Richmond Free Press October 3-5, 2019 Edition

Meet board member of Peter Paul Development Center B1

Richmond Free Press © 2019 Paradigm Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

VOL. 28 NO. 40

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

Food fight

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OCTOBER 3-5, 2019

20 out of 44 That is how many city schools are fully accredited

Highland Springs-based food ministry scrambles to generate new food sources after being shut out by Feed More

By Jeremy M. Lazarus

For the past year, Brian Purcell has stopped by the Kroger store in Mechanicsville four days a week to pick up unsold prepared food and bakery items the store otherwise would have thrown away.

“It’s been a godsend to the seniors and homeless veterans we serve,” particularly people with diet restrictions, said the 48-year-old founder of The Way, a Christian food ministry currently based in Highland Springs that he started four years ago.

While the Kroger store is not his only source

of donated food — his ministry also picks up unsold sandwiches from Wawa, Sheetz, Starbucks and similar retail outlets — he said the Kroger items helped him, his small staff of five and a cadre of 25 volunteers to serve 3,000 people a month in Hanover, Henrico and Richmond.

Many of those served, Mr. Purcell said, have little income. Without The Way, most would have to choose between buying food and paying the rent or purchasing medicine, he said.

But the donated Kroger food is no longer available to The Way. An unlikely adversary, Please turn to A4

By Ronald E. Carrington

Jeremy Lazarus/Richmond Free Press

Brian Purcell stands empty handed Tuesday outside the Kroger store on Mechanicsville Turnpike in Hanover County. The founder of The Way food ministry made pickups from the store for a year but was cut off from the store’s donations of unsold food last month.

Layoffs, other challenges hit The Market@25th

By Ronald E. Carrington

Ronald E. Carrington/Richmond Free Press

The grocery store, located at 25th Street and Fairmount Avenue, has laid off 15 people since opening in late April.

A new Church Hill grocery store is facing challenges five months after opening.

The Market @ 25th, an independent grocery located at 25th Street and Fairmount Avenue, has laid off 15 employees to adjust to financial shortfalls since opening on April 29.

“We are working with the (city) Office of Community

2020 early voting requiring city registrar to think outside the ballot box

By Jeremy M. Lazarus

Lines of voters wrapped around City Hall waiting to cast ballots?

That’s a distinct possibility, according to Richmond Voter Registrar Kirk Showalter as she looks ahead to the 2020 presidential election.

Ms. Showalter is warning that the arrival of early voting in Virginia — the ability to cast ballots before Election Day without having to

Regina H. Boone/Richmond Free Press

Confidence building Anthony Daniels enjoys his ballroom dancing lessons with his fellow fifthgraders at Southampton Elementary School in South Side. The program is part of Dancing Classrooms Greater Richmond, which uses ballroom dancing as a way to teach students social awareness and build self-esteem among youngsters in fifth and eighth grades. The curriculum, started in Richmond in 2012, is being employed this semester in four Richmond schools and two in Chesterfield. Parents and friends are invited to the final lesson at each school, with students to be selected for a team match Dec. 4 at Huguenot High School.

Anthony’s dance partner: Valerie Forrester.

provide a reason or excuse — will have a real impact on people trying to vote in Richmond and ratchet up the space problems she already is dealing with.

Virginia has joined 34 states that already allow early voting. The General Assembly approved, and Gov. Ralph S. Northam signed into law earlier this year, a pilot program allowing early in-person voting from Saturday, Oct. 24, through Saturday, Oct. 31, 2020. Absentee voting by mail would still be available.

Based on the early voting turnout in other states such as North Carolina, the veteran Richmond registrar is predicting 60,000 to 70,000 voters could seek to cast ballots early.

That’s a tsunami of voters compared with the November 2016 presidential election when fewer than 3,000 people in Richmond went to the Voter Registrar’s Office in City Hall to vote absentee in person, according to Ms. Ms. Showalter Showalter’s data.

In the last three presidential elections dating to 2008, the number of city voters voting an absentee ballot in person stayed well below 5,000, a far cry from the flood Ms. Showalter foresees.

She said handling the big crowds that she projects in 2020 would be virtually impossible at City Hall. The public space in her current office would be swamped, she said.

“My public space can only accommodate a handful of people at a time,” Ms. Showalter stated in an email response to a Free Press query.

If early voting generates more voters, it would mean long lines and create parking and traffic control issues around City Hall, she said.

While she anticipates getting approval and money to set up satellite voting centers in other areas of the city, her City Hall office would still be a hub. State law requires the voter registrar’s office to be a central location for absentee voting, she said.

Please turn to A4

ee Fr

Fr ee

Rumors of War B3

Wealth Building as ly sourced produce, we actively try to meat and seafood, help people find new the grocery store jobs with other busihas hot meal selecnesses in the comtions, a salad bar, a munity,” said Norm sushi station, coffee Gold, the store’s bar, florist and phardeveloper and opmacy. erator.

The Market @ Mr. Gold The Market @ 25th also viewed 25th opened with fanfare as its mission to be a part of the an oasis of hope to end the community, including being a longtime food desert in the potential employer for many East End, providing fresh food low-income and hard-to-place and produce supplied by local residents from the neighborminority vendors as well as hood. established suppliers to an area It opened in April with 92 of the city where easy access employees, six of whom were to food didn’t exist.

Please turn to A4 In addition to carrying local-

Richmond Public Schools has taken two steps forward and one step back when it comes to full accreditation of the city schools.

Twenty schools in the city are now accredited, according to information released Monday by the Virginia Department of Education.

That is less than half of the city’s 44 schools. It is also one more than the 19 schools Mr. Kamras fully accredited in 2018 and 2017.

With 22 schools being accredited with conditions and two others, the Richmond Alternative School and Amelia Street special education school, accredited pending review of an alternative accreditation plan, RPS is still far from the goal of 100 percent accreditation by 2023 that was set by Superintendent Jason Kamras.

The two steps forward are Westover Hills and Miles Jones elementary schools, which moved to full accreditation this year after conditional accreditation in the 2017-18 academic year.

The one step back is J.L. Francis Elementary School, which slipped from full accreditation last year to accredited with conditions in the latest Please turn to A4

Regina H. Boone/Richmond Free Press

Grand Illumination gets the bah humbug

By Jeremy M. Lazarus

For 34 years, the Grand Illumination has been a major part of Richmond’s official launch of the holiday season and a prelude to the Christmas Parade along Broad Street to escort Santa Claus into Downtown.

But that’s about to change.

While the big parade is on track to return at full strength on Saturday, Dec. 7, the Grand Illumination is set to lose much of its dazzle and shine.

City Hall announced Tuesday that it would host a downsized Downtown Illumination ceremony that some are dubbing “the Modest Illumination” at a nearby city park.

The change stems from the decision of the new owners of the James Center. They have declined to carry on the lighting event that included turning on tens of thousands of white lights on reindeer decorations set up on the landscaped plaza of the office and hotel complex at Cary and 10th streets.

Mayor Levar M. Stoney announced the

new illumination ceremony would take place at the city’s Kanawha Plaza at 8th and Canal streets at 5:45 p.m. Friday, Dec. 6 — about two blocks south and west of the James Center.

Details have not been announced, but the city’s event will struggle to match the flair of the Grand Illumination, a big family-friendly event that included live music and children’s activities along with the countdown to turn on the holiday lights in Downtown.

The location of the James Center also encouraged people to stroll from the event to nearby Shockoe Slip and Shockoe Bottom, where other related public activities and parties go on, including a city-sponsored holiday event at Main Street Station.

The illuminated holiday scene also proved to be a significant nighttime attraction for visitors as well as area residents.

The Richmond Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities has been tasked with putting on the city’s new illumination ceremony, the announcement stated.

A2 October 3-5, 2019

Richmond Free Press

Local News

Hampton University welcomes students from the Bahamas

By Ronald E. Carrington

Hampton University’s drumline raised the roof with crisp cadences as students — victims of Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas — arrived last week at Richmond International Airport to journey to their new academic “home by the sea.”

“The Force,” Hampton’s marching band, joined faculty, staff and administrators to welcome the 46 Bahamian students who will spend the fall semester at Hampton University free of charge.

The arrangement, made by Hampton University President William R. Harvey and University of the Bahamas President Rodney Smith, came in response to the hurricane that devastated parts of the island nation in late August.

Dr. Smith is a former administrative vice president and chief planning officer at Hampton, and welcomed the humanitarian effort to help students. HU is providing free tuition, room and board to the 46 students for the fall semester. Students who want to stay for the spring semester will pay standard tuition and fees, about $25,000 annually.

With the aid of HU’s Office of Admissions and the U.S. Embassy, students were granted expedited visas in order to enter the United States, officials said.

“The heartwarming response we have received from all across the country to our gesture for these students has restored my faith in mankind,” Dr. Harvey said in a statement.

The effort has garnered plenty of support.

Zachary Scott, a HU board member, pledged $100,000 and a series of donors helped to offset the approximate $150,000 international travel cost for the students, officials said. Bahamasair also provided free transportation for the students to get from their campus in Freeport to Nassau for their flight to the United States.

Photos by Regina H. Boone/Richmond Free Press

Abner Clay Park to get facelift Construction fencing now surrounds most of Abner Clay Park in Jackson Ward as a long-awaited facelift begins on the park in the next few days. A children’s playground and a basketball court will remain open until work begins on those portions of the park n e x t year.

Slices of life and scenes The construcin Richmond tion on the park at Brook Road and Leigh and Clay streets could be finished in March, but city officials said that efforts to plant trees and grass at the park might keep the public out of some areas for up to a year. City Hall didn’t announce the closure, leaving frustrated park users to

Cityscape

vent on social media about losing access to the park. Richmond-based Centennial Contractors Enterprises Inc. beat out six competitors to win a $1.27 million contract to install a multipurpose field for football

and other sports, tennis courts, new basketball courts and other amenities, along with improved access for the handicapped.

City Councilwoman Kim B. Gray, who represents the city’s 2nd District in which the park is located, welcomed the project that has been on the books and the subject of multiple community discussions for at least 10 years. She noted, however, that the council appropriation of $1.4 million that also paid for creation of the plans could not be stretched to include lighting, a splash pad for children and several other improvements. “We might need community partners to help us do more,” Ms. Gray said. Otherwise, she said she would need to persuade colleagues on City Council to put up additional funds to add those features.

Kemba Smith Pradia appointed to Virginia Parole Board

By Reginald Stuart

Richmond Coliseum Downtown

Coliseum referendum appears doubtful for Nov. 5 ballot

By Jeremy M. Lazarus

A nonbinding referendum on the $.15 billion Coliseum replacement plan more than likely will not be on the Nov. 5 ballot despite claims that the city’s voter registrar wrongly disqualified the signatures of hundreds of registered Richmond voters who signed petitions seeking to allow the vote.

With absentee voting underway since Sept. 20, the time set under state law has passed to add the measure to the ballot without a court order.

At a hearing Monday, Judge Joi Jeter Taylor, chief judge of the Richmond Circuit Court, said she would issue a written opinion within two weeks on a series of motions filed by activist Paul Goldman to overturn the finding of city Voter Registrar Kirk Showalter that the petition drive Mr. Goldman led to get the Coliseum referendum on the November ballot fell 400 signatures Mr. Goldman short of the 10,341 required.

However, in a step attorneys found unusual, Judge Taylor refused to allow Mr. Goldman to question Ms. Showalter about the system she used to review the signatures. That blocked any testimony from being entered into the record should Mr. Goldman appeal the judge’s decision in a case that involves the constitutional right to petition the government.

Mr. Goldman, who has conducted a review of Ms. Showalter’s findings regarding each signature, filed 2,079 objections to signatures she disqualified. Those rejections led to Ms. Showalter’s report that only 9,941 valid signatures were submitted out of the more than 14,000 submitted.

A Free Press review of the signature list found that in numerous instances, voters who signed the petitions were listed as “cannot identify” by Ms. Showalter even though their names and addresses on the petitions match information on the city voter rolls.

Mr. Goldman argued during the hearing that Ms. Showalter threw out petition signatures without checking to see if they matched the individual’s signature on the their voter registration card. He told the judge that he was blocked from obtaining those cards unless he paid what he called an exorbitant $1,600 Freedom of Information fee.

“The government should not be allowed to take away a constitutional right on a claim of having too little information when it actually has all the evidence it needs but calls it too much trouble to check and then wants to charge someone to do the work the government is supposed to do,” Mr. Goldman argued.

The Richmond Electoral Board, which employs Ms. Showalter, also called into question the accuracy of Ms. Showalter’s findings in a Sept. 26 letter sent to Judge Taylor.

The letter, issued by board chairman James M. Nachman, stated that the board believes that more than 400 people who signed the petitions and were disqualified “may still be ‘qualified voters’ in the city and could be counted with further investigation.”

The board called on the judge to continue the case and to order Ms. Showalter to work with Mr. Goldman to conduct an additional investigation.

Correction

Linda Jackson-Shaw is chair of the Connection Committee for Upsilon Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.

Her position with the sorority was incorrectly identified in a photo caption about the sorority’s voter registration and empowerment effort published in the Sept. 26-28 edition.

The Free Press regrets the error.

The appointment of Kemba Smith Pradia to the Virginia Parole Board by Gov. Ralph S. Northam is being cited as a courageous step by Virginia officials to right criminal justice system wrongs that targeted her generation.

Ms. Pradia, whose mandatory federal prison sentence of 24½ years was commuted in 2000 to time served — 6½ years — by former President Bill Clinton, may be the first former inmate to serve on the state Parole Board.

The 48-year-old from Henrico County was a college student at Hampton University with no prior criminal record when she was arrested and convicted on federal drug charges. She became a national poster child for criminal justice advocates who contended her sentence as a first-time, nonviolent offender was a prime example of the federal government’s overreaction to the drug crime epidemic of the 1980s with mandatory minimum sentences and a disparity in sentencing between those caught with crack versus powder cocaine.

Ms. Pradia became a champion of federal sentencing reform, focusing on the thousands of first-time offenders arrested on federal charges and given harsh prison sentences.

Since her release, Ms. Pradia has aggressively campaigned from coast to coast with mixed results, advocating for Congress and various presidential administrations to curb harsh mandatory minimum federal sentencing laws. She has participated in White House meetings under former President Obama and by Trump Administration officials to discuss actions to address the minimum sentencing issue.

She also has been included in the yearly lineup of speakers at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s fall gathering in Washington and has appeared at forums and events sponsored by various Greekletter organizations, colleges and religious groups.

“It is an inspirational appointment,” said Hilary D. Shelton, director of the NAACP Washington Bureau and the national organization’s senior vice president for policy and advocacy.

He said Ms. Pradia has proven herself an eloquent spokeswoman and advocate for criminal justice reform from the halls of Congress to the world stage of the United Nations.

Ms. Pradia was sworn into office Sept. 26 by Kelly Thomasson, state secretary of the commonwealth, at a low-key ceremony at the Patrick Henry Building in Capitol Square attended by her family and Brian Moran, state secretary of public safety and homeland

Regina H. Boone/Richmond Free Press

Kemba Smith Pradia, center, is sworn in as a member of the Virginia Parole Board on Sept. 26, by Kelly Thomasson, state secretary of the commonwealth, as her daughter, Phoenix, holds the Bible. Witnessing the ceremony are, from left, her parents, Gus and Odessa Smith; her husband, Patrick Pradia; and Brian Moran, state secretary of public safety and homeland security.

security.

Ms. Pradia, who started work this week, stepped down as a state organizer with the Virginia ACLU to assume her new role.

She is one of five parole board members, who traditionally have been attorneys. She is one of two part-time board members. She will work no more than 29 hours a week and pay at $59 per hour.

She replaces attorney Jean W. Cunningham, a former member of the House of Delegates who represented parts of Richmond and Henrico County, who had been on the Parole Board since January 2017 and was

serving as its vice chair.

As a board member, Ms. Pradia will review and make decisions on parole applications for inmates locked up by the state prior to Jan. 1, 1995, when parole was abolished in Virginia. She also will work with her new colleagues to consider conditional geriatric release for older inmates and advise the governor, when requested, on executive clemency petitions.

“I’m up for the challenge,” Ms. Pradia said in a brief telephone interview.

“The part-time status allows me the flexibility do all the

things I’m passionate about,” said Ms. Pradia, a busy wife and mother, a public speaker and head of a foundation she established to help first-time, nonviolent offenders and their families.

“We have a parole board that’s open minded,” said Adrianne L. Bennett, chair of the parole board. “I’m delighted to have (Ms. Pradia) on our team. The fresh prospective will enhance our effort to focus on providing second chances to those who’ve earned it,” said Ms. Bennett, an attorney who has served on the board since 2015.

Upcoming Free Health Seminars We’ll be offering the following free health seminars at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden’s Kelly Education Center, located at 1800 Lakeside Ave. Registration is recommended. Free parking available.

October 8, 2019 | 5:30 p.m.

Reducing Breast Cancer Disparities October 22, 2019 | 5:30 p.m.

Female Urinary Incontinence: You Don’t Have to Live With It November 12, 2019 | 5:30 p.m.

Healthy Eating to Fuel Your Life Register online at vcuhealth.org/events or call (804) 628-0041 for more information.

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A4 October 3-5, 2019

Local News

Memo goes out to city workers in wake of federal overtime suit

By Jeremy M. Lazarus

An ongoing lawsuit alleging City Hall failed to pay Department of Finance employees overtime has begun ushering in change.

An internal memo titled “Timekeeping Training” is being distributed to city workers to read and sign. Among other things, the memo states that workers receiving pay on an hourly basis “will be paid for all hours worked.”

The memo, a copy of which was provided to

the Free Press, also states that each employee is required to “report all working time, even if I work outside of my scheduled working hours.”

Employees also are being notified through the memo that they must take a full lunch period and cannot conduct any compensable work during that time.

If they know their work will extend beyond the scheduled hours, employees need to notify a supervisor who can adjust the schedule or authorize the overtime, the memo states.

However, the memo adds that workers will be paid if they work extra time without notifying a supervisor, but they could be subject to disciplinary action.

The memo emerged three months after Tyrus Yerby and Adrienne Webster filed a federal class action lawsuit on behalf of themselves and other current and former employees claiming that top officials of the city Department of Finance required them to work more than 40 hours a week and during lunch, but did not pay them

time-and-a-half as required.

Filed in June, the suit also alleges that the department began imposing a no-overtime policy in 2016 after John B. Wack became director.

In its court filings, the city has denied any violation of federal labor law and denied the suit’s allegations.

The court has scheduled a settlement conference for mid-November. If an agreement is reached, the case would end. If there is no agreement, a trial date will be set.

20 out of 44 Richmond public schools are fully accredited 20 accredited Richmond schools Here are the 20 Richmond schools that received full accreditation from the Virginia Department of Education: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

Barack Obama Elementary Bellevue Elementary Broad Rock Elementary E.S.H. Greene Elementary Elizabeth D. Redd Elementary Fairfield Court Elementary G.H. Reid Elementary J.B. Fisher Elementary John B. Cary Elementary Linwood Holton Elementary Mary Munford Elementary Miles Jones Elementary Southampton Elementary Westover Hills Elementary William Fox Elementary Patrick Henry School of Science & Arts (charter school) Franklin Military Academy Open High Richmond Community High Richmond Career Education and Employment Academy

Note: Twenty-two other schools were accredited with conditions, while Amelia Street Special Education School and Richmond Alternative School were accredited pending review of their alternative accreditation plan.

Continued from A1

rankings by the state.

This is the second year the Virginia Department of Education has used more than state Standards of Learning test scores to determine a school’s accreditation. Three measures are used for elementary and middle schools, while four measures are used to evaluate high schools.

The three measures used for all schools include student achievement, reduction of the achievement gap and absenteeism, while graduation and dropout rates also are considered when evaluating high schools.

Schools are rated on each measure and are given a summative rating of accredited, accredited with conditions or accreditation denied.

The RPS elementary schools accredited with conditions include: Blackwell, Chimborazo, George Mason, Carver, Ginter Park, J.L. Francis, Oak Grove/Bellemeade, Overby-Sheppard, Swansboro and Woodville.

All seven RPS middle schools and the five comprehensive — Armstrong, George Wythe, Huguenot, John Marshall and Thomas Jefferson — were accredited with conditions.

Upon receiving the state report, Mr. Kamras responded in a statement to the media: “We clearly still have a very long way to go to achieve our goal of 100 percent accreditation,

Layoffs, other challenges hit The Market@25th Continued from A1

assigned to the night shift that stocks shelves for the next morning.

With the layoffs, the workforce now totals 77, including four from the night shift, Mr. Gold said. Shelves now are stocked during the day. He said the store is committed to its mission to help the community.

“From the beginning, 85 percent of the employees are from Church Hill, and that has not changed,” he said.

Sources who preferred not to be named told the Free Press that the store’s prices are considered higher by low-income residents in the area who “have been accustomed to shopping at corner stores and buying (at) low volume.”

Mr. Gold said the market has lowered many prices after doing a price comparison with chain groceries in the area. He said produce, which previously was difficult to find in the neighborhood, is abundant. and shoppers with a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, electronic benefits transfer card receive 50 percent off produce prices. Mr. Gold believes that encourages healthier eating.

“Are there some items, such as gourmet, vegan and gluten-free foods, that are a little higher? Yes,” Mr. Gold said. “That’s because we are independent and can’t buy at the same cost of larger chains.”

But prices for “staples and the deli are right in line with bigger market chain stores,” he said.

Financially, The Market @ 25th is losing more money than planned, Mr. Gold said. Yet he hopes to break even in the next

Ronald E. Carrington/Richmond Free Press

The Market @ 25th is pumping up efforts to attract and retain shoppers with new marketing efforts, including offering big discounts on produce for people using SNAP or EBT cards.

few months and become profitable in about 18 months. The major backer, Steve Markel, is carrying the store through the difficult start-up period, he said.

“Once the store becomes profitable, Mr. Markel has always planned to return the money to the community,” he said. However, the store has to sustain itself, find its balance and grow its market share so that when the backers’ money runs out, the store will be able to stay in the community.

“This is a gorgeous store and people are happy to come

in and shop,” Mr. Gold said.

“We could use some more people shopping.”

To that end, he said, officials are developing a new marketing strategy to inform Church Hill’s ever changing and diverse community that prices are competitive regardless of income.

“Habits are hard to break,” Mr. Gold said. “We have had meetings with more than 50 community organizations to get feedback to find out what changes we need to make to get more people to shop in the store more often.”

but I’m confident that we’re on our way. With time, investment and faithful execution of our strategic plan — Dreams4RPS — there’s nothing we can’t achieve.”

The five-year plan, which runs through 2023, lays out a holistic approach to improving schools, dealing with everything from hiring and retaining teachers to engagement with parents and the community. The plan projects that by the start of the 2023-2024 academic year, all 44 city school will be fully accredited.

School Board member Jonathan Young, 4th District, credited the principal at Westover Hills Elementary School, who was hired in the summer of 2018, with helping to boost RPS’ accreditation status.

“It isn’t by accident that the reason RPS made a gain in accreditation, even if modest, was because of the extraordinary success at

Westover Hills Elementary,” he said in an email to the Free Press, lauding the South Side school located in his district.

“We hired Allison El Koubi as principal and her success in the first year demonstrates what is possible across the district when the right leaders are placed at the school level. Then we get the heck out of their way and let them do their job,” he wrote.

RPS put 14 new principals in place for the current school year. The board had a rigorous, seven-step vetting process in selecting the new school leaders that was designed to move the system toward greater accreditation.

“We are optimistic that some of our schools have made progress by showing growth on the new measures, and we remain committed to the success of all of our students,” said School Board Chair Dawn C. Page, 8th District.

Ministry scrambles to generate new food sources after being shut out by Feed More Continued from A1

Richmond-based Feed More, has cut off Mr. Purcell’s access.

Feed More is the Richmond-based hungerrelief giant that provides nearly 21 million meals annually to 200,000 people in need in 34 counties and cities in Central Virginia.

Tracing its roots back 52 years, the nonprofit generates $60 million a year in revenue — nearly 1,000 times as much as The Way’s shoestring annual budget of $66,000. Feed More, which has more than 1,600 volunteers and more than 100 paid staff, operates, among other programs, the Central Virginia Food Bank to collect and distribute donated food, runs the area’s Meals on Wheels program and prepares food in its kitchen for distribution to children in afterschool programs.

According to Douglas Pick, president and chief executive officer of Feed More, the food that Mr. Purcell collected from Kroger for his ministry already was promised to other food distribution groups that are partner agencies with Feed More, unlike The Way, which is not.

Like other food banks across the country, Feed More is an affiliate of the national Feeding America organization, which has worked with national grocery chains to resolve the issue of what to do with their unsold food.

Under agreements forged since 2010, Feeding America has created contracts with the chains to steer their still unspoiled discards to the food banks and their partners.

To secure that food and get it to people in need, Mr. Pick said Feed More’s practice is to have its 280 partner agencies in Central Virginia go to chain grocery stores to collect the unsold food, from meat and produce to baked goods.

Each group is assigned a specific supermarket, Mr. Pick said. Several agencies can be assigned to a supermarket, with each having a designated day or designated days to collect to ensure daily pickups, he said.

Feed More reports that grocery retailers provide more than 60 percent of the donated food that the organization distributes, with unsold food representing a significant share of the total. So despite his wish to accommodate Mr. Purcell, Mr. Pick said The Way is a disruption to that system.

Mr. Pick said the issue could not be ignored when “a Feed More agency, which participates in our Direct Store Pickup Program, stated that they had not been getting their designated bakery and deli food pickups on their designated pickup days from the store.”

He continued, “Currently, we have three agencies that pick up perishable donations from the meat, produce, deli, dairy and bakery departments from (the Mechanicsville) store seven days a week.”

Mr. Purcell said that was news to him, based on his observation and what he was told by store employees, who previously never saw representatives of any other agency come to pick up deli items and bakery goods on the Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays when Mr. Purcell made collections.

Feed More and Mr. Purcell tried to negotiate a settlement during the summer, under which Mr. Purcell would become a partner agency.

But Mr. Purcell said he dropped that idea when Feed More told him that the Kroger store’s food was spoken for and he would have to go on a waiting list.

“That wouldn’t do,” he said.

Once the talks ended, Feed More, which by contract has first dibs on any food Kroger is discarding, notified the company and the store that further distribution to The Way would violate the agreement with Feeding America.

Mr. Purcell, who was cut off Sept. 4, has watched the food supplies in The Way’s freezers and refrigerators fall sharply since then.

He is scrambling to make up the loss of food from Kroger so he can continue to serve The Way’s clients.

“We have 13 senior communities that we deliver to regularly,” he said, with at least 175 people getting meals twice a month. And that doesn’t count The Way’s deliveries to others or donations to the walk-ins who pick up at the group’s headquarters at 1138 W. Nine Mile Road. “All of the people we serve are being affected by the food shortage we are experiencing,” he said.

He is searching for other grocery stores willing to donate, though he acknowledges that the Feed More monopoly on chain supermarket donations is likely to make that difficult.

Meanwhile, he and his staff are doing more work to prepare food for the people The Way serves. He said they are repackaging sandwiches they receive from Wawa and other locations to meet specific dietary restrictions.

Mr. Purcell also is seeking to boost The Way’s revenues to enable The Way to buy replacement food that it would prepare. He is opening a thrift store operation at the Nine Mile Road location, offering yard care and considering other revenue-producing business possibilities while also trying to boost monetary donations.

He admits it is tough. Given the current $66,000 budget, The Way really can’t afford to buy a lot of food, he said. Like Feed More’s Meals on Wheels, The Way charges a delivery fee to seniors with diet restrictions to cover insurance, gas and other costs, but the people the ministry serves cannot afford a significant increase.

“We have faced challenges before,” Mr. Purcell said. “I can’t let this setback keep me and The Way from continuing this mission. Too many people are depending on us.”

2020 early voting requiring city registrar to think outside ballot box Continued from A1

Ms. Showalter, who has run the city’s voter registration operations since the mid-1990s, publicly outlined the potential impact of early voting on Sept. 26 during testimony to City Council’s Government Operations Committee.

As the result of the growth in the city’s population that is now estimated to top 228,000 people, Ms. Showalter testified that she anticipates the total number of Richmond’s registered voters to swell to nearly 174,000 ahead of the presidential election.

That would be the highest figure in decades and a 30,000-person increase from the previous 2016 peak

of 143,352.

Ms. Showalter told the committee that, without early voting, she projects that about 80 percent of voters would turn out for the 2020 contest, with more than 120,000 going to the polls on Election Day, Nov. 3, 2020, and another 18,000 voting absentee by mail or in person.

However, with early voting, she projects that about 45 percent of voters would cast ballots early, or about 63,000 people, which she said is nearly as many voters as could turn out on Election Day when another 76,000 people would vote.

Although there is no data on early voting, she said that based on past patterns of absentee voting, she is

anticipating that up to 12,000 people could seek to vote on the final Saturday, Oct. 31, 2020, of early voting.

Even if voter numbers remain unchanged through the 2020 election, “we would expect to see 34,000 people seeking to vote early, with a peak of 6,800 people on the final day,” she stated.

She said that no decision has been made on where to place satellite voting centers. However, she estimates that a minimum of three satellite centers would be needed. She told the committee that she also would need to deploy 102 voting booths, 10 vote-counting machines, 51 electronic poll books to record participants and 105 staff members.

Ms. Showalter said early voting is

adding new complexity to her limited space. She said for nearly three years she has urged Selena Cuffee-Glenn, the city’s now former chief administrative officer, to authorize her to move her office and storage for voter equipment to a new location with abundant parking, a bigger warehouse and more room for people seeking to register or vote.

She identified a potential site this year, she said, but Ms. Cuffee-Glenn decided that a review of alternatives was needed.

Ms. Showalter stated that change is needed.

“The footprint of my main office remains the same as it was prior to 1995 when there were only 90,951

registered voters,” she stated.

While she welcomes the growth in registered voters, she said every increase requires more services and more staff.

“Even without (early) voting, we have outgrown the space for storing voting machines,” she stated, adding that she has had to rely on other city departments to provide temporary storage space.

At this point, she said because of the demands for the November 2019 election and presidential primary early next year that any move, even if approved, would have to wait until 2021.

“I had a brief window of time to relocate and that window has closed,” she said.

Richmond Free Press

October 3-5, 2019

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in African-American women.

Mammograms can help detect breast cancer early. Early intervention can prevent the spread of the disease and ultimately save your life. Since 1989, mammograms have helped reduce breast cancer deaths by nearly 40 percent.

Breast health and self-awareness

Definition of a mammogram A mammogram is a breast x-ray examination used to detect cancer. Women at average risk for breast cancer should begin these screenings at age 40 and continue them every year as long as they are in good health.

Screening mammogram: Used to detect breast cancer in women who have no signs of the disease

Diagnostic mammogram: Used to evaluate abnormalities such as a lump, pain, thickening of the breast, nipple discharge or a change in breast size or shape

Mammogram X-ray

A breast examination by a physician or a trained nurse should be part of every woman’s physical examination.

It should be done every three years for women ages 20-39, and every year after that.

Performing regular breast self exams can help you spot any change from what is normal for your breasts.

To learn how to do a breast self-examination, visit massey.vcu.edu/breast-self-exam.

Breast reconstruction awareness If you’ve undergone a mastectomy, breast reconstruction surgery is an option.

There are three types of breast reconstruction operations: • Breast implants: silicone or saline breast inserts • Tissue transfer procedures: using your own body tissues • Implant- and tissue-based combined procedure In addition, we also use nipple/areola tattooing and fat grafting to help restore the look and feel of the breast.

Join us on October 16 at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden from 5:30-7:30 P.M. for an evening of education and a celebration of breast cancer reconstruction and survivorship.

Register at vcuhealth.org/events.

To schedule a mammogram at VCU Health Breast Imaging, call (804) 237-6666. © 2019 VCU Health. All rights reserved. Sources: American Cancer Society: Mammograms — What to Know Before You Go; Mammography Facts; National Breast Cancer Foundation, Inc.; Susan G. Komen; VCU Massey Cancer Center.

A5

Richmond Free Press

A6â&#x20AC;&#x192; October 3-5, 2019

Local News

Evictions in Virginia

By Jason Boleman Capital News Service

Scholars, lawyers and lawmakers are grappling with high eviction rates in Virginia and how to enact solutions. A panel at Virginia Commonwealth University on Sept. 28 addressed findings by the Eviction Lab at Princeton University that five cities in Virginia ranked in the top 10 for national eviction rates, including Richmond, Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk and Chesapeake.

Virginia eviction rates ranged from 11.4 percent in Richmond to 7.9 percent in Chesapeake, according to the study. The rate represents the number of evictions per 100 rental homes in an area. About 150 people attended last weekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s panel featuring Jackie Washington, director of the Six Points Innovation Center in Highland Park; attorney Phil Storey of the Virginia Poverty Law Center, and state

Sen. Jennifer L. McClellan of Richmond.

Sen. McClellan highlighted seven bills that passed the recent General Assembly session and were signed into law. The legislation included bills that made written leases required, reduced the number of eviction cases a landlord could file, created the opportunity for tenants to submit unpaid rent and fees prior to eviction, and allow tenants to recover their possessions. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is not really a partisan issue,â&#x20AC;? Sen. McClellan said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Where there is disagreement, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s really sort of the landlords versus tenants, and I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean to say that all landlords are bad or all landlords are predatory.â&#x20AC;?

Of the seven housing measures signed into law by Gov. Ralph S. Northam, four were introduced by Democrats and three by Republicans.

Sen. McClellan also said in a phone interview after the event that more bills to address eviction are being drafted now for

VCU Capital News Service

From left, Sen. Jennifer McClellan of Richmond, Jackie Washington of Six Points Innovation Center and Phil Storey of the Virginia Poverty Law Center speak Sept. 28 on an eviction panel moderated by Megan Pauly at Virginia Commonwealth University.

the upcoming General Assembly session in January, including a bill to address the habitability of a rental property.

Despite the flurry of bills during the last session, Mr. Storey said â&#x20AC;&#x153;way too many people are on the knifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edge because of the way the system is designed.â&#x20AC;?

The discussion, held at VCUâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s W.E. Singleton Center for the Performing Arts, centered largely around how tenants fall behind on rent payments.  â&#x20AC;&#x153;Two-thirds of the people who call our hotline are behind on rent, with the average caller being around two and a half months back,â&#x20AC;? Mr. Storey said. He also said that, on average, clients of the Virginia Poverty

Eviction forum set for Oct. 10 Legislative candidates from around Metro Richmond are expected to tackle the issue of eviction during a forum 6 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 10, at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, 428 N. Arthur Ashe Blvd.

The forum is hosted by the Campaign to Reduce Evictions in conjunction with the League of Women Voters of Richmond Metropolitan Area and the Richmond Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our purpose in holding this forum is to allow Virginia House and Senate candidates to share their positions on reducing eviction rates across the Commonwealth and mitigating the effect of evictions on children and families,â&#x20AC;? according to a statement on the Campaign to Reduce Evictions website.

The organizations have invited candi-

dates running for the state Senate and the House of Delegates from the metro area to participate.

A 2016 report by Princeton University found that Richmond has the second-highest eviction rate in the country, with 11.4 percent of renters evicted yearly. Other Virginia cities also were noted for high eviction rates, including Hampton at 10.5 percent, Newport News at 10.2 percent, Norfolk at 8.6 percent, Chesapeake with 7.9 percent and Virginia Beach at 7.2 percent.

The forum is free and open to the public.

Reservations are required at www.eventbrite. com or by emailing Madeleine Jordan-Lord with Campaign to Reduce Evictions at madeleine.jordanlord@richmond.edu.

Details: www.reduceevictions.org

Law Center are paying 58 percent of their monthly gross income to rent dwellings, with some people paying as much as 70 percent.

Panelists also discussed the link between discriminatory housing policies and the eviction rate today, which, according to the RVA Eviction Lab at VCU, increases with the African-American population in a neighborhood.

Ms. Washington highlighted historic redlining in Richmondâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Jackson Ward neighborhood, where banks would avoid making housing loans based on neighborhood demographics, as â&#x20AC;&#x153;an intentionally racist housing policy.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;If we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t connect the dots from historic housing policy, then we just might miss it,â&#x20AC;? Ms. Washington said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;But those who experience it will never miss it.

Folks of color will always know that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s racist.â&#x20AC;?

Mr. Storey agreed, saying that â&#x20AC;&#x153;things that seem sort of natural and immutable are often not and are based in some pretty ugly root causes.â&#x20AC;?  The event was sponsored

by VCUâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, VCU University College and Virginia Public Media.

The panelists were introduced

by Benjamin Teresa and Kathryn Howell, co-directors of the RVA Eviction Lab at VCU, which opened this year and provides eviction data and research. Â

â&#x20AC;&#x153;One of the goals of the lab is to do research that is relevant to Richmond and other cities in Virginia, as well as outside of the state,â&#x20AC;? Mr. Teresa said.

The panel was connected to this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s VCU Common Book, a program that selects a new book each year for incoming freshmen to read. The initiative is intended to foster

awareness and engagement around important issues.

VCU freshmen received a copy of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Evicted,â&#x20AC;? a book by Matthew Desmond, founder of the Eviction Lab at Princeton University. Freshman-level courses incorporate the book into coursework and discussion.

Mr. Desmond is scheduled to visit VCU on Oct. 16.

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Richmond Free Press

October 3-5, 2019

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Richmond Free Press

Changing foliage in North Side

Editorial Page

A8

October 3-5, 2019

RPS: A snapshot from the state There were no surprises in the report released this week by the Virginia Department of Education. The report showed that fewer than half of Richmond’s public schools — 20 of the 44 schools — are fully accredited.

A faint glimmer of hope: That number is up from the past two years, when only 19 of the city’s schools met full accreditation standards.

There’s a lot of work to be done. We all know it.

Richmond Public Schools administrators, the Richmond School Board, teachers, city officials and area residents have known that for years.

Data posted on the Virginia Department of Education’s website offers a dismal snapshot: • In the 2018-19 academic year, RPS student achievement lagged at least 20 percentage points behind state averages in the core subjects of reading, writing, math, science and history. The results of the state Standards of Learning tests, which were released in August, showed us that.

• None of the city’s seven middle schools met full accreditation standards, nor did any of the five comprehensive high schools. Only the three specialty high schools, Franklin Military Academy, Open High and Richmond Community High, gained full accreditation.

• Interestingly, more than half of the city’s elementary schools are accredited — 16 of 26, including the charter elementary school, Patrick Henry School of Science & Arts.

Should we applaud the fact that RPS’ absenteeism rate has dropped from 19.2 percent in 2016-17 to 14.8 percent in 2018-19? Or should we point out that a 4.4 percentage point drop in two years is painfully slow progress?

Additionally, one in five students in RPS drops out, according to the state data. Last year, that number was one in four.

Should we be pleased that the 25 percent dropout rate in 2017-18 has decreased to a still abysmal rate of 20 percent in 2018-19?

According to the state Department of Education snapshot report, RPS has an enrollment of 24,763 students, including youngsters in the pre-kindergarten program. The data show that 66.1 percent of RPS students are African-American, 17 percent are Latino, 13.4 percent are Caucasian and 1.2 percent are Asian.

A majority of RPS students — 65 percent — are from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, while 16.1 percent of students have learning disabilities and 9 percent are English learners.

Superintendent Jason Kamras has pledged to have 100 percent of our city’s schools accredited by the 2023-24 school year. That’s an ambitious goal that we hope the RPS team can make in just four years.

Aspirations are needed, but they are empty without a plan. While Dreams4RPS, the five-year strategic plan, is designed as the roadmap to get our school system to the goal, it is important that Mr. Kamras and the School Board keep the Richmond community fully informed of whether the plan is working.

Our students deserve the best efforts from Mr. Kamras, the School Board and the entire cadre of RPS teachers, administrators and support staff in order to excel academically. While measures are important, our students are more than just numbers on a scale showing progress. Their lives and futures depend on the support of each and every worker and volunteer in the city school division.

The difference between a student dropping out or reaching a future of excellence involves all of us, including home and community support. That means parents, guardians and others in the village — at church, at libraries, at barber and beauty shops. Guidance and support can come in many forms and from many places — all of it good.

If there is a literary reference to cite, perhaps it is “The Little Engine That Could,” the eternal children’s book by Watty Piper that inspires optimism and hard work. That little engine succeeded by staying on track.

Certainly, the Virginia Department of Education’s data show that RPS could use a healthy dose of optimism and hard work and a plan to stay on the right track if our students are to succeed.

Your vote is your voice Voting is your right and your power.

And on Nov. 5, Virginia will hold elections for the 140 seats in the General Assembly.

Several local contests also will be on the ballot, including in the cities of Richmond and Petersburg and in Henrico, Chesterfield and Hanover counties.

The deadline to register to vote in the November election, or to update your registration with a name change or change of address, is Tuesday, Oct. 15.

Can’t get to the polls on Nov. 5?

In-person absentee voting is taking place now at local election offices.

To vote absentee by mail, the request for an absentee ballot must be submitted by Tuesday, Oct. 29.

Unsure of your district or what will be on your ballot?

Visit the Virginia Department of Elections website at www.elections.virginia.gov or call your local voter registrar’s office.

Here are the numbers: Richmond: (804) 646-5950 Henrico: (804) 501-4347 Chesterfield: (804) 748-1471 Hanover: (804) 537-6080 Petersburg: (804) 733-8071 Your vote is your voice. Use it.

Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press

Homelessness: A national crisis

For more than a decade, economists, lawmakers and others have heralded the nation’s economy, often citing how unemployment has declined as new jobs have been created, or Wall Street trading and major bank profits rise.

S o m e might be led to believe that all is well in America. But as Sportin’ Life in the folk opera “Porgy and Bess” sang, “It ain’t necessarily so.”

On Sept. 16, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, joined by other California city and county officials, wrote a letter urging President Trump to recognize homelessness as a “national crisis decades in the making that demands action at every level of government.”

“Mr. President ­— shelter solves sleep,” wrote the California officials, “but only housing solves homelessness.”

Gov. Newsom and company were absolutely correct. State and local officials across the country also reckon with limited resources to house the nation’s half million homeless people and its accompanying persistent

poverty.

America’s homeless are a visible reminder that not everyone has been a part of an economic recovery.

In 2018, 67 percent of America’s homeless people were individuals. The remaining 33 percent were families with dependent children, according to

Charlene Crowell a report by the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

Further, according to a new 2019 report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, “Our nation is currently in the midst of a long period of economic expansion. Yet stagnant wages, rising housing costs and inaccessible job opportunities keep many children and families trapped in impoverished communities.

And despite economic growth, we have not seen significant reduction in poverty.”

Despite the availability of homeless and poverty research, HUD Secretary Ben Carson sent Gov. Newsom a stark rejection of California’s appeal for federal financial assistance to alleviate California’s homeless.

Secretary Carson’s Sept.

18 reply said in part, “California cannot spend its way out of this

problem using Federal funds …

More vouchers are clearly not the solution the State needs. To address this crisis, California must reduce its regulatory burdens on housing.”

Advocates for homeless and low-income people strongly disagreed with Secretary Carson’s assessment.

“We know that the number one cause of homelessness is the lack of affordable housing,” said Megan Hustings, managing director of the National Coalition for the Homeless.

“Consumers are already struggling with crushing debt from student loans and medical expenses, or facing triple-digit interest rates when they attempt to access small dollar loans,” noted Marisabel Torres, director of California policy with the Center for Responsible Lending. “When they also have to pay some of the highest housing costs in the nation, it is unfortunately unsurprising that there are such large numbers of homeless people in many of California’s large cities.

“California’s homeless may be the largest by state,” Ms. Torres continued. “But the problem is a national one that deserves to be recognized and acted upon.”

In 1987 there was an expres-

sion of national will to respond to America’s homeless through enactment of the McKinney Homeless Act. That statute created the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness dedicating the ongoing support of 19 federal agencies to prevent and end homelessness. HUD is one of the participating agencies. The Council on Homelessness even has a written plan, “Home, Together,” that lays out federal remedies over the fiscal years of 2018 through 2022.

According to the 2018 report by the Council on Homelessness, “Crisis services are the critical front line of communities’ responses to homelessness, helping people meet basic survival needs while also helping them swiftly secure permanent housing opportunities.”

Someone should give Secretary Carson a copy.

The writer is communications deputy director with the Center for Responsible Lending.

Richmond Free Press 422 East Franklin Street Richmond, VA 23219 Telephone (804) 644-0496 FAX (804) 643-7519 Mailing Address: P.O. Box 27709 Richmond, VA 23261 ______________

Worker power

More than 2,200 nurses at the University of Chicago Medical Center went out on strike recently, but they are not alone.

American workers are waking up and walking out.

On Sept. 15, General Motors’ 46,000 hourly United Auto Workers union employees went on strike, the first time in 12 years.

Striking British Airway pilots grounded 1,700 planes.

In Republican states like Oklahoma and West Virginia, teachers shut down schools last year to demand that state legislatures reverse the deep cuts exacted from public education.

Marriott hotels were hit with the largest hotel strike in U.S. history, a walkout of 6,000 hotel workers in four states.

The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that a soaring number of workers went on strike or stopped work in 2018 — 485,000 — the most since 1986. The rising number of strikes reflect the reality of President Trump’s economy.

Despite all his boasting about the “economic miracle,” most workers aren’t experiencing it.

Corporate profits have soared, but workers haven’t shared the benefit.

The president’s tax scam went largely to the rich and the corporations. Corporate promises of wage and investment hikes were largely discarded, with CEOs using the tax breaks mostly to buy back stocks, boosting their stock bonuses and shafting their workers. Gilded age inequality is

combined with rising insecurity for working people.

Even now, wages finally have begun to rise, but still are not catching up to soaring costs in basics like health care and education. Just 22 percent of workers have a pension plan of any kind at work. And 40 percent of Americans say they would be forced to borrow or

Jesse L. Jackson Sr. sell something to cover a $400 emergency. One in five say they know someone addicted to opioids or painkillers.

The GM strike comes after workers sacrificed big time to help GM out of bankruptcy during the Great Recession. Now GM’s profits are up and CEO bonuses are up, but workers who shared the pain haven’t shared in the gain. They are striking for decency, for higher wages, for strong health care plans, for turning more temporary workers — who get no benefits — into permanent workers with pensions, health care and vacations.

The strike wave last year was led by teachers in deep red states. In each state, Republican legislatures had slashed spending on education during the Great Recession and cut taxes on the wealthy. When the economy turned around, they didn’t restore the spending cuts.

Teachers sick of futile negotiations with local school boards walked off the job and took their case directly to the legislatures. They demanded not only higher salaries, but in many cases, smaller classes and greater state spending on their students.

They got massive support from

parents and the community. In each case, right wing state legislators were forced to respond by increasing spending, although not to the levels sought by the striking teachers.

The wave of strikes increasingly is propelled by younger workers. Fight for $15, the movement to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, was led by young workers in fast food restaurants and other service industries.

Young people, often burdened with college debt, entering workplaces characterized by wages and benefits that don’t keep up with costs, are particularly aware of how the economy has been rigged against them. Large majorities think CEOs are greedy and irresponsible. Large majorities think politicians have been corrupted by entrenched interests and big money. They are driving the demand for change.

President Trump, for all his populist posturing, remains oblivious, wedded to the conservative Republican agenda, opposed to unions, to raising the minimum wage, to investing in teachers and education and getting health care costs under control.

But every leading Democratic contender for president champions worker power, calling for reforms to make it easier to organize, for lifting the minimum wage, for making vital public investments and for cracking down on the entrenched interests that have rigged the economy against working people. The words of the old union ballad “Which Side Are You On?” once more echo across the country.

The writer is founder and president of the national Rainbow PUSH Coalition.

The Free Press welcomes letters The Richmond Free Press respects the opinions of its readers. We want to hear from you.

We invite you to write the editor. All letters will be considered for publication. Concise, typewritten letters related to public matters are preferred. Also include your telephone number(s). Letters should be addressed to: Letters to the Editor, Richmond Free Press, P.O. Box 27709, 422 East Franklin Street, Richmond, VA 23261, or faxed to: (804) 643-7519 or e-mail: letters@richmondfreepress.com.

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Richmond Free Press

October 3-5, 2019

A9

Letter to the Editor

Isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t it time for a promised honor?

Wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t you agree that something is wrong if a top figure at a Richmond university told the world you were going to receive a tremendous honor, but the university never delivered that honor?

That is what happened to me.

In 1974, I was the first black star player on the University of Richmondâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s basketball team, and I led the team to its first winning season in 16 years.

We finished 17-12, and even beat archrival William & Mary. Just as importantly, we beat Virginia Tech at the Robins Center. That was huge because Tech went on to win the prestigious National Invitational Tournament by beating Notre Dame, which had earlier halted UCLAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unprecedented 88-game winning streak.

UR officials were so excited about the basketball results that they did something remarkable. They designated the final game of the regular season as Aron Stewart Day to honor me for enabling the Spiders to break their long string of losing seasons dating back to 1958 and

for rewriting the basketball records at the school.

At that game, which drew a sold-out crowd of 7,000, Mac Pitt, then the best known sports figure at the university, â&#x20AC;&#x153;eloquently told one and all that No. 30 would never be worn by another player,â&#x20AC;? according to the Richmond daily newspaperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s report on the event. UR officials also presented me with an impressive trophy and read a letter from the governor.

But in the 45 years since, as UR has retired the jersey numbers of subsequent top players, the promise that my number would be retired has never been kept. The university quietly repudiated Mr. Pittâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s statement. My number has remained in use even though my scoring average of 28.1 points for the 44 games I played, and my rebounding average of 12 per game, are still unbroken school records.

In fact, since UR introduced the game to the campus in 1912, no other player has come close to those records.

It would have been appropriate before I graduated from UR in 1974 for the school

to have retired my number. At that time, only one other player, Warren Mills, had his jersey number retired, and he scored fewer points in the 107 games he played than I did in the 44 games I played in for the school.

Still, despite my achievements, UR waited 36 years to include me in its sports Hall of Fame, even though the school previously had inducted players who were not good enough to make the All-Conference teams of their day as I did during my time. The school kept me waiting until even non-graduates began wondering what was going on.

Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t you think it is finally time for UR to retire my jersey number, too?

Maybe in 1974, retiring the jersey number of an African-American player would have been too radical for a largely white school. But surely enough time has passed so that UR can consider my case on the merits, not on my skin color.

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NOTICE OF PROPOSED REAL PROPERTY TAX INCREASE (Ref: VA Code § 58.1-3321)

The City of Richmond proposes to increase property tax levies: Assessment Increase: Total 2020 assessed value of real property, excluding additional assessments due to new construction or improvements to property, exceeds last yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s total assessed value of real property by 7.9%.

Lowered Rate Necessary to Offset Increased Assessment: The tax rate which would levy the same amount of real estate tax as last year, when multiplied by the new total assessed value of real estate with the exclusions mentioned above, would be $1.122 per $100 of assessed value. This rate is known as the â&#x20AC;&#x153;lowered tax rate.â&#x20AC;?

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$1.20/$100

$0.078 per $100, or 6.95%

This difference from the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Lowered tax rateâ&#x20AC;? is known as the â&#x20AC;&#x153;effective tax rate increase.â&#x20AC;?

Individual property taxes may, however, increase at a percentage greater than or less than the above percentage.

Proposed Total Budget Increase: Based on the proposed real property tax rate of $1.20 and changes in other revenues, the total budget of the city of Richmond will exceed last yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s by 3.65 %.

A public hearing on the increase will be held on Tuesday, November 12, 2019, at 6:00 p.m. in the Council Chamber, located at 900 East Broad Street.

Public Meetings

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Public Meetings

Interstate 95 Corridor Improvement Plan

2019 Fall Transportation Meetings

You are invited to attend a meeting or use an online platform to learn about the Interstate 95 Corridor Improvement Plan and provide input on potential improvements.

You are invited to participate in public meetings held by the Commonwealth Transportation Board. The meetings will begin with a brief open house followed by a public comment period. At the open house you can learn about various transportation initiatives, including: ď&#x201A;ˇ Adjustments to Virginiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s project prioritization process (SMART SCALE) ď&#x201A;ˇ Virginiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Statewide Transportation Improvement Program ď&#x201A;ˇ VTrans Draft Mid-term Transportation Needs (Virginia's Statewide Transportation Plan) ď&#x201A;ˇ Adjustments to the Highway Safety Improvement Program.

Representatives of the Office of Intermodal Planning and Investment (OIPI) and Departments of Transportation and Rail and Public Transportation will be in attendance to highlight their transportation programs and discuss your ideas and concerns about Virginiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s transportation network. The open house will be followed by a public comment period, during which you may provide comments about the various initiatives. Comments will be accepted at the meeting and may also be submitted via email or online at www.CTB.Virginia.gov.

The Commonwealth Transportation Board, with support from the Office of Intermodal Planning and Investment (OIPI), the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), and the Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT), is developing an I-95 Corridor Improvement Plan as requested in Senate and House of Delegates resolutions (SJR 276 and HJR 581) adopted by the 2019 General Assembly.

The Commonwealth Transportation Board has initiated a data-driven study to develop the I-95 Corridor Improvement Plan which will (i) identify key problem areas along the corridor, and (ii) identify potential targeted solutions and areas for additional review and study.

You are invited to provide input on the I-95 Corridor Improvement Plan online or at an in-person meeting, the second in a series of online feedback opportunities and meetings between now and later this fall. The purpose of this second series of meetings is to solicit input on potential targeted safety and congestion solutions along I-95 in the Commonwealth. There will be a brief presentation at the beginning of each meeting followed by time for the public to provide input on potential solutions for safety and congestion issues in the corridor. The Commonwealth Transportation Board will take your comments into consideration as it develops the Plan. Comments can be submitted via email to: VA95corridorplan@vdot.virginia.gov.

The Northern Virginia meeting will also provide information and opportunity for input on the I-95 Auxiliary Lane project between Route 123 and Route 234 on I-95 south. The Richmond meeting will be combined with the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s regularly-scheduled Fall Transportation Meeting.

The online comment form will be available at va95corridor.org beginning October 7, 2019. You can find meeting materials there as well. Attendance at the meetings in not required in order to submit comments online.

The comment period will end October 25, 2019. Additional comment opportunities will be available throughout the study.

Public meetings will be held at the below-listed dates and times at the noted locations.

Wednesday, October 9, 2019 Fredericksburg James Monroe High School 2300 Washington Avenue Fredericksburg, VA 22401 6â&#x20AC;&#x201C;8 p.m.

Tuesday, October 15, 2019* Richmond District Richmond Marriott Short Pump 4240 Dominion Boulevard Glen Allen, VA 23060 4-7 p.m. *This meeting is combined with regularly-scheduled Fall Transportation Meetings.

Thursday, October 17, 2019 Northern Virginia* Freedom High School 15201 Neabsco Mills Rd. Woodbridge, VA 22191 6â&#x20AC;&#x201C;8 p.m.

*This meeting will include information about the auxiliary lane project on southbound I-95 between Route 123 and Route 234.

VDOT ensures nondiscrimination and equal employment in all programs and activities in accordance with Title VI and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. If you need further information on these policies or need special assistance for persons with disabilities or limited English proficiency, please contact the Virginia Department of Transportationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Title VI Specialist at 804-786-2730 (TTY users call 711).

Follow the Richmond Free Press on

@FreePressRVA @RichmondFreePressUSA

Meeting Dates and Locations Open House begins at 4 p.m. in each of the locations unless otherwise noted.

Tuesday, October 15, 2019* Richmond District Richmond Marriott Short Pump 4240 Dominion Boulevard Glen Allen, VA 23060

*This meeting will also provide opportunity for comment on the I-95 Corridor Study Plan

Wednesday, October 30, 2019 Salem District Holiday Inn Valley View 3315 Ordway Drive Roanoke, VA 24017 Thursday, November 7, 2019 Bristol District Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center One Partnership Circle Abingdon, VA 24210

Tuesday, October 22, 2019** Northern Virginia District Northern Virginia District Office Potomac Conference Room 4975 Alliance Drive Fairfax, VA 22030

Monday, October 28, 2019*** Staunton District Doubletree Hotel Harrisonburg 1400 E. Market Street Harrisonburg, VA 22801

Monday, November 4, 2019 Lynchburg District Lynchburg District Complex Ramey Memorial Auditorium 4303 Campbell Avenue Lynchburg, VA 24501 Tuesday, November 12, 2019** Fredericksburg District James Monroe High School 2300 Washington Avenue Fredericksburg, VA 22401

Wednesday, November 6, 2019 Hampton Roads District Hampton Roads District Office 7511 Burbage Drive Suffolk, VA 23435

**meeting begins at 6 p.m.

**meeting begins at 6 p.m.

***meeting begins at 3 p.m.

Wednesday, November 13, 2019 Culpeper District VDOT Culpeper District Office 1601 Orange Road Culpeper, VA 22701

Fall meeting materials will be available at http://www.ctb.virginia.gov/planning/fallmeetings/ beginning October 15, 2019.

You may submit comments on any transportation projects and initiatives to OIPI Deputy Director Ronique Day, 1221 E. Broad St., Richmond, VA 23219 or PublicComments@OIPI.Virginia.gov. Comments will be accepted until November 30, 2019.

The Commonwealth is committed to ensuring that no person is excluded from participation in, or denied the benefits of, its services on the basis of race, color, or national origin, as protected by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. If you need further information on these policies or special assistance for persons with disabilities or limited English proficiency, please contact the Virginia Department of Transportationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Title VI Compliance Officer at 804-786-2730 or the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Title VI Compliance Officer at 804-786-4440 (TTY users call 711).

Richmond Free Press

A10 October 3-5, 2019

Sports

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Stories by Fred Jeter

African-American quarterbacks making an impact in NFL Rookie quarterback Kyler Murray signed a lucrative fouryear contract with the NFL Arizona Cardinals worth more than $35 million.

Early indicators suggest he may be worth every penny.

An overnight success, Murray became only the second quarterback in NFL history — joining Cam Newton of the Carolina Panthers — to pass for more than 300 yards in each of the first two games. Murray passed for 349 yards against the Baltimore Ravens and 308 yards against the Detroit Lions.

Through four games, Murray has completed 61.3 percent of his passes for 830 yards and four touchdowns.

He also looms as among the league’s top dual-threat (run-pass) quarterbacks once the Cardinals unleash his considerable running skills. He

The No. 1 Club These African-American NFL quarterbacks were selected first overall in the NFL draft.

2001 - Michael Vick, by Atlanta Auburn University 2015 - Jameis Winston, by the Falcons, from Virginia Tech 2007 - JaMarcus Cousins, by Tampa Bay Buccaneers, from the Oakland Raiders, from Florida State University 2019 - Kyler Murray, by the Louisiana State University 2011 - Cam Newton, by the Arizona Cardinals, from the Carolina Panthers, from University of Oklahoma

raced for 1,001 yards and 12 touchdowns last season at the University of Oklahoma while passing for 4,361 yards and 42 touchdowns.

The Arizona brain trust, with first-year Coach Kliff Kingsbury, were sold on Murray despite some glaring red flags.

Murray was only a one-year starter at Oklahoma, waiting behind Baker Mayfield. He became the first quarterback shorter than 6 feet — he’s 5 feet, 10⅛ inches — to be

selected first overall in the NFL draft.

Until this past year, baseball — not football — appeared to be his athletic meal ticket. He previously signed as an outfielder with the Oakland Athletics.

At the NFL Scouting Combine, Murray declined to sprint for time and scored a disappointing 20 on the Wonderlic Cognitive Ability Test.

For quarterbacks, 24 is average on the test. By comparison, Seattle quarterback

Russell Wilson scored 28 and Tampa Bay quarterback Jameis Winston, 27.

The all-time high is a 48 in 2005 scored by Ryan Fitzpatrick, a quarterback out of Harvard University who is now with the Miami Dolphins.

So much for the Wonderlic.

In assessing Murray, Arizona chose its own eyeball test over NFL standardized guides. It goes to show that in making critical decisions, go with your gut.

Arizona never flinched, signing Murray for a base salary of $23 million-plus, with a signing bonus of $12 million.

Coming off a dreary 3-13 season, the Cardinals have chosen Murray to steer the franchise back on course.

Alphabetically, here are the NFL’s other African-American starting quarterbacks with background information:

• Teddy Bridgewater of the New Orleans Saints: Age 26; Minnesota’s first round draft choice (32nd overall) out of University of Louisville in 2014; became the Saints quarterback following a thumb injury to Drew Brees.

• Jacoby Brissett of the Indianapolis Colts: Age 26; New England’s third round pick (91st overall) out of North Carolina State University in 2016; became the Colts quarterback following the retirement of Andrew Luck.

• Lamar Jackson of the Baltimore Ravens: Age 22; Ravens’

Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press

Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray, left, and Russell Wilson, quarterback of the Seattle Seahawks, exchange jerseys after last Sunday’s game in Glendale, Ariz. first round pick (32nd overall) out of the University of Louisville in 2018; became the starter during his rookie season following an injury to Joe Flacco.

• Pat Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs: Age 24; Chiefs’ first round choice (10th overall) out of Texas Tech in 2017; became starter in second season when Alex Smith was traded.

• Cam Newton of the Carolina Panthers: Age 30; First overall pick by the Panthers in 2011; team starter from the outset, earning league MVP in 2015; three-time All-Pro selection.

Newton is temporarily sidelined with a sprained left foot.

• Dac Prescott of the Dallas Cowboys: Age 26; Cowboys’ fourth round pick (135th overall) out of

Mississippi State University in 2016; took over as rookie starter following an injury to Tony Romo.

• Deshaun Watson of the Houston Texans: Age 24; Texans’ first round pick (12th overall) out of Clemson University in 2017; despite injuries, he has been the starter since joining team.

• Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks: Age 30; Third round pick (75th overall) out of the University of Wisconsin in 2012; became rookie starter after beating out Matt Flynn during preseason.

• Jameis Winston of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Age 24; Overall top draft choice out of Florida State University in 2015; starter from outside, made Pro Bowl and named Rookie of the Year in 2015.

James Haskins/Richmond Free Press

Virginia Union University running back Tabyus Taylor gets past a stunned WinstonSalem State University defense last Saturday at Hovey Field in Richmond.

VUU pulls out a win in last 21 seconds

The Virginia Union University Panthers have played like Houdini in their last two outings, escaping disaster on their home field.

This Saturday, Oct. 5, the Panthers hope to take that magic to Livingstone College in Salisbury, N.C., in a battle of CIAA championship contenders.

In sports jargon, there’s winning by a nose, by a hair, even by a split second.

In defeating Winston-Salem State University last Saturday, VUU won by an instep — that of soccer-style kicker Jefferson Souza.

The final score: 16-15.

The Brazilian born Souza booted three field goals during the game at Hovey Field, most dramatically a game-winning 25-yard field goal with a mere 21 seconds left.

VUU fans are getting accustomed to being nervous.

The week before, the heavily favored Panthers weren’t assured victory over Johnson C. Smith University until Sterling Hammond’s interception and touchdown return in the game’s closing minute.

Jarrett Sumiel was the Panthers’ late-game defensive savior against Winston-Salem State.

The defensive back from Westmoreland blocked a Rams punt with 1:52 to go and recovered on the Winston-Salem State 19-yard line.

That set up Souza’s decisive kick that pushed VUU’s record to 3-1 overall and 1-0 in the CIAA. Tabyus Taylor led the Panthers’ ground-andpound running game with 76 bullish yards. The junior from Hopewell also caught two passes for 30 yards and returned a kickoff for 58 yards.

Panthers quarterback Khalid Morris hit 11 of 14 passes for 114 yards and a touchdown to former Highland Springs High star Jaiden Reavis.

Tyrone Glanton and Hammond spearheaded the

Panthers’ defense against Winston-Salem State.

Glanton, a graduate student from Miami, was in on eight tackles and has 31 stops for the year.

Hammond, arguably the CIAA’s top NFL prospect in years, had seven tackles against the Rams and has 40 for the season.

Like VUU, upcoming opponent Livingstone College also is enjoying life on the gridiron.

The Blue Bears are 4-0, with wins over Chowan University, Elizabeth City State University, Allen University of Columbia, S.C., and most recently a 35-19 victory over Lincoln University.

Livingstone travels best by the arm of quarterback Miles Hayes. The Miami native has hit 68 percent of his passes. He averages 204 yards through the air with eight touchdowns.

Livingstone appears to be on the uptick under fifth-year Coach Daryl Williams. The Blue Bears were 0-10 in 2017 and 3-6 a year ago, including a 52-19 loss to VUU at Hovey Field.

Livingstone’s only CIAA titles came back to back in 1997 and1998, while VUU has won 11 CIAA crowns, most recently in 2001.

This is a pivotal game for both teams. With tough schedules looming, both need a victory to remain viable candidates for the CIAA championship game in Salem.

VS.

On the road again Saturday, Oct. 5: Virginia Union University plays Livingstone College at Livingstone’s Alumni Memorial Stadium in Salisbury, N.C. Kickoff: 1 p.m.

Game to be broadcast on WNTW, 92.7 FM.

James Haskins/Richmond Free Press

Virginia State University freshman running back Darius Hagans goes in for a 2-yard touchdown during the first quarter of the Trojans’ game against Johnson C. Smith University last Saturday at Rogers Stadium in Ettrick.

VSU rolls over J.C. Smith; ready for Shaw on Saturday

The spotlight will be on the quarterbacks this Saturday, Oct. 5, at Virginia State University.

Both Cordelral Cook of the host VSU Trojans and Torrin Campbell of visiting Shaw University are building All-CIAA credentials.

Cook ranks with the NCAA Division II’s most dangerous run-pass option quarterbacks and he showed it last Saturday in VSU’s 31-15 rout of Johnson C. Smith University at Rogers Stadium in Ettrick.

The Georgia native passed for 158 yards and a touchdown and ran for 63 yards and another touchdown as VSU’s record improved to 3-1.

Cook’s touchdown pass went to former L.C. Bird High School standout Kier Townsend.

The “Trojan Express” is rumbling. In defeating the University of North Carolina-Pembroke, St. Augustine’s University and Shaw University, in order, VSU has outscored its opponents 100-38.

Meanwhile, Shaw University’s Campbell leads the CIAA in passing with 246 yards per game. The native of Toledo, Ohio, threw for five touchdowns in the Bears’ 49-10 victory over Edward Waters College of Jacksonville, Fla., last Saturday.

Shaw is 2-2 with consecutive wins over CIAA opponent Chowan University and Waters.

Both Cook and Campbell are transfers — Cook coming to VSU from Alabama State University while Campbell arrived at Shaw University from

VS. Trojans on a roll

Saturday, Oct. 5: Virginia State University plays Shaw University at Rogers Stadium in Ettrick.

Kickoff: 1 p.m.

Game to be broadcast on WVST, 91.3 FM.

Kentucky State University.

Again, VSU displayed a punishing ground attack with 213 yards against Johnson C. Smith University. Over four games, the Trojans have averaged 262 rushing yards with 11 running touchdowns.

Defensively, 225-pound linebacker William Lulu was key with 12 tackles, including two for losses. Lulu is a Florida native who transferred to VSU from North Carolina Central University.

Following this week’s home game against Shaw, the Trojans travel to Elizabeth City State University on Saturday, Oct. 12.

Momentum is building for VSU’s Oct. 19 homecoming against defending CIAA champion Bowie State University. The Bowie State Bulldogs are 4-0 following a 54-6 win last Saturday over St. Augustine’s.

October 3-5, 2019 B1

Section

B

Richmond Free Press

Happenings

Personality: Christa Lynne Coleman Spotlight on board member of Peter Paul Development Center It is unbelievable for Christa children, as well as creating a Lynne Coleman, daughter of the hub for social events. founder of Peter Paul Develop“It took me a while to apment Center, to celebrate the preciate what he was doing organization’s 40th anniversary because I was quite young when as well as the life and legacy he started, plus I was moving of her late father. all around the country as he The celebration, “A Bridge was building his dream,” Ms. and Life Legacy” will be held at Coleman says.

Peter Paul Development Center, The center founder was an 1708 N. 22nd St. from 3 to 6 inspiration for his daughter, as p.m. Saturday, Oct. 26. well as for all of the people he The event focuses on John encountered.

Coleman’s community ideals “This anniversary is unbeand the center’s history, in- lievable as my father’s legacy cluding incredible testimonies has endured and prospered. He of strength, vulnerability and would be proud,” she says. service to the East End comForty years later, Peter munity.

Paul Development Center is a “What my father did is awe- powerful force in the East End some and inspiring,” says Ms. as it lives up to its mission to Coleman, a board member since educate children, engage family 2016. “My dad did this after and empower the community. he returned from seminary in After living in different parts New York and (the center) has of the country and traveling blossomed over the years.” extensively, Ms. Coleman, a An East End resident, par- professional educator working ent and activist, Mr. Coleman with nonprofits serving lowfounded the center in 1979 as a income students, returned to nonprofit organization, housed Richmond after 37 years. at the time in St. Peter’s Epis“What struck me the most copal Church at the corner of about my father’s dreamX and 22nd streets. turned-reality was the power Mr. Coleman had a vision of what Peter Paul achieved for his struggling neighbor- during my absence and the hood in the heart of the East impact it had on lives in the End: To elevate lives, improve community,” Ms. Coleman says. education and job opportunities “People shared the impact my in his community that faced dad had on their lives and why average or below-average they continue to be involved in income levels, high crime and Peter Paul. That is a powerful drug use. force.”

His goal was to support As a member of the board, and rebuild the community by Ms. Coleman is looking toward strengthening families; pro- the next 10 years. “I see the viding a program for seniors; community transformed by offering financial assistance, people from the community economic development and because the center is ‘of the opportunities for parents and community.’ That’s the vision young adults; and providing of the board and I know that’s academic support and recre- what my dad wanted.”

RFP Ad Final 10012019.pdf 1 10/1/2019 3:56:52 PM ational activities for school-age Peter Paul’s after-school

Want to go?

What: “A Bridge and Life Legacy” — Peter Paul Development Center 40th Anniversary.

When: 3 to 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 26.

Where: Peter Paul Development Center, 1708 N. 22nd St. Details: Interactive exhibits, inspiring speakers, food from Chef Pescado Catering, local beer and wine and entertainment from local band “Brown’s Island.”

Tickets: $40 through Thursday, Oct. 10; price increases Oct. 11 to $50. Proceeds will support Peter Paul Development Center’s programming and purpose to “Educate the Child, Engage the Family and Empower the Community.”

For more information and tickets: Peter Paul Development Center, (804) 780-1195, or www. peterpauldevcenter.org/40th-anniversary-celebration/

program uses the best practices from the center’s experience to help students at satellite locations at Fairfield Court, George Mason, Bellevue, and Chimborazo elementary schools.

After John Coleman’s death in 1986, the center continued to be supported primarily by the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia and many generous individuals as the organization expanded and strengthened with a focus on fostering and measuring academic achievement.

Becoming reflective and emotional, Ms. Coleman asks a poignant question as she remembers her father’s life and legacy: “What can you do in a lifetime and what will be your imprint?”

“If my father were here right now, I would tell him thanks from the bottom of my heart for your gift to me, to people you don’t even know and to people who are not born yet,”

she says through a teary swell of emotion. “Your life was short but incredibly powerful.”

Meet this week’s Personality, whose father’s legacy lives on through her, Christa Lynne Coleman: Date and place of birth: Sept.

16 in Richmond.

Current residence: Glen Allen.

Alma mater: Bachelor’s of science, Virginia Commonwealth University, 1979.

Relationship to Peter Paul Development Center: Daughter of founder John Coleman and board member since 2016.

Why the center is important to the East End community: This center has been a place of support, resources, refuge and hope for 40 years.

Leadership of the center: It enjoys the service of impassioned board members, with most members filling their maximum term of six years; community members are employed at Peter Paul and serve on the board, as well.

What changes and progress have occurred since center’s founding: Peter Paul continues to respond to the community and has grown its impact in the level and depth of programming. In 2007, the main building was built, which allowed us to serve three times the number of students. In 2012, Peter Paul opened its first Promise Center at Fairfield Elementary.

Challenges facing the center and community it serves: The lack of safety for our children and the overall impact of community trauma.

The center’s greatest reward: All the successes of the children and their families, including academic confidence and success, high school graduations, stable housing, full-time jobs, first cars, etc.

Role of the center in eliminating social ills: Peter Paul takes an asset-based approach to its work and focuses on empowering its families with the skills needed to thrive.

What makes a good leader: The ability to inspire people

to want to achieve more than they think is possible.

How I start the day: In total gratitude.

Quality I most admire in another person: Acceptance of others — not just in words, but in deeds.

Three words that best describe me: Curious, appreciative and under development.

Something I love to do that most people would never imagine: Most people who know me know I love professional football. I don’t think they know just how much I love it.

A perfect day for me is: A chilly fall Saturday that starts with a long walk, followed by a long stay at a cozy coffee shop and ending with a delicious bowl of soup and a game of football.

Best late-night snack: All latenight snacks are the best!

How I unwind: Watching professional sports — no storyline, no dialogue, just talent and artistry.

The best thing my parents ever taught me: To give — of myself and my treasures.

At the top of my “to-do” list is: To read more books!

Persons who influenced me the most: My parents. I watched them both carefully, and I am so glad I did!

What I’m reading now: Just finished “The Storyteller’s Secret” by Sejal Badani and about to start “Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland” by Gerald Clarke.

Next goal: To keep learning!

C

M

Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

K

This fall, the Commonwealth of Virginia invites all Americans to “Come Home to Virginia” for the Virginia Customs, Cultures, and Cuisine Festival in November 2019. Enjoy a variety of premier events, festivals and special programming that draw on 400 years of Virginia’s unique history and culture – a momentous capstone to the American Evolution, 2019 Commemoration.

americanevolution2019.com

Richmond Free Press

B2 October 3-5, 2019

Happenings New ICA exhibit, ‘Great Force,’ to include late Free Press founder The power of white culture versus black resistance is at the heart of a major art show opening this week at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Institute for Contemporary Art. The exhibit, “Great Force,” is opening with a celebration 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, Oct. 4, as part of the First Fridays art walk in Downtown and brings together a diverse array of artists offering their views on “the persistent force of blackwhite racial constructs in the United States,” according to the ICA. Accompanied by a host of other programs, the show will feature the works of 24 artists, ranging from Richmond-born video artist Tony Cokes to modern artists based in New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Chicago such as Sable Elyse Smith, Paul Mgpagi Sepuya and Mores McWreath.

A display considered likely to attract national interest from art critics will include ICA-commissioned drawings of Tomashi Jackson that seek to address the over-saturation of Confederate monuments in Virginia.

Her drawings also celebrate late black human rights advocates, including Raymond H. Boone , the late founder and former publisher of the Richmond Free Press, Maggie L. Walker, John Mitchell Jr., Dorothy Height, Elizabeth Keckley, Alicia Rasin and federal Judge Spottswood W.

Courtesy of VCU’s Institute for Contemporary Art

Artist Tomashi Jackson pauses to look at her installation of drawings on glass honoring AfricanAmericans from Virginia at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Institute for Contemporary Art. Her installation, titled “Monument of Color (Red, Black, and Green)” is part of the ICA’s “Great Force” exhibit opening Friday, Oct. 4. Among the portraits featured is one of Raymond H. Boone, left, the late founder and former publisher of the Richmond Free Press.

Robinson III. The multifaceted exhibit will feature sculpture and paintings as well an installation by video artist Xaviera Simmons as featuring 60 oneminute videos of her travels across the nation and a new untitled piece from Radcliffe Bailey that is part of his “Door of No Return” series.

Other items include two of Alexandra Bell’s “Counternarratives,” featuring creative edits of enlarged New York Times articles in which she

found racial bias and a space dedicated to the Racial Imaginary Institute that Claudine Rankine and John Lucas conceived that will feature their works and the work of Claudine Lagarde.

Along with the art, the ICA also will host singers, musicians, dancers, lecturers and other events during the show’s run through Jan. 5.

For example, the ICA will screen awardwinning filmmaker Jenn Nkiru’s short films at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 9, and will have two artists giving away plants from Rashid Johnson’s “Monument” installation from noon to 5 p.m.

Sunday, Oct. 13.

The show is the brainchild of ICA assistant curator Amber Esseiva, a Parisian émigrée.

An admirer of the late American writer James Baldwin, who fled to Paris to escape racism in his native land, Ms. Esseiva said the exhibit is based on a key quote from his 1965 essay, “White Man’s Guilt,” published in Ebony magazine: “White man, hear me! History, as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us.”

17th Annual Gabriel Forum set for Oct. 8 at the African Burial Ground A public forum and the debut of a new dance work next week will call attention to Gabriel, the Richmond man who organized the area’s largest slave revolt, and the African Burial Ground in Downtown where he was executed after the1800 uprising for freedom failed.

The 17th Annual Gabriel Forum will take place from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 8, at the burial ground at 16th and Broad streets. Among the speakers will be Pamela Bingham, a descendent of Gabriel, and Dr. Ram Bhagat, founder of Drums No Guns, who will speak on cultural healing.

The program also will include Joseph S.H. Rogers’ re-enactment of the life of his family member, James Fields,

who escaped from slavery at age 16 and rose to represent Hanover County in the House of Delegates after the Civil War. The program also will include a discussion of the struggle of Union Hill, a black community in Buckingham County, against a Dominion Energy pipeline. The discussion will be led by Richard Walker, founder of Bridging the Gap in Virginia and a fifth generation member of a land-owning family in Union Hill.

The Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice and Equality and its Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project are sponsoring the event that is free and open to the public.

The forum will be followed

by the premier of the dance work, “Brother General Gabriel,” at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 10, also at the burial ground.

The program is free and open to the public.

Part of the University of Richmond’s Tucker-Boatwright Festival of Literature and the arts, the performance is the work of Richmond-based choreographer MK Abadoo and history strategist and Untold RVA founder Free Egunfemi, who is co-directing.

According to the festival, the work is a commemorative justice piece that seeks to call up Gabriel’s now invisible army in a bid to transform the unmarked gallows that once stood on the site where he and others were hanged.

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Richmond Free Press

October 3-5, 2019 B3

Happenings

!

HING G U LA DIE L L ’ YOU

Kehinde Wiley statue unveiled in Times Square; next home, Richmond Free Press wire reports

NEW YORK CITY Artist Kehinde Wiley unveiled his biggest work ever last Friday — a massive bronze statue of a young African-American man in urban streetwear sitting astride a galloping horse.

Called “Rumors of War,” it flips the script on traditional statutes in Richmond and throughout the South commemorating white generals.

Mr. Wiley described his bold work as a call to arms for inclusivity.

He told The Associated Press afterward that he hoped young people would see it and “see a sense of radical possibility — Kehinde Wiley’s statue, “Rumors of War,” is 27 feet tall and took three years from conception to unveiling last this, too, is America.”

Friday in New York’s Times Square. The statue will be The project was born when moved in December to its permanent home in Richmond Mr. Wiley saw the 15-foot-tall outside the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts on Arthur Ashe bronze statue in Richmond of Boulevard.

Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart The unveiling ceremony in New York was astride a horse. That statue is among the string of Confederate memorials along Monument attended by several Richmonders, including Alex Avenue that includes statues of Robert E. Lee, Nyerges, director of the VMFA, Dr. Monroe E. Harris Jr., chairman of the museum’s board, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson.

“I’m a black man walking those streets. and Richmond Mayor Levar M. Stoney, who I’m looking up at those things that give me a spoke at the event.

The event was bookended by performances sense of dread and fear. What does that feel like, physically, to walk a public space and to from the marching band from Malcolm X Shahave your state, your country, your nation say, bazz High School in Newark, N.J. “Today is a monumental day,” said Mayor ‘This is what we stand by.’ No. We want more.

We demand more,” he said to the crowd of Stoney in addressing the crowd. “In Richmond about 350 people at the Times Square unveil- we have 10 Confederate monuments to the Lost ing. “Today we say ‘Yes’ to something that Cause. I think that is 10 too many.”

The mayor’s Monument Avenue Commission looks like us.”

The horse-riding figure in the 27-foot-tall recommended in July 2018 that Richmond’s “Rumors of War” — on the Broadway Plaza statue of Jefferson Davis be removed from the between 46th and 47th streets — has turned tree-lined street and that contextual signs be in his saddle, his attention seemingly toward added to the others.

“Our friends who worked on the Monument an American Eagle store. His Nikes are firmly in the stirrups and his majestic horse is in Avenue Commission stated that addition has movement, focused on something across the to be part of the recipe for us balancing the scales in Richmond in terms of the monustreet.

“Rumors of War” will be on display in Times ments we currently have to the Lost Cause Square until Dec. 1 before being moved to and balancing that with heroes and sheroes its permanent home in Richmond outside the from African-American culture,” Mayor Virginia Museum of Fine Arts on Arthur Ashe Stoney said.

Morgan Edwards of the VCU Capital News Boulevard, where it will be unveiled again on Service contributed to this report.

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Richmond Free Press

B4 October 3-5, 2019

Obituaries/Faith Directory

International opera star Jessye Norman dies at 74 Free Press wire reports

NEW YORK Jessye Norman, the renowned international opera star whose passionate soprano voice won her four Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts and the Kennedy Center Honor, has died, according to family spokesperson Gwendolyn Quinn.

She was 74.

Funeral arrangements were not complete at Free Press deadline.

A statement released to The Associated Press on Monday said Ms. Norman died at 7:54 a.m. from septic shock and multi-organ failure secondary to complications of a spinal cord injury she sustained in 2015. She died at Mount Sinai St. Lukeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hospital in New York, and was surrounded by loved ones. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are so proud of Jessyeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s musical achievements and the inspiration that she provided to audiences around the world that will continue to be a source of joy. We are equally proud of her humanitarian endeavors addressing matters such as hunger, homelessness, youth development, and arts and culture education,â&#x20AC;? the family statement read.

Born Sept. 15, 1945, in Augusta, Ga., Ms. Norman grew up in a musical family and sang in church. She fell in love with opera after hearing a radio broadcast as a youngster and earned a scholarship to study music at Howard University. She

Ms. Norman

later studied at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and the University of Michigan.

Ms. Norman made her operatic debut in 1969 in Berlin in a production of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Tannhaeuser,â&#x20AC;? eventually wowing audiences around the world on stages in Milan, London and New York thanks to her electrifying voice. The New York Times described her voice as â&#x20AC;&#x153;a grand mansion of sound.â&#x20AC;?

Barbara W. Rabin, a founder of HOME, dies at 86 Most people take for granted that if sales company his father, Samuel Wurtzel, they have the money to pay rent or cover founded and from which he would later a mortgage, they can live anywhere they build Circuit City. want in the Richmond area.

Mrs. Rabin, meanwhile, got engaged in But that was not the case 50 years ago changing the city. In the late 1960s, she when skin color often trumped income in joined Mrs. Boone and others in seeking segregated Richmond. a solution to housing segregation.

Barbara Wurtzel Rabin and a group of When they formally organized HOME African-American and white colleagues in 1971, Mrs. Rabin was named the first ushered in change. They organized Housing executive director, a post she would hold Opportunities Made Equal for 12 years until she left of Virginia, or HOME, and to seek a law degree at broke the back of overt disthe University of Virginia. crimination in the sale and There, she met her second leasing of residences with husband, Yale Rabin, an lawsuits and other actions urban planner and nationto enforce the 1968 federal ally recognized expert on Fair Housing Act. affordable housing, who â&#x20AC;&#x153;She was laser-focused died in 2016. on the mission, faithful to Among other initiatives the work and dedicated to at HOME, Mrs. Rabin made the cause,â&#x20AC;? said Jean Pattera testing system that was key Mrs. Rabin son Boone, Richmond Free to gaining evidence of disPress publisher, and also one of HOMEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s crimination, a practice that the U.S. Supreme founding members.

Court upheld in a landmark 1982 ruling.

Mrs. Rabinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role in pushing Richmond African-American and white volunteers to accept diversity and inclusion is being would go separately to rent an apartment recalled following her death Sunday, Sept. or to buy a house and would report back 29, 2019, in a retirement home in the on their treatment. In all too many cases, Philadelphia area. Her family attributed her landlords and owners would provide an death to complications from Alzheimerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s excuse to block the African-American apdisease, which she battled for 15 years. plicants while providing a warm welcome She was 86. to the white applicants.

Born in New York during the Great Major apartment complexes as well Depression, Mrs. Rabin came to Richmond as real estate firms started changing after after marrying her childhood sweetheart, facing costly federal lawsuits that sent a Alan Wurtzel, who developed the former message that a watchdog was taking noCircuit City chain of electronics stores tice and prepared to make them pay for after both graduated from Oberlin Col- violating the fair housing law. lege in Ohio.

A history of HOME describes Mrs. They moved to Richmond in 1966 where Rabin as â&#x20AC;&#x153;passionate, bold and extremely Mr. Wurtzel joined the TV and electronics capableâ&#x20AC;? as well as â&#x20AC;&#x153;able to get things

St. Peter Baptist Church

accomplished in a very controversial area without making enemies.â&#x20AC;?

Current HOME President and CEO Heather M. Crislip said her predecessor â&#x20AC;&#x153;laid a firm foundation for a powerful civil rights organization and provided the key tool for fair housing enforcement across the nationâ&#x20AC;? in pushing the litigation that led to the decision in the Havens v. Coleman case that fair housing testers and their organizations could use to enforce the Fair Housing Act. In addition to her work for HOME, Mrs. Rabin also joined with other parents and residents in the integrated Byrd Park area to get John B. Cary Elementary designated in 1969 as a model school that included African-American and white students.

Their action was ahead of the federal court order that forced the Richmond School Board and city to install cross-town busing to integrate schools.

Ms. Rabin also was involved in organizing Citizens for Excellence in Public Schools, which successfully pushed to launch Open High School in 1972 as an option for gifted and talented students and to install an innovative curriculum in Henderson Middle School when it opened in January 1974.

Survivors include her son, Daniel Wurtzel of Irvington, N.Y.; two daughters, Judy Wurtzel of Chevy Chase, Md., and Sharon Wurtzel of Brooklyn, N.Y.; two stepsons, Andrew Rabin of Asheville, N.C., and Paul Rabin of Jamaica Plain, N.Y.; three stepdaughters, Alix Rabin, Mira Rabin and Sarah Rabin, all of Philadelphia; a sister, Caroline G. Parker of Briar Cliff, N.Y.; five grandchildren and five stepgrandchildren.

Details for Mrs. Rabinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s services have not been announced.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Church With A Welcomeâ&#x20AC;?

3HARON "APTIST #HURCH 500 E. Laburnum Avenue, Richmond, VA 23222

$R +IRKLAND 2 7ALTON 0ASTOR

www.sharonbaptistchurchrichmond.org (804) 643-3825

Worship Opportunities: During the month of October, all Sunday Worship Services will be held at 10 a.m.

Church School will be held at 8:30 a.m.

Rev. Dr. Paul A. Coles, Pastor

Thursdays:

Mid-Day Bible Study 12 Noon Prayer & Praise 6:30 P.M. Bible Study 7 P.M. (Children/Youth/Adults)

Family Day Emphasis Sunday Sunday, October 6, 2019 AT A M

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2019

8:30 a.m. .... Sunday School 10:00 a.m. ... Morning Worship and Holy Communion

Save the Date SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2019 Fish Fry & Yard Sale ..... 11:00 AM â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 4:00 PM

Music rendered by the Male Chorus Join us as we emphasize the family structure and the importance of God within.

-OUNTAIN 2OAD s 'LEN !LLEN 6IRGINIA /FlCE s &AX s WWW STPETERBAPTIST NET

Sixth Baptist Church Theme for 2018-2020: Mobilizing For Ministry Refreshing The Old and Emerging The New We Embrace Diversity â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Love For All! A 21st Century Church With Ministry For Everyone

Sunday, October 6, 2019

Revival Tues. Oct. 8th - Thurs. Oct. 10th Praise and Worship â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 7:00 PM Revival Worship Service â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 7:30 PM Evangelist: Rev. Dr. Melvin Blackwell Anointed and Appointed Pastor/Preacher 400 South Addison Street Richmond, Va. 23220

Twitter sixthbaptistrva

(near Byrd Park)

(804) 359-1691 or 359-3498 Fax (804) 359-3798 www.sixthbaptistchurch.org drbibbs@sixthbaptistchurch.org

Facebook sixthbaptistrva

Ebenezer Baptist Church 1858

¹4HE 0EOPLE´S #HURCH²

216 W. Leigh St. â&#x20AC;˘ Richmond, Va. 23220 Tel: 804-643-3366 â&#x20AC;˘ Fax: 804-643-3367 Email: ebcofďŹ ce1@yahoo.com â&#x20AC;˘ web: www.richmondebenezer.com Sunday Worship Sunday Church School Service of Holy Communion Service of Baptism Life Application Bible Class Mid-Week Senior Adult Fellowship Wednesday Meditation & Bible Study Homework & Tutoring Scouting Program Thursday Bible Study

11:00 a.m.

9:30 a.m.

Every 3rd Sunday 2nd Sunday, 11 a.m.

Mon. 6:30 p.m.

Tues. 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Wed. 6:45 p.m.

Wed. 4:30 p.m.

Wed. 6:00 p.m.

Thurs., 11:45 a.m.

Dr. Wallace J. Cook, Pastor Emeritus

Rev. Dr. James E. Leary, Interim Pastor

Baptist Church 2003 Lamb Avenue Richmond, VA 23222 Dr. Arthur M. Jones, Sr., Pastor (804) 321-7622

151st Church Anniversary Celebration Sunday, October 6, 2019 - 3:00pm Speaker: Rev. Justin D. House,

Tabernacle Baptist Church, North ChesterďŹ eld, VA

Mon. October 7th â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Wed. October 9th - 7:00pm Revivalist: Rev. Dr. Tremayne Johnson Zion Baptist Church, Newport News, VA

Special Guest: Rev. D. Kay Logan & Nu Beginning Experience First Baptist Church of Elmont J. - Unity Choir

1111 Old Bon Air Rd, N. ChesterďŹ eld, VA 23235 â&#x20AC;˘ (804) 320-9638 Pastor Vincent T. Williams, Sr.

Good Shepherd Baptist Church 1127 North 28th St., Richmond, VA 23223-6624 s Office: (804) 644-1402 Dr. Sylvester T. Smith, Pastor â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s A Place for Youâ&#x20AC;?

Tuesday Sunday 10:30 AM Bible Study 9:30 AM Church School 6:30 PM Church-wide Bible Study 11:00 AM Worship Service 6:30 PM Men's Bible Study (Each 2nd and 4th) (Holy Communion Thursday each 2nd Sunday) Wednesday (Following 2nd Sunday) 6:30 PM Prayer Meeting

11:00 AM Mid-day Meditation

Upcoming Events & Happenings October 6, 2019 @ 10:30 A.M. Communion Sunday Worship

October 13, 2019 @ 10:30 A.M. 112th Anniversary Celebration 1 Corinthians 13:13 This Is Us Faith From Our Past; Loving Into Our Future.

Weekly Worship: Sundays @ 10:30 A.M. Church School: Sundays @ 9:00 A.M. Bible Study: Wednesdays @ Noon & 6:30 P.M.

2901 Mechanicsville Turnpike, Richmond, VA 23223 (804) 648-2472 ~ www.mmbcrva.org Dr. Price London Davis, Senior Pastor

New Deliverance Church Initial Evangelistic Sermon of Bro. Avi Hopkins

Join

Church School - 9:30 a.m.

Worship Service - 11:15 a.m.

Come Worship With Us!

Home-Coming Worship 10:45 AM Message by: Pastor

Rev. Dr. Yvonne Jones Bibbs, Pastor

Triumphant

Ms. Norman was a trailblazer as one of the few African-American singers to attain worldwide stardom in the opera world. She performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and La Scala in Milan, among others. She sang title roles in works such as â&#x20AC;&#x153;Carmen,â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Aidaâ&#x20AC;? and more. She was not limited to opera or classical music, performing songs by Duke Ellington and others as well.

Officials at The Metropolitan Opera called her â&#x20AC;&#x153;one of the great sopranos of the past half-century.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Starting with her Met debut as Cassandra in Berliozâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;Les Troyensâ&#x20AC;? on Opening Night of the Metâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s centennial 1983-84 season, Ms. Norman sang more than 80 performances with the company, dazzling audiences with her beautiful tone, extraordinary power and musical sensitivity,â&#x20AC;? Met officials said in a statement following her death.

Ms. Norman was revered in France, and was invited in 1989 to sing the French national anthem, â&#x20AC;&#x153;La Marseillaise,â&#x20AC;? at the Place de la Concorde in Paris during a grand celebration of the 200 anniversary of the French Revolution.

At the time, French President François Mitterand bestowed upon her the Legion of Honor award, the highest civil and military honor in France.

In 2009, President Obama awarded her the National Medal of Arts.

Bible Study - Wednesday - 7 p.m.

Communion - 1st Sunday

1701 Turner Road, North Chesterfield, Virginia 23225 March 2019 @ 3:00 P.M. (804) 276-0791 office 24, (804)276-5272 fax www.ndec.net

Us as We Celebrate this Important Moment in the Life of Our Church Family.

Remember...

Weekly Worship: Sundays @ 10:30 A.M. New@Deliverance, Church School: At Sundays 9:00 A.M. Are&Home!

Bible Study: WednesdaysYou @ Noon 6:30 P.M.

See you there â&#x20AC;&#x153;I refuse to accept the and bring a friend. view that mankind is so tragically bound to the Follow peace with all starless midnight of racism Thirty-first Street men, and holiness, and G. warO.that the bright Bishop Glenn without which no man Baptist Church D. Min., Pastor daybreak of peace and Mother Marcietia S. Glenn brotherhood can never become a shall see the Lord: First Lady ance with Reverence v e l realityâ&#x20AC;Ś.

I believe that Hebrew 12:14 (KJV) e R in g Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s All About Celebrating Jesus! unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final n www.ndec.net i Dr. Alvin Campbell, Interim Pastor SUNDAY b celebrate the Lord info us If you want Lenten Season word.â&#x20AC;? â?&#x2013; omtotoshare 8:00 a.m.

Sunday School your gift C â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Martin Luther King,Christi Jr. Mosby joins with the larger

We Pray Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ric for You & Your in The New

9:30 a.m. Worship Service SUNDAYS Rev. Dr. Price L. Davis, Pastor

Church School 9:30 a.m.

Morning Worship 10:30 a.m. â?&#x2013;

WEDNESDAYS Bible Study 7:00 p.m.

WEDNESDAY SERVICES

Noonday Bible Study 12:00 p.m. (Noon) Sanctuary - All Are Welcome!

Wednesday Evening Bible Study 7:00 p.m. (Bible Study)

â?&#x2013;

SATURDAY

THIRD SUNDAY 10:30 a.m.

Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Church Higher Achievement

8:30 a.m. Intercessory Prayer

823 North 31st Street Richmond, VA 23223 (804) 226-0150 Office

You can now view Sunday Morning Service â&#x20AC;&#x153;AS IT HAPPENSâ&#x20AC;? online!

Also, for your convenience, we now offer â&#x20AC;&#x153;full online giving.â&#x20AC;?

Visit www.ndec.net.

Tune on Sunday Morning to season inincelebrating the Lenten WTVR - Channel 6 - 8:30 a.m.

reflection, fasting & prayerful conse on the journey and follow along wi CHRISTIAN Calendar at www.mmbcrv ACADEMY (NDCA) NOW ENROLLING!!!

6 weeks to 4th grade Before and After Care

For more information Please call

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Richmond Free Press

October 3-5, 2019

B5

Faith News/Directory

Frank Lloyd Wright synagogue continues 60 years later as work of art

By Adelle M. Banks Religion News Service

ELKINS PARK, Pa. Sixty years ago, just before the Jewish High Holy Days, members of a Conservative synagogue processed into their new sanctuary, marking a new era in their congregational life and in modern religious architecture.

The only synagogue designed

by Frank Lloyd Wright, Beth Sholom Synagogue still stands six decades later in this suburb north of Philadelphia as both a house of prayer and an unusual, functioning piece of art.

Recalling in its design the place where Scriptures say the Ten Commandments were given to Moses, Beth Sholom is lesser known than the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Fallingwater or Mr. Wright’s other landmark creations. It nevertheless attracts those who are aware of its connections to the famous architect.

Mr. Wright himself saw it in cosmic terms.

“The design for Beth Sholom has taken the supreme moment of Jewish history and experience,” Mr. Wright said at the time, “the revelation of God to Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai, and translated that moment with all its significance into a design of beauty and reverence.

“In a word, the building is Mount Sinai, where Israel first encountered God.” The synagogue’s exotic geometric shape, which appears atop a rise and around a bend as drivers approach it along Old York Road, was suggested

by Beth Shalom’s then-Rabbi Mortimer J. Cohen as “a dream and hope in my heart” to Mr. Wright in a 1953 letter. Mr. Wright responded to Rabbi Cohen, whose letter included a rough sketch of his idea, beginning a close bond the two men developed, mostly through correspondence.

“They had a very long, sustained dialogue about this building over a six-year period,” said Joseph M. Siry,

Darren Bradley

The Beth Sholom Synagogue, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and opened 60 years ago, still stands as a functioning place of worship and an art piece in Elkins Park, Pa., just north of Philadelphia.

author of the 2011 book “Beth Sholom Synagogue: Frank Lloyd Wright and Modern Religious Architecture.”

Mr. Wright would eventually grant Rabbi Cohen the title of co-designer. The architect, a Unitarian whose uncle was an organizer of the 1893 Parliament of the World’s Religions, also referred to the rabbi and himself as “congenial workers in the vineyard of the Lord.”

Dr. Siry said Rabbi Cohen, in turn, said: “I found in Mr. Wright a genuinely spiritual person who responded in his unique way to the great teachings of my religion.”

The building was dedicated, and the rabbi’s dreams were realized, just months after Mr. Wright’s death, on Sept.

20, 1959.

Rabbi Cohen showed in his original sketch that he did not want a traditional longitudinal design. Rather, he desired a space, Dr. Siry said, with “a much more collective, in-theround feeling.”

That idea continued in the slant of the floor.

“It slopes down toward the front but it also slopes in toward the center,” said Dr. Siry, an art history professor at Wesleyan University in Connecticut.

For his part, “Wright wanted to create the kind of building

in which people, on entering it, will feel as if they were resting in the hands of God,” the American Institute of Architects notes in its online description.

Dr. Siry said the building, with its 108-foot-tall sanctuary, achieves the “mountain of light” Mr. Wright was hoping for with the synagogue’s tetrahedron design.

Just before night falls, said Helene Mansheim, director of the synagogue’s visitor center, the light from the sunset can turn the sanctuary a golden color.

Designated a National Historic Landmark in 2007, the synagogue is listed by the AIA as one of 17 buildings designed

by Mr. Wright that are examples of “his architectural contribution to American culture.”

Recently, new sights and sounds have been added to the synagogue, whose name means “House of Peace.”

In part to mark the building’s 60th anniversary, Beth Sholom’s preservation foundation

Homecoming

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2019

Theme: Homecoming A Day of Celebration

has commissioned a multimedia installation by Philadelphia artist David Hartt that evokes the Jewish and African-American diasporas.

The exhibition, titled “The Histories (Le Mancenillier),” features orchids and other tropical plants, along with tapestries, videos and the music of composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk.

Cole Akers, curator of the exhibition, said the installation reflects how Beth Sholom’s congregation, a century old this year, has related to urban development. The congregation began in north Philadelphia in a building that has become the location of Beloved St. John Evangelistic Church in a community that is now predominantly African-American.

“The relationship between these two congregations led Hartt to consider the constant movement of Black and Jewish communities as a result of political, economic, and social currents,” Mr. Akers said in an email message.

The exhibition, which opened on Sept. 11, will close Sept. 26 through Oct. 10 around the time of the High Holy Days and reopen through Dec. 19.

Luke 15:22-23

SUNDAY SCHOOL 9:30 am MORNING WORSHIP 11 am Rev. Robert C. Davis

Theme: Jesus Loves The Little Children MONDAY, OCTOBER 14TH Rev. Sheila E. Hicks, Pastor Mt. Calvary Baptist Church North Chesterfield, Virginia Combined Choir in Concert

Preaching

Homecoming Dinner

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15TH Rev. Carmen Thornton

AFTERNOON SERVICE 3 pm Rev. Dr. Robert Diggs, Pastor

Tabernacle Baptist Church, Petersburg

Union Baptist Church 1813 Everett Street, RVA 23224 804-231-5884

Youth Revival

October 14 – 16, 2019 7:00 pm Nightly

New Bridge Baptist Church

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16TH Minister Kelante Fountaine Mount Vernon Baptist Church

Rev. Robert C. Davis, Pastor

i] &)* 8]jgX] 6cc^kZghVgn October 5 - 6, 2019

Saturday, October 5 - 2 p.m.

Anniversary Concert Guest Preacher: Pastor Shawn Scott Ridgeway Baptist Church

Sunday, October 6 11 a.m.

Preaching: Pastor W.L. Moody 3 p.m.

Guest Preacher: Pastor Kenneth Cooper Spring Creek Baptist Church

Mt. Sinai Baptist Church

Rev. W.L. Moody, 20TH Pastor Senior

2IVERVIEW

"APTIST #HURCH

200 Old Hundred Rd., Midlothian, VA 23114 (804) 794-5624 www.mountsinaibaptist.com mtsinaibaptistchurch@aol.com

Zion Baptist Church

2604 Idlewood Avenue Richmond, Va. 23220 (804) 353-6135 www.riverviewbaptistch.org Rev. Dr. Stephen L. Hewlett, Pastor Rev. Dr. Ralph Reavis, Sr. Pastor Emeritus

2006 Decatur Street, Richmond, VA 23224 ZBCOFFICE@VERIZON.NET Dr. Robert L. Pettis, Sr., Pastor (804) 859-1985 or (804) 232-2867 Church Office

Homecoming &Sunday, FallOctober Revival 6, 2019

Riverview Community Marketplace

Idlewood Ave & Robinson Street Saturday, October 5, 2019 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM

“Revive Us Again” Psalm 85:6

Morning Worship, 10:30 AM Rev. Dr. Robert L. Pettis, Sr.

Homecoming Celebration following morning service

Monday, October 7th thru Wednesday, October 9th

7:30 PM Nightly Prayer and Praise - 7 PM MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY, OCT. 7TH OCT. 8TH OCT. 9TH Dr. Herbert L. Rev. Antoine Dr. Norwood G. Ponder, Pastor, Edwards, Pastor, Carson, Pastor,

Mount Tabor Baptist Manassa Hill Baptist Friendship Baptist Church, Richmond Church, Amelia Church, Hopewell For Transportation, call the Church Office

Broad Rock Baptist Church 5106 Walmsley Blvd., Richmond, VA 23224 804-276-2740 • 804-276-6535 (fax) www.BRBCONLINE.org

Early Morning Worship ~ 8 a.m.

Sunday School ~ 9:30 a.m.

Morning Worship ~ 11 a.m.

4th Sunday Unified Worship Service ~ 9:30 a.m.

Bible Study: Wednesdays, 11:30 a.m. & 7 p.m.

Sermons Available at BRBCONLINE.org

“MAKE IT HAPPEN” Pastor Kevin Cook

Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church

1408 W. Leigh Street · Richmond, Va. 23220 (804) 358—6403

Dr. Alonza L. Lawrence, Pastor

8:30 a.m. Church School Worship Service 10 a.m. Sunday, October 6, 2019

1619-2019 American Evolution Celebrating the Arrival of the First Africans in Virginia Virginia Africana Associates Sixth Annual Conference Ebenezer Baptist Church - 216 West Leigh Street, Richmond, Virginia

Friday - October 18, 2019

Guest Speaker

2019 CONFERENCE THEME:

Hollee Freeman Execu�ve Director MathScience Innova�on Center Richmond, Va.

“How Do I Do That?”

1 2 3 4 5

Learn How To: Work with professional storytellers to reach children and new audiences Apply for a Virginia State Historic Marker Start genealogy research at the Library of Virginia Start a Church History program Preserve historic African American cemeteries, and much more.

Program & Selected Speakers: Justin Reid

Director of African-American Programs, Virginia Humanities (VH) Charlottesville, Va. Keynote Speaker

Valinda Carroll

Document and Photograph Preservation Expert, Washington, DC

Dylan Pritchett

Master Storyteller, Colonial Williamsburg Williamsburg, Va.

Jim Hare

Virginia Dept. of Historic Resources Richmond, Va.

Ashley Ramey

Continental Breakfast (9:30 am) Lunch (1 pm) Conference Sessions (10 am – 4 pm) Family Storytelling Program (6 pm)

Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia

Conference Registration:

$95 Members $105 Non-Members and $50 Students

Library of Virginia \ Genealogy Richmond, Va.

For more information about VAA and the 2019 conference call 804-240-3559.

Richmond Free Press

B6 October 3-5, 2019

Legal Notices/Employment Opportunities City of Richmond, Virginia CITY COUNCIL PUBLIC NOTICE Notice is hereby given that the City of Richmond Planning Commission has scheduled a public hearing, open to all interested citizens, on Monday, October 21, 2019 at 1:30 p.m. in the Fifth Floor Conference Room of City Hall and the Council of the City of Richmond has scheduled a public hearing on Tuesday, November 12, 2019 at 6:00 p.m. in the Council Chamber on the Second Floor of City Hall, located at 900 East Broad Street, Richmond, Virginia, to consider the following ordinances: Ordinance No. 2019-270 To authorize the special use of the property known as 1 East Main Street for the purpose of up to 20 single-family attached dwellings and one single-family detached dwelling, upon certain terms and conditions.

The property is located within the TOD-1 Transit Oriented Nodal District.

The Pulse Corridor Plan designates the subject property as Downtown Mixed-Use which features high-density development with office buildings, apartments, and a mix of complementary uses, including regional destinations. High density is appropriate for these areas. The density of the proposed development would be approximately 22 units per acre.

Ordinance No. 2019-271 To authorize the special use of the property known as 1301 Bellevue Avenue for the purpose of a dwelling unit within an existing accessory building, upon certain terms and conditions.

The City of Richmondâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Master Plan designates the subject property for Singleâ&#x20AC;&#x2018;Family (LowDensity) uses. Primary uses in this category are singleâ&#x20AC;&#x2018;family detached dwellings at densities up to 7 units per acre. The density of the parcel if developed as proposed would be a ratio of approximately 12 units per acre.

Interested citizens who wish to speak will be given an opportunity to do so.

Copies of the full text of all ordinances are available by visiting the City Clerkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s page on the Cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Website at www.Richmondgov. com and in the Office of the City Clerk, City Hall, 900 East Broad Street, Suite 200, Richmond, VA 23219, from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Candice D. Reid City Clerk

Divorce VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE COUNTY OF HANOVER YVETTE SHIELDS, Plaintiff v.

TILDEN SHIELDS, Defendant.

Case No.: CL19001970-00 ORDER OF PUBLICATION

The object of this suit is to obtain a divorce from the bond of matrimony from the defendant on the ground of living separate and apart without any cohabitation and without interruption for a period exceeding twelve months.

It is ORDERED that the defendant, whose whereabouts are unknown appear here on or before the 4th day of November, 2019 at 9:00 AM, and protect his interests.

A Copy, Teste: FRANK D. HARGROVE, JR., Clerk I ask for this: Dorothy M. Eure, Plaintiffâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Counsel VSB# 27724 The Law Office of Dorothy M. Eure, P.C. 8460 Mount Eagle Road Ashland, VA 23005 (804) 798-9667 VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE COUNTY OF HANOVER EUNISHIA CRAWFORDSAUCIER, Plaintiff v.

JEREMIAH SAUCIER, Defendant.

Case No.: CL19002784-00 ORDER OF PUBLICATION

The object of this suit is to obtain a divorce from the bond of matrimony from the defendant on the ground of living separate and apart without any cohabitation and without interruption for a period exceeding twelve months.

It is ORDERED that the defendant, whose whereabouts are unknown, appear here on or before the 4th day of November, 2019 at 9:00 AM, and protect his interests.

A Copy, Teste: FRANK D. HARGROVE, JR., Clerk I ask for this: The Law Office of Dorothy M. Eure, P.C. Dorothy M. Eure, Plaintiffâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Attorney VSB# 27724 8460 Mount Eagle Road Ashland, VA 23005 (804) 798-9667 Continued on next column

Continued from previous column

Continued from previous column

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Continued from previous column

VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE COUNTY OF HANOVER LESIA STEPHENSON, Plaintiff v.

ERVIN HUDSON, Defendant.

Case No.: CL19002721-00 ORDER OF PUBLICATION

The object of this suit is to obtain a divorce from the bond of matrimony from the defendant on the ground of living separate and apart without any cohabitation and without interruption for a period exceeding twelve months.

It is ORDERED that the defendant, whose whereabouts are unknown, appear here on or before the 4th day of November, 2019 at 9:00 AM, and protect his interests.

A Copy, Teste: FRANK D. HARGROVE, JR., Clerk I ask for this: The Law Office of Dorothy M. Eure, P.C. Dorothy M. Eure, Plaintiffâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Attorney VSB# 27724 8460 Mount Eagle Road Ashland, VA 23005 (804) 798-9667

the defendant, whose whereabouts are unknown, appear here on or before the 25th day of October, 2019 at 9:00 AM, and protect her interests.

A Copy, Teste: FRANK D. HARGROVE, JR., Clerk I ask for this: Law Office of Dorothy M. Eure, P.C. Dorothy M. Eure, Plaintiffâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Attorney VSB# 27724 8460 Mount Eagle Road Ashland, VA 23005 (804) 798-9667

THE CITY OF RICHMOND JOHN MARSHALL COURTS BUILDING CITY OF RICHMOND, Plaintiff, v.

KROUSE, LLC, et al, Defendants.

Case No.: CL19-4237 ORDER OF PUBLICATION

The object of this suit is to subject the properties briefly described as 2900 Krouse Street, Tax Map Number S008-0527/053, 2902 Krouse Street, Tax Map Number S008-0527/054, 2904 Krouse Street, Tax Map Number S008-0527/055, 2906 Krouse Street, Tax Map Number S008-0527/056, 2908 Krouse Street, Tax Map Number S008-0527/057, 2910 Krouse Street, Tax Map Number S008-0527/058, 2912 Krouse Street, Tax Map Number S008-0527/059, 2914 Krouse Street, Tax Map Number S008-0527/060, 2916 Krouse Street, Tax Map Number S0080527061 and 2101 Lumkin Avenue, Tax Map Number S008-0527/062, Richmond, Virginia, to sale in order to collect delinquent real estate taxes assessed thereon in the name of the owner of record, Krouse, LLC.

An Affidavit having been filed that said owner KROUSE, LLC, an entity purged from the records of the Virginia State Corporation Commission, has not been located and has not filed a response to this action, and that any heirs, devisees, assignees, successors in interest, successors in title and/or any creditors with a current or future interest in said property, have not been identified and/or served despite diligent efforts to do so and are defendants to this suit by the general description of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Parties Unknown.â&#x20AC;?

An Extract, Teste: Edward F. Jewett, Clerk Gregory A. Lukanuski, Esq. City of Richmond, Office of the City Attorney 900 E. Broad Street Richmond, VA 23219 804-646-7940

VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF RICHMOND JOHN MARSHALL COURTS BUILDING CITY OF RICHMOND, Plaintiff, v.

ROBERT LEE TERRY, SR, et al, Defendants.

Case No.: CL19-3892 ORDER OF PUBLICATION

The object of this suit is to subject the property briefly described as 2720 Haden Avenue, Richmond, Virginia, Tax Map Number S0080772/019, to sale in order to collect delinquent real estate taxes assessed thereon in the name of the owner of record, Robert Lee Terry, Sr.

An Affidavit having been filed that said owner, ROBERT LEE TERRY, SR, upon information and belief deceased, or his heirs, devisees, assignees or successors in interest, have not been located and have not filed a response to this action, and that any heirs, devisees, assignees, successors in interest, successors in title and/or any creditors with a current or future interest in said property, have not been identified and/or served despite diligent efforts to do so and are defendants to this suit by the general description of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Parties Unknown.â&#x20AC;?

IT IS ORDERED that ROBERT LEE TERRY, SR, upon information and belief deceased, or his heirs, devisees, assignees or successors in interest, and Parties Unknown, come forward to appear on or before December 5, 2019 and do what is necessary to protect their interests in this matter.

An Extract, Teste: Edward F. Jewett, Clerk Gregory A. Lukanuski, Esq. City of Richmond, Office of the City Attorney 900 E. Broad Street Richmond, VA 23219 804-646-7940

their interests in this matter.

An Extract, Teste: Edward F. Jewett, Clerk Gregory A. Lukanuski, Esq. City of Richmond, Office of the City Attorney 900 E. Broad Street Richmond, VA 23219 804-646-7940

BIDS

Assisted Living Facility is accepting applications

COUNTY OF HENRICO, VIRGINIA CONSTRUCTION BID

Activity Experience doing activities with Alzheimerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s residents

VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE COUNTY OF HANOVER DONALD COLEMAN, Plaintiff v.

YAKEE MALONE, Defendant.

Case No.: CL19002766-00 ORDER OF PUBLICATION

The object of this suit is to obtain a divorce from the bond of matrimony from the defendant on the ground of living separate and apart without any cohabitation and without interruption for a period exceeding twelve months.

It is ORDERED that the defendant, whose whereabouts are unknown, appear here on or before the 4th day of November, 2019 at 9:00 AM, and protect her interests.

A Copy, Teste: FRANK D. HARGROVE, JR., Clerk I ask for this: The Law Office of Dorothy M. Eure, P.C. Dorothy M. Eure, Plaintiffâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Attorney VSB# 27724 8460 Mount Eagle Road Ashland, VA 23005 (804) 798-9667 VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE COUNTY OF HANOVER STEPHANIE KAY THOMPSON, Plaintiff v.

JON TYLOR ENKEL., Defendant.

Case No.: CL19002524-00 ORDER OF PUBLICATION

The object of this suit is to obtain a divorce from the bond of matrimony, from the defendant, on the ground that the parties hereto have lived separate and apart continuously, without cohabitation and without interruption for more than one year.

And it appearing from an affdavit that the whereabouts and address of the defendant are unknown and that he may not be a resident of Virginia, it is Ordered that the defendant appear before this Court on October 22nd, 2019, at 9:00 a.m. pursuant to this notice and protect his interests herein.

A Copy, Teste: FRANK D. HARGROVE, JR., Clerk I Ask For This: Donald M. White, Esquire 130 Thompson Street Ashland, Virginia 23005 (804) 798-1661 VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE COUNTY OF HANOVER STEVEN JOHNSON, JR., Plaintiff v.

CASEY JOHNSON, Defendant.

Case No.: CL19000984-00 ORDER OF PUBLICATION

The object of this suit is to obtain a divorce from the bond of matrimony from the defendant on the ground of living separate and apart without any cohabitation and without interruption for a period exceeding twelve months.

It is ORDERED that the defendant, who has been served with the Complaint by posted service appear here on or before the 22nd day of October, 2019 at 9:00 AM, and protect her interests.

A Copy, Teste: FRANK D. HARGROVE, JR., Clerk I ask for this: Dorothy M. Eure, Plaintiffâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Counsel VSB# 27724 The Law Office of Dorothy M. Eure, P.C. 8460 Mount Eagle Road Ashland, VA 23005 (804) 798-9667 VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE COUNTY OF HANOVER MONTEL DAVENPORT, Plaintiff v.

LUCILLE DAVENPORT, Defendant.

Case No.: CL19002604-00 ORDER OF PUBLICATION

The object of this suit is to obtain a divorce from the bond of matrimony from the defendant on the ground of living separate and apart without any cohabitation and without interruption for a period exceeding twelve months.

It is ORDERED that Continued on next column

VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE COUNTY OF HANOVER HEBA MOHAMMED, Plaintiff v.

ABDULAZIZ ABDULAH, Defendant.

Case No.: CL19002233-00 ORDER OF PUBLICATION

The object of this suit is to obtain a divorce from the bond of matrimony from the defendant on the ground of living separate and apart without any cohabitation and without interruption for a period exceeding twelve months.

It is ORDERED that the defendant, whose whereabouts are unknown, appear here on or before the 22nd day of October, 2019 at 9:00 AM, and protect his interests.

A Copy, Teste: FRANK D. HARGROVE, JR., Clerk I ask for this: Law Office of Dorothy M. Eure, P.C. Dorothy M. Eure, Plaintiffâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Attorney VSB# 27724 8460 Mount Eagle Road Ashland, VA 23005 (804) 798-9667

CUSTODY VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF RICHMOND Julieta Mendoza Esmeralda Jorge Mendoza In the Matter of the Proposed Adoption Of a Child to Be Known as Andriy Rosales Tellez, Birth Certificate Registration 10429485 Registered in the Country of Mexico, Case No.: CA19000031 ORDER OF PUBLICATION

The object of the above-styled suit is for the petitioner, Jorge Mendoza, to adopt Andriy Rosales Tellez, the biological son of Julieta Mendoza Esmeralda and Francisco Crescencio Rosales Luna.

It appearing by affidavit filed according to law that the Respondent, Francisco Crescencio Rosales Luna, is not a resident of the State of Virginia and that his last known address is unknown, it is therefore ordered that Respondent, Francisco Crescencio Rosales Luna, appear before this Court on or before the 3rd day of October, 2019 at 9:00 a.m. and do what is necessary to protect his interests in this suit.

An Extract: Teste: Edward F. Jewett, Clerk I ask for this: Jesse Baez, Esq. (VSB #85986) Hairfield Morton, PLC 2800 Buford Road, Suite 201 Richmond, Virginia 23235 (804) 320-6600 - telephone (804) 320-8040 - facsimile Counsel for Petitioners

Property VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF RICHMOND JOHN MARSHALL COURTS BUILDING CITY OF RICHMOND, Plaintiff, v.

HOLLY SPRING, INC, et al, Defendants.

Case No.: CL19-4567 ORDER OF PUBLICATION

The object of this suit is to subject the property briefly described as 1010 Holly Spring Avenue, Richmond, Virginia, Tax Map Number S007-1016/011, to sale in order to collect delinquent real estate taxes assessed thereon in the name of the owner of record, Holly Spring, Inc.

An Affidavit having been filed that said owner, HOLLY SPRING, INC, a corporation purged from the records of the Virginia State Corporation Commission in 2014, has not been located and has not filed a response to this action, and that any heirs, devisees, assignees, successors in interest, successors in title and/or any creditors with a current or future interest in said property, have not been identified and/ or served despite diligent efforts to do so and are defendants to this suit by the general description of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Parties Unknown.â&#x20AC;?

IT IS ORDERED that HOLLY SPRING, INC, a corporation purged from the records of the Virginia State Corporation Commission in 2014, and Parties Unknown, come forward to appear on or before DECEMBER 4, 2019 and do what is necessary to protect their interests in this matter.

An Extract, Teste: Edward F. Jewett, Clerk Gregory A. Lukanuski, Esq. City of Richmond, Office of the City Attorney 900 E. Broad Street Richmond, VA 23219 804-646-7940 VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF Continued on next column

VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF RICHMOND JOHN MARSHALL COURTS BUILDING CITY OF RICHMOND, Plaintiff, v.

LELIA SCOTT, et al, Defendants.

Case No.: CL19-3890 ORDER OF PUBLICATION

The object of this suit is to subject the property briefly described as 2829 Midlothian Turnpike, Richmond, Virginia, Tax Map Number S0000911/065, to sale in order to collect delinquent real estate taxes assessed thereon in the name of the owner of record, Lelia Scott.

An Affidavit having been filed that said owner, LELIA SCOTT, upon information and belief deceased, or her heirs, devisees, assignees or successors in interest, have not been located and have not filed a response to this action, and that any heirs, devisees, assignees, successors in interest, successors in title and/or any creditors with a current or future interest in said property, have not been identified and/or served despite diligent efforts to do so and are defendants to this suit by the general description of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Parties Unknown.â&#x20AC;?

IT IS ORDERED that L E L I A S C O T T, u p o n information and belief deceased, or her heirs, devisees, assignees or successors in interest, and Parties Unknown, come forward to appear on or before December 5, 2019 and do what is necessary to protect their interests in this matter.

An Extract, Teste: Edward F. Jewett, Clerk Gregory A. Lukanuski, Esq. City of Richmond, Office of the City Attorney 900 E. Broad Street Richmond, VA 23219 804-646-7940

VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF RICHMOND JOHN MARSHALL COURTS BUILDING CITY OF RICHMOND, Plaintiff, v.

GEORGE SUTTON, et al, Defendants.

Case No.: CL19-3776 ORDER OF PUBLICATION

The object of this suit is to subject the property briefly described as 1800 North 21st Street, Richmond, Virginia, Tax Map Number E0001078/007, to sale in order to collect delinquent real estate taxes assessed thereon in the name of the owners of record, George Sutton and Mary Lou Sutton.

An Affidavit having been filed that said owners, GEORGE SUTTON, upon information and belief deceased, or his heirs, devisees, assignees or successors in interest, and MARY LOU SUTTON, upon information and belief deceased, or her heirs, devisees, assignees or successors in interest, have not been located and have not filed a response to this action, and that any heirs, devisees, assignees, successors in interest, successors in title and/or any creditors with a current or future interest in said property, have not been identified and/or served despite diligent efforts to do so and are defendants to this suit by the general description of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Parties Unknown.â&#x20AC;?

IT IS ORDERED that GEORGE SUTTON, upon information and belief deceased, or his heirs, devisees, assignees or successors in interest, and MARY LOU SUTTON, upon information and belief deceased, or her heirs, devisees, assignees or successors in interest, and Parties Unknown, come forward to appear on or before December 5, 2019 and do what is necessary to protect

Continued on next column

Continued on next column

VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF RICHMOND JOHN MARSHALL COURTS BUILDING CITY OF RICHMOND, Plaintiff, v.

LEROY BROWN, et al, Defendants.

Case No.: CL19-3889 ORDER OF PUBLICATION

The object of this suit is to subject the property briefly described as 1312 North 22nd Street, Richmond, Virginia, Tax Map Number E0000615/006, to sale in order to collect delinquent real estate taxes assessed thereon in the name of the owners of record, Leroy Brown and Mary Frances Brown.

An Affidavit having been filed that said owners, LEROY BROWN, upon information and belief deceased, or his heirs, devisees, assignees or successors in interest, and MARY FRANCES BROWN, upon information and belief deceased, or her heirs, devisees, assignees or successors in interest, have not been located and have not filed a response to this action, and that any heirs, devisees, assignees, successors in interest, successors in title and/or any creditors with a current or future interest in said property, have not been identified and/or served despite diligent efforts to do so and are defendants to this suit by the general description of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Parties Unknown.â&#x20AC;?

IT IS ORDERED that LEROY BROWN, upon information and belief deceased, or his heirs, devisees, assignees or successors in interest, MARY FRANCES BROWN, upon information and belief deceased, or her heirs, devisees, assignees or successors in interest, and Parties Unknown, come forward to appear on or before December 5, 2019 and do what is necessary to protect their interests in this matter.

An Extract, Teste: Edward F. Jewett, Clerk Gregory A. Lukanuski, Esq. City of Richmond, Office of the City Attorney 900 E. Broad Street Richmond, VA 23219 804-646-7940 VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE CITY OF RICHMOND FRANK S. ROYAL, SR., Administrator Petitioner, v.

Chesna Mitchell, et al.

And Unknown Heirs.

Defendants, In re: Estate of Barbara Jean Richardson, Deceased Case No.: CL19-42-57-4 ORDER OF PUBLICATION

This day came the Petitioner on his motion and Affidavit for an Order of Publication; and was argued by counsel.

The object of this suit is for the Administrator to sell real estate of Barbara Jean Richardson, deceased. It appearing from the Affidavit that most of the Defedant heirs at law are non-Virginia residents, and whose last known addresses are not known; it is ordered that the Defendants appear before this court on or before the 12th day of November, 2019 at 9:00 a.m. and do what is necessary to protect their interest herein.

An Extract: Teste: Edward F. Jewett, Clerk Janipher W. Robinson, Ltd. Robinson and Greene 2415 Westwood Avenue Richmond, Virginia 23230 (804) 321-1728 Continued on next column

The City of Richmond announces the following project(s) available for services relating to: RFP No. 200004837 Navy Hill Advisory Services Due Date: Thursday, October 17, 2019 @ 3:00 P.M. Receipt Location: 900 East Broad Street, Room 1104, 11th Floor, Richmond, VA 23219 Questions regarding RFP shall be submitted no later than Monday, October 7, 2019 @ 3:00 P.M.

ITB No. 19-1912-8JOK Whispering Pines & Commerce Acres Area (SH-15, Part 2) Sewer Rehabilitation Due: October 29, 2019 at 2:30 p.m.

For additional information visit: https://henrico.us/ finance/divisions/purchasing/ solicitations/

CNA or PCA for 12 hour shifts

Good pay - Good days off.

Telephone 222-5133

To advertise in the

Richmond Free Press call 644-0496

1-800-Pack-Rat (VA-Richmond-5471) 6601 S Laburnum Ave Richmond, VA 23231 877-774-1537 Notice of Sale Tenant: Harris, Anthony & Caroline

Unit # 701466

1-800-Pack-Rat (VA-Richmond-5471), 6601 S Laburnum Ave, Richmond, VA 23231, has possessory lien on all of the goods stored in the units above. All these items of personal property are being sold pursuant to the assertion of the lien on 10/16/2019 at 10:00 AM in order to collect the amounts due from you. The sale will take place on www.strangeauctionservices.com from 10/16/2019 to 10/23/2019 at 6:00p.m.

Thank you for your interest in applying for opportunities with The City of Richmond.

To see what opportunities are available, please refer to our website at www.richmondgov.com.

EOE M/F/D/V

COMPARE.COM SEEKS ASSOCIATE CARRIER IT MANAGER: Manage IT staff; conduct quarterly check-in meetings & annual reviews; manage deployment, maintenance, development, upgrade, & support of teamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s IT releases incl. phones, web & software apps, peripherals; Reqs: B.S. in Comp. Sci. or related IT field or foreign equiv. & 2 yrs full stack exp. designing & delivering large scale distributed systems for insurance company using BizTalk, Agile SDLC, C#, SQL, XSLT, XPATH, XML, Scrum, & Windows Azure. Send cvr ltr, CV, salary reqs & refs to Dawn Davis, Compare.com, LLC, 140 Eastshore Drive, Suite 300, Glen Allen, VA 23059.

CIRCUIT COURT CLERKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S OFFICE, CITY OF RICHMOND PART-TIME UTILITY DEPUTY CLERK Permanent Part-Time Position Immediate opportunity for energetic, dependable and professional candidate to work in downtown courts building. Must be detail-oriented and possess excellent customer service and clerical skills. Must be willing and able to lift 50lbs or more.

COVER LETTER, RESUME AND SALARY HISTORY ARE REQUIRED PLEASE SUBMIT ALL THREE TO:

CircuitCourtClerkEmployment@Richmondgov.com OR RICHMOND CIRCUIT COURT CLERKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S OFFICE PERSONNEL DEPARTMENT 400 NORTH 9TH STREET RICHMOND, VIRGINIA 23219 NO WALK-INS OR PHONE CALLS, PLEASE EOE

TRANSIT SYSTEM

PLANNING INTERN PART-TIME (TEMPORARY-GRANT) DEPARTMENT OF PLANNING Hiring Range: $16.00 Part-Time 29 hours per week Posting Closes: Open until filled

GRTC Transit System Planning Department seeks a undergraduate candidate to assist with various planning functions. Undergraduate degree required, preferably in urban planning or a related ďŹ eld. Excellent written and interpersonal communication skills are critical. The successful candidate will be proďŹ cient in Microsoft OfďŹ ce and Adobe programs. For a more detailed job description and the ability to apply online, please visit www.ridegrtc.com. A pre-employment drug screening will be required.

GRTC Transit System is an equal opportunity employer with a drug-free work environment that values diversity in the workplace.

Information or copies of the above solicitations are available by contacting Procurement Services, at the City of Richmond website (www.RichmondGov. com), or at 11th Floor of City Hall, 900 E. Broad Street, Richmond, Virginia 23219. Phone (804) 646-5722 or faxed (804) 646-5989. The City of Richmond encourages all contractors to participate in the procurement process.

For reference purposes, documents may be examined at the above location.

The City of Richmond announces the following project(s) available for services relating to: RFP No. L190023643 Road Diet â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Improve Bicycle Accommodations Project UPC108888 Due Date: Wednesday, October 16, 2019 @ 2:30P.M Receipt Location: 900 East Broad Street, Room 1104, 11th Floor, Richmond, VA 23219 Questions regarding RFP shall be submitted no later than Tuesday, October 8, 2019.

AVAILABLE Downtown Richmond first floor office suite 5th and Franklin Streets 422 East Franklin Street Richmond, Virginia 23219

Bedros Bandazian

Associate Broker, Chairman

Information or copies of the above solicitations are available by contacting Procurement Services, at the City of Richmond website (www.RichmondGov. com), or at 11th Floor of City Hall, 900 E. Broad Street, Richmond, Virginia 23219. Phone (804) 646-5716 or faxed (804) 646-5989. The City of Richmond encourages all contractors to participate in the procurement process.

For reference purposes, documents may be examined at the above location.

804.358.5543

Raffi Bandazian

Principal Broker, GRI

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