With two City Council members throwing their hats into the ring to become Alexandria’s next mayor, there will be at least two new faces on the Council next year: James Lewis wants to be one of them.
Lewis, chair of the Traffic and Parking Board, previously ran for City Council in 2021.
The wait for early voting should be a little shorter next year.
The City of Alexandria is working to expand its Office of Voter Registration and Elections in Old Town (421 King Street) to accommodate a surge in early voting.
A longtime city commissioner and a retired labor leader are facing off in the special election for Alexandria’s School Board District A seat, and both want to improve teacher retention and board transparency.
Candidates Gina Baum and Tim Beaty have vastly different backgrounds and strengths.
(Updated at 4:45 p.m.) By the time this story is published, candidates will have just an hour-and-a-half to file the necessary paperwork to run in the Jan. 9 special election to fill the vacant seat on the Alexandria School Board.
The deadline is 5 p.m. to file the following with the city’s Office of Voter Registration & Elections:
(Updated 10:50 a.m.) With Mayor Justin Wilson announcing last week that he won’t seek reelection, two members of Alexandria’s City Council have tossed their hats into the ring to replace him.
City Council member Alyia Gaskins announced this morning (Monday) that she would be running for mayor.
Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson will not seek a third term in office.
Wilson made the announcement in his monthly newsletter on Friday.
Alexandria Democratic members of the Virginia’s General Assembly were swept back into office on election night.
There were no surprises from the unofficial election returns Tuesday night. Facing no opposition, Democratic incumbents Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker (5th) was reelected to a second term with 21,622 votes, and Del. Charniele Herring (4th) was reelected to her eighth two-year term with 10,368 votes. Del. Alfonso Lopez (D-3rd) was also reelected with 81% (16,837 votes) and defeated independent candidate Major Mike Webb.
About 30% of Alexandria voters are expected to turn out at the polls on election day today, Nov. 7.
As of 10 a.m. — four hours after polls opened — 21,661 voters cast their ballots, which is about 23% of the city’s 96,232 active registered voters. A vast majority of those ballots, 13,927 votes (64%), are from absentee voters. Also as of 10 a.m., 7,734 voters cast their ballots in person, according to the city’s Office of Voter Registration and Elections.
Election Day is tomorrow, Tuesday, which brings to an end an entire season of voting that kicked off in September.
Alexandrians voting on Tuesday will face few decisions tomorrow, as the only contests on the ballot are for the 39th District of the Virginia State Senate and three House of Delegates districts.
(Updated at 2:55 p.m.) A School Board work session on restructuring the makeup of the Board stopped short late last night after one member, Willie Bailey, walked out of the meeting.
Board Members were hammering out whether to expand terms from three to four years, stagger elections and switch from districts to at-large elections. The work session was held after a two-hour Board meeting and ended after 11 p.m. because the Board no longer had an in-person quorum after Bailey left.
Is the Alexandria School Board too big? Should their elections be staggered and three-year terms increased?
The entire structure of the Alexandria School Board could soon be upended, as these and a number of other big questions are up for discussion Thursday night.
