There’s an old adage in the media business that holds while “dog bites man” is not news, “man bites dog” certainly is. Deviations from the norm merit scrutiny; the norm itself, not as much. But from its founding, The Lookout has been dedicated to publishing both news and views from Richmond’s East End, and my view is that just because something is not newsworthy does not mean it’s not worthy-worthy. Which brings us back to dogs.

Today, The Lookout launches East End Animal Friend, a new recurring feature spotlighting the many creature companions of Church Hill and its surrounds. If you have a pet (dog, cat, fish, semi-domesticated raccoon, etc.) that you’d like to introduce to the neighborhood, then you’re in luck, because I’d like that, too. Simply fill out this form, upload a nice photo of your animal, and look forward to their editorial debut in an upcoming edition of this very newsletter.²

(Alternatively, you can always bite your pet, in which case I’ll cover it as news. But I’d rather you just fill out the form.)

To demonstrate what this will look like on the page, I’m piloting this new segment with my own pet. Everybody meet Ernie, The Lookout’s inaugural East End Animal Friend.

Where and when did you get your pet?
We got Ernie at the Richmond SPCA in April 2025, just a few days after he arrived there from an SPCA branch in western Pennsylvania. We were told he was about three years old, and that he’d been in shelters his whole life. He was just under 50 pounds, very timid, and basically mute. (That would all change after we brought him home, and fast.)

What’s your pet’s favorite thing to eat?
Ernie is what dog trainers like to call “extremely food-motivated,” so there’s very little he won’t eat. Like many dogs, he’s a huge fan of peanut butter. That’s probably the out-and-out “favorite.” Right now, he’s also a big fan of bully sticks.

Does your pet have a neighborhood animal friend they like to play with?
We’re still working on socializing Ernie, so his playdates in the neighborhood are pretty limited at the moment. As our (extremely patient) neighbors put it, he has a lot of “big feelings.” But hopefully we’ll get him trained to a point where he’s able to play with some pals soon!

What is your pet's favorite thing about living in the East End?
Ernie loves sprawling on the cool cement floor of Second Bottle on a hot summer day, and running around in the Chimborazo Dog Park no matter the season. But his favorite day-to-day activity is probably any walk that takes us past Riverbend Roastery, where he knows Felicia, Han, Ariel, KJ, and the rest of the staff keep a treat jar stocked with Milk-Bones—just one more of his favorite things to eat.

You get the gist. If you see Ernie in the neighborhood, your humble Lookout editor will likely be on the other end of his leash, so come say hello. And again, please submit your pet for a future East End Animal Friend feature using this form. Show us your pet!

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!

Late last month, in the doldrums between Christmas and New Year’s Day, the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Samuel B. Parker published a list of salaries paid to City Hall employees in 2025. In the private sector, there’s a persistent cultural aversion to open discussions of employee pay, even—especially?—amongst employees themselves, often to theirs bosses’ benefit. But compensation in the public sector is public, or at least should be: after all, when our tax dollars are funding the city’s payroll, we ought to know how much we’re on the hook for.

The RTD’s database (which I should warn you, can be finicky to access depending on the browser you’re on; I had the best luck in the paper’s iOS app) includes salaries for ~4,000 employees of the city of Richmond, and worth sifting through in full. But assuming you’re reading The Lookout as a resident of the 7th District, two rows of the spreadsheet may be of particular interest to you. Cynthia Newbille, the current Richmond City Council President and longtime representative of this district, was salaried at the new member standard of $45,000, a reflection of the nature of the public-service role’s part-time hours.¹ As a full-time administrative employee, her council liaison, Sam Patterson, made $102,440.52.

The salary of Mayor Danny Avula, an East End resident himself, was $180,687.50, a rate he increased from just over $130,000 in his first budget. The city’s median salary landed at $74,103.99 for 2025. “Richmond’s median household income, meanwhile, is just over $63,000, according to U.S. Census Bureau data,” Parker wrote.

My column last week about the slew of pedestrians slain by motorists throughout the city over the past month elicited provoked some discussion in the comments section, social media, and my inbox. No surprise: just a day after I filed that piece, another pedestrian (Valerie Smith, 62) was killed by a driver on the Southside, keeping the deadly consequences of the city’s street designs and history of political inaction in the headlines and on folks’ minds. Anyway, this past Friday I asked which East End street you think you’ll get killed crossing. Here’s how some of you responded:

For those of you that have yet to chime in, the comments on the original column are open to all, so get in there.

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!

Want to share your Very CHill Photo from the neighborhood? Email it to [email protected] with your name as you’d like it to appear for publication, and the camera you shot it on.