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Keeping the Focus on Our Kids
As with any transition, it presents opportunities and challenges moving forward. Ultimately, the nine people elected to provide policy direction for our schools have made their decisions, and as a community we need to use this moment to focus on the children in our schools, and how we can ensure their success.
The test results portray a varied picture of our school system. They  showed continued progress in mathematics learning around our City. They also showed signs of concern for reading and writing learning.
Overall, 13 of our schools are fully accredited for this upcoming school year, 5 will be accredited with warning, and Jefferson Houston Elementary School will remain without accreditation.
Alexandria continues to have good schools--filled with dedicated, creative and hard-working teachers that inspire our children every day. I see it in my own children when I drop them off excited to learn, and I see it in their faces when they recount their days when I pick them up.
However, we cannot be satisfied with the fact that we have children who are not achieving in our schools.
Yet there are school systems around the country that have excelled in educating children from poor backgrounds, or children with limited English proficiency.
The variation in test scores within our City show that there are even schools in Alexandria that have excelled in educating these children.
As a member of the City Council, it can be easy to make the case that this is an issue for our School Board. There is no question that the Board which was elected to lead our schools have an enormous responsibility for ensuring our students' success.
That being said, our children are in school for 32.5 hours a week. What they experience in the other 135.5 hours of each week (as well as the 5-6 years before they enter our schools) has a dramatic impact on their achievement.
We cannot ignore the significant role that the City government plays in the success of our children.
Many of our children receive pre-school, day care, after school and summer camp from City government. They may access programs from our Health Department, our Recreation Department, our Court Services Unit, or some of the many non-profit organizations that receive City funding.
The children may live in public housing units owned and operated by the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority, or in affordable housing units created or supported by the City.
This is part of the rationale behind our effort to develop a new Youth Master Plan. We can no longer afford to throw as many programmatic "solutions" at our children as possible and assume success will result. A coordinated approach tailored to each child, utilizing all of the resources available within our City will best equip us to reach every child.
Later this year, as the Child, Youth & Families Collaborative Commission and the City Council work to adopt the Master Plan, we will need continued community input to ensure an actionable, realistic plan that helps ensure the success of every child.
Food Trucks
Many residents have written urging that the City consider the possibility of allowing food trucks to operate in Alexandria.
I frequent food trucks in downtown Washington for lunch, and I do believe that properly regulated, they can offer a convenient option for both residents and visitors to our City alike.
 There are certainly quality of life and competition concerns that need to be thoughtfully addressed prior to changing existing ordinances.
With that in mind, the City Manager has formed a working group of residents, restaurateurs, farmers market organizers, and food truck operators to make a series of policy recommendations.
The City Manager will make a recommendation for the City Council to consider later in the fall.
One Is the Loneliest Number
As legislative paralysis causes the Federal Government to lurch from one short-term budget to another, we see a cautionary tale of the failure to budget strategically over time.
This fall, Alexandria has a chance to send the opposite message.
The Fiscal Year 2015 budget process will begin officially this fall, with the adoption of our guidance for the City Manager to use in the preparation of his budget.
As I've discussed in past newsletters, this is the place where the City Council provides the ground-rules for the Manager as he works to prepare the budget he will present in February.
I believe we should use the next budget guidance as the opportunity to direct the preparation of a multi-year operating budget.
Each spring, the Council adopts an annual operating budget, and a 10-year Capital Improvement Program (CIP). That approved budget includes three forecast scenarios, which provides an excellent starting point for a long-range operating plan.
Our current annual budget process hampers long-range planning, encourages short-term decision making by policy makers, creates unnecessary spending and taxation volatility, and obscures long-range operating impacts of capital spending.
We plan capital improvements over a 10-year cycle, allowing us to coordinate and sequence construction and maintenance efforts. That very same rigor can help us on the operating budget, whether we are implementing a new unit in our Police Department, or reducing staffing in a department due to reductions in the demand for services over time.
I look forward to discussing these changes in the fall.
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From Washington Street to the water, King Street becomes an outdoor art gallery. 
