Good morning, RVA! It’s 38 °F, and,today, we’ve got highs in the mid 40s and a pretty good chance of rain this evening. Warmer temperatures continue this week despite whatever I said last week!

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Over in the Virginian-Pilot, Mayor Stoney has a column about what he’d like to see the Democrats in the General Assembly do with their new-found majority. Here’s his five-item short list: Fund the true cost of education, provide localities the authority to regulate firearms, fund city infrastructure needs, promote affordable housing, and pass legislation to promote inclusive communities. It’s a good list, and I want all of these things, too. I’m especially interested in guns, of course, but also schools funding—particularly that State-level Democrats don’t pull some budgetary sleight of hand to avoid coming up with the full $1 billion of new funding that they themselves say is required. Also, I’ll forgive the omission of a dedicated funding stream for public transportation for the Richmond region since this column ran in the Pilot.

Yesterday was World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. Today, at the Library of Virginia from 6:00–8:00 PM, you can join Richmond Families for Safe Streets in remembering friends and family members lost to traffic fatalities (Facebook). From the Facebook event: “Come prepared to light a candle, write a message in memorial of someone you have lost, and to share your story with others if you like.”

Good morning, RVA! It’s 38 °F, and,today, we’ve got highs in the mid 40s and a pretty good chance of rain this evening. Warmer temperatures continue this week despite whatever I said last week!

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Over in the Virginian-Pilot, Mayor Stoney has a column about what he’d like to see the Democrats in the General Assembly do with their new-found majority. Here’s his five-item short list: Fund the true cost of education, provide localities the authority to regulate firearms, fund city infrastructure needs, promote affordable housing, and pass legislation to promote inclusive communities. It’s a good list, and I want all of these things, too. I’m especially interested in guns, of course, but also schools funding—particularly that State-level Democrats don’t pull some budgetary sleight of hand to avoid coming up with the full $1 billion of new funding that they themselves say is required. Also, I’ll forgive the omission of a dedicated funding stream for public transportation for the Richmond region since this column ran in the Pilot.

Yesterday was World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. Today, at the Library of Virginia from 6:00–8:00 PM, you can join Richmond Families for Safe Streets in remembering friends and family members lost to traffic fatalities (Facebook). From the Facebook event: “Come prepared to light a candle, write a message in memorial of someone you have lost, and to share your story with others if you like.”

Good morning, RVA! It’s 38 °F, and today you should expect highs in the mid 40s with a slight chance of rain for most of the day. This weekend: Pretty much the same. Fingers crossed for folks running the marathon that they don’t have to do it in freezing cold rain. John Boyer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch says it’ll just be cold and windy, which sounds funnnnn.

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Richmond Public Schools, Safe Routes to Schools, and the City have launched a new school crossing guard program at 11 schools spread throughout the District. The crossing guards already work at the schools in some capacity, and the new program provides a stipend for their additional work—work, you know, that helps keep drivers from killing kids while they cross the street. NBC12 has the full list of schools, which were chosen by the number of students who commute by foot.

The Richmond Marathon (no relation to Richmond Mayorathon, of course) takes place tomorrow from 7:45 AM to mid afternoon. Its route (PDF) takes it through the Fan, along the river on the Southside, back into Downtown, and around the Northside. Depending on where you live, you could actually be encircled and trapped by the marathon! Not only that, but, as you can imagine, bus service—including the Pulse—will see mega detours. Check out this slightly overwhelming map to figure out your bus’s temporary new route and this long list of street closures.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 21 °F, and today you can expect highs in the low 40s. I think it’s cold weather from here on out, y’all!

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Here’s some big legislative news: 1st District Councilmember Andreas Addison has introduced his Streets for All legislative package, which includes five resolutions and five ordinances all designed to make our streets safer for people. I think its important, and I want you to see exactly what a “legislative package” looks like, so I’m going to list out each and every bill—hold onto your butts.

Here’s what we’re looking at:

Good morning, RVA! It’s 21 °F, and today you can expect highs in the low 40s. I think it’s cold weather from here on out, y’all!

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Here’s some big legislative news: 1st District Councilmember Andreas Addison has introduced his Streets for All legislative package, which includes five resolutions and five ordinances all designed to make our streets safer for people. I think its important, and I want you to see exactly what a “legislative package” looks like, so I’m going to list out each and every bill—hold onto your butts.

Here’s what we’re looking at:

Good morning, RVA! It’s 20 °F, and today looks sunny and cold. Expect highs just under 40 °F and an ocean of puffer coats stretching as far as the eye can see.

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As foretold by the agenda, Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch confirms that City Council continued the NoBro Ordinances until their January meeting. That gives the Navy Hill Development Advisory Commission time to finish up, incoming Councilmember Stephanie Lynch time to get up to speed, and an independent consultant hired by Council time to study the proposal. Robinson says the consultant “once hired, will have 90 days to complete its work.” So, if that consultant were hired today and took the full 90 days to do their study, the soonest Council could vote on NoBro would be at their February 24th meeting. Also folks from Richmond For All took to the steps of City Hall before the meeting for a demonstration against evictions and the North of Broad project. Doing some zoom-and-enhance on the photos, I see Councilmember Gray, School Board Rep Gibson, and even former Councilmember Marty Jewell hanging out in the background. As for regular biz, Council passed Mayor Stoney’s ORD. 2018–289, which requires folks to report lost or stolen firearms.

Marc Cheatham over at the Cheats Movement had journalist David Streever and Councilmember-elect Stephanie Lynch on his podcast, and it’s definitely worth a listen. It’s absolutely fascinating to hear from Streever about what he heard at the polls as 5th District folks talked about their local priorities: Schools and streets! Love it. It’s also absolutely fascinating to hear from Lynch on her views about NoBro, the 5th District, movies, music, and more. We’ve spent years getting used to City Council’s collective voice, and it’s always fun (for me at least) when that voice changes. I’m excited to see how adding Lynch and removing Agelasto impacts the general vibe of Council. It all starts next month!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 57 °F, but temperatures are about to drop. Later this morning and into the afternoon you can expect lows in the 30s and the persistent rain to turn into snow. Bundle up before you leave the house, or you’ll regret it!

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City Council meets today for their regularly scheduled meeting, and you can find the full agenda here (PDF). Of note in the aforelinked PDF: The meeting minutes from the last couple Navy Hill Development Proposal Work Sessions. Also, I have a long thing I want to write about our Council’s culture of continuing every dang paper for ever and ever, but that’ll have to wait for another time. On this particular agenda you’ll officially find all of the NoBro ordinances, but they’ve all been continued to the January 13th meeting (see!). This, finally, gives us some idea of Council’s timeline for deciding whether to move forward with the project or not. Keep in mind that the Mayor will introduce his budget in the beginning of March, and I imagine that the NoBro Success Budget looks a bit different than the NoBro Failure Budget. Shoutout to all of the City staff who are about to have a bunch more work to do. During the public comment period tonight, keep an eye out for folks speaking about Richmond’s eviction crisis. I’m interested to hear the message and next steps from advocates now that RRHA has decided to freeze eviction until 2020. Anyway, should be a good meeting!

Tonight, Equality Virginia will host a “Ask a Trans Person” panel from 6:30–8:00 PM at the Central Library in Chesterfield County (7051 Lucy Corr Boulevard). This seems like an awesome idea, and thank you to Equality Virginia for providing a safe space for folks to ask questions about what it means to be transgender and how we can all fight for policy that protects our transgender neighbors—looking at you, new Dem majority in the General Assembly. This event is free and open to the public, but you’ve got to register beforehand. Related: Rabbi Michael Knopf has a column in the paper about his work to win nondiscrimination protections for LGBT Virginians through the Virginia Values coalition.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 42 °F, and the rest of today looks pretty nice. Expect highs in the upper 60s and some sunshine. Tomorrow though, hold onto your butts, because a cold front comes through and we might could even see some snow! NBC12’s Andrew Freiden says not to expect any real accumulation—but still!

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It’s Veterans Day, née Armistice Day, aka Corduroy Day. This year marks the 101st anniversary since the end of World War I, and you can attend a ceremony at the Virginia War Memorial from 10:45 AM to 12:00 PM. I appreciate this reminder/FYI from the War Memorial website: “Veterans Day is the federally recognized holiday that honors, remembers and thanks all who have served and who are currently serving whereas Memorial Day remembers those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.”

Big news out of RRHA, the City’s public housing authority: “Effective immediately, the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority (RRHA) has implemented an agency-wide freeze on lease enforcement for nonpayment of rent. This freeze impacts each of the public housing developments under RRHA’s purview, including Creighton Court, Fairfield Court, Gilpin Court, Hillside Court, Mosby Court and Whitcomb Court. This freeze means that for the remainder of calendar year 2019, no public housing family will be removed from their home for debt owed to RRHA. During this time, residents who are in arrears will not receive late notices and no unlawful detainers will be filed. Pending court cases will be dismissed or postponed, and scheduled evictions will be canceled.” Wow! Folks who do owe the agency money will have until the end of the year to get current, and the agency will spend this time reevaluating its lease enforcement and rent collection processes. This is a big, big win for housing advocates who have worked hard to keep families in their homes and raise public awareness about the eviction crisis in Richmond. It’s also a big chance for the nascent eviction diversion program to do its work over the next couple of months. Here’s a question: How much total money is owed to RRHA across all of its public housing neighborhoods, and what would it take to just cover all of that debt?

Good morning, RVA! It’s 42 °F, and the rest of today looks pretty nice. Expect highs in the upper 60s and some sunshine. Tomorrow though, hold onto your butts, because a cold front comes through and we might could even see some snow! NBC12’s Andrew Freiden says not to expect any real accumulation—but still!

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It’s Veterans Day, née Armistice Day, aka Corduroy Day. This year marks the 101st anniversary since the end of World War I, and you can attend a ceremony at the Virginia War Memorial from 10:45 AM to 12:00 PM. I appreciate this reminder/FYI from the War Memorial website: “Veterans Day is the federally recognized holiday that honors, remembers and thanks all who have served and who are currently serving whereas Memorial Day remembers those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.”

Big news out of RRHA, the City’s public housing authority: “Effective immediately, the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority (RRHA) has implemented an agency-wide freeze on lease enforcement for nonpayment of rent. This freeze impacts each of the public housing developments under RRHA’s purview, including Creighton Court, Fairfield Court, Gilpin Court, Hillside Court, Mosby Court and Whitcomb Court. This freeze means that for the remainder of calendar year 2019, no public housing family will be removed from their home for debt owed to RRHA. During this time, residents who are in arrears will not receive late notices and no unlawful detainers will be filed. Pending court cases will be dismissed or postponed, and scheduled evictions will be canceled.” Wow! Folks who do owe the agency money will have until the end of the year to get current, and the agency will spend this time reevaluating its lease enforcement and rent collection processes. This is a big, big win for housing advocates who have worked hard to keep families in their homes and raise public awareness about the eviction crisis in Richmond. It’s also a big chance for the nascent eviction diversion program to do its work over the next couple of months. Here’s a question: How much total money is owed to RRHA across all of its public housing neighborhoods, and what would it take to just cover all of that debt?

Good morning, RVA! It’s 36 °F, and today highs look…not very high at all. Expect temperatures in the mid 40s for most of the day. Things will warm up pretty dramatically over the weekend, though.

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Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a tough story about the Market @ 25th 💸, the new East End grocery store: “After six months, the independent grocer has suffered millions in operational losses that Markel has personally covered.” Dang. According to Robinson’s piece, folks feel like the Market’s prices are too high and that the store is yet another sign of gentrification. First, I don’t know how an independent grocer is supposed to compete on prices with a supply-chain monster like Walmart—which is just down the road on Nine Mile. Second, a lot of folks have been working to bring a grocery store to that neighborhood for at least a decade, if not longer. Now that it exists—at the same time more and more affluent White people exist—is it part of a wave of gentrification? I don’t know. But it’s certainly complicated, and it’s going to take longer than a couple of months to figure out. At least Steve Markel, who’s bankrolling the whole thing, takes the long view: “To measure success in this project, we’re not talking a year or two, we’re talking about five or 10.” Robinson also says that the J. Sargeant Reynolds will push back the opening of the nearby culinary school to summer 2020 💸.

As part of my day job, I talked with Roberto Roldan at VPM about the proposed GRTC Transit Center that’s part of the Mayor’s NoBro project. More importantly, and definitely more interesting than what I have to say, Roldan got this statement from new GRTC CEO Julie Timm on the Transit Center: “Without further conversations on these topics, there is a real risk that the location could lock the system into less than optimal connections to the Pulse now and in the future…I am excited and encouraged that these conversations are happening.” Heck yes! I’d love it if the NoBro folks reopened the conversations about the location (or locations) of the proposed transit center. Let’s make it happen and ask riders how they think connections should work! You can read RVA Rapid Transit’s full list of concerns with the proposed Transit Center over on their website.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 39 °F now, but, later, it’ll be 64 °F, which is nice enough. There is a chance of rain late this evening, so keep an eye out if you’ve got plans.

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Police are reporting that last week’s warehouse fire on the Southside has now been classified as a homicide. On November 1st at 2:22 AM, the Richmond Fire Department arrived at the 00 block of Thurman Street for a report of a fire. After the RFD suppressed the fire, they found Anthony S. Wheeler, 35, inside shot to death.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 39 °F now, but, later, it’ll be 64 °F, which is nice enough. There is a chance of rain late this evening, so keep an eye out if you’ve got plans.

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Police are reporting that last week’s warehouse fire on the Southside has now been classified as a homicide. On November 1st at 2:22 AM, the Richmond Fire Department arrived at the 00 block of Thurman Street for a report of a fire. After the RFD suppressed the fire, they found Anthony S. Wheeler, 35, inside shot to death.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 43 °F, and we’ve got a beautiful day of sunshine with temperatures near 60 °F ahead of us. I hope you can find some time to get out and enjoy it.

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Well, y’all. We did it: Democrats now control the entirety of the state government. In House of Delegates, Democrats hold 55 seats out of 100, and, in the Senate, 21 out of 40. This is the first time that’s been true in over a quarter century! Assuming Governor Northam doesn’t lose his cool, there’s a lot of opportunity to pass all kinds of progressive legislation this coming General Assembly session. Senator-elect Ghazala Hashmi had the quote of the night after beating Glen Sturtevant, “I guess I’ve proven that Ghazala is truly an American name!” Hashmi is the first Muslim elected to the Senate. Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury has some folks’ thoughts and feelings from throughout election night. Locally, Stephanie Lynch is the new 5th District City Councilmember; each of the incumbents won reelection in Henrico; and, in Chesterfield, despite two open seats, the Republican-Democrat split held at 4–1. There’s certainly work to do in Chesterfield. You can dig way into precinct-level election results over on the Department of Elections website. I’m kind of fascinated by the 5th District results: Lynch (1,982), Taylor (1,119), Williamson (1,092), Da Silva (1,014), and Chuck Richardson (876) made up the top five. Lynch, who I think is the first woman elected to represent the 5th, will jump straight in to a red-hot conversation about NoBro—I hope she has a couple dozen hours to listen to all of that audio from those public meetings! David Streever has a post-victory piece (dateline of 1:45 AM!) about Lynch over on Richmond Magazine.

The Virginia Mercury’s Sarah Vogelsong has a fun piece about write-in candidate incumbent Del. Nick Freitas (only a write-in because he screwed up filing his paperwork). The Freitas campaign had some “Write in Nick Freitas” pens made and distribute at polls, which turned out to be a pretty excellent idea. Vogelsong writes, “Why the fuss about the pens? This reporter tried one out and discovered that they are, in fact, very good pens. But, more importantly, they were also a critical part of Freitas’ efforts to ramp up voter recognition after he failed to file his election paperwork on time and was left off the ballot for the 30th District seat — despite being the incumbent.” One voter described the pens as, “It’s a free pen.”

Good morning, RVA! It’s 43 °F, and you can expect highs in the mid 60s today. It’s looking like a great day to get out and vote!

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It is Election Day in Virginia! You’ve got from now until 7:00 PM to vote for your representatives in the General Assembly and, depending on where you live, a supervisor here or a councilmember there. You can find the location of your polling place here, and you can follow along over here as the results start to come in. And, for all of today, GRTC routes in the City are fare-free.

For 5th District folks, a list of things to read, watch, and think about:

Photo by: laura.bell

Good morning, RVA! It’s 54 °F, and that’s about as warm as it’s going to get. Expect rain to move in later this morning and then continue throughout the day. Cold, and rainy, and bleh!

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It’s Election Day! Polls are open until 7:00 PM, and you can find your polling location using the Department of Elections’ handy tool. You do need a photo ID to vote; acceptable IDs include: DMV-issued photo ID, passport, employee photo ID, a valid student photo ID from a Virginia college/university; military photo ID, and any other photo ID issued by the U.S., Virginia, or a political or local subdivision in Virginia. Oh, also, a Virginia Voter Photo ID. Basically just make sure you bring any ID you have laying around, and even if you do not you can still cast a provisional ballot. John Murden at Church Hill People’s News has a brief rundown of the local races you’ll see on your ballot.

Photo by: KCIvey

Good morning, RVA! It’s 73 °F, and today you can expect highs in the 90s with a chance of thunderstorms here and there. Sounds like summer!

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It’s Primary Day across Virginia! Use the Department of Elections’s tool to find your polling place, and, if you’re a last-minute person, learn about the candidates on your ballot. Polls are open from 6:00 AM to 7:00 PM.

Photo by: looseends

Good morning, RVA! It’s 52 °F right now, but we are not in for a repeat of yesterday’s weather doldrums. Highs today are back in the lower–70s and the chance for rain gets smaller and smaller throughout the day! Take that impending winter!

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It is Election Day, and today Virginia will decide on its lawmakers for the next couple of years. Will we elect a General Assembly that lands Virginia on the national news for passing bananas laws? Maybe! You can help decide, and Susan Howson can help you help decide. Polling places open at 6:00 AM. You can follow live results right here and even get a dang JSON feed of the results!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 56 °F, and rather than rain all day it looks like we’ll have a decent chance for storms just between 12:00 and 4:00 PM. Expect temperatures to rocket up to the mid 70s, too. Weird Election Day weather, but I’ll take it.

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Police are reporting two separate murders that took place over the last couple of days. Early Sunday morning, Aaron T. Brockington, 30, was shot to death on the 2100 block of Deforrest Street. Then, midday on Monday, Jerome Williams, 52, was fatally shot on the 1200 block of Lakeview Avenue. These are the second and third murders in the City over the last week.

Photo by: KCIvey

Good morning, RVA! It’s 18 °F, and today we’ll finally see temperatures above freezing! Cloudy skies will take up most of your day as the high creeps toward to the upper 30s and stays there. See ya, snow!

However, things continue to be delayed and closed. Make sure you check before heading out somewhere.

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Good morning, RVA! It’s 30 °F, and that’s literally freezing! Not to worry though, temperatures will top out in the 60s this afternoon. The rest of this week looks delightfully fall-like with cooler temperatures rolling in as we get closer to the weekend.

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City Council will host its next North of Broad work session today from 3:00–5:00 PM. On the agenda: Community benefits like affordable housing, employment training, MBE participation, and the GRTC Transit Center. Following that work session, Council will move into their Organizational Development committee where they do have the NoBro ordinances on their agenda (PDF). I have no idea if Council will actually discuss those papers or if they’ll continue them until the Navy Hill Development Advisory Commission has finished their work later this year. Speaking of that commission, here’s the Risk Matrix PDF I mentioned last week. I’m not sure if I’m smart enough to understand it all (or even most of it), but maybe you are! There are a lot of dang moving pieces to this thing, and, at this point, they’re all moving in parallel—it’s a lot to keep track of. One thing this PDF does make clear to me is how focused almost everyone in entire city—the Mayor, Council, commissions like this one, Richmond humans in general—is on funding schools. Don’t get me wrong, schools need more money, and I’ve said as much for the last forever. But transit needs more money, public housing needs more money, streets, sustainability efforts, vacancies at City Hall—they all need more money! It’s a little weird to me that the frame for a lot of the conversations we’re having, this Risk Matrix included, is how will it impact schools funding without evening mentions our laundry list of other very expensive needs.

I definitely missed the neighborhood drama around the milling and paving of W. Cary Street, but it’s clear to me from this Department of Public Works email, if you read between the lines, that it was juicy: “There has been a great deal of concern regarding milling and paving on West Cary Street. To help resolve the concerns, the City of Richmond talked to the contractor and Mr. Kamran Shaikh, the President of the Merchants Association on how to resolve the paving concerns. We all agreed on the following solution – the contractor will pave West Cary Street between North Nansemond and South Belmont at night, weather permitting. There will be no on street parking allowed during the times listed above” (11/6 7:00 PM–7:00 AM; 11/7 7:00 PM–7:00 AM). This was definitely a missed opportunity to close Carytown to cars and pilot a pedestrian, bike, and bus-only space. The Merchants Association will never be convinced to remove parking and cars until they see firsthand that everyone will just make at ton more money. This was the perfect, low-risk chance to do so.