Save Richmond

Forget “24″ and disregard that next episode of “Lost.” If you want pathos, drama, action, suspense and audacious cliffhangers, you need to start tuning into the new season of “The Mayor and City Council.”

Plot twists? No problem.

Mayor L. Douglas Wilder says he’s ready to drop plans to build 15 schools as part of his “City of the Future” proposal because of the School Board’s reaction.

He told council members that the board has been indifferent or even hostile to his $300 million City of the Future plan, in which he proposed the new schools as well as tens of millions of dollars of work on cultural facilities and streets.

You can also learn much by watching this particular television program. For instance, I just won a dang Freedom of Information paperweight and I never knew that you could use an FOI request as a defacto telephone or fax machine (theoretically — how sweet is this? — you could order a pizza with one).

Apparantly, the mayor didn’t know this either.

Wilder told council he was upset by a Feb. 22 request by the School Board seeking all papers and communications about the City of the Future plan, a request that invoked the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.

“This is their appreciation for what we tried to do . . . working with me by filing an FOI before I could even get started,” Wilder said. “I foolishly thought this would be received with great relief in some quarters.”

[School board chairman David] Ballard said the freedom-of-information request was not intended to be hostile but simply to get information.

“FOI is now a way of life,” he said, adding that the board receives such requests all the time.

But Wilder said all the information has already been released.

So you heard it here first, inquisitive parents of Richmond schoolchildren: There’s a new way of life at K-12. If you want basic information from the Richmond School Board, forget the old way of life and try their new modern approach. If I’m interpreting the board’s new communications policy correctly, parents should NOT attempt to contact their representative board member and talk person to person about their child’s education from now on.

No, the parent should file an FOI request at the very start of the school year, as a first course of action, just in case — y’know — somebody’s bureaucratic turf is in danger of being messed with… by scary talk about new and renovated schools and…

[Wilder] told the council he was half inclined to let the School Board take him to court, where he said he would turn over the papers, wash his hands of the school construction and let school officials figure out how to build the new facilities instead.

“I’d ask you not to do that,” Council Vice President Jackie Jackson said. “I don’t want to go through it; I think it sends the wrong message.”

“It will send a message I want to send,” Wilder replied.

“Exactly,” Jackson said, as the council erupted in laughter.

Er…

Pardon me for asking, but did this whole network just jump the shark?

If Wilder is looking to rein in city government, he should start by eliminating Goldman’s post.

Michael Paul Williams usually has some good insights but his Times-Dispatch column on the unceremonious dumping of Paul Goldman deserves a big raspberry. We need more Paul Goldmans at City Hall, not less. The departure of Mayor Wilder’s policy advisor and right-hand man is a bad — certainly not a hopeful — sign for the city’s future progress.

For the record, I have met with Mr. Goldman several times over the past year and have never found him to be difficult, or volatile, or any of those words currently being bandied about. Eccentric at times, yes, volatile no. In all instances, he was lucid, relaxed and totally receptive to the views of others. But I can certainly understand how someone with big ideas, who strolls to a different beat, and who doesn’t mind engaging in a heated discussion from time to time, would rub some folks the wrong way.

City Council Vice President Jackie M. Jackson said in an e-mail that “Mr. Goldman’s decision is a personal one that happened to be best for the city.”

She offered suggestions for the replacement.

“I think it would be appropriately filled as a position to work with [City] Council, not against us, as Mr. Goldman had done in some instances. I’m not sure the need exists for a ‘policy’ adviser for the mayor’s office.”

With all due respect to Ms. Jackson, and Michael Paul, it will be for history to judge whether Goldman’s brief role as policy advisor was counterproductive to city council’s visionary leadership, or if it was the other way around. I say that if his innovative borrowing plan to overhaul Richmond’s schools, theatres and infrastructure should bear fruit— using money that Ms. Jackson and the rest of the council would seemingly rather give to the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation— we’ll all be singing a different tune about Paul Goldman. Not only that, we’ll have a working, renovated Carpenter Center to sing it in.

I don’t want to wait that long. Someone needs to set the record straight — Paul Goldman’s main crime was not that he was hard to get along with. He just didn’t suffer fools gladly. More pointedly, he challenged the behind-the-scene wheeler-dealers who have heretofore dictated how Richmond should be run. So he had to go.

Even the designated mouthpiece of those “interests,” Ross MacKenzie, admits as much in his “tribute” to Goldman today:

Goldman’s presence in the city administration did not inspire trust among the various communities and interests whose commitment and cooperation remain essential to Richmond’s health.

Goldman became an impediment, particularly after his receipt of a consulting fee from Tim Kaine’s gubernatorial campaign. It was time for him to go.

I hear the sound of a rusty wheel spinning. Why not set the record straight, Ross? For all of his rumpled sportcoats and distinct mannerisms, for all his battles with Carol Wolf and Manoli Loupassi, for all of his egregious campaigning for democrats (the real crime), Goldman was one of the very few within the city’s power structure to truly REACH OUT to anyone other than the usual CEO power brokers, City Hall insiders and select neighborhood associations.

We have an expert right here on just those three things:

“He was a big idea guy,” [Manoli] Loupassi said. “The problem with Paul is he has a natural tendency to try to stir things up. . . . That sometimes causes unnecessary aggravation.”

Speaking just for myself, I received at least a dozen (mass-sent) e-mails from Goldman during his tenure in the mayor’s office. Get a load of the the unnecessarily aggraviated subject lines of some of his missives, designed to “stir things up”:

“Your Input Needed on Education Referendum”

“A New Slogan For Richmond?”

“Your Advice Needed on new Citywide Health Initiative”

“Your Ideas on Education Very Much Wanted”

Sure, he took $15,000 of Tim Kaine’s money and didn’t tell his bosses (and make no mistake: that is bad — definitely worthy of a limited suspension without pay). But whatever his moonlighting practices, he would listen to a broader spectrum of citizens when he was on-the-job than is normal for this town. It seems like no one wants to note that little fact in any news article or opinion piece on the guy — but it’s common knowledge. He just didn’t respond favorably to the views of the right people.

But there was a guy up there at Richmond City Hall, briefly, who did listen. You might not have liked his manner at times and he might have seemed a little out-there but he was reachable. It was a novel concept — doomed from the start.

But is Paul Goldman really gone? Maybe, maybe not. It seems that our input on potential city council candidate initatives is now needed.

“I’ve told Paul he should run for City Council,” said Del. A. Donald McEachin, D-Henrico, whose district includes parts of North Side. “I think City Council needs a policy-maker, someone who can think strategically.”

Goldman lives in the city’s 1st District, which is expected to be up for grabs in the November election. [Manoli] Loupassi announced last month that he would not seek re-election.

“I never really thought of myself in that kind of role,” Goldman said. “But if enough people think City Council needs shaking up, who knows?”