Alyia Gaskins admits she’s a “big policy nerd,” and as the only candidate on the ballot for Alexandria mayor, she plans to take full advantage of her background in public health and urban planning once in office.
The first-term Alexandria City Council member has been meeting with staffers, residents, and business owners and diving deeper into the minutia of city issues since she won the June Democratic primary.
“I want to make sure that those nuances are almost like second nature by the time I’m prepared to take office,” Gaskins says.
Immediate issues she wants to tackle include expanding Alexandria’s tax base, housing affordability, child care costs and availability, youth mental health issues, and ensuring young people have pathways to employment after they graduate.
The city needs to be intentional about growing its commercial tax base, she says. “The reality is there are lots of needs and challenges we have, and we have to be able to pay for them. And our current dependence on residential homeowners, it’s unsustainable,” Gaskins says, adding she views projects in the city as a connected puzzle with each one impacting another. “What is our vision for commercial growth? What is our vision for economic development across the city? And what’s our strategy for getting there?”
In the West End, where she lives and where Inova is building a new Alexandria hospital, Gaskins foresees redevelopment. “I think what you’re going to see there is more housing, more hotels, more restaurants, which will be a great thing for that part of the area,” she says. “I would love there to also be like an arts and cultural hub, or some sort of space that is a celebration of the arts and the diversity on the West End.”
Gaskins says she believes Alexandria’s diversity is one of its greatest strengths and wants to make sure city services are designed with residents and small-business owners in mind.
And she is not taking lightly the historic nature of becoming, at the age of 35, the first Black woman mayor in the city’s 275-year history. “The historic nature of the election is also sitting with me in both a place of great humility that I have the opportunity to lead our city at this time, but also a recognition of what that means for other little girls who look like me, and the opportunity I have to not just be a leader but an example and hopefully a mentor and an inspiration to other girls who think they can make change in their community.”
Feature image courtesy Alyia Gaskins
This story originally ran in our November issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.
