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Money moved to restore alley blitz

Jeremy M. Lazarus | 6/2/2017, 7:39 a.m.
The alley blitz is back on track. Bobby Vincent, director of the Richmond Department of Public Works, received the $700,000 …

The alley blitz is back on track.

Bobby Vincent, director of the Richmond Department of Public Works, received the $700,000 his department needs to begin hiring up to 20 temporary workers and to rent front loaders and rollers.

He expects the three-month effort to get underway within two weeks now that his money problem has been solved.

The money became available Monday night as Richmond City Council voted 8-1 to allow Mayor Levar M. Stoney to shuffle funds among departments in the current budget for the 2017 fiscal year that will end June 30.

That included promised funding for the alley blitz and $400,000 to support Public Works’ efforts to step up grass mowing at parks and schools and on median strips and other city property.

Overall, the budget amendment slashed about $4 million in spending to reflect reduced revenues, although some departments including Public Works received extra funds.

There were no fireworks. The only opposition came from Councilman Parker C. Agelasto, 5th District. He said his no vote was a protest against having to rubber-stamp the changes that were presented to the council only last week. His main complaint was the inability to get adequate information “about five or six things” included on the list of changes.

Mr. Agelasto said that since May 9, he has been asking Mr. Vincent and Selena Cuffee-Glenn, the city’s chief administrative officer, for information on what alleys would be done in his district. So far, he said, he has been stonewalled.

“People who have been calling the city would like to know if their alley will be among those that will get fixed, but I can’t tell them,” he said.

Mr. Vincent distributed information showing the number of miles of alleys to be improved per council district, but offered no specifics on locations. In the 5th District, 29 miles of alleys are to be improved. Overall, 209 miles are to be improved in 98 unspecified neighborhoods, the information sheet indicates.

The eight other council members were ready to allow the changes, particularly after Mayor Stoney announced he would not veto a controversial fiscal 2018 budget amendment that the council approved requiring the administration to seek permission to move money within major departments.

While Mayor Stoney called the amendment “an overreach,” he said he would accept the amendment last Friday before flying to Las Vegas to spend most of the week pitching Richmond to commercial developers and major retail stores in a bid to attract new business to the city.

However, during the discussion Monday night, council members raised concerns. For example, Andreas D. Addison, 1st District, said he hopes the administration would present information like this in a more timely fashion in the future.

Kristen N. Larson, 4th District, also noted that most of the money came from savings from positions that were authorized, but left unfilled.

She noted that departments came to the council during the hearings on the new budget to ask for funding for positions that were essential but which the mayor and his administration failed to fund.

She said she had a hard time understanding how the city could generate millions in vacancy savings at the same time department leaders were bombarding the council with pleas for help to pay staff.

One item that raised eyebrows was the $1.47 million in vacancy savings that came from the Richmond Police Department.

Chief Alfred Durham, who had pleaded for more cash to improve salaries and hire more people, said the money resulted from retirements and departures of officers who could not immediately be replaced.

He said he has the funding to be able to nearly reach his authorized strength of 750 sworn officers, although at least 43 are recruits who will either complete seven months of training or will start training in the next three weeks.

Still, it remains a sore point for the council that they were pushed in December to approve $1.6 million to enable Chief Durham to start a new recruit class and now find that he would have had most of the money he needed in his current budget as a result of the departures.