More than 3,000 people take to the street for Women’s March RVA B2
Richmond Free Press © 2018 Paradigm Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
VOL. 27 NO. 4
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
www.richmondfreepress.com
ee Fr
Fr ee
c e l e b rat ing our 2 6 t h A nniv e r s ary
JANUARY 25-27, 2018
A new lease
T.K. Somanath resigns from the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority amid criticism regarding heating crisis By Jeremy M. Lazarus
The India-born emigrée had spent 16 years at RRHA working on housing development, Battered by criticism over his handling of followed by 24 years leading the nonprofit a heating crisis in the Creighton Court public Better Housing Coalition to develop hundreds housing community, T.K. Somanath of homes and apartments for low- to abruptly resigned Sunday as chief moderate-income families. executive officer of the Richmond He came out of retirement three Redevelopment and Housing Auyears ago with high expectations thority. that his long experience could aid Brought out of retirement to guide RRHA after the board removed the previous director, Adrienne Goolsby, in early 2015. Related story on A4 He only expected to stay six months, but then took the job permanently. the housing agency, the 72-year-old Mr. Somanath remained highly Mr. Somanath civil engineer has left behind an array regarded until recently, when he reof still incomplete projects and an agency that ceived blistering criticism for failing to address has yet to regain public confidence. non-working heating systems that left many Robert J. Adams, a housing and develop- RRHA residents in the cold. Most notably about ment consultant who chairs the RRHA’s Board 50 families in Creighton Court, where furnaces of Commissioners, expressed gratitude for Mr. in 12 buildings where shut off, were without Somanath’s service “and notably his accomplish- heat as bitter cold hit Richmond. ments in beginning the critical work of replacing While RRHA quietly jumped to replace broRRHA’s aging public housing portfolio.” ken equipment and to restore heat in the Gilpin Mr. Somanath came to RRHA’s leadership with Please turn to A4 a long track record in low-income housing.
RRHA picks Orlando Artze as interim CEO By Ronald E. Carrington
In a statement announcing Mr. Artze’s appointment to temporarily replace T.K. Somanath, Orlando Artze, a 64-year-old former Rich- who resigned Sunday over the heating crisis, Mr. mond Redevelopment and Housing Authority Adams said the board is “identifying immediate board member who has spent the priorities, including focusing on the past two years working on special health and safety of our residents, projects for the authority, has been improving communications and transnamed RRHA’s interim chief execuparency and building trust.” tive officer. He said while the board begins its The appointment was announced search for a permanent CEO, it believes Tuesday night by Robert J. Adams, Mr. Artze “is the right person to step in chairman of the RRHA’s Board of and lead the organization as it addresses Commissioners, following an earlier, these and other important issues.” hourlong public meeting in Gilpin He said Mr. Artze is not a candiCourt with residents that opened with date for the permanent position, and Mr. Artze Mr. Adams apologizing for the authorthat the search process will involve ity’s poor response to heating issues during the “input from and partnership with residents, the recent weeks of extremely cold weather. city and other community partners.” “I know that the situation caused hardship Mr. Artze has nearly 40 years of experience in and inconvenience,” Mr. Adams told the 65 affordable housing and community development, people gathered at the Calhoun Family Invest- working with public, private and nonprofit sectors ment Center. “And we will do all we can to minimize those issues,” he said. Please turn to A4
Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press
Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker speaks at Virginia Union University’s annual Community Leaders Breakfast in Richmond in January 2008.
Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker, civil rights icon, chief of staff to Dr. King, dies in Chester Free Press staff, wire report
Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker Jr. did all he could to advance civil rights during his long life. He is credited with being the key strategist behind many of the civil rights protests that
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led in seeking to end the racial injustice of Jim Crow in the 1960s. During his four years as Dr. King’s chief Please turn to A7
Mayor Stoney proposes meals tax hike to support schools By Jeremy M. Lazarus
Declaring that Richmond “is strong,” Mayor Levar M. Stoney called for “bold and courageous” action to deal with some of the city’s unmet challenges such as decaying schools and public housing. But the popular mayor mostly proposed taking small steps to address those challenges in his first State of the City Address delivered Tuesday evening in which he was interrupted repeatedly by applause. The best example is his proposal to address what he called
the “obsolescence, decay and decline” of the public school buildings that most Richmond students attend. “This state of affairs is simply unacceptable,” he told the audience of more than 500 who gathered at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, from “overcrowding in the South Side or the deterioration of conditions at schools like George Mason Elementary.” His solution: Raise the tax on restaurant and other prepared meals by 1.5 percent to generate $9.1 million a year. That would be enough to borrow $150 million for construction
of new schools through 2023, a plan that would need City Council approval. Currently, restaurant checks in Richmond include a tax of 11.3 percent, including 5.3 percent for state sales tax and a city meals tax of 6 percent. Mayor Stoney’s proposal would raise the tax to 12.8 percent, with the city’s meals tax increased to 7.5 percent. “I do not relish imposing a higher tax” on restaurant meals, he told his audience that included members of City Council and the School Board and was heavily tilted to city employees and contractors.
But the city has “functionally used up its borrowing capacity” and must have new revenue to cover debt payments and create additional debt capacity, he said. “We are talking about one and a half cents. Surely, our kids are worth that much.” However, his plan would allow construction of only a few school buildings over the next five years, leaving the majority of mostly African-American students in buildings he previously called “intolerable monuments to segregation.” Some people are concerned that the mayor, like his predecessors, is focusing on new
Bond fund to help people stay out of jail By Jeremy M. Lazarus
Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press
Matthew F. Perry Jr., right, is founder of the Richmond Community Bail Fund that operates with the help of volunteers such as Nathan Beyah.
Get arrested and you could lose your job, your home, custody of your children and anything you own if you can’t raise bail money. That’s because you’ll stay in jail awaiting trial — a reality that daily involves untold numbers of people in Richmond and across the state whose pre-trial detention disrupts their lives, crowds jails and costs taxpayers who pay for their care. That’s intolerable to Richmond native Matthew F. Perry Jr., who has come up with a solution to help people who are presumed innocent get out of jail before trial. His solution: Create a fund that would provide money to cover bond without any cost to the arrested person. That would help people without money stay out jail as they go through the court process. And that solution is now in operation in Richmond. The 20-year-old junior at New York University has teamed with the fledgling Business Coalition for Justice, or BCJ, to start the Richmond Community Bail Fund. The fund, patterned after the original Freedom Fund Please turn to A4
buildings and offered no ideas for ending the neglect of the larger inventory of aging buildings. The city for years has shortchanged school maintenance by an estimated $11 million a year, according to school officials. The proposal also would fall far short of the referendum that Richmond voters approved by an 85 percent margin in November that called on the mayor to provide a fully funded plan to replace or overhaul all of the decrepit school buildings. Paul Goldman, who led the push to Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press get the initiative on Mayor Levar M. Stoney holds up a penny the ballot, said the in each hand as he promotes his plan to mayor’s proposal raise the city’s meals tax to provide new simply “kicks the funds for school construction. “Surely can down the road” our kids are worth that much,” he said and belies his own Tuesday in delivering his first State of campaign promise the City address. Location: Martin Luther to make improving King Jr. Middle School. school facilities a The School Board plan priority. The meals tax plan the mayor advanced “is a failed called for $85 million to build a new George Wythe policy,” Mr. Goldman said. The mayor’s plan also falls High, $50 million to build short of the School Board re- a new Elkhardt-Thompson quest in December for $224.7 Middle and $80 million to million to replace five schools replace Greene, George Mason with new buildings and to and Woodville elementary renovate two others between schools. Please turn to A4 2019 and 2023.