Mayor to submit an ordinance to council proposing $6.2 million for Cost of Living Increase for Richmond retirees, the first in a decade Mayor also proposes $1 million in investments for community centers and two ADA accessibility projects to improve access to the James River and riverfront parks Thanks to increased tax revenues above projections, improvements in tax collection, and savings from efficiencies in departmental operations, the City of Richmond is projected to end Fiscal Year 2019 with an estimated $15 million surplus. Mayor Levar M. Stoney today announced he will propose an ordinance at the September 9th meeting of the Richmond City Council to dedicate $6.2 million of the surplus to fund a 1% increase in the Cost of Living Adjustment paid to city retirees – the first such increase paid to former city employees in more than a decade. The proposal makes good on the mayor’s commitment to use budgeted surplus funds to provide a retirement boost to city retiree...

"The Virginia General Assembly already has all the evidence it needs to reach the conclusion most Virginians reached years ago. We need action on commonsense gun safety laws, not more deliberation by the Virginia Crime Commission. The epidemic of gun violence and the role Virginia's lax laws play in the proliferation of and access to firearms by those who should not have them will continue unabated until our lawmakers make the commitment to act on behalf of their constituents -- not the gun lobby -- and propose commonsense laws to protect the people they were elected to serve. In the City of Richmond, 40 people have been shot and six killed since the day the Republican leadership in the General Assembly turned a special session called by the governor after the tragedy in Virginia Beach into a dismissive charade, spending all of 90 minutes before adjourning without discussing one of the 60 gun violence reform bills before them. Instead, they punted the issue to the Vi...