January 2007 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Happy New Year. I hope 2007 is starting off well for you.  My new year’s resolutions are simple.  I’d like to keep working with you to ensure our government is responsive and works as well for the whole community as it can.  I’d like to work harder to listen to your ideas and those around the community. And I’d like to encourage open dialogue in our city to ensure we give each other the chance to ask hard questions, to discuss and debate issues and to do it in a respectful way.  2007 is going to be a busy year for us in Alexandria.

Invitation – My wife and I will host a screening of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth at our house on Sunday, February 11^th starting at 6PM.  After the movie, we’ll have a conversation about what we can do individually and as a city.  We will do this as a pot-luck dinner.  We’d love to have you over. If you’d like to come, please RSVP to mailto:rob@krupicka.com, so we can get a good count of people.

Question(s) of the Month -- Economic Development will be a hot topic this year.  The Mayor’s economic sustainability task force will generate ideas and recommendations for the Council and community to consider.  I’d like to take a moment here and focus on retail and restaurants.  Alexandria lags the region in retail and restaurant sales.  A few residents have contacted us in recent years about the types of retail they want to see – new grocery stores, hardware stores and more.  We have a lot of unique shops in Alexandria, but are they the first place you go to shop? Too many of us spend our dollars outside of our city.  How do we change that?  What would it take to get you to do more shopping in our city? What types of retail shops, services or restaurants is Alexandria lacking?  When you leave the city to make purchases, what are they? I will share your answers in my next newsletter.

As always, I look forward to hearing from you.

Rob

(you would like to be added to the newsletter list, simply send a message to newsletter@krupicka.com with “ADD” in subject line.)

Economy, Growth and Planning

A recent Washington Post story (Local Job Market Rebound, January 8, 2007) reported on the strong job market in the Washington DC region.  The region has an unemployment rate close to 3% (Alexandria’s is closer to 2%).  Growth in the job market is expected to continue through this year.  That is good news for our region. Job growth helps us invest in our community and support our families. Job growth helps protect against property value declines.  It promotes self sufficiency and helps us obtain the goods and services we need. 

But it also means more development and traffic.  And it puts pressure on many services in our city and throughout the region.  In just one example, the same Washington Post article talked about one day-care center operation that is seeing very solid growth.  That makes sense; as there are more jobs, there is going to be greater need for quality child care. 

Over the next year, the city will continue to update land-use plans.  From Eisenhower East, Van Dorn and Landmark Mall to Braddock Road and Old Town’s Waterfront, there will be a number of planning projects where the community will be asked to develop a vision for the future of our city.  This is important work that will leave a mark for many generations to come.  We need all the creativity, innovation and vision that our community can muster.  I hope you will participate.  http://www.alexandriava.gov/planningandzoning/npcd.php

Ms. Joan Amico Keeps Alexandria’s Past Present

For the fourth consecutive year Ms. Joan Amico has won the Alexandria Archaeology's Volunteer of the Year Award. The 2006 award was presented to her for the 724 hours she donated to the program. The award is presented annually to the volunteer who logs in the most volunteer hours for the fiscal year. Over the past five years, Ms. Amico has volunteered 2,536.5 hours. Her volunteer activities include managing the Alexandria Archaeology Museum, by answering phones, greeting and interacting with visitors and staffing the museum. She maintains the museum's database, by logging in the recorded volunteer hours and updating the museum's mailing list. She is the Vice President of the Friends of Alexandria Archaeology (FOAA), a not-for-profit organization that supports Alexandria Archaeology. Almost every Friday, Joan can be found in the laboratory processing artifacts as part of a group of volunteers affectionately known as the "Lab Ladies."  Without the work of great volunteers like Ms. Amico, Alexandria would never be able to accomplish many of the things that make our City great.

Learn more or volunteer: http://oha.alexandriava.gov/archaeology/ar-support-volunteering.html

A New Transportation Plan Unveiled

The State legislature is once again trying to find a solution to help with the transportation challenges in our region.  The recently announced proposal by the House leadership gives us something to look at.  There is a lot of talk about roads, but we also need better mass transit for our city and region.  More roads are of limited help to Alexandria’s specific traffic problems.  In some cases, new roads will just make it easier for people to commute longer and drive through our City thereby creating more traffic for us.  It is important that any plan have clear funding for mass transit. The idea of taking general fund money combined with a large amount of borrowing to fill the transportation funding gap worries me.  The General Fund supports our schools and many other important programs.  If we start aggressively tapping into it, we not only risk the sustainability of transportation funding, but we risk the sustainability of many other programs as well. 

Quick fix solutions are not real solutions.  Since the new proposal requires local government’s to raise taxes, we will have to take a very close look at it.  I am not interested in raising taxes to help build more roads to bring more traffic through our City.  I’d like to see clear incentives for mass transit.  I need to understand how the money will be spent and distributed.  There is a lot to review.

Earlier this year, the governor proposed a transportation package. His $850 million package seeks to better link land use to transportation, increases accountability and performance standards among the Commonwealth's transportation agencies, and identifies sustainable, dedicated transportation funding.

According to the release, "for the typical citizen, one who does not purchase a vehicle or commit repeated traffic offenses, the Governor's revised $850 million transportation revenue package will cost approximately $15 each of the next two years, and approximately $20 each year after that."

As part of the package, Gov. Kaine has asked the 2007 General Assembly to give local governments the power to deny rezoning requests when there is not enough transportation capacity to support the increase in traffic.

The package also addresses the approximately $450 million annually that will be taken from highway construction and put into maintenance, as well as the approximately $120 million annually that also will be taken from highway construction to repay the approximately $1.1 billion in debt issued against future federal revenues since year 2000.

The Governor's legislative initiative:

• Permanently dedicates existing auto insurance premium taxes to transportation, a law enacted in 2000 but only followed twice.
• Equalizes the sales tax on vehicles to equal the sales tax for other non-food items. Virginia's current 3 percent motor vehicle sales and use tax rate is 44th lowest in the country.
• Imposes an abuser fee on motorists who drive under the influence, drive recklessly, or commit certain other offenses.
• Increases the registration fee for vehicles from the current $29.50 to $44.50 in 2007, and $49.50 in 2010.
• Increases the registration fee on heavy trucks, commensurate with the increase on automobiles.

To read more, click here.  http://www.governor.virginia.gov/

In 2007 we can also expect Alexandria to finish work on its own updated transportation master plan.  To learn more...http://alexandriava.gov/tes/policy_and_program/transportation_policy.html#over

City Performance Audits Save Money

After a longer than desired process, the first outside reviews of two city departments are complete.  The idea for performance audits has been around for a long time.  The city’s budget committee has been advocating for them for years.  Along with others, Councilman Smedberg and I campaigned on the need for them over four years ago.  The audits were one of the first initiatives we put forward after we were first elected.

The Fire Department and the Transportation and Environmental Services department were the first two departments to go through the review process.  More departments are in the review process now.  My hope is that we can create a regular cycle of review and reflection for every department.

The bottom line:  Over a million dollars of potential savings opportunities have been identified along with a few hundred thousand dollars of new expenditures to improve service quality.  The Council will take a close look at all of these recommendations during the upcoming budget process. 

Budget Update

The next city budget will be the toughest in a decade.  Last fall the Council set a budget target that would not require a change in the tax rate.  Spending beyond the budget target would most likely require an increase in the tax rate.  Working through the slow down in the real estate market is going to be a challenge for our city and will require us to really focus on those things that matter most to our community.  The City Manager’s budget will be proposed on February 13^th.  The final budget will be approved in May.  That gives us almost three months to work through the complexities and challenges of our budget.

Facing the Challenges of Affordable Housing

Martin Luther King’s birthday reminds us of our country’s struggles with justice, fairness and equality.  These are not easy struggles.  They pull at our identity and challenge us to think carefully about who we are and what we want to be.  And they call on us to think beyond just our own experiences to the community around us.  The upcoming review of our affordable housing will force us to struggle with some of the same concepts. 

Alexandria’s new affordable housing work group is about to get started on a comprehensive look at affordable housing policies in our city.  Councilman Gaines and I will co-chair this group made up of a number of distinguished city residents. 

Affordable housing remains one of the most complicated public policy challenges facing our city.  With the rise in property values, the concept of affordability has taken on new meanings.  In some cases it is about very low income residents.  In other cases, it is about middle class workers or the children of Alexandria residents and other young professionals just starting in their careers, who can’t afford to live here. 

Federal financial support for housing has diminished, which has left local governments carrying the majority of the costs of any housing program.  Rising property values have made it harder for the city to preserve housing.  Previous city policies to encourage home-ownership remain, but are much harder to accomplish with property value increases.  Our city workforce often commutes long distances due to the cost of desirable housing here.  State land-use rules limit the amount of affordable housing that can be required with new or re-development projects.  Local zoning rules and requirements can also impact the general affordability of new development.

The workgroup will have a lot to tackle – How do we define affordable housing?  With limited funds, what are our policy priorities?  Should our focus be on rental, home ownership or both?  How can or should we use land-use tools to preserve and create a range of housing types?  What is the best way to weave affordable housing throughout our community? With diminished federal help, how do we ensure Alexandria’s public housing stock is financially sustainable? And what are the best tools to use to accomplish these and other priorities?

There is a lot to discuss…

Greening Alexandria

Alexandria has done a lot of work for the environment.  We have acquired a large amount of open space in recent years. The new TC Williams will be the first “green” (LEED-certified) high school in the region.  We have water and energy conserving green roofs on two City buildings.  And we have invested to upgrade lights and other infrastructure to cut down on long-term energy needs and costs.  But there is more to do.  Councilwoman Pepper and I have proposed we create an Environmental Action plan for Alexandria.  That item will be on the next Council docket. 

If you think we could do more for the environment and would like to encourage the rest of Council to support the creation of an action plan, please send them e-mail http://www.alexandriava.gov/contactus/view_contactus.pxe

As many of you know, green building practices utilize the best technology and design efforts to create buildings that reduce our energy dependence, that improve our water management and that create healthier buildings to live and work in.  Good green building pays for itself over time through reduced energy costs.  The City has a policy to upgrade current buildings and ensure all new structures use green building techniques.  And we now ask developers to fill out a check list to let us know what elements of their projects use green building technologies.

Washington DC recently passed a new green building policy as did Montgomery County. But there is more we can do in Alexandria and the region. I was recently asked to serve on a regional task force sponsored by the Council of Governments that will look at green building policy concepts for the entire region to consider.  I also plan to work to encourage more Alexandria structures to use green building techniques.

More on Green Building: http://www.usgbc.org/

Accessible America Awards

Alexandria was recently named one of the ten finalists for the 2006 Accessible America Competition.  The results will be announced this January.  Through the leadership of the Commission on Persons with Disabilities, Alexandria has worked hard to make our City as accessible and inviting for people as possible.  Being a finalist is a great honor for our City.

More information at www.nod.org or

http://alexandriava.gov/human/aboutcommission.html

Volunteering Gets a Boost

When I first came to Alexandria, the first place I went was the Volunteer Bureau to find out how to get involved in the community.  It was a great stop and I will always be thankful to them for pointing me towards a number of great community organizations. The AVB is an important piece of our community infrastructure.

Under the leadership of their great board and new executive director, the Alexandria Volunteer Bureau recently updated its web site to help you find volunteer opportunities as well as to post them if you represent a nonprofit.

Volunteering isn’t just something for resident’s either.  The AVB makes it easy for a business to give back -- If you’re from the corporate community, check out the volunteer opportunity hotlist and let the AVB help you plan a volunteer event for your employees!

The AVB’s new partnership with 1-800-volunteer.org will allow them to manage volunteer opportunities more efficiently. Make sure you register at 1-800-volunteer.org! And keep in touch with them at mail@alexandriavolunteerbureau.org, or phone 703-836-2176, or just stop by their office at 2210 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria. They would love to meet you!

Find out more at www.alexandriavolunteerbureau.org

Supporting Area Farmers

Mount Vernon Farm is happy to announce their next delivery to the Alexandria buyers club.  They will bring frozen 100% grass-fed beef and lamb and pastured apple-finished pork to you on Thursday, February 8, 2007. This is a very healthy alternative to hormone-grown meats.  And supporting regional farmers is a small way to help discourage sprawl into the Blue Ridge and our countryside.

They will send an order form about a week before the drop-off.  They run out of cuts from time to time, and this will allow you to place your order with a greater degree of confidence that they will actually have those cuts in stock.

Please go to their web site- www.mountvernonfarm.net for information about them and why they grow their products as they do. 

Mount Vernon Farm

Cliff Miller and Steve Beatty 

Website: www.mountvernonfarm.net

Email: mtvfarm@verizon.net

Phone: 540-987-9559

206 Mount Vernon Lane

Sperryville, VA 22740

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