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ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Mayor Alyia Gaskins on Friday promoted an updated version of the city's Six-Month Look-Ahead, the strategic-plan tracker Alexandria first published in March, now refreshed to carry dozens of city initiatives through September.
"I want to share a new tool that we have created to better serve you," Gaskins said in her daily video update, describing a document built to "better manage" the city's initiatives and "better plan for the future." She said the look-ahead is organized around three goals — performance tracking, transparency and integration — and built on the council goals set at the body's post-election retreat, among them addressing community disparities and strengthening the economy.
Last updated May 20, the document advances the window from the January-through-June span of the first edition to April through September, with each initiative assigned a target in two quarterly columns. The city said this edition places particular emphasis on process improvement and customer experience, with several initiatives aimed at making applications, permits, payments and service requests simpler and faster to navigate.
Several items show movement since March. The Housing 2040 plan, the city's long-range housing blueprint, has advanced from a document the city was folding tenant-protection strategies into to one the City Council is now slated to consider for adoption. The neighborhood coalitions behind the Community Health Improvement Plan have also progressed: where the March edition had the Arlandria coalition beginning to identify focus areas, this version has it finalizing its vision and selecting focus areas, while the Landmark/Van Dorn coalition moves into root-cause analysis. And the final evaluation of the city's ARISE economic-mobility program, listed only generally in March, is now pinned to a specific date — it is set to be presented to the City Council at its May 26 meeting.
The update also adds initiatives that weren't broken out in the spring, including a first full-year review of the city's Equity Action Plans, stormwater improvements and restoration at Douglass Cemetery, work on the Waterfront Small Area Plan pending council direction, and an evaluation of innovation-district feasibility in Potomac Yard tied to a pending GO Virginia grant. On tenant protections, the document flags preparations for new state legislative authority taking effect July 1, including the Virginia Residential Tenant-Landlord Act and an eviction-diversion program — language that did not appear in the earlier edition.
On the customer-service front, the look-ahead points to a planned upgrade of the city's RevenueOne financial system, an online car-tax registration interface expected by the end of the fiscal year, new procurement software, and a migration of the city's permit and land-management system to the cloud. The city reports that internal testing of an AI chatbot for the Permit Center is "continuing with good success," with implementation planned for the summer. The benchmark satisfaction figures are unchanged from March: 72% of residents satisfied with the overall quality of city services, 63% with the ease of paying bills and filing applications, and 52% with permits.
A summer of public-facing events fills out the calendar. The America250 commemoration, listed in March only as planned, now carries firm dates — a "Sails on the Potomac" event June 12-14, alongside a new Lyceum exhibit and an Alexandria Forum program. The Summer Youth Employment Program launches June 22, and the city's Community Remembrance Project, newly detailed in this edition, includes a remembrance for Benjamin Thomas set for Aug. 8. Several capital projects — the Colasanto interactive fountain, the Fort Ward playground, the Holmes Run Trail and Simpson Park — are expected to reach substantial completion in the period.
On infrastructure, the look-ahead notes that 30% design plans for Duke Street bus rapid transit will be submitted, West End Transitway buses will be procured, and utility-relocation and stormwater work will continue under the Flood Action Alexandria program.
Gaskins described the tracker as a first version still being refined, and said she had already pushed for the metrics to be easier to find. "This should probably be on the homepage or someplace where people can easily see the metrics and not have to go searching for them," she said, adding that the city is seeking resident feedback on how the document is used and what else would be helpful. "This is a work in progress, so we want to hear from you."
The full Six-Month Look-Ahead is available on the city's council-priorities page at alexandriava.gov.
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