New City Jail Discussed at Ellen Robertson's Town Hall Meeting

The topic of Ellen Robertson's monthly townhall meeting for Saturday, September 11, 2010 was the proposed New City Jail. Four developers were present at this event. This is one of the first meetings to publicly discuss the new jail project in greater detail.

The clip above includes the opening of the meeting. Vice President Ellen Robertson recognized a number of members from the audience including Council President Kathy Graziano [4th District], Councilman Bruce Tyler [1st District], Sheriff C.T. Woody, Chandra Smith [School Board, 6th District], and former-Councilman Bill Pantele, and Byron Marshall [Chief Administrative Officer].

A prayer was said by Reverand Alonzo Pruitt who works at the Richmond City Jail.

Part 2 - Presentation from Sheriff's Office on New Richmond City Jail - Sept. 11, 2010 from Silver Persinger.

Part 2 is a presentation from the Sheriff's Office. They recount a little of the history of the City Jail, describe its inmates (which they prefer to call 'residents'), discuss the need for a new facility and the desired design, which isolates the individual prisoner and relies heavily on video camera surveillance. This was promoted as more secure and reducing the staff needed to operate the jail.

Part 3 - Administration, Consultant, & Reverend on New Richmond City Jail - Sept. 11, 2010 from Silver Persinger.

In Part 3, top administrators weigh in. Byron Marshall [Chief Admistrative Office] and Chris Beschler [Deputy Chief Administrative Office, Operations/Director, Public Utilities], Walter Ridley, a city hired consultant from Fort Washington, Maryland [his website describes him as President/CEO of the RIDLEY GROUP and ASSOCIATES LLC, "A Criminal Justice and Faith-Based Consulting Firm."], and Reverend Alonzo Pruitt who works at the Richmond City Jail.



In this clip, Councilwoman Ellen Robertson discusses the historic significance of Eastview, the first African American Single Family Home development in Richmond, Virginia which was soon surrounded by public housing and a jail at the bottom of the hill. At the end of the clip, she urges folks to support the decision by Mayor Jones to keep the jail at its current location.

Part 5 - Comments from Eastview Residents - Ellen Robertson's Town Hall - Sept. 11, 2010 from Silver Persinger.

Comments from 50-year residents of Eastview, history of the neighborhood and of land. Interesting history here. 14 acres.

Part 6,
Closing comments coming soon.

Legislative Assistant John Westbrook Announces Retirement

Today, Councilwoman Ellen Robertson's liaison [6th District], John Westbrook, sent an email announcing his retirement from the City effective March 1, 2010. Mr. Westbrook has served as Councilwoman Robertson's liaison since 2004.

Best wishes to Mr. Westbrook and his wonderful wife Winnie.

Town Hall Meeting on Shockoe Bottom Development

Ellen Robertson's Town Hall Meeting on Shockoe Bottom Development - Sept. 12, 2009 from Silver Persinger on Vimeo.

Robertson's Town Hall Meeting - Davenport & Company Presents

On Saturday, Council Vice President Ellen Robertson held her monthly town hall meeting at 10 AM at the Bank of America building in downtown Richmond.

The topic of today's meeting was a presentation from Davenport and Company discussing their analysis of the proposal from Highwoods Properties to build a baseball park in Shockoe Bottom.



Above, Ellen Robertson introducing David Rose and Roland Kooch from Davenport and Company and encouraging the citizens in attendance to have an open mind.



Above, David Rose, Senior Vice President Davenport and Company, discussed the results of the $100,000 analysis of Highwoods Properties' proposal to build a ballpark and additional development in Shockoe Bottom.



Above. After the presentation Mrs. Robertson invited David Hicks, Senior Policy Advisor for Mayor Jones to make comments regarding the project from the perspective of the the administration. Mr. Hicks comments were noncommittal and he emphasized the Mayor's desire to bring high speed rail to Richmond.

Below, watch the entire meeting.

Ellen Robertson's Hip Hop Community Meeting / Cannon Creek Greenway / Matthew Heights Replacement

Ellen Robertson held two community meetings in the 6th District on Saturday April 11, 2009. The first was held at the Bank of America building in Downtown Richmond from 10 to noon. The second meeting was held at Overby-Sheppard on the North Side.

Overby-Sheppard was still locked at 2 o'clock when the meeting was supposed to begin. We didn't get in for another 25 minutes. It was cold and windy too. Only about 20 people came out for the meeting. There were chairs for 200.

From Richmond City Council Reporter & Telegraph

Matthew Smith [aka "Fundamental"] opened up the meeting by performing a couple of songs. The video below, combines the a cappella versions of "Death of a MC" and "What if I was Obama?" from the beginning of the meeting and the song performed at the end of the meeting, "Maybe." For more information about Fundamental, www.myspace.com/3rdeyeup




Charles Price talked to the assembled citizens about continuing momentum for the Cannon Creek Greenway. He suggested incorporating as a nonprofit to enable the organization to raise funds and support the Greenway. Charles' talk was a plea for community buy-in, participation, input, and support.



Smitty Smith from the Southside Community Development and Housing Corporation spoke to the group about the conceptual progress for the replacement development to replace Matthew Heights. Previously there had been talk of a highrise and row houses but Mr. Smith said residents at a previous meeting had expressed interest in seeing single family detached houses developed and that is what his organization is pursuing.

Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Review Blowout - Last Week

Get the City of Richmond Fiscal Year 2010 - 2011 Budget here.

Here are some assembled videos from Richmond City Council's Finance Committee review of Mayor Jones FY 2010- 2011 Budget that occurred this past week, April 7 - 9. I've broken them down by discussion topic. Hopefully that will make it easier to watch the specific items you are interested in.

Tuesday, April 7

I'll be updating these presentations as I am able to. It takes a lot of time uploading movies.

Wednesday, April 8

Community Development Block Grant [CDBG] Budget



View / Download Proposed CDBG 2010 Budget by Line Item




Thursday, April 9

Dept. of Economic Development



View / Download Dept. of Economic Development's Presentation

Meetings This Week

Monday, April 6th - Council President Kathy Graziano chairs the Organizational Development Standing Committee at 5 PM in the 2nd Floor Large Conference Room at City Hall, located at 9th & East Broad Streets. All members of Council try to attend this regular monthly meeting on the first Monday of each month. There is no opportunity for citizen comment during this meeting unlike every other standing committee of the Council. Open to the public and free.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, April 7 - 9. Council Vice President and Chair of the Finance Standing Committee Ellen Robertson will conduct the Finance Committee's peering (and boring) inquiry into the minutia of departmental operations and financial reporting. The meetings will be held each day at 2 PM in Council Chambers, 2nd Floor Richmond City Hall. If you are newly laid off why not attend? Open to the public and free.

Richmond City Council Finance Committee Begins Budget Review Process March 19, 2009

This meeting was held Thursday March 19, 2009 in Richmond City Council Chambers located on the second floor of City Hall located at 9th & East Broad Streets in Richmond, Virginia.

The meeting began at 2:34 pm. Chair of the Finance Committee and Council Vice President Ellen Robertson (6th District) was joined by Finance Committee members Bruce Tyler (1st District) and Charles R. Samuels (2nd District). Council President Kathy Graziano also attended the meeting.

Departments whose directors are appointed by the City Council reported their department's budget to the Committee. Presenting budget information were Council's Chief of Staff [Daisy Weaver, 3:00 - 24:45], City Attorney [Norman Sales, 25:00 - 37:00], City Clerk [Lou B. Ali, 37:40 - 45:20], City Assessor [James Hester, 46:00 - 52:45], City Auditor [Umesh Dalal, 53:00 - 58:00], and Council Fiscal Analysts [Anthony Dale (58:15 -1:03:50)and Ralph Harris (1:04:12 - 1:27:45)]. The meeting ended at 4:12 pm. This meeting occurred before the Finance Committee's regular monthly meeting which began at 4:20 pm

Mayor Jones speaks to 6th District Saturday, March 14, 2009

Mayor Dwight C. Jones addressed citizens of the 6th district at Ellen Robertson's monthly town hall meeting held on Saturday, March 14, 2009 at the Bank of America building in downtown Richmond, Virginia.

With introductory comments Vice President Ellen Robertson explained her new meeting schedule for the 6th District. In addition to her regular monthly meeting at the Bank of America Building (Second Saturday of each month), since January she has been holding additional district meetings, that alternate monthly between the North and South Sides. The focus of the Southside meetings is improving education for children. The Northside meetings will emphasize the issues of housing, abandoned property, blight and illegal rooming houses.

At 6:00 minutes, Mayor Jones took the podium and opened with a prayer. Mayor Jones referred to Mrs. Robertson as "an energizer bunny" that "is handling the business." Mayor Jones said "City Council meetings are not fun. They take a lot of time." Mayor Jones recalled Mrs. Robertson's early support for him as a mayoral candidate, "When things were not going so well during the last four years, she was one of the first ones who came and said, We gotta do something and you oughta be the one to do it."

Mayor Jones repeated the mantra of his administration, "Collaboration, communication, and cooperation." The mayor said a vast majority of the city's 4,000 employees are "good, competent people who want to do a good job." Mayor Jones said he wanted employees, as well as City Council and the School Board, to know that they are valued.

At 9:00 minutes, Mayor Jones spoke about the Dove Court development and cited goals of decentralizing poverty and acknowledging "our need and responsibility to those who need affordable housing." At 10:00 minutes, Mayor Jones discussed his decision to drop the appeals filed by former Mayor Douglas Wilder which had cost the city $1.2 million dollars over the last couple of years. Mayor Jones expressed his hope that the Charter Review Commission would iron out any ambiguities that currently exist in the charter.

Then Mayor Jones repeated his goal of establishing a Tripe A bond rating for the City of Richmond to dispel "the perception of being inept and improperly managed."

At 14:00 minutes, Mayor Jones said that he had "inherited the need for a new city jail." The current city jail has a designed capacity for 800 but it currently holds 1500 prisoners. Mayor Jones said, "I'm not going to accept the projections of a jail that's so huge, that what we'll do is just keep on filling up the beds... I refuse to build a jail that is so huge." "We're going to find a way to handle the mentally ill by not sending them to jail, that's not where they belong." Mayor Jones also mentioned alternatives for non-violent offenders (ie. non-payment of child support, traffic violations) such as ankle bracelets as a means of saving money.

At 17:15, Mayor Jones spoke again about the need for regional cooperation. Mayor Jones told us he had been participating in regional meetings and working with county managers and supervisors. Working with Henrico, Chesterfield, Hanover, Hopewell, and Petersburg.

[18:30] Mayor Jones discussed working with the City Auditor to implement suggestions made by the auditor, and his support for implementing the recommendations of the City Master Plan.

At 20:00, Mayor Jones got a question about affordable housing. Mayor Jones responded, "We don't [want to] replace these depositories or concentrations of poverty with other concentrations of poverty." "The plan is to spread affordable housing out," mixing affordable housing with market rate housing. "Our goal is to make sure that we have affordable housing but that you don't know where it is."

The mayor's comments wrap up around 24:00 minutes, followed by four more minutes of Vice President Ellen Robertson. Mrs. Robertson said we would be seeing more in the way of regional cooperation because of Mayor Jones' initiative in working with other local governments. She also talked about the mayor appointing her to the Regional Workforce Commission and the previous way workforce development had been handled in the past with Richmond receiving just over a million dollars a year and the 8 surrounding counties collectively receiving about half a million dollars.

7th District Selection behind Closed Doors

I attended the Organizational Development committee meeting held on Feb. 2, 2009 at 4 pm. I was the only citizen and member of the media in attendance. Despite the fact that the meeting was being advertised as a closed session, Council members met openly to discuss the format to be used during the interview process.

Here's a little video I filmed before the meeting began. And yeah, I know, I said "OK" too many times. I'm new to this, so hopefully my style and content will improve with practice. I'll try to do another post tomorrow with additional information about this process and the candidates involved.