open gym at Richmond Balance, CHA Board Meeting (?- 1st Thurs), New Vision Civic League meeting…

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Seventh District School Board representative Keith West is actively seeking to grab the reigns from current School Board Chairman George Braxton, this week’s Style reports.

“It’s just appalling the failures we’ve had this year,” West says, acknowledging his attempt to unseat Braxton. He says the chairman has a long series of failures of leadership, among them the School Board’s bungled responses – and lawsuits – related to Mayor L. Douglas Wilder’s call for an audit of schools and to his withholding of money budgeted to schools by City Council.

Elaine at Church Hill Photography has the story (and some great photos) of the denouement of an annual 35-mile New Year’s ride from Charles City County to Church Hill of some local riding clubs. The ride always ends a Jefferson Park, overlooking Downtown Richmond, the State Capitol, and I-95, just at sunset.

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The CHDP info and donation page is now online at Richmond Recreation and Parks Foundation. Check it out: Church Hill Dog Park

Folks in the trade are saying that Beckstoffer’s, the custom millwork joint on 28th Street, is in the process of selling off all the good stuff and going out of business.

This week’s Richmond Free Press has a long article about Dr. Morris G. Henderson, former assistant pastor and now pastor at the 1,400-member Thirty-first Street Baptist Church. Henderson has been the acting pastor since the June death of long-time pastor Dr. Darrel O. Rollins.

Richmond Chief Administrative Officer Sheila Hill-Christian has asked the RRHA to reconsider the sale of two vacant lots that were earlier promised to the Echo Harbor developer. The 2 properties, on a section of Main Street that leads to Richmond Intermediate Terminal, would be necessary for the developer to build a bridge from them over Dock Street to the project for emergency access. Hill-Christian says that the earlier agreement to sell the properties was made without knowing that Wilder and city planners opposed it. [via]

There has been a leadership change at First Precinct. The new commander is Paul Ronca and the new Sector 111 lieutenant is James (JJ) Laino.

7th District School Board rep Keith West was spurned in his bid last night to lead the Richmond School Board. Afterward the voting, West said that the board has lost the confidence of the city and that a whole new board should be elected. He further stated that he will not run for the position again and will instead work towards recruiting, training and financing new candidates. [via]

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From Waldo Jaquith, creator of cvillenews.com (the inspiration for this site), comes Richmond Sunlight, “a website that aggregates information about the General Assembly”. Keep an eye on what Dwight Jones, Jennifer McClellan, Henry Marsh, or any of the rest of the members of the Virginia House or Senate are up to.

As the traffic and commentary has greatly increased around here recently, I would like to clarify the site policy on commenting.

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Neighborhood schools Fairfield Court Elementary and George Mason Elementary were among the 4 Richmond schools named today as winners of the Governor’s Award for Educational Excellence. [via]

“Students in these schools are soaring far beyond the minimum requirements of the Standards of Learning and No Child Left Behind,” said Governor Kaine. “It speaks to the strength of public education in the Commonwealth that the 89 schools that have earned this distinction include schools in rural, suburban and urban communities and schools in every part of the state.”

Join the Church Hill Planters and the Friends of Libby Hill Park, in cooperation with the City’s Departments of Urban Forestry and Park’s and Recreation on Saturday, January 19th 2008, from 9AM-1PM, as they join forces with some local professional arborists to prune some of our most special trees on Church Hill, in one of the oldest city parks in the country.

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I’m hearing about a development proposed for Cedar/Broad/18th/Marshall that could be *big*. It would be mixed use, residential and commercial, to wrap around McDonald’s and use the rest of the block, and 3 to 4 stories. There will be a meeting for a special use permit Monday, January 21 at 7PM at American Tobacco Center community room, with materials on the proposed project available at the meeting. This area is in that particular cut-away corner that is *not* in the Shockoe Valley O&H district, btw.

Applications to attend one of Richmond City’s open enrollment schools for the 2008-2009 school year are due Feb. 8. Open enrollment elementary schools are divided into three zones. The Zone III elementary schools are Bellevue, Ginter Park and Woodville, Binford Middle School is the city’s open enrollment middle school, and the open enrollment high schools are Franklin Military Academy, Open and Richmond Community.

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A man with a gun attempting to rob a home in the 700 block of North 32nd Street late last night was killed in the attempt. [via]

Can anyone identify the location of this photo? I’m not even sure that this from up here, but the context makes me think that it is.

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The Church Hill Association membership meeting will be held this Tuesday, Jan. 15, at 7PM @ St. John’s Church Meeting Hall. The Union Hill Civic Association will meet at 7PM Wednesday in the Dr. Benjamin Robertson, Sr. Fellowship Hall @ Cedar Street Baptist Church.

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