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City-wide schedule of Shockoe Redevelopment meetings and related documents
11/28/2013 9:59 AM by John M
Partnership for Smarter Growth has compiled a list of upcoming Shockoe Bottom/Boulevard Development Proposal public meetings and released documents.
Councilwoman Newbille (7th) will be hosting 5 meetings over the next 2 months:
December 5, 2013
George Mason Elementary School
813 North 28th Street
Time: 6:00PM-8:00PM
December 19th, 2013
Main Street Station
15th & Main Street
Time: 6:00PM-8:00PM
January 14, 2013
Armstrong High School
2300 Cool Lane
Time: 6:00PM-8:00PM
January 16, 2013
Robinson Theatre
2903 Q Street
Time: 2:00PM-3:30PM (Daytime Meeting)
January 21, 2013
Powhatan Recreation Center-Fulton
5051 Northhampton Street
Time: 6:00PM-8:00PM
Apparently Ms. Newbille’s meetings are for informational content only, citizen comment will not be allowed, or so I was told tonight, by a member of the board of CHA. She told me that the board was told that the meetings would be a show like what the mayor gave, but no citizen comment was to be allowed – they are not interested in citizen input here in the 7th District.
Reva Trammell, according to the Free Press last week, already held one meeting and handed out index cards which came back to her with over 90% of her voters telling her they do not want a new stadium, they want better schools, better roads with less potholes, and a host of other things. But then Reva is really in touch with her voters, I’ve seen her in action. She returns phone calls and makes in person meetings and actually listens. She was quoted in the Free Press as saying, if ‘my people’ don’t want a stadium, then she will vote against it.
Reva’s not bright enough to figure out that the only way our city gets the money for that wish list is by freeing up the Boulevard site. I think if she had explained it to her constituents properly they’d realize it’s not an either/or situation. The mayor is doing this as much, if not more, for the cash flow the current Diamond parcel will produce as he is what goes down the hill.
Also, anyone doubt that Trammell would already have her mind made up if the contract had gone to a family member or she had gotten her palms greased properly. Her sudden attack of “principle” is hilarious because any accusations of shady dealings and conflicts of interest in recent years have often been around her. I guess she wants to earn political capital for the next time she makes the news doing something shady.
All that said, I do wish our councilwoman were more responsive. I think it would be a fiasco if she tried to answer questions in a live setting though. She strikes me as the type who has to think everything to death.
Dak-tah Nou-bill doesn’t want to hear from her subjects in the 7th district. The dictator has decided. Or, rather the Mayor Jones-Marsh Machine has decided for her–and she’s simply hoping she can drag us
Time for the rest of us to make a ruckus.
@2, Alex, do you actually know Reva Trammell? I do. She’s not crooked and I don’t recall any shady business dealings involving her. Yes, years ago she did something dumb involving having an affair with a cop, but that has nothing to do with conflicts of interest. Please provide specifics, I’m curious, thanks. Also, she’s not dumb by any means.
I doubt she got the opportunity to present this plan, I think someone from the mayor’s office does the presenting, same as they will do for the 7th district – where we won’t be allowed to ask questions. All Reva did was hand out index cards and tally what came back to her at the end of the meeting. I’d bet we won’t be asked to do that up here, though.
#3 urbngrilla, thank you for saying it. We voted the Marsh Machine off council but we didn’t get it out of our district, his power remains.
@urbngrilla you are making the same old arguments about city political machines they make out in the cul-de-sacs every time the city has a chance at something. Whose side are you on? Suburbangrilla, more like.
@4 – “crooked” is a stronger charge than I would have made but offhand it sure seems like her name has popped up a lot over the years for questionable judgment. IIRC, she had a number of family members in the internet gambling business and was leading the fight against that. There were a couple articles in the T-D about her election fund getting healthy kickbacks from tow truck companies that she went out of her way to help. There was of course the whole police sex scandal / ordering around of city official drama. At the very least, she’s been the center of a lot of interesting messes.
This is all besides the point anyway though. The point I was trying to make is that it’s idiotic to present this as a you can have nice stuff OR you can have the Shockoe ballpark dichotomy. The realistic options are:
1. You can keep the ballpark in its current location and have less roads/schools/good things
2. You can tell the ball club to get lost and to leave Richmond. Then we can free up that site and have the schools/roads/etc
3. You can move the ballpark somewhere besides the Diamond and have good things. Of the feasible sites, Shockoe has been the front runner since that’s one of the few plots big enough that isn’t being used and has most of the infrastructure.
The Shockoe site is likely either a small positive or a small negative for the city’s budget depending on which scenario you use. However, the entire project is massively positive for the city. If folks want to propose #2, it’s a discussion worth having. There is no option that the city does a bunch of “wish list” projects and the stadium stays at the Diamond though. The money doesn’t exist without the move.
I absolutely cannot stand Reva and I trust NOTHING that she says. I’ll never forget the night she came to a local establishment here in the hill and her boyfriend and his racist friends verbally attacked a nice old black man at the bar. I was there, it was ugly.
I was at Reva Trammel’s meeting where she distributed the comment cards, before a formal, PowerPoint presentation of the mayor’s plan by COO Bryan Marshall. Trammel made no comments one way or the other. And she asked people to fill out the cards before allowing two stadium opponents, myself among them, to present the alternative view. The cards came back 15 for the proposal and more than 90 against it. Reva didn’t say anything one way or another until after the cards were counted, and then it was just to say she would follow the wishes of her constituents. There were around 120 or so people at the meeting, about half Black. Never saw a more democratic approach to a city issue by a council member. If all the other council members followed this approach, this developer-driven scheme would be DOA.