Opinion: Lee Mortimer

Unlike in most democracies, U.S. congressional elections follow a "winner-take-all" model. One person is chosen to represent all the voters of a district -- with the result that large numbers of constituents who did not support the winning candidate may feel left out. It's hard to feel "represented" by someone you voted against.

By Alexandria Mayor Allison Silberberg
Yesterday, only a few days after the unthinkable occurred, the park around our Simpson Field and our streets reopened. The large baseball field will reopen today, June 18th. Together, we are resilient. We are a blessed community. 

The Alexandria City Council would serve our community well by passing an ordinance ensuring that the police department’s data collection is being accomplished for all arrests as well as for traffic stops, frisks, citations, searches, and other types of detentions. This ordinance would make such data open and accessible to the public, provide a valuable tool for analyzing how the data relates to the functioning of our city and treatment of our residents, and it would show that the police department is willing to be accountable to the community.

To the Editor:
There is something surreal in what the Alexandria City Council did last week in approving a whopping 5.7 cents per hundred increase in property taxes for 2018. The City Manager had proposed an increase of 2.7 cents that would have provided very adequately for current and future city needs, including a substantial increase for the schools.

Opinion: Cody Wofsy, Staff Attorney and Skadden Fellow, ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project.
Monday marks a critical next stage in the legal battle against President Trump’s Muslim Ban executive order. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Richmond, Virginia, will hear legal arguments in a case, International Refugee Assistance Project v. Trump, brought by the ACLU and National Immigration Law Center.

Opinion: Alexandria Vice Mayor Justin Wilson
When I was in school I had a nasty habit of waiting until the last minute to study for a test or prepare an assignment. Generally speaking, my procrastination didn’t turn out well for my grades. I ended up scrambling at the last minute and cut corners to meet the deadline.

Opinion: Rajan Zed

Hindus are urging all the cities and counties in Virginia to offer free yoga classes, on the same pattern as being offered by the City of Lynchburg.

To the Editor:
It's crunch time for our elected officials now with final approval of the city's budget for 2018. The real question is whether our Mayor and Council have the backbone to do the right thing this year and/or do their usual flip flops.

To the Editor:
“To encourage literature and the arts is a duty which every good citizen owes to his country.” –George Washington
These words, by an Alexandria resident during the formative years of the United States, are as remarkably noteworthy today as they were when George Washington first penned them. Creativity and imagination in 21st Century America are in danger.

Dear Editor:

I am writing with concern over the presence of a white supremacist, Richard Spencer, here in Old Town. My concern is that he and his organization have been emboldened by our failure to make progress on civil rights.