The most contentious part of last Monday’s Agenda Alexandria discussion on building heights was when City Manager Jim Parajon told the audience that the City Council’s priorities on affordable housing have the best interests of residents in mind.
Many members of the audience voiced disapproval by groaning, “No,” that they don’t.
Alexandria needs to solve its affordable housing crisis, but should building up be the solution?
The City’s bonus density and height program would allow developers to increase heights of buildings to 70 feet in areas of the city that are capped at 45 feet in height, like in Del Ray.
Alexandria leaders agree that the city either needs to expand its aging middle schools or completely build a new one.
There are now 15,700 students within Alexandria City Public Schools, and roughy 2,000 more students are expected by 2024. That puts the city in a tricky position, as 10 ACPS schools are more than 70 years old and need continual maintenance, and a surge in elementary school kids means that Alexandria needs more middle school space.
City Manager Jim Parajon has announced that a former Norfolk reporter and fellow transplant from Texas will be coming to Alexandria to serve as the city’s director of communications and public information.
In a release, Parajon said Ebony Fleming will serve in the role effective today (Tuesday).
With fireworks, cupcakes and music, Alexandria celebrated its 273rd birthday on Sunday, July 10.
Thousands were in attendance for the free party, which also celebrates America’s birthday and was supposed to be held on Saturday (July 9), but was held off due to rain. What resulted was a less crowded event than years past — with performances by Town Crier Ben Fiore-Walker, Poet Laureate Zeina Azzam, and the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra (ASO).
The Alexandria Community Policing Review Board should be up and running by September — just in time to turn in a written report to City Council on its activities, according to Board members.
The seven-person Board was created by City Council last year to independently review allegations of police misconduct, and its effectiveness is based on Members receiving extensive training, as well as the hiring of an independent auditor/investigator to hire staff, conduct investigations and coordinate the Board’s administrative functions.
Mayor Justin Wilson says its time to take a step back and reassess Alexandria’s approach to student safety.
In a joint City Council meeting with the School Board on Monday night (June 13), Wilson said that the community needs to be educated on how the city and school system plan to make schools safer.
Updated at 7:45 p.m. — A short-staffed Alexandria Police Department is reducing its services to the community, the department announced on Wednesday (June 2).
Police will no longer respond to calls for service that fall under another agency’s responsibility or respond to old crime scenes that show no danger to the public.
(Updated at 1:45 p.m.) The Alexandria City Council unanimously adopted City Manager Jim Parajon’s $839.2 million fiscal year 2023 budget on Wednesday night (May 4), and despite giving all city employees raises, Mayor Justin Wilson says inflation will likely mean more raises in future budgets.
“We’re staring into a significant inflationary environment that pinches our employees very hard, just like it pinches everyone hard,” Wilson said. “We’re going to have to continue to have this conversation every year about how we make sure we invest in the level of compensation and benefits required to not only attract but retain the best and the brightest in the city.”
The trash situation is changing in Alexandria, as City leaders are ironing out a new curbside food waste collection pilot.
Mayor Justin Wilson’s proposal for the one-year pilot would see annual residential and commercial refuse collection fees increase from $484 to $500 citywide, or $1.33 a month.
Alexandria Police will be outfitted with body worn cameras starting this summer, but it won’t be until next year that all officers will be outfitted with the devices.
The $2.2 million program City Manager Jim Parajon presented to Council on Wednesday (March 30) is significantly scaled back cost-wise when compared to a $13 million proposal presented to City Council last year by then-Police Chief Michael Brown.
