State of the City Address
Noon, Saturday, Jan. 26, 2008
SunTrust Building
919 E. Main St.
Good afternoon. On behalf of my Administration, I want to thank each of you for taking the time to join with us, as we consider the state of our city and look at the issues and challenges before us, the accomplishments we have made, the opportunities that lie ahead, and my overall vision of what our community should become in the future.
Today, we gather during an election year, and that always makes things interesting! Of course, we’ll also have some local elections to tend to in November, and some of us may or may not be running as candidates for this or that office. But in referencing the election year, I was actually thinking more about presidential politics and the spirited discussions of the issues among the candidates.
And that brings to mind a question that several officeholders would naturally be asking toward the end of their first term of office. It’s a very simple and straightforward—yet remarkably bold—question: are you better off today than you were a few years ago?
Today, I am asking that same question of each of you and of all the citizens of this City—is our City better off today than it was three years ago. I have no hesitancy in asking the question, because I know the answer—and I think you’ll agree that the answer is, unequivocally, YES.
This City is on the move. By whatever measure someone wishes to judge—public safety, economic development and neighborhood revitalization, greater efficiencies and cost-savings in local government—in all of these areas and more, the City has experienced great success within the past three years.
Before 2005 Richmond was known as “murder capital USA”—with a per capita murder rate which placed it in the top five most dangerous cities in the United States.
Police enforcement efforts were not what they should be. Many citizens were afraid to step forward with information to help the Police. The Police Department was saddled with a number of vacancies that were difficult to fill. And, far too many crimes went unsolved and the perpetrators, unpunished.
But in the three years since my arrival at City Hall, we have seen a remarkable turnaround from what the City of Richmond used to be.
We initiated Community Sector policing that has greatly increased our Police officers’ accountability in patrolling our neighborhoods and getting to know the citizens who live there. As a result, sector policing is helping to establish a much closer bond with our citizens. There is a renewed spirit within the Police Department and it is now FULLY staffed, with no vacancies, for the first time in years. We increased the starting salaries of our Police officers to bring them in line with neighboring localities. We also created a Police Cadet Academy so that young men and women from across our city could prepare to have a career in law enforcement, right here in their own city, as an additional recruitment tool. VCU, J. Sargeant Reynolds and Philip Morris helped to jumpstart this initiative.
At the end of 2007, the City of Richmond’s clearance rate – or arrest rate – stood at 82 percent. To put this in its proper context, our 82 clearance is far greater than the nationwide clearance rate of only 61 percent. For comparison, the City of Boston’s clearance rate just a year ago was only 14 percent.
We owe our tremendous gratitude to our citizens because their confidence in the Police and their cooperation in providing information to help the Police has led to a 22% overall reduction in crime. As a result of all of this, Richmond is currently experiencing its lowest crime rate in 26 years.
In addition to all of the citizens who have come forward with information to help us catch and prosecute, the rest of us who live, work, or visit the City owe our peace of mind to Chief Rodney Monroe. Every morning, I thank God that I asked the Chief to come to Richmond and that he said yes. Now, we just need to make sure he stays here.
In the area of economic development, well before 2005 when I came into office, there were numerous properties in once vital areas of our City that had become everyday eyesores that served only as havens for criminal and other unsafe activity. Corporate growth in Downtown was at a virtual standstill. Major corporations and start-up companies were skeptical of wanting to come Downtown.
In some sections of Downtown as well as other areas across our community, the City’s aging infrastructure was allowed to rot, due in part because the City had no dedicated source of revenue to address the major improvements that were so desperately needed.
These conditions have changed since 2005, and my Administration has led the way in securing Downtown as the location for two of our country’s corporate giants:
(1) Philip Morris USA, which built a $350 million research center at the Virginia BioTechnology Park, a research center that represents the largest private business investment in the City’s history, bringing 500 high-paying jobs along with it, and
(2) Paper manufacturer MeadWestvaco, a Fortune 300 company, has chosen to build its corporate headquarters in Downtown – representing a $100-million enterprise and up to another 1,000 jobs.
In addition to these corporate giants, numerous small businesses have chosen to locate within the City limits in just the past few years.
Collectively, this combination of large and small businesses means that we’ve seen employment growth of nearly 2,500 new jobs since 2005. And we’re creating new opportunities through the City’s Office of Minority Business Development because Richmond has a record 18.5 percent minority participation in municipal contracts, as compared to the State’s participation of just 2 percent.
We will continue to aggressively pursue commercial development in our enterprise zones, by providing incentives to private developers to invest in areas of our city where there is so much potential for growth, both in Downtown as well as the Manchester and other areas located south of the James.
Through the City’s Department of Economic Development, we have provided 390 CARE incentives to businesses that have invested approximately $4 million in the City, and another 304 Enterprise Zone incentives were provided to businesses that have invested more than $25 million in the City since 2005.
We also should not forget – and indeed feel fortunate – that our City is the home of Virginia Commonwealth University which not only continues to grow in national and international stature year after year, but continues with academic and medical campus expansions that represent hundreds of millions in construction growth in just the past few years.
In terms of community development, from neighborhood to neighborhood across our city, we are utilizing our “Spot Blight” abatement authority to address deteriorating properties that are nothing but everyday eyesores that we had to face daily.
In the past three years, more than 280 buildings have undergone or are undergoing extensive renovation, reuse, and restoration – to provide both a return to residential occupancy use as well as a return for real estate revenues coming into the City’s coffers.
We’re also using Spot Blight measures to clean up Broad Street, and you only need to look at the extensive renovations now going on at Second and Broad to see what we are bringing about: the kind of positive change that people have long been waiting to see happen. This entire block is designated for this renovation.
Though he is not here with us today, I would like to recognize Washington, D.C. developer Doug Jemal of the Douglas Development Corporation, for his tremendous interest in revitalizing areas such as at Second and Broad, as well as in other sections of our City. Doug Jemal’s redevelopment work has brought a tremendous turnaround in downtown Washington, D.C. and this week, he and I walked over and looked at what he has done there.
Other areas of Broad Street and Downtown are already brimming with new trendy restaurants and art galleries, a new Hilton Hotel under construction wherein we had to bring in new development partners, a new Federal Courthouse starting before my Administration that is now nearing completion, a restored National Theatre that will open as a concert venue next month, a plan for orderly residential and commercial development along the James River, and many other signs of revitalization.
I encourage those who live in our neighboring jurisdictions to come Downtown and take a look at all of the activity underway.
On top of all of this good economic news, our citizens will soon be seeing the concrete benefits of our “City of the Future” plan, which is generating up to $300 million for community improvements without—let me repeat: without—requiring a single increase in taxes. This is evidenced by a copy of the $150 million, already available to us, that is posted on my office wall at City Hall if anyone chooses to come to see it.
Already, City of the Future money is being used to provide:
• $25 million in primary funding for a performing arts complex in Downtown that includes the Carpenter Center, so that our symphony, ballet and opera companies will have a permanent home in the fall of 2009. And don’t forget: I caught hell with “stopping it,” yet now look at what new commitment, new money from the business community, and new direction has brought about in terms of that project;
• Almost $8 million to provide state-of-the-art computer equipment in our public libraries so that our citizens of all ages can take advantage of today’s technology and access information electronically in order to advance their knowledge;
• $48 million for new and improved streets, sidewalks, and curbs and gutters across our city that we have needed for years and these types of improvements add so much to one’s everyday quality of life, and
• $20 million for major improvements to our city parks, community centers and playgrounds so that we can maximize our recreational enjoyment which, again, adds so much to our daily quality of life.
All of this, and much more, will be coming to our community as a result of the City of the Future program. These projects are already in the pipeline to be done. These will be concrete results of our City of the Future plan.
City of the Future monies are being directed toward where they will have the broadest beneficial impact for the majority of our citizens. This is a unique opportunity that we likely may never have again.
The funding mechanism for the City of the Future plan is a byproduct of the experience, energy and innovation brought to the City’s Department of Finance by Harry Black, the City’s Chief Financial Officer.
Never before did the City of Richmond create a funding source for its projects without first issuing bonds or taxing its residents. My Administration’s City of the Future plan has changed that.
The City of Richmond is in a very enviable position, as I am not aware of any other municipality in the United States that has a $300 million reserve available for what we already know to be much-needed community improvements, with NO tax increase.
The positive financial impact of the City of the Future Plan becomes all the more meaningful in view of our current economic conditions.
As you already have been hearing more and more in the news, we are entering a time when the economy is showing troubling signs: the inflation rate is climbing, and there is increasingly widespread commentary about the need to brace ourselves for what may lie ahead.
Some economists are making dire predictions, while others are saying that things are less severe. And while no one yet knows either the severity or the length of the current economic downturn, it is clear that prudence would dictate that we should hope for the best while preparing for the worse.
We read in the media about the sluggish growth in business profits, the credit crunch, the mortgage foreclosures and the cutbacks at the federal and state level.
The City of Richmond is already anticipating a cutback of more than $1 million in revenues from the state.
The possibility of new legislation coming out of the General Assembly could further bring an adverse financial impact to our local government.
The City of Richmond must do everything it can in order to be prepared for tough times ahead, and we must preserve our now-stronger AA bond rating.
To be more fully prepared for what may lie ahead, I am today proposing that we take a portion of our City of the Future money and set it aside as a Capital Construction Contingency Reserve, in order to address unforeseen circumstances that may arise in the future regarding the City’s aging infrastructure.
Specifically, I am proposing that we set aside $20 million in City of the Future funding that is designated for new schools, until such time as it is actually needed for building those new schools. This $20 million represents 10 percent of $200 million set aside in City of the Future monies that would eventually be used to build new schools and to renovate others.
I have long maintained that no new schools should be built until the school system takes action to close a significant number of the 60 school facilities currently in operation. It simply is not logical that we still have the same number of facilities with 22,000 students now, as we had back in the 1950 and early 60s when we had a student population of some 50,000 children in our school system.
Today, it is costly to maintain all of these buildings for the current student enrollment that we have, and many of these schools are half-empty yet within close distance of other schools that are also half-empty.
In terms of school system spending, even a partial audit completed a year ago has shown that nearly $20 million is spent each year on wasteful, unnecessary expenses and yet, one year later, the measures needed to trim this excessive waste have not been put into place.
Is this Administration the only entity concerned that is pushing to get this done? I was the first and most constant voice on this. Can you name anyone else? This conspiracy of silence is puzzling to me and to many taxpayers as more and more becomes revealed.
I have long held to the philosophy that wasteful spending can be redirected into the classroom where it should be, so that our children can have adequate resources that would enable them to learn and to be all that they can be.
We should be providing our children with the educational experience they so richly deserve; indeed, a quality education should be deemed as their birthright.
Our children’s future, and ultimately the future of our City, hangs in the balance at present because we need fundamental change that can bring about profound and lasting improvements in our schools. I want to see improvement in the operation of our school system. But as I say, at the end of the day, the responsibility to make these needed educational reforms ultimately rests on shoulders other than mine.
Nevertheless, we already have some things to celebrate when it comes to public education. I will continue to recognize examples of academic excellence that already exist within our school system and one notable example is the tremendous work that I saw firsthand being done by Dr. Irene Williams, who is the principal of Fairfield Court Elementary School. The children at that school, and many others in our city, are nurtured and encouraged to learn and to do their very best.
And there are other examples of academic excellence. At this time, I would like to commend Fairfield Court Elementary, George Mason Elementary, Mary Munford Elementary and A.V. Norrell Elementary for recently earning the Governor’s Award for Educational Excellence. This is the highest honor awarded through a new incentive program for academic excellence by the State Board of Education.
These City elementary schools should be commended, as well as those school teachers and principals at every City school who work hard and strive to do all they can on behalf of their students.
When I ran for Mayor, I vowed to make our streets safe again and now, they are. I assured our citizens that we would work to revitalize our neighborhoods and our Downtown not only as a priority, but as a reality. On both accounts, we are succeeding and just look at how our City is booming.
Even the recent Crupi Report, which was commissioned by the Chamber of Commerce to analyze our city over the past 15 years, had this to say:
“The City of Richmond is moving from a big little city to a little big city.”
This is not to suggest that our work is done, far from it. There is a great deal more that can and should be accomplished now—in 2008 and beyond – on behalf of our citizens. To that end, I will be sending several initiatives to City Council for their approval so that our City can continue to move forward with its phenomenal momentum.
First, the newly proposed Master Plan is now before the Planning Commission. Under the expert guidance of Rachel Flynn, the City’s Director of Community Development, the Master Plan offers a bold vision for the future of our Downtown.
A great deal is at stake. And so the Plan is being vetted and debated by many individuals and interests, as it should be.
We want you to have an opportunity to voice your opinions about how we should develop: what the best uses of our natural resources should be such as for the magnificent James River and the public’s access to the riverfront, what the best uses our capital resources should be such as for our historic neighborhoods, and overall, let’s think about what kind of legacy that we want to leave to our children…and in turn, to the future generations of our community.
As we move forward with the Master Plan, however, we must not allow the “perfect to become the enemy of the good.”
While I have no doubt that there will be some modifications to the Master Plan as it makes its way through the process, I believe it will represent the “people’s plan” by providing an appropriate blueprint for our future and as such, the Master Plan should be approved by the Council. Furthermore, during this process of charting our City’s future vision, I am hopeful that Council’s approval will come sooner, rather than later.
In addition to the Master Plan, we are undertaking an orderly process for the redevelopment of the North Boulevard area at The Diamond, where the City owns more than 60 acres of land. This represents the largest contiguous property that remains to be developed within the City of Richmond limits.
We had initially undertaken this redevelopment process with the goal of providing a new ballpark for the Richmond Braves, but we have since learned that the Braves had already been planning to relocate to Georgia as part of a business decision they made that had been unknown to us until only three weeks ago.
Nevertheless, we are now pursuing opportunities on getting a new baseball team here in Richmond and we will be meeting with our regional partners – Henrico, Chesterfield and possibly Hanover – on a monthly basis in order to have face-to-face dialogue to determine what is best for our region.
Many individuals do not realize that the City of Richmond does not own The Diamond. The ballpark is owned by Richmond, Henrico and Chesterfield through the RMA (Richmond Metropolitan Authority), and any decisions relative to baseball and The Diamond are decided by the three localities.
We are all in this together and had agreed to the timeline for a new ballpark, as did the Atlanta Braves. Several people have asked me why this has not been previously reported by the media. I don’t know why.
When it comes to the livability of our community, I have advocated for the past two years the strong need to facilitate the development of a variety of housing in the City, particularly in Downtown and other areas within central Richmond.
Neighborhood revitalization is a priority of my Administration, because in order for the City to continue to thrive, we must ensure that our citizens can live in safe, decent, affordable housing in neighborhoods that are flourishing. We must continue to focus on the need to generate additional housing opportunities.
To do so—especially for our teachers, fire fighters, police officers, and others who give selflessly to enhance and protect our quality of life—I again urge Council to adopt an Affordable Dwelling Unit ordinance which will put into place the regulations to promote the availability of workforce housing which is so desperately needed.
Members of my Administration have worked tirelessly for more than a year with several Council members on the development of this measure; we need to bring all of their efforts to fruition with the passage of this Affordable Dwelling Unit ordinance to help our citizens who need a place here in the City near where they work. I encourage the Council to address this important issue and to take action.
Similarly, I will send to Council a proposed ordinance that creates an Affordable Housing Trust Fund that will enable us to expand housing opportunities. The idea for this Trust Fund originated with my Interagency Task Force, and I want to thank Councilman Jewell for chairing the subcommittee that developed the guidelines for this Fund.
The current budget sets aside money for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund; and we all agree that a housing fund will enable the City to expand housing opportunities within our community. Now, the time has come for us to move from talk to action.
The residential revitalization and commercial expansion that is underway in our City highlights the need for proactive measures to ensure that our aging infrastructure is maintained and kept sound to the fullest degree possible.
We met the challenge of an emergency situation in Battery Park and that project represents the largest grant from FEMA to any single locality since Katrina. We also put an end to the constant flooding in Shockoe Bottom which had been neglected for years, because all it took was an afternoon of rain for flooding to occur and businesses to have to close. Furthermore, we added The Plaza at Main Street Station to further enhance the Shockoe area with additional parking for our citizens.
One of the remaining infrastructure challenges, one that has plagued Richmond for decades, is the need for stormwater management.
Most other cities our size already have such a program in place in order to reduce flooding. Richmond does not.
To solve this challenge once and for all, I will ask City Council and the people of Richmond to join with me in creating and supporting a stormwater management program that will, for the first time, guarantee that we have the resources we need to protect our homes, lives, and property from flooding due to heavy rains.
The cost of the stormwater utility will be greatly offset by our goal of promoting equity among the rates charged for residential versus commercial usage.
With the stormwater utility in place, we will provide a dedicated revenue stream to make certain that the resources are available to eliminate flooding within our community.
We spent more than $46 million in federal, state and local monies for Battery Park and another $20 million in Shockoe Bottom to reduce future flooding there, and both of these projects were ahead of schedule and came in under budget. Nevertheless, we still have the need to do much more in many other areas across our city. Speaking of Battery Park, these days you don’t read anything more about it being taken care because families have returned and renovation has been completed there.
I want to thank Chris Beschler and the Department of Public Utilities for their work on this project. They have held more than a dozen public meetings across the city, answered thousands of questions, and have put together a very good plan. I now plan to call upon the Council to join with me moving forward with this very important investment for our future.
These are just a few examples of the projects that can and should be accomplished in 2008. We have 11 more exciting months ahead of us! While I am pleased to report to you the remarkable progress that has been made since 2005 and the opportunities before us this year, I would be remiss and dodging reality, if I did not add a few more words of caution about the spending of taxpayers’ dollars and the need to save those dollars wherever it is possible to do so.
Within the past three years, this Administration has saved more than $330 million by not spending that money for a variety of measures that were since modified. It’s amazing for me to look back and see the results.
We saved nearly $50 million alone by expanding the Manchester Courthouse rather than spending money on renovating the Public Safety Building. We saved another $32.5 million through the refinancing of municipal bonds because of our sound credit rating.
We saved well more than $100 million through improvements to funding the City’s retirement system and reducing long-term retiree liabilities. The numbers do add up to more than $330 million in savings.
One thing I tell you is that these savings are real. They were engineered through the actions that my Administration, undertaken single-handedly in order to control costs that were clearly excessive and unnecessary.
What we have done in the past three years, is utilize available funding to help the citizens of Richmond in a variety of ways that collectively helps to build a stronger community for all such as:
• providing funding for the expansion of our real estate tax relief program for the elderly and the disabled,
• providing funding for our senior citizen advocacy program,
• providing funding for our home heating assistance program for those in need,
• providing funding for our teenage pregnancy prevention initiative and other programs to help our young people stay on the right path,
• providing funding for our Hispanic Liaison Office which was established to help those who are settling within our community,
• providing funding for additional After School programs at our elementary schools and at our community centers in order to help our children read and write, and
• providing funding to strengthen our truancy prevention program to help hundreds of our children remain in school, which is where they should be during the day, Monday through Friday… not on the streets.
I will continue to find ways that can produce more, by making do with less. We must work to achieve greater efficiencies, particularly in view of the economy we are experiencing. This is a responsibility that all of Richmond’s elected representatives should uphold.
Now more than ever, it is imperative that we look for ways to increase our efficiencies, spend less, and save more. This is the philosophy I have held onto throughout my career in public office.
For that reason, I have long recommended that a fiscal impact statement should accompany any proposal that comes before the Council. We must understand, upfront, the financial consequences of what we are proposing, particularly in our current economy.
During the past three years, we have worked diligently to bring improvements in the delivery of municipal services to our citizens. We are changing the work culture at City Hall with the renewed philosophy that all of us at City Hall work for the citizens of Richmond.
My Administration is now producing greater efficiencies through a number of new measures such as:
• our performance tracking program known as RichmondWorks, where we review the delivery of service by each City department on regular basis, interview the department’s director to go over the results, and determine how much work is getting done in a timely manner,
• the City’s new consolidated phone system where the only number you need to call is “311” for most City services, and
• eliminating the backlog of requests that come online to us through the Citizens Request System.
Our dedicated City employees are being asked to find more creative and innovative ways to do their jobs, so that City services can be delivered more efficiently and more effectively. I am asking our City departments to do more with less, and I will use today’s State of the City address as an opportunity to encourage Council to give it a try. During this current period of state funding cutbacks and economic downtown, this is not the time to be introducing new costly programs.
In about a month’s time, I will present to Council my proposed city operating budget that takes effect on July 1. Some folks view budgets, especially a government budget, as a confusing and maddening array of figures.
Yet a budget is actually a policy statement that is translated into the financial language of taxpayers’ dollars. My budget will reflect our priorities—safe streets, strong neighborhoods, efficient government operations, and more. We must always place the necessities before the niceties.
These are the promises I made upon entering office in 2005, these are the promises I’ve kept, and these are the promises I will continue to fulfill on behalf of our citizens. We must continue to eliminate waste, and we must continue to eliminate corruption when we find it.
I would like to invite Council to join me in making sure that in the taxpayers’ eyes, we are viewed as being careful and prudent in how monies are being spent.
And so, in closing my remarks to you today, I will once again ask the question: are you better off today than you were in the past?
Have you seen the kinds of significant changes during the past three years that can give you confidence to know that our City is moving in the right direction?
Do you want your local government to continue to work to cut out the unnecessary costs and to clean up the lingering vestiges of waste and corruption that we all know past examples of?
I believe you already know the answers to these questions now, but you may never have known them had it not been for today’s presentation because it may never have been reported anywhere else.
I can assure that as we continue to work together to build a stronger community, we can place greater confidence in our future and be proud that we are striving in earnest to reach our fullest potential as the great community that we are – and can be.
Thank you for coming today, and may God bless our great city. |
