Last week, City Hall pulled back from installing a “burn building” where firefighters could train in handling simulated fires on 2-acres of lawn at the Hickory Hill Community Center in South Side.

Mayor Levar M. Stoney said the decision was based on additional feedback from the community, including a scorching column in Richmond’s daily newspaper condemning the idea.

Instead of a city site, the new building, supported by grant from the Virginia Department of Fire Programs, will be developed in Sandston on the site where the current decayed and essentially unusable “burn building” is located – the site that Fire Chief Melvin Carter loudly decried as unacceptable.

The real reason for the pullback may never be known, although it came as a relief to members of the majority Black community who had fought the development as an unwanted, noisy intrusion that would destroy a wholesome and environmentally friendly community space that is adjacent to a bird sanctuary and includes a soccer play area and a walking trail.

But it may have been concern about the blowback due to come from the eventual exposure of the errors and omissions that became part of the Stoney administration’s campaign to win approval from internal city bodies such as the Planning Commission as well City Council.

Chief Carter, in advocating for the Hickory Hill site, told everyone who would listen that the department was spending nearly $1 million a year to send trucks with new recruits and veterans to Sandston to undergo required training at the decaying “burn building” in Sandston.

By bringing the “burn building” to the city, that travel cost could be saved. Meanwhile, the department would be able to offer classes to Richmond residents when the “burn building” was not in use.

That was worth the trade-off of Hickory Hill losing a small portion of its green space. In the administration’s view, if a key public safety agency could do its training at home, rather than traveling elsewhere, and so become more embedded in the community, that was to the good.

So what, the administration said, if it meant flouting the city’s policies calling for an expansion of parks and other green space in the city and particularly in South Side. That loss could more than be made up by expanding green space elsewhere, the administration argued.

However, Chief Carter and the administration hid the fact that the “burn building” was going to be a regional operation that was going to be used by at least five other departments.

A check of the actual grant the city submitted in January 2022, and that the state agency approved for a $480,000 award, called for the “burn building” to serve the fire departments of Petersburg and Fort Adam-Gregg as well as those in Hanover, Henrico and New Kent counties.

A review of statements made shows that fact was conveniently omitted as the administration urged the Urban Design Committee, the Planning Commission and the council to rubber-stamp the project. The UDC and the commission rejected the proposal; the council approved it.

Also kept hidden: The address. When Lincoln Saunders, the city’s chief administrative officer, filed the grant application 18 months ago, the city listed 3401 E. Belt Blvd. as the address where the “burn building” would be developed.

Notice that address is for a vacant parcel located on the odd side of the street, whereas Hickory Hill’s listed address is 3300 E. Belt Blvd.,the even side of the street. In other words, the city told the state agency that it would build at a different location and then in a classic bait-and-switch, began pushing the Hickory Hill site.

We detail this information because we believe that public officials should not engage in hiding information or saying one thing and doing another.

What a great way to undermine trust and confidence in the public officials who are supposed to be serving us, the public.