Editor’s note: Sorry for the delayed edition. I’m still catching up after some work travel last week. Don’t forget to follow The Lookout on Bluesky, Facebook, and Instagram, where you’ll find a new video report about the latest in l’affair pétanque.—Dave.

As l’affair pétanque has ably demonstrated, what we have here in the East End is a failure to communicate. But while city officials could certainly improve their outreach to the neighborhood’s residents, a recent Lookout investigation suggests that Church Hill’s longtime city councilmember could, too.

A Lookout review of public updates published by the office of City Council President Cynthia Newbille, who has represented the 7th District at City Hall for over a decade and a half, shows that she provides significantly less mass communication with her constituents than her political peers.

Most members of Richmond’s City Council publish email newsletters and social-media posts to keep their voters abreast of the latest developments at 900 East Broad Street regarding their districts. Of the nine elected officials on the body, only one publishes no email newsletter at all. “A lot of my people don't have the emails, or they don't have the smartphones, they have a lot of the flip phones,” Reva Trammell, the longtime rep of Richmond’s 8th District, told The Lookout in a recent phone interview. Instead, she relies on a three-pronged communication strategy with a whole lot of phone calls at its center. “I would say I've already had about 40 calls today,” she said, laughing.

Trammell said she also taps City Council’s staff to print flyers and handbills out about her district meeting schedule for the whole year, and to post it to the city’s website. And she’s a Facebook power user: in the past week alone she posted 59 updates, averaging over eight per day. (With few exceptions, these posts are about goings-on in Richmond.) Rather than “Politician,” her Facebook account is labeled “Digital Creator.”

With the exception of Newbille, every other member operates an email newsletter through Constant Contact or MailChimp, two popular service providers. Frequency and quality of these communiques varies. In two weeks of reporting, for example, The Lookout did not receive any blasts from Councilmember Ellen Robertson (6th District), whose office did not respond to inquiries about how often it publishes “The Gateway,” the newsletter linked beneath her profile on City Council’s website.

Other members seem to send their newsletters more regularly. “The office publishes an e-newsletter 2-3 times a month,” said Amy Robins, council liaison to 5th District representative Stephanie Lynch, in response to an emailed inquiry. (The link to Lynch’s newsletter had not been published on City Council’s website; Robins said this was an error, and shortly after our exchange, the link appeared.) But that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Lynch’s outreach. Robins continued:

By contrast, Newbille’s communication acumen looks especially sparse. In response to an inquiry sent to the politician and her liaison, Samuel Patterson, City Council’s senior public information manager Steven Skinner told The Lookout that the 7th District rep “holds district meetings, emails updates/information” and “communicates out through [sic] facebook.”

A Lookout review of Newbille’s official 7th District Facebook page reveals a dearth of information about the 7th District. Compared to Trammell, she’s essentially mute on the platform. (This still puts her ahead of Robertson, who has not posted since June 2025.) Newbille’s most recent entries are four pictures published on May 29th of this year by the official City Council Facebook page and reposted by Newbille’s own. They contain no information about City Hall legislation, upcoming meetings, or other details that might be relevant to district constituents.

Since the beginning of 2026, Newbille’s page has posted just seven items total, an average of one post per month. All of those were reposts from other pages and contained no original information from her office. One is a repost from "Coach M.- Go Be Great Sis - Inspo Page,” which boasts an archive of AI-generated motivational posters and no apparent connection to Richmond City Council business, or the city generally. Skinner did not respond to a follow-up request for insight on Newbille’s social-media strategy.

Newbille’s email dispatches are similarly spotty. Unlike nearly all her fellow councilmembers, her office does not collect email addresses through a web form or publish a district newsletter on a dedicated platform. Instead, Skinner explained, constituents can email Patterson directly and request to be included on future dispatches of the politician’s “East End updates.” A link beneath Newbille’s profile on City Council’s site opens a [mailto:] prompt to Patterson’s email. It is not clear when this public-facing link was added; it does not appear in an archived version of the page from June of this year accessed via the Wayback Machine.

Email marketers, publishers, and political operatives have long favored platforms for collecting addresses and publishing newsletters to reduce potential for errors, ensure consistent deliverability, and grow their lists effectively. Constant Contact costs ~$10/month after a free trial; MailChimp is free up to 250 addresses. Other email platforms, like Richmond-based Buttondown, offer similarly cost-effective plans; Substack, another popular platform, is entirely free to use, and takes only a cut of revenue generated if publishers offer paid subscriptions.

In response to a request for examples of recent editions of Newbille’s email updates, Skinner provided a PDF of two brief messages that were apparently sent manually by Patterson in February and June of this year. (You can review that document in The Lookout’s share drive.) Patterson himself provided a Word document entitled “July 2026 7th District Announcement.” “Here’ [sic] the announcement that Councilwoman Newbille read last night during Council meeting of 7th District Events,” he said via email. It is not clear whether this document was also distributed via email, nor whether he has sent any other 7th District email updates this year.

Neither Patterson nor Skinner responded to repeated requests for more information about how frequently Newbille’s office emails these updates, and to how many people. The addresses are redacted in the PDF Skinner sent, in accordance with Virginia privacy law. However, a copy of the June email provided by a tipster indicates that Patterson does not use the blind carbon-copy function, so anybody who gets these dispatches can see everybody else who’s getting them. Most of the addresses appear to belong to individuals (Newbille herself is on the list), with at least two East End civic associations’ addresses mixed in as well.

All in, there were 118 addresses on the June email from Patterson reviewed by The Lookout. According to district population estimates published by City Council, as of 2022, the 7th District had approximately 26,000 residents.

Possum Poetry is original verse written exclusively for The Lookout by Penelope Poubelle, the Lookout’s litter critter-at-large. If you spot roadside trash you’d like her to immortalize in doggerel, email a photo to [email protected]. All submissions anonymous!

At a meeting at Powhatan Community Center this past Wednesday evening, the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Community Facilities (DPR) presented three paths forward for Chimborazo Playground based on feedback it had retroactively gathered from the neighborhood following the pause in pétanque-court construction in mid-May. You can read about all the options in the DPR deck in The Lookout’s share drive, and/or my special report from the meeting:

DPR has published an online poll for residents to vote on their preference for Chimborazo Playground’s future; it closes Friday, August 21st at 11:59pm.

Neighbors questioning the purpose of the mysterious hulking boxes that appeared on Leigh St. at O St. in late July saw an answer take shape this past week. The units were pieces of modular housing being built on the formerly vacant lot at 815-819 Mosby St., and crews spent much of last week stacking them up into the three-story structure you see above. The project, a joint effort between Richmond nonprofits project:HOMES and Urban Hope, is being implemented by Module, a Pittsburgh-based firm that sells—you guessed it—modular-housing systems.

“This project shows what modular can do when it's rooted in local partnerships and focused on real housing needs,” reads a statement about the project on Module’s website. “We're using off-site construction to bring more affordable, sustainable housing to Virginia, and proving that our model can work city by city.”

On Friday, Urban Hope posted a brief Instagram video celebrating the construction, which was funded in part by a grant from Virginia Housing and was supposed to “wrap up by October 2025,” according to the development authority’s September 2024 press release announcing the award.¹ project:HOMES did not respond to a request for comment.

Happenings on The Hill is a digital bulletin board for events, causes, and other items of interest to East Enders that don’t necessarily merit full editorial treatment. Got something for a future edition? Email the relevant details, links, etc. to [email protected] for consideration!

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