Jo Gehlbach, Government Affairs Coordinator.
CITY OF RICHMOND
Long-struggling RRHA hopes for transformative 2016
Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority CEO T.K. Somanath is thumbing through plans to beautify the Gilpin Court public housing community with greenery and walkways when his cellphone rings. U.S. Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, D-Va., is on the line, Somanath says. He strides briskly to a desk that backs up to a view of Gilpin’s brick apartments. “This is T.K. Somanath speaking,” he answers, as if there is need for introduction. “Hello, senator, how are you?” The two have much to discuss on this December morning. As the calendar closes on a year that marked RRHA’s 75th anniversary, the long-struggling agency is looking forward to what Somanath hopes will be a transformative 2016.
Richmond schools proposing pay changes to better keep and attract teachers
Richmond Public Schools has put forward an ambitious $8.4 million compensation plan for teachers that, if approved, will create an updated and decompressed salary structure to help the system better recruit and retain educators. The plan calls for adjusting existing pay plans to balance out changes that, over the past several years, have created a lack of competition and pay inequality within the school system. The structure calls for using steps — based on years of experience — to create a more equitable range of salaries. The longer a teacher has been working in the classroom, the more that teacher will earn.
Transformation in East End pledged
A bid to remake one of the city’s oldest and largest public housing communities into a mixed-income development is roaring back to life after a series of stops and starts, officials said Thursday at Woodville Elementary School. Armed with the help of a St. Louis-based consultant with a track record of securing the $30 million federal grants that Richmond needs to begin deconcentrating poverty in the East End, Richmond City Councilwoman Cynthia I. Newbille pledged progress in 2016 after lessons learned last year.
CHESTERFIELD
VDOT proposes sidewalk for section of Jeff Davis Highway in Chesterfield
The Virginia Department of Transportation is proposing to install a sidewalk along a roughly half-mile portion of Jefferson Davis Highway in Chesterfield County on the southern end of the corridor. The project would allow pedestrians to safely walk along the highway from The Glen at Colonial Heights apartment complex on Mangowood Drive and nearby motels to the Food Lion on Happy Hill Road, the only grocery store in the area. VDOT Project Manager Cynthia Crouch said that residents have been walking from the apartments to the store for years, creating a worn path behind the guardrail.
Proffer press: Is new board open to shift in policy?
Having been repeatedly thwarted in their efforts to eliminate or overhaul the county’s cash proffer policy, the local development community may finally have the votes to get it done. Is that a good or bad thing? That depends on who you ask. Residential developers say that cash proffers act as an impediment to growth by artificially driving up home prices and limiting the pool of potential buyers. County staff, and a number of citizens, contend that proffers help the local government manage growth and address the impact of new development on public facilities such as schools, roads and fire stations.
HANOVER
Interim assessment report indicates continued growth
An interim report on Hanover County’s latest reassessment figures reveals a continued upward trend in the value of the county’s real estate market. Although the increases were not spectacular, the increased assessed value equates to another year of recovery from the county’s peak period during 2009. Richard Paul, the county’s director of real estate assessments, delivered the good economic news at a Hanover County Board of Supervisors meeting earlier last month.
REGIONAL/STATE
Two groups merge into one nonprofit to address housing issues
The Virginia Housing Coalition and the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness announced today that they have merged to create the Virginia Housing Alliance, a Richmond-based nonprofit to address homelessness and affordable housing opportunities. The alliance, whose merger was approved Oct. 15 by members of the two organizations, began operations Jan. 1 The Richmond-based alliance will team with a variety of organizations — nonprofit, for-profit and governmental — to deliver advocacy, training and technical assistance throughout Virginia.
Williams: Ballpark or no ballpark, Richmond’s size is a strike against it
If minor league baseball leaves North Boulevard, and ultimately, Richmond, its fate was sealed by General Assembly actions dating to the 1970s. State legislators began imposing moratoriums on city-county annexations in 1971. A 1979 regulation resulted in the counties of Chesterfield and Henrico, among several others, gaining immunity from annexation based on their population and density. “By 1986 the General Assembly again felt it appropriate to apply a ‘temporary’ moratorium on annexation with the intent to study the issue and determine methods for improving the process,” according to a 2012 article by Andrew V. Sorrell and Bruce A. Vlk for the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia.
Judges impose new Va. congressional map, redrawing 3rd, 4th Districts
A three-judge panel in Richmond on Thursday imposed a new Virginia congressional map that could give blacks a chance to elect candidates of their choice in two districts, not just one. Unless the U.S. Supreme Court halts implementation, the reconfiguration will lower the black voting age population in the 3rd District, represented by Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott, a Democrat, from 56.3 percent to 45.3 percent. It will raise the black voting age population in the 4th District, represented by Rep. J. Randy Forbes, a Republican, from 31.3 percent to 40.9 percent. Scott’s district, which meandered from the Richmond area to Newport News, will now be centered in Hampton Roads
NATIONAL
The “fundamental rule” of traffic: building new roads just makes people drive more
For people who are constantly stuck in traffic jams during their commutes, there seems to be an obvious solution: just widen the roads. This makes intuitive sense. Building new lanes (or new highways entirely) adds capacity to road systems. And traffic, as its root, is a volume problem – there are too m any cars trying to use not enough road. But there’s a fundamental problem with this idea. Decades of traffic data across the United States shows that adding new road capacity doesn’t actually improve congestion.
ELECTIONS
Henrico Sheriff Wade files to run for Congress in 7th; will challenge Rep. Brat
Longtime Henrico County Sheriff Mike Wade will challenge Rep. Dave Brat for the Republican nomination to represent the 7th District in Congress. Wade, 59, a former Henrico Republican Party chairman who has served as sheriff for 16 years, filed organizing paperwork for a campaign committee with the Federal Election Commission in December. The filing puts to rest rumors that have persisted for weeks that Wade would mount a challenge to Brat — a fellow Henrico resident and former Randolph-Macon College economics professor. Brat tapped tea party and grass-roots conservative support in the district in 2014 for a historic primary upset of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who had held the seat in the heavily Republican district for 14 years.
3 pastors who back Trump sue to block loyalty pledge in Va. primary
Three pastors from the Richmond area who support Donald Trump filed a lawsuit in federal court Wednesday against the State Board of Elections to eliminate the requirement that voters in Virginia’s March 1 primary sign a “statement of affiliation” before casting a ballot. Attorney Chuck Smith did not file the suit at the behest of the Trump campaign. But it follows the threat of legal action Dec. 30 by the mogul’s Virginia campaign chairman, Corey Stewart, and the billionaire businessman’s angry tweets on the pledge. The plaintiffs are Stephen A. Parson, formerly of the Richmond Christian Center; Leon Benjamin; and Bruce L. Waller Sr. Parson gave an opening prayer during Trump’s Oct. 14 rally in Henrico County.
State looks to Richmond registrar for answers after Nov. voting issues
During the November general election, voters in Richmond were provided with the wrong ballots, delayed by improperly programmed computers and had their valid voter identification cards denied, according to a report by the state’s deputy commissioner of elections. Even the state’s top elected official, Gov. Terry McAuliffe, ran into issues trying to vote when a city poll worker erroneously required him to produce a second form of identification, according to the report, which called the errors “consistent and alarming.” With a presidential election season looming, the state board has asked the city’s general registrar, Kirk Showalter, and the three members of the City of Richmond Election Board to appear at a State Board of Elections meeting today to discuss the issues and how to fix them.