Three men have been charged in the homicide of Michael K. Brown Jr., three months after the 20-year-old was shot downtown on his birthday.

On Monday, Richmond Police detectives arrested Cory L. Worthington, 22, of the 2900 block of Ralph Boulevard; Giovanni M. Williford, 22, of the 1700 block of Jacqueline Street; and Willie T. Seaward III, 22, of the 1600 block of Jacqueline Street.

Brown had just left Club Aurora at about 1 a.m. March 13 when he was shot at Fourth and East Main streets. He later died at MCV.

Almost two months later Brown’s father, Michael Brown Sr., slipped into a diabetic coma and died. Friends and family said he struggled to care for his own health after the death of his only son. Mike-Mike, Brown Sr. called his son, would have attended the Virginia University of Lynchburg in the fall.

The Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force and Third Precinct officers arrested and charged the below three men with conspiracy to commit murder.

Out of desolation, the light appears. Arguably the most important project that Mayor Dwight Jones will undertake during his first term in office -- the construction of the new $134.6 million city jail -- just might be this administration’s defining moment.

And it illustrates the growing gap between the image Jones’ projects as the measured, grow-by-design-and-not-default mayor and, well, reality.

In one fell swoop, his announcement this week that his administration had selected Tompkins Builders and S.B. Construction Co. out of Washington, D.C., to build the jail has upset one of the city’s biggest minority developers and the state NAACP, and raised questions about familial relations with the jail project’s minority contractor, Thomas Davis, whose father is building Jones’ new church in Chesterfield County. The morning of the announcement, the Richmond Free Press published a story lambasting Tompkins Builders for having a “horrible record” when it comes to minority inclusion.

That’s a full plate of political drama, and the public vetting has barely started. City Council is expected to begin perusing the winning bid, along with the three other vendors who made the final cut, next week. Jones asked City Council to approve his choice of Tompkins/Ballard by July 25, in order to issue an official agreement with the contractors to begin construction by December.

Amid the fracas is the revelation that Jones’ church, First Baptist Church of South Richmond, is building a 2,000-seat sanctuary off Route 10 in Chesterfield County. The contractor that has been hired to build the church, which is still in the planning stages, is Davis Brothers, which is owned by Langston Davis, father of Thomas Davis, the minority contractor on the jail project.

After the meeting, Thomas Davis told Style that he had nothing to do with the project. He says the church’s board of trustees asked him to bid on the new sanctuary, but he declined. “I don’t really know the mayor,” he says, “but my dad does.”

Jones, meanwhile, declines to discuss church matters. His press secretary, Tammy Hawley, informed Style that questions about the church were off limits after the jail announcement on Thursday. (These questions are usually met with bewildered looks from Hawley. Why would anyone ask about the church?).

Aside from the obvious constitutional objective of separating church and state, one might wonder if Jones is fully committed to the city as mayor if he’s also full-time pastor at the church, and running the day-to-day operations. Secondly, there may be, at some point -- such as Thursday’s jail announcement -- possible conflicts of interest. Say, a contractor participating in the city’s biggest construction project in more than a decade whose father happens to be building the mayor’s new church.

Jones, of course, doesn’t see any reason that he would ever need to answer such questions. In an interview with Style in early February, with Hawley at his side, he almost offered an explanation of sorts. An excerpt:

Style: Are you also the full time pastor of First Baptist Church?

Mayor Jones: I’m a full time mayor of Richmond.

Hawley (speaking to Jones): Isn’t it fair to say your son is the primary pastor of the church?

Jones: Yeah, but you know, if you start, you’ve got to finish. So if you get into it … because people don’t understand the culture of churches and they really don’t understand the culture of black churches. So you don’t even talk about it.

Talk about that with reporters? Because it’s clearly apart of who you are.

Hawley: That’s not a part of his role as mayor, that’s what he’s saying. He’s happy to talk about his role as mayor.

Jones (speaking to reporter): If you have something you want to talk to me [about], if you want to confide in me, or talk about your religious issues. I’ll be happy to talk about you off the dime, on my free time some other time.

In the interview, the mayor seems to be in agreement with Hawley’s description that he’s no longer the “primary” pastor, although what that means exactly is unclear. On the church’s website, he’s prominently displayed as “senior pastor” of the church, ahead of son, Derik, who is listed as the pastor. The sign announcing the “Future Site of First Baptist Church of South Richmond” on Route 10 in Chesterfield also lists Mayor Jones ahead of his son. The hierarchy is clear in the church’s public literature.

Flash back to the jail announcement Thursday. At the time, Style had yet to confirm that Davis Brothers was the general contractor for the new church in Chesterfield. So the question we weren’t allowed to ask had to do with something admittedly broader. In other words, Jones certainly had no trouble talking about the church while running for mayor in 2008, and often pointed out that he was the only candidate who had engaged in any kind of tangible economic development within the city -- namely, the role his church and its nonprofit development arm, the Imani Intergenerational Community Development Corp., played in redeveloping Hull Street in Manchester. On April 16, 2008, the day he announced his campaign for mayor, Jones proudly proclaimed: “I am the only candidate that is running that has contributed to the economic development in the city by developing apartments and commercial space in the Hull Street corridor.”

But on Thursday, the church was off limits. Why would Richmond’s mayor build the new church in Chesterfield? Yes, the old church will remain on Hull Street, according to the church website, but didn’t Jones once tout the spiritual, social and economic benefits of church-based development in the inner city?

“No comment,” Jones says.

And there are other questions about the jail proposal that may actually have a bigger impact. Particularly, upsetting Al Bowers, owner of Bowers Family Enterprises, who sued the city and former Mayor L. Douglas Wilder for allegedly attempting to boot minority contracting company from the Miller & Rhoads hotel project downtown. He’s one of the city’s largest minority contractors, and -- and this is rare in Richmond -- is unafraid to punch back publicly.

Bowers took a seat in the back of Council chambers during the announcement Thursday morning with King Salim Khalfani, executive director of the state NAACP, sitting nearby. His company was part of the original team that made the first pitch to build the jail, for $117 million, in an unsolicited bid in February 2010.

Bowers says his team’s original bid was lower than the others, even after the city opened up the bidding and a second, more detailed round of proposals came in from competing contractors. Bowers questions whether the process was fair. During the presentation, the administration claimed that Tompkins/Ballard was the only bidder that came in under the $134.6 million projected budget, with a total bid of $123.1 million. After the meeting, neither city officials, nor George Kreis, senior vice president of Tompkins Builders, could confirm the total cost attached to the winning bid.

“I don’t know if I can tell you,” Kreis says. Chris Beschler, deputy chief administrative officer for the city, says the restraint is due to procurement law, which is complex, and the many steps involved in the bidding process. He did, however, concur (with agreeable nodding) that the $123.1 million figure is accurate.

The point, however, shouldn’t be lost: There are real questions that will need to be answered by the Jones administration regarding its decision to select Tompkins/Ballard as the winning contractor for the jail. And it may get ugly before it’s over.

A Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial this morning, “Richmond City Council: Comedy Is Over,” calls on City Councilman Marty Jewell to apologize to Council President Kathy Graziano, with inexplicably vacuous reasoning. Jewell called for Graziano’s resignation two weeks ago after she introduced a budget amendment seeking an additional $100,000 for the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office. This amendment came just a few days before that office stuck a deal with Graziano’s aide, David Hathcock, agreeing to drop charges of misdemeanor sexual battery and assault against another City Council aide, Jennifer Walle.

Hathcock agreed to undergo workplace sensitivity training and perform 100 hours of community service. It’s been more than a year since the incident occurred, and nearly six months after Jewell brought the incident to light.

Jewell may or may not have gone too far in calling for “the Graz’s” resignation, but the idea that somehow Jewell has become a political scourge of sorts for raising his fist at the whole affair suggests Richmond isn’t ready to become a first-tier city.

Much has been written and bemoaned about this City Council’s largely genteel, collegial approach. After former Mayor Doug Wilder left office, this council and mayor jumped at the chance to reinstall Richmond’s longstanding tradition of non-evasive politics. Ditto for the city’s business leaders.

This environment has allowed a giant bubble of insularity to build around the city, a place where the slightest burst of hot air can rupture an increasingly thin-skinned and fragile civic sensibility. In such a bubble, serious discussions about the state of our schools turns into gentle cheerleading, the need for expanded regional transit gets brushed to the sidelines and downtown master plans get shunted when it conflicts with the motives of profit-hungry developers.

In other words, the bubble becomes more important than the city -- and the people it purports to protect. One can envision the horror on Graziano’s face when Walle, who once worked in her office, appeared with allegations that Hathcock groped her in her office. What transpired after that has turned into a vicious she said, she said, but we do know what didn’t happen: There was no initial investigation into the charges and no attempts to limit contact between Hathcock and Walle. No one was put on administrative leave. When there was an eventual investigation into the alleged groping incident, and the city’s handling of the allegations, it was done 10 months later with the purpose of preparing the city’s defense against a civil lawsuit filed by Walle.

And Jewell is the one who needs to apologize?

The very suggestion offers an important insight. This is the same City Council that has withstood heroin addictions, tax evaders, bribery scandals and long, sustained bouts of carvinalesque stupidity. And that was before Doug Wilder. Can anyone even imagine what Wilder would have done with a gift-wrapped sex scandal involving a political foe? And Jewell’s umbrage over Graziano’s handling of the sex scandal, and her inability to see a problem with putting in a $100,000 bonus for the city prosecutor’s office, requires repentance?

Progress requires a healthy debate and political discourse that hardly seems possible in today’s Richmond. How can it when calls for moral and ethical accountability -- yes, as difficult as it is to believe, such calls usually are accompanied by political grandstanding -- are met with such scorn and dismissal, especially on the editorial pages of the city’s most influential newspaper?

One day, when the city finally wakes up and finds the bubble has burst, the people will decide that progress is more important than collegiality. And no apology will suffice.

At times this season, Virginia Commonwealth University's mens basketball team looked horrid. In a blowout loss to the University of Richmond in December, the Rams couldn't buy a bucket, their defense was spotty and I remembered wondering if there was a serious recruiting problem.

Virginia Commonwealth University is reasserting its interest in acquiring City Stadium, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. This isn't exactly big news, of course, as VCU has been expressing interest in the property ever since the University of Richmond built its own on-campus football stadium, which opened last fall. VCU would use it for multiple purposes, keeping the 16-acre property as an athletic facility, but make no mistake: the university sees City Stadium as a potential home for VCU Rams football, Division I-AA, if it ever decides to pull the trigger and start a team.

There's no question that VCU football makes sense. With a student population of 32,000, making it the largest public university in the state, and a huge alumni base in metro Richmond, it would have instant fans and paying customers. Football builds loyalty to the university, helps bolster fundraising and, perhaps most important, becomes a significant marketing tool for the university nationally. As President Michael Rao attempts to attract more out-of-state students who pay higher tuition, adding football can become a powerful campus amenity.

For the city, however, VCU's interest in the property poses a dilemma. City Stadium may be the most valuable piece of underdeveloped real estate in the city. It's bounded by Interstate 195, the Downtown Expressway and Powhite Parkway. See our story this week. Fulton Hill Properties wants to build a retail center on the site for this very reason: It may be the only property in Richmond that has the market potential to develop right now -- regardless of the economy — because of its size and interstate proximity, making it easily accessible from south and north of the river, from the near West End to Church Hill. 

While nearby residents want the property to remain an athletic complex, the property offers an opportunity for the city to land major, tax-producing retailers. Not that long ago, Wal-Mart even expressed interest in building a supercenter on the property. While even the mention of big boxes makes certain people in the city, and many in the surrounding neighborhoods, shudder, such retail can be a huge economic generator. In a city that desperately needs to add jobs and keep retail dollars from fleeing to the surrounding suburbs, City Stadium offers a rare opportunity. 

The economic impact of handing the property over to VCU would be nil. VCU is tax-exempt, thereby generating no real estate revenue. In fact, VCU already sits on nearly $1.5 billion worth of real estate between its medical and academic campuses. It doesn't generate a drop of real estate taxes.

And college football, if VCU does decide to launch a team, also wouldn't help the economy much. There is a wide perception that college football would mean big business, but not really. In fact, an economic study looking at the impact of college football games on local economies led by Robert A. Baade, a sports economist at Lake Forest College in Lake Forest, Ill., found that even major college football programs create no discernible economic impact on their respective communities. 

“While successful college football teams may bring fame to their alma mater, fortune appears to be a bit more elusive as big plays and big crowds inside the stadium don't seem to translate into big money outside the stadium,” the study concludes. Read the study here.

So, City Stadium becomes an interesting test for Mayor Dwight Jones and City Council. What to do? Cede the property over to VCU and realize no net economic benefit and keep nearby residents happy? Or sell the land to retail developers and go for jobs and tax revenue on behalf of the entire city?

Michael Meyers, general manager of the Greater Richmond Convention Center, says the authority's recent financial report included a misprint. (See our story this week.) The total number of convention attendees in 2010, he says, was actually 296,718, a 13 percent decline from 2009. A little better than the financial report indicates, but still down considerably.

What this year holds is an open question. In an interview Monday, Meyers told me he expects 2011 to remain relatively flat as far as revenue and attendance growth, but in an email Tuesday says the center is forecasting an “8.6 increase over FY2010.” Meyers says the convention center is anticipating 322,099 in overall attendance by the end of June. “This projection is fluid as we have a lot of potential event activity in the remainder of the year which has yet to be confirmed,” he says in the email.

Meyers is in charge of running the center's day-to-day operations, and he's made up much of the shortfall by cutting expenses 5.7 percent on the year. Hosting fewer conventions and conventioneers also means less expense.

Fewer conventions results in less food service revenue, as well. In fiscal 2010, the convention center's primary operating revenue source -- food and beverage service -- declined 42 percent, from $779,364 in 2009 to $448,137 in 2010. 

Virginia Democrats are seizing on an interview Gov. Bob McDonnell had with NBC-12's Ryan Nobles, saying that the governor has gone back on previous statements that he would serve a full term as governor through 2014.

Answering a question from Nobles (see below), McDonnell says he "probably" would find it difficult to turn down a request by a Republican presidential candidate to serve as a running mate.

In a press release issued today, Democratic Party of Virginia Executive Director David Mills says: “It looks like when he said repeatedly that he will serve his full term, the Governor was either being untruthful or he's since had a change of heart. While I don't understand why he would leave his work here unfinished to join a ticket with Sarah Palin or Mitt Romney, at least he's finally being clear about his intentions."

I e-mailed the governor's office to ask for a clarification on McDonnell's aspirations at higher office. McDonnell spokesman Tucker Martin responds via Blackberry that:

“The Governor gave a hypothetical answer to a hypothetical question. He is not seeking any other position and is focused on serving as Governor of Virginia for the next three years. In his first 13 months in office he has cut 6 billion in spending, reduced state spending to 2006 levels, got 80 percent of his first session legislation passed, Virginia has added the 4th highest amount of net new jobs of any state in the nation, our unemployment rate has fallen to 6.7 percent- 9th lowest in the nation- and he is now poised to sign into law the biggest investment in transportation in Virginia in a generation, and a sweeping higher education reform plan that will help more Virginians access our colleges and universities. Its an impressive record of success, achieved with bipartisan support, so its not surprising the Governor is getting some national attention.”

I respond: So, bottom line is that Virginians will see the governor serve out his complete term even if he is asked to be a vice presidential running-mate. Yes?

Martin: "The bottom line is he is planning on serving his full term. He was simply giving a hypothetical answer to a hypothetical question."

What do you think? Will he or won't he? And if he does make a bid for higher office in the midst of serving out his term as governor, would you consider him a hypocrite?