City Council | ALXnow

With school resource officers back, ACPS and Alexandria Police are hammering out a new memorandum of understanding

Published November 16, 2021 at 3:30PM

Alexandria police (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

Alexandria City Public Schools staff and the Police Department are hammering out a revised memorandum of understanding (MOU), and while few details have been released, the school system says that the school resource officer (SRO) program will change next year.

It’s been more than a month since City Council reversed its decision and brought back SROs. The initial decision to defund the officers redirected $800,000 in SRO funding toward mental health resources for students. It created a rift between City Council and the School Board, but after numerous violent incidents with weapons in schools, School Board Chair Meagan Alderton and Superintendent Gregory Hutchings, Jr. pleaded for their return.

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Construction begins for Inova’s massive Oakville Triangle project

By James Cullum

Published November 16, 2021 at 9:45AM

(Left to right) Alexandria Vice Mayor-elect Amy Jackson, Mayor Justin Wilson, Stonebridge Principal Douglas M. Firstenberg and Inova Alexandria Hospital President Dr. Rina Bansal at the groundbreaking for Inova Oakville at Potomac Yard, Nov. 15, 2021. (staff photo by James Cullum)

It wasn’t so much a groundbreaking as it was a wall-breaking, as local dignitaries smashed their way to a new future at the new Inova Oakville at Potomac Yard on Monday (Nov. 15).

After years of development, construction officially began on the $300 million project at the corner of Swann Avenue and Richmond Highway — just down from National Landing and the Virginia Tech’s Innovation Campus. The project and includes more than 1 million square feet of residential space dedicated to apartments, a new 93,000-square-foot Inova HealthPlex with a comprehensive emergency room and 55,000 square feet of retail. The facility is planned to open in fall 2023.

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Alexandria first responder unions question necessity of tax increase to pay for employee raises

By Vernon Miles

Published November 10, 2021 at 3:30PM

Alexandria Fire Department ambulance. (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

In the last few months, a head-long battle between Alexandria’s police and firefighters against city leadership has come to a head as first responders unions say underpayment has left staffing at critical levels.

City staff recently laid out the potential costs to implement a pay raise for first responders, but unions representing those first responders say that sticker shock is less intense in the broader context of the budget.

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Who’s who of Alexandria will advise City Council on City Manager Mark Jinks’ replacement

By James Cullum

Published November 10, 2021 at 1:00PM | Updated November 10, 2021 at 4:08PM

Alexandria City Hall sign (staff Photo by Jay Westcott)

A veritable who’s who in Alexandria will interview the final candidates looking to succeed retiring City Manager Mark Jinks.

On Tuesday night, City Council approved the formation of three advisory committees that will interview the final candidates selected after a five-month-long national search.

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City says first responders’ desired pay increase could mean substantial tax rate increase

By Vernon Miles

Published November 9, 2021 at 2:45PM | Updated November 9, 2021 at 4:48PM

(Updated 4:45 p.m.) At the start of a City Council retreat this weekend, acting Human Resources Director Jen Jenkins laid out some numbers behind the ongoing discussion over a pay increase for city employees.

City employees — first responders in particular — have criticized city leadership’s handling of employee pay and lamented that the city is, in some respects, lowest in regional pay. The city has laid out plans for a 1.5% pay increase, which unions representing first responders called an insulting lowball.

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Alexandria lays out state legislative priorities as ‘house money’ days come to a close

By Vernon Miles

Published November 9, 2021 at 11:00AM

After a few years of somewhat jubilant legislative sessions, the City Council is moving into preparation for a legislative package with a more grim outlook.

The legislative package is an annual list of asks and recommendations from the city to the state government. These sorts of legislative packages are particularly important in Virginia where, as a Dillon Rule state, the authority of the city is limited to only those areas explicitly granted by the state. With Republicans winning control of much of the state government in last week’s election, the all-Democrat City Council’s days of “playing with house money” could be coming to an end.

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Electric scooter program rolls into final review in Alexandria this week

By Vernon Miles

Published November 8, 2021 at 9:50AM

Electronic scooters could become a permanent part of the city ordinance this Saturday (Nov. 13) even as they head into their seasonal decline.

The approval comes after nearly two years of the program being in a pilot phase — even as scooter usage in Alexandria heads into its seasonal decline. Ridership typically falling to less than 10,000 trips city-wide between December and March. The chart also shows that scooter usage hasn’t come close to reaching its pre-pandemic highs in April and May 2019, though 2021 was still a stronger year for scooter usage than 2020 was. In spring 2020, scooter usage fell abysmally low, despite scooters being encouraged as a healthier alternative to riding the bus or carpooling.

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ACPS says no major infrastructure work planned for Alexandria middle schools

By Vernon Miles

Published November 4, 2021 at 11:00AM

George Washington Middle School (staff photo by Vernon Miles)

After recent infrastructure work, Alexandria City Public Schools confirmed that it’s satisfied with the conditions at Alexandria’s middle schools — for the time being.

In what one school official described as a pleasantly “boring” meeting between the City Council and School Board after recent City Council-School Board turmoil, school staff said some recently completed work at George Washington Middle School and Francis C. Hammond Middle School should be the last big investments in those schools for the foreseeable future.

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City Council to step up fight against Comcast internet monopoly next week

By Vernon Miles

Published November 4, 2021 at 9:50AM

Empty municipal fiber cables to be laid in the ground (staff photo by Vernon Miles)

Alexandria’s City Council is scheduled to throw down the gauntlet on Comcast next week as the city works to break the company’s stranglehold on local internet access.

The city broke ground in August on a new municipal fiber-optic network that would boost internet speed at city facilities and public schools, but the part of bigger interest to the public was that a second underground system was being laid simultaneously to allow a private company to step in later and franchise it.

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BREAKING: Wilson wins mayoral reelection, Amy Jackson poised to win vice mayor

By ALXnow.com

Published November 2, 2021 at 10:45PM | Updated November 4, 2021 at 3:42PM

Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson speaks at a vigil against police brutality at the Charles Houston Recreation Center in Old Town on June 4, 2020. (Staff photo by James Cullum)

(Updated 4:15 p.m. on Nov. 3) With 31 of 33 precincts reporting, Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson won a victory over Republican opponent Annetta Catchings on Tuesday.

The general election win came months after Wilson defeated his political rival, former Mayor Allison Silberberg, in the June primary.

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Heritage project appealing appropriateness to City Council after BAR rejection

By Vernon Miles

Published November 2, 2021 at 3:45PM | Updated November 2, 2021 at 4:46PM

Rendering of Block 1 of the Heritage Project, via City of Alexandria

(Updated 4:45 p.m.) After being denied a certificate of appropriateness from the Board of Architectural Review (BAR), Old Town PropCo LLC is taking the case for The Heritage project to the City Council.

The Heritage is a project that will replace four buildings in southeast Old Town ( 900 Wolfe Street, 450 and 510 S. Patrick Street, 901 Gibbon Street, and 431 S. Columbus Street) with three new apartment buildings. It’s attracted some criticism from neighbors close to the project, but was eventually unanimously approved by the City Council.