Alexandria commemorated the 100 year anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment on Tuesday with a socially distant ceremony outside the Kate Waller Barrett Library.
Mayor Justin Wilson read a city proclamation that recounted the dozens of suffragists who were imprisoned, tortured and ultimately released from the Occoquan Workhouse after their case was thrown out in the federal courthouse in Alexandria.
Former Councilman Bob Calhoun Dies — “Bob Calhoun, a former Republican state senator and city councilor, died on Aug. 6 of prostate cancer. He was 83.” [Alex Times]
ACPS Staffer at John Adams Elementary Registration Site Tests Positive for Coronavirus — “The site has currently been closed for cleaning and ACPS will follow all guidelines for ensuring that our facilities are clean and safe prior to reopening. The risk to anyone who was in contact with this individual at the school site has been deemed low, due to the specific circumstances of this case, including proper use of personal protective equipment (PPE) and physical distancing.” [Facebook]
The Alexandria City Council will receive a staff proposal next month on a community police review board, and Councilman Mo Seifeldein says he wants the body to have independent investigative authority and subpoena power in investigating police misconduct.
“Don’t abuse your power is what it comes down to,” Seifeldein said in a virtual meeting on Tuesday night. “The board could receive complaints that deal with abuse of power, serious misconduct… unnecessary force, unreasonable excessive use of force, use of racial, ethnic or sexual language/ remarks or just harassment, generally.”
U.S. Senator Kamala Harris was named Joe Biden’s vice presidential candidate on Tuesday, and some in the deeply blue Alexandria are celebrating.
Alexandria Congressman Don Beyer (D-VA) said Harris is a powerful and historic choice.
COVID-19 Cases increase by 10 — “Positive tests up 10 to 2,759 in the City 7-day Positivity Rate down to 5.6% 0 new hospitalizations Still safer at home, wash hands, wear masks and support our essential workers.” [Twitter]
Beyer Votes for Republican Colleague by Proxy — “Beyer is a popular proxy choice for House Democrats, since he represents a Northern Virginia district that is just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.” [Roll Call]
A series of new improvements to Alexandria’s Union Station — a Virginia Railway Express stop — proposed late last year are moving forward toward city approval.
The plan is to create new Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant access with a grade-separated pedestrian tunnel and elevator access. The expansion will also allow the station to take two trains at any given time, with one at each platform. The change is part of a regional effort to reduce the system’s bottleneck around the D.C. area.
Tourism in Alexandria isn’t what it used to be. With local economies devastated by the pandemic, First Lady of Virginia Pamela Northam visited Alexandria on Wednesday (July 22) to promote safe tourism and congratulate the city on winning a $10,000 grant for its Great Walks program.
“In 2018, Virginia tourists spent more than $26 billion here, and this put 235,000 people to work and contributed $1.8 billion in local and state tax revenue,” Northam told a small audience in the Torpedo Factory Art Center. “This year, however, our tourism and hospitality industries have been among the hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic.”
Alexandria’s development of a community police review board is too insular and groups representing the city’s minority populations are not being consulted, says Alexandria NAACP President Christopher Harris and community advocates.
“It appears to be an insular process,” Harris told ALXnow. “I would think that at the least out of courtesy you would reach out to the NAACP to get feedback and input, given that most of the people affected are members of the African American community.”
The office building at 4850 Mark Center Drive may not be known to many Alexandrians, but on Tuesday it was approved as the eventual headquarters of the city’s Health Department and Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS) — and potentially a temporary hub of city administration once repairs to City Hall move forward.
At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, the council approved purchasing the building for $58.7 million and to relocate the Health Department andn DCHS into the 10-story building.
There were public concerns about the massing, height, and construction hours for the newly approved development at 701 N. Henry Street. Behind those criticisms though was a recurring theme: many residents of the city’s historic Parker-Gray neighborhood are unhappy with the new density coming to their neighborhood.
Before it was part of the trendy Braddock neighborhood, with Metro adjacent coffee shops and bars, the Parker-Gray neighborhood was a historic black community formed as a haven for former slaves after the Civil War and solidified into a distinct center of Black life in Alexandria during segregation, according to the Washington Post.
Alexandria businesses struggled with poor sales during the shutdown, and now that drop in revenue is coming around to leave the City of Alexandria with little commercial tax support for an already strained budget.
According to information shared by Mayor Justin Wilson, the city faced a dramatic drop off in business taxes in April and May.
