The Money Trail Gets Harder To Find
Politics and money are as inextricably linked as Bonnie and Clyde or salt and peter.
The Times-Dispatch does some important digging into early campaign contibuions before City Council and makes some interesting - and worrisome - finds.
Council President Pantele received $1,000 from a business arm of the Echo Harbor Condo project; he is also longtime friends with the contract developer of that project but says he is torn and will "vote in accordance with what I think is right."
That makes me feel better.
Pantele also received $100 from James W. Theobald, a Richmond zoning lawyer who represents the Echo Harbour project, and $1,000 from Jerry Cable, a restaurateur who formerly owned the property on Dock Street and still maintains an easement to reach his boat dock there.
Usually the only thing that scares politicians into doing what is right (i.e. in my view public river access larger than a measly trail) and off the money trail is healthy competition. Barring that, the rhetoric is usually long and action predictable. We will be watching this one.
Developers, builders and real estate interest also contributed to 4th District Councilwoman Kathy C. Graziano and 3rd District Councilman Chris A. Hilbert, who will face a re-election challenge from Battery Park civic activist Jonathan Davis.
"They like this council," Graziano said of supporters in the business community. "They think it's a good working council and want to keep it together."
Businesses are vital to any city but so are the residents who live in it. Business should not always be placed on a pedestal and not everything they advocate is right, no matter how vital they say it is or how much money they give. Not everything the people advocate is right (and some of it is not even practical) but when was the last time the people were on that pedestal?
I recently read an astonishing book about Richmond Planning in the 20th Century where business leaders essentially chose and/or directed the Council. It's different now, of course, but money still talks as it always has.
The only two factors in our planning efforts in the 20th Century were (1) government doing what it was told by the business community and (2) race. It is not a coincidence Richmond planning in the 20th Century was a disaster.
When people stood up and tried to stave off the destruction, they were bulldozed. In once instance, City Council was defeated in repeated referendums on the Richmond Petersburg Turnpike and then skirted the defeats by putting the plan through state legislation where the public could not rally and much of Jackson Ward was leveled.
That was also about the time a lot of our public housing was created to handle many of the displacements. That one issue over four decades has resigned tens of thousands of Richmonders to lives of poverty, crime, and early exits and continues today. The length of the ripple effects this one decision had on our city could stretch to the Pacific.
What should be more worrisome in the here and now is that Vpap.org, the online political money tracking web site, no longer lists local races money contributions. The last easily accessible numbers in city elections were for 2004.
The 2006 numbers were not online and the 2008 numbers will not be either. The Director told me why last year but I can't find the email he sent me. Doesn't really matter why, it just matters that in an age on easily accessible forms, agendas, minutes (except for the School Board's) and requests, we will not, in 2008, be able to see online who is giving to our Council and Mayoral candidates.
If you want to really keep everyone's feet to the fire, then you have to physically go to City Hall and dig, scrape, and go out of your way to find out. In the old days it was hard for a reason. Is it so again?
It would be nice if Council and the administration would offer to put that information on the city web site voluntarily as reporting deadlines are reached. There should be nothing to hide and all donations are open to scrutiny and the public should be allowed to easily draw their own conclusions.
If public servants expect us to trust them to do what is right, then the least they can do is provide us the info to earn that trust.
~
The Times-Dispatch does some important digging into early campaign contibuions before City Council and makes some interesting - and worrisome - finds.
Council President Pantele received $1,000 from a business arm of the Echo Harbor Condo project; he is also longtime friends with the contract developer of that project but says he is torn and will "vote in accordance with what I think is right."
That makes me feel better.
Pantele also received $100 from James W. Theobald, a Richmond zoning lawyer who represents the Echo Harbour project, and $1,000 from Jerry Cable, a restaurateur who formerly owned the property on Dock Street and still maintains an easement to reach his boat dock there.
Usually the only thing that scares politicians into doing what is right (i.e. in my view public river access larger than a measly trail) and off the money trail is healthy competition. Barring that, the rhetoric is usually long and action predictable. We will be watching this one.
Developers, builders and real estate interest also contributed to 4th District Councilwoman Kathy C. Graziano and 3rd District Councilman Chris A. Hilbert, who will face a re-election challenge from Battery Park civic activist Jonathan Davis.
"They like this council," Graziano said of supporters in the business community. "They think it's a good working council and want to keep it together."
Businesses are vital to any city but so are the residents who live in it. Business should not always be placed on a pedestal and not everything they advocate is right, no matter how vital they say it is or how much money they give. Not everything the people advocate is right (and some of it is not even practical) but when was the last time the people were on that pedestal?
I recently read an astonishing book about Richmond Planning in the 20th Century where business leaders essentially chose and/or directed the Council. It's different now, of course, but money still talks as it always has.
The only two factors in our planning efforts in the 20th Century were (1) government doing what it was told by the business community and (2) race. It is not a coincidence Richmond planning in the 20th Century was a disaster.
When people stood up and tried to stave off the destruction, they were bulldozed. In once instance, City Council was defeated in repeated referendums on the Richmond Petersburg Turnpike and then skirted the defeats by putting the plan through state legislation where the public could not rally and much of Jackson Ward was leveled.
That was also about the time a lot of our public housing was created to handle many of the displacements. That one issue over four decades has resigned tens of thousands of Richmonders to lives of poverty, crime, and early exits and continues today. The length of the ripple effects this one decision had on our city could stretch to the Pacific.
What should be more worrisome in the here and now is that Vpap.org, the online political money tracking web site, no longer lists local races money contributions. The last easily accessible numbers in city elections were for 2004.
The 2006 numbers were not online and the 2008 numbers will not be either. The Director told me why last year but I can't find the email he sent me. Doesn't really matter why, it just matters that in an age on easily accessible forms, agendas, minutes (except for the School Board's) and requests, we will not, in 2008, be able to see online who is giving to our Council and Mayoral candidates.
If you want to really keep everyone's feet to the fire, then you have to physically go to City Hall and dig, scrape, and go out of your way to find out. In the old days it was hard for a reason. Is it so again?
It would be nice if Council and the administration would offer to put that information on the city web site voluntarily as reporting deadlines are reached. There should be nothing to hide and all donations are open to scrutiny and the public should be allowed to easily draw their own conclusions.
If public servants expect us to trust them to do what is right, then the least they can do is provide us the info to earn that trust.
~
Labels: bad gov't, election 2008
posted by Jon Baliles | 8:26 AM
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