Dear Friends,

 

The snow the other week caught me by surprise. I was still trying to get over the fact that Thanksgiving seemed so early this year and we got hit with a snow storm. Winter seems to be coming faster than I expected. That isn’t bad, though. This is a great time of year. We had 17 people over for Thanksgiving. It was a fantastic gathering with both a smoked and a deep-fried turkey. Everybody helped in the kitchen and the family ping-pong tournament provided just the right amount of high-pressure excitement. If only Virginia could have beaten Tech (sorry Tech fans, I have to stay true to my school, though I did root for ya’ for the ACC title).

 

Now I can’t believe December is half-way through. The lights in Old Town are especially nice this year. If you haven’t had a chance to walk King Street, you should. The businesses did a great job decorating. The decorations on Mt. Vernon Avenue are pretty wonderful too. As you do your holiday shopping, please consider local businesses. Alexandria has a lot of fantastic shops to choose from.  

 

As always, I look forward to hearing from you.

 

In this issue:

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Rob Krupicka

 

Or contact my Aide, Elizabeth Jones at Elizabeth.Jones@alexandriava.gov

 

P.S. – I don’t want to spam anybody. If you’d like to be removed or added to this list, send e-mail to Newsletter@krupicka.com with remove or add in the subject line.

 

 

The housing market slump has created budget shortfalls of enormous sizes throughout our region. Some outlying areas of our region are talking about pretty substantial tax rate changes of 15-20% or more in order to just maintain current services.   We are fortunate in many ways that our housing market has not fallen as much as others. Alexandria’s resulting revenue shortfalls are nowhere near as great as those of other jurisdictions. Concerns about our national economy and the slowdown in the housing market also contribute to a difficult budget environment. 

 

Still, Alexandria is looking at significant shortfalls in both our operating and capital budgets. As the first step in our budget development, we have asked our city staff to show us a draft budget that does not require an increase in the property tax rate. To do that, staff will be providing us with a draft budget that cuts about $8 million from the City operating budget and that asks the schools to also find substantial reductions. By comparison, we cut over $3 million out of the City operating budget last year and the schools, after millions in staff and operating reductions as part of their budget process, ultimately received an additional $2 million less than the School Board originally requested of the Council.

 

Meanwhile, we are seeing rapid rises in transportation costs as well as health care. The prospect of cutting $8 million in city programs and services on top millions or more in additional school reductions is daunting. With declining property values, to maintain the level of service we see today, our budget staff says we will have to raise the tax rate. We have to take that news and evaluate it with the fact that we will most likely have a few years of difficult economic times. This year’s budget process will make very clear the trade-offs between our tax rate and our services.  

 

Based on the last city-wide survey, most people said they don’t want to see dramatic reductions in city services. Does the changing real estate market impact how you view the current level of city services?

 

 

According to a recent memo from Alexandria’s City Manager, a new study from D.C.’s office of revenue shows that Alexandria has the lowest tax burden in the region.

 

The study compares the relative tax burdens for the 2006 tax year for our region. The jurisdictions reviewed include Alexandria, Fairfax County, Arlington County, the District of Columbia, Montgomery County, and Prince George's County. The total tax burden analysis combines estimates of the income tax, real estate tax, sales and use taxes, and automobile taxes paid in calendar year 2006, whether those taxes go to the local or state government. The study shows Alexandria ranks as the lowest of the 6 major jurisdictions compared for tax burden in 3 of 5 household income categories, second lowest in one other category and third lowest in the other category. The study also shows that for calendar year 2006 Alexandria had the lowest real estate tax burden of all 6 jurisdictions.

 

In 2007 Alexandria's 83- cent real estate tax rate ranked second lowest of all 6 jurisdictions with only Arlington's real estate tax rate lower than Alexandria's by 1.2 cents.

 

Clearly our efforts over the last five years to find new efficiencies in government, to tighten our budgeting process and to keep our economy strong are showing some results.

 

 

I had the pleasure of serving on the Council of Governments Green Building Task Force which just recommended that all local governments take steps to promote energy efficient, environmentally-friendly and often money-saving green building practices. The Alexandria Council will decide in January if it will support these new policies. 

 

At the request of Vice Mayor Pepper and me, Alexandria’s Environmental Policy Commission has been working feverishly with the local campus of Virginia Tech to complete the first of a three step process to turn Alexandria into an Eco-City.  We want to be a leader in energy efficiency, green-building, water conservation and air-quality management. We expect to receive a report in January that will outline short term environmental priorities, current initiatives and also provide an inventory of some great environmental efforts around the Country. Following the Council’s adoption of that report and the short-term priorities, we are planning an Environmental Summit for May 10th where Alexandrian’s will be asked to help us craft an environmental vision for our City. And by next fall, we hope to have a multi-year Eco-City action plan ready for City Council adoption.

 

Governors from California to New York, Mayors from Texas to Illinois and communities around our Country and the world are taking bold steps to protect the health and prosperity of our planet. Alexandria has the ability to be at the forefront of that effort. We have one of the most creative and energetic populations any community could hope for. I know we have the ability to think differently about how we do things and make smart choices about how to improve energy efficiency, and clean our air and water. I have seen our ability first hand; from our green TC Williams High School and our soon-to-be green fire station in Potomac Yard to some of the great efforts of citizens to organize recycling programs in our schools and to provide compact fluorescent light bulbs for residents in affordable housing. 2008 should be a Green year for Alexandria.

 

 

The Governor reported his proposals to expand pre-school today. His proposed plan will make it easier for at-risk children to access high quality pre-school. And, by improving the state dollar match to local governments, Governor Kaine’s plan will make Alexandria’s local dollars go much further to help support high quality pre-k programs. This is an important step for Virginia. We have a great system of education, but are not leading in early childhood development, where we have some of the greatest opportunities to help children succeed. Governor Kaine’s plan is a big step forward for education in Virginia.

 

I have been chairing the task force responsible for developing a plan to evaluate how our pre-k programs are performing, which approaches produce the best results for the commonwealth, and which approaches could be improved.   We have work to do to build a true system of metrics and evaluation for pre-k programs, but even with what we have, we know there are clear benefits to pre-k programs. There are miles of research from our state and around the country that show pre-k programs have a major impact on at-risk student’s ability to achieve in school. Quality programs can lower drop-out rates, improve test scores and also save tax-payers money. It is hard to find any educational program that can do so much and save money over time. 

 

The City Council had a work session to talk about pre-k programs last week. Over the last few years as costs have gone up, Alexandria has fallen back a bit in the number of children we are able to help with pre-k programs. We are fortunate that a number of high quality non-profit programs continue to provide great services to Alexandria kids. But we are not doing a good enough job preventing our early childhood programs from falling behind. 

 

 

 

I am serving with Councilman Gaines on a task force to bring forward recommendations about what our priorities should be related to affordable housing in our city and suggestions for policy actions to address them. We are a few months away from completing our work, but one thing is abundantly clear, Alexandria has lost an enormous amount of market-rate affordable, middle-class housing.

 

In the last few years over 10,000 units of our affordable rental housing – more than half of the supply -- have increased in price so much that they are no longer accessible to most people. During the last ten years, over 90% of Alexandria’s home ownership opportunities for working families have vanished – over 40,000 homes have stopped being affordable to the majority of people. Combined that is 50,000 fewer home options for teachers, police officers, college graduates just starting on their career or employees at one of the many non-profits and foundations that make Alexandria their home. The slowdown in the housing market is easing the speed at which we lose more moderate-priced housing, but these units are unlikely to ever be affordable to anybody but those at the upper end of the income charts. We have about 8,000 units of market-rate, working-class, affordable rental housing left in the City. We have only a few thousand units of affordable home ownership opportunities left.

 

I came to Alexandria as a recent college graduate with a small income and a love for this City and its history. And I rented. It is hard to imagine, but the opportunity for future college graduates to do that has nearly evaporated in front of our eyes. I don’t know what that will mean to Alexandria twenty-years from now, but there is no question that it will have a significant impact on our community.

 

Finding a way to preserve as much of the housing that remains as we can is where our task force is focusing its efforts. George Mason University recently released a report on the challenge of preserving market-rate affordable housing in Arlington. It provides a lot of insights into the challenges and suggests some potential policy options. 

 

 

As part of the State’s transportation package last year, they gave local government the ability to raise the tax rate on commercial property in order to help pay for transportation projects. Transportation is one of the fastest growing cost areas of our budget.  Maintenance costs keep increasing and the need to improve our transportation infrastructure continues to be one of the greatest risks to the quality of life and economic strength of our region. Arlington and Fairfax are already moving forward with plans to use this new tax. The Council is putting together a task force to evaluate this commercial tax option and to present its findings to the City Council. We need to be very careful not to put our commercial businesses at a disadvantage in the region – either through high taxes or through inadequate transportation infrastructure. 

As we evaluate this new revenue source, I’d be interested to know what you think. I expect there are a range of opinions about this. How should we evaluate this commercial tax?

 

 

Not too long ago, a DC favorite, Hanks’ oyster Bar, opened at 1026 King Street. What a fantastic addition to our community. The last few years have seen Alexandria become the home to some of the best restaurants in the region. A recent New York Times article talked about Alexandria’s great collection of restaurants. Hank’s is a great compliment to our City. I’ve been there twice in the last two months with my family and I can’t say enough about how great the meals have been. The kids love the mac and cheese and my wife Lisa and I, as well as my mother-in-law, have enjoyed a wide range of fresh fish options. It is worth checking-out. www.hanksrestaurants.com

 

Have you been to a great Alexandria restaurant recently? Let me know about it, and we’ll try to get it into an upcoming newsletter.

 

 

I just finished reading the very well written Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. It was a top ten NY Times best seller and received a lot of positive attention. A cousin suggested I read it and I wasn’t disappointed. The book chronicles the author’s exploration of our industrial food system, our growing regional food system made up of co-ops, farmers’s markets and buyers clubs and finishes with a discussion of current hunter-gathering food practices. We are what we eat has a whole new meaning after reading this book. It reassured me that the regional buyer’s club meat products I buy probably are better for my kids than much store-purchased meat, even though they are more expensive. It also paints a dramatic portrait of our industrial food system and the fact that we are, in many, many ways, made out of corn. There is a lot to argue about, discuss and contemplate in this book. It makes for a good read on the Metro to the office and back. 

 

 

Don’t Miss First Night Alexandria. If you are in town for the new-year, First Night Alexandria is one of the best events around. Local businesses, artists and families gather together to celebrate the new-year. The event takes place in Del Ray and Old Town Alexandria. It is packed full of special performances and events. 

 

 

 

P.S. – I don’t want to spam anybody. If you’d like to be removed or added to this list, send e-mail to Newsletter@krupicka.com with remove or add in the subject line.