Ok, folks, we have event pages to push. Here is one for the March 18th Land Use Committee at 3, and here is one for the March 24th City Council vote at 6.
Both link to the petition, which we hope you all have signed. If not, please get on it.
Join the Resistance, fight to Keep Monroe Park Public and Free, fight to keep Dwight Jones from selling out city, and to keep Vulture Richmond and Looting RVA from stealing our pyblic resources!!!!
Just wanted to share this photo of some of the many Richmond Food Not Bombs members who came out to the maratjon five hour city council meetig last night to take a stand against a stadium in Shockoe.
To say Food Not Bombs has good people involved is an understatement.
And more pictures from the meeting:
So got word that some people are giving the Wingnut credit/blame for the awesome #dwightjonesissellingourcity wheatpasted posters that are going up around town. Even heard a suggestion that the Wingnut might be raided over this. A raid would be bad cause of our four loving puppies.
Well sad to say we are NOT the awesome people responsible for these posters, and we don’t know who is.
We do think it is kinda weird that the city would be extra fussy to remove those specific pieces of street art over all the rest that goes on in this city. And maybe we need to start speaking out against money being spent to take down these posters when Loving RVA ads get free pages in official parks publications etc.
We think the posters are awesome. We think we need more messages calling out the situation. And vandalism and civil disobedience are valid tactics in our tool kits. But please be careful who ever is doing this. It looks like the City wants to spend money to take em down and then catch someone to pin it on to charge them.
The resistance has no leaders and no hierarchies. As far as we know it could be 100 different people doing this. And we hope all 100 people get away with it and keep speaking truth to power through whatever means necessary.
We look forward to seeing the many creative ways the resistance moves forward to fight against a stadium in shockoe, privatization of monroe park, and tax breaks for Vulture Richmond. Everyone who came out yesterday showed exactly how much heart we have on our side.
Take care of yourself and take care of eachother so we can all continue in this struggle. And the next time we pack city council, lets organize snacks for everyone. Seriously.
Good street art popped up around Richmond last night.
Dwight Jones is Selling Our City
Join the Resistance. Come out to City Hall tomorrow at 5 to get down with bringing Jones and his plans down.
Tomorrow at City Council, speak out against the privatization of Monroe Park at the end of the Consent Agenda, and then speak out against the Stadium Plan during the Regular Agenda.
Well ok maybe it is not actually spring yet, but it felt like it today!
Here are some photos from the fun we had today around the Wingnut!
A recent new policy by the Virginia High School League sounds good, but the reality is that it is still transphobic. Big changes to the way sports go down in this country are necessary to include everyone from around the gender sphere!
Editors Note: This is an anonymous submission which was sent to one of the Wingnuts. The anonymous author sent it to several Council members and news outlets. We heard that at least one local magazine would not oublish for fear of financial retribition.
I apologize for the anonymity. Lots of pressure going around. Sending this to all Council members. Thank you for your consideration.
Dear Honorable Members of Richmond City Council,
I am writing you this afternoon because we are at a major crossroads in the great city of Richmond. In the next couple of weeks you will be asked to vote on a variety of issues that will weigh very heavily on the future of this city and the people within it for many decades to come. While there are a variety of different development projects including the Revitalize RVA proposal, the Brown’s Island Amphitheater plan, and the ongoing management of Monroe Park on the table for you to soon vote on, there is a much more serious civic situation that you have the heavy burden of addressing. The yay or nay ballot that each of you will cast in regards to Mayor Jones’s Shockoe stadium proposal will be a vote on much more than whether or not to build on a historic site in Shockoe Bottom: It has now become a yay or nay vote to validate a model of how business is to be conducted by both non-profit organizations and well-funded commercial enterprises in the City of Richmond.
Over the past 4 months since Mayor Jones’s initial announcement of the RevitalizeRVA plan, his conduct, as well as that of Venture Richmond and LovingRVA, have been questionable at best (and spinelessly manipulative at worst) to both the democratic process and the non-profit model that has been at the heart of much of RVA’s lifestyle and cultural expansion over the past 3-5 years. On the surface it may appear that there is a large amount of support in the form of Facebook “likes” and signatures from both the commercial and non-profit sectors of the city for this plan, the reality is that many of RVA’s small businesses are being kept in a silent, financial stranglehold around raising any questions or concerns around the RevitalizeRVA plan. Because many of our city’s non-profit organizations receive funding from major corporations such as Capital One, Bon Secours, and Altria there has been a passive aggressive mandate issued that if you want to keep receiving funds for your organization that you most “go along” with the stadium plan or risk losing some level of funding for your organization. This has been echoed by a number of different employees across many sectors under the cover of anonymity for fear of fiscal retribution.
Many of these organizations know that building another recreational facility is not in the best interest of the city. Regardless of the mayor’s blind eye to the educational issues in RVA’s currently rock-bottom education system, most RVA taxpayers overwhelmingly agree that our schools and infrastructure across the entire city are the immediate priority, not recreational sports and an illogical design that puts a hotel (typically consider a place for rest and relaxation, no?) right next to 7,000 screaming fans and fireworks going off at 9:00 at night. It doesn’t take a civil engineer to understand the problems around that and the many other shoddy details around financial liability and infrastructure assessments for this project. But alas, nothing can be said by many local organizations about that for fear of losing much needed funding dollars and threats of being “white-listed” from certain opportunities regardless of if this deal is successfully railroaded through or not. That is a detrimental and n unfavorable situation for businesses, their employees, the city, our culture, and the democratic process as a whole.
So, this is where you, our elected city officials come into play. (more…)
March 18 at 3pm Land Use Meeting where discussion of Monroe Park privatization will happen.
March 24 at 6pm City Council Meeting will decide on Monroe Park privatization.
Both at City Hall.
All out.
Contact your city council members and spread the word hard between now and then.
Get educated, get involved.
While recognizing the limited efficacy of both consumer boycotts and petitions, we hope you will check out the new Petition which pledges to Boycott the Richmond Squirrels and supporting businesses if Mayor Jones’ plan to desecrate Shockoe Bottom with a Baseball Stadium is pursued. In this case, the economics of the plan are the major goal of the capitalists and developers behind the proposal. We aren’t asking for them to change their hearts, we are promising to hurt them where they care – their wallets. Please check out the link below, and sign, share, and get involved in the many other actions taking place to prevent a baseball stadium from being paid for with public money on historical ground.
We, the undersigned, stand in opposition to the Mayor’s Shockoe stadium proposal. There are many reasons to oppose a stadium in Shockoe Bottom: the questionable finances of the developers’ plan, parking, traffic, leaving the best and most accessible site for baseball in the city and disrespecting the incredible history of what once was the largest slave-trading district north of New Orleans. Some of us are county residents who do not want to travel into the Bottom for a baseball game.
As long as the Shockoe stadium proposal is still a threat, from this point forward we promise to boycott the Flying Squirrels’ baseball games and other supporting businesses. This is not something we take lightly- many of us like the Flying Squirrels and recognize the harmful economic effect that this boycott will have. However, with the Mayor and proponents not allowing a referendum or citizens’ vote on the Shockoe stadium proposal, and in effect muting our political voice, we have decided it is time to exercise our economic voice.
Sign the petition “Mayor Dwight Jones: We Are Boycotting Flying Squirrels/Shockoe Stadium Proposal” on Change.org.
It’s important. Will you sign it too? Here’s the link:
