Tag Archives: Jon Baliles

RVA 5×5: Incentivizing Derelicts

Posted on March 11, 2023 by | 2 comments

by Jon Baliles

Housing has become a vital issue all across our region; it is a pressing need, but not simple to resolve. It will be with us for some time to come and we have to seek out a multi-prong strategy to address it. But there are some steps that can be taken to set the conditions of success, one parcel at a time. Joseph Maltby in the Henrico Citizen had an interesting story with wider implications about one of those solutions.

He writes about a development along Chamberlayne Road just north of Azalea Avenue in Henrico County that will see a new, 186-unit, affordable housing development with density (three and four story buildings) along with other amenities. The interesting part of the story is that the eight-acre property was “declared derelict in 2019 and put on the county’s list of properties designated for redevelopment,” and the former Days Inn motel was demolished.
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Posted in Business and Economy, Central planning, Economic development, Housing, Land use & Development, Uncategorized

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RVA 5×5: Restoring A Richmond Treasure

Posted on March 6, 2023 by | Leave a comment

by Jon Baliles

One of Richmond’s favorite architectural wonders and spooky places is the Pump House along the Kanawha Canal and adjacent to the Boulevard Bridge. It has been the target and talk of renovations and adaptive reuses for almost a century since it closed in 1924 (the city wanted to tear it down in the 1950s, go figure), and now some federal funding is coming to help jump start the conversation yet again, according to Hunter Reardon at Richmond Magazine.

The nonprofit Friends of Pump House took an interest in preserving the property in 2017 and now $1 million in renovation funds will be used, half of which was secured by Virginia Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine as part of a federal spending bill signed in December.

The City of Richmond will use $500,000 to “stabilize the Byrd Park Pump House, expand its capacity beyond the current limit of 25 and to preserve it for future generations,” according to a joint statement. The money is expected to be matched by private donations from Historic Richmond.

“It’s sort of a Sisyphean task to preserve an old building like this, but you’d be surprised how good of a shape some parts of the building are in,” says Penn Markham, president of Friends of Pump House. “We’re working on a study with Quinn Evans architects to figure out what needs to be done to spend the money wisely. For example, there’s no point fixing the floor if you haven’t fixed the roof first.”

Fully restored, the site could became a super-popular destination for weddings, retreats, fundraisers, and other cool events with the canal and the James River right outside. And there have long been discussions of varying degree about restoring the canal from the Pump House to Tredegar downtown — it may come in phases, but that would be just about one of the coolest experiences anywhere.

Markham hopes this infusion of cash is the beginning of a full revitalization. “This is the most serious renovation effort in the last 100 years,” he says. “A lot of people have talked about it, but nobody’s ponied up the money until now. It just might work — there are a lot of people in the community that want it to happen.”

Jon Baliles is a former Richmond City Councilman. This is an excerpt from the original article posted on his blog, RVA 5×5. It is posted here with permission.

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Posted in Blogs and Blog Administration, Economic development, Land use & Development, Uncategorized, Virginia history

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Return to Chickahominy Swamp

Posted on March 5, 2023 by | 1 comment

by Jon Baliles 

Peter McElhinney at Style Weekly takes us on a retroactive visit through the Chickahominy Swamp and the voice and mind and sounds of the late Richmond music legend Page Wilson. The new online radio station, The Breeze, has begun airing old episodes of Wilson’s weekly visit to his porch in the swamp (which was actually recorded in a music/radio studio but sounded like you were out there.

The new edition, “The Swamp Sessions,” includes an eclectic mix of roots-influenced artists, including the Sun Rhythm Section, James McMurtry, the Irish-superstar Clancy Brothers, local hero Robbin Thompson, and more. Their relaxed conversations and playing were gingerly restored from reel-to-reel tapes.

The entertaining mix of talk and live songs was recorded between 1989 and 1992 for Wilson’s local public radio show, “The Out O’ the Blue Radio Revue,” which ran from the 1990s to the early 2000s on WCVE radio.

The original show was a slice of Americana already a bit retro in its day, a fashion-defying mix of Garrison Keillor’s similarly folksy “Prairie Home Companion” and Wolfman Jack’s midnight pirate station swagger. A lot of the artists who appeared on the shows, like legendary singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt and guitarist Tony Rice – are gone. Others, like Mary Chapin Carpenter, are still touring.

“It was interesting to see how many of them, to varying degrees, played along with the whole swamp thing,” says former local radio personality Tim Timberlake, who has been editing the raw tapes into coherent programs. The setup was theater, but the food and the fellowship was real. “It was the same thing every time,” Timberlake says. “But it was different from anything else.”

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RVA 5×5: RVA = DIY

Posted on March 4, 2023 by | 5 comments

by Jon Baliles

Jack Jacobs at Richmond Biz Sense has an update about the ongoing fallout from the collapse of the Enrichmond Foundation last summer. All of the small organizations that used Enrichmond as a fiduciary lost access to their money (which may be gone for good; stay tuned) and other things like insurance coverage.

While there are efforts underway to transfer two historically Black cemeteries formerly under Enrichmond’s purview to the city, there has not been any statement, hint, clue, concern, or any sign of emotion uttered by the Mayor about when or if the city will help restore the funding of these small groups that do a lot of valuable work to help the City and save staff time.

Since no one at City Hall seems to be interested in helping, Richmonders are doing what they do best — they are doing it themselves (aka DIY).

For example, the group RVA Clean Sweep counts nearly 1,500 people who support it by going around the city picking up trash. They lost their insurance coverage and about $3,000 when Enrichmond folded. Have they quit trying to help clean up the city? Nope.

They held fewer cleanups and told volunteers to be extra careful as they were volunteering without insurance, but they still kept cleaning and sweeping. But no insurance means they were not able to apply for grants or hold as many cleanups as they would like, according to RVA Clean Sweep Director Amy Robins.

But they still held cleanups because they wanted their volunteers to stay engaged. “Robins feared that a prolonged hiatus on activity would cause volunteers to drift away from the cause of cleaning up litter in the city,” wrote Jacobs.
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Posted in Charity, Philanthropy and Nonprofits, Economic development, Efficiency in Government, Environment, Government Finance, Leadership, Planning, Uncategorized

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RVA 5×5: Calling Earl Weaver

Posted on February 25, 2023 by | 3 comments

by Jon Baliles

There are not many other cities in the country that would debate plans for multiple baseball stadiums in multiple locations over multiple decades and then, after seemingly signing off on a new stadium, roll over after being told by Major League Baseball that public monies must be spent for a batting cage in a stadium that has two years of life left in it.

But hey, this is Richmond, and that is apparently what will happen in the coming months. According to Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense, “For the Richmond Flying Squirrels to be able to play this spring, Major League Baseball is requiring that the city-owned Diamond be upgraded — at a cost of $3.5 million – to meet certain standards for pro baseball facilities. In addition to repairs to the concrete structure’s roof and supports, MLB is requiring construction of a second batting and hitting tunnel as well as renovations to both team locker rooms.”

The City has clearly been sitting on this news and has already filed the permits;  the work will begin ASAP, as the season starts in just over one month. The concrete supports most definitely need looking after and refurbishment; they are old and dangerous; there was a close call when a chunk fell off of one support about 15 years ago and could have seriously injured someone. I try never to sit under one of them when I go to a game; you just never know.
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Posted in Blogs and Blog Administration, Economic development, Infrastructure, Land use & Development, Uncategorized

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The Amazing Shrinking Times-Dispatch

Posted on February 21, 2023 by | 36 comments


by Jon Baliles

You might recall a story from last summer in Style Weekly entitled The Incredibly Shrinking Times-Dispatch about the decline of our local newspaper and the print news business in general. It has been a precipitous and rapid descent.

Now, according to Axios, it seems that shrinking is not only ongoing but might be accelerating: Lee Enterprises is telling some employees that they will need to take a two-week, unpaid furlough or accept a salary reduction, according to an internal memo obtained by Axios.

The larger drama is that Lee was looked at for a takeover by Alden Global Capital last year and Lee laid off numerous employees company-wide and has continued to struggle (along with most legacy print media). The details of the saga can be read about here and are basically portrayed as two sides of the same bad coin. Continue reading →

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RVA 5×5: Needed Resources for Human Resources

Posted on February 19, 2023 by | Leave a comment

by Jon Baliles

Last week we had a story about a glut of open positions at Richmond’s City Hall and the difficulty in filling them. Lo and behold, the Richmond Free Press this week put out an article about the struggle to fill positions as the department responsible for filling those positions (Human Resources, aka HR) is upside down and employees are being told to reapply for their jobs. In case you didn’t read last week’s edition, the HR department has a lot of vacancies which makes it hard to fill any vacancy in any department. HR “is involved in every aspect of employee services, from hiring and retention to designing and administering classification, compensation and performance evaluations, overseeing employee data, handling employee grievances and providing training and development.”

Think of it like a clogged sink — it takes forever for the water to get through. And reporter Jeremy Lazarus notes that word has leaked out that everyone in the department was “told at a staff meeting in early February and urged to reapply for new positions that are being advertised, but that there were no guarantees they would have jobs. But three department employees have separately told the Free Press that effective Friday, all of the remaining full-time employees are to be laid off except for the three top managers….”

And one employee spoke directly but anonymously: “We’ve been told our department is the heartbeat of City Hall, but we’ve been left in the dark. None of us knows what will happen. Maybe we’ll all get rehired. Even so there will be fewer people left to do the work,” the employee said, as result of the transfers that have already taken place.

“I don’t know how everything we’re involved with will get done,” one of the employees said. “The city is fortunate. Instead of running for the exits, for the most part, everyone has stayed on and kept focused on the work. But it becomes so stressful when the reward for loyalty is uncertainty and worry. This is not what we signed up for.”
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Posted in Efficiency in Government, Governance, Government workers and pensions, Public-Employee Unions, Uncategorized, Unions

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Top Three Financial Takeaways from RVA

Posted on February 13, 2023 by | 1 comment

Nothing but blue skies over Richmond? Not yet.

by Jon Baliles

Last week Richmond’s Mayor and Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) reported to City Council that the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) was completed and had been turned in to the Virginia Auditor of Accounts. The report was due in mid-December, but better late than never I guess (and still it was way earlier than Mayor Jones, who tuned them in super-late three years in a row).

The external auditor called in virtually for the brief presentation to Council and went over their firms’ processes and evaluation methods (video starts at 1:03:30 mark) but never referred to any numbers or conclusions; she pointed out that certain figures could be found with corresponding footnote numbers in the report, which Councilors did not have.

After the auditor finished her brief presentation, Councilwoman Jordan had to inquire as to what figures the external auditor was talking about and where could she see them (at the 1:11:25 mark of the video) because the Council did not have the audit report in front of them so they could ask questions. The auditor told her they disclosed what they were required to and that she would be happy to go into the numbers. That’s when CAO Saunders stepped in and told Council the reports had been delivered to each Councilor’s office on Friday. Talk about collaboration and communication.

Councilwoman Lynch also asked the external auditor for the “Top 3 bullet points or risks” from the audit. Continue reading →

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Roller Coaster Casino Ride

Posted on February 6, 2023 by | 12 comments

by Jon Baliles

The road to a casino in the General Assembly is on a roller coaster ride that is careening down the hill and likely to jump the tracks at any minute. Last week alone, the bill that would allow a casino referendum in Petersburg and block a second one in Richmond until Petersburg has a chance has taken the following ride:

  • Cleared a Finance General Laws subcommittee on a 7-2 vote on January 26;
  • Cleared a Senate General Laws committee on a 11-4 vote Wednesday;
  • Failed in a Senate Finance committee on a 7-8 vote Thursday evening;
  • Cleared a House of Delegates General Laws subcommittee on a 5-2 vote on Tuesday;
  • Cleared a House of Delegates General Laws committee vote 7-4 on Thursday;
  • Cleared the House of Delegates Appropriations committee 11-9 on Friday afternoon.

So what’s next? Well, there are three possibilities: (1) the bill dies because the House and Senate won’t find a suitable compromise, which means the Petersburg proposal could vanish and Richmond gets another referendum; (2) the Petersburg referendum is inserted into the final budget language (as it was last year) and their referendum will proceed and Richmond’s put on hold; or (3) the zombie apocalypse will commence.

Personally, I’m rooting for the apocalypse. Continue reading →

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RVA 5×5: State of The City – What The People Think

Posted on January 31, 2023 by | 2 comments

by Jon Baliles

There is a little-known part of Richmond’s City Code that requires the City Auditor to produce a “Services, Efforts, and Accomplishments” (SEA) Report by conducting a thorough poll/survey of Richmond residents to see what they think about the level of service and performance and deliverability of City government. In other words, it’s the poll that every politician fears more than anything because they can’t B.S. their way past the peoples’ opinions of what they see and experience every day.

Doug Wilder used to say (and still does), “The people are always ahead of the politicians,” and that is never more accurate than with the SEA report presented by the Auditor in February 2022. It received virtually zero attention, but that’s usually what happens with bad news. You try and bury it, label it fake news, or quickly move on to something else.

SEA reports include questions like: Are you satisfied with the overall direction of the City? What is your opinion of the value of services for the taxes paid to Richmond? Does the City do a good job informing residents about issues facing the community? Is the City open and transparent with the public?

The reason this 2022 report is relevant 11 months after it was issued is that tonight, Mayor Levar Stoney will deliver his penultimate State of the City speech that will undoubtedly be an upbeat recitation of his accomplishments and how great the City is doing — in his eyes. His office put out this four-minute video a few weeks ago to tee-up the talking points and set the stage for his speech (and perhaps his next campaign). Continue reading →

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Posted in Blogs and Blog Administration, Central planning, Economic development, Efficiency in Government, Governance, Government Finance, Leadership, Regulations and Government Oversight, Uncategorized

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RVA 5×5: Annual Crime Briefing Numbers

Posted on January 28, 2023 by | 5 comments

by Jon Baliles

The Richmond Police Department held its annual crime review briefing this week and the numbers were positive on the surface, a little mixed in total, and almost miraculous considering the force has more than 150 vacancies.

Mark Bowes writes in the Times-Dispatch that “The good news for the city of Richmond from a crime perspective last year was a 37% drop in homicides (from 90 to 57) and a 17% reduction in robberies of persons.” The numbers of reported rapes, aggravated assaults and commercial robberies rose in 2022 over the preceding year, but overall violent crime was flat, [Acting Police Chief Rick Edwards] said, dropping about 1% from 1,099 reported offenses to 1,087.

However, a more disturbing trend was the 33 incidents of shootings with more than one victim (80 people total in 33 shootings – recall the one shooting last summer on Broad Street with six shooting victims). That was up from 31 multiple shootings in 2021 with 68 victims. Also, the number of non-fatal shootings increased from 244 in 2021 to 256 last year.

“The numbers would have been even higher,” Edwards said, if not for police initiatives during the final quarter of the year that reduced by 12% the number of shootings during that three month period. They dropped from 69 to 61. “We were on track to have a much higher increase in non-fatal shootings,’ the chief said.”
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Posted in Blogs and Blog Administration, Crime, Corrections and Law Enforcement, Gun rights, Uncategorized, Virginia Law

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RVA 5×5: Redefining 100 Percent Compliance

Posted on January 21, 2023 by | 4 comments

by Jon Baliles

The recent stories from the City Jail have been anything but good — inmates dying far too often, staffing shortages leading to dangerous work conditions,  deputies quitting, and the lack of leadership that can’t fill the vacancies while conducting lie detector tests on some of the staff that remain.

Tyler Layne at CBS6 reports: “In December 2022, Richmond Councilperson Reva Trammell sent a formal letter to the Board of Local and Regional Jails requesting an investigation into the facility for compliance with state regulations. Several of Trammell’s colleagues on Richmond City Council said they supported her efforts.”

Few people beyond Trammell sounded much of an alarm about the jail until recently, when it became far too obvious that something needs to be done. Families, advocates, and elected officials have finally started raising the volume in recent weeks.

Layne went to the meeting of The Board of Local and Regional Jails (a state board charged to oversee, regulate, and investigate facilities across Virginia) to try and get some answers as to what, if anything, the state is doing. At the meeting, the board discussed ten different cases but found no violations (each case’s location were not revealed), but Layne was told after the meeting that Richmond was not one of the ten cases discussed.

Board Chairman Vernie Francis, Jr. told Layne “We’ll handle all the investigations of any facility the same way, through the process, treat every facility the exact same way.”

Francis told Layne that once an investigation is concluded and reported back to the Board, the facility must develop a corrective action plan if violations are discovered; the action plan can be approved or rejected by the Board.

CBS6 submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for the board’s recent email communications related to Richmond’s jail. Ryan McCord, the Board of Local and Regional Jails executive director wrote Layne that “the board withheld 50 records, citing a FOIA exemption that applies to information about imprisoned people. The board withheld an additional 75 records, citing an exemption that applies to working papers of the Governor’s Office.”
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Posted in Courts and law, Crime, Corrections and Law Enforcement, Political Influence, Uncategorized

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Symphonic Tribute

Posted on January 11, 2023 by | 3 comments

by Jon Baliles

The Richmond Symphony has a long and great history of collaboration and performances that you would not normally think of when you think of Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach. But next weekend, get ready to experience two performances that will continue that tradition of unusual marriages of sound that produce magic.

The Richmond Symphony is honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s message with two shows that will honor him and inspire you. You can catch the symphony with local musician Butcher Brown on Saturday night at the Carpenter Theatre.

Locally famous and internationally talented, Butcher Brown hears the history of jazz and fuses it with funk, hip-hop, rap, rock, soul…and now with the entire orchestra of the Richmond Symphony. This concert represents a truly innovative venture that adds a new dimension of quality, inclusive music and artistic development for audiences of all ages to enjoy.

This show is going to be an unforgettable and oft-talked-about collaboration.

If you can’t make that show, the Symphony will also be at the Perkinson Center for the Arts in Chester next Sunday, performing with Brown Ballerinas for Change. Their “diverse repertoire features spirituals, hymns and other stirring compositions by black musicians of the past and present.”

If you have not seen the Symphony in a while (or ever), this is a great opportunity to check them out as they expand their boundaries and your mind through your ears.

This piece first appeared on RVA 5×5 and is republished with permission. 

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RVA 5×5 — Who Really Voted Down The Casino Referendum?

Posted on January 5, 2023 by | 3 comments

by Jon Baliles

The casino referendum is the issue that won’t go away — kind of like a desperate or compulsive gambler who stays put because the next hand is the winning hand, or the slot player who is completely convinced the next pull of that handle will deliver the jackpot. At some point, you need to walk away.

The relentless effort to build a casino in Richmond and revive the referendum for the third time in 2023 (it failed in 2021 and tried but failed to return to the ballot in 2022) is about to become the hottest potato tossed around the General Assembly session when it opens next week. I won’t bore you to tears with recapping the details from the past few months — this is a look back at the vote in 2021 and what it means in 2023 — but you can read more about the non-stop casino drama here, here, and here, if you so desire.

The people voted the casino down in 2021 in a referendum that was required by the state, but Mayor Stoney and others looked at the results and concluded the easiest and most convenient explanation of the final tally could be explained by race. Except, what Stoney and others maybe didn’t realize is that the voting data show that the referendum failed because a huge number of Terry McAuliffe voters also voted against the casino.

The Stage

Before we get into the data, however, let’s set the stage. Richmond is lobbying the legislature hard as we speak and will stop at nothing to get the referendum back on the ballot in 2023. Petersburg wants to have a shot at a casino referendum next year and make Richmond wait a few years since they already tried and failed. If Richmond does get approval for another referendum, the casino applicant in Petersburg has said it will not move forward with its plan and there would be no need for a referendum in Petersburg. So, the stakes are clear and the battle has already been joined. Stay tuned.

The inability of Richmond’s leaders to get the casino application/selection process completed and on the ballot for the 2020 election (like the other four casinos in Virginia did) cost them dearly. In a presidential year, that referendum would have been approved easily given the high level of turnout (the other four cities approved their referendums in 2020 with at least 65%). We saw a tight gubernatorial race in 2021 (with a record voter turnout for a gubernatorial election, but still lower than a presidential year), and the casino referendum went down to a very narrow defeat. Continue reading →

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Posted in Economic development, Gambling

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Thawing the Brain Freeze at City Hall

Posted on January 4, 2023 by | 1 comment

Richmond City Hall

by Jon Baliles

We can be thankful for a weather warm-up this week after last week’s bitter cold. Maybe it will help thaw the brain freeze at City Hall and enable them to fix the shelter situation before the next bitter cold arrives (hint, it’s coming back).

Last week, after Tyler Lane at CBS6 filed a cringeworthy report about the failure of the City to provide enough shelter and people being turned away, City Hall was opened at the last minute for the two days over the Christmas weekend for people to warm up. But then those in need were turned back out into the cold at 4 p.m. each day just as the temperature fell back into the teens.

The City did get two shelters open in Manchester with a capacity of about 100 beds in November (with about 450 needed total) through two non-profits. The excuses from the Administration for not opening the other shelters and expanding capacity were legion. The City is still quibbling with one non-profit over contract terms before they can get funding and open for the winter (they opened last week briefly with private funds to get through the cold spell). Continue reading →

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