Bobbi Kristina dies at 22
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Richmond Free Press
VOL. 24 NO. 31
© 2015 Paradigm Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
www.richmondfreepress.com
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Record breaker
JULY 30-August 1, 2015
Building for children
Officer charged in killing motorist
Independent group pushes hospital plan despite skeptics
Redemption through food
By Jeremy M. Lazarus
The leader of an advocacy group for a new, independent Richmond children’s hospital said the group would file within five months an initial application for state approval — despite the current lack of interest in the project among the area’s three major hospital groups, Bon Secours, HCA and Virginia Commonwealth University. Just a week after Mayor Dwight C. Jones trumpeted the hospital proposal, Katherine E. Busser, president and CEO of the Virginia Children’s Hospital AlliMs. Busser Mayor Jones ance, disclosed that “we have hired consultants to work with us” to prepare the needed documents, including a required letter of intent to develop the hospital. The letter of intent, Ms. Busser said, is to be delivered to the state Health Department on or before Dec. 2. It would identify the owner and the proposed scope of the independent, freestanding hospital that Mayor Jones and supporters envision rising on city-owned property on the Boulevard that now includes The Diamond baseball stadium, Sports Backers Stadium and the school system’s Arthur Ashe Athletic Center.
Free Press wire reports
CINCINNATI “He purposely killed him.” That’s how an Ohio prosecutor described a white police officer’s gruesome actions in gunning down an unarmed African-American motorist he pulled over for not having a front license plate. “This is without question a murder,” Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Mr. DuBose Deters said Wednesday as he announced the indictment of former University of Cincinnati Police Officer Ray Tensing for the murder of 43-year-old Samuel DuBose during the traffic stop on July 19. “He wasn’t dealing with someone who was wanted for murder. He was dealing with someone who didn’t have a front license plate,” Mr. Deters said. The prosecutor called it “a chicken crap stop.” It’s the latest senseless killing of an unarmed AfricanAmerican male by a white police officer. The growing number of highly publicized incidents has increased calls across the nation for more effective training of law enPlease turn to A5
Aerial view of the 61-acre, cityowned site on the Boulevard where advocates propose to build a children’s hospital. The Diamond baseball stadium, home to the Richmond Flying Squirrels and a prominent feature of the North Side property, is expected to be displaced regardless of the hospital plan outcome. This view was taken before the demolition of city buildings next to Sports Backers Stadium.
Mr. Henderson
Renowned chef changed life cooking behind bars By Joey Matthews
At 19, Jeff Henderson was running a $35,000 a week cocaine operation in San Diego. Now 51, he has become a New York Times best-selling author and stars in a nationally syndicated television cooking show. He credits 10 years in prison as his “blessing in disguise.” That’s where he learned to cook and appreciate that he had a lot to offer in the outside world. Incarceration “weighed heavy on my heart
and on my mind,” Mr. Henderson said. “It was one of the darkest periods of my life. “Some people have to hit rock bottom in order to re-analyze who they are, their gifts and their pathway to redemption,” he added. Today, he’s on a mission to “pay it forward” by letting others know they, too, can lead successful lives after they are released from behind bars. The renowned chef is scheduled to share Google maps
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Designs for Broad St. rapid transit unveiled By Joey Matthews
Travelers along Broad Street will see a far different thoroughfare through the heart of the city in October 2017. That’s when the highly anticipated bus rapid transit known as “GRTC Pulse” is scheduled to whisk riders along a 7.6- mile route from Willow Lawn in the West End to Rocketts Landing in the East End. While GRTC’s regular fleet of buses will continue to make their appointed stops curbside along Broad Street, the rapid transit route will run every 10 to 15 minutes — and with fewer stops — along a dedicated lane that will include the median. According to preliminary designs of the $54 million project that were unveiled Monday and Tuesday, parts of the route will include 3.2 miles of lanes dedicated only for the rapid transit buses. One will run down the middle of Broad Street beginning in the West End from Thompson to Foushee streets. Another will be curbside from 4th to 14th streets in Downtown. Construction of the median lanes will reduce Broad Street’s normal travel lanes from three to two lanes in each direction along that route. GRTC officials, city representatives, design engineers and others discussed the project and answered questions from members of the public and others at the meetings at the University of Richmond’s campus in Downtown. They also updated Richmond City Council on the project Monday night. “We’re still in the design phase. We just completed 30 percent design plans,” GRTC CEO David Green told the Free
Press prior to Monday’s meeting at UR. “It’s exactly on schedule,” he added of the project that was first announced in fall 2014. Construction would begin in mid- to late 2016. Not everyone is happy with the project as it currently is proposed. Some residents
and business owners living and working along the route worry the plan will negatively impact them. One example: GRTC officials are proposing to eliminate 306 parking spaces along Broad Street from Thompson Street Please turn to A4
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Obama in Africa President Obama waves to a cheering crowd that packed an indoor stadium Sunday in Nairobi, Kenya, for the president’s visit. Kenya, the homeland of President Obama’s father, was the first stop on the president’s six-day journey through Africa, where he met with African heads of state and, on Monday, addressed the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In addition to seeking to further trade and cooperative arrangements between the United States and the African continent, the president addressed issues of human rights, women’s rights, ethnic conflict, corruption, terrorism, democracy, economic growth and presidential term limits. While in Kenya, he met with his extended family members. He is the first sitting U.S. president to visit Kenya or Ethiopia.
The group then would have 30 days to provide other details, including information on financing. State regulations require all hospitals to apply for a certificate of public need before any development can begin. The state health commissioner has authority to accept or reject an application. The process can take six months to a year. The proposed hospital has plenty of skeptics, including some on Richmond City Council, in part because the alliance has yet to identify a health care partner or hospital group that wants to be part of this effort. The alliance also has yet to demonstrate it has the money to move ahead if it wins state approval. At this point, Ms. Busser said the alliance still wants to work with two of the area’s major hospital groups, Bon Secours By Jeremy M. Lazarus and VCU, who earlier had expressed interest in participating Should baseball remain in creating a hospital to offer on the Boulevard? coordinated and comprehensive For Mayor Dwight C. care for children. Jones, the answer is a ringMany children who need ing “No,” not if Richmond specialty care for rare condiwants a bigger return from tions now are sent to children’s the prime property that The facilities in other states, and Diamond baseball stadium the new hospital is seen as occupies. It needs to go, enabling treatment to be prohe believes. vided locally. Some members of City In May, both nonprofit hosCouncil aren’t so sure, pital operators dropped out of given the site’s identificathe effort to develop a 100- to tion with baseball since 175-bed facility devoted to 1954. That’s when minor children, citing the risks and league teams in Richmond costs considered likely to top began playing at Parker $600 million for construction Field, and later at The and operations. Both would Diamond. have had to commit to give Still, Mayor Jones has up children’s services in which spent much of his two each has substantial investterms in office trying to ments. end the Boulevard-baseball Ms. Busser indicated that relationship. talks are still ongoing with
Baseball on the Boulevard? Mayor says ‘No’
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