Opinion: Letter to the Editor: Supporting Allison Silberberg
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Opinion: Letter to the Editor: Supporting Allison Silberberg

Allison Silberberg is our City’s best choice for mayor.

Many of Alexandria’s problems involve the City’s infrastructure — rainwater and sewage flooding, dangerously outdated gas and water lines, too little affordable housing, deteriorating public facilities, including schools, overcrowded schools, delayed telecommunication upgrades.

Fixing these problems is not just about fixing them, but also about how and when they get fixed. We need a dynamic economy, partly to grow the tax base to finance the investments to fix these problems. However, growth does not have to involve environmental insult or out-of-scale overbuilding. Resolving the City’s problems also must be transparent.

As our mayor from 2016-2018, Allison Silberberg demonstrated a remarkable ability to support growth and solve the City’s problems transparently and inclusively. She tripled the dedicated funding for the Affordable Housing Fund. She led approval of the long-delayed plan to resolve sewage issues for all four outfalls into the Potomac River, and renovated eight city parks, such as Taney Avenue Park, Windmill Hill Park, Beverley Park (The Pit), and Powhatan Park. She secured the $1 billion Virginia Tech Innovation Campus for Alexandria, and approved and built two new public schools (Patrick Henry, Ferdinand T. Day) and a new wing at John Adams — all on the West End. She initiated and drafted our city’s Statement on Inclusiveness, which got national attention. She fought against the BID tax to protect our small businesses in Old Town and established the Senior Advocacy Roundtable.

As our next mayor, Allison Silberberg will build upon these accomplishments and tackle new problems, including a firm commitment to stop our serious sewage and storm water flooding. She will rebuild the public trust that has frayed under the current mayor.

Allison Silberberg is the best mayoral candidate to mobilize our energies and talents in the City’s interests. We want a mayor who solves problems and listens to the City’s residents and its citizens’ associations. Allison is the candidate who will get things done and will do so with transparency, truth, and ethics. She has a demonstrated track record on the City’s issues. Allison is the Mayor you can trust.

Sue Berryman, Alexandria

Linda Bogaczyk, Alexandria