Cupcakes, music and fireworks punctuated Alexandria’s 275th birthday on Saturday.
It was a clear night for a party at Oronoco Bay Park (100 Madison Street) along the Potomac River. Mayor Justin Wilson and city leaders spoke onstage before handing out thousands of birthday cupcakes.
Fresh from her primary win on June 18, Alexandria’s presumptive mayor says she is starting to form a transition team and will continue campaigning until the Nov. 5 election to get the Democratic slate of six candidates elected to Alexandria’s City Council.
City Council Member Alyia Gaskins took a few days off after defeating Vice Mayor Amy Jackson and retired real estate developer Steven Peterson on June 18. She and her husband and two kids went back home to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for four days.
A new ambulance service is likely heading to Alexandria, though it won’t be able to respond to medical emergencies in the city.
City Council will consider a resolution tomorrow on allowing RIDE24 LLC, a new private ambulance service located at 2121 Eisenhower Avenue, to provide non-emergency related services within Alexandria.
At a City Council meeting earlier this week, Alexandria City Manager Jim Parajon said the city has seen some advances but also some hurdles in its efforts to make abortion and other women’s health services accessible.
Two years ago, Alexandria’s City Council adopted a resolution asking the City Manager to consider proposals ensuring “accessibility of reproductive health services, safe abortion services, accessible maternal and child health services for low-income Alexandria residents.”
Three years after being established by City Council, Alexandria’s Independent Community Policing Review Board is still not up and running. Now after another delay, the board will have to postpone investigating hundreds of allegations of police misconduct until at least the fall.
It’s been more than four years since the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin. The event sparked international outrage, also resulting in protests in Alexandria where Mayor Justin Wilson and city leaders called for police accountability.
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.
A major critic of Alexandria’s residential zoning reforms has thrown his hat into the ring as an Independent candidate for City Council.
Roy Byrd, the co-founder of The Coalition for a Livable Alexandria, made the announcement in a press release.
Alexandria City Council Member Alyia Gaskins defeated her two Democrat rivals on Tuesday, effectively becoming mayor-elect as she faces no opposition in November.
The win makes Gaskins the first Black woman to be mayor of the city.
Nine new townhomes and four semi-detached dwellings are being proposed for a half-acre property used for an office building and warehouse in the Old Town Historic District.
The Alexandria Planning Commission will be presented with the proposal to build on the two parcels at 107 and 125 N. West Street. The location is about a half-block from King Street, and is near Jefferson Houston Elementary School and the King St. Metro station.
