🌱 Good morning, RVA: A big grant; deferred maintenance; and 8,000 pounds of acorns

Good morning, RVA! It’s 50 °F, and we’ve got another day ahead of us with pleasant temperatures, highs in the mid 70s, and dry skies. If todays doesn’t shout “work from the hammock” and “drinks on the porch” no day ever will!
 

Water cooler

As foretold, the Governor used falling NAEP test scores across the nation to blame Democrats and the previous gubernatorial administration. The tone of the aforelinked press release is just so, so bad—excited to lay blame, utterly hopeless about the future of Virginia’s children. Here’s a depressing quote: “Virginia may lose a generation of children—particularly among our most in need.” I can’t empathize with folks whose world view is so bleak, especially folks who took a job to, ostensibly, make things better.
 

Whoa, big grant! Yesterday, Homeward announced that, along with a ton of partners and localities, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded them $4.4 million to address youth homelessness. From the press release: “As part of the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program funding, Homeward will coordinate a community-led planning process to identify the needs of youth experiencing homelessness in the Richmond region. A community plan will be developed and submitted to HUD. Once approved by HUD, funding will be used to support programs that address youth needs outlined in the regional plan.” This seems huge, both in impact and literal size, and I’m positive we’ll hear more about it as they start to move through their planning process.
 

Dave Ress at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a quick story about the City’s progress on tackling decades of deferred maintenance. One thing Mayor Stoney’s administration has been really focused on since Day One is addressing so many of the basics that had been ignored for years and years—in part due to the recession, sure, but also because disinvestment in cities is nothing new. Mowing, trash pick up, bulk & brush, paving, potholes, all have gotten better over the last six-or-so years. Of course there’s still plenty to address—including the billion dollars we’ll need for sewer infrastructure and then the other billion we’ll need for public housing—but it does feel like we’re finally paying down some of our long-deferred needs!
 

A quick City Council note: The Public Safety committee will meet today at 1:00 PM with a short agenda and will host Chief Smith for a presentation on “Operation Red Ball And The Gun Buy Back Data With Details On How Impact Is Measured.” National studies have show gun buybacks typically don’t have a huge impact on a city’s gun violence, and Operation Red Ball makes me uncomfortable—remember, Operation Red Ball is RPD’s program where they kind of precog who might could commit crimes using guns and then predictive police them off the streets. I’m interested to hear how the RPD spins both of these programs as successful, especially given the seemingly endless recent headlines about shooting victims across the region. The real answer to reducing gun violence is, simply, more restrictions on guns and gun ownership. Localities certainly don’t have the tools to impact either, but even state governments have very few options as a result of Congressional Republicans and their refusal to save people’s lives by passing simple, commonsense laws. Locally, I have a lot of sympathy for Mayor Stoney and City Council on this issue. In a lot of ways, their hands are tied and they’re forced to chip away at the edges of the problem.
 

Meghan McIntyer at the Virginia Mercury reports that one single man has collected over 8,000 pounds of acorns since 2009 and is responsible for 500,000 new trees as a result. What an enormous individual impact—this blows my mind!
 

In November of 2021, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation put out a bunch of cones on the bridge connecting Boston and Cambridge, creating a wider, safer bike lane and a more narrow (also safer) travel lane. Now, a year later, MassDOT has deemed the cones a success and will make the new layout permanent while also freeing up space for a bus-only lane. Tap through, look at the headline image, and get instantly convinced that we could do this on the Belvidere Bridge, the 8th Street Bride, and maybe even the Mayo Bridge. All for the cost of a bunch of cones! Other places are doing this type of temporary-materials pilot, and we should, too.
 

Related, kind of, here’s another cool volunteer opportunity: October 26th is Walk to School Day, and Safe Routes to Schools needs a few volunteers to distribute swag and cheer on students who walk or bike to school. If you’re interested (especially if you live in the East End), fill out this form ASAP!
 

This morning’s longread

Brunswick Stew Is the Perfect Soup for Right Now

I spent this past Saturday helping make a Brunswick stew, and, while we didn’t use 80 hens, our pot still yielded a lot. Honestly, it’s one of my favorite things I do each year.
 

In a tender poem titled “The Tryst,” the Virginian poet John Bannister Tabb wrote about how neither an underground potato nor an above-ground tomato “suspected a mutual love/Till they met in Brunswick stew.” There is an alchemy to the way a stew’s disparate ingredients slowly come together over a flame, ending not like a homogeneous purée but like a mosaic. Each ingredient should remain distinct but melded at the edges, Mr. Eacho said. That’s what makes a good pot. And each pot should yield a lot. A true stew master measures Brunswick stew in quarts. To get an idea of the scale of some older recipes, envision the 80 hens Patricia Newcomb’s family used to acquire to start a pot. These 100-gallon cauldrons were “ginormous,” she said. “Huge.”
 

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Picture of the Day

It had about 3 more hours on the fire left to go at this point. Definitely still a soup and not a stew.