Good Tuesday morning, Alexandria!
🌤️ Today’s weather: Expect a mostly sunny day with a high temperature near 75 degrees and a light northeast wind shifting to the south at around 6 mph in the afternoon. On Tuesday night, there’s a 40% chance of showers after 2 am, with mostly cloudy skies and a low around 57 degrees accompanied by a south wind of approximately 6 mph.
Tsehayinesh Menberu says that she and her West End neighbors often choose between buying groceries and paying their rent.
Menberu has lived at the Southern Towers complex in the West End for more than a decade. On Saturday, she and about 50 others demonstrated for increased affordable housing outside City Hall during City Council’s public hearing on the fiscal year 2025 budget.
A 47-year-old Alexandria man was charged with forcible sodomy and attempted rape against a woman in her Old Town apartment on Sunday.
The Alexandria Police Department said that the victim knows the suspect, but did not go further except to say that Antuan Bostick was arrested at around 8:10 p.m. on Sunday, April 7, after a neighbor called 911. The neighbor told the dispatcher that she could hear the victim screaming for help for up to five minutes.
What a busy week in Alexandria.
This week’s top story was all about money, with a $1 million Powerball ticket getting sold in the Alexandria area of Fairfax County.
(Updated 3:40 p.m.) To get a business improvement district (BID) approved for Old Town, proponents will need the support of 60% of properties in the proposed zone. But a new change could cut property owners who don’t engage at all out of that 60% requirement.
City Council member John Chapman said after outreach was done for the Old Town BID there were over 200 property owners that never responded either in favor or against the proposal.
On Monday, April 8, Alexandria Recreation, Parks & Cultural Activities is hosting a gathering to watch the partial solar eclipse.
The viewing party is scheduled for 3-3:45 p.m. at the Old Town Pool (1609 Cameron Street). The event will include eclipse glasses to view the event safely, along with arts and crafts for the family.
It’s not uncommon to hear business owners in Alexandria lament that local sign ordinances can be onerous and unwieldy, but an update to an ordinance could be a sign that things are changing.
Eight years after the last update to the sign ordinance, the City of Alexandria is taking another crack at it.
April is Earth Month and anyone hoping to contribute locally can help out at an event in Old Town next week.
The City of Alexandria Department of Transportation and Environmental Services Stormwater Management Division is hosting a stream clean-up event at the shoreline of Windmill Hill Park on Saturday, April 6, from 9-11 a.m.
(Updated 4:30 p.m.) The Alexandria Police Department arrested an adult man wanted for murder in Huntersville, North Carolina early this morning in Old Town.
Alexandria Police Department Communications Manager Tracy Walker said police received a “be on the lookout” notice and observed the suspect’s vehicle at 11:50 p.m. Police identified the suspect as 53-year-old Rahman Ferguson. He is being held in the Alexandria Adult Detention Center awaiting extradition.
A smoking heating and air system has closed Bugsy’s Pizza Restaurant & Sports Bar at 111 King Street for the foreseeable future, the restaurant owner told ALXnow.
Owner Bartolo Paz said that smoke came out of the furnace this afternoon after it was turned on by restaurant staff, that no one was hurt, and that there is minimal damage.
(Updated 11:15 a.m.) A new ‘windowfront exhibit’ about the Buried Ships of Robinson Landing is coming to Old Town early next month.
The exhibit features scale models of four 18th and 19th-century ships discovered during excavations of the Robinson Landing Site.
