Stoney, 36, was elected Richmond’s third at-large mayor in November.
Levar Stoney realized his family was poor when he entered the second grade.
It was the beginning of the school year, and teachers sent a stack of forms home for parents to fill out. Most needed nothing more than contact information or a signature. But one, a slip permitting students to take textbooks home, required a fee of about $20.
By then, the oldest son of two teenaged parents had moved from New York to Tabb, in southeastern Virginia’s York County. After his parents separated, Levar and his younger brother, Marvis, lived with their father and grandmother in an apartment complex. His father, Luther, worked the night shift as a custodian, mopping floors and scrubbing toilets to make ends meet. His grandmother, Mary, wheelchair-bound in the late stages of Alzheimer’s, collected a social security check. Money was tight.
So when Levar slid the form in front of his father and asked him to pay the fee, “He was like, ‘I don’t have any money for this,’ ” Stoney says. No fee meant no books to take home. He recalls being the only child in his class for whom this was the case and receiving no special treatment. If he didn’t turn in his homework, he’d get a zero — period. That kind of handicap would have sunk the average 8-year-old. Not Stoney. He hatched a plan.
After getting off the school bus in the morning, he would rush to his classroom, pry open a book and race the clock, completing the assignment for his first subject before the teacher collected it. Then he’d move on to his homework for the next subject as she taught the day’s lesson, listening while dashing off the answers. He did this every day for a year, and he finished on the honor roll. The situation instilled a lesson that has served him throughout his life: No circumstance could dictate his effort.
He tells me this story in March while sitting behind the big wooden desk in his new corner office on the second floor of Richmond City Hall, where his mind quickly returns, pivoting from past to present.
“Just give a little bit more every day,” he says. “Can you imagine what kind of organization this would be? I’m not asking for 100 percent perfect, because that would be naïve. But asking for more effort? That’s doable.”
He pauses, then picks up the thought.
“If an 8-year-old-kid can do it, I damn sure know that adults here in City Hall can do it.”
In early January, Stoney inspects a football helmet gifted to him by Doug Baggett, one of his old coaches at Tabb High School in York County. At right is Lincoln Saunders, his chief of staff.
Stoney, who turned 36 this spring, was elected as Richmond’s third at-large mayor in November after a decisive victory few predicted. He was sworn in to office on New Year’s Eve, the fifth anniversary of his father’s death of heart failure at 49.
The great responsibility of the new role jolted him on a February morning, when he received a call from Richmond Police Chief Al Durham. There was a triple shooting in the Mosby Court neighborhood in the East End, the chief told him. Stoney jetted over, received a briefing on the situation — double-murder-suicide; two children under 5 sat in the apartment for as long as 24 hours with the bodies — and addressed the press. An hour later, he announced a music festival would return to Chimborazo Park for a second year in a row. That afternoon, he flashed his crooked-tooth smile for a photo-op at a ribbon-cutting for Owens & Minor’s new downtown office.
In April, Stoney ran in the annual Ukrop’s Monument Avenue 10K, finishing in 46:59.
“That’s the job of being a mayor right there — having to experience that negativity, that tragic situation, and then still putting on the bright, optimistic face for the entire city, no matter what situation you’re in,” he says. “I know there are people depending on me to be this city’s promoter, its cheerleader, its leader, and I fully embrace that job.”
It is, of course, more than promoting and cheerleading, and Stoney knows it. Voters elected him to do what his predecessor, Dwight C. Jones, could not: Effect transformative change in a city with potential that is matched only by the scope of its challenges: crippling poverty, struggling schools and dysfunctional governance. To make headway in each area, Stoney will have to make decisions that are tough, and at times, controversial. The kind he has no track record of rendering in his past life as an operative and political appointee. The kind that will either make or break his political future. The kind that will either seize the moment his election represented to so many, or squander it.
“When you’re in a leadership position, you don’t win by not leading, and when you do lead, you have to do one thing instead of something else,” says the Rev. Ben Campbell, a longtime observer of city politics and a Stoney supporter. “That’s the kind of moment that, to me, the mayor is poised at. That is, you really can’t not choose, because that is total failure in this context.”
Laying the Groundwork
Chances are you’ve seen him somewhere: cuddling a kitten at Richmond Animal Care and Control; sprinting down Monument Avenue in the annual 10K; catching the first pitch at The Diamond; sipping a beer on the Ardent patio; steering a snowplow in the East End; careening headlong on a sled in Forest Hill Park. “This is the last time I hope to see you going downhill,” Stoney says an onlooker told him that day.
Chalk it up to a post-election honeymoon period, but many say they are rooting for the new mayor — even some who didn’t vote for him. Jim Ukrop, who decried Stoney’s lack of municipal government experience during last year’s campaign and practically bankrolled Jack Berry’s mayoral bid, says Stoney’s first several months on the job have made him a believer.
“This is his first step into elective office, and maybe his last if he doesn’t do a good job,” Ukrop says. “He’s got lots of motivation to do a good job. The future is his. He’s the guy right now. So far, to me, he’s moving in the right direction.”
To start, Stoney assembled a committee of 41 people from across the region to develop plans of action for his first 100 days, six months and year on the job. He announced he would retain Selena Cuffee-Glenn, the city’s chief administrative officer whom Jones hired in the middle of his second term. He hired a mix of experienced hands — Jon Baliles, the former West End councilman whose decision to drop out of the mayoral race and subsequent endorsement aided Stoney, and Thad Williamson, the former director of the Office of Community Wealth Building under Jones — and City Hall newbies — Lisa Speller-Davis, a nurse by trade who assisted his campaign, and Lincoln Saunders, a fellow McAuliffe administration alumnus who served as the first lady’s chief of staff.
Saunders, 32, used to curl up and fall asleep on Stoney’s loveseat after a night of drinking during their days working on Creigh Deeds’ campaign for Virginia attorney general. Stoney considers Saunders one of his closest confidants, and trusts his guidance when weighing one course of action versus another. “I told Lincoln this is like a marriage: If we’re not fighting, then something’s wrong,” he says.
Stoney — once married, now divorced — is a self-professed workaholic who routinely logs 12- to 13- hour days. While new on the job, he struggled to sleep more than three or four hours a night, he says, citing late-night calls from the police chief amid a surge in gun violence at the beginning of the year. More recently, he has been able to eke out five hours of shut-eye.
Above all, he fashions himself an optimist and operates with a sort of relentless enthusiasm, a stark contrast from the interminably sullen Jones. His sunny outlook, which he articulates using well-worn, glass-half-full platitudes, can come off as contrived at times. He insists it’s not.
“At the end of the day, life can be tough. You get dealt a hand and it’s about what you do with the hand you’re dealt, right?” he says. “I prefer, instead of dwelling in negativity and pessimism, to make the best of every single day we have.”
He has begun to rebuild bridges. Within weeks of winning the election, Stoney met with Henrico County Manager John Vithoulkas and Chesterfield County’s top administrator, Joe Casey. The three have sat down together each month since Stoney took office. In fact, Vithoulkas says that during Stoney’s first three months on the job, he spoke with him more than he did with Jones during the entirety of Jones’ second term.
“My sense with Levar is there’s more of an understanding of what public service entails and less of actions that are driven by ego,” Vithoulkas says. “I don’t know how else to say that other than there is a genuineness that exists that can only lead to very good things.”
Stoney reviews his schedule for the week during a Monday morning communications meeting in early May. Pictured left to right: Selena Cuffee-Glenn, chief administrative officer; Lincoln Saunders, chief of staff; Rushawna Senior, senior assistant to the mayor; Jim Nolan, press secretary.
Since taking office back in January, Stoney has talked often of “creating wins.”
“People think I’m crazy, but I keep track of it myself,” he says. “I have a spreadsheet that has 52 weeks. Which weeks did we win? Which weeks did we lose?”
Weekly cabinet meetings typically open with his assessment of whether last week was a win or a loss, and he expects those around him to think of their job performance in similar terms. “It’s wins, not for the mayor, it’s wins for the city of Richmond, it’s wins for the people of Richmond,” Saunders says.
“It’s like being on a sports team. You feel it when you lose,” says Baliles, now a senior policy adviser to the mayor. “If you lose a week, you know it and you feel it and you say, ‘What do we do to make sure we win next week when we play whoever?’ ”
By the mayor’s tally, when we met in mid-March, he had won every week he spent in office, save for one upended by an early stumble.
Stoney hired Steve Hammond Jr. as an assistant and driver. Hammond, who had ties to several local Democrats who supported Stoney’s mayoral bid, pleaded guilty in 2014 to embezzling $240,000 from a state agency where he worked. He received probation. Stoney knew of the felony conviction, but says he didn’t know of a subsequent parole violation that came to light in media reports. In a flurry of text messages sent while he was on probation, Hammond threatened to punch the mother of his two children in the face. Once publicized, he resigned. Stoney said he regretted that Hammond, whom he considered a friend, had not been more forthcoming. Accepting the resignation was the “toughest decision” he made in his first several months in office, Stoney says.
When losses do come, Stoney doesn’t dwell on them. He moves on. It’s not in his nature to sit still, says Speller-Davis, his senior policy adviser for engagement. Hence, his wall-to-wall daily schedule, so crammed with appointments and appearances he has begun skipping his morning workout on the busiest days. Stoney touts his number of public appearances — by his count, 100-plus in his first 100 days — as proof of his commitment to being an out-in-front leader. He often says he can’t do his job sitting behind a desk. But after his first several months in office, some questioned whether he was spending enough time there.
“I think he’s done a really good job with the community outreach and visiting schools and talking to people and walking through neighborhoods, but I think there’s a lot of work to be done in the walls of City Hall, which is really important if we’re going to make things better,” says Kim Gray, who represents part of the Fan, Carver and Jackson Ward on City Council, referring to personnel and procedural adjustments she feels would make things run more smoothly.
Big changes may yet come. Stoney promised an “unsparing” review of every city department during his first 100 days in office. The review, conducted by VCU’s Wilder School with financial backing from Dominion and Altria, was scheduled for release in early May. The review’s recommendations will guide his administration in further personnel and policy decisions, Stoney said in an interview prior to the report’s release.
More telling than its findings will be what the new administration does with them, says Chris Hilbert, the longtime North Side representative who serves as council president. “A report is a report, but the follow through is where the difference is going to be made,” Hilbert says. “That’s what I’m looking for, and I think what the citizens are looking for as well.”
Making a Difference
The women behind the desk in the front office of Swansboro Elementary in South Richmond are abuzz when the mayor strolls in, wearing his customary slim-fitting suit, skinny tie and colorful, patterned socks, around lunchtime on a Thursday in March. They greet him as a familiar face, and then summon the school’s first-year principal, James Sales, who upon seeing Stoney envelops him in a bear hug. “Welcome home,” he says.
When Stoney worked for the state Democratic Party, he volunteered at Swansboro, even mentoring a child. Last year, he attended the school’s fifth-grade graduation after announcing his mayoral bid. Later, he filmed his campaign’s first TV commercial on site. Last September, he greeted students on their first day back to school. On this day, he’s making his 12th school visit in the first two and a half months of his term, well on his way to fulfilling his promise to visit each of Richmond Public Schools’ 44 buildings before the end of his first year in office.
The purpose of the Swansboro visit is to promote healthy eating, as it corresponds with the school division’s fruits and veggies week. He passes children in single-file lines in the hall on his way to the cafeteria, stopping to greet each with a gentle handshake and pausing to answer their queries. What’s the mayor? (It’s like the president of the city.) Are you rich? (Not at all.) Have you met the president? (Which one?) Some recognize him from either TV or his past visits to the school. Others, upon learning of the grown-up celebrity in their midst, crane their necks to catch a peek. “You’re the mayor?” asks one little girl, her eyes wide with wonder.
It’s clear these moments leave an impression on Stoney, who has envisioned himself in public office since he was as young as the children who now gawk at him.
Impromptu selfies with supporters have become something of a job requirement for the millennial mayor.
He became enamored with President John F. Kennedy after reading his biography in the third or fourth grade. He remembers his grandmother, who kept a portrait of JFK in the family’s apartment, praising his compassion for people “from a different walk of life,” as he puts it. Levar decided he wanted to help people like Kennedy did: through public service. The president’s bust sits on Stoney’s desk alongside a frame containing one of his most famous pieces of advice, a sort of personal mantra of Stoney’s — “One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.”
Stoney made a difference at home from a young age. When his younger brother, Marvis, struggled in school, Levar would tutor him. When his grandmother needed her insulin shot, Levar would administer it. When the bills were due, Levar would make sure the checks were signed on the right line and mailed on time. His family’s financial situation was always tenuous.
“Our dad always sat us down and would tell us, ‘We’re one paycheck away from being on the street,’ ” Marvis Stoney says. “ ‘I’m literally living paycheck to paycheck. This is not how I want you guys to live.’ ”
As a teenager, Stoney secured a job bagging groceries at a Food Lion to contribute to the family budget, eventually working his way up to cashier. He balanced work with extracurricular activities at Tabb High School, where was elected student body president during his senior year, and played three sports: football, basketball and track.
Doug Baggett, who coached Stoney for several years, says he recognized in him a quality that a coach can’t teach: heart. “He didn’t know the term ‘give up.’ ”
The challenges Stoney faced never turned him bitter or angry, says Brad Williams, who was Stoney’s guidance counselor during his four years at Tabb High. Instead, they made clear his purpose.
“I’ve been around a long time, I’ve been around a lot of kids,” Williams says. “He’s one of the very rare ones that I’ve ever known that had political aspirations not just because he wanted to be a politician or successful, but because he wanted to change things. He wanted to be someone who made a difference.”
Stoney went on to graduate from James Madison University, where he studied political science and public administration and was twice elected student body president. He cut his teeth working for campaigns, some successful, some not. When he was just 26, then-Gov. Tim Kaine backed him for executive director of the Democratic Party of Virginia.
In 2010, Terry McAuliffe showed up at Stoney’s birthday party in Shockoe Bottom. The two formed a partnership that would change both of their lives. Stoney served as deputy campaign manager for McAuliffe’s 2013 bid for Virginia governor. Once victorious, McAuliffe appointed Stoney to serve as Virginia’s secretary of the commonwealth. The Cabinet position has traditionally been low-profile, but Stoney used it as a springboard for his mayoral bid. He bolstered his bona fides, working closely with the governor on restoration of rights for people convicted of felonies.
“The way I’ve always decided to make a difference was through politics and government,” Stoney says. “When I go talk to children at these schools, I tell them, ‘You can make a difference as well, you just have to find where and how you want to do it.’ ”
‘Why I Do What I Do’
Remedying Richmond Public Schools was a hallmark of Stoney’s mayoral bid, during which he pledged to be an “education mayor.”
He tapped Williamson, a University of Richmond professor, as a senior policy adviser and tasked him with helping establish what the administration is calling an education compact. The purpose of the compact is to get the three arms of city government — the administration, council and the School Board — rowing in the same direction on school improvement, Williamson says. A draft version lays out potential goals, metrics and actions to improve academic performance and support the “whole child.” It’s also meant to stave off the type of funding spats that characterized past budget cycles. Council and the School Board expressed support for establishing some version of the compact, and a series of meetings gathering public input occurred in the spring.
In his first budget proposal, Stoney included $6.1 million for teacher salary increases. He called the sum the single biggest increase in funding to RPS any mayor has proposed. Shortly thereafter, it was disclosed that the school system had over time accrued $8.3 million in unspent funds.
The news perturbed the mayor, who said it came as a surprise to him. The only thing Stoney loathes more than excuses are surprises, his staffers say. Both offend his sensibilities, and fly in the face of his core management principle: Own the problem. Own the fix. His fix, in this case, was to advocate for schools to keep the money, even as some on council sought his approval to repurpose it for other priorities.
In the coming months, the question of school funding may take a backseat to the question of school leadership. In April, the School Board — made up of all new members after Jeff Bourne was elected to the state legislature in February — announced it was parting ways with Superintendent Dana Bedden after three and a half years. Stoney said he supported the board’s decision. Asked about Bedden at an event hosted by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Stoney said he thought the outgoing superintendent did a good job, but that residents were tired of public schools known for “mediocrity.”
“I believe that what they may be looking for is [a superintendent] who is going to be transformative,” he told the crowd. “Someone who is going to take schools to the next level.”
Back at Swansboro, Stoney arrives at the cafeteria, where classes of kindergarteners and first-graders are squirming at their tables. His task is tall: He must persuade the 5-, 6-, and 7-year-olds to try radishes. His strategy relies on subterfuge.
“How many of y’all like Hot Cheetos?” he asks. Nary a tiny hand in the room stays down. “Well if you like Hot Cheetos, you’ll love radishes,” he says, dutifully plopping one in his mouth, crunching it up and offering an exaggerated Mmmmmm.
He helps the teachers pass out bite-sized portions to the students. Some enthusiastically follow his lead. Others, more skeptical, require a little more finesse. He offers high-fives if they give the root a chance. Looking on, Principal Sales quips, “We need to give him his own class. If he can get them to eat radishes, he can definitely get those math scores up.”
By the end of his first year in office, Stoney says he wants to have increased city funding for the school system, put more police officers in neighborhoods to keep residents safe and improved the city’s workforce development pipeline to connect people with jobs.
He has often spoken of the city’s 26 percent poverty rate in a very personal context. His upbringing in a family among the “working poor” still informs his approach, he says. He fought to save $400,000 in his proposed budget that will expand the city’s Office of Community Wealth Building, and has set a goal for the office to lift 1,000 people out of poverty annually by the end of his first term.
“That’s what government should be all about,” Stoney says. “It shouldn’t be about pettiness and conflict, who wins and who loses. It has to be about opportunity, being able to raise people to a level they have never thought they can get to. That’s why I do what I do.”
