Tag: Jon Baliles
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RVA 5×5 – Holiday Briefing
by Jon Baliles It’s Friday! Which means this newsletter would normally be filled with stories and analysis about what is happening in the RVA region (not all of it good), with an honest and insightful take (so far as that is possible). For instance, this week we could have stories about: A non-profit that presented…
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The Trophy in the Middle of the River
by Jon Baliles Some great news this week about the one thing most everyone can agree on: the James River is awesome, and the heart of the City just got a LOT more awesome. Or at least it is pointing in that direction. Mike Platania at Richmond BizSense reported that The Capital Region Land Conservancy…
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RVA 5X5: A Five-Part Series of Stories
by Jon Baliles STORY #1 — The Pot Overfloweth There have been a lot of stories this week about the $21 million surplus announced by Mayor Levar Stoney and what he is asking City Council to endorse and how to disburse it in a budget amendment vote scheduled for a Monday evening vote. “The growth…
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RVA 5X5: Enrichmond and the City’s Radio Silence
by Jon Baliles I won’t do a “Top Stories of 2022” list for this newsletter, but if I did, one of them would surely be the collapse of the Enrichmond Foundation and the radio silence on all fronts concerning its finances, the groups that depended on it, their assets, and the two historic Black cemeteries…
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Double-Standard Bonds
by Jon Baliles One of the eternal mysteries of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s governing structure is the separate treatment of counties and cities. We are the only state in the country that has the screwy system of independent cities that are not part of a county government or structure. But that’s not where the screwiness…
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Sanctuary Sell-Out
by Jon Baliles If you time warp all the way back to early 2017 (which on some days seems like 30 years ago), then-newly-sworn-in Mayor Levar Stoney issued a directive that Richmond would be a sanctuary city in opposition to then-newly-sworn-in President Trump’s executive orders on immigration (that were later struck down). Many cities across…
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Now It’s Time to Get It Right
by Jon Baliles We can all take some comfort in the fact that Police Chief Gerald Smith has resigned, not because there is comfort in someone else’s downfall, but rather it gives the city a chance to start over with new leadership in public safety and repair the damage that has been done. Smith did…
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“The City Is Shaming Itself”
by Jon Baliles It was cold at night this week but not as cold as it will soon get, and a warming trend over the next week looks likely (never trust the weather forecast more than 48 hours in advance). That is good news for those who seek a warm place to sleep at night,…
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Safety and Accountability
by Jon Baliles Richmond City Council approved plans earlier this week for a Civilian Review Board (CRB) for the Police Department that left people on all sides a bit upset, which fulfills one of the telltale signs of good legislation — if everyone is a little bit upset, then it is probably done right. If…
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Embarrassing Non-Action
by John Baliles The EnRichmond saga continues and it’s not a good read. In fact, it’s pretty awful. To recap, the EnRichmond Foundation was founded in the early 1990s and had grown to support more than 80 small, local, all-volunteer groups that worked to help Richmond in various ways, many of which focused on keeping…
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Richmond Pols Flapping Jaws About Crime
by Jon Baliles If this were an election year and the crime we are currently experiencing was occurring the way it is, then you would have outrage and brimstone from politicians, and promises to combat and reduce crime and find the perpetrators. In the last three weeks, three teenagers have been shot. One was killed…
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Boiling Blood, Aching Heart
by Jon Baliles This appalling story will make your blood boil with rage and your heart ache with sadness, followed by gratitude for those that work to defend the defenseless. I have said before and again reiterate that people who abuse helpless animals deserve and hopefully receive a non-stop express ticket to hell. I’ll put…
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Complete and Total Incompetence & Negligence
by Jon Baliles There can be no more fitting title for this post than this jaw-dropping, migraine-inducing story from Tyler Lane at CBS6 about the repeated warning signs about fire safety that were not only missed — but flat out ignored — by Richmond Public Schools (RPS) officials in 2020 and 2021, which culminated in…
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Richmond Tax Assessments: Through the Roof
by Jon Baliles One story you will be hearing about and living through in the next week or so (if you live in the City) is that the new assessment notifications are arriving in people’s mailboxes. And they are literally though the roof. Some areas are up from 18% in the Westover Hills area and…