Vernon Miles | ALXnow

City lays out goals for Arlandria-Chirilagua preservation

Published September 3, 2021 at 10:55AM | Updated September 7, 2021 at 12:28PM

Amazon’s Sword of Damocles is hanging over Arlandria, and city staff have been working with local residents and community leaders to put together a plan to help preserve the local community against gentrification.

Arlandria, also known as Chirilagua, is a primarily Latino community in northern Alexandria with refugees from El Salvador and other parts of Central America.

News

City could extend pandemic-support for local businesses into 2022

By Vernon Miles

Published September 2, 2021 at 3:40PM

At a meeting on Thursday, Sept. 9, the Planning Commission is scheduled to review a proposal to extend certain boons to local businesses set up during the pandemic into next year with the possibility of some changes being made permanent.

The list includes an array of changes aimed at making life a little easier for businesses that took a hit during the pandemic. The changes are currently scheduled to expire on January 1, 2022, but staff is looking to extend that to April next year.

Opinion

Poll: How satisfied are you with ACPS reopening?

By Vernon Miles

Published September 2, 2021 at 2:30PM

Superintendent Gregory Hutchings greets students (staff photo by Vernon Miles)

Alexandria students returned to classrooms for a full five-day school week last Tuesday, marking the start of what could hopefully be the first full year in-school since the pandemic started in early 2020.

Across the school division, Alexandria City Public Schools faced a series of hurdles — from extremely minor like a fox in the vicinity of a middle school to more serious, like a violent brawl in Alexandria City High School.

News

New policy could open up more ‘co-living’ options in Alexandria

By Vernon Miles

Published September 2, 2021 at 10:45AM

Apartment kitchen, via Naomi Hébert/Unsplash

At an upcoming meeting on Thursday, Sept. 9, the Planning Commission is docketed to look at over a new policy that would open up more “co-living” across the city.

Co-living, as defined by the city, is a residential use which allows housing where private bedrooms can be connected to shared spaces, like kitchens, bathrooms and living rooms. Suites can have private bathrooms, but no private cooking facilities are allowed in individual suites or bedrooms under this use.

News

Fire department pay battle heats up as firefighters say staffing issues put public safety at risk

By Vernon Miles

Published August 31, 2021 at 4:05PM

Fire Department recruits training on Feb. 14, 2020. (Staff photo by James Cullum)

The dispersal of the heavy rescue squad was the breaking point for the Alexandria Fire Department, a representative of the local union said.

Jeremy McClayton, organizer for the International Association of Firefighters Local 2141, said the unit — which handles construction site emergencies, operates the jaws of life in car crashes, and performs flooding rescues — was dispersed to fill gaps in staffing across the department. For a fire department seeing a widespread exodus and forced overtime, it was a step too far.

News

West End school purchase headed to Planning Commission review

By Vernon Miles

Published August 31, 2021 at 1:00PM

Swing space at 1703 N. Beauregard Street, via Google Maps

Three years after Ferdinand T. Day Elementary School opened in a former West End office (1701 N Beauregard Street), Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) is moving forward with plans to purchase the rest of the office block for eventual conversion into school space.

ACPS is headed to the Planning Commission on Thursday, Sept. 9, to review plans to purchase the office building for conversion into an educational space. What exactly that will entail, though, still remains to be determined. In the short-term, the building could be used as swing space for schools undergoing modernization, but could eventually become its own 600 student school.

News

ACPS Superintendent Hutchings asks community to hit the brakes on email campaigns

By Vernon Miles

Published August 30, 2021 at 3:40PM

Superintendent Gregory Hutchings, Jr. has one request for the community at large: Lay off the email campaigns.

Rather than individual emails with a question or a comment, Hutchings said his office and others in ACPS staff have been bombarded recently with copy-and-pasted emails. It’s become enough of an issue that Hutchings said at a School Board work session last week that the level of crowding in school staff emails has sometimes caused issues with missed communications.

News

Historic Black cemetery under threat of being washed away in Old Town

By Vernon Miles

Published August 30, 2021 at 10:45AM

Douglass Memorial Cemetery following flood damages in 2021 (photo courtesy Michael Johnson)

Michael Johnson’s grandfather, Albert, died two months before Michael was born and is buried somewhere in Douglass Memorial Cemetery. Where he is exactly buried is unclear, since Albert’s gravestone and several others have been lost as recent flooding threatens to wash away a historic Black cemetery.

The cemetery has been a burial site for Black Alexandrians since 1827 and was named after Frederick Douglass after the abolitionist leader died in 1895. Records who that around 2,000 people were buried in the cemetery until burials stopped in 1974.

News

JUST IN: Severe thunderstorm warning issued for Alexandria

By Vernon Miles

Published August 26, 2021 at 3:40PM

(Updated 3:45 p.m.) Alexandria and the surrounding localities are under a severe thunderstorm and flood warning.

Residents are advised to seek shelter immediately and avoid driving through water on roadways. More than half of all flood-related deaths happen when someone drives through flood waters, according to Consumer Reports.

News

Del Ray park moving forward with lead artist chosen

By Vernon Miles

Published August 26, 2021 at 2:15PM | Updated August 27, 2021 at 9:03AM

Layout of Del Ray Gateway park, via City of Alexandria

Plans for a new fountain and “splash park” at the north end of Del Ray are moving forward as the city aims to have design finished by the end of the year.

The Del Ray Gateway project is a plan to redevelop a triangular park where Mount Vernon and Commonwealth Avenues meet into a water-based community play area.

News

French Twist: Alexandria’s sister city committee wants to revolutionize membership

By Vernon Miles

Published August 26, 2021 at 9:55AM

French flag in Alexandria, photo via Alexandria-Caen Sister City Committee/Facebook

The Alexandria-Caen Sister City Committee is hoping to emerge from the other side of the pandemic reinvigorated and, in some ways, transformed.

The committee was established in 1991 and celebrates both the city’s ties with Caen, France, and French culture in general. It’s one of the more obscure ones, known primarily for the annual D-Day commemorative event, but committee member Elodie Guillon says there’s hope for that to change.