What a week in Alexandria.
Our top story this week is on Gregory Elliott, a special education teacher at T.C. Williams High School. Elliot also goes by the name of “Sugar Bear” for the D.C.-based go-go band Experience Unlimited, and their song “Da’ Butt” from the Spike Lee movie “School Daze” was featured at the Oscars, along with actress Glenn Close dancing to it.
This week was full of news.
City Manager Mark Jinks hinted at retiring, there was a chlorine spill at Lake Cook and the Alexandria Fire Department is contending with reports of racism, sexism and favoritism.
Additionally, a cyberattack on a gas pipeline resulted in a state of emergency throughout Virginia. We asked readers about it in our weekly poll, and out of 250 responses only 31% (78 votes) considered making alternate travel plans.
Election stories
- Election: Stark differences as Wilson and Silberberg face off in mayoral debate
- Wilson and Silberberg clash over new challenges, old wounds, and The Golden Girls
- Similar on policies, Bennett-Parker and Levine differ on style in 45th District debate
- Alexandria City Council candidates focus on health care, police and race relations in Arlandria forum
Important stories
- Alexandria approved for $59.6 million in American Rescue Plan funding
- Details released on suspect who threatened to bomb Metro station, police headquarters and government buildings
- Inova Cares Clinic for Women opens in West End
- Photos: Alexandria Police Department and city leaders salute fallen officers
- Alexandria nursing assistant charged with identity theft
- T.C. Williams High School seniors spearhead successful push for in-person graduation
- Alexandria prepares to move into broader vaccination age range
- AHDC’s Seminary Road development headed to public review
Top stories
- Go-go music star-turned Alexandria teacher ‘Sugar Bear’ in the spotlight after Oscars shoutout
- Landmark Mall developers to field public question in forum this week
- UPDATE: Woman arrested for firing gun near Alexandria Courthouse in Old Town
- AHDC proposes nearly 500 units of affordable housing for Arlandria
- ALXnow’s top stories this week in Alexandria
- Here’s which City Council candidates signed the new ‘Alexandria Constituents’ Bill of Rights’ pledge
- Girlfriend of murder suspect arrested for breaking into home and beating up witness
- Election: Stark differences as Wilson and Silberberg face off in mayoral debate
- Racism, sexism and favoritism reported within the Alexandria Fire Department
- Here’s the order that City Council candidates will appear on the ballot for the June 8 democratic primary
- Wilson and Silberberg clash over new challenges, old wounds, and The Golden Girls
Have a safe weekend!
Tensions are running high within the Alexandria Fire Department, as racism, sexism and favoritism have resulted in “considerable suspicion, distrust, and loss of confidence in organizational processes, and leaders,” according to a 2020 report.
“Perceptions of racism, sexism, and favoritism undercut trust in department processes including assignment, resource distribution, discipline, and promotion,” notes the 2020 Organizational Assessment Report for the Alexandria Fire Department. “Women fight a conservative mindset that has not yet disappeared. Conflict and related conditions fester until they become serious.”
Fire Chief Corey Smedley says his staff are exhausted by COVID-19, and that he is working on addressing multiple issues. He said that race relations within the department remain a work in progress, and that he continually hears negative comments against AFD academy classes that are filled with women and minorities.
“I can tell you, based on my experience, I get sometimes a few people that treat me in a certain way that isn’t what I’ve seen my caucasian counterparts be treated,” Smedley told ALXnow. “Specifically my predecessor… When there are more women and minorities in the recruitment class, I get comments about how everybody isn’t cut out for this job… We need to improve our training practices and the philosophy of training.”
Last summer, results from the annual citywide employee engagement survey were mixed, with only about 25 percent of respondents (147 AFD employees) seeing the department as a great place to work and seeing career opportunities for advancement.
According to the report, “A few participants suggested race may have been a factor in promotions of some members, some perceive that there are members who believe that personnel trained by a minority instructor may not be as capable as those taught by white training.”
All of this comes while the department undergoes a reorganization. Just days after the city made a deal on collective bargaining, AFD announced that roughly two-thirds of AFD staff are being relocated around the city.
“The department has met a new low in moral and low level of trust in senior staff,” one AFD staffer wrote. “If senior staff does not engage its employees, seek input (and listen) from people who actually do the work, and so on, we will continue to plunge further into the lowest we have ever been. There are many talented people who work here and who care; that number is rapidly shrinking by the day.”
AFD staff said that a number of issues, including racism, sexism and pay plague the department.
“Blatant racism and sexism,” an AFD employee wrote. “Pay freeze, fools in charge. How dare you hide behind covid and the bodies of dead Americans as an excuse to not provide me with a raise. The rate of inflation is roughly 2 percent a year. So in reality I’m receiving less money because my purchasing power decreases. Data is a joke.”
The reorganization, among other things, calls for shifting more than a dozen members of the technical rescue team and its resources (including the HAZMAT team and Foam Unit for flammable liquid spills and fires) to the station at Potomac Yard from Fire Station 206 at 4609 Seminary Road in the West End.
Morale has never been lower, Josh Turner, president of the Alexandria Fire Fighters Inc. and International Association of Firefighters Local 2141, told ALXnow.
“I’ve never seen morale this low in the fire department in my 11 years here,” Turner said. “People are tired. I’ve got members that are overworked. Between COVID vaccination sites and just running the normal emergencies that we run, people are tired, and they feel like their leadership isn’t looking out for them.”
AFD Chief of Staff Chris Thompson was hired in February 2020. Thompson was a recruiter for AFD for six years before his promotion, and says that he has fought against an exclusive culture where women and minorities were held back from promotion. He said that he has recruited roughly half of the department, and has gotten a lot of feedback about recruiting “the wrong people.”
“I believe that with any change there is stress,” Thompson said. “The changes that we’re making are basically a reorganization. And that’s basically moving apparatus, changing where people might have to work, changes some of the responsibilities.”
Smedley said that staff are working on 14 initiatives outlined in the report, including developing an advisory committee with employees from various divisions; developing an administrative team; creating an EMS blueprint for promotion to higher ranks; revamping communications within the department and working with the City’s race and social equity officer to develop a Departmental Equity Core Team to train staff on race and equity issues.
“I embrace diverse thoughts and opinions,” Smedley said. “I encourage people to be courageous about their convictions and about their opinion and passion. But they have to be aligned with our values.”
Tonight, the Alexandria History Museum at the Lyceum is hosting a history lesson on on how the year 1619 shaped Virginia.
The year marks the founding of the Virginia Assembly, the first African slaves forcibly transported to Virginia’s shores, and the arrival of the first ship of European women to the colony. And tonight, Tuesday, October 8, three historians will discuss the significance of those pivotal moments for the state, and the country, 400 years ago.
The free event will begin at 7 p.m. in the The Lyceum at 201 S. Washington St.
Panelists include Dr. Nick Gaffney, Professor of History at the Professor at the Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) and a member of the Commemoration Committee to raise awareness of the history of slavery and the accomplishments of African Americans since then.
The professor is slated to discuss slavery and the significant of Virginia’s first enslaved African who were brought to the state in 1619 during tonight’s panel.
Gaffney will be joined by Dr. Jim McClellan, also a Professor of History at NOVA, who will talk about the founding of the Virginia Assembly and its European influences, as well as what the English settlers’ treatment of Native Americans in Virginia had to do with the events in 1619.
A third Professor of History at NOVA, Dr. Lynette Garrett, will join the panel discussion to speak about the role of women in colonial Virginia.
The event comes after a few months after the New York Times published a groundbreaking edition, the “1619 Project,” to examine the stories of slavery and the legacy of the slave trade today in America. Groups of African Americans have also been holding their own private ceremonies grappling with the beginning of slavery in the U.S.
A separate event celebrating the 400th anniversary of the Virginia Assembly in July was boycotted by the Virginia Black Caucus, which protested President Trump’s planned speech in light of what they said was his history of racist remarks and policies.
As with any part of Virginia, Alexandria has its fair share of local history intertwined with the legacies of slavery: from local man John F. Parker, who was born to slavery and later became the principal of Snowden School for Boys in Alexandria, to the city’s legacy of segregated housing.
Interested attendees who can’t make it to tonight’s panel have another opportunity tomorrow morning, October 9, when the NOVA Alexandria Campus (5000 Dawes Avenue) hosts a second panel discussion on the topic.
