Alexandria Mayor Race
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Anonymous
From who(m) to who(m)? At least as far as mayoral candidates, they both knew and they both did nothing. I'm definitely much more anti-incumbent knowing it though. Every member of the council knew in 2017. |
Anonymous
Against Smedberg and yes, generally just anti-incumbent. But yes, we're still hosed on the mayoral front, they both stink. |
Anonymous
What Wilson is advocating to share in that FOIA email is this useless memo about the timeline slipping (which was eventually posted). https://www.alexandriava.gov/uploadedFiles/Potomac%20Yard%20Metrorail%20Project%20Update%20(002).pdf He (nor any other council member nor the mayor) ever advocated for actual transparency to the public about this dramatic change. Or if they did, it's not in this FOIA request (which is missing well over half of the responsive documents due to the city continuing to suppress them) |
Anonymous
I keep seeing this justification for everyone's actions. Meanwhile, the City has stated that there is no written documentation of the direction they got from WMATA that this was confidential, as the guidance was supposedly given in meetings, over the phone, and face to face. To that I ask: why was there not a thousand pages of emails from the city hammering back at WMATA saying "justify to us why we need to lie and deceive our constituents?" If WMATA didn't provide that guidance in writing, there should at minimum have been an abundance of evidence of one of these blowhard council members, Vice Mayor, Mayor, or city manager screaming back into the void saying "this is completely screwed up and you can't tell us not to let our constituents know!!" Where was the advocacy on their part to demand that the city residents be given the information they deserve? Oh wait, it isn't there. Because they didn't. So they are either a) lying about WMATA telling them it's confidential b) completely incompetent or b) entirely uncaring about their constituents. So which is it? |
Anonymous
That is the only document that mentions Wilson. I think you are giving it an uncharitable reading. |
Anonymous
DP and these are public servants we're talking about. THEY need to prove to US that they are acting in our best interests. They don't just get to have the benefit of the doubt when something of this magnitude gets royally hosed up. |
Anonymous
And by this, I mean they need to show us where they were pushing for and advocating for the people of Alexandria. Because there doesn't seem to be any of that in these documents. |
Anonymous
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None of them look great, but Smedberg is the one that looks really bad.
1. He's the city's rep to WMATA. He always touts himself as being Mr. Transportation/Transit. He should have been all over this and showing some leadership. 2. He's the only one with a documented instance of flat out lying to constituents--saying in those spring emails there wasn't a change to the entrances. I've loathed him for years, so I was already not going to vote for him. Hopefully this help others decide to put their vote elsewhere. |
Anonymous
Same result. Mayor Silberberg and Vice Mayor Wilson may well dislike each other, but they are absolutely identical to each other in every political respect. This is worse than a farce. This isn't just a mistake. This isn't just a judgment error. This went on for a year and the whole council and all senior city staff knew all about it. Voting against EVERY incumbent in Alexandria. Early-absentee voting 9-4 on Saturday. |
Anonymous
1 They trusted their City Staff and staff lawyers. 2. They did not want to delay the procurement further 3. They had a lot of other things to do - among which, deal with school funding, CSO's, affordable housing, etc (also they have full time day jobs). I mean I know that to you the question of the southern entrance to the metro station is huge, but I think a thousand pages of emails is asking a lot. Also of course the VM and the City Manager are not known to be blowhards. |
Anonymous
I disagree, as a person who has read the entire set of FOIA documents as well as the FOIA request itself (as as someone who by must accounts is a Justin Wilson supporter actually!). If any members of the council/mayor/vice mayor advocated for pushing back on WMATA's NDA, it would have been responsive to this request - and it's not in here. Now I do think Wilson gets a bad rap because he puts more in writing than the other council members. I have every reason to believe the mayor knew everything the vice mayor did - she just doesn't respond to emails, so she was unlikely to write it. But I fully believe either could have pushed back on this and that neither did. Now did that happen because they were too trusting of city staff and abdicated their oversight responsibility here, or because they thought life would be easier without public knowledge of this change...? That I can't say. |
Anonymous
I know the Vice Mayor well enough across a variety of issues that I do give him the benefit of the doubt. Sorry. |
Anonymous
See I don't get the motive for the latter. I mean it was coming to come out sooner or later, obviously. Only case I have seen is that there was an upzoning that might not have gone through if this were known. But its an upzoning on one parcel, and given that there IS likely to be a short path to the north entrance, and eventually a south Mezzanine I think the upzoning might have gone through anyway. I just don't see that as motivation for some nefarious plot to hide things from the public. |
Anonymous
You are literally changing the hearts and minds of no one with responses like this. But ok, keep acting like none of them did anything wrong. That they produced not a single email from someone within the city saying "hey, this isn't cool" is telling, whether you want to admit it or not. And acting like the PY metro is just some tiny project that isn't/wasn't on their radars? BS of the highest and stinkiest order. And please never ever tell me they are working on affordable housing and that's why they couldn't pay attention to a silly little issue like this. I live in an apartment complex the city ok'd for redevelopment, a complex where a huge number of the city's low income residents live and one of the few large pockets of affordable housing in Alexandria. Meanwhile the landlord stopped doing any maintenance/upkeep and essentially tried to make the place unlivable until redevelopment could occur. And the city? Did nothing. Didn't care. Just hyped up the redevelopment. Who cares about the current residents or preserving any of this affordable housing when Mixed Use! Green Space! Redevelopment! So take your faux affordable housing concern and put it in your compost bin. |
Anonymous
What are you basing this "there IS likely to be a short path the the north entrance" on? Real movement in that direction would mute my screaming dramatically, but: --it was not included in the July 2017 RFP revision, even though it could have been --it is not scoped or funded at this time, nor will it be part of the contract awarded this month --There are two big retaining ponds in the way of that solution right now, plus the need to rise high over the CSX tracks to meet the north mezzanine - at an ADA compliant angle. None of this has been studied at this point in terms of feasibility. So like...sounds great, but without a plan to buy it or pay for it...I remain skeptical. |