Category Archives: government

VCU’s ‘Free Ride’

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This past week Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) announced that it had signed an agreement with the Greater Richmond Transit Company (GRTC) that will give their students and employees unlimited access to the new $65 million Pulse system and all other GRTC bus routes. In other words, as much local media trumpeted, VCU students and workers will get to ride ‘for free’.

Of course, this is welcome news. If nothing else, it may alleviate parking pressures and reduce carbon emissions. However, Richmond citizens should look past the headlines and consider the big picture of VCU’s ‘free ride’.

The conversation about the need to grow GRTC and mass transit in general has increased measurably as VCU has grown in both population and physical plant. All along, this community news site has advocated for more commitment from counties and universities to GRTC and mass transit. This call has only increased as ‘The Pulse’ BRT project has spent federal and state funds for implementation.

The problem is that with federal and state monies now spent, more and more of the cost burden will be shifted back to City taxpayers. And VCU, despite the announcement this week, is still falling very short in its commitment. $1.2 million is a drop in the bucket. Heck, VCU probably spent close to $1.2 million on all of the PR for their new ICA building. One year is not that long. Consider that VCU has made more of a commitment to its basketball coach than Richmond’s mass transit.

So what, the neoliberals say, college basketball brings in more money and GRTC can’t even support itself. VCU spends so much on transportation per student, university administrators say (if I was a student, I would be looking at where that money is going exactly). Yet, despite supposed sports profits and rising tuition, more poor and longterm Richmond residents are getting forced out of the City with rising tax bills. The City of Richmond continues to pay the overwhelming majority of GRTC’s budget and now it has increased its operational costs. Remember when ‘The Pulse’ backers said that it was designed to help Richmond’s poor? Now the largest entity by far on ‘The Pulse’ route is hedging its bets and waiting to see how the chips fall.

The local media and elected officials should be questioning this ‘deal’ more, but the majority of them won’t for fear of falling out of VCU’s favor (and advertising budget). If VCU alumni want to arrogantly claim that ‘they built this city’, they should be required to put their money where their mouth is. Other urban universities do more than brag.

An Appeal For Intermediate Terminal #3

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Following up on an earlier post, neighbor Charles Pool has written an appeal to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation of the recent DHR determination that the Intermediate Terminal is not eligible for listing on the National Register.

In the document linked below, he lists a dozen reasons that the Terminal and adjacent structures are eligible for listing on the National Register and that the demolition of the Terminal would constitute and adverse impact on historic resources.

Pool appeal to the ACHP, NPS and HUD regarding Intermediate Terminal #3, Richmond, VA

Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association Statement

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The Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association has released this statement, following the meeting last month…

Dear Oregon Hill Neighbors,

The Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association (OHNA) is the neighborhood civic association. Separate from OHNA, is the Overlook Unit Owners Association (HOA) at Outlook Townhomes (south of Holly Street). All residents are invited to join OHNA’s monthly meetings on the 4th Tuesday of the month at St. Andrew’s Church on the corner of S. Laurel and Idlewood at 7pm. Since we meet during dinner hours, neighbors host a potluck. Please feel free to bring something small to share if you can.

Over the years, multiple neighbors have approached OHNA to discuss a Residential Restrict Parking Zone similar to what The Fan and Carver have due to parking pressures. Residential Restrict Parking Zones must be backed by the neighborhood civic association. You can learn more about Restricted Parking Districts using the link below. It is highly recommended that you review the city website before taking the survey. You will see that The Fan and Carver’s restrict parking zones are different. Oregon Hill’s will also be unique based on the community’s feedback via the survey and at the meeting.

Restricted Parking Districts: http://www.richmondgov.com/Parking/RestrictedParkingDistricts.aspx

At the July OHNA meeting, President Todd Woodson made the decision to throw out all previous signed petitions. This decision was made to increase community awareness through a paper flyer campaign, online survey, and posts on Facebook and Nextdoor.

Website: www.oregonhill.net (Editor’s note: This website is an independent community news site that does not necessarily represent OHNA)
Facebook (closed group): Search “Oregon Hill Community”
Nextdoor: www.nextdoor.com
Online Survey: https://goo.gl/forms/BO98EfQ4GYCAUsbz2

Please take 5-10 minutes to complete the online survey (longer is you explore the links within the survey). Due to financial and time restraints the survey will only be available online. This data will be on display at the next OHNA meeting on Tuesday, August 28, 2018 at 7pm to help determine the details of the petition. Please note the survey will close on Tuesday, August 21, 2018 at 11:59pm so the data can be compiled. Filling out the survey does not replace the requirement of the paper petition. Results from the survey do not stop neighbors from continuing with a new paper petition (see sample).

The DPW Parking Division will be on hand at the next OHNA meeting to walk Oregon Hill through the process of determining the petition’s language. Your feedback through the survey will greatly speed this process up. The requirement for the Department of Public Works (DPW) Parking Division is 60% of a block face (one side of the block) must sign in support of the restricted parking zone. The neighborhood must have 10 block faces with 60% or more signing the petition for the Parking Division to conduct a parking study. (One block equals two block faces.) There is no need for a second petition stating a neighbor is in opposition, the neighbor just does not sign the support petition. After the parking study is complete the Parking Division will help draft an ordinance to bring before City Council to be adopted. The parking ordinance cannot be edited for an entire year.

Several of you have asked what the Randolph Neighborhood Association is proposing. You can learn more on their website. They have been listening to Oregon Hill’s discussing for four years. Due to their parking pressures, they plan on moving forward whether Oregon Hill does or does not. They will be handing out flyers over the next week too. Website: https://randolphrva.com/2018/06/02/restricted-decal-permit-parking-zone/

If you have any questions that the links above or in the survey do not answer OR are willing to help flyer the neighborhood, please email OHNArva@gmail.com.

Thank you all for your time,
Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association

P.S. Richmond residents with local government service questions & non-emergency requests are reminded they can call 311 (804.646.7000), use the www.rva311.com web portal, and/or the RVA311 app to report such things as: potholes, streetlights, illegal dumping, abandoned vehicles, overgrown lots, etc. The RVA311 mobile app is available on SmartPhones via the Google Play or Apple Stores.
Richmond’s previously used apps/portals, such as RVA One, See-Click-Fix, MPACT website, and the Citizen Request System are no longer in use as of June 15, 2018.

Education Compact Meeting Scheduled/Goldman’s Proposal

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On Monday, July 30 at 6pm City Council, the School Board, and the Mayor are meeting for the Education Compact quarterly joint meeting at the Main Richmond Public Library (101 East Franklin Street).

It will be very interesting to see if there are substantial changes in direction and priority. From an earlier post:

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.

Meanwhile, from former Chairperson of the Democratic Party of Virginia and local activist Paul Goldman, on school modernization financing:

Part (1): STATE LEVEL. Assuming the $250 million annual projection is accurate, it is being both principled and pragmatic to propose using $150 million of the $250 million to support the debt service on the first-ever state K-12 school bond issue. To repeat: These are not funds from a new tax but merely from taxes currently owed yet knowingly not paid. Thus both parties can support this approach without violating any platform promises. Part (2): LOCAL LEVEL. Since this is a first-ever proposal, it makes sense to ask localities – legally responsible for local school maintenance and modernization – to match $100 million from this historic state contribution. I have studied local financial resources. This is a very fair number to use with accomations for certain distressed localities. Part (3): Brown II Mandate: The fact Virginia refused or failed, depending on your point of view, to live up to the state’s responsibility under the long overlooked maintenance and modernization part of the decision doesn’t justify continuing to avoid responsibility 63 years later! Indeed, the opposite imperative is more to the point. In that regard, the state can afford to allocate $150 million annually to fix school facilities covered by that case but never properly addressed.
THE BOND ISSUE MATH:’
Part (1) can pay debt service for roughly a $ 3 billion dollar 30 year bond issue at current rates. Part (2) can pay debt service for roughly another $ 2 billion and Part (3) can pay debt service for roughly an additional $3 billion. Added together: $8 billion potential. The plan outline assumes the state will be backing everything and that certain laws will be amended accordingly. Thus a bipartisan consensus is possible to develop an historic state/local effort to address the “crumbling” school facility crisis distressing Governor Northam. I have conceived it as a pilot program, requiring state and localities to work together here. Should the Kaine-Evans legislation pass, the dramatic reduction in local school modernization costs for many projects would allow the bond issue contemplated here to be more far reaching.
…
The key point: All three parts are independent by design . Part 1 is the base of any state initiative. It can pass stand alone. Part II is my judgment of a likely political decision to have a match type requiremeant with consideration for hard pressed areas. Part III is my own view that a Brown II initiative is both orally and historically justified/right thing to do and would be enactable you got pervious consensus for Parts 1 and 2. Like any other bold out of the box idea, it is a work in progress, designed for improvement by others. But progress requires someone doing the work to get it out there so the discussion has a concrete reference point. Improvements welcomed!

OHNA Meeting Tomorrow Night

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The Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association (OHNA) is meeting tomorrow night. There is already a lot of interest in the parking decal proposals. A flyer has been going around the neighborhood (see above image). Here’s a message from OHNA President Todd Woodson:

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Please join us at 7PM on Tuesday, July 24, 2018 at St Andrews Parish House, 236 S Laurel St for our monthly Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association meeting. We again welcome Ms. Lynne Lancaster and Mr. Steve Bergin from the City to discuss our residential parking permits.

Here is the agenda:

7PM Meeting called to order

7:05 Richmond Police update- Lt James Roberts

7:10 VCU Police update- Officer Greg Felton

7:15 VCU update- Mr Tito Luna

7:20 Update from Councilman Agelasto’s office- Ms. Amy Robins

7:30 Neighbor Charles Nill has asked to speak on the current stop sign arrangement and request 3 way stops.

7:40 Update on Monroe Park renovations and the unfortunate placement of an electrical box only feet from the WWII Memorial. I will request a resolution from our organization to the Urban Design Committee/Richmond Planning Commission that the City move the box to a more appropriate location. You can read about the issue here:

https://tclf.org/unfortunate-addition-richmonds-monroe-park

7:50 Discussion of parking permits with Ms Lancaster and Mr Bergin

8:20 New or old business

8:30 Meeting Adjourned

I very much look forward to seeing you all and having a productive and congenial meeting! Times are subject to change as necessary.

Charles Gillette’s WWII Memorial

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Today seems like an appropriate day to follow up on this issue.

Please visit the Cultural Landscape Foundation’s page on Charles Gillette (linked), who designed and supervised construction of Monroe Park’s WWII Memorial.

The imposing 800 amp electrical station which has been installed abutting the Memorial is an eyesore and needs to be moved.

So, public officials, can you please share any updates on this issue? We are most fortunate to even have a Gillette piece in Monroe Park and we simply ask that it be accorded the respect it deserves, especially considering the subject matter- honoring those Richmonders that gave their lives to bestow our right to live freely.

Please also see earlier press release from the Sierra Club Falls of the James, which mentions this issue.

This is a good reminder that this is OUR memorial, in OUR park, in OUR City, in OUR Commonwealth, in OUR country! Or is the collective silence from public officials and the corporate media about Monroe Park’s renovation issues supposed to tell us otherwise?! What’s happened to Monroe Park, a public park, is contrary to American values.

Letter From State Senator Stanley To Mayor Stoney

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VA Senator Bill Stanley, the Chairman of the new State Senate Subcommittee on School Facilities, wrote a letter to Mayor Stoney. It was emailed to the Mayor’s office this morning. In keeping with the Subcommittee’s mandate to keep abreast of the implementation efforts required under S.B. 750 in RVA (effective yesterday as the new School Facilities mandate in the Richmond City Charter), Senator Stanley has written the letter requesting an answer to a matter of vital importance to RVA. It is hoped the answer will prove helpful in drafting new legislation for the 2019 GA Session that can benefit RPS school students.

Broken Promises: Richmond’s Leaders Don’t Want To Put Schools First

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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.

RVA311 Launch Today

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From announcement:

Join Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney, along with representatives from international software giant Microsoft and independent software agency Avepoint to launch Richmond’s new citizen service platform RVA311 today from 4 p.m. – 6 p.m. at the Welcome Center of the Main Street Station at 1500 E. Main Street.