Records obtained by The Times-Dispatch show that city officials have spent $234,111.35 defending the wrongful termination lawsuit brought by Connie Clay, a former Freedom of Information Act officer who in 2024 was fired by former city spokesperson Petula Burks.
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From the Archives: Richmond's Old City Hall
05-31-1967 (cutline): City Hall is backdrop as crowed gathers at ground-breaking for its replacement.
08-31-1979 (cutline): Peeling paint, fallen plaster are signs of deterioration at Old City Hall.
06-27-1967 (cutline): A bulldozer works today around a heavy vault, uncovered near Ninth and Broad Streets during the excavation for the new City Hall. The present City Hall is in the background, across the intersection of 10th and Broad Streets. The vault is at the site of the former headquarters of Home Beneficial Life Insurance Co., which moved in 1950 to the 3900 block W. Broad St. The building later housed the city Department of Public Utlities. Other buildings in the block housed a different office of Home Beneficial, now located a block west; a fire station, and Richmond Motor Co., now at 4600 W. Broad St. The Life Insurance Company of Virginia is in the background.
08-13-1970 (cutline): Richmond's old City Hall just wasn't built for the modern age symbolized by the aircraft which seems about to hit it, so the new marble facade at left is rising to replace it. The slick newcomer is due for completion in mid-1971, but fate of its venerable granite neighbor across Broad Street is still, like the jet, up in the air.
01-15-1961 (cutline): Basins were once installed in City Hall Offices. Workers who tended fires had to wash their hands.
10-28-1984 (cutline): Richmond's Old City Hall was praised, criticized at national conference.
02-08-1959: Old City Hall
05-04-1950 (cutline): Part of overflow crowd that attended housing project hearing at Richmond City Hall.
03-14-1952 (cutline): Richmond's City Hall shows its age--Coffman (left), Smorto point to latest crack in base.
10-14-1968: Repairs at Old City Hall building.
10-06-1989: Old City Hall from above
Richmond’s Old City Hall is seen in this photo from 1989. The facility was originally completed in 1894 after an eight-year process, with a total cost of $1.3 million.
12-15-1975 (cutline) Ornate staircase is one of many 'treasures' in Old City Hall. Despite National Historic Landmark designation, future is cloudy.
05-31-1967 (cutline): Mayor Crowe, Vice Mayor Mundle, City Manager Edwards and School Board Chairman Calkins crossing Broad St. with shovels over their shoulders, toward site of new City Hall. Each will have a shovel--two chrome-plated, plus two old ones (with the dirt of '88 still on them), used in the groundbreaking for present City Hall.
06-24-1983: Old City Hall
01-15-1961 (cutline): Twisting stairway leads to City Hall tower. Sightseers haven't climbed them for years.
01-13-1984: Workers in close ducts at Old City Hall.
02-05-1984: Old City Hall
