Archive for July, 2007

“It’s an Ashtray, Not a Guitar”

Tuesday, July 31st, 2007

If you haven’t noticed, Save Richmond is currently on an extended summer hiatus, navigating a heavier-than-usual workload as well as hosting our fair share of summer sprinkler throwdowns and midnight putting parties. Who says we don’t have our mind right, boss?

We will return to this space next week to catch up on such hot button topics as:

- Perception and Reality: Race and the Downtown Plan.
- Richmond city politics: EZ 2 Sue, EZ 2 Appeal.
- Power Lists and Influence: When Will Rich Old White Men Be Given a Chance in River City?
- Scooped Again: Another Unreported Arts Center Story.
- Going All the Way: The Atlanta Falcons in 2007.

… and more. (Actually, I wouldn’t count so much on that last one).

Until that time, please enjoy this rare footage of the legendary guitarist John Fahey on a 1969 public access show — here, here, here and here — one of those treasured YouTube uploads that makes internet video so dangerous to my work schedule (damaging my sense of worth as a guitarist in the process). Mucho props to WFMU’s “Beware of the Blog” for passing along the links and so much more.

I don’t know why, but I have always associated the late John Fahey’s moody and evocative folk-cum-blues music with the hot months. There’s just something about expert fingerpicking in open D Minor tuning that makes me want to sweat and hose myself down. (Warning: Our man John is completely baked during this terrific TV segment, and the show’s hostess is clueless and annoying throughout. But somehow it all adds to the charm).

If you crave more after this initial trip to Faheyland, check out a later performance from the Takoma Park, Maryland native here, tackling one of my absolute favorites live on German TV.

Enjoy!

Posted in techmology, whiners with websites | No Comments »

Take the EZ 2 LOVE THE DOWNTOWN PLAN Quiz

Friday, July 20th, 2007

Did you know that Richmond’s “Downtown Plan” is about to be updated β€”by you? That’s right, a campaign to update and revamp the “Plan” begins tonight (Friday) at 6:30PM β€” open to the general public β€” and continues for seven days at Plant Zero (Hull Street & E. 3rd Street).

But how well do you really know Richmond’s Downtown Plan? Did you even realize there was a Downtown Plan? Doesn’t it blow your mind that someone “planned” to do all of that to Downtown Richmond?

We encourage everyone out there to attend, and to participate, at some point during the seven days. But before that, you might need to get knowledged by this, the latest Save Richmond brain-teaser. Yes, take the “EZ 2 LOVE THE DOWNTOWN PLAN” quiz and get quickly acquainted with such things as New Urbanism, charrettes, business development models, Green Space and our region’s ongoing love affair with the Megaproject.

[A few weeks ago, John Sarvay at the Buttermilk & Molasses blog began a volunteer campaign to spread the word about this public revamping of the "Downtown Plan." His expert cheat sheet is here.]

C’mon, Richmond β€” think quizzically and act locally! Before you pitch in to start building that bridge to Downtown Richmond’s 21st century, test your rusty civic skillz with these timely multiple-choicers:

1. The public process that will revamp the “Downtown Plan” is called a “Charrette.” What is a Charrette?

A. A vehicle powered by horses, used in films such as Spartacus and Gladiator.
B. Some sort of French hat?
C. A sleek, low-to-the-ground sports car made out of fiberglass.
D. “Multi-day meetings, involving municipal officials, developers, and residents” that “promote joint ownership of solutions and attempts to defuse typical confrontational attitudes between residents and developers.”

2. Richmond’s Downtown Plan was first conceived in 1984 and has been revised a few times since. The last time it was amended through a Charrette, in 1997, what was the public participation process like? Choose one below:

A. The public process included approximately 1,000 members of the Richmond community, working together with urban design professionals.
B. The public process included approximately 500 members of the Richmond community, working together with urban design professionals.
C. The public process included approximately 250 members of the Richmond community, working together with urban design professionals.
D. The public process included approximately 20 members of the Richmond community, working together with urban design professionals. The results were followed by a series of public forums explaining the plan to citizens.

3. Briefly, can you describe what a “Downtown Plan” is?

A. Very different from a “Suburb Plan.”
B. “A guide to assist in public and private decision-making relative to a wide variety of issues affecting the future of Downtown Richmond. It is intended to be used by the City as a guide for making public capital investment decisions and establishing land use policies and regulations. Of equal importance is the role of the Plan as a tool providing guidance to Downtown stakeholders and potential investors in making decisions affecting Downtown’s future.”
C. Developer Douglas Jemal’s nefarious scheme to take over the world, one downtown at a time.
D. Large construction projects powered by special tax giveaways surrounded by parking lots adorned with an impressive display of slogan-heavy self-advertising.

4. The City of Richmond scheduled public participation into the Downtown Plan for the middle of summer when students are gone and many people are away. Why?

A. Planners want to surprise those damn brats when they get back.
B. Richmonders who dare to vacation will be taught an important lesson: “You snooze, you lose.”
C. Hot Friday nights are always right for kicking off civic policy discussions in River City.
D. Your guess is as good as ours. Up until a week ago, there was little public advertising at all for this event.

5. Of the following, which can we NOT attribute or trace back to previous versions of Richmond’s “Downtown Plan”:

A. The Sixth Street Marketplace, which has now been closed after bleeding tax money for decades.
B. The expanded Convention Center, which destroyed a large section of Jackson Ward, one of America’s most endangered historic areas, and has not met its projected goals.
C. The Virginia Performing Arts Foundation’s failed arts center project, and the top-down management style that has guided it.
D. The Broad Street CDA, a group of developers and members of the business community given sweeping powers over downtown Richmond with little public oversight.
E. The curious appeal of Channel 12 newscaster Gene Cox.

6. Of the following, which is NOT a quote from Richmond’s current Downtown Plan?
A. “Downtown Richmond has the prerequisites for a successful tourist destination. There is no shortage of attractions, there are sufficient Downtown hotel rooms (1,800), and there are many good restaurants. To fully capitalize upon these resources, improvements must be made in marketing, signage, overall Downtown image and specific attraction images.”
B. “With the ability to accommodate larger events, it is projected that the new Greater Richmond Convention Center will attract more than double the number of visitors to nearly 600,000 annually. This increased activity will emphasize the need for the surrounding Downtown area to portray a positive image of the City.”
C. “From Downtown forums on topical matter to ‘Seeing Is Believing’ tours and television commercials that highlight recent development, Richmond Renaissance programs consistently engage the community. Primary responsibility for marketing Downtown should remain within a centralized organization, such as Richmond Renaissance.”
D. “An important element of the public participation process was the creation of a steering committee whose purpose was to oversee the planning process and give direction to the consultant team on a regular basis. The Downtown Plan Advisory Committee was appointed by the City Planning Commission to represent a broad cross section of Downtown and regional stakeholders. The twenty-four member group met once a month, reviewing progress and offering input on plans before they were presented to the public.”
E. All of these come from the current Downtown Plan.

7. Proponents of the Downtown Plan say that it has been responsible for endorsing many of the area’s most successful downtown rehab efforts. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the current Downtown Plan?

A. Curated Culture’s First Fridays Artwalk.

8. Dover Kohl and Partners are the consultants that will help to guide the rewriting of Richmond’s Downtown Plan; they subscribe to the theories of “New Urbanism.” What is “New Urbanism”?

A. An exciting new magazine from Conde Nast!
B. The title of a generic New Wave rock band’s second LP.
C. A design movement that stresses diversity, sustainability and easy (walkable) access within the urban environment.
D. This is Richmond. What’s the matter with “Old Urbanism”? It was good enough for my daddy.

9. Of the following burning topics, pick the one you are unlikely to hear much about during the seven-day “Charrette”?

A. VCU’s expansion.
B. The inefficiency of city government.
C. Has “If You Build It, They Will Come” really worked for Richmond?
D. The restoration of the National Theatre
E. Downtown safety concerns.
F. The relocation of Westvaco.
G. How Calvin Jamison is doing at his new job.

10. After the seven days of planning, discussing and redrafting are over, what happens next with our new Downtown Plan?

A. It will sue Doug Wilder
B. Jim Ukrop and Eugene Trani will either sign the document into law, or veto it.
C. Venture Richmond will want to add one more thank you to the Greater Richmond Partnership, and vice versa.
D. Councilwoman Ellen Robertson will hold a district town hall meeting to discuss the implications. She will not attend.
E. The results will be submitted to city leaders, and a separate plan for implementing the measures will be outlined, along with an action agenda.
F. Councilman Bill Pantele will insist on adding a provision to include Party Patrols.

1. D. 2. D. 3. B (although D is also accepted) 4. D 5. C 6. E.7. A. 8. C 9. G. 10. E

Posted in Richmond in the news, moments of civic brilliance, number-crunching | No Comments »

Want News? Read a Blog

Monday, July 9th, 2007

Two weeks ago, readers of Church Hill People’s News found out that Mayor Wilder was threatening to evict councilwoman Delores McQuinn from her satellite office. A week later, after the fact, the story finally made it into the mainstream press.

Lesson learned, again: If you want to be fully informed in Richmond, you have to read blogs.

This week, Buttermilk & Molasses files a superb, thought-provoking two-part report on forthcoming changes in Richmond’s “Downtown Plan.” You’ll probably read something about the city’s planned embrace of “New Urbanism” in the mainstream press at some point down the line — probably after it’s all over, and only if L. Douglas Wilder is against it — but I’m sure it won’t be this detailed, thoughtful or resourceful. An excerpt:

Planning for the Future of Downtown Richmond

Let the facts speak for themselves — there have been dozens, literally dozens, of studies and reports [Here's a three-page list if you want to see for yourself: Download AppendixD.pdf] issued over the past 25 years that have pointed the way for the brave pioneers of Richmond’s downtown. And between each study, Richmond’s urban development has ebbed and flowed.

Fortunately, downtown Richmond is in a state of flow at the moment. If handled well, a revised Downtown Master Plan can accelerate that flow.

The last citywide Master Plan, available online, has the date range of 2000-2020 and follows a 1983 Master Plan for Richmond. In 1997, the City adopted a separate Downtown Plan. That plan was amended in 2003 (and is also available online) — this is the plan that the July charrette will presumably replace.

Now is a good time for a revision. There are a number of significant changes to the downtown landscape that the city anticipated in its Downtown Plan — the Biotech Park, the expanded Convention Center, improvements around Capitol Square, the new Federal courthouse — and a few that have been slowed or derailed, such as the Virginia Performing Arts Center and the ambitious plans to turn Main Street Station into a multimodal transportation center. There are also changes not predicted in the last plan — VCU’s aggressive revitalization of the Broad Street corridor and its growth east of Belvidere, the relocation of Mead-Westvaco, the restoration of the National Theater and major new downtown facilities for UNOS and Phillip-Morris. It’s a different downtown than most residents of the Richmond region realize.

Back in March, Venture Richmond sponsored a forum that reminded me how white Richmond’s development community tends to be, and how much activity is taking place downtown. Venture Richmond has a comprehensive overview online of the ongoing development activity downtown — which includes City Hall’s renovation, the new National Theater, a downtown Hilton, the Federal Courts Building, a host of condominium and residential projects in Jackson Ward and dozens of other projects in the pipeline.

The role of the Downtown Plan is simple — it is intended to be a planning document for the city, and a guide for private developers:

Its purpose is to serve as a guide to assist in public and private decision-making relative to a wide variety of issues affecting the future of Downtown Richmond. It is intended to be used by the City as a guide for making public capital investment decisions and establishing land use policies and regulations. Of equal importance is the role of the Plan as a tool providing guidance to Downtown stakeholders and potential investors in making decisions affecting Downtown’s future.

As such, the Downtown Plan stands to direct future development more than any single document. The first step, however, is for the Downtown Plan to get its arms fully around current development in the city — especially if a potential outcome is a plan that looks at development in terms of pockets, communities and neighborhoods, rather than megaprojects that will miraculously transform the city (ala Sixth Street Marketplace, the Convention Center and the new CenterStage project) into a new Las Vegas. What are the hubs, the nodes, around which development should naturally occur — and how will a Downtown Plan impact them?

(Fascinating stuff. Incidentally, longtime Save Richmond readers, don’t you find it interesting that, in four years, we’ve gone from this to this?)

Meanwhile, over at River City Rapids, Snoopy (who has been on a roll lately) uncovers more disturbing details related to the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation and the CenterStage project. He got ahold of a May 31 VAPAF cash flow statement which confirms Save Richmond’s earlier reporting on the current state of CenterStage while unearthing more red flags:

The paper and other media have yet to report on this document, and we can’t be positive they will, so I’ll reveal a few line item concerns…

The time period for most of the financial report reveals expenditures between June 30, 2006 and May 2007.

Take for example on Page 1 under operating expenses that the salaries of staff are just over $193,000 yet in that same time period, consulting fees total more than $266,000. I am not sure whether it is interesting or troubling that the consultants are requiring more money than the people charged to oversee this project. I know former Director Bob Mooney was doing his job pro bono, but a quarter of a mil annually is pretty darn steep. What value did we receive from that expensive advice?

Some other big line items include $171,00 in “fundraising services” (which did raise $5.5 million) and another $190,000 in “professional fees.” What these entail specifically would be nice to know.

The perplexing head scratcher, considering the staff of the Foundation is down to just a few people occupying about a third of a floor in the First Market Bank Building downtown, is the $17,888 bill for “telephone and utilities.” Ouch. That was before the iPhone (their rent is a separate line).

The most worrisome item might be, however, the restricted contributions (page 2). Out of the nearly $26 million listed as revenues, more than $25 million are listed under some type of restricted contribution - $7.6 million in restricted individual contributions, $13 million restricted from corporations or foundations, and $4.8 million in restricted public contributions. Only $85,000 of the contributions are unrestricted.

A conditional pledge means that the donor doesn’t fork over the money until some condition is met (like raising $x dollars). A restricted contribution means that while the money is being handed over it can only be used for certain purposes - like capital, or just to be used on the Carpenter Center, etc.

Some pledges might have both conditions and restrictions, and without knowing what these items are, it is easy to get into a cash crunch. Cash that is budgeted to be spent may not show up when you need it. It may exist on the balance sheet, but you may not be able to use it to pay for what needs to get done.

I would think (and hope) Council and the Mayor would insist - maybe even demand - that if 98% of the donated money is restricted in some form, then we better get a specific breakdown of what the money is restricted to and conditional on.

Maybe they already know, but given the track record of this project, Vegas odds would be heavy against it. Thus, the whole project could stall if it goes overbudget or hits unforeseen delays and then the city would have to bail it out. To not prepare for such a contingency at this point would be folly.

If you think I am just a dark cloud, just look to how the city is bailing out more money for the convention center every year because all those hotel nights they said would pay for the expansion did not materialize in the city (but did in the counties) so the city makes up the deficit. That is an on-going, annual bailout. To say it can’t happen again is just wishful thinking and poor planning.

While we are on the subject, it has now been two weeks since Save Richmond revealed that the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation has failed to include annual operating expenses or an artist’s endowment in the projected cash statement it submitted to the city. Given Snoopy’s additional findings and documentation — it’s only $23 million in city funds, after all — one wonders just how long the region’s mainstream press can continue to ignore the story.

Either way, it’s another score for Richmond’s blogs.

Posted in Richmond in the news, come the revolution..., number-crunching, the free press | No Comments »

Where’s Beverly?

Sunday, July 8th, 2007

The classical arts do not claim the public space they occupied only a few decades ago. A sensibility has vanished. The philistines have won. β€” Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial page, “Beverly Sills,” 7-6-07

Because of my recent posts on Mayor Wilder’s CenterStage board, I’ve had occasion over the last month to get into some interesting and thought-provoking discussions/debates on the subject of advisory committees. This feeds into the spirited discussion on regional leadership and planning that is currently going on in the Times-Dispatch and at the Buttermilk & Molasses and River City Rapids blogs.

It’s all well and good to speak of regional cooperation, and of encouraging new leaders to step forward. But reality doesn’t match Richmond’s rhetoric when it comes to walking the walk. What happens when, time and again, new voices and ideas are rejected out of hand β€” or must be accompanied by a hefty admission fee to “the club” before they are seriously considered?

Case in point would be my favorite dysfunctional example of how the Old Guard continues to do business. The Virginia Performing Arts Foundation, and the City of Richmond, each claim that they seek to provide “world-class performing arts venues” for the citizens of Richmond. At the same time, each has failed to appoint performing artists and arts professionals in key positions of the downtown arts center project, and especially when it might matter the most. Is that a mere oversight β€” seven years and counting β€” or a potent example of the exclusionary Leadership by Country Club that continues to cripple real change and progress in Richmond?

Whatever it is, this philosophy fails to acknowledge what works β€” both on the local front and nationally. We’ve already noted the considerable success of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts last fundraising campaign, overseen by a board of leaders heavy on arts expertise. And readers of River City Rapids will be familiar with how Kansas City leaders built local support and collaboration by initiating an ambassador program that puts the spotlight on local ownership of its new performing arts center. Both ideas would be considered revolutionary β€” crazy, even β€” by our city’s current gatekeepers.

I’ve been informed that the connected people who sit on the area’s all-corporate advisory boards “theoretically make sure that the money they and others are donating to the organization is well managed and spent wisely” (the key phrase there is “theoretically”). In defense of all-corporate boards, 1st District City Councilman Bruce Tyler uses The Memorial Child Guidance Clinic as a positive example of how effective these “Boards of Insiders” can be.

I don’t entirely dismiss those points of view. But the context here is the arts, and not health care or banking, so I’ve thought a lot about the stellar career of Ms. Beverly Sills, the world-famous opera singer, cultural ambassador and β€” yes β€” arts administrator. Unfortunately, Ms. Sills passed away this past week at the age of 78.

If we really aspire to greatness in building a publicly-funded arts center, why wouldn’t we emulate one of the nation’s premier performing arts non-profits, a truly “world class” operation β€” the Lincoln Center of New York. The Lincoln encompasses many different organizations, theatres and programs, and many different advisory boards. Unlike the planned setup for Richmond’s CenterStage, artists and cultural professionals are not shunted aside at the Lincoln so that grocers, Big Tobacco lobbyists and energy executives can exclusively run the show. Case in point would be the appointment of Sills as Lincoln Center’s Chairwoman of the Board; she ran the operation from 1994 to 2002.

But her appointment is only one of many that shows that organization’s arts-first focus. The Jazz at Lincoln Center board, for example, has plenty of investment bankers and corporate suits sitting at the table. But it has also included such luminaries as jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, promoter George Wein, record company presidents Lisa Schiff and the late Ahmet Ertegun, and authors Albert Murray and Henry Louis Gates. Elsewhere, you can find actors, talent agents, producers and writers sitting on various Lincoln Center boards.

At the end of her long and distinguished performing career in 1980, Sills served as the General Director of the New York City Opera β€” she is credited with reviving the flagging company.

From her New York Times obit:

She inherited a company [the New York City Opera] burdened with debt and unsure of its direction.

Her vision for revitalizing the City Opera included offering unusual repertory and making the company a haven for talented younger American artists. Under her, the repertory significantly diversified, with productions of rarities like Wagner’s early opera “Die Feen,” Verdi’s “Attila” and Thomas’s “Hamlet,” as well as new operas like Anthony Davis’s “X (The Life and Times of Malcolm X).”

To entice new and younger audiences, she reduced ticket prices by 20 percent. A $5.3 million renovation of the New York State Theater in 1982 improved the look and efficiency of the building, though not its problematic acoustics. In 1983 the City Opera became the first American company to use supertitles. The company had a sense of mission and vitality. But the deficit grew to $3 million. Then a devastating warehouse fire destroyed 10,000 costumes for 74 productions.

Still, Ms. Sills was a prodigious fund-raiser and a tireless booster. When she retired from her post in early 1989, she had on balance a record of achievement. The budget had grown from $9 million to $26 million, and the $3 million deficit had become a $3 million surplus.

In closing, having knowledgeable arts people sitting at the planning table of an arts venture is hardly some novelty. it’s worked for the biggest and best performing arts companies for decades.

[And while we may not have a Beverly Sills in our midst, we do have plenty of savvy, resourceful arts experts and managers β€” both former performing artists as well as accredited administrators and seasoned promoters β€” and the city and VAPAF have known about them for years. Don't forget that one of these professionals, with a proven track record, was unfairly fired from VAPAF's project for having the nerve to disagree with the grocers and venture capitalists. But there is much untapped expertise too...]

Looking at the larger picture, I would submit that if the status quo in Richmond is unable to integrate actual performing arts professionals into key positions on a taxpayer-funded arts project, it doesn’t bode well for future cooperation and diversity of input in solving future problems related to schools, crime, the environment and taxes.

Ah, but we do know what hasn’t worked real well for Richmond. Putting people in charge who don’t know what they are doing.

Even a “philistine” can understand that.

Posted in armchair philosophizin', moments of civic brilliance, politricks | No Comments »

Forever Wrong

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

A major occurance in the social history of our city happened yesterday that seems to have escaped the notice of most Richmonders. The editorial page of the Richmond Times-Dispatch admitted it was wrong.

And not just wrong. But wrong again and again and again.

In Sunday’s paper, the right-wing pontificators at the RTD freely confessed to being longtime shills and enablers for wasteful, publicly-financed downtown construction jobs — and especially for a certain exclusive, taxpayer-funded arts center we know — stopping just short of apologizing to its Richmond readers for putting more faith in high-rolling boosters over the years than in the public good or basic common sense.

Emphasis mine:

Reports about the dilapidated state of the Sixth Street Marketplace sound yet another cautionary note for advocates of publicly financed development projects.

Almost a quarter-century ago, the Marketplace was widely heralded as the Next Great Thing. This newspaper’s Editorial Page helped lead the cheerleading: The Marketplace opening marked “a great moment for Richmond and its neighboring jurisdictions,” the newspaper said. We gushed that the Marketplace was “perhaps the major ingredient in a development boom unmatched in the city’s history.” And while calling the Marketplace “the stuff of revitalization, the essence of a dream come true,” the paper insisted, “We are not indulging here a penchant for hometown boosterism.”

Since then, the city has sunk millions into an operation that has now been mostly torn down. The part that remains standing is in such poor repair that Sixth District Councilwoman Ellen Robertson says if it were privately owned, “it would probably be shut for spot blight.”

The Marketplace is not, of course, the only economic-development initiative undertaken by the city in the past few decades. Richmond has begun others, some of which have done well. Project One, for instance, apparently has met its mundane goals. (The downtown area also has gained from the presence of VCU/MCV, the Library of Virginia, and other explicitly governmental entities.) But the Marketplace stands out for the degree of fanfare that accompanied its arrival, and the amount of symbolism invested in it. The walkway spanning Broad Street was supposed to represent a bridge uniting black and white Richmond not only physically but also metaphorically. As Mayor Roy West said at the time, “A new tradition has begun in Richmond — a new tradition in partnerships, in a shared vision, and making things happen.”

Similar enthusiasm greeted the now-defunct Valentine Riverside, as well as the downtown canal project that this newspaper announced as the city’s “Salvation by Riverfront.” The riverfront area is developing nicely, but the canals are not a huge tourist draw.

The newspaper also has lent considerable support to the Performing Arts Center — e.g., by supporting a 1-cent increase in the city meals tax, despite a general philosophical antipathy both to taxing and to centralized planning. When the City Council approved the tax, the newspaper said the vote “builds momentum . . . .Richmond will not soon become a second Salzburg, but the Performing Arts Center has the potential to become the most dramatic development on the cultural front since the establishment of the Virginia Museum.” Nearly a decade ago, this space suggested “The Barbican and the South Bank Arts Centre in London could serve as inspirations for a Virginia Performing Arts Complex.”

During the intervening years the concept has been buffetted by reality. A critical mass of financial support from the region’s potential Medicis never coalesced. The endeavor — beset at times by controversy and bickering, and always by pointed questions — has been scaled down and postponed.

First of all, it is always a rare and special thing when the RTD op ed folks acknowledge reality. But this Sunday mea culpa would appear to cover only yesterday’s unquestioning boosterism.

Following the above spiel, the same editorial writers turn right around and reveal themselves to be — ta da! — shills and enablers for a certain publicly-financed downtown construction job… placing still more blind faith in what can only be described at this point as “The Sixth Street Marketplace of the Arts.”

The latest incarnation, called Richmond CenterStage, might at last start making headway toward its currently slated opening in autumn of 2009 (keep your fingers crossed).

In other words: Screw reality.

Posted in holy cannoli, moments of civic brilliance, number-crunching, shell game, the free press | No Comments »