Good morning, RVA! It’s 43 °F, and that cold front definitely showed up. Today you can expect highs in the 50s, a lot of sunshine, and temperatures at—or even below—freezing overnight. If you’ve got freeze-sensitive plants outside, they may need a little extra care to get through the next couple of nights. Temperatures will start to creep back up on Friday, so hang tight!
 

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Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense reports that Local Initiatives Support Corp (LISC) announced they will match the City’s five-year, $50 million investment in affordable housing. That brings in $100 million over just five years to help address Richmond’s affordable housing crisis, and LISC’s president says that the investment even “leverages significantly more.” It’s a lot of money to spend in a pretty short amount of time, and it feels like the scale of investment you’ll really see on the ground. One thing I’d love to learn more about, though, is how the City will prioritize and make decisions around spending this money—because we could do a lot of creative things with all this cash!
 

Back in 2020, the General Assembly allowed public school teachers to unionize, and, pretty quickly thereafter, the RPS School Board voted to approve collective bargaining. Now the Henrico Education Association is working to secure those same rights for teachers in the County. You can learn more about those efforts to unionize here, as well as sign an authorization card that will help press the issue with the HCPS board should they not want to introduce collective bargaining in the District on their own. I would guess that this will be a much more complicated and challenge piece of advocacy than it was in Richmond—but it’s definitely not impossible! If you’re a Henrico educator, tap through to learn more.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 48 °F, rainy, and a heck of a lot colder than yesterday. Today you can expect cloudy skies and highs in the 50s, which is a full 30-degree drop from just 18 hours ago! The rain should, with any luck, move out of the area at some point later this morning. Warmer—but maybe not unseasonable—temperatures could make an appearance at the end of this week, but, until then, grab your boots and flannels!
 

Since it’s Halloween, and I spend most of my free time watching horror movies, I thought I’d suggest a horror film to pair with each news item. For this morning’s cold, wet weather, I’m going with John Carpenter’s The Fog. Something about today’s weather just says “reanimated fisherfolk” to me.
 

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Jack Jacobs at Richmond BizSense reports that, in 2025, GRTC will “add four 60-foot-long articulated buses to the fleet dedicated to the Pulse.” The new bendy buses will hold 120 passengers, a significant upgrade compared to the existing 40-foot buses which have a 76-person capacity. Also interesting, to bus people at least, these new buses will be built by New Flyer instead of Gillig, which makes all of GRTC’s current 40-foot buses that you know and love. Look at us! Articulated buses! This is some big-city stuff!
 

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Good morning, RVA! It’s 63 °F, and today’s the last unseasonably warm day for at least the foreseeable future—and maybe for the rest of the year! You can expect highs in the mid 80s and a bit of rain to show up late this evening and into the morning, bringing with it a big cold front. Tomorrow, the spookiest day of the year, will see temperatures 30 degrees cooler than today!
 

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I have never seen MF BROOM, or MF DOOM for that matter, in person. The former—a tiny, cute street sweeper designed specifically to sweep bike lanes—launched a full year ago, and, presumably, did spend time in the City’s bike lanes cleaning out trash and debris. Maybe it did so under the cover of darkness or maybe only in places I don’t typically ride a bike, but either way I’ve haven’t seen this cool piece of equipment out merrily doing its cool and important job. VPM’s Ian M. Stewart solves the mystery of the missing sweeper, and reports that lack of trained operators has kept it off our streets for months now.. Luckily, for people who get excited about this sort of thing, Stewart also reports that MF BROOM should return to our bike lanes this spring (unlike MF DOOM, sadly), and that Richmonders can use the RVA311 app to check the sweeping schedule.
 

GRTC will shift it’s scheduled microtransit pilot launch to November 13th. Called LINK Microtransit, this on-demand transportation service allows riders to use a 3rd-party app to “call for a ride between any two places in a designated zone.” The LINK pilot replaces the #93 bus on the Northside and serves an area around Azalea Avenue and the racetrack. You can watch a charming intro video over on Instagram to learn more. Personally, I’m not a microtransit believer, but I am really interested to see if this pilot works out. Mostly I’m excited about a pilot existing at all! What a great, low-risk way to try something new and innovative—the City should take note!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 63 °F, and today’s the last unseasonably warm day for at least the foreseeable future—and maybe for the rest of the year! You can expect highs in the mid 80s and a bit of rain to show up late this evening and into the morning, bringing with it a big cold front. Tomorrow, the spookiest day of the year, will see temperatures 30 degrees cooler than today!
 

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I have never seen MF BROOM, or MF DOOM for that matter, in person. The former—a tiny, cute street sweeper designed specifically to sweep bike lanes—launched a full year ago, and, presumably, did spend time in the City’s bike lanes cleaning out trash and debris. Maybe it did so under the cover of darkness or maybe only in places I don’t typically ride a bike, but either way I’ve haven’t seen this cool piece of equipment out merrily doing its cool and important job. VPM’s Ian M. Stewart solves the mystery of the missing sweeper, and reports that lack of trained operators has kept it off our streets for months now.. Luckily, for people who get excited about this sort of thing, Stewart also reports that MF BROOM should return to our bike lanes this spring (unlike MF DOOM, sadly), and that Richmonders can use the RVA311 app to check the sweeping schedule.
 

GRTC will shift it’s scheduled microtransit pilot launch to November 13th. Called LINK Microtransit, this on-demand transportation service allows riders to use a 3rd-party app to “call for a ride between any two places in a designated zone.” The LINK pilot replaces the #93 bus on the Northside and serves an area around Azalea Avenue and the racetrack. You can watch a charming intro video over on Instagram to learn more. Personally, I’m not a microtransit believer, but I am really interested to see if this pilot works out. Mostly I’m excited about a pilot existing at all! What a great, low-risk way to try something new and innovative—the City should take note!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 57 °F, and highs today are back up in the 80s. The weekend ahead of us looks beautifully monotonous, though, with continued clear skies and summerish temperatures. I think…it’s hammock weather out there! I hope you find time to enjoy it, because more seasonal weather moves in this coming Tuesday and you may need to add a layer or two under your Halloween costume.
 

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The Washington Post has put together some pretty striking video of a foundry melting down Charlottesville’s Robert E. Lee statue in a 2,250-degree furnace. The whole thing was done in secret and is part of a really neat Swords Into Plowshares project that will create new public art out of the melted-down bronze that once made up the statue. There’s something weirdly cathartic about watching this video on loop.
 

Local reporter Mallory Noe-Payne, who you may remember from the Memory Wars podcast she put together with Pulitzer Prize Winner Michael Paul Williams, has a new one-hour special focused on Virginia’s felony disenfranchisement laws. Tap through to listen or to read a transcript of the whole thing, but here’s an excerpt to get you going: “Virginia is one of only three states with a constitution that permanently strips citizens with any felony conviction of their right to vote, and the only one of those three states that today doesn’t have a clear and public process for how someone can get that right back. It’s estimated that it impacts 12% of voting-age Black Virginians. That’s more than 1 in 10 not allowed to vote.” This is one of the more shameful parts of Virginia’s legal system, and, unfortunately, would require a constitutional amendment to change. The commonwealth’s Republicans, of course, have no interesting in passing such an amendment—which is also shameful and something that they themselves are ashamed of: “I sent interview requests to more than 50 state lawmakers who had voted against the amendment in the past, all Republicans. I got zero responses.”
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 54 °F, and, today, summerish temperatures return! Expect highs in the 80s this afternoon and for them to stretch on through next week. Are these record highs? Probably! Am I recovering from a fall cold? Yes! Will I still try to get out into the forest on my bicycle despite probably needing to rest? We’ll see!
 

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Remember last year when the Governor wanted to create permanent tax cuts for the wealthy but didn’t have the votes and settled instead for one-time rebates, $200 for individuals and $400 for families? Well, the Department of Taxation has set up a website to check if you’re eligible for those rebates (you gotta create an account first), and says the checks should hit your mailbox before December. The Cynical Part of Me raises an eyebrow at the near-election timing of this launch. The Regular Part of Me knows that the General Assembly just passed its budget a hot second ago and casual-sounding things like “setting up a website to check if you’re eligible” are actually huge projects for already overworked teams. Looking ahead, and given all the press releases I get from Youngkin’s team about the Commonwealth’s surging revenue, I’d guess those permanent tax cuts for the wealthy will make a return in this coming year’s budget, too. Just another reason why the November 7th election—in just 12 days!—is so very important. Make sure you’ve got a plan to vote, OK?
 

In other state government news, Ben Paviour at VPM reports on the ongoing mess at the Department of Elections and their decision to remove thousands of folks from the voter rolls. It’s hard to tell what’s actually going on here, and I’d argue that’s probably part of the point. Skip the confusion, and tap straight on through to the Department of Elections website to check your voter registration status right now.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 54 °F, and, today, summerish temperatures return! Expect highs in the 80s this afternoon and for them to stretch on through next week. Are these record highs? Probably! Am I recovering from a fall cold? Yes! Will I still try to get out into the forest on my bicycle despite probably needing to rest? We’ll see!
 

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Remember last year when the Governor wanted to create permanent tax cuts for the wealthy but didn’t have the votes and settled instead for one-time rebates, $200 for individuals and $400 for families? Well, the Department of Taxation has set up a website to check if you’re eligible for those rebates (you gotta create an account first), and says the checks should hit your mailbox before December. The Cynical Part of Me raises an eyebrow at the near-election timing of this launch. The Regular Part of Me knows that the General Assembly just passed its budget a hot second ago and casual-sounding things like “setting up a website to check if you’re eligible” are actually huge projects for already overworked teams. Looking ahead, and given all the press releases I get from Youngkin’s team about the Commonwealth’s surging revenue, I’d guess those permanent tax cuts for the wealthy will make a return in this coming year’s budget, too. Just another reason why the November 7th election—in just 12 days!—is so very important. Make sure you’ve got a plan to vote, OK?
 

In other state government news, Ben Paviour at VPM reports on the ongoing mess at the Department of Elections and their decision to remove thousands of folks from the voter rolls. It’s hard to tell what’s actually going on here, and I’d argue that’s probably part of the point. Skip the confusion, and tap straight on through to the Department of Elections website to check your voter registration status right now.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 47 °F, and today continues yesterday afternoon’s beautiful weather. Expect highs right around 80 °F and sunshine. We’ve got some really wonderful (and unseasonable) weather lined up over the next six or so days. Find time to enjoy it!
 

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This afternoon, City Council’s Governmental Operations committee meets with a very short agenda: just one paper, a cool presentation, and a discussion—luckily all three are interesting. First, GovOps will consider ORD. 2023–315 which is a second attempt at establishing a Public Utilities and Services Commission. I have no idea how this attempt differs from the previous one, but that previous paper, (ORD. 2023–188), has been withdrawn. Second, they’ll hear a combined sewer system program update presentation! This is a great and short presentation, and you’ll definitely want to check out slide five which lays out the cost effectiveness of all the proposed CSO projects. That’s cost effectiveness measured in cost per billion CFUs removed from the James River. I had to look it up, but I think “CFU” means Colony Forming Unit—like, colony of bacteria. That’s a neat measurement, and the Department of Public Utilities has a requirement to reduce the annual discharge of bacteria into the river by 3.6 million billion CFUs. The presentation ends with a call for Council to advocate for the state to restore the $100 million in CSO money they dropped from last year’s budget and to ask for $200 million in this coming year’s budget. These are definitely things you could ask your state legislators for, too, by the way (but maybe wait until after they’re elected in two weeks). I love this stuff! Third, GovOps will discuss City Charter next steps. This is an important discussion as Council probably needs to figure out their vibes on any changes to the Charter ASAP. Once we get too far into Budget Season and next year’s elections, I have a feeling these big structural changes might could get lost in the shuffle.
 

Jahd Khalil at VPM has some more reporting on Casino 2.0’s proposed wages. I’m fascinated by how hard it is to accurately talk about what people working at this casino will get paid, but, after doing some math and talking to some experts, Khalil estimates the “average” (again, it’s hard to even say what that word means here) wage for casino workers at $15.87 per hour. For context, he also points out that in just two years, the commonwealth will raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 40 °F right now, and I will not tell you the temperature in my “No Heat ‘til November” house. But! Today, highs will creep back up into the 70s and continue to increase through this coming Monday when we’ll see temperatures in the upper 80s. Again: Probably bad if you think too hard about it, but great for this weekend’s Halloween parties.
 

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Connor Scribner at VPM reports on how redlining and systemic racism impact homeownership in the Richmond region. This is a long piece that’s filled with a bunch of complicated, interlocking reasons why it’s a challenge for folks—especially people living in majority Black and Brown neighborhoods—to own, maintain, or keep up with the taxes on a home. For some additional reading, tap through to Damon Harris’s Teal House Company to learn more about his approach to equitable real estate that actually creates more homeowners. And, for additional context, check out the old redlining maps for Richmond so you have a sense of where these neighborhood sit.
 

The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Anna Bryson reports on the impending (or maybe already arriven) child care funding crisis. From the piece: “Expansions to a federal child care subsidy program expired Sept. 30, and an additional $15 billion in child care grants that target low-income families are set to end Sept. 30, 2024….child care providers and business leaders worry about how the loss of child care services for thousands of Virginians could affect families’ ability to afford child care and therefore be able to work.“ This funding cliff just exacerbates the existing child care crisis in Virginia. Remember, the State’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, just last week, reported that over three quarters of families cannot afford childcare. What’s more, 24,000 kids in Virginia could lose access to childcare should these federal funds evaporate (although Sen. Kaine thinks that number could stretch all the way to 80,000). This is such a huge problem that it really only feels fixable at the federal level, which is currently adrift in a see of dysfunction. Or maybe the state level: The Virginia Early Childhood Foundation found that it’d cost the commonwealth $320 million annually to preserve all of the current, about-to-vanish funding. I’m going to keep an eye on the Governor’s budget this year to see if/how he chooses to address the issue.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 40 °F, and that’s chilly! Today you can expect classic late-October highs in the mid 60s, but, looking at the extended forecast, I see a string of days with temperatures in the 80s later this week. While that’s definitely warmer than the average for this time of year, it does look pretty perfect. I’m choosing to not think too hard about what that means and to, instead, get excited for a week of great weather.
 

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Years ago, back when Outbreak was just a 1995 film starring Dustin Hoffman and not a way of life, Richmond Public Schools launched their Dreams4RPS strategic planning process. It was an incredibly impressive, deep, and involved process that ranks for me (along with Richmond 300) as one of the best public engagement processes we’ve seen in Richmond. Not only was the process great, but the School District actually uses the plan created by all that hard work. The RPS administration regularly presents updates on Dreams4RPS at School Board meetings, which, speaking as a person who enjoys a lot of plans and planing processes, is certainly not always the case. Now, five years later, RPS has kicked off the sequel, Dreams4RPS: Let’s Keep Dreaming. I’m sure Dreams4RPS:LKD will pop back up in the newsletter frequently, but, to get started, fill out the very open-ended feedback survey and put one of these district meetings (open to families, staff, students, and community members) on your calendar.
 

Axios Richmond’s Ned Oliver reports that I am a full 0.01% of the total number of people who have early voted in the upcoming election. If that seems like a lot, it should, because just 5,242 folks have cast an early ballot. It’s early still, but Oliver also points out that the Casino 2.0 folks have spent over $8 million to turn people out to the polls (plus bought them rides and BBQ!), and the dollar-per-vote at this point looks pretty grim.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 52 °F, and there’s a pretty good chance for rain this afternoon. Other than that, though, you can expect highs in the 70s while you’re watching the clouds roll in—and then roll right out, because the weekend looks dry, cool, and fantastic. I’ve got a bunch of garden-related tasks and bike riding to do, and I hope you’ve got similarly excellent plans.
 

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ArborDayRVA, Richmond’s big celebration of trees, kicks off today and runs through next Sunday, October 29th. You’re gonna want to tap through to the aforelinked website with your calendar handy, because there are a ton of tree-related and tree-adjacent events over the next nine days. I’m particularly keen on the tree identification bike ride, the native seed harvesting workshop, the Tree Equity Score Analyzer training (?!), and, of course, any of the tree giveaway events (and there are many). It’s a lot of treevents, which certainly seems appropriate given just how much trees do for our communities.
 

Colleen Curran at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Maya, a Mexican restaurant at 525 E. Grace Street has closed up shop and will move out to Short Pump. Important question: Is this block of Grace Street cursed? The other day, I grabbed a couple beers at Secret Sandwich Society and had to lock my bike up way down the block. Walking down Grace, between Fifth and Sixth, and I was shocked by how it is an absolutely ghost town over there—and has been for…a decade? Or more? What’s the deal with this block and why has the majority of it remained vacant for years and years? Does it have something to do with who owns the buildings? How do we un-curse this storefront retail space?
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 52 °F, and there’s a pretty good chance for rain this afternoon. Other than that, though, you can expect highs in the 70s while you’re watching the clouds roll in—and then roll right out, because the weekend looks dry, cool, and fantastic. I’ve got a bunch of garden-related tasks and bike riding to do, and I hope you’ve got similarly excellent plans.
 

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ArborDayRVA, Richmond’s big celebration of trees, kicks off today and runs through next Sunday, October 29th. You’re gonna want to tap through to the aforelinked website with your calendar handy, because there are a ton of tree-related and tree-adjacent events over the next nine days. I’m particularly keen on the tree identification bike ride, the native seed harvesting workshop, the Tree Equity Score Analyzer training (?!), and, of course, any of the tree giveaway events (and there are many). It’s a lot of treevents, which certainly seems appropriate given just how much trees do for our communities.
 

Colleen Curran at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Maya, a Mexican restaurant at 525 E. Grace Street has closed up shop and will move out to Short Pump. Important question: Is this block of Grace Street cursed? The other day, I grabbed a couple beers at Secret Sandwich Society and had to lock my bike up way down the block. Walking down Grace, between Fifth and Sixth, and I was shocked by how it is an absolutely ghost town over there—and has been for…a decade? Or more? What’s the deal with this block and why has the majority of it remained vacant for years and years? Does it have something to do with who owns the buildings? How do we un-curse this storefront retail space?
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 47 °F, and today’s weather looks great! Expect highs in the 70s and sunshine for most of the day. We’ve got a bit of rain still lingering around tomorrow afternoon’s forecast, but, other than that, I think we’re in store for a really excellent stretch of Richmond In The Fall!
 

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Yesterday, Henrico officially broke ground on the County’s first segment (and, I think, the first segment overall) of the 43-mile Fall Line Trail. This tiny little section of trail will cover about a quarter of a mile in Lakeside, swooping through the old Bank of America building parking lot and into the charming Spring Park. So exciting! While Henrico has a whole timeline laid out for construction of their future (and longer) bits and pieces of the Fall Line, I haven’t seen anything similar from Richmond or Chesterfield—but someone point me to it if it exists, please! Tom Lappas at the Henrico Citizen has some more details and a picture from the official ribbon cutting / ceremonial golden-shovel digging situation.
 

This afternoon, City Council’s Finance and Economic Development committee meets with at least two boring-but-interesting papers on their agenda. First, ORD. 2023–289 is the ordinance that Council must pass each and every year setting the real estate tax rate (usually at $1.20). If they do not, the rate defaults all the way back to $1.125 due to some ridiculous anti-city state law. Such a significant loss in revenue would have a brutal and immediate impact on City services! This paper is boring, because it passes each year with mostly no drama (see: brutal impact on City services). It’s interesting though, because in recent years there’s been talk of lowering the real estate tax rate as an incentive for approving the Casino 2.0 referendum. That (horrible) idea seems mostly dead in the water these days, though—especially since pro-casino Councilmember Jones is listed as this ordinance’s patron. Second, ORD. 2023–310 approves modifications to a parking space lease between the City and the federal government. This paper is clearly boring, but it’s also interesting because, due to the No TikTok on Government Devices Act, it includes an addendum “incorporating a prohibition on a ByteDance covered application.” See, interesting!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 51 °F, and temperatures have started to creep up a bit. Not that they’ve been unpleasant lately, but, this afternoon, you can expect really pleasant highs closer to 70 °F and maybe a bit more sunshine, too. Keep an eye on the forecast for Friday and Saturday, though, because the chances for rain have steadily increased over the last couple of days.
 

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The Virginia Mercury’s Meghan McIntyre reports on the ongoing process of Medicaid unwinding, which, in case you forgot: “For the past three years, anyone who was enrolled in Medicaid was allowed to keep their coverage regardless of whether or not they still met eligibility requirements like income level.” Now, in a sort of Office Space “we fixed the glitch” way, states are going through each enrollee to determine if those enrollees are still eligible. McIntyre reports that, so far, 160,000 Virginia have lost their coverage and, of those, 32% are to “procedural reasons rather than ineligibility.” 50,000 folks losing access to healthcare because of procedural paperwork sounds horrible to me, but it does sound like the State’s Department of Medical Assistance Services has some processes in place to get people reenrolled—and even provide retroactive coverage for some folks who got unnecessarily unwound. If this describes you or yours, you should get in contact with Cover VA.
 

Ned Oliver at Axios Richmond has some bananas reporting on the lengths the pro-casino folks are going to get folks out to the polls. Not only are they paying for potential voters’ Uber rides to early voting sites, they are handing out free lunch tickets for Hawk’s BBQ when they get there—“a pork sandwich, two pieces of fried fish or a jumbo kielbasa—all served with a drink and a side of fries or mac and cheese.” A Casino 2.0 spokesperson says, “We’re celebrating early voting…I don’t know if it’s that different than giving people water and snacks in line.” OK.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 45 °F, and today looks a lot like yesterday, with highs in the mid 60s alongside some here-and-there clouds. Temperatures will start to tick up tomorrow and lead us in to a really beautiful weekend. I know it’s only Tuesday, but I’m already thinking about my weekend plans.
 

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Yesterday, the City’s Department of Public Works announced that they will expand the use of Leading Pedestrian Intervals (LPIs) from 28 to 107 intersections. When an intersection has an LPI, the walk signals give people walking, rolling, or riding a head start before any of the traffic signals turn green. This lets folks safely move out into the intersection and into the drivers’ fields of view before the latter start zooming along on their way. LPIs are a good, clever use of existing infrastructure and do not require anyone to mix and pour concrete—always a financial and timeline plus. Paired with banning right-on-red, and LPIs give you a much safer intersection crossing for pedestrians. You can find the map of soon-to-be-upgraded intersections here, with the majority of those upgrades located Downtown, around VCU’s Monroe Park campus, and a few in Carytown.
 

Sarah Vogelsong at the Virginia Mercury reports something that every family with young children already knows: “Child care is unaffordable for the majority of Virginia families.” 85% of families with infants, 82% of families with toddlers, and 74% of families with preschoolers cannot afford childcare, according to the State’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC). Tap through for an absolutely brutal chart showing what percentage of a family’s income is required to afford childcare—an especially frightening number for families with just one adult. What to do about this crisis? Well, some of Governor Youngkin’s administration goes on record to push for reducing regulations as the solution, which JLARC pretty clearly says is not the issue. Instead the Commission points to consistently low wages for childcare workers, which leads to a workforce shortage, which leads to a decrease in the availability of childcare for Virginia’s families.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 44 °F, and today looks crisp! You can expect a partly cloudy sky with the extremely fall-like temperatures topping out right around 60 °F. Things’ll warm up a bit as the week progresses, but, for today, I’d definitely recommend wrapping up in a couple of layers.
 

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The City’s Planning Commission meets today, and you can check out their full agenda here. Scroll down a bit, and you’ll find ORD. 2023–281, which would amend the City’s Master Plan (aka Richmond 300) to classify all of Richmond’s public housing neighborhoods as “priority neighborhoods.” You can look through the entirely new Priority Neighborhoods chapter of the Master Plan in this massive PDF (starting on p. 83) and see some of the next steps for each neighborhood. In addition to the new chapter, a bunch of the Plan’s existing goals have been updated to include the new priority neighborhoods. Where Richmond 300 currently suggests developing new parks at “nodes” (remember, those are interesting places across the city where development can/should/is happening), it would now suggest we develop new parks at “nodes and priority neighborhoods.” I’ve only skimmed through the new chapter and the updated goals, but it’d be cool to have full-throated support for preserving and building more public housing.
 

Also related to Richmond 300, the City wants to put together a Cultural Resources Management Plan to “identify, preserve, and promote stewardship of a community’s cultural assets and historic resources.” The public portion of this process kicks off tonight with a meeting at 6:00 PM at the Main Library (101 E. Franklin Street), and, because every public process must, there is an accompanying survey that you can fill out. I thought this survey was kind of intense!—with its interesting Rorschach test of “which of the images above show historic buildings, sites, or place,” and, even more intense, “which of the buildings, sites, or places above are worthy of protection/preservation.” Yikes! “worthy” is such loaded language! I also didn’t love the zero-sum framing of “development/density pressure” as a threat to historic resources and communities—I don’t think this is an either/or! Like, old stuff is cool, for sure, but also we need to build more housing for people that are alive now.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 51 °F, and today is our last stunning day for awhile. You should do whatever you can to take advantage of the sunshine and the highs in the mid 70s, because clouds, cooler temperatures, and rain move in tomorrow. Looking ahead, and it might be a minute before we have an entirely bright and cheery day again.
 

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Lots of GRTC announcements this week! First, free Transit Royale membership on the excellent Transit app, and now the news that the GRTC Board has approved a north-south Bus Rapid Transit route. The gist is, from north to south: Down Chamberlayne, over to the Downtown Transfer Station, across the Manchester Bridge, out Hull Street for a bit, and then up to Midlothian for the rest of its run. I couldn’t find a more detailed route map, but maybe that’s the point, as approval of the route “sends GRTC on to more detailed traffic planning, route design, and environmental impact study.” It’s an interesting route, for sure, handling the question of which major corridor to use for the southern end by splitting time on both Hull Street and Midlothian. I look forward to more details, PDFs, studies, and chances to get involved!
 

Wyatt Gordon reports on a recent “walking audit” of Chamberlayne Avenue—a sort of first-hand tour of bad and unsafe infrastructure. Unmentioned: These incredibly intense bollards that protect some sort of green electrical box in the middle of a street crossing. I think these bollards are most effective infrastructure on the entire corridor, and it’s not lost on me the lengths we’ll go to protect a green metal box but not actual human people. Anyway, I hope that by prioritizing the bus for an eventual Bus Rapid Transit route, we’ll see slower vehicle speeds along with investments in infrastructure for people (not boxes), and, as a result, we’ll end up with a much safer Chamberlayne.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 52 °F, and today looks a little warmer than yesterday and brings with it some absolutely perfect highs in the mid 70s. Rain will likely move in on Saturday, though, so take the next 48 hours and find some time to go enjoy the out-of-doors!
 

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Yesterday, GRTC announced exciting news for bus riders: They’ll now provide free Transit Royale subscriptions for all riders. This means that Richmond joins the list of growing municipalities to have an official relationship with the really wonderful and beautiful Transit app. If you ever need to ride the bus, this is the app to use. It’s useful, fun, and, most of all, much easier to use any other public transit app I’ve put on my phone. I can’t recommend it enough! With the free Transit Royale subscription users get a bunch of fun perks, but mostly I’m excited about how this illustrates GRTC’s commitment to providing a better and more modern experience for transit riders. Download the app, tap around a bit, and start planning your next trip today.
 

City Council’s Education and Human Services committee meets today at 2:00 PM with a short list of papers to consider but a handful of interesting presentations and discussion items. I can’t find the associated PDFs, but if you tune in at 2:00 PM you’ll hear updates on both “Children’s Funding Project fiscal mapping” and the state and federal early childhood funding cliff. As you probably guessed, these two things are related! I’m especially interested in the former as the Children’s Funding Project is a nonprofit that “helps communities and states expand equitable opportunities for children and youth through strategic public financing.” Certainly sounds like a PDF worth reading (if anyone has a copy, please send it my way). After these two presentations, the Committee will try to make space in their brains for Council’s upcoming legislative agenda, a homeless services update, and then they’ll hear from the RPS School Board.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 52 °F, and today looks a little warmer than yesterday and brings with it some absolutely perfect highs in the mid 70s. Rain will likely move in on Saturday, though, so take the next 48 hours and find some time to go enjoy the out-of-doors!
 

Water cooler

Yesterday, GRTC announced exciting news for bus riders: They’ll now provide free Transit Royale subscriptions for all riders. This means that Richmond joins the list of growing municipalities to have an official relationship with the really wonderful and beautiful Transit app. If you ever need to ride the bus, this is the app to use. It’s useful, fun, and, most of all, much easier to use any other public transit app I’ve put on my phone. I can’t recommend it enough! With the free Transit Royale subscription users get a bunch of fun perks, but mostly I’m excited about how this illustrates GRTC’s commitment to providing a better and more modern experience for transit riders. Download the app, tap around a bit, and start planning your next trip today.
 

City Council’s Education and Human Services committee meets today at 2:00 PM with a short list of papers to consider but a handful of interesting presentations and discussion items. I can’t find the associated PDFs, but if you tune in at 2:00 PM you’ll hear updates on both “Children’s Funding Project fiscal mapping” and the state and federal early childhood funding cliff. As you probably guessed, these two things are related! I’m especially interested in the former as the Children’s Funding Project is a nonprofit that “helps communities and states expand equitable opportunities for children and youth through strategic public financing.” Certainly sounds like a PDF worth reading (if anyone has a copy, please send it my way). After these two presentations, the Committee will try to make space in their brains for Council’s upcoming legislative agenda, a homeless services update, and then they’ll hear from the RPS School Board.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 50 °F, and today looks exactly like yesterday with highs right around 70 °F, plus a few more clouds. Things warm up tomorrow and Friday. After that, though, I’m gonna have a much harder time convincing my family to keep the heat cut off once the weekend’s cooler temperatures roll through.
 

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I don’t know what to make of this piece by Jahd Khalil at VPM about how Unite Here, a union representing hospitality workers and on the record opposing Casino 1.0, is now knocking on doors in support of Casino 2.0. Khalil reports a bunch of interesting details that I encourage you to tap through and read, but I’ll just quote two. First, “Unite Here and the developers of Richmond Grand Resort & Casino — Urban One and Churchill Downs — signed a labor peace agreement ‘earlier this year’…[the] vice president and Mid-Atlantic regional manager of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, said in a statement that this sets strong labor standards to protect Richmond’s workers and ensures that the development of Richmond Grand Resort & Casino will drive economic prosperity for the entire Richmond community.” Second, “Unite Here has a strong presence in the political ground game for Richmond’s casino question, bolstered by an $800,000 donation from the developers’ $8 million political war chest — and $250,000 from other groups, including other unions.”
 

Pulitzer Prize Winner Michael Paul Williams writes about Susanna Gibson and, more specifically, about an opinion piece from The Family Foundation of Virginia that the Richmond Times-Dispatch decided to run this past weekend. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Williams write with this much frustration and anger, and I’m here for it. I, Email Newsletter Haver Ross Catrow, haven’t written about Gibson yet, mostly because the whole thing also makes me frustrated and angry—plus I haven’t loved any of the coverage I’ve seen thus far. So, lacking something perfect to link to, I’ll say this: If I lived in the 57th District, which includes portions of Henrico, I would vote for Gibson in November, and I’d feel great about it. I wouldn’t even think twice about checking the box next to her name!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 47 °F, and I’ve got both a beanie and a hoodie on as I wait for my house to warm up this morning. Later today, though, looks lovely with sunshine and highs in the 70s. Expect more of the same—maybe even some slightly warmer temperatures—for the rest of the week.
 

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Joseph Maltby at the Henrico Citizen reports that The Densifiying of Willow Lawn, proposed by the site’s developer a while back, has cleared the County’s planning commission and will head to a public hearing on October 12th. The proposal stretches across multiple decades, but, over time, would fill in the surface-level parking lots, reconnect the street grid, and install some much needed pedestrian infrastructure. According to the Citizen, “eventually Willow Lawn would contain approximately 2,000 residential units and more than 500,000 square feet of commercial and office space.”—think Libbie Mill, but with more retail and a more urban feel. Seems cool, and gets me thinking about a thousand different ways to improve pedestrian, bike, and transit options in that area. How can we: Connect Willow Lawn to Libbie Mill? Add dedicated bus lanes to Broad Street, thereby narrowing and slowing that section? Widen sidewalks and improve street crossings? There’s all kinds of work to be done!
 

City Council gathers today for their regularly-scheduled-but-slightly-shifted-due-to-holiday meeting, and you can find their full agenda here. Of note to GMRVA readers: ORD. 2023–271, which upzones a section of N. Lombardy, sits on the consent agenda; the ordinance to establish a Public Utilities and Services Commission (ORD. 2023–188) has been continued until November 13th; and the process of the City acquiring Evergreen and East End Cemeteries has stalled out until at least December 11th (RES. 2023-R011). Pretty standard stuff this week! At least during their informal meeting, Council will get up to some interesting business and discuss contracts related to the Diamond District in a closed session.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 63 °F, and you can expect another foggy morning followed by a cloudy day with highs in the upper 70s. Cooler weather moves in tomorrow, and we’ll get to remember what temperatures in the 60s feel like. Other than a small chance for rain Saturday morning, I think this weekend looks pretty nice!
 

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Thank you to everyone who wrote in pointing me to this article in Richmond Magazine by Harry Kollatz Jr about the artist who designed the Greek-style columns currently marking Richmond’s city limits. I knew it existed! Y’all are so helpful, and almost everyone had a kind thing to say in addition to passing along the link. Thank you, again!
 

Jack Jacobs in Richmond BizSense reports that, this week, the Goochland Board of Supervisors rejected a small area plan that would have recommended some “mixed-use, commercial and residential development as well as road, pedestrian and recreational improvements for the area that sits just across the Goochland-Henrico line from Short Pump.” A while back I wrote about Goochland’s pending and important decision on how to plan for growth out that way, and, at the time, I said maybe they should just not and instead force development back into the already-sprawly parts of Henrico. That’s not exactly what’s happening here, and I’m nervous that, with the Board punting on making any decision at all, we’ll end up with unintentional sprawl—a big downgrade from what the small area plan recommended. I’m going to keep an eye on this, as three out of five Board members aren’t seeking reelection this November, and that new-look Board may have some stronger feelings about growth and development for the county moving forward.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 63 °F, and you can expect another foggy morning followed by a cloudy day with highs in the upper 70s. Cooler weather moves in tomorrow, and we’ll get to remember what temperatures in the 60s feel like. Other than a small chance for rain Saturday morning, I think this weekend looks pretty nice!
 

Water cooler

Thank you to everyone who wrote in pointing me to this article in Richmond Magazine by Harry Kollatz Jr about the artist who designed the Greek-style columns currently marking Richmond’s city limits. I knew it existed! Y’all are so helpful, and almost everyone had a kind thing to say in addition to passing along the link. Thank you, again!
 

Jack Jacobs in Richmond BizSense reports that, this week, the Goochland Board of Supervisors rejected a small area plan that would have recommended some “mixed-use, commercial and residential development as well as road, pedestrian and recreational improvements for the area that sits just across the Goochland-Henrico line from Short Pump.” A while back I wrote about Goochland’s pending and important decision on how to plan for growth out that way, and, at the time, I said maybe they should just not and instead force development back into the already-sprawly parts of Henrico. That’s not exactly what’s happening here, and I’m nervous that, with the Board punting on making any decision at all, we’ll end up with unintentional sprawl—a big downgrade from what the small area plan recommended. I’m going to keep an eye on this, as three out of five Board members aren’t seeking reelection this November, and that new-look Board may have some stronger feelings about growth and development for the county moving forward.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 57 °F, and, when I woke up this morning, fog had blanketed my entire world. It looked so peaceful out there but also a lot like the horror franchise Silent Hill, so I made my tea and quickly moved away from the window—you know, just in case. Today you can once again expect highs in the 80s with maybe a few more clouds than earlier in the week. We’ve got one more day of this perfect weather before cooler temperatures move in!
 

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Today the City’s Urban Design Committee meets to consider a single paper—UDC 2023–18—the final location, character, and extent review for a Gateway Sign on Hull Street Road near the Chippenham Parkway interchange. I, like you probably, thought “boring!”, but then tapped through to check out the proposed signage and was surprised to see the City’s newish logo incorporated into the design. Then, reading the staff report, I learned that “staff is currently working (but has not finalized) with other City departments to expand that signage package throughout the City to create a set of unified signage themes across wayfinding, gateway, neighborhood identification, and other types of specialized signage.” This sounds cool and rings a vague bell! Also ringing a vague bell is an article that I am nearly positive exists about the artist who created the Greek columns that currently mark some of the City’s gateway—send me a link if you can find it, please! Finally, several large, square planters sit in the concrete media today, and I wonder how we could repurpose those? Harden a right turn? Protect a bike lane? Lots of options if we’re willing to be creative!
 

Not about Richmond, but this article, originally in the Daily Progress by Jason Armesto, is absolutely bananas: Racist remarks flood Charlottesville City Council meeting. The headline undercuts the intensity of remarks, which are, maybe?, related to Charlottesville’s recent decisions around people experiencing homelessness: “it is worth noting that several of the speakers, when they weren’t using slurs or heiling Hitler, mentioned the city’s recent decision to remove the curfew at Market Street Park, where many homeless people have now set up tents.” I’m glad the Council’s attorney agreed they could end the public comments and close the meeting, but you can totally see a situation where a city’s legislators (and its residents) are forced to endure hours of racist monologues used as a tactic to grind the work of government to a halt. Scary and frustrating stuff.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 57 °F, and, when I woke up this morning, fog had blanketed my entire world. It looked so peaceful out there but also a lot like the horror franchise Silent Hill, so I made my tea and quickly moved away from the window—you know, just in case. Today you can once again expect highs in the 80s with maybe a few more clouds than earlier in the week. We’ve got one more day of this perfect weather before cooler temperatures move in!
 

Water cooler

Today the City’s Urban Design Committee meets to consider a single paper—UDC 2023–18—the final location, character, and extent review for a Gateway Sign on Hull Street Road near the Chippenham Parkway interchange. I, like you probably, thought “boring!”, but then tapped through to check out the proposed signage and was surprised to see the City’s newish logo incorporated into the design. Then, reading the staff report, I learned that “staff is currently working (but has not finalized) with other City departments to expand that signage package throughout the City to create a set of unified signage themes across wayfinding, gateway, neighborhood identification, and other types of specialized signage.” This sounds cool and rings a vague bell! Also ringing a vague bell is an article that I am nearly positive exists about the artist who created the Greek columns that currently mark some of the City’s gateway—send me a link if you can find it, please! Finally, several large, square planters sit in the concrete media today, and I wonder how we could repurpose those? Harden a right turn? Protect a bike lane? Lots of options if we’re willing to be creative!
 

Not about Richmond, but this article, originally in the Daily Progress by Jason Armesto, is absolutely bananas: Racist remarks flood Charlottesville City Council meeting. The headline undercuts the intensity of remarks, which are, maybe?, related to Charlottesville’s recent decisions around people experiencing homelessness: “it is worth noting that several of the speakers, when they weren’t using slurs or heiling Hitler, mentioned the city’s recent decision to remove the curfew at Market Street Park, where many homeless people have now set up tents.” I’m glad the Council’s attorney agreed they could end the public comments and close the meeting, but you can totally see a situation where a city’s legislators (and its residents) are forced to endure hours of racist monologues used as a tactic to grind the work of government to a halt. Scary and frustrating stuff.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 59 °F, and today you can expect highs around 80 °F and sunshiney skies. It’s another beautiful day in Richmond—take advantage of it! Next week may be the first official boots-and-flannel week, which is exciting, sure, but, until then, I’m going to celebrate every opportunity to not wear socks and there are at least a few of those left in 2023.
 

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Today at 2:20 PM FEMA will conduct a nationwide test of both the Emergency Alert System and the Wireless Emergency Alerts system. This means that around 2:20 PM every single cellphone that’s turned on will play some sort of shocking alert tone and display a message reading “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.” This should be especially alarming—which is totally the point—in congregate settings with a lot of people and phones like schools or offices or cellphone factories. I will definitely forget this is happening, be dramatically startled, possibly drop whatever I am holding, and probably make some sort of unintentional and embarrassing noise. Maybe the rest of you will remember and keep your cool!
 

Ben Paviour at VPM reports that “the state is working to resolve an issue that caused an unknown number of eligible voters to be removed from the state’s rolls.” This seems bad, and I agree with Sen. Surovell who finds the response to this issue from the Virginia Department of Elections plausible but says the new situation is “part of a pattern of mistakes” at the agency. While this particular mistake most likely effects people with previous felony convictions, I will (once again) recommend that everyone check their voter registration status (again).
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 60 °F, and you can expect highs in the 80s with lots of sunshine. Yesterday, I took some time to go get after it in the forest on my bike, and the weather was just so, so perfect—and we have more of the same lined up for this afternoon! I hope you can block off at least a little bit of time today to spend outside enjoying another wonderful October day in Richmond.
 

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After traffic violence killed two students in two separate incidents on VCU’s Monroe Park campus, the University commissioned a pedestrian safety study. That study has now wrapped up and you can read the press release about it or dig into the full, 41-page study. I confess that I pulled up the PDF with a pretty skeptical tap, but, turns out, there are some really great recommendations in there: Banning right turns on red, upgrading crosswalks, adding curb extensions, hardening left turns, and even closing some streets to vehicular traffic. I’m honestly surprised at how hard some of these recommendations go! However, each set of improvements comes with a bunch of implementations steps, most of which involve the City evaluating the recommendation and deciding if it is “justified.” We’ll just have to see what happens if the Department of Public Works dumps a bunch of cold water on some of these (pretty progressive) VCU-backed infrastructure plans. If VCU does manage to raise crosswalks, extend curbs, ban right-on-reds, the City should treat it as a pilot and begin extending the same treatments to its other pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods.
 

This piece in Richmond BizSense by Jonathan Spiers about VCU’s botched real estate deal with the City is so spicy. Save it for when you’ve got time to text quotes back and forth to your most fun local government group chat.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 60 °F, and today we’ve got a beautiful day ahead of us with sunny highs in the 80s. October is far and away my favorite time in Richmond, and it looks like this week—at least as far as the weather goes—will live up to my expectations!
 

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The City’s Planning Commission and City Council’s Organizational Development committee will both meet today. The former will tackle an interesting rezoning on N. Lombardy Street (ORD. 2023–271) which would allow for increased density and height along the block of N. Lombardy just west of Chamberlayne Avenue. Looks like the developers want to build a six-story apartment building, some first-floor retail, and shove the parking in the back. Then, later in the day, the Gov Ops committee will hear a presentation on the City’s legislative priorities for this upcoming General Assembly session. On the budget side of things, the City would like its $100 million in combined sewer overflow money back, thank you very much; alongside $15 million for Ancarrow’s Landing; and a separate bucket of funding from the State for street maintenance since Richmond functions as “the steat of state government and the capital city of the Commonwealth.” On the legislative side you’ll see some familiar items: a desperate plea for inclusionary zoning, a long-term owner occupancy program, a tweak to existing legislation that would allow “photo speed monitoring devices” on college campuses, and whatever changes to the Charter City Council decides to move forward on. It’s all good stuff, but I have no idea the likelihood of any of it making progress in the General Assembly this winter. Oh, also, OrgDev will consider that Public Utilities and Services Commission I’ve been on about for a while now (ORD. 2023–188).
 

Nathaniel Cline at the Virginia Mercury reports on possible changes to SMART SCALE—Virginia’s transportation funding process—that sound like a bunch of steps in the wrong direction. In fact, the State’s own Office of Intermodal Planning and Investment says that if the new changes were put in place today “75% of the bike and pedestrian projects recently funded through SMART SCALE would have gone unfunded.” Seems bad! It’s wild, in this, the year 2023, to read about the commonwealth doubling down on “new capacity highways” and “new interchanges.” If it were me, of course, I’d ban funding new interchanges and highway expansions for just a couple of years and, instead, pay for 100% of every locality’s bike and pedestrian plans.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 62 °F, and today looks a lot like the day before it and the day before that: Cloudy with highs in the 70s. However, things start to warm up over the weekend, and by the time Sunday rolls around we should, once again, see the sun in the sky and feel temperatures up near 80 °F. Next week looks like a great week of weather.
 

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I just linked to a bus survey earlier this week, but doesn’t it feel like we’ve been a little light on the transportation surveys lately? Certainly does to me, and this new survey from the State Trails Office comes at just the right time to fill that survey-shaped hole in my heart. They’d like your feedback on multi-use paths—like the Capital Trail and forthcoming Fall Line Trail—and what your priorities would be should we build a bunch of new trails. For me it’s always: More trails to more places with more safe connections to and from those trails.
 

The Richmond Public Schools Education Foundation’s Trauma Response Fund supports RPS students, families, and staff after they experience a horrible, traumatic event. Over the past three months, the Fund has “supported school communities impacted by neighborhood or household violence, including providing resources for grief and bereavement; provided direct financial assistance for families facing hardships due to fires and other crises; and funded essential counseling services for RPS employees.” It’s a really critical resource, and you can donate online this morning.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 54 °F, and, by now, you know the deal: Expect cloudy skies and temperatures around 70 °F. I’m definitely feeling the gloom—the sun popped up for a minute last night, and I ran outside to recharge quietly on the stoop like a plant. Don’t worry, just a couple more days of this persistent gray!
 

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The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Anna Bryson reports on another mess at the Virginia Department of Education, this time with the approval of a “new partnership with iTeach, a for-profit company offering online teacher training…[including] authorization to certify special education teachers.” The Board of Education approved the new partnership, but, turns out, at the time they didn’t know that iTeach’s special ed courses for teachers failed to meet the state’s standards! Double turns out: VDOE staff, though, knew about iTeach’s shortcomings and “pushed back against department leadership for pressing ahead with the special education courses even though they did not meet the state’s standards.” Triple turns out: “the Youngkin administration did not provide this document to members of the state Board of Education before they unanimously voted in June to approve partnerships with iTeach.” The whole matter’s made worse when the State Superintendent asks her FOIA officer to redact more information from the RTD’s public records request (which then becomes part of the public records request). Oof.
 

Fellow vote-by-mail aficionados, Dave Ress, also at the RTD, reports that the ballot you recently received may contain an error in the instructions! Ress says that the ballot still reminds you to have a witness sign the envelope, which is no longer required due to a recent change in state law. Annoying! Errors in voting-related materials have the potential to disenfranchise folks, so that’s not great (especially for a registrar that’s been in the news a bit too much over the past couple of years). Luckily(?) this error seems fairly minor and shouldn’t prevent most folks from getting their ballot filled out and sent back correctly.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 59 °F, and today we’ve got more of the same—which is not so bad. Expect highs right around 70 °F and more of those cloudy skies. Temperatures will start to creep up tomorrow, and the sun has tentative plans to return this weekend. As of right now, next week looks stunning.
 

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Yesterday, I got my mail-in ballot for this coming November’s election, which is, of course, very exciting. I really enjoy voting by mail: Filling out the piece of paper, carefully following all the instructions—you don’t get to join your fellow citizens in the corporate moment of Election Day, but, to me, it still feels like an important ceremony. It’s nice, and if you’d like to join me in voting by mail (separately, from our own homes), you have until October 27th to request your ballot from the Virginia Department of Elections.
 

But voting is just one part of participating in democracy! We need good, progressive candidates to vote for, too (preferably ones that constantly think about zoning and rezoning and love nothing more than a good public work survey). That candidate could be you! Yes, literally you! Every great candidate was, at some point, a person standing in their kitchen shouting about some issue and wondering aloud, “Fine, maybe I should just run!”
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 61 °F, and today we’ve got more of the same: Highs near 70 °F and a cloudy sky. I’m sure by Saturday, when the weather does start to shift, I’ll be tired of the gray and the gloom, but, until then, I’m still just stoked on the cooler temperatures and the lack of a tropical storm!
 

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@pastorhodge over on Twitter has pulled the average salaries for the Casino 2.0 project, and I think everyone should tap through and take a look. Super important note / caveat / thing to keep in mind: I couldn’t find the original PDF from which these screenshots come, but I still think it’s interesting enough dig into. Over the last couple of months, one of the narratives about the proposed Casino 2.0 has been that it will create lots of well-paying jobs. Depending on who’s speaking and who’s reporting, those jobs are sometimes described differently. Take a look at how the City’s Economic Development Director Leonard Sledge describes them in an NBC12 interview back in May: “‘1,300 great paying, direct jobs hired by the resort casino…’ The average pay, Sledge says, is around $55,000.” And now compare that with the text from Casino 2.0’s website: “The resort will create 1,300 new union backed careers that provide a pathway to the middle class with an average of more than $55,000 in annual compensation including benefits like healthcare and retirement.” Compensation does not equal Salary! What a critical distinction! In fact, the average salary for a Casino 2.0 job, according to these screenshots, is $42,195 in the first year, which then reduces to $35,600 in the following years. Only with the benefits package and only in the first year do you get anywhere close to $55,000. Just some quick context on those salaries, pulled from The Partnership for Housing Affordability: The Area Median Income in Richmond is $109,404, so these casino jobs might pay just 33% of the AMI. The average rent in South Richmond? $1,268! The math seems pretty brutal, with an individual’s rent possibly accounting for 42% of their living expenses. Maybe these are out of date numbers? Maybe the City has negotiated those higher wages out past the first year of operations (even though $42,000 is still just 39% of the AMI)? Maybe we’ll learn more today, because I keep getting press releases about an announcement this morning detailing a “significant development” related to casino jobs (press releases which, by the way, describe the jobs as “1,300 well-paying permanent careers averaging $55,000 in annual compensation”). I’d love to get the details straight, and if anyone has a link to this actual PDF, please send it along!
 

Last night City Council adopted all three of the papers I had my eyes on: ADUs everywhere (ORD. 2023–196), the new Airbnb regulations (ORD. 2023–235), and the resolution that gives Council’s support to using any theoretical Casino 2.0 money for childcare-related projects (including a Child Care and Education Trust Fund) (RES. 2023-R048). Those first two are pretty progressive pieces of legislation—especially for a city like Richmond which has sometimes tripped over itself while trying to take steps forward. I’m pretty happy about it all! It feels like Richmond’s got some serious momentum in the Planning department, and I hope they turn their hot hand to the next big project: Rewriting the zoning ordinance.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 63 °F, and for today, like most of the week, we’ve got cloudy skies and highs in the 70s. I’m not complaining—this sort of gray and temperate day is better than this past Saturday’s soaking and way preferred to the scorching summer that was.
 

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As of this morning you can once again order four free COVID-19 test from the USPS—a process that will take less than one minute out of your morning. I hope everyone reading along taps the previous link and fills out the form because 1) who doesn’t like free stuff, but also 2) we are definitely headed directly toward fall respiratory disease season. Luckily for us, and due to science, we’ve got vaccines to help protect against the flu, COVID-19 and RSV—sort of the big three of respiratory crud floating around at the moment. Katelyn Jetelina has put together a really nice Fall 2023 Vaccines chart that will tell you what the options are for each of the three vaccines, who is eligible, how well they work, and when you should get them. Testing and vaccination are just two of the tools in our public health toolbox, and we should take full advantage of them to keep ourselves and others healthy.
 

Corrections! I made two errors last week that I want to clean up. First, this cool-sounding City job, which I linked to because I thought it will fill the huge hole left by Maritza Pechin in the Department of Planning and Review, is actually in a different department (the Department of Public Works) and only open to internal candidates. It says both of these things right at the top of the page—one is even bold and underlined! Oops! Second, I made a joke about how hard it is for Richmonders to get to the Office of Elections down at the end of Laburnum Avenue for early voting, when I know full well that the City has two other locations for folks to turn in their ballots: City Hall (900 E. Broad Street) and the Hickory Hill Community Center (3000 E. Belt Boulevard).
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 62 °F, and today looks like another great weather day. Expect highs around 80 °F with maybe less sunshine than yesterday’s stunner. We’ve got at least another day and a half of excellent weather, so enjoy it before weekend weather rolls in and dumps buckets on us.
 

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Yesterday, Governor Youngkin signed Executive Directive Number Five which starts the process of ensuring “the responsible, ethical and transparent use of artificial intelligence technology by state government in order to protect the rights of Virginians and develop targeted, innovative uses for this emerging technology to help deliver a best-in-class state government.” The directive is short and worth reading, but if PDFs scare you, you can read the press release instead. Basically, it does two things: It asks the Office of Regulatory Management to, first, come up with some AI best uses and practices for state government, and, second, to identify some areas for piloting and testing AI—all by mid December. I think this is fascinating! The directive focuses mostly on state agencies and employees but also wants to how AI impacts K–12 education, too. And also this weird sentence, which sounds like a way to sneak more fossil-fuel power plants into unrelated recommendations: “Work with the Virginia Department of Energy to better understand the impact of Al on our power generation requirements within the Commonwealth resulting from the expected increase in energy demands due to the growing computing capacity requirements necessitated by increased adoption of AI.” Anyway, really interesting stuff, and, with a report due out right before winter break, I can’t wait!
 

Ben Paviour at VPM reports on the commonwealth’s new voter data-sharing agreement, a sort of haphazard thing cobbled together after the Governor forced Virginia out of its partnership with the Electronic Registration Information Center. I like the way Paviour tees it up: “The Virginia Department of Elections announced Wednesday it signed agreements with five states and the District of Columbia to share voter data. The move comes after the commonwealth quit a multistate partnership that is the target of right-wing conspiracy theories.” After reading through this piece, I definitely recommend that everyone check their vote registration status over on the Virginia Department of Elections website.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 61 °F, and what a beautiful day we’ve got ahead of us! Expect highs around 80 °F, sunshine, and an overwhelming urge to spend at least 30 minutes zoned out in the shade of a tree. Soak it up for the next few days, because it looks like rain will move in on Saturday.
 

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OK, a day later and we’ve got some follow up on the RPS School Board’s decision to modify the specialty school selection process to prioritize economically disadvantaged students. First, the Superintendent himself, in last night’s RPS Direct, says, “Then, when it comes time to apply for anything selective – like specialty high schools – we pretend the educational race is fair. But it’s not. In truth, low income children begin the race several yards behind the starting line. The changes adopted last night will make it a bit fairer by giving a small boost to the very talented low-income students who’ve been working themselves to the bone to win the race – despite starting well behind their higher income peers.” Second, Tracy Sears at WTVR has a recap of the School Board meeting with video of a couple public comments.
 

VPM’s Connor Scribner reminds me that City Council punted their decision on the ADUs Everywhere ordinance (ORD. 2023–196) to this fall so it’d better line up with the AirBnb ordinance (ORD. 2023–235). Scribner reports that Planning Commission recommended the ADU ordinance for approval, and it now sits on full Council’s agenda for their September 25th meeting. Should this ordinance pass, and I think it will, folks could build a small, additional unit in their back yards without having to ask the City for a Special Use Permit—a process that can take forever and involves both Planning Commission and full City Council. It’s an easy policy change that will give more people more places to live, and, as we learned in yesterday’s longread, that’s one of the best ways to keep housing affordable.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 56 °F, and today looks absolutely wonderful. Expect highs right around 80 °F, sunshine, and, then, at least two more days of the same. A sure sign of fall: Last night, for the first time in a long time, I spent part of my evening watching TV in the hammock. It was glorious.
 

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Alright, as per the ancient and time-honored tradition, RVADirt has the only coverage I could find this morning on last night’s RPS School Board meeting at which they discussed specialty school admissions. You can read through the entire thread on the smoking remains of Twitter. If I’m reading the details correctly, the Board adopted Option 3, the one suggested by the administration, with a 7–1–1 vote. That sort of blows my mind! I didn’t watch the meeting, so I have 1,000 questions, but will now patiently wait for some more reporting about details, timeline, and weird edge cases—like, for example, do economically disadvantaged kids who attend a private school count towards the five total seats allotted towards private and homeschool students?
 

Axios Richmond reports that the Casino 2.0 developers have “dumped a record $8.1 million into this year’s referendum campaign.” Tap through, because I just want to quote the whole piece at you, like this part: “The donations funding the pro-casino PAC are the largest single corporate contributions in Virginia history…the total contributions so far are more than three times the $2.6 million casino supporters spent during the 2021 referendum.” EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS! That’s bananas! Whatever we’re asking for in return should this thing pass is clearly orders of magnitude too small. For what it’s worth, I am still voting NO on Casino 2.0, regardless of how many ads I see on YouTube in the coming months.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 63 °F, and this morning we may need to wait for some rain to clear out before the beautiful weather shows up. After all that, expect highs near 80 °F and, fingers crossed, plenty of sunshine. Looks like a great start to a great week.
 

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The RPS School Board will discuss the proposed changes to the speciality school application process at their 6:00 PM meeting tonight. You can find the full agenda here and a great PDF explaining the potential changes here. Each proposed option hopes to achieve the following goal, which I will quote right from the PDF: “Make our specialty schools more reflective of the percentage of economically disadvantaged students in RPS while maintaining their rigor and unique characteristics.” Option 3, the option preferred by the RPS administration, is a bold set of changes. It would prioritize 50% of the seats at each speciality school for economically disadvantaged students, as well as offering seats to the top three scoring applicants from each of the eight RPS middle schools (and the top three private/homeschool students). I think the part of this proposal that will draw an intense amount of public comment is the second to last sentence on slide 31: “Any remaining seats would go to the next highest scoring application — regardless of RPS middle school or [economically disadvantaged] status — with a cap of 5 seats for private school/homeschool students.” That cap of five seats for private school kids will disrupt the future (and financial) plans of a lot of families who hope to send their kids to an RPS speciality school after some time away in one of the region’s private schools. Things to watch for at tonight’s meeting: If families of private school students show up for public comment and if the School Board starts to lean toward Option 1, which lacks the cap on private school students. Megan Pauly at VPM reports on an important timing detail: The speciality school application process begins next months, so the Board doesn’t have much time if it wants to impact this coming round of admissions.
 

Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense reports some bittersweet news for fans of zoning and rezoning: Maritza Pechin, Richmond’s deputy planning director, is leaving the City this week to take a job with the U.S. Department of Transportation. Pechin has absolutely crushed her time at the City’s Department of Planning, heading up planning processes for Richmond 300, the Diamond District, and probably a million other things. So while, on one hand, we’ll definitely miss her expertise and capacity, it is always nice to have folks looking out for Richmond at the federal level. Definitely keep an eye out for who gets tapped to fill Pechin’s role and pick up her full plate of really important work.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 58 °F, and, whoa, that number starts with a five! Today you can expect a beautiful, sunny day with highs in the upper 70s—like, with a seven! The weekend forecast looks wonderful, too, but maybe keep an eye out for some rain on Sunday and into Monday. For the next couple of days, if you’re looking, you can find me sitting on a bicycle with a big smile on my face. Have a great weekend!
 

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1st District School Boardmember Liz Doerr has put together a really nice email explaining the proposed changes to RPS’s specialty school selection process. Currently, the enrollment of the student bodies at the local speciality schools (think: the two governor’s schools, Franklin Military Academy, Open High, Community High) does not match the demographics of Richmond or its school district. To quote Boardmember Doerr, the goal with these proposed changes “is to make our specialty schools more reflective of the percentage of economically disadvantaged students in RPS while maintaining their rigor and unique characteristics.” To that end, the RPS administration has proposed to prioritize economically disadvantaged students for about half of the seats available at these specialty schools. That may seem like a lot, but about 70% of RPS students are categorized as economically disadvantaged. The superintendent lays out the whole process leading up to his preferred proposal (“Option 3”) and how it would impact enrollment in this really excellent presentation from this past Monday. Full disclosure: My child definitely benefited from the current, inequitable selection process and is now included in the numbers dramatically skewing Maggie Walker’s student body deeply toward well-off, white kids. Honestly, it’s hard for me to know how I’d write about this proposal if my son were a couple years younger and facing a change in the high school application process that would make it harder for him to get into the school of his choice. But that’s the whole point, right? 70% of his peers, neighbors, and fellow classmates already face decades-old, systemic challenges that make it harder for them to get into the school of their choice! It’s tough stuff and will involve a lot of really challenging conversations, but we must do what we can to break these entrenched and calcified systems and remake them in more equitable ways. That’s never easy. School Board will, theoretically, consider this proposal at their upcoming September 18th meeting.
 

Exciting news from the Virginia Mercury via the Capital News Service: Henrico County will break ground on their portion of the Fall Line Trail next month! Mostly this involves installing some infrastructure to make it a bit safer to cross from Bryan Park over Hermitage Road to Spring Park, but still! Progress!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 66 °F, and today you can expect highs around 80 °F, sunshine, and a decent drop in the humidity. I wore socks yesterday, which was the wrong decision, but maybe I’ll give it another go today.
 

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Patrick Larsen at VPM reports on a recent public meeting about that new methane-fired power plant Dominion wants to build in Chesterfield. First, I think advocates are doing a great job at consistently highlighting the ridiculousness of building new fossil-fuel infrastructure as our planet burns to death. Second, the picture at the top of this article is incredible—multiple inflatable T-Rexes with one ridden by a big-head Governor Youngkin and the other by a big-head Dominion CEO. The two apparently had a “race to climate oblivion.” This is amazing and, also, when did inflatable T-Rexes become so associated with running?
 

This morning at 10:00 AM, the City’s Urban Design Committee meets with a short agenda and will consider a single topic: The “expanded animal enclosure walkways at Maymont Park.” When I first read this, I pictured new enclosed paths designed specifically for the animals, with goats marching up and down walkways as hawks glided by. I wasn’t sure where those animals were going, but, as we all know, safe, protected infrastructure is really important. Unfortunately, these are just regular old paths for boring humans—ones that would update the existing wood paths with new, long-lasting, low-maintenance materials. You can read the project narrative and the staff report if you want more (disappointing!) info.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 70 °F, and, no fooling, my weather app says today’s highs will climb to a mere 83 °F! We’re only partway through September, so I do think it’s a bit too early to declare victory over the long hot summer, but still! You can expect clear skies and highs right in the 80s for the next bunch of days. Get out there and enjoy it—shred ‘till you’re dead, ride till you die, walk around your neighborhood, slip into the forest, or explore your alleyways. We’re heading straight for Richmond in the Fall, the best time of year!
 

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Yesterday, CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met and gave their stamp of approval to the new Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, and then, later in the day, the CDC director signed off, opening the doors to updated COVID-19 boosters at a pharmacy or medical provider near you. Katelyn Jetelina, aka Your Local Epidemiologist, has the cliff notes from the ACIP meeting, but the gist is: “Everyone 6 months and older is eligible for an updated COVID-19 vaccine this fall.” Sounds like CDC recommends you wait at least two months since your last vaccination to get the new one, though, so maybe pull up your calendar and do a bit of date math if you got boosted over the summer. I’m excited to make my own appointment, and I hope we’re creeping towards a world where COVID-19 vaccines become part of an annual (or twice annual) regular, boring vaccination process—just like flu, just another thing on your todo list.
 

Eric Kolenich at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that, as soon as this fall, VCU will start tearing down the buildings it owns near the Diamond District to make way for their new athletics village. While I guess the courts, fields, and support buildings that make up the athletic village are not strictly part of the City’s Diamond District plans, this seems like the first visible step towards completely transforming that part of town over the next handful of years.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 70 °F, and, no fooling, my weather app says today’s highs will climb to a mere 83 °F! We’re only partway through September, so I do think it’s a bit too early to declare victory over the long hot summer, but still! You can expect clear skies and highs right in the 80s for the next bunch of days. Get out there and enjoy it—shred ‘till you’re dead, ride till you die, walk around your neighborhood, slip into the forest, or explore your alleyways. We’re heading straight for Richmond in the Fall, the best time of year!
 

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Yesterday, CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met and gave their stamp of approval to the new Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, and then, later in the day, the CDC director signed off, opening the doors to updated COVID-19 boosters at a pharmacy or medical provider near you. Katelyn Jetelina, aka Your Local Epidemiologist, has the cliff notes from the ACIP meeting, but the gist is: “Everyone 6 months and older is eligible for an updated COVID-19 vaccine this fall.” Sounds like CDC recommends you wait at least two months since your last vaccination to get the new one, though, so maybe pull up your calendar and do a bit of date math if you got boosted over the summer. I’m excited to make my own appointment, and I hope we’re creeping towards a world where COVID-19 vaccines become part of an annual (or twice annual) regular, boring vaccination process—just like flu, just another thing on your todo list.
 

Eric Kolenich at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that, as soon as this fall, VCU will start tearing down the buildings it owns near the Diamond District to make way for their new athletics village. While I guess the courts, fields, and support buildings that make up the athletic village are not strictly part of the City’s Diamond District plans, this seems like the first visible step towards completely transforming that part of town over the next handful of years.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 68 °F, and today is the last full hot day for a good long while. Temperatures drop this evening, rain probably moves in tomorrow, and then we’ve got highs right around 80 °F for (almost) as far as the extended forecast can see. Until then, though, expect highs around 90 °F and soaked-through undershirts in your immediate future.
 

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Yesterday, the FDA authorized the new fall version of the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines. These new vaccines are monovalent, meaning they’re designed to protect against one strain of COIVD-19, the recent Omicron variant XBB 1.5. Then, at 10:00 AM today, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will meet to suss out the final details, and by tomorrow, fingers crossed, we should know more about who, when, and how folks can start getting their fall boosters. I’m stoked to get mine, because it sure feels like it’s been a while. I would even bet that a pharmacy near you will have appointments ready to go as soon as this weekend (but maybe wait until at least tomorrow before trying to snag one).
 

Ian M. Stewart at VPM stopped by the ribbon cutting for GRTC’s new Downtown Transfer Station and has a quick report. I love this quote from the mayor: “If we want to be a competitive, equitable and welcoming city, we have still a long ways to go…We got to continue to work on frequency, we got to continue to work on accessibility, we got to continue to work on more routes throughout the entire region.” Any time I see elected officials advocating for more frequent and far-reaching regional transit, I count it as progress. Now we just need commitments from the City and its regional partners to invest actual money in that frequency and expanded coverage. Stay tuned for the upcoming local budget season to see if any of the localities served by GRTC increase their contributions—or, if you’re feeling active this morning, send your elected representatives this article and ask them to invest in frequency and new routes, just like the mayor said.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 69 °F, and, yes today looks hot and humid with highs in the upper 80s. But! Upper 80s is certainly an improvement over upper 90s, isn’t it? Big relief comes on Thursday, so just hold tight.
 

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This past weekend saw two anti-Casino 2.0 editorials drop. First, from former city councilmember and once mayoral candidate Jon Baliles, this scathing piece in RVA Mag. I don’t think I disagree with any of the meat in this piece (but the tone did make me stress sweat a little). Like I did last week, Baliles points to the mayor’s previous offer of lowering taxes if Casino 2.0 passed and tries to square that with shift to the new package of child care programs Stoney has put on the table. Should Casino 2.0 fail, will the mayor champion other revenue sources to help address the city’s child care crisis? It’s a good question to ask! Meanwhile, over in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the editorial board weighs in with a more political take. They write that this is a high-stakes moment for a mayor with gubernatorial aspirations, yet whose “track record when it comes to economic development is, to put it generously, mixed.” But it’s not all politics for the paper’s editorial board, who end with this surprisingly sober and rational take: “When politicians show up and start waving around millions of dollars, we should know by now to take a deep breath. Richmond cannot afford a shiny new casino that preys on those who can least afford it, even if it means tens of millions for child care. Between now and Nov. 7, Richmonders have a decision to make. But don’t conflate the two: The casino — not funding for child care — will be on the ballot.”
 

City Council meets today for their regularly scheduled meeting, and, due to their recent August vacation, has just a ton of special use permits to work through. All of those but one sit on the Consent Agenda (with a proposal to build two homes at 910 Parrish Street the sole item on today’s Regular Agenda). Council has mostly continued the stack of interesting papers I have my eyes on: updating the Airbnbs regulations until September 25th, purchasing East End and Evergreen Cemeteries until October 10th, and establishing a Public Utilities and Services Commission also until October 10th.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 71 °F, and dang that was quite a storm last night. I hope you’re doing OK this morning and that your home successfully kept out all of the elements. Today you can expect hot (but less hot) highs as we head into The Weekend of Relief. On Saturday we’ll see highs dip below 90 °F for the first time in a while, and then, on Sunday, some pleasant temperatures in the mid 80s. Middle of next week? Don’t even get me started about those numbers starting with sevens!
 

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The City’s Department of Public Works dropped a new bike lane survey, and I’m assigning it as over-the-weekend homework. Specifically, DPW wants to know how you feel about extending the Franklin Street Bike Lane west from Belvidere to Lombardy. I feel very excited about this, DPW! Interestingly, they also want to know if you would support a “quick-build” design (which would get implemented in 2025), a more intense piece of infrastructure that would require a line item in a budget passed by Council, or both. Both, obviously! While 2025 is not the quickest of timelines, getting something in the City’s Capital Improvement Plan, which has a five-year horizon and involves the mayor and nine city councilmembers, will take even longer. So, when I filled out this survey, I ranked Option 2 (the quick-build) very high, and Option 5 (the option with the most actual concrete separating bikes from cars) also very high. Importantly, I made sure to check that I would support all the things—building something as soon as possible, getting funding out of the budget, and then building the more concretey option when that funding is eventually approved.
 

Homeward has released their July 2023 Point-in-Time Count of people experiencing homelessness in our region. Over the course of one night and one morning in July, they counted 486 people experiencing homelessness, up 8.7% from the previous year with about half of those folks listing Richmond as their last permanent address. 43% of people say the cost of housing, job loss, or eviction led to their homelessness. Tap through for some more data and an FAQ about how and why Homeward does this work. Also, keep this quote from Homeward’s Executive Director in mind: “It’s important to remember that these numbers represent real people, our neighbors facing the trauma of homelessness…The findings from the Summer 2023 PIT count should be a call to action to continue our region’s compassionate response to homelessness and invest in proven solutions.”
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 73 °F, and today is the last day of this week’s scorching hot temperatures. Expect highs near 100 °F with maybe some clouds floating around in the afternoon. Don’t get me wrong: Tomorrow still looks real hot, but it marks our transition to a string of days with highs in the 80s. Heck, in a week’s time, you may even need to wear socks!
 

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Local bike and pedestrian advocate John Bolecek has a really well-written and absolutely brutal column in the Virginia Mercury about how long COVID has upended his life. Here’s John on his current condition, almost two years after getting a mild case of COVID back in January 2022: “I’ve never recovered to where I was before that energy crash and have been at a lower baseline ever since. I have to lie down 23 hours a day now and severely limit my activity so I don’t provoke more crashes. Even with careful pacing, I still provoke minor ones. My most limiting symptom is PEM, a medical term that means after expending too much energy all my symptoms get worse, I sleep worse and get weaker. I simply can’t recover like a healthy person, even after minor exertions.” It’s a scary read, but I wanted to share it for a few reasons. First, if you’re dealing with long COVID, you’re not alone, and John links to a lot of resources if you feel lost and underinformed. Second, you can follow John’s lead and reach out to Senator Kaine about his Long COVID Support Act bill. Third, while extremely intense, this is a reminder that we still don’t know a lot about this disease, and, while levels remain low in our region, they are increasing. As we head into the fall, it’s worth remembering the tools in our respiratory disease toolbox: Keep up with your vaccines (including whatever new hotness drops later this month), wash your hands, cover your cough, and, please, stay home if you’re sick!
 

Quick zoning update: On its second attempt, Planning Commission voted to recommend for approval—with amendments!—the new short-term rental ordinance (ORD. 2023–235, aka the Airbnb ordinance). I didn’t listen along so I can’t say for sure, but I’m guessing the amendments are the two listed in red in this PDF. One would limit the amount of Airbnbs allowed in a multifamily building and one gets real specific about the primary residency requirement when the owner of a building is a company. Now this paper will head to full Council for their vote—maybe as soon as next week. Random aside: Before that vote takes place, I’d sure love to know which, if any, City Councilmembers presently own and operate Airbnbs.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 73 °F, and today looks like another hot day in Central Virginia—maybe not surface-of-the-sun hot but probably wrong-side-of-Mercury hot. Highs will hover just below 100 °F, while the Feels Likes will almost certainly hit triple digits. Stay inside if you can, hydrate and wear a hat if you can’t, and wait for the relief that’ll show up this weekend. Just a couple more days to go!
 

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Yesterday, City Council held a special meeting to introduce a new resolution to “express support for the dedication of revenue from the proposed destination resort and casino to fund a Child Care and Education Trust Fund and the construction of certain early childhood care centers.” I was bleh about it then, and I’m bleh about it now, but, in the intervening time, the City sent out both a press release and an FAQ about how they’ll invest the Casino 2.0 revenue should they get voter approval this November. First an important correction/update: Yesterday, I complained that I thought revenue from a Southside casino should be used on Southside projects, and it sounds like, at least to an extent, it will. The Casino 2.0 developers will give the City an upfront payment of $26.5 million, and the Mayor’s proposing to allocate $14 million of it toward constructing new child care centers at T.B. Smith and Southside Community Centers, both on the city’s Southside. $8 million would go to Parks and Rec projects across the city and the remaining $4.5 million would seed the Child Care and Education Trust Fund. We are definitely in the midst of a childcare crisis, and I’m certainly not against pouring money into local solutions that help families find and afford childcare. However, this is still not an either-or situation! I do not need to vote yes on a predatory casino to be supportive of establishing a childcare trust fund! If this is a good idea, and it sounds like it probably is, we can and should find other ways to fund it. Is the Mayor’s proposal to cut the real estate tax by two cents still on the table? Maybe keep the tax where it is and dedicate that revenue to the trust fund? Listen, I’m not a budgetologist, but I do know that a proposed casino that’s already been voted down by voters once is not the only source of cash under the sun. Allan-Charles Chipman puts it better in today’s Michael Paul Williams column, saying “…for developers to get what they need, they can come to the bargaining table and get millions of our money in incentives, but for Southside to get child care they have to go to the blackjack table.”
 

The City’s Department of Public Works announced they’ll start work this week on new bike lanes along Carnation Street from Hioaks Road to Midlothian Turnpike. The Southside, after a couple of years of hard work and focus, now has the foundation of a pretty nice bike lane network! It’s not perfect or complete, but, unlike just a couple of years ago, you can now get to actual places by bike using actual bike infrastructure. Shout out to Councilmember Mike Jones for really making this a priority and to the Mayor and DPW for making it happen.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 73 °F—which is today’s low—and this afternoon you can expect hot, hot highs around 100 °F. You should steel yourself against these end-of-summer temperatures, because the next two days will bring more of the same. But! By Friday, things will start to cool off, and next weekend we may even get a taste of fall!
 

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Welcome back, City Council and Friends! The start of September means the return of Council and Committee meetings after their regularly scheduled August vacation. On today’s agenda we’ve got three meetings of note. First, Planning Commission will gather to once again consider the Airbnb ordinance (ORD. 2023–235) and hear options from staff around the proposed primary residency requirement. Staff (and probably every civic association under the sun) supports requiring people who operate Airbnbs in residential neighborhoods to live in those Airbnbs—with a couple exceptions for outbuildings or ADUs. This, from staff’s perspective, will help preserve as much housing as possible and keep it from turning into vacation rentals. You can read through staff’s reasoning in this presentation. I thought Planning Commission would move forward on this ordinance last month, but they asked for a few more options to consider instead. We’ll see what they get up to today! Second, City Council will hold a special meeting to consider “a resolution to express support for the dedication of revenue from the proposed destination resort and casino to fund a Child Care and Education Trust Fund and the construction of certain early childhood care centers.” I have two immediate thoughts: “bleh” and “I thought we were designating the theoretical revenue of a Southside casino to projects on the Southside?” Finally, Council’s Organizational Development committee will meet and consider ORD. 2023–188, the ordinance that would set up a Public Utilities and Services Commission. Who knows how effective this commission will/could be, but it has the potential to tackle things like consumer rates and, eventually, phasing out the gas utility entirely.
 

Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense reports that some of the proposals rolling in for the planned City Center development will include some serious height: “Richmond Community Development Partners…has revised its proposal to include an even taller hotel, totaling 40 stories and 450 feet in height. That height would make the hotel 1 foot taller than the current tallest building in Richmond, the James Monroe Building.“ I love this (slightly petty) energy! If you want to build the tallest building in Richmond, the dead center of the city is the exact right place to do it. Tap through to read more details on each of the four proposals.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 58 °F, and this is the first time the early morning temperature has started with a five in a good, long while. Today you can expect highs in the low 80s and a wonderfully sunny sky. The beautiful weather should continue through the weekend, but things will start to heat up on Sunday, and by Monday we’ll see temperatures near 100 °F. Soak up this amazing weather over the next couple of days! Get out there and enjoy it!
 

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The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Em Holter went to a Casino 2.0 meeting the City held last night and reports on some of the things the Casino People said. The folks involved claim the rebooted project is “vastly different” from the thing we already voted down once, but, I dunno, it’s still an event venue and hotel supported by a predatory casino. I hate every bit of the framing and language being used to market this project to Richmonders; the sign on last night’s speaker’s podium said “VOTE YES FOR JOBS, REVENUE, & A STRONGER CITY”—as if those things were impossible without a casino! I’ll tell you what I’d vote yes for a thousand times over: Building strong, thriving neighborhoods like those the gambling-free Diamond District and City Center plans describe. Regardless of what the folks selling this project tell you, this is not an either-or! We can absolutely create jobs, increase revenue, and build a stronger city in better ways—more sustainable ways!—without building an enormous casino.
 

In his daily email, RPS Superintendent Jason Kamras lays out new athletic and event security protocols, “as part of our ongoing commitment to do everything humanly possible to safeguard our students, staff, and families.” Effective immediately, tickets must be purchased in advance, no re-entry will be permitted, no bags of any kind will be allowed, and everyone will need to go through a security screening. I assume this is in response to last week’s cancellation of Huguenot High School’s football game over security concerns. Half of me is disappointed in the world we live in that it’s come to this, but the other half of me has walked through security screening at the Siegel Center for years and years. I think this is just how sports are now, and I’d be surprised if other local school districts don’t already have similar policies in place or aren’t actively in the process of considering them.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 58 °F, and this is the first time the early morning temperature has started with a five in a good, long while. Today you can expect highs in the low 80s and a wonderfully sunny sky. The beautiful weather should continue through the weekend, but things will start to heat up on Sunday, and by Monday we’ll see temperatures near 100 °F. Soak up this amazing weather over the next couple of days! Get out there and enjoy it!
 

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The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Em Holter went to a Casino 2.0 meeting the City held last night and reports on some of the things the Casino People said. The folks involved claim the rebooted project is “vastly different” from the thing we already voted down once, but, I dunno, it’s still an event venue and hotel supported by a predatory casino. I hate every bit of the framing and language being used to market this project to Richmonders; the sign on last night’s speaker’s podium said “VOTE YES FOR JOBS, REVENUE, & A STRONGER CITY”—as if those things were impossible without a casino! I’ll tell you what I’d vote yes for a thousand times over: Building strong, thriving neighborhoods like those the gambling-free Diamond District and City Center plans describe. Regardless of what the folks selling this project tell you, this is not an either-or! We can absolutely create jobs, increase revenue, and build a stronger city in better ways—more sustainable ways!—without building an enormous casino.
 

In his daily email, RPS Superintendent Jason Kamras lays out new athletic and event security protocols, “as part of our ongoing commitment to do everything humanly possible to safeguard our students, staff, and families.” Effective immediately, tickets must be purchased in advance, no re-entry will be permitted, no bags of any kind will be allowed, and everyone will need to go through a security screening. I assume this is in response to last week’s cancellation of Huguenot High School’s football game over security concerns. Half of me is disappointed in the world we live in that it’s come to this, but the other half of me has walked through security screening at the Siegel Center for years and years. I think this is just how sports are now, and I’d be surprised if other local school districts don’t already have similar policies in place or aren’t actively in the process of considering them.