved from Spain.

He is proud of that background but is cautious about invoking it politically because he did not grow up on a reservation. He recognizes that tribal communities have legitimate reasons to scrutinize claims of affiliation.

Pendleton said his heritage, combined with growing up on a 25-acre farm and working the land with his paternal grandfather, influenced his concern for nature. He wants Falls Church to do more than voice support for environmental protection, including by preserving and expanding its trees and safeguarding wildlife and plant life.

He supports tree-canopy regulations for single-family properties and opposes the routine demolition of smaller homes from the 1950s to make way for much larger houses. Although those more expensive homes can add tax revenue, he said they do not necessarily increase the city’s population and often consume trees and open ground.

Pendleton has also questioned whether Falls Church is as diverse as its inclusive reputation suggests. Rising housing costs, he said, have made it increasingly difficult for underrepresented groups to move into the city.

He pointed to Latino employees working in Falls Church restaurants while often being unable to afford homes within the city. In his view, the divide between those serving the community and those able to live there exposes the limits of its diversity.

Pendleton also argues that conventional labels such as “middle class” can obscure differences in economic leverage among racial and ethnic groups. Latino and white households with similar broad classifications do not necessarily possess the same resources or opportunities, he said.

One proposal would have Falls Church purchase a townhome when a developer builds a new project and reserve it for someone from an underrepresented community. Pendleton suggested the home might be awarded through a city lottery and protected by a covenant requiring future sales to owner-occupants rather than outside developers.

He raised similar concerns about the Vietnamese community connected to the Eden Center. Pendleton grew up near Vietnamese refugee communities that developed around Fort Chaffee after the fall of Saigon. Many families later moved into Fort Smith and northwest Arkansas.

While Falls Church has provided space for Vietnamese-owned businesses, Pendleton questioned whether members of that community have enough opportunities to become homeowners and feel permanently rooted in the city. He said economic activity alone should not define their relationship with Falls Church.

More affordable homes and “true mixed-use” growth

Pendleton wants the city to use its negotiating leverage with developers to secure more affordable set-aside apartments in projects such as the Alder at West Falls.

He supports additional housing if development preserves trees and green space. He also favors projects that genuinely combine residential and commercial uses rather than applying the mixed-use label loosely.

Pendleton sees the Gordon Road Triangle, which includes the West End Operations Yard and nearby properties, as one of Falls Church’s last major opportunities to add substantial housing.

He wants the redevelopment to include a combination of apartments, condominiums and businesses. Despite resistance to the idea, he also supports office space that could attract larger law, accounting and engineering firms. Those employers could strengthen the business-tax base while generating customers for restaurants and potential buyers for local homes.

Pendleton has even floated the unconventional possibility of placing a small data center underground at the site as a source of city revenue. He described it as an exploratory idea that would have to fit with the project as a whole.

A decade of difficult decisions at Falls Plaza

Pendleton has led the 72-unit Falls Plaza Condominium Association for more than a decade. He describes the community as a small-scale version of Falls Church, requiring its board to manage environmental problems, heavier rainstorms, building leaks, trash, businesses, homeowners and investor-owned rental units.

More than half of the development’s units are owned by investors and rented at rates slightly below those at the Alder, he said. Managing those competing interests requires consensus among people who often disagree.

One of Pendleton’s most difficult tasks came after he learned the association’s capital reserves were far below Virginia guidelines. The board concluded that owner assessments would need to double the following year.

Pendleton then had to persuade both board members and a supermajority of owners to accept the financial burden. Some residents attempted to remove him from the presidency and the board, but the effort failed after enough owners accepted that the increase was painful but necessary.

He also encountered rules under the 1974 Virginia Condominium Act that require support from two-thirds of owners to amend bylaws. Pendleton criticized requirements that official association communications be sent by postal mail rather than email as another example of regulations that have not kept pace with technology.

Representation before personal projects

Pendleton said council members must remember that they are representatives as well as leaders. Because Falls Church does not elect council members from geographic districts, each member is responsible to residents across the entire city.

Even his goal of modernizing City Hall, he said, should not become a personal project pursued against the public’s wishes. He would want to develop the idea with city employees and residents, creating a shared plan rather than imposing his own.

If the community ultimately decided that an overhaul was unnecessary, Pendleton said he would step back and turn to another priority.

He is asking voters to look beyond endorsements, examine the candidates and decide who best matches their vision for Falls Church. If elected, he said he would listen to residents while working collaboratively with the rest of the council.