Buttermilk & Molasses

"The Future of Richmond's Past" -- Stuck in the Present

What a difference a couple of generations can make.

When the 100th anniversary of the American Civil War rolled around in 1962, much of the nation was fully embroiled in one of the most significant -- and long-overdue -- turning points in our collective history as a nation. The Civil Rights movement marked an era where the promises behind the Civil War and the subsequent freedom of four million black slaves and freemen began to materialize.

That didn't stop a slice of the population from having a very different sort of celebration.

The anniversary party they threw was a contentious, self-congratulatory one -- largely organized by and for a generation of whites deeply rooted in their own narrowly focused narrative of states' rights and military heroism.

Fast-forward 47 years to a gathering of about 150 Richmonders at the University of Richmond's Jepson Theatre. "The Future of Richmond's Past," UR President Ed Ayers told the group, was the first of several such community meetings planned as a lead-in to the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

But this anniversary promises to be one where multiple perspectives are shared, where a variety of narratives are told, and where the Confederate flag-waving will be kept to a minimum. That speaks volumes about the journey the Richmond region has traveled over the past five decades.

The presence of three African-American women at the table during the introductory panel discussion also spoke volumes. Or the fact that at least three of the eight institutions represented in the conversation were lead by people born north of the Mason-Dixon line. Including a Canadian-born African-American.

"I knew about Richmond's past before I knew about its present," Ayers said in his opening remarks. Ayers could have been speaking of many of Richmond's old guard, the traditionalists who continue to resist change not only out of habit, but also because they genuinely have no context with which to imagine a future different from the past.

Perhaps these community discussions -- which are bringing together the new presidents of three Richmond universities, a host of public officials, representatives of Richmond's faith communities and historical institutions, and everyday residents -- will begin to give voice to those across the region who not only imagine, but are actively building, a different future.

Unfortunately, the first portion of the program didn't lend itself to much collaborative engagement or visionary conversation. One by one, the representatives of eight of the region's brightest historical gems spoke. For six, eight, ten minutes. In what began to feel like a forced march through institutional missions, community partnerships and Civil War related programs.

I almost wept with joy when Bill Martin of the Valentine Richmond History Center said, "For the next ten years, we won't be doing the Civil War." Instead, he said, the Valentine will tell the story of the history that paved the way for that conflagration -- like the War of 1812 -- and the long struggle toward civil rights that followed it. "Richmond has the opportunity to have that further conversation," he said.

Tactically, each organization had interesting things to share. I learned volumes about the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar's educational outreach, and how the Richmond Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau is helping develop a 14-state mapping project that hits all the historical sites along historic US Route 1 from Canada to Key West. I was glad to hear the energy in the voice of the new director of the Black History Museum, and chuckled (not as loud as many in the room, mind you) when the new director of the Virginia Historical Society opened his remarks by saying, "I promise not to try to sell you a snuggie or a shamwow."

But for anyone looking for the opening of the conversation to be a bang, a home run, an invitation to join the region on a spectacular journey to a different sort of tomorrow, well... not today. Today was about today.

Everyone recognized the need for something different. No one proffered a strong vision for addressing it.

"The city has been really good about telling the story of things we're proud of," said Rachel Flynn, director of community development for the City of Richmond. "Part of the Shockoe [Bottom development proposal] effort is whether we can tell the story of things that are painful."

"Until we began to embrace the contradictions, and celebrate and enjoy the angst of the contradictions" of Richmond's history, we won't move forward, the Valentine's Martin said.

Part of me was delighted to hear more people articulate those basic truths. We need more people engaged in these conversations, and different voices at different tables sharing the story of their Richmond. Dialogue and shared engagement are a powerful catalyst for change.

And yet another part of me wonders when we'll move from articulation to action.

"If you just sell history, you will not survive," the visitors bureau's Jack Berry told the crowd. If we keep talking about our future, all we'll have is history.

Here's hoping the next conversation shifts gears into creating a community vision, or putting energy behind real effort to change the region's future. Right now (and with apologies to U2), we're feeling a bit stuck in a present that we can't get out of.

City Hall Shake-Up

For all the politicos waiting on the sidelines for Mayor Dwight Jones to do something, today he acted. The question hovering over today's shake-up at City Hall is whether we're seeing the side of Mayor Jones more focused on creating stronger alignment and greater efficiencies within a decidedly shaky City Hall, or if this is a sign of a mayor interested in consolidating his political power before time slips away from his administration.

Given rumors of a Dwight Jones for Governor campaign in 2013, I'd say it's both things.

News of the shake-up started bubbling on Twitter late this morning; I was contacted by a small posse of news reporters shortly after I posted, "Rachel Flynn has apparently been asked to step down as the city's director of community development. What message is Jones sending here?"

Unfortunately, all I could tell them was that the City Hall rumor mill was active, my source was confidential, and I had no more information.

Leave it to Rachel DePompa -- still smoking from her popular Ukropalypse stories and coverage of a new baseball team in Richmond -- to hit the phones first. Around 12:30 this afternoon, DePompa tweeted: "Major shake-up at city hall! Details on the way!" Less than three hours later, the story emerged, again from DePompa: "Richmond Director of Economic Development is out. First high level departure and Jones' powerplay. That's not all... City's Director of Community Development stripped of duties. Department re-organized... Administration creating new position... So.. here it is in a nutshell... Carthan Currin is out, Rachel Flynn's role is muted and Jan Ferarra will now head merged departments."

DePompa had the story on her blog before the end of the day, and her story on the air at the start of the sixteen-hour evening news cycle.

The TD's Will Jones had his own story up late today, which like everything else I've seen is a story stripped straight from the city's own press release.

(Hello, Breaking News Team? I called three reporters with this news at 11:00 this morning, and no one was at their desk. Or on Twitter, apparently.)

What no one has reported so far is just how much power has been stripped from Rachel Flynn, or as one Twitter post from Mariane Matera asked, "Was she EchoHarbored by City Council?"

Style Reports on Mayor's First Friday Olive Branch

In the wake of a summer filled with arts vs. bureaucracy news coverage, Mayor Dwight Jones appears to have drawn a more friendly line in the sand for area art galleries, according to Style Weekly's Chris Dovi. It started with a September 1 meeting between the mayor and Christina Newton, director of Curated Culture, which sponsors the popular First Friday art walks on Broad Street. It continued with Jones' walking tour of the event this past Friday.

Newton finally got the answers she’s been looking for, she says.

“The organic nature of First Fridays’ growth has brought these challenges,” Newton says, but “we had a very positive meeting and the city is going to assist our organization and the downtown businesses in facilitating special-use permits for the downtown events.”

In a nutshell, Jones’ team sensed an unfortunate face-off between one of the city’s most positive cultural events and modern code and fire safety applied to a half-dozen blocks of 60- to 100-year-old buildings.

Last week, Jones reiterated his pledge to support the event. At the meeting — also attended by the mayor’s chief policy adviser, Suzette Denslow, Fire Chief Robert Creasy and acting Chief Building Commissioner Ray Abassi – the new chief administrative officer, Byron Marshall, laid out the bones of a three-tiered approach to handling the issue.

The first step was Jones’ appearance at last week’s First Fridays, a clear sign that the city has no plans to endanger the event with overeager code enforcement. The next step, Jones spokeswoman Tammy Hawley says, will be issuing special permits to allow certain businesses to exceed occupancy limits during First Fridays.

Block Parties Are the New [Old] Community Builders

If Richmond's Department of Community Development is looking for a new (or old) way to get groups of people seriously engaged in the future of the city, they could do worse than ratchet up the work of their Neighborhood Planning staff -- or so suggests the latest from World Changing.

The thought-provoking weblog delves into the neighborhood as a powerful tool of social improvement, pointing readers to a Streets Wiki post on neighborhoods and block parties:

Which begs the question, how do communities overcome the barriers to building neighbor to neighbor relationships? The neighborhood block, defined as the dwellings fronting on a single street between two cross streets, serves as a reasonable point of entry for health promoters for a number of reasons. A few of the reasons are identified by Douglas Perkins, a leading researcher in social capital and community development. First, the processes of informal control which empowers people operate more successfully in the face to face setting of the neighborhood block than in larger social units. Second, blocks are more homogenous and people are more likely to share similar concerns. And third, participation rates at the block level are found to be higher than at any other level.

Public spaces such as the street block remains understudied and underutilized in the effort to increase social capital.  For decades, street blocks in cities such as Philadelphia have hosted a number of block parties and it can reasonably be argued that these annual or frequent social gatherings foster the ties necessary for a vibrant community life...

This comes (give or take two years) on the heels of a previous World Changing post about block parties and the future of hyperlocal urbanism.

That, naturally, got me to thinking about Richmond's community weblogs -- the dozen or so hyperlocal news sites focusing on specific areas of the city (like Church Hill, Northside or Short Pump) -- and the Department of Community Development. Okay, strike Short Pump (insofar as Richmond's community development department is concerned).

What if the community blogs partnered with the city, neighborhood associations and local merchants to organize block parties in the communities they serve? Or, reinforce existing block parties in areas where they've already taken root?

In addition to food and fun, the bolstered block parties could include meaningful space for representatives of key city departments to connect to, answer questions for and build relationships with citizens at a street level. There could be information booths, small focus group discussions about neighborhood improvement and opportunities to collaboratively identify new initiatives for neighborhood improvement or engagement.

Done well, it could lay the groundwork for the development of a citywide master planning process, something that has been on the periphery of the table ever since the city initiated its Downtown Master Plan process in 2007. Get neighborhoods engaged, generate ideas at a ground level, resolve issues at the street level -- and then invite everyone who turns out to a massive citywide charrette at the Arthur Ashe Center.

Now that would be community engagement on steroids.

Goldman Breaks for the Bottom

He may not be mayor, but Paul Goldman has finally launched an idea that has captured the imagination of at least five members of Richmond's City Council. Not that the online readers of the Times-Dispatch give a rip -- to them, apparently, ever idea that involves the government is of Satan.

Rewind.

Back in the early summer, Paul Goldman posted a mildly crazy idea of his new Style Weekly weblog. It created what felt like a gentle breeze. Until Manoli Loupassi gave it a bit of a kick-start from his new vantage spot at the General Assembly; that showed up in a little noticed blurb in the Times-Dispatch a few weeks later.

First Goldman:

With additional resources, and a bold new public-private partnership, they can be the foundation to build a world-class medical complex centered in the Bottom.

By 2020, we can give downtown Richmond a true field of dreams to rival those health care venues in President Obama’s cities of the future. Close your eyes and envision the green acres of a futuristic medical complex rivaling the best in America. Try to see, for example, advances such as gene-based technology tailoring treatments to meet people’s gender, racial and ethnic origins.

The area’s specialties could also include cutting-edge biotechnology, through frontline advances in addressing the needs of the population which lives longer all the time, and taking the lead in community medicine sure to be demanded by the coming national health care plan.

This complex would not only serve patients in need, but offer world-class training to the next generation of medical professionals, lure innovative medical software companies and provide the perfect venue to house a new science high school.

In terms of community medicine, envision a state-of-the-art community health center, accessible right to the front door from anywhere in Richmond, by putting the GRTC System transfer station next to Amtrak’s high-speed rail station.

By turning the Bottom into the top of the medical world, we would be in a unique position: No other such complex in America would be a destination — within a short walk of the high-speed rail line being planned for our part of the country. The facility would be an employment machine, thus attracting residential and retail development and eventually revitalizing the East End to the Henrico County line, where a commuter shuttle could run on the train tracks that run parallel to the James River.

But this vision cannot happen unless city government takes the lead in bringing together the necessary players, and passing the legislation needed to create a public-private partnership — a first-ever downtown medical authority — to coordinate the planning and collective financial support needed from the key stakeholders. Between Virginia Commonwealth University, state government, and leaders in private-sector health care, we have the talent to mesh all the moving parts, but City Hall and City Council have to get the ball rolling.

Skip Loupassi for a second and fast-forward to this afternoon, when the Times-Dispatch announced that Goldman's dream was beginning to take shape. That's when what passes for electronic mob rule ran roughshod over Goldman's dream:

Five members of Richmond City Council are joining forces to issue a resolution seeking to establish a medical complex commission that would study the feasibility of creating a medical, research, education and hospital complex in Shockoe Bottom.

Council members Douglas G. Conner Jr., Chris A. Hilbert, E. Martin Jewell, Reva Trammell and Bruce W. Tyler are patrons of the resolution.

Such a medical complex "is a proven catalyst for enormous job creation, greatly improved health care, cost-efficient health care delivery, expanded educational opportunities, improved public health, attracts new citizens and greatly enhances a state's and city's quality of life," Conner read from the draft resolution this morning.

Just to prove that Richmonders will sink any idea -- baseball, public transit, medical science -- the Times-Dispatch's comment section quickly loaded itself with naysayers:

• Like others here, I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. Am waiting for the punchline on this.
• So instead of all the gunshot and stabbing victims going up the hill to MCV, they can just stay in the bottom. Anyways, makes no sense unless MCV is totally swamped and overcrowded? I don’t live in the city to built it! I’m not paying for it.
• How does this benefit Richmond citizens?  MCV is already serving the needs of Richmond with healthcare (both insured and non-insured), research, medical education, and research.  And Bon Secours has a hospital in the Churchill area.
• So it’s OK to put a hospital with sick people in a flood plain, but it wasn’t Ok for a baseball stadium?
• Another ill-conceived contrivance of local politicians to fleece taxpayers and duplicate services within walking distance.

It would be a mistake to wait for details when you can trample an idea to death before it's really been floated.

The Nickel Tour of the Admissions Tax

There is a slow head of steam forming to do something about Richmond's culture destroying admissions tax, and F. T. Rea argues in his latest Fan District Hub post that there may be light at the end of this particular tunnel. Ad ad-hoc committee met in July to begin serious discussions on the issue, he reports:

This ad hoc committee, with no name for itself at this point, wants to study how best to remove a particular tax that its members see as a vexation to those in the entertainment industry and an obstacle to Richmond’s economic well being.

Currently, a seven percent tax comes off the top of the price of every ticket sold to any event in Richmond. This puts venues within the city limits at a disadvantage when competing with venues in Charlottesville, for instance. C-ville, with its thriving live music scene doesn’t have such a tax.

The July 7 get-together was hosted by the convention center’s manager, Mike Meyers. Doug Conner, 9th District representative on city council, ran the informal meeting. Johnny Cates, the executive director of the Greater Richmond New Car Dealer Association, was the man who first called for the confab to take place.

“The purpose of the meeting was to get a feel for the scope of the issue relating to the hardships that the admissions tax place on our business community,” said Conner.

Tony Pelling is a member of the Byrd Theatre Foundation, the non-profit that owns and operates the 80-year-old movie palace; he was its first president. Pelling said, “The Byrd at present pays some $17,000 a year in admissions tax on its two dollars-a-time tickets. So, to cover that cost, 8,500 extra patrons would have to be attracted each year — a tough call. Over 10 years at today prices some $170,000 could have been available to say replace many of those seats.”

Cates said, “If the City of Richmond wants to keep the Virginia International Auto Show downtown, they will have to become more competitive. The admission tax is a big part of it, as the surrounding counties do not charge it.”

It's worth reading in its entirety.

City's 79th Forum in Two Years -- All Charter, Baby

You've got to hand it to the City of Richmond. They sure know how to hold public forums, town halls and listening sessions. If you're a resident of the city with something to say, you don't need to check your calendar anymore -- just show up somewhere. There will be a hearing happening when you get there, mark my words.

The latest plan hearing, according to the Times-Dispatch, will be September 1 (which, unfortunately, is not National Grandparents Day). The topic will be suggested changes to the city's charter.

The meeting will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the City Council chambers of City Hall. Dinner will not be served.

According to the TD, the preliminary recommendations of a commission tapped by former Mayor Doug Wilder include:

• giving council the authority to appoint its legislative staff, which would be separate from the administrative staff that reports to the mayor-appointed chief administrative officer;

• giving the mayor the authority to appoint the city attorney and city auditor subject to the approval of the majority of the council;

• requiring the mayor to submit a chief administrative officer for appointment within 180 days of a vacancy and require council to approve or reject the nominee within 30 days; and

• giving the mayor the authority to veto any ordinance, including ones relating to the sale and lease of land and buildings, subject to council's override.

Go knock yourself out at the official Richmond City Charter Review Commission website. It is loaded with details, including a PDF of the recommendations.

Performing Arts in the Cross Hairs this Week

With the clock ticking down and the city girding itself in anticipation for the opening of the sadly named CenterStage performing arts center, two local bloggers have hit the Internet with competing posts worthy of Brutus and Mark Antony (Shakespeare, not pop music, kids).

Save Richmond seized a predictable opening with news this weekend that former Times-Dispatch columnist Roy Proctor had a parting of ways with CenterStage over the content of a coffee table book he had been commissioned to write. Originally slated to find itself wrapped by the chimney with care this Christmas, the book will have to find itself another author.

Will Jones at the Times-Dispatch broke the news -- if a former reporter and a PR hungry arts center doing a piss-poor job at contracting over work, and utterly misunderstanding why they might have totally different agendas is news:

"I could not possibly have adhered to those things because I would have been falsifying history on a monumental scale," said Proctor, who retired in 2004 as an arts writer and critic for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Foundation officials insisted they are not trying to rewrite history but said the draft was too much a summary of newspaper articles and void of the anecdotes of performers and shows that had been part of the initial pitch for the book project last summer. Proctor said he considered conducting extensive interviews but decided to work largely from newspaper clippings.

"We are not trying to falsify history, change it," foundation spokesman Jay Smith said. "We felt the manuscript provided was incomplete" and inappropriate for a keepsake book.

"We didn't hire him as a journalist," foundation board member Susan Fitz-Hugh added. "We hired him as an author."

This was prime fodder for Save Richmond which quickly hit the Internet with a "Can't Rewrite History" post (more a culling of Jones' TD piece) that captures the essence of some of the anti-CenterStage vitriol out there:

How going about things the wrong way can poison what may have started out as a noble effort. Critics of CenterStage are not against the arts or kids or old people or sunshine, but rather how the Foundation’s leadership have comported themselves and wasted public money.

Save Richmond's Don Harrison has been tireless in his documentation of the countless times the CenterStage (formerly Performing Arts Center) project has stumbled in recent years -- pricked by countless self-inflicted wounds along the way.

Sadly, Proctor was hired to write a fluff piece, not a critical history.

Style Weekly's Jason Roop captured the essense of the CenterStage fumbles in a series of Twitter posts over the weekend (@StyleWeekly had a lively exchange about the Proctor gaffe with @aarondotson, @sarvay, @jonnewman and @LaDIFF this past Saturday):

@LaDIFF @sarvay @aaronsdotson How is it not news? This was a major project the foundation planned and pitched stories to media about! 10:48 AM Aug 8th from TweetDeck

@LaDIFF @sarvay @aaronsdotson Plus, now there's no book to go along with the opening. It's an embarrassing botched project. 10:50 AM Aug 8th from TweetDeck

@LaDIFF @sarvay @aaronsdotson If that's not news, how about there's no executive or artistic director or full season 30 days b4 opening? 10:51 AM Aug 8th from TweetDeck

Leave it to the new blogger on the street to throw his body in front of the speeding train of criticism. One Way Richmond got its cultural angst on last night with a lengthy, sometimes rambling, and occasionally pointed post defending CenterStage, "Fuck culture, I've got comic books":

When folks say 98% of Richmond will not support it, I suddenly remember folks saying 99% of Richmond will not support The National. Um, The National is on a roll. Sell out after sell out after sell out. Remember when ‘they’ said nobody will come down to ‘First Fridays.’ Oh the laughter. Richmonders are still gun shy about Six Street Market Place. I get it. But I live downtown. It is a new day down here folks. Using parking, black people, or the fact it’s to expensive as excuses just doesn’t cut it anymore.

The Performing Arts Center has had it’s issues. Of course it has. What do you expect from something conjured up by Doug Wilder a.k.a Thug Wilder. The meals/sales tax put on local restaurants in order to pay for this site was unfair. I am simply arguing the fact that now that it’s built, it will succeed. Everyone, including detractors has stated how beautiful the site is, and how well the site meshes the new with the history.

Now that "Serious Fun" is almost upon us, it looks like the proof may well be in the pudding. If they eat pudding at the opera.

(I'll be scurrying around backstage at the end of the month getting a behind-the-scenes tour of CenterStage. Keep an eye out for a snarky, but honest, appraisal of what your meals tax has purchased for Richmond.)

The Great Norfolk/Richmond Throwdown

Trevor Dickerson -- writing for Richmond.com -- has penned a very solid comparison of how two comparable Virginia cities have made different choices over the past 25 years, and where those choices have landed them.

Norfolk and Richmond, as different as they may be, have some remarkable similarities. They both have wonderful riverfront property and similar baseball teams (a trait that Richmond shared until recently, at least).

The biggest difference between the two cities has been what they’ve done with the two.

It's well worth reading, especially if you sit on City Council.

Holmberg Reports on Mayor's Southside Town Hall

 

Mayor Dwight Jones headed south of the river this week for his first Town Hall meeting with about 200 residents interested in everything from crime and public safety, to economic development, to street repairs. WTVR-TV6's Mark Holmberg delivers a solid summary of the evening, and paints a picture of a new era in Richmonds mayoral politics.