New Lake Anne President Aims To Turn Around Beleagued Community's Fortunes

RESTON, VA — Lake Anne property owners voted in a trio of new candidates last week who hope to turn around the fortunes of the beleaguered condominium association.

Members of the Lake Anne of Reston, A Condominium Association (LARCA) held an election on Oct. 27 at the Reston Community Center - Lake Anne, where voters had a chance to choose from among six candidates to fill the three vacant seats on the board.

Originally, the plan was to announce the winners on Oct. 27, but voting went on too late for the votes to be tallied. The board closed the election with the intention of reconvening on Friday night to name the winners, but they were unable to do that on that night as well.

As board member Karen Jarvis explained during Tuesday night's meeting, two errors were discovered in the electronic records by election officers on Thursday.

One of the errors involved the incorrect percentage being attributed to one of the voters. LARCA votes are calculated proportionally by the size of the owner's property. The second error involved a voter who was present at the community center on election night but who couldn't vote electronically.

In addition, another community member who was at the Oct. 27 meeting did not vote that night because he thought he would be able to do so when the board reconvened on Friday.

Jarvis made a motion on Friday night to allow the two voters who had not been able to vote to do so. The board approved the motion as well as another to include two proxy votes that had not been turned in on Oct. 27. The decision then was to push the announcement of winners to Tuesday night.

Of the six candidates running, George Hadjikyriakou, Sheila Raebel and Sky Jewell received the most votes and were named winners on Tuesday. The three other candidates were Julie Zilkind, Sue Djuric and Rich Knopman.

Hadjikyriakou, who was voted to fill one of the two commercial seats on the board, was appointed president with Lake Anne residents Raebel and Jewell being named vice president and at-large board members, respectively.

In addition to being a resident of Lake Anne, Hadjikyriakou and his wife Vicky have owned Kalypso's Sports Tavern, which is located on Lake Anne Plaza, for 11 years.

Related: $37M In Repairs Needed To Lake Anne's Aging Infrastructure

When asked why he decided to run, Hadjikyriakou said he thought the LARCA board was heading in the wrong direction.

"I wanted to get back on to try and help steer the group wherever they might have been in the right direction, to try to figure out and identify a clear path to recovery here, because I don't think we ever had anything like that before," he said.

In recent years, LARCA has been embroiled in a number of controversies.

In 2020, newly elected LARCA President Senzel Schaefer initiated a forensic review of spending by the previous board, according to RestonNow. This came after Fairfax County Police started a criminal investigation of the community association.

Schaefer ended up stepping down in September, with Jason Romano acting as president through the election.

The community was also experiencing problems with its aging infrastructure. At the the 15-story Heron House, deteriorating concrete has become a serious hazard for residents and the Quayside condominiums went without hot water for several months last winter.

At the board's request, the county reviewed the condition of the plaza area. Architectural firm Samaha Associates conducted a cursory conditions assessment during several visits to LARCA-owned property in June and July.

Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn hosted a meeting at the community center in September to share the inspectors' findings. In the end, the report said Lake Anne Plaza was facing at least $37 million in repairs.

"The structural integrity of the buildings is just really bad," Hadjikyriakou said. "We've never really had a study like that done before. We've basically just been reactive over the past 30 years. That's how the board operated in trying themselves to manage the property, which was the totally wrong thing to do."

Rather than relying on volunteer board members to run things, Hadjikyriakou's objective is to hire a property manager.

"We're not qualified," he said. "I'm an engineer, but that doesn't make me qualified to begin to plan, identify projects, plan them, and make sure that they're implemented in a timely fashion and ensure that we have the funding for it. That's too much work for anyone to be on the board to do."

Hadjikyriakou's first step will be to confer with Romano to see what the status is on current projects and then start interviewing property management companies.

"We need to let experts do this," he said. "All we should be doing is looking at the proposals coming to us on things, and in the right priority, and approving them. Figuring out how to fund these things, that's my priority."