📑 Good morning, RVA: 958↘️ • 3↗️; protests return to Richmond; and a packed City Council agenda

Good morning, RVA! It’s 77 °F, and, wow, big surprise, we’re headed into another day with temperatures in the upper 90s and lots of humidity. Enjoy!

Water cooler

As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 958↘️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 3↗️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 74↘️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 28, Henrico: 29, and Richmond: 17). Since this pandemic began, 280 people have died in the Richmond region. I’m interested to hear what the Governor will have to say this week and what actions he may take as the Commonwealth continues to see about 1,000 new coronavirus cases each day. On Saturday, he said “We will be watching the public health data closely over the weekend—if the numbers don’t come down, we may have to take additional steps to blunt the spread of this virus.” The numbers, particularly in Eastern Virginia, do not look to have appreciably come down. I still think that he’ll be extremely hesitant to move even a single region fully back to Phase Two, and, if I were to guess, I’d say he’ll modify Phase Three in some of the most impacted regions by re-banning indoor dining and reducing the number of people allowed at public gatherings. Kate Masters at the Virginia Mercury has the details on the statewide picture. I guess we’ll learn more today or tomorrow, and, until then, make sure you stay home if you can, mask up and keep your distance if you cannot.

This past weekend saw two nights of protests return to the streets of downtown Richmond and VCU-adjacent parts of the Fan. I don’t want to speak for any of the folks involved, but the vibe on Saturday was weird and different. Literal White Supremacists with assault rifles led the march for a portion of the night, I saw video of an angry white man shoot his gun into the street to intimidate someone (content warning: n-word), police again used chemical weapons on crowds, and members of the press were manhandled by the Richmond Police Department. You should read the recap in the Richmond Times-Dispatch by Sabrina Moreno and Ali Sullivan as Moreno was one of the reporters thrown to the ground by police. As Saturday night’s crowd made its way through the City, protestors shattered dozens of windows along Grace Street causing, according to VCU President Rao, over $100,000 of damage. Sunday night was, again, weird and different. After the previous night of property damage and scary gun violence, to an outside observer it felt like the RPD were much more on edge. Police harassed, detained, or arrested four people who have been involved in covering the protests for the last 60 days. The Commonwealth Times’s Eduardo Acevedo was harassed despite loudly and prominently showing his press pass. The CT’s Andrew Ringle was detained and handcuffed. @GoadGatsby—who, while not press, has provided the most consistent coverage of the last 60 days—was arrested and released. And @socialistdogmom—also not officially press but has covered recent events in Richmond and has a long history of covering city government in Charlottesville—was arrested and, at least as of this moment, has not yet been released. As you can imagine, I feel very protective of folks who are not quite press but still fill important roles in helping people stay informed about what’s going on in their city. With City Council set to vote on some of the police-reform legislation tonight (more on that below), this weekend’s protests have left me feeling confused and unmoored.

City Council does in fact meet tonight for their regularly-scheduled meeting and has a few items of note on their agenda. First, RES. 2020-R044 expresses Council’s support for the semi-new Department of Public Works policy to always provide a safe, alternative path through when sidewalks and bike lanes are closed due to construction. It took a long, long time to get to the point where DPW had a policy like this for which Council could even express its support. So if public praise is what it takes to get more of these sorts of policies, I’ll take it. Second, ORD. 2019–320 would reduce the speed limit on Patterson Avenue between Willow Lawn Drive and Pepper Avenue from 35 miles per hour to 25 miles per hour. Third, ORD. 2020–153—a rare Trammell-patroned paper—would rename Jefferson Davis Highway within the city limits to “Richmond Highway.” Fourth, Council will appoint a bunch of new folks to the Housing Authority board—which, whew, that situation is a whole thing that hopefully new blood on the board will help with. Finally, Council, as part of their regular agenda, will consider four of the five police reform papers (all of them but the resolution asking the Richmond Police Department to stop using chemical and less-lethal weapons (RES. 2020-R048)). Since those papers are on the regular agenda, Council will hold a public hearing for each one, and that means you’ll have the opportunity to speak (virtually) on each one. If that sounds like how you’d like to spend your Monday night, make sure you let the clerk know before 10:00 AM today (cityclerksoffice@richmondgov.com)!

Related to policing, late last week Richmond Public Schools hosted a student-led conversation about policing in schools, which you can watch on Facebook. After that conversation, Superintendent Kamras announced that he’ll recommend that the School Board “remove police officers from our schools and request that the City Council allocate the related funding for mental health professionals.” An important bit of context as we start having community conversations about police in schools: School Resource Officers (SROs) are the actual police in schools, paid for by the actual Richmond Police Department; School Safety Officers (SSOs) are not actual police and are paid for through the RPS budget. As far as I understand it, SROs are only in schools to do law-enforcement, not day-to-day school discipline.

Also on the schools tip, last week both Henrico and Chesterfield opted to start school with an all-virtual option. That leaves Hanover County as the only local jurisdiction to have students in school buildings at the start of the year.

Karri Peifer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a good a piece about how it’s nearly impossible to make a restaurant work during coronatimes. The Governor can open indoor dining all he wants, but for restaurant owners like Emilia Sparatta, this is still a core truth: "With our business being down almost 90%, it’s just not worth the risk to our staff and families to stay open…How do you pay your employees what they’re worth like that? It’s just not possible.”

Survey time! The Richmond Memorial Health Foundation is looking for folks that identify as LGBTQIA+, particularly persons of color, to participate in this survey around the unique health challenges they face. If you want to go further than a survey there are some options for interviews and focus groups, too. RMHF does a lot of health-related philanthropy in the region, and this survey will help “inform the potential development of services, programs, and resources for the LGBTQIA+ community.”

This morning’s longread

Love the Fig

Whoa, I learned so many charming things about figs.

The produce section of the grocery store is a botanical disaster. Most people know that a tomato is technically a fruit, but so is an eggplant, a cucumber, and a spaghetti squash. A banana, which grows from a flower with a single ovary, is actually a berry, while a strawberry, which grows from a flower with several ovaries, isn’t a berry at all but an aggregate fruit. The most confusing classification, though, will start showing up on American shelves this month. Shoppers will find mission figs with the grapes, kiwis, and other fruit, but a clever botanist would sell them at the florist, with the fresh-cut roses. Although many people dismiss figs as a geriatric delicacy or the sticky stuff inside bad cookies, they are, in fact, something awesome: enclosed flowers that bloom modestly inward, unlike the flamboyant showoffs on other plants. Bite a fig in half and you’ll discover a core of tiny blossoms.

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This morning’s Instagram