Mayor Dwight C. Jones, City Council President Kathy Graziano, School Board Chair Kim Bridges, and School Superintendent Dr. Yvonne Brandon Regarding the Recent Proposal to "Unfreeze" the Local Composite Index of Ability to Pay for Education City officials announced their disappointment in a recently proposed change to the introduced State budget involving the local composite index. The introduced State budget included a "freeze" on the local composite index, which is the measure of how much a locality can afford to pay for K-12 education. This freeze was extremely important to the city of Richmond, and most localities in the Richmond region. "The proposal to 'unfreeze' the local composite index hits us at a most unfortunate time. We are in the process of assessing the first round of reductions to our schools, in the range of $13.7 million, from the introduced State budget. We are also balancing other potential cuts to our locality - another $7.8 million

Due to the inclement weather, the Belmont Branch of the Richmond Public Library system will be closed on Wednesday, February 10. All other libraries in the Richmond Public Library system will close at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, February 10. All Richmond Public Libraries will resume normal operations on Thursday, February 11. For more information, call (804) 646-7223. ###

WHO: Mayor Dwight C. Jones George Cloutier, Author United States Conference of Mayors WHAT: Partner America Program Reception and Dinner WHEN: Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 5:30 p.m. WHERE: Bull and Bear Club 901 East Cary Street, 21st Floor BACKGROUND: Mayor Dwight C. Jones will be honored by the U.S. Conference of Mayors this evening during a special event to discuss the challenges and opportunities for small businesses today. George Cloutier, author of "Profits Aren't Everything, They're the Only Thing" is the special guest for the program that will follow dinner. Partner America is a public-private partnership created by the United States Conference of Mayors and American Management Service Incorporated to help small and mid-sized businesses improve profits and sales through management and technical assistance in hundreds of cities and states across the nation. ###

Mayor Dwight C. Jones issued the following statement following a Richmond City Council meeting where several citizen comments were received in opposition to the stormwater utility fee being charged to churches: "While we all want a cleaner waterfront and to improve our water quality, I fully understand the concerns being expressed by this group of impacted citizens. The federally and state mandated requirements for stormwater are essentially unfunded mandates that localities have to contend with. Meeting the regulatory requirements and mandates was thoroughly discussed before Richmond City Council voted to enact this fee. Also, on average, most churches are paying about $435 per parcel." "Non-compliance is not an option as many jurisdictions have already been cited and fined for not taking proper care of their infrastructure. We also should not attempt to meet the mandates on the backs of the single family residential tax payer. If we used the real estate tax system to r