By Cody Mello-Klein | cmelloklein@alextimes.com

All nine City Council candidates hopped on Zoom on Oct. 6 for a virtual forum to provide their thoughts on some of the most pressing issues facing the city in the Nov. 2 general election.

Hosted by the Seminary Ridge Civic Association and moderated by SRCA Vice President Richie Weiblinger, the forum addressed everything from flooding, density and school resource officers to the Duke Street transit corridor and civic engagement. Although Weiblinger said at the top of the forum that it was “not intended to be debate,” as the forum wore on, candidates began to take pot shots and occasionally interrupt one another.

The forum, which featured the six Democrats, two independents and one Republican running for council, was broken into short answer questions that were posed to sets of three candidates. Each candidate had a minute to answer the question. There were also four yes or no questions posed to the candidates.

In light of a homicide that occurred inside the BJ’s Wholesale Club on South Van Dorn Street, several questions were aimed at addressing what Weiblinger referred to as an “uptick in major crime.”

Sarah Bagley, who works for an affordable housing nonprofit and volunteers with the gun violence prevention organization Moms Demand Action, said that “gun violence is a public health issue” that requires introducing more education around gun ownership and mental health.

“Whether it’s two, zero or four [homicides], this is an issue that I speak deeply about and feel passionate about and believe that through partnerships with our police, partnerships with our mental health resources and destigmatizing it, talking about these issues openly in our communities, it will help us address it and increase Alexandria’s safety for everybody,” Bagley said.

Councilor Canek Aguirre, who is running for a second term, pushed back on Weiblinger’s assertion that there has been a major uptick. He argued that while statistically an increase to four homicides in one year may seem significant, the numbers themselves show that “Alexandria is still one of the safest cities in the Commonwealth by far, hands down.”

“We have one of the best police departments in the country, I would say. We’re definitely going to be talking with the police chief to see what we would do, and I also realize that due to COVID-19 there have been other crimes that have seen a large uptick because people were staying home, not locking their vehicles, and there are some things we can do to easily address some of this,” Aguirre said.

When it came to density and the city’s continued growth, most candidates agreed that the city needs to balance healthy growth and development with not superseding demand on city infrastructure.

Alyia Gaskins, a public health and urban planning professional at a national foundation, said that development brings many benefits to the city, including public art, affordable housing and commercial investments that add to the city’s tax base and revenue. However, Gaskins said the city can be more precise with developers about “what it means to do business in Alexandria.”

“We need to have a clear set of standards for what we’re looking for and our expectations so that any development that comes before us, we’re able to articulate what is our vision in the city, what are our goals for quality of life, what are our visions for how we grow and how development needs to sit in that context,” Gaskins said.

Three-term Councilor John Chapman, who also founded Manumission Tour Company, said the city needs to foster business and healthy growth, particularly coming out of the pandemic.

“I think it benefits our community because additional business revenue will help us control property taxes,” Chapman said. “I think that has been a growing issue in our city that we all know about and need to make sure that as we grow and maintain our services, repair our schools and hopefully build new ones, we can help our businesses compete and thrive in this city.”

Councilor Amy Jackson, a former educator who is running for a second term, echoed Gaskins’ comments while stressing that development needs to be scaled back in order to address the city’s overwhelmed stormwater infrastructure.

“We need to be able to engage with [developers] but also set the bar high for what we’d like to see,” Jackson said. “… We need that tax base and we use that money for our schools, our infrastructure, everything. Do I think we need to scale back? Yes, I do. We’ve seen flooding issues take place because of it, and I think we need to start underground, literally, and move up through the density high rises.”

With flooding hitting neighborhoods across the city with increasing intensity and frequency, the issue has been at the forefront of many residents’ minds. It was also a stated priority for several City Council candidates, including Kirk McPike, chief of staff for Rep. Mark Takano (D-California).

McPike supported working regionally to bring money from Richmond and Capitol Hill as well as working with developers to secure funding for the city’s large-scale stormwater infrastructure projects, the first of which are not due to begin construction until 2024.

“If I’m on council, I’m going to look for ways to help the city bring more money in from developers who want to come and work in the city,” McPike said. “Let’s add some fees and work with them to make some deposits into an account that we can use to expand and accelerate the work on the capacity side of this project.

Glenda Gail Parker, a contractor on government budget analysis, came into the election with an emphasis on the environment and said she would aim to address flooding through a combination of regular maintenance work and expanded capacity projects.

“One of the first things that could be done is doing maintenance regularly on the existing drainage systems, as well as expanding capacity,” Parker said. “Another thing that we must do – and I have been advocating for for a number of years – is to present positive solutions to mitigate climate extremes. Of course, that’s more trains and less traffic.”

City Council’s 4-3 vote on July 6 to reallocate $800,000 in funding from the school resource officer program to teen wellness and mental health services for students has remained one of the most hot-button issues on the campaign trail. Even prior to council’s decision, SROs, police stationed in the city’s middle schools and high school, divided the community, with some arguing SROs are a necessary safety measure and others that they perpetuate harm to students of color and students with disabilities.

Jackson, one of the three City Council members to oppose the reallocation of SRO funding, reiterated her opposition during the forum last week. She said she aims to reinvest the money should she be re-elected.

“That’s public safety that’s in our schools, and when the school administration and School Board would like to have that and we take it away from, that causes a rift and we need to have some communication around that,” Jackson said.

When asked more broadly about increasing funding to the police department, Chapman said the city needs to increase pay for its first responders and all city staff in order to remain competitive with other Northern Virginia jurisdictions.

“We’re not getting the best and brightest. We’re not attracting them because we’re shooting at the middle, we’re trying to be somewhere in the middle in terms of pay and compensation,” Chapman said. “We need to compete for the area’s best and brightest coming out of public safety institutions and academies.”

Weiblinger also asked the candidates about how the city can improve its civic engagement.

Darryl Nirenberg, a partner at Steptoe & Johnson law firm who focuses on tax policy and financial services, argued that the best way to ensure residents have a voice in city politics is by returning to a ward-based election system. The city previously had a ward system before it changed to the current atlarge system in 1950.

“Representation is at the core of our democracy, and it’s especially important at the local level,” Nirenberg said. “… Districts give neighborhoods someone who is accountable, who can be called upon and who will give neighborhoods a voice.”

Nirenberg also expressed support for Alexandria’s civic associations being given more opportunities to weigh in on local issues, a stance that Aguirre pushed back on.

Aguirre argued that while civic associations are a valuable voice in the city, they are also the loudest voice and that City Council is and should continue increasing engagement with underrepresented groups.

“We’re changing the way that we’re doing community engagement in the city, and we’re doing more pop-ups,” Aguirre said. “We’re going to laundromats, we’re going to bus stops – we’re trying to meet people where they are because not everyone has time to go to a meeting at 7 p.m. on a Wednesday.”

Florence King, a 30-year resident of the city who has served on the Alexandria Historical Resources Commission and Commission on Employment, said the city should turn to faith and community-based organizations that can assist in reaching residents who often feel left out of the political process.

“A lot of people don’t want to engage because they feel left behind, so I think we need to do something about that,” King said. “We do need more community engagement, and some of our civic organizations can also help in that situation.”

In discussing the potential for a second high school, King also expressed support for creating a technical or vocational high school in the city.

“I see some kids and they feel like they are isolated because they might not be on the academic trail, going to a four-year college,” King said. “But you have some students who are great with their hands or very creative, and a college may not be something they are interested in.”