Archive (Page 9) • Good Morning, RVA • Buttondown

🐏 Good morning, RVA: College, more frequent buses, and state government stuff

Good morning, RVA! It’s 73 °F, and today looks a lot like yesterday but with slightly cooler temperatures—which, honestly, describing highs around 90 °F as “slightly cooler” feels misleading. How about: It should be a little less hot today. Stay hydrated, wear a hat, stay inside if you can, because we’ve got a lot more of this ahead of us.

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Another day, another horde of young people returns to the city! Today marks VCU’s official first day of class and that means hustle, bustle, and life—especially in and around the university’s Monroe Park Campus. Welcome back students, I’m glad you’re here. To the rest of us, my warning from yesterday still stands: If you have to move through the area in a car, please be extra aware and doubly careful! You should expect an orders-of-magnitude increase in the number of people fully taking advantage of their rights as pedestrians (maybe to an extreme and slightly terrifying degree).

Last week, GRTC announced their planned service changes for Sunday, September 10th. The biggest change involves routing 17 different bus lines through the soon-to-open Downtown Transfer Station. It’s hard to believe, but, in just 20 days, Richmond will no longer have a Temporary Transfer Station for the first time in something like eight years. I have complicated feelings about the new DTS, but it exists and it definitely provides a more humane environment for bus riders to wait and make transfers should they need it. GRTC also has a few smaller but still rad changes planned, too: The Pulse will now run every 15-minutes all day long on Saturday (that’s an improvement from 30-minute service for most of the day); the #5, thankfully, returns to its 15-minute frequency until 7:00 PM; and the #7A/B both get four more hours of Sunday service. All good tweaks and steps toward restoring some of the bus service we’ve lost over the last couple of years. You can attend a public meeting about these changes a week from today, on August 29th at, at the Main Branch Library (101 E. Franklin Street) from 5:30–6:30 PM.

#218

August 22, 2023

🐍 Good morning, RVA: School!, bike share!, snakes!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 70 °F, and today, unlike this past weekend’s absolutely beautiful Saturday, looks hot and cloudy. Expect highs in the mid 90s and a lot of very good reasons to just stay inside. Looking ahead, the rest of the week has a bunch of heat in store for us with maybe some cooler temperatures next week. August is a month of enduring!

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Students! Welcome back! Today marks the first day of the 2023–2024 school year for Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield public schools. Good luck to everyone headed back in to school this morning—kids, teachers, staff, administration, everyone. As for the rest of us carrying on about our regular business—especially if you’re driving—keep an eye out for children making their way to school as you move through the region. I know summer is great for all sorts of reasons, but I absolutely love the city’s awakening that’s marked by the return of fall.

Big news: Richmond’s Department of Public Works announced that the RVA BikeShare Program will return to action starting TODAY. To make up for the system’s sudden shut down earlier this year, “the city is providing all registered BikeShare users free rides through December 31, 2023.” That’s pretty awesome and way more than the originally planned 30 days of free rides. According to the release, DPW will also celebrate today’s return to service by opening a brand new station at the Dominion Energy Center. At 6th and Grace, this new station will fill a sizeable hole in RVA BikeShare’s coverage map, which, in my mind, is exactly the right way to expand. Up next: Adding, like, six new stations to The Fan please!

#267

August 21, 2023

🌭 Good morning, RVA: This Is Fine, beer investments, and stick-based foods

Good morning, RVA! It’s 73 °F, which is already pretty warm for this part of the day. Today you can, once again, expect sunshine and temperatures around 90 °F—with more of the same throughout the weekend. If you’ve got plans to go get rad, make sure they’re in the early morning or late evening, and make sure you stay hydrated.

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RVA Rapid Transit will host their third Mobility University this coming September, and the application is now open. This is a five-week course that meets on Wednesdays to “educated and empower bus riders to self-advocate for better public transportation.” Over the course of about a month, you’ll cover the history of transit, how the bus gets funded, tips on telling your own story at a public meeting, and learn how to build your own advocacy campaign from scratch. So, if you’re a bus rider and would like to dig deeper into making our public transit system better, go ahead and fill out the application form today. Added bonus: Every session comes with free dinner catered by Soul n’ Vinegar!

This article from NPR, syndicated on VPM, is the textual embodiment of the “This Is Fine” meme: “This summer’s crazy weather just can’t stop, won’t stop Americans from having fun.” The “crazy weather” is, of course, extreme heat and weather events set off by climate change, and the “fun” these Americans are having is literal heat stroke. It feels very American that we feel challenged by this summer’s apocalyptic weather not to do whatever we can to slow the death of our planet, but to prove that we can and will, by god, still go to a baseball game even if it means ending up in the ER.

#502

August 18, 2023

🌭 Good morning, RVA: This Is Fine, beer investments, and stick-based foods

Good morning, RVA! It’s 73 °F, which is already pretty warm for this part of the day. Today you can, once again, expect sunshine and temperatures around 90 °F—with more of the same throughout the weekend. If you’ve got plans to go get rad, make sure they’re in the early morning or late evening, and make sure you stay hydrated.

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RVA Rapid Transit will host their third Mobility University this coming September, and the application is now open. This is a five-week course that meets on Wednesdays to “educated and empower bus riders to self-advocate for better public transportation.” Over the course of about a month, you’ll cover the history of transit, how the bus gets funded, tips on telling your own story at a public meeting, and learn how to build your own advocacy campaign from scratch. So, if you’re a bus rider and would like to dig deeper into making our public transit system better, go ahead and fill out the application form today. Added bonus: Every session comes with free dinner catered by Soul n’ Vinegar!

This article from NPR, syndicated on VPM, is the textual embodiment of the “This Is Fine” meme: “This summer’s crazy weather just can’t stop, won’t stop Americans from having fun.” The “crazy weather” is, of course, extreme heat and weather events set off by climate change, and the “fun” these Americans are having is literal heat stroke. It feels very American that we feel challenged by this summer’s apocalyptic weather not to do whatever we can to slow the death of our planet, but to prove that we can and will, by god, still go to a baseball game even if it means ending up in the ER.

#1165

August 18, 2023

🩻 Good morning, RVA: Meaty spine, living in a hotel room, and Breakaway RVA

Good morning, RVA! It’s 70 °F, and it’s blerg-hot again. You should expect highs in the 90s, some sunshine, some rain this evening, and for every small-talk conversation you have to begin with a discussion of the heat. It’s summer in Richmond. This Is The Way.

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From the Capital Trail monthly newsletter comes this news about a half-mile bit of shared-use path connecting Varina High School to the Capital Trail itself. This is a cool project on its own, but it’s also a perfect example of the type of projects Richmond and Henrico should already be thinking about when it comes to the Fall Line Trail. The Fall Line should function as a thick, meaty spine, running from Ashland to Petersburg, with dozens of thin, pliable ribs branching off to connect schools, libraries, neighborhoods, breweries, ball parks, museums, government buildings, parks, rivers—every dang thing!

Over in The Hill, Mayor Levar Stoney and Climate Scientist Dr. Jeremy Hoffman, two names you’re probably familiar with, have a column about climate change, extreme heat, and how all levels of government can and should get involved in the work to keep us from burning alive. Just like with our aging sewer system (which is also a climate-adjacent issue), I think fully addressing climate change in Richmond will take more money and resources than we have available at the local level. We need massive, federal programs like the Inflation Reduction Act, but, like, a bunch of them year after year. That doesn’t seem like a realistic goal, but I don’t know how to actually impact the issue any other way.

#515

August 17, 2023

🐁 Good morning, RVA: The RPS School Board, Casino 2.0 update, and new neon

Good morning, RVA! It’s 70 °F, and today looks the tiniest bit cooler than the last few days. You can expect highs right around 90 °F and Feels Likes in the same neighborhood. I don’t know about you, but that kind of heat still makes me sweat through my shirt after even just a quick walk or ride around the block—so, preemptive apologies if you happen to run across me this week and I’m soaked though and bedraggled!

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I never know what to make of RPS School Board meetings. Megan Pauly at VPM reports that the Board voted to consider hiring a 3rd-party to conduct an investigation into the shooting that took place during Huguenot High School’s graduation ceremony back in June. But, I also know, because of RVADirt’s citizen reporting on Twitter, that the Richmond Police Department has not yet finished their investigation, which seems like something you’d want to wrap up before launching your own. Also also, at that same meeting this past Monday, apparently 2nd District Boardmember Mariah White introduced a motion to suspend the Superintendent? One week before school starts? Seems…bad. I’ve said this before, but if most Richmonders forced themselves to watch one or two School Board meetings they would be shocked at the level of dysfunction and distraction. A lot of it goes unreported—I guess exactly because it’s so dysfunctional and distracting?—but, at some point, it’d be nice to start holding these elected officials accountable for both their actions and their behavior. Totally unrelated (just kidding, super related): School Board elections are right around the corner in 2024. I know there are multiple people reading this exact sentence right now that are half-heartedly thinking “hmm could I run for School Board?” Yes you can, and yes you should!

The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Michael Martz has a small update on Casino 2.0, reporting that Richmond Lodge No. 1 of the Good Lions Inc. (not affiliated with the Lions Club International), has asked a judge to pump the brakes on putting the Casino redo on this November’s ballot. Good Lions argues that “the city improperly awarded a contract to the casino operator without undergoing a public bidding process first.” The judge will consider their argument and has (temporarily) suspended his earlier decision to allow adding a casino referendum to the ballot. Fascinatingly, Good Lions is represented by State Senator Chap Petersen, a Democrat out of Fairfax City, which I imagine does not make our Democrat and Governor-hopeful Mayor very happy. Anyway, I wouldn’t get too excited about this development if, like me, you plan on voting NO on Casino 2.0 in a couple months, because I’d wager that this all goes away. We’ll learn for sure later this month.

#504

August 16, 2023

🐌 Good morning, RVA: Budget baby steps, rich men, and indictments

Good morning, RVA! It’s 77 °F, and, again, it’s hot. Today, you can expect highs in the low-to-mid 90s, Feels Likes in the 100s, and a potential for rain lasting most of the afternoon. We’ve got a bunch more weeks of summer left, so buckle up and pack an extra shirt for when you sweat through the first one.

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Should you want it, Michael Martz at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has another update on the General Assembly’s slow stumble toward a budget. Sounds like the House and Senate have crept closer to a compromise over the past week or so. Progress is good, but I agree with political commentator Bob Holsworth: “The challenge is that every day that goes by, it becomes closer to the election and that becomes more of an influence on what they’re doing.” I hope that influence is not to make big, huge campaign issues out of small, reasonably straightforward budget stuff.

This morning I learned about “The Rich Men North of Richmond,” from, of all places, the actual local newspaper. I think this means I’m either entirely out of the loop or I’ve successfully pared back my social media usage to a healthy level. I’m not going to link to it because parts of it are offensive, parts are dumb, and most of it is Republican propaganda. But this song exists and it mentions Richmond and I feel like there are lots of takes floating around of various temperatures. Here’s my extremely mild take: If any of the elected officials sharing this song wanted to address the issues it mentions—like, for example, livable wages—they could introduce legislation instead of posting American flag emojis on Twitter. They don’t actually want to solve these problems, so they won’t.

#714

August 15, 2023

🍉 Good morning, RVA: Watermelons, county planners, and spiders

Good morning, RVA! It’s 68 °F, and temperatures will creep back up into the 90s today. Expect the warmening to continue through the weekend, with highs right around 95 °F on both Saturday and Sunday. It’s actually a little-known part of Richmond’s Charter that the Watermelon Festival must take place on one of the Summer’s most blazing-hot weekends.

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This Sunday, starting at 10:00 AM you can join thousands of watermelons and other people at the Carytown Watermelon Festival. First, I hope you got your Cars Ruin Carytown shirt ahead of time, because if ever there was a weekend to wear it, it’s this one. Second, the Watermelon Festival basically exists as an annual reminder that we can, in fact, close Carytown to vehicle traffic. Not only does the world keep on turning, but thousand of people—hundreds of thousands according to the website—manage to make their way in and out of the neighborhood, buy things, and have a generally good (if sweaty) time despite not driving or parking on actual Cary Street itself. See, it can be done! We do it on the regular! After reading that piece in BizSense the other day, I have some new-found optimism about making Carytown pedestrian-only. Check out this quote: “Erin Bottcher, who co-owns Bev’s Homemade Ice Cream at 2911 W. Cary Street, said she likes the once-a-month event idea but said it would require signage, informing residents and other hurdles.” Bottcher immediately goes to say she’d be against a full-closure because “people would just not come to Carytown anymore,” which, sigh, but I think this is progress!

David Ress at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a long piece about the planners working for Chesterfield County. Yes, there’s a lot of roadchat in there but also a lot of paragraphs about progressive, dense development that I’m not sure I would have expected out in Chesterfield a decade ago. I typically don’t love person-on-the-street quotes, especially about development and housing, but this one is about as measured and thoughtful as they come: “I love these trees…I wish they wouldn’t take them down…but people need places to live, I guess. As long as we get more people on less land, I guess that’s the best we can hope for."

#517

August 11, 2023

🗣️ Good morning, RVA: Another tragedy, public housing units, and...burps?

Good morning, RVA! It’s 72 °F, and today’s forecast looks a bit cooler, cloudier, and maybe wetter than yesterday’s. You can expect temperatures in the low 80s, and the rain, if it shows up, will hit after lunch. Sounds like we’ve got a bit of a respite from the summer’s high heat!

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WTVR reports that this past Monday a driver hit and killed 17-year-old Geo Morton, who was riding his bike home from work on Williamsburg Road. Morton was involved in Richmond’s BMX scene, and tonight at 7:00 PM they’ll host a memorial ride and will collect donations to help Morton’s family pay for funeral costs. I’m tired of writing about memorial rides, and, while the specifics surrounding this tragedy are bizarre and horrible in all sorts of ways, no one should die while riding home from work. We need to do a better job of protecting the most vulnerable people out there just using our region’s roads to get around.

VPM’s Connor Scribner reports that Virginia Housing has denied RRHA’s application for “about $15 million in federal tax credits to build the second phase of new housing in Creighton Court,” one of Richmond’s large public housing neighborhoods. Creighton Court redevelopment—or maybe put more accurately, demolition of existing public housing and construction of new mixed-income housing—is ongoing as we speak, but this new money would have helped fund the 72-unit, second phase of the project. I am woefully underinformed on how the math for all of these new units works out, and I really need to read a simple explainer (if anyone has one, please let me know!). But, according to Scribner, the original 504 units of public housing at Creighton Court will be replaced with 681 units, 561 income-restricted units and 120 market-rate units. However, if I’m reading the reporting right, only 25% of those income-restricted units will be made available to folks making below 30% of the Area Median Income. That’s about 140 units for people with extremely low incomes, far short of the 504 original units. So are we shorting ourselves 360 units of deeply affordable housing? I don’t have enough information to say one way or the other. Public housing redevelopment is complex, with a handful of options available to existing residents, including one-for-one replacement, vouchers, and some opportunities to move to other public housing in the region. Like I said, I really need to learn more about how the math works out. There is a definitely a PDF floating around somewhere that I should have read years ago, and now I need to go digging.

#364

August 10, 2023

🚧 Good morning, RVA: Fatal crash on Grove, removing slip lanes, and community fridges

Good morning, RVA! It’s 73 °F, and I think we mostly missed out on yesterday’s severe storms. That’s good news—I like to avoid 60 mph straight-line winds whenever I can. Today, though, you can expect very calm winds, clear skies, and highs in the 90s. As far as the current forecast goes, we’ve got nothing severe in our immediate future.

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Will Gonzalez at WRIC reports that a driver hit and killed a man riding a scooter at the intersection of Grove Avenue and N. Lombardy Street this past Sunday at 7:33 AM. I haven’t see any more details, but I would guess that speed was probably a factor. This is, I think, either the third or fourth person to be hit and killed by a driver on and around VCU’s campus in 2023. It’s upsetting that I can’t even remembering how many people have died using our streets in just that area, and I wonder when will we start to adress this problem with the seriousness it deserves. While I appreciate the City’s current efforts to rapidly install speed tables in a bunch of different neighborhoods (I’ve got two new ones up near me and they’re definitely working), we’ve got to do more. We need to pair tactical efforts that respond directly to a horrible incident like this with bigger, bolder, holistic citywide efforts to slow drivers down. How do we launch a fatality review board, but for crashes? Can we do something to discourage ownership of massive vehicles in the city? Where can we shunt traffic off of neighborhood streets and onto highways? Can we audit and eliminate every slip lane and sweeping, speedy turn? We know this work is not hopeless if we take it seriously. Cities across the country and the world have taken concrete—and successful!—steps towards making their streets safe for everyone. We should, too.

Speaking of, via /r/rva here’s a picture of how you can easily, quickly, and cheaply get rid of a dangerous slip lane (this is the intersection of 10th and Leigh, back behind VCU Health). I’m not sure if this is a permanent installation, a pilot, or some temporary infrastructure while waiting on nearby construction, but it does prove that this sort of thing is totally possible.

#346

August 8, 2023

🔮 Good morning, RVA: Electoral Board 180, Charter recommendations, and a new Sheetz

Good morning, RVA! It’s 72 °F, and today we’ll see highs in the 90s and, probably, rain at some point this evening. NBC12’s Andrew Freiden says we may need to even be on the lookout for severe summer storms. Keep an eye on the weather app of your choice for weather warnings, and maybe keep your devices charged just in case.

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As foretold: At their meeting this past Friday, the Richmond Electoral Board reversed course and will now, under pressure from the public and the City Attorney, open two satellite early voting locations—one at the Hickory Hill Community Center and one at City Hall. Graham Moomaw at the Virginia Mercury reports all of the details, including that, because they couldn’t just take the L, neither location will offer voting on Sundays. I’m sure requiring a majority of the Electoral Board to be partisan appointees from the current governor’s party is a policy designed to prevent some sort of voting shenanigans, but, in the current environment, it sure seems to cause unnecessary issues—especially when one of the parties consistently wants to make voting harder for folks.

They did it! The City’s Charter Review Commission has released its final recommendations, which you can download in full PDF glory here. They’ve sorted the recommendations into four buckets: Updating the Charter’s language to make it more modern and consistent; adjusting the current Mayor-Council form of government; considering a new Council-Manager form of government (while keeping an elected mayor); and staggering City Council’s terms. The first two buckets they recommend asking the General Assembly to approve this coming session, the third studied by a commission created before the end of this year, and the fourth implemented in time for the 2028 elections. I haven’t had the time to dive into the sure-to-be gory details of each bucket, but they all contain some fascinating ideas! I’m especially interested in bucket number two, which suggests big-but-achievable changes like: tweaking the budget process, requiring the Mayor to report out at Council monthly, and doubling City Council’s salaries (up from something like $25,000). If Council wants to follow any of these recommendations, there’s a ton of work to be done between now and the start of the 2024 General Assembly session. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until Council gets back from their August recess to gauge their interest and willingness to dig in.

#853

August 7, 2023

🚲 Good morning, RVA: Bike Share RVA update, Board of Elections meeting, and live music

Good morning, RVA! It’s 66 °F and rainy. The rain has a decent chance of sticking around through lunch, and then, after that, we’ll see cloudy skies with highs around 80 °F. Temperatures continue to climb through the weekend, though nothing like the triple-digit sweatfest from a week ago—just regular-type summer highs in the 90s. Saturday and Sunday mornings both look particularly lovely, so I hope you can find the time to enjoy them (maybe quietly with a warm beverage of your choice).

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VPM’s Ian M. Stewart reports that a Portuguese company has signed a $55,000 deal to relaunch Richmond’s shuttered bike share system. Well, to make sure I’m getting it right, Stewart says “A company called We Go Share will help relaunch RVA Bike Share’s software for $55,000.” Relaunching software might not be the same thing as relaunching the entire system, and $55,000 definitely won’t go very far when it comes to actually running and maintaining a bike share system. I’m excited to hear more. As of this morning, we still don’t have a reopening date for RVA Bike Share, but this definitely does seem like at least a first step in the right direction. Also interesting, the Portuguese company We Go Share, looks to have made a dedicated business out of relaunching abanadoned Bewegen bike share systems.

Today at 10:00 AM in their hard-to-reach office at the end of Laburnum Avenue, Richmond’s Electoral Board will host a special meeting to address that time they—maybe illegally—got rid of the City’s satellite early-voting locations. You can find their agenda here, but it’s a couple opportunities for public comment, “discussion regarding satellite voting locations in the City of Richmond,” and “discussion on Sunday voting.” Honestly, I feel weirdly optimistic about the Board reversing course and reinstating the two satellite voting locations, one at City Hall and one at the Hickory Hill Community Center. I certainly could be wrong, but the City has already allocated the money for running these locations and the City Attorney is on record questioning the Board’s decision-making. I’m sure we’ll hear more this afternoon, so keep an ear out!

#193

August 4, 2023

🐌 Good morning, RVA: Paying for bus amenities, redeveloping 45 acres, and Virginia beer

Good morning, RVA! It’s 64 °F, and this week’s mid-summer respite from the dangerous heat continues. You can expect the cloudy sky to help keep temperatures in the mid-80s, which sounds great, and it looks like we’ll have a decent chance of rain tomorrow morning that will extend our streak of mild temperatures. I’m wondering if I should water the outside plants tonight or just let it ride?

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Ian M. Stewart at VPM reports on just how hard it is to get a shelter—or even a bench—installed at a bus stop in the Richmond region. Four things! First, I appreciate the ongoing coverage of this issue and do think it’s part of the reason we’ve seen more recent attention (and funding) to providing humane places to wait for the bus. Second, shout out to RVA Rapid Transit for constantly pushing this issue and generating that media coverage! Make sure you flip through their 2023 State of Transit report which highlights the need for more and better bus stop amenities. Third, this quote from a GRTC spokesperson is incredible/sad: “The Board voted to support — but did not provide funding for — the ‘Aspirational’ 28.6M Dollar investment…to install shelters or seating at 50% of stops." As to who should provide that nearly $30 million of funding, seems like localities should front the money required to install bus stop amenities within their own jurisdictions—not GRTC and certainly not the Central Virginia Transportation Authority. The latter shouldn’t be used to replace a city or county’s baseline investments into transportation infrastructure (although past history strongly disagrees with me). Fourth, it’s exciting to hear that GRTC is piloting pole-attached seating, which, while not the end-all-be-all of comfortable places to sit on a rainy day, is certainly better than nothing. The best thing about this particular type of seating is that you don’t need to get the City’s Department of Public Works to approve anything! You can just bolt the it right to an existing bus stop pole. Y’all know how I feel creative pilot projects, and the City should take GRTC’s lead and try out a few interesting projects of their own.

Michael Schwartz at Richmond BizSense reports that Genworth’s 45-acre Broad Street campus is under contract to a Baltimore-based developer. This is a huge piece of land with tons of potential—for housing, office space, retail, all kinds of things. In fact, a while back, Henrico County hosted some public design charettes to ask the public what they wanted from an eventual redevelopment of the space, and I was pretty optimistic about the results at the time! We’ll see if any of the public’s suggestions from 2019—BRT, walkable neighborhoods, and convertible parking garages—end up in this new developer’s plans.

#534

August 3, 2023

🦠 Good morning, RVA: A COVID-19 update, a burn tower about face, and another indictment

Good morning, RVA! It’s 64 °F, and it looks like we’ve got another great day on tap with sunshine and highs in the mid 80s. I know we’re smack-dab in the middle of the week, and it’s way too early to look towards the weekend, but temperatures may start to creep up on Saturday. Enjoy this bit of cooler weather while you can; I spent about an hour puttering around in the garden last night and didn’t even break a sweat. Amazing!

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Hark! What’s this? A COVID-19 update! You’ve probably either heard rumblings of a new COVID-19 wave approaching or maybe just had more people in your life get sick and test positive. Well, the presence of a new Katelyn Jetelina email in my inbox confirms it: “We find ourselves in the middle of a COVID-19 wave. Again. If this summer follows the previous three, we should expect ₁₀–15% of Americans to get infected.” It’s early on, and, reading through her entire email will, I hope, help tamp down any panic you might start to feel creeping in around the edges. As for what’s going on locally, you can pull up Virginia’s hospital admissions data on the CDC’s website or poke around in the Virginia Department of Health’s COVID-19 dashboard, which just got an update yesterday. It looks like, at least here in the commonwealth, both hospital admissions numbers and wastewater surveillance continue to show low levels of COVID-19 in our communities. That’s good news, but keep an eye on things as the situation evolves. It’s been a while since I’ve written a sentence like this but: Make good decisions, test frequently, stay home if you’re sick, and maybe dig around in your cupboard for that old box of masks—just in case.

Look at what happens when people get involved! Em Holter at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that “The City of Richmond is backing out of a deal to build a fire training facility at the Hickory Hill Community Center” Wyatt Gordon has a copy of a letter (Twitter) sent from the City’s CAO to Council President Mike Jones and Councilmember Reva Trammel saying that, as a compromise, Richmond Fire Department training classes will remain at Hickory Hill while “a new burn tower will be built in Sandston, VA to replace the current structure.” Southside ReLeaf put out the following statement, too: “The city made the right decision by listening to community members and finding an alternative location for the burn tower. Given the environmental racism Southside residents experience daily due to discriminatory policies and decisions, it’s important for city leaders to stand by their commitment to protect and expand green spaces…Southside ReLeaf encourages city leaders to keep an open dialogue with community members to determine the best path forward on how the community center should be used.” Great work, everyone—especially community members on the Southside who, without getting involved, would have seen some of their valuable green space literally burnt to the ground.

#834

August 2, 2023

🌳 Good morning, RVA: Green space, gardens, and big trees

Good morning, RVA! It’s 65 °F, and today looks lovely. You can expect clear skies, highs in the mid 80s for most of the day, and a noticeable lack of oppressive humidity. It’s an excellent summer day, and I’m going to do my best to get out there and enjoy it (by going into the forest on a bike).

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Samantha Willis at the Virginia Mercury joins the chorus of reporters and columnists pointing out the backward inconsistencies of the City’s plans to build a fire training facility at the Hickory Hill Community Center. To quote a bit: “But the opposition to this particular fire facility isn’t rooted in dislike of or disrespect for fire departments; rather, it’s about holding our leaders accountable for their promises of environmental equity. It’s about defending a part of the city that, historically, has been marginalized, under-resourced and ignored time and time again. Yes, the city’s fire department needs a training facility, but why does it have to be at Hickory Hill? I don’t know the answer to that question because the fire department didn’t respond to my interview requests.” Tap through to read the whole thing, and, if you’d like to support the folks working to preserve this green space, drop your City Council rep, their liaison, and the Mayor an email.

I haven’t watched the entirety of this episode of VPM’s Virginia Home Grown, but fully intend to when I get a minute (or 52). Peggy Singlemann (former Director of Park Operations and Horticulture at Maymont), takes a tour of La Milpa’s garden/farm which looks incredible and just like the kind of huge garden I’d put together if I had a massive plot of land and a million hours of free time. They grow tomatoes, tomatillos, cucumber, zucchini, and, of course, peppers, all of which end up in the amazing food at their restaurant. It seems obvious, but growing food you’ll actually use and eat is gardening advice that I’m just now internalizing after many, many years. Anyway, check it out and get some inspiration for your 2024 garden plans!

#250

August 1, 2023

🚒 Good morning, RVA: Find a new place for the fire training facility, a new neighborhood, and a new candidate

Good morning, RVA! It’s 70 °F, and we’ve made it through the heatwave! Today you can expect highs in the upper 80s, mostly sunshine, and maybe a few clouds here and there to cool things off even further. For me, the worst part of last week’s unbearable weather was the hot wind? I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced full on wind that didn’t provide even the smallest amount of relief but instead felt like a giant standing too close and mouth-breathing on me. I could do without it in the future!

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Over the weekend, Pulitzer Prize Winner Michael Paul Williams put together this column on the City’s proposed fire training facility at the Hickory Hill Community Center. Snatching away part of the land that makes up a community center and replacing it with a stack of cargo containers that will literally be lit on fire over and over and over again has always seemed counter to a handful of Richmond’s long-term strategic PDFs. It’s not just me saying that either. First the City’s Urban Design Committee and Planning Commission voted against the facility (only to be overruled by City Council), and now MPW weighs in, saying “In a nonsensical perversion of public policy, the city is permitting a burn tower at this community center…For a half-dozen occasions a year, children and adults in this environmentally fragile area of South Richmond will be exposed to noxious fumes in a place of recreation and repose.” Not great. With Council’s approval in hand, the City seems unwilling to reconsider the location, leaving residents to appeal to state legislators and hope for a historic designation. If you’d like to advocate for the preservation of this space, I think you could email Sen. Hashmi in support of her work with creating a new historic designation, and, of course, you could also let the Mayor know you’d like his administration to find a better location for the fire training facility.

Mike Platania at Richmond BizSense reports on Sauer’s plans for the next phase of all that land they own on Broad Street surrounding the Whole Foods. Check it out: “In addition to buildings with residential, retail, office, hotel and other uses, Sauer is also planning to build parks, pedestrian walkways and public green spaces on the land, much of which is currently either industrial or undeveloped.” This is a TON of land—like, more than a half dozen city blocks—and, if done right, a new neighborhood could really connect everything that’s going on up by Hardywood, the proposed Diamond District project, and the Fan proper. But, because I’m me, I really want to see the proposed transportation plan that links all of these new and growing neighborhoods into our existing transportation systems.

#14

July 31, 2023

🚒 Good morning, RVA: Find a new place for the fire training facility, a new neighborhood, and a new candidate

Good morning, RVA! It’s 70 °F, and we’ve made it through the heatwave! Today you can expect highs in the upper 80s, mostly sunshine, and maybe a few clouds here and there to cool things off even further. For me, the worst part of last week’s unbearable weather was the hot wind? I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced full on wind that didn’t provide even the smallest amount of relief but instead felt like a giant standing too close and mouth-breathing on me. I could do without it in the future!

Water cooler

Over the weekend, Pulitzer Prize Winner Michael Paul Williams put together this column on the City’s proposed fire training facility at the Hickory Hill Community Center. Snatching away part of the land that makes up a community center and replacing it with a stack of cargo containers that will literally be lit on fire over and over and over again has always seemed counter to a handful of Richmond’s long-term strategic PDFs. It’s not just me saying that either. First the City’s Urban Design Committee and Planning Commission voted against the facility (only to be overruled by City Council), and now MPW weighs in, saying “In a nonsensical perversion of public policy, the city is permitting a burn tower at this community center…For a half-dozen occasions a year, children and adults in this environmentally fragile area of South Richmond will be exposed to noxious fumes in a place of recreation and repose.” Not great. With Council’s approval in hand, the City seems unwilling to reconsider the location, leaving residents to appeal to state legislators and hope for a historic designation. If you’d like to advocate for the preservation of this space, I think you could email Sen. Hashmi in support of her work with creating a new historic designation, and, of course, you could also let the Mayor know you’d like his administration to find a better location for the fire training facility.

Mike Platania at Richmond BizSense reports on Sauer’s plans for the next phase of all that land they own on Broad Street surrounding the Whole Foods. Check it out: “In addition to buildings with residential, retail, office, hotel and other uses, Sauer is also planning to build parks, pedestrian walkways and public green spaces on the land, much of which is currently either industrial or undeveloped.” This is a TON of land—like, more than a half dozen city blocks—and, if done right, a new neighborhood could really connect everything that’s going on up by Hardywood, the proposed Diamond District project, and the Fan proper. But, because I’m me, I really want to see the proposed transportation plan that links all of these new and growing neighborhoods into our existing transportation systems.

#14

July 31, 2023

🫀 Good morning, RVA: An electoral change of heart, a memorandum, and an indictment

Good morning, RVA! It’s 80 °F already, and that’s unpleasant. Today you can expect highs right around 100 °F—which is about 10 degrees warmer than today’s average high and brings with it an Excessive Heat Warning. Same deal from yesterday applies: Stay shut inside your home, if you can, make smart choices, and remember to hydrate. Cooler temperatures move in next week!

Water cooler

Remember how Richmond’s Electoral Board eliminated all the early in-person voting locations other than their extremely hard-to-reach office at the end of Laburnum Avenue? Seems they may try to walk that back a bit, as the City Attorney says the Board doesn’t even have the authority (Twitter) to do that sort of thing. Graham Moomaw at the Virginia Mercury has all the details, including the juicy bit that Governor Youngkin’s office also thinks the Board may have overstepped. Yesterday, I didn’t think there was much to be done about the Board’s decision, but, today’s a new day, and, after the flurry of lawyer letters, press conferences, and social media posts, the Board may have had a slight change of heart: They announced they’ll meet on August 4th at 10:00 AM to (re)discuss satellite voting locations. P.S. I think this is the first major public move by the City’s new attorney, and I’m into it!

This morning, City Council’s Education and Human Services committee sent out a public memorandum to the City’s CAO outlining “clear recommendations to City Administration directly adressing increased challenges facing unhoused Richmond families, children, and vulnerable populations.” I think this memorandum—basically an open letter to the Mayor’s Administration from a Council committee with “the support of the full body of Council”—is fascinating and certainly not a tool you see councilmembers use frequently. The Committee sets out two recommendations that they’d like to see implemented immediately, three they’d like to work on in the near future, and reminds the Administration that they’ve got a full report due on September 14th. Council could definitely go about most of these things (other than the immediate actions) by passing an official resolution, so using this quicker, more public avenue is pretty interesting. Go read the whole thing for yourself, but I think there’s tension here between the Council and the Mayor and it probably involves how existing funding is being allocated among current partner organizations. The Committee asks that the Administration attend the September 5th Organizational Development committee meeting to “update Council on steps taken.”

#464

July 28, 2023

🥵 Good morning, RVA: Early in-person voting restrictions, rattlesnakes, and bus shelters

Good morning, RVA! It’s 75 °F, and we’ll most likely end up with triple digit highs today. Pile on the humidity and you’ve got a dangerous heat situation, giving you every reason to stay inside with the blinds drawn like some sort of handsome 18th Century vampire. Seriously though, with a Heat Advisory in effect until at least tomorrow, today is a good day to embrace the darkness.

Water cooler

Yesterday, the Electoral Board of the City of Richmond voted to restrict early in-person voting in this November’s election to their incredibly hard to reach location at the end of Laburnum Avenue. Practically, this decision limits early in-person voting exclusively to people who can drive or get a ride to the Office of Elections, as their location is almost entirely inaccessible by foot, bike, or bus. This continues a recent trend: As the city has emerged from the pandemic, satellite early voting locations have mostly vanished—which is a real bummer. Axios Richmond has more and reports that the Board “balked at the $100,000 cost of staffing the [satellite] offices.” What I recommend, and what I do myself, is to sign up for permanent absentee voter status. Every election, the Department of Elections just mails my ballot ahead of time without me having to do a single thing. It’s so easy and convenient, and I love it.

Axios Richmond also pointed me to this story in the Washington Post about the Virginia High School League deciding not to implement the Governor’s new anti-trans policies in high school sports. Of course, local school districts are free to follow the new policies, but it doesn’t sound like VHSL, which regulates these sorts of things, will do any top-down, statewide enforcement beyond their own existing policy (which is maybe too intense).

#833

July 27, 2023

👩🏾‍🌾 Good morning, RVA: Short-term rental ordinance, Casino 2.0, and reparations

Good morning, RVA! It’s 70 °F, and temperatures continue to climb. Today you can expect sunshine (yay!) and highs in the mid 90s that feel closer to 100 °F (boo!). Actual temperatures reach triple digits tomorrow, and that heat will continue until Sunday when some relief arrives. It’s one of those weeks when I either need to ride the bus to work or bring an extra shirt since even 10 minutes spent on a bike will have me covered in sweat.

Water cooler

Jahd Khalil has an early look at the City’s proposed short-term rental ordinance (ORD. 2023–235) which was introduced at this past Monday’s City Council meeting. Tap through to get a sense for how the City’s trying to delicately balance the need to create more housing while also making sure 100% of that housing doesn’t instantly become Airbnbs. It’s complicated, and I think I’ll need a minute to scroll through the text of the ordinance to see what’s actually going on.

One other quick note on City Council’s doings before they head out on their annual August vacation: Council’s Governmental Operations committee will meet today at 1:00 PM and consider two papers I’ve got my eyes on. First, RES. 2023-R011 asks the CAO to come up with a plan to acquire Evergreen and East End Cemeteries from the now-defunct EnRichmond Foundation. This paper has bounced back and forth between Council and this committee since February, and I’m starting to wonder what’s holding things up. Second, RES. 2023-R047 will realign all of the City’s boards, commissions, and committees and require them to report to specific City Council subcommittees. For example, the Green City Commission will report to the Governmental Operations committee. This is mostly a boring, administrative paper, but if you tap through to the actual text of the resolution you get a nice list of every board, commission, and committee sorted by interest area. Could be useful (to a very specific type of person)!

#51

July 26, 2023