Alexandria’s political scene is heating up, as a number of Democrat candidates formally launched their campaigns over the weekend.

City Council Member Alyia Gaskins held a packed kickoff at Indochen in Cameron Station on Sunday, following her opponent Vice Mayor Amy Jackson’s kickoff on Jan. 21 at Doyle’s Outpost in the West End. On Saturday, City Council Member Kirk McPike launched his campaign at Pork Barrel BBQ in Del Ray and City Council Member John Taylor Chapman did the same at Port City Brewing Company.

In her speech, Gaskins didn’t get into her positions on large projects in the city, like the Potomac Yard arena or the massive WestEnd development, but said that she is devoted to the nitty gritty of policies that maintain a quality of life for residents.

“I am running to be your next mayor to make sure that your city, that my city, that our collective city is a place that is safe, affordable, accessible, and one that truly and finally works for all of us,” Gaskins said.

A third mayoral candidate, Steven Peterson, will announce his candidacy to the Alexandria Democratic Committee on Monday, Feb. 5, followed by his formal kickoff later in the month.

City Council Members Sarah Bagley and Canek Aguirre are also running for reelection and have not announced when their kickoffs will be held. Aguirre is finalizing details for an event in Arlandria next month, he told ALXnow. Candidate Charlotte Scherer, a former Alexandria magistrate, is holding her campaign kickoff on Feb. 21 at Mount Purrnon Cat Cafe & Wine Bar in Old Town.

Chapman has been on council since 2012, and is the most senior member running for reelection. An Alexandria native who grew up in public housing, he said at his kickoff that doing City Council work is a “labor of love.”

“We have a thriving city,” he said. “It takes good policy, it takes advocating for resources.”

The other candidates with intentions to run haven’t announced when their campaigns will formally launch. They include Alexandria School Board Members Jacinta Greene and Abdel Elnoubi, West End Business Association President James Lewis, Del Ray’s Jesse O’Connell and Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority Resident Association President Kevin Harris.

The Democratic primary is on June 18. No Republican candidates have entered the race.

Campaign finances

Gaskins is leading the money race so far, raising $46,000 with $34,000 on-hand as of Dec. 31, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. Jackson has raised $16,900, and has $15,800 on-hand.

Longtime City Council Member Del Pepper endorsed Gaskins and donated $3,000 to her campaign.

“She has the ability to work with people she disagrees with,” Pepper said at the event. “You’ve got to have that if you want to be a good mayor.”

In the Council race, Chapman leads with fundraising, having raised $19,579 with $16,624 on-hand. McPike has raised $14,790, with $12,087 on-hand, followed by Aguirre, who raised $7,020 and has $10,716 on-hand. Bagley raised $3,320 and has $856 on-hand and Scherer is self-financing her campaign and contributed $900.

(Updated at 4 p.m. on Jan. 29) Critics contend that the proposed Alexandria City Public Schools budget shortchanges staff, but that’s not what the superintendent is saying.

Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt says that her proposed $374 million fiscal year 2025 budget focuses on retention with a full step increase and a 2% market rate adjustment for eligible staff. The school system is currently experiencing a staffing crisis, and the budget also increases bus driver salaries to $24 an hour for new drivers and more than $47 per hour for senior drivers with more than a decade experience with the school system. The budget also opens the door to the creation of a collective bargaining agreement with staff.

At Thursday night’s public hearing on Kay-Wyatt’s budget, Alexandria Middle School teacher David Paladin Fernandez said that the school system needs to come to a collective bargaining agreement. He also said that the budget does not provide a cost of living adjustment (COLA) for staff.

“If I asked everyone in this room if our educators deserved more, I have no doubt that every single one of us would say yes,” Fernandez told the School Board. “We’ve had a record exodus of top-tier educators to surrounding school districts with no plan to address it, and we have members of ACPS leadership suggesting the preposterous idea that a step (increase) is the same thing as a cost of living adjustment… A step is related to my experience and loyalty to the organization and a cost of living adjustment is related to larger economic realities we have no control over. They are not the same thing and they should be recognized in this budget.”

ACPS Chief Financial Officer Dominic Turner said in a Jan. 11 School Board retreat that the school system has seen a lot of turnover in school leadership over the past several years. An ACPS teacher with a bachelor’s degree makes about $58,000 and an ACPS teacher with a master’s degree makes an average of $90,000, and the majority of ACPS teachers are on a Master’s degree scale.

“In the past three years we’ve had 14 new principals and we’ve had 20 new members on the SLT (senior leadership team),” Turner told the Board.

Robin Benatti is the parent of an 8th grader and 6th grader at Francis C. Hammond Middle School, and said at the public hearing that she was “appalled that the budget does not include a COLA.

“This poor decision is going to hurt our students, and further damage our reputation,” Benatti told the Board Thursday. “Teachers in ACPS deserve to make reasonable compensation. This proposal falls short, big time. The struggle to hire qualified teachers for our extremely dense school district will only intensify if you don’t also include a COLA. Be bold. Be aggressive in your position to show the community that you believe in investing in our educational talent.”

Alicia Hosmer has children at Alexandria City High School and at Hammond, and said that a COLA will make the school system more attractive for staff.

“My 8th grader and his classmates have been without an Algebra teacher and their learning is suffering,” Hosmer told the Board. “We cannot recruit and keep top talent when surrounding districts such as Fairfax and Arlington are proposing to give teachers both a COLA and step increases. We will lose more teachers to surrounding districts which means more empty classrooms and more strain on the teachers who remain with ACPS.”

School Board Member Meagan Alderton said at the Jan. 11 retreat that a positive work environment is as important incentive as compensation for staff retention.

“I think pay is 100% essential,” Alderton said. “But we need to be thinking about the job environment we provide to make people want to stay in this profession. There are plenty of people who just love teaching, who love education, and I do believe that if people feel successful in this work, that will also make them stay.”

In the meantime, Board Chair Michelle Rief is concerned that the budget is asking for a 4% increase in the city’s appropriation ($258.69 million) and a 4.1% increase from the state (about $2.5 million), but that the Governor’s proposed budget would transfer only 2-to-3% of requested funding.

“If we don’t receive the state and the city funding that we need, we are not going to be able to pass this budget,” Rief said.

ACPS will hold a public meeting on collective bargaining on Jan. 25. The Board will adopt its budget on Feb. 16, and it will then be incorporated into City Manager Jim Parajon’s budget, which will be presented on March 14.

(Updated at 5 p.m.) One-on-one therapy, an art program and mental health first aid training are just a few of the new offerings in a proposed mental health program pilot at Alexandria recreation centers.

City Council will review the six-month, $75,000 pilot program with the city’s Department of Recreation, Parks, & Cultural Activities (RPCA) at its meeting Tuesday night. The program would run at three recreation centers — Charles Houston (901 Wythe Street), William Ramsay (5650 Sanger Avenue) and Patrick Henry (4650 Taney Avenue).

The city has been making concerted efforts toward access to mental health resources. Earlier this year, Alexandria City Public Schools expanded their virtual mental health services in a partnership with Hazel Health, prompting ACPS Executive Director of Student Support Teams to provide feedback on unmet needs.

“ACPS suggested that RPCA conduct focus groups with students and use the pilot to tie in supports to substance use education, suicide prevention, and community building activities at City recreation centers,” staff said in a memo to Council.

The program was developed after RPCA staff interviewed more than 50 children at the three recreation centers.

City Council Member Alyia Gaskins introduced the program into the current budget.

“I was proud to introduce the budget add for this pilot as a direct response to young people’s request to ‘meet them where they are’ and to ‘create more safe spaces,'” Gaskins said. “The staff proposal was shaped directly by and with our youth.”

The pilot would be funded from the city’s contingent reserves, with $65,000 going to “direct services and training,” with the remainder used for space modifications, according to the memo.

“Additional funding would be required to continue these services into future fiscal years and/or to additional recreation centers,” staff wrote.

According to the city, the program would contain the following:

1. Utilize contractor-based mental wellness programming: RPCA identified a contractor, that provides a variety of programs for youth that incorporate several activities that youth spoke about in our focus groups while establishing a platform to discuss challenging issues. All the instructors for the programs are licensed therapists, social workers, and/or counselors. In conjunction with the programs, they will follow up one-on-one with youth as needed and can help identify additional needs to provide specific referrals. RPCA used this contractor this fall to provide a mental health-based art program at Charles Houston and the teens consistently participated and looked forward to the program (and the class instructors) every week.

The three contracted programs proposed are:

• Art Program: The Arts offer an opportunity for teenagers to develop a positive sense of self-esteem and formulate healthy coping skills. Staff has taken note of the powerful impact the Arts can have on the overall well-being of teenagers. The Arts program consists of weekly lesson plans, workshops, and collaborative projects that focus on building self-esteem, coping skills, and goal setting.
• Wellness Club: The club is dedicated to promoting mental wellness, decompression, and self-care through a variety of activities such as art, music, and wellness practices. The main goal of the club is to support students in developing positive coping mechanisms to reduce stress, while also teaching relaxation techniques through leisure activities and mindfulness. These activities may include arts and crafts, puzzles, music, yoga, breathing techniques, and guest speakers such as therapists, life coaches, and yoga instructors.
• Scholars Program: The program applies mental health strategies to academics in the classroom. This program aims to teach students how to develop coping skills to manage anxiety and focus on successfully completing their assignments and exams. Mental health professionals will guide students through an overview of mental health awareness, mindfulness techniques, and provide guidance on when and how to apply coping strategies.

2. Provide Youth Mental Health First Aid and Question Persuade Refer (QPR) suicide prevention training to RPCA recreation center staff working with youth. Youth Mental Health First Aid is designed to teach parents, family members, caregivers, teachers, school staff, peers, neighbors, health and human services workers, and other caring citizens how to help an adolescent (age 11-18) who is experiencing a mental health or addictions challenge or is in crisis. Youth mental Health First Aid is primarily designed for adults who regularly interact with young people. The course introduces common mental health challenges for youth, reviews typical adolescent development, and teaches a -step action plan for how to help young people both in crisis and non-crisis situations. Topics covered include anxiety, depression, substance use, disorders in which psychosis may occur, disruptive behavior disorders (including AD/HD), and eating disorders.

3. Provide Teen Mental Health First Aid training for teens participating in center activities. The program teaches teens in grades 10-12, or ages 15-18, how to identify, understand and respond to signs of a mental health or substance use challenge in their friends and peers. The training gives teens the skills to have supportive conversations with their friends and teaches them how to get help from a responsible and trusted adult.

4. Identify and utilize contracted therapists for speaking engagements with parents with a goal of reducing the stigma of seeking help for mental health challenges. Based on direct concerns or feedback from parents, contract therapists, CSB referrals and DCHS staff can provide additional resources.

5. Configure existing center spaces to support trauma-informed practices including, privacy, comfort, decompression, and one-on-one discussions with trusted adults, including licensed providers.

There’s less than a week to go until the Jan. 9 special election for Alexandria’s open District A School Board seat, and things are getting interesting.

With a focus on helping Alexandria City Public Schools craft a collective bargaining agreement with staff, retired labor leader Tim Beaty has secured key endorsements from the two other School Board Members in District A — Board Chair Michelle Rief and Jacinta Greene, as well as from City Council Members Canek Aguirre and Kirk McPike, Sheriff Sean Casey, NOVA Labor and the Education Association of Alexandria teachers union.

His opponent Gina Baum, a former longtime member of the city’s Park and Recreation Commission has positioned herself as a candidate willing to fight with her colleagues on the dais and to ask City Council to pony up millions to restore step increases to teachers.

The candidates have had a few notable public appearances since the seat opened up in November. In a Liberally Social podcast moderated by Alexandria Democratic Committee Chair Sandy Marks on Dec. 26, Baum expressed concern over a perceived lack of public discourse between the Board and the public, and questioned whether School Board Members are operating within their guidelines by when going into closed session during meetings. They also spoke Tuesday at an Alexandria Democratic Committee meeting, and last night in an Alexandria PTA Council forum.

“I think one of the oddities with this board as opposed to some of the other boards I’ve served on in the city is that we on other boards actually fight with each other,” Baum said on the podcast.  “I’m finding with this board for whatever reason, there seems to be a lack of open public discourse in our community, I believe feels like that, that they’re hiding things from us, right and they’re not being transparent. “

Beaty, on the other hand, positioned himself as a Spanish-speaking bridge-builder who wants to improve relations with non-English speaking families within the school system.

“I think we have to help parents understand what their kids are going through,” Beaty said. “I think I can I can be part of a link to do that.”

Beaty’s been a substitute teacher at two ACPS elementary schools for the last two years, and was previously global strategies director for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. He says that he has 40 years of collective bargaining experience and that a good agreement will result in staff retention.

“My experience throughout my life is that a strong relationship between labor and management does a lot of good for the efficiency of any institution where it exists,” he said in the podcast. I think it’s important that we recognize our teachers by letting them form a union, by encouraging them to form a union and to encourage this process of collective bargaining, leading to a contract. I think it’ll attract it’ll help maintain our current staff.”

Baum is a managing broker with Keller Williams Metro Center. She has not been endorsed by any groups, but has gotten the endorsement of a number of individuals, including former Mayor Bill Euille, and one current public official — City Council Member John Taylor Chapman. If elected, Baum said she would get the support of her colleagues to ask City Council to find upward of $8 million to solve a staffing crisis by restoring step increases for teachers.

“I would suggest that (ACPS Superintendent) Dr. Kay-Wyatt and the School Board write to Council and say, ‘We need this amount of money because we have to restore teacher’s steps,'” Baum said on the podcast. “They deserve their salary increases. They deserve the cost of living increases, and it’s a political year. All of our council members are going to be running a campaign. We have the campaign for the mayor happening. I think if we go to them and say this is for our teachers, they will, in fact, find the money.”

Baum said that the proposal is procedurally possible, drawing criticism one Council expert, who called it a “fairy tale.”

“Sure, it’s possible,” said the source, who spoke on the condition on anonymity. “I mean, anything is procedurally possible. The reality is a completely different thing. All you have to do is look at the budget right now, and that the school system had to take $50 million out of the Capital Improvement Program budget. How are we going to find the $8 million for teachers? Don’t get me wrong, it’s an admirable thing to do, but you don’t just find money out of the blue and do this overnight. Where you realistically find it is within the collective bargaining process.”

ACPS approved funds to develop an official ACPS plan and policy for collective bargaining with employees in the current budget.

The District A seat became available when School Board Member Willie Bailey abruptly resigned, prompting the Alexandria Circuit Court to order the special election for Jan. 9. The winner will serve out the remaining 11 months of Bailey’s term before the next School Board is sworn into office in January 2025. It also means that the seat, along with the eight other school board seats, is up for grabs in the Nov. 5 general election.

(Updated at 11:30 a.m.) The field of candidates is getting crowded in Alexandria’s Democratic primary for City Council.

The list of nine candidates includes four incumbents, two School Board Members, two community leaders and a former magistrate, who, if elected would be the first transgender City Council member.

Two City Council slots (out of six) are up for grabs since Vice Mayor Amy Jackson and Council Member Alyia Gaskins are vacating their seats in their quests to replace outgoing Mayor Justin Wilson. Nine candidates have announced their intention to run, and six of them spoke last night at the Alexandria Democratic Committee’s monthly meeting.

City Council Members John Taylor Chapman, Sarah Bagley and Kirk McPike announced their intention to run last night, and Councilman Canek Aguirre will be announcing his candidacy in the coming days, he told ALXnow. Alexandria School Board Members Jacinta Greene and Abdel Elnoubi are also running, as are West End Business Association President James Lewis, Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority Resident Association President Kevin Harris and former Alexandria magistrate Charlotte Scherer.

Chapman, an Alexandria native, is seeking a fifth three-year term, making him the senior candidate running in the race.

“I’m going to be, hopefully, one of those individuals that can bring the experience of the last 11 years with the City Council to bear as we hopefully start a new tour with council members,” Chapman said. ” We’ve been through a lot, through recession, we’ve been through a pandemic, we’ve been through changes in state and federal leadership that, frankly, desire to take our city backward. And it’s this local part of the energy we have here that says to state changes and federal changes, ‘We need to have more.'”

Bagley is seeking her second term, and said that she’s been effective over the last three years.

“What I’m really proud of is in our first few years on council, we created an Office of Climate Action that cost $1.8 million,” she said. “We got a green business program now that’s being promoted.”

McPike is also seeking his second term in office and said that it wasn’t easy growing up gay in Texas, but that he found his home in Alexandria.

“We need to take the next step to our green building program and not only focus on what we’re building, but what we’ve already built, and how can we reduce the carbon emissions from our current buildings and infrastructure,” he said. “We need to take a real hard look at Alexandria’s long-term budget to make sure that we’re balancing our revenues, addressing our expenses so that we can continue to be a city that is prosperous, and most importantly, continue to fully fund the budget for Alexandria City Public Schools.”

Elnoubi was uncontested in his election to the School Board in 2021. That year, he decided against a City Council campaign and decided instead to run for the open District C slot.

“As your school board member, I’ve championed and supported several initiatives, such as pay increases for our educators, secured additional funding for additional teachers to adjust class sizes, added psychologists to address mental health,” he said. “We passed a resolution for 15 mile-an-hour school zones, and we’ve protected this community from (Republican Virginia Gov.) Glenn Youngkin, when we beat him in court during the height of the pandemic.”

Greene, who was elected to the School Board in 2018, did not announce on Tuesday night, and sent ALXnow the following statement: “As a proud Alexandrian for the past 21 years, an Alexandria School Board Member and a dedicated public servant, I am excited to announce my intent to run for the Alexandria City Council.”

Lewis said that the city needs to go beyond the Zoning for Housing initiative Council recently passed in order to continue increasing its stock of affordable housing.

“We all live in Alexandria because it’s a great city,” Lewis said. “But as with any place, we know that there are challenges, and I think front of mind for everyone is our affordable housing challenges. Council has taken some significant steps to get us there, but we all know that those are just steps… What’s really important to me personally, though, is also looking not just at affordable housing, but affordable homeownership to help families get out of the rat trap, build generational wealth and put roots down in this city.”

Scherer, a retired attorney and former Alexandria magistrate, is running her first campaign. If elected, she would be the first transgender member of Alexandria’s City Council. She said that she wants to build upon the city’s Zoning for Housing initiative, and that she’s a fast learner.

“I’m running to continue my journey of service and advocacy for the community I call home,” she said. “I’m dedicated to improving housing affordability, making substantial investments in our infrastructure and schools, extending transportation options for better accessibility, saving Metro first, and enhancing water and sewer management to protect our environment.”

Harris said that he will launch his campaign later this month.

“As a proud servant of Alexandria with a track record of working to improve the quality of life of it’s citizens and of working to help our city realize it’s potential, I’m excited about the opportunity to partner with and serve the citizens of our city at another level,” he said. “It’s definitely my intention to run for City Council. We will be making our official announcement and launch this month.”

The filing deadline for candidates is in late March and the Democratic Primary is on June 18.

(Updated 5:25 p.m.) The owner of an aging office building in Old Town North wants it converted into a 136-unit apartment building, and credits the decision to the “ongoing and diminished office market and current high vacancy rate.”

The five-story, 112,000-square-foot office building was built in 1983. It’s owned by Principal Life Insurance Co. of Des Moines, Iowa, and managed by PF III Abingdon LLC, an affiliate of the D.C.-based real estate investment firm the Pinkard Group.

“Due to the on-going, diminished office market and current high vacancy rate, the Applicant seeks residential use to repurpose the building,” PF III Abingdon LLC said in its application.

The group wants approval to build a new 43,352-square-foot building wing at the south of the property, which is currently occupied by a surface parking lot. They want to increase the 50-foot height limit to 65 feet to accommodate a mechanical penthouse on top of the building, as well as make lobby, courtyard and other aesthetic improvements. The plan also includes seven on-site affordable housing apartments.

The plan will go to the Planning Commission on Tuesday, Feb. 6.

Despite having a high vacancy rate, the applicant said that traffic in the area will diminish.

“The surrounding streets will operate at a less congested state with residential use as compared to office use,” the applicant said. “No new parking will be constructed as the existing parking is sufficient for the proposed number of residential units.”

The proposal joins a trend of local developers converting outdated offices to residential properties, as roughly a quarter of workers in the D.C. Metro area continue working remotely.

Image via Google Maps

Two longtime members of the city’s Budget and Fiscal Affairs Advisory Committee (BFAAC) resigned earlier this month after severely criticizing the leadership of Alexandria City Public Schools Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt during a meeting.

BFAAC Vice Chair Kathy Stenzel resigned on Dec. 14 and Board Member Karen Graf resigned on Dec. 16 without providing a reason, according to the city. Graf was chair of the Alexandria School Board in 2013 and 2014, and was a School Board member for six years.

The resignations followed an adhoc Dec. 11 subcommittee meeting, where members were planning an upcoming joint session between city and ACPS staff. In that meeting, Stenzel, Graf and member Laurie McNamara said that Kay-Wyatt is “closed off,” and questioned her leadership style and how effectively ACPS staff work with city staff.

“I was very disappointed when they put her up as superintendent,” said Stenzel, who was on the committee since 2019. ” I think she runs a pretty closed book over at schools. I think it trickles down onto staff, on their comfort with being open on what they’re working on.”

Kay-Wyatt was hired as superintendent in May, after spending nearly a year as interim-superintendent. She was initially hired as the ACPS human resources director in 2021. She took over a post-pandemic school system that was heavily criticized for its poor collaboration with the city, increased safety concerns, teacher and staff retention, as well as learning loss and underperforming standardized test scores.

Kay-Wyatt declined to comment on the subcommittee meeting to ALXnow.

Graf accused Kay-Wyatt of micromanaging communications staff, and said that she was “stunned” last month when she and ACPS Chief Financial Officer Dominic Turner joined City Council’s annual budget retreat on Zoom instead of in person. In that meeting, Kay-Wyatt unveiled the school system’s priorities over the next fiscal year, with one of them being improved collaboration between ACPS and the city.

“I was stunned,” Graf said. “I guess I would be pissed if I was Council, too, because our (School) Board’s used to show up en masse. Definitely all of us were there because we want to show force; that we’re here. We believe in what we’re telling you about the school system.”

In that Nov. 4 meeting, Kay-Wyatt said that her priorities include building partnerships and collaborations with the city.

“We are truly working on building a collaborative energy and a collaborative spirit and relationship with the city moving forward,” Kay-Wyatt said.

McNamara said that criticism levied against Kay-Wyatt is unfair “in a way,” but that ACPS has been tone-deaf by rebranding itself with a new logo while struggling under an avalanche of criticism due to teacher vacancies and collective bargaining issues. She said that the social media comments on the logo change exemplify the issues many see with Kay-Wyatt.

“It is just the essence of tone deafness in this environment,” McNamara said.

Stenzel, Graf and McNamara did not respond to requests for comment.

The next BFAAC meeting is Jan. 16.

Alexandria has identified dozens of racially restrictive zoning covenants, many of which have been on the books for more than 100 years.

Next Tuesday, City Council will review a report on racially restrictive covenants that, during much of the 20th century, prohibited non-white residents from moving into subdivisions and neighborhoods throughout the city. City staff are also asking Council to review a process for a property owner to get the illegal covenant by filing for a certificate of release from the Alexandria Circuit Court.

The research was part of the city’s Zoning for Housing/Housing for All initiative, which ultimately resulted in a citywide zoning overhaul approved by City Council last month.

City staff said in a memo that they were aware of only three subdivisions that racially segregated residents:

• the W.I. Angels West End subdivision, which includes Angel Park
• the Abington subdivision, which includes city land on Randolph Avenue
• and the Eagle Crest Subdivision, which includes a portion of Fort Ward Park

“Soon after we became aware of these properties, we went through the Circuit Court’s process for removing the covenants from the City owned portions of these subdivisions,” city staff said. “This process was completed for these three properties in November and the certificates of release have all been recorded.”

Krystn Moon of the University of Mary Washington, who the city hired to gather information on the history of the covenants, found dozens more properties, in Alexandria as well as Arlington and Fairfax counties. This includes 33 properties owned by the city — for fire stations, parks or the public right-of-way — and city entities, such as the Alexandria Redevelopment Housing Authority or Alexandria City Public Schools.

At least 20 city properties in the Del Ray, Rosemont and St. Elmo’s subdivisions will require additional research.

According to Moon’s report, the covenants were commonly used in the 20th century by local governments, developers, and property owners to maximize real estate values with racially restrictive language. They are now illegal in Virginia and unenforceable after the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968.

“(C)lass politics informed the inclusion of certain types of restrictions and ordinances, which overlapped with racial attitudes among many white residents,” Moon wrote.

“Instead of ensuring housing accessibility for all residents, they became one of the many tools in the racial segregationist toolbox to control where African Americans and other minorities might live,” she continued. “As such, they privileged the production of wealth for white, middle- and upper-class homeowners by prioritizing single-family dwellings and their property values over all other types of development.”

City Council Member Alyia Gaskins directed the City Attorney’s Office to research and detail a process for removing these covenants from city properties.

“Removing these covenants is one way to further demonstrate our commitment to building a more equitable city,” Gaskins said. “Furthermore, the City has an opportunity to be a model for homeowners who might not know that there is a restriction on their property and/or how to remove it.”

Covenants commonly made the property exclusive to the “Caucasian Race” to exclude not just African Americans but also Jews, Native Americans, Seventh Day Adventists and persons of Armenian, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Persian and Syrian ancestries, she said.

A Rosemont deed, for instance, says that “no part of the said premises nor any interest therein, shall be sold, leased, rented, or in any way conveyed to anyone not of the Caucasian race,” while a George Washington Park deed singled out the property could not be sold or conveyed to anyone of “African descent.”

According to the report:

In 1912, Rosemont became the first subdivision in Alexandria to include racial restrictions on specific lots. A year later, an unnamed development on Oronoco, Fayette, Princess, and Payne Streets in the Uptown neighborhood included similar language in its deeds. George Washington Park, which Alexandria annexed from Fairfax County in 1915, had restrictions as early as 1909.

By the 1920s, new subdivisions that were either part of or adjacent to George Washington Park and Rosemont inserted restrictive language into their deeds. Mount Vernon Park, Temple Park, Glendale, Brenton, and the Adams Estate (a development west of Rosemont along King Street) either limited renting and owning to the “Caucasian Race” or excluded African Americans.

In Alexandria, African Americans faced systematic discrimination throughout this period and were increasingly subjected to restrictive covenants that impacted where they could live, work, and own property. Other restrictive covenants, such as the one for Rosemont, stated that only Caucasians were permitted to own or inhabit a particular property. Interestingly, the deed from Uptown even barred corporate ownership. The inclusion of this language was most likely a reference to Peoples Pleasure Park Co. v. Rohleder (1908), in which the Virginia State Supreme Court Case ruled a corporation “is not a person” and “had no ‘color’ or race.” This decision allowed African American-owned corporations to buy properties with race-based restrictions unless they were specifically barred. Finally, the restrictions in Rosemont included a sunset clause, allowing them to end on January 1, 1928. The restrictions at George Washington Park and the unnamed development in Uptown excluded African Americans in perpetuity.

Moon found that real estate lawyer and Congressman Howard W. Smith (in office from 1930 to 1966) was an ardent segregationist, and inserted restrictive covenants into deeds targeting “all non-white owners and/or occupants,” and that on said property “any building that may be erected thereon shall never be sold, rented, or let to any person not of the Caucasian Race.”

The following is the list of city-owned properties that have a racially restrictive covenant:

Westover Subdivision (Alexandria Deed 152-272)

• 900 Second Street (Fire Station)
• 1028 Powhatan St (Fire Station’s Parking)
• 1024 Powhatan St (Fire Station’s Parking)
• 1010 Douglas St (Powhatan Park)
• 1009 Douglas St (Powhatan Park)

Monticello Park (Arlington County Deed 261-50)

• 2908 A Richmond LA (Monticello Park)
• 2801 Cameron Mills Rd (Fire Station)
• 2601 Cameron Mills Rd (George Mason Elementary School)

Threadgill (Alexandria Deed 121-299)

• 1607 Suter St (Metro Linear Park)
• 1614 Suter St (Metro Linear Park)
• 1625 Princess St [possibly 1629 Princess too, which is the right of way along the railroad tracks] (Metro Linear Park)

Baggett Tract (Alexandria Deed 167-350)

• 340 Buchanan St (Metro Linear Park)
• 300 Buchanan St (Metro Linear Park)

Fagelson’s Addition to Dempsey (Arlington County Deed 201-269)

• 810 Chetworth Pl (Chetworth Park)

Rosemont (Properties Restricted on Specific Deeds)

• 4 Sunset Dr (Alexandria Deed 65-449) (Sunset Mini Park)
• 201 Rucker Place (Alexandria Deed 106-105) (Beach Park)
• 701 Johnston Pl (Alexandria Deed 106-105) (Maury School Land)

Wapleton (Fairfax County Deed G-15-45)

• 530 Cameron Station Bv (Armistead L. Boothe Park)
• 270 S Reynolds St (Park-Open Space)
• Beverley Plaza (Properties Restricted on Specific Deeds)
• 3909 Bruce St (Four Mile Run Park) (Alexandria Deed 156-290 and 157-333)

Cameron Park (Properties Restricted on Specific Deeds)

• 20 Roth St (Park-Witter Fields N of Business Center Dr) (Fairfax Deed 192-193)
• 3224 Colvin St (Parking Lot) (Fairfax Deed U-9-128)

Waverly Taylor (Alexandria Deed 193-182)

• 3000 Fulton St (Island between Roads)

Oakcrest (Alexandria Deed 162-278)

• 1521 Dogwood Dr (Sheltered Homes of Alexandria)

Beverley Park (Properties Restricted on Specific Deeds)

• 610 Notabene Dr (Hawaiian Garden Apartments) (Alexandria Deed 181-436)
• 3910 Old Dominion Bv (Glebe Park Apartments) (Alexandria Deed 181-436)
• 3902 Old Dominion Bv (Glebe Park Apartments) (Alexandria Deed 181-436)
• 3961 Old Dominion Bv (Old Dominion Housing Limited Partnership) (Alexandria Deed 176-455)

Veach Tract (Properties Restricted on Specific Deeds)

• 27 S Bragg St (15 Townhomes) (Fairfax Deed 449-127 and Fairfax Deed 421-42)

Fort Ward Heights (Fairfax County Deed Q-13-400)

• 4560 Strutfield Ln (Palazzo at Park Center)

Brenton (Properties Restricted on Specific Deeds)

• 5 W Braddock Rd (Park) (Arlington County Deed 233-229)
• 1005 Mt Vernon Av (George Washington Junior High School) (Arlington County Deed 255-588 and Alexandria Deed 90-90)

Dunton Property (Fairfax County Deed W-14-171)

• 5325 Polk Av (Polk Park)

Alexandria Natural Resources Manager Rod Simmons has been a prominent voice for environmental concerns around the city in recent years, but Simmons told ALXnow that battles behind the scenes have led him to retire after 27 years in city government.

Simmons, a city employee with the Department of Recreation, Parks and Cultural Affairs, was at the center of controversies related to Taylor Run and other projects.

He was among the earliest voices warning the Taylor Run Stream Restoration project could do more harm than good. Simmons and critics of the project got into a back-and-forth over soil samples and other concerns about the project.

The city spent $1.8 million on the project and ended up with very little to show for it after the City Council said the plan needed further study and was eventually scaled back.

But those objections came with considerable backlash within city government, Simmons said, and he said it’s made it difficult to fulfill his role advocating for Alexandria’s natural resources.

“In the last two years, the workplace culture and conditions have become intolerable, from my perspective,” Simmons told ALXnow. “The problem is continual. I’ve been in opposition to the city’s agendas for increasing high-density development. All these projects, really over the last seven years, have come online and descended on the landscape of the city.”

While Simmons said many of those projects have been built in industrial zones or haven’t directly replaced natural resources, they’ve still put an increasing strain on the city’s natural resources.

“Development has a huge impact on waterways,” Simmons said. “We’ve got these edge cities, like the Hoffman Town Center area and Carlyle area, that put a huge burden on the little natural landscape like Hoof’s Run and African American Heritage Park, for instance. It stresses those areas and the wildlife that remains there. It contributes a significant amount of pollution to those streams and the Potomac River.”

Just this year, a lawsuit is forcing Alexandria to take a somewhat unconventional approach to combat its Potomac River pollution. Simmons said the increasing density is putting more cars on the road, eventually leading to more pollutants in Alexandria’s creeks and rivers.

Simmons also said usage of artificial turf, as was approved earlier this year at Eugene Simpson Park, is fundamentally at odds with the goals of protecting natural resources.

“Things like artificial turf and the forever plastics that come from that, those toxic chemicals that come from the rubberized pellets,” Simmons said. “Add the fact that you have to lay down enormous beds of gravel; it’s impervious surface because all the water goes into the already burdened storm drains is rushing into streams.”

Once those fields need replacing, too, Simmons said the city will be left with another pollution problem.

“There’s no recycling for those artificial fields; they end up being dumped in natural areas or wetlands,” Simmons said. “There’s no recycling for that, just like we realized there’s no recycling for anything else: it was a big lie by the plastics industry.”

While developments in Alexandria frequently cite LEED certification and energy efficiency, Simmons said that doesn’t matter much in terms of mitigating climate change.

“[The concern is] impervious surface, heat island index, the concrete jungle, all that sort of thing,” Simmons said. “We still have all the cars on the road. It’s too little, too late. I think the intentions are good, but they’re trying to make lemonade with something that’s not going to work. Smart Growth is an oxymoron.” Read More

Mutual respect, growth, and an ability to be vulnerable: That’s the kind of relationship retiring Alexandria Fire Chief Corey Smedley wants with his next job, wherever that might be.

Smedley says he wants purpose, not a position, and that he’d like for the right opportunity to find him.

“I want that relationship to find me,” Smedley told ALXnow in a recent interview. “I’d love that relationship to be something that is mutually respected, where we can grow together and can be vulnerable with each other, that we support one another and will continue to grow in whatever fashion that looks like. So, I’m not necessarily looking for fire chief’s position.”

After more than three years at the helm of the department, the 51-year-old Smedley announced his retirement last week. His last day is January 12, after which Jim Schwartz, a former deputy county manager in Arlington, will act as interim Fire Chief as the city conducts a national search for Smedley’s replacement.

“I have some energy left in me and I plan on still using my talent while someone thinks my time is still usable,” Smedley said. “But at this moment in time, I’ve done what I could do in the City of Alexandria, and it’s time for me to move on.”

Smedley is the city’s first permanent Black fire chief, and led the department through the COVID-19 pandemic, and negotiated the first-ever collective bargaining agreement with the fire department’s union.

Smedley implemented a departmental restructure in 2021, shifting AFD responsibilities and resources to stations around the city. Now, with emergency medical incidents taking up 75% of calls for service, Smedley’s redeployment plan will go into effect in January, shuttering two fire engines and increasing the number of smaller Emergency Medical transport units staffed by firefighters/emergency medical technicians (EMTs).

Smedley says his AFD Forward plan more than makes up for City Manager Jim Parajon’s request that departments submit budget recommendations with a 1% reduction in expenditures ($650,000 for AFD).

Smedley said that his work as the deputy chief prepared him for the pandemic, since routine coverage plans for firefighters and EMTs had to change at a moment’s notice.

“The pandemic was a challenging time for us all,” he said. “When we get to a place where there’s a crisis, you will find those routine plans are going to get overwhelmed and you have to be courageous and confident with your team to try innovative things to accomplish your mission, and we were able to do that.”

A native of D.C., Smedley lives in Chesapeake Beach, Md. He worked 20 years with the Prince George’s County Fire Department before being hired by AFD in 2015 as the deputy fire chief of emergency management and homeland security. He was promoted to assistant fire chief of administration in early 2019, and was named the acting fire chief that summer after former Chief Robert Dubé retired.

“I think I came into the profession with some smarts but what I gained was wisdom,” Smedley said. “I’ve learned to not only build but maintain. I’ve learned to be confident with not being the smartest person in the world and allowing other people to shine. I’ve also learned that you know what? I’m not Jesus. I’m not going to save the world, but I am gonna do everything I can to make things better and sometimes I’m gonna take off. I’m gonna spend time with my family and be there with them.”

Smedley was recently named by Maryland Governor Wes Moore to the Maryland Fire Rescue Education Training Commission, a position he says is about continuing to perform public service.

“I want people to understand I came to Alexandria with energy vigor, a lot of compassion and passion,” he said. “I’m leaving that same way and that’s how I wanted to have my career go.”