FYI to anyone following this. Since this has been an issue for more than a year I emailed our city council member and he responded with an encouraging email below.

Hi John,
Thank you for sending these photos and timeline to me. I understand your frustration as the alley conditions around the City have grown worse as DPW stopped servicing them last year. During the budget deliberations for this year, I was able to introduce and pass an amendment by City Council to increase the Mayor's proposed budget for DPW by $400,000. We are also working to purchase gravel and have volunteers assist with spreading it in alleys. I will ask 5th District Liaison Amy Robins to confirm with DPW about the alley between Garrett Street and Douglasdale Road in the 3000 block. We will be conducting our 5th District clean-up on October 15 in the Carillon neighborhood and I believe the CCA is helping recruit volunteers to assist with our efforts to bring gravel to the alleys and repair potholes. A concern with this alley is that it may be more than what we can do and could require DPW. We should know more in the next 10 days.
Sincerely,
Parker C. Agelasto
Richmond City Council, 5th District

Thanks SO MUCH for taking action on this issue, John. I emailed Parker Agelasto and he and his assistant Amy have been in touch. I've also been in contact with the DPW several times. (Still no repair, though.) I'm going to the October 15th event, but frankly, I don't this is a volunteer-level fix, unless there's some heavy machinery and a few tons of gravel.