Illustration by Iain Duffus
Where is Richmond going in 2023? Is it a direction that we want to be going in? Is it the right direction?
There are places you enjoy going, perhaps a vacation to the beach, a hike in the mountains, or maybe a country with delicious cuisine. Then there are places you don’t enjoy going so much. It might be venturing out for last-minute gifts two days before Christmas, signing on to another Zoom meeting, or — perish the thought — visiting the dentist (no offense).
I’m afraid Richmond is headed to the dentist and must prepare to endure the trip because we are drifting into 2023 with serious cavities and a growing number of problems that few people seem interested in addressing.
Crime and gun violence are rampant across the city; housing issues include the lack of affordable homes and rising apartment rents; and school leadership is dysfunctional. What should be the focus of our government — everyday functions, issues that impact citizens’ daily lives — are given short shrift.
Every issue now comes with a political lens, measured in how it plays to the base and on social media, which is deemed more important than fixing the problems. The one common theme is that our “leaders” aren’t doing anything meaningful to address them.
Too often, our “leaders” seem more interested in pursuing the polished penny, or a glittering prize, or big, shiny projects, such as Navy Hill or professional football. Solving the problem is not as satisfying to City Hall as using the issue for self-promotion and plastering it on social media.
Hard work is not making sure a social media post is phrased right to appeal to your supporters, accompanied by the right hashtags to get the maximum number of likes. The adage attributed to Harry Truman, “The Buck Stops Here,” is as foreign and anachronistic to them as a Commodore 64 computer (remember those?).
We have traded in political solutions (i.e., listening, compromise, common ground) for self-promotion (clicks, likes and retweets). Telling people you care about an issue across social media channels does nothing to solve the problem. It merely conveys that you believe what they believe, or vice-versa, even though many “followers” don’t even live in the community you represent. That is not real support, and it does not lead to real solutions.
Richmond needs leaders who will focus on making government work for the people who pay for it and who expect basic levels of competence and solutions. We don’t need issues to be talked about ad infinitum so they can be used for fundraising fodder in political emails.
We need leaders committed to finding solutions and making City Council and school board meetings as boring as Henrico County’s meetings. And I mean that as a compliment. Henrico provides a model for collaborating behind the scenes to find solutions instead of grandstanding in front of the camera. They might have a little drama a few times a year, whereas the city seems to have a major opera every week.
Real political leaders know they don’t have to make life-changing decisions to impact people’s lives every day. They just need to try and make people’s days just a little bit better.
For example, Richmond has been debating and arguing about designing and building a new George Wythe High School for three years. During that time, Henrico built a new Tucker High School and Highland Springs High School. They put students, parents and communities first.
Challenges in Richmond are many, but they are not beyond addressing and resolving. We will not fix them all at once, but we can chip away at them piece by piece. It’s the unsung part of government that people do not see much.
Real political leaders know they don’t have to make life-changing decisions to impact people’s lives every day. They just need to try and make people’s days just a little bit better, and then help them get a leg up and get started on improving their lives and our city. You do that block-by-block and neighborhood-by-neighborhood. Doing the little things, the real work, may not be as instantly gratifying as a social media post, but it leads to deeper bonds within the community. Richmond needs leaders who understand this.
That is the path we need to head down if we are going to make Richmond a better place and help those who need it most. We’ve been lost in the woods of late, but we can get it back if we find the right people to do the right thing and put the citizens — and our city — first.
Jon Baliles is editor of the RVA 5x5 newsletter. He is a former Richmond City councilman and a co-founder of the RVA Street Art Festival.
