Buttermilk & Molasses

Best of 2007: A Summary

For your end-of-the-year pleasure, I've compiled my own "Best of 2007" summary which essentially involved digging through a year's worth of Buttermilk & Molasses archives and spotlighting those items that -- in my extremely subjective reading -- seemed most interesting or relevant to the Richmond region. You can read my "Best of 2007" posts here.

Best of 2007: Richmond's Department of Community Development

I was going to name Richmond's new Downtown Plan here, but as I was pondering the year I concluded that while the plan is solid and important, it was the process that was transformational. And Richmond's Department of Community Development spearheaded that process.

When word hit the street -- late on a summer Friday evening -- that Richmond was going to hold a week-long charrette, or public design process, to develop a new Downtown Plan, it seemed as if the city either really didn't want the community to be engaged, or that the city didn't quite know how to invite the community to participate. It seemed, in fact, like a good idea destined to fail.

I became a little more optimistic after talking to the director of Richmond's Department of Community Development, Rachel Flynn, and to Margaret Flippen, a project manager with Dover Kohl, the urban planning outfit chosen to shepherd the plan from concept to completion.

But when more than 400 people showed up several weeks later -- late on another summer Friday evening -- to learn about Urban Design 101 and meet the planners from Miami-based Dover Kohl, it was clear that something was going on. People were interested. Really interested. About 200 came back the next day for a hands-on design session with maps and colored markers. More than 60 maps were produced with scribbled ideas for a different downtown than the one we know today.

For the next week, dozens of people streamed in and out of a Manchester office space being used by Dover Kohl for their open studio process. A small team spent the week fleshing out maps, working on architectural drawings and meeting with key stakeholders to turn the 60 maps -- and dozens of development projects already in-progress -- into a master map. The wrap-up event -- this one on a summer Thursday evening -- attracted about 350 people.

The process wasn't perfect, and Rachel Flynn was quick to note that during the wrap-up. The city's Department of Community Development also learned a lesson or two about getting ahead of the PR curve along the way. An additional public event was planned for September to get additional input from residents, including the African-American community. It drew a few hundred more participants into the process.

Fast-forward to November, when the draft plan was finally ready for distribution. Emails were sent out, postcards were mailed, websites were updated and press releases distributed -- all encouraging the community to stay (or get) engaged in the process. The document itself was available for download, or for viewing at all of the public libraries and community centers, as well as City Hall.

A more open and transparent process hasn't been experienced by Richmond residents. It continues today.

The city's Department of Community Development has raised the bar for the rest of the city's departments. Its success in engaging the community in an imperfect process deserves accolades. It stands in stark contrast to the Master Plan process for the Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities, which has vanished from view. It is the polar opposite of the new RichmondWorks information system, which was so highly touted for its ability to raise the shades on the performance of city departments -- and hasn't been updated since its launch three months ago.

Congratulations to Rachel Flynn and her staff for making a difference for the Richmond community in 2007. We can only hope that the rest of our government follows her lead in 2008.

Best of 2007: onBeing

The Washington Post's very cool, very spare onBeing video series is all about storytelling -- and getting the journalists out of the way of people's good stories. It's StoryCorps on camera, as I wrote back in February:

One of the best aspects of onBeing, though, is its simplicity -- it creates a space for people to share their quirks and thoughts and stories without a filter, and without complication. Storycorps on film, minus the maudlin moments. (So far.) From the onBeing website:

onBeing is a project based on the simple notion that we should all get to know one another a little better.

Starting conversations. It's what good news publications do best, when they are doing their best work.

Best of 2007: Vacant Richmond

In April, Vacant Richmond was launched. Vacant Richmond takes the city's own vacant property database and drops it onto a Google-generated map, along with information (and some photos) of the properties. Unfortunately, it looks like the city doesn't update its list very often, but Vacant Richmond remains a great example of what a couple of community-minded developers can do when government liberates its data.

Best of 2007: Observations on the News

There was some great news writing in the Richmond region in 2007, and while it was not a banner year for Richmond's news media it was much better than expected. Forgive my bias toward print media -- no one really watches television for news anymore, and Richmond radio (with one or two exceptions) is an auditory sieve. I wrote a bit about online media circa 2007 here. What follows is not so much a running list of great moments as it is my own observations of Richmond media, circa 2007.

Halfway Ain't No Way To Run A Paper: If you fired everyone at the Richmond Times-Dispatch and asked David Ress, Michael Martz, Carol Hazard and three or four others to step up their game, you'd have a pretty good newspaper. That's not entirely fair to the rest of the reporters who fill Richmond's daily newspaper with largely unremarkable copy every day of the week, but it's also not entirely fair to the 180,000 readers of the paper that what could be the region's most influential voice takes all of five minutes to read each morning. The website continues to sink under the weight of its own poor design. The multimedia coverage is hard to find, impossible to share and not intuitively connected to the primary product -- the newspaper. I remain perplexed by the TD's inability to consistently deliver. On the flipside, the paper's Public Square forums create the sort of conversations you want to see in a community -- and provide parallel coverage that creates context for significant issues. Earlier in December, the paper announced that it was going to "own breaking news" in Richmond -- a relatively low bar for the only daily publication in town. I'd jump up and down with joy to have a daily newspaper that did a better job of just owning the regular news. It is critical for the Richmond region to have a daily newspaper that is undeniably essential reading.

When Glossy Can't Erase Edgy: It's hip to be square, or rectangular. RVA Magazine delivers more of a graphic look than a solid editorial voice, but the monthly has an energy and a focus that you don't find all that often in Richmond. Behind its colorific design and art/music-heavy coverage, RVA Magazine is really about having a party. How else to explain the half-dozen or so events the magazine has tossed into the community? Events like the jam-packed Action Patrol reunion show or the explosive New Year's Eve party in Carytown. In recent months, RVA Magazine has started running more community oriented articles (Disclaimer: I've penned a half dozen pieces for RVA Mag on the Downtown Plan and Crupi Reports) and the glossy monthly just expanded its print run to 5,000 and can be found at more locations around town. If the publication can strengthen its voice on paper and continue to expand its presence on the streets, it might just show the rest of the pack how to run a publication. (P.S. Their website is also nominal.)

Either I'm Getting Older, Or They're Getting Hip: At some point in the past several years, Richmond magazine has become interesting. I've always wanted it to be interesting, so maybe -- like always wanting a puppy of my own -- I've simply convinced myself its interesting. Maybe I'm just getting older and my standards are slipping. Maybe the writing and editorial team is getting better. It's hard to tell. Whatever the cause, Richmond Magazine in the past year or so has become a lot more interesting to read. It's more relevant. It digs deeper. If they'd kill their Bride and Home and ad-centric neighborhood inserts and folded the content into the regular magazine, I'd like it even more. The monthly magazine may never set my world on fire, but there is a simmer in my relationship with Richmond magazine that feels new. (Here's a familiar note: The website sucks. Hey, Richmond magazine, free your content!) (Another disclaimer: My wife infrequently puts food on our table by writing for Richmond magazine.)

25 Years and Still In the Running: Style Weekly's geographic emphasis -- essentially, Style feels contained by the James River and Broad Street, and by Church Hill and Three Chopt -- is its strength and its weakness. For a publication that leaned heavily on its lifestyle reputation for years, Style's news coverage in 2007 was what set it apart both from its reputation and from the rest of the media. Chris Dovi's aggressive coverage of the Wilder administration and the Richmond School Board has been exceptional, while Scott Bass and Amy Biegelsen keep the news package pretty consistently solid. Deveron Timberlake and her team of foodies not only provide great reviews, they also "own breaking food news" in Richmond. It's possible that I have a real problem with companion publications, but I'd love to see Style fold the content from its Homestyle and Belle publications into its regular weekly. Style's website is easy to navigate and free to peruse -- both big wins.

Internet Killed the Video Star: I can't even begin to provide perspective on local television news, even uninformed perspective. Is local television news even relevant anymore? Should it be? It hurts my head even to think about what a nightmare it would be trying to make television news a viable business model, much less a compelling force in our community.

Sink Like A Brick: There's an idea for Media General that would have saved a lot of money and a little heartache. Rather than publishing a independent weekly that tries to live on the edge, simply add an edgier writer to the Times-Dispatch's weekly Weekend package, print it on better paper and distribute extra copies free. Brick Weekly under Pete Humes was a bad idea that many who knew Pete wanted to work. Brick Weekly without Pete remains a bad idea.

Best of 2007: The Crupi Report

To paraphrase Mark Antony (of Caesar fame, not the musical fellow), I come not to bury the Crupi Report, nor to praise it. I simply want to acknowledge the power of a 55-page report to change the conversations we're having in the community.

About 300 people clustered together on the floor of VCU's Seigel Center on November 19 to hear words of wisdom from Texas-based, strategic consultant Jim Crupi. In the five weeks since Crupi delivered his second report in 15 years on Richmond's future, several different perspectives have been making their way around the political circuit.

Some, like former Richmond Mayor Roy West, have worked hard to dig up skeletons of the past. While Jim Crupi believed that he was doing some private consulting work for a small group of businessmen in 1992, that first report was quickly leaked to the press, and created some major ripples in the city's African-American political and professional class. Style Weekly captured that churn pretty well in a story earlier this year.

Others see the latest Crupi Report as a key to getting the Richmond region engaged in creating a new future. Grocery magnate and civic cheerleader Jim Ukrop is one of those; he delivered an address to the Richmond First Club earlier in December that called for a new level of community engagement in the region. The outgoing president of the Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce is another. Word is that Jim Dunn is working to pull together a group to quickly dive into Crupi's report after the first of the year to develop a game plan.

From the sidelines, I've already seen changes. Crupi's report has generated discussion, conversation and debate. It was delivered in a very public manner to the community -- and then printed in its entirety by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. And while there are those who will knit-pick the report, or critique Crupi, or criticize the business community who brought him here, I'm just happy to see some new conversations take place.

In just five weeks, the Crupi report has done more to spark conversation in the Richmond region than most people could have anticipated. I suspect that it will go a long way toward reshaping community discussion in 2008, as well.

The real test, as I've argued, is whether we're going to use the report as a catalyst for new discussion, or simply as fodder for some very Richmond rehashing:

Jim Crupi's new report needs to be a catalyst for new conversations, not the subject of the conversations.

The worst mistake the region's leaders can make would be to take Crupi's report and go through the motions of implementing the laundry list of recommendations. That's tactical, not visionary.

A visionary approach to the Crupi report would be to broaden today's conversation -- to spend the next several months actively engaging the community in a discussion about a shared vision for a future Richmond. Next Tuesday's Public Square discussion hosted by the Richmond Times-Dispatch might be a good place to begin that work.

The work of change consultant turned community builder Peter Block in Cincinnati might be another. Or the community-driven approach to conversations taken by Get Smart Tacoma.

There are a lot of different ways to create a vision and engage the community -- what will be important is that Richmond get engaged around its own vision for the future, not Jim Crupi's. That's not a dig at Crupi -- who has served an important purpose, twice, in this community. It's a challenge for Richmond.

Best of 2007: Not Doug Wilder

It would be easy, and wrong, to allow the impressive achievements of Doug Wilder's  long political career to outshine his equally long career of political missteps. And it would be easy to chalk 2007 up simply a bad year in a good career, if Wilder's performance as mayor had been anything other than a tragic distraction for the Richmond region.

Let's go back in time.

In November of 1989, L. Douglas Wilder burst into the consciousness of the nation when he became the first elected African-American governor in the history of the United States. The fact that he was elected in Virginia -- long a bastion of wrong-headed Civil War adoration and slow to embrace racial equality as a reality of a moral society -- was icing on the cake. I was at the Hampton Coliseum the night of that election and REM's Michael Stipe dedicated "King of Birds" (see an excellent video performance here) to Wilder. It was an awesome moment.

There have been other awesome moments in Wilder's career. In 2007, they were overshadowed by his tendency to govern through antagonism. His pugilistic flair has not served him well as Richmond's mayor.

At a time when the Richmond region should be poised to move significantly in new directions, it remains distracted by Doug. To be fair, Wilder is not the only regional politico who is punting on the field of leadership, but he is the only seasoned veteran on the field who ought to know better.

Back in March of this year, I remained of two minds about Wilder. The pending launch of RichmondWorks had me all excited, and the flurry of lawsuits, evictions and firings hadn't really started. Fast forward three-quarters of a year, and the landscape is tragically reminiscent of the City of Richmond of old.

We can't turn back the clock, nor should we want to. The reign of Mayor Wilder has created some dramatic shifts in the way politics work in Richmond, and fans of the Mayor will suggest that that shift alone is worth the pain. The housecleaning Wilder oversaw at City Hall during the first two years of his tenure were long overdue, and some of the replacements -- like the new director of community development -- stand head-and-shoulders above their predecessors.

Be that as it may, Wilder will go down in Richmond history as a less-than-stellar footnote:

Doug Wilder is half the mayor the city of Richmond needs.

The half we got has tackled many of the right issues -- throwing his skinny frame on the tracks during debates about the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation's bass-akwards approach to civic engagement; exposing some of the financial and bureaucratic cobwebs that continue to keep Richmond's government from fully serving the needs of its citizens; pointing out, again and again, that the city's educational system is teetering toward collapse. Like I said, great at breaking bad ideas.

Sadly, that's only part of the mandate Wilder received when he won 80% of the vote two years ago. Most voters knew Wilder was going to throw some bricks, thrust a wrench or two into the city's too-comfortable political system. But most voters also expected Wilder to begin to create a new future that would build bridges, mend fences and establish a foundation for a better region. Blinded by Wilder's charisma and no-nonsense style, we forgot that Doug Wilder has always been -- amazingly, powerfully -- half the leader we needed.

Best of 2007: Community Weblogs

It's a bit hard to believe that at this time in 2006, there were essentially two community weblogs -- the erstwhile Church Hill People's News and RVABlogs.

Soon after the first of the year, the rumblings about a series of Media General-sponsored community sites bubbled out and the CHPN's John Murden made a public plea for more people-powered community hoodblogs. Less than a year later, not only is Central Virginia thick with hoodblogs launched or supported by Murden, but our good friends at RVABlogs took their web aggregation skills to a new level with the launch of RVANews -- the region's first people-powered, micro-news site.

And while it may be easy to underestimate the bevy of community microblogs that stretch from North Richmond to Petersburg, it should also be easy to understand how they may increasingly change the way communities consume -- and create -- news and information. More so as the hoodblogs begin to generate their own content -- from press releases, information emailed from community members and their own local reporting.

There are great arguments to be made about how and why a paper like the Richmond Times-Dispatch can effectively engage in its coverage of global, national and regional news. But it's local news that a daily paper ought to, by any measure, effectively own. This is the case less and less, it seems.

In 2008, look for a concerted effort by the Times-Dispatch to gain a stronger foothold in the local news business. And look for Richmond's community weblogs to keep upping the ante.

(Check out the area's community weblogs by visiting the local weblog news aggregator, RVANews. Or visit any of the independent community sites Carver & Jackson Ward News, Chesterfield Daily, Church Hill People's News, the Fan District Hub, Hills and Heights, Near West End News, North Richmond News, Oregon Hill, Petersburg People's News, River District News and West of the Boulevard News.)

Best of 2007: Oliver W. Hill

An era came to an end in August when civil rights lawyer Oliver W. Hill died at the age of 100.

Like most white Americans of my generation -- or, more likely, like most white Virginians of my generation -- I knew next-to-nothing about the civil rights movement in the United States; rare snippets of the rich history popped up toward the end of the year in the rare high school history lesson. It took Parting the Waters, the first volume of Taylor Branch's amazing trilogy, America in the King Years, to help me understand the immense bravery of the men and women who helped to shatter the legal and social barriers to racial equality in the United States. It was a short walk from King to the legal giants of the civil rights era -- figures like Thurgood Marshall, who helped win the milestone Brown v. Board of Education and later became the first African-American justice to serve on the Supreme Court.

Richmond-born Oliver White Hill didn't loom as large on the national stage as Marshall, but his legal presence in Virginia was significant. When he died this past year, it was appropriate that the Commonwealth paused to remember his contributions. As Hill lay in state at the Virginia Capitol, I joined hundreds of others who passed by to remember his courage and his legacy:

The line moved quickly into the Governor's Mansion and past Hill's open casket. It was quiet, respectful and relaxed. There was no drama, no fuss. Just a series of respectful moments for a man whose quiet courage helped to transform our nation.

Three local media outlets really outdid themselves with their tributes to Hill -- the Times-Dispatch, Style Weekly and NBC12.

Best of 2007: Nikole Sarvay Designs

My wife quit her job with the state at the end of December of 2006. Her biggest source of anxiety was whether she would be able to discover her passion -- and have the courage and creativity to pursue it.

After a few weeks of decompression, she began to believe that jewelry design might be a path worth pursuing. In March, she opened her online shop on Etsy and soon began showing up at local markets -- the Byrd House Market in Oregon Hill, the Alter-Natives market in Carytown. If you've seen her work, you won't be as surprised as she was that it began to sell.

And while the local markets were always exhausting, usually hot and sweaty, and often fun, Nikole has found great success selling her jewelry at area festivals and craft shows. The Carytown Watermelon Festival, University of Richmond's Arts Around the Lake, the Waldorf School Holiday Show, Christmas on MacArthur Avenue and the annual Craft Mafia show were all big successes for her this year.

But it has been on Etsy where she's really hit it big. The global EBay of arts and crafts draws people from all over in search of jewelry, pottery or paintings (among other knick-knacks), and Nikole has shipped her work to hundreds of people on several continents.

Now pregnant and halfway to the delivery line, Nikole will probably be concentrating on her designs and her online sales predominantly until the late summer. (And probably hanging with her peeps in the Richmond Craft Mafia.)

The more she gives herself permission to dream, explore and create, the more amazing she becomes. I'm very excited to see where this new period of her life will lead her creatively.