All results / Stories / Jeremy M. Lazarus
Mayor eschews status quo, urges city to think bigger in State of City address
Stop being afraid to do something great. That’s Mayor Levar M. Stoney’s response to the opposition to the $1.5 billion Coliseum replacement plan that so far has failed to gain widespread public support.
Virginia playing central role in high-stakes Nov. 6 election
Call it a high-stakes referendum on Donald Trump’s presidency and the Republican agenda that includes proposals to slash spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and anti-poverty programs to pay for tax cuts, appoint conservative judges to roll back voting rights and affirmative action, eliminate environmental protections and end abortions.
Final stanza
Larry Bland, director of The Volunteer Choir, is calling it quits as group reaches 50th anniversary
A local gospel music group that has been generating sounds of joy and inspiration for 50 years could soon be no more. Larry Bland & The Volunteer Choir is scheduled to make three appearances this year to mark its golden anniversary milestone, and then Mr. Bland said he will retire as the group’s director and chief organizer.
New housing honcho
RRHA’s leader Damon Duncan outlines priorities that will impact city’s 10,000 public housing residents
The new chief executive officer of the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority is vowing that the agency will move “expeditiously” to redevelop the city’s decaying public housing.
Broken promises end legacy at 17th Street Farmers’ Market
They have been fixtures at the 17th Street Farmers’ Market in Shockoe Bottom for decades, just like their parents and grandparents before them. Now, sisters Evelyn Luceal Allen, 84, and Rosa L. Fleming, 80, have closed their stand beside the market from which they daily sold greens, tomatoes, watermelons, potatoes and other produce grown on their land in Hanover County.
RPS school construction costs, process criticized
Richmond School Board members Kenya Gibson, 3rd District, and Jonathan Young, 4th District, used Monday’s School Board meeting to express concern that the bidding process Mayor Levar M. Stoney’s administration used to choose contractors to build three new district schools has added tens of millions of dollars to the cost.
Area meal programs feed first responders, help restaurants
City Hall is planning to pump more than $500,000 over the next two months into Richmond-based restaurants that serve meals to Richmond police officers, firefighters and ambulance staff.
Former city worker and union advocate: ‘I had no one to go to bat for me’
Andrew Thomas hoped to build a career in the Richmond Department of Public Utilities. Instead, the 49-year-old Jamaica native has quit the department after seven years.
Casino proposals offer a range of sweeteners for city
First there were six. Now there are three companies competing for the Richmond license for a casino after a city panel discarded three other proposals last week. Soon there will be just one.
Forward by faith
COVID-19 survivor Rev. Morris R. Gant Jr. credits faith, prayers and medical care for getting him to the other side of pandemic
Tens of thousands of people across Virginia and millions across the nation have been infected with COVID-19 — and the data show the vast majority recovered without feeling much effect. So how bad can this virus be? Just ask the Rev. Morris R. Gant Jr., 62, who is living proof of the agony that those hit hardest can endure — if they live.
Turning back time
Thousands of people attended last Saturday’s inauguration of Virginia’s new GOP leaders – Gov. Glenn A. Youngkin, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and Attorney General Jason Miyares
“The spirit of Virginia is alive and well,” Glenn Allen Youngkin declared as after being sworn in as Virginia’s 74th governor.
Richmond’s Randall Robinson reshaped American’s foreign policy, forced change in South Africa
Seared by the segregation he grew up with in Richmond, Randall Maurice Robinson championed change in American policies toward African and the Caribbean nations that he considered unjust and undergirded by racial bias.
Republicans retain control of Va. Senate
For more than two hours after the polls closed Tuesday, Democrat Daniel H. Gecker held a commanding 3,000-vote lead and appeared to be headed for victory in the 10th Senate District that includes a chunk of Richmond’s West End and South Side.
Federal recognition for Pamunkeys brings tribe closer to nationhood
Defeated in battles with the English invaders who took their land, the Pamunkey Indians have been on a reservation and under the thumb of Virginia’s government for more than 350 years — long before there was a state. Now the dwindling descendants of Pocahontas, Powhatan and other members of the tribe that met the first English settlers to Jamestown in 1607 are one step closer to gaining their independence — and separation from Virginia.
RRHA resident’s chilly 3-year ordeal
For the past three years, Tina Marie Shaw has had to rely on an electric space heater to keep the winter cold out of her public housing unit in Creighton Court. “I worry about the heater starting a fire,” said Ms. Shaw, who looks after her 9-year-old grandson, Xavia, her pride and joy and an honors student at a Richmond elementary school. To avoid risk to herself and the child, “I unplug (the heater) at night when I go upstairs to bed, and turn it on in the morning.”
Source: City Hall knew Adediran was managing church project
It was no secret at Richmond City Hall that city Public Works Director Emmanuel O. Adediran was doubling as project manager for a new $5.3 million sanctuary that First Baptist Church of South Richmond is building in Chesterfield County, the Free Press has learned. According to a highly knowledgeable source, “everyone knew (Mr. Adediran) had been asked by the mayor to help with the church project.”
Polls open on Super Tuesday March 3 for Democratic presidential primary contest
Voters in Virginia are getting their chance to help select the Democratic contender to face President Trump in the fall election.
City to open Friday at a ‘slow and steady pace’
Even with the coronavirus still causing sickness and death, Richmond is finally set to reopen, though gingerly and in a limited fashion, under what the state terms Phase One. It will be far from business as usual.
City erupts
Death of George Floyd in Minneapolis prompts plans for reform by Mayor Stoney and Gov. Northam, including removal of Confederate statues on Monument Avenue
The statues of Confederate traitors are headed for removal from Monument Avenue — ending their long reign as white supremacist icons of Richmond that extends back to 1890.
Probe into Northam’s blackface scandal ‘inconclusive’
Was Gov. Ralph S. Northam actually one of the people in the racist photo on his Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook page in 1984? It’s “inconclusive.”
