Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Available On Air Stations
Election Coverage Header

RVA's Got Issues: Meet mayoral candidate Michelle Mosby

A headshot of Mosby
Shaban Athuman
/
VPM News
Michelle Mosby is photographed on Thursday, September 5, 2024 in Richmond, Virginia.

For the next several weeks, RVA's Got Issues and VPM News are teaming up to bring you special coverage of the Richmond mayoral election.

"Who's Got Your Vote?" takes voters inside Richmond's race for mayor. Host Rich Meagher interviewed each candidate to get closer to the issues and faces that want to shape the future of Richmond.

The RVA's Got Issues series continues with Michelle Mosby, a nonprofit founder and businessowner who, back in 2015, was the first Black woman elected president of the Richmond City Council.

You can listen to or read Rich's interview with Michelle Mosby here. A longer, video version of the interview is also embedded below.

Find RVA's Got Issues wherever you listen to podcasts — or on the RGI website.

Editor's note: This transcript has been lightly edited for style and length.


Rich Meagher: Welcome to RVA's Got Issues, a podcast about politics and public affairs in and around Richmond, Virginia. I'm your host, Rich Meagher. On this special election episode, RVA's Got Issues with the Richmond mayoral election. Five candidates are vying to be Richmond's next mayor. Each one wants to be the key decision maker that will shape the future of the city and the region.

We're joined now by Michelle Mosby, a small business owner in the city and a former city council representative for the 9th District, serving as the council's first Black female president. Welcome, Michelle. 

Michelle Mosby: Thank you.

What is something that's not so political that either nobody knows about you, or you haven't had a chance to talk about on the campaign trail?

I'm fun. And I can't wait to have fun with the people of Richmond as mayor.

What kind of fun? What do you mean?

I just like fun; I like doing the two-step, I like eating breakfast any time of the day. I just generally like fun; I like to laugh.

I really want city services and City Hall to work right so that the people of Richmond can also just enjoy their mayor.

Aside from the fun, there are five candidates in this race. You're the only one who has run for mayor before. (Editor’s note: Mosby ran in 2016.) So what's changed this year from your previous elections? 

Well, from the previous mayoral election, that had a different reason.

OK. Well, what was your reason for running the last time then?

It just was a different reason. We needed to make sure that Richmond got its best, her best in that election — and so I ran to ensure that Richmond got her best. I'm running this campaign to win; with that, seeking endorsements, knocking on as many doors as I possibly can. This is a win election.

I'm just curious about this: Obviously, you're here to win this time around. If last time around was not to win, what's the reason to get involved in electoral politics in the first place for you? 

I have a nonprofit called Help Me Help You that provides navigation continuum of care to those who have been justice-involved, who've been incarcerated.

Meaning you help them back into like a full life. Does that make sense? 

Yes, absolutely. It's connecting to service providers throughout the Richmond metropolitan area, whether it be mental health services, substance abuse services, the employment, the transportation, the housing, all of those things that are the necessity.

I do think this is a theme in your work, right? Second chances, particularly for folks who've been incarcerated. I think you've also employed some folks at your salon, right? So where does that come from? 

I think it's the feeling of rejection that a person gets. I've never been incarcerated, but I don't like rejection. I had a friend that came home and I watched them try to get employment. I watched them put the rejection letters in the sun visor of the car until the sun visor couldn't hold them anymore.

The goal was to show me that “I'm trying and this is what happens when you try.” It kind of broke my heart. I was like, “This is not going to work.” And so I began to pray on it, and I was led to Help Me Help You.

And then to city council, right? 

Yes.

What is it about your experiences on city council that you're sort of bringing forward into this campaign? 

My first piece of legislation on city council was called “ban the box.” Ban the box takes the “have you ever been convicted?” off the application, and that allows you to at least get an interview.

It allows people to have insurance where they wouldn't have a job that has insurance. It allows people to take care of their families.

For me, that was big because it was the very first thing that I got an opportunity to do in policy.

Let's be a little more specific if we can. What would you do specifically? Banning the box was a big, almost a signature achievement of your time on city council. 

What kind of things would you be able to do as mayor? Right now you have a sort of bump up of authority. You have control, somewhat, over City Hall. What could you do to help on those issues that you've been talking about?

I think that it's a myriad of things when we talk about affordable housing. That's a concern for not just those who have been justice-involved, but the people of Richmond as a whole.

It's really working to make sure that the policies that we had an opportunity to put in place when I was on council — we have the Maggie Walker Land Trust, the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. These are policies that were put in place.

My concern is: Are the policies being executed? Are we getting the outcomes that they were put in place to do? As mayor, it allows me to really look at these policies and make sure that we're doing everything that we can to rehab our housing affordability.

I really want city services and City Hall to work right so that the people of Richmond can also just enjoy their mayor.

You have some interesting ideas about housing, including giving residents who might be at risk — of being displaced or kicked out of their house — giving them first choice in affordable developments. 

You've talked about a housing strike team, with the heads of all the city departments kind of coming together. Why that approach? Why do you think that's the best way to kind of address our housing crisis? 

For a couple of reasons. This administration and this council has said, “We're in a housing crisis.” If we're in a housing crisis and we're not helping those who are in a possibility of losing their homes, then to me, the housing crisis is only growing.

That's why working with our local developers so that we can indeed have more supply, and the strike team is needed because it gets hung up in departments. Things get hung up in permitting, and I don't need it hung up. We need it to get out so that supply can really be there — so that evictions are not the next move.

You kind of talked about Richmond almost like needing to get back on its feet. I think the language you use sometimes is, “rebuilding the village”? 

Yes.

After some pretty high-profile stories about City Hall, about this kind of issue, about data and management — the meals tax, the finance department, the communications department — voters might want someone that they can trust to kind of shore up city government.

How do you plan on rebuilding that trust? 

In a Mosby administration, it's hiring a seasoned chief administrative officer — an administrator that has local government experience. Someone who preferably has a background in Virginia localities, but particularly someone who has experience with the Greater Richmond Region.

I think that that's important, because that'll be the start of how we get things on track — with someone with experience in local government.

It's having a seasoned CAO. We need system enhancements, because I believe our people are not being able to give accuracy because the systems are not — whatever you put in, it's what you get out.

You mean even like the, just the computer, the actual systems?

Yes. Our technology, our systems, they need to be tested. They need to be upgraded.

Our people need to be trained so that they understand the city process. And not just trained between each other, but a real trainer that comes in and helps us know what our processes are and how the system — the new system — is actually working.

Sounds like good ideas, right? But then good ideas sometimes in local politics sound a little expensive? So where does the money for these kinds of plans come from? 

If you're going to bring in more training, if you're going to hire new people, if you're going to upgrade systems, do we have the money for that in the city of Richmond? 

I'm going to first say we've reached a AAA+ bond rating that I believe, foundationally, the city is in a good place.

Foundationally, I do believe that we have to get in to see exactly where we are with all the other missteps that we've seen happen. But training has to be a part of your budget: Affordable housing, everything else that we want to do will not turn out the way we want it to turn out if we do not start with ensuring that the people who are working for us are confident in the process, and that our systems are working for us.

Our technology, our systems, they need to be tested. They need to be upgraded. Our people need to be trained so that they understand the city process.

We've talked a little bit about second chances as a kind of theme. I like the city. You've had your own challenges in life, right? First leaving marriage, then the Great Recession, both those times you filed for bankruptcy. And I think people sympathize with the kind of difficulties that these types of events can have. 

Is there anything you'd like to share with voters about how these experiences have shaped you? 

Absolutely. So 2006, I became a realtor, had the opportunity to almost be like Oprah: "You get a house, you get a house, you get a house." Everybody was purchasing homes.

It was a crazy time.

It was, it was. And then 2010, the market crashed. When the market crashed, I had, at that time, six rental properties of my own and tenants who were trying to stay alive in the moment.

I took a lot of my savings trying to keep things afloat. And in doing so, it caused foreclosure. It caused bankruptcy. It caused a lot of things.

At the time when it was happening, I felt like a failure. I felt like, “Oh my gosh, what is happening?” It was an experience. It was an experience that was rough, but it's not the experience today.

A big part of the mayor's role is the budget, right? Managing the budget, introducing the budget. Council obviously has a voice in it, but it really is the mayor's kind of thing.

What did you learn from your experiences that you describe, particularly for folks who might say like, “Oh, a bankruptcy, that means you don't know anything about money.” Or, you know, that would look at that experience and be skeptical about it, right?

Absolutely.

How does that inform your approach that you would bring to the mayor's office? 

Today my finances are in a wonderful shape, No. 1. And No. 2, I had the opportunity to serve on city council, and then 2015, I became president. In that moment in time, we were able to fund schools.

We were able to invest in our riverfront. We were able to build affordable housing. We were able to bring grocery stores to food deserts so the experience was the experience, but I've got a new experience.

I own a business; that's my business. I get to determine how I maneuver in that business, but that is not local politics, local government.

Local government is you are maneuvering in such a way that whatever your decision is, it is touching somebody's life. Someone will be affected by the decisions that you make and what you make as a priority in a budget.

If we're in a housing crisis and we're not helping those who are in a possibility of losing their homes, then to me, the housing crisis is only growing.

Michelle, we talked a little bit about “ban the box.” We talked about your work with the formerly incarcerated — those justice-involved, as you say.

But what about the other end of this, right? The police, community safety: Can you talk about how your background approach would inform your approach as mayor to the issue of community safety? 

Absolutely. Over time, we've seen things happen and not just in Richmond, but it's been a moment in time. We need a leader that can have a real clear dialogue with our police department. I believe that Richmond has to have police. We cannot continue to be 150, 180 officers down and it worked for us. That just doesn't work.

We need a strategic plan to hire and retain officers. Working with our police chief, continuing to work with — and the city has gone through union moments in time to ensure that we're competitive — working with those things.

But having a leader that can walk in and say, “Hey, at the end of the day, community policing is what I want us to be known for.” It is not OK, I do not want to hear that someone has been shot while Black. That is not what we're doing.

I believe that no other candidate can be that candid, but also be that loving. And people know that I love the fact that you're the police and I want you here. But let's be clear, that's not what we're doing here.

Right. I think that would be what some folks might find surprising about your kind of policy proposal here, right? As a Black woman running in the City of Richmond in the context of post–Black Lives Matter and saying, “All right, what we really need to do is fully fund and staff the police.”

Yes.

You're saying that comes with a particular, I don't want to say the strings attached, but it needs to be a particular kind of policing, right? So how do you make that happen? How do you take law enforcement, which has been kind of nationally known as being resistant to change? How do you change those folks?

How do you change the perception of police and the perception that police themselves bring to their work?

That comes with your leadership style. I am not a foreigner to our police department. Many of them were there when I was on council. So we have relation — I have [a] relationship with Chief Edwards.

But I am also community. Because I'm also community, it's ensuring that community is accountable for community as well. It's having the dialogue with our pastors. It's having the dialogue with our nonprofits. It's bringing all of us to the table to say, “This approach requires you, all of you.”

It puts a responsibility on the people of Richmond that public safety is not one person's responsibility. It's not the police's responsibility. By the time our young people get to the police, it’s too late.

There has to be a responsibility that says that we are going to all jump in — and where we can be a support to our school system so that our young people are excelling in reading. That they’re after graduation becoming plumbers and electricians and whatever have you that they need to be.

This is going to take an all-hands-on-deck approach. And I believe that today, I am the only candidate that can approach it from both angles.

We've been talking about law enforcement — another you know, important set of institutions, like a policy approach: education.

Richmond Public Schools needs some kinds of reform and doing well in some areas, but certainly needs some improvement. How would you, as mayor, partner with the public schools to help move them forward towards their goals? 

Policy says that a mayor is actually supposed to propose a budget. Council is then there to determine whether they're going to give more or take less to that budget.

But once it gets to schools, they are the sole persons that would deal with what happens with the budget.

Right, they manage their own.

They manage their own. Yes. With that, knowing that walking in the door, having been president and pulling us together, it's now seeing how I can best support. It's saying, “Hey, I would like to support these in this way. Would this way be helpful to you?” and selling it in such a way that the support is warranted and so we get better outcomes.

Public safety is not one person's responsibility. It's not the police's responsibility. By the time our young people get to the police, it’s too late.

What specifically makes you the best prepared for the challenges that Richmond is going to face over the next four years?

I am a small business owner in the city of Richmond of 23 years. I am a nonprofit executive director of 15-plus years. I am a realtor and an associate broker who has sold real estate throughout the Richmond metropolitan Area for over 18-plus years.

I have served on Richmond City Council from 2012 to 2016, and there is no other time that you can mention where someone became president in their first four years. We got a lot of great things done.

I believe that I am the only candidate that has the experience in local government — and in this budget — that can walk in without needing the training wheels.

Michelle Mosby is running for mayor of Richmond. Thanks so much, Michelle. 

Thank you. I appreciate you.


Read and listen to more 2024 elections coverage.

VPM News is the staff byline for articles and podcasts written and produced by multiple reporters and editors.