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Meet the 7th District School Board Candidates

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In Richmond’s 7th District, three candidates are running in a November special election for the school board seat vacated by Nadine Marsh-Carter after the death of her husband in 2017.

Schools in the district suffer from chronic underfunding and maintenance issues, placing them amongst the most-dilapidated in the city. A majority of students attending qualify for free or reduced meals, indicating high levels of poverty at home. Students in the district face significant challenges, and whoever is elected to the seat will face strong public scrutiny.

The candidates include the current representative, Cheryl Burke, a retired principal of Chimborazo Elementary School who was appointed as an interim last October. Also vying for the seat are Gary Broderick, a Richmond education advocate who worked as a learning assistant in Durham, N.C., and Bryce Robertson, a lawyer with Dyer Immigration Law Group, in Henrico County.

RVA Magazine interviewed each candidate to learn more about their backgrounds, why they want to serve the district, and their vision for Richmond’s schools. The candidates are listed alphabetically below.

Gary Broderick

Broderick comes to Richmond with deep ties to education advocacy. His work began in earnest after he learned that the city he lived in, Philadelphia, Pa., was going to close 37 schools. He was part of a group of 19 that participated in civil disobedience in favor of keeping the schools open. He would later move to Durham, where he worked as an educator in an elementary school and volunteered as an advocate with the Durham Association of Educators.

When he came to Richmond, Broderick continued his work in education advocacy. With A New Virginia Majority, Broderick ran a successful campaign to push the school board to adopt a needs-based budget, and won democratic reforms to the Mayor’s education compact. He also served in a volunteer leadership role with then-candidate Kenya Gibson, who was elected to serve the 3rd District last year. Broderick would like the school board to be more active in demanding funding for schools. He would like to see Richmond’s elected officials at the city and state level push for raising Virginia’s corporate tax rate, which is one of the lowest in the country, and hasn’t been raised in 40 years.

Broderick has not accepted any corporate contributions because he believes one person, one vote is important for true democracy. In a video by his campaign, Broderick pointed to how city council voted against a cigarette tax bill that would have given more funding to schools.

“We’re actually fighting for the pie to increase from those who can most afford to chip in, we’re not just having different people in need fighting over the same kind of pie that’s too small,” Broderick said to RVAMag.

Broderick is concerned about the recommendation from schools to the juvenile justice system in the 7th District. He envisions restorative justice programs in schools and wants a community negotiation with the Richmond Police Department to discuss the role of School Resource Officers.

Broderick said poor funding is how these problems manifest, but they originate within anti-black racism, opertalizioned by corporate interest and donors groups in Richmond with interest in lower taxes.

“Our schools are so understaffed that the schools don’t have as many options as they should have before they reach out to law enforcement,” Broderick said. “Our schools need enough funding that they can handle challenging situations in-house and that requires more support staff and more funding.”

Cheryl Burke

Burke, who worked in the Richmond Public School system for 38 years as a teacher and then become an administrator, said she was a born teacher. Coming from a family of teachers, she said she’d been teaching since she was two years old.

“Some teachers are made, some teachers are born, you’re talking to a born teacher and I’m proud of it,” Burke said.

Burke said she mimicked her mother by making everything hands on. Eventually, one school she taught at, Clark Springs Elementary, gave her two classrooms to teach in. For her, the most difficult thing was discipline. She had to learn to be an entertainer.

Burke became an important part of improving Chimborazo Elementary as principal. She helped clean up the school to make it welcoming for students, attempted to lift up the community and making sure the students had enough supplies and support.

“I was glad that I was taught that no matter how much you have, someone else has more and someone else has less and it’s important to meet people where they are in order to take them where we all need to go,” Burke said.

She said her goal is to make sure students have the opportunity to excel. In the past, she tried to help students focus on their books and nooks by implementing an optional dress code, wrote grants and worked with a partnership with Yale that had three principles: collaboration, no-fault and consensus. Burke retired four years ago but said she has stayed engaged in the community

Burke said she is continuing her legacy and working with her constituents. She wants to continue to build relationships as she works to make the school system better because she believes the school district can do better.

“We have to do better than this,” Burke said. “We can do better than this. We want our children to learn and listen and follow expectations.”

Bryce Robertson

Robertson is a Richmond native. In fact, Burke was his former principal. Robertson hopes to expand English as a Second Language class, trauma-informed care, access to programs similar to universal pre-K, the use of technology and forming a collaboration in the community. He said he has a good context of the trauma and pain students feel because of what he has seen in his job.

“It’s one of the things that encourages me to make sure that in our schools we do our best for young folks,” Robertson said. “This is my primary concern. This is where I stand. I have a commitment to this role and uniquely this role, being on the school board, being in the community and seeing kids succeed in their dreams in terms of education.”

He hopes by looking at disciplinary processes and making sure there are enough opportunities for students to do well in school and be successful. His goal of expanding collaboration into community, he said, could provide resources that schools might be lacking, such as nurses. He said these partnerships and mentorship opportunities could give hope to students.

Robertson served as a youth mentor in Richmond and Chesterfield. He also served on the board of Chesterfield Innovative Academy for Girls, now called the Garden School House. He would like to take this background with the community and serve on the school board and promote transparency.

“One of the things that concerns me about Richmond Public Schools, and has been an ongoing concern, is transparency in the decision making processes and the accessibility in general,” Robertson said.

Similar to Broderick, Robertson was concerned about the lack of public input on issues such as the Memorandum of Understanding and the renewal of the Camelot contract. The board adopted a Corrective Action Plan, as required by the Memorandum of Understanding, with three representatives from three districts not present. Robertson was especially concerned with the renewal of the Camelot contract; Camelot is an alternative school that Robertson has a connection to the number of students in the justice system.

“I don’t think the ways of doing things in the past are going to get us to where we need to be as a school district,” Robertson said. “I want to make sure that the leadership on the school board is prepared and ready to move us forward in the most innovative and bold ways possible to get us to the next level.”

The special election will be held on November 6, 2018, during the regular midterm general election. All regular polling places will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. The Registrar Office advises all voters that photo ID is required.

Beyond The Stereotypes: A More Inclusive Look At Richmond Moms

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Perhaps you saw the article on RichmondMom.com that attempted to offer an anthropological perspective on what it’s like to be a mom in Richmond. Some might have thought it funny (and it tried to be), but it brought up some things to think about as we try and generalize the “mom experience” in Richmond.

Also, I’m an actual anthropologist, so pay attention.

As an anthropologist, here is what I know: That article is only about one kind of mom. Which type of mom can find that article cute? White moms. Because that article is exclusively about the experience of white women in Richmond. It’s about the experience of privilege when you have the resources to make choices about what kinds of schools your kids go to, which overpriced grocery store you’ll shop at, or what farm to table restaurant you prefer.  

Since we’re taking an anthropological perspective, which is holistic and inevitably intersectional, let’s talk a little bit about what life is like for the many moms in Richmond who were not represented in that article.

Just last week, Richmond Public Schools ran out of toilet paper and other essentials. Is that covered in the article? What about the moms in Richmond public housing this past winter, who went weeks without heat during a record-breaking cold snap, forcing families to temporarily separate? What about the life of the mother of a black autistic child in distress in Chesterfield, who was treated as a violent threat and taken to the ground with excessive force?

Let’s quickly revisit the description of what the article refers to as “city folk”: people who send their kids to “a diverse mix of public, private, parochial, and charter” schools for education, or the “cool moms” in the city who go food shopping at Ellwood Thompson and Farm Fresh.

This is important because according to 2016 census data, 24.8 percent of Richmond’s 204,000 residents lived below the poverty line. And it’s well documented that 75 percent of all poor households in the US are headed by women. If you do some loose math it calculates to roughly 51,000 Richmond residents living below the poverty line, with at least 38,000 of those living in households headed by women; yep, you guessed it, households headed by moms. Academically, this is known as the feminization of poverty.  

These households are headed by Richmond moms who are not going to “Can Can” or having “girls’ nights on rooftop bars.” These households are headed by moms who are trying to support their families on less than $22,162 a year; these households are headed by the type of mom who works two and three jobs to send her kids to schools where there’s not enough toilet paper to last through the end of the school year.

Let’s also note that of the 204,000 people residing in Richmond as tallied by the 2010 census, 51 percent were black. Being a black mom means living with the stark reality that black women in the US are three to four times more likely to die in pregnancy-related death compared with white women. On top of this, racial disparities in access to healthcare are widely documented, and barriers to appropriate health care for people of color are real, pervasive, and disproportionately affect black moms and their babies. And if mothers of color successfully birth babies? They are three times more likely to suffer from postpartum depression.

If we are not going to speak about this reality of motherhood, then we have failed each other as moms and women.

The experience of motherhood is a physical and mental exercise in simultaneous terror and joy, and as moms attempting to help our unruly toddlers survive to become unruly teenagers, we’ve earned the right to joke about ourselves. However, we can’t forget that not all moms experience motherhood the same way in Richmond. And that is what an anthropological look actually tells us: That even for as something as basic to our humanity as childbirth, structural and systemic racism means that for moms in Richmond, not all things are equal.  

RPS Fails to Supply Schools With Toilet Paper and Other Essentials

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Nearly 50 Richmond Public Schools are struggling to keep basic supplies stocked, such as toilet paper, paper towels, and soap, during the last two weeks of school, according to local parents.

Last Friday, World of Mirth posted to their Facebook page a call to action for anyone who wished to donate supplies to a long list of public schools across the state. The post was both in response to an online public sign-up sheet posted on Sign Up Genius by Cindy Anderson, as well as complaints from World of Mirth owner Thea Brown’s son.

My son is a 9th grader at [Thomas Jefferson High School] and he said he doesn’t use the bathroom because there is maybe one roll of toilet paper in a bathroom if you are lucky, and absolutely no soap,” Brown said. “When he got to high school, he thought maybe they just didn’t have hand soap in high school.

World of Mirth also started an Amazon wish list for anyone who wishes to ship supplies either to a school or to the store, from which they will make deliveries. Schools listed as options for donation on Sign Up Genius include Chimborazo Elementary School, Lucille Brown Middle School, and John Marshall High School, as well as 54 other public schools and public educational centers. Brown spent eight hours this morning delivering supplies to schools after dozens of volunteers donated supplies.

“I just got back from delivering to 10 different schools and I had a head custodian hug me with tears in his eyes because he had just gotten back from Wal-mart spending his own money to buy toilet paper for the kids [at Reid Elementary],” Brown said. “They were incredibly grateful. We walked into one school and they yelled, ‘Toilet paper! We’ve been waiting for you all morning!’”

According to Anderson, only five schools out of 54 on the list contacted her asking to be taken off the list, as they were well-stocked and did not want to take supplies away from other schools who may need it. Anderson is a member of the Parent-Teacher Association at Albert Hill High School, where her son attends the 8th grade.

“We don’t need folks to donate,” Jason Kamras, superintendent of Richmond Public Schools, said in a Tweet delivered on Saturday. “A couple of schools had issues on Friday. That’s unacceptable and I’ve made that abundantly clear to the RPS team. But I guarantee that every school will have supplies on Monday morning.”

Kamras then asked if anyone knew their school was out of supplies, they could message him directly on the issue. When contacted about the issue, Kamras’ media office replied that there was a delay in a supply order, but the issue has been resolved as of today. According to Anderson, 40 orders of toilet paper were backordered due to a lack of funding.

“As of right now, I have not heard anything about whether the schools have received anything from administration,” Anderson said. “What I do know is I just got a text from one of the people out delivering and every school has been very appreciative and said they were a ‘blessing in disguise.’ I just know that it’s not two schools, it was all but five [out of 54].”

Anderson began the donation list after seeing Facebook posts from local teachers on the Support Richmond Public Schools page who claimed their schools had no toilet paper, soap, and had to borrow paper towels from a neighboring school. The teacher also said children were using their pants to wipe their hands after using the restrooms.

“I cringe thinking about teenage girls in middle school and high school dealing with their periods every month,” Brown said. “We have to show to our kids and prove to them that we believe in them and that they are important, and that we are investing in their future.”

Parents continue to report complaints from their children that this is an ongoing issue, not an isolated instance. Betsy Milburn, mother of four, said her children complain every year about the lack of supplies, the disrepair of the bathrooms, as well as her daughter’s reluctance to use school bathrooms. 

“I find it frustrating when the school system tweets out that it’s only a couple schools who need supplies, and then a parent calls every school and it’s only a couple of schools who don’t need supplies,” Milburn said. “I think that RPS can do better and should do better. When the basics work, then the big things can be tackled. We can’t tackle anything big until we can do the simple things.”

The School Board is set to discuss the budget Monday night, which will include money for toiletries.

Brewer’s Café Kicks Off Wu-Tang Sandwich Week to Raise Money For Richmond Public Schools

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When AJ Brewer came up with the idea to offer a week of sandwiches named in homage to the Wu-Tang Clan at his Manchester coffee shop, he wasn’t sure anything would come of it. It was only after Method Man wrote him back on Instagram with his favorite sandwich, a Reuben made with pastrami, that he knew it was going to take off.

Photo courtesy Brewer’s Café

After he realized that it would work, his first thought was how he could benefit his community. That’s at the heart of Brewer’s Café, which the former stockbroker opened in 2015 after leaving a six-figure job. “Since I knew that money would be made, I had to figure out a way to put that back into the community,” he said, adding that Richmond Public Schools was an easy choice.

“That’s what I’m always up in my bully pulpit on. The change with Richmond Public Schools starts with the parents, with people staying and raising their kids,” he said, instead of leaving for the suburbs and seeking schools they think will be better.

Leave it to The Chef to offer two sandwiches.

He described the idea of good schools leading to success as a false narrative, pointing to friends from all backgrounds who grew up to be successful. “The difference was what they got at home, not the school they went to,” he said. He pointed to his house across the street from the coffee shop and said he plans to take his son to Blackwell Elementary, three blocks away, when he’s old enough.

So far, he’s seen a 50 percent increase in daily customers, and thinks the fundraiser will be significant. The most popular offering has been the Raekwon Roll, a turkey and provolone sandwich officially sanctioned by the Wu-Tang member who also goes by “Raekwon the Chef.” Second is Method’s Muse, the corned beef-less reuben sandwich he suggested.

This reporter went for the Raekwon Roll, which was a delicious mix of sliced turkey and bright, spicy jalapenos, while RVA Mag’s Editorial Director Landon Shroder, opted for Method’s Muse. Both sandwiches were eaten before we thought to photograph them–a testament to their tastiness.

Method’s Muse. Photo courtesy Brewer’s

Jess Snyder, the creative behind a Richmond photo campaign called jesswuzhere, helped create the event. She said enthusiasm for Wu-Tang Clan has been a driving force in the success, describing a text from a friend that read, “I just got Method’s Muse because it was Method Man.”

Brewer’s is offering five new sandwiches created by Wu-Tang members, marked with stars on the menu, and renamed versions of its regular sandwiches, too. One example: Their regular vegetarian wrap has been restyled as The RZA Wrap, offering a health-conscious, plant-based lunch choice for someone who still wants to de-facto leader of one of the greatest hip-hop acts of all time.

Wu-Tang coloring book.

In addition to the sandwiches, an adult coloring book of Wu-Tang is also part of the fundraiser, created by Richmond-based artist Ed Pokoj who made a hip-hop sketchbook in 2016. Besides Sandwich Week, other events this week include a Wu-Tang trivia night Thursday with Marc Cheatham and Gigi Broadway of the popular Cheats Movement podcast, and music by Hip Hop Henry, a contributing writer to this magazine.

The fundraiser continues until this Sunday. Future sandwich weeks will occur on a quarterly basis; Brewer said, “The next one is for Beyonce.”

Opinion: Jason Kamras’ Exorbitant Cabinet Salaries Facilitates The Racist Defunding Of Schools

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Two months ago, students, parents, and teachers mobilized to support an increase in Richmond’s meals tax in support of much-needed renovations for the aging infrastructure of Richmond Public Schools. Mayor Levar Stoney proposed the plan in response to the overwhelming city-wide vote to prioritize school facilities.

Parents called their city council representatives while teachers and students shared stories of what it meant to schools so long neglected. The meals tax was an insufficient but necessary measure, and to the mayor’s credit, he campaigned for it hard after its initial proposal. As the vote neared, the RPS community had to face down a hoard of arguments commonly used to defund schools: The funds are mismanaged, our government is bloated, and there is waste that could be cut. Very quickly it became clear that this was not simply a conversation about the cost of a dinner out.

Rather than a straightforward conversation about funding allocation for public services, the meals tax vote was a touchstone for Richmond’s long history of racialized disenfranchisement at the hands of private interests. Robustly funded democratic government and public schools in particular benefit Richmond’s majority-black working class, people who cannot afford to send their kids to private schools and who benefit from public jobs where democratic oversight protects against discrimination and offers more sustainable employment.

City Councilpersons with the more affluent and white constituencies were the slowest to come around on the meals tax, if they did at all. Both online and in public comments at city council, speakers dispensed with euphemisms and drew explicitly racist caricatures. The conversation illustrated the worst of dog-whistle politics. In a sector that employs black Richmonders we heard about “waste” and the need to “cut fat.” In a sector historically managed by a black administration and a predominantly black school board we heard about “mismanagement.”

Tweet quoting racist opposition to meals tax

These arguments are anchored in racism, but by presenting themselves as race-neutral, they give cover to political leaders. By appealing to legitimate concerns, which are usually created by the starvation of the public sector, they gain traction among broader swaths of people even among people who are committed anti-racists. Corporate interests have attacked democratic government because they want to rule unilaterally, and they don’t want the check on their power or profits represented by majority will. However, they’ve been successful in winning the defunding of democratic government, public institutions that are left are starved of their ability to be responsive, and that makes it advantageous terrain to further discredit government.

The meals tax did eventually pass in a 7-2 vote, opposed only by 2nd District Councilwoman Kimberly Gray and 4th District Councilwoman Kristen Larson.

While racists and those influenced by racist messaging were a big part of the opposition to the meals tax, they were not alone. There was also progressives, including grassroots African-American activists, who pointed out that the city budget has historically favored corporate giveaways and who believed priority should be placed on eliminating those before diners were asked to pay more. These progressives argued that they supported fully funding schools, but they begged us to remember what happened with the last meals tax. Were they right? Will the new meals tax fund schools, or will it simply increase the flow of money to corporate interests in Richmond?

Jason Kamras’ New Cabinet: The Latest Corporate Giveaway?

In 2003, City Council raised the city’s tax on meals from 5 to 6 percent to help pay for the privately owned CenterStage Theatre, later renamed Dominion Energy Center. The project’s board of directors included the corporate elites of Richmond, who’ve been made powerful through a steady stream of calculated political donations. Activists at the time protested, feeling the public subsidy was a result of undue influence and not what was best for the city. However, the board, including power-players like Jim Ukrop and chaired by Dominion CEO Tom Farrell, pressed on. Tens of millions of public dollars went to the project in initial investment and ongoing operations subsidy.

The activists’ concerns proved well-founded. Many members of the public could not afford tickets to the venue they subsidized, and in 2014, they had to pay more, when project managers asked for additional funds to pay for delinquent real estate taxes on the property.

As Richmond struggles to raise money to fund school maintenance, enter Jason Kamras, Richmond’s new superintendent and the highest paid in our history. Kamras recently proposed hiring five of his former colleagues from D.C. Public Schools at individual salaries of $180,000 per year. That’s close to $70,000 per year more than their respective predecessors, and tens of thousands more than they made in D.C.

Public education advocates and other activists objected, but much like the Dominion Energy Center, Kamras is a project of Richmond’s corporate elite. The search committee which recruited Kamras also included Ukrop and was also chaired by Dominion CEO Farrell. The committee openly opposed public engagement, its corporate members acting without the public interest at heart. Similar to the public being asked to subsidize a venue they can’t afford to attend, the public is now subsidizing a Kamras cabinet, which pays four to five times the earnings of the median Richmonder, while sending our kids to schools that don’t have the resources to meet their basic needs.

In a narrow vote on March 19, the school board accepted Kamras’ new cabinet 5-4. Third District school board member Kenya Gibson released a statement in the lead up to the meeting expressing opposition:

“…The existence of high central office salaries in cash-strapped urban school systems is not unique to Richmond. In Detroit, administrative salaries were among the highest in the nation, while the system was on the brink of bankruptcy. In Philadelphia, a student died in a school lacking a full-time nurse while the system employed a medical consultant earning a three figure salary. These cities suffered from a top-down approach that heaped resources on a small number of administrators, leaving students, parents, and teachers without what they needed to be successful. We cannot repeat those mistakes here…”

Gibson’s principled stance was joined by other no votes from Jonathan Young, Patrick Sapini, and Felicia D. Cosby of the 4th, 5th, and 6th districts. Those in favor were 1st District member Liz Doerr, 2nd District member Scott Barlow, 7th District member Cheryl Burke, 9th District member Linda Owens, and notably school board chair Dawn Page of the 8th District.

During the school board meeting, many representatives tried to avoid discussing the pay rates of the new cabinet in open session. Kamras suggested he wouldn’t know how to talk about the matter in open session, and Page implied that it was inappropriate to discuss pay rates, seemingly backed up by the lawyer for the school board. Salary ranges are, as a matter of standard practice, included in job postings. The unwillingness to discuss them, in this case, was not due to legal mandate; rather it can only be understood as trying to protect Board members from having to publicly discuss a very unpopular vote.

The Repercussions

Public education advocates want more funding in order to meet the needs of students and educators. We do not want more resources to go to pay exorbitant salaries at the top. Even worse than this particular misuse of funds is the perception it presents to the public. Many will assume if this type of greed and poor prioritization is allowed for at the top, then it must be throughout the school system.

Don Harrison, a Richmond journalist and progressive thought-leader who had opposed the meals tax weighed in the next day with a Facebook post:

“The Betsy DeVos-ization of Richmond Public Schools begins. So tell me again why we needed to raise the meals tax? So that these outsiders — including some who are leaving D.C. schools in disgrace — can draw exorbitant, record-setting salaries?”

Don Harrison Facebook post

Kamras and the school board majority did a supreme disservice to our schools by playing into the arguments used against funding. It only took a day before the Richmond Times-Dispatch, a strong mouthpiece of the idea that democratic government is synonymous with “waste,” published “The Gravy train pulls up to RPS.” Rather than offering a nuanced critique of the corporate takeover of our schools the article vilified schools wholesale, arguing not for a more democratic distribution of funds, but against public investment altogether.

A week after the school board vote, Richmond City Council unanimously passed a motion to establish a city-led audit of Richmond Public Schools. As a policy, it offers the public more of the same: Undue scrutiny is placed on public services buckling under the weight of overburdening and underfunding. More than policy it was political theater, performed for Richmond’s corporate donor class and at the expense of Richmond’s majority black student population, teachers, and support staff. It’s heartbreaking to see that it remains good politics to attack our schools when they need support; it’s also a reminder of who has a voice in our city and who does not. Echoing the wishes of the donor class, the Times-Dispatch quickly followed with a new editorial, “Time for an audit of the Richmond Public Schools” which criticizes Stoney for arguing that school funding will, in fact, require additional revenue.

As the narratives surrounding our school play out it is clear that neither Kamras nor his cabinet members will bear the burden of the backlash against gratuitous pay. It will be RPS students, parents, teachers, and support staff who will pay that price. It’s a win-win for Richmond’s corporate interests. They install their political representatives, who in turn misuse public funds, and when that misuse results in loss of faith in government, corporations and corporatizing administrators benefit.

Kamras has argued that these salaries are justified in order to attract the highest quality talent. But many Richmonders will find it hard to believe that the best candidates for these positions, the people who truly have RPS at heart, would take excessive salaries from such a starved school district. When corporate leaders like Ukrop and Dominion’s Farrell have undue say in the use and allocation of public funds, we get results that no democratic process would ever choose.  Kamras, in his opening gambit, plowing through democratic processes, in order to secure gratuitous pay is disappointing, but the fact that our political leadership didn’t stop him is shameful.

Richmond City Council Passes Controversial Meals Tax Increase, 7-2

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After a lengthy and heated deliberation, Richmond’s hotly contested meal’s tax was decided Monday night, with it passing City Council in a 7-2 vote. Councilpersons Andreas Addison, Parker Agelasto, Mike Jones, President Chris Hilbert, Vice President Cynthia Newbille, Reva Trammel, and Ellen Robertson voted in favor of Mayor Stoney’s proposed meal tax hike with Councilwoman Kim Gray and Kristen Larson voting against it.

Mayor Stoney’s proposal to increase Richmond’s meals tax to help rehabilitate and repair Richmond Public Schools has been a divisive issue throughout the River City since he introduced it in his State of the City speech two weeks ago. The increase, which will take effect July 1, will raise the current meals tax from six percent to 7.5 percent, an incremental rise of 1.5 percent. When combined with the state sales tax, diners will soon see a total of 12.8 percent on their bill. While 7.5 percent is the same tax rate for meals in Hampton and Newport News, the tax hike would be one of the highest in the nation.

Opponents have pointed to the fact that the meals tax was supposed to have been temporarily raised in 2003 to pay for the Centerstage Theatre, but was never rescinded, eventually becoming permanent in 2006 when City Council voted to allocate it to the city’s general fund.

The increase, would produce approximately $9.1 million a year and allow the city to borrow $150 million in new capital funding over the next five years. Without this tax, Richmond has about $66 million of debt capacity through 2023. Funds collected from the meals tax will be placed in a special reserve fund, specifically for Richmond Public Schools.

Earlier in the evening, an amendment to the original proposal was initially put forth to add a five-year sunset on the tax ending July 1, 2023, but was voted down.

Council then heard from both opponents and supporters that were packed into City Hall to voice their concerns, ideas, and solutions on the tax only for the second time since the proposal was introduced. Local residents, students, teachers, restaurant owners, and representatives from organizations and businesses were in attendance and each side was given 30 minutes to talk and each person from each side was given two minutes at the mic.

Rod Bullock, a former student at Armstrong, spoke about the despair RPS facilities are in, pointing out one councilmember had even visited one of them to witness the problems.

“It’s time y’all step up and looked at these facilities, it’s been years of neglect, this is our children’s way out, that’s what bothers me, you don’t put the investment in these children,” he said as ‘Vote Yes and Find the Rest’ signs shot up all over the room.

Next, children at various Richmond schools paraded up the mic to voice their support of the meals tax hike.

Deon Cosby, a student at Thomas Jefferson High School went through a list of repairs that the money from the tax could fix at her school.

“…better facilities, peeling ceilings, new desks, fix the AC units, and get a new football field,” she said.

Three Binford Middle School 8th grade girls came up to the podium and spoke next, also in favor of the increased tax.

“The meals tax money will better the day to day lives of RPS students,” one of them said. “Our schools need better technology, cleaning and replacing schools water pipes, they contain lead that can damage our brains.”

Lola McDowell, a retired RPS teacher spoke twice during the night and shared her experiences inside the dilatated schools, which have been in the same state for years.

“Having taught for many years, they have leaking toilets, bad plumbing, falling or missing tiles and mold in the walls just to name a few, that needs to be fixed, I wouldn’t want any child of mine to attend a school in that condition, the deterioration of these schools is detrimental to our students,” she said.

Richmond Association of Realtors CEO Laura Lafayette also voiced her support of meals tax increase by turning to the attendees and asking whoever was in support to stand up, with most of the packed-house rising from their seats.

On the other side, Richmond restaurant owners, many of whom were part of a recently-formed lobbying group to fight the proposed tax hike, spoke Monday night against the increase.

Eric Terry, President of the Virginia Restaurant, Lodging Travel Association stressed that it was more than just a few cents on a high dollar tab and it is the low-income and single working mothers and fathers of Richmond that would be impacted the most.

“We all support the schools…it’s been painted as a white tablecloth restaurant tax,” he said. “The person who is taxed the most is the single parent grabbing a happy meal.”

He also stressed the financial burden put on the restaurant owners themselves.

“It’s a burden for the restaurant industry that hasn’t been talked about,” he said referencing the $1.3 million in credit card fees that restaurants pay to collect the meals tax. “We’re the only ones that are considered in this, and I would urge you to stop, pause and look at other opportunities to fully fund this program.”

Longtime restaurateur Johnny Giavos (Kitchen 64, Kuba Kuba, Sidewalk Café, Little Nickel, Stella’s, The Continental) spoke out passionately against the increase, along with Michelle Williams, head of Richmond Restaurant Group who told council she has contributed millions of dollars to the city’s budget. And while she reiterated other restaurant owners’ sentiments about the importance of investing in our schools, she urged the council not to simply target restaurants.

“We agree there needs to be change. If our kids really do matter and our kids really can’t wait, we need to look at more than one industry,” she said.

Councilwoman Kristen Larson of the 4th District, who voted no, urged for more time before members took a vote since Mayor Stoney just introduced it to the public two weeks ago.

“Something of this importance and magnitude and $150 million we have to give it more time,” she said.

Gray, who was the only other person on city council to vote no, has children in Richmond Public Schools and stressed that they did need drastic improvements, however, there has not been enough time to consider all the options.

“This plan has not been fully vetted with substantial public input as promised,” said Gray. “What is the rush? “Mayor Stoney should explain to citizens why he can’t implement the process he presented.”

On the other hand, Reva Trammel of the 8th District painted a vivid picture holding up her cell phone of what life is like for Broad Road Elementary School students before voting yes to increase the meals tax.

“What put the icing on the cake, the mayor invited me to Broadrock, that’s where my daughter went back in the day,” she said. “It broke my heart. They don’t have a cafeteria they have to walk in the rain, in the snow, in the mud to get into this trailer that has nothing but tables and chairs for the children to eat. No cafeteria. The food is brought in for them to eat. No teacher or student should not have a cafeteria where they can sit together and eat. When I went to school I didn’t have ceiling tiles falling on my head, I didn’t have rats and roaches…”

President Hilbert said this was the toughest issue he had to vote on since being on council, but ultimately, didn’t waver in his decision along with Vice President Newbille, who said that RPS students deserve and Richmond needs to provide “state of the art facilities.”

After much back and forth from both sides, and after Agelasto voiced concerns and his solutions to the tax, the council then suggested a 30-day continuance on the meals tax proposal, which failed 5-4, with Addison, Jones, Robertson, Hilbert, and Newbille voting no which led to City Council pushing through the 1.5 meals tax on restaurants on a 7-2 vote, much to the dismay of many in the crowd.

Stoney, who was not in attendance at the meeting, will introduce the city budget on March 6.

Cover Image by Landon Shroder