Richmond Free Press December 7-9, 2023 edition

Ex-city worker cheated her, too A5

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DECEMBER 7-9, 2023

Open for needy Shelter options few for adults with children despite increase in beds

By Jeremy M. Lazarus

Bobby Moore, 57, is among those waiting for the Salvation Army shelter to open.

The shelter operates from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. seven days a week, providing meals. The shelter’s capacity is 110 men and 40 women.

Jeremy M. Lazarus/Richmond Free Press

1900 Chamberlayne Ave., with 110 beds for men and 40 for women. However, no children are allowed.

City Hall has followed through on expanding In Ms. Sneed’s view, that sends a message that City winter shelter in the Richmond area, but families with Hall is more willing to shelter “able-bodied men and children still are being left out in the cold, the Free women” when the temperature is below 40 degrees, Press has confirmed. but “babies and children don’t matter.”

Operators on Richmond’s Homeless Crisis Hotline Along with funding Salvation Army’s shelter, the are advising homeless adults with children that all shelter Stoney administration also is providing funding that space reserved for them is full and that they should allowed the nonprofit Home Again to simultaneously Ms. Sneed call back weekly to see if there is an opening. open last Friday a 50-bed shelter for adults with children Rhonda Sneed, founder and leader of the homeless services at 7 N. 2nd St. group Blessing Warriors RVA, is aghast at this situation.

But the Homeless Crisis Hotline reported that space is full “That means babies, toddlers, school-age children remain and that there are no other options. without shelter,” she said Wednesday in calling on Mayor Levar The 200 new beds the city is funding do represent a 40% M. Stoney and his administration to address the problem. increase in winter shelter beds in Richmond and add to the 284 Ms. Sneed noted that since Dec. 1, the Salvation Army has Please turn to A4 operated a city-supported 150-bed shelter for single adults at

City Charter changes approved

Mayor Stoney jumps into governor’s race

By Jeremy M. Lazarus

By Jeremy M. Lazarus

Among the first bills that Dr. Michael J. Jones could patron as a new member of the House of Delegates is one that would usher in changes to the City Charter, or constitution.

Now the president of City Council, a post he will give up Dec. 31, he was among six members who agreed Monday to support a package of charter changes and send the package to the Virginia legislature for approval.

As the new representative for the 77th House District, he said he would be in place when the new session starts to push for approval.

Among the changes that won majority support is a provision that would allow the council to provide property tax relief to Please turn to A4

Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press

All smiles Kinsley Hurte, 5, is excited to meet Soul Santa and give him her holiday wish list at the Black History Museum of Virginia on Dec. 2.

Richmond Mayor Levar M. Stoney, after months of hinting, this week made it official that he will be in the race for governor in 2025 and quickly began picking up endorsements.

Now in his final year as the city’s chief executive, the 42-yearold mayor filed paperwork and on Monday formally announced his bid in a video. In the video, he focused on the Horatio Algerstyle narrative he plans to run on — his rise from humble beginnings in which he overcame challenges to become the first in his family to graduate from high school and college and become the leader of the state’s capital city.

“That’s why I’m running for governor.

Mayor Stoney For families like mine that just need an opportunity. For kids like me who will thrive in school if they just get the right chance,” he said. “And for parents like my dad, who work multiple jobs and still struggle to live a secure, middle class life.

Mayor Stoney was raised by his father and grandmother in York County, graduated from James Madison University and Please turn to A4

School Board to build new Woodville; won’t merge with Fairfield Court

By Jeremy M. Lazarus

The Richmond School Board plans to keep five elementary schools in operation in the East End in the face of shrinking enrollment that has left at least two schools half empty.

In a little noticed 8-1 vote Nov. 20, the board endorsed building a replacement for an aging Woodville Elementary that could hold 500 students, even though Richmond Public Schools reports that fewer than 250 students now attend Woodville.

The vote ended any consideration of merging nearby Fairfield Elementary School with Woodville to justify the new school’s capacity when it is built.

Fairfield, located about five

City School Board approves metal detectors in middle schools

By George Copeland Jr.

In an effort to reduce weapons coming into in the schools and to ward off increased incidents of violence, Richmond Public Schools will install metal detectors in every middle school early next year.

Richmond School Board members approved the safety Please turn to A4

blocks north of Woodville, currently enrolls about 230 students.

Data from Richmond Public Schools and the Virginia Department of Education show

that enrollment at Woodville and Fairfield plunged in the past 10 years as well as at least two other elementay schools in the East End, Bellevue and Chimborazo — with the great-

est decline happening after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the city and resulted in school closures for two additional years.

The board settled the issue of capacity for Woodville as the administration filed for funding from Virginia’s School Construction Grant Program to help cover the cost of developing a new school. A timetable for doing so has not been established.

In May, Richmond was awarded $26 million from the state program to support four other projects, part of the $356 million awarded in the first round from $450 million the legislature had provided.

The program closed applications for the final $80 million Please turn to A4

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will lie in repose at the Supreme Court on Dec. 18 The Associated Press

WASHINGTON Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will lie in repose at the Supreme Court on Dec. 18, with a funeral service at the National Cathedral the following day, the court said Monday.

The first woman on the Supreme Court, Justice O’Connor died Friday, Dec. 1, 2023, at age 93 in Phoenix. She stepped down from the court in 2006 after serving as a justice for more than 24 years.

Members of the public will be able to pay respects at the court from 10:30 a.m.

to 8 p.m. Monday, following a private ceremony. Tuesday’s service at the National Cathedral is private and by invitation only, the court said.

The family has asked that donations Justice O’Connor be made to iCivics, the group she founded to promote civics education, the court said.

Justice O’Connor died of complications related to advanced dementia and a respiratory illness, the Supreme Court

stated in a news release.

Chief Justice John Roberts mourned her death. “A daughter of the American Southwest, Sandra Day O’Connor blazed an historic trail as our Nation’s first female Justice,” Justice Roberts said in statement issued by the court. “She met that challenge with undaunted determination, indisputable ability, and engaging candor.”

In 2018, she announced that she had been diagnosed with “the beginning stages of dementia, probably Alzheimer’s disease.”

Her husband, John O’Connor, died of comPlease turn to A4

Jeremy M. Lazarus/Richmond Free Press

In honor of an icon Dr. Joanne Harris Lucas proudly stands beside a bust of her late father and Virginia civil rights leader, the Rev. Curtis W. Harris Sr., which was unveiled Saturday in front of Hopewell City Hall, where he served for 26 years on the city council and for two years as the city’s first Black mayor. The unveiling comes six years after his death in December 2017.

He was arrested 13 times in leading protests against segregation in Hopewell and other parts of the state and led the Hopewell Branch NAACP and the Virginia Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for more than 20 years. During his 46 years as pastor of Union Baptist Church in Hopewell and during his tenure on council, he fought for environmental justice and opposed Hopewell commercial developments that impacted Black and poor people in the city.

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Richmond Free Press

Local News

Richmond Symphony hopes to give and receive Free Press staff report

The Richmond Symphony will accompany “The Nutcracker,” a holiday tradition for many, at the Carpenter Theater Dec. 8-24.

Stoner Winslett, Richmond Ballet’s artistic director, choreographed the production of the Christmas classic which tells the story of Clara and her journey with the Nutcracker Prince to the magical kingdom of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Visit the Richmond Ballet’s website for the production’s show times: https:// richmondballet.com/event/the-nutcracker/2023-12-08/, or call (804) 344-0906.

Also this month, the Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra Program will present a free performance open to the community at 7 p.m. Monday, Dec. 11, at the W.E. Singleton Center for the Performing Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University.

December will also offer the chance to support the arts and the Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra Program by attending “Santa’s Symphony Soirée.” The holiday fundraising event will take place over three nights, Dec. 12-14. Doors will open at 6 p.m. at the Event Building at Model Tobacco Lofts, 1100 Richmond Highway with the evenings combining performances from the Richmond Symphony ensembles with food, drink and holiday cheer.

For more information or to purchase tickets visit www.richmondsymphony.com

VCU to celebrate fall commencement Saturday Sethuraman Panchanathan, Ph.D., director of the National Science Foundation, will deliver the keynote address.

Virginia Commonwealth University will celebrate its December commencement on Saturday, Dec. 9.

The ceremony will start at 10 a.m. at the Stuart C. Siegel Center, 1200 W. Broad St. The university also will host an assortment of in-person graduation ceremonies at the department, school and college levels. VCU has approximately 2,500 August and December graduates, representing 31 states and 31 countries.

The total includes 560 first-generation graduates.

Sethuraman Panchanathan, Ph.D., who has been director of the National Science Foundation since 2020, will deliver the commencement keynote address.

The universitywide commencement broadcast will stream at vcu.edu. For more details about commencement, visit commencement.vcu.edu. More information about unit-level events can be found at commencement.vcu.edu/departmental-ceremony/.

Doors will open for guests for the universitywide ceremony at 9 a.m. No tickets are required.

VCU reflection room promotes student wellness Free Press staff report

A new, multipurpose space on the second floor of Virginia Commonwealth University’s James Branch Cabell Library will provide students a quiet area for meditation, contemplation and prayer.

The Reflection Room is an extension of VCU Libraries’ StudyWell campaign introduced in 2021 to support students returning to campus life following COVID-19 closures. StudyWell’s programming focuses on the connection between students’ health and wellness and their academic success. The roughly 400-square-foot Reflection Room is designed to be a calming environment where students can take a pause to restore their mental and spiritual balance.

“Our Reflection Room is a space that recognizes that being a student today is an extremely stressful experience,” said Kelly Gotschalk, who led fundraising for the project as VCU Libraries’ director of development and major gifts. “This Reflection Room is a place, a physical reminder, to stop, check in with themselves, see how they feel [and] practice mindfulness.”

The $370,000 project was first envisioned by John Ulmschneider, former dean of libraries and funded entirely by donations — donations that Ms. Gotschalk said were spurred on as a way of honoring Mr. Ulmschneider when he retired in 2020 after 21 years at VCU. Since opening this semester, Laura Gariepy, associate dean for research and learning for VCU Libraries, noted that the Reflection Room already has seen plenty of student use.

“We’ve been pleased to see uptake for the room for its intended purpose,” Ms. Gariepy said.

Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press

William Fox Elementary School remains boarded nearly two years after a fire destroyed much of the building.

In late November, the Richmond City School Board approved a $30 million contract from Gulf Seaboard General Contractors Inc., the sole bidder, for the reconstruction of the building. The

Free community testing for COVID-19 continues.

The Richmond and Henrico County health districts are offering testing at the following locations: • Thursday, Dec. 7, 1 to 5 p.m. - Henrico Arms Apartments, 1566 Edgelawn Circle, at the community building by the solar field.

• Friday, Dec. 8, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. - Southside Women, Infants and Children Office, 509 E. Southside Plaza.

Call the Richmond and Henrico COVID-19 Hotline at (804) 205-3501 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday for more information on testing sites, or go online at vax.rchd.com.

The Virginia Department of Health also has a list of COVID-19 testing locations around the state at www.vdh.virginia.gov/ coronavirus/covid-19-testing/covid-19-testing-sites.

Want a COVID-19 vaccine?

Those interested can schedule an appointment with RHHD by calling (804) 205-3501. Vaccines.gov also allows people to find nearby pharmacies and clinics that offer the COVID-19 vaccine, and those interested can also text your ZIP code to 438829 or call 1-800-232-0233.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently recommends that children between the ages of 6 months to 4 years old may need multiple doses of the updated vaccines depending on their COVID-19 vaccine status and whether they had previously received Pfizer and Moderna.

Waiting periods for additional vaccines can range from three to eight weeks or four to eight weeks depending on the vaccine dose previously received.

Children between the ages of 5 and 11 years old who are unvaccinated or have received a vaccine before Sept. 12, 2023 should get one updated Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.

Those age 12 and older who are unvaccinated should get either one updated Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or two doses of the updated Novavax vaccine. People in that age range who received a vaccine before Sept. 12, 2023 should get one updated Pfizer, Moderna or Novavax vaccine.

People who are moderately or severely immunocompromised may get additional doses of updated COVID-19 vaccine, and are encouraged to talk with their health care providers about how and when to receive them.

Compiled by Georged Copeland Jr.

Slices of life and scenes in Richmond

building permit and trade permit applications are currently under review by the city administration, with contract

Council meets to discuss Jones’ replacement in 9th District

By Jeremy M. Lazarus

Next Monday, Dec. 11, eight members of City Council will vote to seat a replacement for outgoing City Council President Michael J. Jones, who is headed to the House of Delegates.

Three candidates are vying for the seat, first-term 9th District School Board member Nicole Jones; Angela Fontaine, who co-chaired the 2021 task force to create a civilian oversight board for the city police department; and Stephanie Starling, who has been involved in community affairs.

Ms. Jones is deputy director of the nonprofit Art 180. Ms. Fontaine is an independent consultant in strategic planning and career coaching. Ms. Starling is a consultant for Verizon.

The trio made their final pitches Monday

Dr. Jones

to the council during its Organizational Development Committee meeting.

Both Ms. Jones and Ms. Starling told the council they plan to run for the seat next year; Ms. Fontaine said she did

not expect to.

After hearing from the candidates, council members held a closed-door session to discuss the appointment. They did not announce whether a consensus had been reached when they returned to restart the meeting.

Ahead of the meeting, Ms. Jones had been considered the front runner after Dr. Jones, no relation, publicly endorsed her and then told the Free Press that he had corralled

majority support for his choice.

However, her selection became less assured after Dr. Jones appeared to backpedal this week.

He announced he was recusing himself from the selection process and sat out of the closed door session. In addition, he later said that he would not participate in the council vote next week to finalize his replacement.

On Tuesday, Dr. Jones claimed “that was always the plan to either recuse or abstain. It’s a decision that the council would have to live with so I shouldn’t be the one steering the ship,” although he had publicly mentioned that plan.

That is a sharp contrast with his previous statement to the Free Press that he had would not have endorsed Ms. Jones if he did not have the votes to secure her appointment.

Sacred ground

Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press

Lettering on a former service station at 1305 N. 5th St. serves notice of the historic city cemetery that is located there. Largely forgotten until the past few years, the Shockoe Hill African Burial Ground was the last resting place for an estimated 22,000 Black people who were interred there between 1816 and 1879, making it the largest publicly owned cemetery for Black people in the country. Now owned by the city, the plan is to add the identifying lettering to the back of the building to be seen by traffic on Interstate 64 that was built over and through the burial grounds.

Norman Lear, producer of top TV sitcoms, dies at 101 The Associated Press

COVID-19 updates

Cityscape

details to be finalized and executed in the next two weeks. The cause of the fire, which occurred late at night on Feb. 11, 2022, remains unknown and is believed to have been an accident.

Fox Elementary, which first opened in 1911, is scheduled to reopen in the Fall of 2025.

LOS ANGELES Norman Lear, the writer, director and producer who revolutionized primetime television with “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons” and “Maude,” propelling political and social turmoil into the once-insulated world of TV sitcoms, has died. He was 101.

Mr. Lear died Tuesday night in, Dec. 5, 2023, his sleep, surrounded by family at his home in Los Angeles, said Lara Bergthold, a spokesperson for his family.

A liberal activist with an eye for mainstream entertainment, Mr. Lear fashioned bold and controversial comedies that were embraced by viewers who had to watch the evening news to find out what was going on in the world. His shows helped define prime- time comedy in the 1970s, launched the careers of Rob Reiner and Valerie Bertinelli and made middle-aged superstars of Carroll O’Connor, Bea Arthur and Redd Foxx.

Mr. Lear “took television away from dopey wives and dumb fathers, from the pimps, hookers, hustlers, private eyes, junkies, cowboys and rustlers that constituted television chaos, and in their place he put the American people,” the late Paddy Chayefsky, a leading writer of television’s early “golden age,” once said.

Tributes poured in after his death: “I loved Norman Lear with all my heart. He was my second father. Sending my love to Lyn and the whole Lear family,” Mr. Reiner wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “More than anyone before him, Norman used situation comedy to shine a light on prejudice, intolerance, and inequality. He created families that mirrored ours,” Jimmy Kimmel said.

“All in the Family” was immersed in the headlines of the day, while also drawing

upon Mr. Lear’s childhood memories of his tempestuous father. Racism, feminism, and the Vietnam War were flashpoints as blue collar conservative Archie Bunker, played

by Mr. O’Connor, clashed with liberal son-in-law Mike Stivic, Mr. Reiner. Jean Stapleton co-starred as Archie’s befuddled but good-hearted wife, Edith, and Sally

Chris Pizzello/Associated Press

Writer/producer Norman Lear, left, poses with actress Marla Gibbs after she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on July 20, 2021, in Los Angeles. Ms. Gibbs was a cast member on Mr. Lear’s television sitcom “The Jeffersons.”

Struthers played the Bunkers’ daughter, Gloria, who defended her husband in arguments with Archie.

Mr. Lear’s work transformed television at a time when old-fashioned programs as “Here’s Lucy,” “Ironside” and “Gunsmoke” still dominated. CBS, Lear’s primary network, would soon enact its “rural purge” and cancel such standbys as “The Beverly Hillbillies” and “Green Acres.” The groundbreaking sitcom “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” about a single career woman in Minneapolis, debuted on CBS in Sept. 1970, just months

before “All in the Family” started.

But ABC passed on “All in the Family” twice and CBS ran a disclaimer when it finally aired the show: “The program you are about to see is ‘All in the Family.’ It seeks to throw a humorous spotlight on our frailties, prejudices, and concerns. By making them a source of laughter we hope to show, in a mature fashion, just how absurd they are.”

By the end of 1971, “All In the Family” was No. 1 in the ratings and Archie Bunker was a pop culture fixture, with President Richard Nixon among his fans. Some of his putdowns became catchphrases. He called his son-in-law “Meathead” and his wife “Dingbat,” and would snap at anyone who dared occupy his faded orange-yellow wing chair. It was the centerpiece of the Bunkers’ rowhouse in Queens, and eventually went on display in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Hits continued for Mr. Lear and thenpartner Bud Yorkin, including “Maude” and “The Jeffersons,” both spinoffs from “All in the Family,” with the same winning combination of one-liners and social conflict.

In a 1972 two-part episode of “Maude,” the title character (played by Ms. Arthur) became the first on television to have an abortion, drawing a surge of protests along with high ratings. And when a close friend of Archie’s turned out to be gay, President Nixon privately fumed to White House aides that the show “glorified” same-sex relationships.

“Controversy suggests people are thinking about something. But there’d better be laughing first and foremost or it’s a dog,” Mr. Lear said in a 1994 interview with The Associated Press.

Richmond Free Press

Reliability rests on his shoulders.

There’s a source of energy in Virginia as reliable as any in the world: our employees.

It’s their hard work – braving storms, servicing power lines, and building a smarter and more secure power grid – that brings you the dependable electricity you’ve come to expect.

Our employees’ dedication to every community they serve is at the heart of everything we do.

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Kevin McCarthy, booted as House speaker 2 months ago, leaving Congress by year’s end The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES Two months after his historic ouster as U.S. House speaker, Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy said Wednesday that he is resigning and will leave Congress by the end of the year.

His announcement capped a stunning end to a House career for the onetime deli counter owner from Bakersfield, Calif., who ascended through state and national politics to become second in line to the presidency, until a cluster of hard-right conservatives engineered his removal in October.

Rep. McCarthy is the only speaker in history to be voted out of the job.

“No matter the odds, or personal cost, we did the right thing,” Rep. McCarthy wrote in The Wall Street Journal, announcing his decision. “It is in this spirit that I have decided to depart the House at the end of this year to serve America in new ways.”

Word about McCarthy’s future had been expected, days before the filing deadline to seek re-election to the House. But his decision ricocheted across Capitol Hill, where his departure will leave the

Shelter options few for adults with children Continued from A1

existing beds the city has reported that nonprofits and other government agencies separately operate.

“As I’ve said many times before, there is no lack of compassion from the city, but there is, at times, a lack of capacity,” Mayor Levar M. Stoney said in announcing the expansion in shelter beds. “Today, we are expanding that capacity.”

Third District City Councilwoman Ann-Frances Lambert, whose district includes the Chamberlayne Avenue location, said the Salvation Army “stands as a testament to our shared values and our dedication to ensuring the well-being of every member of our community.”

However, the Stoney administration has made it clear that compassion and dedication extend only so far.

As part of opening the new spaces, the city shut down a 100-bed shelter it had operated at 730 E. Broad St., while the Salvation Army also closed the 51-bed shelter it operated at 2 W. Grace St. Traci Deshazor, the city’s deputy chief administrative officer for human services, acknowledged that the demand from the homeless could exceed supply of shelter beds through the winter.

But Ms. Deshazor was emphatic that the city would not open any additional shelter space. Once these and other shelters were filled, the remaining unsheltered would have to fend for themselves whether there are children with them or not, she indicated.

Ms. Sneed, who leads a team out nightly to provide food and clothing to the unsheltered, reports finding adults with children sleeping in vehicles or in makeshift shelters.

She does not cite any numbers, but evictions and other emergency situations have increased the number of unsheltered.

Many do find indoor space with relatives and friends. A city report on homelessness cited data that 2,000 or more children are bunking with friends or other parties after their parents lose their housing.

The Stoney administration and previous administrations have focused more on providing shelter for single individuals.

In operating the temporary shelter at 730 E. Broad St. before it closed, there was space for five adults with children compared to 65 beds for single men and 30 for single women.

Both last year and this year, the city opened, with no objection from the council, far fewer beds for adults with children, based on data that the largest number of unsheltered people are single adults.

Richmond resident Michael G.L. Dutz noted in a Facebook comment, “Sadly and unfortunately, people are going to have to perish” before there will be heightened concern about the lack of shelter for children.

Charter changes approved Continued from A1

households with low- to moderate-incomes and subsidize rents and home purchases for those that qualify.

Other proposed charter changes would allow the council to set its own pay rather than adhering to state guidelines, more easily modify zoning, change budgeting practices and bolster the authority of the chief administrative officer to run day-to-day affairs at City Hall.

The decision to advance the changes came during Monday’s Organizational Development Committee meeting and cleared the way for formal council approval of the proposals at the final meeting for 2023 on Monday, Dec. 11.

The action also allowed council members to include the charter change proposal as one of the items on the city’s legislative agenda when members of the governing body met Wednesday with the city’s five-member General Assembly delegation.

The council majority overruled three members who sought to hold up the package for further consideration. They were 6th District Councilwoman Ellen F. Robertson, 7th District Councilwoman Cynthia I. Newbille and 8th District Councilwoman Reva M. Trammell.

Ms. Trammell said her constituents needed more time to learn what the changes would mean while Ms. Robertson said the council should wait until more significant changes could be developed, including provisions bearing on the relationship between the council and the mayor.

Many of the changes that won majority support follow recommendations that a council-created Richmond City Charter Review Commission submitted Aug. 2 after a year of study.

Before the vote, the council also heard from the lone member of the public to offer views on the proposed changes, political strategist Paul Goldman, the leader of the anti-casino campaign.

Mr. Goldman told the council he objected to the elimination of a 2018 provision he championed that required the mayor and council to come up with a plan to renovate or build new schools across the city.

He futilely urged the council to amend the provision and extend its life rather than eliminating it because the “plan was never implemented” despite winning 75% support from the public after Mr. Goldman put it on the city ballot in 2017 and gaining approval from the General Assembly.

Mr. Goldman also unsuccessfully urged the council to back away from the proposal allowing them to set their own salaries, describing the members as undeserving of increased pay based on their track record.

Dr. Jones said Mr. Goldman and others who are dissatisfied have a remedy. They can “run for office and challenge current members,” he said. “That’s the democratic process.”

already paper-thin House GOP majority even tighter, with just a few seats to spare.

It adds to the wave of retirements in the House, which has been split by Republican infighting, and the rare expulsion last week of indicted GOP Rep. George Santos of New York, dashing hopes for major accomplishments and leaving the majority straining to conduct the basic business of governing.

Rep. McCarthy Rep. McCarthy had brought the Republicans into the majority but found it was much more difficult to lead the GOP’s factions.

His toppling from the speaker’s post was fueled by grievances from his party’s hard-right flank, including over his decision to work with Democrats to keep the federal government open rather than risk a shutdown.

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, a Republican who succeeded Rep. McCarthy, tweeted that Rep. McCarthy “served faithfully and sacrificed substantially for the good of

our country and our cause.”

Rep. McCarthy, the son of a firefighter and a homemaker, has long depicted himself as a tireless battler. He is fond of quoting his father, who told him, “It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.”

Rep. McCarthy is from a Republican-leaning area in Central California where oil derricks blanket hillsides and country music fans pack into Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace hall. Far from the Southern California beaches and San Francisco’s restaurants, farming and oil pumping shape the economy.

It wasn’t immediately clear what would happen with the vacancy, which could have implications for Republican control.

Only a handful of seats separate the two parties.

In California, Friday is the last day for candidates to file paperwork to enter the 2024 elections. If the vacancy occurs before the end of that period, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom would be required to call a special election to fill Rep. McCarthy’s seat.

If Rep. McCarthy steps down after that time, it would be up to the governor to decide whether to call a special election.

Mayor Stoney jumps into governor’s race Continued from A1

served as the secretary of the commonwealth under former Gov. Terry McAuliffe before running successfully for his first term as mayor in 2016.

The Virginia Senate’s senior Democrat, L. Louise Lucas of Portsmouth headed a list of initial endorsers along with Hampton state Sen. Mamie E. Locke, chair of the Senate Caucus, and Richmond state Sen. Lamont Bagby, a Senate whip and chair of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus.

Other endorsers include Charlottesville state Sen. Creigh Deeds, current and incoming Richmond area delegates Destiny Bolling, Jeffrey M. Bourne, Michael J. Jones and Delores L. McQuinn and former Delegate Richard Cranwell of Roanoke.

Mayor Stoney, undeterred by polls showing him with less than 40% approval ratings in Richmond, is headed into a Democratic nomination contest that already features 7th District U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer who has served three

terms and is hoping to become Virginia’s first female governor.

Still a presidential election away, the race could attract more Democratic contenders.

On the Republican side, Attorney General Jason Y. Miyares and Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears are expected to run, though neither has yet announced a bid to succeed current Republican Gov. Glenn A. Youngkin, who is barred by the state constitution from seeking a second term.

In opening his bid, Mayor Stoney did not refer to the development deals he backed and that ultimately were rebuffed by City Council or the voters, including the Navy Hill plan to overhaul Downtown and the proposed luxury casino-resort for South Side.

Instead, he claimed he had “transformed a city that had neglected schools, had a broken budget, and crumbling infrastructure and turned it around.” He cited the four school buildings built or underway during his tenure, without mentioning the more than 30 aged and crumbling schools that remain untouched.

He also cited as positives the creation of budget surpluses, the additional paving of streets that has taken place while in office and the decline in poverty from 26% to 19%, still among the highest levels in the state.

Along with introducing himself and mentioning that he and his wife, Brandy, are expecting their first child, Mayor Stoney also used his video to criticize the Youngkin administration.

“I think many Virginians are sick of a governor who was out there focused on banning abortion and banning books and making it harder for people to vote instead of actually focused on how do they climb the economic ladder into the middle class,” he said.

He quickly drew return fire.

The governor’s press office issued a retort citing Gov. Youngkin’s approval rating.

The state Republican Party went further, labeling Mayor Stoney a “far-left radical” who has failed as Richmond’s mayor and would be “a disaster for Virginia.”

New Woodville won’t merge with Fairfield Court Continued from A1

still available after expenses on Nov. 28.

Jonathan Young, the 4th District’s representative, cast the lone “no” vote, arguing that it would be “a waste of taxpayer dollars” to build a large new school that could be half empty when it opened.

According to the Virginia Department of Education, school divisions across the state are spending between $31 million and $53 million for new elementary schools or an average of $50,000 per student depending on the capacity.

Assuming a new Woodville would cost $31million, the new building would set a Virginia cost record of $124,000 per student if only 250 children were enrolled after it opened.

Cheryl Burke, the 7th District representative, garnered overwhelming backing for maintaining Woodville as a stand-alone school, arguing that closing schools can “rip the heart out of a community.”

Other members argued that elementary schools with smaller enrollments can provide a better experience for students and the ongoing effort to create a mixedincome community on the site of the now partially demolished Creighton Court public housing community will generate more children for Woodville.

The current Woodville, which RPS states has a capacity for 552 students, reported just 228 students enrolled as of Sept. 30. In other words, 59% of the seats were empty.

Ten years ago, Woodville

enrolled 519 students for the 2013-14 school year, VDOE data show, while five years ago, the enrollment had dropped to 413 students.

The same loss of students has hit Fairfield, which has an RPS-rated capacity of 499 students. As of Sept. 30, just 227 students were enrolled, according to VDOE, or 44% of its capacity. Ten years ago, the school reported 562 students, while five years ago the school enrolled 456 students.

Overall, the five East End schools have 1,100 vacant seats already in East End elementary schools. The other three schools are Bellevue, Chimborazo and Henry L. Marsh III, which opened in 2021.

Bellevue, with a capacity for 395 students, had an enrollment of 195 students on Sept. 30, VDOE reported, down from 374 students enrolled in the 2013-14 school year and the 240 students enrolled in the 2018-19 school year.

Chimbarazo, which can house 560 students, had 388 students on Sept. 30, according to VDOE records, down from 467 students 10 years ago and 401 students five years ago.

The new Henry L. Marsh III, which has a capacity for 750 students, had 523 students on its rolls as of Sept. 30, VDOE reported, a bit more than the reported enrollment at the George Mason building it replaced, but still 227 students short of capacity.

City School Board approves metal detectors in middle schools Continued from A1

proposal during its Monday night meeting at River City Middle School. The total cost of installation is projected to be around $118,000.

Kenya Gibson, who represents the 3rd District, abstained from voting due to a lack of information on other safety concerns such as side doors.

Metal detectors will be installed and added to River City, Albert Hill, Dogwood, Lucille M. Brown, Martin Luther King and Henderson, a decision that comes after a survey of middle school students, faculty and families about potential safety measures.

Currently, Thomas C. Boushall Middle School is the only middle school with metal detectors installed. Richmond Alternative School and the Richmond Technical Center also have the detectors. All of the city’s high school have metal detectors, according to published reports.

“I wish I didn’t have to, but I fully support the inclusion of metal detectors for all the reasons that our stakeholders identified in the survey data,” said 4th District Representative Jonathan Young.

Besides Ms. Gibson’s concern over unad-

dressed areas of safety, some board members expressed concern about the possible contribution to the school-to-prison pipeline that metal detectors could bring to schools.

Nicole Jones, who represents the 9th District, and Board Chair Stephanie Rizzi also raised the need for more restorative policies and alternative methods to metal detectors in response to student conduct and incidents, and expressed concren about the environment metal detectors could create for students.

“I feel bad about this, but I’m glad my children have graduated because I would not want them to walk through a metal detector every single day,” Ms. Rizzi said. “I don’t think anybody really wants that for their children.”

Nevertheless, board members opted to approve the proposal based on the input of the RPS community in the survey, with 61% supporting the addition of metal detectors as a safety precaution and 74% believing they could reduce the possibility of weapons in schools.

In contrast, 23% of those surveyed saw the addition of metal detectors as harmful to the education experience of students, and 29% believe their presence contributes to the school-to-prison pipeline.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will lie in repose at the Supreme Court on Dec. 18 Continued from A1

plications of Alzheimer’s in 2009.

Justice O’Connor’s nomination in 1981

by President Reagan and subsequent confirmation by the Senate ended 191 years of male exclusivity on the high court. A native of Arizona who grew up on her family’s sprawling ranch, Justice O’Connor wasted little time building a reputation as a hard worker who wielded considerable political clout on the nine-member court.

While serving on the court, Justice O’Connor was known as an unwavering voice of moderate conservatism.

The granddaughter of a pioneer who traveled west from Vermont and founded the family ranch some three decades before

Arizona became a state, Justice O’Connor had a tenacious, independent spirit that came naturally. As a child growing up in the remote outback, she learned early to ride horses, round up cattle and drive trucks and tractors.

“I didn’t do all the things the boys did,” she said in a 1981 Time magazine interview, “but I fixed windmills and repaired fences.”

On the bench, her influence could best be seen, and her legal thinking most closely scrutinized, in the court’s rulings on abortion, perhaps the most contentious and divisive issue the justices faced. Justice O’Connor balked at letting states outlaw most abortions, refusing in 1989 to join four other justices who were ready to reverse the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that said women have

a constitutional right to abortion.

Then, in 1992, she helped forge and lead a five-justice majority that reaffirmed the core holding of the 1973 ruling. “Some of us as individuals find abortion offensive to our most basic principles of morality, but that can’t control our decision,” Justice O’Connor said in court, reading a summary of the decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. “Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code.”

Thirty years after that decision, a more conservative court did overturn Roe and Casey, and the opinion was written by the man who took her high court seat, Justice Samuel Alito. He joined the court upon Justice O’Connor’s retirement in 2006, chosen by President George W. Bush.

Richmond Free Press

December 7-9, 2023 A5

Local News

Woman says former executive who defrauded city also fooled her

By Jeremy M. Lazarus

Sharon B. Holmes is relieved that a retired senior executive in the Richmond Department of Public Works is going to prison for engineering a scheme that ripped off the department for $600,000.

But the 74-year-old Henrico County resident just wishes his prison term was much longer.

Michael Evins, 67, and his wife and co-conspirator Samaria Evins, 52, were sentenced to serve two years and three months in federal custody last week after they pleaded guilty, a relatively short term that resulted from a change in the federal sentencing guidelines.

“I had hoped that it would be far longer,” said Ms. Holmes, who is all too familiar with Mr. Evins.

While he was using his position as DPW director of operations to rip off the department for at least six years, he also was flim-flamming Ms. Holmes.

Ms. Holmes met Mr. Evins in 2009 when she lived in Mechanicsville.

“He stopped by my home out of the blue and just asked if I wanted to sell (my home),” said Ms. Holmes, a widow who lost her husband in 2002.

“I told him ‘no’, but we got to talking,” she said, and that led to a romantic relationship with Mr. Evins.

Marry me She said he often talked about them getting married, but she was not ready to remarry.

But when she bought her current home at 2004 Springdale Road in Eastern Henrico in 2011 for $85,000 in a foreclosure sale, Ms. Holmes paid Mr. Evins to handle the renovation of the first floor.

Four years later, the sweet-

talking Mr. Evins engineered a scheme that resulted in her signing over to him her dream home that sits on nearly two acres of land in a quiet neighborhood off Mechanicsville Turnpike.

At the time, she said she wanted to borrow about $40,000 on the Springdale property that she owned free and clear, with the money to be used to pay some debts and fix the basement area of the home.

Ms. Holmes said Mr. Evins persuaded her to go a lawyer’s office where she signed papers she believed would provide the loan but were actually closing documents that transferred the property to him.

She said she received $15,000 after she failed to notice that the closing document provided $30,000 to Mr. Evins to reimburse him for the renovation of the home’s first floor, which she had already paid for.

“I really didn’t know what was happening,” Ms. Holmes said.

She said she only found out seven years later that she no longer owned the property.

Inquiring minds That’s when her children, concerned she might accept a proposal from Mr. Evins and move to another state with him, began investigating him.

They discovered that he married his current wife in 2019.

Ms. Holmes’ children further learned that their mother’s rental home, which now is assessed by the county for tax purposes at $251,000, is in Mr. Evins’ name, she said.

Essentially, Ms. Holmes learned she was a tenant paying him monthly rent, she said, even though Mr. Evins had repeatedly told her the payments she made were going to pay off the loan.

Mr. Evins had been charging

her $200 a month since gaining the property, then boosted that to $500 a month in 2022, which is when she said their personal relationship ended.

In October, Mr. Evins notified her that the rent was going up to $750 a month.

Ms. Holmes, 74, a retired patient services representative at a local hospital, is consulting a lawyer in hopes that Mr. Evins’ conviction might help her prove she was defrauded by him.

Guilty Mr. Evins’ illegal activity with the city came to light after a whistleblower provided information to James Osuna, the city’s inspector general.

The results of Mr. Osuna’s investigation were turned over to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Richmond, which brought charges earlier this year.

According to the indictment, Mr. Evins created phony companies that listed his wife as owner-operator.

He then got help from another co-conspirator Shaun Lindsey, a former senior administrative technician at DPW. Ms. Lindsey, who also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year in prison, was in charge of approving services DPW needed from outside firms when the work involved was expected to cost less than $5,000.

Mr. Evins created phony contracts with his wife’s companies and submitted invoices with Ms. Lindsey’s help that resulted in payments from the city for work that was never done.

In one instance, Mrs. Evins’ shell company was paid $4,800 by the city after submitting phony invoices for mowing the lawn at Parker Field 16 times, even though city employees were tasked with doing the mowing as part of

their duties.

The indictment alleged that between 2016 and 2021 when Mr. Evins retired, the conspirators illegally received more than $600,000 from the city.

City documents indicate that at least that much has been recovered after the charges were brought against the Evinses and Ms. Lindsey.

Until Mr. Osuna began his investigation, no questions were ever raised by DPW or the Department of Finance about the phony invoices Mr. Evins submitted.

The Free Press was told that DPW employees who knew what was happening kept silent after finding the department fired people who talked about the misdeeds of senior department executives.

Ms. Holmes

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Richmond Free Press

A6 December 7-9, 2023

News

Henry Kissinger’s complicated legacy draws admiration, scorn The Associated Press

TOKYO The death of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger drew both admiration and scorn last Thursday from political leaders around the world, highlighting the complicated legacy of Mr. Kissinger’s views about what it meant to serve America’s interests during the Cold War — and how the country should exert its influence.

Mr. Kissinger, who died, Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023, at 100, was one of America’s most powerful diplomats. During his years serving under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, he shaped the country’s foreign policy in ways that led to breakthroughs, including normalizing U.S.-China relations and advancing detente with the Soviet Union.

But during Mr. Kissinger’s tenure the U.S. also overlooked the rise of brutal regimes in other countries, and critics argue his approach ran counter to democratic ideals and left lasting damage throughout the world.

President Biden, who was a U.S. senator when he first met Mr. Kissinger, said, “Throughout our careers, we often disagreed.

And often strongly. But from that first briefing — his fierce intellect and profound strategic focus was evident.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was among those who sought out Mr. Kissinger’s counsel through the decades, said that “to serve as America’s chief diplomat today is to move through a world that bears Henry’s lasting imprint — from the relationships he forged, to the tools he pioneered, to the architecture he built.”

Mr. Blinken’s tone was echoed by others, including former President George W. Bush, former British Prime Minister Tony

Blair, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, China’s President Xi Jinping and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby called his passing a “huge loss.”

“This was a man — whether you agreed with him or not, whether you hold the same views or not — he served in World War II, bravely in uniform, and for decades afterward, which we can all be grateful for and appreciate, just the public service,” he said.

For some, that impact led to improved relations, such as when Mr. Kissinger’s diplomacy helped end the 1973 Mideast war where Israel fought off Egypt and Syria.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog praised Mr. Kissinger for laying “the cornerstone of the peace agreement, which (was) later signed with Egypt, and so many other processes around the world I admire.”

Many in China mourned Mr. Kissinger’s passing on social media. State broadcaster CCTV shared an old segment showing his first secret visit to China in 1971, when he broached the possibility of establishing U.S.-China relations and met thenPremier Zhou Enlai.

But across South America, Mr. Kissinger is remembered as a key figure who helped prop up bloody military dictatorships.

Documents have shown Mr. Kissinger’s and Mr. Nixon’s support for the 1973 coup that deposed Chilean President Salvador Allende. That was followed by Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, which went on to violate human rights, murder opponents, cancel elections, restrict the media, suppress labor unions and disband political parties.

“A man has died whose historical brilliance never managed to conceal his profound moral misery,” Chile’s ambassador to the United

Santos’ shenanigans

Expelled congressman selling personalized videos for $200 The Associated Press

ALBANY, N.Y. George Santos already has a new gig.

The former congressman, fresh off his historic expulsion on Dec. 1, has created a Cameo account where the public can pay for a personalized video message.

Screenshots of his account — with the bio “Former congressional ‘Icon’!” — started to spread online Monday morning.

By the afternoon, users, including several lawmakers, were posting clips of Mr. Santos offering advice, blowing kisses and making cracks about Botox.

“Screw the haters. The haters are going to hate,” he said in one of the videos shared by

Nebraska state Sen. Megan Hunt.

“Look, they can boot me out of Congress but they can’t take away my good humor or my larger-thanlife personality nor my good faith and the absolute pride I have for everything I’ve done.”

The price for a personalized video from Santos started at $75 and by Monday evening went as high as $200. He also is selling text messages for $10.

Mr. Santos did not immediately return a voicemail seeking comment Monday, but added a link to the Cameo account on his personal account on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Last week Mr. Santos was expelled from the House following a scandal-plagued tenure in Congress and a looming criminal

George Santos

trial. Mr. Santos became just the sixth member in the chamber’s history to be ousted by colleagues, and the third since the Civil War. The expulsion came after a blistering ethics report on his conduct heightened lawmakers’ concerns about the scandal-plagued freshman.

The vote to expel was 311-114, easily clearing the two-thirds majority required. House Republican leaders opposed removing Mr. Santos, whose departure leaves

them with a razor-thin majority, but in the end 105 GOPlawmakers sided with nearly all Democrats to expel him.

Mr. Santos, a once up-andcoming Republican, reportedly lied about having Jewish ancestry, a career at top Wall Street firms and a college degree, among other things.

Henry Kissinger, who died Nov. 29 at 100, was one of America’s most powerful diplomats. During his years serving under Presidents Richard Nixon, pictured in photo, and Gerald Ford, he shaped the country’s foreign policy in ways that led to breakthroughs, including normalizing U.S.-China relations and advancing detente with the Soviet Union.

States, Juan Gabriel Valdes, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Chile’s leftist President Gabriel Boric reposted the message.

U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern posted a remembrance on X for “all the lives Henry Kissinger destroyed with terrible violence he unleashed in countries like Chile, Vietnam, Argentina, East Timor, Cambodia, and Bangladesh.” Rep. McGovern also wrote that he never understood why people revered Mr. Kissinger.

Mr. Kissinger also “heedlessly extended and expanded” the war in Vietnam and the bombing of Cambodia came to “symbolize his ruthless hypocrisy when claiming to support American democracy,” according to journalist Elizabeth Becker, who covered Cambodia before the 1975 Khmer Rouge takeover and is the author of “When the War was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution.”

“And to what end? Ultimately, no dominoes fell to communism.

The only country communist Vietnam invaded was communist Cambodia to overthrow Pol Pot,” Ms. Becker said.

In Africa, Mr. Kissinger’s legacy will be forever linked for many to his official visit to apartheid-era South Africa in 1976, just months after the regime’s police killed more than 170 Black protesters, most of them schoolchildren, in the Soweto uprising.

At the time, the United States was allied with South Africa as a buffer against Soviet influence in Africa during the Cold War. Mr. Kissinger saw South Africa as “merely a gambit in the game of the Cold War,” said John Stremlau, a professor of international relations at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

For all his efforts to keep Soviet influence from expanding at the expense of the United States, among those lauding Mr. Kissinger’s legacy was Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Mr. Putin said in a message to Mr. Kissinger’s wife, Nancy, that he was “a wise and far-sighted statesman” and his name “is inextricably linked with a pragmatic foreign policy line, which at one time made it possible to achieve detente in international tensions and reach the most important Soviet-American agreements that contributed to the strengthening of global security.”

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Richmond Free Press

December 7-9, 2023 A7

Local News

David Stover/2016 VMFA

Travis Fullerton/2014 VMFA

David Stover/2017 VMFA

Katherine Wetzel/2010 VMFA

Travis Fullerton/2016 VMFA

From left to right: Gnathian Askos (Wine Flask), circa 330 BC, attributed to the Rose Painter, South Italian (Gnathia), terracotta, 11 × 10 × 10 ½ in. (27.94 × 25.4 × 26.67 cm).; Etruscan, Statuette of a Warrior, 5th Century BC, bronze, 8 ¾ × 3 ½ × 2 ¾ in. (22.2 × 8.9 × 7 cm).; Figure of a Soldier Mime Riding a Rooster from a Funerary Set, 3rd century BC, (South Italian), polychromed terracotta, 7 ½ × 3 ½ × 5 3/8 in. (19.05 × 8.89 × 13.65 cm).; Vessel in the form of the God Bes (Cosmetic Container), 650-550 BC, Egyptian (Dynasty 26, Late Period), faience, 5 5/8 × 3 25/32 × 3 3/8 in. (14.29 × 9.6 × 8.57 cm).; Red-Figure Lekythos, 4th century BC, attributed to the Underworld Painter (Greek, South Italian, Apulia), terracotta, 37 ¼ × 13 ½ in. (94.5 × 34.3 cm).

Home again

VMFA returns ancient works to their countries of origin 44 pieces are back in Italy, Egypt and Türkiye Free Press staff report

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) announced Tuesday that it has deaccessioned and returned 44 works of ancient art following an investigation by the Antiquities Trafficking Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the Department of Homeland Security into the global trafficking of looted or stolen antiquities.

On May 1, 2023, VMFA received a summons from the Department of Homeland Security and the Antiquities Trafficking Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office pertaining to a group of 28 ancient art objects in the collection that had been identified as possibly looted or stolen.

The museum was asked to supply all documents and photographs related to sales receipts, invoices and bills of sale; shipping and storage records; import and export documents; consignment agreements; appraisal documentation; provenance and provenance research; catalogues, brochures and marketing materials; and any correspondence related to these 28 objects. According to a VMFA news release, the museum fully complied with this request and, based on the evidence the museum supplied, another 29 works were added to the summons on June 6, 2023. VMFA then submitted information on another four works, added at the museum’s request, bringing the total number of works under investigation to 61.

On Oct. 17, 2023, VMFA met with Col. Matthew Bogdanos, the head of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit of the Manhattan District At-

torney’s Office, and Robert Mancene, the special agent handling the investigation from Homeland Security Investigations. Col. Bogdanos and special agent Mancene presented the museum with irrefutable evidence that 44 of the 61 works under investigation were stolen or looted and thus warranted repatriation to their countries of origin: Italy, Egypt or Türkiye.

The works include a bronze Etruscan warrior that was stolen from Room VIII of the Museo Civico Archeologico (Archaeological Museum) in Bologna, Italy, in 1963. The other 43 works were looted from sites in Italy, Egypt and Türkiye as part of an international criminal conspiracy involving antiquities traffickers, smugglers and art dealers that is being actively investigated by the Antiquities Trafficking Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the Department of Homeland Security.

“The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts returns any works in its collection that are discovered to be unlawfully held,” said VMFA’s Director and CEO Alex Nyerges. “The museum takes seriously, and responds to, all restitution claims for works in our collection. This is not just our policy. It is the right thing to do.”

VMFA’s Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Art and Education Michael R. Taylor noted that “stolen or looted art has no place in our galleries or collection, so we are delighted to return these works to their countries of origin.

The museum has safely delivered the 44 objects to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which will facilitate the return of these objects to Italy, Egypt and Türkiye.”

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Richmond Free Press Museum District’s vibrant blooms Editorial Page

A8

December 7-9, 2023

Luminaries admired and debunked Three towering figures have died in recent days: former first lady Rosalyn Carter, retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

All three loomed large.

Mrs. Carter, wife of former President Jimmy Carter, carved out her own niche as an advocate for women’s rights and mental health. Justice O’Connor was the first woman to serve on the nation’s highest court. And Henry Kissinger was the first Jewish person to be the nation’s top diplomat.

And many of us think to ourselves, how did we go from them to the likes of Donald Trump and George Santos, who have made lying their ticket to political success?

But in some ways, one can draw a direct line through American policy to the unprecedented anti-heroes of today.

President Johnson, who reshaped this country on civil rights and human services, also lied about North Vietnam attacking an American ship in the Gulf of Tonkin to involve our troops in the Vietnam War. Mr. Kissinger, for many, is an unindicted war criminal who unapologetically instituted policies that led to the deaths of 3 to 4 million people in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Chile and other countries.

Rolling Stone magazine lays out the case against Mr. Kissinger as a bungling geopolitical strategist whose policies created tragedy and death for others rather than advancing American interests.

Then there is George W. Bush, who as president, lied us into the invasion of Iraq by falsely claiming and having his minions claim that country was developing and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction that proved nonexistent.

It is not unusual for some of us to long for the good old days.

Sadly, we often find that the people we put on a pedestal often have feet of clay.

Of course, Mr. Trump and Mr. Santos seem to have taken the idea of telling falsehoods far beyond what others have done and hopefully they soon will get their just deserts in court.

Mr. Santos, who was recently booted out of the House of Representatives, of course, is a pale shadow of the supreme fabulist, Mr. Trump.

Despite facing multiple criminal charges and civil suits, he remains the favorite to win the Republican nomination for president.

And that is the most troubling matter. Why are so many people committed to this man in the face of evidence of lying and cheating?

It is the acceptance of his lies or at the very least, the fact that so many people continue to embrace him that makes this time so hard.

That willingness to give Mr. Trump a pass is what is different about today.

We can only hope that this long national nightmare of the Trump era will soon be over and the value of integrity and the agreement that truth telling is better than telling lies will be restored.

Black women’s hair and chemicals nothing to relax about

In case you have missed this, a major lawsuit is underway to benefit Black women who used chemical hair relaxers and later developed uterine and ovarian cancer.

Well-known Attorney Ben Crump apparently launched what has become a significant product liability case a year ago on behalf of Jenny Mitchell with claims that L’Oreal, Revlon and other global manufacturers of such products included dangerous chemicals that led to her cancer.

The case has been certified as a class action and has already drawn more than 8,000 plaintiffs from across the country, with more to come.

Anyone checking online can find numerous firms eager to sign up women who used relaxers and have been diagnosed with cancer.

One of the attorneys involved, Lee Floyd, is a partner in the Richmond-based Breit Binazian law firm.

The case is based on the failure of the makers of the products to warn that they could be hazardous and to state that on the packaging.

The National Institutes of Health first found an indication that Black women who used relaxers had a higher incidence of such cancers.

This fall, researchers at Boston University bolstered the case by releasing a new study that found that the long-term use of chemicals by post-menopausal Black women “was associated with increased risk of uterine cancer.”

The BU findings are based on an analysis of 22 years of health reports for 45,000 women. Among other things, the study looked at the use of hair relaxers and diagnoses of cancer and found that Black women who used the relaxers had a substantially higher risk of developing uterine and ovarian cancer.

Let’s be clear, this does not amount to a cause-andeffect finding, just a correlation. And it also is true that many women have used relaxers for years, if not decades, and suffered no ill effects.

Still, if you or someone you know has been impacted, please help yourself or your friend or relative learn more and sign up to be a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press

Election 2024 and LGBTQ+ rights The last year in politics has seen an erosion of rights for LGBTQ+ Americans, who are facing an assault on their very existence, with bans on books that affirm their experience, to hundreds of bills in statehouses targeting the rights of transgender youth.

A year ahead of an election that again feels existential for millions of voters, Kelley Robinson — who recently marked her oneyear anniversary this week as the first Black, queer woman to lead the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ+ advocacy organization — sees the moment as one in which she is uniquely positioned to lead.

I spoke to Ms. Robinson about how she sees the fight for equality now, the stakes for 2024 and how she is thinking about her role as one of several Black women and queer people currently leading legacy progressive organizations that were historically helmed by White people. One thing she told me: This is not the worst things have ever been.

“It took so many decades and really centuries of people

that were never written into the Constitution, fighting for that to be real, for us to get involved in fights that affirmatively declared our humanity in a country that did not want it to be so,” Ms. Robinson said.

She pointed to the gains of the last several decades —

Errin Haines including remarkable progress toward ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the legalization of marriage equality — and added that a new strategy is needed to achieve real change in the next half century and beyond.

“We can’t underscore enough that for us to be sitting here is actually the result of so much positive change the movement has driven,” she told me. “I think what’s also true is that we’ve been dealing with the symptoms and not the root causes of too many of these issues. What we have the opportunity to do in this moment is to not just deal with the symptoms, but to address the root causes of white supremacy and of racism that have resulted in a democracy that was not built for us.”

Ms. Robinson’s leadership doesn’t just look different; she’s also thinking differently about

the role of the Human Rights Campaign, an approach that she said is like “turning a cruise ship into a battleship.”

“I’ve really been kind of embracing these concepts of disruption right now,” Ms. Robinson said. Four decades after the HRC’s founding, she said, assimilation should no longer be a requirement for acceptance, agency or allyship.

“The history of the movement has been like, ‘We’re queer people, but we’re just like you! Don’t be afraid!’ In this season, we have to be sure that people are acknowledging that we don’t have to be ‘just like you’ to deserve rights like everyone else. There’s got to be a place where equality does not require uniformity, which I think has been true across a lot of social movements.”

It’s a mindset Ms. Robinson hopes will help build a coalition who will stand with LGBTQ+ people at the ballot box next fall. Democratic victory at the top of the ticket is a priority, but so is increasing representation in state legislatures and local governments, where many of the battles to roll back rights are being waged.

Ms. Robinson added next year’s election is about not just trying to get candidates into office

but to set new expectations for a government that legislates with their community front of mind.

They want the president and governors to make appointments that increase representation.

And for would-be allies, Ms. Robinson added, that means more than attending a Pride parade — it means advocacy that prioritizes LGBTQ+ people as active stakeholders in our politics.

“Part of our work in the election is about making sure that we maintain the White House and that we maintain the Senate with a pro-equality majority,” Ms. Robinson said. “But it’s also that when those folks are in office, they are governing on our issues first, so they understand that to fight for LGBTQ+ people and trans lives, you have got to focus on restructuring democracy so that our votes and our voices matte.”

The writer is editor of The Amendment and The 19th’s editor-at-large.

Richmond Free Press 422 East Franklin Street Richmond, VA 23219 Telephone (804) 644-0496 FAX (804) 643-7519 Mailing Address: P.O. Box 27709 Richmond, VA 23261 ______________

Kissinger’s legacy — it’s complicated Over his century on Earth, Henry Kissinger left a big mark, love him or hate him. And a lot of people sure did hate him.

Take Anthony Bourdain.

The late celebrity chef and TV personality is back in the public eye with the reminders of his long-ago takedown of Mr. Kissinger, who died Nov. 29 at age 100. But when I think of the Vietnam War veterans I know who share his opinion, Mr. Bourdain wasn’t very far out on a limb either.

“Henry Kissinger walks into a bar,” Mr. Bourdain once asked guests as they appeared on an episode of his “Parts Unknown” TV program. “Would it displease you if I walked over and punched Henry Kissinger in the face?”

Harsh. But not an unheard of sentiment when it came to Mr. Kissinger. Mr. Bourdain died by suicide in 2018 after spending time in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, among the more than 80 countries to which his career took him. He made no secret of his disdain for Mr. Kissinger based on the damage left behind by America’s war in Vietnam.

“Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands,” Mr. Bourdain wrote in his 2001 memoir, “A Cook’s Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines.”

Still, it’s not quite that simple. It must be said that Mr. Kissinger’s legacy is compli-

cated. As some of my surviving Vietnam-era Army buddies would say, right or wrong, a lot of the hate stirred up against Mr. Kissinger was just the sad price of being associated with an unpopular war.

Yes, war is complicated, as are the people who wage it. War is

Clarence Page hell, as the apt saying goes. So can be the task of holding leaders accountable for its wretched excesses and illegalities.

Mr. Kissinger ’s legacy as Richard Nixon’s national security adviser and secretary of state is often described in one word: mixed. On the positive side, it includes his pivotal work in the early 1970s opening relations with Maoist China, achieving major arms control agreements with the Soviet Union and hammering out the Israeli-Arab accords that elevated the United States as a dominant power in the Middle East.

No, the critical issues in those regions are not all put to rest. But Mr. Kissinger helped us make progress.

Unfortunately, he also was accused of appeasing dictators, enabling war crimes and playing a leading role in some of President Nixon’s most underhanded acts, including the secret bombing of Cambodia, the U.S. effort to topple Chile’s elected socialist president, and wiretapping reporters — in what turned out to be an unintended preview of the Watergate scandal that ended Mr. Nixon’s presidency.

Yet, Mr. Kissinger, though passionately criticized, continued to be widely respected by

prominent members of both parties. When he turned 100, he was toasted by Secretary of State Antony Blinken who, like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other past Washington diplomats, turned to Mr. Kissinger for advice.

Well after Mr. Kissinger’s power-wielding days under Presidents Nixon and Gerald Ford, he continued to advise presidents and other leaders wanting to tap his expertise.

These meetings were rarely publicized. They remind me of the old Washington etiquette, particularly in matters of foreign policy, that laid partisan concerns to the side and welcomed input from D.C. elders who could call upon stores of knowledge gained only from years of experience.

As much as Mr. Kissinger enjoyed the reputation of a respected elder statesman in his sunset years, he continued to find himself dogged by critics who shared Mr. Bourdain’s outrage. Irreverent British writer Christopher Hitchens, who died in 2011, famously published his case against the master diplomat in a 2001 book, “The Trial of Henry Kissinger.” But even Mr. Hitchens, in my view, seems to make more of a moral case than a legal one for holding Mr. Kissinger accountable.

In the end, coming to terms with Mr. Kissinger’s legacy means choosing: Should morality have any bearing on how a world power behaves in bare-knuckled global affairs?

How you decide that question likely will determine how you view Henry Kissinger.

The writer is a syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

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News

Vice President Harris breaks nearly 200-year-old record for Senate tiebreaker votes, casts her 32nd The Associated Press

The Associated Press

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer congratulates Vice President Kamala Harris after she made history for casting the most tie-breaking votes in the Senate when she voted Tuesday to confirm a new federal judge in Washington, D.C.

WASHINGTON Vice President Kamala Harris broke a nearly 200year-old record for casting the most tie-breaking votes in the Senate when she voted Tuesday to confirm a new federal judge in Washington, D.C. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, called Vice President Harris’ 32nd tie-breaking vote a “great milestone.”

The previous recordholder was John C. Calhoun, who cast 31 tie-breaking votes during his eight years as vice president, from 1825 to 1832. Vice President Harris, a Democrat, tied Mr. Calhoun’s record in July.

Sen. Schumer presented Vice President Harris with a golden gavel after Tuesday’s vote. Vice President Harris, who beamed as she made history from the Senate dais, said she was “truly honored.”

Casting tiebreaker votes is among the only constitutional duties for vice presidents, and Vice

President Harris has been repeatedly called on to break deadlocks because the Senate is closely divided between Democrats and Republicans.

The pace of Vice President Harris’ votes dropped off this year, when Democrats expanded their slim majority in the Senate by a single seat. But she still managed to surpass Mr. Calhoun’s record in less than half the time that he took to set it.

Vice President Harris has helped advance the American Rescue Plan, which was a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief measure, and the Inflation Reduction Act, which limited the costs of prescription drugs and created financial incentives or clean energy.

Most of Vice President Harris’ votes have involved President Biden’s judicial nominees. On Tuesday, she boosted Loren AliKhan’s nomination to be a U.S. District Court judge.

Sen. Schumer credited Vice President Harris with helping to confirm more women and people of color to the bench to help make the judiciary “look more like America.”

What if Donald Trump is convicted? Republican convention rules don’t address issue

By Michelle L. Price The Associated Press

NEW YORK The Republican National Committee’s rules for next year’s nominating contest and convention were released this week without addressing a question the GOP could well face next summer: Can the party’s delegates vote for a different candidate if the presumptive nominee is convicted of a felony?

Former President Donald Trump is under four criminal indictments that will proceed through the GOP primary season, an overlap of legal and political calendars with no precedent in American politics.

Fifteen states and American Samoa hold their GOP primaries on March 5, known as Super Tuesday, which is also the day after his first trial is scheduled to begin in Washington on charges that he unlawfully sought to overturn the 2020 election.

Mr. Trump is dominating the Republican field and may secure much of the support he needs by Super Tuesday, by which time almost half of delegates who select the nominee at the GOP convention will have been awarded. Even if he were to be convicted in Washington or another trial, top party leaders and many voters have indicated they would stand

by Mr. rump anyway. And Mr. Trump and his allies are pushing to dismiss and delay the trials and have worked with state parties to craft rules favorable to him.

Bound delegates must vote for a particular presidential candidate at the convention based on the results of the primary or caucus in their state. As in past years, every state party must bind its delegates to vote for their assigned candidates during at least the first round of voting at the national convention, with limited exceptions for a small number of delegates. A candidate wins the nomination if they clinch a majority, which is 1,215 delegates.

At next year’s convention,

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which starts July 15 in Milwaukee, there will be opportunities to tweak the rules when they are adopted or to suspend them, which can require twothirds of delegates to approve on a vote.

“It’s a parliamentary body,” said Benjamin Ginsberg, a Republican election lawyer. “It can always work its will if it wants to one way or another.”

Such last-minute maneuvers are difficult to organize and there are few current signs that delegates might look for another option even with Mr. Trump’s criminal cases looming.

“They’re all going to be

chosen at contests in which people are voting for Mr. Trump and I think they’re unlikely, if he wins the primary, to change up because of a court case,” Mr. Ginsberg said.

The Trump campaign issued a pre-emptive warning anyway.

“Any attempt by any swamp rat, by any Washington, D.C., swamp rat, to mess with the rules will be summarily crushed by those of us that know how to run conventions,” said Mr. Trump’s adviser Chris LaCivita, who was a senior consultant in charge of rules and floor operations for the RNC in

2016, a year when some Trump opponents considered challenging him at the convention.

One contingency section of longstanding party rules would allow the RNC to free a state from the rules prior to the convention if “compliance is impossible” and “the Republican National Committee determines that granting such waiver is in the best interests of the Republican Party.”

Such a waiver would require action by the Republican National Committee’s executive committee, which is made up of 29 members, including RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel.

The Associated Press

Former Republican President Donald Trump waves to the crowd Nov. 25 during halftime at an NCAA college football game between the University of South Carolina and Clemson in Columbia, S.C.

NOTICE TO THE PUBLIC OF AN APPLICATION BY VIRGINIA ELECTRIC AND POWER COMPANY D/B/A DOMINION ENERGY VIRGINIA FOR REVISION OF A RATE ADJUSTMENT CLAUSE: RIDER U, NEW UNDERGROUND DISTRIBUTION FACILITIES, FOR THE RATE YEAR COMMENCING AUGUST 1, 2024 CASE NO. PUR-2023-00172 · Virginia Electric and Power Company d/b/a Dominion Energy Virginia (“Dominion”) has applied for approval to revise its rate adjustment clause, Rider U. · In this case, Dominion has asked the State Corporation Commission (“Commission”) to approve Rider U for the rate year beginning August 1, 2024, and ending July 31, 2025 (“Rate Year”). · For the Rate Year, Dominion requests a revenue requirement of $149.546 million, which would increase the monthly bill of a typical residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per month by $2.18. · A Hearing Examiner appointed by the Commission will hear the case on April 17, 2024, at 10 a.m. · Further information about this case is available on the SCC website at: scc.virginia.gov/pages/Case-Information.

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In this proceeding, Dominion has asked the Commission to extend the current rate year by an additional month. In the Company’s most recent application in Case No. PUR-202200089, the Commission approved Rider U for an April 1, 2023 through March 31, 2024 rate year. On August 4, 2023, the Commission extended these Rider U rates until June 30, ,Q WKLV $SSOLFDWLRQ WKH &RPSDQ\ UHTXHVWV WKDW WKH &RPPLVVLRQ IXUWKHU H[WHQG WKH H[LVWLQJ UDWHV XQWLO -XO\ DQG DSSURYH WKH QHZ UDWHV IRU 5LGHU 8 ZLWK DQ H൵HFWLYH date of August 1, 2024.

Dominion states that proposed Phase Seven of the SUP is designed to convert approximately 383 miles of overhead tap lines to underground facilities at a capital investment of approximately $258 million. Dominion states that Phase Seven actual expenditures through July 31, 2023, are approximately $213 million, and projected expenditures for the period of August 1, 2023 through July 31, 2024, are approximately $45 million. The Company states that, in this Application, it is requesting to recover costs of Phase Seven through Rider U for only those projects that will be completed prior to the beginning of the proposed Rate Year, August 1, 2024.

For the Rate Year beginning August 1, 2024, the Company is requesting recovery of a total revenue requirement of $71.409 million for the Previously Approved Phases, and a revenue requirement of $78.137 million for proposed Phase Seven, for a combined Rider U revenue requirement of $149.546 million.

If the proposed Rider U revenue requirement for the Rate Year is approved, the impact on customer bills would depend on the customer’s rate schedule and usage. According to Dominion, implementation of its proposed Rider U on August 1, 2024, would increase the bill of a residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt hours per month by approximately $2.18 compared to the current Rider U. Dominion indicates it has calculated the proposed Rider U rates in accordance with the same methodology as used for rates approved by the Commission in the most recent Rider U proceeding, Case No. PUR-2022-00089, with the only change being that the FERC account plant balances are, for this case, based on a 2022 end of period cost of service study.

The details of these and other proposals are set forth in the Company’s Application. Interested persons are encouraged to review the Company’s Application, testimony and supporting exhibits for the details of these proposals.

7$.( 127,&( WKDW WKH &RPPLVVLRQ PD\ DGRSW UDWHV FKDUJHV DQG RU WHUPV DQG FRQGLWLRQV WKDW GL൵HU IURP WKRVH DSSHDULQJ LQ WKH &RPSDQ\¶V $SSOLFDWLRQ DQG VXSSRUWLQJ GRFXPHQWV DQG PD\ DSSRUWLRQ UHYHQXHV DPRQJ FXVWRPHU FODVVHV DQG RU GHVLJQ UDWHV LQ D PDQQHU GL൵HULQJ IURP WKDW VKRZQ LQ WKH $SSOLFDWLRQ DQG VXSSRUWLQJ GRFXPHQWV The Commission entered an Order for Notice and Hearing in this proceeding that, among other things, scheduled a public hearing on the Application. On April 17, 2024, at 10 a.m., the Hearing Examiner will hold a telephonic portion of the hearing, for the purpose of receiving the testimony of public witnesses. On or before April 11, 2024, any person desiring WR R൵HU WHVWLPRQ\ DV D SXEOLF ZLWQHVV VKDOO SURYLGH WR WKH &RPPLVVLRQ D \RXU QDPH DQG E WKH WHOHSKRQH QXPEHU WKDW \RX ZLVK WKH +HDULQJ ([DPLQHU WR FDOO GXULQJ WKH KHDULQJ WR UHFHLYH \RXU WHVWLPRQ\ 7KLV LQIRUPDWLRQ PD\ EH SURYLGHG WR WKH &RPPLVVLRQ LQ WKUHH ZD\V L E\ ¿OOLQJ RXW D IRUP RQ WKH &RPPLVVLRQ¶V ZHEVLWH DW scc.virginia.gov/pages/Webcasting; (ii) by completing and emailing the PDF version of this form to SCCInfo@scc.virginia.gov; or (iii) by calling (804) 371-9141. This public witness portion of the hearing will be webcast at scc.virginia.gov/pages/Webcasting.

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On or before April 11, 2024, any interested person may submit comments on the Application electronically by following the instructions on the Commission’s website: scc.virginia.gov/casecomments/Submit-Public-Comments 7KRVH XQDEOH DV D SUDFWLFDO PDWWHU WR VXEPLW FRPPHQWV HOHFWURQLFDOO\ PD\ ¿OH VXFK FRPPHQWV ZLWK WKH &OHUN RI WKH State Corporation Commission, c/o Document Control Center, P.O. Box 2118, Richmond, Virginia 23218-2118. All comments shall refer to Case No. PUR-2023-00172.

2Q RU EHIRUH )HEUXDU\ DQ\ SHUVRQ RU HQWLW\ ZLVKLQJ WR SDUWLFLSDWH DV D UHVSRQGHQW LQ WKLV SURFHHGLQJ PD\ GR VR E\ ¿OLQJ D QRWLFH RI SDUWLFLSDWLRQ ZLWK WKH &OHUN RI WKH Commission at: VFF YLUJLQLD JRY FON H¿OLQJ 7KRVH XQDEOH DV D SUDFWLFDO PDWWHU WR ¿OH D QRWLFH RI SDUWLFLSDWLRQ HOHFWURQLFDOO\ PD\ ¿OH VXFK QRWLFH E\ 8 6 PDLO WR WKH &OHUN RI WKH Commission at the address listed above. Notices of participation shall include the email address of the party or its counsel. The respondent shall serve a copy of the notice of participation on counsel to Dominion. Pursuant to 5 VAC 5-20-80 B, Participation as a respondent, of the Commission’s Rules of Practice, any notice of participation shall set forth: L D SUHFLVH VWDWHPHQW RI WKH LQWHUHVW RI WKH UHVSRQGHQW LL D VWDWHPHQW RI WKH VSHFL¿F DFWLRQ VRXJKW WR WKH H[WHQW WKHQ NQRZQ DQG LLL WKH IDFWXDO DQG OHJDO EDVLV IRU WKH DFWLRQ $Q\ organization, corporation, or government body participating as a respondent must be represented by counsel as required by 5 VAC 5-20-30, Counsel, of the Rules of Practice. All ¿OLQJV VKDOO UHIHU WR &DVH 1R 385 2Q RU EHIRUH 0DUFK HDFK UHVSRQGHQW PD\ ¿OH HOHFWURQLFDOO\ ZLWK WKH &OHUN RI WKH &RPPLVVLRQ DW VFF YLUJLQLD JRY FON H¿OLQJ any testimony and exhibits by which the UHVSRQGHQW H[SHFWV WR HVWDEOLVK LWV FDVH $Q\ UHVSRQGHQW XQDEOH DV D SUDFWLFDO PDWWHU WR ¿OH WHVWLPRQ\ DQG H[KLELWV HOHFWURQLFDOO\ PD\ ¿OH VXFK E\ 8 6 PDLO WR WKH &OHUN RI WKH Commission at the address listed above. Each witness’s testimony shall include a summary not to exceed one page. All testimony and exhibits shall be served on the Commission’s 6WD൵ WKH 'RPLQLRQ DQG DOO RWKHU UHVSRQGHQWV ,Q DOO ¿OLQJV UHVSRQGHQWV VKDOO FRPSO\ ZLWK WKH &RPPLVVLRQ¶V 5XOHV RI 3UDFWLFH DV PRGL¿HG E\ WKH &RPPLVVLRQ¶V 2UGHU IRU 1RWLFH and Hearing, including, but not limited to: 5 VAC 5-20-140, Filing and service, and 5 VAC 5-20-240, Prepared testimony and exhibits $OO ¿OLQJV VKDOO UHIHU WR &DVH 1R 385 2023-00172.

and get legal restrictions, fees, costs and payment terms.

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Mail to: P.O. Box 4595, Richmond, VA 23220 422 E. Franklin St., Suite 301, Richmond, VA 23219 (Franklin & 5th Sts.) We are a federally designated Debt Relief Agency under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code and we help people file for bankruptcy.

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Stories by Fred Jeter

JM maintains advantage with top talent

Coach Ty White: ‘This will be by far the toughest schedule we’ve ever played’ John Marshall High has dominated area and state basketball for years. Expect more of the same in the coming months.

The Justices are loaded, as usual, under veteran Coach Ty White.

“We’ve got a chance for a good season,” Coach White said, stating the obvious. “This can be a pretty good group.”

Coach White agrees the potential is there for a 2023 encore but says “this will be by far the toughest schedule we’ve ever played … not much wiggle room.”

Background: JM is 117-17 since 2018, with state crowns in 2018, 2020, 2022 and last year when the North Siders were 28-0 and nationally ranked No. 1 by MaxPreps. There was no 2021 season due to COVID-19.

In the latest MaxPreps poll, JM was ranked No. 4 nationally, among public and private schools combined, until a Dec. 1 loss to Charlotte powerhouse Myers Park, 64-58, at Kill Devil Hills, N.C. Now the Justices have some catching up to do.

Alumni report: From last year’s juggernaut, Dennis Parker and Jason Rivera-Torres are now freshman contributors at North Carolina State and Vanderbilt, respectively.

Former Justices Roosevelt Wheeler and Jason Nelson (from Class of ’22) are playing at VCU. Returning cast: Senior guards Damon “Redd” Thompson Jr. and Dominique Bailey are back, along with 6-foot-8 Latrell Allmond, who opened eyes as a ninth-grader. The scouting service Rivals rates Allmond as the seventh best player in the nation for his grade level and power forward position.

Thompson averaged 14.5 points, Allmond 14.2 and Bailey 9 a season. Thompson already has committed to James Madison while Bailey is headed to Chowan, N.C., a strong Division II program. Allmond is being recruited by toptier programs including North Carolina State, Florida State, Georgetown and VCU. After missing last season due to an injury, 6-foot-4 Ashaun Moore is healthy and expects a strong senior season. Moore had 17 points in the opening 84-47 win at Hopewell.

There’s height aplenty with 6-foot-8 senior Makeyon Hill and 6-foot-6 junior Desmond Rose returning.

New arrivals: As is often the case at JM, some talented fresh faces are in the mix.

Look out this season for 6-foot-9 junior Mar-

Three current John Marshall High basketball players, from left, Damon “Redd” Thompson Jr., Dominique Bailey and Latrelle Allmond; two former John Marshall players Dennis Parker Jr., who is at N.C. Sate University and Jason Rivera-Torres, who is at Vanderbilt University.

cus Jackson, who was a starter on Baltimore’s Edmonson High squad last year. The team won the Maryland state crown.

Another touted newcomer is 6-foot-1 junior Aiden Argabright, who a made All-Interstate Athletic Conference last year as a sophomore at St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes in Alexandria.

Already rolling: JM opened last week with a resounding 84-47 win at Hopewell. Thompson hit four of four 3-balls and scored 19. All 11 Justices saw action.

The whippet-quick Thompson excels in all areas and is being touted by Coach White “as our best player, the best in the state and among

the best in the country.”

Getting their “Fil”: JM burst onto the national scene last year by winning the high-profile Chick-Fil-A tournament at River Bluff High in Lexington, S.C. Thompson was MVP. This year’s event will feature six of the Top 25 teams in the ESPN rankings. JM will be matched with Lancaster High, S.C., in round one. Lancaster was 27-4 a year ago.

Traditionally, a championship team’s toughest games come at the end of the season. Not so with the Justices who feast on early season exams.

JM hasn’t lost to a local team since Feb. 4, 2017, when it fell to L.C. Bird.

NSU defeats VCU 63-60

NSU star Allen Betrand leads upset win over VCU.

Norfolk State probably felt like painting the town green and gold last Friday.

In a head-spinning upset, the visitors defeated VCU, 63-60, in front of a partisan, sold out crowd of nearly 8,000 at the Siegel Center.

“It was a great program win over an in-state rival,” said NSU Coach Robert Jones. “It was a tough environment, but our guys banded together and got it done.”

NSU was a 12.5-point betting-line underdog. On the KenPom national

rankings, VCU was No. 83 coming in; NSU No. 253.

Actually, it was the “paint” that was the difference. NSU outscored the Rams by a resounding 40-18 in points in the paint.

Allen Betrand and Jamari Thomas had 17 points each for NSU, which improved to 6-3.

It was NSU’s first win over the Rams since 1972 when the Spartans defeated VCU at the Coliseum. The overall record now is 4-2, Rams’ favor.

It also marked VCU’s first loss to

an HBCU since falling at Hampton in 2007. Before that, the last HBCU loss for VCU was in 1973 to Virginia Union, at Franklin Street Gym. The Rams fall to 4-4 despite 15 points from Zeb Jackson, 14 from Max Shulga and 11 from former John Marshall standout Jason Nelson.

VCU had momentum coming in from a win over Penn State in Orlando but couldn’t handle the green and gold. The Rams will host two more HBCU’s – Alcorn, Miss., Dec. 10 and Maryland-Eastern Shore Dec. 22.

JMU’s Bickerstaff no stranger to basketball VUU, VSU women off to races When they heard “on your mark, get set, go!” both Virginia Union and Virginia State were more than ready to burst out of the starting blocks.

Heading into this week’s women’s basketball action, the Panthers were 5-1 and the Trojans 6-0.

VUU’s lone defeat was in overtime to Emory & Henry.

The Panthers are in their third season under Coach Tierra Terry, who succeeded the highly successful AnnMarie Gilbert.

The Panthers went 135-18 from 2015 to 2020 under Gilbert, who is now head coach at Division I Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C. VUU went 10-14 Coach Terry’s first season in 2021-22 and 13-16 a year ago.

VSU is in its second season under Coach Nadine Domond. The Trojans were 12-16 last season.

VUU’s difference-making players include Coach Terry Ny Langley, a 5-foot-10 senior who transferred from Division I Duquesne of Pittsburgh, 5-foot-5 junior Neveah Reeves from Columbus, Ohio, and 5-foot-7 Taniah Johnson, a graduate student from Roanoke.

Langley, a southpaw, is averaging 16 points and six rebounds in her third season as a Panther.

There is some Spanish flavor in 6-foot Bruni Martinez, who averages eight points Ny Langley and a team-best seven rebounds. She hails from the Dominican Republic.

VSU’s star watch features 6-foot junior Amesha Miller, who transferred from Norfolk State, 5-foot-7 Cabria Lewis from New Orleans, and 5-foot-5 sophomore Mihjae Hayes from Philadelphia.

Miller hails from King’s Fork High in Suffolk, where she scored more than 1,000 points and grabbed more than 1,000 rebounds.

Ameesha Miller In her first season for VSU, she is averaging 16 points, nine rebounds with 11 blocked shots.

VUU won the 2016, 2018 and 2019 CIAA titles under Coach Gilbert, but has been fairly quiet since. VSU’s last CIAA crown was in 2015 under Coach James Hill Jr. VUU’s next game is Dec. 7 at Claflin. VSU’s next outing will be a home game Dec. 11 against Shaw.

The Panthers and Trojans will play twice this season — Jan. 20 at Barco-Stevens Hall and Feb. 24 at VSU’s Multi-Purpose Center in the regular season finale.

The CIAA tournament will be Feb. 26 to March 3 in Baltimore.

Meet the Bickerstaffs: From left, father, Tim Bickerstaff, Grandfather Bernie Bickerstaff, JM player TJ Bickerstaff.

If the name Bickerstaff sounds familiar to basketball and/or movie fans, it should.

Forward T.J. Bickerstaff is James Madison University’s 6-foot-9 graduate student who helped the Dukes to a 6-0 start this hoops season.

His grandfather, Bernie Bickerstaff, posted 419 NBA head coaching victories in stints with Seattle, Denver, Washington, Charlotte and the Los Angeles Lakers.

T.J.’s uncle, J.B. Bickerstaff, is the current head coach of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers. Bernie Bickerstaff now is senior adviser for the Cavs.

T.J.’s father, Tim Bickerstaff, played and coached football at North Carolina Central University, and later coached at Durham High School in Durham, N.C. His mother, actress Detra, has appeared in numerous movies and TV shows, including “Good Wood”, “Angels’ Wings” and “Unspoken Words.”

T.J. Bickerstaff grew up in Atlanta and played at Drexel, Pa., and Boston College before transferring this season to JMU.

Mayden brothers pitch Black-owned baseball league open to all

Think you can play baseball? Here’s your chance.

A Black-owned league called A League Of Our Own Independent Baseball League (ALOOO) is starting up in 2024, with tryouts beginning Jan. 6.

The co-founders are Chicago-based brothers Michael and Melvin Mayden.

“The reason you don’t see more Blacks in baseball is because of a lack of opportunity,” Michael Mayden told The Free Press.

“We’re trying to rekindle the flame.”

Michael Mayden has ties to Richmond.

He knew and admired the late Raymond H. Boone, The Free Press founder, editor and publisher, and has worked closely in the past with William Forrester of the Richmondbased Metro Junior Baseball League.

“We’d like to have a tryout Richmond, but it would be too cold in January … maybe April or May,” Mayden said.

Michael Mayden is a former majorleague baseball scout with five different organizations.

As of now, the closest ALOOO tryouts would be in Rocky Mount and Raleigh, N.C., with no set dates.

The ALOOO is open to everyone of all races, starting at age 17. There is no maximum age. Players will not be paid, so high school and collegiate eligibility would not be affected.

No previous experience is required.

All an applicant must do is show up and show their stuff.

The league will consist of four teams playing 50 games in 50 days, starting Labor Day weekend and ending Oct. 19.

Games will be streamed on ALOOO website, ALeagueofourown247.com. For more information, call 205-264-1468.

Former Henrico hoops star transfers to Baylor

Jada Walker

Jada Walker has taken her talents to the Lone Star State.

After two solid seasons at the University of Kentucky, the 5-foot-7 southpaw guard now suits up for Baylor University in Waco. Baylor plays in the Big 12 Conference.

After six games, Walker was averaging 8.5 points

with a high of 15 against Southern. Baylor entered this week 7-0 and ranked 13th nationally.

Walker is the daughter of former Virginia Union basketball standout Jonathan Walker and former VUU women’s coach AnnMarie Gilbert.

Jada was a high school sensation at Highland Springs and Henrico High and New Hope Academy, Md.

December 7-9, 2023 B1

Richmond Free Press

Section

Happenings

B

In 2017 Charlene Whitfield became part of a group that brings business to the Richmond area in an effort to ensure economic opportunity for workers.

Ms. Whitfield, who then was employed at Dominion Energy, was selected to represent the company at the Greater Richmond Partnership, which provides resources for new businesses in the region, creates quality jobs and increases the tax base for community services.

While Ms. Whitfield recently retired from Dominion Energy, she became chair of GRP’s board of directors last July.

Her one-year term is centered on a major goal: Promoting the region “as an outstanding community not only for new businesses but also for those companies interested in expanding current business opportunities.”

Her decades of experience with Dominion, one of the nation’s major electricity and natural gas suppliers, make her a valued voice in a group that includes business owners and political leaders.

Ms. Whitfield joined Dominion Energy in 1982 and served in various roles, including electric distribution operations and customer service. She retired as a senior vice president for the company. Before her retirement, she had serviced approximately 2.7 million customer energy solutions in Virginia and North Carolina.

Outside of her professional career, Ms. Whitfield also worked with multiple community groups, including the board of trustees for the Children’s Museum of Richmond and as an executive sponsor at Virginia Union University, her alma mater.

Ms. Whitfield has helped educate others in her field throughout her work. From creating an electric distribution design leadership program at Dominion to her work with the development/mentoring

Personality: Charlene J. Whitfield Spotlight on Greater Richmond Partnership board chair program EmpowHer and her own informal mentorships, she has helped train and prepare others for their own career growth.

At a time of great change for labor and business across the country, Ms. Whitfield sees the Greater Richmond area as a welcoming, growing place for business. She believes that the area’s “strategic mid-Atlantic location, pro-business climate,” along with its educated, diverse and growing workforce signal myriad opportunities.

That diversity in potential employees, the business opportunities it brings and the need to ensure equity is something Ms. Whitfield says are positively impacted in part by the contributions of Richmond area businesses.

“As racial equity in the region improves further, so will business opportunities as companies now seek diverse and racially equitable communities in which to locate,” Ms. Whitfield says.

With her history in local business and her current role with GRP, Ms. Whitfield is more than likely to be a critical part of how work, business and the economy in the Richmond region changes and grows for years to come.

Meet a leading voice in bringing new work to the Richmond area and this week’s Personality, Charlene J. Whitfield: .

Volunteer position: Chair, Greater Richmond Partnership Board of Directors.

Occupation: Retired senior vice president at Dominion Energy.

Place of birth: Southampton County, Va. Where I live now: Moseley.

Education: Bachelor’s in

accounting, Virginia Union University.

Family: Husband, Greg E. Sye; five children, Amanda, Gregory, Leah, Alayna, and Adam; four grandchildren with two more due in 2024.

Greater Richmond Partnership is: The lead regional economic development organization for the city of Richmond and counties of Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico.

When, why and who founded: In 1978, the city of Richmond and counties of Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico came together to form the Metropolitan Economic Development Council (MEDC), where newto-market companies could turn for economic data and analysis, workforce information, land and building availability as well as for tours and regional introductions. MEDC was rebranded as the Greater Richmond Partnership in 1994 when the localities joined together with regional business leaders.

Mission: To aggressively

generate economic opportunities that create quality jobs for residents in the region and increase the tax base for needed community services.

Greater Richmond Partnership serves: The city of Richmond and counties of Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico.

G re a t e r R i c h m o n d Partnership is funded: By our four partner localities as well as investor organizations.

What we actually do in a nutshell: We recruit companies to Greater Richmond that create jobs for residents.

No. 1 goal or project as board chair: Continue to promote the Greater Richmond region as an outstanding community not only for new businesses but also for those companies interested in expanding current business opportunities.

Strategy for achieving goals: The Greater Richmond Partnership has several strategies for achieving goals. One strategy includes hosting site location consultants, who work on almost half of all economic development projects, in Greater Richmond to show them firsthand the regional business advantages, introduce them to local leaders, and share data that demonstrates the wealth of talent and opportunity in the region.

No. 1 challenge: Reaching corporate executives and site location consultants to inform them of Greater Richmond’s business advantages.

How we roll out the red carpet in Richmond for new businesses: When a business assisted by GRP locates or expands in Greater Richmond,

we work to connect them with others in the region that can help them find success. When a new business is ready to announce their Greater Richmond location, we work with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership as well as the locality to share their announcement on our website and social media.

Racial equity and business opportunities in Richmond: Are both increasing thanks to support from major employers like Dominion Energy, Altria and others across the region.

As racial equity in the region improves further, so will business opportunities as companies now seek diverse and racially equitable communities in which to locate.

Ways to become involved: Visit grpva.com/invest to learn about involvement with the Greater Richmond Partnership How I start the day: Eat, pray, love seems clichéd, but that sums up most of my days.

I pray, have a meal, and now that I have retired, attempt to do those things that are meaningful to me.

The three words that best describe me: Loyal, respectful, committed.

If I had 10 extra minutes in the day: I would read more.

My dream dinner party guest would be: Michelle Obama who single-handedly won over a large portion of a nation of people, both men and women, who had lost hope.

Best late-night snack: Ice cream The music I listen to most is: Old school R&B. Something I love to do that most people would never imagine: I dabble in re-designing floor plans for better efficiency.

A quote that inspires me: I

often say during rough times that “this too shall pass.” I’m not sure who said it first, but it always works to help me manage difficult situations.

As I watch what is happening in our county and around the world, a quote by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. resonates with me: “The SILENCE of the good people is more DANGEROUS than the BRUTALITY of the bad people.

At the top of my “to-do” list: Clean out my closet.

The best thing my parents ever taught me: In order to be great, you must first be grateful.

The person who influenced me the most: My ninth-grade math teacher who once told me that life is hard; everything in life is earned; no one is going to give you anything.

Book that influenced me the most: “Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...And Maybe the World” by Admiral William H. McRaven.

This book defined principles that I have believed in most of my life. From the time I was able to do so, I cannot leave my house until I make my bed. It makes me feel better about the day ahead. Admiral McRaven encouraged graduates to make sure they complete at least one task each day and that can be something as simple as making your bed.

What I’m reading now: “Lessons in Chemistry” by Bonnie Garmus. There are many lessons in this book, particularly for women in non-traditional STEM careers.

One important lesson is that when one door closes, figure out how to open another one without compromising your values or giving up on your dreams.

Next goal: There are many things I would like to do next – culinary school, volunteering, consulting, particularly for young women trying to balance a family and a career, traveling, spending time with family and friends.

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Richmond Free Press

B2 December 7-9, 2023

Happenings

Photos by Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press

Free Press staff report

Maymont’s Merry Market Friday, Dec, 8, and Saturday, Dec. 9 — Ring in the holiday season with Maymont at the Maymont Carriage House Lawn, 1700 Hampton St. Enjoy twinkling lights, evergreen garlands, cozy fire pits and live music. Grab some food and beverages to fuel your shopping in a curated local artisan market. Upcoming dates are Friday, Dec. 8, 5 p.m.-8 p.m. and Saturday, Dec. 9, 12 p.m.-8 p.m. Details: (804) 525-9000 or visit www.maymont.org/ calendar/merry-market-2023.

Richmond Ballet’s The Nutcracker Friday, Dec. 8, through Saturday, Dec. 24 — Celebrate the holidays with the Richmond Ballet’s performances of The Nutcracker at the Dominion Energy Center, 600 E. Grace St. Performances will feature choreography by Stoner Winslett and music by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky with the Richmond Symphony.

Tickets start at $25 and can be purchased online or at the box office. Details: (804) 3440906 ext. 224, or visit www. richmondballet.com/event/thenutcracker/2023-12-08.

Soul Santa at the Black History Museum Sunday, Dec. 10, and Dec. 16 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. — Soul Santa is back for another year at the Black History Museum of Virginia to take photos.

Breakfast with Soul Santa Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia, 122 W. Leigh St. Saturday, Dec. 9, and Dec. 12, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Enjoy a buffet breakfast with Soul Santa along with holiday fun and activities in Soul Santa’s workshop! Each child will receive a special gift from Soul Santa himself.

Ticketed event; 5 years old & younger, FREE. Find more information here: https://eventsonleigh. com/events/ To register, visit www.blackhistorymuseum.org/event/soulsanta-2023. Don’t forget your wish list!

Winter Wander: Court End at the Valentine Museum Sunday, Dec. 10, from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. — Visit the Valentine Museum, 1015 E. Clay St., for a free day of live

Gee whiz, it’s Christmas!

— Happy holidays here and there — music, refreshments, games and family crafts. Performances will include Richmond Ballet’s Minds in Motion Ambassadors, Virginia Opera’s Musical Storytime and Klezm’Or’Ami’m.

Guests can also enjoy tours of the historic Court End neighborhood and use shuttles to visit nearby cultural sites for open houses and other activities.

Details: www.thevalentine.org/ event/winter-wander-2023.

Quirk Hotel Holiday Market Sunday, Dec. 10, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. — The Quirk Hotel, 201 W. Broad St., will present its free annual holiday market event including music, talent and libations. Shop from over 30 vendors around the hotel. Details: www.quirkhotels.com/hotels/richmond/ happenings.

Winter Enchanted Garden at the Poe Museum Saturday, Dec. 16, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. — The Poe Museum, 1914 E. Main St., will take a festive turn to celebrate the holidays. Enjoy family fun with free arts and crafts including ornament and bookmark decorating, and quill writing. Local authors Adele Gardner and Phil Hilliker will lead storytimes. Hot chocolate and snacks will be provided. The event is free for families with children ages 1 to 17. Details: www.htru.io/SGm5, or paul@ poemuseum.org.

Virginia House Holiday Open House Sunday, Dec. 17, from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. — The Virginia House, 4301 Sulgrave Road, will have a free open house

for guests to enjoy festive holiday decorations. Tickets are not required. Details: (804) 340-1800.

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Shop Holiday Bazaar Thursday, Dec. 21, from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. — Visit the VMFA Shop, 200 N Arthur Ashe Blvd, for its first Holiday Bazaar. Find festive gifts for the family that celebrate art and culture. Five local artists will showcase their handmade items, including jewelry, home décor and accessories. Admission is free. No tickets or registration are required. Details: www. vmfashop.com/trunk-shows.

Elegba Folklore Society’s Capital City Kwanzaa Festival Saturday, Dec. 30, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. — Celebrate the holidays with Elegba Folklore Society for its annual Capital City Kwanzaa Festival at the Greater Richmond Convention Center, 403 N. 3rd St. The festival will include workshops, performances, an African market and a cultural ceremony.

There will also be activities for children. Tickets start at $5. Details: www.efsinc.org/events/ festivals/kwanzaa-festival.

Made in RVA Holiday Shop at Art Works Tu e s d a y s - S u n d a y s through Dec. 30 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. — Visit Made in RVA’s Holiday Shop at the Art Works, 320 Hull St., for local handmade holiday gifts, including jewelry, candles, ceramics and paintings. The shop will be closed Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Details: www. artworksrva.com/blog/events/

made-in-rva-holiday-shop.

Joy at the Jefferson Through Jan. 7 — The Jefferson Hotel, 101 W. Franklin St., will be decorated for the holidays with live poinsettias, garlands, wreaths and twinkle lights. Signature displays and more than 20 decorated trees will be placed throughout the hotel. The decorations and displays are free to view with no reservation required. Details: (804) 649-4750 or visit www. jeffersonhotel.com/ holidays.

Dominion Energy GardenFest of Lights Nightly through Sunday, Jan. 7 — A favorite tradition of Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens, 1800 Lakeside Ave., featuring lights, botanical decorations, model trains, warming fire, hot chocolate and s’mores, and more! Select nights through Jan. 2 will have live music performances. Santa Brunches will be on Saturdays and Sundays in December with seatings at 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. GardenFest Dinners with Santa will be Dec. 17, 18 and 19 with seating at 5 p.m.

Advance tickets are required and are available online only.

Christmas in Early America Tours Through Dec. 17 — Enhance your winter holiday with a visit to the historic John Marshall House at 818 E. Marshall St. Set off on a 45-minute guided tour and see the Chief Justice’s 1790 home bedecked in period garnish and ornament. Themed youth scavenger hunts and coloring sheets will be available to take on tour, and special

INDIGENOUS Perspectives

A new, free multimedia exhibition featuring reflections from Virginia’s tribes highlights the commonwealth’s Indigenous history and how the tribes remain a vital part of Virginia’s culture today.

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Thousands of spectators line the Dominion Energy Christmas Parade route along Broad Street between Terminal and 7th streets on Dec. 2 to enjoy the annual holiday event’s magic. Parade highlights included bedazzled floats, music from various marching bands, several dance troupes and more. Top left, The Grinch Grand Marshal Float sponsored by Chicken Fiesta; top middle, Do Baton! Dance and Twirl Team; top right, Petersburg High School crimson wave marching band; bottom left, I Am Beauty Camp(ers); bottom middle, Kings Dominion performers; bottom right, children enjoy a front row seat at the parade.

holiday gifts can be found in the Museum Shop. Ticketed event. Details: https://bitly. ws/34AaX Candlelight: Holiday Special Featuring The Nutcracker + More!

Wednesdays, Dec.13, 20 and Thursday, Dec.21, times vary Candlelight concerts bring the magic of a live, multi-sensory musical experience to the awe-inspiring Bolling Haxall House, 211 E. Franklin St. Get your tickets now to discover holiday inspired music under the gentle glow of candlelight!

Ticketed event. Details: https:// bitly.ws/34Ac8

THIS EXHIBITION IS GENEROUSLY PRESENTED BY

First Annual Santa Visit to Tredegar Sunday, Dec.17, 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. - A new holiday tradition starts at Tredegar with a visit from Santa.

Visit the American Civil War Museum, 4807 Tredegar St., for a day of jolly festivities.

Start by meeting with Santa in Tredegar’s lobby, then venture inside for kids’ crafts, all-day showings of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and hot cocoa. Free event. Details: https://acwm.org/blog/series/ tredegar-holiday-series/ Visit Venture Richmond for more holiday happenings! h t t p s : / / v e n t u re r i c h m o n d . com/news/holiday-partiesexperiences/

plan your visit Open through Aug. 17, 2024

WITH ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FROM WWW.LVA.VIRGINIA.GOV

12/5/23 11:05 AM

Richmond Free Press

December 7-9, 2023 B3

Obituary/Faith News/Directory

Longtime Henrico County educator Marilyn Hinson Royal dies Free Press staff report

Marilyn (Elise) Hinson Royal, a trailblazing force at the intersection of teaching, learning, and leadership, died on Friday, Nov. 24, 2023, leaving behind a legacy as vast as the universe she inspired her students to explore.

A native Richmonder, Mrs. Royal, as described in her online obituary, “was an eloquent symphony of love, compassion, beauty, grace, and selfless service.” She was born Marilyn Elise Murray on Oct. 28, 1959, to the late William (Bill) and Geneva Murray.

Matriculating through Richmond Public Schools, Mrs. Royal graduated from Armstrong High School in 1977 and enrolled at Morgan State University. There she met Donald Keith Hinson, whom she would later married in 1982.

Having education in her blood community. from a lineage of devoted and For more than 42 years, Mrs. well-known educators, Mrs. Royal Royal served the students, families graduated from Morgan State in and community of Henrico as a 1981 with a bachelor’s in science teacher, assistant principal, principal and began teaching science at John and director. Of all the titles she had, Rolfe Middle School in Henrico “School Principal” was her favorite.

County. In 1991, she earned a masShe served with distinction as the ter’s in education in administration principal of Wilder Middle School and supervision from Virginia Comfrom 1999 to 2004 before becoming monwealth University. director of middle school instruction Mrs. Royal In 1993, Mrs. Royal’s dedicaat Tuckahoe Middle School from tion and impact on education were officially 2010 to 2014. After her retirement in 2014, recognized when she was honored with the Mrs. Royal served and supported numerous Henrico County Outstanding Teacher of the secondary schools as an administrator.

Year Award. This accolade not only underscored Beyond her passion for education, Mrs. her commitment to excellence in teaching, but Royal found solace and joy in the simple also highlighted her ability to inspire and uplift pleasures of life. A lover of nature, she cherthose within her classroom and the educational ished moments spent by the water, casting

her line “in pursuit of the next great catch,” states her obituary.

Mrs. Royal was an active member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Upsilon Omega Chapter, the Richmond Chapter of the Epicureans (Eppies), and a devoted member of Garland Avenue Baptist Church.

Mrs. Royal was preceded in death by her first husband, Donald Keith Hinson. She is survived by her son, Donald-William Murray Hinson (Melissa); sister, Carolyn Montgomery (Paul); and aunt, Lucille M. Brown.

A viewing for Mrs. Royal will be held at Scott’s Funeral Home, 115 E. Brookland Park Blvd. Friday, Dec. 8, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., followed by the family receiving friends from 6 to 7 p.m. in Scott’s Chapel. Funeral services will be 11 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 9, at Garland Avenue Baptist Church, 2700 Garland Ave.

Send-offs show Carlton Pearson’s split legacy spurred by his inclusive beliefs, rejection of hell Religion News Service

By Darren Sands

Before his peers would label him a heretic, the late Bishop Carlton D. Pearson was once one of the best known preachers in the nation.

His skilled biblical oration, steeped in the Black Pentecostal tradition and melded with white evangelicalism, helped swell the membership of the storefront church he started in 1981 in Jenks, Okla., to a fullservice, multiracial congregation of more than 5,000.

But things changed dramatically in the 2000s. Bishop Pearson underwent a cataclysmic theological shift that altered the course of his life – and his legacy among the canon of American Christian leaders. Bishop Pearson, 70, died Sunday, Nov. 19, 2023, after a brief battle with cancer.

His splintered influence was underscored this week as different factions paid tribute to Bishop Pearson at various memorial services that have raised questions — and objections — about how best to remember him.

During the apex of his career as leader of Higher Dimensions Evangelistic Center, Bishop Bishop Pearson said he heard a message from God that led him to reject hell’s existence and declare that salvation was for everyone, not just Christians.

This “Gospel of Inclusion” doctrine gained him new followers but led thousands to desert him. He was excommunicated and Higher Dimensions was ultimately shuttered.

On Friday, a faction that parted ways with the posthell-believing Bishop Pearson gave him a memorial send-off in Tulsa, Okla. Transformation

The Associated Press

Bishop Carlton Pearson speaks at a news conference accompanied by other clergy members, April 4, 2013, in Chicago. Once one of the best known preachers in the nation, Bishop Pearson underwent a cataclysmic theological shift that altered the course of his life.

Church, a pre-shift spiritual progeny of Higher Dimensions, held a service where Pastor Mike Todd remembered Bishop Pearson as one of their own.

“This is about legacy today.

If you have been blessed by the legacy of Carlton Pearson, will you give God a shout of praise in this place? His spirit is in the room right now!” Pastor Todd said in his greeting, noting that Bishop Pearson left them unique instructions not to eulogize him.

“Today we are going to do our best to honor bishop in a way that would make him smile from heaven.”

But for many who supported Bishop Pearson and his inclu-

sive Gospel, they believed there was a better way to honor his memory and ministry.

In his heyday, Bishop Pearson envisioned a modern return to the religious fervor and outpouring of the spirit from the Azusa Street Revival of 1901.

The annual Azusa Conference, held at the Mabee Center on the campus of his alma mater, Oral Roberts University, offered platform for marquee names widely known today, such as T.D. Jakes, Yolanda Adams, and Donnie McClurkin.

That vision was lauded as the height of his legacy, but supporters such as Larry Reid, one of Bishop Pearson’s friends in the New Thought religious

movement, say that it’s an incomplete picture of the man who lived 20 years in spiritual exile from the same community he raised up.

“He’ll go down in history, not just for Azusa, but for changing the way that the church shows up in our culture. (We were) judgmental, critical, harsh unkind, rude.

As far as the Black church in America, he’s going to go down as (our) Martin Luther,” Mr. Reid said. “He’ll go down in history as reforming the way the church sits with itself and shows up as the love of God on the Earth.”

Mr. Reid told The Associated Press that he was patched into an organizational call about the various memorials being planned and learned Transformation’s service would not include any of the ideology Bishop Pearson espoused later in his career. Ultimately one like-minded friend, Pastor D.E. Paulk of Spirit and Strength Sanctuary in Atlanta, read a passage from Scripture on Friday.

His closest friends and confidents, including Mr. Reid and a United Church of Christ minister, Bishop Yvette Flunder, say an inclusive memorial service more fitting of Bishop Pearson’s theological evolution will be held Dec. 18 in Atlanta.

His friends believe his death is a moment for the Black Church in particular to embrace a more inclusive God and break from the shackles of what Bishop Pearson termed plantation theology with its penchant for using fear as a motivator.

“I believe that is encouraging us to move beyond having denominations and organizations that feel like they have hold on the true and living God and

Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church

1408 W. Leigh Street · Richmond, Va. 23220 (804) 358—6403

everybody else does not,” said Bishop Flunder. “That is the sin of religion, and it has been that way for a long time.”

Bishop Pearson, a central figure of the charismatic Pentecostal movement that swept the country in the 1970s and 1980s, appeared in another video shown Friday during Transformation’s service after Pastor Todd delivered his opening remarks dressed in a gray suit and fuchsia shirt.

“What ya’ll doing here? Who told you to come to Tulsa and why? Notice I’m in a bed. Jesus said to the disciples, ‘Our friend Lazarus is sleep, let’s go wake him up,’” said Bishop Pearson, flashing his trademark humor before expressing his love to everyone, including to Pastor Todd for hosting the service, and explaining that in death there is life.

Dr. Alonza L. Lawrence, Pastor

“Your Home In God’s Kingdom”

Spread theWord To advertise your church: • Worship Service • Gospel Concert Call (804) • Bible School 644-0496 • Homecoming • Revival

Richmond Free Press The People's Newspaper

Riverview Baptist Church Sundays Sunday School - 9:30 A.M. Worship Service - 11 A.M. Via Conference Call (202) 926-1127 Pin 572890# In Person Sunday Service also on FACEBOOK and YouTube 2604 Idlewood Avenue, Richmond, Va. 23220 (804) 353-6135 • www.riverviewbaptistch.org Rev. Dr. John E. Johnson, Jr., Interim Minister 1858

The People’s Church 216 W. Leigh St., Richmond, Va. 23220 Tel: 804-643-3366 Fax: 804-643-3367 (PDLO ṘFH#HEHQH]HUUYD RUJ ZHE HEHQH]HUUYD RUJ

Sunday Church School • 9am (Zoom)

Sunday Morning Worship • 11am (in-person and livestream on YouTube)

Wednesday Bible Study • 7pm (Zoom)

WE SAVED A SEAT FOR YOU!

Join Us for Worship on Sundays at 11:00 AM!

Dr. Wallace J. Cook, Pastor Emeritus

Broad Rock Baptist Church 5106 Walmsley Blvd., Richmond, VA 23224 804-276-2740 • 804-276-6535 (fax) www.BRBCONLINE.org

The Mount Carmel Baptist Church 3200 East Broad Street | Richmond, Virginia 23223 www.tmcbc.org | (804) 226-1172

“BACK IN SERVICE” Our doors are open again every Sunday @ 11:00 am.

“The Church A Welcome” LiveWith Streaming Every Sunday At:

“Please come and join us”

Scan the QR Code with your smartphone or tablet for more information!

Good Shepherd Baptist Church

1127 North 28th Street, Richmond, VA 23223-6624 • Office: (804) 644-1402

The Rev. Sylvester T. Smith, Ph.D., Pastor “There’s A Place for You” Join us at 11:00 a.m. each Sunday for in-person worship service or Live-stream on YouTube (Good Shepherd Baptist Church RVA).

8LIQI 1SFMPM^MRK *SV 1MRMWXV] 6IJVIWLMRK 8LI 3PH ERH )QIVKMRK 8LI 2I[ We Embrace Diversity — Love For All! Come worship with us!

Back Inside Sundays Join us for 10:00 AM Worship Service Live on Facebook @ 4ixth #aptist $IVSDI 37" Live on Youtube @4#$ 37" Or by visiting our website www.sixthbaptistchurch.org

Rev. Dr. Yvonne Jones Bibbs, Pastor Rev. Dr. Yvonne Jones Bibbs, Pastor

400 South Addison Street Richmond, Va. 23220

(near Byrd Park)

(804) 359-1691 or 359-3498 Facebook Fax (804) 359-3798 `VeaUON]aV`aPUb_PU_cN www.sixthbaptistchurch.org

Every Sunday @ 11:00 am.

Live Streaming Every Sunday At: BRBConline.org or YouTube(Broad Rock Baptist Church)

Bible Study online and in person Wednesday 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

500 E. Laburnum Avenue, Richmond, VA 23222 www.sharonbaptistchurchrichmond.org (804) 643-3825 Rev. Dr. Paul A. Coles, Pastor

Sundays Morning Worship 10:00 A.M.

7M\XL &ETXMWX 'LYVGL A 21st Century Church With Ministry For Everyone

BRBConline.org or YouTube (Broad Rock Baptist Church) Sharon Baptist “MAKEChurch IT HAPPEN”

“MAKE IT HAPPEN” Pastor Kevin Cook

Back Inside

St. Peter Baptist Church

Dr. Kirkland R. Walton, Pastor

Worship Opportunities Sunday Worship Opportunities: 10 A.M. [In-person and Livestream] Sunday Church School Opportunities: Adults [In-person] at 8:30 A.M. Children [Virtual] online via our website.

Bible Study Opportunities: Noon [In-person] 7 P.M. [Virtual]; Please contact the church office for directives.

2040 Mountain Road • Glen Allen, Virginia 23060 Office 804-262-0230 • Fax 804-262-4651 • www.stpeterbaptist.net

Please visit our website Ebenezer Baptist Church Richmond, VA for updates http://www. ebenezerrva.org

Thirty-first Street Baptist Church C

bin om

i

e with Reverence elevanc R ng

Rev. Dr. Joshua Mitchell, Senior Pastor ❖

The doors of the church are open for worship!

No registration required.

Join us in person or online on Facebook or YouTube

10:30 a.m. Sundays

823 North 31st Street Richmond, VA 23223 (804) 226-0150 Office

Richmond Free Press

B4 December 7-9, 2023

Legal Notices/Employment Opportunities Divorce VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE COUNTY OF HANOVER ARLINGTON SCOTT III, Plaintiff v.

ELLEN SCOTT, Defendant.

Case No.: CL23003916-00 ORDER OF PUBLICATION The object of this suit is to obtain a divorce from the bond of matrimony from the defendant on the ground of living separate and apart without any cohabitation and without interruption for a period exceeding twelve months.

It is ORDERED that the defendant, whose whereabouts are unknown, appear here on or before the 24th day of January, 2024 at 9:00 AM, and protect her interests.

A Copy, Teste: FRANK D. HARGROVE, JR., Clerk I ask for this: Law Office of Dorothy M. Eure, P.C. Dorothy M. Eure, Plaintiff’s Attorney VSB# 27724 8460 Mount Eagle Road Ashland, VA 23005 (804 798-9667 VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE COUNTY OF HANOVER MAURICE WORTHY, Plaintiff v.

CLEOPATRA WORTHY, Defendant.

Case No.: CL23003909-00 ORDER OF PUBLICATION The object of this suit is to obtain a divorce from the bond of matrimony from the defendant on the ground of living separate and apart without any cohabitation and without interruption for a period exceeding twelve months.

It is ORDERED that the defendant, whose whereabouts are unknown, appear here on or before the 23rd day of January, 2024 at 9:00 AM, and protect her interests.

A Copy, Teste: FRANK D. HARGROVE, JR., Clerk I ask for this: Law Office of Dorothy M. Eure, P.C. Dorothy M. Eure, Plaintiff’s Attorney VSB# 27724 8460 Mount Eagle Road Ashland, VA 23005 (804 798-9667 VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE COUNTY OF HANOVER OLIVIA PALLETT, Plaintiff v.

ROBERT LINKONIS, JR., Defendant.

Case No.: CL23003835-00 ORDER OF PUBLICATION The object of this suit is to obtain a divorce from the bond of matrimony from the defendant on the ground of living separate and apart without any cohabitation and without interruption for a period exceeding twelve months.

It is ORDERED that the defendant, whose whereabouts are unknown, appear here on or before the 16th day of January, 2024 at 9:00 AM, and protect his interests.

A Copy, Teste: FRANK D. HARGROVE, JR., Clerk I ask for this: Law Office of Dorothy M. Eure, P.C. Dorothy M. Eure, Plaintiff’s Attorney VSB# 27724 8460 Mount Eagle Road Ashland, VA 23005 (804 798-9667 VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE COUNTY OF HANOVER JASMINE JOHNSON, Plaintiff v.

ROHAN JOHNSON, Defendant.

Case No.: CL23003836-00 ORDER OF PUBLICATION The object of this suit is to obtain a divorce from the bond of matrimony from the defendant on the ground of living separate and apart without any cohabitation and without interruption for a period exceeding twelve months.

It is ORDERED that the defendant, whose whereabouts are unknown, appear here on or before the 16th day of January, 2024 at 9:00 AM, and protect his interests.

A Copy, Teste: FRANK D. HARGROVE, JR., Clerk I ask for this: Law Office of Dorothy M. Eure, P.C. Dorothy M. Eure, Plaintiff’s Attorney VSB# 27724 8460 Mount Eagle Road Ashland, VA 23005 (804 798-9667 VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE COUNTY OF HANOVER MIA HORNE, Plaintiff v.

LEVELL HORNE, Defendant.

Case No.: CL23003778-00 ORDER OF PUBLICATION The object of this suit is to obtain a divorce from the bond of matrimony from the defendant on the ground of living separate and apart without any cohabitation and without interruption for Continued on next column

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a period exceeding twelve months.

It is ORDERED that the defendant, whose whereabouts are unknown, appear here on or before the 10th day of January, 2024 at 9:00 AM, and protect his interests.

A Copy, Teste: FRANK D. HARGROVE, JR., Clerk I ask for this: Law Office of Dorothy M. Eure, P.C. Dorothy M. Eure, Plaintiff’s Attorney VSB# 27724 8460 Mount Eagle Road Ashland, VA 23005 (804 798-9667

Suite 200 Washington, D.C. 20024 Defendant.

Parties Unknown: Any individual claiming an interest in the real property at 1426 N. 30th St Richmond, VA 23223 and/ or claiming to be Michael I. Massenburg Defendant.

Case No.: CL23005059-00 ORDER OF PUBLICATION Whereas, the object of the above-styled suit is to quiet title to that certain real property lying and being in the City of Richmond, Virginia, commonly known as commonly known as 1426 North 30th Street, and being further identified as Tax Parcel Number E0000717001 (the “Property”). That there are parties set out in the pleading as a person or persons, as defendants by the general description of “parties unknown;” are deemed interested in the subject to be divided or disposed of; described as: Any individual claiming an interest in the real property at 1426 N. 30th St Richmond, VA 23223 and/or claiming to be Michael I. Massenburg.

It is therefore ORDERED that Any individual claiming an interest in the real property at 1426 N. 30th St Richmond, VA 23223 and/or claiming to be Michael I. Massenburg, appear on or before the 8th day of January, 2024, in the Clerk’s Office of this Court and do what is necessary to protect its interests.

Keith Harvey, Esquire (VSB# 82199) Harvey & Driggs PLC 9464 Chamberlayne Road, Suite 200 Mechanicsville, Virginia 23116 Phone: (804) 396-3580 Facsimile: (804) 200-5646 Email: kharvey@harveydriggs.com Counsel for Plaintiff

LLC, a defunct limited liability company, Assignee of Washington Mutual Bank (Providian) PARTIES UNKNOWN: ANY AND ALL PERSONS OR ENTITIES CLAIMING AN INTEREST IN THAT CERTAIN JUDGMENT DOCKETED AS INSTRUMENT NO. 17010153 IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, Defendants.

Case No.: CL 23004114-00 ORDER OF PUBLICATION Whereas, the object of the above-styled suit is to quiet title to action to quiet title as it pertains to that certain Abstract of Judgment (the “Judgment”) docketed as Instrument No. 17-010153 in the Clerk’s Office of the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond, Virginia, which Judgment is attached to that certain real property lying and being in the City of Richmond, Virginia, commonly known as 1803 ½ North 28th Street, and being identified as Tax Parcel Number E012-0427-011 (the “Property”).

That Defendant Arrow Financial Services, LLC cannot be found, and that diligence has been used without effect to ascertain the location of the party to be served.

It is therefore ORDERED that the said Arrow Financial Services, LLC and/or any parties claiming an interest in Judgment docketed as Instrument No. 17-010153 , appear on or before the 18th day of December, 2023, in the Clerk’s Office of this Court and do what is necessary to protect its interests.

Entered: 11/3/2023 Keith Harvey, Esquire (VSB# 82199) Harvey & Driggs PLC 9464 Chamberlayne Road – Suite 200 Mechanicsville, Virginia 23116 Phone: (804) 977-3179 Email: kharvey@ harveydriggs.com Counsel for Plaintiffs

of Roosevelt Greene, Jr., who sold certain real estate known as 215 W. 31st Street within one year of the death of Roosevelt Greene, Jr. to make the proceeds of such sale available to the creditors of his estate, all in accordance with the provisions of Section 64.2-534 of the Code of Virginia.

It appearing by affidavit filed according to law that diligence has been used without effect to ascertain the location of Devon Greene, of the heirs-at-law of Roosevelt Greene, Jr., for purposes of directing service of process in this action, it is ORDERED that the said Devon Greene, whose whereabouts are unknown, appear on or before December 15, 2023 at 9:00 a.m. in the Clerk’s Office of this Court and do what is necessary to protect his interest.

An Extract, Teste: Edward F. Jewett, Clerk

p.m., and Trial of all contested claims shall be held before the Henrico County Circuit Court 4309 E. Parham Road, Henrico, Virginia 23228.

Only those who have timely filed a claim will receive any further notice of these proceedings. Any claim not proven by a preponderence of the evidence at that time shall be forever barred from recovery against the funds in the hands of the receiver.

A Copy Teste: HEIDI S. BARSHINGER, Clerk I ASK FOR THIS: Michael P. Tittermary, Esquire (VSB# 79142) Tittermary Law, PLC 9097 Atlee Station Road, Suite 116 Mechanicsville, Virginia 23116 (804) 508-7300 (804) 508-7301 facsimile Receiver SEEN AND AGREED: Tenley Seli, Esquire (VSB# 39763) Assistant Bar Counsel Virginia State Bar 1111 East Main Street, Suite 700 Richmond, Virginia 23219 (804) 775-0546

VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE COUNTY OF HANOVER ROBERT PRINCE, Plaintiff v.

TOMESIA TUCKER, Defendant.

Case No.: CL23003395-00 ORDER OF PUBLICATION The object of this suit is to obtain a divorce from the bond of matrimony from the defendant on the ground of living separate and apart without any cohabitation and without interruption for a period exceeding twelve months.

It is ORDERED that the defendant, whose whereabouts are unknown, appear here on or before the 3rd day of January, 2024 at 9:00 AM, and protect her interests.

A Copy, Teste: FRANK D. HARGROVE, JR., Clerk I ask for this: Law Office of Dorothy M. Eure, P.C. Dorothy M. Eure, Plaintiff’s Attorney VSB# 27724 8460 Mount Eagle Road Ashland, VA 23005 (804 798-9667

Custody NOTICE OF SERVICE OF PROCESS BY PUBLICATION STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA COUNTY OF MECKLENBURG IN THE GENERAL COURT OF JUSTICE DISTRICT COURT DIVISION Bettye Wade (Plaintiff) vs.

Christopher Hilliard (Defendant) 23-CVD-3743 To: Christopher Hilliard, TAKE NOTICE that a pleading seeking relief against you has been filed in the above-entitled action. The nature of the relief being sought is as follows: Complaint for Child Custody.

You are required to make defense to such pleading no later than January 4, 2024, and, upon your failure to do so, the party seeking service against you will apply to the Court for the relief sought.

This the 14th day of November 2023.

Jackson Williford N.C. State Bar No. 51796 Attorney for Plaintiff Williford Law 15720 Brixham Hill Avenue, Suite 300 Charlotte, NC 28277 Tel. 704-656-0016 Fax 704-626-6197 Jackson@jawillifordlaw.com

PROPERTy VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE COUNTY OF HANOVER BARBARA MINES and MICHELLE HERNANDEZ Plaintiffs v.

UNKNOWN HEIRS, DEVISEES, AND SUCCESSORS IN INTEREST OF HILL CARTER GRIMES, et al. and ANY INTERESTED PARTIES Defendants Case no.: CL2300-3569 ORDER OF PUBLICATION The object of this suit is to find that Barbara Mines is the rightful owner of the Real Estate, having acquired ownership by adverse possession such that Michelle Hernandez may purchase the Real Estate subject to the purchase and sale agreement attached as Exhibit A to the petition, and grant such other relief as may be proper.

It is ordered that the fact of such petition be advertised, and notice is now given that on January 12, 2024 at 9:00 a.m. in the Hanover County Circuit Court located at 7530 County Complex Road, Hanover, VA 23069 the Court will hear evidence on this matter from any interested individual.

A Copy Teste: FRANK D. HARGROVE, JR., Clerk I ask for this: Hugh T. Antrim, Esq. VSB#14721 Adam R. Nelson, Esq. VSB#39137 Sean Breit-Rupe, Esq. VSB#92125 ThompsonMcMullan, P.C. 100 Shockoe Slip Richmond, Virginia 23219 (804) 649-7545 (804) 649-0654 Counsel for Plaintiffs VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE CITY OF RICHMOND Herman Massenburg, Plaintiff, v.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 1250 Maryland Ave, SW Continued on next column

Trustees’ Sale of 1713 East Main Street, Richmond, VA In execution of that certain deed of trust dated September 9, 2021 securing payment in the original principal amount of $900,000.00 recorded in the Clerk’s Office of the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond, VA as Instrument Number 210026304 (the “Deed of Trust”). Default having occurred in payment of the indebtedness secured by the Deed of Trust, the undersigned Substitute Trustee, at the direction of the secured party will offer for sale at public auction at the main entrance to the building housing the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond, VA at 400 N. 9th Street, Richmond, VA on DECEMBER 14, 2023 at 12:00 NOON. the property described in the referenced Deed of Trust located at the above addresses and more particularly described as follows: ALL that certain lot, piece or parcel of land, belonging, lying and being in the City of Richmond, Virginia, known as 1713 East Main Street, all as shown on a plat of survey by American Engineers, dated April 9, 1980, entitled “Survey and Map Showing Improvements Thereon of Nos. 1711 and 1713 East Main Street in Richmond, Virginia”, to which plat reference is hereby made for a more particular description of the property.

BEING the same real estate conveyed by deed dated September 7, 2021, recorded September 13, 2021, in the Clerk’s Office, Circuit Court, City of Richmond, Virginia.

TERMS OF SALE: CASH. A bidder’s deposit of $75,000.00 or 10% of the sale price, whichever is lower, in the form of cash or certified funds (payable to the Substitute Trustee) must be presented at the time of sale. The balance of the purchase price is due within fifteen (15) days of the date of sale, otherwise Purchaser’s deposit may be forfeited to the Substitute Trustee(s) to be disbursed in accordance with VA law. The Property and appurtenances thereto will be sold “as is” without warranty of any kind and subject to any and all judgments, liens, covenants, conditions, restrictions, easements, deeds of trust or other matters of record or not of record which may take priority over the referenced Deed of Trust. Time is of the essence. The sale is subject to post-sale confirmation by the secured party or the Substitute Trustee of the terms and acceptability of the sale. If the sale is set aside for any reason, the Purchaser’s sole remedy will be the return of the deposit paid without interest and the Purchaser will have no further recourse against the Substitute Trustee, the secured party or the Trustee’s attorney. Additional Terms of Sale will be announced at the time of sale and will be set forth in the Trustee’s Memorandum of Foreclosure Sale to be executed by the successful bidder at the time of the sale. This is a communication from a debt collector and any information obtained will be used for that purpose. Substitute Trustee; RVA Recovery, LLC,.

Contact Stephen B. Wood at The Wood Law Firm, 6720 Patterson Ave., Suite D., Counsel for Trustee.

TEL: (804) 873-0088.

VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE CITY OF RICHMOND ATD Green Contractors LLC & Joan Pride, Plaintiffs, v.

Arrow Financial Services, Continued on next column

Notice

VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF RICHMOND THOMPSONMcMULLAN, P.C., Administrator of the Estate of Roosevelt Greene, Jr. Plaintiff, v.

ANTHONY GREENE, MARVIN GREENE, DURWIN GREENE, LATICE GREENE, BARRY GREENE, and DEVIN GREENE Defendants.

Case no.: CL23-856-JSM ORDER OF PUBLICATION The object of this suit is to compel the heirs-at-Iaw

VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE COUNTY OF HENRICO VIRGINIA STATE BAR, Petitioner, V. RAUL NOVO, Respondent.

Case No.: CL22003312-00 ORDER OF PUBLICATION ONE OBJECT OF THIS CAUSE is to identify all client claims existing against the law practice of Raul Novo, and the identity of clients or creditors having an interest in and to funds held in the trust accounts of Raul Novo‘s law practice, now within the Receiver’s account. There may be clients or creditors who have such claims and interest whose identities are unknown; and UPON MOTION of the Receiver appointed in this cause pursuant to Section 54.13900.01, Code of Virginia, for this Order of Publication and the Court having deemed the same appropriate, it is ADJUDGED, ORDERED AND DECREED that any and all persons and entities who have a claim against the law practice of Raul Novo and/or interest in and to the funds held within the trust account of Raul Novo, deliver written notice of the same to Michael P. Tittermary, Receiver, 9097 Atlee Station Road, Suite 116, Mechanicsville, Virginia 23116, by 5:00 p.m. on January 19, 2024 and complete under oath the claim affidavit form obtainable from the Receiver, whose telephone number is (804) 508-7300, and return said completed claim affidavit to the Receiver not later than January 19, 2024 at 5:00

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Transplant Nephrology Physician, Richmond, VA. Management of kidney & pancreas transplant patients in inpatient/ outpatient settings. Participate in transplant donor & recipient selection meetings, high risk patient meetings & other educational meetings. Mail resume to J. Fleming, VCU Health System Authority, 830 E. Main St., Suite 200, Richmond, VA 23219.

Thank you for your interest in applying for opportunities with The City of Richmond.

To see what opportunities are available, please refer to our website at www.richmondgov.com.

EOE M/F/D/V

American Infosys, Inc. Richmond, VA, seeks Software Engineer to Analyze Requirements, research, design, test & Implement software applications using Oracle & Unix.

Resumes to resumes@usainfosys.com

ABC LICENSE Brooke Kleyman and Ilya Kleyman Trading as: Morgin Imports, LLC 10463 Wilden Drive Ashland, VA 23005 The above establishment is applying to the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage C ontrol (ABC) AUTHORITY for a Wholesale license to sell or manufacture alcoholic beverages.

NOTE: Objections to the issuance of this license must be submitted to ABC no later than 30 days from the publishing date of the first of two required newspaper legal notices. Objections should be registered at www.abc.virginia. gov or (800) 552-3200.

To advertise in the

Richmond Free Press call 644-0496

The City of Richmond announces the following project(s) available for services relating to: IFB No. 240005383: ARPA Chapel Hill Drainage Improvement Project Pre-Proposal Conference Call Meeting: December 13, 2024 at 11:00 A.M. For all information pertaining to this IFB Prebid conference call, please logon to the Richmond website (www.RVA.GOV).

Proposal Due Date: Wednesday, January 10, 2024 at 11:00AM

Information or copies of the above solicitations are available by contacting Procurement Services, at the City of Richmond website (www.RVA. GOV), or faxed (804) 646-5989. The City of Richmond encourages all contractors to participate in the procurement process.

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