Christmas Tree Recycling
Christmas trees will be recycled curbside by the City for residents who receive City trash collection from January 7th - January 18th.
Trees will be ground into mulch and available to residents in the Spring.
Please remove stands, lights and decorations.
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What's Next Alexandria?
The next Community Dialogue for " What's Next Alexandria?," the City's effort to improve civic engagement and planning for our future is now scheduled for January 29th at 7PM at First Baptist Church (2932 King Street).
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Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Observance
The City's Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday observance will be held on January 15th at Oakland Baptist Church at 7PM (3408 King Street).
This is always an uplifting event where Alexandrians come to recall the legacy of Dr. King, and recommit ourselves to achieving his vision of equality. |
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A follow-up meeting will be held on January 15th at 6:30 PM at the Mount Vernon Recreation Center to explore traffic safety concerns that have been raised in the Del Ray neighborhood.
This meeting will look at different mitigation efforts and discuss if and how they might be implemented. |
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Happy New Year!
This is the return of The Council Connection, my monthly effort to keep you informed about the actions and priorities of your City Council.
Over the next three years, I hope to use this forum to solicit your input, provide information and give you my view on upcoming issues, events and decisions.
The last thing I want is for this to be a one-sided conversation. Please provide feedback and let me know your thoughts on the important issues before our City. Your input will help me be successful in representing you.
Tonight, I am honored to be taking the oath of office along with Mayor Euille, and my colleagues John Chapman, Tim Lovain, Del Pepper, Allison Silberberg and Paul Smedberg.
We have had a whirlwind transition since November 6th--working to get organized and prepare for the Council term.
I am excited to get back to work, and look forward to serving the City.
To help ensure that Alexandrians receive the best service possible, I have chosen Nancy Lacey to serve as my Aide during this upcoming term. Nancy is a native Alexandrian with a great background in business and as a community volunteer in our City. She can be reached by e-mail at nancy.lacey@alexandriava.gov.
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Each member of City Council is assigned membership on a variety of boards and commissions to represent the Council and City. I am excited about the assignments I have received, and believe they will help me in service of the people of Alexandria. Here are my assignments:
City Council/School Board Sub-Committee: This committee consists of the Mayor, City Manager, School Board Chair, School Board Vice-Chair and the Superintendent. The goal is to increase cooperation between the City and the schools as we serve the children and families of our City.
Potomac Yard Metro Feasibility Study Group: During my previous tenure on City Council, I worked extensively to revive the effort to bring a Metrorail station to Potomac Yard. With that effort now moving forward, this group  was created to work through the technical details required to agree upon a site and commence construction.
Commission on Information Technology: I will return for my third stint on this group which provides advice to the City Council on information technology issues before the City. My hope is to work with this group to improve broadband availability, quality and competition in both our residential and business communities.
City Manager's Quality of Life Committee: This group consists of representatives from a variety of City departments working to respond to basic quality of life issues throughout our City.
Community Policy & Management Team: This group consists of representatives of the State and City agencies that serve the needs of at-risk youth and their families in our Community.
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 Host a Town Hall in Your Living Room! With my return to Council, I will also bring back my regular series of Town Hall Meetings--in your living room!
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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Budget Process Begins--Tough Choices Ahead
The most important decision the City Council makes in any year is the adoption of the annual Operating and Capital Improvement Program budgets.
In normal years, the process would kick-off in late November with the City Council adopting guidance to the City Manager for the preparation of the budgets. The budgets are then presented to the Council around Valentine's Day, and adopted in early May.
With our City Council now being elected in November, and sworn in at the beginning of January, some adjustments had to be made. The guidance for this year will now be approved early in January, the budget presented in late February, and the budget adopted in early May.
Typically, there is more time between the approval of Council's guidance and the presentation of the budget. That time allows the City Manager (and to a lesser extent the School Board) more time to propose budgets that align with the guidance. With this shorter time-line, I suspect the Council's guidance will be less specific than it has been in the past.
Every budget has its own set of challenges, and based on the outlook entering this budget process, this one will be no different. At this point in the process, we begin understanding the level of budgetary shortfall or surplus we will be facing. 
During my previous stint on the Council, we adopted the FY 2009 and FY 2010 budgets. We entered the FY 2009 budget process expecting a $10 million shortfall, and we entered the FY 2010 budget process expecting a $57 million shortfall. For the FY 2014 General Fund Operating budget that Council will adopt this Spring, we are now expecting an $18.6 million shortfall--not cataclysmic, but certainly not something to be excited about, especially when considering that it does not include expected increases in operating costs for our schools and Metro; as well as impacts of any State/Federal cuts. The picture is not entirely bleak. On the revenue side, we continue to see growth, albeit anemic growth. Current projections have the City's real estate tax base growing at about 2.1% in 2013 and 2.7% in 2014--roughly on par with the annual growth we have seen since 2010. Residential real estate continues to lead the way, but we continue to see very slight growth in commercial real estate values. Unfortunately, with a commercial vacancy rate slightly higher than the rest of the Northern Virginia, and significantly higher than the rest of the region, these commercial real estate valuations continue to suffer. It can be easy to spend all of our time talking about real estate given the significant role it plays in our revenue picture. However, there is other revenue that we rely on. We are expecting large increases in revenue from Sales Tax and Personal Property Tax (Car), as well as healthy growth in our Dining Tax. We are expecting a fairly significant drop in our Utility Tax revenue due to the closure of the Mirant/GenOn plant. All things considered, we are expecting $10 million of additional revenue, $14.1 million of additional personnel related costs, $4.7 million of additional non-personnel costs required to maintain current services, $9.7 million of additional costs required to service the City's debt--which brings us to the $18.6 million shortfall. This is just the beginning of the process. There is a lot of hard work on the part of the community, the Council and City staff to get to an adopted budget that reflects our community's values in early May. I ask for your feedback and advice as we work through this process. My preference is that the budget we adopt largely hold the line on operating spending, while using this opportunity to make some down payments on the significant capital infrastructure needs that await the City--particularly as it relates to education, sewer infrastructure, public safety and recreation needs.
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Housing Master Plan--An Alexandria For Us All
On November 30th, the City released the draft of its new Housing Master Plan. The culmination of years of effort initiated originally by the Affordable Housing Initiatives Work Group--lead by former Councilmen Gaines and Krupicka, and later shepherded to completion by a work group consisting of representatives of the non-profit community, City staff, and residents from across the City.
The goal was as simple as the answers are complicated: How do we ensure that Alexandria remain a place where everyone can live?
The draft Master Plan contains a list of recommendations that use our limited tax dollars, and the full power of our land-use authority to ensure the preservation of our existing stock of both market-rate and government-controlled affordable housing, as well as the creation of new affordable housing--again, both market-rate and government-controlled.
Some recommendations should enjoy broad-based support, such as the creation of privately funded loan consortiums to finance new affordable housing efforts. Others might be more controversial, such as zoning changes to allow accessory dwelling units in new development, as well as in existing neighborhoods--an idea I have advocated exploring in the past.
Now that the draft plan is out, the City is beginning the process of soliciting public input on the recommendations prior to them coming to the Planning Commission and City Council for approval.
There are two public meetings scheduled in the near-term to solicit input from the community on this plan. Please take the time to review the plan and either provide your input at the meetings or directly to me and the rest of the City Council.
The meetings are scheduled for:
January 24, 2013 at Samuel Tucker Elementary School (435 Ferdinand Day Drive)
February 11, 2013 at Jefferson Houston Elementary School (1501 Cameron Street)
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Sewer Master Plan--Out of Sight, But Not Out of Mind
Throughout the most recent campaign, I talked about the need to focus our attention on the basic infrastructure of our City. While it is rare for residents of Alexandria or the City Council to spend any more than momentary attention to our sewers, they are one of the most universal City services provided.
You may not use our schools, our police, our fire department, or even our roads, but every person who lives, works, or plays in Alexandria, sooner or later, relies upon our sewers.
While the historic nature of our City is part of what makes Alexandria unique, the historic nature of our infrastructure is part of the challenge we now face.
Most of the City's wastewater flows to Alexandria Renew Enterprises (an entity the provides service to Alexandria and Fairfax County)--formerly The Alexandria Sanitation Authority where it is processed. Current projections suggest the capacity available with Alexandria Renew will be depleted sometime after 2040.
While that seems like quite a long time in the future, when we consider the amount of time it takes to bring new sanitary sewer infrastructure online, we are already behind in handling these issues.
Unfortunately, capacity in waste water processing is not the only issue before us. Additionally, we have issues with capacity in the collector systems throughout the City. We still have the potential for overflows during extreme weather events and basement backups. Our aging infrastructure will hamper our ability to meet more stringent environmental regulations in the future.
To play catch-up, in November the City released the Draft Sanitary Sewer Master Plan. As with the Housing Master Plan, this draft lays out a series of recommendations, both short-term and longer-term to ensure that Alexandria's sewer system will not prove an impediment to our quality of life, or our economic growth.
While there are a variety of recommendations, the plan focuses on funding mechanisms for the improvements required--including asking developers to pay more up-front for the costs of sewer improvements required to support new development, as well as raising user fees to support the impacts of existing development.
A public meeting was held last month, and there will be further opportunities to provide comment as we move forward. If you get a chance to review the plan, please let me know your thoughts.
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