Smedley Crane & Construction remove the Commodore Maury statue.
by James A. Bacon
Three years ago, the Richmond Times-Dispatch published an article headlined thusly: “Baltimore paid less than $20,000 to remove four Confederate monuments last month. So what does that mean for Richmond?”
Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney and then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe had estimated that it would cost more than $5 million to remove five Confederate statues from Richmond’s Monument Avenue. They argued that such a large sum would be more productively spent on city schools.
After conducting a Freedom of Information Act request, the RTD discovered that the City of Baltimore had paid a contractor $19,364 for “monument removal and storage” of four Confederate statues. The contractor put the statues in a city storage lot and covered them with tarps. To address security concerns, the city had the statues removed overnight with no advance notice.
The RTD article seems especially relevant today as Stoney, running for re-election, defends his decision to pay a campaign contributor $1.8 million to remove four statues: of Jefferson Davis, J.E.B. Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, and Mathew Fontaine Maury. The circumstances in Baltimore and Richmond were not identical. The Richmond statues were larger than the Baltimore statues. Stoney was acting during a public emergency punctuated by violent protests. No Richmond contractor was willing to undertake the job, and the mayor had to look out-of-state for someone to do the work.
But when the cost differs by a factor of almost 100, Stoney has some explaining to do. Especially when he ignored Richmond and state procurement policies to award the contract to a dummy corporation set up by Devon Henry, a campaign contributor. Continue reading →
by Kerry Dougherty
Elmer Gantry In Lynchburg
Jerry Falwell, Jr., and wife Becki
By Peter Galuszka
The resignation of Jerry Falwell Jr. amid a series of scandals may have a strong impact in Virginia where his late father built an extraordinary, ultra-conservative evangelical university in Lynchburg that later became highly politicized lightning rod supporting President Donald Trump.
Falwell has been caught up in a number of controversies including limiting speech on campus, going after The New York Times for trespassing when it reported he insisted that student ignore wearing anti-viral pandemic masks and so on.
What happened with Falwell Jr is as an American story as apple pie topped with a Cross. It might have some straight out of the pages of Elmer Gantry.
After touting strict school policies that forbid students from drinking alcohol, watching “R”-rated movies or engaging in pre-marital sex, Falwell was pictured aboard a NASCAR mogul’s yacht half dressed with a semi-clad, pregnant woman who was said to be his wife Becki’s assistant. Falwell was holding a wine glass with a liquid in it but Falwell said it wasn’t wine.
Shortly afterwards, he gave an interview to the right-leaning Washington Examiner stating that his wife had been involved with a multi-year sexual affair with Giancarlo Granda, a former Miami Beach pool boy whom Falwell funded to set up a hostel business. Continue reading →
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