Good morning, RVA! It’s 30 °F, and that’s literally freezing! Not to worry though, temperatures will top out in the 60s this afternoon. The rest of this week looks delightfully fall-like with cooler temperatures rolling in as we get closer to the weekend.
Water cooler
City Council will host its next North of Broad work session today from 3:00–5:00 PM. On the agenda: Community benefits like affordable housing, employment training, MBE participation, and the GRTC Transit Center. Following that work session, Council will move into their Organizational Development committee where they do have the NoBro ordinances on their agenda (PDF). I have no idea if Council will actually discuss those papers or if they’ll continue them until the Navy Hill Development Advisory Commission has finished their work later this year. Speaking of that commission, here’s the Risk Matrix PDF I mentioned last week. I’m not sure if I’m smart enough to understand it all (or even most of it), but maybe you are! There are a lot of dang moving pieces to this thing, and, at this point, they’re all moving in parallel—it’s a lot to keep track of. One thing this PDF does make clear to me is how focused almost everyone in entire city—the Mayor, Council, commissions like this one, Richmond humans in general—is on funding schools. Don’t get me wrong, schools need more money, and I’ve said as much for the last forever. But transit needs more money, public housing needs more money, streets, sustainability efforts, vacancies at City Hall—they all need more money! It’s a little weird to me that the frame for a lot of the conversations we’re having, this Risk Matrix included, is how will it impact schools funding without evening mentions our laundry list of other very expensive needs.
I definitely missed the neighborhood drama around the milling and paving of W. Cary Street, but it’s clear to me from this Department of Public Works email, if you read between the lines, that it was juicy: “There has been a great deal of concern regarding milling and paving on West Cary Street. To help resolve the concerns, the City of Richmond talked to the contractor and Mr. Kamran Shaikh, the President of the Merchants Association on how to resolve the paving concerns. We all agreed on the following solution – the contractor will pave West Cary Street between North Nansemond and South Belmont at night, weather permitting. There will be no on street parking allowed during the times listed above” (11/6 7:00 PM–7:00 AM; 11/7 7:00 PM–7:00 AM). This was definitely a missed opportunity to close Carytown to cars and pilot a pedestrian, bike, and bus-only space. The Merchants Association will never be convinced to remove parking and cars until they see firsthand that everyone will just make at ton more money. This was the perfect, low-risk chance to do so.
