By Col. Pat Webb, ret., Alexandria (File photo)
To the editor:
Experience, leadership, integrity, vision, fiscal responsibility, a thoughtful listener and inclusive: Sound like a neighbor you’d like to have coffee with and chat? Sound like someone you’d like to hire to lead your team? How about to lead your city? These qualities embody Vice Mayor Allison Silberberg.
Silberberg is serving Alexandria as a very capable vice mayor and has shown incredible integrity, vision and strength every day and in the face of opposition. She has more than 20 years of experience in community leadership and public service. She spent nearly a decade on Alexandria’s Economic Opportunities Commission, advocating issues for the city, including employment, affordable housing, health care, homelessness prevention and abusive lending
practices. She created the commission’s annual public service day, All Hands on Deck, a resounding success.
The vice mayor served as a corporate officer for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, bringing area leaders together to address major issues in Northern Virginia, D.C., and suburban Maryland, including transportation, environment, housing, health and human services, homeland security and public safety and cooperative purchasing.
As vice mayor and as a resident, Silberberg passionately identifies historic preservation, responsible growth, and prosperity as core values to protect our neighborhoods and quality of life. Her record at City Hall shows she seeks compromise to put citizens’ issues ahead and ensure their voices are heard, a result of her open monthly coffees where residents share their thoughts and concerns.
Her voting record further shows her unswerving commitment to diversified economic sustainability and fiscal responsibility, and a steady focus on excellence in education, police and fire services, senior services, libraries and parks.
She has impressive vision and is a lifelong advocate for social justice, receiving awards for her community work. She founded and led a nonprofit to mentor youth in Anacostia — seven of the eight participants went to college. For a decade, she hosted monthly charitable events, giving all proceeds to local nonprofits focused on children at risk and families in distress. She also works to ensure that women are included in all medical research, clinical trials and
drug testing.
Silberberg has a Bachelor’s degree from American University, an M.F.A. from UCLA, and has been an Alexandria resident since 1989. Vote for Silberberg for mayor on November 3.
