"Mayor L. Douglas Wilder this morning informed department heads at City Hall he will not seek reelection this fall. In a press statement issued this morning, Wilder says: “As the first elected Mayor under the City’s new form of government, I have set the course that will continue to produce meaningful results even as I now announce my leave from this office at the end of the year..."

I would like to remind readers that you read it here over a month ago. Click here to read about that prediction.

Meanwhile, Richmond’s popular police chief, Rodney Monroe, has accepted an offer to become the police chief down in Charlotte, North Carolina. Reports say he will be paid $185,000 per year, which is about $20,000 more than he was making here. He will be supervising more than twice the number of personnel and will have a budget more than double what it was here.

In baseball parlance, Monroe has been called up to the big leagues from Triple A. So, there's no reason to blame anyone for his departure. Unless, you are Mayor Wilder, who would like to throw that dead cat at City Council.

However, if one really wants to look for who might have convinced Monroe to get out of town, it is more likely the lame duck mayor will find the culprit in his bathroom mirror. The Friday Night Fiasco that Wilder engineered, on Sept.21, 2007, in which he used Monroe's officers to bar people from entering City Hall, probably didn't set well with Chief Monroe.

Visit here to read more about that crazy night at Brick Weekly, in "The Wilder Walk" (by yours truly). It can be said that Richmond lost a police chief, a mayor and a baseball team that night.

Source: By Slantblog