Meeting - May 19, 2025

community. If elected, he plans to create a cadet program to hopefullycreate future officers, create a quality of life unit to workwith the homeless population, create a warrant unit to goafter the worst of the worst offenders, and create a K9 drugdetection unit for the City jail . The sheriff’s department has the highest death rate fordrug abuse, including four drug overdoses last week alone . He wants to reduce crime, focus on youth, focus on mentalhealth, and focus on substance abuse. T om Barbour – Candidate for Richmond Commonwealth’s At-torney He would enforce all felonies and misdemeanors as neededwith a focus on traffic safety, gun violence, and public cor-ruption . His background is as a trial lawyer with his own practiceprosecuting wage theft. He lives in Church Hill and served in the military in Iraq and Afghanistan as an advisor. Colette Mc Eachin – Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorneyrunning for reelection Her focus is on violent crime and trying to divert peoplefrom criminal activity . She works on restorative justice to address root causes of behavior and aims resources at juvenile domestic court . She has expanded restorative justice programs into middleschools. She has been involved with a new family justice center in Richmond, which will be a one stop shop to address domes-tic abuse violence . June 17th is primary day and early voting has started. Marvin from Richmond Public Library – community memory fel-low with the Richmond Public Library The library has a memory lab at the Main Library branch topreserve VHS tapes, records, cassettes . They also have ar-chiving kits to preserve current memories. The library has oral history projects to capture memories of2020 and the removal of the monuments. The goal is to preserve history. An honorary street naming nomination for our neighbor, Dr. Joan Christian Her daughter presented about the proposed honorary renam-ing of the 1600 block of South Meadow Street . Extended fami-ly members were in attendance. Dr. Christian graduated from Armstrong High School in 1948,Virginia Union University in 1968, VCU in 1975 earning a mas-ter’s degree, and VCU in 1997 earning a doctorate degree . She is a retired educator and took pride in helping others. Sheis currently 94 years old and still lives in the house on the 1600block of South Meadow Street where she raised five children . Her accomplishments include:Past president of the National Council of Negro Women Richmond Chapter Coordinator of Martin Luther King Jr . read aloud program Past president of the Maymont Civic League where shehelped display red bows in the neighborhood and showed Tim Kaine around the neighborhood when he was mayor . She was known as the neighborhood mom. T eacher of the year at JEB Stuart Elementary School (now Barack Obama Elementary School) where she was a reading specialist Volunteer registrar with the City Volunteer of the year at Maymont Elementary School Member of 3rd Street Bethel AME Baptist Church andserved in multiple roles with the church A motion was made and seconded for the Maymont Civic League to support the renaming of the street . The motionpassed unanimously. Update from the 5th District City Councilmember Liaison Amy Robins The City budget that passed has phase 3 of the sidewalkproject in our neighborhood . The Finance Department has had continued issues, includingincorrectly issuing rebate checks. A neighbor asked about changes in the billing address for pro-cessing checks; Amy said that the previous billing address is in Charlotte, but residents should use the new billing address in Philadelphia . City to roll out technology that shows average speed on all citystreets A neighbor asked about sidewalks on the south side of Col-orado Avenue missing a block . Amy said she would look into it. A neighbor mentioned concerns with speed on South Meadow Street. Amy said we could ask the Department of Public Works to flip stop signs into a basket weave pattern. Amy reit-erated that the Department of Public Works does not like allway stops. An overtime police s