Photo credit: Bill Tiernan
CITY OF RICHMOND
Newest member of Richmond School Board lays out goals
Newly appointed School Board member John “Dawson” Boyer has helped raise thousands of dollars to fill needs at Thomas Jefferson High School when a cash-strapped school district couldn’t. With the Tee Jay Vikings Fund, founded in 2013, he helped raise more than $170,000 for the high school. As vice president, Boyer helped oversee the renovation of the school’s weight room, which was closed because it was in disrepair. His group also provided team uniforms and goal posts, renovated locker rooms dating to the 1970s and worked with alumni to replace a wooden marquee erected in the late 1950s. Boyer says that he considers his appointment, announced last week, as a way to continue his efforts on a larger scale, and has ended his role with the Vikings Fund.
Dispute over Richmond school funding energizes teachers, employees
Rita Dowling came to Richmond from Kansas when her husband got a job to teach math at Open High School. What she found surprised her. “Maybe it’s a small-town thing, but (public) schools don’t seem to be as much a part of people’s lives here,” Dowling said. “In the big city you have to march to let them know — that if we don’t support our schools with money and in every other way, we’re doomed.” Newcomers and veterans made their voices heard at a rally last week that attracted more than 200 to City Hall. Advocates say the numbers will grow until there’s a commitment to address issues ranging from leaky roofs and neglected buildings to a compressed pay scale that encourages talented educators to seek employment elsewhere.
Local, state government eyeing BRT project as future of local transportation
The last obstacle to construction of a Broad Street-centered bus rapid transit service was cleared last week when Richmond City Council approved the $50 million project, billed by advocates as the spine around which the bones of a true regional transportation network can be fashioned. And the GRTC Transit System, which will operate the Pulse service on a 7.6-mile route between Willow Lawn and Rocketts Landing, is fully aware of just how much the future of that regional vision depends on ensuring the area’s first foray into bus rapid transit is a hit. “We need to make this first step a huge success,” said GRTC spokeswoman Carrie Rose Pace. “But simultaneously … there are regional conversations taking place with Chesterfield County, with Henrico, with Ashland, with other jurisdictions about what are their transit needs and how they can meet them.
I came to know John Moeser first by reputation. He’s the professor who maps poverty’s ebb and tide in the region, who talks about the discriminatory policies and laws that built the structure of poverty in Richmond. He says a lot of things people don’t want to hear and manages to do so with none of the bombast one might associate with a Texan. Moeser, 73, taught urban studies and planning at Virginia Commonwealth University, and is now a senior fellow at the University of Richmond’s Bonner Center for Civic Engagement. Moeser sat on the transportation committee of the Mayor’s Anti-Poverty Commission and contributed the section on the roots of Richmond’s poverty to its final January 2013 report — the one I keep telling you that you must read. Moeser spoke at last week’s City Council meeting in support of the launch of the city’s bus rapid transit system, the GRTC Pulse. He used the building-a-house analogy, calling BRT part of the foundation.
Richmond School Board forges ahead with facilities plan; asks city for $105 million more
The Richmond School Board voted 5-1 on Tuesday to advance plans for overhauling the system’s outdated facilities despite concerns about how those fixes would be funded. About $105 million above the request the board sent to Mayor Dwight C. Jones last week would be needed under the revised plan, which allows for new and expanded schools in the district’s increasingly populous South Side. The move came a week after the board asked administrators to move forward with a stop-gap measure to address overcrowding under the assumption money for new schools might not be available.
CHESTERFIELD
Following Richmond City Council’s approval of a $49 million plan to create a bus rapid transit line, some public transportation advocates are hoping it’s the first step towards extending the service throughout Chesterfield, Henrico and Richmond. Expected to come online in late 2017, Greater Richmond Transit Co.’s “Pulse” will run a 7.6-mile route from Willow Lawn to Rocketts Landing. The project will have a dedicated lane of traffic running each direction along the route, and buses will be able to keep traffic lights green in order to speed down Broad, Main and 14th streets faster.
VCU scholar: Diverse schools must be “an explicit goal”
With a research emphasis on race and inequality in American schools, Virginia Commonwealth University assistant professor Genevieve Siegel-Hawley is one of the nation’s pre-eminent scholars on school segregation and redistricting. In May, the University of North Carolina Press will publish her book “When the Fences Come Down: Twenty-First Century Lessons from Metropolitan School Desegregation.” As the Chesterfield County School Board contemplates its first-ever countywide redistricting of the entire school system, Siegel-Hawley and other scholars have warned that Chesterfield may run the risk of segregating our schools along racial and socioeconomic lines.
Board: Set tax rate at 96 cents
Chesterfield government officials expect the county’s average real estate assessment to increase for the fourth consecutive year in fiscal year 2017 – further proof that the local housing market has stabilized nearly a decade after the nationwide collapse. But with projected revenues approximately $1 million shy of planned expenditures, conservatives hoping for property tax relief could find themselves frustrated again. “Everything is moving along but at a relatively sluggish pace,” said Matt Harris, the county’s assistant budget director, who presented the local fiscal year 2017 revenue forecast during last week’s Board of Supervisors meeting.
108 acres along James River in Chesterfield to become a park
The Trust for Public Land has acquired 108 acres for $700,000 along the James River in Chesterfield County and will convey the land to the county for use as a public park and conservation area. The trust, a nonprofit that funds the creation of parks and protected land, closed on the property Thursday. The land is a 1-mile strip along the James River just south of the Pocahontas Parkway bridge and just east of Interstate 95.
It purchased the land from UB Properties Inc., a subsidiary company of Union Bank & Trust, and it will convey the property to Chesterfield in a few months for the creation of the James River Conservation Area.
HANOVER
Hanover residents turn out at Brat’s town hall to oppose high-speed rail
Opponents of a high-speed rail line that would link Washington and Richmond turned out in force to a town hall forum hosted by U.S. Rep. Dave Brat in Hanover County on Wednesday night, bombarding the lawmaker with concerns about a proposed bypass that could cut through farmland west of the town of Ashland as part of the project. Brat, R-7th, fielded questions from the standing-room-only crowd inside the boardroom of the county’s administration building. Opponents of the bypass raised their concerns during a question-and-answer session after remarks from Brat, saying they felt uninformed about a project that has the potential to disrupt their way of life.
Hanover planners OK farming community that appeals to baby boomer, millennials alike
Plans for a proposed residential farming community in Hanover County cleared the county’s Planning Commission on Thursday night, moving forward the project that developers have touted as unique to the region and complementary to the county’s agricultural tradition. The Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend that the county’s Board of Supervisors approve a rezoning request for Chickahominy Falls, a proposed 180-acre development with 404 homes on Cedar Lane and Holly Hill Road in the Elmont area. “This will be an innovative, first-of-its-kind development that reflects Hanover’s farming heritage,” wrote Andrew M. Condlin, an attorney representing developer Cornerstone Homes in papers submitted to the county for the rezoning request.
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Which bills passed and failed in the first half of Virginia’s 2016 General Assembly Session
A compromise on gun legislation, reforms to hospital and clinic regulations, efforts to combat domestic violence and disagreement over charter schools have highlighted the first half of the 2016 General Assembly session. Tuesday marked its midpoint and the deadline for bills to pass the House of Delegates or the Senate. Each chamber will spend the remaining weeks working on bills that passed the other chamber. Lawmakers also will outline two-year budget proposals Sunday and work to merge them before sending a spending plan to Gov. Terry McAuliffe for approval.
Getting people out of poverty, into the work force is focus of state budget proposal
Kiocia Wilkerson leaves for work on a GRTC bus each weekday morning at 7:17, seven minutes after loading her two children onto Richmond public school buses. About 58 minutes later, after changing buses once, she arrives for work at the Maymont Preschool Learning Center, next to Amelia Street School where her autistic son, who will turn 5 next week, is a student. This daily routine represents the beginnings of a transformed life for Wilkerson, a 27-year-old single mother in one of Richmond’s public housing projects. Her family is one of 18 public housing households in BLISS, or Building Lives to Independence and Self-Sufficiency, a new program under Mayor Dwight C. Jones’ ambitious anti-poverty initiative that wraps services around poor families looking for a way out.
ELECTIONS
Rick Tatnall joins race for Mayor of Richmond
With each passing day, the 2016 Richmond mayoral race becomes a more crowded affair. Church Hill resident Rick Tatnall said in an interview Thursday morning that he is seeking the office. Tatnall, 58, is a well-known advocate for cleaning up the James River and other environmentally friendly initiatives. He recently lobbied to keep minor league baseball on the Boulevard as the city solicits input on how best to redevelop the publicly owned land that’s home to the Diamond. Tatnall has never held elected office. He ran for mayor in 2012, but dropped out after he realized his candidacy jeopardized his advocacy projects. This time around, he says, he can’t sit on the sidelines.