With a bit of luck, Alexandria Health Director Stephen Haering said the city could start to get its hands on a vaccine by December.
A limited supply of vaccine and a high public demand has led to national, state, and local plans on determining who gets the vaccine, when, and how. Haering outlined some of the plans for Alexandria at a City Council meeting last night.
As the city continues to adapt to primarily virtual meetings, Vice Mayor Elizabeth Bennett-Parker is spearheading an effort to open up new ways for the public to provide input on city affairs.
While the move coincides with the extended online-only year of city governance, Bennett-Parker said the issue also taps into earlier lack of online access for city residents.
Just as the scooter program was starting to take off in Alexandria and the electric vehicles became ubiquitous on Old Town streets, new data shows the pandemic tanked scooter usage in the city throughout 2020.
A report going to the City Council tomorrow (Tuesday) showed that while scooter usage exceeded 2019 levels in January and February of 2020, by March the pandemic had started to hit scooter usage. In April and May — during the stay-at-home order, ridership tanked to near non-existence in the months that had been the peak of ridership in 2019.
For over four years, Alexandria Police have failed to get body worn cameras off the ground. A new report going to City Council this Tuesday outlines the costs and staffing issues that have played a part in that extended delay.
“Oftentimes, jurisdictions do not realize the true extent of costs to implement a program that is based on deploying technology devices,” City staff said in a report. “The belief that the costs are solely the devices and associated licensing fees leads to disastrous results when the ripple effects of that technology are felt. The proliferation of cloud-based technology solutions actually adds to the impression that the cost of the desired ‘e-widget’ is all that is needed for consideration. In few areas could the purchase of technology in one agency have a huge impact across many others the way that BWC programs do.”
Big changes are coming to the Eisenhower corridor, with two new developments approved at the City Council meeting last Saturday that put some of the final puzzle pieces together.
One of the more visible changes will be the approved development of Block P in Carlyle — referred to by staff as the last block in Carlyle. The project was originally approved in 2007 as a pair of office towers, but the project was recently redesigned with the northern tower becoming a hotel while the southern tower would be residential.
In a joint work session on Tuesday with the Alexandria City Council, Alexandria City Public Schools laid out its side of upcoming cuts and compromises in light of what promises to be a strained upcoming fiscal year.
One of the large items was that the planned modernization for George Mason Elementary School and Cora Kelly School for Math, Science and Technology will be delayed by one year.
(Updated 11/18) The Alexandria City Council met with state legislators this weekend to hammer out priorities for the upcoming year, complete with a few sparks as legislators and City Council representatives clashed.
A few times every year, Alexandria’s city leadership meets with state representatives to iron out what local government sees as priorities for the session. The meetings have grown substantially more hopeful in the year since the Democrats took control of the legislature.
What a week full of news in Alexandria.
With city offices closed due to Veterans Day on Wednesday, there were still a number of big stories.
As you park at home and head inside after getting back from a flea market or cat cafe, maybe check one more time to make sure you’ve locked your car.
At a City Council meeting earlier this week, Mayor Justin Wilson said a spate of recent car thefts have mostly targeted unlocked cars.
After 35 years, Councilwoman Redella “Del” Pepper has announced that this will be her last year on the City Council.
Pepper said in an email to friends and supporters that she would not run for reelection, Alexandria Living Magazine first reported.
As cases start to rise again nationwide and in Alexandria, the City Government Community Recovery Plan Team has put out a proposed coronavirus recovery plan that’s headed to the City Council tomorrow (Tuesday).
The recovery is put together into a series of 10 recommendations covering different parts of the community that were devastated by coronavirus.
