👮 Good morning, RVA: Omicron vibes, unions for City employees, and a Broad Street survey

Good morning, RVA! It’s 56 °F, and highs today will heat back up right near 70 °F. Expect similar weather tomorrow and every excuse to spend a good chunk of time outside. Colder, more Decemberish temperatures show up on Sunday—you’ve been warned!
 

Water cooler

Well, the popular perception and general public vibes around Omicron really took a turn yesterday, didn’t they? Since the news about Cornell shutting down their campus broke, I’ve seen 100 articles like this one from the New York Times, “Offices Shut and Holiday Parties Dim as a Familiar Feeling Sinks In,” or this one in the Washington Post, “Omicron induces whiplash for many Americans.” More ominously, I can now hear the clacking of a 1,000 keyboards as the epidemiologically-adjacent reporters have started publishing pieces like this one in The Atlantic by Ed Yong, “America Is Not Ready for Omicron.” I’m not sure what pushed our collective consciousness over another coronaledge, but, here we are. However, despite shifting headlines, what we know for sure about this new variant has remained mostly unchanged: Omicron is very, very transmissible, vaccines are great, and you should definitely go get your booster if you have not already. Also, you should always pair those terrifying, exponentially-increasing case count graphs with the associated graphs of hospitalizations and deaths. Compare these cases and deaths graphs from UK, where they’re in the early stages of an Omicron wave. They show more cases than ever before—like, ever!—but far, far fewer deaths than either last winter or spring. That, of course, could change as we learn more, but I do think it speaks to the fact (hope?) that we are not just in for a repeat of April 2020.
 

Ali Rockett and Chris Suarez at the Richmond Times-Dispatch report that “the local police organization that represents about half of the city’s sworn officers is asking for the resignation of Police Chief Gerald Smith.” I don’t know what to make of that! The Mayor says its part of a push to get the Richmond Police Department unionized—well, specifically he said it’s a “cockamamie tactic to unionize Richmond police.” How are these two things, the Police Chief and a push for a union, related? Both the Mayor and Councilmember Trammell have pending legislation that would authorize collective bargaining for City employees. Trammell’s ordinance (ORD. 2021–345) would open that up for a broad range of City employees, while the Mayor’s (ORD. 2021–346) is focused just on employees in the Department of Public Utilities and the Department of Public Works. I…still think I’m missing several key details to really understand what’s happening here. Unrelated, if Trammell’s ordinance passes, I do think it’d be one of her most significant pieces of legislation (at least that I’m aware of).
 

Richmond BizSense’s Jonathan Spiers has the news that two affordable housing nonprofits, Better Housing Coalition and Virginia Supportive Housing, will combine their powers into a single, regional affordable-housing Voltron. From the piece: “The combined nonprofit, expected to emerge with a new name in early 2023, will create a regional housing behemoth with upward of $135 million in total net assets and an initial footprint stretching from Richmond to Charlottesville and Hampton Roads.” I’m not smart enough to know how this merge will impact BHC’s work locally, but leveraging scale seems like a good thing when dealing with real estate development and affordable housing.
 

VDOT, in partnership with Richmond City and Henrico County, has put together a survey to assess “potential improvements to W. Broad Street between Libbie Avenue in Henrico County and Malvern/Westwood Avenue in the City of Richmond.” Sounds incredibly boring, I know, BUT it will take you just a couple of minutes to fill out and is an excellent opportunity to shout about the importance of public transit, bike, and pedestrian access along that portion of the Broad Street corridor.
 

The outgoing governor made his official budget announcement yesterday, and you can read through all of the highlights here or read his remarks here. I think this concludes both his farewell tour and the seemingly endless number of appearances and announcements over the last week or so. Although…according to his public schedule, he will pop over to CoStar today at 9:00 AM for a “major economic development announcement.” Maybe something related to this Navy Hill-era news that “CoStar Group [had] struck a tentative agreement to occupy a 400,000-square-foot office building within the [Navy Hill] development”? Maybe something river-related?
 

This morning’s longread

Warmer winters can wreak as much havoc as hotter summers, say scientists

Local Climate Scientist Dr. Jeremy Hoffman says December through February, aka winter, is our region’s “most rapidly-warming season.” Not great! So, before you get too rad on your bike this weekend, keep in mind that unseasonably warm winter temperatures are, ultimately, bad news.
 

Warm spells in winter can create extreme heat waves later in summer. Unseasonal warmth can lead to a premature snow melt and vegetation growth, which lowers soil moisture and amplifies the likelihood of extreme and persistent heat waves throughout the summer, says Kornhuber. He points to the chain of events that led up to a heatwave that rocked Siberia in 2020 and was associated with wildfires that lasted the whole summer and caused record breaking carbon emissions.
 

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Picture of the Day

Flowers! It is NOT spring! Stop it!