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Money available for one-time help with overdue city utility bills
Behind on your utility bill? For city residents, there is help.
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Pulitzer winner Tracy K. Smith named U.S. poet laureate
Tracy K. Smith, who won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 2012, has been named the nation’s 22nd poet laureate, and her recognition is being trumpeted in more than the usual places.
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Deadline to register to vote Monday, Oct. 16
On Tuesday, Nov. 7, voters will go to the polls to elect Virginia’s governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and members of the Virginia House of Delegates.
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Without federal, state dollars, city residents may pay higher sewer bills
Richmond residents could potentially see their bill for sending wastewater to the city’s treatment plant skyrocket to $170 a month or more in the coming years, officials with the city’s Department of Public Utilities are warning.
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City facing grim budget choices
Parking at a Downtown meter could soon be more expensive. So could the annual city fee to register a vehicle and the cost of trash collection. Those are some of the fee increases Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones is proposing in the $709 million spending plan for fiscal year 2017 that begins July 1. He presented the plan last Friday to Richmond City Council. It would be up to the council to approve the fee increases as part of its work on the budget.
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President Barack Obama
His story is the American story — values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and education as the means of getting ahead, and the conviction that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others.
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City moves to new web address June 1: RVA.gov
RVA.gov will become the new virtual City Hall on Tuesday, June 1.
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Video ban raises concern
The African-American members of the Henrico County Board of Supervisors voiced frustration this week after Henrico school leaders apologized for showing a 4-minute video to students Feb. 4 at Glen Allen High School that portrayed the oppression and systematic racism in the United States that African-Americans have endured for centuries.
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Va. voters’ choice: Moving forward or going back, by Ben Jealous
Virginia voters will pick the state’s next governor in November. The choice couldn’t be clearer, and neither could the national implications of this race in a bellwether state. Not only is the Virginia election a curtain-raiser for the midterm elections of 2022, it’s also the biggest test so far of whether the Trumpified GOP can win major races.
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Study finds info on students’ emotional and physical disabilities left off referrals to cops, courts
Richmond area school divisions appear to be flouting federal and state regulations by withholding critical information when they refer special education students to law enforcement departments and the courts for serious misconduct, according to a new study.
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Va. Legislative Black Caucus reception at VMFA // Members of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus gathered Monday for their annual reception before the start of …
Published on January 15, 2016
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VSU announces fall schedule
Under first-year football Coach Henry Frazier III, Virginia State University doubled its win total in 2022, posting a 6-4 record after going 3-6 the season before.
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Historical marker highlights First African Baptist Church
A new state historical marker in Downtown will celebrate the creation of First African Baptist Church.
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Housing workshop set for July 25
The Better Housing Coalition is offering a free workshop on renovation lending and historic tax credits from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, July 25.
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Charlottesville removes Confederate statues that sparked bloodshed
Cheers erupted last Saturday as a Confederate statue that towered for nearly a century over downtown Charlottesville was carted away by truck from the place where it had become a flashpoint for racist protests and deadly violence.
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80¢ cigarette tax goes up in smoke at City Council
Richmond smokers will not have to pay an extra 80 cents for a pack of cigarette. After hearing from more than 50 speakers and nearly an hour of debate, Richmond City Council, with a 6-3 vote, killed a proposal to impose a city tax on cigarettes that Councilman Parker C. Agelasto, 5th District, had spearheaded.
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Richmond Virtual Academy may become its own school
The Richmond Virtual Academy is to become a new elementary school that could enroll between 400 and 500 students a year in online classes, the Richmond School Board decided Monday night. Instead of phasing out the program online learning program as Superintendent Jason Kamras proposed in February, the board, after hearing pleas from academy supporters, adopted a proposal by School Board member Kenya Gibson, 3rd District, to make RVA a school of record like other elementary schools, and eligible for annual state and local funding like other schools. While that decision must be approved by the state Department of Education, the vote to keep RVA as a functioning entity came as the board finalized its budget for the 2022-23 fiscal year. The board had a deadline on Wednesday to deliver a finished budget to City Council. Overall, the approved budget authorizes a record $548 million in total spending, or an expenditure of about $25,253 for each of the 21,700 students RPS estimated as enrolled in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. Along with grants and one-time federal funds, the RPS budget provides $356.6 million in general fund spending, which mostly includes revenue from the city and state, or about $16,400 per student. The board, which cut $6 million from Mr. Kamras’ original general fund proposal, is relying on receiving a $15 million increase from the city in the fiscal year that begins July 1. That would boost total support from the city from $185.3 million this fiscal year to a new record of $200.3 million in 2022- 23. The increase from the city is largely designed to fund the local share of a 5 percent pay increase for teachers and other staff that the state plans to institute. Staff and teachers of the Richmond Virtual Academy, currently listed as a program and funded with federal CARES Act dollars, advocated for it to remain open and funded and rallied parents to lobby for the survival of the academy that adopted the owl as its mascot and bills itself as a space “where learning is a hoot.” The board’s vote was both a reaction to the lobbying and a rebuke to the adminis- tration, which had notified the academy’s entire staff that they would be laid off as of July 1 and would need to reapply for positions within RPS. Mr. Kamras initially proposed cutting the program from 70 to just 10 instructors, who would largely teach homebound students too sick or injured to come to school or students removed from in-person learning for discipline reasons. Cindi Robinson, the academy’s princi- pal, said the board’s action is good news for parents and students. “Virtual learning is not just a Band-Aid,” Ms. Robinson said, noting that numerous school divisions have found some students “actually thrive and do better” in an online program. Among them is Sheila Barlow’s 19-year- old son, Douglas. Ms. Barlow told the board that the virtual school has been a boon for her son and other students like him with serious disabilities who can now attend class from home in a safe environment. Her son has Down syndrome and can- not talk, she said. “He has a sign language interpreter for all of his classes,” Ms. Barlow told the Free Press. “If he goes back to in-person learning, my son would not have that service.” While the board’s action appears to have saved the virtual academy, the board’s funding will provide only for a reduced operation. Richmond’s virtual operation enrolls about 768 students, including 500 elementary school students, which is fewer students than Henrico and Chesterfield’s school systems. But that would shrink further. The board’s funding would allow for only 30 total staff, including a principal, counselors and other staff and about 23 instructional staff strictly for elementary programming. Currently, the school has at least 70 staff members, including a 43-member instructional staff. As part of the transition, the School Board agreed with the administration’s plan to end enrollment for middle and high school students who can move to the state’s online program, Virtual Virginia. The revamped Richmond Virtual Acad- emy also will oversee virtual educational programming for students who are home- bound for disciplinary or health reasons. According to board members, the ad- ministration is expected to drop the cur- rent homebound program that dispatches teachers to the homes of students to provide in-person instruction two hours a day. If it becomes a school of record as anticipated, RVA would not only have a budget, but would also report state Stan- dards of Learning test results. The board’s budget, meanwhile, cuts more deeply into the central office staff than Mr. Kamras proposed and largely eliminates contracts for consultants pro- viding curriculum training. Ms. Gibson also won approval for an audit of Mr. Kamras’ original budget plan after she turned up a significant discrepancy in total employee numbers compared with the current year. The board also provided funding for the first time to enable 400 students to take math, science and other required high school classes at the Richmond Technical Center along with their career and voca- tional training programs. Under the initiative advanced by Jona- than Young, 4th District, the students will no longer have to be shuttled back to their home schools for those courses. This change is seen as a harbinger of the proposed career and technical high school that RPS plans to create in a former tobacco plant in South Side. In addition, the board also provided funds to support an increase in the number of students during the next four years at two specialty high schools, Richmond Com- munity and Franklin Military Academy, and three regional high schools, Code RVA and the Maggie L. Walker and Appomattox regional governor’s schools.
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Virginia War Memorial, Navy League commemorate Pearl Harbor
The Virginia War Memorial and the Navy League of the United States, Richmond Chapter, will co-host the 82nd Commonwealth’s Pearl Harbor Day Remembrance Ceremony on Dec. 7 at 11 a.m. The ceremony will be outdoors in the Memorial’s Shrine of Memory — 20th Century at 621 S. Belvidere St. The public is invited and should dress accordingly.
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GOP postures as party of working people, by Jesse L. Jackson Sr.
The debate over President Biden’s $2 trillion American Infrastructure Plan is heating up — and getting more and more unhinged. Republicans are railing against the president for asking for too much. They promise a filibuster against the bill unless there is a bipartisan agreement on their terms.
