The Alexandria City Council, on Tuesday, will likely extend its local emergency declaration until January 31, 2022.
The declaration, which was first approved by Council in March 2020, has been continually updated every six months, and finds that “the emergency continues to exist and will exist into the future.”
The Alexandria City Council will likely hire the next city manager before the end of the year, and next week the city will hold a hybrid town hall on the “qualities and values” the next manager should possess.
After six years as the highest-ranking government employee in Alexandria, City Manager Mark Jinks hinted to ALXnow in May that he was going to retire, and then made it official a month later. The city is currently undergoing a national search for his replacement.
The city’s DASH bus network recently went fare-free, and the city is looking for more funding from the state to help it stay that way.
An item at the upcoming Tuesday, Sept. 14, City Council meeting includes an application to the Transit Ridership Incentive Program (TRIP) to help finance the city’s free bus ridership program.
Alexandria Police say they’re desperate for help from the City Council with compensation and hiring, and that out of every one new hire, three officers are leaving the department.
“That’s not sustainable,” said Lt. Marcus Downey, vice president of the International Union of Police Association’s (IUPA), Local 5. “In my 15 years with the department, I’ve never seen it this bad.”
A video has surfaced of a brawl Thursday (August 26) in the cafeteria of Alexandria City High School (ACHS). While the police weren’t called, it was one of two fights broken up that day, according to sources.
Former City Councilman Connie Ring dies — “Carlyle Conwell “Connie” Ring, Jr., 90, passed away peacefully on August 19, 2021, at his home at Goodwin House, Alexandria, Virginia… He was an appointed member of the Alexandria School Board from 1969 to 1978, and chairman from 1976 to 1978. During this time, he was involved in the integration of public schools in Alexandria. Connie later held a seat on Alexandria’s City Council from 1979 to 1988.” [Legacy.com]
Alexandria starts pilot program to rename Confederate-named streets — “Alexandria is launching a pilot program and new process for residents to request changes to street names in the City of Alexandria.” [Alexandria Living]
After getting approval from the General Assembly last year, next month Alexandria will consider adopting a 5 cent plastic bag tax at drug stores, grocery stores and convenience stores.
The proposal, which has been in the works since 2017, will be discussed in a virtual information session on September 8 at 7 p.m.
What a week in Alexandria.
Public uproar over Sunday’s flooding spilled out throughout this week, which continued to be threatened by near-daily flash flood advisories from the National Weather Service.
Danielle Reynolds has actually gotten therapy because of the summer flooding of her Del Ray basement. The family is stuck in a quandary, as moving away isn’t affordable, but neither is spending tens of thousands to continually redo their basement.
“I’ve sought therapy to deal with this, because you can’t move away,” Reynolds told ALXnow. “You can’t afford to buy another house in the area, you love where you live, your kids are friends with all the kids in the neighborhood. You just feel really stuck, and unfortunately there’s not a whole lot that I can do.”
The Alexandria Fire Department is buckling under the strain of a staffing shortage and forced overtime, as firefighters, EMTs and medics say that their operations are not sustainable.
Alexandria Fire Chief Corey Smedley says that staffing shortages within the department, which underwent a restructuring in June, is resulting in an uptick in holdovers (forced overtime).
Without school resource officers and the next school year starting in less than a month, Alexandria City Public Schools Superintendent Gregory Hutchings, Jr. has a plan to beef up security.
Hutchings and staff, on July 16, sent the School Board a three-page proposal acknowledging serious security implications, including “increased vulnerability at school sites, decreased deterrence of situations such as active threats to students, staff and visitors.”
