Once again, we recognize the weirdest of the weird local news from the past year, bestowing our snarky Dead Dogwood awards on the unfortunate politicos, criminals, characters and literal forces of nature who landed in Richmond headlines in 2003.

Say What?!?

Speaking before City Council in October about the referendum to create an at-large mayor, City Councilwoman Gwen Hedgepeth bravely stated, “We have not had mass corruption in the city of Richmond. … But we open ourselves up to that if we follow this particular plan.” There was just one problem: Apparently, Hedgepeth forgot that at the time she spoke, she was also facing pending federal bribery and extortion charges. Whoops.

Federal authorities say Hedgepeth took a $500 bribe from landlord Robert O. Davis Jr. to support City Councilman Bill Pantele for mayor. Multimillionaire downtown developer H. Louis Salomonsky, vice chair of the city’s Industrial Development Authority, was also indicted in the scandal; the feds say he was taped allegedly offering to give money for the bribe to Davis, who, because of his fake tan, has been described by Times-Dispatch columnist Mark Holmberg so many times as “the orange man” that Richmonders are starting to picture Davis as an oompa-loompa wearing a wire.

The Sa’ad Will Come Out Tomorrow, Betch’r Bottom Dollar That Tomorrow …

“I will rise again. I’ll be back.”

So stated Sa’ad El-Amin on Oct. 17, according to the Richmond Free Press. He was paraphrasing an old adversary — the Confederacy — not the new governor-elect of California.

Richmond’s most tempestuous ex-councilman defiantly declared his intentions after being sentenced to 37 months in federal prison and three years’ probation derived from a 21-count federal indictment related to tax evasion and fraud. In another development, El-Amin’s wife, Beverly Crawford, was given a loan by powerful Richmond developer and architect H. Louis Salomonsky, who was recently indicted on unrelated extortion charges. The councilman said he’d recuse himself from votes related to Salomonsky, but the Times-Dispatch reported that El-Amin subsequently voted in Salomonsky’s favor in a Shockoe rezoning case and to reappoint Salomonsky to the Industrial Development Authority. 

“I’m gone, but not forgotten,” El-Amin remarked over his shoulder while he was climbing into his car to leave the courthouse.

To paraphrase Sacramento’s new chief executive, “Hasta la vista.”

The Biggest Hunk of Splintered Dead Dogwood Goes To …

Hurricane Isabel showed the Richmond region that snowstorms and ice ain’t the only thing we need to worry about. Little Missy Isabel created more than $1 billion in damage statewide, felled more than 10,000 trees in the city alone and interrupted power to at least 1.8 million. Nearly every house and business in and around Richmond was without juice — electric or otherwise — for days or, in some cases, weeks. Queues for ice and gasoline in Isabel’s aftermath looked like stock video from the 1970s gas 

crisis. Isabel, you take the brass branch this year. Heck, you take the limbs, the trunk and a hunk of sidewalk, too.

Let It All Hang Out, Mon

Earlier this year, adult store Taboo, at 6021 W. Broad St., started a new eyebrow-raising weekly event: “Naked Mondays.” Every Monday, store owner Alison Miller and two sales associates wear sexy outfits, within legal boundaries, in an effort to set a mood that entices curious customers to check out her store’s supply of adult toys, movies and lingerie. But the shop’s outdoor sign, which advertised it as “Home of Naked Mon,” left at least one Richmond visitor driving down Broad Street wondering if a naked Rastafarian is our town’s mascot.

Turning Water Into Wine

“It would have to be a miracle,” School Board member Reggie Malone told Richmond magazine this June. “Jesus Christ himself would have to come down here … for 20 schools to be fully accredited.”

Richmond posted 23 fully accredited schools when state Standards of Learning scores were released this November. Superintendent Deborah Jewell-Sherman fulfilled her contract obligation, which stated that 20 must be accredited or she could be fired. 

Preliminary 2003 scores, however, showed just 11 accredited schools. How did it jump to 23? Adding in students retaking failed tests from previous years made a significant difference.

“I hope we are not witnessing what happens when high-stakes testing collides with high-stakes politics. To say that some of these scores strain credulity is an understatement,” School Board member Carol Wolf says. “Still,” Wolf adds, “our children, their families, the teachers and principals and administration all deserve hallelujahs ... ”

We’ll wait a while before expecting Jewell-Sherman to walk across the James.

The Allen Price Big-Mouthed Memorial Award

New WRVA 1140 AM afternoon radio talk-show host Michael Graham has been working hard to establish himself as a worthy replacement to his well-liked predecessor, Allen Price, whom you’ll recall landed in court last year over his on- and off-air sparring with ex-City Councilwoman Reva Trammell. Graham, a stand-up comedian and author of the popular book Redneck Nation, has a knack for making enemies of Richmond public figures like Mayor Rudy McCollum (for McCollum’s stance against the war in Iraq), or Police Chief Andre Parker, whom Graham has been mercilessly thumping over Richmond’s skyrocketing murder rate. When Parker said that his force is doing the best it can with what it has, Graham replied on-air, “It’s like a doctor saying, ‘I have a great bedside manner, but all my patients are dead.’ ” Earlier this year, Graham also went to work ticking off the entire General Assembly by placing parking tickets on the cars of senators and delegates to protest how their higgledy-piggledy manner of parking is crushing the grass on the Virginia Capitol lawn. It makes for great radio, but if 

Graham keeps making enemies of the Powers That Be in Richmond, he may find himself following Allen Price into Price’s latest endeavor: real-estate sales.

Giving Guns to Gomer and Goober?

In October, city Police Chief Andre Parker hatched a plan to bolster support for his stretched-thin police force by organizing something called Patrol Pals. The concept would deputize residents with full police powers to ride along with the regular uniformed officers. Parker has recommended the volunteers be armed, raising questions of civil liability. And of course there’s also the question of how police officers will be able to concentrate on pursuing criminals with their ride-along buddy going “Sha-zam!” all the time.

Staking Out Philip Morris 

One of the biggest winners so far in the relocation of Philip Morris USA’s corporate headquarters from New York to Richmond is the University of Richmond. The private university could gross $37.5 million in rental fees for the former Reynolds Metals headquarters complex that it owns. PM’s move is expected to be completed by June 2004 and is celebrated by regional business leaders for the boost it will give the economy. Still, some U of R students and faculty are “uncomfortable” with the arrangement. It calls for a 15-year lease from the cigarette manufacturer, which lately seems to be spending a lot of time — and money — in the courts, fending off claims from sick smokers.

U of R President Bill Cooper, however, told the university newspaper, “Philip Morris’ money comes from legal operations. It’s not like we’re taking money from drug dealers.” In related news, the FDA has been regulating nicotine as a drug since the early 1980s. 

But Did He Order a Peanut-Butter-and-Banana Sandwich?

On the morning of Oct. 17, a man walked into the bathroom of a Shoney’s Family Restaurant on Hull Street Road in Chesterfield County and emerged a few minutes later wearing an Elvis mask and a dark blue or black jumpsuit. He then approached two clerks, proffering a bag and holding his hand in his pocket as if he had a weapon. When the clerks didn’t immediately respond — perhaps because they were laughing too hard? — “The King” decided he wanted to go, cat, go and fled on foot. To date, he’s not been caught in a trap and isn’t yet performing the Jailhouse Rock. Elvis has left the building, ladies and gentlemen.

V for Viper?

James R. Vinson, the third city assessor in as many years, added his name to the list of dubious city officials jailed, fired or forced to resign due to lame-brained choices. In April, a Richmond grand jury indicted him on four misdemeanor charges relating to how he tried ordering members of his office to reduce the 2003 assessment of his house by $43,700. Vinson was placed on paid administrative leave. He was acquitted of all charges in July and refused City Council’s demand that he resign until September. Also, the day after Sept. 11, 2001, Vinson drove away from a convention in Miami, leaving behind another employee who had expected a ride. He took a bus home. Vinson put the “ass” in “assess.”

Like a Phoenix, Kenney Rises but Fails

“The whole world is watching Richmond, Va.,” interim councilman and former mayor Walter T. Kenney Sr. ominously announced to City Council and TV cameras — while most of the city was blacked out due to Hurricane Isabel. He was referring to his second-time-is-the-charm notion to affix Arthur Ashe Jr.’s name to The Boulevard. Council shut this down 7-2, so The Boulevard continues to roll from The Diamond to the James, but we still can’t explain what the heck Christopher Columbus is doing there by the reservoir. 

High Concept

Richmond 2007, a consulting group hired by the Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce, recommends commemorating Richmond’s role in establishing religious freedom by plopping down a (potentially) 300-foot-high publicly funded monument on a downtown James River island in hopes of grabbing gawking tourists headed down Interstate 95 to Jamestown for the 400th anniversary of Virginia’s founding. Proposed by the local Council for America’s First Freedom, the monument will be designed by architect Michael Graves (known for his stylish product designs for Target stores) but no one knows what it’ll look like. We’d propose a 300-foot Rudy McCollum, but we’re worried the glare from its bald dome would prove hazardous to aircraft.

The Truth Is Out There — And So Is Patsy

Ex-Richmonder Patricia Cornwell, the world’s top mystery novelist, is apparently following her much-hyped, $6 million hunt for the real Jack the Ripper (which she chronicled in a best-selling 2002 book with dubious conclusions) with a search for Princess Diana’s killers. Cornwell has been looking into Di’s 1997 car-crash death for ABC’s Prime Time Live, on which she’s a regular, and now says she agrees with conspiracy theorists who believe the princess was murdered. All we’re saying is maybe somebody’s been watching too much Murder, She Wrote. (And didn’t her new novel just hit the bookstores?)

What Is It About Malls and the City of Richmond?

Demolition began in October to destroy the ill-fated 6th Street Marketplace’s pedestrian bridge across Sixth Street. The rest of the mall was expected to be demolished by the end of the year to reopen Sixth Street to traffic. The $25 million mall, which opened in 1985, tanked so spectacularly that the city still owes $1 million on it, and a civic activist actually recently proposed preserving the bridge as a symbolic reminder of failure. 

Remember Main Street Station mall? It opened late in 1985, delayed by fire and flooding, and crashed like a train wreck, closing two years later. This year, it reopened as a train station — without a significant retail presence.

As for the city’s latest mall, the swanky Stony Point Fashion Park near Cherokee Road and Bon Air canceled its pre-opening party and grand-opening ribbon cutting because of Hurricane Isabel, which was hitting the same day. “With the possibility of severe weather, we felt it was the right decision to cancel the ribbon-cutting and VIP ceremonies,” Stony Point manager Sid Welch told the Times-Dispatch. “Our shoppers will not notice it and they will not have to listen to the speeches.” Yes, that’s right: They opened the mall anyway. It was too risky for the VIPs, apparently, but not for the mall’s employees and customers, many in the community commented.

The open-air mall’s much-touted dog-friendly policy quickly, well, went to the dogs, as about a quarter of the stores took down their “dogs welcomed” signs in response to large dogs leaving “presents” on the floor or leaving hair on clothing for sale. Some shoppers have also grumbled about dogs being loud or too aggressive.

And then of course there were the guns. It turned out that Galyan’s sporting-goods store was selling guns without a required city permit and had to suspend sales. Then came the news that city taxpayers were paying police overtime to be at the mall during the night, in addition to mall-paid security, at a time when the police are understaffed.

In related news, archaeologists unearthed a 17th-century plaque from the banks of the James River reading, “Heed Ye All Folkes of Richmonde That Any Shoppes in This Citye Be Kursed.”

Let the Dogs Back Out

The Richmond RiverDogs, the city’s new United Hockey League team, had Richmonders expecting Mike Tyson on ice skates, as owner Eric Margenau promised blood on the ice. “I like a game that has a lot of hitting, a physical game where there usually are a couple of fights,” Margenau told the Times-Dispatch. So far, the RiverDogs have lived up to their hype, being involved in three altercations even before their first official game, which, incidentally, they won. As a UHL vice president told Richmond magazine, “We don’t encourage fights … but we like to see them.”

Rudy’s on the Red Phone

The scene: A war room deep in the Pentagon during early March of this year. President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff sit arrayed around a Dr. Strangelove-ian table plotting the imminent invasion of Iraq when the doors slam open and an out-of-breath lieutenant runs into the room holding a red phone and huffing and puffing out one word: “Rudy!” The president takes the phone, listening carefully, before placing it back on the receiver and slamming his fist on the table. “Damn it, men! Rudy opposes the war! This changes everything!” OK, then, so what did Richmond Mayor Rudy McCollum think would happen when he proposed a City Council resolution opposing the American invasion of Iraq and demanding an immediate return of U.S. troops from the Persian Gulf? No matter what your stance on the war, a lot of Richmonders — and some Council members — were asking why McCollum was bothering to take up Council time with international politics. Council voted down his measure. WRVA’s Michael Graham ripped McCollum apart and sent a jar of escargot to his office. People called from around the country to give the mayor a piece of their mind and a few choice dirty words. In unrelated news, Rudy will soon be touring with the Dixie Chicks.

Aren’t They a Christian Rock Band?

Richmond heavy metal band Lamb of God was signed to Epic Records this summer, was included on the soundtrack to this fall’s remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and headlined a winter MTV2 tour. But that name left a lot of bow-tie-wearing Richmonders who had never heard of these hometown boys wondering if they’re a Christian band. Well, here are some hints: Their latest album has a blood-drenched cover and contains songs titled Blood Junkie and A Devil in God’s Country. Oh, and, there’s also this subtle clue — before they changed their name, Lamb of God was called Burn The Priest. (Wasn’t that a Spinal Tap song?) 

Livin’ At-Large

On Nov. 4, Richmonders voted 4-1 to say they want a powerful city mayor, directly elected by the people — the second time they’ve voted for such a change in less than 10 years. If the Assembly and the Justice Department approve this referendum, we could be looking at a mayoral race of almost “Caleefornia” recall proportions next year. In related news, Gary Coleman, Arianna Huffington, Larry Flynt and Angelyne have all announced plans to move to Richmond. We could do worse. (And we have.)