r/RVAmag

While running for Mayor in 2024, candidate Avula’s top priority in the “Thriving neighborhoods and affordable housing” section of his platform stated: 

As Mayor, he will:

• Fight displacement of long-term residents and expand the supply of deeply affordable housing for low-income and working residents.

His third bullet point in that part of his policy platform claimed he would “strengthen protections and resources available for our most vulnerable residents.”

Somewhere between that lofty rhetoric and today’s reality, Mayor Avula has pushed back against any type of relief for property owners since taking office. Last year, he fought successfully against a four cent reduction in the real estate tax rate that he said would be a disaster and favored targeted tax relief. Last week, however, the administration once again professed their opposition to relief in general. This time, it is opposition to a proposed ordinance that would provide targeted tax relief and disrupt the pace of gentrification and offer a deferral to those who qualify and help people stay in their homes until they decide it’s time to sell instead of being driven out by ever increasing assessment and tax bills.

The administration spoke out against 4th District Councilwoman Sarah Abubaker’s plan at the April Finance Committee meeting, according to Sarah Vogelsong at The Richmonder. They claimed this one program alone would cost too much and require 20 new financial analysts in the Department of Finance. The entire department currently employs 20 such analysts (including management). At one point during the discussion, the city’s director of revenue administration Ken Martinez also said “we don’t feel this is really a core function of the Department of Finance.”

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/community/rva-5x5-is-targeted-tax-relief-just-the-first-step.html

Governor Abigail Spanberger has vetoed Virginia’s long-debated marijuana retail legislation, halting plans to create a regulated adult-use cannabis market and exposing deep divisions between legalization advocates, hemp businesses, and state leadership over the future of cannabis in the Commonwealth.

The veto of HB 642 and SB 542 leaves Virginia in the same legal gray area it has occupied since marijuana possession was legalized in 2021: adults can legally possess, share, and grow cannabis, but there is still no legal retail market for recreational sales.

In a statement released Tuesday, the CannaJustice Coalition, which includes Marijuana Justice, RISE for Youth, Justice Forward Virginia, and Virginia Student Power Network, called the veto “profoundly disappointing” and accused the administration of extending confusion around cannabis policy instead of moving toward a safer and more equitable system.

“For five years, Virginia has been stuck in a limbo where adults can legally possess, share and grow cannabis, but there is still no regulated way to purchase it,” the coalition wrote.

The group argued the decision undermines broader cannabis reform efforts, including resentencing measures for marijuana-related convictions and recent protections for parents who legally use cannabis.

“By rejecting the retail bill, the Governor has chosen to extend that chaos rather than move us toward a transparent, accountable retail system that centers public health, public safety and justice,” the statement continued.

But the veto also revealed a growing split inside Virginia’s cannabis and hemp industries themselves.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/politics/virginia-politics/spanberger-vetoes-virginia-cannabis-retail-bills-leaving-market-in-limbo.html

On Saturday May 16, hundreds rallied at the Virginia Capitol and then took to the streets of Richmond for the kickoff campaign for the November election for reproductive freedom.

“This amendment will be on the ballot on November 3rd and every day until then we need to talk our family, friends and neighbors about what is at stake.” Virginians for Reproductive Freedom‘s campaign manager Han Jones told the crowd outside of the Virginia Capitol.

This amendment to the Virginia Constitution would ensure a fundamental right to abortion care, miscarriage management, and fertility care

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/community/rally-on-broad-street-and-virginia-capitol-for-reproductive-freedom-amendment.html

Around 8 pm on Tuesday, May 11th, the Richmond City Council voted unanimously to approve the 2026-2027 budget, which included at least $1.2 million to be invested into maintaining RPD contracts. One such contract is for the ninety-nine Flock cameras installed throughout the city. During the bulk of the meeting up to that point, the council entertained (and heard, and saw, they assured) citizen comments regarding the budget. 

During public comment, speaker after speaker criticized the surveillance system. No one spoke in support of it.

Council President Cynthia Newbille demanded decorum when some members of the Richmond chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America in attendance shouted “shame!” as they exited the council chamber. 

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/community/richmond-kept-flock-cameras-in-the-2027-budget.html

Governor Abigail Spanberger speaking today at the Big Dipper Innovation Summit on the Virginia Supreme Court decision to void the state’s redistricting vote.

via RVA Magazine

Virginia political leaders are sharply divided following the Supreme Court of Virginia’s decision to strike down a voter-approved redistricting referendum, with Democrats condemning the ruling and Republicans defending it as a necessary enforcement of constitutional law.

The court ruled 4–3 that lawmakers failed to follow the constitutional process required to place the amendment on the ballot, invalidating the results of a special election in which more than three million Virginians cast ballots.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell called the decision “wrong on the law and unprecedented in its consequences.”

“For the first time in the 250-year history of our Commonwealth, our Supreme Court has set aside the results of a statewide election,” Surovell said.

Surovell also pointed to the court’s timing, arguing the justices allowed the vote to proceed before intervening after the fact. “Over three million Virginians participated in this referendum,” he said. “Their votes have been set aside not because of fraud… but because four justices have adopted a definition of ‘election’ that conflicts with state statute [and] federal precedent.”

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/music/virginia-redistricting-vote-voided-political-leaders-sound-off.html

I am rarely speechless, especially about theatre. Since I don’t get paid if I remain silent, I will make myself criticize a play I don’t feel I have any right to judge. Gotta pay the rent, and all that.

I came into this performance of WitchDuck by Cadence at Firehouse Theatre with a vague understanding that this had some historical relevance to “witch” dunking (or ducking, as they would have said it at the time) in Virginia in the late 1600s and early 1700s. I knew it had something to say about feminism.

What I didn’t expect was a surgically precise vivisection of historical (and current) male fragility in the service of a savage patriarchy. And oh, the sarcasm. The jokes are served up thick, rapid-fire, potent, damning in their truth, and not shy of being baldly insulting, in the best ways.

This is the world-premiere run of the play, but it feels like it’s been in residence for decades.

This all-female cast delivered an experience that everyone should have to sit through. It characterizes so well the pervasiveness of misogyny and its violent absurdity with broad, but stinging, comedy. I was left in stitches as often as I was left in awe. Imagine the most socially relevant Monty Python’s Flying Circus performance and make it somehow funnier, while it sharpens its cultural spears against the grain of white male supremacy.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/art/theatre/review-ducking-awesome-witchduck-is-smart-sharp-and-ruthless.html

Under the Manchester Bridge, what had been an idea for years turned into something tangible, at least for a day.

Hundreds of people moved through the space as muralists painted, DJs played, and passersby stopped mid-bike ride or walk to figure out what was going on. By the end of the afternoon, the one-day test of a proposed arts park felt less like a trial and more like a preview.

“I don’t know how it could have gone better,” said artist Ian C. Hess, an event organizer with Little Giant Society and owner of Supply Art Store. “It was crazy. People showed up from pretty much the moment it started to the moment it ended. All types of Richmond were out there.”

For Hess, the scale of the turnout didn’t fully register until midway through the event, when Richmond Mayor Danny Avula stepped up to paint.

“I was talking to him about the spray paint, a German brand called Molotow, telling him, ‘I swear this isn’t going to explode, you’re good,’” Hess said, laughing. “We went over to one of the walls and he agreed to throw up a tag. Then he turned to me and asked, ‘Can I get a skinny cap?’ I was like, ‘Yes, sir.’”

“I was just focused on talking to him, not really thinking about anything else,” he said. “Then I turned around, and it was just a wall of phones. I was like, ‘Oh shit.’”

“That’s when it hit me how many people were actually out there,” he said. “It kind of stuck in my brain what it is that we’re actually doing.”

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/art/after-strong-turnout-richmond-arts-park-enters-holding-pattern.html