On the morning of November 3, 2004, Richmonders faced the new day with fresh optimism and an uncommon sense of solidarity. The day before voters in all nine districts had spoken—a whopping 80 percent wanted to walk with favorite son L. Douglas Wilder into a brave new era that showed promise of bringing citizens from every neighborhood together like never before. 

Yes, the voters had turned out to support former Governor Wilder’s attractive promises about bringing competence and accountability to local government. He assured all he would “hit the ground running.”

The voters wanted their new “strong mayor” to put the kibosh on the petty bickering among officials that had plagued public discourse for way too many years. People spoke confidently of what they saw as Wilder’s acumen for cutting red tape to put an end to Richmond’s notorious “can’t do spirit.”

One aspect of Wilder’s landslide win stood out above others—he had won handily in every part of town. That feat offered welcomed evidence that with proper leadership citizens with different backgrounds and conflicting agendas can still find common ground, even in Richmond.

Now, nearly three years later, many who supported Wilder wholeheartedly are shaking their heads, wondering what in the world happened to all that positive momentum?

While it’s obvious the sad answer to that question is that Wilder has willingly squandered his glorious mandate, nonetheless, some of his supporters remain loyal.

Yet most of the defenses of Mayor Wilder, these days, have a striking similarity. They consistently laud what he said back when he was on the campaign trail, asking for votes to win the job he had done much to create. Yes, the same job he originally said he would not seek.

What Wilder’s defenders can’t do is say much on what problems he has solved, or of what he has actually accomplished in a satisfying way on the job as mayor. 

It’s worth remembering that Wilder’s long career in politics has occasionally been marked by other difficult-to-defend moves. Among them are:

• Wilder’s ugly feud with Chuck Robb repeatedly hurt the Democratic Party; it only made both men look bad.
• His brief fling with running for president, while he was still Virginia’s governor, went over like a lead balloon.
• Then there was his strange run as an Independent for a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1994. After promising for months he would stay in the high-profile four-way race to the end, Wilder suddenly dropped out in October, offering only a flimsy explanation to those who questioned his motives.

Yet, the Friday Night Fiasco that Hizzonner engineered at City Hall on Sept. 21 has to be the most perplexing move he’s ever made in politics. No matter how frustrated one might be with the public school system in Richmond, it’s hard to find any good in what happened there. 

Surely Wilder, the attorney, knew how the school administration officials would react to the sudden, after-hours eviction—they would call their lawyer. He also knew that attorney, who in this case turned out to be his old friend/adversary Sen. Henry Marsh, would then call a judge to request a temporary restraining order hearing to stop the movers in their tracks.

Thus, given the circumstances, Wilder could hardly have been surprised when Circuit Judge Margaret P. Spencer issued just such an order at 1:15 a.m. on Saturday.

So, all along, Wilder the savvy player knew there was a pretty good chance the game he started nine hours earlier with an email instructing everyone to leave City Hall, pronto, would lead to the totally unnecessary chaos that ensued when the movers had to put all the boxes back in the building.

The baffling shame of this mess is that populist Doug Wilder’s grasp of politics and his ability to inspire a following are second to none. When he wants to project charm, he can do it like nobody’s business. 

Since it’s difficult to imagine who—other than an absolute yes-man—in their right mind would have advised the mayor it was good strategy to try to evict the School Board from City Hall in the heavy-handed manner he employed on Sept. 21, it looks like today’s Doug Wilder is happy to walk alone, as long as he’s still issuing the orders.

No longer a Democrat, hardly a Republican, Mayor Wilder has apparently become his own party—perpetually campaigning, playing a mean game nobody else understands or wants to play.

Can any Wilder apologist currently arguing that he is changing things for the better explain why the mayor would push through the $80+ million arts center for the region’s biggest political donors without allowing citizens to see the economic studies and data that were cited to support the flimsy deal?

Richmond is now getting less than we were with the previous plan that Wilder objected to (concocted by former city manager Calvin Jamison, who was accused of running a “corrupt” administration) and paying more for it without having any meaningful oversight installed. And we are not able to view the documentation that Wilder claims justifies the expensive, long-range plan — after more than a month, it has still not been submitted to council. 

Challenging the status quo?? Under Wilder’s arts center plan, citizens are not able to file FOIA requests to find out how public money is being spent, or even where these economic studies supposedly are (is it going to surprise ANYONE when we find out they don’t exist?).

Why is documentation and proof so important in this case? The private foundation behind the arts center previously wasted more than $22 million to build a hole in the ground and fill it up—and that included nearly $9 million in public dollars raised from a meals tax hike.

If giving a wasteful private entity more money, and making sure there is no oversight in how it is spent, is “bringing City Hall in line,“ then it is a line leading to the nut house.

So ask yourself: If our mayor is so concerned about oversight, and accountability, and how public dollars are used, isn’t he being just a bit disingenuous when he slaps the schools around for being unaccountable while, at the same time, he writes an unregulated 40-year blank check with our tax dollars for his friends in the private corporate community?

And can we talk about how Wilder’s administration has refused to help out the one and only successful downtown rehabiliation effort (First Fridays) with even a pittance, while at the same time they are pouring millions into the building of a marina attached to a private real estate endeavor that will accomodate less than 75 yachts?

Yeah, that’s really “challenging the status quo.“

Sure, he hired Rodney Monroe. Which has been great. But then he used Rodney Monroe like the police force was his own personal stormtrooper army. Being used to suppress the media and elected city officials from entering a public building is hardly what Monroe and the force need to be doing on a Friday night in Richmond.

Lastly, we have this:

- When it comes to directly electing the mayor, voting rights are good.

- When it comes to directly electing the school board, voting rights are bad.

Doug Wilder is a man on a mission… so this is all cool, the apologists sing. Plus: They say everything is going to be all right now that he’s hired a Calvin Jamison protegee to be his Chief Administrative Officer.

Read that last paragraph again slowly.

Only in Richmond…

On the Contrary, my view is no matter how bizare Doug wilder’s antics seem, he is in fact a man on a mission to clean up the city and the slackers im City Hall. I don’t understand why he does what he does, but in the long run he has proven time and time again that he really does know how to get things done and change the status quo. I might might be just as crazy as Doug seems to be sometimes, but I believe that this episode will somehow help lead to the cleaning out of City Hall and bring it all in line. He did it with the State Government and he will do it with the City Government.

I also believe that he will run again and get elected by a lanslide.

Go Doug!!!!

IMHO,someone needs to locate and remove the tumor causing these irrational actions before we all lose an otherwise capable leader!

Whoa!  I can’t argue with any of what was said.  Maybe one day, Emperor Wilder will give up and take all his marbles home.

oh, he’s just getting old.

If Doug Wilder is not removed from office quickly, he will destroy the image of Richmond, nationally. It also has to be effecting the image of the whole metro area. The city is falling futher behind other cities all the time, in new developments downtown. I travel to other cities quite a bit and Richmond is not keeping pace. This man has a serious ego problem, and Richmond and the metro area cannot afford to leave him in office.