🐯 Good morning, RVA: Budget season!, a clever strategy, and great Richmond things

Good morning, RVA! It’s 18 °F, and that’s way too cold. Temperatures will triple by this afternoon and then head into the 60s and 70s over the next couple of days. Weird, but I accept!
 

Water cooler

It’s Tuesday, so here’s your weekly look at the graphs of hospitalizations and deaths in Virginia due to COVID-19. Looks like we’re definitely on the backside of the hospitals peak, and maybe just getting to a similar place with deaths. Pending some drastic shift in trends, two weeks from now these graphs—and the spread of disease in our communities—will look a lot different. As of yesterday, the CDC Data Tracker lists Richmond’s Case Rate Per 100k at 251, Henrico’s at 310, and Chesterfield’s at 344. Those are all still “high” levels, but they’ve all dropped about 30% over the last seven days. Sooner rather than later we will see a drop in our “community transmission” level from that high level (scary red) to substantial (less scary orange). That’s something to look forward to, and, for me, will mean more engaging with the world!
 

The Virginia Mercury’s Graham Moomaw reports that the bill banning mask mandates in schools passed the House of Delegates and will now head to the Governor for his signature. He’ll probably recommend an “emergency clause” which would turn this bill into a law within the next couple of weeks. I’m still upset at Senate Democrats for allowing this to happen, and I just hope COVID-19—or some other horrible disease—doesn’t drop us in a public health crisis where we need masks in schools to keep our kids safe.
 

OK, it is official! The most wonderful time of the year—budget season—has officially kicked off with the release of the FY 2023 Richmond Budget Schedule. I couldn’t find the schedule floating around on the City’s website anywhere, so here’s a quick copy/paste out of my email into a Google Doc. A couple dates worth noting: Things kick off on February 28th with a Council work session, the Mayor must submit his budget by March 4th, Council will hold the first public hearing on March 28th, they plan on introducing amendments on April 25th, and the final budget public hearing will be held on May 2nd. This schedule is extremely susceptible to change depending on how much Council wants to tweak the Mayor’s budget and how much progress they make during their work sessions. At this moment in time, I do plan on dropping all of the meeting audio into The Boring Show podcast, so we can listen along as our elected officials make the funding decisions that will steer our City for the next year and beyond. Get exited!
 

Yesterday, Virginia’s House of Delegates took up HB 787, the bill that would make it “an unlawful and discriminatory practice for any local school board or employee or contractor thereof to train or instruct any individual on any divisive concept.” It’s the dumbest of bills, and, unfortunately, passed the house 50–47. While in the minority, Democrats still need to find clever ways to resist these horrible, racist bills, and it looks like the strategy yesterday was to propose a bunch of very specific amendments that would allow the teaching of concepts most folks just couldn’t possible be against. Here’s the full list of subjects, proposed by Democrats, that teachers should be allowed to teach without fear of being defined as “divisive”: that Jim Crow existed, the Lost Cause narrative drove the erection of Confederate monuments, race and gender income gaps exist in America, Ruby Bridges, Vincent Chin, the demographics of elected officials, the Supreme Court case guaranteeing the right for same-sex couples to marry, the Three-Fifths Compromise, and the disparate impact COVID-19 has had on people of color. Virginia’s House Republicans voted down every single one of these amendments, including one that would allow the teaching of “Supreme Court precedents and arguments.” Incredible. While this litany of amendments had no impact on the vote, I don’t think that was ever the intent. Now house Republicans are on the record voting against Ruby Bridges, and they’ll have to live with that. Luckily, this bill will most likely die when it gets to the Senate due to Democrats very slim majority, but if you ever needed a reason to vote in off-cycle elections, this is the paragraph for you. Without those two seats and the Democratic brick wall in the Senate, the Commonwealth would be halfway to Texas by now.
 

Style Weekly put out this Valentine to some their favorite Richmond people, places, and things. If I could add two things I would nominate the T. Pott Bridge and the Capital Trail. Anyway, tap through and feel good about our town!
 

This morning’s longread

Who Should You Back in the Midterm Elections?

I don’t get a lot of hope or inspiration out of this piece as it’s exactly what the tried-and-failed Great Slate project attempted to do. That said, it’s true that early money is more useful to candidate than late money, so now is better than later to give. It’s also just nice to know a little more about the country’s competitive elections.
 

One way to choose is to follow your heart; if some candidate inspires you, devote your resources to helping them. Another strategy is to take a pragmatic approach more like triage: There are inspiring candidates who are going to win with or without the help of people like you. (AOC has gotten over 75% of the vote in both of her races.) Other races are lost causes. (It would be great to beat Republican Speaker-in-waiting Kevin McCarthy, but he won by nearly 25 points in 2020, and every prognosticating outlet rates his seat as safe.) So you want to give a push to candidates who might or might not win, depending on whether people like you rally around them. Most of us do something in between. We’d like to simultaneously feel good about our candidates and make a difference in the outcome. That means looking at races that could go either way and seeing how we feel about the candidates involved.
 

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Picture of the Day

Hey, girl.