Open High Fundraiser Thursday

From a parent:

At Open High, students are grouped into families. As a school, we will be hosting an Art and Talent Show, to be held on from 5:30-8 pm on Thursday, June 1, at Clark Springs Elementary School.
We will have food, art work for sale, a fashion show, a hair show, dancing , spoken word, a taco bar and dessert for sale… all wrapped up into one evening with musical accompaniment.
PROCEEDS FROM THE AUCTION GO TO SUPPLIES FOR THE ART DEPT. AND PROCEEDS FROM THE FOOD GO TO THE OPEN HIGH PTSA.

61st Commonwealth’s Memorial Day Ceremony

From the Virginia War Memorial website:

Monday, May 29, 2017 – 10:00am to 11:00am
VWM Grounds
Join us as we honor and remember all veterans who gave their lives to preserve our freedoms from the Revolutionary War to today’s conflicts. Guest speaker will be Major General Timothy P. Williams, The Adjutant General, Virginia National Guard. Co-hosted with the 11th District American Legion. The Galanti Education Center will be open extended hours Memorial Day until 7 pm.

The “Never Forget Memorial Run” is a 1.4 mile silent run from VCU and finishes at the Virginia War Memorial just past noon on Memorial Day. The run is hosted by the VCU Police Department to honor fallen U.S. armed service members.

The Thomas Jefferson High School Alumni Cadet Corps and Friends Band will play patriotic tunes in the Shrine of Memory at 2 pm on Memorial Day. Bring your own chairs and set up in the Virginia War Memorial’s Shrine to be a part of this invigorating program!

As always parking and admission is free of charge.

Editorial: Free Press Article On Monroe Park Both Vindicates and Condemns City Council

There was a great piece of reporting this week from the Richmond Free Press on Monroe Park financial wrangling. From reporter Jeremy Lazarus:

After telling City Council in December that the projected $6 million Monroe Park project — half to be paid by private donations — had adequate funding, the city’s chief administrative officer, Selena Cuffee-Glenn, quietly shifted $833,569 to the project in recent months from reportedly unused capital funds.

The shift was made without notice to City Council and was disclosed as the result of queries from Councilman Parker C. Agelasto, 5th District, and the council’s budget staff.

Mr. Agelasto also was surprised to learn that nearly half of the money shifted, $394,000, was listed as coming from two paving projects in his district that already had been completed and paid for — one involving Allen Avenue and the other involving paving at Meadow Street, Colorado Avenue and Harrison Street.

As the article mentions, this vindicates City Council’s amendment to Mayor Levar M. Stoney’s proposed budget that requires the administration to seek council approval before shifting funds between programs in major departments. Despite some previous editorials’ characterizations, City Council is not ‘overreaching’ by trying to get a handle on the City’s finances. (Special appreciation to 5th District Councilperson Agelasto for his dogged questioning.)

On the other hand, these revelations reflect City Council’s poor judgement in turning historic Monroe Park over to the Monroe Park Conservancy in the first place. Many citizens and the Sierra Club Falls of the James have previously called for a termination of the Conservancy’s lease and a return to public investment and public oversight of renovations of this public park. Many are questioning why corporations seem to have special tent rights for park use. While it’s too late to save many park trees, it’s not too late for City Council to do the right thing.

Yard Sale Tomorrow

From Craigslist ad:

Yard Sale!!! Saturday May 27th at 502 S Laurel St. 10am-4pm (or until it rains). We made 8 signs (that’s the most we’ve ever made)…if you find Oregon Hill you will find us. We have a barbers chair, records, old timey photo stuff, an excersize ball, and several other things for ownership consideration.

The Foundry Market At Tredegar This Sunday

The American Civil War Center at Tredegar Iron Works is hosting ‘The Foundry Market’ from 12 pm to 4 pm this Sunday (and also June 11).

From event description:

The American Civil War Museum’s Foundry Market is an artisan craft fair with an emphasis on handmade, local products. We’ll have vendors from across the state, demonstrations of craftsman at work, and food trucks.

Bring the whole family down for a Sunday at Historic Tredegar and imagine what our bustling ironworks might have been like 150 years ago.

PARTICIPATING VENDORS:
Beego Handmade
Flourish Creative
Grid+Love
Liberatus Jewelry
Matthew Pellman
Morris and Norris
MudLOVE
New Custom
Nicholas Creek Forge
PaperFreckles
Paper Rose
Petite Shards Productions
Renan Banjos
Robin’s Egg Jewelry
Ruby Belle Adornments
Sew Brave Designs
The Bird & Elephant
The Timbered Wolf
The Wild Wander
thimbleberry

….and more!

Trash/Recycling Pickup Tomorrow

This Wednesday is a “Red Wednesday”, which means trash and recycling pickup. Ideally, rolling recycling containers are stored and deployed in the back alleys along with trash cans. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night.

If you have not done so already, don’t forget to sign up for your Recycling Perks.
In order to take your recycling to the next level, read this: 10 ways to improve your recycling.

In Virginia recycling news, there’s been some turmoil following the collapse of a national company known as Closed Loop Refining and Recovery.

From an article on this subject:

The Central Virginia Waste Management Authority (CVWMA) terminated its contract with eWaste Tech due to glass-management concerns, E-Scrap News has learned.

Kim Hynes, the executive director of CVWMA, said she ended a contract with eWaste Tech last month after learning CRT glass was no longer moving downstream from the company’s Richmond headquarters. CVWMA and eWaste Tech partnered in 2015 to host a variety of collection events in the region.

Writer Anna Journey

Writer Anna Journey was recently interviewed for VCU News. A VCU creative writing alumna who now teaches at University of Southern California, she is becoming well now for her poetry and essays. Her latest work, “An Arrangement of Skin”, is receiving a lot of praise.

In the interview, she is asked about her time at VCU-

Living in Richmond, too, profoundly influenced my development as a writer. I moved from Northern Virginia to Richmond when I was 18 and left for my doctoral studies in Texas just before I turned 27. So I came of age in Richmond, became more of my adult self there. I don’t think I recognized how thoroughly the character of the city shaped my sensibility until I’d moved away. I lived for a number of years in Oregon Hill, just three blocks down from the Sothern Gothic sprawl of Hollywood Cemetery, so that landscape — of mortality, of lavish visual and historical density — lodged itself in my consciousness.