Richmond Free Press December 7-9, 2023 edition

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Ex-city worker cheated her, too A5

Richmond Free Press © 2023 Paradigm Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

VOL. 32 NO. 49

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

richmondfreepress.com

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Meet this week’s Personality B1

DECEMBER 7-9, 2023

Open for needy Shelter options few for adults with children despite increase in beds By Jeremy M. Lazarus

Bobby Moore, 57, is among those waiting for the Salvation Army shelter to open. The shelter operates from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. seven days a week, providing meals. The shelter’s capacity is 110 men and 40 women.

Jeremy M. Lazarus/Richmond Free Press

1900 Chamberlayne Ave., with 110 beds for men and 40 for women. However, no children are allowed. City Hall has followed through on expanding In Ms. Sneed’s view, that sends a message that City winter shelter in the Richmond area, but families with Hall is more willing to shelter “able-bodied men and children still are being left out in the cold, the Free women” when the temperature is below 40 degrees, Press has confirmed. but “babies and children don’t matter.” Operators on Richmond’s Homeless Crisis Hotline Along with funding Salvation Army’s shelter, the are advising homeless adults with children that all shelter Stoney administration also is providing funding that space reserved for them is full and that they should allowed the nonprofit Home Again to simultaneously Ms. Sneed call back weekly to see if there is an opening. open last Friday a 50-bed shelter for adults with children Rhonda Sneed, founder and leader of the homeless services at 7 N. 2nd St. group Blessing Warriors RVA, is aghast at this situation. But the Homeless Crisis Hotline reported that space is full “That means babies, toddlers, school-age children remain and that there are no other options. without shelter,” she said Wednesday in calling on Mayor Levar The 200 new beds the city is funding do represent a 40% M. Stoney and his administration to address the problem. increase in winter shelter beds in Richmond and add to the 284 Ms. Sneed noted that since Dec. 1, the Salvation Army has Please turn to A4 operated a city-supported 150-bed shelter for single adults at

City Charter changes approved

Mayor Stoney jumps into governor’s race By Jeremy M. Lazarus

By Jeremy M. Lazarus

Among the first bills that Dr. Michael J. Jones could patron as a new member of the House of Delegates is one that would usher in changes to the City Charter, or constitution. Now the president of City Council, a post he will give up Dec. 31, he was among six members who agreed Monday to support a package of charter changes and send the package to the Virginia legislature for approval. As the new representative for the 77th House District, he said he would be in place when the new session starts to push for approval. Among the changes that won majority support is a provision that would allow the council to provide property tax relief to Please turn to A4

Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press

All smiles Kinsley Hurte, 5, is excited to meet Soul Santa and give him her holiday wish list at the Black History Museum of Virginia on Dec. 2.

Richmond Mayor Levar M. Stoney, after months of hinting, this week made it official that he will be in the race for governor in 2025 and quickly began picking up endorsements. Now in his final year as the city’s chief executive, the 42-yearold mayor filed paperwork and on Monday formally announced his bid in a video. In the video, he focused on the Horatio Algerstyle narrative he plans to run on — his rise from humble beginnings in which he overcame challenges to become the first in his family to graduate from high school and college and become the leader of the state’s capital city. “That’s why I’m running for governor. Mayor Stoney For families like mine that just need an opportunity. For kids like me who will thrive in school if they just get the right chance,” he said. “And for parents like my dad, who work multiple jobs and still struggle to live a secure, middle class life. Mayor Stoney was raised by his father and grandmother in York County, graduated from James Madison University and Please turn to A4

School Board to build new Woodville; won’t merge with Fairfield Court By Jeremy M. Lazarus

The Richmond School Board plans to keep five elementary schools in operation in the East End in the face of shrinking enrollment that has left at least two schools half empty. In a little noticed 8-1 vote Nov. 20, the board endorsed building a replacement for an aging Woodville Elementary that could hold 500 students, even though Richmond Public Schools reports that fewer than 250 students now attend Woodville. The vote ended any consideration of merging nearby Fairfield Elementary School with Woodville to justify the new school’s capacity when it is built. Fairfield, located about five

City School Board approves metal detectors in middle schools By George Copeland Jr.

In an effort to reduce weapons coming into in the schools and to ward off increased incidents of violence, Richmond Public Schools will install metal detectors in every middle school early next year. Richmond School Board members approved the safety Please turn to A4

blocks north of Woodville, currently enrolls about 230 students. Data from Richmond Public Schools and the Virginia Department of Education show

that enrollment at Woodville and Fairfield plunged in the past 10 years as well as at least two other elementay schools in the East End, Bellevue and Chimborazo — with the great-

est decline happening after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the city and resulted in school closures for two additional years. The board settled the issue of capacity for Woodville as the administration filed for funding from Virginia’s School Construction Grant Program to help cover the cost of developing a new school. A timetable for doing so has not been established. In May, Richmond was awarded $26 million from the state program to support four other projects, part of the $356 million awarded in the first round from $450 million the legislature had provided. The program closed applications for the final $80 million Please turn to A4

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will lie in repose at the Supreme Court on Dec. 18 The Associated Press

WASHINGTON Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will lie in repose at the Supreme Court on Dec. 18, with a funeral service at the National Cathedral the following day, the court said Monday. The first woman on the Supreme Court, Justice O’Connor died Friday, Dec. 1, 2023, at age 93 in Phoenix. She stepped down from the court in 2006 after serving as a justice for more than 24 years. Members of the public will be able to pay respects at the court from 10:30 a.m.

to 8 p.m. Monday, following a private ceremony. Tuesday’s service at the National Cathedral is private and by invitation only, the court said. The family has asked that donations Justice O’Connor be made to iCivics, the group she founded to promote civics education, the court said. Justice O’Connor died of complications related to advanced dementia and a respiratory illness, the Supreme Court

stated in a news release. Chief Justice John Roberts mourned her death. “A daughter of the American Southwest, Sandra Day O’Connor blazed an historic trail as our Nation’s first female Justice,” Justice Roberts said in statement issued by the court. “She met that challenge with undaunted determination, indisputable ability, and engaging candor.” In 2018, she announced that she had been diagnosed with “the beginning stages of dementia, probably Alzheimer’s disease.” Her husband, John O’Connor, died of comPlease turn to A4

Jeremy M. Lazarus/Richmond Free Press

In honor of an icon Dr. Joanne Harris Lucas proudly stands beside a bust of her late father and Virginia civil rights leader, the Rev. Curtis W. Harris Sr., which was unveiled Saturday in front of Hopewell City Hall, where he served for 26 years on the city council and for two years as the city’s first Black mayor. The unveiling comes six years after his death in December 2017. He was arrested 13 times in leading protests against segregation in Hopewell and other parts of the state and led the Hopewell Branch NAACP and the Virginia Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for more than 20 years. During his 46 years as pastor of Union Baptist Church in Hopewell and during his tenure on council, he fought for environmental justice and opposed Hopewell commercial developments that impacted Black and poor people in the city.


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