If you're in the city itself reach out to the folks at Richmond Alternative School:

https://ras.rvaschools.net/academics/adult-and-continuing-education

I used to work with those folks and one of the GED instructors is a former student. They're good people and will definitely help you.

I was a senior at VCU at the time. Here are some photos I took that day and a day or two later of the aftermath.

https://imgur.com/a/0fjcAdm

>If I remember, cars were cooked in the parking deck across the street,

They were. I had a friend that was parked on the side of the West Broad Deck closest to the fire and her car was totaled.

I think they’re implying that you were sitting at the light on your phone and not paying attention when the light turned green.

Don't give him ideas.

And if it isn’t, who could possibly be worse that warranted an investigation?

In my case I finally reached out to the city councilman's office for the district I work in (I lived in Henrico) and he put my in contact with the mayor's office. I ended up exchanging emails with what appeared to be some fairly high up folks and then the head of DPU herself. And that's when it finally got resolved. Had it not been I was about to go to the news media and had I found it sooner I also would have filed a complaint with the SCC:

https://scc.virginia.gov/pages/Utility-Complaints

Might be something to consider in your case.

By comparison, when I called Henrico DPU to close out my trash/water/sewer I made one phone call. They sent me a final bill, I paid said final bill, and never heard another word from them.

If it’s anything like what I went through with my old house when I sold it, the city never closed out the previous owner’s account and is still billing them for the new owner’s usage. Meanwhile they’re going through multiple layers of hell trying to get Richmond Gas Works to close the account out and stop billing them. But since the new owner set up an account the bills have to go somewhere.

Your friend needs to call them and try to get it straight or like someone else mentioned on another recent post go in-person to their local customer service center. Be prepare her to want to scream and be more frustrated than she’s ever been at their utter incompetence.

All that being said, it sounds like there was some major miscommunication when she closed on the house about utilities. Is she actually in Henrico or Richmond? If it’s the former that might be part of the misunderstanding as all Henrico natural gas users are serviced by Richmond Gas Works.

You can also use the Virginia court site to see prior charges, etc.

https://www.vacourts.gov/caseinfo/home.html

Wawa's French Vanilla coffee with French Vanilla creamer is liquid crack.

The threshold was changed to 85 a couple years ago.

https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacodefull/title46.2/chapter8/article7/

§ 46.2-862. Exceeding speed limit.

A person is guilty of reckless driving who drives a motor vehicle on the highways in the Commonwealth (i) at a speed of 20 miles per hour or more in excess of the applicable maximum speed limit or (ii) in excess of 85 miles per hour regardless of the applicable maximum speed limit.

If you're looking at a house, especially an older one, with a septic system, get an independent inspection done on it. The inspection sellers need to do prior to selling only needs to certify it's working. You want to know the age of it, the condition of the drainfield, etc. You don't want to get stuck having to replace an aging/failing system as it can be very expensive.

I say this from the experience of owing a mid-50's rancher years ago that had the original 50 year old system when we bought it. We had an issue a few years later that almost caused us to have to replace the entire thing. It was shitty and trust me when I say you don't want to deal with it.

I used to work at Richmond Alternative School and I can confirm that calling this number will get you the answers you need. I just spoke with the GED coordinator last week.

Used to be worse before the Sheetz opened. And I'd imagine once the new Wawa opens at Drybridge Road and Route 60 it'll draw even more people away.

Actually as I recall the state was having big surpluses similar to now so he campaigned on eliminating it using those funds. Then the Dot Com Bubble popped around 2000 and the recession hit causing a massive drop in revenue. The state ended up having to cap the rebate and it’s never been raised resulting in increasing taxes each year because the amount has to be spread among more people.

Edit to add, the “stupid government spending” you’re referring to is stuff like schools and other local services. The car tax and other property taxes go straight to localities to pay for stuff like that, not to the state.

Not sure why my original comment is being downvoted unless the people doing so aren’t old enough to remember this is what happened.

Fun fact - before doing away with it Henrico redesigned the sticker from the county seal they used for years to a new one of the county flag. The new one was larger and turned out to be too big. They ended up doing away with it entirely because it violated state code on how large decals, etc could be on the windshield.

I've still got mine around here somewhere. I received it and never got around to putting it on my windshield before they did away with them.

And blew a massive hole in the state budget in the process.

Henrico bills twice a year in May and November at least. It hurts a little less when the you don’t need to pay the full amount all at once.

To be fair, it seems like the cops know they can't do much about him based on other posts I've seen on here. He makes sure to stay on public property and as despicable as we find him he's still protected by the first amendment.

In retrospect I should filed a complaint with the State Corporation Commission. https://scc.virginia.gov/pages/Utility-Complaints I didn’t discover that until I was corresponding with the head of DPU. That would have been my next step though if she hadn’t finally gotten it resolved.

No, but after I sold my house in Henrico I spent almost a year trying to get them to close out my gas account. It finally took reaching out to the city councilman for the district I work in, emails to people in the Mayor's office, and finally emails with the head of DPU herself before they finally closed it out. Saying I'm glad to be done with them is a massive understatement. (Although to be fair I never had any issues with the service itself in the seven and a half years I lived in my old house save for not getting an initial bill for three months when I first moved in.)

Their customer service reps were useless but I never could figure out if it was because they were incompetent or the dysfunction of the department prevented them from actually solving my problem.

By contrast it took me one short phone call to close out my water/trash with Henrico DPU. There's no reason why Richmond has to be so awful.

"DPU encourages any customer with concerns about their bill to contact us at 804-646-4646"

Good luck with that.

It's definitely not unusual to have a big snow storm in late February or early March. I've been an educator for almost twenty years and I can think of at least a few times in my career we've gotten out multiple days for snow after Presidents Day. There was one big storm in early March 2009 I remember in particular that we were out like four days.

I had a clear view from my neighborhood in New Kent.

I saw one close up in Chincoteague a couple years ago. If you ever get a chance to do so, it's awesome.