Richmond Free Press January 19-21, 2023 edition

Private rift plays out in public over weekend

By Debora Timms

In an emotional interview with the Richmond Free Press on Wednesday night, Myrna Morrissey shared her fears following a weekend in which allegations of child abuse and infidelity exploded into the public view.

Mrs. Morrissey’s estranged husband, Sen. Joseph D. “Joe” Morrissey, D-Richmond, issued a statement on social media Friday saying he had discovered welts on his young son’s buttocks the previous night. According to the statement, the three children he shares with his estranged wife, 7-year-old Chase, 6-year-old Bella and 4-year-old Maverick, told him that their mother’s boyfriend had beaten Maverick with a belt “for being disrespectful.”

Mrs. Morrissey says these accusations are false.

“I’m not playing here because these are my children — my kids,” Mrs. Morrissey said. “I know I didn’t do anything wrong and I didn’t allow anything to happen.”

Without naming names, a Chesterfield County Police statement confirmed a report “regarding a child who may possibly have been assaulted by an offender known to him” was being investigated by a detective in their

Special Investigations Unit.

Police also served an emergency protective order on Saturday. While these orders typically expire after 72 hours, an extension can be requested. Mrs. Morrissey confirmed that Sen. Morrissey did file to have the order extended.

“I can’t really comment on how the case is progressing, but I can say that it is moving really quickly,” Mrs. Morrissey said. “That is instilling fear in me because things are not being properly communicated to me.”

When reached by phone on Tuesday night, Sen. Morrissey stated, “I have no intention of commenting to anyone in the media. There has been some major developments today, so I would just say ‘Make sure you get your facts straight.’”

Those developments appear to be what Mrs. Morrissey confirmed — that Tuesday’s court proceedings resulted in the extension being granted; however, she says she was not given notice of the decision or served by police. In fact, she says police told her “nothing was showing in the system” when she contacted them that evening.

“I was contacted by [Child Protective Services] [Wednesday] morning,” Mrs. Morrissey said. “I wanted to know if there had been an

Anger grows in Virginia city where first-grader shot teacher

By Ben Finley and Denise Lavoie The Associated Press NEWPORT NEWS

When a 6-year-old shot and wounded his first grade teacher in this shipbuilding city near Virginia’s coast, the community reacted with collective shock.

But the sentiment percolated over 12 days into rage from parents and particularly from teachers, with many lambasting school administrators Tuesday night for what they called a misguided emphasis on attendance and other education statistics over the safety of children and staff.

During a three-hour School

Fight over guns center of annual Virginia lobbying day

Gun control and gun rights proponents rallied Monday at the State Capitol during an annual day of advocacy, as lawmakers from both parties offered a tempered assessment about what’s possible on the issue during this year’s legislative session.

Some Republicans and allied gun rights groups hope to roll back measures enacted in recent years when Democrats were in full control of state government, including a red flag law and a measure that allowed local governments to establish some gun-free zones. Many Democrats, responding to

Superintendent proposes 35.3 percent budget increase for RPS

By Holly Rodriguez

Superintendent Jason Kamras is proposing a 35.3 percent operating budget increase to meet the district’s anticipated expenses for the 20232024 school year.

“This budget is a starting point based on what I’ve heard from schools,” he said.

His proposal was met with pushback from several members of the School Board who expressed concern over the request for an increased budget that they said does not resolve

some of the existing issues afflicting the school system.

“We’re not addressing what’s not working,” said Nicole Jones, 9th District representative.

The budget includes five areas of focus: compensation, student wellness, English Learner Support, saving positions funded by the American Rescue Plan during the pandemic that will lose federal funding this summer and board priorities such as buying more seats in

Mr. Kamras

the area’s governor’s schools.

Compensation ($24.2 million) increases pay for teachers and staff for the fifth consecutive year as part of a collective bargaining agreement reached by teachers and the administration this year. Social workers, counselors, crisis support staff, and other resources are budgeted to improve student wellness ($1.9 million). For English Learner support ($1.2 million), social workers, counselors, crisis support staff and

more are included to improve student outcomes. Positions previously covered by federal funding through the ARP will now need to be picked up by the school division ($6.8 million).

Other School Board priorities ($2.5 million) needing funding include: anticipated increases in utility payments, school renaming and teacher retention initiatives.

Former School Board Chair Dr. Shonda Harris-Muhammed, 6th District, echoed Ms.

By Brian Witte The Associated Press

ANNAPOLIS, Md.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore was sworn in as the state’s first Black governor on Wednesday, pledging to work for greater inclusion and economic equity while also focusing on improving education, fighting crime and climate change.

Gov. Moore, after being introduced by Oprah Winfrey in front of the Maryland State House, noted that the state is one of the wealthiest in the nation, but he also described

Regina

with his parents, Anna Simpson

Justin Harris, along Fauquier Avenue in Richmond’s Bellevue neighborhood on Jan. 18. In addition to spending time with their son, Milo’s parents were enjoying time off from work as a Richmond Montessori School teacher for her and a tennis club employee for him.

Julia Nikhinson/The Associated Press

Wes Moore is sworn in as the 63rd governor of the state of Maryland by the state’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Matthew Fader on Jan. 18 in Annapolis, Md.

The Associated Press

AP Photo/ John C. Clark

Members of the Virginia Kekoas, a Boogaloo Movement affiliated pro gun group, stand on the corner of Bank Street and N. 10th Street wearing body armor and carrying various firearms during Lobby Day on Monday at Capitol Square in Richmond. The Virginia Kekoas, a group based in the Hampton Roads area, has been active in the pro 2nd Amendment movement since 2021.

Billy Schuerman/The Virginian-Pilot via the Associated Press

Djifa Lee, a second grade teacher at Saunders Elementary, center, stands with her daughter as she speaks in front of the Newport News School Board at the Newport News Public Schools Administration building Tuesday. Community members spoke about issues and solutions to violence in schools following the shooting at Richneck Elementary by a 6-year-old that left a teacher in critical condition. Please turn to A4 Please turn to A4

Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press

Myrna Pride Morrissey at her home in North Richmond in 2015.

Please turn to A4

Court OKs 4th District Feb. 21 special election

By Jeremy Lazarus

The election of a new representative from the 4th Congressional District will go on as scheduled.

U.S. District Court Judge Roderick Young on Wednesday refused to block the Tuesday, Feb. 21, special election to choose a successor for late Congressman A. Donald McEachin, who died Nov. 28, just weeks after winning re-election to his fourth two-year term.

The decision is a big win for Democrat Jennifer L. McClellan, now a state senator and attorney, who is the odds-on favorite to win the seat and become the first elected Black female to represent Virginia in Congress.

She is facing off against Republican Leon Benjamin Sr., who previously lost twice to Congressman McEachin in the majority Democratic district, which encompasses 15 localities from Charles City County to the North Carolina border and includes Richmond, Petersburg, Hopewell and Chesterfield and Henrico counties.

Judge Young cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s Purcell Principle that essentially bars the judiciary from interfering with elections that are soon to be held or are underway in denying a request for a preliminary injunction to halt balloting. The principle is named for a 2006 Arizona case in which it was first laid down.

Kevin M. Gallagher, deputy Virginia solicitor general, and Ariel L. “Ari” Stein, attorney for the Democratic Party, both told the judge that he would “blow up” the election if he granted the request.

Mr. Gallagher noted that voting is already underway, with 9,000 people already reported to have voted early and more than 30,000 requests for absentee ballots already submitted.

The judge faced the decision in a case in which seven people filed suit claiming the Democrat Party’s nomination process prevented thousands of people from participating in violation of the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.

Those include active military, the disabled and working people who could either not vote absentee or had no polling place near them.

Attorney John Janson of Charlotte argued on behalf of the plaintiffs that only seven of the 15 localities had polling places in the party’s “firehouse primary,” forcing people in Emporia, Greensville County and other localities that were left out to travel substantial distances — a burden on voting that he said violated people’s voting rights.

Mr. Janson argued that while the state had authorized the political parties to conduct their own nomination process, that grant did not authorize an unconstitutional process.

Voting is the bedrock of a constitutional democracy, Mr. Janson said in urging the court to send a message that there were “guardrails” that needed to be followed. Otherwise, parties could do as they pleased, he said.

Mr. Stein noted that the state Democratic Party was a private entity and was not subject to the same constitutional strictures as the state would have been if it had conducted the primary.

Tavorise Marks, one of the three men whom Richmond state Sen. McClellan defeated to earn the nomination and a plaintiff, said that the ruling show that the General Assembly needs revoke the authority of such “private entities” to conduct an illegal process.

Despite the setback for the plaintiffs, Judge Young’s decision has not ended the lawsuit.

“The complaint still stands,” said Paul Goldman, a former state Democratic Party chairman who initiated the litigation.

“The judge just rejected the preliminary injunction, but he did not rule on the merits of the case,” he said. “The state has to justify what it did. I don’t believe the state can. But that will be a topic for another day.”

VCU names new School of Medicine dean

By Holly Rodriguez

Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Medicine will have a new dean as of April 15.

After a national search, Arturo P. Saavedra, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Dermatology at the University of Virginia and president and interim CEO of the school’s Physicians Group will join VCU as dean of the school of medicine. He also will serve as the VCU Health System executive vice president for medical affairs.

He replaces Dr. David Chelmow, who has served as interim dean of the school of medicine since early 2022.

In his current role at UVa., Dr. Saavedra collaborates with other leaders on quality and value of care in his department and strategic, operational and financial performance of the physicians’ group.

Dr. Saavedra has years of experience in academic medicine and administrative leadership. He is a clinician and researcher specializing in dermatology with a focus on HIV dermatology, severe dermatology-related drug reactions and treatment of oncologic and post-transplant patients. Dr. Saavedra also is senior editor of Fitzpatrick’s Color Atlas and Synopsis of Clinical Dermatology.

Prior to his current role at UVa., Dr. Saavedra was chief of population health and health policy at UVa. Health System and chief of ambulatory strategy and operations for the medical center. He was also responsible for ensuring UVa. Health was responsive to local, regional and national health needs and policy.

Dr. Saavedra majored in biological sciences at Harvard and graduated magna cum laude. He went on to receive medical and doctoral degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.

In other news at the university, VCU Health has launched Home Health, a service that enables patients to be seen and treated in their homes rather than having a hospital stay.

Acute care patients who would normally face a hospital stay for conditions such as sepsis, congestive heart failure or pneumonia, can now receive care at home. A physician will oversee the patient’s care through video and remote patient monitoring. Nurses and other staff will visit patients in person and provide around-the-clock care and support to make sure patient supplies and needs are being met.

The goal of the program is to service 2,000 patients in its first year.

Other remote VCU health care programs include telehealth appointments, where patients can visit with doctors online, remote patient monitoring and in-home health and hospice care.

For more information, VCU patients are encouraged to speak with their health re providers.

Signaling a fresh start for the new year, the Richmond Departments of Public Works and Public Utilities hosted its annual Richmond E-Cycle program at 1710 Robin Hood Road on Jan. 14. The drive-through event for Richmond residents accepted Christmas trees for recycling, along with electronics, paper, household waste items, and

Cityscape

of life and scenes in Richmond

oil-based paints. From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Feb. 4 and March 4, electronics recycler Securis also will host an e-cycling collection. The drive-through event is open to all residents of Central Virginia. Fees apply for some items. Website: https://securis. com/event/e-recycling-nearrichmond-va/2023-02-04/

Thornton, Nelson to lead Henrico Board of Supervisors in 2023

Free Press staff report

The Henrico County Board of Supervisors last week voted unanimously to elect Fairfield District Supervisor Frank J. Thornton chairman and Varina District Supervisor Tyrone E. Nelson vice chairman for 2023.

Mr. Thornton is wielding the chairman’s gavel for the sixth time, having held the post most recently in 2018. He succeeds Tuckahoe District Supervisor Patricia S. O’Bannon as chairman after serving as vice chairman in 2022. First elected to represent Fairfield in 1995, Mr. Thornton is serving his seventh term on the county’s board.

In remarks following his election, Mr. Thornton invited his wife, Bettye, to stand alongside him, as she had done when he accepted the chairmanship in 2000. He also noted he was sporting the same gold necktie with maroon squares that he had worn on that night 23 years ago.

“One of the pillars of our democratic system is local government,” Mr. Thornton said after thanking his colleagues for their trust in him and for always working together

Mr. Thornton holds appointed positions with various national, state and local governmental organizations, including the Central Virginia Transportation Authority, Richmond Regional Transportation Planning Organization, Capital Region Collaborative Organizing Council and Maymont Foundation Board of Directors.

A Richmond native, he is a co-founder and past president of the Henrico County Civic League. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Virginia Union University and a master’s degree from American University. He retired in 2014 after working more than 40 years at VUU, where he was a professor of French and a recipient of the university’s Teacher of the Year award. He also received the John Jasper Trailblazer Award from Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church in Richmond.

Mr. Nelson, first elected Varina District supervisor in 2011, is in his third term on Henrico’s board. He previously served as chairman in 2016 and 2019.

He serves various national, state and local governmental and community organizations, including as chairman of the Greater Richmond Transit Company Board of Directors, treasurer of the Capital Region Airport Commission and as a member of the Richmond Region Planning District Commission, Richmond Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board of Directors and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Board of Visitors.

Mr. Nelson, who grew up in Varina, earned a master’s degree from the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at VUU, a bachelor’s degree in business administration from VCU and an associate degree in business from J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College. He is the pastor of Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church.

The Board of Supervisors typically meets at 7 p.m. on the second and fourth Tuesday each month. Meetings usually are not held on the fourth Tuesday in August and December.

Meetings are held in the Board Room at the Henrico County Government Center, 4301 E. Parham Road, and are livestreamed through the Board of Supervisors webpage Additional information, including archived videos of meetings, is available online

Youngkin calls for legislation for notification on school awards

In response to widening concerns about how some Northern Virginia school districts handled recognizing student achievements on a standardized test, Gov. Glenn Youngkin called Wednesday for legislation to require student and parental notification about certain scholastic awards.

Gov. Youngkin asked two lawmakers to sponsor legislation on his behalf during the ongoing legislative session, his office said in a news release. The measures would prohibit any school or school employee from withholding information that relates to recognition or awards earned by the student — or information that may affect the student’s admission to an institution of higher education, his office said.

“We will not allow our students and their parents to be left uninformed of their hard-earned recognition in what we now know was widespread across more than a dozen schools in multiple school divisions,” Gov. Youngkin said in a statement.

Earlier this month, the governor called

for an investigation of the prestigious Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County, which has acknowledged that there was a delay in notifying students who had achieved “commended student” status in the National Merit Scholarship competition. Students who receive the “commended student” award finish in the top 3 percent nationally on a standardized test, but below the top 1 percent that qualifies them as a scholarship semifinalist.

The delay prompted complaints from some parents and activists who say the school chose to withhold notification to downplay individual achievement in favor of equity.

Gov. Youngkin, who has made education reform and parental rights a centerpiece of his agenda, has echoed those concerns.

“Parents are rightfully upset and they should be,” he said in Wednesday’s statement.

Attorney General Jason Miyares, a fellow Republican, launched a probe a day after Gov. Youngkin’s request, saying at

a news conference that his Office of Civil Rights was investigating the school not only for its failure to timely notify students but also the school’s recently overhauled admissions policies.

Attorney Gen. Miyares then said Jan. 9 that the probe had expanded to “the entire Fairfax County Public Schools system in light of reports and complaints that multiple schools across the county withheld awards from high achieving students.”

Additional high schools in other Northern Virginia districts have since acknowledged delayed notification of some awards, according to local news accounts.

“Attorney General Miyares is looking at every complaint and allegation regarding potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act at Northern Virginia high schools,” his spokeswoman, Victoria LaCivita, said in an email Wednesday. “We encourage any student or parent who believes they have been discriminated against to file a complaint with our Office of Civil Rights on our website.”

Jury awards soldier less than $4000 in federal suit over traffic stop

The Associated Press

NEWPORT NEWS

A federal jury in Virginia on Tuesday found mostly in favor of two police officers who were sued by a U.S. Army lieutenant after he was peppersprayed, struck and handcuffed during a traffic stop.

Video of the 2020 incident in the small town of Windsor got millions of views after Caron Nazario filed the federal lawsuit, highlighting fears of mistreatment among Black drivers and raising questions about reasonable police conduct.

The jury in federal court in Richmond found former Windsor police officer Joe Gutierrez liable for assault and awarded Mr. Nazario $2,685 in compensatory damages, according to attorneys on both sides of the case.

The jury also awarded Mr. Nazario

$1,000 in punitive damages after Windsor police officer Daniel Crocker illegally searched Nazario’s SUV, the attorneys said. A federal judge already ruled last year that Mr. Crocker was liable for the search.

The jury found in favor of Mr. Crocker and against Nazario’s claims of assault and battery and false imprisonment, the attorneys said. The jury found in favor of Mr. Gutierrez regarding the soldier’s claims of battery, false imprisonment and illegal search.

“Having now heard all of the evidence and learning the full picture of this case, we believe the jury reached the correct decision,” one of Mr. Crocker’s attorneys, Anne Lahren, said in a statement. “In the present climate, this took a lot of courage and we thank the jury for their service.”

Mr. Nazario filed his lawsuit in 2021.

Video shows Mr. Crocker and Mr. Gutier-

rez pointing handguns at a uniformed Mr. Nazario behind the wheel of his Chevy Tahoe at a gas station. The officers repeatedly commanded Mr. Nazario to exit his SUV, with Gutierrez warning at one point that Mr. Nazario was “fixing to ride the lightning” when he didn’t get out.

Mr. Nazario held his hands in the air outside the driver’s side window and continually asked why he was being stopped.

Mr. Nazario also said: “I’m honestly afraid to get out.”

“You should be,” Gutierrez responded.

Mr. Nazario stayed in the vehicle. Mr. Gutierrez went on to pepperspray him through the open window. Once Mr. Nazario exited the SUV, the officers commanded him to get on the ground, with Mr. Gutierrez using his knees to strike Mr. Nazario’s legs, the lawsuit stated.

Slices

with respect and collegiality. “During this age of technology as well as information, disinformation and misinformation, we must work even more diligently in serving our citizens. We must continue to use technology but use it wisely and to use more data-driven modalities in our governance.”

Mr. Thornton Mr. Nelson

Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press

Sen. McClellan

Dr. Saavedra

The Associated Press

Hundreds of Students. Millions in Scholarships.

Dominion Energy Educational Equity Scholarship recipients are on the path to success. Because our communities are only as strong as our next generation, we’re investing in hundreds of young scholars across the states we serve by committing millions of scholarship dollars to help students in minority and underserved communities attend college and realize their potential.

Students can learn more and apply at DominionEnergy.com/EquityScholarships.

Private rift plays out in public over weekend

extension granted and they also said they were unsure, but then hours later they confirmed that it had.”

She added that her children are supposed to attend a forensic interview on Thursday and that she was informed that she can attend, but she says she hasn’t been told the time or location of the interview.

“Why am I not being communicated with?” Mrs. Morrissey said. “I’m still a parent and I still have rights.

“I’m being told that I need to remain calm; I need to take a step back, but I have to speak up because if I don’t then this will continue. There are things that are being handled wrong and it has to be known. I am scared.”

Part of the advice to step back seems to relate to Mrs. Morrissey’s initial response to the abuse allegations on Instagram.

She not only denied them, she made her own accusations of serial infidelity and mistreatment in a series of since-deleted posts that called her marriage to the senator “the biggest mistake of my life.”

In one post she wrote, “because you can’t have me the way you want and that I really moved on with my life he would stoop so low as accusing me and someone close to me of abusing my child! Anyone that knows ME, knows what a damn good mother I am to MY children.”

The relationship between the two started in 2013 when Mr. Morrissey was in his mid-fifties and the-then Myrna Pride was a 17-year-old receptionist in his law office.

The two married in 2016; however, the now 65-year-old senator was convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor in December 2014. He served three months in jail and was disbarred from practicing law.

In 2022, outgoing Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, issued a pardon.

Mrs. Morrissey, who is now 26, has publicly stated she separated from her husband in 2019, the year he was elected to the state Senate representing District 16. She is planning to divorce the senator, something which she suggests may be related to his allegations now.

Mrs. Morrissey finished the interview by sharing her concerns once more.

“It is important that I voice that the way this has been handled has been one-sided and unfair.”

Anger grows in Virginia city where first-grader shot teacher

Continued from A1

Board meeting dedicated solely to public comment, Newport News teachers and parents said students who assaulted classmates and staff were routinely allowed to stay in the classroom with few consequences. They said the shooting of Abigail Zwerner could have been prevented if not for a toxic environment in which teachers’ concerns are systemically ignored.

“Every day in every one of our schools, teachers, students and other staff members are being hurt,” high school librarian Nicole Cooke told the board. “Every day, they’re hit. They’re bitten. They’re beaten. And they’re (students) allowed to stay so that our numbers look good.”

Addressing superintendent George Parker, Ms. Cooke said: “If Abigail had been respected, she wouldn’t be in the hospital

right now.”

The shooting occurred on Jan. 6 as Ms. Zwerner taught her first grade class at Richneck Elementary. There was no warning and no struggle before the 6-year-old pointed the gun at his teacher and fired one round, police said.

The bullet pierced Ms. Zwerner’s hand and struck her chest. The 25-year-old hustled her students out of the classroom before being rushed to the hospital.

Newport News police said the 6-year-old’s mother legally purchased the gun but that it was unclear how her son gained access to it. A Virginia law prohibits leaving a loaded gun where it is accessible to a child under 14, a misdemeanor crime punishable with a maximum one-year prison sentence and $2,500 fine. No charges have been brought against the mother so far.

Free COVID-19 vaccines

Continued from A1

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 or booster shot?

The Richmond and Henrico health districts are offering free vaccines for COVID-19 and more at the following locations:

• Thursday, Jan. 19, 2 to 5 p.m. - Cary Street, 400 E. Cary St., Primary Moderna shots for ages 6 months and older, and bivalent boosters for ages 6 years and older, Primary Pfizer shots and bivalent boosters for ages 6 months to 11 years old, walk-ups welcome but appointments encouraged.

• Saturday, Jan. 21, noon to 3 p.m. - Henrico West Health Department, 8600 Dixon Powers Dr., Primary Moderna shots for ages 6 months and older, bivalent booster for ages 6 years and older, Primary Pfizer shots for ages 6 months and older and bivalent boosters for ages 5 and older, Novavax primary shots for ages 12 and older and boosters for ages 18 and older, Flu shots, walk-ups welcome but appointments encouraged.

• Tuesday, Jan. 24, 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. - Cary Street, 400 E. Cary St., JYNNEOS shots, walk-ups welcome but appointments encouraged.

• Wednesday, Jan. 25, 4 to 7 p.m. - Diversity Thrift, 1407 Sherwood Ave., JYNNEOS shots, walk-ups welcome but appointments encouraged.

People can schedule an appointment online at vase.vdh.virginia. gov, vaccinate.virginia.gov or vax.rchd.com, or by calling (804) 2053501 or (877) VAX-IN-VA (1-877-829-4682).

VaccineFinder.org and vaccines.gov also allow people to find nearby pharmacies and clinics that offer the COVID-19 vaccine and booster.

Those who are getting a booster shot should bring their vaccine card to confirm the date and type of vaccine received.

RHHD also offers at-home vaccinations by calling (804) 205-3501 to schedule appointments.

New COVID-19 boosters, updated to better protect against the latest variants of the virus, are now available. The new Pfizer booster is approved for those aged 12 and up, while the new Moderna booster is for those aged 18 and older.

As with previous COVID-19 boosters, the new doses can only be received after an initial two vaccine shots, and those who qualify are instructed to wait at least two months after their second COVID-19 vaccine.

The Richmond and Henrico Health Districts are now offering bivalent Pfizer and Moderna boosters to children between the ages of 5 to 11 in clinics in the near future. Children in this age range will be eligible after at least two months since their last vaccine dose.

New COVID-19 cases in Virginia rose roughly 6 percent during the last week, according to data from the Virginia Department of Health, while data from the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association showed hospitalizations statewide dropped 10 percent since last Wednesday.

Richmond has dropped to medium levels of community COVID19 as of last week, while the counties of Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico County are still all at high levels. Sixty-five localities in Virginia are ranked at high community COVID levels, while 48 were ranked at medium as of last week.

A total of 1,092 new cases of COVID-19 were reported statewide Tuesday for the 24-hour period, contributing to an overall state total of 2,240,431 cases in Virginia since the pandemic’s outbreak. As of Wednesday, there have been 457,746 hospitalizations and 22,962 deaths were reported statewide on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, state health officials reported that over 18.2 million COVID-19 doses had been administered, with 73.6 percent of the state’s population fully vaccinated at the time. State data also showed that over 5.2 million people in Virginia have received booster shots or third doses of the vaccine.

Among ages 5 to 11 in Virginia, 342,515 have received their first shots as of Tuesday, accounting for 47.3 percent of the age group in the state, while 301,347 children, or 41.6 percent, are fully vaccinated. In this age group, 54,493 children have received a monovalent booster, making up 7.5 percent, while 37,937 have gotten a bivalent booster shot, accounting for 13 percent of this group.

As of Tuesday, 64,003 children from the ages of zero to four have received their first doses, making up 14.1 percent of the population in Virginia, while 50,004 are fully vaccinated, or 11 percent of the population.

On Tuesday, fewer than 449,545 cases, 2,126 hospitalizations and 36 deaths were recorded among children in the state.

State data also shows that African-Americans comprised 22.1 percent of cases statewide and 22.1 percent of deaths for which ethnic and racial data is available, while Latinos made up 11 percent of cases and 4.6 percent of deaths.

Reported COVID-19 data as of Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023

Richmond 61,139 1,275 546

Cases Hospitalizations Deaths

Henrico County 88,306 1,709 1,063

Chesterfield County 97,881 1,754 868

Hanover County 28,412 883 341

Compiled by George Copeland Jr.

Community reaction shifted into anger late last week after the superintendent revealed that Richneck administrators had learned the child may have had a weapon in his possession before the shooting. But a search did not find the 9mm handgun despite staff looking through his bag.

Ms. Zwerner’s shooting was “completely preventable — if the red flags had been taken seriously and proper procedures clearly communicated and followed,” Amber Thomas, a former school psychologist in Newport News, told the board.

Ms. Thomas left the school system early in 2022 after working there for a decade. In an interview with The Associated Press, she recalled a time when a “teacher was assaulted by a student — and that student

faced no disciplinary action at all.”

“There were situations in which the administrators walked away from things that were happening,” said Ms. Thomas, who served three elementary schools at a time, although not Richneck. “A school counselor and I were often called to intervene with explosive behaviors. And the administrator would see what was going on and turn around and walk the other way and never assist or do anything to follow up.”

Cindy Connell, a middle school teacher who also addressed the board, told the Associated Press that the school system’s leadership is too afraid of angering parents and too focused on limiting discipline such as suspensions.

“I think that our adminis-

trators are under an intense pressure to make everything appear better than it is in reality,” Ms. Connell said. “And that approach, over the course of a number of years, has put us where we are today.”

Ms. Connell said there’s a general fear over the public’s response to doing something like searching a 6-year-old for a weapon — and a weapon not being found. There are also concerns that pulling kids with serious behavioral problems out of the classroom will imperil a school’s accreditation.

The shooting by a firstgrader was not a shock to Ms. Connell.

“I have teacher friends who have been hit by kindergarteners, kicked by kindergarteners, punched by kindergarteners, stabbed with pencils by kindergarteners,” she said. “So

the only difference is that this child had access to a weapon at home. So, if you put those two things together, I’m not surprised.”

Michelle Price, a spokeswoman for the School Board, did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press asking for comment on the various criticisms expressed Tuesday night.

More than 400 of the nearly 1,000 incidents of violent crime in the city in 2021 involved a handgun or firearm, according to FBI statistics.

“Gun violence has become a constant for our students,” William Fenker, an eighth-grade science teacher, told the board.

“Our students do not wonder if there will be another school shooting. They wonder when and where the next shooting will be.”

Fight over guns center of annual Va. lobbying day

Continued from A1

a series of recent high-profile school and mass shootings, have proposed a range of bills they say will improve safety, including gun-storage measures and various limits on assault-style weapons.

But with the GOP now controlling the House of Delegates and Democrats leading the Senate, some members of both parties openly acknowledge that the prospect of major legislation reaching Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s desk this year is unlikely.

“You’re not going to see repeals of all of the laws that have offended us that the Democrats passed in 2020 and 2021, because while we can get them out of our House, they will die in the Senate. But you will see us standing up and stopping more progressive gun control,” GOP Del. Tim Anderson, a gun shop owner, said during

a rally organized by the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a gun-rights group.

Attendance at the event was between 150 to 200, according to Capitol Police. It was far lighter than in 2020, when the promise of action by Democrats on gun-control legislation drew tens of thousands of gun-rights activists from around the country.

Among those participating Monday were members of a Black Lives Matter group from Hampton Roads and others openly carrying assault-style weapons outside of Capitol Square, where firearms are banned.

Speakers at the rally called Virginia’s red flag law an unconstitutional intrusion and made the case that the local control law has created a problematic patchwork of regulations for law-abiding gun owners.

“I keep hearing people say we need gun control, gun control. Well, criminals don’t care about the law,” said GOP Del.

John McGuire, one of several speakers who reminded attendees that party control of both chambers will be decided in the fall, when each legislative seat will be on the ballot.

In the afternoon, a crowd of gun control activists — slightly smaller than the first rally, according to Capitol Police — rallied at the same spot.

Democratic lawmakers who spoke argued that past years’ reforms, including the red flag law, are saving lives.

House Minority Leader Del. Don Scott invoked the signs some attendees were holding in honor of recent shooting victims — incidents that have ranged from a campus shooting at the University of Virginia that killed three football players to a school shooting earlier this month in Newport News in which police said a 6-year-old shot and wounded a teacher.

“We see you. We feel you,” he said.

Kamras proposes 35.3 percent budget increase

Continued from A1

Jones’ concerns about the budget potentially missing the mark. “We may need to adjust funding to meet needs that have not been met,” she said. “We need a deep dive into … what is working and is not working.”

The Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) budget calls for another $9.5 million to cover costs for structural maintenance of RPS buildings, including structural and athletics costs, upgrades to playgrounds and paving, HVAC and electrical upgrades.

Mr. Kamras said he has made significant

budget cuts to the central office, cutting $1.3 million from the budget by eliminating nine positions and cutting back on other expenditures.

Matthew Stanley, director of advocacy and outreach, presented legislative priorities for the division during this year’s General Assembly Session.

In a phone interview with the Richmond Free Press, he said the state’s measures for calculating funding needs for RPS are antiquated and do not take into consideration the high concentration of poverty that exists for city residents. “The state hasn’t changed

the way they calculate those numbers in about 50 years,” he said.

One specific measure Mr. Stanley referenced was a state budget amendment introduced by Del. Jeff Bourne, D-Richmond for $15 million to help rebuild William Fox Elementary School.

In a phone interview, Mr. Bourne said he has always advocated for public school funding from the state and the fire at Fox was an unanticipated tragedy. “This is a continuation of my efforts to get more funding for public schools,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s the kids that I’m fighting for.”

Wes Moore sworn in as Md.’s first Black governor

Continued from A1

it as “asset-rich and strategy poor.”

“It is time for our policies to be as bold as our aspirations — and to confront the fact that we have been offered false choices,” Gov. Moore said. “We do not have to choose between a competitive economy and an equitable one.”

The 44-year-old Democrat, who won in a landslide in November, also committed to fighting violent crime. Many Maryland residents have grown weary in their faith in government’s ability to keep them safe, he said.

In Baltimore, Maryland’s largest city, homicides surpassed 300 for the eighth year running last year. Gun violence remains high, despite repeated promises from elected officials and new anti-violence initiatives.

Gov. Moore said the state can build a police force “that moves with appropriate intensity and absolute integrity and full accountability, and embrace the fact that we cannot and will not militarize ourselves to safety.”

“We do not have to choose between being a safe state and a just one,” Gov. Moore said. “Maryland can, and we will,

be both.”

Gov. Moore, who has not held public office before now, won a crowded Democratic primary in July before going on to win the general election by more than 30 percentage points against Republican Dan Cox, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump.

Gov. Moore is a best-selling author and former CEO of the Robin Hood Foundation, an anti-poverty nonprofit. He also is a Rhodes scholar and a combat veteran who served in Afghanistan.

“This might be his first day as an elected official, but Wes Moore has been a public servant his entire adult life,” Ms. Winfrey said. “And there’s so much more to come. He’s just getting started.”

Gov. Moore pledged to make the state a leader in addressing the “existential threat” of climate change, which said “is happening now in our communities.”

Speaking not far from the nation’s largest estuary, Gov. Moore said the state will protect “our jewel,” the Chesapeake Bay, and put Maryland on track to generate “100 percent clean energy by 2035 and create thousands of jobs in the process.”

Gov. Moore punctuated his inauguration with references to Black history, beginning

with the enslaved people who once arrived by ship at the Annapolis City Dock, which was once a regional slave port and the site of a memorial to enslaved African Kunta Kinte, who arrived there in 1767 and was written about in Alex Haley’s book “Roots.”

Gov. Moore was joined by other Black leaders at the wreath-laying ceremony on a bright sunny morning, including Maryland Rep. Kweisi Mfume, Attorney General Anthony Brown, former Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, who was the nation’s second elected Black governor, in 2006. Virginia’s Gov. L. Douglas Wilder was the first, in 1989, and Gov. Moore is the third.

Gov. Moore took the oath of office using a Bible owned by Frederick Douglass, a Marylander who escaped slavery on the state’s Eastern Shore before becoming an author and famed abolitionist.

When Gov. Moore gave his inaugural speech as Maryland’s 63rd governor, he looked out on a crowded mall in front of the Capitol where there is a statue of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, a Baltimore native and the nation’s first Black member of the court.

Joe and Myrna Morrissey with their son in May 2015. File photo

South Side veterans medical facility renamed

By Jeremy M. Lazarus

Call it the Richmond VA Medical Center.

Just in time for the holiday that honors civil rights hero Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the name of a racist Confederate surgeon, Hunter Holmes McGuire Sr., has been stripped from the Veterans Administration medical campus on Broad Rock Boulevard in South Side.

Dr. McGuire’s name has been removed from signs on the grounds and from the hospital’s website, a check Tuesday shows. The complex was named for him 76 years ago, then making Richmond the only VA facility honoring a Confederate.

His name was previously stripped from the VCU School of Medicine. A medical school Dr. McGuire founded after the Civil War was merged with the Medical College of Virginia a few years after his death in 1900.

The wipeout of Dr. McGuire’s name is part of a larger federal effort to eliminate the names of slavery-defending Confederates from federal office, forts and military installations, such as Fort Lee and Fort Pickett.

The only remaining public glorification of Dr. McGuire is a statue of him that stands next to the State Capitol in Richmond.

Charles Pool, a Richmond historian and Oregon Hill community advocate, has been pushing for three years to rid Capitol Square of that statue based on Dr. McGuire’s long record of promoting white supremacy after the Civil War.

Mr. Pool, who praised the hospital for eliminating Dr. McGuire’s name, believes there should be no room for a statue of Dr. McGuire based on his racist writing and his promotion of the Lost Cause fable that sought to portray the Civil War rebels as fighting for state’s rights rather than to keep Black people in bondage.

Dr. McGuire, for example, led a state-sanctioned committee that censored from school textbooks “any reference that slavery was a cause of the Civil War while promoting the myth that slaves were happy,” Mr. Pool stated in an advocacy letter penned in 2020.

Dr. McGuire’s “own writings are more appropriate for the Grand Wizard of the KKK than a physician,” Mr. Pool continued, noting the surgeon repeatedly wrote and stated that “Black people are inferior. He condoned lynching and believed that slavery was the only

GRTC names new CEO

By Jeremy M. Lazarus

Sheryl Adams, who has been interim chief executive officer of GRTC since September, is now the company’s new leader.

GRTC announced Tuesday that the board of directors tapped Ms. Adams, 54, to be the company’s seventh CEO.

The 24-year GRTC veteran also will be the first Black female in the post. She succeeds Julie Timm, the first female to lead the company. Ms. Timm arrived in 2019 and left four months ago for Seattle to lead transit operations there.

A 1989 graduate of the College of William & Mary, Ms. Adams joined GRTC in 1998.

Two years ago, Ms. Timm tapped her to be chief of staff.

Ms. Adams will oversee a company with a budget of more than $60 million a year and more than 450 employees.

The appointment drew applause from Maurice Carter, president of Local 1220 of the American Transit Union that represents drivers and mechanics.

“It is good to see someone who has been with GRTC for some time gain the top job. I can say we have established a good working relationship with Ms Adams since she became interim CEO, and I believe that will continue going forward.”

thing that kept “negroes” from being sexual predators.”

Mr. Pool cited an1893 pamphlet on lynching in which Dr. McGuire wrote that reporters from the North “seem to see only the fearful spectacle of a hung, burnt or shot negro.

They seem unable to see the innocent, mutilated and ruined female victim.”

In addition, Mr. Pool noted that Dr. McGuire a year before his death delivered a speech in 1899 to Confederate veterans condemning the right of Black

men to vote. Dr. McGuire described voting as “the latest act of war” on the South and urged Black male suffrage to be seen as an idea “conceived in iniquity, born in sin” and “yielding a legion of devils armed to torment the state.”

In Mr. Pool’s view, “if

federates

the Aunt Jemima logo can be removed from the Quaker Oat’s brand, I feel certain that the name and image of this avowed racist can be removed from the State Capitol grounds.”

While other statues of Con-

and arch-racist Harry F. Byrd Sr. have been removed, there has been no evident public effort to eliminate the McGuire statue. Mr. Pool is hoping that the hospital’s action will provide momentum for disposal of that figure.

By Jeremy M. Lazarus

City Hall is planning to provide $115,000 to help low-income families gain baby supplies under ordinances that City Council is scheduled to approve next Monday, Jan. 23.

Of those funds $65,000 is to be contributed to the nonprofit Capital Diaper Bank LLC to expand the bank’s ability to distribute diapers to city families. The remaining $50,000 is earmarked for Little Hands Virginia Inc., to buy cribs, strollers and car seats for Richmond families with babies.

Both groups partner with shelters, hospitals, nonprofits and other agencies that can identify families with a demonstrated need for the supplies and both are being overwhelmed by demand.

The donations appear to be the first the city has ever made to the organizations and grows out of the development of a youth and children’s initiative.

The grants, which will be paid for through the city’s allocation from the American Rescue Plan, are on track for passage after clearing council’s Education and Human Services Committee, which has recommended approval.

Separately, City Hall plans to award Help Me Help You Inc. a $250,000 grant to run a pilot program to provide a guaranteed income to 30 individuals released from jail or prison.

The program, also endorsed by the committee and set for council approval next week, would allow the nonprofit led by founder Michelle Mosby to provide the selected individuals with $250 a month on a pre-paid gift card during a 24-month period as part of their reintegration.

The selected individuals also would be enrolled with the city Office of Community Wealth Building on training and securing employment, according to the ordinance, and receive other counseling services in a bid to help lift them out of poverty.

The city, in partnership with the Robins Foundation, began testing a guaranteed income program in 2020. The program, which provided $500 a month for two years, initially had 18 families and expanded to 55 families under the banner of the Richmond Resilience Initiative.

All made too much to qualify for food stamps and most other benefits.

According to the initiative’s website, the program’s funding ran out in December.

In addition, council is expected to approve next week $1.15 million in grants to the city Health District, Virginia Union University and five other nonprofits to continue a health education initiative that began a year ago in Black, Latino and low-income neighborhoods.

PUBLIC NOTICE

Through Truck Traffic Restriction Stage Road (Route 627/632) New Kent

County

Notice is hereby given that the Virginia Department of Transportation is accepting written comments through February 14, 2023, regarding the restriction of through truck traffic for the following route:

Route 632/627 (Stage Road) from Route 249 (New Kent Highway) to Route 33 (Eltham Road). The proposed restriction is approximately 2.9 miles.

The proposed alternate route for through trucks is via Route 249 (New Kent Highway) and Route 33 (Eltham Road). The proposed alternate route is approximately 6.3 miles.

Comments can be sent to VDOT Ashland Assistant Resident Engineer 523 N. Washington Highway Ashland, VA 23005

Grant funds to benefit babies, ex-inmates and low-wealth families 31 years

Richmond Free Press

f Established 1992 f

Jean Patterson Boone Publisher

Just resign, Joe

On the front page of this week’s Free Press, Myrna Morrissey, 26, says that she left her husband, Virginia Sen. Joe Morrissey, 65, in 2019 after three years of marriage.

But long before Mrs. Morrissey publicly revealed the couple’s separation, rumors swirled throughout Richmond about the Morrisseys’ troubled marriage, living arrangements and other matters that most folks consider private. The rumors intensified leading up to Mr. Morrissey’s run and subsequent loss in the Democratic “firehouse” primary for the 4th District Congressional in mid-December.

Apparently voters who stood in line for several hours to elect Sen. Morrissey’s opponent, state Sen. Jennifer McClellan, by a hefty 85 percent of the vote, finally had grown weary of the publicity-hungry senator who, throughout his years in public office, consistently has thumbed his nose at moral and societal standards.

Like a spoiled and privileged child, the senator’s past and current behavior is rooted in nothing more than self-interest and having his own way. One would think that the political thumping he received last month would convince Sen. Morrisey to shut up and sit down.

But no.

Rather, the feud between Sen. Morrissey and his estranged wife recently played out on social media and intensified the flames that Sen. Morrissey is known for igniting. Instead of past photos of a loving couple surrounded by their three smiling children, Instagram posts detailed the troubled relationship.

In an Instagram post now removed, Mrs. Morrissey said, “I’ve saved face for this man, protected this man, lied, cheated and stole for this man because you can’t have me the way you want and that I really moved on with my life he would stoop so low as accusing me and someone close to me of abusing my child! Anyone that knows ME, knows what a damn good mother I am to MY children.

Meanwhile, an Instagram post reported to come from the senator’s office alleged that one of his sons had been abused by his estranged wife’s male acquaintance, leading to an investigation by Chesterfield County Police.

Separately, without naming names, the department said in a statement: “The Chesterfield County Police Department received a report of alleged child abuse regarding a child who may possibly have been assaulted by an offender known to him. At this time, the report is assigned to a detective in our Special Investigations Unit and is being investigated. The investigation is in its preliminary stages and the safety of the child is paramount at this time. There are no further details to be released.”

Meanwhile, as Mrs. Morrissey tells the Free Press, an emergency protective order on Saturday that placed her children with a “neutral party” has been extended. She has not seen her children, ages 7, 6 and 4, in nearly one week.

Such a sad, sordid saga.

Just as American voters grew weary of Donald Trump’s misogynistic and narcissist behavior, Richmonders are tired of Joe Morrissey’s MESS. We should not be forced to tolerate such tawdriness from our elected officials, whether they sit in the White House or in the Virginia General Assembly.

ENOUGH.

Joe Morrissey, get your business straight and your house in order.

Joe Morrissey, resign NOW.

Is

Hakeem Jeffries the next Obama? Don’t rush him

No, New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries does not want to be the next Barack Obama, although sometimes it seems as if everyone is asking.

A lot of people were asking after the stemwinder of a speech that Rep. Jeffries delivered in Congress as he was briefly handed the House speaker’s gavel, previously held by California Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

Having followed the speaker’s race through a staggering 15 ballots and days of stubborn gridlock, I had just about given up hope of hearing anything even faintly surprising or, heaven help us, inspirational.

Democrats had little reason to celebrate the discord in GOP ranks, since the Republican Party’s passions centered on how they might best block the Dems’ agenda. Rep. Jeffries, voted the first House minority leader from either party, had earlier fallen only a few votes short of being elected speaker in the closely divided House.

Nevertheless, Rep. Jeffries cut loose with a concession speech that was part-congratulatory, part-admonishment—one

of the biggest showstoppers I have seen since former President Obama’s bracing and unifying 2004 Democratic National Convention speech on “The Audacity of Hope,” which became the title of his second bestselling book.

Extending “our hand of partnership” to McCarthy, Rep. Jeffries said, “We extend, and intend, to try and find common ground whenever and wherever possible on behalf of the Ameri-

Clarence Page

can people.”

“Not as Democrats, not as Republicans, not as independents, but as Americans,” he said, reminding me of Obama’s most memorable and unifying lines from 2004:

“Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us—the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of ‘anything goes,’” Mr. Obama intoned. “Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America— there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America—there’s the United States of America.”

America, divided by war and

conflict overseas and back here at home, needed to hear that. Not all of us, of course. But enough of us so appreciated the fresh voice behind that message that the speech catapulted him into the national conversation and onto his path to the White House.

But this is a different time and a different Democrat, as Rep. Jeffries demonstrated by launching into what many called the “ABCs” of Democratic Party principles—aimed directly at the Republicans in his audience.

“House Democrats will always put American values over autocracy,” he said. “Benevolence over bigotry, the Constitution over the cult, democracy over demagogues, economic opportunity over extremism, freedom over fascism, governing over gaslighting, hopefulness over hatred, inclusion over isolation, justice over judicial overreach ...”

And on he went through his alphabet. By the time he got to Trumpland with “maturity over Mar-a-Lago” and “quality-oflife issues over QAnon,” some of the voices in the crowd were cheerfully sounding like an “Amen” chorus, while others were beginning to boo and jeer.

Hey, nobody ever said politics was always going to be pretty.

To honor Dr. King, demand expanded voting access

As a deacon in the Evangelical Lutheran Church and the director of Hunger Network Ohio, I believe we all have a moral obligation to make sure more people’s voices are heard in our democracy, not fewer. Not only in Ohio are we seeing elected officials make it harder for people to vote, but also, across the country, state legislatures and governors are dedicated to creating barriers by limiting ballot boxes, requiring photo ID at the polls and introducing other immoral measures.

As we honor the legacy and activism of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we must hold tightly to our responsibility of loving, listening to, protecting and serving our neighbors. One of the most important ways people in this nation are able to use their voice is by voting.

Unfortunately, so many election laws, like the one Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine just signed, draconian policies Gov. Ron DeSantis in Florida has pushed through and new bills being introduced in Texas, will make it harder for people to vote. And we will be seeing other state legislatures in 2023 try to pass similar pieces of legislation.

This is the exact opposite of what we owe each other, and that’s exactly why we cannot stay silent in the face of disenfranchisement.

As we honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life, work and legacy, I think of the call to love our neighbor — something most faith traditions have as a core

tenet. One of the most clear ways God calls us to show love is by listening to what others say, especially those who are typically not heard in our communities.

Big money interests and politicians can buy TV ads during a football game or fly banners across the field in front of tens of thousands of people, but for many of us the best way for our

voice to be heard is by using our sacred right to vote.

I work throughout Ohio with faith leaders who are committed to protecting our elections and who are on the ground at the polls. I’ve also been an election worker myself. In all of our combined decades of experience, we have not witnessed voter fraud.

Report after report shows our election system in Ohio is safe and secure. Even Gov. DeWine and our Secretary of State Frank LaRose have said in statements that we have a secure election system already and that it is relatively problem free. Similarly in other states, politicians claim their state and our country need more election “security” but fail to cite any evidence of significant election fraud. It should make us all wonder, why the changes?

In my view, election integrity means that all registered voters have access to the ballot, and all ballots are securely and fairly counted.

Through food pantries and other ministries, I have met many people who are working hard and barely scraping by. Expanding absentee voting ac-

cess helps these families. The expansion of early voting opportunities and absentee ballot access after Ohio’s difficult 2004 election allowed these individuals the opportunity to make their voices heard. Sadly, these voting restrictions are taking Ohio in the wrong direction. As a loving state, we should expand access, not limit it.

In 1776, the founders of our nation had a radical idea — that people should have the opportunity to elect their representatives. Since then, we have expanded that “radical” notion to women, African-Americans and Indigenous people, even to 18- to 21-year-olds.

Dr. King was called a radical for having the audacious thought that the words of our Founding Fathers should be taken seriously. What may have seemed radical to King George in the 1700s is not a radical notion today. We must pray, organize and lift our voices to guarantee all votes are counted, all votes are treated equally and all voters have access to the ballot box.

Let us honor Dr. King and continue the tradition of putting the power in the hands of the people by demanding our elected officials, in Ohio and across the country, expand voting access.

Together, as a multifaith and multiracial coalition, we can create a world where everyone has the ability to thrive and live in the dignity God wants for us all. Though Dr. King may no longer be with us, his work lives on, and we must continue to pursue his dream.

The writer is a deacon in the Evangelical Lutheran Church and the director of Hunger Network Ohio.

The Free Press welcomes letters

The Richmond Free Press respects the opinions of its readers. We want to hear from you. We invite you to write the editor. All letters will be considered for publication. Concise, typewritten letters related to public matters are preferred. Also include your telephone number(s). Letters should be addressed to: Letters to the Editor, Richmond Free Press, P.O. Box 27709, 422 East Franklin Street, Richmond, VA 23261, or faxed to: (804) 643-7519 or e-mail: letters@richmondfreepress.com.

Twitter and other social media had a jolly time. “Hakeem Jeffries is Obama 2.0, and WILL be president one day, would you support that?” one Twitter user tweeted. They were not alone.

But, alas, having built up your hopes (or dread), I must caution that this is not the first time Rep. Jeffries has found himself in this “Who’s the next Barack?” spotlight.

When the Washington Post asked him if he was “Brooklyn’s Barack Obama,” as one newspaper already was calling him, he downplayed the situation: “There is and will only ever be one Barack Obama, who was a phenomenal president.”

Yet, in talking about political futures, never say never—or “ever.”

I, for one, confess that I never thought Donald Trump had a chance. Until he ran. The writer is a syndicated columnist and senior member of the Chicago Tribune editorial board.

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Nick Bates

Film helps renew search for 1st Black Navy pilot’s remains

By Thalia Beatty The Asscociated Press

The film “Devotion” reignited efforts to repatriate the remains of Jesse LeRoy Brown, America’s first Black Navy pilot, who died in 1950 after having to crash land his damaged plane during the Korean War.

Brown’s granddaughter, said attending Mr. Hudner’s funeral at Arlington solidified her grandmother’s desire to have her husband’s remains interred in Arlington.

croppers, and succeeded in qualifying to be a pilot in the Navy, despite his training officer refusing to pin on his wings — just one of many racist insults and hurdles he overcame.

Fred Smith, the founder of Memphis-based FedEx, financed the film about Mr. Brown because he thought Mr. Brown deserved wider recognition, a feeling his surviving relatives share, and lobbied the Trump administration to support the search efforts after consulting with Mr. Brown’s daughter, Pamela.

to be in Arlington (National Cemetery),” Mr. Smith said. “Among the other heroes of the republic next to his wingman, Tom Hudner.”

Mr. Smith

“I’m still determined to try to get Jesse Brown home and put him where he ought

Mr. Smith’s daughters, Rachel and Molly, who produced the film, met members of Mr. Brown’s family at the 2018 funeral of Mr. Hudner, who received the Medal of Honor after attempting to rescue Mr. Brown. Mr. Hudner returned to North

“He’s never had a full sort of burial with the pomp and circumstance that we think is worthy of what his contribution is to this country” Ms. Knight Henry said, speaking from Washington.

Mr. Smith has donated proceeds from “Devotion”, in part, to endow a new scholarship fund, the Brown Hudner Navy Scholarship Foundation, for the children of Navy service members pursuing studies in STEM.

ible amount of money imaging the area where we think that my grandfather’s remains are,” said Ms. Knight Henry, adding that her family has worked with different agencies and groups to maximize any potential opportunity to get answers.

Mr. Brown grew up in Mississippi, the son of share-

locate Mr. Brown’s remains, but was unsuccessful.

Jessica Knight Henry, Mr.

“Mr. Smith spent an incred-

More than 7,500 American military personnel remain unaccounted for in the Korean War, according to the government agency that tracks prisoners of war and those missing in action. Korea in 2013 in an attempt

The 2023 Legislative Session Has Begun

The 2023 General Assembly Session convened last week and Democrats are already hard at work fighting for a bold inclusive vision for Virginia As I begin my 18th session I ve introduced legislation focused on investing in Virginia communities and public schools protecting reproductive freedom making electric bills and housing more affordable and helping Virginia businesses grow and thrive This week I am focusing on my education and childcare agenda

As the daughter of a third-generation educator product of Chesterfield Public Schools and mother of two Richmond Public Schools students I ve focused my entire legislative career on ensuring that every child has a high-quality public education regardless of their zip code This year is no exception as I work to fully fund our public schools in order to meet students where they are and give them the tools they need to succeed As in years past I have introduced legislation to fully implement the Virginia Board of Education s recommended 2021 Standards of Quality ( SOQs ) which were created to promote educational parity support the hiring of educators and support staff and help all schools to achieve their graduation standards Full implementation would increase state funding to local school divisions by $379 4 million

In the City of Richmond alone this would mean more than $5 million in state funding 20 new specialized support positions 19 new school counselors and 26 new assistant principals In 2021 and 2022 I passed legislation and budget amendments to implement SOQ recommendations to ensure that all elementary schools have a full-time principal and to set a ratio of 3 support staff per 1,000 students This year, my bill will implement the rest of the SOQ recommendations including increasing funding for school counselors to ensure there is one counselor for every 250 students increasing funding for English learner students based on proficiency and increasing a host of other critical support positions in schools and programming I ve also introduced a budget amendment to fully eliminate the arbitrary 13-year-old cap on state funding for support staff which was adopted as a temporary measure during the Great Recession This cap had essentially shifted more of the cost for such personnel to localities Last year I successfully worked to lift the support staff cap by one-third investing $271 7 million over the next two years to increase the number of state-funded school support positions

Students cannot learn in a crumbling building In 2020 I sponsored legislation creating the Commission on School Construction and Modernization which I now chair As a result of our work the state budget that took effect July 1st invested $1 2 billion in school construction and renovation, one of the largest investments in modern Virginia history

This includes $450 million for The School Construction Fund and Program – created by legislation I carried – to provide grants to localities for school construction and modernization projects Wealso passed my bill to make more money available to local school divisions through loans with lower interest rates than previously allowed by law This year, on behalf of the Commission I have filed legislation to authorize any Virginia localities to increase the local sales tax up to 1% by referendum to fund school construction or renovation Under current law only nine localities have this power

I also have filed legislation to provide more transparency around student data creating a centralized dashboard for all state-supported assessment data for Virginia students Virginia s current system lacks portability as students move from school to school and risks noncompliance with federal law My bill will require the Virginia Department of Education to collect all state-supported assessment data and provide every family teacher and school leader in the Commonwealth with user access to view a data dashboard on demand

I look forward to updating you on these and other bills before the General Assembly in the coming weeks To learn more and stay engaged contact me or my staff at district09@senate virginia gov or (804) 698-7509

Stories by Fred Jeter

Freedom Classic

shows power in victory over

The rafters above Barco-Stevens Hall court are decorated with retired and honored jersey numbers from the school’s glorious basketball past.

Don’t be surprised if Virginia Union University officials don’t find room someday to add Robert Osborne’s No. 23 to the display.

More glory seems imminent with the “Wizard of Os” showing off his unique skills set.

Since transferring to VUU from Hampton, Osborne has been Coach Jay Butler’s king on the chessboard, with powers others don’t possess.

The 6-foot-5 senior was at his lefthanded finest Jan. 14 in leading VUU to a 77-69 road victory at Virginia State in the annual Freedom Classic.

Osborne had 27 points (11-for-20 from floor), six rebounds, four assists and seemed determined to bring the “I-95 Trophy” back to Richmond.

It was a “must game” for VUU if it wanted to contend for the CIAA North. Had the Panthers lost they would be three games behind the Trojans.

Now the title is likely to come down to the final game of the regular season, Feb. 18, when VSU visits Barco.

Set your dial

“Os” wasn’t alone against the Trojans. Keleaf Tate nailed three 3-pointers and scored 17. Raemaad Wright had six points and 12 rebounds. Allon Johnson came off the bench for eight points and four rebounds.

VUU is now 14-4 overall and 3-2 in CIAA. VSU is 11-5, 6-1.

Over the past two seasons, the Panthers are 37-11 overall and 17-5 in the CIAA. Much of that has to do with Osborne (MVP of 2022 CIAA tourney), who has been described as the “best VUU player in post- (Coach) Dave Robbins’ era.”

Osborne leads the CIAA in scoring (19.7), is second in rebounds (8.5), and surprisingly third in assists (3.5), something you don’t expect from an inside player.

The former Hermitage High star has a shot at joining VUU’s 1,000-point club in just two seasons.

Much of the Panthers’ offense spins off Osborne’s ball-handling. He might even be listed as a “point power forward.”

And then there was bouncy Charles Tart, a 6-foot-4 sophomore who seems to have coils in his knees. Tart’s eight points all came from above the rim.

VSU, trailing 45-32 at intermission, was led by Terrence Hunter-Whitfield with 22 points, B.J. Fitzgerald with 21 and Tremere Brown with 14 points and seven rebounds.

The downside to the Freedom Classic was the attendance, listed at just 894. The game that once drew close to 10,000 has not taken off as a fan favorite since moving from the Richmond Coliseum (now closed) to Ettrick.

With classes not in session, even the cheerleaders were no shows at the Multi-purpose Center.

VSU’s famed Woo Woos were replaced by a team from Petersburg High, while a squad from Varina High filled in for VUU. Much to their credit, the substitute squads displayed non-stop spirit throughout the game.

Despite its continued success, some basketball fans complain about the University of Virginia’s slow, methodical style of play.

Never mind the fans. The NBA has no problem with coach Tony Bennett’s strategy.

The NBA’s best team so far this season, the Boston Celtics, has a distinct Virginia Cavaliers’ flavor.

Also, the ACC school in Charlottesville has produced eight current NBA players, including Malcolm Brogdon and Jeff Hauser for the Eastern Conference, Atlantic Division leader Celtics (30-12, as of Jan. 12).

Despite missing some time with a hamstring injury, Brogdon (second round draft pick in 2016) averages 13.4 points, 4.1 rebounds and 3.9 assists while hitting 44 percent of his 3-pointers.

Off the bench, Hauser (undrafted

in 2021) averages six points and three rebounds per.

Other ex-Cavs in NBA are Mamadi Diakite (Cleveland), Anthony Gill (Washington), Joe Harris (Brooklyn), De’Andre Hunter (Atlanta), Ty Jerome (Golden State) and Trey Murphy III (New Orleans).

Slow play or not, Bennett’s U.Va. record is 328-120 (as of Jan. 14) with an NCAA title in 2019.

A total of 37 Cavaliers have played in the NBA.

Kentucky is the all-time leader with 107 of its alumni making it to the big show. That includes 27 current Kentucky players on NBA payrolls.

Virginia is far and away the leader among state schools at producing NBA talent. Bennett’s U.Va. record is 328120 with an NCAA title in 2019.

Others include:

From VCU – the Bones Hyland,

Denver; Vince Williams, Memphis, has been up and down from G-League William & Mary – Nathan Knight, Minnesota

Virginia Tech – Nickeil AlexanderWalker, Utah; Dorian Finney-Smith, Dallas Radford – Petersburg native Javonte Green; Carlik Jones, both with Chicago

From downtown Richmond, VCU has sent 11 players to the NBA in addition to Hyland and Williams. They are Jesse Dark, Bernard Harris, Justin Tillman, Treveon Graham, Marc Jackson, Eric Maynor, Larry Sanders, Ed Sherod, Briante Weber, Gerald Henderson and Troy Daniels.

Virginia Union’s NBA alumni include Mike Davis, Terry Davis, A.J. English, Charles Oakley, Bruce Spraggins, Ben Wallace and Jamie Waller.

Due to the NFL’s “Rooney Rule,” mandating minority opportunity, Black candidates are always interviewed for head coaching jobs. Rarely are they hired.

The University of Richmond will play four HBCUs next football season, including three at Robins Stadium.

The Spiders will open Sept. 2 against visiting Morgan State University of the MEAC. On Sept. 16, Delaware State, also of the MEAC, will come to Richmond.

UR will play host to Hampton on Sept. 30 and travel to Greensboro to face North Carolina A&T on Oct. 21. Hampton and A&T are now in the same conference, the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA), as UR.

Both the MEAC and CAA compete on the NCAA’s Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) level.

Here are some other Black coaches who may figure into the current interview process:

Steve Wilks (current interim coach at Carolina); Raheem Morris (LA Rams defensive coordinator); Leslie Frazier (Buffalo defensive coordinator); Brian Flores (Pittsburgh senior assistant); Jim Caldwell (former head coach of Indy and Detroit);

Ken Norton (Seattle defensive coordinator); Pep Hamilton (Houston offensive coordinator); Charlie Strong (University of Miami assistant coach); Duce Staley (Detroit assistant);

UVA

There are likely others with the list always starting with Eric Bieniemy.

Bieniemy is the NFL’s next head coach in waiting …. and waiting … and waiting.

The highly regarded Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator was recently interviewed for the head position with the Indianapolis Colts.

It marked Bieniemy’s hard-to-believe 15th interview, with 14 different teams, over the last four years. And more are likely this go-round with some five franchises searching for the right man to lead their team.

interviewed by all.

Since becoming KC’s offensive coordinator in 2018, the Chiefs attack has consistently been among the NFL’s most explosive. KC won the Super Bowl Feb. 2, 2020, and is the AFC’s top seed in this year’s playoffs.

Currently, there are only three Black coaches on solid footing — Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh, Todd Bowles in Tampa and Michael McDaniel in Miami. The Black coaching fraternity lost another when Lovie Smith was fired by Houston.

Clearly, Black head coaches are on the outside looking in for NFL top jobs. Other than that, why hasn’t some franchise taken a chance on Bieniemy, whose credentials are glowing?

Each has been chosen to play in the Feb. 25 HBCU Legacy Bowl at Tulane University in the “Big Easy.”

The event is a showcase for NFL draft-eligible athletes.

Grant quarterbacked VUU to a 9-2 record this past season and a spot in the NCAA Division II playoffs. He threw for 1,916 yards with 18 touchdowns.

Hagans ran for 1,059 yards and six touchdowns for the Trojans, averaging 5.4 yards per carry as VSU went 6-4.

The game is directed by the Black College Football Hall of Fame. Kickoff is set for 3 p.m. EST with TV coverage by the NFL Network.

Antwaan Randle El (Detroit receivers coach); Ronald Curry (New Orleans quarterback coach); Troy Brown (New England receivers coach); Tee Martin (Baltimore receivers coach); Ike Hilliard (former Pittsburgh assistant coach, now at Auburn University).

One of main reasons why the University of Southern California came to be known as “Tailback U” was Charles White, who played the position with strength, speed and passion.

The Trojans’ all-time leading rusher (6,245 yards) died Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2023, of cancer at a nursing home in Newport Beach, Calif.

The Colts are coming off a 4-12-1 disaster. Frank Reich was fired Nov. 7 as coach and replaced by interim Jeff Saturday.

There are other openings in Carolina (Steve Wilks, who is Black, is interim), Denver (Sean Payton is favorite), Houston and Arizona. Bieniemy, 53, could be

There are questions that Bieniemy is riding on the coattails of KC head man Andy Reid, one of the NFL’s most successful coaches, and other-worldly quarterback Patrick Mahomes, perhaps the league’s top player.

If so, how might he fare alone?

Time will tell. And for Bieniemy, the waiting game continues.

Trojans Horses

University of Southern California career football rushing leaders.

Player Yards Years

Charles White 6,245 1976-78

Marcus Allen 4,810 1978-81

Virginia Union University and Morehouse College will be in the college football spotlight Sept. 3 in Canton, Ohio.

The Panthers and Tigers will face off in the Black College Hall of Fame Classic to be televised by the NFL Network.

VUU of the CIAA is coming off a 9-2 season in which coach Alvin Parker’s squad reached the NCAA Division II playoffs. Located in Atlanta, Morehouse of the SIAC was 1-9 last season.

There will be competition at halftime, too, with VUU’s Ambassadors of Sound marching against Morehouse’s House of Funk.

Tickets starting at $25 can be purchased through the schools’ websites.

A Los Angeles native, Mr. White led USC to the national title in 1978. He was the Heisman Trophy winner in 1979, and the Rose Bowl MVP in 1978 and 1979.

Mr. White was the third USC tailback to win the Heisman, following Mike Garrett in 1965 and O.J. Simpson in 1968.

His 49 USC touchdowns rushing is second only to LenDale White’s 52.

Mr. White was a two-time AllAmerican and was selected to the College

Anthony Davis 3,724 1972-74

Ricky Bell 3,689 1974-77

Ronald Jones 3,619 2015-17

O.J. Simpson 3,423 1967-68

Mike Garrett 3,721 1963-65

Reggie Bush 3,169 2003-05

LenDale White 3,159 2003-05

Fred Crutcher 2,815 1981-85

The TV network BCSBN will broadcast the VUU and VSU games on Saturday, Jan. 21. Elizabeth City will play at Virginia State at noon, followed by Virginia Union at Bowie State.

Football Hall of Fame.

He went on to play with Cleveland and the L.A. Rams in NFL, rushing for 3,075 yards and 24 TDs. In retirement, he served as a USC assistant coach, and was twice the winner of the televised American Gladiators Pro Football Challenge.

Virginia Union’s Jahkari Grant and Virginia State’s Darius Hagans are making travel plans for New Orleans.

Eric Bieniemy

Randy Singleton/Richmond Free Press

Charles Tart III of VUU dunks the ball during the Jan. 14 Freedom Classic game at Virginia State University.

has produced eight current NBA players, including Malcolm Brogdon (with ball) and Jeff Hauser for the Eastern Conference, Atlantic Division leader Celtics (30-12, as Jan. 12).

Personality: Christal Corey

Spotlight on Richmond Public Schools’ Teacher of the Year

Richmond Public Schools, like many urban school districts throughout the country, face multiple challenges, heightened by students’ learning loss from the COVID-19 pandemic and limited resources to offset other obstacles school systems endure daily.

But none of these challenges have deterred Christal Corey or her love for teaching. As a science teacher at Franklin Military Academy, she comes from a family of educators. Her mother, sister and father all currently are RPS employees.

Although Ms. Corey was a physical therapist at the beginning of her career, she quickly learned that her true calling was teaching. And in the eight short years since she started, her hard work is paying off. Earlier this month she was named the RPS Teacher of the Year.

The North Carolina Central University and Virginia Commonwealth University graduate said that she observed her father working really hard as a teacher, but that her mother was her greatest influence.

“She was raised by my grandmother, who had an eighth-grade education and now she has her doctorate,” she said of her mother. “She came from very humble beginnings and has made choices to create a comfortable life for me and my siblings growing up.”

Ms. Corey said she does everything she can for her students and believes science is an opportunity to tap into children’s curiosity and make them inquisitive learners. “I believe science should be introduced with inquiry-based

learning, phenomena, and hands-on experiences,” she said. “I believe in giving students choices and using their strengths to encourage their interest in science.”

Another key belief that feeds Ms. Corey’s success as a teacher, she said, is giving her students a safe space to cultivate their skills and build a relationship with her.

Meet educator and RPS Teacher or the Year Christal Corey:

Latest accomplishment: Being named 2023 RPS Teacher of the Year.

Date and place of birth: July 10 in Norfolk.

Current residence: Richmond.

Education: North Carolina Central University and Virginia Commonwealth University.

Family: Mother, Dr. Sonya Baines-Corey, and father, David Corey.

Occupation: Science teacher at Franklin Military Academy.

Reaction to RPS top teacher award: Honored that I get to represent such amazing teachers.

How I got the news: A surprise assembly at Franklin Military Academy.

Why I became a teacher: To change the trajectory of children’s lives through quality education.

My teaching philosophy: I believe that science teachers should be facilitators of learning, shifting the learning load to the students to increase science discourse and create

scientific thinkers.

I’ve been a teacher since: 2015.

Where I first taught: Boushall Middle School.

Grades I teach: Seventh and eighth grade.

Subjects I teach: Physical and Earth Science.

My teaching style: Warm and strict. I love and respect all of my students but make sure that they have structure.

Advice to aspiring teachers: Build relationships with your students and their families, always have high expectations and create a safe space where your students can thrive. Take care of yourself because you can’t pour from an empty cup.

Role of parents/guardians in learning process: They are SO important; parents are their

child’s first teacher. Parents are there to support the learning process and are an essential part of the educational team.

Biggest challenge facing students today: Feeling safe at school and having enough wrap-around support (academic, social emotional, health) to be successful.

How this challenge impacts schoolwork: If students doesn’t feel safe or supported, they don’t have the basic needs to be able to focus on academics.

A good teacher: Builds relationships, uses best teaching practices, looks for opportunities to learn new strategies and disseminate information learned to help others improve. A good student is: Prepared

to learn and not afraid to ask clarifying questions.

A school is: A safe space for students to learn and grow.

A good school system is: A school system where decisions are made in the best interest of every student and employee.

How I start the day: With prayer and gratitude.

The three words that best describe me: Hard-working, service-oriented, fun-loving.

Best late-night snack: Ice cream or cake.

How I unwind: Lavender tea and a good TV show.

Something I love to do that most people would never imagine: I love cooking and baking! Or making/building anything with my hands.

A quote that I am inspired by: “Every storm runs out of rain.” — Maya Angelou

At the top of my “to-do” list: Preparing for my sister’s baby shower.

The best thing my parents ever taught me: Love God and love people.

The person who influenced me the most: My mother.

Book that influenced me the most: “The Color of Water” by James McBride gave me answers about God and race.

The mother told her son that God is the color of water. It is a story about overcoming, exploring the idea that no matter the challenges you face, you can change your situation through determination and education.

What I’m reading now: “Woke Church” by Dr. Eric Mason, which calls on Christians in America to confront systemic racism and injustices.

Next goal: Virginia Teacher of the Year!

Community Leaders Celebration honors memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

More than 800 people, including Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Virginia Union President Dr. Hakim J. Lucas, Mayor Levar M. Stoney, members of the Virginia General Assembly, Richmond City Council, educators, corporate and nonprofit leaders and community advocates, joined a joyous 45th Annual Community Leaders Celebration on Jan. 13 at the Richmond Marriott.

The annual early morning breakfast gathering, hosted by VUU and Living the Dream Inc., truly was an occasion to commemorate and honor the Jan. 15 birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who died at the hands of an assassin in 1968. Dr. King’s dream before his death, espoused freedom, education, equal rights and voting rights. His dreams were revived by the riveting Dr. Howard-John Wesley, senior pastor of the historic Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria.

Hailed as one of the most prolific and prophetic voices of justice and grace in modern times, Dr. Wesley has led community protest marches against the New York grand jury’s 2014

decision not to indict an NYPD officer whose choke-hold led to the death of Eric Gardner.

His sermon “After Trayvon” was acknowledged by Time magazine’s July 29, 2013, cover story as one of the best sermons preached in the United States after the “not guilty” verdict in the State of Florida v. George Zimmerman. Zimmerman fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012.

Dr. Wesley’s message to the CLC attendees focused on the biblical town Ai, located in central Canaan, which is noted for “being the scene of a humiliating Israelite defeat as the small city of Ai routed the Israelites and inflicted three dozen casualties.”

Weaving in multiple Ai analogies to today’s political and social climate, Dr. Wesley drew standing rounds of applause and “amens” as he exhorted that it is time to get on the battlefield.

“There comes a moment when it has to be about more than religion … it’s got to be about your politics,” Dr. Wesley preached.

Positioning himself several inches from his microphone, he surveyed the Marriott ballroom and the special guests seated

near him on the dais when driving home his point.

“There comes a time when it’s got to be more than your Sunday shout; it’s got to be your Monday movement.”

The Living the Dream Legacy Award was presented posthumously to A. Donald McEachin. The late congressman’s widow, Collette W. McEachin, accepted the award.

Orange County celebrates culinary icon Edna Lewis Virginia approves marker

honoring former New York chef

By Debora Timms

For some, the name Edna Lewis is synonymous with Southern food. The chef and cookbook author often is referred to as “Grand Dame of Southern cooking.”

The Library of Virginia recognized Mrs. Lewis as an AfricanAmerican Trailblazer in 2009, and she was honored in 2014 with a United States postage stamp. Her second cookbook, the 1976 classic, “The Taste of Country Cooking,” was featured in a 2017 episode of “Top Chef.”

However, Edna Lewis has not become a household name despite having been hailed as “the South’s answer to Julia Childs.”

Now the Virginian, born in 1916 on a farm in Freetown, a community founded by formerly enslaved people, including her grandfather Chester Lewis, is being honored in Orange County.

A special menu trail organized by the Orange County Office of Tourism currently leads visitors to local restaurants featuring versions of Mrs. Lewis’ recipes from 1972’s “The Edna Lewis Cookbook.” Last month, the Department of Historic Resources approved locating a marker honoring her near her birthplace at 14311 Marquis Road off State Route 20 in Unionville.

menus such as smothered braised rabbit.

Mrs. White believes that in addition to learning about Mrs. Lewis’ creations, diners also will get a sense of how communities were sustained by the land.

It was not until 1949 that her culinary dream became a reality. She became chef and partner in Café Nicholson, a restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. In the years that followed she cooked in other elite restaurants and worked as a private caterer, as well as writing cookbooks.

Those early cookbooks were an introduction of sorts for Mrs. White.

“I’ve always been a bit of a foodie. In the early 1970s I began buying cookbooks, especially ones with an AfricanAmerican author,” Mrs. White explained. “That is how I learned of Edna Lewis and I was just fascinated that she was from Orange County.”

On a trip to Brooklyn in the late 1980s, Mrs. White went to the restaurant where Mrs. Lewis, then in her 70s, was working as a chef — Gage & Tollner.

Bessida Cauthorne White, who lived in Richmond for decades before returning to Middlesex County where she grew up, couldn’t be more pleased about her friend’s recognition.

Mrs. White

“So few of the highway markers in Virginia tell the stories of African-Americans,” the activist, retired attorney and genealogist said in a recent phone interview. “So I am delighted, just really delighted about that.”

She’s also excited that some of the dishes along the trail will feature nostalgic favorites such as Apple Brown Betty and Hoppin John, as well as dishes not commonly seen on today’s

This focus on seasonal, fresh ingredients made Mrs. Lewis a progenitor of the farm-to-table movement. Her mother taught her to cook using local meat and produce, and her cookbooks are seasoned with stories about fresh food consumed during her childhood. Her cooking and writing were ways to share the memories and traditions that meant so much to her, according to published reports.

Mrs. Lewis left home as a teenager and found herself in New York. She had no formal training as a chef. In fact, her culinary career started with a three-hour stint ironing in a New York laundry. She was fired for not knowing how to iron, but she did know how to sew. As a seamstress she copied designer Christian Dior dresses and once made a dress for Marilyn Monroe.

“I ordered two entrees and several appetizers — maybe more, just to be able to try a taste of them when they were freshly prepared.”

Afterward, she asked to meet the chef. The two bonded over their shared home state and people they both knew. Their friendship continued when Mr. Lewis moved to Decatur, Ga., until her death in 2006.

“I got to know this amazing woman because I was bold enough to ask to speak to her that day in New York,” Mrs. White said. “She was innately talented. Everything she cooked was delicious and her personality was infused into every dish.”

Learn more about the Edna Lewis Menu Trail at https:// visitorangevirginia.com/

Gates Foundation takes up question of its own power

By Thalia Beatty The Associated Press

Does The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have too much power and influence?

It’s a question the foundation’s CEO Mark Suzman raised in its annual letter released Tuesday that outlines the organization’s priorities and announces its budget for the coming year.

With $8.3 billion to give away in 2023, the Gates Foundation is the largest private philanthropic donor. And with an endowment of more than $70 billion, its spending power is likely to continue for many decades.

When asked in an interview with The Associated Press what he thought the answer to that question was, Mr. Suzman said, “No.”

He said the Seattle-based foundation takes its direction from the Sustainable Development Goals, set by the United Nations and its member countries in 2015, and knows that with its great resources come great responsibility.

“We try to use our tools, our skills, our resources, sometimes our technical skills, sometimes our voice in advocacy to help advance and drive those forward,” Mr. Suzman said.

Others disagree, including researchers who have followed the foundation’s funding for education in the U.S., its weight

in international global health organizations and its approach toward the agriculture of smallholder farmers around the world. The foundation works on a wide range of issues and employs 1,700 staff members, who are experts in those areas, and espouses a dream-big ethos of setting ambitious goals.

Bill Gates, in his most recent public letter in December, described the foundation’s mission as reducing inequity and helping “people in poor countries who should not die. Especially children.” Mr. Suzman said its mission is to help “ensure that every person has the chance to lead a healthy, productive life.”

It has spent billions of dollars to vaccinate against polio, treat and prevent malaria and HIV and more recently advance vaccines for diseases like cholera and advocated for other donors, including countries, to join in these global public health efforts.

But some of its interventions have not achieved their goals, despite widespread adoption.

In one example, the foundation championed a theory of measuring teacher effectiveness in U.S. schools. Then, it commissioned research in 2018 that found the approach did little to consistently improve learning outcomes for students. It also advocated for curriculum standards called the Common Core that have been criticized

as being too formulaic and are still in effect in some states.

The foundation announced in October a new education initiative funded by $1.1 billion over four years to try to improve math scores through developing new curricula and digital tools. For Alex Molnar, of the National Education Policy Center, the plan demonstrates the power billionaires like Bill Gates have — experimenting with the education of the poorest children, despite past missteps.

“It is so fundamentally misdirected and so obviously wrong, both in the moral sense and in the rational sense, that it is literally breathtaking,”

Mr. Molnar said. “This very wealthy, very narrow man can continually, continually torment schoolchildren while … pretending that somehow he’s making the world better.”

The foundation, Mr. Suzman said, approaches its education work with humility and will develop curricula in partnership with teachers, students and schools. It does not impose its ideas from the top down, he said.

When asked about previous criticism that its education work had ignored issues that arise from poverty and that hurt learning, Mr. Suzman said he doesn’t see that as philanthropy’s role. He says it should support pro-

grams governments or business can’t or won’t fund.

“If we had great tools to address poverty, we would tackle it,” he said, of the foundation.

Mr. Molnar disagreed, saying that diminishing the number of poor people would mean stopping the wealthiest people from amassing their fortunes in the first place.

“It requires taking money from people like Mr. Gates — taxing the bejesus out of them,” he said. “Nobody should have that much money. Nobody should have that much influence.”

The Gates Foundation has recently taken steps to decentralize its decision-making. In the last two years, it expanded its top leadership, appointing five new members to its board of trustees, with 2023 marking the first time the larger board approved the foundation budget.

New members already have pushed the foundation to be more transparent, Mr. Suzman said. The board also recommended the foundation set aside some of the $20 billion that Bill Gates committed to the organization in 2022 for future work and gradually raise its annual budget to $9 billion by 2026.

That the new board members have deep experience in philanthropy “is a recognition that giving money away well is a sophisticated enterprise and something that takes experience

and learning and expertise,” said Kathleen Enright, who leads the Council on Foundations.

Bill Gates has reiterated that all his wealth eventually will go to the foundation, which will close 20 years after he, Melinda French Gates and Warren Buffett have all died. Buffett has entrusted the foundation with $36 billion from his fortune.

“It’s thankfully not a burning platform,” said Mr. Suzman.

In 2021, when Melinda French Gates and Bill Gates announced their divorce, they said she would evaluate her participation in the foundation after two years. She remains fully committed to the foundation’s work, Mr. Suzman said, when asked.

In 2021, in its first report on the inclusiveness and equity of its work, the foundation learned many of its grantees and partners wanted to be consulted more and have their input incorporated into the foundation’s strategy.

Mr. Suzman said every team at the foundation now has a mandate to deepen their relationships with partners and its entire leadership team is participating in a year-long inclusion training.

“In the end, money can buy you any form of short-term success,” Mr. Suzman said. “But long term sustainability requires deep sustained local ownership and direction and ultimately resources.”

AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File

A person walks by the headquarters of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on April 27, 2018, in Seattle. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation published its annual letter Jan. 17, which outlines the organization’s priorities and announced its $8.3 billion budget for 2023. CEO Mark Suzman, who authored the letter, raised the question of whether the foundation has too much power and influence.

Clement Britt/photos

The Community Leaders Celebration at the Richmond Marriott commemorates and honors the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. Howard-John Wesley, senior pastor of the historic Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria was the program’s keynote on Jan. 13, two days before Dr. King’s birthday. Other guests and speakers included state Sen. Jennifer McClellan, Commonwealth’s Attorney Colette McEachin, who accepted the Virginia Union University’s Living The Dream Legacy Award on behalf of her late husband, Rep. A. Donald McEachin, Gov. Glenn Youngkin, VUU President Dr. Hakim J. Lucas, and VUU Board of Trustees President Dr. W. Franklyn Richardson. Below, members of VUU’s choir make a joyful noise.

Black churches to receive share of $4M for preservation work

By Adelle M. Banks Religion News Service

Nearly three dozen historic Black religious sites will receive a $4 million infusion of funding to help them with renovations and preservation of their buildings across the country.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund announced Monday (Jan. 16) that 35 churches are the recipients of the first round of its Preserving Black Churches grants. The Lilly Endowment is funding the $20 million initiative.

“We focus not only on the preservation of the physical buildings, but also on the profound stories embodied in their walls, landscapes, cemeteries, and beyond,” Brent Leggs, executive director of the fund and senior vice president of the trust, told Religion News Service via email.

“Their role as centers of Black religion, culture, and service is fundamental to understanding the lived experience of Black Americans.”

The fund, which describes itself as the largest dedicated to preserving African-American historic locations, has raised more than $80 million since its launch in 2017.

The grant announcement was timed to the holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Mr. Leggs said future grants are also expected to be announced around the time of the holiday.

The grants, from $50,000 to $200,000, based on the scope and scale of the projects, will aid churches from Alaska to Alabama that are often some of the oldest buildings in their communities and could benefit from money to help with long-term maintenance, immediate repairs or future public presentations.

Blackness in Hamline Islamic controversy

By Edward E. Curtis IV and Kayla Renée Wheeler Religion News Service

In early October, Erika López Prater, a professor at Hamline University in Minnesota, showed her online Islamic art history class an image of the Prophet Muhammad. A Muslim student in the class complained, citing Islamic tradition barring representations of the prophet. Other students joined in to express their view that this incident was part of a larger problem of Islamophobia on campus. The administration agreed, and eventually Ms. López Prater’s contract to teach during the spring semester was rescinded.

Since her firing, other professors, including Islamic studies scholars, have rightly rallied around her, drafting petitions and op-eds calling her dismissal a case of censorship trammeling academic freedom.

We’ve heard little in the media coverage of this fiasco, however, about the students who initiated the complaint — why they objected, who they are and what their lives are like at Hamline and in the Twin Cities. Most of all, we need to understand why a perceived attack on the

body and dignity of the Prophet Muhammad may have felt like an attack on them.

We live in a deeply Islamophobic society where Muslims face both interpersonal and institutional oppression that affects how young Muslims experience everyday life. This incident is simply the latest example. Ms. López Prater has unjustly lost her job, and Hamline University Muslim students have been vilified in the media, while the underlying problem “Islamophobia” still persists on Hamline’s campus and beyond.

Some congregations, such as two African Methodist Episcopal Zion churches in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Potomac, Md., are currently unable to worship in their historic locations.

“Our grants will help advance efforts to improve physical conditions so that these churches can open their doors and continue to fulfill their religious missions and community programs,” Mr. Leggs told RNS.

The majority of recipients will receive capital project grants to help them deal with social conditions, such as gentrification and other neighborhood changes, as well as deteriorating structures, from stained-glass windows to steeples in need of restoration. Some of the churches have connections to national history related to emancipation, medical rights and musical achievement.

Reedy Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Galveston, Texas, was one of the first locations where the order was read in 1865 that declared the freedom of enslaved people in that state — an occasion now marked by the national observance of Juneteenth. It will receive a grant to aid its climate resilience and restore its stained-glass windows and masonry.

Members of Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, in Notasulga, Ala., were recruited to take part in the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study, in which Black men were left untreated for decades so the federal government could study the effects of the disease. It will receive a grant to assess the building and repair it in ways that protect worshippers’ safety.

Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago is recognized for spearheading the careers of well-known singers, including Mahalia Jackson. It will receive a grant to advance roof repairs and façade renovations.

Beyond capacity project grants, three recipients, including the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. — site of a 1963 bombing that killed four girls — will receive endowment and financial sustainability grants.

One of three recipients of project-planning grants, The Lighthouse at Lane College in Jackson, Tenn., will develop a plan for the historically Black school to reopen as a performing arts center.

The Basilica of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Norfolk, Va., one of two recipients of organizational capacity building grants, plans to hire senior preservation staff

Riverview Baptist Church

2023

Martin Luther King Jr Day

The Baha'i Community in Richmond celebrates the 2023 observance of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, January 16th.

The Baha'i Faith from its inception in Persia in 1863 has sought to unite all the peoples of the world in a society in which all people are recognized as spiritual and social equals and no one is to be regarded as a stranger We are a world-wide community with believers in almost every country in the world. From the time our Faith first arrived in America, we have recognized the harm that an entrenched racism is wreaking on our society Indeed, racism has been identified as America's "most challenging issue."

In 1991, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the United States, our national administrative body called on all American Baha'is, saying, "Our appeal is addressed primarily to the individual American because the transformation of a whole nation ultimately depends on the initiative and change of character of the individuals who compose it. No great idea or plan of action by the government or other interested organizations can hope to succeed if the individual neglects to respond in his or her own way as personal circumstances and opportunities permit."

We wish to add our voices to those of our fellow citizens in a call for equal justice for all people without regard to race or ethnicity We support all peaceful means of accomplishing this goal. The Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Richmond, VA www richmondvabahais info

Sharon Baptist Church

Photo courtesy of Basilica of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception The Basilica of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Norfolk.

to aid in the upkeep of one of the only basilicas in the country with a predominantly Black congregation.

Roberts Chapel Church & Burial Association in Nobles-

ville, Ind., is the sole recipient of a programming and interpretation grant, which will be used to create an outdoor exhibit emphasizing the diverse history of the Midwest.

Plaintiff, v. rUBEN ALBErTO riOS cESPEDES, Defendant. case No.: cL22-3914

OrDEr OF PUBLicATiON

The object of the abovestyled suit is to obtain a divorce from the bond of matrimony from the Defendant on the grounds that the parties have lived separate and apart, without any cohabitation and without any interruption, for a period of more than one year.

8460 Mount Eagle Road Ashland, VA 23005 (804) 798-9667

cUSTODY

virGiNiA: iN THE JUvENiLE AND DOMESTic rELATiONS DiSTricT cOUrT OF THE ciTY OF ricHMOND commonwealth of virginia, in re MicHAEL JAMES STrASBUrG, iii & JAYDEN JAMES STrASBUrG rDSS, v TrAcEY LEE FOrD, case No. J-101012-05, J-101013-05 OrDEr OF PUBLicATiON

from

column BONNEr BYrANcE, PATriciA ELvirA BYrANcE, vicTOr BONNNEr PATriciA BONNEr AND THELMA BONNEr, who are made parties to this proceeding by the general description as “PArTiES UNKNOWN”, DEFENDANTS OrDEr OF PUBLicATiON cASE NO. cL22-5432-00

city of richmond, virginia ciTY cOUNciL

PUBLic NOTicE

Notice is hereby given that the City of Richmond Planning Commission has scheduled a public hearing, open to all interested citizens, on Monday, February 6, 2023 at 1:30 p.m in the Fifth Floor Conference Room of City Hall and the Council of the City of Richmond has scheduled a public hearing on Monday, February 13, 2023 at 6:00 p.m. in the Council Chamber on the Second Floor of City Hall, located at 900 East Broad Street, Richmond, Virginia, to consider the following ordinances:

Ordinance No. 2023-031

To authorize the special use of the property known as 823 China Street, for the purpose of a twofamily detached dwelling, upon certain terms and conditions. The property is located in the R-7 Single- and Two-Family Urban Residential District.

The City’s Richmond 300 Master Plan designates a future land use for the subject property as Neighborhood MixedUse, which is defined as existing or new highly-walkable urban neighborhoods that are predominantly residential with a small, but critical, percentage of parcels providing retail, office, personal service, and institutional uses. The proposed density of the parcel is approximately 25 units per acre.

Ordinance No. 2023-032

To authorize the special use of the property known as 1400 Perry Street for the purpose of a food bank as an accessory use, upon certain terms and conditions. The property is located in an R-8 Urban Residential District. The City’s Richmond 300 Master Plan designates a future land use for the subject property as Neighborhood MixedUse, which is defined as existing or new highly-walkable urban neighborhoods that are predominantly residential with a small, but critical, percentage of parcels providing retail, office, personal service, and institutional uses.

Interested citizens who wish to speak will be given an opportunity to do so by following the instructions referenced in the February 13, 2023 Richmond City Council Formal meeting agenda. Copies of the full text of all ordinances are available by visiting the City Clerk’s page on the City’s Website at https:// www.rva.gov/office-cityclerk, and in the Office of the City Clerk, City Hall, 900 East Broad Street, Suite 200, Richmond, VA 23219, from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Candice D. Reid City Clerk

It appearing by affidavit filed according to law that the Defendant, Ruben Alberto Rios Cespedes, whose last known address was 9101 Patterson Avenue, #23, Richmond, Virginia 23229, has since relocated outside the Commonwealth of Virginia, and his current whereabouts are unknown, it is therefore ORDERED that Defendant, Ruben Alberto Rios Cespedes, appear before this Court on or before the 6th day of March, 2023, and do what is necessary to protect his interests in this suit.

I ask for this: Jesse Baez, Esq. BROOKS & BAEZ 9100 Arboretum Pkwy., Suite 190 Richmond, VA 23236 T: (804) 570-7473 F: (804) 548-4215 Counsel for Plaintiff virGiNiA: iN THE circUiT cOUrT FOr THE cOUNTY OF HANOvEr DEANGLAO MccLUrE, Plaintiff v. SONYA ScOTT, Defendant. case No.: cL22001380-00

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 28th day of February, 2023 at 9:00 AM, and protect her interests.

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

virGiNiA: iN THE circUiT cOUrT FOr THE cOUNTY OF HANOvEr rANAN GArriSON, aka rOMAN GArriSON, Plaintiff v. BiTENA GArriSON, Defendant. case No.: cL21000518-00

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, who has been served with the Complaint by posted service appear here on or before the 8th day of February, 2023 at 9:00 AM, and protect her interests.

A Copy, Teste: FRANK D. HARGROVE, JR., Clerk I ask for this: Dorothy M. Eure, Plaintiff’s Counsel VSB# 27724 The Law Office of Dorothy M. Eure, P.C.

The object of this suit is to: Terminate the residual parental rights (“RPR”) of Tracey Lee Ford (MOTHEr) of Michael James Strasburg, iii, child, DOB 3/15/2010 and Jayden James Johnson, child, DOB 7/2/2014 “RPR” means all rights and responsibilities remaining with Parent after transfer of legal custody or guardianship of the person, including but not limited to rights of: Visitation; adoption consent; determination of religious affiliation; and responsibility for support and that.

It is ORDERED that the defendants Tracey Lee Ford (Mother) to appear at the above-named Court and protect his/her interest on or before 4/18/2023, at 2:00 P.M., cOUrTrOOM #2 (McG)

virGiNiA: iN THE circUiT cOUrT OF HENricO cOUNTY iN THE MATTEr OF THE ADOPTiON OF A cHiLD KNOWN AS ALEXANDriA GrAcE KiTTLE (virGiNiA BirTH rEGiSTrATiON NUMBEr 145-18-081342)

BY LAUriE LYN FrANciS AND rANDALL TErrY FrANciS case No. cA-22-45-00

OrDEr OF PUBLicATiON

The object of this suit is to allow the petitioners Laurie Lyn Francis and Randall Terry Francis to adopt a child known as Alexandria Grace Kittle pursuant to Virginia Code Section 63.2-1242.3.

However, the petitioners have been unable to locate the birth mother, Mary Grace May, for purposes of service and whose parental rights must be terminated in order to proceed with the adoption.

Diligence has been used without effect to ascertain the location of Mary Grace May. An affidavit has been filed in support hereof. The last known address of Mary Grace May is: 923 Schroeder Rd. Powhatan, Va. 23139.

Upon consideration, this Order of Publication is GRANTED and it is therefore ORDERED that the birth mother Mary Grace May appear on or before March 24, 2023 at 9:30 am in the Circuit Court for Henrico County and do what is necessary to protect her interests.

A COPY TESTE: HEIDI S. BARSHINGER, Clerk I ask for this: Sherry A. Fox, Esquire (VSB #72943)

Fox Family Formation 9962 Brook Road, #613 Glen Allen, VA 23059 (804) 317-3416 {Telephone) sfox@foxfamilyformation.com Counsel for Petitioners

PrOPErTiES

virGiNiA: iN THE circUiT cOUrT OF THE ciTY OF ricHMOND ANDrEW BYrANcE (BY AND THrOUGH HiS ATTOrNEY-iN-FAcT GAYLE BYrANcE) PLAiNTiFF v. PATriciA BONNEr and THELMA BONNEr And THE UNKNOWN HEirS, DEviSEES, AND SUccESSOrS OF ricHArD O. BONNEr ricHArD O. BONNEr, Jr., ALYcE G. BONNEr, PATriciA

The object of this suit is to Partition and Sell the certain real property in the City of Richmond, Virginia, to wit: all that certain lot, piece or parcel of land, with the improvements thereon, lying and being in the City of Richmond, VA known as 811 Edgehill Road, Richmond, VA 23222 and more particularly described as follows:

“ScHEDULE A” LEGAL DESCRIPTION OF THE PROPERTY ALL that certain lot, piece or parcel of land with all the improvements thereon and appurtenances thereunto belonging, lying, being and situate in the City of Richmond, Virginia, known as No. 811 Edgehill Road and further described as follows:

BEGINNING at a point on the southern line of Edgehill Road distant 259 feet westwardly of the intersection of the south line of Edgehill Road with the western line of Tazewell Street (formerly Goddin Street) and from said point of beginning; thence running westwardly along and fronting on the south line of Edgehill Road a distance of 50 feet; and thence extending back of southwardly from said front between parallel lines and distance of 140 feet to an alley in the rear. Being Lot 18 (previously and erroneously referred to as Lot 11 ), Block Q, on the plan of Battery Court Addition, of record in Plat Book 10, page 8, Clerk’s Office, Henrico County, Virginia, to which reference is hereby made for a more particular description.

BEING the same real estate conveyed to Richard 0. Bonner, Jr. and Alyce G. Bonner, his wife, as tenants by the entireties, with the right of survivorship as at common law, by Deed from Nannie B. Gresham and 0. H. Gresham, her husband, dated October 19, 1954, recorded October 26, 1954, in the Clerk’s Office, Chancery Court, City of Richmond, Virginia, in Deed Book 559-C, page 409.

Affidavit having been made and filed stating that due diligence has been used, without effect, to ascertain the existence of and location of certain parties to be served, and that there are or may be persons whose names and/or addresses cannot be ascertained and remain unknown who are interested in the subject matter of this suit;

It is ORDERED that, the Defendants named above and the PARTIES UNKNOWN, if then living or be dead, their heirs, devisees, assigns, or successors in title, and other unknown heirs or parties who have an interest in the subject matter of this suit, who are proceeded against as PARTIES UNKNOWN, appear before this Court on or before February 22, 2023 to protect their interests, if any, in this suit and/or the referenced property; and I ask for this: Stephen B. Wood (VSB 26581) Counsel for Plaintiff: Andrew Byrance The Wood Law Firm, PLC 6720 Patterson Avenue, Suite D Richmond, VA, 23226 (804) 335-0888 Office (804) 747-4951 Facsimile (804) 873-0088 Cell Steve.wood@woodlawrva.com

Attorney for Plaintiff

ABc LicENSE

richmond Mart vA inc Trading as: One Stop Food Mart 3701 Meadowbridge rd richmond, Henrico, vA 23222-2124 The above establishment is

applying to the V IRGINIA A LCOHOLIC B EVERAGE C ONTROL (ABC) AUTHORITY for a Retail Wine and Beer Off Premises license to sell or manufacture alcoholic beverages. Lawrence Russell Len Jr., owner Date notice posted at establishment: 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.

BiD

cOUNTY OF HENricO, virGiNiA cONSTrUcTiON BiD

iTB #22-2447-11JL Jacob L. Adams Elementary School Addition and renovation Due: February 16, 2023 at 2:00 p.m. For additional information visit: https://henrico.us/ finance/divisions/purchasing/ solicitations

cOUNTY OF HENricO, virGiNiA cONSTrUcTiON BiD

iTB #22-2382-6JOK Four Mile creek restroom and Amenities Due: February 14, 2023 at 2:00 p.m. For additional information visit: https://henrico.us/ finance/divisions/purchasing/ solicitations

NOTICE OF PUBLIC INPUT FOR THE VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

FIVE YEAR CONSOLIDATED PLAN FOR PERIOD OF 2024 – 2028 AND ANNUAL ACTION PLAN OF 2024-2025

The Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) is undertaking a Five (5) Year 2024-2028 Consolidated Planning process to determine the Housing and Community Planning and Development needs and to determine the best use of resources to address those needs of the state.

The planning process will result in the development of an Annual Action Plan which will outline the prioritized needs and the use of available resources to federal housing and community development resources include the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), HOME Investment Partnerships Program (HOME), National Housing Trust Fund, Emergency Solution Grant (ESG), Housing for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA), and HOME Investment Partnerships American Rescue Plan (HOME-ARP).

DHCD will accept input on anticipated federal housing and community resources including goals and objectives for housing and community development, the projected use of funding, and the method of distribution.

DHCD will hold three virtual public input sessions on the Commonwealth of Each session will focus on a different component of the Consolidated Plan and Annual Action Plan.

A community development-focused public input session will be held on

A housing development-focused public input session will be held on

A homeless services-focused public input session will be held on

Please take notice that the School Board of the City of Richmond will conduct a public hearing during its meeting to receive public comment on the Superintendent’s proposed FY24 budget on Monday, February 6, 2023 at 6:30 p.m. The meeting will be held in the Auditorium of Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School, located at 1000 Mosby Street, Richmond, VA 23223. Additional details regarding this meeting will be available at the RPS BoardDocs website: https:// go.boarddocs.com/vsba/richmond/Board. nsf/Public.

Pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act, any person requiring special accommodations to participate in this proceeding should contact the Clerk of the School Board no later than three (3) business days prior to the meeting at (804) 780-7716 or prichard@ rvaschools.net. If you are hearing or speech impaired, please contact the agency by callTTY Relay Center at 711.

Fall Line Trail – Lakeside Community Trail, Phase 1 Project - Henrico County, Virginia

Notice of Willingness

The County of Henrico is proposing to construct approximately 3,360 linear feet of 12-foot-wide paved multi-use trail along an existing Henrico sewer easement between Spring Park and Dumbarton Road. This work will be a part of the Fall Line Trail, a 43mile north-south paved trail that will connect Ashland to Petersburg. Construction is anticipated to begin in June 2024.

Information relative to this project includes the proposed trail alignment, project schedule, and funding information, which can be reviewed at the County of Henrico, Department of Public Works, 4305 E. Parham Road, Administration Annex Building, 3rd Floor, Henrico, Virginia 23228. Telephone: (804) 501-5414.

County is willing to hold a public hearing. You may request a public hearing by sending a written request to Kristen Burton, P. O. Box 90775, Henrico, VA 23273-0775, on or before January 27, 2023. If a request for a public hearing is received, a notice of the date, time, and place of the public hearing will be provided.

The County ensures nondiscrimination and equal employment in all programs and activities in accordance with Title VI and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. If you need more information or special assistance for persons with disabilities or Burton at the above address or phone number or bur146@henrico.us.

UPC #: 118065

Catherine.Farnsler@dhcd.virginia.gov. Any person with a disability requiring special accommodations to attend the effort will be made to provide reasonable accommodations. Thank you