Richmond to offer vaccine to all students, says official

Richmond will reach beyond public school children to administer 3,300 doses of swine-flu vaccine in the next week.

Dr. Donald Stern, the city’s health director, said last night that his department will provide the vaccine to home-schooled and private school students, as well as additional public school pupils.

Stern, speaking at a Town Hall meeting hosted by Mayor Dwight C. Jones, said the city health department has about 2,000 doses of the vaccine in nasal mist form and 1,300 injection doses that it will reserve for pregnant woman at its public clinics.

Home-schooled children will receive the vaccine by appointment, and the city is working with a private-school association to set up on-site vaccinations. Stern said the city also hopes to administer the vaccine to students at 10 public schools next week.

Stern’s announcement launched a Town Hall meeting at John Marshall High School on North Side, where Jones and other city staff fielded questions about issues ranging from traffic roundabouts and trees to the revival of neighborhood teams for tackling city problems.

During the nearly two-hour meeting, Jones:

• promised South Side residents that he would drop the idea of a traffic roundabout at Belt Boulevard and Hull Street if they don’t want it. “We’re not going to force that on you,“ he told Keesha Haskins, vice president of the McGuire-Swansboro Civic Association, who spoke against the idea.

• endorsed the creation of an urban forestry commission to guide maintenance, removal, and planting of trees on public property. “We’re on board,“ he said. “We want Richmond to be a green city.“

• announced that his administration will revive the concept of neighborhood teams for Richmond residents to use as a way to communicate with city officials. Three residents called for reinstatement of the teams, which then-Mayor L. Douglas Wilder disbanded and replaced with a mayoral roundtable. “The model that was in place for 20 years worked extremely well,“ said Meg Lawrence, president of the Ginter Park Residents Association.

Jones said his administration will unveil the new team concept within 30 days. He said the teams would be formed on different geographical boundaries than before and meet less often, but he called them a good way for residents to communicate with city government about concerns. “We want information to flow up,“ he said.

Contact Michael Martz at (804) 649-6964 or .