What does an ideal Sunday sound like to you? Maybe there’s brunch. A bit of football. Some napping reading perhaps. Menu planning and meal prep, that’s popular. And let’s not forget drinking heavily to beat back the Sunday Scaries - that’s a classic! Also, yardwork. The point is, while we’ve listed quite a few typical Sunday activities here, we have categorically not mentioned “sit on a stage and listen to people talk at you for a couple of hours.”
And yet that’s what our City Council members have planned for their Sunday. Bless their hearts.
To be clear, that’s a (mostly) non-sarcastic bless their hearts! It’s important to offer an open forum in which our elected officials make themselves available to listen and to learn. If you look at this exercise clinically and dispassionately, it would be reasonable to conclude that a town hall is a productive use of time, as well as a testament to our local government’s commitment to openness and accessibility. And it’s not without sacrifice - I mean, have you looked up what time the Commanders kick off? [John Chapman drops to his knees, screaming in anguish]
Here’s the thing though. This is not a clinically dispassionate exercise. This is not a theoretical application of good government practices. This is real people, in the real world. And real people—we must remind you—can be real fucking weird.
What you find urgent and captivating is not necessarily what the rest of us find urgent and captivating. It may not be what anyone finds urgent and captivating. Yet the unstructured free-for-all format of a town hall means that we must all collectively endure some guy’s take that bike lanes are actually Jim Crow for cars, or this lady’s accusations about how a new stormwater regulation made her lawn woke, or all the other various bits of grievance cabaret performed the second you give people a live mic and a captive audience. It can just be… a lot.
Part of the problem is that public town hall meetings are commonly mistaken for therapy. Therapy is great! Everyone should go to therapy. But everyone should not go to therapy in front of seven elected officials and dozens of neighbors. You do not have to emotionally process in real time how this tree reminds you of your dad’s strong arms lifting you high into the summer gloaming, of those fleeting moments of real magic in this world… and that’s why we can’t build a new homeless shelter on that spot. Just because you feel like the new speed camera on your block is watching you (and only you) doesn’t mean you need to stand up and say that out loud (it definitely is though). Please do not bring your issues and hang-ups to these meetings, just bring your complaints about potholes and spare the rest of us your soul’s primal screaming.
And you know, this would all mostly be fine if it ended here: with the public therapy, with the being heard. But it doesn’t. For many people, “being heard” and “getting your way” are interpreted as interchangeable phrases. So in letting someone share their views, we have accidentally facilitated their expectation for immediate and unequivocal action. This is at the root of so much displeasure with local government- not just ours, but everywhere. It’s a nasty side-effect of “debate me” culture- this inability to understand that saying your piece and being heard does not then inevitably flow to capitulation. Decisions do not work like this, especially decisions being made in the public interest. Those decisions are made based on facts, law, and a complex balance of short- and long-term goals and trade-offs.
We hope you go to the town hall on Sunday- we do, really. You should participate in our democracy, what with democracy being in “smoke ‘em if you got ‘em” territory for the most part these days. Just know that the second you start talking about how that dream where you’re naked in math class is really about approving an outdoor amplified music permit, we’re out.
Things You May Have Missed Because You Have a Life
[Chevy Chase on SNL Weekend Update voice] This breaking news just in: Generous George’s is still abandoned.
Spooky drinks are back! To get customers in the Halloween spirit, the cocktail menu at Nightmare on the Ave will feature (we assume) drinks named after the things that people in this city find truly scary: the Four-Story Building, the Sidewalk Scooter, and the Halal Chicken.
Some very good dogs went swimming.
Local students rocked the stage with members of Congress, unfortunately did not rock the vote on a government funding bill.
Local Discourse Power Rankings
You Idiots Are Doing This Road Wrong (Last week: 3). The question has been asked—many, many, MANY times—but it must be asked again: what the fuck is going on with Seminary Road? How did it become the Bermuda Triangle of Alexandria? And why does it, uniquely, melt otherwise rational people’s brains? Local news reported that more drivers are wrecking their cars there despite the fact that the city lowered the speed limit from 35 to 25 a couple years ago. Aha (you might be thinking, if you are one of the aforementioned melted-brain havers)! The crashes must be caused by the speed limit reduction! Therefore, to solve the problem, we should eliminate not just the speed limit but all traffic laws. It’ll be just like our own real-life version of Mad Max: Fury Road. No vehicles crashed in that movie, right? It’s been a while since we’ve seen it.
BAR Rescue (Last week: NR). Huge week for the (building) fashion police, as they got to judgmentally look down over the top of their glasses like that one teacher you were terrified of in fourth grade about two (2) different crimes against good taste, historic district design guidelines, and the lord almighty. First, someone had the audacity to install windows in their home that won’t get eaten by termites. I’m sorry, but if George Washington wanted Alexandrians to have vinyl windows in their homes he would have goddamn installed some in his own house himself. It is an affront to his memory that we’re doing things now like using vinyl windows and not catching syphilis. For shame. But that’s not all! The scolds on the BAR also took issue that a business on King Street painted its building exterior the scandalously garish color [awkwardly clears throat] charcoal gray. We weep for this abuse against a defenseless building, and hope you will join us in our movement to make a lasting difference by sharing the hashtag #NotOneMoreBrick.
Bike Lanes (and the Bikes That Go in Them) (Last week: 1). Capital Bikeshare announced that they hit an all-time ridership record in Alexandria this summer, and people are reacting exactly as you would expect: they’re fucking pissed. Which makes perfect sense. Why would you celebrate the success of a model public-private partnership that’s been replicated in hundreds of cities when you could work yourself into a tizzy over this taxpayer-funded socialist nightmare? The bikes are even red! You know- like the color that communism is. How much are we paying to prop up this Leninist experiment? Don’t answer that, it doesn’t matter what the number is. One dollar supporting convenient low-carbon transit is a dollar too many. Unlike all the money we spend on roads, which is fine.
Ting (Last week: NR): Much like the character Fievel in the classic film An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, Ting has announced that they are, uh, going west. Finally our friends and neighbors on the far side of Braddock Road will experience the joys of things like “micro-trenching,” which is totally a construction term and not something NSFW to Google. Maybe it’ll go better this time. Maybe Ting has learned and grown from all the holes they’ve dug and roads they’ve blocked in the east. Maybe we’ll win the lottery tomorrow. Anything is possible, after all - one man’s sunset is another man’s dawn.
Zoning Reform (Last week: 5). Nothing new has really happened this week, but we know you’re still talking about it. We can hear you.
Alexandria’s Hottest Club Is… A Soccer Field
It’s Saturday morning, 7am. We are on a soccer field.
It’s Thursday evening, 5pm. We are on a soccer field.
It’s Sunday afternoon, 1pm. We are on a soccer field.
Fine. We are not all actually at a soccer field at all times, simultaneously, forever. But if it feels that way, isn’t that our experienced reality regardless? Your friends are at the soccer fields. Your neighbors are at the soccer fields. The parents from school you’re not making eye contact with because you can’t remember if their names are Brett or Brent are at the soccer fields.
You know what’s not at the soccer fields? Bathrooms. For a city that has sternly told us on more than one occasion that peeing in the woods is “gross” and “a health hazard” and “illegal,” they sure are pretty stingy with installing functional fucking toilets near outdoor rec facilities. Maybe they think it’s a form of community building, as we are now on a first-name basis with half the convenience store managers in the city (“hi yeah, us again, yeah I know this is the second time in 25 minutes, yeah, I’m so sorry, she’s four”).
It’s also genuinely not clear if we have too many soccer fields (this is what we hear any time we try to build a new one) or too few (this is what we hear every time there is a practice scheduled during work hours). And how is it possible to always be 25 minutes away from the closest one! If you’re near Simpson, practice is at Brenman. If you’re near Witter, practice is at Fort Ward. Just an endless convoy of ASA shield festooned cars, crisscrossing the city forever.
Anyway - see you at the soccer field. We assume you’re already there.
The Alexandria Times Quote of the Week
“Another example [of insufficient parking] is in Old Town when new restaurants were given additional seats but with reduced garage spaces. This has led to battles for on-street parking with local residents having garage entries blocked and being harassed.”
It’s true. Last week we saw a gang of Vola’s diners hit an Old Town car owner over the head with a folding chair.
We Get Letters
Alas, we’re still talking about light poles. From Will O. in the mailbag:
I generally disagree with the positions of the individual you identify as “The Oracle of Seminary Hill.” But on this issue, the “Oracle” raises legitimate process concerns.
The addition of the lights makes the field more usable at the cost of making the track marginally less usable.That decision is a defensible trade-off, but it is important for such trade-offs to be fully discussed publicly before decided upon. The “Oracle” has cited inconsistencies in the planning documents on where the light poles would be situated that, if true, raise legitimate questions about whether informed consideration of the trade-offs took place.
The City is considering numerous issues about which there is a small, but vocal, consistent opposition. Transparency is important to facilitate community input and to support the legitimacy of the City’s ultimate decision on these contentious issues. The Hammond light matter highlights that the City can do better in this area.
First of all, thank you for the thoughtful letter Will - it’s much appreciated. And look, we love transparency as much as the next frivolously-FOIAing civic association president. But we caution our readers against letting Bill Rossello [Editor’s note: we profoundly regret the cutesy nickname we gave him last week and retract it with sincere apologies] and his fellow travelers use bad-faith process concerns to launder the legitimacy of their substance-less gripes. After all, it’s a biiiiit of a stretch to argue that the ill-considered placement of one light pole on one lane of track is somehow a harbinger of nefarious clandestine behavior by city officials around the development of comprehensive zoning policy. Whatever you think of the ZFH proposal (we have notes), it verges on absurdity to claim that the city is not providing adequate information to the public about it or failing to facilitate community input. Just, look at this schedule. Look at it!
One Awesome Thing in ALX
Over the past couple of weeks, the organization New America has been posting a series of video interviews with historians and local leaders about the 1939 Alexandria Library sit-in and recent efforts to commemorate it. The sit-in is a fascinating piece of our city’s history that’s worth learning about if you aren’t familiar with it.
One morning in August 1939, five young Black men entered Alexandria’s only public library and sat down at tables to read books they selected from the shelves. The head librarian, following the library’s “whites only” policy, called the city manager, who had them arrested. They were charged with disorderly conduct even though they did nothing other than read quietly. The charges weren’t dismissed until 2019(!), long after the men had died. This was the first organized sit-in in a public library, but until relatively recently it received basically no national attention.
The New America sit-in project complements all of the incredible work the city has been doing through the Alexandria Community Remembrance Project to shine light on local incidences of racial discrimination and violence, especially the 1897-99 lynchings of Joseph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas. In fact, this weekend the ACRP is bringing one of the civil rights Freedom Riders, Joan Mulholland, to speak at the Lyceum, which is really fucking cool! Even though these historical events were decidedly Not Awesome, it’s pretty damn great that we live in a city that’s not afraid to look critically at its own past and take lessons from it in order to be a better community in the future.
You can follow Becky @beckyhammer.bsky.social and Jesse @oconnell.bsky.social on Bluesky, or you can also find them @beckyhammer and @jesseocnl begrudgingly continuing to xeet (no, stop that, ew) on the website previously known as Twitter.