The Richmond Times-Dispatch makes a big front page deal about the heated nine-page letter that author David Baldacci wrote to fellow members of the VCU Board of Visitors yesterday (”RT-D Exclusive”! Wowee Zowee!!).

And for good reason — it’s hot stuff. The best-selling author’s letter not only strongly criticizes the board’s internal investigation into the Rodney Monroe degree scandal, the distinguished VCU alum provides an able summation of events that help to clarify — from his perspective — what has brought the school to this sad point.

How interesting that the newspaper doesn’t make the complete letter available for perusual, so that readers can actually see firsthand what Baldacci had to say. When snarky blogger-type people criticize mainstream news outlets for not understanding the power and potential of its own web resources, they can point to this as example #1.

Any way you slice it, David Baldacci’s letter is damning stuff… and deserves to be read in its entirety. An excerpt:

It seems that over the last few months events at VCU were inexplicably unfolding in a parallel universe, where logic and reason were tossed out the window. A world in which one unnamed source could have put in motion this debacle where the reputations of distinguished people were destroyed over an issue that should have been dealt with internally and with dignity, and not played out in the media like a poorly written drama. This is without question the darkest chapter in the saga of a university that I support and love. It is also at this precise moment a university I no longer recognize.

Click here and read David Baldacci’s letter to the VCU Board of Visitors.

“With all due respect to Richmond, Virginia, it’s smaller than Chula Vista, California; Aurora, Colorado; Mesa or Gilbert, Arizona; North Las Vegas or Henderson, Nevada. It’s not a big town.” — Karl Rove on CBS TV’s “Face the Nation.”

I’m not normally disposed to defend a walking colostomy bag like Karl Rove, the so-called “brain” behind the worst president in American History. In fact, this beautifully-Photoshopped image of Mr. Rove being frog-marched to jail holds a special place above my work desk and in my heart. It is a fantasy picture that I hope will become reality very, very soon.

But when Mr. Rove — attempting to denigrate former Richmond mayor and potential Barack Obama running mate Tim Kaine on national TV — recently pointed out the smallness of Virginia’s capital city, I must admit that I shrugged and said, “eh.” Some may judge a city’s size by its population or its land mass, others may use a different barometer — one that measures small-minded attitudes and institutional aversion to inclusion, fairness and common sense. If we use this last standard, we should not be too harsh on Mr. Rove for calling it like he sees it. If we stack Richmond up against some of the cities that the man affectionately nicknamed “Turd Blossom” mentioned on “Face The Nation,” we are clearly not ready for prime time.

Take openness and accountability. Chula Vista, California and Gilbert, Arizona make an extensive online archive of city council meetings available to residents. Richmond does not. And while Chula Vista does appear to align itself with Richmond’s “No Developer Left Behind” mentality and isn’t impervious to City Hall scandal, it can somehow find the balls and the wherewithall to take a strong stand on environmental issues, such as global warming.

How about competence? Chula Vista (unlike Richmond, which can’t even agree on which version of the budget it is using) receives high marks for the way it keeps its financial house in order. And I see no neighboring communities desperately trying to distance itself from Chula Vista because they are embarrassed to be associated with it, do you?

And Mr. Rove has touched upon a “culture war” of sorts with his comments. Take Henderson, Nevada. It has one of the nation’s most vibrant and engaged arts communities. For that, the city’s residents can thank Henderson’s Department of Cultural Arts and Tourism, which was formed in 2006 through “an innovative realignment of city services” rather than higher taxes. Henderson also hired “a recognized curator, producer and advisor on arts administration and programming” to kickstart the department. Just imagine…

Richmond, meanwhile, shows its arts and cultural meddle by raising the city’s meals tax (disproportionately affecting lower-income residents) to fund a so-called arts center that has no arts professionals in any real positions of authority. That’s right: At the same time that it completely ignores grass-roots cultural programs that have made a tangible difference in the community, the city and its political leaders can find endless resources to give away to a public-private partnership that has already wasted millions in city tax dollars, all while shielding the project from Freedom of Information laws. Worst of all, Richmond allows this secretive quasi-governmental “Arts Foundation” to award a sweetheart no-bid contract to an outside programming firm with a bad reputation that has already been cited for bilking Richmond taxpayers and providing substandard service… and the daily newspaper fails to inform its readers about any of it.

[BTW: If you want to check out the investigative efforts of a real “big city” newspaper, check out the East Valley Tribune, serving Mesa, Arizona. It doesn’t seem to be afraid of ruffling the feathers of business bigwigs, unlike some other dailies you could name.]

Speaking of Mesa, did you know that it boasts the largest performing arts center in the state of Arizona? And while the Mesa Arts Center was publicly funded through a city sales tax increase, it was voter-approved. In other words, the people of Mesa got the chance to choose whether or not they wanted their local taxes raised to build a regional cultural facility. Ah, but Richmond — where grocery store owners and tobacco company execs call the shots on everything from how high your taxes are to who your public school superintendent is to what constitutes “acceptable” community standards — can’t even hold one single public meeting to discuss the longterm funding and/or cultural programming of a $50 million publicly-funded project.

Again: Which is the big city? And which is the minor leagues?

A quick Google search of the places namechecked by Karl Rove will not reveal any of the following words: “Crisis,” “Chaos,” “Psychodrama.” Have recent events in other cities been likened to “a coup d’état” or “an episode of the Sopranos”? No, they have not.

And I wonder: Do competent public servants abruptly exit these other cities the way they haul ass outta Richmond?

And do “business leaders” in places like Mesa, Aurora and Henderson band together to propose taking the voting rights away from ordinary citizens? They do here.

So what’s the problem, people?

Karl Rove deserves nothing but contempt, it’s true. He debases American politics by his mere presence. But on the subject of Richmond and “small towns,” methinks we protest just a bit too much in River City. Could be that Rove has actually found a grain of truth here — even a broken clock is right twice a day — and perhaps the truth just hurts.

It was late afternoon when my daughter and I approached a neighborhood playground near Thomas Jefferson High School recently and saw a large handwritten sign in front of the building that read “Public Meeting.”

It was a curious sign because it didn’t say what the meeting was about. That’s one basic tenet of advertising broken, I thought. As a small group exited the building, I asked one man, “What was this for?”

“Choosing the public school superintendent.”

“Really?” I said, gesturing at my 6-year-old daughter, who was soon to begin first grade in a Richmond public school. “I might’ve wanted to sit in on that.”

“Well,” he said, laughing, getting into his car, “they spent most of the meeting talking about how no one showed up.”

As he drove away, I looked over at the nearby playground and thought about how simple it would have been to post a flier about the gathering there, and at other community spots where parents and public schoolchildren gather.

But that’s the kind of common-sense thing one would think of if one were, you know, a parent or someone who deals with parents on a regular, day-to-day basis. It turns out that the committee that School Board Chairman George Braxton appointed to find the new superintendent is short on expertise that could recognize this. Missing among the representatives of this selection committee are — wait for it — actual parents of Richmond schoolchildren or any active teachers in the public school system.

So begins my Back Page contribution in this week’s Style Weekly. To read the essay in its entirety, click here.

Richmond Magazine has made its sobering overview of the arts center boondoggle available online — it’s an excellent, multi-sourced article that is far from a one-sided puff piece (you can get that here) or a rip job. It leaves few stones unturned.

Not only that, you can read Richard Foster’s investigative feature alongside expanded coverage that details exactly what kind of “entertainment” we can expect for Richmond’s multi-year, multi-million dollar subsidy to a secretive private organization (VAPAF a.k.a. RPAC a.k.a CenterStage Foundation) that has little or no experience in running an arts center.

Much of this has already been reported here at Save Richmond (with past denials from city officials and VAPAF/RPAC/CenterStage, natch), some of it is brand new, scandalous, stuff. Here is a small sampling of the kind of “serious fun” uncovered in Foster’s article and in the web extra:

- There are currently NO plans for the Carpenter Theatre/Center to feature the kind of diverse national fare it used to showcase before it was shut down four years ago after VAPAF squandered the historic theatre’s operating endowment.

- The 15-member RPAC board currently has only one arts professional within its ranks… and that one professional has expertise in the visual arts, not the performing arts.

Richmonders should read these pieces in order to find out what local government is subsidizing, and shielding, in their name. And area arts professionals, artists and arts supporters should peruse these features in order to see firsthand just what local government and business leaders really think of competent and knowledgeable arts management, planning and booking (um, not much).

It says a lot about the leaders of this city that they are unable to come together to fund a cost of living increase to retired employees, and can’t live up to their promise to make area schools accessible to handicapped children, but they are able to put all their political differences aside in order to write an open-ended blank check to a private, secretive entity made up of area bigshots that has already wasted millions in public dollars… one that continues to hold ordinary taxpaying citizens in contempt.

Yes, you can tell a great deal about a community by looking at its priorities. Take a good hard look — this is some really ugly stuff, folks.

Richmond’s controversial performing arts center is already eight million dollars over its estimated budget.

The planners are 1/4 of the way toward starting an artists endowment (normally a basic pre-requisite of any halfway decent arts complex).

The planners still don’t know how much the venue will cost to run, although city taxpayers will pony up a half mil a year anyway.

They also don’t know who is really going to run it, most probably a firm that has little experience in maintaining performing arts centers.

And — you weren’t going to find out about this in today’s laughably one-sided front-page RTD article on CenterStage’s “progress,” were you? — one out-of-town consultant will make more in a year of being retained by the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation than the entire annual budget of Richmond’s successful First Friday Artwalk. (For a thorough, multi-sourced article that goes into detail about the project, you have to buy the August issue of Richmond Magazine).

Another thing not addressed in the RTD: The millions that Richmond taxpayers will soon shell out so that there is parking for this facility. How many millions have we now poured down the hole? Start adding a few zeros.

Also missing and pertinent: How the decreased number of seats in the Carpenter Center — hello you fat asses! — will now make it virtually impossible to book first-class Broadway touring shows in the future.

Richmond’s most embarrassing ongoing boondoggle rolls on — full scheme ahead and no questions asked. Are we having “serious fun” yet?

For once, Save Richmond and the Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial page agree on something…

It’s time for the City of Richmond’s Planning Commission to stop dicking around and pass the Downtown Master Plan.

On Monday, the commission will meet (yet again) to either pass or fail the plan — which was conceived through a highly-inclusive public charrette process (read all about that here) — OR it will postpone its recommendation (yet again) for reasons that are appearing more and more political and tactical than deliberative.

And the conspiracy theorist said: “Hmmmm….?”

The DMP draft has already been extensively vetted (take a gander here), and the fear is that, like all of Richmond’s previous Downtown plans, this people-first proposal will be whittled down even more, leaving only the wishes of VCU, the “Metro business community” and big development pie-in-the-sky.

John Sarvay at Buttermilk & Molasses offers up his assessment of the Big Stall:

Blame the delayed vote — and a potentially longer delay — on a final push by several of Richmond’s major corporations, who remain concerned about the plan’s recommendations on their property. In a recent email to Robert Mills, chairman of the planning commission, Venture Richmond’s executive director outlined those concerns in a last-minute pitch for a series of changes to the plan:

Berry writes, in part:

“The draft plan still shows the elimination of the Reynolds Metals manufacturing plant in Manchester [Page 4.31,32,39,40]. The plant itself employs about 500 people, and Reynolds Packaging employs over 1,000 people in the region. We should not send a message to these employees, and to the new owners of Reynolds, that they are not wanted. The draft plan proposes to redevelop the site with a “parking garage to provide needed parking, lined with habitable spaces to create a pedestrian-friendly street frontage” (4.31-32). I’d suggest that the master plan show the plant as is, and not refer to it in derogatory terms ‘…in one instance, an industrial building has agglomerated four urban blocks, interrupting the street grid…’ I’d suggest that the jobs and the economic vitality provided by that plant, which has been there about 70 years, is far more important than restoring the street grid.”

Oddly enough, I was just part of a discussion not a month ago with several members of Richmond’s corporate community about conversations with the plant’s new owners about it being acquired by the city, the operations being moved and the street grid and canal access being restored.

Berry’s other concerns were all raised in the public session earlier in July — the plan’s recommendations for 7th Street adjacent to the Federal Reserve Bank [Page 3.31]; the illustrative 10th Street overlook where a Dominion power sub-station currently sits [Page 4.27]; and the proposed signature building at the north end of the Manchester Bridge [Pge 4.28].

These are issues that have been discussed and negotiated for months — which makes the last-minute play for revisions a bit annoying. Berry’s argument on almost every point is that the proposals in question are “not realistic.” I’d expect nothing less from a visionary document.

Monday’s planning commission meeting is the political equivalent of a fourth down. All eyes are on the commission — Will they go for a first down, or will they punt?

If you can’t make the 6PM start time, or if you are unable to squeeze into the impossibly small 5th floor Conference room that the commission scheduled for this important open meeting at City Hall, Envision Richmond has an online petition that you can sign in support of the plan.

Update: Today, Venture Richmond’s Jack Berry out a note clarifying his letter to Robert Mills and the Planning Commission, and reiterating his own support of the proposed Downtown Master Plan:

“I read your blogs. Just want you to be clear. I support the plan and hope it will be approved tonight.

In my email, I was simply making one last suggestion to change four site specific recommendations in the plan. Keep in mind that the Reynolds plant I’m talking about is the Manchester Plant on the south side of the river (the mother ship), not the site adjacent to the canal, which has been the subject of recent conversations you referred to in your blog. The Dominion issues (sub station and signature building) are minor tweaks that would do no harm to the plan. I’m simply trying to get us to a point where everyone, including downtown’s biggest employers and biggest property owners, can ALL support the Plan. The Plan has a much higher probability of actually getting implemented if EVERYONE is on board. Ideally, we want all the stakeholders, including property owners, preservationists, concerned citizens, etc. all pushing for its implementation. If we pull that off, we might have a coalition that would be strong enough to get the City to implement the Plan’s most important elements, including acquisition of property for public access to the river, two-way streets, pedestrian priority, etc.

We’re very close to success on step one, adoption of the Plan, but the real test will come later when we find out whether the City feels any urgency to actually do what the Plan says. So let’s stay together on this.”

To paraphrase Mark Twain, all reports of Save Richmond’s retirement have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, several of these reports have been fairly actionable (note to Mr. Sarvay: Our lawyer will be calling you soon about that vicious “Bill Pantele Campaign Manager” rumor).

The truth of the matter is that we’ve been busy with work and summer family duties and unable to blog. Hey, it happens. But fear not! Save Richmond has a couple of posts “in the works” that you do not want to miss — so stay tuned.

In the meantime, enjoy the sights and sounds of Mates of State, a husband-and-wife musical combo from San Francisco who have a fantastic new CD out on Barsuk Records called Re-Arrange Us. MOS also keep a fun tour blog — called “Band on the Diaper Run” — about life on the road with their two young daughters.

The music of the Mates (Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel) has been rockin’ the Harrison household this summer in a big way, crossing and conquering all pertinent demographic boundaries from the whippersnappers to the old fogies. Enjoy!

Mates of State — “Get Better”

Mates of State — “Fraud in the ’80’s”

Mates of State on “The New Music”

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. Wolf

Third 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.

The Paul Goldman for Mayor campaign issued a statement today — unveiling a long-overdue, common-sense proposal that would finally introduce true accountability and oversight to Richmond’s biggest ongoing downtown boondoggle. The gist:

“Paul Goldman wants a full accounting of all public monies connected to the failed $100 Million Downtown Arts Center project, the new Arts Center project, and a review of the operating subsidy agreed-to by the City Council and City Hall.

“Given that Mr. Pantele just voted for record taxes and wasteful spending despite the economic squeeze facing Richmond citizens, and Mr. Grey supported City Hall’s budget that had would have imposed even higher record taxes and wasteful spending on the public, I think a full accounting and review of all the public monies involved and expended on these Arts Center projects is required before the new city budget is finalized.”

Goldman’s press release, in full:

(Richmond) - Paul Goldman, candidate for Mayor, said today that with Bill Pantele and Robert Grey “getting ready to announce their candidacies” the time has come for full-accountability on all the public monies involved with the failed $100 Million Downtown Arts Center project, the new Arts Center project, and of course the operating subsidy deal agreed-to by the City Council and City Hall.”

“Bill and Robert were major supporters of the failed $100 Million Downtown Arts Center project, and backed the unprecedented move of raising a general public tax to directly benefit a private development project without requiring even the most basic of financial oversight. Moreover, supporters of the project promised the public they would not ask, nor need, a public operating subsidy.

Those lobbying for imposing higher taxes and higher wasteful spending on the people of Richmond, for public and private projects, already have powerful allies at City Hall and in City Council.

The next Mayor has to be someone who can be an independent voice for the people, willing to champion the public interest, willing to protect the public treasury: for if the Mayor cannot do it, then it will not be done.

As Bill and Robert know, it took my “City of the Future” plan to finally provide a fiscally responsible path to actually get the Carpenter Center modernized. So my support of the arts is well-known in objective circles.

But there is a difference between fiscally responsible support, and a fiscally irresponsible waste of public money on a fiscally irresponsible $100 Million project.

The Elected Mayor law that I wrote was intended to create an independent Mayor, answerable only to the people, not another cheer-leader for the High Tax and Spend Lobby, especially with the economic squeeze facing the citizens of Richmond.”

It’s about time. And it will be v-e-r-r-r-y interesting to see how the other mayoral prospects respond to Goldman’s plan, which is nothing more than a basic call for our city government to do the right thing when it comes to dispersing tax dollars.

For instance, the candidate (Dwight Jones) backed by many of the same city council members who have blindly funneled millions to the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation/Centerstage over the past five years boldly lists “filling the whole on Broad [sp]” as one of his campaign planks. Problem is: Jones hasn’t explained what this nebulously-worded statement means. We still don’t know if he would, as mayor, finally put the project in the hands of competent arts professionals who know what they are doing and/or call for the first widely-announced public meetings to discuss the project, or if he plans to continue feeding the secretive private entity behind “the whole” unparalleled amounts of unregulated tax money for the next 99 years.

After all, it is now a matter of public record how Bill Pantele and Robert Grey each individually enabled and pushed the multi-million dollar arts center project through without adequate public input and without an economic study — shielding the project’s well-heeled handlers from FOIA requirements and basic citizen oversight (see here and here and here and here). Since we know where Pantele and Grey, and now Goldman, stand on the issue, it would be really instructive to have Dwight Jones finally go on the record about where he really stands.

I wonder if anyone is ever going to ask him.