Outgoing Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson publicly criticized a mailer for Vice Mayor Amy Jackson‘s mayoral campaign that used a photo of former Fire Chief Corey Smedley with her at a city event.
Wilson said at the end of last night’s City Council meeting that the integrity of the city government is at stake, and that it should be insulated from the “vagaries of politics to the extent possible.” Without calling out Jackson by name, he described the mailer and said that former Chief Smedley did not give his permission to be in the ad.
“I think the integrity of our government, the processes, is at stake, and one of the things we try to very hard to do is to avoid politicizing our our city staff and the work that they do,” Wilson said. “We have an administrative regulation that says that our staff cannot, while on duty and certainly in uniform, be part of partisan political activity. That is something that is a very important rule in one that we do not violate, and council members themselves should never be in a position where that is is happening, and they are part of that situation.”
He continued:
I became aware of a political direct mail piece that was sent that pictured a former uniformed department head in uniform on duty, and was mailed to voters in the city implying an endorsement of a city staff member of a candidate for office in the city. That’s wrong. It shouldn’t happen and nobody up here should be a part of that. The city government does not endorse candidates. Members of our staff do not endorse candidates, members of our city staff do not use their city position to suggest that they are involved in in campaigning. We all took an ethics pledge when we were sworn-in January of ’22.
Smedley said that he did not give Jackson permission to be in the campaign mailer. After nearly five years leading AFD, he left the department earlier this year and has been tapped to lead the Montgomery County Fire Department.
“I have not spoken to Amy Jackson and have not given my permission to use my likeness,” Smedley told ALXnow.
Wilson is not running for a third three-year term and the three-way Democrat primary race to fill his shoes will be determined on June 18. In that race, first-term City Council Member Alyia Gaskins is leading with fundraising and endorsements against Jackson and retired real estate developer Steven Peterson.
When questioned on the mailer, Jackson told ALXnow, “I’m proud of my work serving my community.”
Peterson did not mince words in his reaction to Jackson’s mailer.
“Poor city,” Peterson told us. “She is not the smartest book on the shelf.”
Gaskins did not comment on the matter.
