Good Thursday morning, Alexandria!
🌤️ Today’s weather: Expect a mostly cloudy day with a high temperature around 46°F accompanied by a southwest wind blowing at 5 to 9 mph. The night will be partly cloudy with the temperature dropping to around 32°F and light, variable winds.
Alexandria Natural Resources Manager Rod Simmons has been a prominent voice for environmental concerns around the city in recent years, but Simmons told ALXnow that battles behind the scenes have led him to retire after 27 years in city government.
Simmons, a city employee with the Department of Recreation, Parks and Cultural Affairs, was at the center of controversies related to Taylor Run and other projects.
Mutual respect, growth, and an ability to be vulnerable: That’s the kind of relationship retiring Alexandria Fire Chief Corey Smedley wants with his next job, wherever that might be.
Smedley says he wants purpose, not a position, and that he’d like for the right opportunity to find him.
A 48-year-old Alexandria man was charged last month with illegally discharging a firearm in his back yard in the Potomac West neighborhood of Alexandria.
The incident allegedly occurred on Wednesday, Oct. 25 at around 9:45 p.m. in the 200 block of Aspen Street, according to a recently released search warrant affidavit.
Among the results of a settled lawsuit between the City of Alexandria and the Potomac Riverkeeper Network is a project to add thousands of freshwater mussels to the Potomac River.
City Council member Sarah Bagley gave the Council an update last week from the Waterfront Commission where she said the mussels — which are filter feeders and help clean the water –would be added to the river as part of the city’s remediation efforts.
The Office of Historic Alexandria has debuted its annual holiday ornament: a solid brass decoration depicting Potomac Yard’s rail yard history.
The 3 x 2.75 inch ornament features a steam-powered locomotive in the foreground and the Capitol Building in the background. The ornament is $25.
Good Wednesday morning, Alexandria!
🌧️ Today’s weather: Scattered rain and snow showers are expected before 9am, followed by a slight chance of rain showers until noon. The day will be mostly cloudy with a high near 44, accompanied by a northwest wind of 6 to 14 mph and gusts up to 24 mph. There is a 30% chance of precipitation. For Wednesday night, the skies will be partly cloudy and will reach a low of around 29, with northwest wind ranging from 6 to 11 mph.
(Updated at 4:45 p.m.) By the time this story is published, candidates will have just an hour-and-a-half to file the necessary paperwork to run in the Jan. 9 special election to fill the vacant seat on the Alexandria School Board.
The deadline is 5 p.m. to file the following with the city’s Office of Voter Registration & Elections:
(Updated 3:20 p.m.) Alexandria has nabbed a top spot on another holiday-focused tour list, this time on holiday gift website Mixbook.
The website’s list “America’s Favorite ‘Christmassy’ Towns 2023” ranked Alexandria at number five — though unlike AARP, Mixbook fails to note that Alexandria is a city, not a town.
(Updated at 2:21 p.m. on Dec. 6) The Alexandria Police Department says that an arrest was made after a man was injured in an attempted robbery in the Landmark area of Alexandria’s West End last week.
APD responded to an apartment building at 375 S. Reynolds Street at around 2 p.m. on Nov. 29 in response to a report that a man was shot, according to a department release. Police later determined that no weapon was used, and that the victim was assaulted and suffered non-life threatening injuries.
Afghan students living in Alexandria will premiere an eight-minute documentary this Friday on their experiences during the 2021 evacuation from Afghanistan.
The eight-minute documentary “Desperate” was produced and directed by Zahra Rahimi, an Alexandria City High School senior who has gained notoriety over the past six months for her work helping her fellow Afghan students learn English. It will premiere this Friday at 6 p.m. at the Del Pepper Community Resource Center (4850 Mark Center Drive).
