Good morning, RVA! It’s 71 °F, and today looks cloudy and humid. Expect highs near 90 °F and maybe some rain this afternoon or evening. Cooler weather moves in tomorrow, which I’m excited about. I think screen-porch season is right around the corner!
 

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Over the weekend, the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Chris Suarez reported on the region’s rising property assessments. On average, property values increased by 12.4% in Chesterfield, 11.2% in Richmond, and 10.6% in Henrico. The two Zip Codes that saw the largest percentage increase, however, were on the City’s Southside. Richmond’s Assessor says lack of supply and rising rents have contributed to the increase in housing costs. Richmond’s 8th District Councilmember, Reva Trammell, wants to drop the City’s real-estate tax rate in response to these new assessments, and, I get it. Folks who have owned their homes forever—especially older folks—have seen non-trivial increases to their real estate tax bill over the last couple of years. For some people, that could definitely break their budget. However, once you lower the real estate tax rate it never, ever goes up again, and, at some point in the future, Richmond may need that additional real estate tax revenue. I think what I’d like to see is twofold: 1) Continue to use a portion of this new, additional revenue to build more and more affordable housing, 2) Have someone put together a detailed analysis on how switching to a Land Value Tax would impact folks with lower incomes who are bearing a disproportionate burden of the rising assessments. Given the lack of local authority to provide tax relief to specific people, I think we need to be creative in our solutions here. And I’m not convinced that a flat, 4-cent reduction in the real estate tax would actually do anything for the people who need relief most.
 

The RPS School Board meets this evening for the first time since they called an emergency meeting to discuss the District’s SOL scores—but then failed to take any actions. You can find their very full agenda here. Despite lots of things to get through, I imagine the Board will spend the majority of their time on the academics and curriculum updates—67- and 41-page presentations respectively. Flipping through those two exhaustive PDFs, which you should definitely do, and I’m overwhelmed by the amount of information! I bet Boardmembers will be too, and I’m interested in how they react and the types of questions they ask when presented with reams of data.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 62 °F, and today looks lovely. Expect highs in the 80s and good, sunny vibes that carry straight on through the next couple of days. There is a chance for rain on Sunday, but I say live your life and enjoy the weekend!
 

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As of last night, the CDC’s COVID-19 Community Level for Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield is pretty solidly medium. The 7-day average case rate per 100,000 people in each locality is 194, 102, and 169, respectively, and the 7-day average of new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 people is 12.2. We’re definitely on a coronadownswing at the moment, and, if nothing about the world changed over the next few weeks, I’d say we were headed into the peaceful greens of a low Community Level. But, unfortunately, we know COVID-19 typically peaks in the fall, and fall is right around the corner. Luckily for us, unlike previous falls, now basically everyone is eligible for some sort of COVID-19 vaccine—plus we have a brand new tool in the bivalent boosters to help keep folks over the age of 12 extra protected. Speaking of, Katelyn Jetelina digs into the White House’s new plan of making COVID-19 boosters a once-a-year type of deal. She has some concerns—not with the concept but with the amount of science and data we have to support that sort of plan. Anyway, open that link in a tab while you schedule an appointment for your booster this weekend!
 

Jahd Khalil at VPM reports that the City’s Urban Design Committee failed to have a quorum yesterday, which means the committee couldn’t take any action at all on the plans to install landscaping at Marcus-David Peters Circle (aka the Lee Circle). That’s a bummer, but it does sound like Kevin Vonck, Director of Planning, will do his best to keep the plans moving forward so we don’t miss the fall planting window.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 70 °F, and today looks a little cooler with highs in the mid 80s but plenty of humidity. Keep an eye out for sporadic rain later this afternoon, though!
 

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Chris Suarez at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that City Council decided to kill the ranked-choice voting ordinance (ORD. 2022–119) before it even got to regular council for a public hearing and a vote. “Ninth District Councilman Michael Jones made the motion to strike the legislation from the council’s agenda, effectively killing the ordinance. Council members Kristen Nye, Stephanie Lynch and Katherine Jordan, the chief sponsor of the bill, voted against the motion.” Tap through to read a bunch of disheartening quotes about ranked-choice voting diluting Black representation and voting power. It’s not super surprising to see incumbents vote against policies that may make it harder for them to win their next election, but to suggest ranked-choice voting is racist? We’ll, that’s disappointing to say the least. I came across two thoughts floating around on Twitter this morning that capture how I’m feeling following this vote. First, Sheri Shannon says “A lot more education is needed to enlighten council.” After last night, that feels right to me. We probably need a real, organized, and funded ranked-choice voting campaign to do work over the course of a couple years before Richmond next attempts to switch the way we run Council elections. If it were me, I’d start laying the ground work next year for a vote in 2025—right after the next Council sits down and the 2028 elections are just a gauzy whisper on the horizon. Second, Allan-Charles Chipman reminds us that Council has an active hand and responsibility in affordable housing policy: Keeping Black voters from being priced out of the City does a whole lot to preserve Black representation and voting power. It’s frustrating to see a majority of Council quick to strike down ranked-choice voting for racism reasons but incredibly slow to act on any of the one million housing, zoning, or transportation initiatives that would actually mitigate some of the impacts racism has on how folks in our City live, work, and thrive.
 

Council also headed into a closed session last night to discuss, with the Chief, the RPD’s Alleged 4th of July Plot. Since it was a closed session, we don’t have a ton of details, but WTVR’s Tyler Layne got a hold of Councilmember Jones afterwards. Sounds like most of the conversation centered around how to better inform City Council when there’s a potential emergency.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 73 °F, and today looks cloudy with a chance for a little bit of rain this morning. You can expect highs in the mid 80s, and don’t forget to keep checking in on your outside plants—it’s been a while since we’ve had a good soaking!
 

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VPM’s Ian M. Stewart asks: “What would it take to permanently close Carytown to cars?” The answer, which he doesn’t really get around to, is a bucketful of political will. We’d need strong support from the 1st, 2nd, and 5th district councilmembers, the mayor (so they could make it a priority for City staff), and a lot of residents (especially business owners). I think we have some of that citizen support right now, but we would have to really work to nail down the support from elected officials. Not impossible, certainly, but a lot of work.
 

Richmond’s Department of Parks and Recreation has closed the pedestrian bridge over the train tracks to Texas Beach. From the announcement: “During a recent inspection of park-maintained bridges, the pedestrian bridge that leads to Texas Beach was found to be structurally unsafe for public use. The bridge will be closed effective immediately.” NBC12 reports that while there is $2 million of federal funding to fix the bridge, there is, at this point, no timeline for repairs or a replacement. Huge bummer! Texas Beach is such a great and easy river spot, and, with the bridge closed, I’m not sure there’s now a safe (and legal) way to get there. I hope Parks & Rec can repair or replace the bridge quickly and that people will give them some grace during the process.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 64 °F, and we’ve got another hot, dry day ahead of us. You can expect consistent sunshine and highs around 90 °F straight on through the long weekend. I hope you find time to get outside—or, heck, take a long nap in the cool comfort of some air conditioning—to celebrate the ending of the summer and to start thinking about the fall! Richmond’s best season is just around the corner.
 

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It seems like it’s been forever, but the COVID-19 Community Level for all of Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield is now medium—only just barely medium, but medium nonetheless. The 7-day average case rate per 100,000 people in each locality respectively is 199, 138, and 191 (remember, the medium/high cutoff is 200). The 7-day average of new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 people is 15.9. I’m taking this drop in level as good news but will still wear my mask when I’m out in indoor public spaces. The CDC does not recommend this for everyone while at a medium level, but it can’t hurt and masks are a chill and breezy way to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19. We’ll see if we can sustain a regional medium as kids return to school and college students return to whatever it is that they get up to these days.
 

In other fun COVID-19 news, last night the CDC recommended new bivalent boosters for everyone 12 and older. These bivalent boosters, in both Pfizer and Moderna flavors, have a new formulation that focuses on the original SARS-CoV-2 virus plus the more recent BA.4/5 variant. Katelyn Jetelina has a great explainer that you should read detailing the safety, efficacy, and benefits of these new vaccines. Making small updates to vaccines is normal and a lot like how we rejigger the flu vaccine each year, and I this hope signals that we’re starting to settle into Regular Life with COVID-19. It’s a weird thing to hope, I know, but much better than living in Infinite Pandemic Mode forever. Since this recommendation just came through last night, I’d give your local pharmacies and health departments a minute to figure things out before banging on the door, demanding a bivalent vaccine. That said, I’d think booster should be readily available in the coming weeks. Start making a plan to get yours today!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 64 °F, and today looks pretty good for the first day of September. Expect highs in the 80s, sunshine, and a continued drop in humidity. This recent hot-but-not-humid weather is wild—is this what it’s like to not live in a swamp? I mean, I spent some time on a bike yesterday and, while hot, I definitely didn’t melt into a pool of human remains when I arrived at my destination.
 

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RVA Rapid Transit’s Richard Hankins has a good column in the Richmond Times-Dispatch explaining and advocating for abolishing parking minimums. Getting rid of parking minimums, which we should definitely do, is all about space. Richmond has 62.5 square miles of land and we will never get an inch more. Requiring a set number of parking spaces for both residential and commercial buildings means we’re prioritizing our extremely limited space for storing empty cars instead of building more stuff for people. As Hankins writes, “The mandate to include parking can increase the cost of apartments by up to 25%. That makes new housing developments more expensive to rent or simply not built as they become financially infeasible.” The City’s Department of Planning and Development Review just wrapped up the first round of public engagement on parking minimums and plans to kick off a second round (via focus groups) later this month. If you support getting rid of parking minimums and want to join one of those focus groups, email Brian Mercer (Brian.Mercer@rva.gov)!
 

VPM’s Patrick Larsen reports on the Governor’s renewed plans to pull Virginia out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. RGGI is a cap-and-trade program—something conservatives used to support as a pro-capitalism way of lowering emissions. Pulling Virginia out of the program is just another way Republicans show how unserious and unworried they are about the current climate catastrophe. I’m still unclear on how much authority Virginia’s Department of Enviornmental Quality has to leave RGGI without General Assembly approval, but maybe all the Youngkin administration has to do is wait out the current contract (which ends in 2023). Charlotte Rene Woods at the RTD digs into that question a bit, and, honestly, it kind of seems like we’ll end up waiting to see what the courts have to say.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 70 °F, but today’s highs top out in the upper 80s and NBC12’s Andrew Freiden says the humidity should drop in a pleasant way later this morning. Hot but not an armpit! I’m looking forward to it!
 

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The ACLU of Virginia puts it well, “DISAPPOINTING: The Hanover County School Board voted 5–2 to adopt its bathroom/locker room policy that would make trans and non-binary students jump through hoops simply to exist in schools. To trans and nonbinary students in Hanover: You are LOVED. We are here for you.” State Senator Hashmi points out that the Virginia Department of Education already has model policies on the books for this sort of thing and “call[s] upon Youngkin’s VODE team to follow through on protecting trans children.” To quote a bit from that VDOE model policy document Hashmi referenced: “All students are entitled to have access to restrooms, locker rooms, and changing facilities that are sanitary, safe, and adequate, so that they can comfortably and fully engage in their school programs and activities…Any accommodations offered should be non-stigmatizing and minimize lost instructional time…It can be emotionally harmful for a transgender student to be questioned regarding the use of restrooms and facilities.” I’m sure the Hanover County School Board feels like their new policy—which requires families to submit special requests so their students can go pee in a bathroom—adheres to the letter of this policy, but it certainly violates the spirit of it. I don’t hold a lot of hope that the Governor or his VDOE will do anything about this and expect to read a quote soon along the lines of how localities know best for their citizens (but that only applies when the localities agree with the current administration, of course).
 

Wyatt Gordon at Greater Greater Washington reports on a potential new scooter ordinance in Richmond. Remember when all we talked about was the City’s extended stumble towards legalizing scooters? Simpler times! Gordon says City staff will ask Council to extend scooter hours from 9:00 PM to 1:00 AM (bringing it in line with bus service) and to “require scooter companies to maintain at least 20% of their fleet south of the James River.” You can find a presentation the City’s Office of Equitable Transit and Mobility gave to Council’s Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee about the current scooter program here. All of this sounds great to me. When Bolt left Richmond’s scooter market a couple weeks ago, it turned the entire Southside into a micromobility desert, with just two bike share stations to cover a ton of square miles and neighborhoods. We’ll have to wait until Council returns from summer recess to see what the actual ordinance looks like, how Council feels about it, and how Scooter companies will respond. Regardless, I’m excited to write about scooters again!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 70 °F, and today’s another hot one with highs in the low 90s. I’ll tell you what, yesterday’s bike ride home was bakingly unpleasant, but the humidity should break tomorrow, which I hope will take some of the edge off. If you’ve gotta spend a bunch of time outside today, remember to stay hydrated!
 

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VPM is out here doing the lord’s work and has gotten ahold of DMV’s rejected license plates from 2019, 2020, and 2021. I think I could spend 100 hours looking through these lists; people are simultaneously fascinating and unique while also so incredibly the same. Poking around these PDFs and you’ll see infinite versions on just a handful of (mostly boring) themes: Sex, violence, and drugs. Some do seem genuinely innocuous, though, and I do think whoever was denied “NORFCK” got a raw deal.
 

Richmond BizSense’s Jonathan Spiers reports on some exciting Southside rezoning news that I either missed or forgot about entirely. Late in July, Council introduced a resolution (RES. 2022-R048) to kick off some up-zoning of portions of three major Southside corridors: Richmond Highway, Midlothian Turnpike, and Hull Street. Rezoning is a whole entire deal, so this is just the start of a long process, but it’s exciting nonetheless! Rezoning these corridors to TOD-1 (Transit-Oriented Development) will encourage denser development which helps build the case for adding more frequent transit which, in turn, brings more development. It’s a positive, reinforcing cycle, and rezoning is an important step in that process.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 70 °F, and today’s another hot one with highs in the low 90s. I’ll tell you what, yesterday’s bike ride home was bakingly unpleasant, but the humidity should break tomorrow, which I hope will take some of the edge off. If you’ve gotta spend a bunch of time outside today, remember to stay hydrated!
 

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VPM is out here doing the lord’s work and has gotten ahold of DMV’s rejected license plates from 2019, 2020, and 2021. I think I could spend 100 hours looking through these lists; people are simultaneously fascinating and unique while also so incredibly the same. Poking around these PDFs and you’ll see infinite versions on just a handful of (mostly boring) themes: Sex, violence, and drugs. Some do seem genuinely innocuous, though, and I do think whoever was denied “NORFCK” got a raw deal.
 

Richmond BizSense’s Jonathan Spiers reports on some exciting Southside rezoning news that I either missed or forgot about entirely. Late in July, Council introduced a resolution (RES. 2022-R048) to kick off some up-zoning of portions of three major Southside corridors: Richmond Highway, Midlothian Turnpike, and Hull Street. Rezoning is a whole entire deal, so this is just the start of a long process, but it’s exciting nonetheless! Rezoning these corridors to TOD-1 (Transit-Oriented Development) will encourage denser development which helps build the case for adding more frequent transit which, in turn, brings more development. It’s a positive, reinforcing cycle, and rezoning is an important step in that process.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 70 °F, and today’s gonna get hot again. You can expect highs right around 90 °F with plenty of humidity for your afternoon commute. I hope you have an excellent, if sweaty, day!
 

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Today is the official first day of school for both Richmond Public Schools and Henrico County Public Schools. Students: Good luck, it’ll be awesome. Families: You did it, you made it through the summer. Related, RPS School Boardmember Liz Doerr sent out a link to this neat data dashboard tracking RPS’s progress towards the goals laid out in their Goals4RPS strategic plan. The dashboard is currently in beta and tracks just a handful of things—graduation & dropout rates, SOL results, PALs results, enrollment trends, and attendance rates—with more goals and data coming soon. I love a good dashboard and will be interested to see how community members, decision makers, and media start to use this one.
 

The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Patrick Wilson and Chis Suarez continue to report on the RPD’s Alleged 4th of July Plot, putting in FOIA requests to figure out what Chief Smith knew before holding his now-infamous press conference on July 6th. It doesn’t look good for the Chief: “Smith’s own department had provided him information in writing before his news conference that the location of any potential incident was ‘unknown,’…A police official emailed those records to Smith and an assistant seven minutes before Smith’s 2 p.m. July 6 news conference.” Tap through for a screenshot of the actual talking points sent to the chief, which say verbatim: “the location was unknown.” Why invent a location for a potential mass shooting on the spot, unnecessarily panicking neighbors and instantly calling into question police operations in and around Dogwood Dell on July 4th? I don’t know, but Wilson and Suarez ask a lot of good questions in this piece, and have started to elevate their questions to the City’s Chief Administrative Officer as they try to get to the bottom of this whole situation. Apparently, Councilmember Lynch has requested a “full briefing” at Council’s September 6th meeting, and I would even bet we’ll learn more this week.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 68 °F, and we’ve got another good summer day ahead of us. Expect highs near 90, sunshine, and maybe a few clouds this evening. We’ve got the weather forecast on repeat for the next little while—enjoy it!
 

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WTVR’s Tyler Layne has some follow-up reporting on this past Tuesday’s stressful emergency School Board meeting where nothing happened. If, for some reason, you didn’t spend your evening watching the meeting over takeout and yelling at the screen like my family did, read through this piece for a bunch of the more interesting quotes from Tuesday—plus some new ones post-meeting. Like this one from 4th District Boardmember Jonathan Young about the sudden introduction of a motion to scrap and rebuild the District’s curriculum on an unrealistic timeline: “Young said he was less worried about the process and ‘more concerned about the product…Cry me a river. Cry me a river.’” Don’t love that! Layne also has a bit of insight into the closed session: “Despite rumors, the board did not mention anything related to firing Kamras in closed session Tuesday evening. However, Young said he’s optimistic that ‘restructuring of personnel’ is still on the way.” OK. I guess we wait until the next Board meeting in a couple weeks to see if any other surprise motions pop up? This kind of unpredictable chaos is absolutely exhausting for families and the public. I have had my issues with City Council and their public process in the past, but it’s never been anything like! Not even close!
 

Ben Paviour at VPM reports on another sketchy hiring decision by the Governor’s administration. I continue to think that the specifics of these hires and appointments are mostly trolls designed to make liberals angry, so I try not to get too caught up in the “quiet hiring, breaking news, eventual resignation” cycle. However, I do think, generally, the larger pattern of placing unqualified people into important positions is worth pointing out and remembering.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 68 °F, and today looks pretty nice. Enjoy highs in the 80s, sunshine, and other regular summer stuff like slip-ons, evening strolls, and condensation dripping down the side of a mason jar. I think you can expect more of the same for the next couple of days, too.
 

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Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden will host a Celebration of Life for Jonah Holland on Sunday, October 2nd at 10:00 AM. In the meantime, if you’d like to help her family in some way, you can find information on donating to her children’s VA529 accounts at the bottom of the aforelinked page. Ride safe out there!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 68 °F, and today looks nice. Expect highs in the upper 80s and sunshine. While this week does look hotter than the week that was, the long-term forecast still lacks any of those sweat-through-your-shirt, melt-into-a-puddle, spontaneously-combust-on-the-sidewalk days.
 

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School Board will host their emergency meeting—at which they will theoretically do something in reaction to the District’s COVID-impacted SOL scores—tonight at John Marshall High School (4225 Old Brook Road) from 6:30 PM until question mark. Here’s the agenda, but it’s just three items: public comment, “discuss academics,” and a closed session. KidsFirstRPS speculates on a couple different scenarios of what exactly they could get into tonight, but without any clear communication from the Board it’s really hard to know what to expect. I hate this. I hate the vagueness from boardmembers, which at this point feels intentional, that’s designed to…what? Create panic and fear among RPS families? I don’t know how you can say to a reporter, “There may be some suggestions to change personnel. We don’t know yet, so I don’t want to put in an alarm into the public,” follow it up with zero further information, and not expect to do exactly that—raise a huge alarm to the public. The Mayor even felt like he needed to weigh in! I guess we’ll all tune in on YouTube to see what tonight amounts to: a round of nine speeches, putting the superintendent on double-secret probation, outright firing him, or none of the above.
 

VPM’s Megan Pauly reports on the first class at the Maggie Walker Governor’s School after they stopped using an achievement test as part of admissions, hoping to create a more equitable process. The stats seem pretty clear: “The percentage of new students admitted to Walker who are Black was 4% in 2020, when both the achievement and aptitude tests were administered; 13% in 2021, when neither test was administered; and 8% in 2022, when only the aptitude test was given.” Researcher and professor Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, who knows more about these things than most, is unsurprised, saying “We like to pretend that these aptitude tests are objective measures, but they are riddled with bias, both in this historical sense, but also, in terms of how the tests are constructed…There’s a body of scholarship that calls the SAT — the Scholastic Aptitude Test — the wealth test because the performance on the SAT is so correlated with family socioeconomic status.” Tangentially related, one thing I learned only semi-recently is that Algebra I is required to even apply to Maggie Walker, which means kids and families across the district need to start thinking about these sorts of things right as middle school starts. So it’s not just about making sure kids know that the Governor’s school exists, but it’s also about getting as many kids prepared so that it’s even an option for them at all—which I know, first hand!, is something RPS is working on.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 69 °F, and today you can expect highs in the mid 80s with a chance for a bit of rain here or there this morning and later in the evening. The coming week looks a bit warmer than the last—but still not oppressively hot. I’m looking forward to it!
 

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WTVR’s Tyler Lane reports that the RPS School Board will “hold an emergency meeting to discuss a ‘devastating decrease to student achievement’ and potential division leadership changes.” It’s been clear for a while now that School Board’s five-member voting bloc wants to get rid of the Superintendent, and maybe this week they’ll use a drop in SOL scores due to a generational pandemic that disrupted the entire world to do so. Does it matter to the Board that scores everywhere are still below pre-pandemic levels? Even in can-do-no-wrong Henrico where just 61% of students passed their math SOL? Does it matter that Black and Economically Disadvantaged students in Richmond saw a smaller drop in scores than they did statewide? To quote Thad Williamson from the aforelinked piece, “But this observation also shows that systemwide decline in test scores, understood in context, is not clear and compelling evidence of systemic educational failure in RPS. Rather, the decline in test scores speaks to the earthquake that shook the entire educational landscape, an earthquake that will take years of focused effort to recover from.“ No, probably none of this critical context matters to the five-member voting bloc. It’d be a horrible mistake for the Board to fire the Superintendent, of course—they’ve already forced out much of his leadership team, leaving, I think, literally no one to take the reins heading into the school year (which starts a week from today). And after the Board’s open displays of hostility to the superintendent, blatant lack of trust in their own staff, and frequent gaslighting of the public, I don’t have a lot of hope for finding a high-quality replacement candidate.
 

Also from Tyler Lane, a quick check-in on the City’s gun buyback program, which hosted its first event this past weekend. The event ended early due to “overwhelming response,” which seems good. I’m excited to see some chartsandgraphs around what kind of guns folks brought in.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 64 °F, and today looks great. Expect highs in the mid 80s plus some clouds in the sky later this afternoon. The weekend looks decent, too—we’ll just have to see if any rogue rain pops up or not. For now, though, call dibs on your favorite outside chair and plan to spend the next couple mornings out there drinking your beverage of choice.
 

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As of last night the COVID-19 Community Level is high in Richmond but medium in both Henrico and Chesterfield. The 7-day average of new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people in each locality is 296, 197, and 150, respectively. The 7-day average of new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 is 15.3. We’re back into split decision territory! Which I don’t love! While the case rates do appear to be dropping in parts of our region, the hospital admission rates keep climbing, and I’m not sure what to make of that. I’ll still be wearing my mask and doing what I can to reduce my chances of getting COVID for the foreseeable future because 1) it’s easy, 2) Henrico’s “197” case rate is real close to “200” (at which it’d be in a high level), and 3) I’m patiently waiting to hear about those new fall COVID-19 boosters.
 

One other COVID-related piece of news, did y’all see the FDA’s new guidance on using at-home tests? Because our current at-home tests are less successful at accurately detecting omicron, the FDA now recommends that folks with symptoms follow a negative at-home test with a second at-home test 48 hours later. If you don’t have symptoms but believe you’ve been exposed, follow that original negative test with another 48 hours later and then one more after that (for a total of three). Do you have a huge pile of at-home tests in your cabinet? If not, now’s the time to grab a few more!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 62 °F, and how good was yesterday’s weather?? So good! Today, you can expect more of the same, maybe a bit warmer, and maybe a bit more sunshine. Get out there and enjoy it.
 

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Yesterday, I asked if anyone had a good explainer on the new Climate Bill (aka the Inflation Reduction Act), and reader Lori sent me this video by Hank Green, one of my favorite YouTubers/internet people. It’s about 20 minutes long, totally worth it, and will give you a good sense for how this bill invests almost $400 billion into reducing the United State’s carbon emissions and mitigating the impacts of climate change. I also love that this video gets the tone exactly right: This bill is a huge deal—one that seemed impossible just a month ago. That Congress could figure out how to get it passed gives me a sense of climate-hope that I didn’t think I’d feel…for awhile…maybe even in my lifetime. That’s cynical, but, hey, the last six years have been tough and cynicism-inducing. We needed a win!
 

VPM’s Ben Paviour has a quick Lab School update, which includes a map of all the college and universities that have expressed interest in starting their own Lab School. It’s a lot of colleges and universities all across Virginia—like, most of them! Lawmakers are now trying to figure out if private institutions, like Liberty University, are eligible for this (public) funding to start their own K–12 public school. Paviour also links to this PDF of the official Lab School guidelines from the Virginia Board of Education, which is a medium interesting read. Eric Kolenich at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has more and reports that the first Lab Schools “could begin recruiting teachers and students as early as February and open in time for the 2023–24 school year”. Seems rushed to me. Also, who knows how this will impact the teacher shortages facing almost every single public school district in the commonwealth. I think I have a lot of questions about how this effort won’t further divert resources away from the public school system that the State refuses to fund at an appropriate level.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 61 °F, and today, like yesterday, also looks very nice—expect highs in the 80s and sunshine. Temperatures start to creep up a bit over the next few days, but I’m going to pretend not to even notice!
 

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Yesterday, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, making the largest investment into mitigating climate change…ever? As President Obama said, “This is a BFD.” You can read a bit more in the Washington Post, but, even if that sounds boring, definitely tap through to see a great picture of Biden giving a “Can you believe this guy??” look to Joe Manchin after signing the Act. I’m impressed that Democrats got this bill passed—a bill investing billions in climate and health insurance!—given their incredibly thin majority and the raging anti-science opposition from Republicans. Exactly zero republicans in either the House or the Senate—Liz Cheney included—voted to invest in giving our burning planet a chance to support habitable life for the next couple of generations. Mindblowingly sad. I’m still looking for the best explainer on everything this new law accomplishes, so if you find a good, comprehensive one, send it my way!
 

Patrick Wilson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a big update on the Richmond Police Department’s alleged 4th of July plot: “[Chief] Smith misspoke at a July 6 news conference in which he erroneously said an anonymous tipster specified Dogwood Dell as a targeted location for a mass shooting on July Fourth.” While the Chief admits that no one, at any point, mentioned Dogwood Dell, he doubles down on there being “a plot that there would be a mass shooting, 4th of July, large event, Richmond Virginia.” This interview with the Chief comes just a week after he said he was done talking about the alleged plot and would watch as the federal cases move forward (which I still don’t think have anything to do with mass shootings). Staying quiet and trying to ignore it all was never going to be a winning strategy for the RPD, but I’m not sure this interview made anything better, either. Tap through to watch a short segment of the interview and read about some weird details around how the interview was set up. If I had to guess, we’ll hear more soon—maybe even from the Mayor. Smith did more interviews with WTVR, NBC12, and WRIC, if you want to check them out.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 61 °F, and today, like yesterday, also looks very nice—expect highs in the 80s and sunshine. Temperatures start to creep up a bit over the next few days, but I’m going to pretend not to even notice!
 

Water cooler

Yesterday, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, making the largest investment into mitigating climate change…ever? As President Obama said, “This is a BFD.” You can read a bit more in the Washington Post, but, even if that sounds boring, definitely tap through to see a great picture of Biden giving a “Can you believe this guy??” look to Joe Manchin after signing the Act. I’m impressed that Democrats got this bill passed—a bill investing billions in climate and health insurance!—given their incredibly thin majority and the raging anti-science opposition from Republicans. Exactly zero republicans in either the House or the Senate—Liz Cheney included—voted to invest in giving our burning planet a chance to support habitable life for the next couple of generations. Mindblowingly sad. I’m still looking for the best explainer on everything this new law accomplishes, so if you find a good, comprehensive one, send it my way!
 

Patrick Wilson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a big update on the Richmond Police Department’s alleged 4th of July plot: “[Chief] Smith misspoke at a July 6 news conference in which he erroneously said an anonymous tipster specified Dogwood Dell as a targeted location for a mass shooting on July Fourth.” While the Chief admits that no one, at any point, mentioned Dogwood Dell, he doubles down on there being “a plot that there would be a mass shooting, 4th of July, large event, Richmond Virginia.” This interview with the Chief comes just a week after he said he was done talking about the alleged plot and would watch as the federal cases move forward (which I still don’t think have anything to do with mass shootings). Staying quiet and trying to ignore it all was never going to be a winning strategy for the RPD, but I’m not sure this interview made anything better, either. Tap through to watch a short segment of the interview and read about some weird details around how the interview was set up. If I had to guess, we’ll hear more soon—maybe even from the Mayor. Smith did more interviews with WTVR, NBC12, and WRIC, if you want to check them out.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 63 °F, and today’s forecast looks lovely—a lot like yesterday but with more sun and less drizzle. You can expect highs right around 80 °F and perfect weather for an evening walk around your neighborhood.
 

Water cooler

National Teacher of the Year Rodney Robinson pointed me towards this article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch by Anna Bryson from a couple days back: “Teacher vacancies in Varina, Fairfield put strain on Henrico County Schools.” Henrico has over 180 vacancies, but the map at the top of the article shows a striking gradient of disparity between the eastern and western parts of the County. According to Bryson, the eastern districts, which have the most teacher vacancies, also are home to “majority-Black populations and serve more than half of Henrico’s economically disadvantaged students.” In the original tweet that linked me to this article, Robinson says, “The teacher shortage is the biggest equity issue in education right now. Black, Brown, and economically disadvantaged populations will suffer the most.” Henrico’s not unique in dealing with a teacher shortage—it’s an issue facing school districts across the nation—but that map really paints a stark picture.
 

Related, the RPS School Board met last night, and Jessica Nocera, also at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, reports that the District has 144 teacher vacancies. Superintendent Kamras believes “between long-term subs, additional hires over the next two weeks and some … leveling of positions that we will have every single class covered on the first day of school.” Nocera also reports that RPS will “continue universal indoor masking in all school buildings and on buses for students and staff.” Good! Richmond has, for the last forever, been in a high COVID-19 Community Level, and the CDC recommendations continue to be for everyone, regardless of vaccination status, to wear masks indoors. Kamras says he’s open to adjusting the District’s policy should we (eventually) drop down to a medium or low Community Level.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 65 °F, and today looks not-so-hot, still humid, cloudy, and probably rainy at points—especially this morning. Expect highs in the 70s, and a slow, but productive, start to the week ahead.
 

Water cooler

Saturday morning, a drunk driver hit and killed Jonah Holland and critically injured Natalie Rainer while they were riding their bikes out on Osborn Turnpike. I’d known Jonah for the better part of two decades—working with her to promote Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden through RVANews, and, even before that, during the early social media days in Richmond. Last year, I posted a picture of a Nandina in my yard, and she let me know how poisonous and invasive they were (which had me and my mom out there pulling up Nandina for a few weeks). Just a couple of months ago she sent me a kind note wishing me luck on my first bikepacking adventure. The last time I saw Jonah, was back in May at a Richmond Area Bicycling Association ride out in Goochland. We met up at the halfway point, and she tried to convince me to join her riding club before speeding off as I took a break in the shade. Jonah’s the first person that I’ve known, known to be killed while biking—biking on a stretch of road that I’ve ridden a thousand times, at least once with my parents and my son. I didn’t know Natalie, but her family has set up a gofundme to help with medical bills. If I hear about memorial funds or group rides for Jonah, I’ll make sure they end up in this space.
 

Last week, the CDC released new COVID-19 guidance that made me feel pretty ambivalent. Since then, both Katelyn Jetelina and Emily Oster have weighed in on the new guidance (with Oster much more positive than Jetelina, but in a schools-and-kids focused way). If you’re feeling unmoored about the new guidance, or just the whole pandemic in general, I recommend reading both pieces—especially the last two paragraphs of Jetelina’s. To quote a bit: “…we are in a very strange phase of the pandemic: somewhere between endemic and a full blown emergency. If you’re confused on what to do, know that we are all confused and just trying to do our best. Give yourself and others grace through this time.”