Herndon’s new Mayor Lisa Merkel hit the ground running last week, addressing business and community leaders about her plans for the future and outlining her vision of Herndon as a “next generation small town.”

“We are a 4-square-mile town that controls its own destiny,” she said to a crowd of about 30 people at the Artspace Herndon Art Gallery a few hours before her first town council meeting as mayor.

“I ran for mayor on three issues,” Merkel said. “Those were economic development, the revitalization of our downtown and preparing for Metro.”

Merkel called for less talk and more action on each of those three issues.

“We have been arguing which came first — the chicken or the egg — for far too long,” she said. “Let’s pick one and move on.”

Holding up a 22-year-old Herndon Planning Commission document titled “Think Village: Guidelines for further development of Herndon’s Downtown,” Merkel told those assembled that, “When this document came out, I was graduating high school. You would be surprised at how much of what is in here still needs to be done … we have got to be bold and take action to get something started. … Everywhere else in Northern Virginia they manage to redevelop and revitalize, so I don’t know why we can’t.”

Revitalizing Herndon’s historic downtown and planning for growth and redevelopment around the future Herndon Metro station likely will continue to be at the forefront for the entire council.

On Feb. 28, after two years of deliberation, the previous council passed a comprehensive plan amendment that will allow an area of the town abutting the future Herndon-Monroe Metro station to support higher density redevelopment. The station is scheduled to be operational by 2018.

The approved plan will allow enough new building space to be built in the next 25 years to accommodate about 15,000 employees and 4,700 residents, plus retail services.

Although there were some clear differences between the winning candidates during the town’s May election, Merkel said she thinks the council ultimately will have a good working relationship.

“There is more that we agree on than we disagree,” she said, adding building consensus among council members will be a top priority for her as she leads the council. “We’ve got a great group of people who care about the town.”

One of the first orders of business for the council on Tuesday was voting to fund a full-time economic development staff position for the town. The measure passed with a vote of 4 to 3.

“We really didn’t have a point person to work with the Dulles Chamber and local businesses,” Merkel said, adding the town also has been undergoing a “branding development project” that essentially will provide a marketing strategy for the town.

“Visual presentations from that project will begin surfacing in September,” she said.

“The council has to allow planners to do what they are contracted for,” said commercial realtor Arthur Nachman. “Don’t ask for a study if you do not plan to follow what it recommends. Millions of dollars have been spent by former councils commissioning studies, the recommendations of which were never followed.”

In fall 2008, a proposal by Diamond Properties to build a five-story Element hotel in the downtown area did not materialize, but it did lend a spark to the idea of a revitalized downtown, which led the council to develop a master plan for the area. That led the town to hire Pittsburgh-based Urban Design Associates the following year to come up with a detailed proposal for a 10-block area within the downtown, but nothing much materialized from that effort.

“The night the Diamond Properties proposal was shot down was the night I decided to run for town council,” Merkel said. I said to myself, ‘this is ridiculous, we have to do better, and now we will. This council will position Herndon as a next generation small town, meaning we will keep our small town charm while embracing the urban metropolis all around us.”

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)