To the Editor:
The headline on Mayor Euille’s recent flier proclaims: Developers wanted to bring dump trucks into Old Town. Bill Euille knew there had to be a better way.
On the reverse side, it says, “Bill Euille’s leadership kept thousands of truckloads of dirt off our streets.” None of those statements is false, but they leave out too much of the story and have raised false hopes among south Old Town residents.
For many months Old Town Civic Association (OTCA) and Friends of the Alexandria Waterfront have advocated for using barges to haul away dirt from three major waterfront construction sites. All three are very close to the river and all would be feasible sites for barging.
I and many others advocated for barging at council meetings and at the meetings of the Ad Hoc Waterfront Construction Monitoring Group; I am OTCA’s representative on that group. City staff was adamant that barging could not occur at the Carr hotel site, probably the first to begin construction. At one point an assistant city attorney came to a Monitoring Group meeting to assert that barging for the Carr site would be illegal. He then left the meeting, refusing to answer questions.
I approached Vice Mayor Silberberg at that point. She took our concerns to the mayor herself accompanied by the chairman of the monitoring group. The president of OTCA approached the mayor, too. That triggered a letter to OTCA from City Attorney James Banks, again asserting that requiring Carr to barge would be illegal, but without providing a rational explanation for that position.
It became increasing apparent that using trucks to haul dirt away from the South Terminal site could tie up traffic badly for many months. So barging for the terminal site is legal while barging for the Carr site is not. At some point in the not-too-distance future, hundreds of Carr trucks loaded with dirt will travel along Union to Gibbon and up to Route 1. To be fair, Carr will be sending fewer trucks than the south terminal site would need, but there will be enough to cause great hardship. To be completely accurate, the mayor’s literature really should have said, “Mayor Euille is keeping some developer dump trucks out of south Old Town. Others are welcome.”
Perhaps coincidentally, Carr’s representative on the Monitoring Group, Austin Flajser, donated $2,500 to Mayor Euille’s campaign even though Mr. Flajser lives in Bethesda.
Alexandria can have a new mayor, more responsive to Alexandrians, than to developers, by voting for Allison Silberberg on June 9.
Katy Cannady
Alexandria