Illustration by Jamie Douglas
Highs
The Race Against COVID
A site for flu shots in the past, Richmond Raceway took things to the next level in January, serving as a COVID-19 vaccination clinic for thousands of people each day, sometimes featuring performances by musicians from the Richmond Philharmonic Orchestra. The site, which had administered its 100,000th shot by early April, closed on May 27, as the state shifted its strategy toward more targeted efforts. In October, Richmond Raceway rejoined the fight against COVID, offering booster shots alongside the standard course of vaccines.
Republican Reprimand
State Sen. Amanda Chase, a Republican legislator who calls herself “Trump in heels,” was reprimanded by colleagues and her party for her comments about the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol. After calling those rioters “patriots” and repeating Trump’s false claims of a fraudulent presidential election, Chase was censured by the Virginia Senate, and Republican leaders removed her from committee assignments. She later lost her bid to become the Republican candidate for governor to Glenn Youngkin. This likely won’t be the last we’ll hear from her.
Sentenced to Life
On March 24, Gov. Ralph Northam signed a bill abolishing the death penalty in the commonwealth, making Virginia the 23rd state — and the first Southern state — to do so. Following decades of efforts by activists, it’s hard to cite one particular deciding factor, but Democratic control of the General Assembly combined with a national reckoning around racial injustice following George Floyd’s 2020 murder at the hands of police certainly contributed.
Walk Right In, Sit Right Down
As anyone navigating the DMV’s online system for scheduling appointments over the course of the pandemic can attest, the announcement that they would reopen for walk-in service on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays starting on Oct. 5 was welcome news. (Beginning Dec. 15, Wednesday were added as a walk-in day. Appointments were set to continue on Mondays and Fridays.) Sometimes you need a human being to help solve your problem, and once you get to the window, DMV employees do their best.
Keya Wingfield (Photo courtesy Food Network)
Hollywood Heroines
2021 was a year of stardom for three local culinary leaders who appeared on major television networks. In April, Keya Wingfield (pictured above), namesake of Keya & Co., earned the top spot on Food Network’s “Spring Baking Championship.” That same month, Richmonders tuned in to cheer on Brittanny Anderson, the chef-owner of Black Lodge, Brenner Pass, and Metzger Bar & Butchery, during Bravo’s “Top Chef” season 18. And in the fall, Ruby Scoops and Suzy Sno owner Rabia Kamara was deemed the dairy queen of Food Network’s first-ever “Clash of the Cones.”
Michael Paul Williams (Photo by Zaid Hamid)
Due Recognition
It’s rare that achievement is recognized in its time, but the Pulitzer Prizes got it right with this one. Since 1992, Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist Michael Paul Williams (pictured at right) has used every writerly tool at his disposal to push Richmond toward a better tomorrow. Fearless in tackling tough topics and taking on powerful people, Williams is a vital voice as Richmond shapes its identity. His columns about the removal of our Confederate monuments will be read for decades to come. We’re lucky to have him.
Light it Up
On July 1, recreational marijuana use became legal for those 21 and older in Virginia, but the regulations surrounding legal pot have many dazed and confused. Unless you have a medical marijuana prescription, there is no legal way to buy it. You can grow up to four plants per household, but you cannot purchase seeds. Perhaps that’s why a free seed giveaway at a Short Pump CBD store was temporarily suspended when hundreds showed up. It’s also illegal to smoke in public — but unless the local skunk population has exploded, our noses tell us that many are toking on city sidewalks.
Photo by Jay Paul
Later, Lee!
It was the day they finally drove old Dixie down. More than a year since protesters began marching in response to George Floyd’s murder — and after activists and the city separately took down most of Richmond’s other Confederate monuments — the massive state-owned statue honoring Robert E. Lee was finally removed from its graffiti-covered pedestal on Sept. 8. Though the state has removed the pedestal as 2021 draws to a close, many would have liked for it to remain as a reminder of Richmond’s most historic year since 1865. It’s our own Berlin Wall: a symbol of oppression that has been reinvented by those it once oppressed.
Lows
Virus 1, VCU 0
Always a highlight of the sports calendar, March Madness was even more anticipated in 2021, after the pandemic led to the cancellation of the 2020 NCAA men’s basketball tournament. So when VCU’s first confirmed positive COVID-19 tests of the season forced a forfeit of its first-round game against Oregon on March 20, Rams fans had one more reason to curse the coronavirus. On the bright side, after winning their first Atlantic 10 tournament title, VCU’s women’s team made it to the big dance for only the second time, though they lost to Indiana in the first round.
Guilty as Charged
On April 30, Michael Hild, the former CEO of Chesterfield-based Live Well Financial, was found guilty of five criminal counts for his part in a massive bond pricing scheme that upended his mortgage company. While personally pocketing more than $20 million, Hild and his wife, Laura, amassed dozens of properties in Manchester that have since gone up for auction. In July, Michael Hild filed a petition in federal court seeking either a post-conviction acquittal or a new trial; additionally, the Hilds are being sued for $110 million by a trustee overseeing Live Well’s bankruptcy case.
The Final Cluck
Illustration by Jason Smith
In May, Richmond magazine Senior Writer Harry “the Hat” Kollatz posted his final “Lee’s Chicken Sign Weather Report” online. Since late 2010, Kollatz has periodically noted the weather in a filmed skit for the web. Silly, improvisatory and downright fun, the report showcased much of what we love about Kollatz as he stood amid the latest weather phenomenon. It was not snow nor heat nor gloom of night that silenced this treasured report; the move of Richmond magazine’s offices from the Book Bindery building to Willow Lawn made it logistically difficult to continue.
Levar Stoney’s New York Times Essay
While politicians often leverage their roles in current events to move up the ladder, Mayor Levar Stoney’s May essay in The New York Times about Richmond’s reaction to George Floyd’s murder was a new low. After briefly apologizing for the Richmond Police Department’s unprovoked teargassing of peaceful protesters last summer, he attempted to claim victory for the removal of Confederate monuments, as though he was behind it the whole time (his administration told the commission it formed to study the issue years ago that removal wasn’t an option), and that he was a champion of police reform. His revisionist take on the events of the past year was not appreciated.
Suburban Horror Story
For a few weeks in late summer, suburban lawns turned from lush, green oases to dry, brown wastelands overnight. The culprit: ravenous army worms. These hungry and destructive interlopers arrived on Southerly offshore winds that blew adult moths to our area. The moths can lay up to 2,000 eggs in one month, which hatch and survive by eating their way through suburbia. The path of destruction was the talk of Next Door, momentarily displacing heated conversations about barking dogs, speeding cars and the local coyote population.
Board Silly
A Henrico School Board meeting went viral — words we never expected to type — after Board Chair Roscoe Cooper fell victim to a prank while reading a list of speakers who had signed up for the Aug. 26 session. Needless to say, Phil McCracken, Wayne Kerr and Eileen Dover were not in attendance, but a video of Cooper innocently calling out their names (and a couple more we won’t get into) brought joy to many. Cooper had a sense of humor about the whole thing, with Henrico County Public Schools posting a picture of him examining the Sept. 9 meeting’s list of speakers with a pair of binoculars: “No sign of Mr. McCracken, Mrs. Dover, or her husband Ben.”
Crappy News
“Oo-ooh, that smell,” goes the song by Lynyrd Skynyrd, and the James River was certainly singing it this summer. Over the course of 10 days, the James experienced five sewage leaks, raising health concerns for those who wished to recreate in the river, as well as for the river itself. The largest, ahem, “dump” took place after a Goochland County sewer line burst, sending 300,000 gallons of raw sewage into the river. From kepone to coal ash and sewage, we’ve treated Richmond’s greatest natural amenity as the local sewer for far too long. It’s time to clean up our act.
Out of Style
For nearly 39 years, Style Weekly charted the cultural currents of Richmond. In September, Alden Global Capital, the hedge fund that has gutted local journalism outlets across the country, pulled the plug on Style. At its best, Style was an alt-weekly known for its hard-charging investigative reporting and comprehensive arts coverage. In recent years, it had been reduced to a tiny staff performing superhuman feats to keep the publication going. While rumors are circulating about a possible future for Style, nothing is certain. (VPM, Virginia's home for public media, purchased Style Weekly after this article went to press; stay tuned for details of the acquisition in a forthcoming story.)
No CasiNO
On Nov. 2, 51.4% of Richmond voters rejected plans to build ONE Casino + Resort on the city’s South Side, what would have been the country’s only Black-owned casino. The 48.6% of voters in favor included strong support from those living closest to the proposed casino in the 8th and 9th districts. The vote ended months of campaigning, as backers touted a promised 1,500 new jobs and $50 million in annual tax revenue, with endorsements from celebrities like Jamie Foxx and Missy Elliott. A strong grassroots movement, mostly in white neighborhoods, questioned those numbers, though, and focused on the downsides of gambling. It was the largest development plan to get scuttled since Navy Hill was rejected in 2020. Back to the drawing board, Richmond.
Head-scratchers
Lost Cause
In perhaps the biggest letdown of the year, the much-speculated-about time capsule believed to be hidden in pedestal of the Robert E. Lee statue in 1890 is still MIA after an extensive daylong search following the removal of the statue. Ground-penetrating radar and clues from an 1887 newspaper article placed the capsule in the pedestal’s cornerstone, but alas, it was not found. “After a long hard day, it’s clear the time capsule won’t be found — and Virginia is done with lost causes,” Grant Neely, the chief communications officer for the governor’s office, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The mystery continues. (In another story that developed after this article went to press, crews found not one but two time capsules in the Lee monument pedestal, one a commemoration of the officials in charge of the project, as well as the anticipated capsule covered in newspapers of the time.)
Price Is No Object
The local real estate market has been red hot, with record low inventory and steadily rising prices — in September, the median sales price of existing homes in the metro Richmond region was up 14.9% over the previous year. Even so, it got our attention when in September, a Goochland home sold for a whopping $805,000 over the listing of $2.695 million. In July, a home off Cary Street Road sold for $750,000 over asking. What’s good news for these sellers — and their Realtors — is anxiety-producing for anyone in the market to move. Unless, of course, you’ve got an extra million to spare.
