This article has been edited since it first appeared online.
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VPM broadcasts meetings of the Richmond City Council on TV and online.
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Members of the broadcasting team including host Jason Roop at right
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Council chambers during a recent meeting
Some members of the Richmond City Council didn’t know they existed — “they” being the small team that broadcasts their Monday meetings for television and online through the commonwealth’s public media outfit, VPM.
In my search for this particular council chamber backroom, I climb a different set of steps, instead finding the council’s private lavatories.
My misdirection solves a mystery; I’ve wondered how council members deal with this eventuality, especially during the more long-form sessions.
Admonishment accompanies my confusion: “Sir, you’re not supposed to be back here." I sheepishly cross to the other side, where my appearance startled the personnel who send Richmond’s democratic participation into the wider world.
Cullen Munro, the show’s director since this past May, recalls that prior to the Feb. 26 program 4th District Representative and Council President Kristen Nye recently visited the control room. “She didn’t know this was back here,” Munro says, adding, “I guess they might’ve thought it’s like Harry Potter’s closet.”
“And it’s not robots,” adds automated camera operator Ashby Paca Handoga. The Virginia Commonwealth University broadcast journalism graduate started here more than 15 years ago, when she operated actual cameras for what was then the Central Virginia Educational Television Corporation. Handoga has endured enough marathon council sessions to know she should pack something to eat; these meetings start at 6 p.m., during dinner hour. I neglected to bring even an apple.
The space on the chamber’s left side is jammed full of equipment and a few spare chairs. All the monitors and blinking lights seem whiz-bang, but only for the uninitiated, like me.
Handoga wryly mentions that the pan-tilt operating system she uses came from a company now defunct.
For assistant director/trainee Teairrah Green, this is a valuable lesson. “It’s that you do the best with what you have,” she notes.
Munro is a journalism and anthropology graduate from James Madison University. Such a pairing of studies is suitable for broadcasting what can be lively gatherings of the Richmond city government.
Tonight’s session will ultimately last for the Shakespearean stage dictum of “two hours’ traffic.”
Longtime engineer Daryl Baker can recall tempest-tossed meetings where some feisty citizens were led out in handcuffs. Or the time when then-mayor and former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder neglected to renew the program’s contract. “We didn’t know how many people watched until they started calling here because they turned on their TV and we weren’t there,” he says. (VPM doesn’t release viewership numbers outside the organization.) That was straightened out. The meetings aren’t as long now because the budgeting components undergo separate consideration. Baker shakes his head, “Otherwise, these things went on until two and three in the morning.”
Then came the Great Chicken Debate, about how many of the birds would be allowed in city backyards. “The line went out the door,” Baker recalls with amazement. “Who knew how many people in the city were interested in chickens?” The decision: four chickens, but no roosters.
Munro states, “We’re providing a public service.” A professor at JMU emphasized that one way to begin in broadcasting is to cover local government. “We’re giving viewers the essentials.”
He credits the program’s new host, experienced Richmond journalist Jason Roop, with bringing new life into a staid process. Like, for one, introducing council members to the personnel who beam their images onto screens via WCVW.
This particular meeting is only Roop’s third as the on-camera personality who opens and closes the broadcast. Prior to him, Dick Harman held the position for 30 years and 700 meetings.
Sitting in the press gallery with its vista of the council and citizens, Roop explains that, after Harman’s 2018 retirement, the show didn’t feature a full-time host. Then came the pandemic and changes to the regional public television outlet.
He at first didn’t express much enthusiasm for stepping into the host role.
“I’ve sat through a lot of meetings,” Roop, the former editor of Style Weekly, says with some weariness. He left the magazine "after long consideration and 12 years as editor" to start his own public relations and marketing business, Springstory.
“I figured, well, it’s only 17 meetings through the year and it’s an interesting project,” he reflects. “This is important work for the council members, and they’re interested in engaging the public in the process of governance.”
An important addition he’s made to the program is, as he describes it, “hosting the pregame show.”
The council broadcast signs on at 5:45 p.m. with a rush of huge pink letters announcing “Richmond City Council” running across a mosaic of the city’s landmarks accompanied by music that doesn’t quite possess the verve of the “West Wing” theme. In years past, this somewhat dramatic opening led to a 15-minute-long shot of the council chamber with members and constituents milling around like bereft Sims characters.
Roop saw an opportunity.
“We have air time; let’s make some TV happen,” he explains. “We want to pack as much as we can into that 15 minutes: welcome the viewers, hit the highlights of the agenda and conduct interviews.”
Primary to Roop’s innovation is speaking with council members about issues facing the city, as well as a series of more lighthearted questions. They also discuss the council member’s district: where it is and who lives there. Roop says, “I ask what may seem like basic questions, but it can add some color to what we’re doing,” especially since he can’t run commentary through the proceedings like a sports match.
“For the meeting around Valentine’s Day, I interviewed Kristin [Nye] about chocolate and learned that she once worked for Hershey.” The point is, as viewers of streaming serial narratives know, everybody’s got a backstory.
Including 3rd District representative Ann-Francis Lambert. Prior to starting as a council liaison, she operated the cameras of the council broadcast. She still has a sweatshirt with the broadcaster’s logo.
Tonight’s meeting carries some newsworthiness that Roop summarizes when on air: Andreas Addison, of the 1st District, makes a formal announcement of his run for mayor, joining a slate of six. Nye is not seeking another council term. There are calls for the resignation of Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras. And on the docket is the acceptance by the city of the historic African American East End, Evergreen and Forest View cemeteries for preservation and maintenance. Advocates have long sought community control of these grounds.
One of the components Roop finds interesting is the straight-forward nitty gritty of curbs, gutters and traffic lights, but also how the commonplace subjects of zoning and honorary street and alley designations yield fascinating information. “People from the churches, the families of this person they want to honor, come and tell their stories,” he says with enthusiasm. “You could write a feature on that by itself.”
The previous two meetings have shared greater attendance and heightened drama. These included the city’s restaurant tax imbroglio and, to validate the axiom that “all politics is local,” the chambers tonight again fill with placard-bearing citizens demanding that Richmond call for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.
Applause and demonstration are not permitted except during the awards and recognition part of the proceedings. Agreement by the audience with some of the impassioned speaking is indicated by finger snapping, as though affirming the virtuosity of a jazz soloist.
Roop engages with a few of the council members and informs them that he brought Girl Scout Thin Mints if they have the need.
At last 5:45 arrives, and Roop is using the single microphone that he’s adapted into a wireless with an attachment of his own — “homemade by Jason,” he describes. An earplug and a Motorola walkie-talkie connect him back to Harry Potter’s closet.
After welcoming remarks and a review of the evening’s big subjects, it’s Addison's turn, the mayoral hopeful trim and dark-suited.
He runs Pure Fitness RVA in Scott’s Addition, has been married for two years and is an adjunct professor at the University of Virginia. His district contains the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the University of Richmond, and runs from Windsor Farms to Broad Street. Some of his concerns are neighborhood walkability and pedestrian safety, public schools and transportation.
Roop asks why he wants this big, stressful job.
Addison replies that after 16 years of serving the city in various capacities and two terms on council, he’s seen some good changes but also missed opportunities. Some of the recent flaps about accounting and taxes come from the lack of city-wide technology oversight. At this time, there’s no chief information or technology officer.
Roop then asked him seven rapid-fire queries, some serious, others amusing. Addison can answer or pass.
Since they’re on public TV, Roop asks: Ballet, symphony or opera?
“Ballet, I’m on the ballet board.”
Pow-hite or Po-white?
Addison chuckles. “Po-white.”
Kamras, stay or go?
Addison says that’s up to the school board, but he’s at the end of his term. “We’ll see what the new board does next year,” he says.
For the gym owner, what’s his favorite? Back day, chest day, leg day?
“Oh, leg day, all day long.”
What’s his guilty pleasure for eating: pizza, pasta or burgers?
“Burgers.”
With the current Mayor Levar Stoney and Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger both running for governor, which is his preference?
“Too soon to tell. Pass.”
In the upcoming crosstown rivalry between VCU and UR, who do you choose?
“VCU. Go Rams.”
And with that, he needs to take his seat.
Roop brings on 7th District’s Cynthia Newbile to discuss the East End Cemeteries. This is a culmination following the controversy surrounding the collapsed nonprofit Enrichmond Foundation with affiliate Parity LLC.
After a messy decade-long process, these grounds, where lay renowned figures of the city’s past, including the courageous Richmond Planet editor John Mitchell Jr. and community activist Maggie Lena Walker, are entering the city inventory. Roop points out that the realization will not occur with a simple snap of the fingers.
Newbile concurs that it’ll be a 10-year project. “But the good news is,” she says, “we have the commitment of council, the administration and community who are saying, ‘We’re all in to assure that these sacred spaces are preserved for posterity and not just preserved for their own sake of educating the broader community.'”
She underscores that this undertaking has involved “a whole host of persons” diligently working in a collaborative effort. This included descendants of those interred in the grounds.
Roop bids her a good meeting and then concludes his prefatory remarks. The chambers are filled, the crowd noise risen and declarative signs sprouted up.
Council President Nye gavels the meeting to order. And with a rundown of safety and decorum protocols, an earnest invocation given, the Pledge of Allegiance recited and the council roll call finished, the people’s business begins.
How to watch Richmond City Council’s magisterial action
On the air: Channel 57.1; Verizon Fios: Channels 524 or 24; Comcast: Channels 797 or 24; DIRECTV or DISH: Channel 57
Streaming online (live audio/video stream for meetings): rva.gov/richmond-city-council and click “Audio/Video”
