Yesterday, we celebrated the groundbreaking of the largest infrastructure project in Alexandria's history. For decades, the combination of stormwater and sanitary sewage has overwhelmed portions of the Combined Sewer System that serves a 540-acre area in Old Town.

Four years ago, the General Assembly enacted legislation that required the City to address remediation of our Combined Sewer System by July 1, 2025. With the recent commencement of construction activities at four separate sites, the City is on schedule to meet this mandate.

Almost a year ago, the Alexandria Renew Enterprises Board of Directors, the governing body of Alexandria's sewer authority, approved the issuance of $454.4 million contract to Traylor/Shea. This joint-venture will complete the final design and construct the tunnel network that will address overflows into the Potomac River from the combined sewer system that serves Old Town.

Most recently, the Governor announced an additional allocation from the Commonwealth's American Rescue Plan dollars to support this project.

In June of 2018, City Council approved transferring the ownership of the four Combined Sewer outfalls to Alexandria Renew Enterprises to allow the City to leverage their capacity and capabilities to address these issues.

At the end of that same month, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality approved a plan jointly prepared by the City and Alexandria Renew to meet the more stringent timeline imposed by the General Assembly. 

The construction work will occur primarily at 4 sites, the three outfall locations and the location of the Alexandria Renew treatment facility. 

Early voting for our November election began last month. So far 1,011 voters have returned ballots by mail, 1,452 voters have voted in person, and an additional 6,811 voters have received ballots by mail but have not yet returned them.

On November 2^nd, Alexandria voters will elect a Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, members of the Virginia House of Delegates, Alexandria Mayor, Alexandria Sheriff, Alexandria Commonwealth's Attorney, all six members of the Alexandria City Council and all 9 members of the Alexandria City School Board.

On Tuesday November 2^nd, all City polling places will be open from 6 AM until 7 PM for the General Election.

Sample ballots are now available for your review online.

Last year, Virginia introduced "no-excuse" early voting, so voters have three choices to vote this November:

In the fiscal year that began 3 months ago, the City Council allocated funding that provided new services for 200 children aged from 3 to 5. But we also learned that children remain on our waiting lists for early childhood sevices. We were also reminded that we do not receive our full share of Virginia Preschool Initiative (VPI) money from the Commonwealth. We leave this money on the table as we do not have space or matching funding for the children.

But even if new staffing could be funded, early childhood education is facing a staffing crisis around our region and the nation. The inability to attract and retain talent is threatening the capacity of public and private providers to offer and expand services.

In adopting the City's plan for allocation of the first tranche of funding from the American Rescue Plan, the Council chose to reserve just under $3 million to support a new effort to stabilize early childhood educational workforces. This effort will make new investments in the workers supporting our early childhood providers to ensure they remain in their careers, better their skills and provide the critical educational services for our children.

Last month, Governor Ralph Northam, Dr. Timothy Sands, the President of Virginia Tech, and other distinguished guests returned to Alexandria to break ground on the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus!

You can watch the full ceremony on YouTube.

Almost three years ago, in conjunction with the announcement of Amazon placing a portion of its new "HQ2" in the Crystal City section of Arlington County, Governor Northam announced that part of the Commonwealth's incentive package will include state funds to support the creation of a new Virginia Tech "Innovation Campus" in Alexandria.

At the end of June of last year, the City Council approved the land-use plans for the seven buildings that will comprise the Virginia Tech campus and the first phase of development adjacent to the campus. A year ago, the Planning Commission and City Council provided the additional approvals necessary to bring this campus to reality.

Virginia Tech's presence in Potomac Yard will define this area for generations to come. As such, the Council voted unanimously a year ago to request the inclusion of "VT" as part of the official name of the future Potomac Yard Metro station.

A year ago, Dr. Lance Collins, previously the Dean of Engineering at Cornell University, began work as the leader of the new Innovation Campus. Dr. Collins has led Cornell's College of Engineering for the past decade and was instrumental in building Cornell Tech on Roosevelt Island in New York City.

Once onboard, Dr. Collins announced an impressive advisory board that will guide the institution's founding and he welcomed the inaugural class.

Earlier this year, Boeing announced a $50 million commitment to make the Innovation Campus the most diverse graduate technology campus in the country.

As we work to ensure that our entire community benefits from this investment, the Alexandria City Public Schools announced a new STEM-focused partnership with Virginia Tech . This will enhance science offerings in Elementary, Middle and High School and improve professional development for ACPS's educators.

Integral to the Commonwealth's attraction of Amazon was access to the talent Amazon will require to grow. The creation of a new $1 billion graduate campus will provide a pipeline of talent for our entire region. 

It was barely two years ago that I wrote in this newsletter about our partnership with Arlington to ensure that the benefits of these new investments accrue to all in our communities. As this campus begins to take shape, this exciting work continues. 

Last month, the City Council unanimously adopted new guidelines that will govern how we consider both solicited and unsolicited public/private partnerships.

An amazing group of residents and organizations raised money to build the Miracle Field next to the Lee Recreation Center to help provide recreation opportunities for the special needs community. 

Residents in Arlandria are continuing to raise money to support Four Mile Run Park, and have used private donations to create the park plaza that hosts the Four Mile Farmers and Artisan Market on recently acquired public space. 

Residents and business leaders worked together to raise significant resources to build the Alexandria Police Memorial. 

The Del Ray Citizens Association came forward to sponsor some park improvements in the pocket park at the corner of Commonwealth and E. Del Ray Avenue , which was renamed the Judy Lowe Memorial Park. 

Residents and businesses have partnered to make improvements at Ewald Park. 

Three years ago, we dedicated a brand new playground at Brooks Elementary School. The playground was the result of public money, donated money, donated services and the support of non-profit organizations. 

Four years ago, we dedicated a new teen center at Charles Houston Recreation Center. The center was the result of private fundraising, in-kind donations and countless volunteer hours. 

At a different scale, the City's Waste-To-Energy facility is a large and enduring partnership with Arlington County and Covanta, a private entity.

To ensure that this basic infrastructure is sized and maintained for our future, the City recently conducted an update of our Sanitary Sewer Master Plan. This has resulted in an updated document for review.

In June we learned that our City Manager, Mark Jinks, will be retiring at the end of the year. We will have the opportunity later this year to properly recognize Mark's dedicated and impactful service to our City, but at the moment this leaves a significant task before the City Council. We must make the most important personnel decision in City government: selecting our Chief Executive Officer.

Two months ago, the City Council formally launched a national search for our next City Manager and we want your input in this process. There is an online survey posted seeking feedback. Last week, the City Council held a town-hall meeting to get input from residents on this important hiring process.

If you know the right person to help lead our City government through the incredible opportunities and challenges that face our community, please encourage them to apply prior to the September 17th deadline.

Earlier this year, the City Council unanimously adopted an an ordinance to double our Stormwater Utility Fee. to significantly increase the resources available for investments in our storm sewer infrastructure. This increase will cost a condo owner an additional $39 annually, a townhouse owner an additional $58, a small single-family homeowner an additional $140 and a large single-family homeowner an additional $233.

Recently enacted state legislation, sponsored by Senator Adam Ebbin at the City's request, gives the City the flexibility to use these resources to address all of the challenges facing our residents.

This increase will bring in an additional $8.5 million annually and support a newly accelerated 10-year program of investments. While these funds will address many smaller "spot improvement" projects, this funding will allow the City to undertake 11 of the top priority storm sewer capacity projects over the next decade:

In addition to these locally-funded infrastructure initiatives, the City Council voted in July to allocate $5.8 million of our American Rescue Plan funding to address maintenance and investment in our Storm Sewers.

A month ago, the City launched our new "Flood Mitigation Pilot Grant Program." This new program will provide matching reimbursement grants to property owners making flood resiliency improvements. This is one of the components of our comprehensive approach to addressing the flooding that has impacted our community for decades.

The newly constituted Ad Hoc Stormwater Utility and Flood Mitigation Advisory Group has begun meeting and will meet again next week. This new committee will help advise the Council and our staff as we work to implement our flood mitigation plans. 

In November, the City Council received the initial output from our recently-formed interdepartmental team working to address these challenges. You can watch the full worksession online.

Alexandria spends a significant amount of money on infrastructure designed to manage water. In May, the City Council approved a $2.6 billion, ten-year Capital Improvement Program. Of that, over $320.5 million is to address stormwater and sanitary sewer infrastructure. Alexandria Renew Enterprises, the City's sewer authority, plans another $593 million of capital investments over the next decade, primarily the RiverRenew project to remediate the Combined Sewer (sanitary and stormwater) system that serves Old Town.

Together, nearly a billion dollars is planned for water investments. This spending dwarfs planned investments in schools, transportation and other major priorities. Only a decade ago, planned investments in water infrastructure were less than 10% of this total, but addressing these challenges will require a sustained increase in that investment level of a long period of time.

In 2016, the City conducted a comprehensive Storm Sewer Capacity Analysis. This exhaustive study looked at each of the City's eight watersheds (Backlick Run, Cameron Run, Four Mile Run, Holmes Run, Hooff's Run, Holmes Run, Potomac River, Strawberry Run and Taylor Run) and identified problem areas where current capacity does not meet our 10-year storm design standard.

From the maintenance perspective, it is also clear that we have work to do. The City recently completed a $2 million effort to clear approximately 7,000 feet of the Hooff's Run Culvert. This 70+ year old urban culvert is designed to be "self-cleaning." After the July 2019 flooding event, the City commissioned a firm to do a robotic assessment of the condition of the culvert. That assessment showed an average of 5% obstruction across the culvert and some areas of 15-20% obstruction. The clearing of the culvert commenced last year and it does not appear to have been done before, certainly not in recent memory.

For development, whether large-scale, mixed-use development or a small residential addition, Alexandria's stringent stormwater requirements stipulate that conditions after development to be the same and oftentimes better than they were. As a consequence, the flooding we have experienced in the City is typically in established neighborhoods, areas of our City where we have not seen new development (aside from infill) in decades. Yet, there may be options to further strengthen these existing requirements. We have sought additional authority from the General Assembly for these expanded requirements.

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