“I have waited all of my lifetime in politics to have the opportunity to make this happen in my native city.”
— Mayor L. Douglas Wilder, Richmond city council chambers, Monday night.
You say you wanted change, Richmond?
Well, here it is . Mayor Wilder’s newly unveiled “City of the Future” proposal is an audacious and unprecedented roadmap to building a better, more modern city — with new schools as its primary centerpiece.
The details of the expansive, expensive project will no doubt be debated, analyzed, fine-tuned and argued over — it’s already happening — but can anyone disagree with its overall goals? The mayor’s “City of the Future” Plan aims to:
* Rebuild and/or modernize 15 schools, concentrating on the elementary schools and also several new neighborhood high schools
* Spend upwards of $50 million, with support by the business community, to repair city streets
* Create a citywide “High School for the Arts.”
* Create a citywide “Science and Math High School.”
* Provide the bulk of funding to get a new Carptenter Center of the Performing Arts in operation as quickly as possible
* Modernize the Landmark Theatre
* Modernize the Richmond Vocational Technology Center
* Provide funds in advancing a partnership between the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University to create a downtown legal campus and provide Legal Aid services in the 8th Street Office Building (formerly the Murphy Hotel)
* Contribute toward the relocation of the Aviation Museum from the airport to a site near the Science Museum to create a better venue for teaching aeronautical skills and history
* Retro-fit all City library branches with state-of-the-art internet communication services
* Buy and modernize a permanent home for the City School Board and School Administration
* Purchase a home for the State Probation Department to allow for an expanded GED program to better assist ex-offenders’ re-entry to society
The proposal has a $250-300 million estimated cost, and the mayor maintained on Monday night that it would not involve raising taxes. “It sounds suspiciously like the big furniture companies advertising ‘Pay No Interest Until 2008!,” says one of our favorite number-crunchers. Actually, the wish list/agenda sounds more like the well-remembered Presidential campaign slogan for Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh - “Free Gas For Everyone!”
Wilder plans to pay for the program by using a line of credit — basically what people do when they get a credit card — to pay for work as it is done. As the bills build up, he’ll refinance the debt, tapping sources of revenue the city doesn’t have now but expects to have in the years to come.
There are three big money sources: spending cuts, expiring tax abatements, and the increase in the city’s meals tax — from 5 percent to 6 percent — that had been slated to help pay for a downtown performing-arts center. Under Wilder’s plan, part of that project will go ahead: a modernization of the Carpenter Center. The rest is on ice. — “Wilder’s Plan Draws Mixed Reviews,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, 01-11-06
The plan seems to rely on a lot of maybes and projections; is that a strong enough foundation for a city’s future? But you’ve got to admire the willingness to take bold steps in addressing a host of civic problems that previous administrations enabled or swept under the rug. The chief dilemma: schools. “We haven’t had a new high school built in the city for Richmond in 40 years,” the mayor said, with a little heat coming off of his voice, on Monday. “And that’s in Henrico County.”
But is such a five-year proposal to build a “City of The Future” too ambitious (he wants it in the works by this summer), too risky? Well, there’s risk and then there’s suicide. Ask yourself: Do you want the 1% meals tax hike to continue funding a private — and still naughty — foundation responsible for a $22 million downtown hole in the ground and a bankrupt Carpenter Center … or would you rather see those tax dollars go toward bonds for another, more visionary proposal (admittedly risky, yes) that would see the building of new schools, the necessary repairing of infrastructure, the modernization of libraries and a renovated Carpenter and Landmark Theatre?
Cutting to the quick: how could anyone professing to be a responsible advocate for “the arts” and “the children” be against the construction of a performing arts school and putting the Landmark and Carpenter on the front burner?
W. Jerrold Samford, vice chairman of the Alliance for the Performing Arts, objected to using the meals tax for Wilder’s program. He said that part of the plan is premature, because Wilder recently appointed a committee to evaluate plans for the performing-arts center. — “Wilder’s Plan Draws Mixed Reviews,” Times-Dispatch
“Is retaining the meals tax to fund projects other than the Performing Arts Center, for which it was enacted, the prudent or proper way to go? We think not.” — “Wilder’s Blueprint,” Times-Dispatch Editorial page, 01-11-06
Like I was saying…
On Monday, before city council, Mayor Wilder urged that citizens speak out about his ambitious plan as councilmembers deliberate on its provisions — “tweak it, fine-tune it” — and he urged that we all be vocal with thoughts and ideas. Let’s take him up on that. I invite any and all VAPAF apologists, and arts lovers, and even those who think we should get rid of the meals tax altogether, to come and debate the best use of public tax dollars. We never got that opportunity the last time.
Some have already noted that — for all its creative ledger balancing — the mayor’s plan still makes more sense than the unstudied sweetheart deal that the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation and city council rammed down Richmond’s throat back in 2003:
“When the meals tax was sold to us, I spoke out against it because they hadn’t done their due diligence, they didn’t do their homework, they didn’t raise the money,” said Michael Byrne, owner of Richbrau Brewery Co. in Shockoe Slip. “What Wilder did [Monday] night is he expressed a method and a methodology for Richmond to raise the money to create real change.”
But for all of this food for thought, all of these grand plans, all of the high-falutin’ number-jugglin’, the best and most exciting news for downtown Richmond’s future might just be found in another recent news story.
With the National Theatre finally out of the VAPAF’s clutches, the future is looking brighter already. And if the new owners of the National should happen to realize their goal and turn this venerable Richmond venue into another success story akin to Norfolk’s Norva Theatre — building a thriving “street-level” performing arts scene in a part of the city that is about to experience even more young people — we’ll try not to say “I told you so” too many times. We know it gets annoying.