Two columnists, a mayor and a college president walked into a bar...
It's shaping up to be an intriguing year for political observers -- especially those who have ever found themselves caught in the dual whirlwinds created by outgoing VCU President Eugene Trani and outgoing Richmond Mayor Doug Wilder.
If you've spent much time in Richmond since 1990, you've at least had your hair ruffled as Trani slipped down a darkened political corridor to seal a deal or by one of Wilder's infamously ill-timed puffs of hot air.
This week, the Times-Dispatch's two remaining columnists -- observer of all things Virginia, Jeff Schapiro, and Michael Paul Williams, the keen-eyed champion of Richmond at it's best -- began the process of hurrying Trani, and Wilder, to the door.
It's no accident that they both painted the two men as political peas in a pod. It's easy to do; by the time they untangle themselves from Richmond's power structure, Wilder and Trani (1990 - 2009) will have been the Ozzie and Harriet of Richmond politics longer than the popular TV show was on their air.
If we had a little more footage, the Gene and Doug Show would have replaced Ozzie and Harriet as "the longest-running 'live-action'/non-animated sitcom in US TV history."
Here's how Schapiro describes the yin-yang relationship between the two men:
Adversaries, be they professors or bureaucrats, view them as rude. Allies, often the aloof uber-rich or those with an ax to grind, see them as results-oriented...
Their exits leave a city accustomed to stern paternalism without two of its most prominent daddies...
...Trani and Wilder were occasional partners. They were never co-equals. They suited each other's purposes.
Trani ascended to VCU in 1990 as Wilder, then governor, was descending in the polls, having irritated Virginians by seeking the presidency rather than concentrating on his day job.
Trani later offered to Wilder VCU as an Elba. There, Wilder would be paid a lot -- as much as $100,000 a year -- to teach a little and to continue practicing politics as terrorism. Around Wilder, Trani eventually built an eponymous politics-and-policy program.
It also would serve as a shadow city government, assisting Wilder, as mayor, in his attempt to wrest control of city schools from a popularly elected administration perhaps more dysfunctional than his.
Between the two of them, Trani and Wilder have utterly changed Richmond's landscape -- some for the better, much for the worst.
The blurring lines in the relationship between the City of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University should be worrisome to anyone committed to the idea of political accountability. When an educational institution's influence outweighs that of Richmond's residents, its worth asking a few questions.
It's the sort of thing the residents of Oregon Hill have fought since Trani's promises to limit VCU's encroachment on the embattled, working class enclave turned to dust. Most recently, VCU's behind-the-scenes tooth-pulling of a Downtown Master Plan crafted by Richmond residents and some of the best urban planners in the nation, paints a picture of a "by the people, for the people, to some degree" approach to governance.
That's what you get under benevolent dictatorships. Michael Paul Williams aptly described how some people have experienced Trani's leadership:
Trani ... was the rarest of local commodities -- a true visionary.
Not sharing that vision could be hazardous to your professional health if you were his subordinate. And if you lived in an adjacent neighborhood, Tranivision could be seen as a steamroller intent on pancaking preservation in the name of progress.
Trani, 68, is an empire builder. No one said empire building isn't dirty work.
VCU Professor Blue Wooldridge, who experienced first-hand Trani's approach to university governance as President of VCU's Faculty Senate, echoed Schapiro and Williams in a Times-Dispatch article by Karin Kapsidelis:
"We did permit the culture of the imperial university presidency," Wooldridge said. "I think that's unfortunate and dangerous."
VCU's next president and Richmond's next mayor will have plenty of opportunity to change the political game. VCU's Board of Visitors own part of that equation. Richmond's voters start that process with November's election.
