Jan. 12, 2014

Black Mayor Slams Majority White City Council

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Richmond Free Press

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Richmond, Va. Mayor Dwight C. Jones is stepping up his efforts to win support for a grand revitalization plan and overcome the reluctance and resistance he is facing from a majority White City Council.

On New Year’s Day, at an annual Emancipation Proclamation celebration, the mayor tongue-lashed the majority White City Council for failing to embrace the $200 million Shockoe Bottom plan he views as essential to raising resources to provide better schools and address the high level poverty that impacts one of every four residents. And he appealed for community backing for his vision of bringing a new minor leagueball park and $125 million in new development to this section of Downtown, including a new hotel, grocery store and apartments.

“All of us are in this together,” he said in seeking to rev up support for his proposal at the annual worship service at Fifth Street Baptist Church. A few days earlier, he took his campaign to a town hall meeting called by two South Side members of council, Kathy C.Graziano, 4th District, and Michelle R. Mosby, 9th District. Then, he led a Richmond delegation to Durham, N.C., to see that city’s downtown ballpark and surrounding development.

The 53 people who made the trip with him included five members of council. They were Mosby; Jonathan T. Baliles, 1st District; Parker C. Agelasto, 5th District; Ellen F. Robertson, 6th District; and Cynthia I. Newbille, 7th District. Council President Charles R. Samuels, 2nd District, Chris A. Hilbert, 3rd District, Reva M. Trammell, 8th District, and Graziano stayed home.

At the New Year’s event, Mayor Jones told the mostly Black audience that the council members who are pushing back against his plan might not have the community’s best interests at heart. In his brief remarks, he told the audience that the city is “still 50 percent African-American,” but there’s now a council majority “that does not look like us.”

He said that his plan is important for creating jobs and growth. “Don’t listen to people who tell youth is is a baseball plan,” the mayor told his listeners at Fifth Baptist Church who gathered for worship and praise in honor of the landmark proclamation President Abraham Lincoln issued in 1863 abolishing slavery in Virginia and nine other breakaway Southern states.

“It’s not about baseball,” Mayor Jones said. “It’s about economic development”and the creation of hundreds of new jobs. The plan he unveiled two months ago calls for the city to borrow and invest $80 million around 17th and East Broad streets to create a new home for the city’s minor league Flying Squirrels, accompanied by sufficient private development to generate the taxes to cover the city’s debt. His proposal also calls for clearingThe Diamond to create 60 acres along the Boulevard for additional private, tax generating development that would bring fresh revenue into city coffers.

The proposal also calls for the city, state and private sector to invest $30 million toacknowledge Richmond’s disgraceful pastas the hub of the slave trade, complete the Black History Museum’s new home andcreate a monument in honor of the Lincolnproclamation.The mayor, who also is a Baptist minister,happily accepted the endorsement of the plan by the nearly 200-member Baptist Ministers’Conference of Richmond and Vicinity, which puts on the New Year’s event.

“For us, it’s about bringing more jobs and economic development to the city,” said the Black ministers group’s president, Dr. Marlon Haskell, the pastor at Chicago Avenue Baptist Church on South Side. The three Black representatives on the nine-member City Council — Robertson, Newbille and Mosby — appear to be yes votes for the mayor’s plan.Two White members — Agelasto and Trammell — have said they welcome the private business development but are inclined to reject the plan if the ballpark must be included.

A third White member, Hilbert is also considered a likely no vote as well, sources have told the Free Press.The other three White members — Samuels, Baliles and Graziano —have not endorsed the proposal.Three no votes would effectively kill the proposal, since it would involve the sale or transfer of city property.

The state constitution requires at last seven of the nine council members to vote in support of a proposal when the title to city property is to change hands.The governing body has put off a vote until at least Jan. 27 on a resolution of endorsement.