Virginia’s Governor Tim Kaine will visit William Byrd Community House Byrd House Market and Grace Arents Community Garden on Tuesday, June 16, 2009, from 3:30 to 4:15 p.m. Gov. Kaine has a long history of supporting Early Childhood Education and accepted William Byrd’s invitation when he learned how the organization used its farmers’ market and community garden as teaching tools for its numerous children’s programs.
I have known about this possibility for a while, but I did not want to steal any thunder by announcing it too early- Oregon Hill resident Silver Persinger is running against Jennifer McClellan for her State Delegate seat. Other RVA news sites are also carrying this story.
This is not a first for Persinger, who also covers City Council as an amateur journalist.
I have mentioned Oregon Hill’s activist history before, but then I was tipped off about this online entry:
Ida Mae Thompson was an important figure in Virginia’s woman suffrage movement, not for her political work but for her recordkeeping. First as a member of the Equal Suffrage League, the organization that led the effort to win women the right to vote, and then as a member of the League of Women Voters, Thompson collected and preserved the movement’s history.
……
Thompson and her English-born mother moved to Richmond in 1886 to live with Thompson’s brother, Otis, a telegraph operator. The family lived in a rented frame house in the working-class neighborhood of Oregon Hill, on South Cherry Street near Hollywood Cemetery, just down the street from the first free circulating library in Richmond.
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(Go to top link for full entry)
Oregon Hill resident Caroline Cox has written a back page opinion piece for Style magazine, entitled “Missing the Bag“. Its about the opportunity costs of taxpayer money.
“Most of the ongoing debate about the proposed $318 million ballpark-anchored development in Shockoe Bottom has centered on the best place to put a new baseball stadium. But it’s not about the ballpark. It’s about opportunity cost. It’s about resource management, public goods and democracy.”
In a recent Times Dispatch article on the City budget negotiations, 5th District Councilperson Marty Jewell expressed concern about cut funding for the City’s Parks & Recreation Department.
Councilman E. Martin Jewell said he’s frustrated that the council didn’t do more to support parks and recreation. Jones’ proposed budget calls for eliminating 29 vacant full-time positions, and Jewell said most are assigned to recreation programs.
“At a time when we’re approaching summer, we’re cutting . . . positions. Give me a break,” he said.
A neighbor was at City Hall last night during a budget hearing at City Council saw Executive Director Robert Bolling of the William Byrd Community House petitioning the City Council for funds.
Speaking of WBCH, don’t forget the Byrd Market tonight.
The Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association will meet this coming Tuesday
at 7 pm at the William Byrd Community House.
Because of some of the other activities that are happening at the WBCH
that evening, we will meet in a room upstairs.
Times Dispatch reporter Karin Kapsidelis researched and wrote a good, fairly objective overview of outgoing Virginia Commonwealth University President Eugene Trani’s term. Of course, I may not be that objective as I was the ‘loudest protester’ named in the article.
“He’s expanded VCU at the expense of a lot of other components of Richmond,” said Scott Burger, president of the Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association.
I would have liked to have seen more examination of Trani’s role as powerbroker, especially when he used his Richmond Renaissance position to not so gently persuade City Council to approve Dominion Power’s Special Use Permit for its headquarters and trading floor expansion at the expense of the river view, but I know its difficult to cover everything, even in a front page article.
We are hopeful that the new VCU president will be a reasonable man and a man of
honor. The sign of a great leader will be to make things better for the
surrounding communities as well as being an advocate for the university’s
improvement.
VCU is blessed with many gifted faculty members and students. Its president
should serve as a role model and use this talented staff for the betterment of
all parties involved. Oregon Hill and the other historic communities of Carver,
Jackson Ward, and Randolph have paid a dear price for the unbridled VCU
expansion. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is a pretty tough
golden rule to argue with.
But what is interesting are the anonymous online comments on the article. Here is a sample:
Trani bears much of the responsibility for this, when he took over there was a quick and drastic shift in the attitude VCU took towards students, faculty, and staff. In the end, Trani’s work has benefited property owners, local politicians, contractors, and the corporate entities that he has allowed to prey upon his students (read commodities). The students have not benefited at all, unless the student is a college basketball fan.
As usual, the RTD has it wrong. The negative posts regarding Trani on this thread out number the positive, and for someone who lives in the university community and knows many people that work at VCU at many different levels I can attest they share no love for the man either.
Ouch, and people call me harsh. A Sunday school lesson for us all: arrogance and “pride goeth before the fall”.
Proposed Amendments to be considered by the City Planning Commission. A public hearing on these amendments will be held on April 20, 2009 at 6:00pm in City Council Chambers (2nd floor, City Hall, 900 E. Broad Street)
Ever since I started living here I have had the dream- that one day, I could walk out my door with a small backpack, and hike or grab a ride down to Main Street Station in Shockoe Bottom, and catch a high speed train to the airport, to D.C., to Norfolk, to anywhere in the world. I am certainly not the only one. Virginians for High Speed Rail have been making the case for years (though they do it very drily).
When I first arrived here many years ago, I mentioned in a conversation how excited I was about the day that high speed rail to and from D.C. became reality in Richmond and how it would really change things. The person I was talking with gave a sympathetic chuckle and said, “You are new here, aren’t you? You will see…”
And I have seen. I have listened to the excuses and the reasons for the delays. I have heard the naysayers and distractions. I have learned about the Acca train yard and CSX obstacles. I have grown to understand and appreciate Richmond’s other tremendous needs for educational and institutional reform.
But that day is getting closer, and as citizens of Richmond, we should hunger for it, prepare for it, and even demand it. High speed rail and mass transit are too important for the future of this City to just wait idly by. And it should be part of other important conversations.