Richmond is not a city without potential.
It is a city with extraordinary potential that too often suffers from ordinary leadership.
The phrase "stuck on stupid" is blunt. It is also becoming increasingly difficult to avoid when watching City Hall repeat the same mistakes, ignore legitimate public concerns, and celebrate announcements instead of accomplishments.
This isn't about intelligence.
It is about judgment.
It is about leadership that too often mistakes motion for progress, secrecy for strategy, and expensive projects for economic development.
If the same decisions continue producing disappointing results, the problem is no longer bad luck.
The problem is leadership.
The Coliseum: Destroy First, Explain Later
Nothing better illustrates Richmond's leadership failure than the Richmond Coliseum.
For years, residents heard that the Coliseum had to close because it was obsolete.
Yet citizens were never presented with a transparent, side-by-side public comparison of demolition versus renovation before the decision was effectively made. Questions persisted about whether renovation proposals and adaptive reuse concepts received meaningful public consideration.
Meanwhile, cities like Baltimore chose to modernize their downtown arena and are now hosting major concerts, sporting events, and entertainment that generate economic activity rather than demolition costs.
Richmond's answer?
Demolish the arena and replace it with...another hotel.
That's not bold thinking.
That's surrender disguised as planning.
Leadership should ask, "How do we maximize our assets?"
Richmond asked, "How quickly can we tear one down?"
The Diamond District: Delays Are Becoming the Brand
The Diamond District was sold as the next great chapter in Richmond's history.
Instead, residents have watched shifting deadlines, revised agreements, changing partners, and years of uncertainty.
Every complex project encounters obstacles.
Competent leadership anticipates them.
Great leadership communicates honestly about them.
Richmond has too often done neither.
The longer projects drag on, the harder it becomes for citizens to distinguish between ambitious planning and chronic mismanagement.
Utility Billing: Government's Most Basic Job
Government has many responsibilities.
Sending an accurate utility bill is among the most basic.
Yet Richmond has repeatedly struggled with utility billing issues over multiple years, including system conversions, payment posting problems, delayed bills, and customer confusion. The City has acknowledged vendor-related billing and payment processing issues following implementation of a new customer service system and temporarily suspended some enforcement actions while fixes were made. ([Richmond][1])
When government cannot consistently bill residents correctly, confidence in its ability to manage far larger and more complicated projects naturally declines.
Trust is earned through competence.
Competence begins with getting the basics right.
Taxpayers Are Always Asked to Do More
Whenever Richmond faces budget challenges, one solution appears with remarkable consistency.
Ask taxpayers for more.
Whether discussing higher taxes or new revenue sources, City Hall often focuses first on increasing collections rather than demonstrating that existing dollars are being spent as effectively as possible.
Families don't get to solve every budgeting problem by demanding raises.
Neither should government.
Before asking residents for another dollar, leadership should demonstrate that every existing dollar is producing measurable results.
Transparency Is Treated Like An Obstacle
One of Richmond's most persistent problems is not simply decision-making.
It is how decisions are made.
Too often, residents feel they are informed after major decisions have already been shaped rather than invited into the process while options remain open.
Transparency is not checking a legal box.
Transparency is allowing citizens to see the data, understand the assumptions, debate alternatives, and hold leaders accountable before commitments become irreversible.
Government should never fear informed citizens.
Richmond Keeps Thinking Small
Richmond possesses advantages that many cities would envy.
A beautiful river.
Historic neighborhoods.
A thriving restaurant scene.
Major universities.
Fortune 500 headquarters.
A strategic East Coast location.
An expanding tourism market.
Yet leadership often behaves like a city managing decline instead of planning growth.
Instead of asking how to build an entertainment district around an arena...
Instead of asking how to attract year-round visitors...
Instead of asking how to leverage existing public assets...
The answer too often becomes demolition, delay, or another consultant's report.
Vision requires imagination.
Richmond has become far too comfortable with incrementalism.
The Pattern Is Impossible to Ignore
One mistake can happen.
Two mistakes raise concern.
A decade of recurring problems becomes a pattern.
Consider the recurring themes:
- Major projects that take longer than promised.
- Public frustration over transparency.
- Utility billing failures.
- Repeated debates over taxes instead of structural reform.
- Underused downtown assets.
- Announcements that generate headlines before results.
These are not isolated events.
They are symptoms of a governing culture that too often rewards process over performance.
Richmond Deserves Better
Richmond is filled with talented entrepreneurs, educators, artists, healthcare professionals, engineers, and civic leaders.
The people are not the problem.
The city itself is not the problem.
The problem is a leadership culture that too often settles for being better than yesterday instead of becoming one of America's best-managed cities.
Richmond should be competing with Nashville, Charlotte, Raleigh, and Pittsburgh.
Instead, it often spends years debating projects that peer cities completed long ago.
Final Verdict
Calling Richmond's leadership "stuck on stupid" is deliberately provocative.
But beneath the headline lies a serious challenge.
If leaders continue making decisions without convincing evidence, fail to fully explain major projects, repeatedly encounter execution problems, and return to taxpayers before restoring public confidence, citizens are justified in asking whether City Hall has learned from its past.
Richmond does not need more slogans.
It needs measurable results.
It does not need another glossy rendering.
It needs leadership that values transparency as much as ribbon cuttings, execution as much as ambition, and accountability as much as applause.
Until that happens, the greatest obstacle to Richmond's future may not be a lack of opportunity.
It may be a refusal to learn from yesterday before making tomorrow's decisions.
[1]: https://www.rva.gov/press-releases-and-announcements-public-utilities/news/dpu-resolving-payment-posting-delays?utm_source=chatgpt.com "DPU Resolving Payment Posting Delays Affecting Some Utility Accounts | Richmond"
Good essay
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