At the end of the year, I’ll be stepping away from CHPN.

Running this site has been an incredibly meaningful part of the last decade+ for me. It has been an amazing opportunity to document the beginning of a new era in the neighborhood and the city, and to meet so many of the folks working on the ground to make Richmond and the East End become a better community.

Over this time we’ve gone from being named among the 10 most dangerous neighborhoods in America to a nationwide top 10 up-and-coming neighborhood. Any number of vacant houses have been fixed up and now have new neighbors in them. The area population is rising after decades of loss. There are great places to gather together and eat and drink. The streets are safer.

As of right now, CHPN has published 11,293 stories and over 120,000 comments. There is a Flickr pool of over 8,000 photos documenting the area since 2004.

Most importantly, a random email to CHPN back in 2010 introduced me to a wonderful woman who would completely changed my life.

It’s been a good run, but I need to be able to unplug.

So – anybody interested in taking the reigns?

There are any number of great stories that need to followed out – our neighborhood schools, the redevelopment of the public housing communities, the next phase of gentrification, the impact of the new grocery store come to mind. There is immense value in having a daily curated public hyperlocal record.

I’d like to see the site continue in new hands if anyone is interested – hit me up at murden@gmail.com. We’ve got until December 31 to get you up to speed.