🥰 Good morning, RVA: Worker muscle, Broad Street repaving, and a romantic Richmond.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 57 °F, and this week we’ve had a consistent chance for afternoon rain which never once materialized—today’s the day though! Keep your rain jacket handy this evening and, unfortunately, most of the weekend. Your freshly planted garden will appreciate it, though!
 

Water cooler

Meg Schiffres at VPM talks to some City employees about the two different collective bargaining papers floating around City Council agendas. Both, ORD. 2021–345 and ORD. 2021–346, are teed up for consideration at this coming Monday’s full Council meeting. I’m really interested in how this plays out and feel like we’ll probably end up with the more expansive, Everyone Gets a Union paper passing—maybe even on Monday night. After that, though, I want to see how a public employees' union works in Richmond, how they flex their muscle, and what kind of improvements they can secure for the work force. Related, perhaps, Kate Masters at the Virginia Mercury reports that last night the Governor revoked each and every state employee’s telework agreement, requiring the entire workforce back into the office by July 5th.
 

Also at the Virginia Mercury, Sarah Vogelsong reports on Dominion Energy’s sleight of hand with the costs they’ve passed down to the consumer as part of Virginia’s membership in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. I can’t even get into the dumb shenanigans the electricity monopoly pulled because I’m too busy being newly anxious about the Governor’s continued plan to pull the Commonwealth out of the RGGI. I can count on less than one hand the number of elected officials that represent me or my region that take climate change seriously, and it’s terrifying.
 

Whoa, we’re already on Phase 4 of the Broad Street repaving—this one stretches from Arthur Ashe Boulevard to Hamilton Street. Just one more phase to go after this one; then, the most exciting part, about a month from now they’ll start painting the center-running bus lanes red. I am so stoked for this! As the City wraps up this major project—which has gone pretty smoothly!—keep an eye on GRTC’s website for construction updates and bus detours.
 

Via /r/rva, a list of romantic things to do in Richmond. Lots of jokes in here (like, “a smell tour of Richmond”), but also lots of great actual suggestions—a bunch of which feature our excellent public parks. Thanks Parks & Rec for making Richmond such a rad and romantic place.
 

To close, I’d like to highlight two events that might be worth your time at some point this weekend (should the weather hold):
 

• First, Bike Month continues straight on through the weekend, with most of the focus on the Cap2Cap ride which takes riders (up to) the entire length of the Capital Trail. For the less intense, I’m interested in this mysterious Saturday group ride described only as “Explore Richmond #1, North, 10am, Virginia Capital (9th and Grace St)”. Could be cool! I love exploring Richmond, and I love a mystery.
• Then, on Sunday, the City’s Urban Forestry Division needs volunteers to help plant trees on Richmond’s Southside. I mean, does this not get your heart pumping: “Duties will include helping to dig holes, moving soil and mulch, and placing and planting these 15-gallon/1” caliper sized trees. We will also be installing tree irrigation bags for watering these trees after planting." Digging holes! Moving soil! Mulching! Get your weekend on while helping reduce the urban heat island effect!

This morning’s longread

Can Restaurants Reinvent ‘Sustainable Sushi’?

As with all headlines that end in a question mark, the answer to this one is probably “no.” I love and really believe the final sentence in this excerpt, that, eventually, most animals will become too rare and expensive to eat and we’re already well on our way to developing tasty animal-free substitutes. I mean, we haven’t had ground beef in our house for a couple years now, but our weekly menus are filled with plant-based burgers, lasagna, tacos, and everyone seems fine with it!
 

It’s impossible to say whether sushi of the future will be made with mushrooms, lionfish, cell-grown salmon, or all of the above. But hybrid menus like this might be the key to unlocking a more sustainable future. “I think humanity will have to get away from eating animals,” Pauly says, “and it will be driven by two things: Animals will become rare and expensive, and we will develop substitutes that are tasty.”
 

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Picture of the Day

Scenes from the inside of the Cobra port-a-potty.