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Alexandria City Council meeting disrupted by anti-abortion activists

Published June 29, 2022 at 10:45AM | Updated June 29, 2022 at 11:20PM

A.J. Hurley, national director of Survivors Of The Abortion Holocaust, being led out of the Alexandria City Council meeting while council discussed a resolution supporting abortion access, June 28, 2022. (Staff photo by James Cullum)

More than a dozen anti-abortion activists were individually led out of Alexandria’s City Council Chambers on Tuesday night (June 28), as Council unanimously approved a resolution to protect access to abortions in the city.

Members of the California-based group Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust sat in Council Chambers holding signs depicting graphic photos and drawings of aborted fetuses. The group spent the last several days demonstrating outside the U.S. Supreme Court leading up to last week’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, banning abortion in more than a dozen states.

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Environmental group protests Chase Bank and Wells Fargo with ‘die-ins’ at Old Town branches

By James Cullum

Published April 4, 2022 at 3:30PM | Updated April 4, 2022 at 3:57PM

A "die-in" outside Chase Bank at 106 N. Washington Street on Monday, April 4, 2022. (staff photo by James Cullum)

Chanting and holding signs, a local environmental group protested Chase Bank and Wells Fargo with ‘die-ins’ at their Old Town branches.

On Monday afternoon (April 4), more than a dozen protestors from the group TH!RD ACT-VA walked into both banks and chanted “What do we want? Climate change! What do we need? System change!” and delivered letters to local branch managers to forward to Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and Wells Fargo CEO Charles W. Scharf. The letters demand that the banks “divest from fossil fuels this year.”

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Canceled proclamation draws ire of anti-abortion activists in Alexandria

By Vernon Miles

Published March 9, 2022 at 10:45AM

There was no proclamation at the March 8 City Council meeting honoring abortion providers, but that one had even been planned in the first place was enough to fill several rows of City Hall with anti-abortion advocates rallying against the canceled proclamation

While the casual viewer of the March 8 agenda might be baffled at the presence of anti-abortion advocates at the meeting, the docket had originally included a proclamation of March 10 as “Abortion Provider Appreciation Day.” Local religious groups were stirred by clergy like Arlington’s Bishop Michael Burbidge, despite the proclamation being pulled from the agenda at the request of Mayor Justin Wilson.

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Alexandria workers and residents plan rally to push for more from GenOn redevelopment

By Vernon Miles

Published February 22, 2022 at 11:00AM

GenOn Power Plant (staff photo by Vernon Miles)

Alexandria residents and workers are planning to rally at a City Council meeting tonight (Tuesday) to try and push the city to demand developers of the former GenOn power plant to go beyond current affordability plans.

In a release, local union and tenant organizations said the city should require commitments to higher-wage jobs and more housing.

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Morning Notes

By Vernon Miles

Published October 28, 2021 at 5:00AM

Torpedo Factory artist starts petition to save art spaces — “Some of these plans include reduce the number of individual artist studios in the building by up to 40%, as well as sweeping aside ALL artist studios on the first floor and replacing it with cheap money-making venues such as restaurants.” [Change.org]

Parental group protests outside National School Board association headquarters — “In Alexandria, Virginia Wednesday Moms For America protested the request by the NSBA to have the FBI investigate parents at some school districts in front of the NSBA headquarters.” [WJLA]

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Protestors rally to return police to Alexandria schools, but officials say behind-the-scenes talks have stalled

By Vernon Miles

Published September 29, 2021 at 10:00AM | Updated September 29, 2021 at 2:12PM

City Council member John Chapman speaks with protestors demanding the return of the SRO program (staff photo by Vernon Miles)

Weeks of tension and frustration over violence in Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) boiled over last night with a small crowd of parents shouting at City Council members to restore the school resource officer (SRO) program.

In May, the City Council voted 4-3 in favor of reallocating funding away from SROs, a program started in 1997 that installed police officers in Alexandria’s high school and two middle schools. While the schools have additional security staff, SROs were authorized make arrests and carry weapons — a fact that made headlines in 2018 when an SRO accidentally fired his gun inside George Washington Middle School.

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Alexandria historians compiling stories of 2020 protests and pandemic

By Vernon Miles

Published August 12, 2021 at 2:30PM

COVID US Honor Quilt project sponsored by Del Ray Artisans, courtesy Office of Historic Alexandria, donated by Amy Gareis

The Office of Historic Alexandria (OHA) is working through a new project that will help educate on a period of the city’s history rife with confusion and upheaval: last year.

In an office where items considered artifacts are usually arrowheads or ship timbers, City Historian Daniel Lee said his office has started a different kind of collection.

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Residents protest against conditions at West End apartment complex

By Vernon Miles

Published July 21, 2021 at 3:45PM

Protest outside Brookdale at Mark Center, via Tenants and Workers United/Facebook

Over a dozen local residents and supporters rallied yesterday (Tuesday) to protest what they described as unsanitary conditions Morgan Properties locations in Alexandria’s West End.

Residents, ranging from children to seniors, held up photos they said were taken in the homes — including nests of rats, filthy water flowing into a bathtub, mold and holes in the wall.

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Alexandria Police Chief Michael Brown isn’t just retiring, he’s leaving the city altogether

By James Cullum

Published June 7, 2021 at 2:15PM | Updated June 7, 2021 at 5:41PM

Alexandria Police Chief Michael Brown says that he’s on the level about his surprise retirement announcement, and that he and his wife will soon pulling up stakes for the West Coast in the near future to take care of urgent family business.

“This was a personal decision that my wife and I came to manifest in me having to retire,” Brown told ALXnow.

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Alexandria History Museum remembers 2020 protests with ‘Black Lives Remembered Collection’

By James Cullum

Published May 19, 2021 at 2:15PM | Updated May 20, 2021 at 8:57PM

A Black Lives Matter protest on King Street in Old Town, Alexandria, on Friday, June 5, 2020. (Staff photo by James Cullum)

The Alexandria Black History Museum has spent the last year gathering documentation from the unrest throughout the city following the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police.

The virtual exhibition “Preserving Their Names” opens May 25 and includes pictures and objects from the demonstrations, including banners, face masks and poems.

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ALXnow’s top posts this week in Alexandria

By James Cullum

Published April 30, 2021 at 3:30PM

An Alexandria police cruiser (Staff photo by James Cullum)

It was a busy week in Alexandria. Here are some of the highlights.

Governor Ralph Northam and U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona visited Alexandria this week. Northam stopped by Pacers Running in Old Town, and afterward met with Cardona, Mayor Justin Wilson, National Education Association of the United States President Becky Pringle and Virginia Superintendent of Public Instruction James Lane at Ferdinand T. Day Elementary School. Cardona was at the school as part of his “Help is Here” school reopening tour.