Good morning, RVA! It’s 61 °F, and today looks pretty OK with highs in the mid 70s. Just make sure you keep an eye out for rain later this afternoon and then again over night—we may even have some severe storms roll through.
 

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It’s been a while since I checked in on VDH’s COVID-19 Outbreaks by Selected Exposure Settings dashboard. This dashboard lets you look through outbreaks at K–12 schools, which, remember, are not the same as cases brought into schools by kids who picked up COVID-19 at home or elsewhere out in the world. Outbreaks mean disease transmission inside of a school (or other setting). At the moment Chesterfield County Public Schools reports 13 outbreaks, Henrico County Public Schools reports seven, and Richmond Public Schools reports two. If I had a minute, I’d be interested in figuring out some sort of “outbreak per capita” number or comparing the number of outbreaks in each school district to the amount of COVID-19 in each of these localities. Maybe another day!
 

Today at 6:00 PM, City Council will hold a special meeting to, fingers crossed, vote on how to spend the first $77 million of the City’s share of ARPA money. The Staff Report is pretty readable and very short, so take a quick scroll through if you’d like to learn more. As far as I can tell, the plan as presented represents the Mayor’s priorities, and, I guess, tonight Council will have their chance to present additional amendments? Honestly, I’m a little confused to how this process will play out. But! If you’d like to weigh in on the spending plan, you have until 10:00 AM this morning to send an email to the Clerk (CityClerksOfffice@rva.gov) or you can, of course, show up in-person and give a public comment this evening.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 63 °F, and today looks cooler and cloudier than the last couple of beautiful days. But! We’ve got a lovely weekend ahead of us with dry skies and temperatures in the 70s. I’m going camping, and it will most definitely be rad.
 

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Boosternews! After a daylong meeting, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and then the full CDC authorized boosters for both the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines. They also authorized round robin mix-and-matching, so regardless of your first vaccine you can now boost yourself with any of the available three. Folks with a primary series of the mRNA vaccines need to wait six months after their second dose and should fall into one of the high-risk categories, while any J&Jers two months out from their one-and-no-longer-done shot can get boosted. The New York Times has the details, details which, of course, lack any sort of direction on how folks should go about making their booster decision. Here’s how the NYT puts it: “Regulators have not recommended any one vaccine over another as a booster. They have also remained silent on whether it is preferable to stick with the same vaccine when possible.”
 

White supremacists defaced two murals in town with racist, offensive, and lazy graffiti: The Arthur Ashe mural down by the Battery Park tennis courts and the Black Monument Avenue mural out at Six Points in Highland Park. Patrick Larsen at VPM talked with muralist James Thornhill who helped put up the monument back in 2017, who had this to say: "Just walking down here as an artist and seeing this black spot where we had a wonderful picture of Arthur Ashe, it feels like someone just put a silencer on my mouth…Saying ‘don’t talk, don’t speak, don’t be creative, don’t express yourself, or we’re gonna retaliate.” I am 100% sure our community of artists will respond to the cowards who’d did this with something incredible, but it’s awful that they need to.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 48 °F, and we’ve got another stunner lined up today: Expect highs near 80 °F with a few clouds here and there throughout the afternoon. Spend the evening outside watching the sun go down (sunset at 6:25 PM!).
 

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Boosternews! Last night the full FDA authorized booster shots for both the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines. Today, the CDC’s advisory committee will meet to talk through things which could lead to CDC authorization as soon as this evening. If everything goes smoothly, you could even see appointments for Moderna and J&J boosters pop up this weekend. Also of note, especially for J&Jers, the FDA authorized mix-and-matching vaccine types, but, as far as I can tell, didn’t really give anyone any guidance about what to mix and match with what. Here’s the frustrating quote from the acting FDA commissioner: “We do not have preferential recommendations…We feel that if patients have questions, they should consult with perhaps their physician or another provider.” To me this sounds a lot like “do the research,” which I hate, and, like, I am not a scientist? I rely on scientists and doctors to tell me what to do when it comes to things like life-saving vaccines. I’m happy to return the favor if any scientists or doctors need advice on morning emails or emotionally-heated conversations about zoning. The CDC can, of course, layer on their own guidance to help people figure out which booster to get, but, according to the aforelinked NYT piece, that doesn’t sound likely. You can learn more directly by streaming today’s CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meeting here, if that’s your thing. Do the research, I guess.
 

Last night’s email from Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras is worth reading in full. He’s seeing incredible stress and burnout among staff and students from the trauma caused by the pandemic—loss of loved ones, jobs, and economic stability. He’s also seen stressors within RPS, which, unlike a deadly disease, he can control: “the three that I hear the most are: 1) We’re doing too much; 2) There’s not enough time; and 3) Students are exhibiting significant trauma from the past 20 months and we need more support to help them.” Kamras has announced concrete steps to address each of these, including “a moratorium on new division-wide programs, initiatives, curricula, etc. for the rest of the year”; protecting teachers' lunch and planning time (they need 100 lunch monitors, and you can apply here)); reallocating $3 million of federal relief funding to student mental health support services; and closing RPS on November 1st and 3rd, which will give students that entire week off due to Election Day, Diwali, and parent-teacher conferences. These changes will be disruptive to some, especially the calendar changes, but I’m into it. We knew—or should have known—that this fall would bring with it a ton of uncertainty, and that we’d need extra time, space, and grace to climb our way back to friends, family, community, work, and school. That’ll take a long time! Most likely it won’t go as planned, either, and we’ll need to take a break every now and then. To expect an immediate return to the 2019 version of life seems incredibly naive (and maybe not even what we’re after).
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 48 °F, and we’ve got another stunner lined up today: Expect highs near 80 °F with a few clouds here and there throughout the afternoon. Spend the evening outside watching the sun go down (sunset at 6:25 PM!).
 

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Boosternews! Last night the full FDA authorized booster shots for both the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines. Today, the CDC’s advisory committee will meet to talk through things which could lead to CDC authorization as soon as this evening. If everything goes smoothly, you could even see appointments for Moderna and J&J boosters pop up this weekend. Also of note, especially for J&Jers, the FDA authorized mix-and-matching vaccine types, but, as far as I can tell, didn’t really give anyone any guidance about what to mix and match with what. Here’s the frustrating quote from the acting FDA commissioner: “We do not have preferential recommendations…We feel that if patients have questions, they should consult with perhaps their physician or another provider.” To me this sounds a lot like “do the research,” which I hate, and, like, I am not a scientist? I rely on scientists and doctors to tell me what to do when it comes to things like life-saving vaccines. I’m happy to return the favor if any scientists or doctors need advice on morning emails or emotionally-heated conversations about zoning. The CDC can, of course, layer on their own guidance to help people figure out which booster to get, but, according to the aforelinked NYT piece, that doesn’t sound likely. You can learn more directly by streaming today’s CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meeting here, if that’s your thing. Do the research, I guess.
 

Last night’s email from Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras is worth reading in full. He’s seeing incredible stress and burnout among staff and students from the trauma caused by the pandemic—loss of loved ones, jobs, and economic stability. He’s also seen stressors within RPS, which, unlike a deadly disease, he can control: “the three that I hear the most are: 1) We’re doing too much; 2) There’s not enough time; and 3) Students are exhibiting significant trauma from the past 20 months and we need more support to help them.” Kamras has announced concrete steps to address each of these, including “a moratorium on new division-wide programs, initiatives, curricula, etc. for the rest of the year”; protecting teachers' lunch and planning time (they need 100 lunch monitors, and you can apply here)); reallocating $3 million of federal relief funding to student mental health support services; and closing RPS on November 1st and 3rd, which will give students that entire week off due to Election Day, Diwali, and parent-teacher conferences. These changes will be disruptive to some, especially the calendar changes, but I’m into it. We knew—or should have known—that this fall would bring with it a ton of uncertainty, and that we’d need extra time, space, and grace to climb our way back to friends, family, community, work, and school. That’ll take a long time! Most likely it won’t go as planned, either, and we’ll need to take a break every now and then. To expect an immediate return to the 2019 version of life seems incredibly naive (and maybe not even what we’re after).
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 47 °F, and today looks wonderful. Get ready for highs in the upper 70s, a beautiful fall sky, and every reason in the world to spend at least part of the day outside.
 

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Richmond’s bike share system still exists! I don’t even know how long RVA Bike Share—which took forever to launch—has sat mired in its first phase, constrained to fewer than 20 stations (just 16 at the moment). A couple days ago, though, RVA Bike Share announced that they’ll move the Biotech Park station to Battery Park on the Northside and add an entirely new station at Chimborazo Park. This expands the bike share footprint quite a bit into the Northside and further out into the East End, maybe even by too much. The two new stations are kind of outpost islands and really will require some more stations connecting them back to the larger bike share network. According to the aforelinked Instagram post, though, this is just the start of a Phase 2 expansion, so maybe we’ll start to see that infill? I’ve been burned before, RVA Bike Share, so I won’t hold my breath. Meanwhile, I’ve seen a ton of these new BirdTwo scooters out and about, and they look sweet. Dockless scooter convenience (and ubiquity) will almost always beat out an extremely limited docked bike share system.
 

Tonight at 6:00 PM you can join a virtual public meeting to discuss the proposed rezoning of W. Broad Street. Council has already passed the resolution to kick off this rezoning process (RES. 2021-R017), so this is a real deal public meeting on actually doing the rezoning! As proposed, the plan would take an assortment of existing business and residential zones and upzone them to TOD-1, bringing the area in line with the Richmond 300 Master Plan and, fingers crossed, laying the foundation for a denser, better, less parking-lotted W. Broad Street. I foretell some light gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over the bits of the plan that would allow apartment buildings adjacent to some of these wealthy residential neighborhoods—you know, the typical stuff. Despite whatever NIMBY angst may come, this is, honestly, one of the more exciting rezonings we’ve got going on in Richmond. Just take a Google Maps Street View trip down W. Broad Street and look at how many surface parking lots face the street. Then imagine what could be! So much potential!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 41 °F and it’s a two-blanket morning over here on the couch! In fact, today you can expect temperatures to just creep their way up into the 70s late this afternoon. I think today is as good of a day as any to get those boots out of the closet and restore them to their proper place of honor.
 

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Yesterday, the Virginia Department of Health launched a new Cases Among Children data dashboard. Since March 15th 2020, VDH reports 127,997 cases among children, 380 hospitalizations, and nine deaths. I think the all-time graph of cases reported among children is really fascinating; right now we’re experiencing a peak of kid cases that exceeds the peak from this past winter. Some of that, surely, is due to the lack of vaccination among youth, since the subgroup seeing the most case (5–11 year olds) aren’t yet eligible. But! It really does sound like we’re less than a month out from offering the COVID-19 vaccine to all school-aged kids. Let’s check back in on this graph (and compare it to the general, all-time cases graph) later this year.
 

City Council’s Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee meets today with a couple items of note on their agenda. Up first, two interesting presentations that you can scroll through. RRHA will walk through the long-term plans for a bunch of their real estate project. The aforelinked PDF gives a great snapshot of properties owned by RRHA, and, if you zoom way in, some of the proposed redevelopment plans for these properties. Also, if you’ve still not been out to Armstrong Renaissance in the East End, flip down to page 31 for two great photographs that’ll give you an idea of how that development—which is part of the plan to replace Creighton Court—is turning out. Next, Maritza Pechin, deputy director of the Office of Equitable Development, will give a presentation on the City’s newly launched process to redevelop the Diamond District. Gotta love page eight, which, to me, reads as the Lessons Learned From Navy Hill slide: “Draft RFI Goals: Generate significant new revenues for the City [and] utilize financing approaches that minimize public investment/risk.” There are a lot of other really great goals they want the future developers to hit, too—transportation, open space, jobs, sustainable development to name a few. One of the things that ticked people off about the Navy Hill process was snapping a fully-formed idea into existing without bringing the community along. It’ll be worth watching to see if and how the Diamond District developments avoids that. Page five has a general project timeline and it puts the various Council approvals needed to move the development forward on their spring agenda. Also of note, LUHT will consider RES. 2021-R065 which would “request that the Chief Administrative Officer cause the Department of Public Works to develop a process for City residents to request traffic studies of the residential areas within their neighborhoods for the purpose of assessing the appropriateness of instituting a 15 mile per hour speed limit in such areas to increase traffic safety.” Meh. Despite what the City’s Director of Public Works believes, infrastructure is the only way to really slow drivers down. We can make DPW staff do traffic studies at the beck and call of residents, get Council to lower speed limits, have RPD enforce the lower speed limits, and then punish residents for speeding, all while hoping that process maintains some sense of equity or we can just build safer streets.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 45 °F, and here, in the middle of October, is fall! Today you can expect highs in the 60s and lots of sunshine. Early this morning it might just be the perfect time to sit on a porch wrapped in a blanket drinking a hot beverage.
 

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Last Thursday and Friday, an FDA advisory committee met and recommended boosters for both the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines. The Moderna recommendations generally fall in line with the Pfizer recommendations from a couple weeks back—six months out from your second dose, older folks, people with an increased chance of severe illness due to COVID-19, that sort of thing. The J&J recommendations, however, include any J&Jer who received their single shot at least two months earlier, which is basically all J&Jers. In fact, some on the FDA committee argued that this is not a J&J booster at all, but the second of what, from the get-go, should have been a two-dose vaccine. There was also some conversation about recommending mixing and matching vaccine types, but no decisions made. You can read more in the New York Times. What’s next? This coming Wednesday and Thursday a CDC advisory committee will meet to talk through the FDA advisory committee’s recommendations, which puts us on a path to more people eligible for more boosters as early as this weekend.
 

Last week I linked to Kenya Hunter’s three-part series on the racial disparities facing Maggie Walker Governor’s School over in the Richmond Times-Dispatch (here’s part one of the series, in case you missed it). Megan Pauly at VPM sat down with Hunter to talk about the whys and hows of putting together such an expansive piece—one that took six months to report! I love when reporters talk to other reporters about their process. You often end up learning some extra notes and anecdotes that never made it into the final piece or got cut by an editor along the way.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 59 °F, and I think today might be the last of these warm, summery October days. Expect highs in the mid 80s, some sunshine, and then rain to move in tomorrow bringing with it much cooler temperatures. Highs in the 60s on Sunday!
 

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Y’all know that I am extremely frustrated by the State’s Department of General Services and their decision to block off Bank Street with that stupid Cold War-era border gate and those huge concrete balls. Bank Street was, is, and will be the critical bike connection between the Franklin Street Bike Lane in the west and the 17th Street Market/Capital Trail in the east. The current state of affairs, forcing people on bikes to weave through an obstacle course of gates and balls is already unacceptable and a great example of how the State just kind of does whatever they want in Richmond (see also: the horrible fencing at Marcus-David Peters Circle). Yesterday, I got an email from Bike Walk RVA pointing me to these proposed regulations that would close Capitol Square to the public from 9:00 PM–6:00 AM. It doesn’t take much to envision a potential future where the State closes Bank Street entirely to through traffic, incorporates it into “Capitol Square,” and completely fractures Richmond’s network of bike lanes. If you have a minute, please leave a comment on these regulations requesting that Bank Street remain a part of the public right-of-way and open to pedestrian and bike through traffic 24/7.
 

Richmond Public Schools launched a new website yesterday, always a terrifying task. As boring as “information architecture” sounds, the information on a website’s homepage is a quick shorthand for that organization’s priorities. It’s like budgets, but with words instead of dollars. Two things stick out to me from this recent RPS website reorg: The Superintendent’s newsletter is right there at the top, and there’s a whole section dedicated to the Dreams4RPS strategic plan. To help celebrate the launch, RPS has new merch designs over in their Bonfire store. Do I need a 3/4 sleeve baseball Tee featuring a colorful map of the RPS middle school zones? Obviously.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 59 °F, and today looks wonderful! Get out there and enjoy the sunshine, the temperatures in the 80s, and the last couple days of this extended summer.
 

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VDH has added a “People Vaccinated with Booster/Third Dose” tracker to their vaccination data dashboard. As of yesterday, about 240,000 Virginians had received their booster or third dose, just 4.6% of the fully vaccinated. Don’t feel any sort of way about that number yet, though, as 1) it’s early goings in boostertime, 2) only folks who received their second dose on or before April 14th are eligible, and 3) out of that group, just the Pfizer humans can get boosted. But! That could change soon. The FDA’s advisory committee (VRBPAC, or Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee) meets today to discuss Moderna Boosters and tomorrow to discuss J&J boosters. I don’t know if it’s all this recent talk about boosters, an ongoing fear of delta, a lessening of vaccine hesitancy, or a combination of all three and a bunch of other things, but vaccination rates in Virginia have increased since their summertime low. I like the shape of that graph!
 

I 100% forgot to mention it, but, this past Monday, City Council unanimously confirmed Lincoln Saunders as Richmond’s new, official, no-longer-acting CAO.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 64 °F, and I think we may get to see the sun today! Expect highs in the upper 70s, almost no chance for rain, and, with any luck, a break in the clouds. Get out there and enjoy it.
 

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If you haven’t registered to vote and didn’t do so yesterday, it’s too late, and I’m disappointed in you. I’m confident, though, that 100% of people subscribed to this email/podcast are registered and have either already voted or have fully made plans to. If not, for some reason, here’s the list of upcoming deadlines: October 22nd to request a mail-in ballot, October 30th to vote early in-person, and actual Election Day is November 2nd. Related and mildly interesting, ol' T-Mac has started hosting a bunch of campaign events with a handful of famously talented Democratic women, including Stacey Abrams, Keisha Lance Bottoms, and First Lady Jill Biden. I don’t know enough about politics to know if these types of campaign events do anything, but I do think it highlights the level of national importance Virginia’s gubernatorial election holds this year.
 

Ben Paviour at VPM reports on the racial disparity found in the recipients of the State’s COVID-19 relief fund for businesses. While a huge chunk of grant recipients chose not to report their race, “white and Black-owned businesses were approved for grants at similar rates during that period. But while Black-owned businesses got an average Rebuild VA grant of nearly $19,500, white-owned businesses received more than double that on average.” Paviour also reports that the Commonwealth Club, “an all-male private club that didn’t admit its first Black member until 1988,” received money from the program while other nearby black-owned businesses—ones that presumably serve people other than just men—were denied funds. Luckily, there is an additional round of money around the corner and the timing is less urgent at the moment, so the State has an opportunity to take a minute and work a little harder on equitably prioritizing recipients. Also I didn’t know where to put this but wanted to point it out, this sentence is just really dark: “Richmond-based floral designer Brom Hansboro got about $20,500 from Rebuild VA…The cash infusion helped him ride out the suspension of weddings and embrace new opportunities like the funeral business.”
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 65 °F, and today looks excellent. Get outside and enjoy highs in the upper 70s and no rain until late this evening or tomorrow. While Saturday does look kind of like a wash for outdoor activities, it looks great for staying inside and watching horror movies.
 

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The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Gregory J. Gilligan reports that Capital One and Genworth Financial have both postponed their return to in-person work plans until at least next year. Seems like something we’ll see more and more of from large employers as we move into the winter—and maybe even beyond. I keep thinking about this excellent piece I read earlier this week by Anne Helen Petersen about the future of in-person work. Read the whole thing, but here’s the part that grabbed me: “I am not anti-office. I am anti arbitrary office. I am against sucking two hours [of commuting] out of someone’s day just to briefly make a bad manager feel good. I am against siphoning power from workers and piping it directly to leaders’ already overflowing stores of it. We have such a unique, authentically exciting moment to take stock of what ‘office’ work could look like moving forward — what parts of it need a collective space, which parts do not, and what office spaces will look like and provide. And so many organizations are straight up squandering that opportunity.”
 

Ian M. Stewart at VPM has an update to the Brookland Park Boulevard Bump Out Situation: “members of the Historic Brookland Park Collective and the Brookland Park Merchants Association, called for the city to investigate if the proper steps were taken before the sidewalk extensions, called bump-outs, were removed.” Also notable, as Councilmember Lambert frequently mentioned a petition with 1,000 signatures as one of the reasons she asked the City’s Department of Public Works to remove the bump outs: “A copy of the petition has not been made public…VPM has sent a FOIA request to Director of Public Works Bobby Vincent and Lambert asking for a copy of the petition.” I’m really interested to see where this goes and am glad neighbors and journalists are continuing to push the City for an explanation. For me, it’s less about the City taking two steps backwards from their transportation and Vision Zero goals (although, that’s pretty bad), but it’s more about the process. I’m particularly concerned about the process that halted the already-approved parklet. While the Director of Public Works may have the authority to rip out street infrastructure at his own discretion (does he though?), I don’t love the idea that a single Councilmember can quietly intervene and stop a project that both the Urban Design Committee and Planning Commission have approved. Those are both public bodies and both have opportunities for citizens and councilmembers alike to weigh in with concerns. My biggest question remains: How did, months after public approval, a Councilmember convince the Mayor’s Director of Public Works to squash the parklet?
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 63 °F, and today looks cloudy but nice. I think we should avoid any sort of rain until at least tomorrow—better spend some time outside today if you can!
 

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Semmes Avenue is one of Richmond’s overly big, overly fast, and overly dangerous streets. Today, at 8:00 AM and at 5:00 PM, 5th District Councilmember Lynch will hold two rallies to get drivers to slow the heck down. I can already hear the sound of hundreds of keyboards typing “But rallies will not slow down drivers, Ross.” Correct! And the Councilmember knows this: “…when you have a big wide road, people are going to speed down it, and one of the tools is to narrow it, and I think it’s high time we start thinking about that.” Yes! Changing the physical shape of the streets is the only way to really get drivers to slow down—something we discussed recently with the Brookland Park Boulevard Bump Out Situation. This can mean taking away lanes, narrowing lanes, adding bike lanes, expanding sidewalks, or even just throwing a bunch of jersey barriers up until we figure out what is going on with drivers.
 

City Council’s Urban Design Committee will meet to again consider GRTC’s Yet Another Temporary Transfer Plaza. Last I wrote about this, UDC had some concerns about the chain link fencing used to separate out a portion of the space for car parking, which 1) looks trashy, and 2) makes pedestrian access to the actual buses harder. However, in some rare fencing good news, the letter attached to the updated engineering diagrams says, “The fence has been reduced on the east side to allow access from the south east corner of the site.” Anyway, these adjustments to the plan seem good, but, truth be told, Safari crashes every time I try to scroll through the aforelinked (and massive) PDF. That’s OK, though, we all know I can’t read engineering diagrams anyway! Richmond’s recent addiction to fencing things off aside, I’m mostly interested in how the City helps GRTC find a final, permanent location for a transfer plaza (or transfer street!). We need a place for buses to gather downtown, and, while Navy Hill and COVID-19 put a pause on the search for a bus home, the need has not vanished.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 63 °F, and today looks cloudy but nice. I think we should avoid any sort of rain until at least tomorrow—better spend some time outside today if you can!
 

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Semmes Avenue is one of Richmond’s overly big, overly fast, and overly dangerous streets. Today, at 8:00 AM and at 5:00 PM, 5th District Councilmember Lynch will hold two rallies to get drivers to slow the heck down. I can already hear the sound of hundreds of keyboards typing “But rallies will not slow down drivers, Ross.” Correct! And the Councilmember knows this: “…when you have a big wide road, people are going to speed down it, and one of the tools is to narrow it, and I think it’s high time we start thinking about that.” Yes! Changing the physical shape of the streets is the only way to really get drivers to slow down—something we discussed recently with the Brookland Park Boulevard Bump Out Situation. This can mean taking away lanes, narrowing lanes, adding bike lanes, expanding sidewalks, or even just throwing a bunch of jersey barriers up until we figure out what is going on with drivers.
 

City Council’s Urban Design Committee will meet to again consider GRTC’s Yet Another Temporary Transfer Plaza. Last I wrote about this, UDC had some concerns about the chain link fencing used to separate out a portion of the space for car parking, which 1) looks trashy, and 2) makes pedestrian access to the actual buses harder. However, in some rare fencing good news, the letter attached to the updated engineering diagrams says, “The fence has been reduced on the east side to allow access from the south east corner of the site.” Anyway, these adjustments to the plan seem good, but, truth be told, Safari crashes every time I try to scroll through the aforelinked (and massive) PDF. That’s OK, though, we all know I can’t read engineering diagrams anyway! Richmond’s recent addiction to fencing things off aside, I’m mostly interested in how the City helps GRTC find a final, permanent location for a transfer plaza (or transfer street!). We need a place for buses to gather downtown, and, while Navy Hill and COVID-19 put a pause on the search for a bus home, the need has not vanished.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 69 °F, and today looks a bit cooler and bit less downpour-y than yesterday. You should still stay on the lookout for some rain later this afternoon, though—keep that umbrella handy.
 

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Megan Pauly at VPM reports on this past Monday’s RPS School Board meeting and the 5–4 vote to “keep police in schools for the foreseeable future but with some changes.” You can read through those proposed changed in this single-slide presentation. Out of the list of tweaks, this one seems most substantial to me: “RPD and RPS would develop a diversion program to end arrests on school grounds for any non-violent offenses.” RPD didn’t respond to Pauly by deadline if fights were considered “non-violent offenses,” which seems like a an important clarification because fights account for a big percentage of the arrests in schools. In fact, Pauly says that “in the 2018–2019 and 2019–2020 combined school years, there were nearly 400 student arrests in Richmond schools, the majority over fights and possession of marijuana.” I know it’s complicated, but I’m not sure that either of those things should end in arrests on school property.
 

Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports on the early goings of a really interesting program proposed by the Virginia Poverty Law Center that would “provide down-payment assistance to households that can demonstrate that they, or their relatives, suffered financial consequences as a result of past practices that disproportionately impacted Black households.” It’s not like we’ve had a dearth of those in the Richmond region over the last couple hundred years—and this is not a Richmond-specific problem, of course. The way The System’s set up right now, homeownership is one of the primary ways families in American build wealth, and we know that Black families lag significantly behind white families in homeownership rates, and we also know that Black families have accumulated much less wealth than white families. Programs like this attempt to address these financial disparities. Two local legislators, Del. Jeff Bourne and Del. Ghazala Hashmi will carry the related legislation at the General Assembly this coming session. Keep an eye on it!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 65 °F, and, while today looks lovely, there is a persistent chance of rain thought the day. Enjoy, of course, but keep an eye to the sky and a rain jacket handy.
 

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Some good news from RPS Superintendent Kamras’s email this past Friday: “The Virginia Department of Education just released official graduation results for the Class of 2021. I’m proud to share that our Hispanic/Latino/a/x students had the largest growth of any division in the entire state – up 24.8 percentage points! And overall, our graduation rate increased 7.3 percentage points to 78.8%! That means we officially no longer have the lowest rate in Virginia. Of course, we’re aiming MUCH higher and have a tremendous amount of work to do, but it’s clear we’re on the right path. Please join me in congratulating the Class of 2021, along with their families, teachers, counselors, principals, and so many others who taught, led, and served them with love—all through a global pandemic. Simply incredible.”
 

Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense has an update on Brookland Park Boulevard’s already-approved parklet and now-removed bump outs. I don’t love this quote from Bobby Vincent, Director of Public Works: “‘Anybody can go and sit inside that parklet for any reason,’ Vincent said. For the parklet to be placed, he added, ‘only to be used in a negative capacity by those who can legally occupy it, I needed to put a pause on it until we all have an understanding of what in fact it does, and what the rules are in regard to a parklet.’”
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 51 °F, and today you can expect highs in the 70s—not even the upper 70s, just the regular 70s! While things do warm up a bit over the next couple of days, this weekend looks simply stunning. Have a blast, spend some time recovering from the week that was, and stay hydrated.
 

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Last night’s 3rd District meeting about the parklet and bump outs on Brookland Park Boulevard was a mess. The Director of Public Works made some pretty terrible statements given his role in our City’s transportation infrastructure, people got angry, and Councilmember Lambert had a head-shaking hot-mic moment. All of it makes me feel demoralized, ashamed, and left wondering why it is so hard to make progress in Richmond. Here’s an enormous thread from @BossRVA if you want a full recap of the meeting, but below are my generally unprocessed and unsorted thoughts from last night:
 

• The absolute worst moment came when Director of Public Works Bobby Vincent said something along the lines of “we are not going to infrastructure our way out of speeding in Richmond.” Turns out, the ONLY way to slow speeds on our too-fast, unsafe streets is by installing physical infrastructure to force drivers to slow down. We should all be super concerned that the man in charge of our streets’ infrastructure doesn’t believe in street infrastructure.
• This is why, for the last five or six years, folks have asked the City to create a standalone Department of Transportation. No one, not a single person, would argue with the excellent job DPW has done to improve trash pick-up, bulk & brush, mowing, and, of course, filling pot holes over the Mayor’s first term. Things were a literal mess when Vincent showed up and are much, much better now. However, none of those things makes me think that DPW should be in charge of making our streets safer for people—especially now! What we got from the Mayor’s administration instead of a Department of Transportation that would have full authority over things like bump outs, is the Office of Equitable Transit and Mobility. It’s really clear after this week that OETM was either not consulted on this decision, has no sway over the Department of Public Works, or, worst-case, didn’t care.
• That brings me to my next point: DPW works for the Mayor. Don’t get me wrong, this whole situation seems to have been instigated entirely by Councilmember Lambert, but it’s still City staff that made the decision to stop the already-approved parklet and rip out the bump outs. How his Department of Public Works functions across the city is something the Mayor is responsible for.
• It kind of goes without saying at this point, but halting the parklet and digging out the bump outs and then having a public meeting is the exact opposite of how the timeline for these things should go.
• At some point in the evening it seemed like Councilmember Lambert and the owner of the parklet had reached a verbal agreement to move the parklet across the street. How does that even work, though? Would UDC and the Planning Commission need to…unpass their existing approvals for the parklet? Would they have to reconsider the whole thing again? I am deeply disturbed by the idea that if a councilperson is unhappy with how a public process turned out they can just lean on certain members of City staff to kill or restart a project—it’s a really awful precedent to set.
• Finally, here’s Councilmember Lambert’s hot-mic moment in which she seems to suggest that the only people upset are those who didn’t vote for her.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 51 °F, and today you can expect highs in the 70s—not even the upper 70s, just the regular 70s! While things do warm up a bit over the next couple of days, this weekend looks simply stunning. Have a blast, spend some time recovering from the week that was, and stay hydrated.
 

Water cooler

Last night’s 3rd District meeting about the parklet and bump outs on Brookland Park Boulevard was a mess. The Director of Public Works made some pretty terrible statements given his role in our City’s transportation infrastructure, people got angry, and Councilmember Lambert had a head-shaking hot-mic moment. All of it makes me feel demoralized, ashamed, and left wondering why it is so hard to make progress in Richmond. Here’s an enormous thread from @BossRVA if you want a full recap of the meeting, but below are my generally unprocessed and unsorted thoughts from last night:
 

• The absolute worst moment came when Director of Public Works Bobby Vincent said something along the lines of “we are not going to infrastructure our way out of speeding in Richmond.” Turns out, the ONLY way to slow speeds on our too-fast, unsafe streets is by installing physical infrastructure to force drivers to slow down. We should all be super concerned that the man in charge of our streets’ infrastructure doesn’t believe in street infrastructure.
• This is why, for the last five or six years, folks have asked the City to create a standalone Department of Transportation. No one, not a single person, would argue with the excellent job DPW has done to improve trash pick-up, bulk & brush, mowing, and, of course, filling pot holes over the Mayor’s first term. Things were a literal mess when Vincent showed up and are much, much better now. However, none of those things makes me think that DPW should be in charge of making our streets safer for people—especially now! What we got from the Mayor’s administration instead of a Department of Transportation that would have full authority over things like bump outs, is the Office of Equitable Transit and Mobility. It’s really clear after this week that OETM was either not consulted on this decision, has no sway over the Department of Public Works, or, worst-case, didn’t care.
• That brings me to my next point: DPW works for the Mayor. Don’t get me wrong, this whole situation seems to have been instigated entirely by Councilmember Lambert, but it’s still City staff that made the decision to stop the already-approved parklet and rip out the bump outs. How his Department of Public Works functions across the city is something the Mayor is responsible for.
• It kind of goes without saying at this point, but halting the parklet and digging out the bump outs and then having a public meeting is the exact opposite of how the timeline for these things should go.
• At some point in the evening it seemed like Councilmember Lambert and the owner of the parklet had reached a verbal agreement to move the parklet across the street. How does that even work, though? Would UDC and the Planning Commission need to…unpass their existing approvals for the parklet? Would they have to reconsider the whole thing again? I am deeply disturbed by the idea that if a councilperson is unhappy with how a public process turned out they can just lean on certain members of City staff to kill or restart a project—it’s a really awful precedent to set.
• Finally, here’s Councilmember Lambert’s hot-mic moment in which she seems to suggest that the only people upset are those who didn’t vote for her.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 52 °F, and we’ve got another beautiful day on deck. Enjoy temperatures in the upper 70s, sunshine, and being nice to your neighbors. The pleasant weather continue for the next couple of days, so enjoy!
 

Water cooler

Jessica Nocera at the Richmond Times-Dispatch checks in on Chesterfield County Public Schools and the success they’ve had at mitigating the spread of COVID-19. To date, the District has had just over a thousand reported cases since school started, which is something like 1.6% of the student population. Plus, the vast majority of those cases were brought in from outside of school; VDH’s outbreaks dashboard lists five ongoing outbreaks, the largest at Thomas Dale High School with 12 cases. A related thing that’s kind of blowing my mind: Most of the schools on VDH’s list of K–12 facilities experiencing outbreaks are high schools. These aren’t exactly correct numbers as some private schools and rural schools combine a bunch of grade levels, but eyeballing things gives six elementary schools with outbreaks, four middle schools, and 17 high schools. That’s exactly opposite of what I’d expect since littler kids both cannot get vaccinated and are, at least, twice as grubby. Maybe mitigation measures like podding are easier with elementary students who don’t switch classes? Maybe it’s impossible to keep high school students from touching each other?
 

Richmond Together, which put out some of the smartest analysis of how Richmond should spend its $155 million of ARPA money, will host an ARPA town hall this coming Saturday, October 2nd, at the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia (122 W. Leigh Street) from 10:00–11:30 AM. The City’s Acting CAO, Lincoln Saunders, will be on hand to answer questions, which seems like a really rare and great opportunity to get in front of the very high-level, senior leadership that will end up actually making a lot of the ARPA-related decisions. In fact, if you’ve got burning questions about how the Mayor plans on spending this bucket of cash, you can send them to togetherrichmond@gmail.com and they might could end up in the queue! If ARPA is all you think about, you can continue to get involved by attending an in-person community meeting tonight at 6:00 PM at Diversity Richmond (1407 Sherwood Avenue) or submit your feedback by filling out this ARPA survey until October 4th.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 64 °F, and today looks wonderful. Expect highs in the mid 70s and lots of potential hammock time. NBC12’s Andrew Freiden says today is the first of three "Best Weather Days of the Week” in a row. I hope you can find the time to enjoy them!
 

Water cooler

I didn’t watch the gubernatorial debate, because I’m wisely investing my time in the Korean survival horror drama Squid Game instead. I’ve got three thoughts after getting caught up this morning, though. First, Mel Leonor at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a recap which should terrify you as it frames the Republican candidate as a moderate, pretty OK guy that’s not too different from McAuliffe. Second, third-party candidate Princess Blanding, who didn’t poll high enough to make it on the stage, interrupted the debate, forcing Chuck Todd to throw to commercial. You can watch video from the audience here. Third, I failed to fill out my ballot over the weekend as promised, but there is a 100% chance I will do so and will vote for Terry McAuliffe. Did I vote for T-Mac in the primary? No. Am I inspired by a repeat rich white man candidate? No. Am I terrified that a Republican governor will undo the advances made in healthcare, abortion, environment, and social justice Virginia has made over the last couple of years? Yes, very much so. It is possible to believe all of these thing simultaneously!
 

If you want to get bummed about the Brookland Park Boulevard bump outs (RIP), here are a couple pictures Wyatt Gordon took of the ugly new asphalt patches that replaced actual concrete infrastructure and plants. Remember, Councilmember Lambert has a community meeting to discuss the (already approved) parklet and a few other topics related to the corridor tomorrow, 6:30 PM, at the Police Training Academy (1202 W. Graham Road).
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 61 °F, and today looks a little warmer than yesterday and also comes with a chance for some thunderstorms later this evening. Enjoy today and get ready for a really wonderful tomorrow.
 

Water cooler

Just a few corona-updates for you this Tuesday morning. First, here’s this week’s look at all-time cases, hospitalizations, and deaths due to COVID-19. It’s still too soon to tell if Delta’s tide has truly started to turn in Virginia, but it’s certainly not trending upwards at the moment. Second, the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts will now give Pfizer booster shots at any of their vaccination clinics. While you need an appointment for a booster, folks who are still unvaccinated can (and should!) just walk up to get their shot. I imagine most pharmacies around town have also started offering boosters for folks who qualify, so, if you’re eligible, you’ve probably got a ton of options to go get boosted.
 

On September 30th (this coming Thursday), Councilmember Lambert will host a community meeting to discuss, among other things, the parklet planned for the 100 block of Brookland Park Boulevard, out front of Ms. Bee’s Juice Bar. I’m confused and frustrated by this since Council’s Urban Design Committee already recommended the parklet for approval at their April 8th meeting and then the City’s Planning Commission approved the parklet at their April 19th meeting. As far as I know, that’s all that’s needed to get a parklet installed, and I’m not sure what’s left to talk about on Thursday (other than how rad parklets are). I have some pretty strong feelings about a councilmember getting involved at the tail end of an already approved project and subverting the existing public process. The 3rd District has already had its fair share of this (remember Councilmember Grey and the Big Brook Road Bike Lane Fight), and I’m not stoked to have to expend a ton of effort defending projects that have already been approved multiple times. Alas, this is the unfortunate timeline we live in, and if you want to let Councilmember Lambert know you support the Brookland Park Boulevard parklet, show up on Thursday, September 30th at 6:30 PM at the Richmond Police Training Academy (1202 W. Graham Road).