Good morning, RVA! It’s 49 °F, and today’s temperatures will almost reach 80 °F! You can expect similarly warm temperatures for the next four days, and I hope you’ll find at least a couple of chances to get out there and enjoy it. Maybe plan a trip to one of Richmond’s parks that you’ve never visited and spend an afternoon exploring?
 

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I’ve got two City Council items to kick off your morning! First, I posted this past Monday’s budget work session over on the Boring Show for your listening pleasure. It’s a long one and I’m only about an hour into it, but the discussion focuses, at least in part, on how the City can become an “employer of choice.” It’s really interesting stuff, and I recommend you queue it up at 2x speed next time you’ve got three baskets of laundry to fold. Second, Council’s Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee will meet today (full agenda here) and will consider ORD. 2023–057, which would unprohibit a roundabout at the intersection of Hermitage Road and Laburnum Avenue, repealing one of the most dripping-with-NIMBYism ordinances passed in recent(ish) memory. To be clear, I don’t know that a roundabout is the best and safest solution for this massive intersection now that the monument no longer sits in the middle obscuring views from every which way. I’d probably prefer a protected intersection. However, I think it’s incredibly smart to get the bad 2009 ordinance off the books so that this generation of grumpy neighbors—or maybe even the same grumpy neighbors from 2009 that still live in the area—can’t use it to oppose whatever the City eventually propose to make this intersection safer for everyone. P.S. The Committee will also have a discussion on “future Housing Plan to include Richmond 300 growth nodes with transit corridors and a system similar to Arlington’s Revitalization Zones.” I’m interested and would like to learn more!
 

The Richmond Times-Dispatch has the news that Governor Youngkin appointed two high-level officials. David Ress reports that Gerald Lackey, former “vice president of business optimization at GAF, the world’s largest roofing manufacturer,” will serve as the DMV commissioner. And Anna Bryson reports that Lisa Coons, former chief academic officer of the Tennessee Department of Education, will take over as the new State Superintendent of Public Instruction. I think the latter probably has more opportunity to make headlines than the former, but you never know!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 44 °F, and we did it! Today’s highs will settle in somewhere around the mid 60s, and then, for the next four days, we’ll have highs in the 70s. While we’re still a couple of weeks away from a safe last-frost date, I think I’m mentally declaring victory on winter and officially moving on to spring.
 

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I’ve written a lot about the chaotic laundry list of Council-proposed amendments to Richmond 300 (which, fingers crossed, seems to have died a fiery death at this week’s Planning Commission meeting). One change that escaped that list and made it into its own, separate amendment is a recommendation to set aside some time and space in the master plan for our public housing neighborhoods. They’re called “priority neighborhoods” in a new proposed chapter of Richmond 300 and include Gilpin, Creighton, Fairfield, Mosby, Whitcomb, Hillside, Blackwell, and Highland Grove. The first six on that list are existing public housing neighborhoods and the last two stand on the sites of former public housing, now redeveloped to varying degrees of failure and success. This new chapter proposes a “priority neighborhood program” to, basically, create small area plans for each of these eight neighborhoods. It sounds like a lot of important and needed work that’ll require some very thoughtful and thorough community engagement (especially given all the other plans currently in the works). Definitely give the aforelinked PDF a read—it’s only 16 pages, and I think you’ll learn a lot about the past and present of Richmond’s public housing neighborhoods. If you’ve got thoughts and feelings, you can leave them on the document via this Konveio before April 15th.
 

A small update on Irvo Otieno’s death at the hands of Henrico County sheriff deputies: Whittney Evans at VPM reports that “a Dinwiddie grand jury indicted 10 people Tuesday afternoon in the death of a man last week at Central State Hospital while in police custody.“
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 30 °F, and my grumpiness about the cold continues. But! Looking at the 10-day forecast and I think, after this morning, we’re done with the cold, cold weather. Today, you can expect highs in the mid 60s and some sunshine. By the time this weekend rolls around, we might even see temperatures in the 80s. Spring! It has sprung!
 

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It’s been 53 days since a driver hit and killed a VCU student on Main Street, right in the middle of the Monroe Park campus. Since then, the Richmond Police Department has stepped up enforcement of speeding all over town, but, at least to my knowledge, nothing has been done to actually slow drivers down on this specific stretch of Main Street. What would a quick, temporary intervention—one that actually slows drivers and keeps people safe—even look like though? Is something like that even possible? You can find out for yourself this coming Friday at 12:15 PM as Strong Towns, a national advocacy organization focused on land use patterns, hosts a Crash Analysis Studio to look at the specifics of this crash and this street and suggest how the City could make things safer. The virtual discussion between technical and non-technical experts will “analyze the the multiple factors that caused the crash and, subsequently, identify what can be done to reduce the frequency of and trauma of future crashes.” I’m very excited about this and hope you can attend! The event is free, but you’ll want to register online beforehand.
 

Last week, VAPLAN released their 2023 VAPLAN Scorecard which ranks our state legislators on a scale of Most Progressive to Least Progressive. Because the General Assembly is a confusing, chaotic mess, the ranking system is also a little bit confusing and chaotic, and I recommend you read the accompanying newsletter to get a feel for how the spreadsheet works. To spoil it a bit, the most progressive legislators of this past session were: Delegates Marcus Simon, Cia Price, Elizabeth Guzman, Jeffrey Bourne, Sam Rasoul, and Don Scott, along with Senators Scott Surovell, Jennifer McClellan, Adam Ebbin, Mamie Locke, Creigh Deeds, and Jennifer Boysko. Take a minute and poke around in the spreadsheet and see what you can uncover. For example, maybe even more interesting than the top and bottom are the folks in the middle—the least progressive Democrats or the most progressive Republicans. P.S. This is also an excellent tool for just looking back to see how all of the legislators voted on important progressive issues—data that simply leaves my mind the instant the GA session ends. I’m thankful that someone has written it all down!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 30 °F, and my grumpiness about the cold continues. But! Looking at the 10-day forecast and I think, after this morning, we’re done with the cold, cold weather. Today, you can expect highs in the mid 60s and some sunshine. By the time this weekend rolls around, we might even see temperatures in the 80s. Spring! It has sprung!
 

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It’s been 53 days since a driver hit and killed a VCU student on Main Street, right in the middle of the Monroe Park campus. Since then, the Richmond Police Department has stepped up enforcement of speeding all over town, but, at least to my knowledge, nothing has been done to actually slow drivers down on this specific stretch of Main Street. What would a quick, temporary intervention—one that actually slows drivers and keeps people safe—even look like though? Is something like that even possible? You can find out for yourself this coming Friday at 12:15 PM as Strong Towns, a national advocacy organization focused on land use patterns, hosts a Crash Analysis Studio to look at the specifics of this crash and this street and suggest how the City could make things safer. The virtual discussion between technical and non-technical experts will “analyze the the multiple factors that caused the crash and, subsequently, identify what can be done to reduce the frequency of and trauma of future crashes.” I’m very excited about this and hope you can attend! The event is free, but you’ll want to register online beforehand.
 

Last week, VAPLAN released their 2023 VAPLAN Scorecard which ranks our state legislators on a scale of Most Progressive to Least Progressive. Because the General Assembly is a confusing, chaotic mess, the ranking system is also a little bit confusing and chaotic, and I recommend you read the accompanying newsletter to get a feel for how the spreadsheet works. To spoil it a bit, the most progressive legislators of this past session were: Delegates Marcus Simon, Cia Price, Elizabeth Guzman, Jeffrey Bourne, Sam Rasoul, and Don Scott, along with Senators Scott Surovell, Jennifer McClellan, Adam Ebbin, Mamie Locke, Creigh Deeds, and Jennifer Boysko. Take a minute and poke around in the spreadsheet and see what you can uncover. For example, maybe even more interesting than the top and bottom are the folks in the middle—the least progressive Democrats or the most progressive Republicans. P.S. This is also an excellent tool for just looking back to see how all of the legislators voted on important progressive issues—data that simply leaves my mind the instant the GA session ends. I’m thankful that someone has written it all down!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 27 °F, and I’m grumpy about it. Highs today, though, should hit somewhere in the 50s and that’s not so bad. Looking ahead, after one more slightly sub-freezing night tonight, it looks like we’ve got a week of warmer weather ahead of us—maybe even temperatures in the 80s as we approach the weekend!
 

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The Richmond Police Department’s Crash Team reports that a driver hit and killed a person crossing N. Belvidere Street at W. Leigh Street. From the release: On Friday “at approximately 2:54 a.m., officers were called to the intersection of North Belvidere Street and West Leigh Street for the report of a collision. Officers arrived and found an adult male down and injured in the left travel lane of the northbound lanes of North Belvidere after being struck by a vehicle in the intersection.” RPD hasn’t shared any other information about this crash, but I have no doubt that speed was a factor. I cross this section of Belvidere every day on my ride home from work (a block south of here because the Leigh Street intersection is too wide and intense). I regularly see people driving well over the posted speed limit—especially in the left lane as they try to both beat the lights and avoid turning traffic in the right lane. The width of the street—across the bridge and onto the southernmost part of Chamberlayne Avenue—really makes it feel like you’re driving on a highway, not through a dense residential neighborhood. This is the second person killed by a driver on or near VCU’s campus this year. Both of these fatal crashes took place on the City’s High Injury Street Network, where we know for a fact—with data—the most serious and deadly crashes occur.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 27 °F, and I’m grumpy about it. Highs today, though, should hit somewhere in the 50s and that’s not so bad. Looking ahead, after one more slightly sub-freezing night tonight, it looks like we’ve got a week of warmer weather ahead of us—maybe even temperatures in the 80s as we approach the weekend!
 

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The Richmond Police Department’s Crash Team reports that a driver hit and killed a person crossing N. Belvidere Street at W. Leigh Street. From the release: On Friday “at approximately 2:54 a.m., officers were called to the intersection of North Belvidere Street and West Leigh Street for the report of a collision. Officers arrived and found an adult male down and injured in the left travel lane of the northbound lanes of North Belvidere after being struck by a vehicle in the intersection.” RPD hasn’t shared any other information about this crash, but I have no doubt that speed was a factor. I cross this section of Belvidere every day on my ride home from work (a block south of here because the Leigh Street intersection is too wide and intense). I regularly see people driving well over the posted speed limit—especially in the left lane as they try to both beat the lights and avoid turning traffic in the right lane. The width of the street—across the bridge and onto the southernmost part of Chamberlayne Avenue—really makes it feel like you’re driving on a highway, not through a dense residential neighborhood. This is the second person killed by a driver on or near VCU’s campus this year. Both of these fatal crashes took place on the City’s High Injury Street Network, where we know for a fact—with data—the most serious and deadly crashes occur.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 50 °F, and today we’ve got another afternoon ahead of us with welcomed highs in the mid 60s. Keep an eye out for gusty wind and possibly a bit of rain late this evening. As for the rest of the weekend, temperatures slowly drop back into the regular, springtime range with highs in the 40s on Sunday. I think you’ll have plenty of opportunities to get out and enjoy the world over the next couple of days, so I say you make some plans and do it!
 

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As of last night, Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield continue to have low CDC COVID-19 Community Levels. The 7-day average case rate per 100,000 people in each locality is 0, 74, and 34, respectively, and the 7-day average of new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 people is 1.7. Richmond’s data is still clearly broken, but if we take Henrico as a proxy for the region, we’re still seeing some of the lowest COVID-19 case rates since last fall. While it’s not time to hang the ol’ Mission Accomplished banner—we saw a huge spike in cases last year starting at the end of April—maybe we can cautiously unfurl the banner over in a corner and, like, start getting it ready.
 

Richmond’s City Council announced yesterday that the City Attorney has resigned, effective immediately, after police charged him with drunk driving last week. Council will “meet in the coming days to outline a process as it moves forward with appointing a new City Attorney.” I’m super interested to see who they end up hiring because the Attorney is such a weird and powerful position in Richmond’s oddly designed governmental structure. They’re the attorney for the whole city—for both the Mayor and City Council—which can sometimes put them in the incredibly interesting place of deciding a conflict between our legislative and executive branches. You can see how this could get awkward if the Mayor wants to do a thing but Council claims he doesn’t have the authority. It’s often the Attorney that wades in at that point and makes the final call. I can’t remember the last time this came up, as the Mayor and Council seem to be mostly on the same page lately, but when it happens I think it’s fascinating.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 29 °F right now, but, by this afternoon, we’ll see temperatures in the mid 60s. Today, tomorrow, and Saturday all look incredible, and I’m already starting to pencil in Forest Time on my calendar. I hope you can find the time to enjoy it, too.
 

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Seven Henrico County Sheriff’s deputies have been charged with second-degree murder. Earlier this month, the deputies were transferring a person suffering a mental health crisis to a hospital and, in the process, held him down “on the floor for 12 minutes while he was shackled and handcuffed, eventually ‘smothering him to death.’” Mark Bowes at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has more details (content warning: graphic descriptions of violence committed by law enforcement officers). This situation reads like a horrific combination of the murders of George Floyd and Marcus-David Peters. Clearly the policies and reforms we’ve put in place since those two deaths are not nearly enough to keep people safe—especially people in need of help.
 

Big, big news for users of the Capital Trail: “The Four Mile Creek Trailhead will soon have restroom facilities and water. Construction will start on the water and sewer approximately on March 20th, 2023, and last an estimated 90 days.” Chugs a full Nalgene of water in celebration. If you’re unfamiliar, Four Mile Creek is a typical turnaround spot for folks looking to put in a 35ish-mile round trip bike ride from Richmond. It’s also an excellent place to drive out, park your car, and experience some of the Capital Trail segments east of the City (which are really beautiful). I’m glad Henrico County has decided to run water out there—dehydrated bikers, walkers, and rollers thank you from the bottom of our empty water bottles!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 30 °F, and today looks warmer and, thankfully, less windy than yesterday. You can expect highs in the mid 50s and the start of a nice little warm streak—temperatures tomorrow and Friday will end up in the mid 60s!
 

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OK! I got Council’s budget work session from this past Monday up on the Boring Show and you can listen here. I think if you’re only planning on listening to one single budget session (gasp! scoff!), this is the one I would pick for you. CAO Lincoln Saunders put together a really nice presentation overviewing both the operating and capital budgets and did a great job of explaining the Mayor’s priority investments. One graphic which caught the praise of several councilmembers was this one breaking the operating budget down into percentages and representing it as “cents out of every dollar.” So, for example, out of every dollar in the City’s budget, $0.23 goes towards education, $0.20 goes towards public safety, $.04 towards recreation and culture, and so on. I also heard tell of a “Budget in Brief” document that I want to get my hands on and add to my PDF library. As for notable topics, I think the discussions on assessments, gun violence, and housing are worth a listen. Especially the latter, as the CAO explains why the Mayor decided to fund affordable housing outside of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund (mostly due to restrictions on how ARPA dollars can be spent). I’d love some smart housing person to dig into this new funding plan from the City and let us all know their thoughts and feelings. Jahd Khalil at VPM details a few of the open questions. Anyway, the budget is important stuff and listening to this work session while you do the dishes or fold the laundry will make you a better citizen—plus, at 2x speed it’ll only take you about an hour to get through!
 

Richmond BizSense’s Mike Platania reports that City Council has given final final for real approval to a new restaurant in Byrd Park on the corner of Idlewood and Stafford. This is great news, because the folks behind the new spot (who also run New York Deli) have worked to bring a restaurant to that location for literal years! Because a restaurant is not an allowed use under the building’s current zoning, City Council had to pass an entire ordinance just for this one single property via its Special Use Permit process. That process gives incredible power to, as Platania puts it, a “handful of local residents opposed to the project”, who, with a little organizing, can completely derail or delay something that probably should be allowed by right. The amount of SUPs on Council’s agenda each and every week is why zoning is so important and why the City’s rewrite of its zoning ordinance is such a huge deal. With the rewrite, we’ve got the opportunity to start mixing our neighborhood uses together—residential right next to retail! It’s how the rest of the world does it, and I bet if folks take a second to think of their favorite places, they are almost certainly neighborhoods where you can walk across the street to something cool—something like a chill corner cafe!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 32 °F, and todays highs will land somewhere in the upper 40s. If you’re out and about today, bundle up and watch out for the wind—especially this afternoon. We’ll get blown around by 15mph breezes most of the day but could see some gusts twice that! Also, if you’ve got tender spring plants outside, keep an eye on them because overnight temperatures could dip below freezing.
 

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How many traffic signals would you guess that the City’s Department of Public Works maintains and operates? I’m horrible at estimating these sorts of things, and I guessed somewhere between 10 and 5,000. Turns out, I was right on the money, because its 480—with 285 north of the river and 115 south of the river. This month, DPW has started to retime each and every one of those traffic signals as part of a $1.8 million project funded through the federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program. Signal retiming is cool, and, while not solidly built infrastructure protecting our soft human bodies from deadly speeding vehicles, it can still slow traffic way down. Drivers will travel at Whatever-It-Takes mph if the signals on, say, Broad Street, are timed so you can ride a wave of green lights all the way Downtown. Smart signal retiming lowers that mph to a speed where people don’t die if someone makes a mistake and crashes their car.
 

Extremely related, Lyndon German at the Richmond Times-Dispatch checks in on the City’s Vision Zero work—the work to bring to zero the number of people who die or are seriously injured on our streets. German reports that the Richmond Police Department has upped enforcement on “aggressive, impaired, and inattentive driving” throughout the City, increasing the number of traffic-related violations by 17% over last year. Enforcing the existing laws (if you can do so equitably) is definitely one tool to get to Vision Zero, and technology solutions like the one in the previous paragraph are an important piece of the puzzle, too. I still think, in addition to these other initiatives, Richmond needs to start experimenting with quick-and-cheap pilot infrastructure projects that actually change the way our streets work and make them slower and safer for people.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 39 °F, and you can expect some rain this morning and highs right around 50 °F as the day progresses. Looking ahead at the 10-day forecast, though, and I do see some warmer temperatures and sunny days later this week. Not trying to jinx it, but, at this point, the coming weekend looks really lovely.
 

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City Council will hold their second budget work session today at 12:30 PM, the first since the mayor introduced his proposed budget last week. You can watch them get into it live via the City’s website or wait until I get the audio up on the Boring show later this week. Immediately following the budget session, Council will move into their Informal Meeting to discuss a personnel matter and then head right on into their regularly-scheduled meeting. Sounds like a lot, but!, because Council recognizes their own limitations and, more importantly, the finiteness of time, they’ve continued almost everything on their agenda to a later date—giving themselves a budget buffer should they run over during this afternoon’s meeting. Smart thinking (or maybe it’s just that no one should sit in six or more hours of continuous meetings with the same eight people).
 

Last week the 2nd and 5th District Councilmembers hosted a combined public meeting to discuss Those Three Zoning Changes (eliminating parking minimums, allowing ADUs, and tweaking the rules for AirBnbs). Over the weekend, Councilmember Jordan sent out a PDF of the City’s presentation in her Second District Newsletter, and, honestly, I think it’s one of the better slide decks I’ve seen on complicated zoning issues. I love how City staff broke up each zoning change into “what is the context,” what changes are we proposing,” and “what are the benefits.” So smart and easy to understand! Presentation formatting aside, I’ve said for however long we’ve been kicking around These Three Zoning Changes that I support getting rid of parking minimums and permitting ADUs everywhere, but the lack of a residency requirement in the Airbnb tweaks made me nervous—nervous that someone could buy up ten homes in a neighborhood, just for Airbnbs, and remove a ton of housing off the market. However! It looks like the Department of Planning and Development Review has come up with a compromise to retain the residency requirement in residential zones and remove it in mixed-used zones. So: you’d only be able to Airbnb the home that you live in a neighborhood like Ginter Park, but you could buy a bunch of condos in Scott’s Addition and run a small Airbnb empire. I’m not smart enough to think through all of the impacts this change will have, but I’m glad to see a compromise in the direction of “we need more places for people to actually live”.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 39 °F, and chillier days are upon us! Today you can expect highs right around 50 °F and a decent chance of rain at some point this evening. It’s pretty much the same for Saturday and Sunday—although maybe expect a bit more wet weather toward the end of the weekend. Enjoy the next couple of days, and if you feel like staying inside curled around a warm beverage of your choosing, I wouldn’t blame you!
 

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The Richmond Police Department are reporting three murders that took place over the last five days. On Sunday, Tyshawn Wyatt, 25, was shot and killed on the 1400 block of Harwood Street; on Monday, Tyrek Brandon, 21, was shot and killed on the zero block of E. 16th Street; and on Thursday, Asha Hite, 39, was shot and killed on the 1100 block of Hollister Avenue. All three of these fatal shootings happened on the City’s Southside but not in the same neighborhood. RPD reports 14 homicides thus far in 2023, up four from this time last year.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 35 °F, and highs today might hit 60 °F. Tomorrow (Friday!) looks colder, wetter, and less pleasant all around, so you might want to take advantage of what we’ve got today. Looking at the extended forecast, by the way, and four of the next nine days have lows sitting just below freezing. March: Winter is…kind of coming back?
 

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Yesterday afternoon, Governor Youngkin announced “the upcoming release of $30 million in Learning Recovery Grants to parents to be used for qualifying education services intended to address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students’ educational progress and well-being.” I’ve read the press release, like, six times and still don’t really understand what all is actually happening. Here’s the vaguest of gists: Families making less than 300% of the Federal Poverty Level could (will?) receive $3,000 to spend on “vetted and approved education services they need to address the negative effects the pandemic has had on their educational progress and well-being.” All other qualifying students, which I assume means families making more than three times the FPL, will receive $1,500. Obviously folks will have a million questions about this initiative—especially what’s a “vetted service,” who are “qualifying students,” and where is this money coming from. Unfortunately, all we’re told in the release is that we’ll get a website (aka a “parent-friendly, accessible, and secure online service”) at some point. If I try to set aside my bias, look past some of the weird language in the press release, and squint a little, these Learning Recovery Grants sort of seems like a child tax credit—something I’m very supportive of! Of course, it could be something entirely different and nefarious, and, for now, we’ll just have to wait for the Administration to release more details or for reporters to dig in to really understand what the Governor has planned.
 

Homeward has released its 2023 Winter Point-In-Time Count of people experiencing homelessness in our region, and, overall, they recorded “690 people experiencing homelessness, which is 1% lower than the PIT count in January 2022.” However, while the total number of folks stayed mostly the same, Homeward found a “121% increase in the number of people who were staying in unsheltered conditions…the largest number of people staying outdoors, in cars, and other places not meant for human habitation in the past 15 years.” Jahd Khalil at VPM has some more details and talked with some of the folks at Homeward about what’s driving this year’s numbers. Unsurprising to anyone reading this newsletter, the region’s lack of deeply affordable housing is one of the big reasons for the higher rates of unsheltered homelessness.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 34 °F, and that’s colder than its been in a while! Get used to it, because NBC12’s Andrew Freiden says we can expect that “cold weather returns for two weeks or longer.” 1) Dang, I was just getting used to not having to maximum bundle myself with coats and gloves and scarves just to ride my bike around town, and 2) Dang, I hope all of my outdoor plants make it through until April.
 

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Reminder! You can listen to all of the budget-related public meetings up to this point—including the Mayor’s budget presentation this past Monday—over on the Boring Show. While the meeting format will change for this year’s budget season, I still think listening to our elected officials is one of the best ways to get to know how they think and what they care about. For example, here is 8th District Councilmember Trammell responding to the Mayor’s request that each councilmember limit their budget priorities to five for the operating budget and three for the capital budget. City Council will hold their next budget work session on Monday, March 13th.
 

Related, Ned Oliver at Axios Richmond has a fun, high-level, emoji-based look at the Mayor’s proposed FY24 budget. If, like me, you’re saving the massive budget PDFs for the weekend, this short list can tide you over until then.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 52 °F, and cooler(ish) weather starts to move in today. You can expect highs “only” around 60 °F, and temperatures may dip below freezing for just a bit this evening—let’s hope its not cold enough to kill all of the springtime plants who are very confused about it still being the first week of March. Other than that, today still looks sunny and wonderful, so I hope you can find time to enjoy the out-of-doors at some point.
 

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The Mayor introduced his FY23 budget to City Council yesterday afternoon, and you can watch his presentation over on the City’s legislative website (or you can soon listen over on the Boring Show). Dive straight in, first hand, if you want, and download the FY24 Annual Fiscal Plan (aka the operating budget) and the FY24 Capital Improvement Plan to your PDF library. However, if scrolling through a 485-page document is not your thing, the Mayor’s “transmittal letter” to Council (p. 6) provides a good overview of the highlights. Top of mind for me this morning, although I haven’t had a chance to dig in fully yet, is RPS funding. The School Board passed a budget asking for about $29 million in additional funding, and the Mayor has proposed a $21 million increase. How that $8 million gap gets filled, I don’t know, but this stat from the Mayor blows my mind: The City’s “contribution to RPS…is $69,921,277 more than the FY 2017 funding level and represents a 46.1 percent increase in RPS funding during my tenure as Mayor.” That’s a huge increase over just a handful of years! Regardless of that massive financial support, it’s not enough, and I don’t think we’re done discussing school funding. I’m pretty sure that State’s budget will shortchange the district a whole bunch of cash, further increasing that funding gap and requiring either more support from City Council or more cuts from RPS. Which means: Prepare yourself for some stressful public meetings in the near future. While funding Richmond Public Schools is the City’s largest expense, there are a million and one other details to dig into (like the decision to basically flat-fund GRTC and how they City will support the Affordable Housing Trust Fund) that I’m sure we’ll hear about in the coming weeks. For now, though, just download those PDFs and get to scrolling!
 

Remember how City Council updated the scooter ordinance to incentivize companies to start deploying scooters on the Southside (ORD. 2023–029)? At the time, neither of our two existing vendors, Bird and Lime, had a single scooter south of the river. Since then, Spin has started dropping their bright orange scooters around town, and Reader Andrew sent me this picture of a tiny flock parked over at Semmes and 34th. Most of Spin’s Southside fleet hugs the area around the James, but, still, it’s at least something to provide better connectivity to that part of town. Of note: As of this morning, neither Bird nor Lime have expanded their coverage to the Southside (at least according to a quick look at their apps).
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 39 °F, and today looks a lot like yesterday—which was amazing! Expect sunshine, highs in the mid 60s, and every reason in the world to take a stroll around the neighborhood. Temperatures start to drop and look a little more March-like as the week goes on, and, by the end of the week, we’ll probably see highs just in the 40s.
 

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OK! Today is one of City Council’s biggest days of the year! At 1:30 PM, the Mayor’s administration will present the new Capital Improvement Plan to the Planning Commission, and at 3:00 PM the Mayor himself will present his fresh and shiny proposed budget to City Council. You can, of course, tune in live over on the City’s legislative website. This budget season, Councilmember Jones, in his first budget season as City Council president, has decided to switch up the process a bit. Instead of having each City department come and present on the year that was (which, honestly, was one of my favorite parts of budget season), he’ll have the CAO give presentations on the portions of the budget that apply to each department. The idea is that more concise presentations will leave more time for Council to have their own debates and discussions. I’m a little bummed because I loved the presentations, but this New Way is probably a good idea. You can listen to Councilmember Jones describe the new process himself over on the Boring Show, which I got up and running over the weekend. If you’re not familiar, get excited because the Boring Show is a podcast of the audio from budget-related public meetings. It’s a useful tool for time-shifting budget season and keeping up with the hours of meetings while cooking dinner, folding laundry, or commuting to work (especially if you listen at 2x speed). So far I’ve uploaded February 27th’s initial Council budget work session (where Jones describes the above new process) and March 2nd’s Education and Human Services committee featuring Superintendent Kamras and the RPS budget. Subscribe here and learn more than you ever wanted to know about how the City works!
 

Related, the Planning Commission meets today to not only receive the proposed Capital Improvement Plan (which, remember, is the City’s multi-year plan on how to spend money on stuff…like buildings, vehicles, parks, that sort of thing) but also to discuss a handful of zoning amendments related to the Diamond District. Instead of creating an entirely new “baseball stadium zoning district,” the Department of Planning and Development Review wants to make a few tweaks to the existing TOD-1 zoning district. You can flip through their presentation here and should probably pencil in the March 14th community meeting on your calendar to learn more details.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 45 °F, and today’s temperature graph is weird. For most of the day, you can expect temperatures in the 50s, then, after the sun sets, things heat up. By the wee hours of tomorrow morning we’ll see temperatures in the mid 60s! Bizarre! You should definitely prepare for storms to roll through alongside the weirdly warm weather today, but, after that, the rest of the weekend looks real lovely.
 

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As of last night, Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield now have low CDC COVID-19 Community Levels. The 7-day average case rate per 100,000 people in each locality is 0, 127, and 52, respectively, and the 7-day average of new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 people is 7. Regardless of the continued weirdness with Richmond’s case rate, the entire region is back in the gentle green of a low COVID-19 Community Level. This is great news! While it doesn’t mean that the world around you is disease-free and you should start licking doorknobs, it does mean that the amount of COVID-19 floating around in our neighborhoods continues to trend downward. To keep it that way, make sure you get your booster if you haven’t already, keep an ear out for an annual COVID-19 vaccine recommendation this fall, and keep your tongue off of doorknobs.
 

VPM’s Jahd Khalil reports on some interesting public comments at this past Monday’s City Council meeting. The advocacy group RISC (Richmonders Involved to Strengthen our Communities) showed up and pointed out that the City is using ARPA money to fund affordable housing instead of allocating revenue from expiring real estate tax exemptions to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, the dedicated funding stream set aside for this very thing. The City confirmed this through a spokesperson who said, “The Mayor and the City Council decided for FY22 and FY23 to use $20 M in ARPA funding to increase the amount of funds available to fund affordable housing development and rehabilitation in lieu of using the dedicated source of funding.” I’m no lawyer and I’m not trying to seem ungrateful for the $20 million the City dedicated toward affordable housing, but Council did pass ORD. 2020–214 two years ago and it does require all of that expiring real estate tax exemption revenue to go straight into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. I think I’m with RISC and would like to see the existing $20 million already pledged by the Mayor and Council, plus the legally required contribution to the trust fund. I’d also love to hear the City Attorney weigh in—if only so we can know what to expect for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund and its dedicated funding stream in the future.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 54 °F, and it’s rainy. But! Looks like things should dry out and warm up as the day goes on, with temperatures topping out around 70 °F. Take advantage of it, because tomorrow looks cooler and wetter and a lot more like a cozy-on-the-couch movie night.
 

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Ooo political intrigue! Nathaniel Cline at the Virginia Mercury reports that Virginia’s superintendent of public instruction, Jillian Balow, has resigned. WRIC’s Dean Mirshahi has Balow’s resignation letter. Fascinating stuff. Was Balow pushed out because of the $200 million education budget snafu? Was she not intense enough in supporting the Administration’s attempts to defund public schools? Was she too intense? Is she just tired of it all? Balow doesn’t give a reason for her resignation, so we probably won’t know much until we can contrast her tenure with that of whoever the Governor picks as her replacement.
 

RVAgreen 2050’s March newsletter is out, and you should take a minute or two to give it a read. Of note, the Department of Environmental Quality wants public comments on the potential repeal of the Carbon Budget Trading Program—aka shortsightedly removing Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. You can and should leave a public comment in support of the Commonwealth staying in this important program! Not sure what to say? Just crib from Mayor Stoney’s comment: “As Mayor of the City of Richmond, we cannot escape the environmental impacts of climate change that are taking shape in cities across the country like mine, that’s why I’m proud of the work that has gone into developing the RVAgreen 2050 plan… However, local governments alone cannot solve the climate crisis. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is a common sense, market-based, cost-effective, and critically important program that cuts harmful carbon pollution while delivering a multitude of benefits to communities across Virginia… I urge the Members of the Air Pollution Control Board to continue Virginia’s participation in RGGI.” Make sure you delete the stuff about being mayor of Richmond though…
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 39 °F, but today you can expect another warm day with highs in the mid 60s. I think, if it were me, I’d get outside this afternoon, because tomorrow and Friday look damp. I know it’s early, but the weekend ahead of us looks pretty nice!
 

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It’s here! Richmond’s official 2023 budget schedule is out and available for you to carefully transcribe over into your own personal calendar. Big, important dates to keep in mind: The Mayor needs to submit his proposed budget no later than March 6th, Council will hold a public hearing on the Mayor’s budget on March 27th, amendments drop on April 12th, and on May 8th Council hopes to wrap up the entire process. Of course, other than a few state-required deadlines, this entire schedule can shift, shrink, or expand as Council tries to make sense of the Mayor’s proposals and put their own stamp on the City’s fiscal priorities. Get excited, because it truly is the most wonderful time of the year (for a very small subset of very nerdy people)!
 

Lyndon German at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has an update on the City’s Marcus Alert System, which aims to support people during a mental health crisis with mental health professionals—instead of with police. Some stats from the piece: “Richmond’s Crisis Response Team responded to 227 calls for service from August to December 2022. Those calls of service resulted in a 91% crisis diversion rate, 21 temporary detention orders and two arrests in relation to a domestic matter.” I don’t know enough to say whether that’s good or bad, but I’m glad to see that the program is not stuck in a pile of organizational mud somewhere. You can learn more about Richmond’s implementation of the Marcus Alert over on the City’s website, and, if you know someone experiencing a mental health crisis you can call 988 or, if the situation is immediately dangerous, 911. Both numbers will take steps to try and ensure the proper response.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 47 °F, and today looks sunny and wonderful with highs in the 70s. NBC12’s Andrew Freiden says it’s his Verified Best Weather Day of the Week™ and that it caps off the “third warmest Meteorological Winter in Richmond’s history.” If I weren’t headed to VCU’s final home game of the season, I’d spend the evening out getting lost in the woods. I hope you find the time today to get out there and enjoy it!
 

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This past Sunday, Henrico County Supervisor Tyrone Nelson hit a person riding their bike with his car. From NBC12’s report: “The Henrico Police Department says Tyrone Nelson failed to give a three-foot distance when trying to pass the cyclist in the 6500 block of Osborne Turnpike around 11:45 a.m.” This block of Osborne Turnpike is just 1.5 miles from where a driver hit and killed Jonah Holland while she was riding her bike this past August. There’s no doubt that this stretch of road is dangerous, but how many people need to get hurt or killed before the County does anything about it? If an elected official, someone who has the actual power to make this street safer, can hit someone with their car and just move on with life…I don’t know. Depressing.
 

Michael Martz at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has some electoral next steps now that we’ve got this past weekend’s firehouse primaries behind us. First up, the special election on March 28th, and then the Democratic primary on June 20th (which gears up for the big November election). Also this is the first reporting I’ve read that confirms soon-to-be Senator Bagby (from the now-old 9th Senate District) will run in the new 14th Senate District in that June 20th primary.