With its new PLACE Project, the city of Richmond wants to take a more direct role in helping revitalize the downtown area. Staff photo by Jason Truitt
RICHMOND — As city officials were working their way through what the 2021 budget would look like back in August, Mayor Dave Snow warned it would "no doubt be a rough year financially."
The COVID-19 pandemic had hit estimated tax collections hard, and Snow and his department heads were looking for ways to keep from spending more of the city's monetary reserves than they believed was necessary given the circumstances.
Snow sat down with the Pal-Item for about 30 minutes recently to talk about COVID, what we can expect from city government in 2021 and other topics that have been at the forefront of discussions this year, including systemic racism and a recent increase in youth violence.
This is the second in a series of Q&A articles taken from that interview. It focuses on questions about how city government will operate with a smaller budget next year, the projects still to come and why so much of city government's focus seems to be on the downtown and Historic Deport District areas.
QUESTION: You talked a little bit about the financial impact that COVID's going to have on city government next year, but what does city government look like in 2021 compared to what we've been used to?
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