A short time ago I was doing an in-person radio interview on Jack Gravely’s WLEE radio show. In the course of our conversation, he asked me whether I thought that Richmond would have budget challenges in 2009.
I answered the question by noting that the entire state was having budget challenges and that while Richmond’s might not be as severe, as say, Prince William County, it was hard for me to imagine that Richmond would be completely inoculated from the hard times that was impacting the rest of Virginia.
I was, however, puzzled that Gravely would even ask the question. My experience with Richmond area morning radio interviewers, particularly Gravely and Jimmy Barrett of WRVA, is that they are very knowedgeable individuals, and rarely ask questions where the answer is obvious.
Gravely must have seen the suprised look on my face and, at the break, told me that ”I asked the question because I’ve had people on my show saying that it would be wrong to have the new Mayor start off talking about ’all this doom and gloom’ and I needed some realism into the discussion.”
Well, yesterday in first sermon since becoming Mayor, Pastor Dwight Jones delivered the message- candidly, starkly and with a strong Tough Love theme.
It sounded a lot like what I heard Bill Cosby say recently when Doug Wilder brought him to town.
Jones didn’t mince words. He said that difficult times were here, that these would not go away immediately, and that city government wasn’t going to have the answer for everyone.
He noted “that the time has come to stop waiting waiting for someone to save us. It’s time to take responsibility….You can’t look to me or City Council to make problems go away”
Jones didn’t exempt himself from the message, admitting to his parishioners that he forgot some of the messages that his parents had taught him when he was bring up his own kids. We must, he said, “stop raising soft children.”
Starting today, Mayor Jones will have a host of political, financial and administrative decisions to make . And I’m sure that there will be extensive debate over his choices and decisions.
But he cetainly started off by delivering the right message. We’ll have to work hard and work together to get through a very challenging time.
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