All results / Stories / Jeremy M. Lazarus

City Council gives greenlight to casino project
Richmond easily leaped the first hurdle in its quest to become a casino city — City Council approval.

Gov. uses powers for gun control
Gun-toting Virginians, except for law enforcement and military personnel, are to be banned from state office buildings — even if they have concealed weapons permits. Separately, judges are to be encouraged to force people involved in domestic violence to surrender guns they own if they are subject to protective orders.

General Assembly wraps up with extraordinary changes
Tens of thousands of the lowest paid workers in Virginia are headed for a raise of at least $2.25 an hour next year — their first in 12 years.

Old forgotten cemeteries dot the city
Peggy Stoots made an urgent call to the Richmond City Attorney’s Office just two days before a vacant quarter-acre parcel in South Side was to be auctioned off to recover more than $2,000 in past due property taxes. Ms. Stoots, who has lived near the property for 60 years surprised a staff member by saying, “You can’t auction that property. It’s a cemetery.”

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?

$3.4B:City Council approves 2018-2020 spending plan
Richmond high school students will be able to take unlimited free rides on GRTC buses beginning July 1. Organized activities for city youths also will be beefed up starting in July, with city recreation centers operating longer hours and after-school programs at elementary and middle schools being upgraded.

Ulysses Kirksey, longtime music director and conductor of the Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, succumbs after illness
Ulysses Kirksey grew up in Richmond, traveled the world with his cello and landed back in Petersburg, where he led the community’s symphony orchestra for 32 years.

Dr. Thelma Bland Watson, who was dedicated to advancing the needs of the elderly, dies at 70
Dr. Thelma Bland Watson was 9 when she began providing assistance to her maternal grandmother. That experience turned Dr. Watson into a champion for the elderly.

PayPal names new award for Richmond legend Maggie L. Walker
Trailblazing businesswoman Maggie L. Walker sought to empower women in her pioneering efforts in business and banking in Richmond at the turn of the 20th century.

Tough love
Task force recommends subpoena powers for police oversight board
A recommendation for creating a powerful new city office to police the police has been sent to Richmond City Council for review.

The spirit of giving
Meadowbridge market offers free groceries to local residents
Dark and silent most days, the Meadowbridge Community Market comes alive on Saturdays.

Historic city credit union seeks new growth
Amid the recovery from the Great Depression, 10 African-American Richmond educators organized a new credit union for teachers in the city that would provide the personal touch and financial services then largely unavailable to them at most banks in segregated Richmond.

Revival linked to COVID-19
Deaths of 6 Metro Revival attendees may be connected to the coronavirus
A three-night revival in early March that brought more than 1,200 people from across the Richmond area to Cedar Street Baptist Church of God in Church Hill each evening appears to have helped spread the coronavirus in the African-American community.

Garden at MLK Middle School is part of new city Food Justice Corridor
Richmond’s new Food Justice Corridor is starting to take root. On Saturday, nine new raised garden beds were installed in an interior courtyard at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, building on fledging steps begun last year.

Shine bright like a Diamond
RDP developers win $2.4B, 15-year, mixed-use project in baseball district
After years of talk, Richmond is ready to launch the huge Diamond District redevelopment of 68 acres of mostly city-owned property in North Side

Metropolitan Business League founder Neverett Alexander Eggleston Jr. dies at age 90
Neverett Alexander Eggleston Jr., a well-known Jackson Ward entrepreneur and a founder of a Richmond trade association for Black businesses, has died.

Henrico cop indicted
Kimberly McNeil made that plea to a Henrico County police officer who was firing into a car in which she was a passenger. Her plea went unanswered, a cousin recounted, as Officer Joel D. Greenway, continued shooting at her as her fiancé, Robert Davis, tried to drive away from the Exxon station where they had just purchased gas Dec. 15.

No go
5 City Council members ask Mayor Stoney to withdraw $1.5B Coliseum replacement and Downtown redevelopment plan, a major signal he doesn't have the votes needed for approval
The $1.5 billion Coliseum replacement plan is dead. Five members of Richmond City Council sounded the death knell Monday night by introducing a resolution calling on Mayor Levar M. Stoney to withdraw the ordinances regarding the project he presented last summer and to work with City Council to create a plan for developing the city-owned property near City Hall that could generate public support.

A bishop till the end
New Deliverance’s Gerald O. Glenn dies of COVID-19
Bishop Gerald Otis Glenn vowed to keep his Chesterfield County church open during the coronavirus pandemic “un- less I am in jail or in the hospital.” Just three weeks later, the respected leader of New Deliverance Evangelistic Church joined the list of people who died from the coronavirus.

Enrollment begins Nov. 1 for Medicaid expansion
Shanté Williams is among tens of thousands of Virginians patiently waiting for Thursday, Nov. 1, to arrive. That’s the start date for enrollment in the state’s expanded Medicaid program.