All results / Stories / Jeremy M. Lazarus
GRTC to pilot on-demand service for elderly, disabled
Taxicab, Uber and Lyft drivers soon could be taking elderly and disabled people shopping, to the doctor and to other places in Richmond and Henrico County.
Cleared
Allegations dismissed that Mayor Dwight C. Jones used city resources to benefit his church
Mayor Dwight C. Jones is off the hook. Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael N. Herring announced Wednesday that Mayor Jones has been cleared of allegations that he used city resources to benefit the South Side church where he also is senior pastor.
Gov. McAuliffe announces criminal justice reform
Gov. Terry McAuliffe is proposing changes in state laws that could help reduce the number of people who end up becoming unemployed or who are sent to prison.
Scooter legislation advances in City Council
Electric scooters are headed to Richmond, but this time legally. After two months of talks and review, Richmond City Council appears poised to approve legislation that would authorize scooter companies such as Bird and Lime to begin offering rental service.
Room to grow
Anna Julia Cooper Episcopal School seeks to expand with help from city
A private Episcopal school in the East End that currently offers a tuition-free education to l08 children mostly from low-income families living in public housing is working with the city to buy an acre of land for its first big expansion.
Training program for released convicts faces shutdown
Rodney Brown had just served a six-year sentence in prison in 2018 when he found his way to the nonprofit Adult Alternative Program at 4929 Chamberlayne Ave. in the city’s North Side.
RRHA to sell 26 homes to highest bidders
A major opportunity to create affordable homes for families with below average incomes in Richmond is going by the wayside.
A helping hand is just a call away
Need help with housing or utility costs? Want to learn about child care options? Looking for employment? So many people say they don’t know where to start to get the answers they need.
City starts down road to regulate short-term rentals
Want to use Airbnb, FlipKey, VRBO or other online websites to rent your Richmond home or apartment to travelers?
Supply and demand
City’s ‘housing crisis’ calls for 23,000 affordable living spaces
Seeking to put fresh emphasis on an issue that has been on the agenda for at least a decade, City Council on Monday followed through and joined Mayor Levar M. Stoney in “declaring a housing crisis in the city of Richmond.”
Richmond Virtual Academy may become its own school
The Richmond Virtual Academy is to become a new elementary school that could enroll between 400 and 500 students a year in online classes, the Richmond School Board decided Monday night. Instead of phasing out the program online learning program as Superintendent Jason Kamras proposed in February, the board, after hearing pleas from academy supporters, adopted a proposal by School Board member Kenya Gibson, 3rd District, to make RVA a school of record like other elementary schools, and eligible for annual state and local funding like other schools. While that decision must be approved by the state Department of Education, the vote to keep RVA as a functioning entity came as the board finalized its budget for the 2022-23 fiscal year. The board had a deadline on Wednesday to deliver a finished budget to City Council. Overall, the approved budget authorizes a record $548 million in total spending, or an expenditure of about $25,253 for each of the 21,700 students RPS estimated as enrolled in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. Along with grants and one-time federal funds, the RPS budget provides $356.6 million in general fund spending, which mostly includes revenue from the city and state, or about $16,400 per student. The board, which cut $6 million from Mr. Kamras’ original general fund proposal, is relying on receiving a $15 million increase from the city in the fiscal year that begins July 1. That would boost total support from the city from $185.3 million this fiscal year to a new record of $200.3 million in 2022- 23. The increase from the city is largely designed to fund the local share of a 5 percent pay increase for teachers and other staff that the state plans to institute. Staff and teachers of the Richmond Virtual Academy, currently listed as a program and funded with federal CARES Act dollars, advocated for it to remain open and funded and rallied parents to lobby for the survival of the academy that adopted the owl as its mascot and bills itself as a space “where learning is a hoot.” The board’s vote was both a reaction to the lobbying and a rebuke to the adminis- tration, which had notified the academy’s entire staff that they would be laid off as of July 1 and would need to reapply for positions within RPS. Mr. Kamras initially proposed cutting the program from 70 to just 10 instructors, who would largely teach homebound students too sick or injured to come to school or students removed from in-person learning for discipline reasons. Cindi Robinson, the academy’s princi- pal, said the board’s action is good news for parents and students. “Virtual learning is not just a Band-Aid,” Ms. Robinson said, noting that numerous school divisions have found some students “actually thrive and do better” in an online program. Among them is Sheila Barlow’s 19-year- old son, Douglas. Ms. Barlow told the board that the virtual school has been a boon for her son and other students like him with serious disabilities who can now attend class from home in a safe environment. Her son has Down syndrome and can- not talk, she said. “He has a sign language interpreter for all of his classes,” Ms. Barlow told the Free Press. “If he goes back to in-person learning, my son would not have that service.” While the board’s action appears to have saved the virtual academy, the board’s funding will provide only for a reduced operation. Richmond’s virtual operation enrolls about 768 students, including 500 elementary school students, which is fewer students than Henrico and Chesterfield’s school systems. But that would shrink further. The board’s funding would allow for only 30 total staff, including a principal, counselors and other staff and about 23 instructional staff strictly for elementary programming. Currently, the school has at least 70 staff members, including a 43-member instructional staff. As part of the transition, the School Board agreed with the administration’s plan to end enrollment for middle and high school students who can move to the state’s online program, Virtual Virginia. The revamped Richmond Virtual Acad- emy also will oversee virtual educational programming for students who are home- bound for disciplinary or health reasons. According to board members, the ad- ministration is expected to drop the cur- rent homebound program that dispatches teachers to the homes of students to provide in-person instruction two hours a day. If it becomes a school of record as anticipated, RVA would not only have a budget, but would also report state Stan- dards of Learning test results. The board’s budget, meanwhile, cuts more deeply into the central office staff than Mr. Kamras proposed and largely eliminates contracts for consultants pro- viding curriculum training. Ms. Gibson also won approval for an audit of Mr. Kamras’ original budget plan after she turned up a significant discrepancy in total employee numbers compared with the current year. The board also provided funding for the first time to enable 400 students to take math, science and other required high school classes at the Richmond Technical Center along with their career and voca- tional training programs. Under the initiative advanced by Jona- than Young, 4th District, the students will no longer have to be shuttled back to their home schools for those courses. This change is seen as a harbinger of the proposed career and technical high school that RPS plans to create in a former tobacco plant in South Side. In addition, the board also provided funds to support an increase in the number of students during the next four years at two specialty high schools, Richmond Com- munity and Franklin Military Academy, and three regional high schools, Code RVA and the Maggie L. Walker and Appomattox regional governor’s schools.
Health care cutback?
Bon Secours to close Richmond Community Hospital’s ICU, sources say
Is Bon Secours planning to close the small intensive care unit later this month at its 104-bed Richmond Community Hospital facility in the East End?
Big mistake
Tear gas released on Lee statue protesters was in error
Twenty-five minutes before an 8 p.m. curfew was to go into effect, Richmond Police officers began firing tear gas and other noxious chemical agents to disperse hundreds of demonstrators who had gathered around the now removed Robert E. Lee statue in the city’s West End.
Lynx Ventures agrees to pay $500,000 for former school
The 5-acre site where the decaying and long vacant Oak Grove Elementary School now stands in South Side is on its way to becoming a complex of apartments and townhouses.
McQuinn may be unseated from Slave Trail Commission
For 12 years, Richmond Delegate Delores L. McQuinn has led the city’s Slave Trail Commission to bring attention to the history and legacy of slavery in Richmond.
Hanging around
City still mulling offers for city-owned Confederate statues removed last year from Monument Avenue and other Richmond locations.
Richmond removed in 2020 almost all of the city-owned Confederate statues that marred the landscape with their white supremacist message. But getting rid of the statues is proving to be harder.
Harold C. Glenn, also known as ‘Soul Santa,’ dies at age 90
During a time that it was rare for a Black person to play the familiar holiday role of Santa Claus anywhere in the country, that fact did not deter Harold Cecil Glenn.
Green light shines on Diamond District
The huge plan to redevelop 67 acres of publicly owned land around The Diamond baseball stadium has a green light — despite questions about the soundness of its financial structure.
Bus Rapid Transit
Can Richmond afford to maintain proposed expensive bus service?
Can Richmond afford to operate the proposed Bus Rapid Transit system that promises speedier travel and is described as the biggest revamp in public bus service in the city in at least 50 years?
$1.1M needed for new voting equipment
Richmond is hoping to borrow voting machines to use in the upcoming June 9 Democratic primaries. At the same time, the city voter registrar is seeking more than $1.1 million from the city government to buy new voting equipment to use in the November general election. The city is one of 30 localities facing an emergency situation involving voting machines. The upheaval is the result of Tuesday’s action by the state Board of Elections decertifying the WINVote touch-screen machines that the 30 localities have used in their elections for 10 years. The board’s action essentially bans the use of the WINVote machines in any future elections, including the June 9 primaries that will be held in Richmond and nine other localities.
