🦵 Good morning, RVA: 198 • 31 • 7.7; a major award; new tacos next year

Good morning, RVA! It’s 71 °F, and who’s excited for more of the same?? Today you can expect highs in the 80s and a chance for downpours. NBC12’s Andrew Freiden says we could catch a break this weekend, though.
 

Water cooler

As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths as: 198, 31, and 7.7, respectively. VDH reports a seven-day average of 19.4 new cases in and around Richmond (Richmond: 3.9; Henrico: 6.6, and Chesterfield: 9). Since this pandemic began, 1,331 people have died in the Richmond region. 44.7%, 55.9%, and 52.3% of the population in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. This week’s stacked chart is really something to look at—across the board you’ll see the lowest levels of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths pretty much since this pandemic began. I know a lot of folks are holding their breath until fall—when things took a turn last year—but, for now, the data is down and things are looking up!
 

Biden Goal update! With 68.5% of adults in Virginia with at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and one day to go, we’re definitely going to miss my projection of hitting 70% on June 12th. Honestly, at the current rate, hitting July 4th might turn out to be a photo-finish. Either way, this is a dumb thing to be so focused on! Vaccinating the rest of these folks will take long, slow, methodical work—like over the course of this entire year. Shouting about the president’s fairly arbitrary goal won’t get us there any faster (I will continue to shout about it for reasons I don’t really understand!).
 

Y’all! Richmond 300, like, the plan itself, has won a major award! The American Planning Association announced that Richmond 300 won the Daniel Burnham Award for a Comprehensive Plan, making it the #1 comprehensive plan in the country. As one friend put it, this is like winning the master plan Heisman. Congratulations to all of the City staff who worked so hard on Richmond 300, and congratulations to many of you who also served on committees, attended meetings, and submitted public comments. Let me quote a bit from the APA writeup: “Expansive community engagement, unlike any seen in the city’s history, led to the creation of Richmond 300: A Guide For Growth…Recognizing the city’s history of racist policies that left many residents distrustful of the planning process, Richmond’s planning team took special care to ensure all Richmonders can see their influence Richmond 300….After extensive outreach—including the formation and training of a community engagement team to help reach Latinx, Black, and low-income residents—planners succeeded in helping to elevate voices that had gone unheard for decades.”
 

Chris Suarez at the Richmond Times-Dispatch covered yesterday’s Urban Design Committee meeting, which, after a bunch of discussion, approved removal of nine Confederate monument remnants. Sounds like the plans will now move to the Planning Commission and then to full Council before the end of the month (assuming things don’t get caught up along the way).
 

Richmond BizSense’s Mike Platania reports that Torchy’s Tacos will open up a shop in the new Carytown Exchange shopping center in 2022. I know they now have tons of other locations, but time was that friends who went to SXSW would rant and rave about a trip to Torchy’s.
 

I don’t think there’s any new information here, but how weird is it to see a virginia.gov website with a marijuana leaf as its logo? Also, I know we already all know this, but some of these rules are farcical, and I have to believe that next year’s General Assembly will try to speed up the 2024 commercial sales timeline. I mean this is what we have to live with for three years: “Beginning on July 1, adults 21 and over can grow up to four marijuana plants per household (not per person), for personal use,” but “It will remain illegal to sell marijuana seeds, clones, flower, or any other part of the marijuana plant in Virginia before 2024. Although there are some states that already have legalized marijuana sales, it remains federally illegal to move marijuana across state lines.” I guess if you can apparate a marijuana plant into your house, you’re good to go!
 

This morning’s longread

Growing up queer in Appalachia

Another great essay in Scalawag, this one from back in 2017 around the time North Carolina was kicking around its transgender / bathroom legislation.
 

I visit often, but I never moved back home. In large part I stayed away for the same reason anyone from the rural South does: to find work. That said, I’m not the only person from our small school who came out and moved to New York. There’s a reason it’s a classic. Lots of us left, or tried to. Some of us have been forced back into the closet. Some were able to stay put and strike a balance, but not nearly enough. I have a very typical queer Southern expatriate chip on my shoulder: furious at what happened to me there, furious at what still happens to my people, furious that anyone else would use their suffering as a rhetorical cudgel to distract from the exact same shit happening in their own backyards. Guilty for leaving them behind.
 

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Picture of the Day