Good morning, RVA! It’s 25 °F, but temperatures should work their way back into the mid 40s by this afternoon. The weekend ahead of us looks cloudy but not super cold—in fact we might not see super cold until next year.

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Before any sports season starts, every team is undefeated and aspirational national champions. That’s kind of where we are right now with the General Assembly. Legislators have started to introduce their bills, and, right now, each one has an opportunity to pass through the how-a-bill-becomes-a-law process. A couple years back, this period of time was terrifying and often embarrassing as national media would focus on whatever terrible bill Republican Bob Marshall submitted. Now though, we’ve got incredibly exciting and progressive bills to celebrate like Delegate Samirah’s Housing Agenda, headlined by HB152 which would require localities to legalize duplexes on all single-unit zoned lots across the entire state. If we want to create more affordable housing, reduce reliance on cars, and work towards our climate goals we need denser housing—that’s just a physical fact of geometry. This bill does not mandate we tear down all of the incredibly expensive mansions in Windsor Farms, but it would allow someone to build two incredibly expensive mansions on a single Windsor Farms lot should they wish to do so. A bill like HB152 would bypass all the yelling and screaming at local City Councils and Boards of Supervisors and save local advocates—across issues like bike, ped, transit, housing, climate, and smart growth—a lot of work. Will it pass? Will it even make it out of committee? I don’t know, but I’m stoked to see it exist.

Whoa, trains! Yesterday, the Governor announced that Virginia will buy 225 miles of track from CSX and invest in a bunch of new passenger rail improvements. Max Smith with WTPO has the super fascinating details on the $3.7 billion deal. This is enormous news for the entire region, but, for Richmond, this means new trains north to DC and points beyond starting as soon as next year. By 2030, we should have hourly service to DC from Main Street Station all day long. Dang, y’all! That’s a huge improvement from today’s two trains. Just two! There’s more, too: Virginia will replace the Long Bridge, which chokes up every train heading through D.C. But maybe the best part of this whole train deal is that the State realized that, to reduce traffic on I-95, adding more lanes to the highway wouldn’t do anything to help the problem and would cost way, way more. I know ten years out seems like forever away, but for a train project this is incredibly quick and exciting!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 17 °F, and y’all, that is COLD. We’ll see highs above freezing today—but only just barely. Temperatures will return to their proper spot among the mid 40s tomorrow, so bundle up until then!

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Yesterday, for only the third time in all of history, the President of the United States was impeached. For me, even though we all knew it was coming, it’s still kind of shocking and surreal. Now the process moves to the Senate where they will decide whether or not (most likely not) to remove Trump from office. Regardless of what happens in the coming weeks, Trump will forever and always be known as one of the very small number of impeached presidents. If you’re looking to follow along, impeachment.fyi continues to be the best source of news throughout this process, and I definitely recommend subscribing to their email as we move into the holiday break.

Whoa this is cool: ProPublica selected the RTD’s Patrick Wilson to participate in their Local Reporting Network which “supports accountability journalism at local news organizations.” I’m excited to see what he ends up working on—given his beat, I’d guess a state government issue.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 26 °F, and today should be sunny and cold with highs in the 40s. Now that’s more December-like weather.

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Michael Paul Williams has thoughts about the School Board’s failure to rezone the Northside 💸. We’re all on the same page here, but I do take issue with some of his framing. I want to be super clear: The blame for implicitly endorsing the status quo of segregated Northside schools lies solely with the School Board. Rezoning is their responsibility—not the Superintendent, City Council, or the Mayor. The RPS administration designed and implemented a year-long rezoning plan, and, at least for the Northside, the School Board failed to act on it in any way. If, as Williams suggests, “the district lacked the nuts-and-bolts information about how pairing would work and the persuasive force to convert the skeptics it should have known were out there on this contentious issue,“ then there is an elected official for that district whose job it is to educate and listen to their constituents. 1st District’s Liz Doerr provided a pretty good model for elected folks to start with. So what’s next? For rezoning, who knows. But to combat segregation, Superintendent Kamras has a bunch of non-rezoning policy tools at his disposal—Passion4Learning being the most immediate but flip through the Dreams4RPS strategic plan (PDF) to see all sorts of equity-focused actions. Folks should be just as supportive of those policy initiatives as they were about rezoning.

The RTD’s C. Suarez Rojas was at GRTC’s board meeting yesterday and mostly covers the board’s conversation on fare evasion. Two things that I am able to believe simultaneously: 1) We shouldn’t waste too much time, effort, and money enforcing fare payment on the Pulse, and 2) The current company providing the fare enforcement is doing a bad job. I love this quote from GRTC CEO Julie Timm, “We need to change the conversation from fare evasion into helping people learn how to use the system and pay.” Also, and I think this is so super important given how easily it is for information to get twisted and then spread far and wide, GRTC has no plans to arm fare enforcement officers and was never going to anyway. Here’s Timm again, “Fare enforcement officers are required to have armed officer training in order to issue a summons; however, GRTC fare enforcers are not armed. Putting armed officers on our buses to issue court summons to our riders will not prevent fare evasion, and I do not believe anyone is suggesting we do that. It is the wrong answer for our system and our community.”

Good morning, RVA! It’s 42 °F, and highs today are suddenly back up in the mid 60s—on the 17th of December! Keep an eye out for a possible chance of rain now and later this afternoon.

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Yesterday, making a prediction about which of the 10 school rezoning options the RPS School Board would ultimately choose, I said, “I’d bet on whichever of the options is the most status-quoy.” I figured that would be Option W (PDF), which RPS describes as “No changes to northside zones.” Literally the status quo, right? Well, in one of those shocking-yet-not-surprising-at-all moments that keep happening in Richmond politics, the School Board went even harder toward the status quo by just…not voting for anything? At all? Justin Mattingly at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has the incredibly disappointing details. A quick recap: 3rd District Rep Gibson motioned to adopt Option 5 (PDF), one of the new options that did not go through the established, months-long process; that died on a 3–6 vote; and then, when no one else suggested an alternative, the Board moved on with the agenda. That was that. As a Northsider, I feel disappointed, angry, and disrespected by the School Board. It’s unfathomable to me that the Board could watch folks spend so much time and energy participating in a public engagement process that lasted the better part of a year (PDF) and then just not vote. Why did they even schedule this special meeting, a mishandled process that lacked transparency? Couldn’t they have spared us all a couple weeks of Facebook vitriol and voted for Option W at their previous Board meeting? Last night’s non-vote was peak Culture of Continuation—doing nothing to avoid doing anything—and I’m incredibly sick of it. We elect representatives to make tough decisions for us, and if those representatives are unable or unwilling to do so, maybe they should find different jobs. It’s so bad at this point, that I think we need to look hard at how our local government works, how it’s set up, and if we need to reopen the City’s charter and make some structural changes. Because right now, it’s real broken.

Ooo heck yes! Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense says VUU has bought the motel on the southeast corner of Brook and Lombardy. I’m excited for this area to grow into something more interesting than surface parking and auto shops—especially with the recent rezoning and neighborhood plan (PDF).

Good morning, RVA! It’s 30 °F, and highs today will settle in the mid 40s. Expect rain, though! The chance for rain increase steadily from now until tomorrow. Cold and wet, but not cold enough for snow—the worst.

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Yasmine Jumaa at VPM says that HUD has rejected RRHA’s five-year plan. RRHA says the plan was rejected on some technicalities, HUD, however, disagrees. I continue to not know enough about public housing, especially the efficacy of voucher programs vs. building one-for-one replacement units. Regardless of policy direction, stories like this don’t help build trust in an important agency who just hired a new CEO a few months ago.

Tactical urbanism is neat and cool, and—if done properly—should show how cheap, quick improvements can make the lives of folks living in our city easier and safer. A couple weeks back, Streets Cred rolled out our first tactical urbanism project: Untitled Urbanism Project #1, aka The Festive Cones project. To quote a bit: “Tactical urbanism is about demonstrating what could be if you—actually, your city leaders—had the necessary funding, political will, and/or creative design that they lack. Sometimes, it can just help open folks’ eyes to easy ways to make our city safer, more humane, and more fun. Sometimes, it helps build momentum toward [a] long-term solution. And, sometimes, it’s just a fun release of creative energy.” This project was super fun and super cheap but not super free. With that in mind, Untitled Urbanism Project #2 will cost us $300 and you can contribute over on our GoFundMe.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 23 °F, and today you can expect highs in the low 40s. Rain might could come around tomorrow, but today looks sunny and dry.

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First, it’s good to be back! New Orleans is a fascinating place with a surprisingly complex set of public transportation problems. For example, did you know the public transit agency lost the vast majority of their bus fleet during Hurricane Katrina and still have not yet replaced them all? Also, the semi-recent collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel has severed important pieces of their public transit system—and will continue to do so for months. I couldn’t help but wonder how Richmond’s important public systems would hold up to disasters. Anyway, on with the show!

OK, so, RPS rezoning took a turn over the last several days. After punting on any rezoning proposal for the Northside at all, Richmond’s School Board asked Cropper—the mapfolks—for new options to consider. Cropper responded with six entirely new options, none of which pair schools together. That’s…a lot of options, especially since the School Board plans to get together on December 16th (Monday) and vote on a final rezoning for the Northside. 3rd District School Board Rep Gibson, whose district includes much of the Northside and who voted against the original rezoning proposal for process reasons, said this in a medium post a couple days before the six new options were release, “History has proven that process is as important as policy when it comes to successfully creating racial equity. As such, the lack of democratic process and sufficient community engagement have made it premature to adopt a plan to pair schools.” Whether you agree with the first part of that quote or not, blasting out six new rezoning maps just a week before the final vote is pretty much the definition of a lack of democratic process and sufficient community engagement. We did all that stuff over the course of this past year! The moment for a courageous vote was a couple weeks back when the Board decided to punt, and now, with the date for open enrollment looming, I’m not sure what the right move for the Board is. I do know that voting on one of these new options on Monday is wrong, but, with communications so fudged up, I’m not convinced voting on one of the four original proposal is right, either. If you’ve got strong feelings, consider sending your school board member an email and letting them know.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 23 °F, and today you can expect highs in the low 40s. Rain might could come around tomorrow, but today looks sunny and dry.

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First, it’s good to be back! New Orleans is a fascinating place with a surprisingly complex set of public transportation problems. For example, did you know the public transit agency lost the vast majority of their bus fleet during Hurricane Katrina and still have not yet replaced them all? Also, the semi-recent collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel has severed important pieces of their public transit system—and will continue to do so for months. I couldn’t help but wonder how Richmond’s important public systems would hold up to disasters. Anyway, on with the show!

OK, so, RPS rezoning took a turn over the last several days. After punting on any rezoning proposal for the Northside at all, Richmond’s School Board asked Cropper—the mapfolks—for new options to consider. Cropper responded with six entirely new options, none of which pair schools together. That’s…a lot of options, especially since the School Board plans to get together on December 16th (Monday) and vote on a final rezoning for the Northside. 3rd District School Board Rep Gibson, whose district includes much of the Northside and who voted against the original rezoning proposal for process reasons, said this in a medium post a couple days before the six new options were release, “History has proven that process is as important as policy when it comes to successfully creating racial equity. As such, the lack of democratic process and sufficient community engagement have made it premature to adopt a plan to pair schools.” Whether you agree with the first part of that quote or not, blasting out six new rezoning maps just a week before the final vote is pretty much the definition of a lack of democratic process and sufficient community engagement. We did all that stuff over the course of this past year! The moment for a courageous vote was a couple weeks back when the Board decided to punt, and now, with the date for open enrollment looming, I’m not sure what the right move for the Board is. I do know that voting on one of these new options on Monday is wrong, but, with communications so fudged up, I’m not convinced voting on one of the four original proposal is right, either. If you’ve got strong feelings, consider sending your school board member an email and letting them know.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 29 °F, and today we’ve got more temperatures in the mid 50s on deck. Maybe some cloudy skies out there, too?

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Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury has the details on the Governor’s plan to delete a bunch of old, racist sections out of the Code of Virginia. The commission tasked with the work stopped short of making recommendations on “legislation addressing Confederate pensions and memorials” and “seeks to be appropriately mindful of the history of this era while also acknowledging the states role in funding Confederate memorials, monuments, and public benefits.” That’s quite a bit of doublethink for commission established to “identify laws in Virginia that have the effect or could have the effect of enabling or promoting racial inequity or inequality” (PDF). Seems like a good time to once again link to Brian Palmer’s excellent The Costs of the Confederacy piece, and quote the blurb: “In the last decade alone, American taxpayers have spent at least $40 million on Confederate monuments and groups that perpetuate racist ideology.” Regardless, I’m pretty confident that Virginia’s New Dem Majority will introduce and at least vote on legislation giving authority to localities to take down their Confederate monuments. Whether that legislation will pass and get signed by the governor, who knows.

The new Whole Foods on Broad Street is now hiring. Sounds like they’re gearing up for an early 2020 opening? Also, pay starts at $15 an hour, they’re hiring the full list of full-time and part-time positions, and it’s right next to a Pulse station.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 32 °F, and we’ve got another sunny, crisp day ahead of us. Expect highs in the 50s, which should be the norm until at least this weekend.

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Michael Paul Williams at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has his take on this past Monday’s school rezoning meeting and vote 💸. I’d like to liberate from behind the paywall two quotes about the rhetoric used at these meetings. First, from Taikein Cooper: “I’m from Prince Edward County…And I don’t know if you all know the story, but they closed the schools there using the same rhetoric that we’re using here tonight.” Second, what Genevieve Siegel-Hawley said she heard: “…language used to resist desegregation in the past, like the uncompromising mantra of neighborhood schools, the perils of busing and the importance of the freedom to choose.” Keep those quotes in mind as the School Board prepares for their December 16th meeting, when they will take up the Northside rezoning that they were unwilling to vote on earlier this week.

This sounds like a possible bummer: Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense reports that the folks rehabbing the apartments along Chamberlayne have put the properties up for sale. The rehab work hasn’t stopped, though, which is good. These apartments specifically—and this part of Chamberlayne generally—are some of the densest, transit-adjacent, naturally-occurring affordable housing in the region. Look at the numbers: “The firm has rehabbed nearly 300 of the 692 units, with 160 rehabs currently underway and 250 remaining…Rosa said the units were 50 percent occupied when Equishares took possession, then dropped to about 8 or 10 percent and now stand at about 40 percent occupancy. Totaling more than 458,000 of rentable space, the units average 664 square feet in size, with average monthly rents of $693.” It’s hard not to keep linking to this Twitter thread about market-rate housing compared to NoBro’s promised affordable housing.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 36 °F, and today you should expect highs in the upper 40s with plenty of sunshine. That, plus or minus a few degrees, pretty much looks like the forecast for the rest of the week.

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Richmond Police are reporting two murders. First, on November 30th, Police responded to the 3100 block of Midlothian and found Ashraf H. Mahasees, 23, shot to death. This was the murder victim I mentioned yesterday. Second, on Monday evening, officers arrived to the 2000 block of Accommodation Street and found J-Mari R. Saunders, 17, suffering from a fatal gun shot wound.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 40 °F, and it’s rainy. Expect the rain to continue through the morning, with a chance of continuing through the day, too. Temperatures will creep up toward 50 °F later this afternoon, but stall out there. Welcome to your rainy and chilly start to December!

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Richmond Police are reporting that this past Thursday morning, they responded to the 2000 block of Creighton Road and found Tyreese J. Barlow, 19, shot to death. Bridget Balch at the Richmond Times-Dispatch says another person was shot and killed on Saturday during a 24-hour period that saw five people shot across the city.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 40 °F, and it’s rainy. Expect the rain to continue through the morning, with a chance of continuing through the day, too. Temperatures will creep up toward 50 °F later this afternoon, but stall out there. Welcome to your rainy and chilly start to December!

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Richmond Police are reporting that this past Thursday morning, they responded to the 2000 block of Creighton Road and found Tyreese J. Barlow, 19, shot to death. Bridget Balch at the Richmond Times-Dispatch says another person was shot and killed on Saturday during a 24-hour period that saw five people shot across the city.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 33 °F, and today’s highs are back up in the 60s. Expect a similarly warm tomorrow, and then temperatures to drop through the holiday week.

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Today, City Council’s Public Safety committee will meet at 12:00 PM and hear a presentation on homicides from the Richmond Police Department (PDF). The aforelinked PDF is filled with interesting (and morbid) chartsandgraphs on the last ten years of murder in Richmond. While I knew that the number of homicides had gone up in recent years, I hadn’t realized that 2017 saw more than double the homicide (66) compared to the historic lows of 2008 (32). Unchanged in the last decade is the fact that—overwhelmingly—young, Black people are the victims. The back half of the PDF contains a short write up of RPD’s findings, strategy, and responses. It includes this sentence about public housing, which I don’t think I’ve heard phrased quite this way before: “The placement, size, and nature of Public Housing has created, essentially, a super development of Gilpin, Mosby, Fairfield, Whitcomb and Creighton with a total of 2,639 units contained in .65 square miles.” Looking at the map of homicides in Richmond, though, it looks a lot like a map of density rather than just a map of public housing. The shooting map, less so. Regardless, I do not believe that the existence of public housing “causes” violence. Our current implementation of public housing, though, is unjust. We need to do better, we need a bunch of different solutions and tools, and we need to get started two decades ago. Anyway, those last few sentence are pretty far out of my lane in a couple of different ways, so take them with a grain of salt. Deconcentrating poverty remains one of the City’s goals, and, in fact, is one of the RPD’s stated needs to reduce homicides: “Reduction of the concentration of poverty that exists through redevelopment into mixed use, mixed income developments. Elimination of ‘barracks style’ housing.”

Richmond Public Schools had a public hearing on rezoning last night, and you’ve got to take a minute to listen to this public comment from a student at Franklin Military Academy. I swear, every time I interact with a young person I’m amazed by how clever and thoughtful they are. Makes us olds and our generations look like trash!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 33 °F, and today’s highs are back up in the 60s. Expect a similarly warm tomorrow, and then temperatures to drop through the holiday week.

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Today, City Council’s Public Safety committee will meet at 12:00 PM and hear a presentation on homicides from the Richmond Police Department (PDF). The aforelinked PDF is filled with interesting (and morbid) chartsandgraphs on the last ten years of murder in Richmond. While I knew that the number of homicides had gone up in recent years, I hadn’t realized that 2017 saw more than double the homicide (66) compared to the historic lows of 2008 (32). Unchanged in the last decade is the fact that—overwhelmingly—young, Black people are the victims. The back half of the PDF contains a short write up of RPD’s findings, strategy, and responses. It includes this sentence about public housing, which I don’t think I’ve heard phrased quite this way before: “The placement, size, and nature of Public Housing has created, essentially, a super development of Gilpin, Mosby, Fairfield, Whitcomb and Creighton with a total of 2,639 units contained in .65 square miles.” Looking at the map of homicides in Richmond, though, it looks a lot like a map of density rather than just a map of public housing. The shooting map, less so. Regardless, I do not believe that the existence of public housing “causes” violence. Our current implementation of public housing, though, is unjust. We need to do better, we need a bunch of different solutions and tools, and we need to get started two decades ago. Anyway, those last few sentence are pretty far out of my lane in a couple of different ways, so take them with a grain of salt. Deconcentrating poverty remains one of the City’s goals, and, in fact, is one of the RPD’s stated needs to reduce homicides: “Reduction of the concentration of poverty that exists through redevelopment into mixed use, mixed income developments. Elimination of ‘barracks style’ housing.”

Richmond Public Schools had a public hearing on rezoning last night, and you’ve got to take a minute to listen to this public comment from a student at Franklin Military Academy. I swear, every time I interact with a young person I’m amazed by how clever and thoughtful they are. Makes us olds and our generations look like trash!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 33 °F, and this entire week looks pretty nice—at least according to the weekly forecast at the moment. Today, expect highs in the mid-to-upper 50s and lots of sunshine. Temperatures should increase into the 60s by Wednesday. Nice!

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A driver hit and killed a person on the 900 block of Chamberlayne Parkway on Saturday evening, WTVR reports. Chamberlayne Parkway is one of two main connections for folks living in Gilpin Court to get from the neighborhood into Downtown. It’s an incredibly dangerous intersection that includes both local traffic and a highway off ramp—it’s awful to walk through. My question for the Mayor, City Council, and City staff continues to be: After a driver kills a person walking on our streets, what will the City do in response? How long is “absolutely nothing” an acceptable answer?

Tonight, at Bellevue Elementary School (2301 E. Grace Street) from 6:30–7:30 PM, the RPS School Board will host their penultimate public hearing on rezoning schools. If you’ve got opinions on the proposed rezoning now is the time to let your School Board rep know. You can find rezoning maps W–Z at the bottom of this PDF along with how each option will impact the demographics of each school, and here are emails and phone numbers for all of the school board members. Please do this! While the School District definitely needs to make sure the three new schools they’re building are full at the start of next school year, it’s also an important opportunity for us to take a couple of steps towards desegregating our schools. Are any of the rezoning options perfect? No! Was the community outreach done by RPS perfect? No!—but it was one of the most extensive outreach efforts I’ve seen for a City-related effort. We shouldn’t let the specter of perfection and better process stand as support for the unacceptable status quo. We can do better, and that’s why contacting your School Board rep is so important! This will be a stressful vote—probably one with electoral consequences. School Board reps need to have the space and cover (aka your support) to cast change-making, progressive votes. On the flip side, of course, they also need to know that there a ton of folks who are fed up with the status quo of segregated schools, who are watching, and who will remember those folks who vote to support that, too.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 48 °F, and today we’ve got highs in the 60s. That’s hardly fall-like! There’s a small but decent chance for rain throughout the day, and, honestly, throughout the weekend. Keep your eye on the wealth map.

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At 9:49 PM this past Tuesday, Police were called to the 2900 block of Route 1 on the City’s Southside and found Carlos D. Delgado, 65, shot to death in the doorway of his home. According to the RPD’s website, this is at least the 51st murder in 2019.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 34 °F, but you can expect highs back up in the mid 50s today. Looks like a pretty chill day out there!

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Graham Moomaw at the Virginia Mercury has a truly terrifying piece about some of the rural counties who’ve declared themselves “Second Amendment Sanctuaries.” I try not to link to things that quote and legitimize the guy from the Virginia Citizens Defense League—who is bad for the Commonwealth and full of bad-faith arguments—but I think it’s important to read the rhetoric from actual people in Virginia. Like this, “The time is coming…I’m mighty afraid that we’re going to have to defend ourselves because of what we believe in. Not only on the Second Amendment, but on any other issue that the government declares to be right, but God declares to be wrong.” Or this from the Lee County sheriff’s office, “I want to assure the citizens of Lee County that me and my officers will stand up to any federal or state agency that attempts to infringe upon our gun rights.” Hilariously (in a deeply dark way), the same sheriff goes on to worry that gun violence legislation like red flag laws will be used as a “weapon against people.” 😐. Honestly, great work by Moomaw on this piece. It’s tough to fairly cover something so bananas, while still pointing out that how surreal, wrong, and scary it all is.

VPM’s Roberto Roldan has a little more information on the anti-NoBro resolution that School Board passed this week. You can read the draft of the resolution the Board passed here (PDF) (which still kind of confuses me), and you can read an alternate resolution proposed by School Board Rep Dawn Page (PDF) that, as far as I can tell, didn’t get voted on. This alternate resolution makes a bunch more sense to me. Here, compare and contrast the active bits of each. First, School Board Rep Gibson’s resolution that ended up passing 7–2: “THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT; Richmond Public Schools seeks the authority to opt out of contributing its share of revenue to TIF district funds or other tax deals that fund city development projects.” Next, the resolution from School Board Rep Page: “THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT the School Board demands that school funding be held harmless in the circumstance of any economic development project that does not yield projected revenues.”

Good morning, RVA! It’s 39 °F, and today looks pretty dang fall-like. Expect highs in the mid 50s and sunshine. I will probably wear my jeans jacket.

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Richmond Police report that Calvin Peay, 36, was shot to death on the 2300 block of Gordon Avenue on the city’s Southside yesterday. RPD are looking for a “white, four-door pickup truck with dual rear wheels, covered cargo area and company lettering on the side.” If you have any information you can call Crime Stoppers at 804.780.1000.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 39 °F, and today looks pretty dang fall-like. Expect highs in the mid 50s and sunshine. I will probably wear my jeans jacket.

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Richmond Police report that Calvin Peay, 36, was shot to death on the 2300 block of Gordon Avenue on the city’s Southside yesterday. RPD are looking for a “white, four-door pickup truck with dual rear wheels, covered cargo area and company lettering on the side.” If you have any information you can call Crime Stoppers at 804.780.1000.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 43 °F, and you can expect highs in the 50s today. Maybe some rain here or there, but mostly cloudy and meh until tomorrow when things start to warm/brighten up.

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Superintendent Kamras’s newsletter is worth your time this week—honestly, it’s worth your time every week. You’ve got updates about the R.E.B. Awards for Teaching Excellence which let teachers travel the world; Thomas Jefferson High School’s historic playoff run, possibly aided by the installation of a new field for the first time since 1930 (?!); a no-holds-barred picture of an actual factual school lunch that totally will not make you want to barf (and includes Texas Pete); and, of course, updates on the school rezoning process.

Speaking of, I screwed up and didn’t have last night’s School Board meeting + rezoning hearing on my calendar. Justin Mattingly at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a recap 💸, and it sounds dramatically different in tone from earlier public meetings: “Nearly all of the speakers supported using the process known as ‘school pairing’ to achieve more integration in a city where about 3 in 4 schools are what researchers define as ‘intensely segregated,’ meaning less than 10% of the student body is white.” If you can’t make one of the District’s public hearings on rezoning, you can fill out this online form. Before you do so, you will definitely need to get a hold of and familiarize yourself with this PDF of the four rezoning options (named W, X, Y, and Z). Maps start on page 30!