Letter to the Editor: Don't Cash Out on Old Town's Heart and Soul

The recent Republican primary in Iowa shows the devastating effects of anonymous, outside special interest money by the Romney campaign that decimated and marginalized the Gingrich campaign. It’s a good lesson to observe locally because this is what’s happening in Alexandria. People who don’t live where we live are dictating how we are going to live through the waterfront redevelopment battle that is throwing neighborhood rights under the proverbial bulldozer.  
 
We not only have economic class warfare in Alexandria but geographic inequality and political taxation without representation. Waterfront4All is front-mouthing the pro-development wish list of Alexandria’s Chamber of Commerce in cahoots with the Washington Post Co. that owns the Robinson terminals.
 
Increasingly, Del Ray residents from Alexandria’s “protected enclave” are becoming persona non grata for West Enders and waterfront residents when running for city offices. The Del Ray “your taxation through my representation” modus operandi, exemplified by what emanates from our current City Planning Commission chair, is to ladle out poorly conceived platitudes regarding what should happen in other people’s neighborhoods.
 
What we have in Alexandria are elected officials who are searching for revenue while having day jobs that clearly conflict with being objective on land-use decisions. This conflict of interest is being played out with the City’s waterfront heritage and fragile environment serving as the new Civil War battleground between those who would enslave local taxpayers and residents and those who would fight for freedom of choice and self-determination.
 
Similar to real estate scams in national real estate trouble spots such as Las Vegas, Nev., we have out-of-towners joining boards supported by big developer interests and calling the shots. We have a city planner who does not live in Alexandria, does not pay taxes here, but who is campaigning against the waterfront residents of Alexandria whom she considers her enemies because they reject the waterfront plan.
 
Instead of historical Old Town as we know it, we will be cohabitating with Crowne Plaza architecture redux to the beat of suffocating congestion, view shed destruction and decaying property values.
 
FOIA requests have demonstrated how City officials and Washington Post lobbyists cooked up the rezoning answers they needed to optimize developer benefits and therefore land resale profits and then proceeded to frame the questions they wanted in order to concoct a city development plan without a soul, without a coherent or consistent rationale, and emphatically without local resident support.
 
Without a soul because as each development rezoning rationale has been successfully challenged by Alexandria’s local residents led by the volunteer Citizens for an Alternative Alexandria Waterfront Plan; the Post, city covernment, and its developer allies have conspired to change the questions to produce their desired “pre-fabricated” justifications.
 
If no one on Alexandria’s City Council holds any financial investments interests in the city’s waterfront property, then all sitting members should be open to taking a public pledge that none of their public servant votes will result in any personal private indirect or direct gain. We need to push for this public clarification because the bought and paid for world of the Waterfront4All crowd oozes obvious double-dealing conflicts of interest.
  
belittling what over 2,000 Alexandria voting residents have banded together on a voluntary basis to create (CAAWP) got it wrong when advocating for high density waterfront development in a neighborhood he doesn’t live in. It’s not about “icing the kicker,” it’s about Pete Rosing the game. There will be no hall of fame for any City official who votes for the City’s plan. Just shame, blame and disdain followed by deserved massive rejection at the next polls as we vote out the sell-outs while holding our noses.
 
The City’s Planning Commission, Waterfront Commission and the mayor’s handpicked Waterfront Working Group combined with the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership, Alexandria Convention and Visitors Association, and the local Chamber of Commerce (the latter two have interlocking dues structures), plus the Washington Post’s vested interests in upzoning Robinson Terminals North & South, clearly create an uneven, unfair, unethical and without conscience struggle. 
 
Let’s insist that Alexandria officials either serve the conscience of their office or pad their personal developer intake, but not both simultaneously. Instead of self-naming Old Town streets after our constructing mayor, let’s have a mayor who commits to self-construct only once he no longer holds elected office.  Finally, let’s put the City’s plan and alternative citizen waterfront plans to a citywide plebiscite and let the people who live and pay taxes here decide.
 
It’s time to occupy Old Town’s soul before the top 1 percent cashes out by building out our common waterfront at the expense of the 99 percent who only want to take their families out to enjoy free public access parks along a de-polluted river without having to peer through private property signs and locked commercial barricades that go dark at night.