(Feb. 27) - Starts at 23:00 mark
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Remarks on Revitalize RVA Plan - Feb. 24, 2014
 | | Council remarks on Revitalize RVA Plan - Feb. 24, 2014 |
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Great Outdoors Party for Blue Sky Fund!
Blue Sky Fund will host their Great Outdoors Party! fundraising event in April. Blue Sky Fund is a local organization that brings "transformational experiences for urban youth through outdoor education."
The Great Outdoors Party! is a family-friendly event with live music, corn hole, fishing, food, drinks, bounce houses, ladder golf, a fire pit, and more. The party takes place on Saturday, April 12th from 2:00 - 6:00 PM at Rock Bottom (5995 River Road).
Click here for tickets and more information.
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Free Parking For Council Meetings
100 parking spaces will be available beginning in April to the public for free use when attending Richmond City Council Formal Meeting Sessions on the second and fourth Monday; from 6:00-8:30 p.m.
The free public parking spaces are located in the surface parking lot, located next to Richmond City Hall on East Broad Street, between 10th and 11th Streets. Public access to the lot is accessible from the entrance on the10th Street side, near the north-east corner of Broad and 10th Streets.
The lot is owned by VCU, which has partnered with the City to provide the free spaces. The lot will be staffed with a parking attendant, who assist entry into the lot and provide parking directions.
You can find more information here.
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1st District Twitter Picture of the Month
(March 12)
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1st District Most Clicked
A fun feature each month to show the top 3 most clicked links in the previous month's E-newsletter!
February 2014 |
Reporting a Neighborhood Issue
There are multiple ways that you can report neighborhood issues that you need us to address.
1. You can call my office (804-646-5349) and speak to either me or my liaison, Eli.
2. You can log on and use
SeeClickFix to report issues such as potholes, non-functioning lights, bulk pick up requests, etc.
3. You can also log in to the
Citizens Request Service (CRS) to report more serious needs (or again, call my office).
If possible, please send us a picture(s) with your request for service or issue. Many times, a picture snapped with your cell phone goes a long way to helping us relate your request to City staff so they can easily identify the issue and correct it!
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Get regular updates and news on my 1st District Facebook page!
(You don't need a Facebook account to access the page)
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UPCOMING MEETINGS
-- Mon., April 14
-- Mon., April 28
Begin at 6:00 pm
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Link Up on LinkedIn
Follow updates on social network for work professionals, aka "the safe-for-work social network"
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Updates & Retweets!
Keep up to date with my Twitter feed for news, updates and retweets from other city officials and departments and personalities around RVA!
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Important Numbers
Police Sector 311
Lt. Mike Stith Sector
804-646-1945 - E-mail
Finance Department
Kevin Ervin
804-646-6452 - E-mail
West End Library
804-646-1877
Web site
Belmont Library
804-646-1139
Web site
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Contact Me
804-646-5349 (Office)
804-592-1060 (Cell)
900 E. Broad St. Ste. 303
Richmond, VA 23219
Eli Wong, Council Liaison
804-310-1738 or
Social Media   
Committee Assignments:
- Land Use, Housing & Transportation (Chair)
- Government Operations
- Organizational Development
- Education & Human Services (alternate)
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Town Hall Meeting Tonight!
Please join us tonight for a Town Hall Meeting at 6:00pm at Albert Hill Middle School (3400 Patterson Avenue - map).
We will be discussing issues pertaining to the 1st District, including updates from Fire and Police, schools news, and other topics. If the school closes early today in the event of inclement weather, we will have to reschedule the meeting per school policy, so please check our Facebook page for any announcements.
For more information, please contact my office at 804-646-5349 or via this e-mail.
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Westhampton Playground
The Westhampton Playground has been closed and will be relocated to the new park between Granite and Libbie Avenues at Guthrie Avenue. The closing was part of the November 2012 agreement between the City, the Washington Redskins and Bon Secours.
Dominion Power is in the process of relocating the power lines around the new playground property. The company that originally installed the playground equipment a decade ago is inspecting the equipment and will
honor the original warranty which will save the City tens of thousands of dollars.
Once the power lines are moved, it should only take a few days to get the new playground open. We will keep you apprised of further developments and timetables, but hopefully the new playground should be open by early April. In the interim, you can visit nearby playgrounds behind Westwood Baptist Church off of Glen Burnie Rd. as well as Mary Munford and Thomas Jefferson High School.
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Road Closures for Monument Avenue 10K Sat., March 29
The Monument Avenue 10K race and related events take place this weekend on Sat., March 29.
The race begins at 8am so look for street closures and detours in the area from Staples Mill Rd. all the way to Monroe Park beginning in the pre-dawn hours on Saturday.
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Kelley's Gift Shop Closing
A mainstay of the neighborhood will come to an end in late April when Kelley's Gift shop closes their doors. 
Cynthia Coldwell and Sara Jane Leggett "bought the venerable shop at 5601 Patterson Ave. in Richmond's West End in January 2003. They operated the store together until Leggett died of cancer in December." There was a wonderful story about the partners and the store in a January article in the Times-Dispatch that you can read here.
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Police & Safety Update
I recently attended a neighborhood meeting after neighbors became concerned about a string of recent burglaries in the Colonial Place neighborhood. More than 30 neighbors were on hand to express their concerns and work with Sector Lieutenant Stith to establish a new neighborhood watch for that area.
 The police have implemented the West End Burglary Initiative in response to an increase in burglaries early in the year that led to two significant arrests and a dramatic decrease in burglaries. Nevertheless, the police remind us to keep an eye on our neighborhoods, lock our doors to our cars and homes, and report any suspicious activity to 911. If your neighborhood wants to learn more how to start a neighborhood watch program, contact Lt. Stith at 804-646-1945. ____________________________________
Richmond Receives State Funding for New
K-9 Facility
City Council formally received funds March 24 from the Attorney General's Office totaling $1.4 million, the majority of which will be used to construct a new K-9 facility for the City that will also serve as a regional training facility.
I was proud to sponsor an amendment in last year's budget that allocated funds for the design of a new facility. No money had been allocated as of yet for construction, and when we learned last summer that the Attorney General's Office was receiving more than $100 million in asset forfeiture funds in a fraud settlement case, we lobbied consistently for the K-9 unit's needs.
I am very thankful to the Friends' of Richmond K-9 and Chief Tarasovic for their determination to see the facility funded, as well as former Attorney General Ken Cuccinneli and deputy Attorney General John Childrey for following through and making this project possible.
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This is the video we produced last year with Friends of Richmond K-9 as part of our effort!
 | | Friends of Richmond K9 |
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Ed Ayres To Step Down as UR President in 2015
I was saddened to hear about the impending departure of University of Richmond President Ed
 Ayers after the 2015 school year. Ed has been a tremendous catalyst for the University and the City of Richmond in his eight years at the helm and has transformed the school from the "University of Richmond to the University of
Richmond," as he is fond of saying.
Ayers has been "nationally recognized for both his scholarship and teaching - he was awarded the National Humanities Medal at the White House by President Barack Obama and was named Professor of the Year by The Carnegie Foundation and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education."
He will return to authoring books, produce his nationally syndicated public radio program, "Backstory with the American History Guys," serve as founding chair of the American Civil War Museum and continue to teach Richmond students.
Click here for the official release from the University.
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Read Across America Day
I greatly enjoyed attending Woodville Elementary School on Friday to participate in Read Across America Day. Many thanks to the great staff there and to the Cat in the Hat and my guide Luis who escorted me to Ms. Stockton's Kindergarten class for a fun diet of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish among other Dr. Seuss classics!
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Football Fundraiser This Week!
Don't forget about the Thomas Jefferson Football Fundraiser dinner this Thursd ay, March 27th at Westminster Presbyterian Church on Monument Avenue.
Former NFL coach and Benedictine graduate Bobby Ross will be the guest speaker and you can bid on many auction items including an autographed football from Super Bowl Champion quarterback and Richmond native Russell Wilson! Click here to learn more about the dinner!
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Schools' Facilities Needs
Dr. Dana Bedden sat down with Style Weekly for an interview recently and talked about his "Attitude Shift." I highly recommend reading it to get a sense of Dr. Bedden's seriousness in tacking the challenges that face our public schools.
 "My career has been blessed and challenged to be in one of the wealthiest districts ... and I've also worked in a district with the highest per capita rate of teen pregnancy. ... None of our facilities looked like this. None of them. Other than the District of Columbia, this is the only district I've been in that has facilities in this condition. I'd ask people to remember that environment can influence attitude. At some point there has to be a dedicated, committed line item just for capital improvement in schools, and let's continue it. We've asked for a capital improvement plan over the next five years. But the challenge is, it's the basics. Mechanical, roofs and structural is the bulk of what we're asking for this year - and only $1 million is site improvement. None of those are frills." Click here to read the entire article. _____________________________
Editorial on Schools' Facilities Needs
School Board member Kim Gray wrote a poignant editorial in Style Weekly outlining the challenges of the school system's facilities and the impact they have on children's learning capacity.
"Certainly, this city has seen fit to undertake the construction of four new schools. But what about the other 40? Some of those buildings are more than 100 years old. Many have leaking roofs. And that's the least of their critical issues.
The reality is four new schools every 15 to 20 years aren't enough. We leave thousands of our children in obsolete, antiquated facilities that fail to meet their educational and social-emotional needs."
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RVA Street Art Festival Site to Reopen Soon
Ed Trask and I have been working with GRTC to reopen the festival site and GRTC made the announcement that it will be reopened soon. We hope to have a formal announcement soon of when the property will reopen for daytime visits as well as an announcement about the 2014 RVA Street Art Festival.
"For almost four months, looking at this site has been bittersweet for many Richmonders. A closed sign and locked gates serve as a sad reminder of the November attack that left security guard Jack Newsom bruised and broken.
As of now, the site is expected to stay open only during the day and close around five o'clock. That time will be pushed back as the days get longer. Trask says Richmonders can expect more art and visits from school children to make sure this site is once again a catalyst for positive change in the city."
Click here for the full story.
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Food Truck Court Moving from Historical Society
The Tuesday and Friday food truck courts that have become a family and foodie favorite at the Virginia Historical Society over the last two years will be relocating this year.
Because of construction and renovations at the Historical Society, the food truck court will begin April 1st in the First Baptist Church parking lot at Robinson & Monument Avenue and run from 5:30-8:30pm. Click here for more information.
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Mail Updates
If you know someone who would like to receive these e-mail updates via U.S. Postal Service, please e-mail me here or call 804-646-5349 and provide their name and mailing address.
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Newsletter
build oyster reefs?!
