📉 Good morning, RVA: A bad spreadsheet, three meetings, and a plan for the Grotto

Good morning, RVA! It’s 41 °F, and today you can welcome back the warmer weather. We’ve got dry skies, highs in the mid 50s, and, deep in the extended forecast, I can even see some highs in the mid 60s! I don’t know about you, but I’m already looking forward to spending some (warmer) time outside on the bike later this week.
 

Water cooler

Remember last week when the Governor’s administration had to announce that due to some careless technical difficulties, they’d shorted public schools $201 million? Turns out the issue stemmed from a broken and cryptic spreadsheet, which I think is just fascinating. Waldo Jaquith put together a short blog post describing the issue, and put up a Google Sheet version of the spreadsheet in question for those of us who can’t help but make salty comments about poorly built spreadsheets. From Jaquith, “No doubt this started as some small, simple file, many years ago, put together by somebody at the Department of Education for internal purposes, shared informally with some municipalities, but gradually shared more broadly and standardized on. And then it grew and grew, without the necessary resources provided to support it that were commensurate with its newfound importance. Surely most other state agencies are vulnerable to similar failures with similar impacts due to the same problem.”
 

Today, if it’s your thing, you’ve got lots of good public meetings vying for your attention:
 

1. The City’s Planning Commission will meet and talk through an agenda filled with their normal set of things. Of interest to me are the two presentations planned for the Regular Agenda: the Richmond 300 Annual Report and a “Zoning Ordinance Re-write Advisory Council Discussion.” Neither have slides or supporting documents attached to them on the City’s website, but they both sound fascinating. I’ll check back in on these later.
2. City Council’s Organizational Development Committee will meet this evening, and you can find the full agenda here. Probably most notable: They’ll hear an update on regional transportation spending by the Central Virginia Transportation Authority. Tap through and get excited to read about the region coming together to fund a large piece of infrastructure like the Fall Line Trail—which already has portions out for bid. Dramatically less exciting: the $100 million about to be set on fire widening I-64. Finally, I’m not sure what to make of CVTA’s funding of GRTC. The bus company receives 15% of all CVTA money, about 34% of GRTC’s total budget. According to this presentation the “majority of funds [are] allocated to support routes in [the] current system” and “some funding [is] reserved for pilot projects identified by the Micro-Transit Study.” The CVTA had the potential to provide frequent and far-reaching regional public transportation. That it funds existing routes and micro-transit pilots feels like a huge missed opportunity. Unfortunately, I think if we want to see new and better public transit, we’re going to have to rely on local investments from Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield.
3. The RPS School Board will meet tonight to continue discussions on, among other things, their budget. Tonight’s meeting will include a public comment period on the proposed budget, so if you’ve got thoughts, feelings, or emotions you’d like to share (about the budget, of course), head over to Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School at 6:00 PM.

Whoa, Mike Platania at Richmond BizSense reports on some big Northside news: The mysterious Sami’s Grotto on MacArthur Avenue has finally sold to developers! As part of the redevelopment, they plan on bringing 10 apartments and some ground-floor commercial space to the building, which, as someone who gets a lot of takeout from spots on MacArthur, has me pretty excited. Sounds like the renovations will take a minute, though, as the building is “just full of wet debris.” Gross. But exciting!
 

Also in Richmond BizSense, Jonathan Spiers reports that RRHA has launched “a wholly owned subsidiary” called the Richmond Development Corp. New CEO Steven Nesmith hopes that the new organization will land RRHA more private investment money and help speed along public housing redevelopment. I’ve got an extremely related longread queued up later this week, so read this piece, noodle on it a bit, and take some notes.
 

This morning’s longread

A Treatise Concerning the Properties and Effects of Coffee (1792)

People have loved coffee for a long, long time, and these very, very old thoughts on one of the best ways to kick off your day felt like a good way to start this Monday morning.
 

As a practicing physician, Moseley’s interest in coffee was mostly medical and, although these debates still continue, he had little time for the uncaffeinated. In a terribly-aged analogy, he compares coffee alarmists to those who raise “declamations against mercury” and “nonsense against tobacco” — equally bunk. Some of the proclaimed benefits of coffee are familiar. It combats “lethargy, catarrh, and all disorders of the head”. It “accelerates the process of digestion”, affects “the gastric powers”, and “diffuses a genial warmth that cherishes the animal spirits, and takes away the listlessness and languor”. It also helps hangovers: that “disorderly condition brought on by drinking bad fermented liquors, and new rum, to excess”. Other benefits are perhaps less well-known today. If bedridden with “bloody flux” or dysentery, drink four cups of hot coffee and cover yourself with heavy bed clothes — you will soon be cured through perspiration; for messengers commuting long distances, “the alternate effects of opium and coffee” can sooth “their tedious journies”
 

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Picture of the Day

Two required condiments.