Editor’s note: The Lookout is now on social media! Don’t forget to follow on Bluesky, Facebook, and Instagram. Rest assured, the newsletter/website will always be the “flagship” publication; we’re not making a pivot to #influencers any time soon.—Dave.

There’s a zombie stalking Church Hill. Well, sort of. Let me explain.

Long before there was The Church Hill Lookout, or even Facebook’s News Feed, there was The Church Hill People’s News. The blog, launched in 2004 by then-resident John Murden, was a vital record of everything happening in the East End. To some extent, it still is: in the course of my reporting, I often find myself digging through its still-online archives for details on who did what when in the neighborhood. After an astonishing 13 years at the helm, Murden hung up the blogging cleats, handing off the publication and its social-media channels to a local trio to steward into its third decade.

A few years later, CHPN had languished, with the volume of posts to its site slowing to a trickle and stopping entirely in July of 2021. (By then, control of the blog may have changed hands again.) At the time it stopped publishing, its Instagram account hadn’t posted a new photo in five months. Someone manning the CHPN Facebook page, which today boasts some 6,300 followers, continued to promote Richmond news stories from other outlets through December 2023. Then that channel went silent, too.

As remarkable as CHPN was, the arc of its rise and fall was all too common. The explosion of independent blogs in the early Aughts was eventually supplanted by corporate social-media platforms in the 2010s that consolidated audiences with more powerful features, more intuitive interfaces, and speedier load times, starving the publications of advertising revenue and attention alike. Sad as it may be (and bad for democracy, too) this is no internet for old blogs.

To this day, CHPN’s site remains defunct. But on January 4th, 2026, a new post appeared on the blog’s Facebook page, an homage to longtime resident Bill Martin, who had been killed by a driver crossing East Broad Street near City Hall in late December 2025. Commenters, perhaps distracted by the tragedy, didn’t even seem to notice that the page had been idled for more than two years. CHPN’s Facebook page went silent again until May 10th of this year, when it posted a link to The Lookout’s coverage about the surprise construction in Chimborazo Playground. “CHIMBO PLAYGROUND AMENITIES DISMEMBERED,” read an editorialized header.

This is when I first began fielding questions from folks in the neighborhood about CHPN’s undead Facebook page. Was I running it? I was not. Was Murden? He was not, he confirmed to The Lookout in mid-May; he handed off the logins for the blog’s social media when he handed off the keys to the blog itself nearly nine years ago. Makes sense. But somebody was once again posting to the CHPN Facebook page.

The frequency has only increased over the summer. After 24 months with zero posts, the page has made 15 posts since January 4th 2026, with 14 of those coming since May 10th. Three have been links to The Lookout’s coverage; three more were amplifying neighborhood announcements regarding l’affair pétanque. To the extent that there’s a common denominator to the rest, it’s the city’s zoning code refresh. “Mayor Danny Avula's view on the development expansions of our neighborhoods,” the anonymous administrator wrote on June 14th, posting an excerpt of a Style Weekly article about the contentious update process. “If the city is not leading, nor the developers, then who is? CHPN is curious.”

(The city’s Department of Planning and Development Review is leading the code refresh process.)

By then, neighborhood Facebook users had begun to grow curious about who was behind the CHPN posts that were cropping up again on their feeds. Unlike the Church Hill Neighborhood group hosted on the platform, the CHPN page lists no administrator or moderator, only an email address. The Lookout contacted the address three times over the course of this month in hopes of learning who was running the page and whether they had plans to resurrect the blog itself. Earlier this week, I also messaged the page via Facebook Messenger with the same questions. At publication I’ve received no response. Inquiries from Murden and neighborhood residents made in the comments beneath the page’s posts have likewise gone unanswered.

The radio silence vexes CHPN’s founder. “I think it's yucky and dangerous to have anonymous news sites for communities like the Church Hill and the neighborhoods around it,” Murden told The Lookout via text earlier this week. “Things will come up to which neighbors will respond passionately, and you need know who is shaping how the story is being framed. Can we trust them to be neutral? If they're going to have more of a platform, who are are they and where are they coming from?”

Transparency about authorship is a fundamental tenet of journalism. The Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics says journalists must “avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived” and “be accountable and transparent,” mandates that can only be fulfilled when writers identify themselves. The New York Times’ “Ethical Journalism” handbook dictates that its staffers “should not use false names, identities or credentials when they are working as journalists.” The Lookout’s own ethics code promises to publish “every story with a real name on the byline.”

But a defunct neighborhood blog’s Facebook page exists in a long-running gray area. When Murden launched CHPN in the mid-Aughts, there was wide-ranging debate in media circles where “blogging” ended and “reporting” began, and whether the latter’s more stringent professional code ought to—or even could—apply to the former’s freewheeling, conversational format. Two decades later, the blogosphere has mostly collapsed, but the debate continues, with “influencers” and “creators” supplanting bloggers as the reactive media operatives unburdened by journalists’ professional ethics obligations.

Whether the person behind CHPN’s Facebook page considers themselves a journalist, blogger, influencer, or none of the above, the publication’s legacy and still-significant neighborhood audience deserve a proprietor who will put their name to their posts. With power comes responsibility, and with transparency comes opportunity. “I'd love to see whoever this is step into the light and really do the thing,” said Murden. “A curated super-local news feed can be a great resource. Facebook groups are really useful, but can lack context or a through-line a lot of the time.”

Will the person behind CHPN’s undead Facebook page come off incognito mode? Here’s hoping. After all, the neighborhood would like to meet them.

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!

It’s been over a month and a half since the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Community Facilities (DPR) concluded a belated first round of meetings about its currently paused pétanque construction project in Chimborazo Playground. As The Lookout previously reported, the department will hold another community meeting on the evening of Wednesday, July 29th, to discuss its findings from the early June gatherings and corresponding online survey. The meeting is scheduled to take place from 6-8pm at the Powhatan Community Center and will also feature a presentation on what DPR capital projects planner Ryan Rinn described in an email as “three potential paths forward for the playground.”

(The Lookout obtained a copy of the email, which was sent to select community members midday Friday. Read it in full at the L’Affair Pétanque Liveblog.)

“We're finalizing cost estimates for each option so participants can make informed decisions based on the best information available,” Rinn wrote in his email. “While those estimates are still being completed, they will be ready and presented at the July 29 meeting.”

In June, DPR estimated the cost of its bungled expansion of the courts at nearly $68,000, with around 40% of that previously unknown budget earmarked for “Construction plans and engineering services associated with [the] permitting process.” The Lookout first reported in mid-May that the city had flouted the state’s stormwater permitting rules on the project. Residents whose houses abut the alley on the park’s northern edge say flooding in the area has always been bad and appears to have gotten worse since DPR turned ~4,400 square feet lawn in the park into impervious compacted-gravel pads for more pétanque courts.

Courtesy of Lookout reader Amanda Kelsheimer, the latest edition of East End Animal Friend is live now, and cute as hell:

As a reminder, East End Animal Friends is a recurring feature spotlighting the many creature companions of Church Hill and its surrounds. Fill out this form to introduce your beloved animal(s) to the neighborhood in a future edition of The Lookout!

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.