Dwight Clinton Jones

Who is Dwight Clinton Jones?

Dwight Clinton Jones is the Mayor of Richmond, Virginia. He was inaugurated on January 1, 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, he is also a Baptist minister. Jones was born in Philadelphia and moved to Richmond after attending Virginia Union University. He is currently senior pastor of the First Baptist Church of South Richmond.

Jones' inauguration was held on January 10, 2009. Prior to that, he was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, representing the 70th District 1994–2008.

Jones has been fundraising for a possible reelection campaign, with a majority of contributions from Altria Group Inc and Dominion Resources Inc executives and employees. In 2011, Jones re-election committee received 96 donations, 46 of the donations from these two corporations, their executives, and employees. Complaints of corporate influence and favoritism arose after Jones' 2008 election when the Mayor supported construction of a new city jail by City Central LLC. City Central LLC was a consortium of individuals and corporations which were major contributors to Jones 2008 election campaign.

On February 16, 2010, City Central LLC submitted an unsolicitied proposal to build a new jail. Although the city of Richmond had already begun the process of expanding the existing jail and had received 11 proposals, the City Central LLC proposal was accepted and the eleven other submissions were returned unopened. Acceptance of the City Central LLC proposal was controversial and after opposition by the city council, additional proposals were requested by the city administration. Mayor Jones eventually awarded the jail construction project to Tompkins/Ballard Joint Venture of Washington. City Council members questioned the award, claiming bias and the city had ignored its own procurement rules, and ordered an audit of the procurement process. Despite concerns and questions raised by the audit, and after Deputy Chief Administrative Officer for Operations Christopher Beschler accepted responsibility for the procurement failures, the City Council approved the selection of Tompson/Ballard. Despite the approval, some city council members were not satisfied with the process. Member Bruce Tyler stated, "The mayor chose to put politics in front of people. They rammed it down our throats instead of dealing with our questions".