The final days of election season come with their own soundtrack, a percussion signaling that the end of all this [*gesturing at 15 square miles of yard signs*] is drawing near. The accelerating thunks of campaign mailers hitting inboxes. The rat-a-ta door-knocking of canvassers at all manner of ungodly hours. The thumping heartbeats of overtired, overcaffeinated candidates. Altogether it sounds like a stopwatch ticking down the hours until the polls close at 7pm on Tuesday, June 18.
We’ve held off this long without writing in depth about the election and honestly, it’s been weird for us to stay mostly mum about it. This is a newsletter about local issues, and deciding which people should run our city is kind of a BFD as far as local issues go. But we felt it was the right thing to do given Jesse’s insistence on “getting involved” in “helping the community” by “running for office.” We know, it’s pretty annoying. Why is he like this?? Anyway, despite our reticence, please know that in our minds—while you all have been living normal lives thinking about a healthy, well-rounded variety of topics—the local primary has been the #1 item in our mental discourse power ranking for every single week of 2024. It’s just 24/7 internal monologues about the election over here [Editor’s note: please send help].
In terms of the normal course of events in a competitive election, this one has been rather respectful and polite, comparatively speaking. That’s not to say that the campaign has been a six-month-long kumbaya hug-fest “one team one dream” orgy of democratic solidarity, but generally speaking the tenor of the race has stayed focused on the issues without turning personally acrimonious [Editor’s note: aside from all the height jokes, which… we’ll allow it]. In our view, that’s a testament to the values of our political community. We may be messy bitches who live for municipal drama, but we keep our squabbles substantive and policy-based.
And it’s honestly quite remarkable, in truth, the degree to which the substance of those conversations has been dynamic and engaging throughout the race. In part that’s because we’ve actually been having two parallel discussions in tandem: one looking back (rehashing the Great Arena Goat Rodeo of 2023-24) and one looking ahead (staking out different pathways to make progress on housing, schools, budgets, and other key issues). Some candidates have placed more emphasis on one, some on the other. As we’ve written about extensively in this space, we tend to gravitate more toward the latter category, what with time continuing to advance in a linear fashion and so forth. It’s simply an immutable law of nature [Editor’s note: this is Doc Brown erasure] that we all move inexorably forward, and given that truth it’s incumbent on us to fix our eyes ahead lest we trip over the curb and fall flat on our face [Editor’s note: the curb is a metaphor for city revenue shortfalls].
The point is, notwithstanding recent complaints about our “one party city,” it’s clear that the candidates have offered a real range of priorities, viewpoints, and approaches to addressing local concerns. While the Alexandria primary might not feel as existential as the upcoming presidential election—for example, so far none of our candidates have threatened to be a “dictator on day one” or been found guilty of 34 felony counts by a jury of their peers—its outcome will have a major impact on our city’s direction in the coming years, as we choose between all the visions and possible futures the candidates have articulated. No matter who wins or loses, you can’t say the voters didn’t have options.
Ultimately, while we clearly have ~thoughts~ about our preferred outcomes, at the end of the day what really matters is that you vote. Just go vote! No matter which boxes you decide to fill in on your ballot, you deserve to have a say in what happens here today, tomorrow, and over the next three years. This is your city. Your opinion and your vote matter just as much as anybody else’s, no matter which precinct you call home or how long you’ve lived there.
So few people tend to participate in our local primaries that each vote really does matter. In the 2021 primary, only 24% of registered voters cast a ballot—and that wasn’t an abnormally low number because of covid, it was 23% in the previous primary three years earlier. In some elections it can be as low as the teens! As a pair of fortysomethings, “the teens” is a phrase that generally strikes intense fear into our hearts [Editor’s note: the words they use are so confusing!!] but in this case we think that reaction is wholly justified. We can do so much better, Alexandria! As the age-old saying viral tweet goes, nothing proves the importance of participating in local elections more than the fact that the mayor from Jaws is still the mayor in Jaws 2. This man is arguably a bigger villain than the actual shark and yet he gets to serve another term? There’s no way he could have been reelected in a high-turnout race after his bad decisions and cover-up attempts became public. What happened there? Did the residents of Amity Island get complacent after the initial threat of violent death had passed? Did the local newspaper advocate for elections to be held at a less convenient time so fewer people would bother casting ballots? Whatever it was, we can’t let that be us. We have to show up. Every. Single. Time. Because government works best when it represents all of us.
Every election is important, but also: this election is important. Our city is facing challenging issues, from a lack of affordable housing to an unsustainable number of pizza restaurants imbalance in our tax base to a climate crisis that’s stressing our infrastructure and our health. It’s worth taking a few minutes of your time to read up on the candidates and make an informed choice. It can feel overwhelming to keep up with it all—wait, is it Candidate X who wants to turn the Torpedo Factory into a roller disco or is that Candidate Y, and who’s the one that proposed adding a designated scooter lane to every street within the historic district? Fortunately, you have 75,000 [Editor’s note: figure only slightly exaggerated] candidate surveys and questionnaires and podcast episodes available to help you keep everybody straight.
Jokes aside, we Alexandrians have a pretty amazing situation as voters. When you look at the number of forums and events that have been held, all the chances to meet candidates and talk directly with them… that kind of access and engagement is pretty special, and not true of many places. The best way to appreciate how lucky we are in this respect is to continue paying attention and speaking up. This city is what it is because of the involvement of the people who live in it. We care deeply about this community and if you’re taking the time to read this newsletter (which was recently described to us as “Wilsonian” and not in a good way) we’re guessing that you do too. Thank you for being engaged. Thank you for voting. Whatever happens on June 18, we’re excited and optimistic about what the future holds for all of us. So get your ass to the polls, and we’ll see you on the other side.
Things You May Have Missed Because You Have a Life
The city has started planting 275 total new trees to commemorate Alexandria’s 275th birthday, give local George Washington re-enactors something new to cut down on Presidents Day next year.
Are you all ready for the first annual Alexandria Country Music Festival on Saturday?! We’re prepping for the occasion by memorizing the lyrics of our favorite country songs about Alexandria: “Red Brick Blues,” “Old Town, New Trouble,” “Guitars and Ghost Tours,” “Lost in Fauxlexandria,” and who could forget the classic “You Blocked My Heart (Like a Track Lane Lightpole).”
Earlier this week a gaggle of geese launched a surprise offensive in the war on cars by shutting down traffic in the 395 express lanes. Disappointingly, despite a lot of honking on all sides of the conflict, VDOT escorted them off the road before they had the chance to lay any golden eggs. At least the animals led them on some sort of wild chase first [Editor’s note: there’s probably a topically relevant expression for this but we can’t remember what it is].
Local Discourse Power Rankings
“Alexandria” (Last week: 1). Our exhortation in the last issue for a reporter to tackle Fairfax County’s unceasing acts of Alexandrian stolen valor worked! The incomparable Andrew Beaujon at Washingtonion has a piece up this week explaining both why Fake Alexandria persists, why it matters, and why it is so very, very annoying. For our next act with this newfound power of local media assignment desk, we’d like to see a 5,000 word feature story on why the Commonwealth/King/Dangerfield intersection seems like it was designed by a racoon on meth.
Grinds House (Last week: NR). [Somber infomercial voice] Every 7 minutes in our city an unsuspecting homeowner is menaced by a coffee shop in their neighborhood. [Cut to: A family peeking nervously out their window as a barista sets up a sandwich board outside a newly opened cafe.] It starts with the innocuous smell of freshly ground beans wafting through the street. But before long, the local character starts to change in more troubling ways. Once-quiet sidewalks fill with unnaturally alert pedestrians and dog-walkers. Customers linger over warm beverages and fresh-baked treats, daring to actually enjoy their lives. [Cut to: A neighbor looks on in horror as a group of friends talk and smile while lounging at a patio table.] Join our fight to reclaim our streets from these caffeinated intruders. Together, we can stop these lattes from becoming a latte trouble. [On-screen text: Call 1-800-NO-BREWS for more information. Fade out with soft music and the sounds of a coffee machine hissing ominously.]
You Idiots Are
DoingPerceiving This Road Wrong (Last week: 2). Architectural Digest recently ranked King Street as one of the most beautiful streets in the world, and people are saying all kinds of hurtful things about it on Facebook. For example, that these results could only have been produced by someone who was taking bribes, or who had never left the city of Alexandria. That the list is “a joke.” “Europe is prettier.” “The judges were drunk.” Stop this slander!!! Is King Street a whitewashed seaside alley on Mykonos? Is it the Champs Fucking Élysées? No. It’s better. It has one and a half (1.5) entire blocks that are closed to vehicles. It has a shoe store across the street from the same shoe store. It has a meteor sculpture that shoots vapor into your eyes if you attempt to look into the holes. Those other streets that are supposedly “more beautiful,” do they have their own brick police? Do they exude the sublime juxtaposition of past and present that can only arise from close proximity between a two-hundred-year-old spite house and a Taco Bell Cantina? Yeah, we didn’t think so. So all those commenters can go drink their haterade underneath a bougainvillea-covered balcony in Cartagena and leave First-String King [Editor’s note: sorry, getting a little carried away here] to those of us who can actually appreciate it.What Does Alexandria Taste Like (Last week: NR). Do you ever think about what Alexandria tastes like? Wait, no–stop licking that brick, that’s not what we meant. For the gastro-curious among us, there’s been a couple recent opportunities to speed date the local dining scene. Taste of Del Ray was a couple weekends back (always fun) in addition to a recently announced Taste of Alexandria cookbook that features signature dishes from local restaurants. In our opinion it’s weird that someone made an entire cookbook that’s just 21 different kinds of pizza? But hey, we got to work with what we’ve got. Anyway, get out there and do some research and then tell us in the comments what Alexandria tastes like (wrong answers only).
Alexandria’s Hottest Club Is… A Rainbow Crosswalk
June isn’t just election season in Alexandria—it’s also 🌈Pride🌈. This is a very special month for our city and not just because it means we definitely won’t run into J.D. Vance at Target. It’s also an opportunity to celebrate our LGBTQ+ friends and neighbors, and to remember our community’s proud record of standing up for equal rights when others were being real shitheads about it. As we’re fond of reminding the rest of the commonwealth, we were the first locality in Virginia to include sexual orientation as a protected class in our human rights code almost forty years ago, and last year we scored a perfect 100 on the Human Rights Campaign’s municipal equality index. When we say “love is love,” this* is what we’re talking about (*our love for being better than other cities)!
We celebrated the start of this year’s Pride in a very on-brand way: with pedestrian infrastructure. Bolstering our Architectural Digest “most beautiful street” cred even further, the city painted the crosswalks at the intersection of Royal and King in front of City Hall with the colors of the Progress Pride Flag, and can we just say that polychromatic stripes look good on Old Town! The whole thing is like if there was a mash-up of “Over the Rainbow” and “Follow the Yellow Brick Road,” and that mash-up was a physical place, and that place gave the BAR the vapors. Naturally it became the selfie capital of Alexandria before, during, and after the Pride Festival in Market Square. Which, by the way? Totally rules. Just an awesome event. The live band, the Pride Ride, the swag that you never would have anticipated in your most imaginative fever dreams (shoutout rainbow-stickered toilet paper roll, you’re too beautiful to flush). This year we even got to watch a special Pride-wrapped bus perform the ceremonial ribbon cutting on the new crosswalks. Watch out local electeds, DASH is coming for your jobs!
You don’t have to rush to get down there and take your own selfie because it was recently announced that unlike Mayor Wilson, these paint jobs aren’t abandoning us anytime soon! You do, however, need to hustle if you want to catch the remaining Pride festivities planned for this month, including a book club, bar crawl, and drag brunch. So get out there and have fun!
One Awesome Thing in ALX
With summer fully upon us (and looking ahead to next week’s weather that should perhaps be amended to say aggressively upon us) we can finally get after all those activities that just feel better and right this time of year. We covered pools in our last issue, and this week we are here to sing the praises of baseball. No wait. Where are you going. Don’t leave, come on. Baseball is great, we swear!
Baseball is especially great the closer you can get to the game. Being able to hear the leather pop of every pitch and the constant chatter of the infield. The way the wood cracks different when a batter hits it on the screws. The tumbling scrum of kids that scramble to chase after every foul ball. Don’t get us wrong, seeing a big league game in a modern park is fantastic too, but when we talk about baseball’s connection to America’s cultural heritage the romanticism evoked is the languid intimacy of a local game, metal bleachers and a dusty field, a cheap hotdog sold to you by a neighbor. Baseball was a barnstorming sport after all, teams traveling from town to town playing small local games—and that original spirit is still most evident in minor league and college summer league games.
Why are we [Editor’s note: sure, let’s go with “we”] writing store-brand Field of Dreams pablum and getting all misty-eyed about grassroots baseball? Well, because Alexandria happens to be the home city of one of the very best wood bat summer league teams in the area, the Alexandria Aces. They play their home games at Frank Mann Field (over behind Cora Kelly Elementary) and it’s about the best time you can have for $7 anywhere in town this summer. And it’s not just cheap baseball, it’s good baseball! The Aces have played in the Cal Ripken League championship the last three seasons, winning it all in 2022. Their roster of college players come from across the country and are hosted for the season by local families, so you’re likely to run into players out and around in our neighborhoods.
If you haven’t been to a game yet, make sure to change that. Schedule information is on their website and you can walk right up and buy a ticket at the gate. We’ll see you out there.
You can follow Becky @beckyhammer.bsky.social and Jesse @oconnell.bsky.social on Bluesky, or you can e-mail us anytime at alxtranewsletter@gmail.com.