🧀 Good morning, RVA: Plinth be gone, Secretary Mayor Pete, and Fall Line money

Good morning, RVA! It’s 45 °F, and today looks unseasonably warm. Expect highs back up in the 70s but accompanied by tons of wind—like, 30mph+ gusts after lunch. Batten the hatches and take down your umbrellas!
 

Water cooler

Yesterday, the Governor announced that the State will “remove the pedestal that formerly displayed the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, as part of a plan reached with the City of Richmond to convey the state-owned land to the City.” The Commonwealth will begin that work today and will hope to finish up by December 31st. Importantly, “the Commonwealth will safely disassemble and store the pedestal until next steps have been determined.” Mel Leonor at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a few more details. My initial reaction was to be angry with the City and State for collaborating behind closed doors, with absolutely zero community engagement, about an enormous piece of the “reimagining Monument Avenue” process. But, after sleeping on it, I think this is the right decision. Even if the State conveyed the land and the monument to the City, giving us complete control of the space, I can’t stop thinking about how terrible it’d feel to have some racists morons erase the existing graffiti in the middle of the night. I just don’t know how, given the present moment, the City would keep the pedestal and its nationally-recognized protest art safe, so disassembling and storing—for possible future reassembling!—seems like the best decision right now. I also wonder if the actual Reimagining Monument Avenue group, which is still nothing as far as I know, will have a harder time moving forward with the new Governor and legislature. Best to let the City handle its own reimagining, I think.
 

Secretary Mayor Pete was in Jackson Ward on Friday to explicitly promote the grants made available in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill that will help reconnect communities riven by highways. This is very exciting because, as you know, Richmond 300 calls for just such a project: capping I-95 between St. James and 1st Streets. What a rare opportunity to bring the actual Secretary of Transportation to Richmond and show him an actual project that could be funded by his actual new grants! Wyatt Gordon at the Virginia Mercury has some more details.
 

Richmond BizSense’s Jack Jacobs reports that the CVTA voted last week to “allocated $104.5 million toward the Fall Line, a multipurpose trail which would run from Petersburg to Ashland.” Progress! While the whole thing may take up to a decade to build, I bet we start seeing construction on some of the segments pretty dang soon. Also, assuming the CVTA voted yes to this entire list of candidate projects, the Capital Trail will receive $234,000 towards improving four of the trail’s Route 5 crossings. Also great news!
 

Jessica Nocera at the RTD has an in-depth report on Henrico’s redistricting plans, which you should definitely read if you’re a County resident. In responding to criticisms of the current plan, County Manager John Vithoulkas says “There’s nothing political about math.” I couldn’t disagree more! Sure math is apolitical, but the folks who use it to create redistricting maps are people just like you and me—filled with thoughts, feelings, and, of course, politics.
 

I wanted to include this report from Patrick Wilson, also at the RTD, on the Republicans’ annual post-election get together, solely for this salty editor’s note at the bottom of the piece: “The Republican Party of Virginia is charging the Richmond Times-Dispatch $75 for a ticket to attend and report on the Advance, the party’s annual post-election gathering at the Omni Homestead in Hot Springs.”
 

City Council will hold a special meeting tonight to introduce the legislation required to give cops and other public safety employees a one-time COVID-19 bonus. Next I would like bonuses for the City’s other essential workers and frontline employees (DPW and Parks & Rec humans!) who have continued to work through the pandemic and provide the critical services that keep our city running.
 

Via /r/rva: “Found in Oregon Hill…Dozens of blocks of expired cheese on a park bench.”
 

This morning’s longread

The fry universe 🍟

Here are a bunch of 3D renderings of fry shapes and some surface-area analysis on each shape. Personally, I need to see some more work done on the various types of classic fry shapes—shoe string, regular, steak, etc. Also, crinkle fry, the worst fry, would seem to have an enormous amount of surface area but still serves up deep disappointment at mealtime. What does that mean for the Fried Ratio Theorem, then??
 

You probably like some types of fries more than others. The 3D modeling of various fry shapes illuminated why this might be.
 

If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.
 

Picture of the Day

I had the opportunity to ride a section of the Tobacco Heritage Trail this past weekend (for my birthday!), and it is very beautiful, but, let me tell you, we are incredibly spoiled by the Capital Trail.