🧟‍♂️ Good morning, RVA: Cottages, committees, and corpses

Good morning, RVA! It’s 23 °F, but temperatures today could stretch into the 50s—and you can expect even warmer weather tomorrow. Unfortunately, I’ll be spending my afternoon at the dentist, but I do expect some of you to get out there and take advantage of the pleasantish weather for me. Wish me luck.
 

Water cooler

A single, quick COVID update this morning: Pfizer did go ahead and ask the FDA to authorize a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine for children under five yesterday. According to the aforelinked NYT article, the now-familiar series of necessary advisory committee meetings will begin on February 15th—just two weeks from now! Should that first group feel OK with the less-effective, two-dose regimen, the subsequent approval dominos usually fall fairly quickly afterwards. Yesterday, I said the science nerds would have lots of questions about Pfizer’s decision to move forward with a less-effective, two-dose vaccine (while still studying a three-dose version), and, today, Katelyn Jetelina works through some of those questions.
 

Tonight at 5:30 PM, the Richmond Land Bank (which is part of the Maggie Walker Community Land Trust) will hold a meeting of their Citizens Advisory Panel that’s open to the public. They’ll discuss a really interesting proposal from the JXN Project to purchase 10 properties in Jackson Ward owned by the Land Bank and bring the Skipwith Roper Cottage back to the neighborhood. This should sound familiar! Abraham Skipwith was “the first known free Black person to reside in what would become Jackson Ward,” and his home, built originally at 400 W. Duval Street, now sits on a farm in Goochland. Pulitzer Prize Winner Michael Paul Williams wrote a great history of Skipwith in the Richmond Times-Dispatch last April that you should definitely read (or reread). It’s really fascinating stuff, and if you’d like to comment in support of this particular project (or any of the work the Land Bank has going on) you can do so tonight!
 

Richard Hayes at RVA Hub reports that the City is looking for input on a redesign of the oddly shaped intersection of Semmes, Forest Hill, Dundee, and 34th. I’m almost never over that way so it’s hard for me to get a feel for where the trouble spots are, but this enormous PDF does show narrowed streets, curb bump-outs, and attempts to make safer pedestrian crossings. If you’ve got thoughts and feelings, make sure you get them in before February 18th!
 

The RTD’s Michael Martz reports on some good news from the Virginia Senate: Sounds like at least some of the proposals to force localities to hold referendums to increase their real estate tax rate got killed in committee. I mean, it seems pretty clear to me that localities should want as much flexibility to control their primary source of income as possible. I am not an economist nor do I have any idea what the future may hold for assessments, but I wouldn’t want some horrible, future economy thing to hamstring the City’s ability to provide basic services. Here’s a great quote from Republican Senator Hanger, who "said that for him to support these restrictions on local taxing authority, 'it would have to be in tandem with a commitment for the General Assembly to adequately fund core services back to local government…That’s where the pressure is…They have to do this because many times we don’t meet our responsibilities back to local government.”
 

Graham Moomaw at the Virginia Mercury reports that Democrats in the Virginia Senate also voted to “strip former Trump EPA chief Andrew Wheeler from a list of approved hires for Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s cabinet.” There are, of course, still some paths forward for Wheeler, including this delight: “even if Wheeler isn’t confirmed, the Youngkin administration could move him into a different role that doesn’t require General Assembly approval.” Remember, Youngkin’s nomination of Wheeler was always intended mostly to make liberals angry. Even if he’s not appointed, he’ll still float around the administration, and whoever eventually ends up taking on that role will still have the same anti-environment, anti-climate views—but probably won’t be as outwardly spoken about it.
 

FYI! Crews will begin removing the Confederate monument pedestals this week. I’m sure this work will have some sort of traffic impact, but I’m more interested in how it will dramatically change the visual impact of those spaces. Pretty exciting. Bonus points for the Northside, because: “The A.P. Hill statue and pedestal are also included in this contract. Specifically, this includes the removal of the cast iron monument and removal of the stone pedestal and all associated materials. The City of Richmond will coordinate the chain of custody for the burial site and remains of A.P. Hill and the required permitting with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.” You know I am VERY excited about the process to rebuild the intersection of Laburnum and Hermitage once this man’s corpse is removed—it’s one of the most dangerous intersections in the city!
 

This morning’s longread

We can’t thrive without friction

As a person who has, for the most part, quit Twitter but continues to send daily thoughts and opinions out into the internet, this piece rang incredibly true for me. The basic structure of social media is finely tuned to give complete strangers the most frictionless ways to make you feel bad.
 

But even more crucially is the friction that underpin these forms of exchange. For someone to write me a reply to something I’ve written on email requires original thought (you don’t get to see other replies), and an intrinsic motivation based in genuine curiosity (there’s no quick hit of belonging). Thus unlocking the kind of human connections we all in theory say we want: Authentic, good-faith, and considerate. This friction serves as a high-grade filter. Cleaning the feedback of the frivolous and the malevolent. Out of the thousands of people who might read something I write about antitrust, vaccines, polarization, hiring, or whatever, most will probably have some type of reaction. Maybe they’re appreciative, maybe they’re annoyed, maybe they’re ecstatic, maybe they’re outraged. But in almost all cases, I won’t ever know!
 

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Picture of the Day

Is it typography week? Maybe!