About Alexandria celebrated its fourth birthday late last year. The following reviews 2025’s columns to assess the hits and misses, describes a column that involves a mystery, and provides an update on a long-delayed ACPS capital project.
The Hits
January’s column advocating the naming of the Minnie Howard fields after former Mayor Kerry Donley was a hit based on the substantial community support for the idea. On Dec. 18, 2025, the School Board approved this naming proposal in a unanimous vote.
An August column on how the city and its residents process change, and an October column on the importance of Energy Use Intensity (EUI) standard as Alexandria revises its Green Building Policy were also well received.
On the legal front, columns in March and May examined a court challenge brought by Jefferson-Houston parents to the School Board’s decision to convert Jefferson-Houston from a K-8 school to a middle school and the reasons for the subpoenas issued by the defendants to nonparty residents in the Zoning for Housing case that challenged amendments to the zoning code, notably, amendments to the single family zones. Judge Thomas Padrick, Jr. quashed the subpoenas, and on Nov. 12, 2025 he granted the city’s motion for summary judgment in the ZFH case.
Comments were positive about three columns about the Alexandria City Public Schools: an April column on the proposed FY 2026 operating budget, a November column on the School Board’s rejection of a City Council proposal for a pilot program to use DASH busses to transport Alexandria City High School students, and a February column arguing that the Minnie Howard campus of ACHS is effectively the city’s second public high school.
The Misses
June’s column on the importance of corporate memory in city governance and September’s column that surveyed city leaders about priorities for the upcoming legislative and school years seemed like good ideas at the time, but the columns landed without much reaction.
Neither a hit nor a miss, December’s column on the ACPS central office employee who had a second full-time job and the former Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority Executive Director who occupied an ARHA unit was the saddest column of the year.
A Mystery
The July column about a $6.6 million grant administered by the Commonwealth Transportation Board sought by the city to fund improvements at the intersections of Duke Street and Route 1 identified a mystery. Why the city pursued the grant in January 2025 to improve a problematic intersection and abandoned it months later is a question I have not been able to answer. Even so, one elected official told me, “We got out ahead of our skis on this.”
ACHS-King Street Cistern Update
One of the earliest (February 2022) columns urged ACPS to repair the 400,000-gallon underground cistern at ACHS’ King Street Campus. The cistern, which is located under the plaza between the parking deck and the school, was designed to collect runoff water from the building and the paved areas around it to permit water to be recycled for irrigation, chillers, and other uses. When the King Street building opened in 2007 the cistern was considered a forward-thinking design feature, but it has not operated for years.
The cistern repair project has been delayed and estimated completion dates have been pushed back several times. The cistern itself is an underground concrete box, but it requires a system of pumps and pipes to work.
The city is currently soliciting community input on the Taylor Run Infrastructure Stabilization Project. A functioning cistern at the King Street Campus would benefit Taylor Run by reducing runoff-driven erosion.
On September 25, 2025, I received an email from a member of the ACPS Communications Department stating:
ACPS is moving forward with comprehensive repairs and upgrades to the cistern at the Alexandria City High School King Street Campus. The project has faced some planning challenges over the past year but is now progressing. We are working with a dedicated team of experienced contractors and engineers to see the project through. A reassessment of the site was completed in August 2025.
I sent an email to a representative of the Communications Department asking what the “comprehensive repairs and upgrades to the cistern” are, what the “planning challenges over the past year” were, who the “dedicated team of experienced contractors and engineers” is, and why a “reassessment of the site” was necessary.
There was no response.
Here’s to a great 2026!
The writer is a former lawyer, member of the Alexandria School Board from 1997 to 2006, and English teacher from 2007 to 2021 at T.C. Williams High School, now Alexandria City High School. He can be reached at aboutalexandria@gmail.com and free subscriptions to his newsletter are available at https://aboutalexandria.substack.com
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The breadth of what you’ve covered in 2025 is amazing. Alexandria is a big, complicated city, and knowledgeable commentary helps it run better. I look forward to more of the same in 2026!