Abused, then cheated B4
Richmond Free Press © 2019 Paradigm Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
VOL. 28 NO. 36
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
www.richmondfreepress.com
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Meet the REA president B1
SEPTEMBER 5-7, 2019
Opening bell
Richmond Public Schools students, teachers and staff start school year with great expectations, optimism By George Copeland Jr.
Richmond Public Schools students, parents, teachers and officials were up bright and early and full of optimism Tuesday morning for the beginning of the new school year. “I love the high expectations that we have here at RPS,” said Westover Hills Elementary School Principal Allison El Koubi. “If we want our kids to succeed, then we need to have high expectations and make sure that we’re teaching grade-level content.” That positivity was echoed miles away on the grounds of E.S.H. Greene Elementary, a school whose opening was marked by transition — externally in the form of the new school building under construction behind the main building and adjacent trailers,
More first day photos, B2 and internally with the hiring of Dr. Juvenal Abrego-Meneses to serve as the school’s principal. “I expect nothing but the greatest and the best for students at RPS,” said Greene Elementary Assistant Principal Katrina Holmes, standing a few feet away from an auditorium that earlier had served as an ad-hoc dispensary for hundreds of student backpacks. Westover Hills and Greene elementaries, like a few other city elementary schools, opened a half-hour earlier than the rest of the district at 8:30 a.m., with participating schools now closing at 3:15 p.m. as opposed to 3:40 p.m. The change was among a suite of developments going into effect this year, including the addition of 10 new electives, such as cooking, chorus and dance, for high school students; solar panels added to the roofs of about 10 schools; paper lunch trays to promote eco-friendly measures; and moving truancy hearings from courts to Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School. Later on Tuesday night, the Richmond School Board voted unanimously to purchase 42,000 new Chromebooks for $1.29 million as part of a partnership with T-Mobile that will provide the laptops and personal internet-enabled devices to sixth-grade students to use throughout their time in middle school. The shift to an early opening seemed to be an easy adjustment for the schools. Westover Hills staff, faculty, members of various partner groups and others assembled with Ms. El Koubi to greet new and returning students and parents in the school’s lobby with high fives, hugs and donuts. “I’m really excited. I think we’re going to have a great From left, Diane W. Jones year,” said Bryce Lyle, who
Regina H. Boone/Richmond Free Press
Walking through a welcome arch of balloons at Westover Hills Elementary School, third-grader Kemdyl Grevious is greeted with a high five from Principal Allison El Koubi, as she and her father, Dylan Grevious, arrive Tuesday for the opening day.
Bradford family descendants, supporters work to protect old Sons and Daughters of Ham Cemetery
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Saving the past By Jeremy M. Lazarus
Regina H. Boone/ Richmond Free Press
and her sister, Carolyn W. Moten, and cousin Linda T. Nash stand in front of the sign for the overgrown cemetery in Henrico County where their relatives are buried and which they are working to restore.
HOME to begin eviction diversion program By Jeremy M. Lazarus
Richmond’s first ever program aimed at helping people avoid eviction is about to get a home base. At its upcoming meeting Monday, Sept. 9, City Council is expected to approve legislation awarding a grant of $485,140 to fair housing watchdog Housing Opportunities Made Equal to operate the pioneering program. Heather M. Crislip, president and chief executive officer of HOME, expects the program to be underway by October. She stated Wednesday that notices about the program will start being issued to families hit with an eviction notice next week. Ms. Crislip Under the grant’s language, HOME would be able to pay up to 50 percent of the overdue rent to assist an eligible family, while helping the family set up a payment plan for the balance if the landlord agrees. Participating families also would get financial counseling Please turn to A4
Dense woods fill much of a largely uncelebrated and essentially abandoned African-American burial ground in Henrico County that had been best known in recent years as a practice area for University of Richmond runners. While they no longer use it, their pounding feet kept a path winding through the graveyard clear of vegetation. The untended state of the cemetery could change now that a handful of people are getting involved with it, just as improvements have come to previously neglected private and public African-American cemeteries such as the Evergreen and East End cemeteries on the city’s eastern border and the Barton Heights cemeteries in North Side. In the case of the Henrico cemetery located off Chandler Road and next door to the city-owned Bandy Field, a retired Richmond pharmacist and two great-granddaughters Please turn to A4
Hearing on Coliseum referendum petitions still up in the air By Jeremy M. Lazarus
Richmond Circuit Court Chief Judge Joi Jeter Taylor so far has not set a new hearing to consider whether city Voter Registrar Kirk Showalter wrongly threw out more than 2,000 petition signatures and keeping a nonbinding advisory referendum on the Richmond Coliseum replacement project off the Nov. 5 ballot. Paul Goldman, who spearheaded the referendum drive that collected nearly 15,000 signatures, said Wednesday that he sent two emails to Judge Taylor this week seeking a hearing on motions he filed before Labor Day contesting the registrar’s finding that the referendum petition drive fell 400 signatures short. “But I have yet to receive a response” from Judge Taylor, Mr. Goldman said. A political strategist and former chairman of the state Democratic Party, Mr. Goldman said that he referenced in his emails the short time remaining before the
looming ballot preparation deadline for the referendum question to be settled. Ms. Showalter declined to comment outside of court on any matters related to Mr. Goldman’s legal actions. At the first hearing on Aug. 15, Judge Taylor accepted Ms. Showalter’s report showing 9,941 valid petition signatures, or 400 shy of the 10,341 required to put the referendum on the ballot. The judge gave Mr. Goldman, who is serving as his own attorney in this case, until Aug. 30 to review the signatures that were rejected and Mr. Goldman note objections. Mr. Goldman sent Judge Taylor a motion to compel Ms. Showalter to begin reviewing his findings ahead of the deadline. He then submitted his findings to the judge on the Aug. 30 deadline, listing 2,079
signatures he argued that were wrongly dismissed. Among them were the signatures of radio talk show host Gary Flowers and prominent attorney Thomas Wolf and his wife, former School Board member Carol Wolf, and others whose names are on the voter rolls but were listed as “cannot identify.” Arguing that Ms. Showalter is flouting state law and violating the constitutional right of voters to petition their government, Mr. Goldman alleged that Ms. Showalter falsely listed some signatures as duplicates when they were not. In addition, he noted that Ms. Showalter threw out the signatures of people who are clearly listed on the voter rolls, but whose address is now different than the one on the voter rolls. Mr. Goldman said Wednesday that Ms. Showalter is continuing a practice that was Please turn to A4