Ankle Biter We are keeping a trained wathchdog’s eye on the Richmond political landscape, and analyzing issues that affect Manchester RVA. We will watch, report, and occasionally nip at the heels of those who would consider doing RVA wrong. The Proposed Real Estate Tax Hike Is Bad Policy Every time I hear of someone mention that they bought a piece of land as an investment I cringe. The practice is sometimes referred to as “land banking” and it is destructive behavior that bears no benefit for landlocked cities such as Richmond. In fact, land speculation inhibits investment…Read More Tax Reform Act Will Obliterate Richmond’s Historic Shell Property Values I am surprised by the number of people who are attempting to spin what is going on in Washington DC right now related to the Historic Tax Credit changes proposed by The Tax Reform Act as “not that bad” or “it could be worse”. True, an outright elimination of the…Read More Richmond’s Antiquated Off-Street Parking Requirements Are Holding It Back Once upon a time, people used to walk, bike, and use streetcars to get where they needed to go in Richmond. Then the automobile changed everything. Folks fled the city for suburban living, while streetcar systems were scrapped. But most suburbanites still worked and shopped downtown, and they needed to…Read More CBS 6 News: “Neighbors Irate ‘Eyesore’ School Costs Taxpayers $26K A Year To Maintain” CBS 6 News Problem Solvers just did a story entitled “Neighbors irate ‘eyesore’ school costs taxpayers $26K a year to maintain” about the old abandoned and vacant Oak Grove Elementary school owned by the City of Richmond’s Public Schools system. Ironically this is the same vacant school building that the privately run…Read More The Election Of Blind Rage I feel like I need a rabies shot after witnessing the blind rage shown by candidates and supporters alike during this election cycle. This campaign season was akin to watching a drunken father beat his wife while in front of his children and not having the ability to intervene to stop it. And I am not…Read More RVA Mayor: Anyone Else Want Off This Crazy Train? An old friend told me once: “A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words, A Song Is Worth A Million.” So I spent my morning looking for images and music that best describe RVA’s 2016 Mayoral race. After scouring the web, I kept coming back to various pictures of slow motion train wrecks…Read More Jon Baliles-RVA Superhero-Drops Out: Jack & Levar, Which Of You Will Step Up? Jon Baliles is an RVA superhero. Yes, you heard me. He just put on a weighty necklace of kryptonite and took one for the team. Why? Because that is what it is going to take to save RVA during this Mayoral election. This mere mortal just elevated to superhero stature in our book…Read More Understanding Richmond’s Cockroach Problem: Joe Morrissey The past week has provided a Fall cornucopia of Jerry Springer-esque, TMZ-like, sideshow carnival programming featuring Joe Morrissey’s sordid life. It has saturated Richmond’s media. His political adversaries have speculated, more like hoped, that Joe would drop out as a result. But those wishful thinkers fail to understand one simple…Read More The Dogtown Dish Mayoral Endorsement Ever since we kicked off our polling for the City of Richmond Mayoral election, we have been solicited for our advice, campaign contributions, and public endorsements related to the race. It’s quite humbling to hear that so many smart folks who we deeply respect actually care what we have to…Read More Meet Donald Moss-6th District City Council Poll Winner Donald Moss has won the Dogtown Dish’s 6th District City Council Poll in convincing fashion. In fact, he won two thirds of the votes. That’s pretty impressive for a newcomer to the Richmond political scene. I recently sat down with Donald for coffee in order to get to know him. We had not met before, so this was…Read More VOTE NOW: Ellen Robertson Or Donald Moss For City Council? We are about to have an important election this year. Not only does Richmond elect a Mayor, but we elect a new City Council. With great success, we recently ran our Dogtown Dish Mayoral Poll. Now comes City Council…the 6th District specifically. And if you don’t already know, THE 6TH DISTRICT IS MANCHESTER’S CITY COUNCIL DISTRICT! In one…Read More Meet Levar Stoney: A Mayoral Contender If you followed our Dogtown Dish Mayor’s Poll, you already know Levar Stoney had a very strong showing. I recently sat down for coffee with him. Having not met Levar before, the meeting provided an opportunity for me to hear his story. Levar also agreed to answer a list of questions as a follow up to our meeting…Read More City Council Rubber Stamps City’s Half Million Dollar Giveaway So Mayor Jones and City Council just gave away 14 tax delinquent, blighted properties it recently seized as reported by The Richmond Times-Dispatch. Break out the noisemakers and party balloons, right? Way to go City, fix those blighted properties!!! Well actually…this is just the latest example of another fraud scheme by the City that cost taxpayers over half a million…Read More Meet Jack Berry: Dogtown Dish Mayor Poll Winner Weighs In On Manchester I sat down with the hotly contested Dogtown Dish Mayor Poll winner-Jack Berry. This was my first meeting with Jack, as I had never met him before. I asked him a handful of questions. Some are about Manchester and others are about RVA in general. We are approaching a big decision for a new Mayor and we need…Read More Manchester Neighborhood Plan Implementation Grade: F The City of Richmond adopted a Neighborhood Plan for Old Manchester in 1996 as part of the City’s Master Plan. The strategic plan was intended to be a blueprint for the City that would set forth the revitalization of Manchester, yet be flexible enough to allow adaptation as the area developed. The plan explicitly called for the City to take…Read More City Shafts Taxpayers Again By Giving Away City Owned Property To Friends And Family In other cities corrupt acts by elected officials and their staff is called graft, larceny, embezzlement, fraud, or cronyism. And these folks go to jail for this type of behavior. In Richmond however, the City bureaucracy has grown so emboldened they don’t even blush anymore when committing the most egregious acts. It is considered standard operating procedure…Read More Update: No Funding For Hull Street Revitalization, But Council Votes To Fund Traffic Calming At Monday’s marathon City Council meeting, City Council voted down the amendment that would have removed funding for the traffic calming project for Manchester (and all other sections of the City). They did not however, appropriate any funding for the Hull Street Revitalization project. This is two years in a row that the Hull Street…Read More City Council Proposes To Eliminate Funding For Manchester Revitalization Richmond is in the midst of an artistic, educational, entrepreneurial, culinary, and cultural renaissance. Manchester is a critically important emerging neighborhood in Richmond’s revitalization. Manchester’s diversity of new housing opportunities has attracted an equally-as-diverse group of new residents, artists, entrepreneurs, and businesses. We are dreamers, makers, and doers in Manchester…and we have a relentlessly positive can-do drive to…Read More Hot Mess Hosts Weenie Roast Over Dumpster Fire In case you missed the news, Joe Morrisey is officially running for Mayor. The announcement reminds us of Slate.com’s Hot Mess Endorses Dumspter Fire article covering Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Donald Trump. The City’s finances are a total disaster. The Mayor is in the middle of a combined state/FBI investigation for City resources being used on his private…Read More Jack Berry: Winner Of Mayor Poll Resigns From Venture Richmond Jack Berry, winner of the Dogtown Dish Mayor Poll announced his resignation from Venture Richmond and has hinted at a run for Mayor. If our intuition is correct, his final announcement will be nothing more than a formality. Jack Berry is almost certainly running for Mayor. If you are unfamiliar with Jack Berry, he is the Executive Director behind…Read More Richmond Mayor Poll Final Round: Jack Berry Vs. Levar Stoney This one’s for all the marbles. Jack Berry and Levar Stoney were the top two vote getters in our Richmond Mayor Poll Semifinal Round. Now it’s time to select who you would like to be Mayor if forced to pick between only the top two candidates. Let the voting begin!…Read More Richmond Mayor Poll: Semifinal Round 3 Candidates collected 20+% of your votes in the 2nd Round: Jack Berry, Chris Hilbert & Levar Stoney. Now it’s time to get serious. Select the final two candidates by voting below. Commence! Read More Are You Registered To Vote? Have you Registered to Vote? If not, DO IT NOW. You can register online and it takes only 2 minutes. One of our biggest challenges in Manchester is that we have lots of renters (and we love you dearly), but very few homeowners. Renters have historically registered to vote at a much lower…Read More Richmond Mayor Poll Round 2: Who Would You Vote For As The Next Mayor? And then there were three…err, well make that five. Three candidates from the 1st Round of our Richmond Mayor Poll each collected 20%+ of the votes and have moved on to the 2nd Round: Levar Stoney, Jon Baliles, & Chris Hilbert. However, to spice things up for the 2nd Round, we are adding two wildcards…Read More POLL: Would You Vote For Doug Wilder If He Ran For Mayor Again This November? Former City of Richmond Mayor and Governor of Virginia, Douglas Wilder, ceased his silence and publicly admonished Mayor Dwight Jones in an opinion piece posted in The Richmond Times-Dispatch this past weekend entitled: “No more silence about the state of the city”. Wilder voiced his frustration with the city’s current state…Read More Who Would You Vote For As Richmond’s Next Mayor? Mayor Jones’ term is due to end. We need to vote this November for Richmond’s next mayor. While it isn’t certain who is definitively running yet, we thought it would be interesting to run a poll based upon some of the possible candidates who spoke to Richmond Magazine in its November 2015 feature, “Mayorology 2016″. So cast your…Read More Dwight: Have You Paid Your Taxes? We aren’t going to refer to you by your Dr. handle, or your Reverend handle, or your Mayor handle at this point. Nor will we refer to you as a tax fraud-not yet at least. We are simply going to refer to you as Dwight, a simple citizen. Why, because that…Read More SaveSaveSaveSave SaveSave
