🤔 Good morning, RVA: 755↘️ • 21↘️; the FINAL Richmond 300; and the Monument Avenue medians

Good morning, RVA! It’s 55 °F, and we’ve got a beautiful day ahead of us and a wonderful start to October. October! Today, you should expect sunshine and highs around 80 °F for the most part with clouds and a chance of rain moving in this evening.

Water cooler

Richmond Police are reporting that Tequan T. Greenhowe, a man in his 20s, was found shot to death outside of his residence on the 1200 block of Admiral Gravely Boulevard early Sunday evening. From the RPD press release, “Detectives are working to determine whether this incident is connected to the homicide which occurred several hours earlier in the same area.”

As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 755↘️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 21↘️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 55↘️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 17, Henrico: 13, and Richmond: 25). Since this pandemic began, 372 people have died in the Richmond region. VCU continues to report very few positive cases, just five so far this week. Across town, University of Richmond reports just 10 cases in the entire month of September. I’m still pleasantly mystified by these low numbers, so, keep it up Rams and Spiders.

City Council’s Education and Human Services committee meets today at 2:00 PM. Of interest to me, Councilmember Gray’s ORD. 2020–170 which would change the use of the Annie Giles Community Resource Center down on Oliver Hill Way so that it can function as an inclement weather shelter. This property, site of the semi-recent tent encampment, has a long history, and I feel like I’m missing some of the politics behind what’s going on here—especially since the ordinance includes this language: “if the Mayor believes that City-owned real estate other than the Annie Giles Community Resource Center should be used as an inclement weather shelter for homeless persons…he is encouraged to recommend to the Council an ordinance to change the use of such City-owned real estate.” Back in 2019, ORD. 2019–245 designated the Center as a cold weather shelter until April 15th, 2020, because, at the time, according to this Richmond Free Press article, Council thought they’d find a better location at some point. I guess they didn’t? Also interesting, the new ordinance designates the shelters as an “inclement weather” shelter rather than a “cold weather” shelter, which is just another way climate change has an impact locally. Kelly King Horne, executive director of Homeward, will give an update to the Committee on the Housing and Homelessness Strategic Plan, and I wonder if she’ll touch on this new ordinance.

Councilmember Gray has also introduced ORD. 2020–217, which would remove from the public right-of-way the medians on Monument and Allen Avenues around Marcus-David Peters Circle and convert them into five parks: Monument Park West, Allen Avenue Common, Monument Park East, Grace Park South, and Grace Park North. I haven’t heard the Councilmember speak on this ordinance, but, given her position on the activities in and around the Circle, I have a hard time believing this is anything but a sneaky way to close access to the area after sunset. Almost every City park is closed from sunset to sunrise. I’m willing to listen and learn more, but this looks like bad legislation to me, and something that has the potential for incredibly inequitable enforcement. Also, does Parks & Rec even want these new parks? Why, if this is a good-faith effort to build our public green space, has there been zero community engagement? I love parks, but I also love the public right-of-way—especially in an area with pretty terrible pedestrian infrastructure (I’m looking at you Stuart Circle).

You can now download the final version of the Richmond 300: A Guide for Growth master plan. This is amazing, and congratulations to all of the dozens and dozens of folks who worked on and contributed to this plan. It’s been a heckin' long time coming, and y’all created a solid document. I know I’ve been critical of the Plan at times, but it definitely comes from a place of love, and I’m excited to see the Plan first adopted and then implemented. This coming Monday, the City Planning Commission (PDF) will hold a public hearing on the, I’ll say it again, final version of the Richmond 300: A Guide for Growth master plan. I’m sure everyone involved would appreciate your supportive public comments.

Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury has a disquieting story about Henrico’s Commonwealth Attorney’s attempts to hire a prosecutor dedicated to investigating complaints of police misconduct. From Oliver’s piece: “But in an unusual turn of events, Taylor was effectively overruled by County Manager John Vithoulkas, who has no formal say in hiring decisions in the prosecutor’s office but froze county funding for the position when he was alerted to Whitehead’s public postings on Facebook, where she wrote about the need for police reform, praised departments working to build bridges with activists and offered sharp criticism for departments resisting change.” I wonder if the potential hire’s Facebook posts had been blatantly and exclusively pro-cop would the County Manager’s reaction have been any different? Henrico residents, especially, read this piece in full.

Tickets for Maymont’s Garden Glow go on sale today, and I imagine they’ll sell out pretty quickly. Big events continue to give me coronastress, but a masked-up, out-of-doors wander through a park, is a generally low risk situation. Plus, you can always just run off into the bamboo forest if the crowds get too intense. I’ll probably sit this one out, but I look forward to seeing all of y’all’s pictures on Instagram.

This morning’s longread

Care for a Cup of Satanic Chamomile?

This piece in the NYT about black metal tea is charming?

Dominic Alvernaz wants to change all that. His small-batch, sustainably sourced loose leaf tea company, Pitch Black North, was founded in keeping with “Satanic values,” according to its website, and nurtured with copious doses of Scandinavian black metal, a musical genre. Its dynamic, fair-trade blends have names like Satan’s Slumber and Throat of Lucifer; there are limited-edition blends with the Cleveland metal punk band Midnight and the British gothic black metal band Cradle of Filth.

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This morning’s Instagram