The City Council of Richmond is officially the first and only locality to kill a resolution against the Wise County coal plant. Why? Because City Council President Bill Pantele didn’t like it. In fact, Mr. Pantele went out of his way to kill this resolution.

The resolution was originally scheduled for a full council committee hearing at the beginning of February but it was postponed at the very last minute by, you guessed it, Mr. Pantele. The decision was so last minute that not even the sponsors of the resolution knew that it had been removed from the agenda until walking into the meeting. Pantele told me himself that everyone on council had been getting “a lot” of phone calls from constituents on this. Apparently the wishes of his constituents are irrelevant.

While we waited for the resolution to be rescheduled, Dominion representatives had time to meet with each member of City Council.

It was set for the Land Use, Housing, and Transportation Committee and conveniently scheduled for the same day as the DEQ public hearing on the Wise County power plant. If it hadn’t meant taking people away from the DEQ hearing, the room would have been packed full of clean energy supporters. Those in favor of the resolution were asked to speak first which meant we wouldn’t be able to rebut any of Dominion’s statements. Seven of us spoke in favor of the resolution, each focusing on how this plant will affect us in the City of Richmond and why the council should act. Then Dominion’s top lobbyist spoke. When he was done one of the resolution’s sponsors, Marty Jewell, stepped up to ask him some very good questions on pollution and climate change but no one else from council had anything to say to him.

For some reason, Bill Pantele was there. He is not on that committee. He has no vote, no voice on that committee. There was no reason for him to be there that night. Once all the regular debate on the resolution was over, he spoke. He ignored all our arguments and proceeded to tell us it’s not our business. He told us that the city doesn’t have jurisdiction, that we have the General Assembly and regulatory bodies for that. He told us that our city doesn’t have the right to speak up on this. Then he asked the committee to strike it and that’s exactly what they did. They did just as they were told without a second thought.

So now I’ve got some questions.

• Why did Bill Pantele take time from his very busy schedule to weigh in on this?
• If he doesn’t think the city should be passing resolutions urging action from other governing bodies why did he co-sponsor a resolution doing that exact thing just LAST YEAR?
• Did he postpone the first scheduled discussion of the resolution so Dominion would have time to meet with each councilperson?
• As the representative of a very liberal and very environmentally conscious district (the fan), why stick your neck out for coal?
• If the City of Richmond can stand up to fight climate change by being a Cool City, why can’t we say building more coal plants is bad?
• If Arlington, Albemarle, Charlottesville, and Blacksburg can pass this resolution why can’t we?

How to contact Bill Pantele:

Bill.pantele@richmondgov.com, bill@billpantele.com

PO Box 8, Richmond VA 23218

804-646-5460 Council office

804-646-6531 Council office voicemail

804-646-6041 Council office fax

804-646-6532 Council Liaison