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No more money for school maintenance
Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras is alarmed. He just found out that, as of March 31, RPS has only $881,143 left through June 30 to spend on school maintenance needs.
VCU drops Moore Street School day care project
Virginia Commonwealth University apparently has dropped its $5 million plan to transform the historic, but deteriorating Moore Street School in the Carver community near Downtown into a day care and child development center for pre-school children.
Churchgoers have little love for Love Rox runs
Once again, Richmond Multisports staged its Love Rox half-marathon, 10K and 5K runs through Downtown at the same time that churches were seeking to hold services. And once again, the event created friction and upset for worshippers, though apparently a bit less disruption than last year. Fewer streets seem to have been closed this year to make way for the hundreds of participants who turned out to run in the chill.
Maggie Walker Class of 1967 starting cleanup effort at area cemeteries
A renewed effort is being mounted to clean up four long neglected, but historic African-American cemeteries that sit on the eastern border between Richmond and Henrico County.
CARE van drivers reject latest contract offer
Union drivers who provide door-to-door service for the elderly and disabled on the area’s CARE vans have rejected a new contract that lacked the wage increases and improvements they sought.
RPS plans for Fox Elementary to rise from ashes
A virtually identical Fox Elementary School building can rise from the ashes, without additional cost to Richmond Public Schools.
Richmond area toy drives and distribution
Christmas drives are underway to try to ensure that children in struggling families receive gifts.
VCU’s rat de-bait
State senator sounds alarm over Monroe Park rodents
Virginia Commonwealth University claims that rats in Monroe Park can rip open metal trash cans to get to discarded food—even though an inspection of the metal cans show that the bottoms are undamaged. The university, which handles maintenance of the park, issued that claim in response to a query from Richmond state Sen. Ghazal Hashmi about VCU’s expenditure of $2,400 a month to spread poison-bait rat traps throughout the city’s oldest park.
27% Black-owned businesses gain from Stone Brewing project
Black contractors have quietly played a big role in the development of the Stone Brewing Co.’s new East Coast brewery off Williamsburg Avenue in Fulton, according to city records. For example, Glen Allen contractor Dwight Snead and his employees prepared the land for construction, the city Office of Minority Business Development (OMBD) report shows.
Changes at 2 North Side funeral homes
They may deal with death, but two venerable, African-American-owned funeral homes in North Side are getting new life. The former W.S. Watkins & Son Funeral Home at 2700 North Ave. has new owners who vow to rebuild the 84-year-old business.
New VUU president
Dr. Hakim J. Lucas of Bethune-Cookman tapped as school’s 13th president
They’ve been rivals forever, but Virginia Union and Virginia State universities soon will have one thing in common — a first-time president with executive credentials honed at Bethune-Cookman University in Florida. Twenty months after VSU hired Bethune-Cookman Provost Makola M. Abdullah as its 14th president, VUU announced that the Florida university’s chief fundraiser, Dr. Hakim J. Lucas, would become its 13th president, effective Sept. 1. Dr. Lucas’ appointment was announced Tuesday by Dr. W. Franklyn Richardson, VUU’s board chairman, following a 14-month search to replace former President Claude G. Perkins, who stepped down in June 2016, first taking a sabbatical and then retiring.
Court may wind up redrawing lines for House of Delegates districts
Federal judges could end up redrawing the boundaries of 11 districts in the House of Delegates — including four in the Richmond-Petersburg area and seven in Hampton Roads — that were found to be illegally overloaded with black voters.
GOP holds 51-49 edge over Dems in House after election certification
Democrat Joshua Cole fell just 82 votes short of becoming the first African-American delegate to represent Stafford County and end outright Republican control of the House of Delegates, according to the state Board of Elections.
Referendum idea to give voters a say in casino dollars and schools dropped
Not happening. City Council has declined to consider putting an advisory referendum on the November ballot that would allow city voters to decide if tax revenues from a casino should go to modernizing Richmond’s school buildings.
City seeks court order authorizing 2nd casino referendum
City Hall is rushing to secure a Richmond Circuit Court order to authorize a second casino referendum in November before the General Assembly can block it through budget language, the Free Press has learned.
Special prosecutor wants State Police involvement in Confederate statue removal probe
Yes, it merits investigation. No, I’m not going to conduct it. That’s the answer Timothy A. Martin, the Augusta County commonwealth’s attorney, has provided to the question of whether a probe is needed of Richmond’s spending of $1.8 million to remove city-owned Confederate statues from Monument Avenue and other locations in early July.
New poll shows Mayor Stoney ahead in re-election bid
Less than 40 percent of Richmond’s voters support the re-election of Mayor Levar M. Stoney, but with just a month to go, he appears to be on track to win at least five council districts in again facing a splintered opposition, a new poll of Richmond voters indicates.
Land conservancy to acquire 5.2 acres on riverfront for parkland
Instead of private condos or offices, a major piece of Dock Street property that nestles the James River is on its way to becoming parkland everyone can use.
New VCU Health Adult Outpatient Pavilion to open Dec. 6
After more than four years of design and construction, opening day is finally arriving for the new Adult Outpatient Pavilion on the medical campus of Virginia Commonwealth University.
Sharon Baptist Church hosts New Year’s Emancipation Day Service
One Jan. 1, 1863, as the Civil War raged, President Abraham Lincoln took the momentous step of abolishing slavery in Virginia and other Southern states that were fighting to break away from the United States. That watershed moment in American history once again will be celebrated in Richmond on New Year’s Day at a service sponsored by the Baptist Ministers’ Conference of Richmond and Vicinity at a new location.
