It’s so reassuring to know that the R-Town Mayor’s race will be decided not at the ballot box by a majority of city voters, but in the smoky backroom of the Commonwealth Club by the Metro “business community.”
Welcome to Richmond, where it’s all been chewed for you.
Because of an error made while gathering the required signatures to run for re-election, 3rd district school board member Carol Wolf is now off of the official November ballot — which is an unfathomable loss at a time when we need her voice and steely determination more than ever.
As detailed on these pages and elsewhere, Wolf has — almost singlehandedly at times — been the city’s premier advocate on behalf of Richmond’s public schoolchildren; an independent voice who knows how to effectively use her bully pulpit to cut through RPS’ often-clannish, sometimes-wasteful BS. She’s fought the hardest for ADA compliance (often over the objections and willful obstruction of outgoing School Board Chairman George Braxton — wanna read something truly moronic? Click here), she’s been pushed under the bus by her fellow school board members for daring to speak forcefully on behalf of school accountability and basic common sense, and she’s gone to war with city and school adminstrators for failing to place valuable resources where they belong… in the classroom.
Now Carol Wolf needs our help. Here’s a mass-mailed letter that she sent out over the weekend:
Dear Friends & Citizens,
I need to decide by this coming Wednesday whether to mount a write-in campaign or to sit this one out and allow Norma Murdoch-Kitt to have a “walk-on” to serve as Northside’s School Board member for the next four years.
I have already heard from so many of you who have called, dropped by or sent e-mails urging me to battle on for a multitude of reasons. Many of you have offered to help.
Serving on School Board involves far more than simply representing one’s district, therefore I am asking to hear from citizens throughout the city. I would appreciate it if you could let me know what district you live in when you post a comment.
In addition to asking for your help with this decision, I would most appreciate hearing from citizens across the city concerning their thoughts are on what the SB’s priorities should be during the next few months leading up to election.
Please weigh in with what you think of the Richmond School Board and what you would like to see happen to improve the quality of education in the City of Richmond for the next four years.
Respectfully,
Carol A.O. WolfThird District Member
Co-Chair Student Disciplinary Committee
Member, Finance Committee
Member, Legal, Legislative, Policy and Communications Committee
Personal e-mail: Wolfies@aol.com
It’s time for a “re-do,” parents and taxpayers of the 3rd district. Do you really want to lose the most effective bulldog that the Richmond Public School system has? Best begin practicing your write-in skills.
(And if you are one of those apologists who think we don’t need someone like Wolf speaking truth to bureaucracy, and believe that things have been just peachy at RPS under the stewardship of departing Superintendent Deborah Jewell-Sherman, check this out. As well as this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this… I could link all damn day).
I realize it is early, but the mainstream “coverage” of the Richmond mayor’s race has (so far) been largely devoid of substance, and more like the kind of shallow personality parade that you’d expect from a high school class president’s race.
For instance, the blogging community is still the only place where citizens can learn about Bill Pantele’s conspicuous role in the Gwen Hedgepeth bribery scandal. This, after candidate Pantele made the “poor ethics of Richmond” one of his key campaign issues (we didn’t mention in our earlier report on the matter that another of the mayoral candidates, Lawrence Williams, was also tied in with that exchange of a brown paper bag full of money to Hedgepeth in 2002. Hello, city reporters! Anyone in there?)
Thank goodness for Style Weekly’s “Back Page” section. This week, Terone Green, a former president of the Richmond Crusade for Voters, contributes a must-read piece on mayoral hopeful Robert J. Grey Jr., a.k.a. “The Business Community’s Hand-Picked Choice.” Candidate Grey has yet to be seriously grilled about his front-and-center role in several controversial and/or scandalous dealings that — in any other community — would be front and center in any debate or discussion about how he would lead.
Readers of Save Richmond already know that Mr. Grey chaired (— stooged for) the mayor’s “Performing Arts Committee” (the one that rubber-stamped a report handwritten by the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation’s president — and recommended that the city shell out taxpayer support for decades to a private project that had already wasted millions and eschewed the input of professionals), and that Chairman Grey promised that there would be ample time set aside for public input and never delivered. That’s one.
But, in his Style piece, Green ably highlights Grey’s involvement in the notorious “Gang of 26″ letter from last year that sought to disenfranchise city voters/parents from directly choosing school board representatives.
He writes:
As one of the 26 people — including four black men, 21 white men and one woman — who have sought to overturn Richmond’s will for an elected school board, [Grey] has revealed himself as one willing to make decisions that exclude some of the city’s most important stakeholders. In fact, any group with interests in Richmond Public Schools that would exclude the important voices of black women — the mothers of more than 80 percent of the student body — is playing antebellum politics.
For one poised to run for mayor at large, this line of thinking is quite puzzling. With one hand Grey would advocate taking away the people’s vote for the School Board. On the other, he would ask the people’s votes for himself?
Wouldn’t you like for Mr. Grey to explain himself on this issue BEFORE the election? Green would too. He continues:
… need we be reminded that this is the same cast of characters that supported Wilder as he lost the Richmond Braves, embarrassed the city by trying to evict the School Board from City Hall, lost Police Chief Rodney Monroe and repeatedly landed the city in court over matters more pertinent to egotistical drama than to economic and social progress.
Green also wonders about some of Grey’s most passionate supporters — one in particular:
Any mayor who is hand-picked by some of Richmond’s corporate community — to the exclusion of its majority — should be suspect. Wilder’s lawyer [Richard Cullen], who is not a Richmond resident, has helped his firm rake in millions of dollars from his representation of the mayor and the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority. Why should he have such a great interest in Richmond’s next mayor, for whom he will not even be able to vote?
Great question…. one of many that needs to be asked during this campaign season. Any takers?
The candidates are slated to gather on Thursday night at Plant Zero to answer questions from citizens. One can only hope that the questioning will be less about personalities and more about substantive issues and past performance. Better now than never.
Clarification: Jason Roop from Style writes in to remind that, yes, the magazine DID get Robert Grey on the record about the “Gang of 26″ letter… but before he had announced his candidacy. The link to the piece (by Chris Dovi) is here, and the quotes given by Grey underscore the need for the would-be mayor to talk openly and honestly with Richmonders. Like this one:
“When you think about the way in which we govern our school system, it is not as if we have never appointed school board members,” he said. “Now [that] we have done the elected school board members, I think we have concluded that we can accomplish more — marshal resources in a more effective way — where accountability is more closely tied to the people who control the money.”
Got that, Richmond? A vote for Robert Grey is a vote to disenfranchise yourself from voting (in true Lewis Carroll style, he calls that “accountability”). Now do you see why it might be a wee bit important for this particular hand-picked candidate to talk openly and honestly with voters on the campaign trail about what he would do if elected mayor?
“I take whatever I can get, man.” Shown here: A surveillance camera photo of former City councilperson Gwen Hedgepeth accepting bribe money in exchange for her vote to help Bill Pantele become Mayor back in 2002. Pantele would prefer that you not remember this sordid affair as he launches a political campaign that he says will bring “accountability” and “honest government” to City Hall.
In announcing his candidacy for Mayor recently, City Council president Bill Pantele stated that he was the only candidate who was qualified to run City Hall. And so far, he is running his campaign on the notion that only he can bring honesty and integrity to the Richmond mayor’s office.
I hope you weren’t in the process of drinking or eating something when you read the above. Once you stop choking and finish cleaning up your spill, check this out:
“I want to fulfill the promise of this great capital city,” the man who says he will be “the People’s Mayor” recently told a group of supporters. “Five years ago, we were frustrated by the poorly-run government, the poor ethics and the city was not reaching its potential so we moved to an elected mayor form of government to put aside politics, unify the region and realize those dreams. Today, we’re still unfulfilled.”
Of course, the question needs to be asked: How long has Bill Pantele been on City Council again? Since 2001? And what, in all that time in office, has he done about the “poorly-run government, the poor ethics and the city not reaching its potential”? Doesn’t Mr. Pantele, who has served as city council president the past few years, need to take a measure of responsibility for all of these “unfulfilled dreams”? Doesn’t this disingenuous statement say boatloads about how a Mayor Pantele would accept actual “accountability.”
But I guess it depends on who the candidate will ultimately be accountable to. On that note, Pantele’s campaign sent out an e-mail last week. They wanted all of us to know that he is currently leading in campaign fundraising in the race for the Mayor.
Oh, really?
Here is a link to the Virginia Public Access Project’s page on Bill Pantele’s campaign contributors from 2003-2007, enabling one to get a better view of the kind of “People’s Mayor” that the 2nd district councilman would be.
Go through the list and count the CenterStage/VAPAF board members who saw their long-term taxpayer-funded real estate deal shoved through council thanks to Pantele (the project was also awarded protected FOIA status and these same people were handed the keys to the city’s performing arts theatres for decades). You’ll find Brad Armstrong, the Ukrops, John Bates, Booty Armstrong, Bob Mooney and more. Yes, these are the folks who have already had their dreams fulfilled thanks to the generous political patronage of Mr. Pantele, and it all comes at the expense of the rest of us.
Take another look at his contributors list and count the big developers on board the Pantele train. “R3 Development” and “U.S. Property Development Corp.” are responsible for the controversial Echo Harbour project that would’ve severely limited public access of, and views to, the James River — a high-rise condo project that runs counter to the direction of Richmond’s proposed new Downtown Master Plan (as revealed in today’s RTD, the developers are now reconsidering their original proposal, which would’ve blocked a historic view of the James River). “The Downtown Master Plan provides us with a good place to start,” Pantele tells Richmond voters on his new campaign website — a less than definitive statement from the “People’s Mayor” concerning the People’s Plan, which was created through an inclusive process that was referred to by one wag as “a sudden outbreak of Democracy in Richmond.”
As one of his opponents in the mayor’s race, Paul Goldman, has noted, the picture that graced the invitation for Pantele’s most recent $1,000 a plate fundraiser was a photo of the James River from Libby Hill Park in Church Hill — the very view that would’ve been publicly blocked by the Echo Harbour condo project. Is this just sloppy propaganda on the part of Pantele’s campaign handlers… or a sly wink to Bill’s developer friends that, under a Mayor Pantele, it’s a return to business as usual for the business and developer communities of the Greater Richmond region?
You’d think — after touting that historic river view so prominently on his campaign propaganda — that “the People’s Mayor” would want to be very clear with the people about what he intends to do concerning future riverfront development. But Pantele’s official statement about the James and protecting public access to Richmond’s most valuable natural resource is, in fact, so carefully and generally worded that it could mean anything at all. Let’s face it: If he supported the Downtown master plan in its current form, he would say so definitively and not parse his words. But all one has to do is to note how his Virginia Performing Arts Foundation campaign contributors were taken care of (Delores McQuinn called Pantele’s efforts on their behalf “a rush job”) and you’ll get a true sense of what riverfront development would really be like under a Mayor Pantele.
Lastly, it is ironic that the councilman should be so proud of how much money he has raised so far in his bid to become mayor. Looking at this revealing VPAP list of Pantele’s past enablers, we see traces of perhaps the most notorious “campaign contribution” that Pantele was ever involved in.
On the list of contributors, you will find “Historic Housing LLC,” a company affiliated with disgraced developer H. Louis Salomonsky, who you may recall was sent to prison for his role in offering a bribe to former councilwoman Gwen Hedgepeth back in Dec. 2002.
And what was Hedgepeth being bribed to do, you might wonder? Why, she was being handed a brown paper bag full of money in exchange for her vote to — ta da! — elect Bill Pantele as Mayor. You see, this was back in the days when a majority of Richmond City Council chose the mayor from within its ranks. A 2004 RTD article by Jeremy Redmon reported:
Federal agents asked [Developer Bob] Davis to wear a wire after he told them he was planning to meet another developer, H. Louis Salomonsky. Law-enforcement officials have been interested in Salomonsky’s dealings for years.
During their meeting, Salomonsky asked Davis to approach Hedgepeth about supporting for Pantele for mayor. Salomonsky pleaded guilty in December to conspiracy to commit extortion for his part in plans to bribe Hedgepeth.
The FBI transcript of the transactions (between Hedgepeth and convicted felon Davis, who was wearing a wire) went down like this:
Hedgepeth says, “You have asked me about helping you with this Pantele thing. And so I can help with that. All right?”
Davis: “OK.”
Hedgepeth: “Now, when can you help me with my debt?” She then informs Davis her debt is $2,158, but says, “I take whatever I can get, man.”
Davis: “How do you want it? In cash or check? How do you want the money?”
Hedgepeth: “Well, it doesn’t matter. . . . I have to report that. . . . I can’t get myself in trouble.”
Prosecutors showed the jury footage of Davis handing Hedgepeth $500 as the two sat in his car last year. The camera view is from the back of Davis’ sedan.
Hedgepeth laughs after telling him: “I’m going to enter your contribution as a contribution by more than one.”
Ha ha. Good times, good times…
If you’ll recall, this “Pantele Thing” was cited as one of the main reasons why an overwhelming majority of Richmonders decided to begin electing the city’s mayor and to take that choice out of the sketchy hands of city councilpeople like Hedgepeth and Pantele.
And the man who stands before us now — pontificating on the city’s “poor ethics” and touting the money he’s been given from “his friends” — was right in the center of all of the sleaze. While he was never formally charged with anything in the affair (something that has confused and befuddled city reporters for years), it was clear from this caught-in-the-act money-drop that Bill Pantele was being illegally placed into office for some specific reason… and it probably wasn’t his ability to “bring all Richmonders together.”
Meaningful change, honest government, accountability… a Mayor for the “People”? Only if you happen to live in Bosnia… or have a very, very, very short memory.