A recent forum quizzed Falls Church City Council candidates on what local governments can do to blunt ever-increasing costs of child care and preschool services in Northern Virginia.

It was, one incumbent noted, the first time the issue had been raised during a candidate forum in her memory.

“We are breaking ground,” Marybeth Connelly said during the Tuesday (Oct. 21) debate, sponsored by the Falls Church Chamber of Commerce and hosted by the new Paragon Founders Row theater complex.

Connelly said a first step for the city government would be compiling, and keeping updated, an online list of available child-care facilities across the community.

“Create some kind of database” parents can search, she suggested, while also holding out the possibility of the city — and taxpayers — potentially providing subsidies for child-care facilities or those who need them.

Challenger James Thompson, Jr., also was in favor of a database to serve as a “ready-to-go, one-stop place to look.”

He wanted a deeper dive into existing zoning regulations and whether they could be eased to permit more child-care offerings in certain areas of the community.

Arthur Agin, another challenger, agreed with that sentiment.

“Many of our zoning rules do not include that allowance [for child-care facilities],” he said. “That is something we can take care of quickly.”

Council member Laura Downs was one of several who said future potential development at S. Maple Avenue and Annandale Road might be a spot for a child-care facility, while pressing for a more comprehensive set of options citywide.