Last month, VPM News and RVA's Got Issues ran a series ahead of the Richmond mayoral race called "Who's Got Your Vote?" According to the results, it was Dr. Danny Avula who won six council districts on Election Day. So RGI host Rich Meagher met up with the mayor-elect to see what's next for him and the city.
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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 episode, RVA's Got Issues with what's next for the newly elected mayor of Richmond.
Danny Avula defeated four other candidates in a hard-fought campaign to be the next Richmond mayor. This directly elected position put someone in charge of an almost $3 billion budget, a staff of over 4,000 employees — and the needs and hopes of a city of well over 200,000 people.
Now, the mayor-elect joins me for his first in-depth interview since his win. We'll talk about how he's feeling, what his priorities are and what Richmonders should expect from an Avula administration.
Danny, welcome.
Danny Avula: Thanks, Rich. So glad to be here.
So Danny, now what?
Well now the real work begins, right? I spent the last seven months trying to figure out how to get in the seat. This is the seat.
I mean, you might feel a little bit like the proverbial, you know, dog that's caught the car. You know, you've won. Now you have this tremendous job in front of you. Like what does it feel like to be in the place you're in right now?
Yeah, you know, I've shared with a lot of folks that running for office was a bear. I mean, it was just the schedule of it, the self-promotion of it, the fundraising part of all of it were just things that were not very natural to me and things that I didn't really enjoy.
But I spent all day Thursday and Friday with the City Hall team and, you know, getting into the work of governing and actually thinking about how we start to solve the problems that our city is facing. You know, I came alive in a different way. So I'm really excited to be on the other side of running and very energized for the work ahead.
That's great. Are you planning a break anytime between now and when you start? Like, are you going to disappear to a beach somewhere?
I need to, I haven't planned it yet. Some of this is working around my wonderful wife's schedule, who’s a public school teacher. And so there's only so many windows, but — I will say something I've not necessarily done the best job at in my life is carving out space for rest, but I think it's more important than ever that I come in recharged and ready to go in Jan. 1.
Right. Now let's recap the election. You know, your support was spread out over the city: 46% of the vote, pretty impressive in a five-way race. You managed to win six of the nine districts outright in Richmond's odd election system.
But one other way to look at it is that over half the city voted against you. I mean, not to bring you down here, sorry. But your biggest challenger, Michelle Mosby, won the other three districts that you didn't win with a lot of support concentrated in parts of the city with majority-Black residents.
I mean, what do you say to supporters of the other candidates in the race, particularly Black Richmonders who might have seen Michelle Mosby as someone who could represent them better?
I mean, I understand it. And I will say as you delve into the numbers, we had really strong support from those districts as well. While we didn't win every single district, I think if you look at the actual number of people in 6, 8 and 9 who voted for us, I think it reflects a really broad coalition of people who did support my candidacy.
So I don't know that this boils down simply to “is this a Black or white preference,” right? I can't tell you the number of times where I would walk into a predominantly African American church or a predominantly Black space and would just have an open heart. Overwhelming groundswell of people who say, “Dr. Avula, I can't wait to vote for you.”
You know, a really encouraging part of this journey for me was the number of different kinds of people from different parts of the city who really wanted to get behind the campaign. And so I think that no matter whether you voted for me or didn't, you know, this job is about being for every person in this city. And that's, you know, what I signed up for.
It’s what my heart is for this city. And I just want to reassure people that the way that I lead will be open and listen to everybody whether they voted for me or not.
So one more thing about your opponents in the race: Anything about what you heard from them on the campaign trail that you see as something that you want to incorporate into your approach? Like a policy idea or an approach.
Yeah, I'm really excited to sit down with those folks to hear, “Hey, what did you learn? What do you want me to know as I'm heading into this role? Who are the people, the partnerships, the voices in the community that really shaped your thinking over the course of the last eight months? And how do I make sure that they're a part of my thinking moving forward?”
Although you're probably sick of each other after seeing each other every night and every tour.
Oh, I don't think so. It was such a good group, and particularly the in-person dynamic was so collegial. And it was just clear that everybody was in it for the right reasons. And I'm excited to tap their experience and knowledge as I think about priorities for the next chapter.
Speaking of tapping experience and knowledge, right? You quickly announced your transition team, some names familiar to politics observers in Richmond, right? Your campaign managers are involved, but also like you have our professor Thad Williamson, a kind of familiar name, some names from the health care and business world.
Why these folks? Why choose them for your transition team?
Yeah, part of these are folks who have been very involved and helpful during the campaign, but part of it is the talent networks, credibility that I know that I wanted to pull in over the next two months. You know, Thad is a good example of somebody who has more historical knowledge than almost anybody about the modern-day politics of Richmond.
In fact, he and Amy Howard and Julian Hayter just published a book on Richmond city governance and politics from, I think, 1986 to 2016. And so tapping that kind of expertise really helps us understand the context of what we're stepping into. And then some of the other folks are people who have just been in Richmond a long time and who have a lot of trust and a lot of connectivity with our community — and can help be great advisers as we really look to crystalize priorities.
What are these folks actually going to do with you? Like, how does a transition work in your view? What are you actually working on?
Yeah. You know, I spent the last seven months knocking on doors, getting in front of voters, hearing priorities from people all over the city and region. And so we have a pretty good idea of what some of those priorities need to be.
We know that affordable housing is going to be, you know, one of the biggest things that we invest in. We know that figuring out how to support the school system, we know that addressing gun violence and public safety, right? So we have a set of priorities that have come from listening to constituents over the last seven months of campaigning.
And so this transition team is really helping us get organized around what's going to be the first 100 days of each of these conversations.
I want to get to some of those issues but just one question about another issue that came up on the campaign trail, which is about current staff, particularly the chief administrative officer.
Now, you've already said you've announced a national search. Doesn't that take time? Can you do this? Can you get this team in place to hit the ground running in January? Can you hire a person? Can you find the right leadership to work with you in the administration?
The process of identifying and hiring new people does take time, but I think that some of that we can get started on right away.
This administration, Mayor Stoney's administration has been incredibly collaborative and already — you know, I spent nine hours on Thursday, nine hours on Friday in City Hall meeting with different departments, getting a sense of what the current priorities and challenges are. So they're really helping us lay the groundwork for a really successful transition.
It's probably not realistic that we have all of the folks fully evaluated and hired January 1st, but that's clearly the first order of business when we do get in there.
Now, we get the priorities, right? You've heard them. We know they were important from the campaign, but so a priority, like housing: How do you know where to start? Like, what's the specific thing you do on Day 1 that gets you to that next step — and the next step after that?
In many ways, it's a parallel process to what I as a physician do, right? There is an assessment phase of this, of really understanding what are the symptoms we're currently facing? What is the availability of affordable housing? How are we defining affordable housing? How many residents of our city are actually on the brink of eviction?
And then that helps diagnose what are the actual things that are going to keep people in their housing? So do we need to focus on protecting long-term residents who are facing elevating property taxes? Is that the driver for people leaving their homes?
Is it just affordable rental rates? And if so, what are the slate of interventions that we need to use? Is it tax abatements to bring down affordability to families making under $50,000? Is it a continuation of the grant program that the Stoney administration has put into place?
And so we really do need to get granular about what it means to address the affordable housing issue in our city? And how do we do that in the short term? And then what are the things that we need to start putting in place? Are there new policy decisions? Are there, uh, new partnerships? Are there new ways of thinking about how to work with the home building community to increase production?
I think that's what I see happening over the course of the, the transition period and, and really like spelling out that action plan for the first hundred days.
And so would you see similar things happening, let's say for gun violence or for education, a similar kind of assessment, bring in minds, and then we have our action steps?
The process that we approach this will be the same, but the partners will be different. I mean, I think about education: I've talked a lot on this campaign trail about the importance of not only addressing K-12 education as a pathway to higher education, but also to career.
The opportunity that sits before us with the Richmond Technical Center and the energy that's starting to build between Richmond Public Schools and our business community, our labor unions, like folks who really see the way that the Richmond Technical Center can be a pipeline for people to find employment in our community, like that's really exciting work that's going to need some leadership and some coordination.
Similarly, and when we think about violence prevention and gun violence, there's been a lot of great folks thinking about this, right? There's good work happening within City Hall, our RISC community who have worked with this group violence intervention model that has worked really well across the country.
And so there are elements of that, that either wholesale we need to start doing enrichment if we're not, or that where we sort of meld the best parts of the evidence-based approach into what we're already doing as a city. But I think, again, that's a good example of where we look at the evidence base, we look at where momentum is and we start to build out any changes in our approach that we need to make.
I mean, one of the things that I'm really excited about over the course of the next four years is investing in the meta narrative around our history and our future. And so, the amazing work that's happening with the Shockoe Project, for example, and what happens next on Monument Avenue, right?
I think there are huge opportunities for our city to really rally around where we've been and where we are, and to think together about where we move forward in practical ways.
How do we tell that story? Then also in aspirational ways like: How do we come together as a community and build a new ethos of where Richmond is heading?
Now, Danny, I don't know if this was a change election exactly. You know, Levar Stoney was term-limited. We have six incumbents returning on council, but I do think Richmonders want to see changes in city government due to this election.
The question I think that they might want to be asking is: What do they look for? How do they know something is different? How is it gonna feel to them so they know it's not the same old, same old Richmond.
I think one of the ways we do this is as we're mapping out the new user interfaces for a particular department, let's say business permitting, that we can populate a schedule that says, “Hey, step one of this process should take three days. Step two of this process should take a week.” And that we publicly produce the expected timeframes and then the actual timeframes — then it gives us the ability then to hold our people accountable to that.
I mean, so much of what is frustrating to the residents of Richmond in dealing with government of any kind is that they feel like things go into a black hole and they don't know, and they're not getting communication. And so I think just upping our level of communication and touch points and transparency will give people a sense of like, “OK, at least I know what to expect.”
Are you looking at the structure of bureaucracy as a way of doing this? I know Mayor Stoney has created a few offices over the last few years. Are you thinking about restructuring the way that the city operates in that way?
When you look at the business permitting process, is the idea we need to bring in outside consultants? We talk to these folks, do you have that kind of specific level or approach?
I would say not yet. I mean, there's certainly things that I've heard about along the way.
So let's take the example of the permitting not the business permitting process, but like the development and land use permitting process, right? I think the current leadership of planning and development have have really done a good job of listening to their constituents and making improvements to the process and planning and development.
The problem is that when you are actually trying to build something or whether it's a apartment building or put a deck on the back of your house, there are multiple touch points within city government, right? That might need to be signed off on by DPU and DPW and the fire department.
And so I do think things get hung up in intra-agency communication. And that's where the real opportunity is to redesign structure and process.
Now, to your question, some of that might be, yeah, maybe we're going to move a couple of things around or merge a department or just think about the way that city government is structured so the information flows more effectively. But some of it is more about clearly defining a process and having an accountable timeline for each of those departments to do their review and to sign off on something so that, ultimately, we get a much quicker turnaround on getting the shovel in the ground.
All right, well, let's pull back a little bit, right? One of the selling points of your campaign was your experience in government. The idea that the city needs more support from state officials, particularly with federal officials as well. So the results of the national election, surprising to many folks, it hit hard for a lot of folks in this largely democratic city here.
You know, you might hear about, let's say, President-elect Trump's plans to dismantle the Department of Education, right? This would obviously affect school funding, testing, a whole bunch of things here in Richmond.
So, what do we do? What do you do particularly? This is your problem now, right? What does that mean for the city to you?
Yeah. I mean, it does. Definitely cast a different context on my entry into this role in this administration. And I think the first thing that I will do and will continue to do is reassure Richmonders that we will do everything in our power.
To both protect people's rights and to ensure that the city is a place where we are supporting productive and healthy discourse, where every person's humanity is respected. Right. And so like that fundamental commitment to just saying we are going to be about people, and we are going to be about relationships and community in this city. And from a policy perspective, that means that we are going to have to fight harder to make sure that the immigrants who are part of our community are supported and protected to the degree that we're able and are celebrated as valued members of Richmond.
I think that's going to be a big focus of my time, the conversations I'm having, the way that I am showing up publicly for our community is to be a voice of calm and reassurance. Yeah, there are things that will be concerning that are happening at the federal level, and we need to band together as a local community and support each other.
And so is there a way that you as a mayor of Richmond can influence these decisions on the federal level? Is it leveraging your contacts and connections with state folks that might help that?
Yeah, you know, thankfully, we have just again, incredible representation between Congresswoman McClellan and Senator Kaine and Senator Warner, you know, who will be fighting for the things that our city values.
And I feel really encouraged by that. I think my role there is continuing to be a liaison and channeling the things that Richmonders are hearing and experiencing on the ground level and making sure that our federal representatives know that, and in turn looking for ways that we can be present advocates for what we need as a city.
I think at the state level, right, we have a really amazing group of state representatives that represent the city of Richmond — and thankfully I have relationships with all of them. I think we step immediately into an open dialogue.
In fact, I just got a phone call from one of our representatives, but I think there will be a regular conversation about the ways that we collectively advocate for funding or for policy change for the city.
So switch in the directional arrow a little bit, right? You've also talked with us and others about the relationships you built in the surrounding counties around Richmond during your time in public health and elsewhere. So how did those connections help the city moving forward?
And, then sort of the flip side is people in RVA, Greater Richmond, people in the counties, how should they think about your win? What's in it for them?
Yeah. Well, I think no matter where you live in the region, the vast majority of people will agree that strong leadership in our city center core and open, helpful dialogue amongst the regional partners is good for everybody, right?
I've talked at length about the intercity visits that the chamber hosts. And every time we go on one of those visits and go visit another community, we're blown away by the level of regional cooperation that we see in other cities. And I think there actually have been huge strides that our region has made in terms of regional cooperation.
But I think that getting to step in this role with preexisting relationships with local elected leaders in the surrounding counties, with the county executives of our surrounding counties really accelerates our conversation. Because as we think about trying to address these macro issues of homelessness or affordable housing or improved educational outcomes, you know, those things are going to take regional solutions.
And thankfully, we have a framework to build off of, but the more relationship and connection that we have as leaders, the better it is for the region.
One final note here. Some reporters at VPM News were trying to find out your start date, and so I did a little digging — and it turns out that it's not specified in the city charter or state law. You can kind of start whenever you want.
So I know you said Jan. 1, but if you're not feeling it, you can go backpacking in Europe — maybe, you know, come back in March or April. What do you think? Are you interested?
I think we're all in on Jan. 1, Rich!
OK! Danny Avula is a former public health official. He's a longtime resident of Richmond and beginning sometime next year, he'll be the next mayor of Richmond. Danny, Mr. Mayor-Elect, thank you.
Thank you, Rich. Great to be here.
