City Council candidate Boyd Walker (D) reiterated his opposition to rezone Alexandria’s waterfront and spoke of his commitment to historical preservation at his campaign kickoff Monday at in Old Town.
With a “Don’t Rezone the Waterfront!” poster taped to the wall next to his campaign banner, Walker spoke of his hope to “save” several sites in Old Town.
“I still feel we can save West’s Point from development,” Walker said in regards to a site next to that at different times was occupied by warehouses and a wharf. George Washington departed from the point to Philadelphia in 1789, according to the .
The site was discussed , which analyzed the city’s redevelopment plan.
“This is a major important site in our nation’s history,” Walker said.
Walker, a 1986 graduate of , was a cofounder of Citizens for an Alternative Alexandria Waterfront Plan but left the group when he decided to run for council.
At a council meeting in February, Walker called the city’s waterfront redevelopment plan “the wrong plan for lifetimes to come.”
Walker said Monday he thinks a museum should be part of any development plan, making the waterfront area a place to visit “and not just a place for restaurants.”
Beyond the waterfront, Walker said he’d like to “save” the Old Town Theater and the Carver Nursery School by making them historical sites. He said he believes the city could purchase the theater for $3 million and the Carver Nursery School for $675,000.
He said he’d like to see the Old Town Theater remain a theater.
“Movie theaters and live theater is very important,” he said. “The arts are very important.”
Walker advocated the creation of a streetcar system all over the city. He mentioned the city’s plans for bus rapid transit down a section of Route 1 with hopes for eventual conversion to streetcar. He’d like to see a bigger network.
“It’s an attractive way to move people. … It’s clean, it gets people out of their car and it builds quality of life around it,” said Walker, adding that the H Street corridor in Washington, D.C., is “a good example" of what streetcars can do to a community.
The H Street line has been in the works since 2003 and the District hopes to begin operation of the streetcar in the summer of 2013. In the last several years, trendy restaurants and nightspots have popped up in what was once a blighted D.C. neighborhood.
Walker said good transportation planning was something his mother worked toward when she was a member of council from 1994 to 2000.
Lois Walker introduced her son at his campaign kickoff, saying she didn’t always agree with him on certain issues but never doubted his commitment.
“I admire him for standing up for what he believes,” Lois Walker said.
Boyd Walker is one of 12 Democrats running for city council. Six will be selected for the General Election ballot in a primary scheduled for June 12.
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Just how out of touch are the current council members? Doesn't Krupicka have kids and live in Del Ray? Why is he supporting new programs before taking care of existing playgrounds? Time to be voted out.
By the way, no less a personage than Councilman Rob Krupicka said during a recent Tuesday meeting of City Council that the salaries of Councilmembers and their aides should be raised. Certainly the city manager manages the city, but as a long serving elected official like Mr. Krupicka knows, the time demands on Council members have expanded greatly. Many good people can't take the time they would otherwise spend on their professional careers to serve in exchange for a token salary of less than $30,000 for everyone except the mayor who earns $30,000.
http://alexandriava.gov/uploadedfiles/historic/info/history/OHAHistoryWFFirstWharf.pdf The fact that Hugh West founded this site in 1739 does NOT make it a "major important site in our nation's history." That's just absurd.
As you know, the original proposal was $8.1 million, but due to feedback by the Transportation Commission at its December meeting, the City Manager went back to the drawing board and reduced the costs to $6.9 million ($4.75 million of grants CMAQ/RSTP and $2.2 million of local funds). That was the version approved by the Transportation Commission. Also, I'm sure you also realize that the $2.2 million of local funds were generated by the 2.2 cent real estate tax increase for Transportation last year--and thus would not be available for use to acquire the theater or the American Legion building. If I recall, during the public hearing in March, you cited a number of ways you felt the Commission should GROW the King Street Metro efforts (reconfiguration of the King Street/Diagonal intersection, new brick paving, etc)--not ways to reduce the cost. If you have ways to DECREASE the cost, please let me know.
And I know this is heretical to say, but founding father though he was, George Washington's reputation as a military commander was not a good one though to that date his limitations had not yet been revealed. That said this isn't an argument about history, at least from my perspective, but rather how people have abused and hijacked history, Old Town Alexandria's to be specific, in order to advocate for their preferred policy positions on issues like the Waterfront.
Over time, we keep telling these stories so much and reading about them we exaggerate their importance in the greater context. For example, waterfront plan opponents contended in the papers that our waterfront is important because John Smith once came by. Truth is, he sailed every river in the area in his explorations -- every riverside cove in the Chesapeake Bay watershed probably has the same claim! I love our history, but we look weak when we clutch at straws of little real importance. Regards,
But don't worry Miss Katy, if you want to tell the King Street visitors that "every one of the Royal colonial governors" came here, this 'ol Demcrat won't correct you in front of our guests (wouldn't be polite).
My position on tourism in Old Town is the Citizens for an Alternative Alexandria Waterfront Plan position. As Dennis Auld knows, CAAWP has wide support in Old Town and in other parts of the city as well. By the way, new information on historical events comes to light all the time. Sometime in the last 20 years, descendants of John Carlyle's brother, alerted the Carlyle House to a trove of letters Carlyle sent to his brother in Scotland whose descendants preserved them. They shed a lot of light on Carlyle's hosting of those royal governors. Historical information is not a static thing. Another example of a recent discovery is the Freedmen's Cemetary Burial list, found by an archivist at the Virginia Historical Library, at the bottom of a box of other documents.