Engaging guests, thoughtful conversation, and enlightening perspectives furthered our exploration of change strategies, individual agency, and collective action in the Fall 21 Change Academy. The notes and videos of all three sessions are available online at BOOK CITY Roanoke.
Throughout our Change Academy series, participants have shown a good deal of interest in collaborative strategies that can reduce disparities across neighborhoods and improve outcomes across jurisdictions.
In the CiITY PLAN 2040 conversations, we touched on the history and impacts of Virginia’s independent city structure, annexation, and the form of our local governments, and there was interest in going deeper. So…
On FEBRUARY 7, 6:30 PM, we had a one-off virtual session on Virginia’s independent city structure and the history of annexation.
Our guest was J.David Conmy, the former Local Government Policy Administrator for the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD). David provided staff support to the Commission on Local Government; prepared advisory reports on local government transitions and boundary adjustments; reviewed legislation during General Assembly sessions; and interfaced with the Commonwealth’s 21 regional Planning District Commissions (PDCs). Prior to joining DHCD, David was a County Planner for the County of Henrico where he served as the county’s demographer and assisted with annual county population estimates, 2010 Census preparations, and local redistricting. David now serves as the Sussex County, Virginia, Deputy County Administrator and Economic Development Director.
David is an inaugural member of Better Housing Coalition’s Young Professionals’ Board, a founding member of the Church Hill Central Civic Association, and a member of the Policy Advisory Committee for Housing Opportunities Made Equal (HOME) of Virginia. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in urban and environmental planning from the University of Virginia School of Architecture. David enjoys spending time with his husband, Justin and their dogs in the Church Hill neighborhood in Richmond, where they have lived for more than 15 years.
Please plan on popping into the virtual session to learn more about Virginia’s unique system.
OPTIONAL – And, if you’d like to read some and do some digging in advance, we’ve got some items for you:
- A 2018 report the Commission on Local Government delivered to the legislature on Annexation Alternatives
- Other reports and technical assistance documents from the CLG, and if you want to go a lot deeper:
- The Politics of Annexation: Oligarchic Power in a Southern City by John V. Moeser and Rutledge M. Dennis, (Schenkman Publishing, 1982; VCU Libraries Open Access edition, 2020)
Watch the conversation below.
BOOK CITY ★ Roanoke 