A Thriving Richmond 

Mayor Avula applauded the jointly-sponsored RES. 2026-R038, endorsing the City of Richmond’s legislative agenda for the 2027 Virginia General Assembly session. The resolution sets forth legislative proposals and requests the Richmond delegation to the General Assembly “to take legislative action consistent with and in vigorous support of such recommendations; to support other legislative action recommendations; and to encourage other organizations and individuals to support such recommendations.”  

 "My administration and City Council are committed to advocating for our residents' together and maximizing what we can accomplish in partnership with the Commonwealth,” said Mayor Danny Avula . “In the past, Richmond often had a divided agenda. Today, we’re moving forward with a clear set of priorities that reflect what our residents need and deserve.” The resolution identifies budget and legislative priorities and the City’s policies positions for the coming 2027 General Assembly session.  

Thriving City Hall 

Council also voted 7-2 to support Mayor Avula’s ORD. 2026-081to establish an updated approach for publishing the City’s payment register to promote transparency and accountability of public funds. Earlier this year, Mayor Avula proposed the ordinance to establish an updated approach to publishing the City’s payment register, with the goal of increasing public access to payment data while ensuring the system is practical, accurate, and compliant with privacy laws. The Avula administration is committed to maximum transparency, especially when it comes to City expenditures, while honoring individuals’ legitimate privacy concerns and data security protocols. 

“I’m extremely proud of our team for working through a long-standing, inherited, and very complicated pain point and finding a path forward that provides proactive public access to the City’s spending data,” said Mayor Avula. 

Publication had been suspended prior to Mayor Avula’s administration. In June, the City published the FY25 payment register. The FY26 Payment Register will be available on the City’s Open Data Portal by December 27, 2026 in accordance with the 90-day implementation period established in the ordinance. Additionally, the monthly publication of the register, starting with July, August, and September 2026, will be available on the Open Data Portal by the end of calendar year 2026.  

Thriving Families 

 A series of ordinances introduced by Mayor Avula were adopted to support Richmond families experiencing financial hardship and housing instability.  

ORD. 2026-282 provides $700,000 to Area Congregations Together in Services (ACTS) to administer the City’s Family Crisis Fund, an initiative which provides emergency financial assistance to families in need. The ordinances also extend an agreement with HomeAgain to continue operating a 50-bed, year-round emergency shelter for families through November 30, 2027.    

This notice is being provided to alert the public that an Electoral Board meeting is scheduled.

Date: Thursday, October 15, 2026
Time: 11:30 a.m.
Location:
City of Richmond Office of Elections
2134 W. Laburnum Avenue
Richmond, VA 23227
2nd Floor Conference Room

The agenda for this meeting will be posted once it has been reviewed and approved by the Electoral Board. Please note that the agenda is subject to change. Items may be added, removed, or modified prior to or during the meeting, as permitted by law.

Members of the public who wish to speak at the meeting must submit their request by email to Executive Assistant, Caitlin Shelton, at electoral.board@rva.gov no later than Wednesday, October 14, 2026 at 4:00 p.m.

This meeting will be recorded.

Additional updates related to meeting logistics will be communicated as necessary.

Agenda

The City of Richmond Office of Elections will be closed on Monday, October 12, 2026 for the Indigenous People's Day holiday observance.

The City of Richmond will be closed Monday, October 12, in observance of Indigenous Peoples’ Day. All city offices, including City Hall, will be closed. We will return to our regular business hours on Tuesday, October 13. 

• There will be no trash collection or bulk and brush collection on Monday, October 12. All collections will be delayed by one day. Collections scheduled for pick-up on Monday will be picked up on Tuesday and so on through Friday, October 16. 
• The East Richmond Road Convenience Center (ERRCC) Landfill, located at 3800 East Richmond Road, will be open on Saturday, October 10, and will be closed on Monday, Oct. 12. ERRCC will reopen on Tuesday, Oct. 13.
• Recycling services will operate as normal on Monday, October 12.
• All Richmond Public Libraries are closed on Monday, October 12, and will reopen on Tuesday, October 13. 
• RVA311 will be closed on October 12. The public will have 24/7 access to self-service via RVA311.com and mobile apps. RVA311 will reopen on Tuesday, October 13. 
• Richmond Public Schools are closed on October 12 and will reopen on Tuesday, October 13.
• All Parks and Recreation offices and community centers are closed Monday, October 12 and will reopen on October 13.
• The Department of Public Utilities Call Center is closed Monday, October 12 and will reopen on October 13. For utility emergencies, customers should call 804-646-4646, and press Option 1. For gas leaks, leave the area and call 911. 
• Richmond Animal Care and Control will be closed on Monday, October 12. RACC will reopen by appointment only on Tuesday, October 13, and will have regular walk-in hours on Wednesday, October 14. 

Indigenous Peoples’ Day is an opportunity to honor Native histories while recognizing and learning from the Tribal Nations and Native people who continue to shape Virginia today. On October 10, 2022, the City of Richmond, through a joint proclamation from the Mayor and City Council, officially established Richmond Indigenous Peoples' Day.

Learn more: 
Virginia Indians - Learn about Virginia’s 11 state-recognized Tribal Nations, including their locations and recognition history, and access additional resources on Virginia Indian history, education, environmental review, and Tribal engagement. 

Virginia Tribal Education Consortium | VTEC - Explore Tribal-led educational resources on Virginia Indian history, sovereignty and culture, along with information about member Tribal Nations, oral histories, educational programs, and resources for students and educators 

Honor. Learn. Build Relationships.

For the City's full holiday calendar, please visit the holiday closings page. 

Good morning!  

I want to thank you, Ed (Solarz) and Genesis for having the vision and the patience to see this through. A six-year effort is remarkable. 

I was telling him earlier, my family lives around the corner, and so I spend every morning driving right past this intersection, picking up these three little boys and taking them to school. And so for years, I saw this empty parking lot. Sometimes there were trucks parked in it, sometimes there was a stretch of RVs parked in it, but there was never much going on. 

And so to see it now as a thriving building that has become a new community, transforming our city, is super encouraging. So thank you for helping to see that through. 

Six years is a long time, and there are lots of components and lots of complexities to getting projects like this done. Ed spoke to the creation of the capital stack here and just how complicated it is to put the money together to make things like this happen. 

Ed was talking through the amenities, the fact that this is transit-oriented development, right on the Fall Line Trail, a bus stop that's right here, bike parking to make sure that people are prioritizing biking and walking, building on a node that is part of our Master Plan development, putting solar on for more sustainability. I'm glad somebody can figure this out in the city. Super encouraging.  

But these are all of the elements of what a future-thinking, forward-thinking city has got to do, and this project is a great example of that. 

Again, I want to thank Merrick Malone, who runs the City’s Department of Housing and Community Development, for investing a million dollars of City money. 

I speak often about the fact that we cannot create affordable housing without public subsidy. And so the City has to be super thoughtful through our Affordable Housing Trust Fund, through our performance grants, through the use of ARPA funding, to help make deals like this pencil, and now we have 150 units serving households earning less than 60% of the area median income, an incredible addition to the affordable housing landscape here in Richmond. 

I think the other thing that I want to talk about is, Ed mentioned that this was a six-year effort, and a big part of that six-year effort is what happens on the front end: engaging community, getting community support: Councilmember Trammell, thank you for shepherding this through the process. 

Now, one of the things that we are embarking on as a city right now is a revision of our 50-year-old zoning code. And a huge component of that code reform process is changing zoning on corridors like this, on transit-oriented development, making it easier to build multifamily housing. 

We could have cut two years out of this process if it were appropriately zoned for the uses that the City has envisioned through our master plan. 

And so I want to hold this up as an example of why we need to see zoning code revision across the city, so that we can have more projects like this in every part of our city, on these major nodes and corridors. 

But this is an incredible example. We're so excited to see the work that you have done. We're excited to have 150 more units in our affordable housing portfolio. 

As I share often, over the last five years, the City has invested $120 million to subsidize affordable housing. That's created about 5,800 units that have either been completed or are soon to be completed. 

And that's the work that we've got to do. 

Affordability and affordable housing have been at the top of our priority list. 

When I decided to run for office, a lot of that decision was actually motivated by my experience in the East End, where for a decade I watched the housing conditions change, the market change, and lower-income families get pushed out of my community. 

And part of what I came into this job saying is that we have got to make investments on the front end so that folks don't get pushed out of communities, and so that we can continue to have communities where people across the income spectrum can live together in mixed-income neighborhoods. 

And so this is a phenomenal example of how we're going to get there as a city. 

And again, I can't thank you enough, to the Breeden Construction team, to the Johannas Design team. Just an incredible partnership to get this project off the ground. 

Well done. Thank you so much.