Vernon Miles is the ALXnow cofounder and editor. He's covered Alexandria since 2014 and has been with Local News Now since 2018. When he's not reporting, he can usually be found playing video games or Dungeons and Dragons with friends.
Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson said in a recent virtual town hall that Alexandrians should prepare for the fact that it could be several months before the city moves out of phase 1B.
The problem: there just aren’t enough vaccines.
Fall sports are back at ACPS starting next week.
Superintendent Gregory Hutchings made the announcement official at a School Board meeting last Thursday, but said that students and parents shouldn’t expect it to look like it used to.
What was meant to be a fun, wholesome Super Bowl watch-party with City Councilman John Chapman this weekend was briefly derailed as the meeting was stormed by newcomers with Nazi profile pictures spouting racist slurs.
The meeting was hosted as part of Chapman’s reelection campaign. The event was open to the public and had fairly lax restrictions on who could speak.
Update at 2:10 p.m. — Power has been restored for many customers in the area, with only around 80 now without power. An equipment problem was found to be the source of the outage.
Over 2,000 Dominion Energy customers in Old Town are currently without power.
Well it’s the Superbowl, I guess.
In a national championship game sapped of all build up and anticipation by a year of pandemic and political upheaval, some local restaurants are still using the upcoming event to promote specials.
Several figures instrumental Alexandria’s Civil Rights movement crowded a typically unremarkable Naming Committee meeting last week to express support for naming a park for former school board member Shirley Tyler.
The naming committee voted unanimously in support of naming the unnamed 3550 Commonwealth Avenue Park the Shirley Tyler Unity Park, a blend of the “Shirley Tyler Park” and “Unity Park” suggestions.
Jacob Chansley, one of the rioters at the Capitol Hill insurrection in January who drew public attention and the nickname QAnon Shaman for his outlandish attire, has been transferred to Alexandria’s William G. Truesdale Adult Detention Center.
The move comes after the D.C. Department of Corrections requested Chansley be transferred following a court order that confirmed Chansley’s right to only be fed organic food, Buzzfeed News reported.
Like many Alexandrians, Tonya Kemp faced a difficult 2020 early on when she lost her job in May. But out of that loss came a new project that became a new business: West End candy shop Rocket Fizz (1721 Centre Plaza).
Alexandria’s Rocket Fizz is a locally-owned franchise of the mostly-America based soda pop and candy shop chain.
Alexandria’s Recreation, Parks, and Cultural Activities (RPCA) is planning an overhaul of recreational park on Eisenhower Avenue to add new sports fields and other amenities.
Joseph Hensley Park at 4194 Eisenhower Avenue — just west of the Animal Welfare League — is currently an open field mostly occupied by a central baseball diamond. The new design will feature two baseball diamonds and a soccer field with synthetic turf.
The city’s plans to overhaul Taylor Run to combat the erosion of the stream has generated some controversy as both local civic groups and some environmental activists have expressed concerns about the restoration’s impacts.
Criticisms of the city’s plan range from the simple — many of the trees and foliage in the forest will be torn down, though the city has committed to planting new growth and says the damage will be worse if erosion is left unchecked — to the more in-the-weeds concerns — like phosphorous levels in the water might not match the city’s models, meaning the levels of estimated pollution justifying the restoration could be lower than what’s currently speculated.
Alexandria boxer Troy Isley has just gone professional and is headed into a fight next Saturday with something to prove.
“I’m feeling good,” Isley said. “I’m ready. I’m eager and getting anxious.”
