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.
Alexandria was approved for $59.6 million in American Rescue Plan funding, City Manager Mark Jinks announced to the City Council on Tuesday night.
Jinks said the city’s Congressional delegation was successful in convincing U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to include Alexandria as not only a city, but as a county as well, resulting in the City taking home double what it would have otherwise received.
Mark Jinks isn’t getting any younger, and the Alexandria city manager says he is closing in on the end of his career.
“I turn 70 in 2022,” Jinks told ALXnow. “I am closer to the end than the beginning, that’s for sure.”
The Alexandria City Council unanimously adopted its $770.7 million fiscal year 2022 budget on Wednesday night, and it includes the first tax real estate tax reduction in 15 years.
Retiring Councilwoman Del Pepper made the motion to pass the budget, her last after 35 years on Council.
Alexandria is expanding its push into public-private partnerships with the appointment of a new Assistant City Manager to help manage and facilitate them.
The city has sought to implement public-private partnerships over the last few years to lower costs for projects and make better use of limited space in the city. One notable example has been a housing development and fire station in Potomac Yard.
City Manager Mark Jinks has proposed a budget this year that includes a real estate tax rate decrease of 2 cents.
The announcement came as welcome news to local property owners, from residents to business owners who faced a particularly difficult year as a result of COVID-19. The announcement was conjoined with a budget that belt tightening that trims down some of the city’s larger ambitions and won’t fill some currently vacant positions.
For all the earlier talk of doom and gloom early in the coronavirus financial forecasts, City Manager Mark Jinks’ proposed FY 2021 budget seems relatively painless.
As laid out by Jinks, the operating budget is a 1.9% proposed increase over last year’s, with a 2 cent real estate tax rate reduction, no major service reductions, and fully funds the proposed school CIP and operating budget.
At the request of the City of Alexandria, Gov. Ralph Northam announced that a 6 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew and state of emergency are in effect in Alexandria and neighboring Arlington.
At the request of @AlexandriaVAGov and @ArlingtonVA, I am declaring a 6PM to 6AM curfew in these jurisdictions, with limited exceptions.
For two years, city staff have been haggling over your water bill.
Late last week, the city announced that the State Corporation Commission (SCC) has significantly reduced Virginia American Water Company’s requested increase in customer water rates, which will result in a refund of previous overcharges to customers.
The Alexandria City Council is expected to receive a city council resolution on race and social equity by the end of the year, and will receive recommendations on making the city’s diversity/inclusion statement more racially explicit.
“We’re thinking in working through how to draft a resolution as specific to race and social equity for Council’s adoption,” Jaqueline Tucker, the city’s racial and social equity officer, told Council on Tuesday night.
(Updated at 11:45 a.m. on September 23) The Alexandria City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved extending the declaration of a local emergency due to the pandemic from the end of this month t0 March 31, 2021.
If approved, the city will end up being under a state of emergency for a little more than a year. It would expire at midnight on March 31.
