By Carol A.O. Wolf
Prior to Justin Griffin's declaration of his candidacy to become Richmond's next Mayor, I held him in high regard. As a journalist, I respected his investigatory skills concerning the Navy Hill boondoggle.
His reportage revealed the many ways Mayor Levar Stoney was in cahoots with Dominion's former CEO, Tom Farrell, and it helped Councilwoman Kim Gray and her colleagues on City Council galvanize the public will against the coliseum and, ultimately, save Richmond taxpayers from being saddled with yet another half-baked pie-in-the-sky promise.
I say all this to help you understand how thunderstruck I was looking at a recent “hit piece” of negative campaign literature from his campaign against Gray. The piece was wrong on so many levels. In fact, it was so sloppily done, had so many facts wrong, violated copyright law and used photos out of context that my first thought was that the Stoney campaign was using it as a “double-hit piece,” designed to create chaos in both the Griffin and Gray camps. In reality, the flyer evokes laughter from anyone who follows city politics.
Now, after studying Griffin's website, it is easy to see the claims made in the hit piece reflected there. Political insiders tell me that Stoney must have made Griffin an offer he couldn’t refuse and now Griffin is doing Stoney’s dirty work. Mayors are notorious for handing out patronage positions to loyal lieutenants who go above and beyond the call of duty.
More’s the pity that Griffin appears to have joined the ranks of “Mayors On the Make 2020,” those aspiring politicos who will do and say anything to get what they want.
Bottom-line: The flyer provides even more reasons to vote for Kim Gray, the only homegrown grown-up in the race who has the experience to get the job done. As to the candidacy of Alexsis Rodgers, we definitely need her voice in our community but we don’t need another learn-as-you-go mayor with a steep learning curve. We need a candidate with actual governance experience.
