From Councilperson Agelasto:
The temporary “LOVE” letters sculpture may be coming to the Oregon Hill Overlook pending the Public Art Commission approval on Tuesday, May 13th, at 9:15 am in the 5th Floor Conference Room at City Hall.
For some examples of “LOVE” installations, click here.
From City Press release:
COUNCIL PUBLIC INFORMATION NEWS ADVISORY
IMMEDIATE RELEASE TO BE FORWARDED AND SHAREDMonday, 5 May 2014
Virginia First Lady Dorothy McAuliffe and Richmond Councilman Parker C. Agelasto to Open 8th Season of William Byrd Community House Farmers’ Market
Everyone invited and encouraged to attend
WHAT (Richmond, Virginia U.S.A.) – First Lady of Virginia, Dorothy McAuliffe, will join The Honorable Parker C. Agelasto, Councilman, Richmond City Council, Richmond Central 5th Voter District in opening the 8th season of the William Byrd Community House Farmers’ Market. The event will include a tour, preschoolers, live music and 22 farmers, food-makers and hand-crafters.
Accompanying Mrs. McAuliffe will be Mr. Chris Blain, the new Virginia Executive Mansion Chef, who will shop for local foods to be used in the mansion’s kitchen.
The William Byrd Community House Farmers’ Market is held on Tuesdays, from 3:30 – 7:00 p.m., weekly from May through October.
WHEN Tuesday, May 6, 2014
3:30 -4:30 p.m.WHERE William Byrd Community House Farmers’ Market
980 Idlewood Avenue, Richmond, Virginia 23220
(Corner of Idlewood Avenue and S. Linden Street)WHO
First Lady of Virginia, Dorothy McAuliffe
The Honorable Parker C. Agelasto, Councilman
Richmond City Council, Richmond Central 5th Voter DistrictMs. Shelia Givens, Executive Director, William Byrd Community House
CONTACT For more information, please contact
The Honorable Parker C. Agelasto, Councilman, Richmond City Council, Richmond Central 5th Voter District, at 804.646.6050 (tel), or parker.agelasto@richmondgov.com (email)– E N D –
From the Times Dispatch:
About 24 hours remain before the time trials for the CapTech USA Cycling Collegiate Road National Championships begin, and a push is underway to make sure residents are aware of the major traffic disruption coming their way.
The three-day championships, which begin Friday, will close dozens of streets in Richmond and force drivers onto different routes.
To help alleviate some potential headaches, organizers will announce this morning that the start of Friday’s time trials has been pushed back 15 minutes to 9:15 a.m. The first day should finish about 4:30 p.m.
I have reported this before, but here is the link again for a pdf list of routes and road closures.
From RVANews.com:
Friday’s course stretches from Boulevard and W. Broad Street, to Oregon Hill and the Southside via the Lee Bridge, to downtown and parts of Church Hill.
Towing will begin at 3:00 AM on Friday and run until 7:00 PM along the course route. So make sure you move your car Thursday night.
Keeping to their word, Open High School students, some of Richmond’s best and brightest, walked out of the former Grace Arents school today to march on City Hall. Their message? Something that many of my neighbors and I have been saying for years- PUBLIC priorities, such as schools, should come before private special interests like the Redskins. Hopefully the Mayor and City Council will listen to these young citizens.
From Times Dispatch article:
A group of students from Open High School is planning to lead a march on City Hall on Monday to protest the physical condition of school facilities in the city of Richmond.
The students plan to walk out of class at 8:30 a.m. and begin the mile-plus march from Oregon Hill toward downtown. They should reach City Hall by 9 a.m. and plan to hold a peaceful demonstration.“It’s a way for the public to see the faces of students of Richmond Public Schools,” said Isabella Arias, a senior at Open.
She said the idea came up early this month after media reports of several particularly decrepit school buildings.
In a Facebook event called “RPS Walkout,” Arias and other organizers cited several specific problems, including roof failures at Fairfield Court Elementary and Thompson Middle schools and rodent problems at Carver Elementary and Armstrong High schools.
“When we read that, we were really horrified at how terrible the conditions are,” she said.
“These conditions continue to worsen as time passes and are simply disregarded by school officials, City Hall, the mayor and many others,” the organizers say on Facebook.
“Funds could be allocated to repair our dilapidated schools (as was done for the Redskins training camp) if those in charge saw it as a priority. Instead however, the officials of Richmond brush off the needs of RPS students.
“We are not their priority. They fail to see the value in our education or even our general well-being. They must be reminded of our numbers so that they may see our value.”
There was a small article in yesterday’s Times Dispatch regarding the move of Dominion’s operations center from Innsbrook to I 295.
When Dominion applied for the special use permit for its Tredegar St. headquarters back in 2001, approval was given because they promised to move their operations center with “hundreds of jobs” from the county to Tredegar Street. A neighbor showed photos of flooding at the Tredegar site, and neighbors pointed out that it was absurd to think that they were moving their operations center with a fleet of vehicles and fueling infrastructure to this site beside the river with limited access. But the City’s Planning Commission rubber stamped the bogus plan anyway. When neighbors met with Dominion as recently as two years ago regarding the 2nd Street connector, the Dominion representative still maintained that they have the right to build in the future the huge tower that was supposed to be the new operations center!
Hopefully, Church Hill will fare better than Oregon Hill has in fending off rapacious, private development that goes against existing planning and steals from the public river view sheds. It should come as no surprise that many of those forces supporting the high rise project against Church Hill are the same as who are supporting the flawed Shockoe stadium proposal. City government should recognize the difference between good, popular development projects that enhance residents’ quality of life vs. bad, dishonorable development projects that are based on greed.
The Times Dispatch this morning has an article on the continuing controversy regarding VCU’s billboard signs. Here is an excerpt:
In another skirmish dealing with Monroe Park, a Richmond official has proposed revoking Virginia Commonwealth University’s permission to put up directional signs near the city-owned park that abuts the VCU campus.
Two signs, one at North Belvidere and West Main streets and another near the intersection of North Laurel Street and South Cathedral Place on the western side of the park, would have to be removed under legislation introduced by City Councilman Parker C. Agelasto, 5th District.
The sign on Laurel is affixed to a traffic pole, while the one on Main is freestanding on the sidewalk. Agelasto took more issue with the latter, saying the sign measures 4½ by 9 feet and creates visibility issues.
“I’m concerned about the traffic accident counts increasing as a result of a large, overly sized wayfinding sign at an intersection that was already having significant accidents,” Agelasto said.
A City Council committee voted Monday to ask Agelasto to withdraw the proposal until the city has had more time to analyze traffic data to determine if Agelasto is correct that the signs pose a hazard. Both the city traffic engineer and a VCU official disagreed with the notion that the signs are creating problems.
However, last night neighbor Todd Woodson reported that “due to interference from Graziano and Baliles, the bill on revoking the permission to put the signs up has been stricken.”
While City Council was busy figuring out how to give away Richmond’s oldest PUBLIC park, I was doing some walking down at the riverfront. I was disgusted by what I saw:
Cars are parked right next to the historic Kanawha Canal. Trash everywhere. Venture Richmond, the property holder, has allowed this very important historical site to become a trashy parking lot! Will there be any repercussions this time?
It is outrageous that the City government wants to give them tax exemptions on the land and let them build an unneeded amphitheater.
This is what happens when you have a corporate government that is not accountable to the public.
From Councilperson Parker Agelasto:
Dear all,
I am passing along information about the 2014 USA Cycling Collegiate Road National Championship occurring May 2 – 4. There will be road closings affecting the northeastern portion of the 5th District. Please note that the provisions that have been recommended to accommodate for ingress and egress from neighborhoods. Oregon Hill will be most affected and will gain access by the temporary conversion of 2nd Street to two-way.
Please feel free to distribute this information to your civic association members as I am certain they will want to know.
Many thanks,
Parker C. Agelasto
Richmond City Council, 5th District
Click here for full Power Point file- 4.8.14 Traffic Impact Presser_v2
There is a special meeting of the City’s Land Use Committee today.
Wed, April 9, 4:00pm – 5:30pm
Description
The Land Use, Housing and Transportation Standing Committee will conduct a special meeting to consider bids received regarding Ord. No. 2014-10.NOTE: No public hearing will be held at this meeting as it was held at the 3/24/14 Richmond City Council meeting that was held at 6:00 p.m.
Bob Powell’s Richmond Examiner outlines some of the issues in the controversy. Here is an excerpt from his article:
It also goes to a fundamental question of society. To what extent should a private company be allowed to run a public trust ?
Advocates for the Homeless say the Charter Park concept is just a way to remove the Homeless from the park. Monroe Park is home to several feeding programs run by churches and the secular activist Food Not Bombs.
Activists and civil libertarians feel that a Charter Park will usurp the legal rights of dissident groups who often use the park for rallies,demonstrations and marches.
The right of center Richmond Times Dispatch editorial page has opined that the Charter Park machinations by the Mayor lacked transparency.
There is one bit of agreement among all parties . Monroe Park needs repairs and upgrades to its infrastructure. Maintence people complain that pipes and other lines underneath the ground are a nightmare in need of modernization. Trees need to be trimmed, grass grown, old greenery put out. New tech toys like WiFi need to be introduced.
In 2010, plans were introduced to shut down the park for repairs. A fence was to be built around the park to keep people out. Homeless advocates , in March of 2011, moved into the park as a protest against shutting down homeless feeding programs. The occupation ended with 9 arrests.
In October of 2011, Occupy Richmond was thwarted by the police from taking over Monroe Park.
From 2011 until December of 2013, a period of two years, there was no money in the City coffers to afford a $6 million do over for the newly created Charter Park. The fence nor the improvements happened.Suddenly, the Mayor comes up with $3million while Alice Massie promises $3million in nine months from corporate donors.
The Monroe Park fight is not the first in a series of fights over public spaces in Richmond. The Washington Redskins, second richest pro football team, was handed a sweetheart deal for public land space last summer. There is a controversy over development in Shockoe Bottom over a minor league baseball system.
The Charter Park controversy is not new to Richmond. Municipalities all over the country have wrestled with the private corporate influnce over open space.