KEYRIS MANZANARES: Mayor Avula, thank you for sitting down with us for this coverage of your year in review as you wrap up your first year as mayor.

You really started with a very busy year with the water crisis.

DANNY AVULA: Way busier than I wanted it to be, yeah.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: And then tackling, you know, a lot of major issues, housing, affordability.

DANNY AVULA: Yeah.

And a lot of those things that you campaigned on.

When it came to the water crisis, how did that, at the initial start of your mayoralship, really impact the approach that you took after?

DANNY AVULA: It really helped us hone in on a few things.

One, in actually managing the acute crisis was the importance of communication.

Recognizing, hey, we've got to use social media more effectively.

We've got to make sure that we're being very accessible to the press because that's how the public hears these stories.

And so, you know, I think so much of that kind of already aligned with the way that I wanted to carry this job, but it really solidified the importance of communication being this anchor of how we operate as a local government.

Probably the other two big things that I took away, one was the need for some work around emergency responsiveness, emergency preparedness, really knowing how to respond in the midst of a crisis.

And so not only, you know, sort of the preventive work that could have, you know, led to us avoiding a crisis like that.

But then even in the aftermath of that, knowing that there's a lot of work that we have to do as an organization around emergency plans and getting people in the mindset of doing regular exercises so that when there is an emergency, there is a crisis, we know how to respond.

And I think the water crisis was a very immediate example for our local government of how this is a whole of government response and we all need to understand how the incident command system works and how to operate in an emergency mindset, so that was the second big thing.

And then the third was really around deferred maintenance, and the fact that, you know, a huge part of what led to the water crisis was the identification of an automatic transfer switch that had been identified years earlier on an audit as something that needed to be replaced.

And just, they're not having the sense of urgency to ensure that that was replaced in a timely way.

And I think it has tuned us to all of the other areas of deferred maintenance.

And, you know, I don't say that with criticism or blame of previous administrations because the reality is that like every year, there are so many pressing budgetary priorities and so you've got to make decisions, right?

Like do we put things in, you know, long time maintenance that you know, maybe we could squeeze a few more years out of?

Or do we deal with the acute crisis of, you know, homelessness or whatever the issue of the day is, and those are really difficult decisions.

But I think, you know, the water crisis really brought into focus the need that we are an old city and that we have a lot of things that have had deferred maintenance on them, and that we have to, at least a portion of our budgetary priority has to go to investing in those things over time.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: You know, as part of your campaign, you really ran on transforming city hall with a new chief administrative officer.

And coming in, after the water crisis, you know, you had a lot of leadership changes.

What would you say those changes really amounted to?

Are they meeting the expectations that you kind of set for yourself?

DANNY AVULA: You know, I think anybody who comes into a new role has to make sure that the team is really aligned with where the leader is going.

And so I think that's what led to some of the shifts that we had to make coming in is really not necessarily, you know, was somebody not good at their job or not doing a job in the right way, but do they really align around the priorities that I bring as the newly elected leader of the city?

And this year, yeah, you're right, we have had a lot of changes and the first of those was something that we were really clear about coming in, is that we wanted to find a chief administrative officer who has had a lot of experience running cities, ideally who's done this in different places.

And so, even though it took a little bit longer than I was hoping, you know, being able to find Odie Donald and bring him here from Atlanta and somebody who has not only been a city manager in other settings and both Augusta, Georgia and South Fulton, but has also worked in a strong mayor system and kind of really understands the dynamics of our form of government here in Richmond from the time that he spent in Washington, DC and Atlanta.

And so not only did he bring kind of the right mix of experience to the table, but also a real alignment around the things that we wanted to prioritize, right?

Really creating opportunity for everybody in the city, like anchoring in inclusiveness and equity, being really people first minded about the way that we go about the work, but also a good pairing of our skills.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: How are you kind of measuring the success of restoring trust in City Hall, especially after administrative and billing issues that continued this year?

What are you asking for from directors and how are you holding them accountable?

DANNY AVULA: We rolled out what's called the Mayoral Action Plan, and in each of our seven pillars, we have very specific metrics that we want the public to know about.

So for example, you know, the number of bike lane miles, you know, we're making efforts to become a more multimodal city, that means making investments and more pedestrian and bike transportation.

And so one of the very practical metrics we can point to is the number of of bike lane miles added in the city.

Similarly, we know that we want to really focus on our employee base here in City Hall, and that means, you know, investing in training and development, reducing turnover.

And so another metric that we are holding ourselves accountable to, and ultimately the public will hold us to, is have we actually reduced the amount of turnover and improved our recruitment statistics in City Hall.

So our map is full of those.

I mean, it's about a hundred different KPIs across those seven domains.

And our hope is that the public will see those and say, "Okay, like, I understand how my tax dollars are being used and I can watch over time the progress my city is making in achieving those priorities."

KEYRIS MANZANARES: As you head into this second year with affordability in mind, what's your plan moving forward on addressing that for residents who are still feeling the constraints of rising everyday costs?

DANNY AVULA: Yeah, I mean, it is the biggest thing that I think, you know, when I'm out and about that I hear about is that like things just are so expensive and housing is probably the crux of that for people.

We've just seen such a rapid increase in rental rates and the cost of housing, if you're trying to purchase.

If you own a home, we've just seen the tax assessments very quickly increase over the last eight years or so.

And that has really created pain points for people.

I mean, you know, you add that to the cost of living and the reality that wages have not increased at the same rate, and that has put a lot of our residents in a difficult position.

Now, you know, part of why housing costs have increased so rapidly is because Richmond is a really desirable place to be, right?

And so that has brought a huge influx of folks who have greater resources and then post COVID, where you can work remotely, that's created even more opportunity for people to be here.

Now, because we have not kept up with the housing supply to meet that demand, we have seen this sharp increase in housing costs.

And so the biggest thing that we can do to address that is to increase our housing stock, right?

Not only our market rate housing stock, which will absolutely help, but we also need to give particular thought to those who don't have the income to support themselves.

And so we've got to think about how do we subsidize housing and create opportunities, especially for long-term Richmond residents to be able to stay.

So, you know, I think there are things that we have done as a city, for example, a few years ago, moving the city's minimum wage to $20 and really prioritizing a living wage for those who work here at the city.

We don't have the ability to do that for all businesses or companies that operate in this city, but I think in the places that we can impact income, we're trying to.

We also know that we've got to bring more higher paying jobs to the city.

And so, you know, CoStar is a great example of a company that decided to bring the bulk of their operation here.

They're bringing close to 3,000 jobs to Richmond, and those are 3,000 high paying jobs, which will allow folks to move into roles that they can afford these increasing costs.

The other side of that is, you know, can we slow down, can we cool down the real estate market?

You know, we've been a top five real estate market in the country for much of the last two years, and how do we address that?

We've got to produce enough housing and produce enough housing at different levels where people can actually afford to stay.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: Where does Richmond's public housing kind of fall into your plan?

I know you've said that that's going to be a big priority for you moving forward.

DANNY AVULA: Yeah, you know, we have six large subsidized public housing communities that have been around since the 1950s.

And so, you know, our city made a decision close to 15 years ago that we needed to start redeveloping public housing communities.

So starting with Mayor Jones, who really brought that into focus, that work has continued over time.

And at this point, we're probably 50% of the way through the Creighton Court redevelopment.

Now, we can't spend 15 years redeveloping one public housing community.

We've got to figure how to accelerate that.

And I think given the attractiveness of Richmond right now you know, for developers, for investors, for people who want to live here, the public housing does represent an incredible opportunity, because so many of those communities exist in like really desirable places.

But we also absolutely have to prioritize like that these are communities that folks have lived in for decades, right?

These are their homes, these are their networks, these are their neighborhoods.

And so figuring out how do we embrace the growth of our city, but prioritize long-term residents is kind of the nexus of thoughtful public housing redevelopment.

I think that we are very focused on working with Richmond Redevelopment Housing Authority, figuring out how to bring the right amount of funding to accelerate redevelopment, but doing it with a real commitment and focus to the residents who are there now and making sure that, like that move when you're told that your house is going to be torn down and you now are going to get a voucher and be able to move somewhere else.

I mean, there's a lot of uncertainty in that for people.

And so the work that you've got to do to equip and educate residents and tell them what it means to be a voucher holder and what options that that creates for you.

And just recently the Housing Authority Board agreed to meet all of those requests by the city, you know, to say that we are going to do one-to-one replacements.

We are going to focus on the residents and do real people-centered redevelopment, and we are going to do it in partnership with the city.

So I feel like we've made some really significant progress there, but there's a lot of work ahead of us.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: This year, we had a lot of federal policy changes that really affected local communities.

DANNY AVULA: Yeah.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: When it comes to healthcare, immigration, how did that impact your role as mayor in the last year, kind of those day-to-day things that you have to deal with?

DANNY AVULA: You know, I think what the public began to understand over the course of this year is how dependent we are on federal funding, right?

I mean, we can solve many issues locally, but there are tens of millions of dollars that come in every year to support infrastructure, but also to support service delivery.

Think about, I mean, you mentioned healthcare.

We don't administer healthcare, but clearly the pullbacks are impacting people's access to care.

The federal government does fund housing directly.

And so you think about the money that supports our residents in public housing, but also the money that supports our homeless communities, right?

So much of the money that goes into permanent supportive housing or that supports the continuum of care, those are federal dollars.

And so, you know, one very recent example was a grant that SupportWorks, our large statewide, permanent supportive housing organization gets from the federal government, $4 million a year.

The vast majority of that money goes to pay rents for homeless individuals transitioning into permanent supportive housing.

And you know, they, because of the government shutdown, because of the unresponsiveness of the federal government, they just could not get access to the money.

And you know, thankfully, we have an incredible local philanthropic network.

And so a lot of our local foundations banded together, saw the issue, and they were able to plug the gap for November and December.

Just recently, the federal government has started that flow of funding again.

But it does worry me about the next three years.

You know, I imagine we're going to continue to see like the federal government trying to pull back funds in different places that really make a difference in the lives of people on the ground.

And while we can fill some of those gaps locally, we're not going to be able to fill them all.

And so there's a really important role for us to be closely partnered with the state, but also to be very vocal with our federal counterparts about how this is impacting communities.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: Knowing those constraints, really what's your plan moving forward with your priorities, but also how those priorities will then translate in this budget in the spring?

DANNY AVULA: Yeah.

You know, we are still committed to kind of the three big buckets that I always talk about.

You know, one is a thriving City Hall because so much of what I heard coming into this role was, we've talked about it, a distrust in local government, a lack of confidence that this local government will steward people's tax dollars well.

And so I think continuing to execute well, like to address the issues of the finance department and make sure that people will rebuild trust in the basic functions of local government, that is one of my top priorities.

Another, housing, right?

And so, you know, the budget that we're building is going to have significant commitments to affordable housing and doing that in different ways.

You know, some of that will be the affordable housing trust fund.

Some of that will be incentives through our performance grants.

I mean, we really do need to use those multiple tools.

And the third is that in a growing city where, you know, we've talked about infrastructure, we've talked about the needs of an old city, and the fact that more people are moving here, you know, we've got to figure out how to increase revenues and we don't want to do that through increasing people's taxes, right?

And so economic development has to be a focus for us.

How are we thinking about, you know, these 10 square blocks north of city hall that are largely parking lots and non-tax revenue producing properties right now, how do we develop those in ways that will help give us the money we need to be able to invest more in schools and to be able to shore up our infrastructure.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: This year, the decision was made to not fully fund that additional ask from Richmond Public Schools.

And so how are you evaluating school funding moving forward in this budget?

DANNY AVULA: I think last year, the schools put together what their capital needs were, right?

I mean, they had a study done that showed a little over $30 million of infrastructure needs that they needed to address.

And you know, we have made a commitment over time and really followed through on a commitment to provide $200 million every five years.

You know, we do that through bonding, it's borrowed money, but then we invest that in schools and then we pay it off over time.

We're going to continue to do that.

And the problem is the age of our schools, the infrastructure needs, that's not enough to do the job of both building new schools and shoring up old schools.

So we will continue to evaluate in every budget.

This particular year is going to be a challenging budget because we are freezing the tax assessments, right?

And so we're not going to see much revenue growth this year, like we have seen in past years.

And so we're going to have a really difficult puzzle to put together.

But what we have done with schools to try to just manage some of those expectations and also to really prioritize a significant commitment is to get a funding formula put in place.

And so our city council, our school board, our administration, have all been working together over the last few months to define what that funding formula might look like, and for that to be a guide for how much we'll be able to additionally put in schools, and it's really tied to the growth in revenue that the city receives every year.

So each year we're growing revenue, we know a certain portion of that needs to go into schools.

You know, I think the hope is that there will be more opportunities beyond the funding formula to help fund schools.

So in the general assembly this year, one of the things that they will be discussing is adding a one cent sales tax that communities can then opt into that would go towards school construction.

And I think we're going to need sources like that to address the longstanding issues that schools, not just in Richmond, but really all over the country are facing.

And I think the other thing that I know schools are looking at is, you know, how do they enter into different kinds of partnerships?

Are there ways to partner with the private sector and use tax credits to rehabilitate old schools?

I think there's a lot of different avenues that we need to look at to really solve the issue that schools are facing.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: How do you envision this year will go?

DANNY AVULA: Well, hopefully no water crisis.

We'll start there.

No, I mean, I do think that so much of this past year has been building the foundation, right, building the right team, identifying the areas of focus.

Clearly identifying and communicating metrics that we will hold ourselves accountable by, and that we will measure our success by.

I think that we will both see more housing units coming online and more money going towards affordable housing as developers see the opportunity and the need that exists.

I think will make some really significant progress with City Center and with Broad Street, which are two of our main corridors for economic development.

And I think people will have a different experience in City Hall.

You know, I think about some of the changes we've made already on the first floor, opening it up, making it easier to get into, having a concierge.

You know, I think as word gets out and as people come and actually, you know, show up to experience the changes here, my hope is that they will, over time, have more trust in who their city is and what city government is doing.

KEYRIS MANZNANARES: Thank you.

DANNY AVULA: Absolutely.