Frank Fannon, the last Republican to be elected to Alexandria City Council, will run for the office again in the April 21 special election.
Fannon announced his City Council campaign at the annual Friendship Firehouse Breakfast yesterday (Monday). The former councilmember told ALXnow he is running as an independent for the seat formerly held by Kirk McPike (D), who won the special election for Virginia’s 5th House District seat.
“I think it’s important in our city that the local elections should be nonpartisan, and we could actually focus on local issues without being swayed by national political parties,” Fannon said in an interview with ALXnow.
Fannon served on City Council from 2009 to 2012 but did not win re-election in 2012. He was the third generation of Fannons to be elected to City Council.
In his latest bid, Fannon says he wants to be an independent voice on City Council and challenge “groupthink.” The former councilmember thinks the city should evaluate moving to a ward system, with five City Council seats based on neighborhood wards and the sixth remaining at large.
“One of the things that I remember from being on the City Council, when someone says, ‘my basement is backing up with water and sewage from the rains in Del Ray,’ nobody wants to be your city councilman,” Fannon told ALXnow. “But when they say, ‘there’s a pothole that needs to be fixed in the street,’ everybody wants to be your councilman. We need to have neighborhood representation where the citizens have someone to go to, to be accountable to.”
Fannon named neighborhood quality of life issues a focus of his campaign and said he disapproves of the city’s Zoning for Housing/Housing for All decision and its allowance of denser development in single-family neighborhoods.
“All nine bullets in the [Zoning for Housing] package didn’t need to be voted on together,” Fannon said. “So, let’s go take a look at what they did wrong and what they did right, and we’re going to fine tune it.”
Fannon’s other campaign priorities include cutting city budget spending, opposing tax increases, improving core city and school services, and seeking accountability on tax dollar spending.
“If we want to really discuss affordability, we need to lower property taxes, and we need to look into city spending, and we need to cut some spending so it’s more affordable for people to live in our city,” Fannon said.
Fannon, a fourth-generation Alexandrian who lives in the Clover-College Park neighborhood, recently retired from a 32-year career in mortgage banking. He serves as president of the Alexandria Aces collegiate baseball team, previously led Agenda:Alexandria, Volunteer Alexandria and Alexandria Sportsman’s Club, and has served on several city and regional boards and commissions.
Since 2012, Democratic candidates have swept all seats on City Council. Five Democrats have announced campaigns for the City Council seat—former Alexandria Democratic Committee chair Sandy Marks, Del Ray Citizens Association president Tim Laderach, nonprofit Cornerstone Craftsman leader Roberto Gomez, D.C. Public Schools teacher Cesar Madison Tapia and World Wildlife Fund executive Charles Sumpter.
The Democratic firehouse primary to determine the party’s nominee will be on Saturday, Feb. 21.
The Alexandria Office of Voter Registration and Elections has not yet announced details on the April 21 special election to fill McPike’s seat. April 21 is also the date of a statewide voter referendum on whether to authorize mid-decade redistricting of Virginia’s congressional districts.
