Oregon Hill and Randolph Neighborhood 5th District Cleanup

From 5th District City Council Liaison Amy Robins:

Hi OH neighbors! Your neighborhood cleanup is this Saturday from 9am-12pm.
Jimmy Blackford is going to need 4-5 volunteers to help in the alleys with the city waste truck. He’ll be meeting you at Pleasant’s Park (Albemarle & S. Laurel).
Councilmember Parker Agelasto & I will be meeting everyone else at Idlewood & Harrison along with Randolph neighbors. (This is the official neighborhood line.) We will tackle litter pick up, graffiti removal, and I’m trying to line up some more Tree Stewards for clearance pruning.
Being the dork I am, I normally have a birthday cleanup. This year since the dates were so close together I decided to leverage the volunteers into this one event. After the cleanup (~12:15pm), we’ll be doing a quick pot luck in P. Jones Park (Idlewood & Temple) in Randolph. Bring a swim suit if you like, it’s right next to the Randolph Pool and there is a playground for the little ones too.
My wife & I will provide water, plates, napkins, condiments, hotdogs, buns, and birthday cake. If you can bring a dish, chips or whatever please do. If you can’t, don’t let that hold you back from swinging by after volunteering!
I hope to see you at some point on Saturday!
Amy

From Cherry Street neighbor Jimmy Blackford:

William Byrd Center finally mowed the grass in their overgrown lot (& the baseball field, too!). So we can keep up the momentum with this Saturday’s Oregon Hill Alley Cleanup. Can you join us at 9 am Sat. 6/17 at Pleasant’s Park? We’ll go thru the alleys with a city trash truck to gather all the discarded furniture etc. If that’s not your bag, join us anyway & we’ll give you a trash bag & grabber fior you to pick up litter in the neighborhood. We’ll meet at the park at S. Laurel St & Albemarle St.

Also, here’s the link for the FaceBook Event Page.

Recent Crimes

From CommunityCrimeMap.com:

THEFT FROM MOTOR VEHICLE
6XX CHINA ST
Jun 13, 2017 at 5:30 am
Data provided by Richmond Police Department

DESTRUCTION PROPERTY/PRIVATE PROPERTY
7XX OREGON HILL PKWY
Jun 11, 2017 at 7:00 pm
Data provided by Richmond Police Department

HIT AND RUN
3XX S LAUREL ST
Jun 11, 2017 at 6:13 pm
Data provided by Richmond Police Department

WEAPON LAW VIOLATIONS
9XX CUMBERLAND ST
Jun 11, 2017 at 12:38 am
Data provided by Richmond Police Department

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 recycling news, read the Central Virginia Waste Management Authority’s June 2017 Waste Reduction News e-newsletter by clicking here.

Don’t forget to sign up for the Oregon Hill & Randolph Neighborhood 5th District Cleanup on June 17th.

From the FaceBook event page:

We will be partnering with neighbors, HandsOn, and RVA Clean Sweep.

Each neighborhood will have its own city waste truck to clear alleys. The Richmond Tree Stewards are going to come out and help with developmental pruning of the trees planted on Harrison/Colorado. Activites will range from litter pick up to beautification projects.

If you have something in mind contact amy.robins@richmondgov.com.

Please wear closed toed shoes, dress according to the weather, and bring a water bottle. We will meet inbetween Grayland & Idlewood at Harrison.

Chesterfield County’s Water

Why is the Oregon Hill community news site posting about Chesterfield County’s water?

You probably still need to read this week’s Richmond Free Press. As with last week’s article on Monroe Park, reporter Jeremy Lazarus is supplying some valuable insight to how this area (dys)functions. For some mysterious reason, the following front-page article does not appear on the newspaper’s website, but here are photos of the printed version:

Please take the the time to read the second page, which includes hard-hitting quotes from former Sierra Club leader Dr. Charles Price on this attempted usurping of a public park as well as from Laurel Street neighbor Charles Pool on the City’s regressive water utility fees.

Although the Richmond Free Press article does not mention it, some neighbors are also speculating about how Chesterfield County might resell their ‘bargain’ on City water to Niagra Bottling LLC. Is City of Richmond not only forced to provide Chesterfield Co. water at a fifth the cost that Richmond customers must pay, but also subsidizing cheap water for the Niagara Bottling LLC? Are we really going to be damaging a Richmond city park to build a water facility so that Niagara Bottling Company can have cheap water?!

While Oregon Hill is not in Chesterfield County, our neighbors continue to keep an eye on local water issues and hope more media like the Richmond Free Press does the same.

The Boss At Monroe Park

Re-post from neighbor Todd Woodson in the Fans of Monroe Park FaceBook group:

There was a free show in Monroe Park on June 1, 1969 including the Richmond debut of the band Child featuring a young Bruce Springsteen. They did 3 songs before, as I recall, they got shut down by police at the urging of the residents of the Prestwould. The songs played were Voodoo Child, Jennifer and Crown Liquor. This photo, courtesy of BruceBase was supposedly taken of the Boss at Monroe Park at the 1969 show. They would return to Monroe Park on July 18, 1971 as the Bruce Springsteen Band…

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.