POLL: Who is your choice for 5th District City Council?
On the top left of our main page we’re running an unscientific snapshot poll on the 5th District City Council contest. Cast your vote!
On the top left of our main page we’re running an unscientific snapshot poll on the 5th District City Council contest. Cast your vote!
RT @wotbn: POLL: Who is your choice for 5th District City Council? http://t.co/3lbAk8lG #rvaelection
Honestly tired of Jewell. Any differences between the other candidates? I’d love to get some voting advice.
Marty is a do-nothing windbag.
Parker Agelasto owns a consulting company, has worked with the Museum of Fine Arts, and has advanced degrees from UVA. He’ll give the arts community representation that they’ve never had before, and with an MBA, he’ll be able to attract more businesses for the city. Just having a smart, well-educated guy on the council will make a big difference.
Any chance Lee drops out so they don’t split the vote to keep Jewell from winning?
Parker Agelasto is the only one running that I’ve actually met. I’m impressed with anyone who literally not only goes door to door, but then follows up w/a postcard citing issues that we discussed in person. And then when I ran into him a month later, he still brought up/remembered those issues!
I’ve heard nothing but negative things about Lee Shewmake from people who lived in her neighborhood–and I honestly wish she would drop out in order to not split the vote w/Parker & usher in another failed term for Jewell.
Shewmake’s ego, probably wouldn’t allow her to drop out, she already failed in ousting Agelasto as a challenger: http://hillsandheights.org/2012/08/27/5th-district-candidate-shewmake-challenges-validity-of-agelastos-signatures/
As for Jewell: http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2009/oct/24/martgat24b_20091024-113803-ar-19394/
For my $, Parker Agelasto seems to be the only candidate that really puts the concerns of the 5th District as his top priority.
Good afternoon, I am in for a break from walking and will head out again soon. The 5th is a large district to cover and it simply takes time to reach the 22,000+ residents. I walk with residents who are willing to give up their free time to hike miles and miles, knocking on doors of people they do not know, to share why they support my campaign. I hope those in the Fan 5th will take the opportunity to speak with them and not rest on hearsay on a blog. Rest assured, if you have not seen me yet, you will soon. To answer the post from PW here is a breakdown of the experience between Parker and I (I am leaving Marty out since it did not sound as if you were considering him for the position.) I have spent decades in business leadership. I have been the Marketing and Finance Director for a multi million dollar amusement park, a Turnaround Agent for a national retail chain, the Portfolio Manager for one of the largest real estate companies in the southeast, with about 200 apartment complexes, malls, commercial office space and private residential homes across 3 states and the District of Columbia and the Executive Director for a Social Service non-profit that also ran a preschool for Richmond’s inner city at-risk toddlers, along with a couple of other management posts leading up to these positions. I also have a long record of civic leadership. When I held my first meeting as President of my civic association, I invited the police to attend and received a call back inquiring where the neighborhood was located. (I am serious.) Today, all of city hall knows where Woodland Heights is as do many residents across this city. I took over a defunct and broke association and produced a coordinated machine that now funds local churches, schools, the library and parks as well as neighborhood and community wide events. We have a logo merchandise line, website, storage facilities and 501c3 status. I led the neighborhood to victories against inappropriate ABC licenses and development issues. I chaired the committee that brought Federal and State historic designation to the 80 city blocks of the neighborhood, the largest volunteer effort in state history and served as a consultant for the second largest effort for the Forest Hill neighborhood, located in 4th district. Under my leadership all 80 blocks were inventoried for tree loss and we worked with the city to see 250 new trees planted in a single year. The crossing guard at Patrick Henry, the infrastructure work at the school entrance on W 34th St, the traffic circle on W 32nd St are all my projects and I haven’t even gotten to my other volunteer leadership posts. Now let us look at my opponent, Mr. Agelasto. In his 6 years in Richmond, he has been the Interim Membership Desk Manager at the VMFA, a census collector, a small business owner, as an independent art curator and, as of September, adjunct faculty working on a job skills training project. When challenged at debates by Mr. Jewell over his zero participation in community leadership (note the irony here), Mr. Agelasto replied he had tried to participate by contacting Mr. Jewell but never received a call back. I personally find this lack of initiative troubling as he lives in one of the most active associations in the entire city, where leadership and service opportunities abound. Campaigns are really nothing more than a job interview. The job in question here is a management position in your business, the one you support financially by the money you pay in taxes, fees, etc. Selection should be based on experience and skill sets. Providing past accomplishments on a resume’ is the best tool for potential employers to gauge future accomplishments. I lived in the Fan before moving to Woodland Heights. I have very much enjoyed the many artistic opportunities our city has to offer. It certainly deserves to be better nourished in the future and I am happy to lead such an effort. That being said, in all the meetings and events I have attended since the campaign season began in January (more than 150), I know that the top concerns of residents focus on schools, infrastructure, parking, economic development, mass transit, regional cooperation, taxes, fees and surcharges, development/planning issues, minority business participation, poverty reduction and tax base expansion. This list of topics is quite varied and will require a number of skill sets as well as full time work to appropriately address. I will bring innovative leadership to the district, if you choose for me to.
Best Regards,
Lee Shewmake
Lee- I spoke with an Oregon Hill neighbor this evening who mentioned he was upstairs in his house on Spring Street yesterday and heard a light knock on his door. By the time he got to the door, he said the lady had left a knob hanger and then hightailed it to her car which was parked on the wrong
side of 800 block Spring. He waved to her to stop but she flew off. I don’t think it was you as he said she had white hair and a Romney sticker on her bumper. You might want to canvass that block again. I got your hanger on my door and it is very professionally done.
Where did Parker come from. Alright, we have to change Marty. But, Parker. Lee has time to do this and is a mother with a child in a 5th District School. Don’t know her well, but we need somebody who really cares. Isn’t Parker an actor? We need real people. We need somebody like Shewmake.
Parker is not an actor although it is fascinating that you don’t consider actors real people.
Mr. Agelasto is an MBA graduate of UVA Darden school of Business, a museum consultant and freelance curator and a small business owner. In addition he teaches business and leadership skills in smaller communities under the auspices of UVA. Most importantly, he has created an enthusiastic constituent base through poise and intelligence. No offense to ms shewmake. I’m sure she has her own set of qualifications.
It would be detrimental to the people of the 5th district to elect anyone other than Lee. According to evidence that myself and others have presented in court Ms Shewmake is the only legitimately qualified candidate to appear on the ballot. Marty has outstanding fines according to records I have seen and presented in a pending cases in US District Court. And Parker had unqualified voters counted as qualified on the petition. This fact was documented by one of the co-defendants Registrar J Kirk Showalter in our case in front of Federal Judge Gibney. Showalter according to evidence being presented to Gibney destroyed the documentation of her work in which she stated she removed the improperly counted sinatureres which disqualified Parker from the ballot, however she checked all Agelesto’s petition signatures and found an equal number of signatures that should have been counted originally. Showalter reviewed an unreviewable document acknowledged the mistakes that were there for the public to see, conducted another unauthorized review stated there were the exact same number of mistakes omitting signatures that should have counted then destroyed documentation Showalter contends shows these things being done. This rigging is how we get candidates who are compromised like Marty and Parker on the ballot. This is the tip of the iceberg as we’re the other two court cases against the Registrar, Richmond Electoral Board, and State Board of Elections. Our elections are fraudulent, especially in Richmond Virginia. We are demanding an end to the government and media cover up along with a full independent investigation.
Is this site censored? I left a comment 5 minutes ago it states your comment is awaiting moderation. I am attempting to inform the public about exhibits in a Federal Court Case showing balloting fraud in their district and I see censorship tactics used in a neighborhood blog? Come on guys. What a joke.
Chris – the comments are moderated to keep out the spam, and to slow things down just enough to help keep the conversation civil and useful.
Ok, I do not think it is good policy though.
A couple of questions for Lee:
Lee’s website states that she is “the only candidate that offers the constituents of the 5th a full time representative”, yet that full time availability has not translated to the full time visibility that many of us have seen from Parker.
Why is that?
Lee also says on her site , “My leadership in several community and city groups has created a positive working relationship between fellow citizens, businesses and city government departments…”. That same sentiment has been repeated by her on various RVA blogs and comment threads.
So why didn’t she get the endorsements of either The Richmond Coalition of Police or the Richmond City Democratic Committee? Instead, Parker got those endorsements.
Finally, this isn’t a question. Just an interesting contrast between two candidates’ Facebook pages. One candidate clearly seems committed to the district, as well as to the city as a whole. And that candidate is smart enough to show it. https://www.facebook.com/ParkerCAgelasto
The other? Well…at least they have a lot of birthday wishes. And lots of support by someone named David Munn. https://www.facebook.com/lee.shewmake
At this point, I honestly believe that Shewmake (who already lost against Jewell the last time she ran) won’t drop out. She’d rather stay in, post long snarky rants, conspiracy theories about signatures, and see a 3 way race potentially tip to Jewell. To me: that isn’t someone who has the 5th’s best interests at heart.
I met Parker a few weeks ago. An outstanding man with a genuine appreciation for the 5th district. He clearly wants to improve our schools and neighborhoods. He’s got my Vote and the Vote of many others in my neighborhood.
So Lee and Marty have split the coveted support of the Occupy RVA crowd?
Dear unimpressed, Clearly I have not made it to where you live yet, but the district is large and I will see you soon. I am working full time on the campaign as I have worked full time for the community and will work full time for the district. The other two candidates have “day jobs” which will necessarily detract from the day hours that could have been spent for the district. Endorsements are possibly the only things more political than campaigns. If you do not belong to those committees, you should join. They are a fascinating thing to watch and full of learning experiences. Having seen the process from the inside and seen how few people make the decision for the whole, I have decided to vet the candidates for myself, instead of simply trusting someone else to do it for me. J J Minor, President of the Richmond Democratic Committee, discussed the value of that endorsement at a recent meeting by saying, “A lot of people just vote for who we endorse, it is sad in a way, but it gives this committee great power”. I am hoping most people want to retain the power that comes from free thinking. But let us not stray from the only real question at hand. Who is the most qualified for the job? My previous post outlines our qualifications. It speaks to those willing to listen.
Best Regards,
Lee Shewmake
Marty needs to go, and Parker is a puppet who I have seen at only a handful of city council meetings or democratic Comittee meetings. If the police endorsement was anything like the RCDC process it was decided by back room bought and paid for dishonest dealers. It will be detrimental to elect either Marty or Parker.
Notice how the Agelesto supporters are annonomously posting.
Hi, Chris- I am a proud supporter of Parker Agelasto for City Council and gladly use my real name. I believe Ms Shewmake has contributed a lot to her community but again, I dont see that she has run a competitive campaign this time. Mr Agelasto has great promise.
That being said, it is good that she finally has a positive voice speaking up for her as you so ably do. You should post your views on the other blogs and media as well. Maybe even address City Council itself about your thoughts on Lee.
Best Wishes!
I walked a part of the Fan today and found gracious people fully open to my candidacy, including several that had Agelasto signs up. It was a very pleasant day. To top it off, I received some new backing from the African American community. I am looking forward to meeting more residents tomorrow.
I annonomously posted because I don’t want my name dragged into the mud that Shewmake created on this comment section. I think she is doing more harm than good by complaining about her campaign problems.
Mr. Dorsey, I think your too far down the political rabbit hole. I believe most people vote based on the quality, honesty, and personality of the candidate and wether the candidate truly believes in helping the community with it’s problems. Endorsements help support that.
Same here, that is also why I post anonymously.
If I were to meet Shewmake in person on the campaign trail, I’d be more than happy to share my opinions with her honestly and openly.
But not if she comes to my door: I wouldn’t trust her, or her supporters (based on what I’ve seen online) with the combination of my address and my opinion.