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The Next Campaign
I try to keep politics out of this monthly newsletter.
If you have not been receiving my campaign updates and you wish to receive updates on this new campaign,
please drop my campaign a line and we'll get you on the list for campaign updates.
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Voting in Primaries
Tuesday June 12th all of the City's polling places will be open from 6 AM until 7 PM.
The Republicans will be holding a primary to nominate a candidate for United States Senate.
The sample ballot for the Republican primary is available online.
The Democrats will be holding a primary to choose a candidate for Mayor and 6 nominees for City Council.
The sample ballot for the Democratic primary is available online.
Voters will be asked to choose which primary they wish to participate in.
Absentee voting will continue through this week and next, Next Saturday is the last day for in-person absentee voting. |
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Mulch, Delivered
In April the City began mulch deliveries.
Mulch is available in a full or half truckload, and each delivery ranges from $50 - $100.
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Real Estate Assessment Appeals
Any appeal of 2018 Real Estate Assessments must be filed by today for hearing by the Board of Equalization.
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D-Day Commemoration
On Saturday the Alexandria-Caen Sister City Committee will be hosting the 8th Annual Commemoration of D-Day.
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Taste of Del Ray on Sunday!
Twelve Del Ray restaurants will provide a taste of some of the best food on the Avenue.
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Mason Speakers
Is your club or organization interested in having a speaker?
The George Mason University speakers program is comprised of over 100 faculty and staff who provide lectures and guest presentations on hundreds of topics to organizations and businesses free of charge.
Contact Sarah Gallagher at 703-993-8761 or
via email
for more information.
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First Thursday Returns!
Thursday is the "First Thursday."
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Real Estate Tax Payment Due
The first half payment of the 2018 real estate tax is due Thursday June 15th.
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Two weeks from tomorrow T. C. Williams High School will graduate the Class of 2018.
Congratulations to the graduates for their academic achievement, and best wishes for success in whatever path they have chosen.
This month also marks the last month of the Council term as we head into our summer recess.
Important issues await the Council before we recess and we will be back in the fall with a full docket.
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Metro Closures
Planning efforts to prepare for needed repairs on Metrorail have commenced at the staff level, and we will require ideas from our residents as we work to prevent this from being a disaster for our City.
Once the crown jewel of the Washington, DC region, Metrorail is experiencing a very difficult time. While the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) has numerous challenges, the most serious and pressing are related to safety.
Metro is a basic building block of our region's economy. If there is a perception that the system is unsafe, then that awareness can be crippling to the region.
Advancing this work required expanded time when the system is not
 operating. To make this happen, extended weekend hours were discontinued, new mid-day maintenance was scheduled, and most importantly, a series of "surges" occurred across the system.
During the surges, bus ridership in the corridor doubled and ridership on the Route 1 Transitway tripled. The shuttle bus operation carried 17,000 trips a day during Surge 3 and 25,000 trips a day during Surge 4. On DASH, ridership increases were between 26-31%.
We saw a 92% increase in usage of the Potomac Yard Trail, an 89% increase for the Mount Vernon Trail. Those were coupled with a 27% increase in Commonwealth Avenue bike traffic.
While these shutdowns certainly had negative impacts on our residents, they also allowed the City and its partners to experiment in our responses.
This will require a dramatic regional response. Far beyond the impact of the SafeTrack, this closure holds the potential to cripple our region. While we do have the luxury of a year to get ready, this closure will require the City and its regional partners to identify transit alternatives, teleworking options. economic development planning, and more.
Let us know your thoughts as we prepare.
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Eco-City Alexandria
How can Alexandria take meaningful climate action? How should we best handle solid waste and manage recycling? Can we expand the use of renewable energy in our community? Can more sustainable building practices become universal in Alexandria?
Alexandria's Environmental Policy Commission is pushing our City to make new commitments in our quest towards environmental sustainability.
Led by an incredibly motivated and knowledgeable group of residents, the City vaulted to the lead among local governments by adopting the
Eco-City Charter a decade ago. The charter defined a comprehensive vision for our City to improve environmental sustainability.
The Eco-City Charter then led the City to adopt the
Environmental Action Plan. The plan laid out specific actions the City should undertake. It detailed how we should measure success and it began to define the next phase of our Eco-City evolution.
With any plan the City adopts, the test is not simply whether we will
 accomplish what we laid out in the plan (although that is an important test). The City plans that have transformative impact are the plans that end up cutting across multiple City policy priorities. The Eco-City Environmental Action Plan has had that impact. It has fundamentally transformed City operations in numerous policy areas.
With the Federal government now choosing to decline its traditional global leadership role in climate policy, the responsibility falls to local and state governments to lead the way.
In April of last year, the City staff released the latest report detailing our progress in achieving the items defined in the plan.
We have seen great progress in the City in furtherance of our goals:
- The City government has reduced energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions.
- The percentage of new construction utilizing green building components has increased.
- The City's tree canopy has increased.
- We have protected over 100 acres of new open space.
- We have doubled our solid waste recycling rate.
- We have increased transit ridership.
- We have adopted smart-growth oriented residential parking standards.
- We have improved the walkability of our neighborhoods.
- We have implemented stormwater infrastructure around our City.
Despite a constrained revenue environment, we have used non-General Fund revenues to continue to make progress.
In recent years we created and sustained a very successful farmers market compost program.
In adopting last year's budget the Council funded a new program to provide proactive maintenance of the City's urban forest.
We are bringing a new Metro station to Potomac Yard and a new dedicated Transitway to the West End.
We recently created a new stormwater utility to address our obligations to the Chesapeake Bay.
We identified hundreds of millions of dollars to address combined sewer modernization to address our obligations to the Potomac River.
Last year's approved budget included a new Sustainability Coordinator position.
Our approved Housing Master Plan recognizes the importance of energy conservation as a component of housing affordability.
Our Complete Streets investments have continued to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety and accessibility throughout the City.
Our recently approved
Eisenhower West and
Old Town North Small Area Plans included substantial sustainability chapters. As these plans are implemented, the City will have opportunities to achieve more significant sustainability initiatives, including district energy and other large-scale efforts.
Yet, we can do more.
Our planned municipal facilities work gives us an opportunity to raise the bar for sustainability practices in our own facilities construction.
We are now working to update our landscape guidelines to reflect the Environmental Action Plan and the City's Urban Forestry Master Plan.
The Commission's recommendations push the City to make new commitments in renewable energy, climate change, green buildings, land use and open space, and solid waste.
Constrained budgets make it more challenging for our City to continue its leadership in sustainability practices, but we can and should work to lead the region in this policy area. These efforts are critical given recent Federal policy changes, but are also good for our economy and our quality of life. I look forward to working to see them to reality.
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The Commonwealth Giveth and Taketh Away
Virginia is a
Dillon Rule state,
which is the opposite of a Home Rule state. Simply, the Dillon Rule means that local governments in Virginia cannot do anything that is not specifically authorized by the General Assembly and the Governor.
As a consequence, what occurs in the annual General Assembly session is significant for the City and how it operates. The 2018 session is shaping up to be more consequential than most (in addition to being longer than most).
One of the major pieces of legislation being debated during this
 General Assembly session relates to the potential expansion of Medicaid under the Federal Affordable Care Act (ACA). The proposed expansion would extend healthcare coverage available to low-income residents. This extension would provide coverage for residents up to 138% of the Federal poverty level.
In addition to the benefit to individual Alexandria residents, City government and the Alexandria City Public Schools are able to draw on Medicaid resources. In 2017, the City government received $3.2 million in reimbursements from Medicaid, and the Alexandria City Public Schools received another $2 million.
In past years, efforts to expand Medicaid have failed in the Virginia General Assembly. Due to the changes brought by last November's election, there has been optimism this would change.
Ultimately, the General Assembly adjourned "sine die" without the adoption of a budget.
In April, the General Assembly reconvened in a
Special Session called by Governor Northam. The Commonwealth's fiscal year begins on July 1st. If there is not a budget adopted prior to then, there would have been a state government shutdown.
In the Special Session, as in the regular session, it is a the House of Delegates that has been supportive of a budget including Medicaid expansion, and it is the Senate that has been opposed.
During the regular session, the General Assembly also adopted legislation to provide Virginia's share of money to support the stabilization of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA).
The legislation that was adopted was
a bill from Delegate Tim Hugo. This bill is decidedly imperfect, but it does acknowledge the important need to protect Metro as the linchpin of the region's economy.
While the Governor offered amendments to try to correct this flaw, they were rejected in the House of Delegates.
At the very same time as the General Assembly was potentially moving closer to making Medicaid expansion and state transit money finally happen, they also removed funding Governor Terry McAuliffe proposed in his final budget
to address the City's Combined Sewer System (CSS).
Last year, the General Assembly adopted a much more aggressive timeline for remediation of the City's Combined Sewer System. With
 remediation expected to require
hundreds of millions of dollars, the City requested funding from state coffers to assist in this challenge. Other jurisdictions in Virginia with similar systems have benefited from such funding.
Then-Governor McAuliffe proposed $20 million to assist the City in addressing these challenges. Unfortunately, both the Senate and the House of Delegates have removed this funding.
This is now the second time that Virginia's Governor has recognized the importance of state funding assistance for Alexandria to tackle this significant clean water initiative by providing funding. But now Governor McAuliffe and previously Governor Bob McDonnell have both had the General Assembly remove that funding.
I'm hopeful that this pattern will change in the near future to support the burden of these costs.
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Opportunity Zones
The legislation allows states and localities to designate areas where the Internal Revenue Service will provide favorable tax treatment for those who make investments.
The Governor of Virginia solicited for nomination of these areas by localities. Ultimately the City submitted four areas: Landmark Mall, Mark Center, Beauregard corridor and Arlandria.
While some of the rules applying to these zones are still remaining to be written at the Federal level, I'm happy to see this proposal move forward and I am hopeful that this designation will prove a useful tool in advocating for new economic growth in our community.
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Car Tax Stickers
I cited the diminished efficacy of the windshield decal as a tool for enforcement of payment, and the improved customer service by eliminating the decal. At the time, Fairfax County had just scrapped the decal for their vehicles, which was forcing consideration of the change throughout the region.
Now, over a decade later, Prince William, Manassas, Vienna and others have all transitioned away from the windshield decal. Loudoun County will be making the transition on July 1st of this year.
While concerns around potential lost revenue prevented the City from pursuing this change back in 2007, it is now believed the the revenue impact would be negligible.
I do believe the City has alternate enforcement mechanisms that we can and should utilize to ensure payment of the Personal Property Tax.
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On the front page of the
Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Potomac Yard Metro Station are the seals of four entities: Federal Transit Administration, Department of the Interior, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) and the City of Alexandria. Later in the report there is additional input from the US Army Corps of Engineers, the US Environmental Protection Agency and the National Capital Planning Commission.
The breadth of the entities involved clearly demonstrates the complexity of the project.
For decades, the City has discussed, planned, and just plain hoped for a Metro Rail station at Potomac Yard.
In 2008, along with then-Councilman Rob Krupicka, I proposed a new start to efforts to bring Metro to Potomac Yard.
We included language in the City's Transportation Master Plan explicitly calling for a new station at Potomac Yard. We also tied the construction and funding of Metro to the development occurring in the Yard.
The result is
a funding plan for Potomac Yard Metro that not only leverages the development activity in Potomac Yard, but also does so without requiring the contributions of General Fund taxpayers.
While the funding is generated by the City of Alexandria, the procurement agency is WMATA. It is being handled as a reimbursable project.
As the sealed bids came back it became clear that the responses were significantly above the budget for the project.
At this point the City government had a choice. The City government could have cancelled the procurement, restarted the public process and modified the scope. We could have cancelled the project altogether. Ultimately, the City chose to keep the project moving, and our staff worked with WMATA staff to make changes to the project scope within the existing procurement to bring the cost down.
I am deeply disappointed to see the scope of the project change. I do believe that the design was a good one. Yet, the last thing this project needed was any further delay.
The City will work with the selected bidder to improve the connectivity between the actual northern entrance and where the southern entrance would have been.
The new design will provide the ability to construct the additional southern entrance at a later date, if the need is demonstrated and the funding established.
The new schedule is for the station to open in late 2021/early 2022.
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Confederate History
In the aftermath of the tragic murders in Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, communities across the nation have reexamined their representations of Confederate history. None was more visible than the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol.
Here in Alexandria, we have received similar requests from residents to reexamine examples of such representations in our community.
Since 1970, the City has displayed the first flag of the Confederacy (not the battle flag) on Robert E. Lee's birthday and Confederate Memorial Day.
There are at least 30 streets named for prominent leaders of the Confederacy. The most significant one is Jefferson Davis Highway (Route 1).
Until very recently, a plaque on the
Marshall House (now The Alexandrian Hotel) told the story of the shooting of a Union officer from a Confederate perspective.
My view is that there is little gained for Alexandria to re-fight a war that concluded 150 years ago. However, our community has changed over 150 years.
At the end of September 2015, the Council made the decision to end to flying of the flag of the Confederacy. We also created a community group to take public comment and advise the Council on other potential changes.
While the report goes into considerable detail, the group recommended that the Appomattox Statue remain in place. Jefferson Davis Highway be renamed, and other potential street re-namings be initiated individually using the existing process.
Honors and commemorations that seemed appropriate a century or even 40 years ago, may no longer be appropriate in a modern Alexandria. Furthermore, a modern Alexandria should focus not just on what should be removed or renamed, but how to portray a more accurate and fair telling of our history.
In my view, that would be a just reaction to the events in Charleston, and indeed many other injustices and tragedies in our country's history.
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Host a Town Hall in Your Living Room!
My regular series of Town Hall Meetings continue!
You supply the living room and a bunch of your friends and neighbors. I will supply a member of the Alexandria City Council (me) with the answers to any of your questions about our City.
Just drop us a line and we'll get a Town Hall on the calendar! Thanks for the interest!
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Upcoming Issues
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Each of these tragic incidents change the lives of the victims and their families in dramatic ways. But for each tragedy, there are also countless close calls and near misses that don't get reported.
In Alexandria, we are fortunate to have pedestrian scale, walkable neighborhoods with urban amenities throughout our City. Yet if residents do not feel they can safely traverse the streets of our City, then all the urban amenities are for naught.
Yet there are still areas of our City where sidewalks are non-existent or unusable, intersections are unsafe and unsafe driving is rampant. We must improve the safety of our streets for all users. Doing so requires changing the behavior of all users of our roads.
Our Police Chief has worked to increase the focus of existing resources on traffic enforcement efforts.
My view is that in order to significantly improve pedestrian safety in our City, we will have to be willing to make trade-offs in the pursuit of safety. The data show that the changes that will most significantly improve safety are also the most controversial in our community. We have to follow the research.
We have also looked at signalization efforts that can improve safety. At a few problem intersections, the City created a "
Leading Pedestrian Interval" to allow residents to get a head-start crossing before traffic can move.
We have also explored the creation of additional
"pedestrian scrambles" to create an "all pedestrian" phase at problematic intersections.
In response to concerns among several neighborhoods in the center of the City, the City just conducted an extensive data collection effort to help guide future traffic mitigation response.
I do believe there is more we can do.
We need your input!
Alexandrians should be able to use our streets safely. We will have to take ourselves out of our comfort zone to make that happen. Let me know your thoughts.
230 KV Transmission
The most important occurrence at the first meeting was the release of Dominion Virginia Power's
proposed routes. Each of these routes have negative impacts for our community.
As this process concluded, Dominion believed that the urgency behind the proposed transmission line had subsided. The process was then delayed for some time to allow them to further prepare their request.
Ultimately, the decision about the necessity of this transmission line and its routing will be made by the State Corporation Commission. However, the City and its residents will have some opportunity to help shape that decision.
The City reconvened the community group and a series of meetings were again held.
The Council adopted a resolution opposing any above ground routing, and identifying the "least objectionable" routes as ones that either:
- Used the existing CSX railroad right of way
- Used waterways, both Four Mile Run and the Potomac River
- Used the George Washington Parkway
All were deemed not viable or unlikely to be accepted by the State Corporation Commission.
Dominion then formally notified the City that they will finally file with the State Corporation Commission.
Yet that did not happen.
In November, Dominion returned to the City with another update. Given the extensive costs of utilizing the CSX railroad right of way, Dominion wanted the City to consider whether we could support their utilization of a route along or near Potomac Avenue. In exchange for this change, Dominion indicated a willingness to increase the compensation they will provide to the City from $15 million to $43.3 million given the much larger required right-of-way.
Use of Potomac Avenue would potentially have severe adverse impacts to the City that need to be considered carefully.
Dominion is now expected to file with the State Corporation Commission. When that occurs, the City will be fully engaged in the process, determining whether Dominion has substantiated the need, and whether there are demand reduction alternatives that can avoid construction of the line.
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building and improving sidewalks, crosswalks, traffic calming efforts, bike lanes, new signalization, and more.