Kathy Graziano 25th Most Powerful
Style Weekly published their list of the 75 most powerful people in Richmond in their 2009 Power List. Kathy Graziano came in at 25 and was not on the list last year.
Commanding the allegiance of a majority voting block of fellow City Council members, Council President Kathy Graziano stands ready to play yin to Mayor Dwight Jones’s yang. So far, it’s mostly been yawn. But the protracted council-mayor honeymoon hasn’t seen Graziano sleeping on the job. Once a statewide Republican politico, her inner hippie grandma has emerged. She’s the financial cheerleader behind the popular South of the James farmers’ market and advocates similar satellite markets throughout the city. She’s also hammered out agreements that led to placement of the sprawling riverfront James River Park into a conservation easement that’s a first of its kind in Virginia.
We would be remiss if we did not also mention John Murden the Godfather of the Richmond neighborhood blog scene, who came in at 75.
From his defensive ground high atop Church Hill, part-time blogger and full-time teacher John Murden shows that a force of one can take on a seasoned army of hundreds. Church Hill People’s News (chpn.net) makes and breaks news, often putting the daily paper — and, um, the weekly — to shame.
Kudos to Kathy G. for a well deserved honor. She’s certainly the best council person currently serving. Her efforts to rehab Forest Hill Park have been outstanding.
And to Church Hill People’s news too. The thing that makes them stand out is the constant new content and intelligent discussion of important issues it generates on a daily basis.
It’s interesting how local blogs are supplanting the traditional media when it comes to being a “source” for information on the local level.
But what someone needs to do is to start a “blog of blogs”, where the information from all local outlets can be indexed on a daily basis.
This can be automated and provide a very valuable service to the citizens at a time when economic cutbacks and changes in editorial direction are presenting so many challenges to the traditional media and are having such a detrimental effect on coverage on the neightborhood level.
Blog of blogs: http://rvablogs.com/
another good agregator (and i believe a sister site of dan’s link is http://rvanews.com/
Well, RVAblogs is ok for what is is I guess, but it’s far too generic and full of fluff to be of use for someone with limited time who wants to see what is happening on the local front.
Example, CHPN has a blurb about the latest on Echo Harbor today. While I found stuff about Virginia tech and dying cats and advice on how to attract hot swimming pool cleaners in RVA I found no link to this important issue.
RVAblogs can certainly provide a model but it doesn’t fill the need of indexing local issues discussed on the various neighborhood blogs.
RVAblogs used to have a separate page with just the ‘hood blogs. I miss that. I check the other ones from this page, but I get tired of window after window after window opening up…
TV- if you go to the rvanews.com link, and scroll down, you’ll find, what I think, you’re looking for.
I just looked at a printed version of “style” and some how the list skipped from 19-26. I guess 20-25 were not that important?