Alexandria Birthday Party!
The City's celebration of our country's 237th birthday, and our City's 264th birthday will be held on Saturday July 13th at Oronoco Bay Park.
The event starts at 7 PM and includes fireworks, food (including the City's birthday cake) and music.
I will see you there!
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July 4th in Rosemont
The Rosemont Citizens Association continues the tradition with their July 4th Celebration at Maury Elementary School.
The events begin at 10 AM, and the opening ceremony begins at noon. Bring your family for this wonderful neighborhood event!
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12K National Championship to Alexandria
This 12 kilometer race, hosted by USA Track and Field and produced by Alexandria business Pacers Events, will run a course designed to showcase our City (as well as minimize disruption).
This is an exciting event for our City, and I look forward to running with all of you.
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Free Outdoor Movies
The weekend of July 19th & 20th offers Alexandrians free outdoor movies whereever they turn!
At Waterfront Park, Comcast will be presenting Skyfall on Friday evening and Rise of the Guardians on Saturday evening as part of the Alexandria Film Fest.
On Saturday evening on the field next to Mount Vernon Recreation Center, Jen Walker will be presenting Wreck-It-Ralph as part of Cinema Del Ray. |
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 Council is officially in recess until September.
It is always a whirlwind as Council rushes to conclude its business before the summer, and this year was no exception.
June was full of exciting economic development announcements and progress in important policy areas.
I'm looking forward to the summer to recharge and get ready for the next Council term.
Please let me know how I can be of assistance. Contact me anytime.
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Welcome Home, National Science Foundation
The NSF is a $7 billion federal agency with 2,100 employees that funds 20% of the basic science research occurring at colleges and universities in the United States. In addition, NSF supports a "contractor tail" of an additional 2,200 workers and fill at least 60,000 hotel room nights a year in their current home in the Ballston section of Arlington County.
In short, luring the NSF to Alexandria would be a big deal.
Ultimately, two landowners in the City placed bids with the General Services Administration (GSA) to attract the NSF.
With the City's aggressive courtship, including real estate tax incentives, the GSA announced that the NSF will be moving to Alexandria in 2017. Upon its completion, the NSF will be occupying a brand new 660,848 square foot office building across the street from the Eisenhower Metro Rail station and next to the AMC movie theater.
This is a gigantic win for our City. The move creates $83 million of annual impact to our economy--including $50 million of net tax revenue over the initial 15 year lease term.
The new building will even save federal taxpayers $65 million over the initial lease term.
Together with the Patent and Trademark Office, Alexandria is becoming the center of research and innovation, and this creates exciting opportunities for our City.
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Alexandria's Children--Ready to Learn
As we began the budget process in late February we knew we had 276 children under 5 on our waiting list for subsidies for child-care, and another 200 children on the waiting list for Head Start services. Due to budgetary constraints, the proposed budget could not eliminate this waiting list.
Along with my colleagues, I pushed to expand our City's commitment to the public/private partnership that strives to ensure that every child begins Kindergarten ready to learn.
The Council made an additional $950,000 commitment to our children. We set aside funds  to address the waiting list for child-care subsidy and address Federal funds cuts to our Head Start Program that would have grown that waiting list.
Earlier this month, the City Council voted to allocate the first half of this money--to shrink the waiting list for child-care subsidies, and restore a Head Start classroom.
Taken together, this action provides early childhood education for over 100 children. Without this allocation these children would have started Kindergarten behind their classmates; a situation that not only adversely affects their educational attainment throughout their schooling, but also costs the taxpayers additional money.
This effort is one of the most important investments we can make in the future of our children, and I'm excited to see this initiative become reality.
In the fall the City Council will allocate the remainder of the new money. Our goal will be to use the remaining money to benefit the highest number of children.
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Helping Small Business Grow
In past newsletters, I have written about our City's budget process, and the challenges we face due to the gap between our projected revenue and our projected expenditures.
One of the most effective and sustainable ways to narrow that gap is to increase the level of commercial activity occurring in our City.
With that in mind, the Council made new investments in economic development initiatives in this most recently adopted budget. For economic development to be successful, our City needs to create the environment for business attraction and growth.
Preparing a qualified workforce, promoting clusters of successful and similar businesses, and developing physical infrastructure are all positive ways we can support business growth.
Our business tax structure can also play a significant role.
Virginia is a Dillon Rule state--governed by a Richmond-proscribed framework which limits our flexibility in how we assess taxes. Yet over the past decade, Alexandria has used what little authority we do have to make changes to our tax structure.
In 2005, the City restructured its Business License Tax (BPOL) to make it easier for small and medium sized businesses.
Starting in 2007, based on the recommendations of the Small Business Task Force, the City worked over several years to streamline operations in government. This made it easier for both businesses and residents alike to interact with government.
Both of the major party candidates for Governor this year are touting proposals for reform of Virginia's business tax structure. The time is right for Alexandria to continue the progress we have made over the past decade to ensure that small and medium-sized businesses can grow in our City.
With that in mind, my colleagues Tim Lovain, Paul Smedberg and I have proposed the creation of a new task force. This group will bring recommendations forward to make changes to Alexandria's tax policy that will ultimately help businesses grow and prosper in our City.
Doing so will ease the burden on our residential taxpayers and create jobs for our residents. We hope to have recommendations for consideration by the end of the year.
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Giving our Bravest the Best
One of the most important obligations of our Capital Improvement Program is to ensure that the brave men and women of the Alexandria Fire Department have the best equipment to keep our community and our employees safe.
It was a focus of our efforts during the most recent budget adoption--particularly as it related to the renovation of our aging fire stations.
Often these initiatives can appear abstract. Last month  we had the opportunity to see the tangible impact of these investments, as we gathered at Fire Station 209 in Potomac Yard to celebrate the introduction of 9 new fire engines into our fleet.
These investments will benefit our community for years to come.
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 Host a Town Hall in Your Living Room! My regular series of Town Hall Meetings--in your living room, are back!
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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A Decent Proposal?
The proposal, which is very preliminary, would allow a private operator to construct and operate a large facility incorporating:
- 80,000 square foot field house
- Baseball center (four batting cages)
- Four basketball/volleyball courts
- Aquatics center
- Two regulation ice rinks
- Gymnastics center
- Rock climbing center
- Golf and racquet club
- Health club
- Sports rehab center
- Day-care facility.
There is no question that this is a very bold and potentially exciting proposal. Whenever a government considers taking a public park and converting it to private use, there are a series of trade-offs that must be carefully considered.
With the receipt of this proposal, the City has also adopted a process for the consideration of this (and potentially other) unsolicited proposals for the use of public property.
The applicant in this proposal will begin a series of public meetings to solicit input this evening at the Holiday Inn on Eisenhower Avenue (2460 Eisenhower Avenue) from 6:30 - 8:30 PM.
In the fall, if the Council decides that the concept presented by this proposal is worth pursuing, we can issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) that will invite this applicant (and potentially others) to apply to the City formally.
Assuming there is an agreement at that point with an applicant, this effort would then go through the normal land-use process for approval through the Planning Commission and City Council.
Landmark Mall Redevelopment Moves Ahead
As I wrote about last month, the City Council considered and approved the first development plan for the redevelopment of Landmark Mall.
While this proposal does not achieve the full vision of the approved Landmark/Van Dorn Plan, it is designed not to preclude the future realization of the plan--including the very important transit and pedestrian elements.
This is a catalyst project. For decades, Landmark Mall was a core component of our City's financial success. In recent times, that has no longer been the case.
This redevelopment effort, along with the others that hopefully will come later, will ensure that Landmark is part of our City's future success.
Eisenhower West Plan to Begin In Fall
As I discussed last month, the Council had an important choice to make over how to prioritize our Planning resources. The Council did vote to begin the Eisenhower West Planning process later this year, and begin the Old Town North planning process in the Fall of 2015.
This new Work Plan allows the City to complete two critical planning efforts within the next three years.
I look forward to working together with the community to lay out a vision for the future of both of these important areas.
Council Acts on Dedicated Funds
Last month I discussed the history of the City's dedication of general fund real estate tax funds for the acquisition of new Open Space and the creation of new Affordable Housing.
In adopting our budget on May 6th, the Council voted unanimously to remove those dedications to provide the Council with greater flexibility as we move forward to confront the very real budgetary challenges that face us over the next few years.
In the aftermath of that vote, there were efforts to reconsider the Council's action. In the end, the Council voted 6-1 to reaffirm our decision to remove the dedication for Open Space, and voted 5-2 to retain the dedication for Affordable Housing. I was in the majority on the first vote, and in the minority on the second vote.
There was a very worthwhile debate of the Council on both of these items. I encourage you to watch the video to understand the perspective of each member.
Our current projections suggest that we will be cutting anywhere from $9 - $20 million out of spending to balance next year's budget. By retaining the dedication for Affordable Housing we have sent the direction to the City Manager that he can propose cuts in EVERY other area except new Affordable Housing development.
I continue to support the development of affordable housing in our City. I have a record of supporting both funding and land-use initiatives that have led to the creation of affordable housing around our City. That being said, it is but one of numerous priorities facing our City, and I am uncomfortable suggesting that it can never be adjusted during difficult times.
I believe the decision of the majority of the Council simply deferred a very difficult discussion of our funding priorities.
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