Richmond Rising committee elects Malia Reeves as chair; Ambessa and Terrence named co-chair and secretary

The Richmond Rising Collaborative Stakeholder Committee elected officers at its March 4 meeting as the current chair announced she must step down under committee bylaws.

Malia Reeves, who introduced herself as community organizer for Rich City Rides and Richmond Rising, was nominated and confirmed by a hand-raise consensus as the committee’s new chair. She told the group she has assisted with youth-fellow outreach and community engagement and said she intends to support ongoing partner work.

Ambessa (introduced in the roll call as the project lead for Grid Alternatives) was confirmed as co-chair; committee members said the co-chair will back up facilitation when the chair is absent and support agenda and materials review. Terrence of Trust for Public Land accepted nomination to serve as secretary; the role will include preparing meeting minutes and distributing them to the public and the committee.

The chair explained officers serve two-year terms and that organizations may designate substitutes as needed; committee bylaws require a two-thirds vote for appointment, but in practice the meeting recorded hand-raise consensus for these confirmations and did not record a roll-call tally in the transcript. No formal ballots or numeric vote counts were recorded in the transcript.

Next steps: the newly elected officers will assume facilitation and administrative duties for subsequent meetings; staff offered to continue operational support for agenda production, outreach, and minute-taking.