City Council will consider a lease agreement tonight to move a portion of the Department of Transportation and Environmental Services to a 5,600-square-foot office space at AlexRenew Headquarters.
The city’s wastewater authority at 1800 Limerick Street finished construction of its headquarters in 2016, and was designed for expansion on the fifth floor.
Alexandria is experiencing a shortage of mental health staff, and City Manager Jim Parajon is asking City Council for $900,000 to solve the problem.
Tonight Council will consider releasing the funds from contingent reserves to pay for strategies to hire and retain the city’s mental health staff.
Alexandria City Manager Jim Parajon is recommending that City Council not sell a tiny parcel of land at 2 King Street on the Alexandria waterfront.
Last year, the city issued a request for proposals (RFP) for the 1,825-square-foot property between Waterfront Park and The Strand Street. The city received two responses from the RFP, and since then Parajon’s office and the city’s Real Estate Committee came to the conclusion that it should cancel solicitation of the project until the waterfront mitigation project is completed.
The Alexandria City Council incumbents have held onto their nominations in the Democratic primary.
While incumbents John Chapman, Sarah Bagley, Kirk McPike and Canek Aguirre have secured their spots as the Democratic candidates, along with newcomer School Board Member Abdel Elnoubi and School Board Member Jacinta Greene.
At a recent City Council meeting, Council member John Chapman pushed back against critics of the city’s new rainbow crosswalks in Old Town celebrating the LGBTQ community.
The crosswalks, a project City Council member Kirk McPike helped spearhead, debuted this year in time for Pride Month. The crosswalks at the intersection of King and Royal streets are a permanent new addition to the city’s streetscape.
There’s pawsitive news for dog owners: Alexandrians can officially adopt more than three dogs.
At a City Council meeting this weekend, the city amended its ordinance to increase the limit on the number of dogs per dwelling unit from three to five.
Sarah Bagley says that Alexandria residents have invested time and energy into making her an effective member of the Alexandria City Council, and she says she’s running for reelection to honor that investment.
A lot has changed in the city since Bagley was first elected and then virtually sworn in in January 2022. Alexandria was on the tail end of the COVID-19 pandemic and has since gone through a crime surge, the introduction and the failure of the Potomac Yard arena deal, a number of key changes in departmental leadership (namely the police and fire chiefs) as well as the controversial upending of the city’s residential zoning policies.
Jacinta Greene says that her two three-year terms on the Alexandria School Board have prepared her for City Council.
Greene faces 10 opponents for the six City Council spots in contention for the June 18 primary. She’s running against four incumbent City Council Members, against a fellow School Board Member, two candidates who are running for their second chance at the nomination after losing in 2021, and some newcomers. She’s raised about $50,000 for her campaign, and as of June 5 has about $31,000 in the bank, according to recently released quarterly finance reports.
A stalled development project in Old Town, called The Heritage, could be getting a boost from the city’s housing authority to get it over the finish line.
The City Council is docketed to consider a resolution “authorizing the issuance of revenue bonds by the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority (ARHA) for the Heritage at Old Town Redevelopment Project.”
The Alexandria City Council and mayor could be getting a pay increase, though the pay in Alexandria is still dramatically less than other Northern Virginia jurisdictions.
Currently Alexandria’s mayor earns $41,500 annually, while council members and the vice mayor earns $37,500. Despite how busy the City Council jobs are, most members of council still keep other full-time jobs. Mayor Justin Wilson, for example, is also the senior director of supplier management at Amtrak.
A majority of Alexandria’s Democrat candidates for City Council rank climate action high on their priority lists.
A number of candidates recently expressed their opinions in a Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions and Build Our Future questionnaire.
