Welcome to the January 2006 Edition of Krupicka Council News.

Dear Friends:

Happy New Year!  I hope you had a good holiday season and are looking forward to great things in 2006.  This past holiday with the two girls was one of the best of my life.  Having a three-and-a-half year old and an almost two-year-old in the house brought the holiday spirit home every day.  My youngest daughter's fondness for singing jingle bells non-stop didn't hurt either. 

As you likely know, City Council campaign season is upon us.  Every three years the entire Council and School Board are up for re-election in May. The political parties are organizing their candidate selection procedures and we can anticipate the next few months will produce some healthy and useful community debates.  One voice will be less visible, though I hope not gone, from this upcoming community dialogue.  Councilwoman Joyce Woodson recently announced she was not going to run for re-election.  Joyce has been a strong leader.  Her passion, energy and ideas have had a clear impact on our city and I want to thank her for her tireless commitment to ensuring everybody in Alexandria has a voice.  I am looking forward to her continued participation and leadership on a range of community issues.

As I have said, I am not going to use this newsletter for weekly campaign updates, volunteer messages, fundraising or the like.  If you are interested in that, please either let me know or contact Julie@creatingthevision.com.  She will happily add you to my campaign e-mail list. 

I would like to invite you, though, to attend my free family winter festival.  Everybody is welcome. 

The Winter Family Festival will be held at the Mt. Vernon recreation center on January 22^nd from 11 am to 2 pm.  There will be live music, food, games, moon bounces for the kids, a cake walk, raffle and much more.   Since many of us have church on Sunday’s, formal speeches won't start until after 1:00 PM, but there will be a lot of fun before then.  I hope you can come.

There is a lot to cover this month.  Scroll down for updates on…

** Red Lights, Pedestrians, Pre-School, Transportation – A lot happening in Richmond**

** Fuel Assistance Programs**

** Pay Day Lending & Poverty – What Can We Do?**

** A Look at Some Affordable Housing Programs**

** Question of the Month – Your Affordable Housing Priorities**

** Non-Profit Spotlight**

Talk to you soon,

Rob

(I do not want to spam anyone.  If you would like to be removed from the list, simply send a message to newsletter@krupicka.com with "Remove" in subject line.  Or, if you or others want to be added to the list, send a message to the same address with "Add Krupicka List" in the subject line.)

** Red Lights, Pedestrians, Pre-School, Transportation and More in Richmond**

Red Lights:  We made a good effort last year sending in en enormous number of messages to state leaders about red light cameras.  I know some of you are not fond of these cameras, but I think the strong majority of our community sees them as a useful tool to help keep our community safe.  A few state legislators are going to try to resurrect the law that permits these cameras.  I will keep you posted on progress.

Pedestrians:  Our effort to change the pedestrian law so cars must stop for people in cross walks is well underway.  Communities in Virginia Beach, Culpepper, and Loudoun County have signed up to help with this effort as have the State PTA and other groups.  If you are interested in receiving updates on this project, our position paper, the draft legislation, or in helping us lobby state leaders, please let me know.  You will likely receive a message from me in the next month with information about who to contact if you want to help our efforts.

Pre-School:  Governor-elect Kaine is expected to launch his proposal to expand access to pre-school in the state.  Countless studies show that pre-Kindergarten helps prepare students for better success in school.  National business, education and other organizations have been promoting this throughout the country.  Governor Warner took a number of important steps and we expect Governor Kaine to build on those. Pre-school has been shown over and over to improve school performance and pay for itself over time.  Alexandria has a large number of kids on waiting lists for pre-school – their families don't make enough to pay for it themselves and they make too much for Headstart which has an income limit of under $20,000 for a family of four.  I will be following this closely and will share updates as I get them.

Transportation:  This is the big one this year.  Many of our local quality of life concerns are tied to transportation.  Over 60% of the traffic on our most congested roads is regional traffic traveling through our city.  Locally, we can work to expand transit, improve the timing of lights and can push to make the city as pedestrian and transit friendly as we can, but we need help from the State on the bigger, regional infrastructure challenges. There are big questions of how we will fund new transportation infrastructure and what will it be.  I know we will all be following this one closely.  I will provide updates in future newsletters.

There are many, many more issues to follow -- let me know if there are particular areas you would like me to focus future state legislative updates.

** Fuel Assistance Programs**

Energy prices are going to make these winter months hard on a number of Alexandria families.  Last year over 600 low income families utilized fuel assistance programs provided through the city with help from the state and federal government.  We expect at least the same number this year.  If you or people you know could use help with their fuel bills, have them contact the Department of Human Services at:  703-838-0901

The city is also looking for businesses and citizens that are willing to help subsidize this program to make up for state and federal shortfalls in funding.  If you are interested, you can also contact the Office of Community Services at 703-838-0901.

** Poverty Updates – Payday Lending **

We have a new business in town. The last few months have seen new instant or payday loan businesses set-up around Alexandria.  The fees and structure of these establishments have raised a number of questions.  These operations primarily target military personnel, the elderly and the poor.  We need to keep a close watch on their impact on our community.

Payday lending is the practice of using a post-dated check or electronic checking account information as collateral for a short-term loan. Similar establishments use car titles.  Borrowers provide their personal identification, a checking account, and income information from a job or pension benefits, like Social Security. The Center for Responsible Lending, "conservatively estimates that predatory payday lending practices cost American families $3.4 billion annually."   They further say that the "payday lending business model is designed to keep borrowers in debt, not to provide one-time assistance during a time of financial need." According to a December 2003 CRL study of payday lending industry data (http://www.responsiblelending.org/pdfs/CRLpaydaylendingstudy121803.pdf), "payday lenders collect the vast majority of their fees from borrowers trapped in a cycle of repeated transactions, where borrowers are forced to pay high fees every two weeks just to keep an existing loan outstanding that they cannot afford to pay off."  Interest rates can run as high as 400%. 

While some short-term loans may have legitimate value to consumers, these loan operations run the risk of causing significant harm to the poor and becoming debt-traps.  There are cases of individuals shuttling between loan centers using one to pay off another and growing increasingly in dept in the process. In the worse situations, individuals have to decide between paying their loan and feeding their family. 

A few years ago, Delegate Harvey Morgan pushed legislation to make it easier for payday lending operations to set up shop throughout the State.  Recognizing that they may have gone too far, some in Richmond plan to take a look at pay day lending again this year with the goal of reining it in a bit.  What that will entail remains to be seen. 

Councilwoman Woodson and I have been taking a look at this and the general financial services offerings in our community.  We are searching for ways to ensure Alexandria residents are not taken advantage of.  We are working to ensure these businesses are compatible with our community's land-use plans.  We especially want to be sure that everybody in Alexandria, no matter what their income, has access to fair and reasonable financial services. 

Alexandria is the home of many hard working families, trying to get a leg up and to find their version of the American dream.  Payday loan enterprises have the potential to take that away from them by creating a cycle of debt that is virtually impossible to overcome.  While we wait to see what the state is going to do, we need to find ways to encourage and promote financial services companies that make honest efforts to provide fair and useful services to all residents of the city and we should work to educate consumers about the risks they face and the choices they have.

A recent Daily Press editorial adds some additional points.

** A Closer Look at Some Affordable Housing Efforts **

During the past year, ten apartment communities began the process or fully converted into condominiums.  With the help of our down payment assistance, 13 city / school employees have been able to buy one of these condominiums rather than be forced to move out of the city as their apartment converted.  The city has helped another 17 residents stay in their buildings using similar down payment assistance programs.  135 city residents have been able to buy these converting condos without any city assistance.

In one case, the developers of the Parkside, Bearings, EOS twenty-one and Park Center have provided, at city request, purchase incentive programs for city employees. Parkside agreed to provide discounted pricing that resulted in 16 city employees, including teachers and police officers, buying condominiums.

In June of 2004 the city began a program to encourage employees to live in our community.  This is meant to help reduce commuters through the region, to ensure important city staff is close during emergencies, and to help reduce employee turnover.  Since it was enacted, 35 employees (15 have been school employees, 6 have been fire or police personnel and the rest have been from of a variety of city agencies) have participated in the program. 

** Monthly Question -- What are your affordable housing priorities?**

There are a lot of options for affordable housing.  Helping the poorest in our community first, helping working class residents so they can live near their jobs in our community (police, fire, teachers, etc.), supporting loan programs so people can buy new homes, building new affordable or work-force housing units, providing incentives so re-development creates new housing units, a combination of all the above, something else, or nothing.  What about affordable or work-force housing matters most to you?  With limited resources, what are your priorities?

** Non Profit Spotlight – The Alexandria Seaport Foundation **

The Seaport Foundation helps young people become hard working members of the community. The Alexandria Seaport Foundation's wooden boat building apprentice program works with disadvantaged, disenfranchised youths, ages 17 to 21. With this program, candidates referred by the courts, police or schools get a paying job, can earn their GED, can get their driver's license and a car, and can prepare for a job with the Carpenter’s Union.  Over the past twelve years, the Seaport foundation has had a 65% success rate- where graduates are on track, in a career path job, or in school, one year after they leave the program. 

This year the boat building apprenticeship program was certified by the United Brotherhood of Carpenters as a pre-apprenticeship program- all program graduates have a place in the Union and its training program. At the end of the program, graduates are placed in a job where they will earn a decent living and receive four years additional training.   

www.alexandriaseaport.org

**Note -- Recreation Program Deadline**

Deadline for registration for city recreation department classes and programs is coming up soon.  There are a lot of great new classes.  For more information.

**Firehouse Primary**

The Democratic Firehouse Primary will be held on Saturday, February 4^th at the Lee Center in Alexandria, at 1108 Jefferson Street from Noon to 7:30 p.m. Absentee Voting will be held on Monday, January 30.  Additional information about the Democratic Caucus for City Council can be found at www.alexdems.org

**Important Budget Meetings**

The City of Alexandria and Agenda-Alexandria will co-host a series of three pre-budget briefings for the community prior to submission of the City Manager's proposed budget to City Council on Tuesday, Feb. 14.

The briefings will feature presentations by the City Manager's Office and Office of Management and Budget of background information on trends in City spending and revenues, the outlook for the upcoming fiscal year 2007 budget, and the new City budget process featuring expenditure targets established last November by City Council for City and School spending.  A question and answer period will follow.

 The presentations by City staff will be repeated at each briefing.  Interested persons are urged to attend whichever date and location is most convenient for them.

* Thursday, Jan. 26, from 7 pm to 8:30 pm at Beatley Library, 5005 Duke St.

* Wednesday, Feb. 1, from 7:30 pm to 9 pm at The Lyceum, 201 S. Washington St.

* Wednesday, Feb. 8, from 7:30 pm to 9 pm at Charles Barrett Elementary, 1115 Martha Custis Drive, in the Multi-Purpose Room

The primary purpose of the briefings is to enable residents of Alexandria to better understand the budget challenges and issues facing the City.  The briefings also provide an opportunity for City staff to listen to the suggestions and concerns of residents concerning the balancing of the needs of the community for City services with the ability of the community to pay for those City services.

For more information on these community pre-budget briefings, call Bruce Johnson, Director of the City's Office of Management and Budget, at 703.838.4780 or e-mail bruce.johnson@alexandriava.gov.

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