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The Times Dispatch Editorial Board put forth an editorial this weekend in which it contemplated a regional government as a possible solution for some of the problems that ail the City of Richmond and the region. It stated that such an approach could help reduce the cost of duplicative basic services, increase the ability to borrow more, etc. (as well as to prepare for an uncertain trajectory of the federal government).
Of course, the city is ailing not because of a lack of a regional government but incompetent and unfocused “leadership” at City Hall, with decades of bad decisions to prove it. Some of them were worse than others, to be sure, but all with a long term and detrimental impact (interrupted occasionally by brief bouts of sanity and hope!).
The poverty, struggling schools, and aging infrastructure cited in the editorial didn’t happen recently. They are the result of decades of a combination of inaction, petty squabbles, hunger for power, and chasing big, shiny projects to prove the city can do big things. The editorial is on point that the Byrd machine controlled state government and made sure that white flight and racialized politics put Richmond on an island, but it was Richmond’s repeated self-inflicted wounds that made sure we would be stuck on the island instead of building bridges to get off of it.
The editorial states that a regional government “would unlock enormous economic power and political influence.” It says that combining resources and delivering basic services would be more cost effective and efficient “while also tapping the collective power of three separate tax bases” which would “increase the financial and borrowing capacity for capital projects, free up resources for schools and policing, streamline transportation services and lead to exponentially more political clout in the General Assembly.”
Rev. Ben Campbell, pastoral associate at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church and author of “Richmond’s Unhealed History,” concurred and said, “The capacity of a unified metro city to draw in employment, to draw in population, to create a healthy, integrated economy would be amazing. The dynamism of the capital city of Virginia would all of a sudden become everyone’s benefit.”
Good sentiments, to be sure, but they overlook that fact that the state extended the moratorium on annexations until 2032 and even if it were removed, Henrico has immunity from any future mergers or annexations. Not to mention the city poisoned our own well many years ago with government that was focused on power and politics instead of the people. Walt Kelly coined the famous line (paraphrasing War of 1812 Commodore O. H. Perry), “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
It began back in 1959 when a proposal was made to merge (aka consolidate) all of Richmond with Henrico. Cities in Virginia could only grow through annexation or consolidation, and that was occurring throughout Hampton Roads at the time. Princess Anne County merged with the tiny city of Virginia Beach; Warwick County merged with Newport News, Norfolk County and the city of South Norfolk created the city of Chesapeake, Elizabeth City County consolidated with the City of Hampton, etc.
Henrico and Richmond appointed three representatives to a commission to meet to devise the plan; Henrico’s four districts (Brookland, Tuckahoe, Fairfield, and Varina) would be incorporated into the city and remain as four “boroughs” for 5 1/2 years, after which reapportionment would occur; the City Council would drop from 12 members to nine in at-large elections.
Dr. Nelson Wikstrom, a political science professor at VCU, said in a 2021 video about the merger produced by Henrico County, the commission “recommended the merger because they felt that if the two jurisdictions were merged together, services would be more efficient, challenges could be overcome, furthermore much behind it was the idea that if you had one bigger city, one big Richmond, so this would kind of put the area on the map and stimulate economic growth.”
Harry Kollatz wrote in 2012: “A 1959 consultant's report extolled the advantages of Richmond-Henrico consolidation, including "simplicity in solving service problems relating to water, sanitation and transportation." No mention of education — then caught up in the segregation issue.” (That’s starting to sound familiar).
The consolidated City of Richmond would have been 229 square miles (the nation’s 5th largest city by land area in 1961) with a population of about 337,000 (36th largest at the time), and stretch 27 miles wide from Goochland County to Charles City County.
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