On Brevity

Let’s be honest. Who really likes meetings? Do you like meetings? I don’t. I loathe them. But, I accept them as a necessary part of life. And since I loathe meetings but know they’re a necessary evil, wherever possible, I try to make them fast, efficient, and successful, because there’s no need to run a marathon when a sprint will do. Essentially, I want all my meetings to be like Usain Bolt.

Which leads me to our happy athletes on the Alexandria City Council. For arguments sake, let’s say they don’t like meetings any more than you do, but they tolerate them more because that’s where business is done. Well, where business is supposed to be done. So, they train for meetings. Lots of meetings; lots of training. And after only two meetings in the new Council session, we find our intrepid Councilmembers eschewing the fast and efficient sprint, gloriously skipping over the marathon, and heading right toward the Ironman triathlon.

Here’s the problem: they’re taking all of us with them. And I don’t know about you, but I haven’t trained for this distance. I can’t keep up. Dear God, I’m cramping up just thinking about it.

Running analogies aside, you may say that the torturous length of Council meetings really has no impact beyond the seven members of Council, the city staff, and the civic groupies (full disclosure: I’m a recovering civic groupie) who follow their every move. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.

See, in Alexandria, there are those that train for meetings right alongside the Councilmembers and can attend every meeting. They come early, stay up late, sync their personal calendars with the Council schedule, and follow the Councilmembers around like they were figuring out who to draft for their fantasy football team. They don’t care about how long the meetings are. They’re groupies, that’s what groupies do. And that is dangerous for the Port City.

Longer meetings only favor those who can devote the time to train for that level of endurance. If you can devote the time to the meetings, chances are you’ll be able to influence our City Council (and city staff) more than someone who can only afford to sprint. Meetings that drag on long past their scheduled time and arrive hours late at certain agenda items are anathema to public engagement. If a single-mother wants to come offer testimony on a project that has meaning to her, how can she coordinate child care if she has no reliable way of knowing when her turn to speak will come? If a business owner needs to address Council regarding a special use permit and their docket item ends up delayed by hours, what does that say about how seriously the City takes them or their investment?

Overly long and poorly run City Council meetings will also have the effect of discouraging our next wave of good public officials. Talented members in our community considering a future in elected office—the type of people we need to generously volunteer their time to ensure a continually prosperous city—will watch these meetings and say NO WAY. This is to say nothing of those currently on the dais quitting out of fatigue or frustration.

Finally, meetings that run to nearly 11pm on a weeknight are grossly unfair to our city staff, many of whom have families and young children of their own. Having this happen occasionally when crucial issues arise might be tolerable, but having it become an expected and standard part of your work week? I could hardly blame them if they were looking at opportunities with other municipalities in the region that may treat them and their families with more respect.

When, exactly, did Council meetings get to be so. damn. long? I lay much of the chronic protraction of Council meetings at the feet of the person charged with running the meeting, Mayor Allison Silberberg. Bless her heart, she doesn’t seem to know that you can just say “thank you, next speaker” and move the meeting along. In her well-intentioned pursuit of making people feel heard, each piece of public or staff testimony seems to elicit in her some recollection or anecdote that she is compelled to share, leading to lengthy digressions on each and every docket item.

I say this not to wound the Mayor – truly I don’t. But there is widespread agreement that Council meeting management is (dare I say it) deplorable. It is a legitimate issue that must be dealt with, because these embarrassingly unfocused meetings, which have now also become legendary outside of Alexandria, aren’t just a charming quirk that we can suffer through, tolerate, or shrug off. Having better meetings matters. It actually matters a lot.

It’s not lost on me that I should propose some solutions for the public’s consideration. So let’s start small. How about some timed agendas? It’s not a revolutionary concept, but meeting management 101 employed by thousands of organizations across the globe and should be good enough for our small(ish) enclave. Simple, right?

Next, let’s make a distinction between Council meetings and town halls. Council meetings are not town halls or a “Mayor on Your Corner” event. Council meetings are for business, for action, for progress. They are not, and should not be, treated as a vehicle for every complaint voiced by the same civic groupies at every turn. That is disrespectful to the Council members, to the city staff, and to the general public who want to be engaged but are so disgusted by the monthly open mic ritual as to turn away from civic life and declare it a brutal waste of their time.

Longer meetings and constant colloquies don’t encourage open and ethical government. They do the opposite. They run off the people who only have limited time and favor those who have the wherewithal to suffer (and I do mean suffer) through endless anecdotes, Council faux anger as they play to the cameras, and talking for the sake of hearing yourself speak.

With the Council session just starting, and so many different issues to tackle in the next 10 months, there’s no way that our Council, our staff, our citizens – our CITY – can keep this up. Something has to give. Not everyone has the endurance for endless Ironmans. For the sake of the future, let’s start small and make our Council meetings, the place where the people’s business is to be conducted, the most efficient and productive that we can. Let’s do timed agendas and, if we absolutely need to, schedule separate town halls away from City Hall.

If we do some small, basic things, we can all be like Usain Bolt and cross the finish line grinning from ear to ear.

– P.C. Publius

September 23, 2016

On Retail

As you may have heard ‘round these parts, The New York Times—America’s newspaper of record, the Gray Lady herself—recently weighed in on development and change in Old Town. The article’s closing paragraph struck a chord; according to one small business owner: “We used to have a very strong identity. This is a very historic town. But now, some people say that that is being abandoned to be trendy.” By this account, forward-looking Old Town development is to blame for a business district that has lost its retail quirkiness, driving up rent and driving out small businesses.

The temptation to identify a singular culprit responsible for retail woes along King Street—real and imagined—is understandable, but in this case reductive. The reality, however messy, is that a complex mix of market forces caused by real estate pressures, consumer preferences, and a changing economy in general is buffeting retail throughout the city—and around the world. From Old Town, to Carlyle, to Mount Vernon Avenue to Landmark Mall, Adam Smith’s invisible hand extends a single vulgar finger toward the health of retail districts throughout the city. But with appropriate support from City Hall and the public at large, we can still draw and sustain the mix of retail needed in order to be a thriving and attractive city.

Let’s take Old Town. Just a few short decades ago, Alexandria’s downtown was left for dead as Northern Virginians flocked to new suburban shopping centers like Seven Corners, Tysons Corner, Bailey’s Crossroads, and our own Landmark Mall. A few enterprising small businesses saw potential to attract tourists transiting between Washington, D.C. and Mount Vernon, and a new industry—based on the City’s rich history and outstanding architecture—was born.

Old Town Alexandria transitioned from a business district that primarily served local residents to one also focused on visitors, albeit with charms that continue to delight the locals. Without that transition, Old Town would have become a boarded up slum decades ago with City tax revenue going down with it. Despite calls for Old Town to exist in a “bubble,” the reality is that its retail health depends on outside investment by visitors. The mix of small businesses in Old Town simply cannot survive on purchases from Alexandrians alone.

To help Old Town continue to thrive, a concerted effort to market and manage the quality of the business district is required. The City has made strides by encouraging outdoor dining and streamlining approval requirements for small businesses. Business organizations have formed to tackle joint marketing and event creation, supported by efforts of citywide (and City funded) organizations like Economic Development, Visit Alexandria and the Small Business Development Center. The Chamber of Commerce continues to advocate and provide networking citywide. But to fully compete with the region’s other business districts, a Business Improvement District (BID) focused on the economic success of Old Town is overdue.

Alexandria business centers outside of Old Town face other challenges. At Landmark Mall, we must incentivize development that will attract new retail to create a regional shopping and entertainment destination. In Carlyle, we need to balance the mix of land uses, including commercial, office and residential, to help draw retailers to the district’s many vacant storefronts. In North Potomac Yard, small area planning now underway must account for the significant impact that big-box retail—and the associated sales taxes paid by consumers—has on the City’s tax base. On Mount Vernon Avenue, in both Del Ray and Arlandria, we must nurture the unique mix of businesses that create places “where Main Street still exists.”

We must recognize that retail has changed in recent years, driven most significantly by internet commerce. In many cases, trips to brick-and-mortar stores have forever been replaced by one-click online shopping. That’s an issue nationally, and will likely result in less big-box retail over time. Healthy business districts will react by providing dining, activities, and retail experiences that simply can’t be enjoyed by shopping online. That’s what makes businesses like Alexandria’s Fibre Space, Olio Tasting Room, Escape Room Live, and Stitch Sew Shop, so special. The city needs to continue efforts that provide flexibility in permitting for these new and different “active” retail uses.

We’re not alone in our fight to attract more people to the business districts we know and love. Georgetown isn’t Old Town’s only challenger anymore, with stiff competition from H Street NE, 14^th Street NW, U Street NW, Shaw, and downtown DC, plus Clarendon and Shirlington in Arlington County. Other districts face competition from Springfield, Pentagon City, and strip malls along Richmond Highway and Leesburg Pike. Alexandria has one of the oldest and most authentic urban waterfronts in the Washington area, but there are new waterfronts throughout the region, from National Harbor to the District’s $2.5 billion dollar Wharf development on the Southwest Waterfront and the new Capital Riverfront along the Anacostia River near Nationals Park. Each of these places offers somewhere new, unique and exciting for people to spend their money—instead of shopping here.

If we don’t work to keep our retail mix attractive, our local commerce will wither on the vine. It’s happened before in Old Town, it’s happened in Landmark, and if we’re not careful, it will happen again. And when that happens, we’ll lose the friendly, eclectic, walkable commerce that drew so many here in the first place. We need both trendy and unique retail for our City to thrive. That’s why we need to do more than just shop local (to keep those sales taxes in the City’s coffers) by supporting BIDs, targeted investment, special events, marketing campaigns, best practices in parking management, and other tools to encourage retailers to invest here, and visitors to shop here.

The Gray Lady’s statement on Alexandria’s quirky small businesses need not be the last word. Smart and supportive policies can help retailers to be in the black. It will take some green to do this, and—being Alexandria—some will see red at any attempt to attract more visitors to town. But we must act to provide blue skies for retail growth.

Will you need a bag for that?

– P.C. Publius

September 16, 2016

On Endings and Beginnings

As the end of this intermittently habitable summer draws to a close, it’s exciting to know that our friends at Kings Dominion have graciously permitted us to resume our ongoing conversation about this tree sanctuary we call home. It’s an invigorating time of year, with schools reopening (and parents rejoicing), official Washington returning to work(ish), and the Alexandria City Council returning to the dais.

When we last left our intrepid band of local pols in June, they had a list of 2016 accomplishments that included things critical to the progress of our city—advancing the Potomac Yard Metro station, approving new affordable housing at the Ramsey Homes site, and tackling outstanding city infrastructure needs through the FY17 budget—as well as things less critical, like the passage of a (needlessly duplicative) transparency resolution and a shuffling of deck chairs regarding street tree species, brick colors, and streetlight specifications.

Since the Council adjourned, Alexandria has received a renewed AAA bond rating, ground was broken on the waterfront for the new Old Dominion Boat Club, the award-winning Port City Brewing Co. worked with the City and Commonwealth to stay here and grow, and the New York Times discovered that we exist. All encouraging signs of the exciting things the near-term future holds for us.

Work remains to be done this fall, however, to preserve this hard-earned momentum. City staff will conduct real estate assessments, which will frame the tax rate debate for the duration of the year. Robinson Terminal North returns to the drawing board after the hotel market proved inhospitable to developers’ ambitions. Old Town North and North Potomac Yard small area plans will move closer to adoption, while Eisenhower West joins the list of recently-adopted plans being actively implemented. Our Chief of Police will retire and a new chief installed. The Alexandria City Public Schools will release new enrollment numbers, which will certainly add new urgency to the conversation about school capacity concerns. And even as work is completed on the FY17 budget, the cycle begins anew as Council provides FY18 budget guidance to the City Manager this fall.

Outside of our borders, the environment will continue to change and challenge us. Our city will welcome a new neighbor – a multi-billion dollar casino and resort complex immediately across the Potomac. In the District, the Southwest Waterfront will continue to rise along the river’s edge, challenging all regional waterfronts—including Alexandria—to meet its grandeur. Metro SafeTrack will continue to cause significant disruptions in the region’s most important transit system, creating transportation headaches for weeks and months on end. And the Silver Line will continue to reach into western Fairfax and Loudoun counties, luring major employers further from the urban core of the region. How we respond to these challenges will say a lot about our elected leadership, our citizenry, and the future of Alexandria.

As regular order resumes in our city, it would be disingenuous to say that we stand on any sort of precipice regarding our future. But in the shadow of a national election that carries sweeping implications for the kind of nation we want to be, we here in Alexandria should not squander the opportunities before us. Even if our national leaders can’t see beyond the next election, it is our duty—and our responsibility—to make hard choices and emphasize priorities that ensure a growing and inclusive community. If we can do that, as citizens of Alexandria, then we can rightfully claim a place of pride as the best our region has to offer and a true exemplar of what we mean by a Commonwealth.

Let us begin.

– P.C. Publius

September 7, 2016