Free Association

Happy new year, Alexandria! We’re only ten days into January, but 2025 is kicking off with a bang–we already have a new Bad Bunny album, a new name for the Gulf of Mexico America, and most importantly, a new mayor and city council. A change in leadership is an interesting time of transition in which residents project all their hopes and desires onto our new elected officials. For some people, that means demanding that we start naming the city’s snowplows like Arlington does (tag yourselves, we’re Sir Wintry Mix-A-Lot). For others, and unfortunately this is way less fun, it means urging our leaders to spend more time listening to civic associations.

We’ve seen this comment pop up several times in online spaces since the new council term started, so it seems like a good moment to check in on these local institutions–their strengths and weaknesses, and the role they play in Alexandria’s decisionmaking processes. Odds are that if you’re reading this newsletter you’re a civic engagement sicko who holds multiple positions within your neighborhood association’s leadership structure and gets hot and bothered over the legal notices page of the Alexandria Times, so you probably already know all this. But for the rest of the class here are the relevant facts: a civic association is a voluntary organization made up of community members who work together to address common concerns and improve quality of life in their neighborhood. There are almost 40 associations in Alexandria representing most of the city’s geography, which you can see on the map below. If you live in one of the blank spaces, we’re sorry for making you feel left out. Feel free to skip to the next section of this newsletter and dedicate the time you would have spent reading this essay to enjoying your life.

Civic associations have long been core elements of many of Alexandria’s neighborhoods, and they play a number of important roles. Most notably, they serve as a liaison between residents and the city. Association meetings and email lists are a conduit for sharing any broadly relevant information, whether that’s upcoming disruptions from an infrastructure project, changes to the trash collection schedule, or yet another reminder to lock your goddamn car doors, that’s why your sunglasses and loose change keeps getting stolen, this isn’t rocket science!!! They also help connect residents with city staff who can address their problems or answer their questions. Other useful functions of civic associations include creating forums for neighborly discussion about relevant current events and organizing events like garden tours and holiday home-decorating contests that foster community spirit. Studies have found that these activities positively affect residents’ overall satisfaction (though it’s unclear whether the feeling of satisfaction is more pronounced for the residents who win the contests or for those who enjoy the opportunity to be a lookie-loo about their neighbors’ taste in perennials or sofa upholstery).

But things start to get more complicated when we consider the role of neighborhood associations in the development of public policy. Our local government has long sought and accommodated their input–for example, civic associations have special seats reserved on city commissions, and their representatives can speak for five minutes instead of the usual three at public hearings, under the rationale that they speak not only for themselves but all neighborhood residents. In theory this makes a lot of sense: association leaders gather input and pass it along to decisionmakers so that everyone else can stay home and binge the Hulu/Disney+ adaptation of the classic 1980s bonkbuster “Rivals.” Everybody wins!

However, that only works if civic associations can be reliably depended on to accurately convey the collective sentiments of residents, and there’s a lot of evidence that they don’t. One problem is that participation in neighborhood associations is rarely representative of the overall population. Meetings are usually held on weekday nights and often not well advertised, leading to turnout rates lower than the plunging necklines worn by the actors on the Hulu/Disney+ series “Rivals” [Editor’s note: haven’t you only seen like three episodes of this show?]. As an anecdotal example, attendance at Rosemont Citizens Association meetings generally maxes out at 30 or 40 despite the fact that Rosemont is home to more than 4,000 people. Associations that hold virtual meetings achieve higher participation rates, but even those capture only a fraction of residents.

And the people who do participate in civic associations tend to be disproportionately older, whiter, and more likely to own a home compared to other residents. This is a consistent pattern that’s been quantitatively documented in places like Toronto and Louisiana and qualitatively seems to hold true here. People with demanding work schedules and those with childcare responsibilities have less time to go to evening meetings, and some face language barriers. As a result, the viewpoints that get elevated through these groups tend to focus on the concerns of a narrow segment of residents which are then characterized as what “the neighborhood” wants. It's like an acapella group - do you want a good beatboxer? Of course. Do you only want to hear the dude making hi-hat cymbal noises with his mouth? Of course not. It's about balance and harmony, and the same holds true for neighborhood perspectives–but too often we're only hearing cymbals.

Even if civic associations were perfectly representative of the population, there would still be disagreements among their members. After all, if people in this city can’t even agree that we have enough pizza restaurants [Editor’s note: ANOTHER ONE???], how are we supposed to reach a unified position on complex regulatory reforms? Yet if there’s a vote or a poll on an issue, even a close one, the winning position is stated as the position of the membership as a whole. All of this can create the impression that certain views are more widely shared than they actually are.

So while we should absolutely appreciate with gratitude the efforts of our civic association leaders to connect us with our neighbors and keep us informed about whatever the hell Ting is doing these days, we need to critically examine the practice of allowing their comments to carry extra weight in public policy debates–especially since those comments tend to lean in one direction, in favor of the status quo. While they deserve to have a say just like any other stakeholder, overemphasizing their input risks sidelining the voices of younger, less affluent Alexandrians who may not have the bandwidth to engage in civic groups but whose lives are deeply affected by city policies. It also seems inconsistent with democratic principles as well as the desire to move the city forward that was soundly endorsed in both the June primary and the November general election.

We should, at minimum, reach a common understanding around what it does and doesn’t mean when a civic association takes a position on an issue. We should also consider standardizing time limits for all speakers at council hearings regardless of affiliation so that everyone has an equal opportunity to be heard. Does it actually make a difference whether someone gets to talk for two minutes longer than somebody else? Maybe yes, maybe no–but there’s obviously a perception that it does, as evidenced by a Zoning for Housing commenter who memorably tried to claim the full five minutes as a representative of Scroggins Road, which of course is not even a real civic association. It is, however, a very fun word to say. Scroggins!

Anyway, we could write another 500 words here about how the city also needs to continue engaging a broader cross-section of residents in its outreach, and how civic associations should expand their membership to better reflect the makeup of their neighborhoods. But it’s been a long week, and you get the point already, so we’re just gonna wrap it up. In conclusion: Build community. Lock your car doors. Watch “Rivals” [Editor’s note: oh my god will you please shut up about this show]. Listen to the new Bad Bunny album [Editor’s note: I’m going to take away your keyboard]. And remember that if we learn to share the mic and listen to more diverse community voices, 2025 will be a better year for all of us.

Things You May Have Missed Because You Have a Life 

• The Washington Post ran an article about the community’s support for Friends to Lovers, the romance bookstore that was damaged in a fire. It turns out Alexandrians love a slow burn except for when the burning is literal, in which case we’ll happily arrange a marriage of convenience between small business owners and our GoFundMe accounts.
• Del Ray Artisans is accepting art submissions for its upcoming Fabulous Felines exhibit, which is great news for anybody trying to figure out what to do with their homemade “childless cat lady for Kamala” yard signs. Because like, it seems wrong to just throw them out, but they’re too painful to look at, so… [*stops typing to stare dead-eyed into the middle distance for several seconds*]
• Anyhoo, how about a nice story about the hat store?
• A man who fled the scene of a hit-and-run evaded police by crawling through an 18-inch-wide drainage pipe. We know people in this city are obsessive about stormwater infrastructure but we feel like this might be taking #DrainALX a bit too far.

Local Discourse Power Rankings

1. Is Our Children Learning (Last week: 1). STILL NO.
2. That Name Again Is Mister Plow (Last week: NR). So we got our first real winter storm in several years, and while there was a lot to recommend the experience (more on that below) it was also a reminder that we really just don’t move snow out of the way all that effectively and bounce back from storms like this quickly. Schools were closed for three days and change, the Feds closed or went to telework, and given that this came as an immediate follow-on from winter break it kind of caused a continuation of that “airport rules” mentality that sets in between Christmas and New Years (this is code for starting to drink at noon and eating like sodium and preservatives are Future You’s problem). The region finally started to creak back into action today as our most effective snow removal technique finally started pulling its weight, that being [flips reading glasses down from forehead to nose and peers at notecard] it says here “the sun”. Look, we don’t ask for much–but when we’re sharing our streets with Maryland drivers we’re going to need more than one pickup truck plow’s width of passable lane to fishtail down. And don’t even get us started on the delightful pop-up skating rinks sidewalks bordering every city park and playground. What we’re saying is the past week has been magical. Let’s never do it again.
3. You Idiots Are Doing This Road Wrong (Last week: 5). At the end of last month the city put out a press release announcing that some parts of Duke Street and/or the ramps between Duke and Van Dorn will be closed to traffic for much of this year. Note that we’ve used the conjunction “and/or” because nobody has any shred of a clue what this press release means. Title of press release: “Temporary Closures on 5700-6000 Blocks of Duke Street.” Description of affected area in first sentence of press release: “eastbound Duke Street to Van Dorn Street ramp and the Van Dorn Street to eastbound Duke Street ramp.” Sentence later in press release: “Both ramps will be closed to vehicles and pedestrians and Duke Street traffic will be detoured through neighboring streets.” Meanwhile, the map attached to the press release shows Duke Street closed to traffic in both directions, or maybe just certain lanes? It’s hard to tell because it looks like it was edited in Microsoft Paint. Can someone with an advanced degree in interpreting Traffic Engineer tell us whether Duke Street is closed or just the ramps? Is this like a Schrödinger’s Road situation, simultaneously open and closed until observed?? Ugh, whatever, we’ll just take Edsall.

Alexandria’s Hottest Club Is… Snow

Since we lost a massive chunk of our week to the aforementioned Multiple Snow Day School Closure Telework Drunkathon, we’re going to keep the commentary to a minimum here and hit you with a rapid-fire ALX winter wonderland slideshow. Just a ton of photos coming at you like snowballs thrown by second-graders with unquenchable bloodlust and terrible aim. Duck!!

Overheard in ALX

From the snow day “learning packet” for elementary school students:

How many times can you hop on your left foot in a minute? Your right foot? Compare the number of hops using the symbols <, >, or =. What is the difference?

Couple things here. First of all, the snow days were hard enough. Did we also need a virtual learning day snow day with arguments about having to stay indoors and focus? Secondly, what the hell is this assignment. Thirdly, WHY IS IT SO HARD TO HOP ON ONE FOOT. Did they design this just to make parents with old knees and bad ankles feel like shit about themselves? Endurance < Balance, there, we solved the goddamn equation for you ACPS. 

One Awesome Thing in ALX

It may be a new year in ALX, but that doesn’t mean we can’t take a few minutes to appreciate the past! Yesterday the city announced that members of the public are invited to come take a peek at the newest arachological archological ARCHAEOLOGICAL excavation of the Alexandria Canal lock and basin historic site. We immediately knew this would be of interest to our readers, as we are a city that famously loves huge holes in the ground. Thus we decided to highlight it even though this topic continues to test the limits of our spelling capabilities.

The Alexandria Canal was pretty cool for several reasons. First of all, it was called the “Alexandria Canal” even though most of it went through Arlington. Suck it, Arlington! Second, it opened in the early 1840s as a way to connect the city to the C&O Canal in Georgetown in the years before the Civil War. When we heard this, we were a little nervous that the canal was used to support our local [FILE NOT FOUND] trade but it turns out that the boats were only carrying fish and coal, which is a relief. Sadly, the canal was abandoned in the 1880s because it turns out trains can also move things that boats can, except faster. Welp! The remnants of the canal have been mostly buried underground until now, except for the part closest to the Potomac, which has been preserved as part of Tide Lock Park.

Old Town being Old Town, an office building is currently being turned into a mixed-use residential building in an area the canal used to run through. As part of the redevelopment project, arche– archaloge– experts in old stuff have been on site helping to uncover the ruins. Last month they removed the office building’s foundation and found the walls of what used to be the fourth lock and third basin of the canal system, which were used to raise and lower boats a distance of 40 feet, or approximately three Jesses. You can go look at it and even bother the archaeololologists [Editor’s note: sigh] with your questions on Sunday, January 19. You don’t want to lose your chance because after they finish documenting information about the site, the remnants will be [checks notes] removed as the construction project continues?? Wait, seriously? And the history nerds of this city, they’re okay with this??? Wow. All right. Guess we’d better check out that trench before it’s gone–maybe we’ll see you there!

You can follow Becky @beckyhammer.bsky.social and Jesse @oconnell.bsky.social on Bluesky, or you can e-mail us anytime at alxtranewsletter@gmail.com.

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