The Richmond Fire Department (RFD) announced today that it is discontinuing a temporary staffing measure that allowed three of its fire companies to operate with three-person crews instead of four during periods of low staffing. Effective Monday, October 12, the department will return to its standard staffing model of four-person crews. 

The temporary measure had been in place to maintain emergency response coverage during periods when RFD’s overall staffing fell below required levels. 

This change was made possible through the support of Mayor Danny Avula and Chief Administrative Officer Odie Donald II, who worked with RFD to develop a plan that restored four-person crews across all companies.  

“Richmond Professional Firefighters Association, IAFF Local 995, is pleased to announce in cooperation with Mayor Avula, CAO Donald, Fire Chief Segal, and Councilmembers Dr. Newbille, Reva Trammell, and Sarah Abubaker, that the Richmond Fire Department is back to full staffing, with four firefighters on every truck, every day,” said Keith Andes, President of IAFF Local 995. “We couldn't do this without the citizens of Richmond, and we're honored to have your trust.”  

“Returning to full staffing across every company is good news for our firefighters and our residents,” said Richmond Fire Chief Jeffrey Segal. “I want to thank Mayor Danny Avula and CAO Odie Donald II for their continued investment in strengthening our public safety infrastructure. I would also like to thank the men and women of the Richmond Fire Department for their continued dedication and professionalism throughout this process.” 

“The mark of a well-run city begins with ensuring departments have what they need to operate effectively, "said Chief Administrative Officer Odie Donald II. “Our fire department plays a critical role in keeping this city safe; continuously investing in better apparatus, quality stations, and moving toward optimum staffing levels is how we can support the best-in-class service they provide to Richmonders day in and day out.”  

“Strong city services depend on our departments working together to address challenges and find practical solutions,” Mayor Danny Avula said in a statement. “I appreciate the work that CAO Donald, Chief Segal, and teams did to identify a path forward for our fire department and make this transition possible. I am grateful for the incredible firefighters who protect and serve Richmonders day in and day out.” 

The Office of Gun Violence Prevention, in collaboration with the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer and The Richmond Police Department, will host Bingo, Beats & Safer Streets, a nine-week community engagement series designed specifically for Richmond's older adult population.

The series combines bingo, music, guided dance and movement, safety education, and City resources in a fun and welcoming environment. 

"Building relationships with older residents starts with showing up in ways that feel comfortable and familiar," said Richmond Police Department Program and Operations Supervisor Dargenaba Anderson. "This series gives us that opportunity to create genuine moments of trust and understanding. Efforts like this help ensure older community members have the support, resources, and reassurance they need." 

Each event features a DJ, bingo with prizes, opportunities to interact, and brief informational segments from City departments and community partners. 

We want to take the time to inform, educate and keep the city residents aware on the latest topics happening around the city,” said Office of Neighborhood Engagement Manager Timika Vincent. “The series will cover topics including Code Refresh, property taxes, internet and phone safety, aging and disability initiatives, and the upcoming budget townhall meetings. All are invited to these series to learn more about safety.” 

The Fall 2026 series will kick-off on Thursday September 24 from 1:00-3:00 p.m. The series will continue each Thursday, at the same time, until November 19, 2026.  

"Our seniors have built this city. That’s why we are committed to providing practical access to resources to reach these prized residents in ways that feel natural and supportive,” said Chief Administrative Officer Odie Donald II. “The City is excited to collaborate with an array of partners to support some of our longstanding residents and trailblazers."

All community members are welcome to join.  

Fall Schedule 2026:

September 24 | Hotchkiss Field Community Center, 701 E. Brookland Park 

October 1 | Armstrong Renaissance, 1665 N 31st St

October 8 | RRHA, 1920 Stonewall Ave

October 15 | Imperial Plaza, 1717 Bellevue Ave

October 22 | T.B. Smith Comm Center, 2015 Ruffin Rd

October 29 | Baker, 100 W Baker St

November 5 | Southside Comm Center, 6251 Warwick Rd

November 12 | Randolph Comm Center, 1415 Grayland Ave

November 19 | Dominion Place, 1025 W Grace St

Hey Richmond, It’s your Mayor, Danny 

As mayor, my primary responsibility is the safety and wellbeing of Richmond Residents. 

As it relates to public safety, there are so many things we have gotten right –  

• community policing 
• neighborhood association partnerships 
• critical incident briefings about officer-involved shootings 
• cracking down on unregulated vape shops through Operation Vaporize 
• double digit reductions in major crimes... 

the list goes on  

Over the last year, the issue of how we use License Plate Reader Technology, and particularly our relationship with a company called Flock has been an increasing issue of public concern, here in Richmond, and across the nation.   

I have been very consistent about saying that our choice to use this technology is because i believe the benefits to public safety outweigh the risks it poses to our community 

But I have also been very consistent about saying that it is not a closed issue, and that I will always remain open to hearing from the people of Richmond on it   

I think the shift in public sentiment around Flock, particularly acute in the last couple of months, requires us to reevaluate our relationship with Flock. 

I don’t know exactly what that looks like right now, but I want to figure that out, together, with Richmonders, with our City Council, and with our partners in the State Legislature.  

I wanted to reassure you all that this is a topic I am thinking about regularly, and share with you a bit about how I'm thinking about this. 

Here are some things I believe:  

I believe that Flock, and automatic license plate reader – or ALPR -  technology in general, is a legitimately useful tool that the Richmond Police Department uses to help keep our communities safe and solve crimes. 

I believe that there are real privacy concerns with both ALPR technology generally and with Flock, Richmond’s current vendor 

I believe, in Richmond, the communities who actually benefit most from this technology are often those who are disproportionately impacted by violent crime. 

I believe that people of color can often be over-policed and over-surveilled. 

I believe that the City of Richmond, and RPD, have been leaders in adopting and following the guardrails set out by the Commonwealth 

I believe that, if we’re going to use this technology, we've got to have the proper guardrails in place, and we must be transparent with the public when those guardrails are violated. 

I believe that at the state level, the Commonwealth of Virginia is an important partner in protecting the privacy of residents. My team and I will continue to advocate for that at the General Assembly this year. 

And I believe this is a complex issue that people feel strongly about across the board. My job is to keep people safe, to listen well to our communities, and to navigate this thoughtfully.  

So here’s what I’m committing to do.  

First, we’re going to review the technology itself and our relationship with Flock. That includes exploring other options and asking whether there are other technology vendors that can provide the public safety benefits we need while better addressing the concerns some Richmonders have raised; we still have another year on the contract so I will need some time on that 

Second, we’re going to listen and learn.  In the coming weeks, I plan to gather resident feedback in a variety of forums. It’s important to me that we hear from a broad cross-section of Richmonders, as well as our elected City Council.  

Third, we will take another look at our oversight and transparency, including whether an independent third party should come in and look at our current policies and procedures.  

Fourth, effective immediately, I am directing that RPD reduce their ALPR data retention policy from its current 21 days down to 7 days. 

What I hear and learn in this listening process will inform our path forward.   

Appreciate you all taking the time to listen to this, more to come soon.   

Good afternoon President Newbille and Members of City Council; Mr. Jackson and Commissioners of the RRHA; CEO Nesmith; staff members of the RRHA and the City of Richmond;  

• I appreciate the opportunity to be with you all this afternoon 
• Today feels like a historic gathering, we are on the cusp of some incredibly important work  

I want to start by framing just how important the thoughtful redevelopment of public housing is to the future of our city. 

As I often share, my vision for Richmond is a city in which all people and all places thrive. Pillar Two of our Mayoral Action Plan is all about building Thriving Neighborhoods—not just in a handful of neighborhoods, but across the city.  

In Pillar Two, we specifically name the redevelopment of our large public housing communities that commits to 1:1 replacement of our subsidized housing units. 

But this is more than just a bullet in our strategic plan. I truly believe that creating better, more stable, long-term housing options for our most vulnerable residents is a moral imperative.  

We have lived with the reality of racially segregated, hyper-concentrated poverty in the City of Richmond for so long, it’s easy for all of us to normalize it. To become numb to its human impacts. To succumb to the belief that public housing is just part of the landscape in Richmond, and that it’s never really going to change. 

• It’s now been over forty years since the RTD, back in December of 1985, published an extensive series on life in Gilpin Court.  At the time, it was considered both a tragic unveiling of life in disinvested housing, AND a community wake-up call. 
• It’s been well over thirty years since senior leadership at RRHA announced that communities like Gilpin Court were obsolete and that the era of large public housing complexes was over.  
• There have been multiple efforts to redevelop Gilpin Court in the past quarter century.  

And yet, here we are in 2026, still struggling with the same issues city leaders have wrestled with for decades. 

I’m encouraged by the fact that this group is gathered today. And I’m encouraged by the productive conversations our team has had with RRHA leadership over the past few months to lay the ground rules for a long-term partnership. 

Through this work, we have outlined 3 really important ideas: 

1.  a shared commitment to the resident-centered transformation of Gilpin Court, and eventually all of the public housing communities  

2. a shared understanding that our task is to dramatically improve the quality of deeply affordable housing without reducing its supply, and  

3. that our efforts will not be successful if we do not center the voices and experiences of residents  

But I am imploring us to have a sense of urgency about this work.  The fact that we have collectively made such little progress on redevelopment efforts in 30 years should nauseate us. 

We cannot keep kicking the can down the road. You know the conditions. You know the statistics. You know the direction of current policy in Washington, DC. 

If we cannot get it together as a City to tackle our most serious long-term challenge in a meaningful way, then we, as leaders, will have failed. And, frankly, we should not be in these seats. 

Public housing residents are depending on us to meet the challenge of redeveloping public housing the right way. Because if we don’t do it the right way—a people-centered way-- we know it will eventually happen the wrong way— buildings will become completely unlivable and have to be condemned, or redevelopment will be rushed along, both of which will result in the tearing down of buildings and the displacement of people.  

One of the biggest lessons from COVID was that we are collectively capable of remarkable things when we are focused and aligned on solving a problem together.  

Whether it was the rapid scaling up of a medical response, or the record breaking timeline for the creation of a brand new vaccine, or the proliferation of mass vaccination delivery that led to 4.5 B people-- more than half of the entire world -- being vaccinated by the end of 2021. 

Now obviously the world being shut down and the life-or-death crisis we were all facing was a huge motivator. But many of our public housing residents ARE in crisis.  

The 20 yr lower life expectancy that Gilpin residents compared to other neighborhoods around the city- is a crisis! The lack of economic mobility, and being entrenched in multigenerational poverty—is a crisis! 

But it’s a crisis we know how to solve. 

The remarkable work by Raj Chetty and his colleagues looking at 30 years of outcomes from HOPE VI redevelopment efforts across the country, show us that kids from low-income families who move to opportunity-rich, mixed income neighborhoods earn more as adults, are more likely to attend college, and are less likely to be incarcerated.  

The path is clear.  The need for urgency is clear.  Now we’ve got to execute. 

And doing so is going to require all of the leaders in this room to operate at the highest levels of commitment, alignment, integrity, and accountability. 

So I want to share today, what our administration is committing to, to meet this moment: 

First , I have assigned our senior policy strategist, two of our deputy chief administrative officers and our housing director to work with RRHA leadership to develop a shared governance framework for the Gilpin Court redevelopment, codified in a Memorandum of Understanding. 

That MOU does a couple of important things. It outlines our commitments to residents: 

• 1-for-1 replacement 
• strong support for residents in the process through coaching and case management 
• centering resident voices in the process 

And it delineates how the City and RRHA will work together. While this work must be incredibly collaborative, the City will take the lead on implementation of the People Plan, the Neighborhood Plan, and those components of the Housing Plan that extend beyond the Gilpin footprint.  

This is a huge commitment, and a huge assumption of responsibility, because i dont believe that public housing redevelopment is RRHA’s alone to carry. The City taking on these responsibilities will allow RRHA to better focus attention on the components of the housing plan that fall within the Gilpin footprint.  

Second , we have already started the process of capacity building. Edward Richards, our People Plan Manager, started work earlier this summer and has already built strong relationships with residents.  

I’m also happy to announce that we have hired Kevin Marchman to serve in a brand-new position: Senior Advisor for Public Housing Transformation. Kevin has had a long career as one of the most accomplished and most respected public housing administrators in the United States, having served as Executive Director of the Denver Housing Authority, Assistant Secretary over Public Housing at HUD, and as founder of the National Organization of African Americans in Housing. He is one of the most knowledgeable practitioners in the nation on public housing redevelopment, and I’m thrilled he’s agreed to serve in this important role. 

Please know-- DCAOs Sharon Ebert and Amy Popovich, our Housing Director Merrick Malone, Thad Williamson, Sarah Carpenter, Edward Richards will all continue their work on this. But in Kevin Marchman, we now have a senior leader, representing the Mayor’s Office, who will wake up every day focused on accelerating redevelopment.  

Third , as I prepare the FY 2028 budget, supporting Gilpin Court redevelopment and especially the People Plan will be a major priority. As I will share in more detail next month, supporting Gilpin’s redevelopment through workforce development, holistic case management support, and resident engagement, will be a major focus of our Office of Community Wealth Building going forward.  

Finally , while the MOU is an important step forward, we have more work to do to improve our overall governance structure. We need closer alignment of the City and RRHA, and we need clearer standards of accountability. Here, City Council, which under our Charter has oversight responsibilities through their appointment power over the RRHA Board, must play an expanded role. 

Later this fall, I’ll be bringing forward to Council for consideration a framework to strengthen our governance structure, in support of the vision that we have to be in this together.  

As I look back over the 17 years that I’ve personally been involved in supporting public housing communities, I have seen how personal agendas, interagency politics, and blame games have veered us off course, and we owe it to our residents to do better.  

Over a century ago, Maggie Lena Walker founded the St. Luke’s Penny Savings bank that sits at the edge of Gilpin Court. 

Her vision was a comprehensive one—to create financial growth and opportunity for black Richmonders, to expand home ownership, to fuel entrepreneurship by financing black-owned enterprises, to provide generational wealth that could be passed down. 

Her efforts helped create the black middle class, and the thriving community of Jackson Ward. And her innovation and perseverance is embedded in the DNA of our city. 

 So I’m calling on all of us now to honor her vision and legacy. To lean into this work, and to do it together.   

Because I absolutely believe the future of our city depends on it.   

Thank you.   

Watch the full budget kickoff event on the City's YouTube page.

Mayor Danny Avula, Richmond City Council President Cynthia Newbille, Councilmember and Budget Task Force member Nicole Jones, and Chief Administrative Officer Odie Donald II today joined City Council, administration leaders, and community members at the Boys & Girls Club of Metro Richmond Teen and Community Center to officially kick off the City of Richmond’s Fiscal Year 2028 budget season. 

Mayor Avula outlined several emerging priorities that will shape the Administration’s work, including: 

• Continuing to investment the City workforce; 
• Funding legislative priorities such as affordable housing; 
• Addressing overall affordability for Richmond residents; and 
• Investing in the clear outcomes prioritized in the Mayoral Action Plan.

“I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who helped make last year’s budget process more collaborative and transparent with Council, as well as more informed by residents. It was a huge team effort to embrace a new approach, and it paid off with historic investments in affordable housing, education, and our workforce,” said Mayor Danny Avula. “This year we will continue to build on that success. I’m excited to get to work.” 

CAO Donald previewed the Administration’s work to develop the FY28 budget, including collaboration among the City’s senior leadership team and department directors and development of proposals aligned with the Mayoral Action Plan.  

“The budget is the most important thing we do as a city because this plan serves as our tool to turn priorities into action,” said CAO Odie Donald, II . “Over the next several months, in partnership with the community and elected officials, we will do the hard work to align resources with priorities. This partnership allows the Mayor to present a budget that is fiscally sound, aligns resources with priorities, reflects the needs of residents, and can be executed with excellence.” 

Following the unanimous adoption of the FY27 budget in May, the Budget Task Force reconvened over the summer to assess what worked and identify additional opportunities to improve the process for FY28.  

Improvements for FY28 cycle include:  

• Holding a public work session on the budget earlier in the fall to discuss citywide priorities. 
• Developing and sharing long-term revenue forecasts to support better financial decision-making 
• Consolidating Council questions after release of proposed budget for more efficient and digestible information, and 
• Holding budget town halls 

These improvements build on the Task Force’s recommendations from last year, which helped support an effective FY27 budget season and will continue this year. Those include earlier collaboration, a restructured budget timeline, more efficient work sessions organized by the four DCAO portfolios, standardized amendment procedures, expanded public engagement opportunities, and an annual review of the process. 

This year's Budget Task Force membership includes Councilmembers Jones and Sarah Abubaker, Richmond City Council Chief of Staff RJ Warren and Council Deputy Chief of Staff Julie Caldwell, and City of Richmond Administration leaders CAO Odie Donald, DCAO Tanikia Jackson, Budget Directors Meghan Brown and Lauren Kirk, Chief of Staff Lawson Wijesooriya, and Senior Policy Strategist Thad Williamson. 

"With a year of experience with this new process, we are well-positioned to build on what we accomplished last year,” said Richmond City Council President Cynthia Newbille. “I look forward to continuing that work with my Council colleagues and the Administration. This kind of collaboration is what made last year’s process successful, and it will help us make this year’s even stronger.” 

“The Budget Task Force continues to take an honest look at what worked, and what we can do better,” said Richmond City Councilmember and Budget Task Force Member Nicole Jones. “Every year is a chance to strengthen the process, increase collaboration, and make sure we are responsive to the needs and priorities of Richmonders.” 

The FY28 budget kickoff also marks the beginning of another season of public engagement. The City will seek input from residents in the coming months as the Administration develops its proposed budget. The City’s Office of Community launched that work at the Budget Kickoff with an activity inviting participants to share ideas and priorities for the Mayor and Council to consider.  

Additional information about the FY28 budget process will be shared on www.rva.gov as the process moves forward.