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Good morning, RVA! It’s 41 °F, and today’s a bit warmer than the last couple of days, with highs in the mid 50s. You should expect a bit of rain throughout the weekend, and—you’d never expect this—highs in the 70s on Sunday. In December! OK!

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OneVirginia2021 has released their proposed constitutional amendment to create an independent redistricting commission (PDF). The method for selecting commission members is really interesting and shoots for balance rather than being a-political—which, duh, the group of a-political humans that exists that would serve on a redistricting commission is probably a null set. After formed, the commission would then go about their work, prioritizing a bunch of factors: preserving boundaries and residential subdivision lines, creating districts with equal population, following contiguity and compactness, and not drawing districts “to favor or disfavor any political party, incumbent legislator, member of Congress, individual or entity, nor…to abridge or deny the ability of substantial racial or ethnic minority communities to elect representatives of their choice.” The General Assembly will redraw the Congressional maps in 2021, so if this sounds like something you can get behind, holler at your legislators by signing up with OneVirginia2021. Michelle Hankerson at the Virginia Mercury has more background if you need it!

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Good morning, RVA! It’s 30 °F, and, while the sun will stick around today, the temperatures will scooch down to the mid 40s.

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Ruh roh Raggy, Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that folks are pushing to get Councilmember Agelasto removed from City Council after Robinson reported that Agelasto no longer lives in the 5th District. Call me cynical, but it does not seem like a coincidence that former 5th District Councilmember and 2016 mayoral candidate Chuck Richardson is leading this particular charge. I dunno y’all, rules is rules, and out of all sitting Councilfolk, Agelasto is the most intense about following the rules! So this really flips my lid. That said, for whatever reason—Agelasto’s long record of hard work in the 5th District, his encyclopedic knowledge on legislation in the 5th and citywide, that he’s not living out in Chesterfield or Henrico but down the road in the 1st District—I have a hard time getting my hackles up about this. I’m also nervous about losing one of the most detail-oriented people on Council right as we head into the heart of the conversation about the proposed Coliseum redevelopment.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 32 °F, and, with highs barely in the mid 40s, today it feels like the end of fall out there. Highs will shoot way up over the weekend, though, so maybe not quite yet.

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The 1st and 2nd (and now 3rd?) street bike lane is back! Kind of! Today, you can give your input (again) on these planned and paid-for bike lanes at the Main Library from 5:00–7:00 PM. As a Northsider, I’m super familiar with the lack of safe ways to get from my part of town to Downtown, and, because I’m an obnoxious bike person, I obviously support these bike lanes. But I want to be super clear about the benefit and purpose of these specific bike lanes: They begin to safely connect low-income, majority-Black residential neighborhoods on the City’s Northside to jobs Downtown. That’s what they’re for, that’s what they do. Today, a ton of folks already take that trip on bike, and we should make it safer for them to do so.

Blerg, Mark Robinson reports, in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, that the Richmond Sheriff’s Office has way overrun their budget 💸. Sounds like most of the problem is overtime pay due to vacancies, which can be a tough problem to solve. Is the agency so underfunded and salaries so low that no one wants to take these jobs? Would fully funding the Sheriff actually bring overall costs down (I have no clue what that looks like, but this is one of the things we should listen for during next year’s budget season)? Or does the Sheriff just need to do a better dang job and make hiring staff a top priority? Tough to know, but it’s definitely a blerg, because now the City needs to find a few million dollars in the municipal couch to cover the overrun.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 38 °F, and today should be a bit cooler. Expect highs in the upper 40s and a lot more sun than yesterday.

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Michael Paul Williams’s column in the Richmond Times-Dispatch today again looks at the proposed Coliseum redevelopment 💸 , and he again remains skeptical—although not about the need for a new arena. Williams also talks with Councilmember Gray who says a thing I agree with: “Nobody’s seen the plan. How can someone be for or against something they haven’t seen?” While we still lack the details to know exactly what’s going on with this massive project, it has started to smell more and more inevitable. But! I do truly believe that the details are up for debate—and, more than that, I believe that the Mayor really does want a ton of input on how to make the pieces of this project better. With that in mind, here are just a few of the pieces I’d like to see made better, in no particular order: The GRTC transfer station should be an easy and pleasant walk from the Pulse for all folks regardless of the day, time, or weather; the TIF should be way, way smaller and certainly not include any of Monroe Ward; and the Department of Social Service should be on a major corridor—10 minutes off of Route 1 behind a railroad track, some ponds, and a forest doesn’t count! These are just my opinions and the first ones that came to mind this morning; I’m sure you have your own. Precisely because we’re all bristling with ideas and opinions, I’m really looking forward to how the Mayor’s administration, City Council, and the developers of this project set out to do real public engagement after we know all of the details. I reserve the right to be real sad if they just don’t.

Hey, this is neat: The former Mayor of New York City David Dinkins wrote our mayor a letter in support of renaming the Boulevard to Arthur Ashe Boulevard. Dinkins and Ashe were friends, and the former remains the only Black mayor of New York City. The ordinance to make this happen, ORD. 2018–228, sits on the agenda for the December 18th Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee meeting (along with every other ordinance I’m interested in). Related, someone linked me to this well-designed, but seemingly anonymous, Arthur Ashe Boulevard marketing website.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 48 °F. Temperatures today will approach 60 °F, and there’s a chance for a bit of rain on the horizon.

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First, a correction! Last week I mischaracterized Housing Families First after they scooped up a big grant from Jeff Bezos’s philanthropic organization. Kelly King Horne, the director of Homeward who knows more about this topic than I could ever hope to, wrote in to let me know that HFF hasn’t provided transitional housing in years and that this is a better description of the organization: “Housing Families First provides emergency shelter for families with consistently high outcomes for housing placements and connections to employment, provides high quality rapid re-housing for families with significant barriers to housing, and have just developed a diversion team as part of a system-level collaborative to help families find safe and stable alternatives to emergency shelter when appropriate. They use data to drive their decision-making and programming and focus on helping households tap into their natural and long-lasting systems of support.” Horne also gave me some insight and context into why it’s a Big Deal that a Richmond area organization won this grant: “The reason HFF was selected (and the reason RVA punches above our weight nationally on homelessness) is because they transformed to a low-barrier, housing-focused emergency shelter and provide rapid re-housing. The recognition they are getting as part of the Day1 Fund is well-deserved for their current work. Their focus on helping households with children experiencing homelessness get into stable housing quickly is worth highlighting.”

By now it should be exceedingly clear that I do not know enough about housing, even though it’s clearly one of the most important issues facing our region. Keeping that in mind, I don’t understand some of the goals RRHA has for a development RFP in Blackwell, via Mark Robinson at the RTD. Specifically, I don’t get this: The housing authority will seek a developer for 96 properties in the neighborhood, with about half of those “developed into market-rate single-family homes in…an effort to build a mixed-income neighborhood.” I get it. Without a substantial fund to help subsidize affordable housing development, it’s hard for developers or nonprofits to make the numbers work and keep 100% of these properties affordable. This just seems like a big missed opportunity—but we’ll see how some of region’s housing nonprofits answer the RFP next month. Possibly ill-informed side note: I feel weird about our housing authority leading the charge to build a bunch of market-rate stuff in a neighborhood that just went through a stressful community-wide conversation about development and gentrification.

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Good morning, RVA! It’s 35 °F, and, weatherwise, we’ve got more of the same on tap: highs in the mid 50s and sunshine. Over the holiday break, you can expect temperatures to drop a bit and some rain to move into the area on Saturday.

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Speaking of the holiday break, government office have weird hours (the City shuts down at 12:00 PM today), so keep that in mind if you’re planning any municipal errands. I’m also going to take some weird hours to celebrate my most favorite holiday of the year and will speak to you again in this space on Monday!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 50 °F, and highs today look like they’ll top out around 60 °F. The extended forecast is looking dry until this weekend.

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The City’s Land Use, Housing and Transportation Committee will meet today at 1:00 PM and has a couple of interesting things on their agenda. First, ORD. 2018–153 would add an unnecessary left turn lane from southbound Belvidere onto eastbound Broad Street. Councilmember Gray introduced this ordinance back in May of this year, right before the Pulse opened and during the height of Pulse Panic. Turns out the new bus did not destroy the very fabric of reality, everyone lived, and now we don’t need to go adding in more ways for cars to disrupt our public transportation. This ordinance should be withdrawn. Second, ORD. 2018–194, the anti-bike lane ordinance, is still, somehow, on the agenda. Aside from my personal, very pro-bike lane opinions, I‘m real against this political strategy of introducing legislation to prevent a planned, funded, and approved project and then just continuing it forever and ever. It de facto kills the project and is not how our City government is supposed to work. This ordinance should also be withdrawn. Third, ORD. 2018–288 is the new scooter ordinance! I feel bad because I still haven’t had time to really kick the tires on this new attempt to regulate dockless vehicles, but I do know that the City tweaked the vehicle fee structure, bringing it down to something that works out to $265 per vehicle per year for 100 vehicles, $207.50 per vehicle per year for 200 vehicles, and $123 per vehicle per year for 500 vehicles. These aren’t technically per-vehicle fees but application fees based on the number of vehicles you’re putting out on the street. After a quick skim of the legislation, it does look like all the big pieces I was after are in there—although the bit about preventing bikes and scooters from operating after sunset seems too intense.

Richmond City Councilmember Parker Agelasto announced that he would not seek re-election in 2020 (PDF). That election is…a ways a way, but the extreme lead time does give the 5th District plenty of time to find some high-quality candidates. Is that candidate you?

Good morning, RVA! It’s 41 °F, and, somehow, today you can expect highs near 60 °F! Sure! The sky might be a little cloudy, but, other than that, the weather looks great until Thursday when temperatures start to drop.

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Richmond Police are reporting that two people were murdeed over the weekend. At 10:30 AM on Saturday officers arrived at the 1400 block of Bryan Street and found Danzall Seward, 24, shot. He would die at a hospital later in the evening. At 10:09 PM police were called to the 3400 block of Maury Street and found Demon Booker, 31, shot to death.

Photo by: Jonathan Piques

Good morning, RVA! It’s 39 °F, the rain has moved on, and, today, sunshine will take its place. Expect highs in the 50s and similar weather over the weekend.

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Yesterday, the governor signed Executive Order Twenty Five (PDF), which “establishes new state housing policy priorities designed to enhance the quality, availability, and affordability of housing in the Commonwealth.” I continue to not know a ton about how state government works, but this executive order doesn’t seem to do a whole lot of anything—other than some virtue signaling. Which is something? I guess? There are 1,001 housing policy experts in the Commonwealth, and we could ask them today for a very short list of housing policies that would meet the governor’s goals. I bet those lists even already exist on several of their websites! Anyway, we’ll see what the General Assembly feels like doing come spring. I’ve got my housing hopes pinned on Senator McClellan‘s inclusionary zoning bill from last session. Related: The City’s slow and reactive response to scooters makes me wonder what we could be doing now to make sure we have the pieces in place for good local inclusionary zoning legislation if/when it passes at the state level.

Photo by: Jonathan Piques

Good morning, RVA! It’s 39 °F, the rain has moved on, and, today, sunshine will take its place. Expect highs in the 50s and similar weather over the weekend.

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Yesterday, the governor signed Executive Order Twenty Five (PDF), which “establishes new state housing policy priorities designed to enhance the quality, availability, and affordability of housing in the Commonwealth.” I continue to not know a ton about how state government works, but this executive order doesn’t seem to do a whole lot of anything—other than some virtue signaling. Which is something? I guess? There are 1,001 housing policy experts in the Commonwealth, and we could ask them today for a very short list of housing policies that would meet the governor’s goals. I bet those lists even already exist on several of their websites! Anyway, we’ll see what the General Assembly feels like doing come spring. I’ve got my housing hopes pinned on Senator McClellan‘s inclusionary zoning bill from last session. Related: The City’s slow and reactive response to scooters makes me wonder what we could be doing now to make sure we have the pieces in place for good local inclusionary zoning legislation if/when it passes at the state level.

Photo by: Jonathan Piques

Good morning, RVA! It’s 37 °F and rainy. There’s a better than average chance of lots of cold, gross rain throughout day, so buckle up, hold on tight, and wait for tomorrow when the sun comes out for the foreseeable future!

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The Commonwealth Institute has a good post up that throws a bit of cold water—lukewarm water, maybe?—on the Amazon deal (and really all super big economic development projects (maybe you can think of one locally, idk)). The gist: Megadeals are complex and hard to understand, and electeds, media, and normal people should be given the time and resources to work through them.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 43 °F, which is probably close to today’s high, and we’ve got a break in the rain for most of the day. Tomorrow, though, woooo boy. NBC12’s Andrew Friedan says things could even kick off with a little sleet!

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I’m sure y’all saw all the news yesterday that Amazon finally decided that the location of its new HQ2 would in fact be two locations for two HQs: Queens and Arlington. My entire feed filled very quickly with hot takes and stayed full for most of the day. The Governor recorded this pretty bland but on-brand announcement video. Internet Person Taber says we should expect the deal to sail smoothly through the General Assembly and also provided a link to the PDF of the MOUs with both the state and Arlington. Del. Carter points out that Amazon had beefier incentive options elsewhere but still ended up in NOVA, which maybe says something about their municipal Hunger Games. Michael Martz at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a run down of all of the incentives the state gave to the company owned by the literal richest man in the world, in which you’ll hear the familiar political economic development refrain of “there’s zero financial risk.” Plus there were 1,001 articles about how Amazon’s process was a sham, how cities shouldn’t need huge companies and their RFPs to craft better transportation and housing policies, and how Amazon Is A Really Bad Company. Honestly, it was a lot to sort through. If you’ve already done the sorting and a have a favorite Amazon-related read, send it my way!

City Council was a bit of a nothing burger last night. The Mayor chose not to introduce legislation related to the proposed Coliseum redevelopment, he withdrew the ordinance modifying the agreement with Stone Brewing about the Intermediate Terminal building, and he also withdrew the Scooter Ordinance. Working backwards from that list: I think we will see a new and improved Scooter Ordinance on the agenda in December—I should hope so, because, jeez, we’ve been talking about it for almost six months at this point. Next, I have no idea what is going on with the Stone Bistro situation, but wold love some insight / conspiracy theories. And finally, Council’s next scheduled meeting, and last one of the year, will take place on December 10th which is the next soonest date we could see a Coliseum-related legislative package.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 46 °F, and today you can expect highs to juuuuust creep into the 50s. Later this afternoon we may see some rain and other general crumminess. Things dry out for good this weekend, though.

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Tonight at 6:00 PM City Council will meet for their regularly scheduled meeting—one day later than regular due to Veterans Day—and the agenda is long and arduous (PDF). I wish there were some way to track this, but at 43 items, this feels like one of the longest agendas I’ve seen. Only 23 items out of 43 remain active at this moment, and surely more will be continued at today’s informal meeting. I wonder what it means—if anything—that items keep on stacking up rather than making their way to a final vote? Anyway! Of note on tonight’s massive agenda: preventing the state-induced automatic reduction of real estate tax (but still keeping the tax at a much-too-low rate of $1.20), the modified Stone Brewing agreement (which will probably be continued), and a couple ordinances related to dogs and animal bites. Tonight’s show stopper, however, comes at the end of the meeting when the Mayor may introduce a package of ordinances to move the proposed Coliseum redevelopment project forward. Keep your eye on Mark Robinson’s Twitter account as he’ll most likely be in Council Chambers with a first look (assuming anything gets introduced at all).

Michael Paul Williams weighs in on the City’s proposal to move the Department of Social Services from behind City Hall to a deeply inaccessible spot on the Southside 💸. He is not pleased. Neither is locally-famous urban planning professional and professor John Moeser who says, “In a city known for its history, it’s bewildering how often we act as if we had no history at all.” Scudder Wagg, who helped redesign Richmond’s bus system and now works for international public transit expert Jarrett Walker, weighs in on Twitter with “There is no increase in bus service that could address this terrible location choice. This would dramatically increase the time it takes for people to reach the SS office and I would hope that @LevarStoney would reconsider.” I agree. Even with more of the folks served by Social Services living on the Southside, the proposed location is still harder to get to than Downtown—a lot of that has to do with land use and how southern Richmond is very dang spread out and poorly connected. For example, look at this hilarious trip from Walmsley and Route 1 to the proposed location that’s ostensibly also on Walmsley.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 35 °F, and rain dominates the forecast again. Expect temperatures in the 50s this morning, but rain to show up this afternoon and cool things down a bit. Bring your umbrella, of course.

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Late last week, police reported a murder that occurred on the 3300 block of Decatur Street. On Wednesday morning officers arrived and found Dawn S. Dutcher, 50, dead.

Photo by: sandy's dad

Good morning, RVA! It’s 49 °F, and the forecast today is filled with rain. Expect a decent chance of showers throughout the day, followed by a solidly sunny weekend.

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Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has some news about the City potentially relocating the Department of Social Services 💸 from directly behind City Hall to the deep, deep Southside in the old Philip Morris Operations Center. Robinson says the move is to “clear the way for the $1.4 billion redevelopment of the area around the Richmond Coliseum” and that 350 employees and 3,600 clients would now need to make their way out to the new location each and every day. That’s a lot of folks trying to get to a location that’s hard to access by anything other than a car. Sure, the area is currently served by a peak-only bus route, the #88 (PDF), but you’d think that would need to become an all-day route if the move were to happen. Right? I dunno, seems like a far-flung spot for something that needs to be fairly central. To be clear, I definitely have absolutely zero inside knowledge on this conversation, but, from the way, way outside it looks like a plan built without making equitable access a priority. That makes me sad, but I do reserve the right to be corrected and shown how the new location (paired with some transportation improvements) actually makes more sense for the folks who’d need to access it most. Until then, though, I’m sad. Also, while we’re talking new Southside bus routes, check out this more expensive option ($2.8 million) that would provide access to the proposed Social Services site while also improving frequencies across a big chunk of the Southside. Councilmembers Jones, Trammel, and Agelasto: You should check this out! It’s “Service Improvement 93” in GRTC’s TDP (PDF) and you could totally make it happen!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 56 °F, and temperatures will stick right where there are for most of the day. Seems like a reasonable fall day on deck.

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Well, I finally read through the entire 181-page coliseum redevelopment proposal PDF—which I’ve been asked to remind you is not a PDF of the actual proposal, but, instead, a PDF of the 3rd-party analysis of the proposal by Hunden Strategic Partners. Again, you can read through most of the interesting thoughts I had in this Twitter thread, but I am still stewing on at least three things. First, this PDF is not a description of the financial agreement that will make the project work. If you’re expecting specific details about the TIF, interest rates, debt repayment schedules, that kind of thing, you will be disappointed. And to be clear, this is information that folks definitely need to see (even if it’s boring and complicated)! Second, the Convention Center gets a heckuva deal: A new hotel, preferred booking rights in that hotel, access to additional space in the Blues Armory, and, correct me if I’m wrong, they’ll get the entirety of any new lodging taxes create by the project (PDF). I’ll be the first to admit that I know next to nothing about the convention and hotel business, but the arguments and charts and tables laid out in the Hunden PDF didn’t do it for me. Third, there’s almost no analysis of the GRTC Transfer Center. I’ve said before that the need for humane facilities for bus riders is super important, but the need for a single, massive downtown transfer point (several blocks off of Broad Street) is not pressing. Currently, buses do, however, need a spot to congregate in the evening, but I will be upset about a vast many other things if in 30 years (the length of this particular analysis) we haven’t improved bus service to obviate the need for an evening transfer point. If you’d like to weigh in on any of these topics or any other, the developer has scheduled a bunch of public engagement sessions. Interestingly, the last engagement session takes place several days after the final City Council meeting of the year, which I think says something about the timeline we’re working with.

The Urban Design Committee will meet today with a few interesting things on their agenda. Check out this pedestrian improvement and traffic calming project at the intersection of Shafer and Franklin (PDF). Although I’m not a super huge fan of brick crosswalks, this looks like it would slow traffic, improve visibility, and shorten the crossing distances for pedestrians. Tons of humans, VCU and otherwise, cross this intersection on the way to and from the Pulse station up on Broad Street. Speaking of, UDC will also look at streetscape improvements that were funded as part of the Pulse project. More details are theoretically contained within this PDF (PDF), but it was too big to open on my iPad, so I guess we’ll never know? Most exciting, again, theoretically because I can’t really look at the dang PDF, is the planned closure of a bunch of curb cuts. Finally, here are the conceptual “location, character, and extent review” for the new middle school (PDF) and new elementary school (PDF) that the meals tax increase bought us.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 54 °F, and today looks lovely. Expect highs in the upper 60s and lots of sunshine—for the next couple of days, even!

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Gah! What a stressful, wild-ride of an Election Night. Locally, Senator Tim Kaine won his reelection, dominating Corey Stewart—who will now, fingers crossed, just go away. Democratic women flipped three Republican congressional districts: Elaine Luria in the 2nd, Jennifer Wexton in the 10th, and, of course, Abigail Spanberger in the 7th. Cheryl Burke will continue to represent the City’s 7th District on the RPS School Board. Dan Schmitt won the Henrico Board of Supervisors Brookland District Special Election, handing control of the Board back to Republicans. And the two Constitutional Amendments both passed easily. Nationally, lots of things happened, but Democrats retook control of the House, Florida restored voting rights to millions of felons, and Michigan dramatically modernized their voting system. I had four goals going into last night: Democratic control of the House, Democratic control of the Henrico Board of Supervisors, SPANBERGER, and that racist Iowa Representative Steve King would lose. I went two for two.

This Back Page column in Style Weekly by Nikki Patterson-Russel is exactly the kind of thing I think about when we talk about rolling back the recession-era cuts to the property tax. We have deep, immense needs in Richmond—needs that stretch beyond schools and into public housing, affordable housing, and transportation. Whenever we decide to get up the political gumption to have a serious conversation about the property tax, we gotta think about all of our needs.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 56 °F and rainy. The rain will continue through the morning as temperatures warm up a bit—gross start to the day, though.

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Richmond police are reporting a murder that occurred the evening of November 2nd. At 6:46 PM, officers arrived to the 5700 block of Westover Village Drive and found Brandon Law, 22, shot to death.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 69 °F, and highs are back up in the 70s again. Rain will move in this evening, and clouds will fill the sky until then. The weekend’s weather is looking pretty fine, though!

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The proposed Coliseum redevelopment continues to dominate the news! Yesterday, after Mark Robinson’s report that the TIF had leveled up to a BigTIF, the Mayor’s office held a press conference to announce that “the City of Richmond has reached an agreement, in principle, with the nonprofit NH District Corporation for the development of the Navy Hill neighborhood north of Broad Street.” You can read a full transcript of the Mayor’s remarks here. I stopped by the press conference for a quick second and found a couple things interesting. First, in Stoney’s rundown of how this project would benefit Richmond, replacing the Coliseum came in eighth on the list—below jobs, contracts for minority businesses, affordable housing, a GRTC transfer center, restoring the Blues Armory, raising up Leigh Street to grade (!), and a 500-room hotel. Second, he said something that sounds like a soft no against rolling back the recession-era property tax cuts (at least until the State kicks in more funding for education): “We know the state has shortchanged Richmond Public Schools in education funding. And that same state government, which we are home to as a capital city, has many lovely buildings that occupy a substantial portion of our downtown—and don’t pay taxes. We can—and we are—demanding more. But until that happens, we can’t burden our homeowners and residents with more taxes and higher costs.” Third, he addressed what I wondered about in this space yesterday (and continue to wonder about): How much revenue will the area contained in the new BigTIF generate if we just let it grow organically? PDFs should drop today addressing this, but ahead of those he said, “In fact, based on the analysis of our third party, we believe that this project could provide our city with over $1.7 billion of revenue over 30 years. This far exceeds the revenue that would be generated if we did nothing. Ladies and Gentleman, there is a cost for doing nothing.” Of course, I wouldn’t characterize rebuilding the downtown neighborhood currently occupied by the hulking Coliseum with an interesting and thriving mix of small-scale uses as “doing nothing.” But I am, admittedly, an optimist who has read at least most of Jane Jacobs’s book. Anyway, stay tuned for those PDFs and for an ordinance to hit Council’s agenda in the next couple of weeks.

Medicaid expansion in Virginia went live yesterday, and Bridget Balch at the Richmond Times-Dispatch says a record number of folks are calling in to figure out what’s what. This is a big deal! Before yesterday’s expansions, Virginia’s Medicaid qualifications were embarrassing and draconic. As Virginia Interfaith Center’s Kim Bobo says in the aforelinked article, “[Medicaid expansion] puts flesh on the Golden Rule.”

Good morning, RVA! It’s 69 °F, and highs are back up in the 70s again. Rain will move in this evening, and clouds will fill the sky until then. The weekend’s weather is looking pretty fine, though!

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The proposed Coliseum redevelopment continues to dominate the news! Yesterday, after Mark Robinson’s report that the TIF had leveled up to a BigTIF, the Mayor’s office held a press conference to announce that “the City of Richmond has reached an agreement, in principle, with the nonprofit NH District Corporation for the development of the Navy Hill neighborhood north of Broad Street.” You can read a full transcript of the Mayor’s remarks here. I stopped by the press conference for a quick second and found a couple things interesting. First, in Stoney’s rundown of how this project would benefit Richmond, replacing the Coliseum came in eighth on the list—below jobs, contracts for minority businesses, affordable housing, a GRTC transfer center, restoring the Blues Armory, raising up Leigh Street to grade (!), and a 500-room hotel. Second, he said something that sounds like a soft no against rolling back the recession-era property tax cuts (at least until the State kicks in more funding for education): “We know the state has shortchanged Richmond Public Schools in education funding. And that same state government, which we are home to as a capital city, has many lovely buildings that occupy a substantial portion of our downtown—and don’t pay taxes. We can—and we are—demanding more. But until that happens, we can’t burden our homeowners and residents with more taxes and higher costs.” Third, he addressed what I wondered about in this space yesterday (and continue to wonder about): How much revenue will the area contained in the new BigTIF generate if we just let it grow organically? PDFs should drop today addressing this, but ahead of those he said, “In fact, based on the analysis of our third party, we believe that this project could provide our city with over $1.7 billion of revenue over 30 years. This far exceeds the revenue that would be generated if we did nothing. Ladies and Gentleman, there is a cost for doing nothing.” Of course, I wouldn’t characterize rebuilding the downtown neighborhood currently occupied by the hulking Coliseum with an interesting and thriving mix of small-scale uses as “doing nothing.” But I am, admittedly, an optimist who has read at least most of Jane Jacobs’s book. Anyway, stay tuned for those PDFs and for an ordinance to hit Council’s agenda in the next couple of weeks.

Medicaid expansion in Virginia went live yesterday, and Bridget Balch at the Richmond Times-Dispatch says a record number of folks are calling in to figure out what’s what. This is a big deal! Before yesterday’s expansions, Virginia’s Medicaid qualifications were embarrassing and draconic. As Virginia Interfaith Center’s Kim Bobo says in the aforelinked article, “[Medicaid expansion] puts flesh on the Golden Rule.”

Good morning, RVA! It’s 59 °F, and, look out!, highs today will hit 76 °F. Yeah, it’s November, but, whatever! Expect clear skies until tomorrow when some rain shows up.

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Whoa, Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a big update on the proposed Coliseum redevelopment plan. The TIF is now a BigTIF. First: Take all of the words that follow with a grain of salt as we still have not seen the official proposal from the Mayor’s office and are working from Robinson’s early FOIA and comments made to him by four unnamed members of City Council. Next, some background: To pay for all of the many things the Mayor included in his RFP for the redevelopment of the entire neighborhood around the Coliseum, developers have proposed a TIF district (that’s a Tax Increment Financing district). It works like this: The City begins to redevelop a district and just the increase in tax revenue from that district (which ostensible comes from all the new stuff being built) goes towards paying off the redevelopment. So technically the City is not paying for anything out of its general fund, but there is, of course, an opportunity cost of what could have been done with any organic increase in tax revenue from the District. The original size of the Coliseum TIF covered just the area of redevelopment, then it was expanded to included Dominion’s new towers a bit further south, now the new BigTIF captures half of Downtown, Monroe Ward, and Jackson Ward. I don’t know how big TIFs typically are in other American cities, but, dang, this is a massive expansion and would dedicate all new tax revenue in most of Richmond’s downtown toward a single neighborhood and do so for a long, long time. I understand that the North of Broad area (aka NoBro) has an extremely limited tax base due to all of the land owned by VCU, the City, and the State, but I have a hard time seeing how tax revenue generated in the newly rezoned Monroe Ward, or the currently exploding Arts District, needs to be linked to an arena and the surrounding neighborhood for decades. To be fair, we don’t yet know what the new revenue in the BigTIF will pay for—more affordable housing, better transit, new schools, all things I love and am in favor of. The most important question, though, is could we do more of those things I love if we forgot about replacing the Coliseum, let Downtown grow organically, and dumped all of the tax revenue into the general fund? I don’t know the answer to that question.

Here’s another piece by Mark Robinson in the paper, that is…something to keep an eye on. I guess?

Good morning, RVA! It’s 59 °F, and, look out!, highs today will hit 76 °F. Yeah, it’s November, but, whatever! Expect clear skies until tomorrow when some rain shows up.

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Whoa, Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a big update on the proposed Coliseum redevelopment plan. The TIF is now a BigTIF. First: Take all of the words that follow with a grain of salt as we still have not seen the official proposal from the Mayor’s office and are working from Robinson’s early FOIA and comments made to him by four unnamed members of City Council. Next, some background: To pay for all of the many things the Mayor included in his RFP for the redevelopment of the entire neighborhood around the Coliseum, developers have proposed a TIF district (that’s a Tax Increment Financing district). It works like this: The City begins to redevelop a district and just the increase in tax revenue from that district (which ostensible comes from all the new stuff being built) goes towards paying off the redevelopment. So technically the City is not paying for anything out of its general fund, but there is, of course, an opportunity cost of what could have been done with any organic increase in tax revenue from the District. The original size of the Coliseum TIF covered just the area of redevelopment, then it was expanded to included Dominion’s new towers a bit further south, now the new BigTIF captures half of Downtown, Monroe Ward, and Jackson Ward. I don’t know how big TIFs typically are in other American cities, but, dang, this is a massive expansion and would dedicate all new tax revenue in most of Richmond’s downtown toward a single neighborhood and do so for a long, long time. I understand that the North of Broad area (aka NoBro) has an extremely limited tax base due to all of the land owned by VCU, the City, and the State, but I have a hard time seeing how tax revenue generated in the newly rezoned Monroe Ward, or the currently exploding Arts District, needs to be linked to an arena and the surrounding neighborhood for decades. To be fair, we don’t yet know what the new revenue in the BigTIF will pay for—more affordable housing, better transit, new schools, all things I love and am in favor of. The most important question, though, is could we do more of those things I love if we forgot about replacing the Coliseum, let Downtown grow organically, and dumped all of the tax revenue into the general fund? I don’t know the answer to that question.

Here’s another piece by Mark Robinson in the paper, that is…something to keep an eye on. I guess?

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Good morning, RVA! It’s 47 °F, and highs today should climb up into the mid 60s. You might not even need your raddest fall coat today!

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If you read one article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch this morning, read this one about the change in police procedure and reduction in violent crimes in the City’s major public housing neighborhoods. Then please tell me what you think. Correlation != causation, and increased police presence is not always a good thing—or even something a neighborhood necessarily wants. This is definitely not my lived experience, and I don’t really feel comfortable spouting off about it (unlike every other thing), but would love to learn more.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 52 °F, and the rest of today looks pretty great. Get ready for highs in the 60s, some sun, some clouds, and all the reasons in the world to wear your coolest fall jacket.

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Two small City Council updates for this fine Monday. First, Council will have a special meeting at 4:00 PM to “set out Council’s assignments of the projected Fiscal Year 2018 year-end General Fund surplus.” While the surplus was north of $10 million, Council rules stipulate that 50% go toward the rainy day fund and 40% go towards infrastructure projects (can someone point me to this ordinance or resolution?). Get excited, because now’s the time when we watch our elected officials get really intense over loose change while they’re simultaneously about to pass an ordinance to maintain the oppressive Recession-era real estate tax cuts. Roll back those tax cuts to pre-Recession levels and suddenly we can actually, you know, pay for things. Second, today’s the regularly scheduled quarterly meeting of the Education Compact Team, and you can find the agenda here. Looks like they’ll discuss the plan for state-level advocacy, local funding models (e.g. property tax???), and the RPS strategic plan.

This stat, from a Mark Bowes report in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, is hard to believe: “Every day last year at least one gun on average was reported stolen from someone’s car or truck in the Richmond metropolitan area.” What?! Why are people keeping guns in their cars?? Don’t do that! Personal opinion: Guns are terrible. Factual statement: If you can’t be bothered to safely and securely store your deadly weapon you shouldn’t have one.

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Good morning, RVA! It’s 47 °F, and temperatures will stay right about there as rain moves into the area this morning and continues throughout the day. A Gloomy Gus day to start the weekend of sure!

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Michael Paul Williams, at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, writes today about Henrico’s Brookland District Special election 💸. By now y’all should be super familiar with the Courtney Lynch Saga and how Democratic control of the Board of Supervisors—and, presumably progressive policies like affordable housing and public transportation—hangs on the result of this upcoming special election. Williams, however, makes a decent case that the tide has turned in Henrico and that some of the progressive work we currently see in the County can’t be rolled back. As someone who’s astounded by the shift left the Board of Supervisors has made in the last couple years, I am reaaaaally interested in how this one plays out. We’ll see what’s what in a couple of weeks, I guess.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 41 °F, and I am finally back in Richmond! It’s chilly today as highs will stay in the mid 50s. Bundle up and spend some time walking around in the fall air, because tomorrow the rain arrives.

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I’m old enough to remember when Richmond’s urban chicken ordinance was all anyone could talk about. The Governmental Operations committee of City Council will meet today at 12:00 PM, and on their agenda is ORD. 2018–272 (PDF). This ordinance will increase the number of chickens you can keep in your urban backyard from four to six. The rationale for the increase: Apparently when you buy chickens they come in a package of six (a “clutch”)? I had no idea! More seriously and more importantly, ORD. 2018–241 (PDF) (patroned by Councilmembers Robertson, Agelasto, and Addison) will require the CAO to present a “homeless strategic plan” to Council every two years. A lot of this plan would focus on zoning(!) and land use.

Robert Zullo at the Virginia Mercury has a thorough (commentary) piece listing out a bunch of reasons why the Atlantic Coast Pipeline is a bad idea. This type of thing is one of the reasons I’m glad the Virginia Mercury exists.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 50 °F, and today you should expect plenty of sunshine to go along with temperatures near 60 °F. I believe they call this sort of weather “crisp.”

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Justin Mattingly at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has an article about Richmond’s compliance with the Every Student Succeeds Act (the thing that replaces No Child Left Behind). If I’m being honest, I really don’t understand what it all means, and reading more on the Virginia Department of Education’s website certainly didn’t clear anything up. My confused and uninformed take: I will focus on accreditation, which I understand, and will try not to get too caught up in whatever state-level machinations are happening behind the scenes.

Michael Martz, also at the RTD, has an update on the state’s Medicaid expansion which focuses on the work requirement 💸. Republicans are cheesed at the number and type of exemptions to the requirement: “[Delegate Chris] Jones questioned why, for example, the proposal would grant a general exemption to the requirement for victims of domestic violence, whom he said generally want to get back into the workforce for stability.” Unless something has changed or I am mistaken, if for some reason you fail to clock in 80 hours per month of “work” (which is defined as a couple different types of things) you can lose your benefits entirely. If that’s not how this works, someone please let me know, because the last thing we should be doing to folks going through trauma in their lives is taking away their health care.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 46 °F, and temperatures today should climb back up into the low 70s. Enjoy the relative warmth, because cooler weather returns tomorrow!

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Richmond Police are reporting that Rolando D. Williams, Jr., 24, was shot to death yesterday afternoon near the 400 block of Melmark Court on the City’s Southside. According to the RPD’s website, this is the 40th murder in 2018.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 41 °F, and highs today will hover around the low 60s. It’ll take awhile to get there, so make sure you leave the house wearing plenty of layers.

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Y’all! Last week, I forgot to mention that I’m in Pittsburgh through Wednesday for Rail~volution, a transit conference just as nerdy as it sounds. This impacts your life because Good Morning, RVA will switch into Lite Mode™ until I get back to Richmond. Take note!

Justin Mattingly at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a long and thorough piece about where we stand on school funding, new taxes, and Paul Goldman’s continued attempts to run the City via ballot referendum 💸. That last one, in particular, bothers me—the City’s Charter is not the place to cram all of these aspirational thoughts and feelings about schools or Coliseums.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 47 °F and highs today should stay in the mid 60s. Expect some rain tomorrow and then a chilly but sunny weekend.

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Today, the paper is FULL of thoughts and opinions on Superintendent Kamras’s announcement that he’d like to see the cuts to property taxes in the City rolled back to pre-recession levels. Everyone’s got a take! Important context before you dig in: If you own a home, your annual tax bill would increase by its assessed value divide by 1,000—aka just take off the last three zeros. For example, my family would pay $288 more each year to help generate the roughly $24 million budget increase. OK, with that in mind, first, Justin Mattingly and Mark Robinson talked to every member of City Council 💸, and, as you’d probably guess, most of them are not stoked on the idea. However, two Councilmembers didn’t instantly dismiss any sort of tax increase, which, I guess, is as close as we’re gonna get to elected folks supporting new revenue to pay for the many systemically underinvested City services. Those two were: Cynthia Newbille and Mike Jones from the 7th and 9th Districts, respectively. Second, Michael Paul Williams tells Kamras to stay in his lane 💸, but includes some pretty good, pro-tax quotes from UR associate proffesor Julian Hayter. And third, the Editorial board runs simultaneous, contradictory editorials with the first saying, “For decades, elected officials in Richmond treated school upkeep and maintenance like a political hot potato, passing it off as fast as possible. The city now owns a collection of school buildings that are literally in tatters.” and the second saying, “We understand Richmond city schools face greater socioeconomic challenges than either Chesterfield or Henrico, and we recognize that meeting those challenges might require extra funding — but how much more? As it stands, RPS spends about 40 percent more per student than adjoining counties and about 20 percent more than Norfolk. Those extra dollars certainly aren’t correlating to student achievement. What will spending more money accomplish?” Idk, maybe the District could spend the extra money on the school buildings that are literally in tatters? Overall, I am unsurprised yet disappointed that very few of our leaders will acknowledge (at least publicly) that to get better schools, affordable housing, and transportation we’re going to have to pay for it—and the property tax is 100% the way we do that. I realize that not everyone can afford to do so, but I am able, willing, and excited to pay a couple hundred more dollars each year to begin undoing the decades of disinvestment and start building a better Richmond. Are you?

Michelle Hankerson at the Virginia Mercury says the State has picked a redistricting nerd to redraw Virginia’s racially gerrymandered districts. Bernard Grofman redrew Virginia’s 3rd District back in 2015.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 51 °F, and, while bright and sunshiney, highs today may not even hit 60 °F. It took awhile, but fall is officially here.

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Yesterday afternoon, RPS Superintendent Kamras sent out a middle-of-the-week email, which always means big news. This email, about schools funding, was no exception! First, he announced the MarchForMore, a march on the Capitol on December 8th for more state-level education funding. He wants the state, at the very minimum, to cough up “1) an increase in the percentage of Virginia Lottery proceeds that come to schools; 2) an increase in the “at-risk add-on” for students who grow up in poverty and face other challenges; and 3) a special pot of money for school divisions currently under a Memorandum of Understanding with the VDOE (such as RPS).” With this part, Mayor Stoney is onboard (at least generally—I’m not sure whether he supports Kamras’s specific requests), and it’s nice to see him follow through on his campaign promise to be an advocate for the City at the General Assembly. Second, and more dramatic, Kamras called for rolling property tax cuts back to pre-recession levels: moving the rate from $1.20 per $100 of assessed value to $1.30. He says this would raise $20 million annually, and he’d like “2/3 of this new revenue for operating costs and 1/3 to finance debt for new school construction.” Property tax is the single largest slice of the City’s revenue pie and is the only slice big enough to catch up on our massive underinvestments in transportation, housing, and, of course, schools. So I’m not hear to argue against increasing the property tax, but…maybe we should increase it even more and not dedicate the entire thing to schools? I know it seems like I hate children when I say that, but we’ve got pressing needs on a lot of fronts and, personal opinion, we could get really broad support for a more robust increase in the tax if it was’t all going strictly to schools. Quibbles aside, I’m really glad to see one of our City’s leaders proposing and pushing for bold policy—of course, dudeman doesn’t have to worry about re-election like some of the other folks in town which makes his mid-week email proclamations a bit easier.

City Council committees have some seriously interesting agendas lately. Today the Finance and Economic Development committee will meet at 3:00 PM and consider all sorts of housing-related papers. Top of the list is Councilmember Gray’s ordinance to create tax deferrals for folks whose property values have increased significantly (ORD. 2018–236). I’ve talked about this before and how the lack of an income cap concerns me. Additionally, do property tax deferrals even help prevent gentrification? The abstract of this PDF which I have not yet read in full says not really, “We find some evidence that property tax pressure can trigger involuntary moves by homeowners, but no evidence that such displacement is more common in gentrifying neighborhoods than elsewhere, nor that property tax limitation protects long-term homeowners in gentrifying neighborhoods. We do find evidence that gentrification directly displaces renters.” Also on deck is ORD. 2018–238 which would send proceeds from tax-delinquent property sales into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, and a $16 million bond issuance from RRHA (RES. 2018-R093) to pay for multifamily rental housing at 1125 Commerce Road.

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Good morning, RVA! It’s 59 °F, and today we’ve got highs right around 70 °F and lots of sunshine on deck. Enjoy!

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Richmond Police are reporting a murder that occurred Monday evening on the 600 block of Westover Hills Boulevard. Officers arrived and found Lee M. Hudson, Jr., 19, shot to death.

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Good morning, RVA! It’s 65 °F now, but you better bring some layers with you because temperatures will drop into the 50s today. Time to break out those flannels! Finally!

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City Council’s Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee will meet today at 1:00 PM in City Hall, and they have a packed agenda: The ordinance banning the Brook Road bike lane (ORD. 2018–194), renaming Boulevard to Arthur Ashe Boulevard (ORD. 2018–228), the dockless bike and scooter ordinance (ORD. 2018–262), and a handful of affordable-housing-related ordinances from Councilmember Robertson. That’s a lot of things to work through, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them get continued down the road a bit. Here’s my list of micro hot takes: the anti-bike lane ordinance is terrible, let’s go ahead and rename the Boulevard, the scooter ordinance needs a few tweaks (but scooters are rad), and we probably should wrap our collective minds around a regional affordable housing strategy before passing all of these one-off laws (not that I’m specifically against any of them).

Good morning, RVA! It’s 61 °F, and today’s a bit warmer with highs near 80 °F. The rest of this week, though, we’re looking at temperatures in the 50s and 60s.

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Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch writes about Ramon Byrd, the first resident to move out of Creighton Court as part of RRHA’s ongoing plan to break up and rebuild public housing in the East End. Byrd will move into one of just 24 available units as construction of hundreds more on the old Armstrong High School site continues. There are 504 units in Creighton Court. However you do the math, there remains a ton of work left to make sure that everyone living in the neighborhood at the moment has a place to live before Creighton is torn down. Of course I can’t not mention how important transit is when we’re talking about housing for folks with very low incomes. If we build more and more affordable housing further and further away from the City (where land is cheaper) but increase a family’s transportation costs, have we really built affordable housing?

As the region’s premiere zoning and rezoning email provider, I must inform you that the City’s Planning Commission will consider a stack of papers to begin rezoning Monroe Ward in accordance with the Pulse Corridor Plan. You can see the list of papers here (PDF); they’re the ones in all-caps for some reason. Of note to people interested in nerdy zoning concepts is CPCR 2018–087 which removes the “inclined plane” requirement in the neighborhood. This requirement manages building heights by drawing an imaginary, diagonal line up and away from the center of the street and says every building must be below this line. An unintended consequence is that you can build taller buildings if you build them farther from the street—which makes for bad pedestrian environments. I have drawn an exceedingly professional diagram to illustrate this concept. The idea, of course, behind this rezoning is to allow for denser and more transit-oriented development in neighborhoods close to the Pulse. Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense has a human-readable explanation of the changes.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 72 °F, and today we’ve got some sun and highs in the mid 80s. Of note: Rain from Hurricane Michael moves into the area tomorrow evening.

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Police are reporting a murder in the City’s East End. Monday night, officers arrived to the area near Accommodation and Coalter Streets and encountered a person driving a shooting victim to the hospital. The victim would later die from his injuries.

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Good morning, RVA! It’s 72 °F, and today the temperatures start to drop a wee bit in preparation for a plunge on Friday. Expect highs in the low 80s, some clouds, and a small chance of rain this afternoon.

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Yesterday, I wondered what reasons members of City Council would come up with to vote against Councilmember Jones’s RES. 2018-R073, a non-binding resolution that would request from the state city authority over Confederate monuments. In their 3–6 vote killing the resolution, Councilmembers first argued that we need to lobby the State for increased school funding, not for local control over monuments. To that, Superintendent Jason Kamras said, “Council, please don’t use RPS funding as reason to not support monument proposal by @thedrmikejones. 1) If we don’t stand up for what’s right, what are we telling kids about our values? 2) Nothing’s been stopping you from introducing paper before tonight to increase $ 4 RPS…” Dang! Then some Councilmembers said that since the Monument Avenue Commission only recommended taking down the Jeff Davis statue, that it’d be improper to ask the State for the authority to take them all down. Please keep in mind that this resolution said absolutely nothing about taking any monuments down at any time, just that the City would like to ask the state for authority over them. It was almost a resolution about absolutely nothing, yet only Councilmembers Jones, Newbille, and Robertson voted for taking the SMALLEST POSSIBLE step away from white supremacy. This was an easy one to get right, but a majority of City Council got it wrong.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 73 °F, and highs in the mid to upper 80s mean fall is still around the corner. You can expect more of the same until this weekend when temperatures should drop like whoa.

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City Council will meet tonight for their regularly scheduled meeting at 6:00 PM. Big on the agenda tonight: RES. 2018-R073, Councilmember Jones’s resolution to ask the General Assembly to give the City the authority to take down Confederate monuments. This resolution is the barest minimum of progress towards removing our huge, offensive statues and really should pass Council unanimously—mostly because it doesn’t do much of anything. This is a non-binding resolution to ask the State to do a thing (which they probably will not do) and says absolutely nothing about whether or not we should actually do the work of taking down these monuments. I’m looking forward to hearing what reasons the Councilmembers who decided to vote against this resolution come up with. Also of note on the agenda: Free GRTC fares on Election Day, tax incentives for the developer of 400 Hull Street Road in Manchester, and an interesting ordinance from Councilmember Robinson that looks to clarify what we mean by “affordable housing.” I’ll let the housing folks tell me if that last one is a good idea or not.

It’s becoming weekly advice, but you should read Superintendent Kamras’s email after a hard week for Richmond Public Schools and a hard week for America in general. I want to quote a few sentences that are about schools but, I think, apply to the larger moment as well: “The brutal facts are clear: RPS is a system in crisis. We have a moral obligation to be honest about the injustices, inequities, and inefficiencies gripping our division. But we also have a moral obligation to be undeterred in our commitment to confronting and defeating them. We must not remain mired in despair and defeatism. Our children expect us to stand up and lead with courage and an unwavering sense of possibility. And that’s exactly what we will do.”

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Good morning, RVA! It’s 75 °F, and…that’s today’s high. Expect a cloudy sky and these cooler temperatures to persist throughout the day and at least through Saturday.

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Richmond Times-Dispatch Special Correspondent Vanessa Remmers has a wonderful story about kids, soccer, and Southside Richmond’s Latinx community. Great photos by Daniel Sangjib Min, too. If, after reading about this rad program, you want to donate to Richmond Conexiones, the nonprofit dedicated to organizing these Southside soccer camps, you can do so at the very bottom of this page.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 71 °F, and what the what, highs are back up in the 90s today. Tomorrow, though, things begin to cool down for real.

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A reader went to City Council’s General Assembly legislative agenda workshop yesterday and sent along the agenda (PDF)! Highlights include: requests for a commission to find funding for public housing and tweaking the State legislation to allow Richmond to do inclusionary zoning; asks for improved education funding, transportation funding, and a state contribution to the local affordable housing trust fund; plus a handful of common-sense gun violence reforms. These are all great potential policies and ideas, but, until there’s actual political pressure from actual constituents, they’re likely to stay theoretical ideas on an agenda PDF. Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a meeting recap with a few quotes and strategy suggestions from Sen. McClellan.

Related, the Mayor launched a new ad/marketing campaign called Change for RVA Schools to remind folks that every time you eat food from a restaurant within the City limits, you contribute meals tax money toward building new schools. You can watch a very professional-looking video here. The fact that there (finally) seems to be a coordinated effort to improve Richmond Public Schools—one with a bunch of folks involved, for example the Change for RVA Schools website is hosted by the local tourism group—is really good news. Of course there is hard policy and political work ahead, but that work would be waaaaay harder without a broad coalition of folks at the ready.

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Good morning, RVA! It’s 70 °F, and temperatures are back up near 90 °F. You thought the cool, soothing balm of fall had arrived? THINK AGAIN.

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The Virginia Department of Education has released on-time graduation rates for school divisions and specific schools, and you can download the numbers in two huge Excel files. Richmond City has the lowest overall on-time graduation rate in the state, which you can read more about in this Justin Mattingly piece in the RTD. The data is a bit overwhelming, so I want to focus on one detail: I had a more spreadsheet-inclined friend point out to me that Hispanic students (there were 177 of them in the class of 2018) have an on-time graduation rate of just 38.4%, compared to 75.4% district wide. Out of those students, 74% attend Huguenot High School (which itself has a lower on-time graduation rate than the rest of the division). When Genevieve Siegel-Hawley talks about repeating a cycle of segregated schools with bad outcomes for students (PDF), this is the kind of thing that I start thinking about.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 67 °F, and todays highs will creep back up into the mid 80s. Add that to plenty of sun, and we’ve got a pretty warm day on deck.

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Michael Paul Williams opens his new column on who’s to blame for the state of Richmond Public Schools 💸 with a Jay-Z quote that most likely zooms by, far over the heads of a large portion of the paper’s subscription base. While MPW says there’s no time to point fingers and assign blame for the current situation, he does spend a significant number of words pointing fingers directly at Kamras’s administration for a few changes to RPS’s organization structure that run counter to one of the audits I linked to yesterday. I’ve seen this criticism highlighted in a couple of stories over the past few days. For context, though, the audit in question (PDF) lists 21 recommendations, several of which have many sub recommendations, and span six entire pages (about 10%) of the document. There are a lot of recommendations. I don’t know why we’re so hung up on this one thing? You could write many, many more interesting stories (maybe one about how currently the District lacks regular reconciliation of accounts 😳), but it’s like we‘re excited to tear down the new guy before he even gets started. I dunno. Moving forward, I‘m looking forward to however the Superintendent plans to address (or maybe not address) both of the audits’ recommendations.

Mike Platania at Richmond BizSense says Planning Commission approved new apartments near the post office on Brook Road. The apartments will require a zoning change, but they do fit in with the 2016 VUU Chamberlayne Neighborhood Plan that is an actual factual part of the city’s current Master Plan. This is a good example of why master plans are important, and, as a fun homework assignment, you should download the neighborhood plan (PDF) and the project plan (PDF) and decide for yourself whether or not the new apartments are a good fit for the area and inline with the Master Plan. Fun homework, I say!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 65 °F, and today looks amazing. Expect sunshine and highs in the low 80s. Spend some time outside doing stuff!

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Richmond Police are reporting that Wayne E. Friday, 35, was murdered on Friday night. Officers arrived to the 1600 block of N. 19th Street and found Friday shot to death.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 65 °F, and today looks amazing. Expect sunshine and highs in the low 80s. Spend some time outside doing stuff!

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Richmond Police are reporting that Wayne E. Friday, 35, was murdered on Friday night. Officers arrived to the 1600 block of N. 19th Street and found Friday shot to death.

Photo by: sandy's dad

Good morning, RVA! It’s 61 °F, and highs today will top out around 80 °F. Keep an eye out for some brief rain, but expect a mostly cooler and cloudy day.

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The Mayor has announced that the Conrad Center, over on Oliver Hill Way, will serve as the City’s Cold Weather Shelter for 2018–2019. This is a nice and fairly new facility and definitely an improvement over the deteriorating Public Safety Building. Unfortunately, the Conrad Center is in a public transit wasteland and you’ve got to walk about 15–20 minutes to get there depending on which direction you’re coming from. With any luck, next year the City will find a partner organization to work with that has a good location that’s easily accessible by folks of all mobility levels.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 71 °F, and temperatures will drop just a tiny bit throughout the day as rain clouds move in. Cooler days await!

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Colleen Curran at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has an update on the Museum of the Confederacy, which will close this weekend. The American Civil War Museum has already subsumed the Museum of the Confederacy way back in 2013, and finally moving the latter down to Tedegar from their enclave deep within the VCU Medical Center seems smart. It’s definitely weird to have a ton of Confederacy stuff, with no other context or interpretation, stuck in the middle of a hospital complex. I’m glad to see it move!

Monroe Park was already kinda open, but today at 3:00 PM it officially opens with a ribbon cutting ceremony ft. the Mayor, VCU President Michael Rao, and Monroe Park Conservancy President Alice Massie. I rode through the park yesterday, and it was filled with folks just hanging out. I loved it, and it’s great to have what was a huge hole in the city filled back in with green space.

Photo by: Tim Evanson

Good morning, RVA! It’s 73 °F, and today you should expect highs in the mid 80s with a chance of storms this evening.

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The Mayor introduced his first take at an ordinance regulating dockless, shareable vehicles (aka scooters and bikes) on Monday, and it finally made its way to legistar for you to download and read (PDF). The regulations require companies to acquire a permit that lasts for one year; set an annual fee of $40,000 for under 100 vehicles; define where users can and cannot park a scooter (17 sub bullets(!) found on p. 6); request applicants to provide a pricing structure for low-income users and a way for bankless customers to use the system; and demand data sharing with the City. I’m pretty pleased with this ordinance and application, and I think its got all the pieces I was after. One weirdness/quibble: The text of the ordinance seems to only allow for 100 vehicles per vendor, while the text of the application allows for tiers of up to 500. 100 is far to few—we’ve probably got more Birds than that on the ground now—and I expect that number to go up as the ordinance winds its way through the legislative process. ORD. 2018–262 will head to the Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee on October 16th.

Photo by: Tim Evanson

Good morning, RVA! It’s 73 °F, and today you should expect highs in the mid 80s with a chance of storms this evening.

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The Mayor introduced his first take at an ordinance regulating dockless, shareable vehicles (aka scooters and bikes) on Monday, and it finally made its way to legistar for you to download and read (PDF). The regulations require companies to acquire a permit that lasts for one year; set an annual fee of $40,000 for under 100 vehicles; define where users can and cannot park a scooter (17 sub bullets(!) found on p. 6); request applicants to provide a pricing structure for low-income users and a way for bankless customers to use the system; and demand data sharing with the City. I’m pretty pleased with this ordinance and application, and I think its got all the pieces I was after. One weirdness/quibble: The text of the ordinance seems to only allow for 100 vehicles per vendor, while the text of the application allows for tiers of up to 500. 100 is far to few—we’ve probably got more Birds than that on the ground now—and I expect that number to go up as the ordinance winds its way through the legislative process. ORD. 2018–262 will head to the Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee on October 16th.

Photo by: sandy's dad

Good morning, RVA! It’s 71 °F, and today we’ve got highs in the mid 80s and probably a respite from the rain. Enjoy!

Water cooler

At last night’s City Council meeting, councilmembers approved a resolution in support of the off-track betting emporium proposed for an old K-Mart on Midlothian Turnpike. They also adopted ORD. 2018–205 (which I forgot to talk about yesterday), making the Public Art Master Plan an official part of the city’s existing Master Plan. You can read through the amended plan (PDF), which has some fascinating edits that illustrate a bit of the tension in deciding who controls what when it comes to public art. Also on this topic, last night several councilmembers spoke in support of public art and of its importance to the community. Just so we’re all on the same page, here’s the list of councilmembers who supported taking $2 million from the Percent For Arts Fund this past budget cycle to pay for their own amendments to the Capital Improvement Program: Andreas Addison, Kim Gray, Kristen Larson, Ellen Robertson, and Cynthia Newbille.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 64 °F and looks like we’ve got plenty of clouds and potentially some rain in our future. Highs will top out around the mid 70s.

Water cooler

City Council will meet tonight at 6:00 PM for their regularly scheduled meeting, and you can find the agenda here (PDF)—as always, be aware that it can and will change at the councilmembers’ whims between now and then. Some important highlights: ORD. 2018–194, the ordinance banning bike lanes on Brook Road, has been continued until November 13th; ORD. 2018–153 which reinstates a southbound left turn from Belvidere onto Broad (thereby screwing up the timing of the Pulse) has been continued until December 10th; Councilmember Jones’s resolution asking the state for local control of our Confederate monuments has been continued until October 8th; almost every interesting housing ordinance has also been continued; and there are a ton of ordinances accepting funding from VDOT to build and improve sidewalks throughout the City. It looks like Council will adopt a resolution in support of an off-track betting facility in the 9th District with up to 700 “historical racing terminals (PDF)”—read more about that from Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Also, the Mayor will probably introduce his scooter ordinance tonight which means we should get a peek at the specifics tomorrow.

In affordable housing news, the Community Foundation has awarded the Maggie Walker Community Land Trust a $1 million grant. The Trust is an important piece of our region’s affordable housing strategy (in as much as we have a stated strategy as a region), and this grant will allow them to add 40 properties to their portfolio. Remember, this should be just one tool in our affordable housing toolkit! The Trust deals in single family homes and makes those available to folks who earn up to 80% of the Area Median Income (or 115% depending on the program). Richmond needs more multi-family residential homes and they need to be affordable to people making much less than 80% AMI. You can read more about the Trust and how they keep homes permanently affordable over on their website.

Photo by: cpjRVA

Good morning, RVA! It’s 71 °F, and today’s forecast looks a lot like yesterday’s: Highs in the mid 80s and plenty of sunshine.

Water cooler

I enjoyed reading this long piece from Sarah King at Richmond Magazine about Alina Kilpatrick—Abbie Arevalo Herrera’s lawyer. Herrera is the woman seeking asylum from domestic violence at First Unitarian Universalist Church, and Kilpatrick seems uniquely suited for the job of defending her and guiding her through the legal system.