Meet this week’s Personality B3
Richmond Free Press © 2022 Paradigm Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
VOL. 31 NO. 7
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
www.richmondfreepress.com
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Love Stories B2
FEBRUARY 10-12, 2022
State of the City Mayor Levar M. Stoney outlines plans to boost public safety, health, affordable housing, job creation, violence prevention to improve the quality of life for Richmonders By Jeremy M. Lazarus
Screenshot by Regina H. Boone/Richmond Free Press
Mayor Levar M. Stoney delivers his State of the City address Tuesday evening to a small, in-person audience at Main Street Station. The address was livestreamed to a wider audience on the city’s Facebook page.
Taking it to the streets: ‘Violence interrupters’ will work to stop bloodshed By George Copeland Jr.
Bigger investments in public safety – including the creation of a gun buyback program as part of a strategic effort to quell the surge in gunfire and violence. Increased investment in affordable housing, along with fresh attention to ending squalid conditions in rental properties. More focus on boosting recreation, creating greater access to child care and providing a healthier environment. And continued efforts to push development that creates jobs and opportunities for all Richmonders to thrive. Those are among the priorities Mayor Levar M. Stoney highlighted Tuesday in his annual State of the City address as he laid out his vision
for improving the quality of life for residents in officially starting his sixth year in office. “If I could summarize this administration’s approach, I’d say, ‘We are about the fix.’ And I can say with confidence we are making progress,” the mayor said in the nearly 40-minute address that brimmed with optimism. Public safety and housing were the main focus of his remarks to the in-person audience limited by the pandemic to fewer than 100 city officials and community leaders. The address also was livestreamed to a wider audience watching on the city’s Facebook page. Despite the continuing boom in construction and the rebound in hiring that has led to a plunge in unemployment, the mayor said Please turn to A4
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity members commit to cleaning local gravesite of national founder’s family
The city is hiring new “violence interrupters,” people with connections in the community who can help mediate situations on Richmond streets before they escalate into gun violence. Details were shared by Mayor Levar M. Stoney and Richmond Police Chief Gerald M. Smith during a news conference last week on the city’s gun violence prevention plan. As envisioned, the “violence interrupters” would have street experience and also could be the key to de-escalating the conflicts that have sparked recent spikes in gun-related deaths. “We need someone who can step in that gap where police can’t, someone who could actually step in there with deconfliction skills, with mitigation skills to actually reduce the threat of gun violence in our communities,” Chief Smith said. “These individuals will be from the streets. These people will come with some baggage. They will come with history, but they will come with experience and connections to the community that we don’t have.” Chief Smith initially said the new “violence interrupters” would be paid $65,000 Chief Smith a year. That was later corrected twice, with Richmond Police issuing a statement on Feb. 4 noting the pay would be between $31,200 and $46,000 annually. The salary figure was misstated originally, according to the department, “as a result of being misclassified internally.” According to the Richmond Coalition of Police, several officers threatened to quit when the chief announced a salary for “violence interrupters” that is higher than the $43,000 starting salary for basic recruits and some police officers. Officers at level 1 on the scale are paid between $44,000 and $74,244. After the brouhaha, Mayor Stoney also sent an email to Richmond officers noting his intent to seek a pay hike for officers in the budget he will submit to City Council in early March. Mayor Stoney, Chief Smith and other city officials have sought to tamp down the rise in gun violence in the city, a trend cities across the country also have been experiencing that Mayor Stoney said “has only been made worse by the pandemic.” Last year, Richmond reported 90 homicides, the highest number seen in 15 years. “While no one program or strategy is a panacea that will cure this decades-old issue overnight, it’s our firm belief that the solution that’s right for Richmond relies on a holistic, community-based approach,” Mayor Stoney said. “One that takes into account the roles housing, transit, jobs and social supports play in healthier families and safer streets. One that builds trust from the ground up through collaboration and cooperation.” As part of the overall plan, the mayor announced a new partnership with NextUp RVA, a nonprofit that provides free after-school programs for the city’s middle schoolers. The organization will distribute $1 million in new funding for
Beginning next month, members of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity will keep up the family gravesite of one of the fraternity’s founders in historic Evergreen Cemetery in Richmond’s East End. The fraternity also wants to install a historical marker at the site. Tyler D. Parker, a member of Xi Delta Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the Henrico graduate chapter, is manager of the volunteer project at Evergreen Cemetery, where the parents and brother of national founder Eugene Kinckle Jones are buried. Mr. Jones, who graduated from Virginia Union University in 1905, attended graduate school at Cornell University, where he was one of the “Seven Jewels,” as the founders are known, of the nation’s first collegiate Black Greek organization on Dec. 4, 1906. He also helped organize the fraternity’s first three chapters after Cornell, including Gamma Chapter at VUU in 1907. “We knew the founder, Eugene Kinckle Jones, was from Richmond, but we didn’t know his parents were buried here,” Mr. Parker told the Free Press. “Once we found the site was here, the drive (among fraternity members) to preserve the site just grew … because of the significance of this family to our fraternity and their historical significance in Richmond.” In addition to his work with the fraternity, Eugene Kinckle Jones, the couple’s younger son, went on to serve as the
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By Ronald E. Carrington
Regina H. Boone/Richmond Free Press
Members of the Virginia Association of Chapters of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity gather recently at Evergreen Cemetery at the family gravesite of Joseph Endom Jones and Rosa Kinckle Jones, parents of one of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity’s seven founders, Eugene Kinckle Jones. The Jones family, which had long associations with schools that became part of Virginia Union University, lived in Richmond in the late 1880s and early 1900s.
Advocates seek to save programs on Richmond schools budget chopping block By Ronald E. Carrington
Fully fund computer-based learning. And maintain the current cadre of 21 family and community engagement ambassadors who are critical to keeping Spanish-speaking students engaged with Richmond Public Schools. That was the gist of the message that parents, teachers and other speakers passionately expressed to the Richmond School Board Monday night during a public hearing on
the proposed budget lion a year. that board members “This would just are now working to scale (the program) finalize. back in a way to Richmond Schools keeping it for the Superintendent Jalong haul,” Mr. Kamson Kamras is proras said after the posing to slash the hearing. staff assigned to the Both parents and Mr. Kamras Richmond Virtual current RPS staff Academy from 80 to 10 people. members called the program Currently, they serve about 550 invaluable in enabling students students from families that have to attend school without the risk opted not to return to in-person of contracting COVID-19 by atlearning. tending in-person classes. Others Mr. Kamras said the av- noted that the virtual program is erage of seven students per beneficial for students who are online class is unsustainable. on long-term suspension or face His proposal would authorize health or other challenges that a virtual enrollment of up to prevent them from physically 250 students, with each teacher attending classes. dealing with up to 25 students Please turn to A4 at a total cost of about $1 mil-
Free COVID-19 testing, vaccines
Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press
Neighborhood ‘Super Bowl’ in North Side A group of John Marshall High School football players take advantage of a cold Sunday afternoon the week before Super Bowl LVI to play a game at Hotchkiss Field Community Center in North Side. No final score was provided, but the free game was cheaper entertainment than this weekend’s big event at SoFi Stadium outside Los Angeles.
Free community testing for COVID-19 continues. The Richmond and Henrico County health districts are offering testing at the following locations: • Thursday, Feb. 10, 4 to 6 p.m. - Southside Plaza WIC Office, 509 E. Southside Plaza. • Friday, Feb. 11, 3 to 6 p.m. - Southwood Pool House, Southwood Parkway and Clarkson Road. All events will provide walk-up testing, though appointments can still be made by calling (804) 205-3501 or going to www.rchd.com Call the Richmond and Henrico COVID-19 Hotline at (804)
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