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School Board questions its role in Ashe Center’s site plans
Another battle appears to be looming between City Hall and the School Board.
County official chosen as new city auditor
Richmond City Council this week tapped a veteran of Chesterfield County government to make City Hall operations more efficient and track down waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars. Louis G. “Lou” Lassiter, deputy Chesterfield County administrator, was approved to be the new city auditor at a special council meeting at Free Press deadline Wednesday night.
City requests applications for Coliseum-area development
City Hall is taking a fresh step in trying to replace the Richmond Coliseum nearly four years after it was shuttered.
Settlement reached in South Side mobile home suit
The war over mobile homes in Richmond appears to have ended in a truce. Under a settlement approved Monday in federal court, the City of Richmond has agreed to modify an aggressive code enforcement program that led to the condemnation of dozens of mobile homes in the past three years, displacing mostly Latino families.
VUU president accused of fraud
Dr. Hakim J. Lucas was supposed to be the ideal fit when Virginia Union University’s board named the 40-year-old as the historic institution’s 13th president in August.
National NAACP suspends Frank J. Thornton, Henrico Branch president
In an extraordinary action, national NAACP President Derrick Johnson has suspended for a year the membership of Frank J. Thornton, president of the Henrico Branch NAACP and son of Frank Thornton, chairman of the Henrico County Board of Supervisors.
Former School Board member mounts campaign to oust principal
How much influence should parents and the community wield in deciding who should run a public school? That question is at the heart of a dispute over the leadership of Blackwell Elementary School on South Side.
City Hall offers some reforms on tax collections
Amid the uproar over meals-tax collections, City Hall is rolling out a multiple-step plan in a bid to ease complaints.
City spurns cold weather shelter for ‘non-congregant’ housing for homeless
For the first time in at least 19 years, City Hall will not be opening a cold weather shelter on Oct. 1 as a warm place for homeless adults when temperatures fall to 40 degrees and below.
Center awaits end of bankruptcy
The 300-member Richmond Christian Center is poised to leave bankruptcy after nearly two years, with the finances of the South Side church restored.
Woodland, Evergreen cemeteries for sale
A Richmond foundation is pursuing the purchase of two historic, but privately held African-American cemeteries, the Free Press has learned.
38-year-old scientist crosses into the realm of preserving historic African-American cemetery
Woodland Cemetery, the burial place of humanitarian and tennis great Arthur Ashe Jr. and thousands of other African-Americans, is looking spiffier, thanks to the dogged persistence of one man, John William Joseph Slavin.
Ora Lomax, longtime NAACP leader, civil rights advocate, dies at 86
For decades, black women could only work behind the scenes at white-owned retail stores in Richmond during the harsh era of segregation. Ora Mae Perry Lomax helped change all that.
VUU spokesperson blasts claims by doctoral student as ‘false, ill-advised, arbitrary and capricious’
Virginia Union University is pushing back against a student-written letter and online petition calling for an investigation and the removal of VUU President Hakim J. Lucas and Dr. W. Franklyn Richardson, chair of the VUU Board of Trustees.
Starting as a pastor in the midst of a pandemic
“I never imagined I would start my ministry in the midst of a pandemic,” Dr. Joshua L. Mitchell said.
Mayor Stoney highlights new eviction prevention program
Good things are happening in Richmond, Mayor Levar M. Stoney said as he used his State of the City speech last week to tout the city’s progress during his first two years.
City expands plans for enslaved African memorial site in Shockoe Bottom
City Hall is moving to expand the space designated for a long talked about memorial to slavery in Shockoe Bottom well before development begins on what the city has dubbed the Enslaved African Heritage Campus.
Aspire Academy hopes to inspire student interest
They’re lost in the classroom and repeatedly act out — leading to repeated suspensions, expulsion and, sometimes, criminal charges.
GRTC provides more protective gear to drivers
It took nearly two months, but GRTC is ramping up virus protection for drivers who have kept the public transit system rolling during the pandemic.
VCU now working on new children’s hospital
Virginia Commonwealth University plans to take the lead in developing a new inpatient children’s hospital in Richmond. After rebuffing a private group’s concept of an independent, freestanding hospital on the Boulevard, VCU is moving to create a plan for a dedicated hospital for children on its medical campus in Downtown.
