Near West End

Lots of interesting commentary is appearing around town on various blogs reflecting thoughts and opinions regarding the city’s Downtown Master Plan session held this past Thursday. Commentary includes:

From Buttermilk & Molasses:

If applause is a measure of the audience’s priorities, then Richmond wants more than good design downtown — it wants bike lanes and affordable housing; it wants someone to fix the schools and to help the homeless; it wants a green city, and a city built around the James River.

From Urban Richmond:

The consensus: too much talking and repetition from earlier meetings, but participants were diverse for a change and seemed to agree on the changes Richmond needs to make.

Since the current master plan is pretty much confined to the Downtown area, we’re asking our readers what input would YOU provide input on if a master plan was developed for the Near West End? Please feel free to comment below and share your input!

Here’s the latest Spiders sports update from Bob Black:

Home Game Today At UR Stadium!
The 25th-ranked Spiders (2-1, 1-0) play on the UR Stadium grass for the first time since last November when they host 11th-ranked New Hampshire in a CAA Football contest tomorrow on Family Weekend. Kickoff is set for 3:30 p.m. There’s something for everyone - so click on this headline link for details and ticket info!

Important Parking & Stadium Information For Football Games At UR Stadium
Please note: The City of Richmond has posted signs restricting parking on neighborhood streets near and around UR Stadium. Game day parking is available in designated and marked University of Richmond lots adjacent to UR Stadium. Click on the above headline link for more details.

Read more >

I love the Festival of India. I go every year. Granted, I work at the Richmond Metro Convention Center on weekends, so I’m there anyway, but this is such a great event and it’s free.
Music, great food, and dancing. Unlike so many festivals where the food is sub-par due to cooking mass quantities and reheating them at locations with difficult logistics (i.e. The Vegetarian Festival), the food at the Indian Festival is actually unique and sometime better then what you can get at the restaurants. The reason is, that in addition to restaurants providing the food, they have local volunteers preparing specialties you sometimes can’t get in restaurants.

Read more >

We’ve been covering the China-America Festival of Film the past couple of weeks here and here.
But, now that the festival is upon us, we’ll remind you again! Here is the schedule!
Events start Wednesday, October 3rd and run through the 7th. Film locations are the Byrd Theater in Carytown and at The University of Richmond. All events except those at the Byrd are free.

In the Near West End, we all probably know someone who works for Capital One or used to. Now apparently, there will be more in the “used to” catagory.
Capital One, one of the largest employers in the Richmond area, yesterday told an additional 380 Richmond workers that they will lose their jobs. Yet another stubbling block for the Richmond economy and housing market.
[via]

The Virginia Department of Education released the statewide SOL accreditation statistics yesterday. The entire statewide profile may be downloaded here: Statewide Accreditation 2007 Info (PDF file)

Here’s how our schools did:

We’re trying something a little different since we’ve updated our website code to the latest version. “Tagging” is a feature that allows us to add keywords to each article. If a keyword or phrase is assigned to more than one article, the tag cloud (note the new feature at the bottom of the right column of our site) font grows larger and darker. This feature will also help our site get picked up by the search engines and, hopefully, allow more hits!

As always, we’re open to any suggestions, criticism, ideas, etc. anyone might have so drop us a line!

Considering I work for a private school, I don’t think I’ll be attending this outing. But here’s the info for anyone else who might want to [via]:

Buckhead’s, 8510 Patterson Ave., is having a five-course dinner paired with wines from the Napa Valley vineyards of Ladera at 6 p.m. Wednesday. The dinner is $120 per person. For reservations, which are required, call (804) 750-2000.

You’re probably wondering why we care about Jenna Bush being on tonight’s episode of “20/20.” Normally we wouldn’t but considering her fiancee, Henry Hager, is a St. Christopher’s School graduate, we thought it might make a nice headline. That and it seems to be a slow news day. Maybe we should take the day off and head to the State Fair! At any rate, the Times-Dispatch has more:

According to ABC News, which is promoting this as her first television interview, Bush describes Hager — son of John H. Hager, chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia and a former lieutenant governor — as a hard worker, open-minded and extremely outdoorsy.

Submitted by Don Harrison:
Video clips of Wilder at city council on Sept. 10 (in three parts) are posted here:
1. Pt. 1: http://vimeo.com/321031
2. Pt. 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaQtlCJKpeg
3. Pt. 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPvbADRhe9Q

This is the meeting on Sept. 10 when the Mayor came before council and made a plea to \”work together\” and to \”wipe the slate clean.\”

Note: Pt. 3 contains 3rd District rep Chris Hilbert\’s exchange with the mayor about the school administration move out of City Hall.

Also: \”Work Together\” a music video of the affair by DJ Fundraiser Flex, is posted at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dQvpxcopbE

If you have an event, gathering, etc. or know of one such as a band playing at one of the many restaurants in the Near West End, please feel free to let us know through our “got news?” contact form. We’ll be happy to post NWEN-related events on our calendar.

[via]:

The Spiders learned yesterday they will open their season against Maine in the 2k Sports College Hoops Classic in Memphis, Tenn., on Nov. 5 at 4 p.m. That will be the first Division I men’s basketball game of the season, according to Evan Olesh, the director of communications for The Gazelle Group, Inc., which is promoting the tournament.

Via a Salvation Army news release:

Two area Sherwin-Williams and Duron Paints’ stores have joined forces with The Salvation Army Richmond Area Command to help feed those in need this Thanksgiving. The Sherwin-Williams’ store in Short Pump and the Duron Paints in Mechanicsville will hold their second annual “Hungry for Color” campaign, beginning on Oct. 9 and concluding on Oct. 22.

Read more >

The Richmond City School offices may stay in City Hall until November 30th thanks to an extension of its restraining order by Circuit Court Judge Margaret Spencer, according to Richmond.com. Glad to see the legal system has a sense of common sense and compassion regarding this ridiculous and ludicrous seemingly never ending chain of events.

Spencer ruled Wednesday that the “significant” harm done to the school system, which included possible leaks of confidential school records and human resource files, outweighed the economic harm, such as continued lease payments, done to the city.

“The economic harm is not irreparable, like if someone’s social security number was disclosed to a third party,” she said.

Read more >

Well, I nominated two worthy people for Style’s Top 40 under 40 this year. I was really hoping that they both would get in. And, well, one of them did. John Sarvay, who runs the fabulous and often linked to Buttermilk & Molasses made it in just by a hair. At 39, I guess this is the last year he was eligible for that honor. Anyway, John has been a great mentor for me, we met back in the early 90’s when he was my editor at the Commonwealth Times, VCU’s newspaper.

Read more >

I just want to know one thing. Can it get any worse?

The Times Dispatch is now reporting that city taxpayers have now paid over $100,000 on rent for the building at 3600 W. Broad that the city rented for the school system even though they didn’t want to move. And to make matters worse, the lease can’t be broken.
In the meantime, we do know that the Richmond City Schools administrative offices can stay in city hall at least until the end of November. Maybe by then, hearts will have softened and we can all have a Thanksgiving resolution.

Just a reminder, as we reported earlier, the State Fair of Virginia opens tomorrow. That must mean that Fall is finally here. And even though they structured the tickets differently this year, so you don’t pay for the rides unless you use them, at $13 a pop, it is still a pretty expensive outing for a family when you factor in the extras.

Superintendent Deborah Jewell-Sherman sent this email to all Richmond Public Schools staff today. I guess the main thing that stands out to me is that she seems so desperately to want to focus on the future and the positive, but there is still a part of her that has to call Wilder’s act “disorderly and uncivil.” Not that she is wrong in any way, but just that we need to move on and make this about the kids. Later today we should have an answer from the court.

Dear Colleagues,

As you well know, our Central Administration Offices have been in disarray since last Friday when the Mayor ordered the removal of School Board offices from City Hall. I am sure that most of you are aware of this chaotic situation, so I will not review recent events. I do, however, want to ensure all teachers and support staff that we are in recovery mode - determined and diligent to keep our focus on educating students. Many of your Central Office colleagues worked throughout this past weekend, along with School Board members, to restore order and civility to a most disorderly and uncivil act. On Monday and Tuesday, the work continued as staff unpacked boxes, swept up trash, reconnected phones and re-established our communications network. We are still not functioning at 100 percent, but we will not be deterred from serving our children. The lawsuit goes before the judge today as City Council voted 8-1 to join us in the suit against the City Administration. No matter the outcome, and because of your dedication and commitment, I am confident that we will continue to provide Richmond City students with a world class education. Again, I deeply and sincerely thank you for your hard work and loyalty to each other and to our students.

Deborah Jewell-Sherman

West of the Boulevard mentions University of Richmond’s home opener against the University of New Hampshire this Saturday at 3:30pm.

The Spiders have a top notch football team this year. They lost their opener to higher-division IA Vanderbilt, but came back and crushed their last two opponents to stand at 2-1. Richmond has a great shot at the CAA title this year.

IMPORTANT PARKING INFO FOR HOME RICHMOND FOOTBALL GAMES AT UR STADIUM:

Please note: The City of Richmond has posted signs restricting parking on neighborhood streets near and around UR Stadium. Game day parking is available in designated and marked University of Richmond lots adjacent to UR Stadium.

Want a free ticket to any of the University of Richmond museums this Saturday, the 29th? Thanks to Nick and Ross for sending us this info:

This Saturday is museum day. if you go here http://www.smithsonianmag.com/museumday/articles/card.php you can print a free admission ticket. The Richmond museums participating are the Poe and the UR museums. Others listed here http://content.smithsonianmag.com/museumday/