With no more mayoral debates, now it all boils down to the Democratic primary on June 8.
Like the main event at a boxing match, Mayor Justin Wilson and former Mayor Allison Silberberg on Thursday night maneuvered through a series of questions in the final of four Seminary Ridge Civic Association candidate forums.
The building blocks for what will become a sweeping mixed-use development replacing Landmark Mall are almost in place. A small discussion about street ownership could also have big implications for the future of the site’s identity.
The Eisenhower West Landmark Van Dorn Implementation Advisory Group met on Monday to put some of the finishing touches on some of the initial framework discussed over the last few months. One of the major points of discussion is over who will own the roads.
Some officials say that a last-minute proposal to add a pool to the Alexandria City High School’s Minnie Howard campus is long overdue.
While previously dismissed as prohibitively expensive, the total cost for the addition of the pool isn’t clear yet.
Sarah Bagley has four cell phones sitting on her desk, and promises not to buy a fifth if she’s elected to the Alexandria City Council this fall.
By day, Bagley is the executive director of D.C.-based nonprofit Chisom Housing Group and manages 20 affordable housing communities in 11 states across the country, although none are in the D.C. Metro area. One phone is personal, one is for work and the other two are resident service lines.
A new city announcement today is already making waves: outdoor pools will open next month.
According to the city website, the city’s outdoor pools will reopen on Saturday, June 26, through Labor Day, September 6.
Monday night was a clinic in anti-establishment thinking, as the final group of City Council candidates opined on such issues as transparency, the Seminary Road Diet, the elimination of school resource officer funding and shifting from an at-large to a ward system.
It was the third and final Council forum with the Seminary Ridge Civic Association, which last week featured two virtual panels with the other candidates.
On January 6, Alexandria City Council candidate Kirk McPike was sheltering in place at the U.S. Capitol with his boss, Democratic Congressman Mark Takano.
The world watched as American politics reached a boiling point, and McPike says that the experience was heartbreaking. As Takano’s chief of staff, McPike directed that all staff stay home that day. He and Takano were eventually evacuated to the Longworth House Office Building, where they rode out the proverbial storm.
It was another busy week in Alexandria.
For the second week in a row, our top story was on T.C. Williams High School teacher Gregory Elliott, whose D.C.-based go-go band Experience Unlimited was featured at the Oscars.
(Updated 5 p.m.) Statements on the Seminary Road Diet and government transparency were the highlights of Thursday night’s Seminary Ridge Civic Association candidate forum.
Thursday night’s forum (the second of three events) included City Councilman John Taylor Chapman, former School Board Member Bill Campbell, Meronne Teklu, Republican candidate Darryl Nirenberg and Bill Rossello.
School Board vice chair condemns City Council elimination of School Resource Office program — “Without surveying the larger community, they made a decision that frankly their backgrounds don’t qualify them to understand the ramifications of their actions. It’s still puzzling, even after a 2.5-hour exchange by council, what problem council was trying to solve, as the SRO program has not only been highlighted to be a successful partnership, but also there was no evidence to suggest otherwise.” [Alex Times]
Investigative journalist Nick Horrock dies — “Perhaps the best example of his courage came in 1968 when he was trying to expose problems in the prison system. His head shaved, he went undercover as an inmate at the Maryland State Penitentiary. With only the warden and the governor aware of why he was truly there, there was no special protection from either the inmates or the guards. He survived unscathed, he wrote, he won accolades and prizes but he was awash in fear when he was doing it.” [Gazette]
The Seminary Road Diet took center stage Tuesday night, as City Council candidates met in the first of three West End forums.
City Council candidates Canek Aguirre (incumbent), Alyia Gaskins, Kirk McPike, Patrick Moran and Sarah Bagley were the first batch of candidates to speak at the Seminary Ridge Civic Association candidate forum.
