No one was injured but some residents displaced by four separate residential fires in Henrico during a 10-hour period Monday and Tuesday. The first occurred March 15 at about 3:30 p.m. when the deck of a townhouse near Staples Mill Road and I-295 caught fire. Henrico firefighters were able to extinguish the fire, which spread slightly to the siding of the home. The second took place in the 8600 block of Lonepine Drive, near West End Drive, at about 7 p.m. Fire crews were able to contain that blaze to just one room of a single-family home. The third fire,...Article Link

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GRTC is providing free on-demand rides to Richmond and Henrico Health Districts COVID-19 vaccine recipients who need transportation to reach their appointments. Although GRTC trips are currently free, some customers may be too far from a bus stop, so GRTC’s On-Demand partner UZURV is delivering these passengers to and from their vaccine appointments. The health districts are arranging rides directly for those who need them; GRTC is not scheduling rides directly with passengers. “Vaccines are available right now for the most vulnerable people in our region, yet there are many who have no transportation to vaccine clinics and no access...Article Link

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Registration is open for "Shiver in Virginia," a re-imagined version of the annual Shiver in the River festival that has been Keep Virginia Beautiful's largest annual fundraiser since 2015. Designed to be COVID-safe, this year’s KVB initiative is going statewide and providing more choice of the ways participants can help beautify their communities. From now until March 31, participants can engage in activities such as litter cleanups, recycling, trail cleaning, graffiti removal and other good deeds. For a donation of .21, participants will receive a free Virginia State Parks parking pass, with no expiration date.  Participants will also have access...Article Link

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Holland Bowles and Olivia Dimond of Henrico were named to the fall 2020 dean’s list at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. To be eligible for the dean’s list, students must earn a semester grade point average of 3.88 or higher. Bowles is a 2018 graduate of St. Catherine’s School and is majoring in English and psychology. Dimond is a 2018 graduate of Collegiate School and is majoring in theatre and minoring in education. *** Clara Giorgis and Grace MacDougall of Glen Allen were named to the fall 2020 dean’s list at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa. To be eligible for...Article Link

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Henrico supervisors are weighing how to allocate about [post_excerpt].71 million in funds that they intend to distribute to a number of community organizations as part of the county’s Fiscal Year 2021-22 budget. At the first day of their week-long budget review session Monday, supervisors discussed the initial proposed allocations included by Henrico County Manager John Vithoulkas in his [post_excerpt].43-billion operating budget proposal. Each year, the budget includes some money for a group of organizations that provide services deemed critical to Henrico citizens or worthy of local funding for specific reasons. In his FY22 proposal, Vithoulkas removed some groups that typically...Article Link

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Virginia recently received .5 million in federal funding to help Virginians access affordable housing. The Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded the funding through four grant programs – the Community Development Block Grants program, the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, Emergency Solutions Grants program, and the Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS grant program. The funds include [post_excerpt].7 million to Henrico County through the CDBG program, which provides annual grants on a formula basis to states and localities to develop viable urban communities by providing decent housing and a suitable living environment, as well as expanding economic opportunities. Also included...Article Link

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Eleven local, regional and state organizations have joined several individual citizens in penning a letter to the Henrico School Board urging it to remove all police officers from the county’s public schools or implement five other recommendations. The March 11 letter came in response to a call last month for input to the proposed revision of the school system’s memorandum of understanding with Henrico Police, which governs the school resource and school security officer program in the county’s schools. The system proposed only four primary changes to its existing MOU – two that seek to ensure that parents are notified...Article Link

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Twelve new cases of COVID-19 at Henrico’s public schools since March 10 have resulted in 114 people entering quarantine, according to school system data as of March 15. To date, since schools began reopening in person on a staggered basis Feb. 22, there have been 33 new cases of COVID reported at 20 schools, resulting in 361 people entering quarantine. The new cases include 2 that resulted from athletics or other extracurricular activities at two high schools – one at Tucker High resulting in 44 people entering quarantine and the other at Freeman High, resulting in 20 people doing so....Article Link

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Henrico supervisors Monday morning began their annual weeklong budget review with praise for the way county employees and leaders navigated the past year of pandemic-infused challenges. But they also expressed frustration with their own inability to hold the county’s school system accountable in specific ways, and with a lack of state funding for state prisoners Henrico is housing. Henrico County Manager John Vithoulkas earlier this month proposed a [post_excerpt].43-billion operating budget and 4-million capital budget, which supervisors will consider approving later this spring. The budget proposal includes a 3.9-million general fund, of which about 57% is directed to the elected...Article Link

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Despite a slight spike during the weekend, new COVID-19 cases have remained relatively low in Henrico County, with just 33 new cases reported on Monday, according to the Virginia Department of Health. The seven-day moving average reached 53 new daily cases in the county. There were no new hospitalizations related to the virus in the county Monday, but there was one new death, according to VDH data. Six new deaths were reported this weekend. Henrico County ranks fourth in the state among health districts for the number of PCR tests and rapid antigen tests administered, according to VDH data. While...Article Link

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