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Click here to read Greg Will's excellent analysis of the Broad Street Community Development Authority.
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"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories."
Fool me once, shame on you.
An ordinance to create the Broad Street “Community” Development Authority (CDA) was introduced in Richmond City Council on May 28, 2002. On July 8, 2002, only three Richmond citizens: Al Bowers, L. Shirley Harvey, and Luis Pantophlet, Jr. spoke against the paper; and eleven individuals from Richmond’s economic development community came out to speak in favor of it. The Council unaminously approved the resolution thus sealing the fate of the Sixth Street Marketplace.
On May 10, 2003, The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported an announcement by the Broad St. CDA that they had gotten a commitment from investors to sell $66.74 millions in bonds to finance demolition of Sixth St. Marketplace between Marshall and Grace streets, as well as tearing down other downtown buildings for surface parking lots, putting in a street where 6th St. Marketplace once stood and purchasing some parking garages, and doing some landscaping and utility work.
Call the Mayor, Call the City Manager, Call Your City Council Representative.
"Whenever people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government, and whenever things get so far wrong as to attract public attention, the people may also be relied upon to set things right."
This website is paid for by Silver Persinger, a citizen of Richmond who is concerned about the manner in which the decision to demolish the 6th St. Marketplace was made with very little public input and for the seeming benefit of developers and speculators.