As the local media has noted, starting today, prepared meals in the City of Richmond will cost more. At the same time, City residents are receiving property tax assessments that show huge increases. So what, some liberals (many of them relatively new and affluent come’heres) say, all that money will help the schools. Unfortunately, the reality is quite different. And what facts show is a whole reel of broken promises.

Recall that the previous meals tax increase from more than a decade ago, which was passed to pay for the private, now-defunct Virginia Performing Arts Foundation, was promised to help children. The boosters for that deal, including some members of City Council, promised, infamously with ‘feet held to fire’, that the meals tax would be rescinded once the Carpenter Center was renovated. And that was not the only dishonorable lie that followed. But this has all been covered before….

Let’s fast forward, past other attempts to hijack public money, to this year, when City Council passed yet another meals tax increase (while voting down a proposed cigarette tax). Everyone promised that all of this money would go to the schools. Really?

From an article in this week’s Richmond Free Press, written by reporter Jeremy Lazarus:

But in a little noticed policy shift, City Hall and the Richmond School Board have agreed to cut back that investment ahead of Sunday, July 1, when Richmond diners will start to see the government’s take from meals rise from 11.3 percent to 12.8 percent, including the 1.5 percent earmarked for schools construction.

Instead of spending $150 million — a level of expenditure even the mayor acknowledges falls far short of the need — City Hall and the Richmond School Board plan to invest $100 million to $110 million, leaving $40 million to $50 million unused.

Instead of four schools, requests for proposals to build just three new schools — two elementary schools and a new middle school — were issued last month by City Hall, which is handling procurement.

Also consider what local activist (and former chairperson for Virginia’s Democratic Party) Paul Goldman wrote yesterday:

Redskins v RVA School Children? In 14 hours and 15 minutes, the new unprecedented Richmond City Charter provision on School Facilities will become law. The City’s elected leaders all decry the intolerable building conditions, a top official calling them “heartbreaking.” But in the new city budget likewise effective tomorrow, the Mayor/Counsel slash basic annual maintenance 80%, claiming RVA lacks the $400000 needed to finance such repairs. At the same, they voted to provide $750000 – for the next 15 years – to finance the training facility built by the city for the Redskins!

Yes, that’s right, the much celebrated, popular Put School First referendum is now law also. And hopefully it will inspire and spawn other referendums across the state.

That said, given the Richmond Free Press revelations, Richmond school modernization still faces an uphill battle. At a get-together at K-Town restaurant this past Thursday, Paul Goldman was pretty negative about real change happening, taking stock of the lack of legal momentum and a Richmond leadership that has been hostile to public demands.

One big question is if the Mayor and other leaders who ran and were elected on ‘Education’ platforms will continue to champion the Tom Farrell coliseum plan while ignoring the Put Schools First movement. No doubt, we will hear the same tired and false arguments about how Richmond needs to increase its tax base BEFORE modernizing schools. Don’t fall for them. Take note of what is being financed before school modernization, and who proposes what. Another question is what political candidates will eventually emerge to challenge the leaders who don’t want to put schools first.