Dels. Betsy Carr and Christopher Peace: Addressing childhood adversity now will deliver a brighter future

The following op-ed, by Delegates Betsy Carr and Christopher Peace appeared in the Sunday, January 7th edition of the Richmond Times Dispatch. 

When the General Assembly convenes on Jan. 10, we and our colleagues face a number of urgent needs affecting families, including keeping up with increasing demands in K-12 education, curbing the growing opioid crisis, and transforming the behavioral health system to ensure children and adults can get the right treatment at the right time.

What if we could get ahead of some of the issues confronting Virginia’s families? What if we could find a way to prevent some of the human suffering and resulting public expenditures due to academic failure, domestic abuse, substance use, and chronic health problems?

Research on the developing brain is providing some answers, and as lawmakers, we need to pay attention. Science shows that exposure to adverse childhood experiences, known as ACEs, can change how the brain works.

Examples of ACEs include having a parent who has a substance-use disorder, witnessing community violence, or being sexually abused. When children feel threatened by what has happened to them, they experience trauma. Children from all types of families in every community can experience trauma, but the negative impact of traumatic experiences are limited in an otherwise supportive environment.

For some children, the adverse childhood experiences accumulate, and the effect on the brain is overwhelming.

Children who experience multiple, repeated traumas live in a constant state of fight, flight, or freeze. All of us have this same bodily reaction when we are in extremely stressful situations: stress hormones flood our bodies and minds, and automatically the most primitive parts of our brains, designed to keep us alive, are activated.

When in survival mode, we are unable to use the more evolved parts our brains that can make rational decisions and plan ahead.

The brains of children who live in environments with ongoing trauma, known as toxic stress, stay in this heightened state of alert. As a result, these children may not be able to focus in school, may act out in inappropriate ways, or may withdraw emotionally from friends and family.

The long-term mental and physical health consequences of toxic stress can be devastating: As adults, people who have experienced three or more adverse experiences in childhood are four times more likely to report having poor health, seven times more likely to be an alcoholic, and 12 times more likely to die by suicide.

The good news is that ACEs do not have to dictate a child’s future. With appropriate interventions, brains can change and children can be resilient.

That’s where we come in as policymakers. We need to ensure that our public investments support parents, communities, and institutions that prevent childhood trauma whenever possible and promote resilience.

***

Investments on the front end of childhood, such as ensuring that children’s basic needs are met — and helping parents understand their children’s develop ment and how to prepare them for school — can save later expenditures in terms of academic remediation, incarceration, or health care expenditures for chronic, preventable illnesses.

Wise investments in young children and their parents can help produce the next generation of adult Virginians who are able to learn, work, and support their families.

Being good stewards of public resources is something both sides of the aisle can agree on. We recommend that the General Assembly and Gov.-elect Ralph Northam work together to take specific steps toward reducing childhood trauma and promoting resilience:

Continue the Governor’s Children’s Cabinet, a collaboration at the highest levels of state government designed to solve complex problems affecting children. Gov. Terry McAuliffe was the first to create the Children’s Cabinet, which includes the heads of state agencies overseeing schools, health, public safety, and social services, among others.
As part of the Children’s Cabinet, establish a work group composed of public and private partners to evaluate Virginia’s policies and practices that address ACEs and promote resiliency.
Develop a framework to implement trauma-informed policy and practice across Virginia, based on research and successful models from other states.
Fund innovative practices and solutions conceived by those working directly with children experiencing toxic stress and their families. Virginia already has several community-based networks of professionals from education, health, law, and other fields who collaborate to learn more about the effects of trauma.
When science, savings, and opportunity align, it is time to act. We look forward to working with our colleagues on both sides of the aisle and with the new administration to make policy changes that will serve our commonwealth’s children better and lead to cost savings today and economic opportunity for future generations.

Betsy Carr, a Democrat, represents the 69th District in the Virginia House of Delegates. Contact her at delegate.carr@betsycarr.org.

Christoper Peace, a Republican, represents the 97th District in the Virginia House of Delegates. Contact him at DelCPeace@house.Virginia.gov.

Del. Betsy Carr, Democratic incumbent, faces third-party challengers in Richmond House race

• By MARK ROBINSON Richmond Times-Dispatch, October 17, 2017

An incumbent Richmond Democrat representing a swath of the city and part of Chesterfield County is seeking to fend off two third-party challengers in the 69th District House of Delegates race.

Challenging Del. Betsy B. Carr in the Nov. 7 contest are Libertarian Jake Crocker and Green Party nominee Montigue Magruder.

The district covers most of South Richmond and a portion of the city north of the James River that includes Carytown, Oregon Hill and part of the Fan District, as well as a sliver of Chesterfield. It is a Democratic stronghold: In each state and national contest since 2012, more than four out of five voters in the district have cast their ballots for a Democrat.

Carr, 71, who served on the Richmond School Board from 2006 to 2009, has not faced a Republican challenger since winning the House seat in 2009. She said she is seeking a fourth term in the legislature to continue working for the district’s constituents.

Asked what she offered voters that her opponents do not, Carr touted her experience working in the Republican-dominated House and the relationships she has built outside of her party to advance bills she has proposed.

As an example, Carr pointed to a measure she carried in 2015 to combat the state’s opioid epidemic, which sought to extend amnesty from prosecution to individuals who report a drug or alcohol overdose. Termed the “Good Samaritan” bill, it cleared a Republican-controlled committee before receiving approval from the full House and Senate and becoming law.

“You don’t get anything done without relationships,” Carr said. “There’s a number of things (Democrats and Republicans) can work together on, so we work on those and we work little by little to make headway into the things that are more difficult.”

If re-elected, she said her priorities in the district include creating well-paying jobs, improving public schools and restoring voting rights for people convicted of felonies.

Crocker, 43, is a marketing consultant who co-owns three restaurants in the city: F.W. Sullivan’s Fan Bar and Grille, Lady N’awlins Cajun Cafe and Uptown Market and Deli.

The Libertarian candidate has never held or run for public office, but has served in leadership roles on the Fan Area Business Alliance and the Uptown Civic Association.

Frustration he feels as a restaurant owner in the city propelled him to pursue the office, he said.

“The bureaucratic barriers continuously are shoved down the throats of these small-business owners while the state and the city are then taking the tax money. ... That’s pretty much why I’m running,” Crocker said.

If elected, he said he would advocate for reforming the state’s alcoholic beverage control guidelines and lowering the city’s meals tax. The latter falls under the city’s purview, but he believes state lawmakers should step in and address it, he said. In general, he thinks local and state government should make it easier for entrepreneurs to do business.

Magruder, 30, is a part-time scooter mechanic and part-time fry cook at the Grab-N-Go Convenience Store on Jefferson Davis Highway. The Charlottesville native is an Armstrong High School alumnus and resident of the Swansboro neighborhood of South Richmond.

For two years, Magruder served on the Greater Richmond Transit Company and Transit Study Task Force, which in 2013 rendered 11 recommendations to the Richmond City Council on how the region could improve its public transit system.

Magruder has never held public office, but last year ran for City Council in the 5th District, finishing third with 13 percent of the vote. The council run led him to this race, he said.

“A lot of people felt the issues I wanted to address while running for City Council actually required state intervention because of what I was trying to do and (they) felt I should have run for an office there,” Magruder said.

Those issues include decriminalizing marijuana, rejiggering the state’s funding formula for public education, banning fracking and increasing the state’s minimum wage to $26.80 per hour, a wage he said would more fairly compensate workers given the rise in cost of living and employee productivity since the late ’60s.

Carr raised about $90,500 through September, according to campaign finance reports due Monday and made available through the Virginia Public Access Project. Her largest donor is Carole Weinstein. The local philanthropist and wife of real estate magnate Marcus Weinstein has donated $10,000 to Carr’s current re-election campaign and $140,000 to the delegate’s campaigns since 2009, campaign finance records show.

Magruder has reported raising about $1,600, $500 of which came from his largest donor, the Green Party of the United States. Crocker said he has raised about $550 online in small donations, but does not have a campaign committee registered with the State Board of Elections.

Meeting with Young Democrats, Jennifer McClellan and Ralph Northam

Photo by Scott Elmquist, Style Weekly

Ralph Northam, joined by state Sen. Jennifer McClellan, fourth from left, and Delegate Betsy Carr met with a group of young Democrats on Oct. 7 at a cafe in Richmond’s Fan District.

Celebrating 50 Years of the Virginia Institute of Pastoral Care

Richmond Delegate Betsy B. Carr, left, presents a General Assembly resolution congratulating the Virginia Institute of Pastoral Care for 50 years of providing counseling to families, couples, children and individuals to “restore healing and hope.” Receiving the proclamation at a celebration Sept. 28 at the Virginia Historical Society are Frances Broaddus-Crutchfield, president of VIPCare’s board and contributing Free Press writer, and Dr. Douglas M. Thorpe, executive director of the Henrico County-based nonprofit. Sister Cora Marie Billings, a member of the VIPCare board, also was honored for her advocacy and work to promote counseling in the Richmond region. VIPCare was founded in 1967 by a multiracial, ecumenical group.

Published in the Richmond Free Press, October 6, 2017

RPD chief at Va. Capitol to address crime at Richmond motels

http://wric.com/2017/07/12/rpd-chief-at-va-capitol-to-address-crime-at-richmond-motels/

By Evanne Armour
Published: July 12, 2017, 7:45 pm

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Police are getting too many calls to motels running rampant with crime. Now, they are trying to team up with lawmakers to help crack down on the problem.

On Wednesday, Richmond Police Chief Alfred Durham attended a Virginia Housing Commission meeting at the State Capitol. He spoke before the Neighborhood Transitions and Residential Land Use Workgroup.

He told them too much of his force is drained responding to motels that have become a hotbed for drugs and prostitution.

“What that means is there are community members that are calling 9-1-1 and there are no officers to respond,” said Durham.

Durham said it’s a problem seen in other parts of the commonwealth, too.

Richmond Inn on Midlothian Turnpike is the motel with the most calls for service in the capital city. In 2015 there were 536. In 2016 there were 483. So far this year, it’s on track to reach about 500 total again.

“These are not the folks that are going on websites and looking for hotel stays or motel stays,” said Durham. “These are local folks that come up and set up shop in these hotels.”

One woman who identified herself as a former prostitute and drug addict said something needs to be done.

“It’s a tragedy. I’m completely blessed to have made it out alive,” she told the workgroup. “The penalties definitely need to increase on the hotels. They encourage and enable the activity to continue.”

Police proposed creating legislation that would allow for localities to fine the properties for excessive calls for service, similar to false fire alarms.

But during the meeting, concerns were expressed about potential fair housing violations. They also discussed the possibility of a limit discouraging people from calling when they actually need help.

Instead, they are taking a closer look at what’s already on the books to see what they can expand or rework to target the problem.

“If we already have statutes or laws on the books that can assist us in that, we’re definitely going to accept anything they’re going to recommend,” said Durham.

Durham said the workgroup is collaboratively drafting legislation to be introduced during the next General Assembly session.

Richmond's mayoral dropouts inspire change to Virginia election law

• By GRAHAM MOOMAW Richmond Times-Dispatch
• Mar 21, 2017

Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed legislation this month that lays out a formal procedure for how local election officials handle candidates withdrawing from an election after it’s too late to have their names removed from the ballot.

Three of the eight candidates who qualified for the mayoral ballot pulled out of the race after the ballots had been printed.

“That was unprecedented,” said Richmond Registrar J. Kirk Showalter. “But then we’ve never had quite as many candidates for mayor either.”

The biggest eleventh-hour turn of events was former city councilman Jon Baliles’ decision to drop out of the race the week before the election and endorse the eventual victor, Mayor Levar Stoney, three days before Election Day. Bobby “BJ” Junes, a retired real estate consultant, dropped out of the race on Nov. 4. Former city councilman Bruce Tyler withdrew in late September.

Not all of the mayoral dropouts submitted official paperwork that would have allowed local registrars to post public notices announcing the full list of withdrawn candidates. Junes filed a formal notice well in advance of the election, and Baliles filed notice in the final hours of the campaign.

House Bill 1933, sponsored by Del. Betsy B. Carr, D-Richmond, specifies that if there’s not enough time to delete a candidate from the ballot, registrars must post a list of withdrawn candidates in every polling place and on local government websites. The revised law specifies that to be on the list, a candidate must file official notice rather than a press release or other public statement.

“Before, some assumed that just because they said it in the newspaper that we could act on that information,” Showalter said.

Carr said the idea for the bill came from a constituent concerned about people being “confused” by the mayor’s race.

“It’s simple. It’s basic,” Carr said. “And it’s a beginning step in the right direction so we have that process laid out.”

The bill passed the General Assembly by a wide margin. The House of Delegates approved it 92-5. The Senate vote was unanimous.

The amended law takes effect July 1.

Virginia House panel defeats bill to shield overdose victims from prosecution

By: K. BURNELL EVANS; Richmond Times-Dispatch

A proposal that would have shielded overdose victims from criminal prosecution when someone sought medical help to save them was struck down Wednesday in a House subcommittee over fears the move could enable drug use.

The vote to kill the bill from Del. Betsy B. Carr, D-Richmond, followed a revision made at the request of Republican delegates not swayed by emotional testimony on Monday from a father who said the measure would save the lives of people such as his son.

Ted Henifin told the House Courts of Justice Criminal subcommittee that police charged his son with a felony the first time his wife summoned emergency help after finding him unresponsive in a garage. When it happened again last October, the couple made a difficult choice, and spent the longest night of their lives watching their son to make sure he was still breathing.

“I don’t think we would (call police) again,” said Henifin, of Hampton. “The complications of the legal system … just really, really make helping support recovery ... much more challenging.”

The bill would have added to protections already in place to protect those who report overdoses from being prosecuted. Neither measure prevents police or a commonwealth’s attorney from bringing charges, but instead provides what is known as an affirmative defense against prosecution.

Del. C. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, said Wednesday that although he was sympathetic to Carr’s intent, the bill, taken alongside bids to establish safe needle exchanges and expand access to medicine that reverses drug overdoses, went too far.

“I’m starting to feel like we’re doing everything we can to encourage it to continue,” he said, of substance abuse. “I just think cumulatively we are setting ourselves up for a big failure here.”

Supporters of Carr’s proposal flooded the meeting on Monday to encourage lawmakers not to perpetuate the view of drug abuse as a moral failing, but as a disease in need of treatment that cannot be provided through the criminal justice system.

Among them was John Shinholser, president of the Richmond area McShin recovery organization, who decried Wednesday’s vote as a hate crime that would result in deaths.

When Shinholser asked the crowd on Monday whether they would rather die or go to jail, more than a dozen people who came to lobby in support of the bill raised their hands.

“I personally probably go to 30 or 40 overdose funerals a year,” he said. “By criminalizing these cases, it’s a big hurdle for those seeking help.”

He found support in Capt. Michael Zohab of the Richmond Police Department, who oversees narcotics, and Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael Herring.

“I think it makes a lot of sense,” Herring said in an interview. “If someone is able to get to the phone and report that they need help they shouldn’t have to be thinking, ‘Will I get in trouble?’ “

The proposal would not apply in instances where a search warrant was being issued or protect an overdose victim from prosecution for crimes unrelated to an overdose.

Herring said he knew of occasions in which people had faced drug-related charges after an overdose in the city of Richmond, which has seen opioid-related fatalities triple between 2010 and 2015.

“I have heard and been involved in conversations with lawyers here who say the current statute is broken and needs to be fixed,” Herring said.

The number of people in Richmond who survived overdosing on heroin alone has increased nearly 300 percent in the past three years — from 88 in 2014 to 343 during the entirety of 2016, according to police.

The city is not alone. Virginia’s public health commissioner declared a state of emergency in November over the ballooning opioid crisis.

State health officials have projected that more than 1,250 people in Virginia will be found to have died of a drug overdose in 2016. Drug overdoses surpassed car crashes as the leading cause of unnatural deaths in 2013, and the numbers have only increased, thanks in large part to a surge in opioid abuse.

Those statistics did not persuade lawmakers to adopt what proponents argued is a public health response to a public health issue.

“We’ve been up here reflecting on this and I am sympathetic to the notion that we want to save lives,” Gilbert said. “I believe in being proactive about trying to solve problems and I believe in unintended consequences.”

Getting people out of poverty, into the work force is focus of state budget proposal

By: Michael Martz; Richmond Times-Dispatch

Kiocia Wilkerson leaves for work on a GRTC bus each weekday morning at 7:17, seven minutes after loading her two children onto Richmond public school buses.

About 58 minutes later, after changing buses once, she arrives for work at the Maymont Preschool Learning Center, next to Amelia Street School where her autistic son, who will turn 5 next week, is a student.

This daily routine represents the beginnings of a transformed life for Wilkerson, a 27-year-old single mother in one of Richmond’s public housing projects. Her family is one of 18 public housing households in BLISS, or Building Lives to Independence and Self-Sufficiency, a new program under Mayor Dwight C. Jones’ ambitious anti-poverty initiative that wraps services around poor families looking for a way out.

“I actually have someone to call now,” Wilkerson said. “They actually help me work through my struggles, my barriers. They help me identify my barriers.”

The program, run by the city’s Office of Community Wealth Building, is an example of a comprehensive approach that other Virginia communities with high concentrations of poverty hope to emulate.

It also reflects a different way of looking at economic development for areas that are trying to foster a workforce with the skills for jobs in emerging industries.

“The whole idea of economic development is being re-thought,” said Jones, who attended a symposium conducted by The Aspen Institute in Washington last month on the theme “Can Inclusive Economic Development Build Better Jobs and a Stronger Regional Economy?”

“It’s not just about attracting businesses and creating jobs, but making sure that communities are prepared for the new businesses and jobs when they come,” said the mayor, who served in the House of Delegates for 15 years.

***

Virginia First Cities, representing Richmond and a dozen other urban areas plagued by high poverty rates, is seeking $11 million in funding from the pending biennial state budget to expand anti-poverty initiatives to bring people into the workforce.

“We have to figure out a way to lift more people out of poverty at a faster rate than people are falling into poverty,” said Thad Williamson, who has taken leave from his job as an associate professor at the University of Richmond to serve as the first director of the city’s Office of Community Wealth Building.

The challenge is particularly acute in Richmond, which a Harvard University study last year ranked as 48th-worst in the country out of almost 2,500 localities for the ability of children to advance into well-paying jobs.

Last month, The Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis created a disquieting map, based on newly released census data, that documented a 27 percent increase in the number of children living in neighborhoods with poverty rates above 40 percent from 2010 through 2014, compared with the previous five-year period.

In Richmond, 24 percent of children live in neighborhoods with poverty rates above 40 percent, and 64 percent live in areas where poverty is 20 percent or higher.

The dynamic is similar but less severe in other old cities, such as Portsmouth and Norfolk, while many rural localities also have children living in neighborhoods with a high level of poverty.

A rate of 40 percent or higher is considered an area of concentrated poverty, while 20 percent is the threshold for high poverty.

“We can’t ignore the fact that this poses a real challenge to our economic future,” said Michael J. Cassidy, president and CEO of The Commonwealth Institute and a member of the mayor’s anti-poverty commission.

Cassidy and other advocates say the concentration of poverty — and the many barriers to escaping it — should be addressed by the General Assembly as part of a fast-moving economic development initiative called the Virginia Growth and Opportunity Act, or GO Virginia.

The legislation, which has passed both chambers of the assembly and could be backed by as much as $39 million in new state incentives, would establish a state framework for economic development projects created by regional collaboration.

“Poverty eradication should be part of GO Virginia,” said Kelly Harris-Braxton, executive director of Virginia First Cities.

In the Richmond area, efforts to lift people out of poverty are part of a regional effort to prepare the workforce to fill the jobs needed by industries seeking to grow here.

“Something has to be done to draw these people and their families back into the economy,” said Kelly Chopus, executive director of the Robins Foundation and a member of the organizing council for the Capital Region Collaborative, a joint effort by the Greater Richmond Chamber and the Richmond Regional Planning District Commission.

Her foundation has been part of Richmond’s community wealth-building effort, including educational initiatives that begin with early childhood. “We see this as the perfect opportunity for public-private partnership,” she said.

James J. Regimbal Jr., a fiscal consultant for Virginia First Cities, said the message behind the budget amendment is that government, private industry and nonprofit partners have to work together to address the various barriers to escaping poverty — jobs and training, education and child care, transportation and housing.

“You have to do it almost on a family-by-family level to get it to work,” Regimbal said.

***

Kiocia Wilkerson does not hesitate when asked her specific goals for lifting her family out of poverty.

“No. 1, get out of here,” she said of Fairfield Court, where she has lived since just before the birth of her daughter eight years ago.

Her next goal is graduating from Reynolds Community College, where she is studying for an associate’s degree in human services. She began taking classes there in 2009, studying to become a hospital lab technician, but pulled out in 2013 after her son was diagnosed with autism.

Wilkerson’s third goal is to improve the opportunities for her children’s education. “I just want the best schools for my children,” she said, citing her dissatisfaction with the overcrowded classrooms at Fairfield Elementary School, which her daughter attends.

These goals seemed out of reach before she was referred to the BLISS program in August by the director of a parenting program run by the Richmond Public Library.

“She was a real shy, closed-in young lady,” said Sandee Smith, coordinator of the program, which currently helps about 70 people in 18 households in the seven public housing communities managed by Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority. “Out of all this, this young lady has done tremendously well.”

At the time, Wilkerson was struggling with a grocery job, offered few hours because of conflicts with her responsibilities as a parent. She grew up in a single-parent home in Richmond, so she knows what children miss when that parent isn’t available for them. “I had to grow up early,” she said.

Once in the program, she found the job at Maymont — five hours a day, five days a week — through interviews at the city’s Center for Workforce Innovation. The program gave her money for bus fare to get to and from work through her second paycheck.

“We needed to get working a steady amount of hours a week,” said Smith, who added that Wilkerson still is working limited hours at the grocery store.

BLISS, through a partnership with Virginia State University, helped Wilkerson return to Reynolds and redirect her studies to human services. It connected her to advocacy and support groups for parents of autistic children. It helped her communicate more effectively with Fairfield Elementary School over her concerns about her daughter’s education.

“What we do is we try to empower our families,” Smith said.

Before enrolling in the program, Wilkerson said, “I was just ready to give up on going back to school. I was ready to give up on trying to fight for my job. I was going to end up in a hard place, but could it be worse?”

“I was going through anxiety, depression,” she said. “I was alone.” Having help to meet her family’s needs and refocus her goals, she said, “It’s really picked up my motivation seriously.”

The problem for Richmond and similar communities is replicating that kind of success on a larger scale.

“The challenge is scaling it beyond one mother and her individual family to dozens of families in that particular community,” Chopus said.

Richmond is footing the entire bill for the community wealth-building initiative — $3.6 million in the current budget, Jones said. “But it doesn’t even begin to address our needs.”

The pending budget amendment — proposed by Del. Betsy B. Carr, D-Richmond, and Sen. L. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth — seeks $1 million in the first year to establish offices of community wealth-building and $10 million in the second year to help fund the programs, with no more than 20 percent of available money going to any one locality.

Virginia First Cities has the ear of key members of the General Assembly budget committees but no commitment for money.

“It certainly sounds like something that deserves a real close look,” said Del. John M. O’Bannon III, R-Henrico. “The challenge is going to be finding the money.”

Richmond Region Delegation and the House Appropriations Committee

By: Michael Martz; Richmond-Times Dispatch - June 13, 2015

The region’s clout is secure in the House, where O’Bannon sits on the Appropriations Committee and serves as a member of the conference committee that negotiates a final budget with the Senate.

House Majority Leader M. Kirkland Cox, R-Colonial Heights, also is a senior member of the Appropriations and Rules committees. Four other delegates from the region sit on the money panel: Riley E. Ingram, R-Hopewell; Christopher K. Peace, R-Hanover; Jimmie Massie, R-Henrico; and Betsy B. Carr, D-Richmond.

Last week’s primary elections might have created an opportunity for Carr, who won her own race against challenger Preston Brown and could become a House budget conferee with the defeat of Del. Johnny S. Joannou, D-Portsmouth. Joannou has served as the only House Democrat on the conference committee.

“Betsy is kind of a worker bee, not a show horse,” O’Bannon said.

House Appropriations Chairman S. Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, said, “She’s very studious and works hard to understand the complex issues.”

Another House Democrat from the region with some influence is Del. Jennifer L. McClellan, D-Richmond, who serves on the House Education, Courts and Commerce committees.

Loupassi, as chairman of the Courts subcommittee that oversees judicial appointments, works closely with McEachin on potential candidates for judgeships in the Richmond area.

A former president of Richmond’s City Council, Loupassi also has not been afraid to take on politically difficult regional issues, most notably his legislation to equalize representation on what is now called the Richmond Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The bill passed last year after three tries.

“I would like to do some things longer term that will reflect positively on all of us,” he said.

That regional role in the assembly has been played most consistently by Watkins, who commands bipartisan respect in the area.

“John is the kind of leader that you are thinking about when you describe great leaders,” said former Richmond City Council President William J. Pantele, a Democrat.

Pantele said the region will miss Stosch and Watkins “not just as a matter of their influence over legislation — it’s the wisdom, it’s the getting the big picture.”

Stosch waves off the worries, having seen many legislative titans come and go, including Sen. Edward E. Willey, a longtime Finance chairman from Richmond who exerted legendary influence for the city and region.

“Perhaps we will be missed,” Stosch said, “but the truth is you won’t notice.”

Cricket offers community, reminder of home

Posted: Monday, September 15, 2014 11:38 am

By LAURA KEBEDE Richmond Times-Dispatch

http://www.richmond.com/entertainment/article_b532921e-a157-52b0-87a7-180f12b488e7.html

Wicketkeeper Haroon Pasha ousts batsman Raj Shekhar. In cricket, there are two bases marked by wickets, or wooden poles.

Cheering for both teams in a cricket match is a common practice for Kuppili Bharani.

He walks across the field to the other set of bleachers when two of the area’s eight teams switch fielding because the sport, though highly competitive, is about community.

“Every team I have friends,” he said during a recent game at the cricket field behind Holladay Elementary School in Henrico County.

He dishes out advice from his years of playing in India and in Richmond with a passion younger players have come to know and love.

If Bharani is the area’s cheerleader, Zulfi Khan is the advocate.

As one of the senior players since the field came into use in 1994, Khan’s name is known by area parks and recreation departments as he seeks improved facilities for the beloved sport of a growing immigrant population in the region. He heralds the game, still relatively unknown in the U.S., as the most family-friendly of all.

“In Pakistan, grandmothers would know the names of the players,” he said. “My mother would not make breakfast if the game is on.”

Richmond’s relationship with cricket dates to the 1700s and rebounded in the 1990s as an organized league. The influx of South Asian immigrants, especially Indians, has helped bolster the sport in the region.

The cricket field behind the school off Staples Mill Road in Henrico is marking 20 years in the county and has planned a special tournament to mark the occasion.

Team members have grown accustomed to explaining the game in comparison to baseball, the sport foreign to them but learned over time from living in the U.S.

In cricket, “pitch” is the infield strip of clay, not the throwing of the ball. That’s “bowling” performed by the bowler. There are two bases marked by wickets, or wooden poles, that if toppled by the bowler or tapped by the wicketkeeper as the batsman runs toward the base, ousts the batsman.

The bats are similar to canoe paddles with longer blades often marked with red lipstick-like stains from the ball. Bowlers hurl the rock-hard balls at upward of 90 mph at batsmen who often daringly wear only shin guards and forgo a helmet for protection.

Mallik Pullela of the Barbarian Cricket Club defended the practice and gladly assumes the risks to up his game. The balls are allowed to bounce before reaching the batsman instead of following a mostly straight line from the pitcher in baseball, making it more difficult to track and hit.

“Helmets skew vision,” he said with a smile as he recovered from a hit that swelled his chin during a game this summer.

***

In the Richmond region, the game has blossomed with the growth of immigrants from India, most notably in Henrico.

The Indian population has nearly quadrupled in Henrico from 2,560 in 2000 to 9,846 in the 2010 census. The jump, Khan says, is mostly thanks to Capital One hiring information technology specialists.

One team in the league, the One Cricket Club, was founded by a Capital One employee and included co-workers until it became clear they would need more teams to accommodate all interested players.

But Richmond-area teams have also included immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, New Zealand and Sri Lanka or other former British colonies. Australians and South Africans had a strong showing a few years ago. The Mid-Atlantic Cricket Conference consists of 17 teams from Roanoke to Virginia Beach, Charlottesville and Blacksburg.

Richmond-area teams have reigned as champions of the conference since 2010.

And the sport isn’t lost on Henrico and Chesterfield officials.

“Every person from the groundsmen to the manager knows cricket,” Khan said of Henrico’s Recreation and Parks department.

Neil Luther, the department’s director, said the field has become a cultural and social hub and that more improvements are on the way. The circular fields do not translate well to other sports but require less maintenance than most. Last year, the department installed an additional batting cage with a cement pitch similar to competitor’s fields so teams can practice hitting off a different surface. A department-sponsored program guide for school-age children is in the works with the league.

“We’ve grown and learned a lot (as) they’ve expanded their presence,” he said. “It’s been a great relationship. They’ve been great to work with.”

Chesterfield’s chief of parks planning and construction services, Stuart Connock Jr., said the field at Beulah Elementary School is retro-fitted for cricket use. The county’s parks and recreation master plan is under consideration, and a cricket field has been discussed to meet the growing demand.

The Central Virginia Cricket Association and the Mid-Atlantic Cricket Conference even garnered attention from the General Assembly last year when Del. Betsy B. Carr, D-Richmond, and Sens. A. Donald McEachin, D-Henrico, and Henry L. Marsh III, D-Henrico, commended the organizations for their efforts to promote the sport.

A copy of the resolution is framed in the equipment shed at Holladay Elementary School “as an expression of the General Assembly’s admiration for the cricket leagues of Virginia’s work to encourage growth in local cricket and best wishes for the future,” it says in part.