Best Candidate for Mayor of Richmond in 2016

Jonathan Baliles, 1st District City Councilman

jonbaliles.com

Second Place: Not Dwight Jones

Third Place (Tie): Shaka Smart and Levar Stoney

You don’t have to live in the city’s 1st District to know that Jon Baliles is a man who loves Richmond. Has he always had political ambition? He’s always had a close-up view, growing up with his father, Gerald Baliles, serving as a Virginia governor. You’ll see Jon Baliles out and about at any number of events across the city and regularly brining sanity to City Council meetings. (And if you aren’t watching the meetings from time to time on public television, you’re missing out big time.) Baliles is accessible — at least for now — and he at least wins the election of Best of Richmond voters. Other runners-up include anyone but the current man in command, Dwight Jones — which hey, you won’t need to worry about. He isn’t running. And we hate to break it to you, but it’s difficult to imagine former Virginia Commonwealth University men’s basketball coach Shaka Smart returning to preside over City Hall. As the youngest member of Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s cabinet, Levar Stoney was sworn in as secretary of the Commonwealth in 2014.

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