Richmond has shed its provincial past and become a growing, dynamic destination city due primarily to the citizens who imbued it with new life and new spirit in recent decades. Yet now as the city is surging, the political leadership is often focused on its own agenda without collaborating with the very citizens who got us here.

The disconnect has grown so wide that Richmond citizens from multiple neighborhoods in all nine council districts now question whether we have representative government in our city.

Routinely, elected officials in concert with hired administrative staff formulate plans and enact policy that either ignores the priorities of the citizens, or defies the clearly stated interests and preferences of the majority. Often, priority is given to plans developed behind closed doors, and presented as “done deals.” Often, citizen input is collected, then ignored, and plans proceed as foreordained, with misleading claims of citizen engagement.  

Therefore, we the undersigned, in an urgent call for a renewed citizen-first agenda, formally petition our elected officials to exercise the power we have entrusted in them.

The issues are many. Let’s work together to address them all by starting with these imperatives:

• Revive the Neighborhood Teams immediately. (See the linked story at QR code.)
• Overhaul the Planning Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals with term limits, enforceable recusal standards, increased representation from the citizens, and requirements to ensure that Planning Department employees are answerable to the citizens who pay their salaries.
• Establish that the Planning Commission and the Board of Zoning Appeals are advisory, and that final decisions rest with City Council.

We the undersigned, including both neighborhood leaders and informed individual citizens, demand that our elected officials and city staff respond with an action plan and a timeline to these first critical steps in restoring representative government in Richmond.