Good morning, RVA! It’s 70 °F, and today you should expect some wind from Dorian and maybe a bit of rain this morning. Highs won’t even break 80 °F, so that’s nice.

Speaking of Dorian, here’s the Thursday evening briefing from The Weather Folks at Wakefield (PDF), here’s the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s early morning update from John Boyer, and here’s what Andrew Freiden has to say over on NBC12.

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Kathy Mendes and Chris Duncombe at The Commonwealth Institute have a new post up about the incredible lack of state-level funding for Virginia’s public schools. Here’s an excellent/depressing quote, “More broadly speaking, inadequate state funding creates a system where educational opportunity varies by zip code. Right now, schools in Virginia rely more on local governments to fund their budgets than all but nine other states in the country, resulting in one of the most regressive funding structures in the nation – meaning we spend less per student in our highest poverty communities than in our wealthiest ones.” Tap the link for a look at what other states are doing to increase funding for schools and fulfill their obligation to educate children.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 75 °F, and you may see some rain here or there today. Expect highs in the 80s and lots of clouds that are totally the outside edges of Hurricane Dorian. NBC12’s Andrew Freiden linked to this wonderful Dorian Briefing from the Fine Weather Folks at Wakefield (PDF), which will give you some idea of the impacts the hurricane will have on Richmond and other parts of Virginia.

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Richmond Police are reporting that Harry D. Seigler, 67, was shot to death on the 1600 block of N. 23rd Street around 12:00 PM this past Sunday. Police have arrested and charged a suspect.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 72 °F, and today’s weather looks fine as temperatures will top out in the low 90s. No rain on the schedule, and it looks like we’ll see the first bits of Dorian show up in town—mostly in the form of strong wins—tomorrow evening. NBC12’s Andrew Freiden has a more detailed forecast for you.

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Yesterday, in front of Mary Munford Elementary School, folks handed out these flyers from State Senator Glen Sturtevant in opposition to RPS rezoning options that would pair Munford with other, less-White elementary schools. Justin Mattingly and Graham Moomaw nail the overt grossness of it in the first sentence of this piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch: “State Sen. Glen Sturtevant, R-Chesterfield, said Tuesday that he’ll push to ‘save’ two high-performing, majority-white Richmond elementary schools that might be merged with majority-black schools.” Sturtevant says he wants to introduce new state law that would “require an intervening school board election or referendum to take place before a new re-zoning plan can go into effect.” I mean, we elect school board representatives to do a job, and part of that job includes rezoning school districts. In fact, Sturtevant, once a school board member in Richmond himself, voted for a rezoning back in 2013, less than a single year after winning the 1st District seat in 2012. Double in fact, that 2013 RPS rezoning led to further racial segregation in our elementary schools. Here’s a 2016 paper from Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, Kimberly Bridges, and Thomas J. Shields (PDF) that describes “a rapid, politically charged and resegregative school closure and elementary school rezoning process” that “was associated with a dramatic increase in racial segregation between elementary attendance zones over a short period of time.” So who initiated this fast and inequitable rezoning? Then School Board members Glenn Sturtevant and Kim Gray. Current and actual 1st District School Board member and one of the nine people with the actual authority to rezone schools, Liz Doerr, released a statement (Facebook) saying, in part, “I just wanted to remind the Senator and his campaign team that he actually represents many more schools in Richmond who will be impacted by this [rezoning] plan other than just Fox and Munford.” Using the first day of school to pass out segregationist political flyers—at a dang elementary school!—is one of the most garbage moves I’ve seen from a local politician in a while, and I will now link you to Ghazala Hashmi, the Democrat running against Sturtevant in Virginia’s 10th Senate District.

Speaking of Democrats running against Republicans, Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury has a helpful cheat sheet of the state-level races that could possibly flip seats in the General Assembly.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 72 °F, and today’s weather looks fine as temperatures will top out in the low 90s. No rain on the schedule, and it looks like we’ll see the first bits of Dorian show up in town—mostly in the form of strong wins—tomorrow evening. NBC12’s Andrew Freiden has a more detailed forecast for you.

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Yesterday, in front of Mary Munford Elementary School, folks handed out these flyers from State Senator Glen Sturtevant in opposition to RPS rezoning options that would pair Munford with other, less-White elementary schools. Justin Mattingly and Graham Moomaw nail the overt grossness of it in the first sentence of this piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch: “State Sen. Glen Sturtevant, R-Chesterfield, said Tuesday that he’ll push to ‘save’ two high-performing, majority-white Richmond elementary schools that might be merged with majority-black schools.” Sturtevant says he wants to introduce new state law that would “require an intervening school board election or referendum to take place before a new re-zoning plan can go into effect.” I mean, we elect school board representatives to do a job, and part of that job includes rezoning school districts. In fact, Sturtevant, once a school board member in Richmond himself, voted for a rezoning back in 2013, less than a single year after winning the 1st District seat in 2012. Double in fact, that 2013 RPS rezoning led to further racial segregation in our elementary schools. Here’s a 2016 paper from Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, Kimberly Bridges, and Thomas J. Shields (PDF) that describes “a rapid, politically charged and resegregative school closure and elementary school rezoning process” that “was associated with a dramatic increase in racial segregation between elementary attendance zones over a short period of time.” So who initiated this fast and inequitable rezoning? Then School Board members Glenn Sturtevant and Kim Gray. Current and actual 1st District School Board member and one of the nine people with the actual authority to rezone schools, Liz Doerr, released a statement (Facebook) saying, in part, “I just wanted to remind the Senator and his campaign team that he actually represents many more schools in Richmond who will be impacted by this [rezoning] plan other than just Fox and Munford.” Using the first day of school to pass out segregationist political flyers—at a dang elementary school!—is one of the most garbage moves I’ve seen from a local politician in a while, and I will now link you to Ghazala Hashmi, the Democrat running against Sturtevant in Virginia’s 10th Senate District.

Speaking of Democrats running against Republicans, Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury has a helpful cheat sheet of the state-level races that could possibly flip seats in the General Assembly.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 70 °F, and regular summery days are back for awhile. We’ve got highs in the upper 80s and sunshine for the next couple of days while we wait for Hurricane Dorian to figure out its final destination.

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It’s the first day of school for Richmond Public Schools! Welcome back students and good luck parents, teachers, and staff! A good place to start the new school year is, of course, with the newest edition of the Superintendent’s email, and it’s full of interesting bits of info this week. First, RPS has a new website for you to poke around on. Second, the number of students taking and passing AP tests is up. Third, there are just 14 teacher vacancies in the District—this is down from 54 vacancies two years ago. Fourth, and maybe most interesting, there’s a fascinating table featuring all of the capital facilities projects that took place over the summer and their costs. For example, Henderson Middle got new heating pumps, HVAC, and a chiller—totaling almost $2 million. Anyway, rather than me just retyping his entire email, you should just go read the whole thing. I couldn’t find the link to the online version, so you’ll have to deal with this PDF of the email for now. You can, of course, just subscribe to the Superintendent’s email yourself. Oh, P.S., there are thousands of children walking on sidewalks, riding their bikes, waiting for the bus, and crossing streets to get to school today. If you choose to drive a vehicle, please do so carefully.

A tiny scooter update from Roberto Roldan over at VPM! He says Lime still has a presence in town, but that they’re using their mysterious warehouse space to repair and ship scooters to places that are not Richmond. Sigh.

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Whoa, here’s some big news: Michael Hild, founder of Live Well Financial and owner of a bunch of the Dogtown businesses in Manchester (among other things), was arrested yesterday and charged—with both criminal and civil charges—in a $140 million bond fraud scheme. Here’s the Department of Justice release and here’s a document from the SEC with a bunch of fascinating details (PDF). Like this one: From 2018 to the present, Hild himself received cash compensation totaling almost $11 million! A lot of folks, I’m sure, are feeling a heavy dose of schadenfreude right now as Hild was not the most popular guy in the neighborhood. What really interests me, though, is what happens to the businesses and properties he owns on the Southside?

Today is the 15-year anniversary of Tropical Storm Gaston flooding the heck out of Richmond. During the downpour, I drove through a flooded street on the Southside and broke my car’s engine. It’s what eventually led to us becoming a one-car family, so thanks, Gaston! JK, not thanks at all—Wikipedia says nine people were killed, at least 1,000 people were forced from their homes, and the flood damage totaled over $20 million. Meteorologist John Boyer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a detailed look through some of Gaston’s record-breaking, damage-making numbers 💸.

Yesterday, I shared a link to this David Streever piece about Bolt Scooters and talked about how I’ve taken a screenshot of the in-app map for a couple months. Here’s a gif I made of those screenshots for the last several weeks, each taken around 8:00 AM.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 63 °F, and today looks a lot like yesterday. Expect highs in the mid 80s and not really much of a chance of rain—plenty of sun today and, most likely, through the rest of the week.

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Y’all, how cool is this? An employee at the Science Museum who doesn’t drive was named Employee of the Month, and so the Employee of the Month parking space became this rad parklet. I love this! What a great example of how easy and cheap it is to reclaim space from cars for actual humans. If you stop by and spend some time in the parklet, make sure you let the Museum know—maybe we can get them to upgrade the space permanently!

The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Graham Moomaw and Daniel Sangjib went on a tour of the Blues Armory, which sits on Marshall near 5th Street and is a big part of the proposed North of Broad project. The pictures are neat, and the inside of that spot isn’t a place folks normally get to see. As currently proposed, NoBro would have private money refurbish the city-owned Armory into a urban grocery store, a jazz club, and a ballroom. I also remember reading, although I cannot find where within the thousands of pages of NoBro documents, that the Convention Center folks would get first dibs on the ballroom. As for the other uses of the space, the grocery store is interesting—with the nearest alternatives being the new East End grocery store, the Farm Fresh down in Shockoe Bottom, or the Lombardy Street Kroger. Each of these is about a 15-minute transit trip from the area but a pretty inconvenient walk. I don’t know if “jazz club” is a need in the neighborhood, but I’d ask folks at The National and the Hippodrome to see what they thought. Anyway, regardless of this project, no one can argue that the Blues Armory isn’t in desperate needs some TLC. It sits vacant, ruining a big portion of the pedestrian connection (that’s not already ruined by the Convention Center itself) between 3rd Street and City Hall. Again, my constant refrain continues to be: Do we need a downtown arena to re-envision and reopen the Blues Armory?

Good morning, RVA! It’s 70 °F, and highs will creep up a bit to the mid 80s today. There’s a chance of rain throughout the day, but we might could skate by without needing to dodge a downpour.

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So a bunch of months ago at this point, City Council passed an ordinance (ORD. 2019–119) creating the Richmond City Council Navy Hill Development Advisory Commission. Ostensibly, this commission will ask a bunch of questions, do a bunch of research, hold some public hearings, and then present Council with “advice” about the proposed North of Broad development. As specified by the ordinance their duties are “to validate the assumptions, projections, costs, and benefits of the development contemplated by the [North of Broad] Ordinances and the likely impact of that development on the City.” The committee’s chair and vice chair, Pierce Homer and John Gerner, already chosen by Council, are required to hold a meeting to nominate seven remaining members to the commission. I think that’s what’s going down on this Friday, August 30th, from 11:00–1:00 PM in the Second Floor Conference Room of City Hall. First, never should we ever have a commission chaired by two White dudes—especially one tasked with advising on a proposal to build a bunch of stuff on top of where Urban Renewal destroyed a thriving Black neighborhood. Second, a meeting on Friday afternoon, announced with just a couple days of notice, is not great. One of the complaints about the North of Broad process thus far, from councilmembers and Richmonders alike, has been the lack of transparency and public engagement. Now that it’s their turn in the spotlight, City Council has an opportunity to do better and has not. Huge bummer!

Justin Mattingly at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a long profile of Richmonder Dallas Dance 💸 that is definitely worth your time. Dance is a fascinating person who grew up in the East End, went to Virginia Union University, and wound up as Superintendent of Baltimore County Schools. Lying about and not reporting outside consulting work would ultimately send him to jail for a couple months last year. He now lives in the Richmond region, and, personal opinion here, would be a viable candidate in almost any local or state election. Incumbents beware!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 70 °F, and highs will creep up a bit to the mid 80s today. There’s a chance of rain throughout the day, but we might could skate by without needing to dodge a downpour.

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So a bunch of months ago at this point, City Council passed an ordinance (ORD. 2019–119) creating the Richmond City Council Navy Hill Development Advisory Commission. Ostensibly, this commission will ask a bunch of questions, do a bunch of research, hold some public hearings, and then present Council with “advice” about the proposed North of Broad development. As specified by the ordinance their duties are “to validate the assumptions, projections, costs, and benefits of the development contemplated by the [North of Broad] Ordinances and the likely impact of that development on the City.” The committee’s chair and vice chair, Pierce Homer and John Gerner, already chosen by Council, are required to hold a meeting to nominate seven remaining members to the commission. I think that’s what’s going down on this Friday, August 30th, from 11:00–1:00 PM in the Second Floor Conference Room of City Hall. First, never should we ever have a commission chaired by two White dudes—especially one tasked with advising on a proposal to build a bunch of stuff on top of where Urban Renewal destroyed a thriving Black neighborhood. Second, a meeting on Friday afternoon, announced with just a couple days of notice, is not great. One of the complaints about the North of Broad process thus far, from councilmembers and Richmonders alike, has been the lack of transparency and public engagement. Now that it’s their turn in the spotlight, City Council has an opportunity to do better and has not. Huge bummer!

Justin Mattingly at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a long profile of Richmonder Dallas Dance 💸 that is definitely worth your time. Dance is a fascinating person who grew up in the East End, went to Virginia Union University, and wound up as Superintendent of Baltimore County Schools. Lying about and not reporting outside consulting work would ultimately send him to jail for a couple months last year. He now lives in the Richmond region, and, personal opinion here, would be a viable candidate in almost any local or state election. Incumbents beware!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 64 °F, and we’ve got another day in front of us with temperatures in the 70s. The later part of the week looks a lot warmer, so if you want to enjoy this quick taste of fall, do it while you can!

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Richmond Magazine’s Katja Timm was at yesterday’s VAratifyERA event down at the Capitol. Both First Lady Pam Northam and First Lady Anne Holton (one of my fave First Ladies) gave remarks. If getting the Commonwealth to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment is important to you—or, honestly, if any of a raft of progressive issues are important to you—remember that 100% of the General Assembly seats are up for reelection this November. That means: Check your voter registration status, and if you are not registered to vote, you can do so here until the middle of October!

C.T. Hill and Pamela Royal, both Navy Hill board members and the former a resident of Manakin-Sabot, have an editorial in today’s paper (obviously) in support of the North of Broad project. Here’s the thing, I think their argument—that the project “is rooted in private investment from investors who see the promise in revitalizing Richmond’s downtown”—is disingenuous. Private investment in Downtown is certainly a massive part of the project, but the whole thing is “rooted” in the public financing of a downtown arena. That’s the reason for the BigTIF and for capping revenue from downtown at 2018 levels. I’d have a whole different take on this project if it were just a bunch of private developers buying a bunch of land and building a bunch of towers as the market dictated. It’s not that, and I know I am repeating myself, but: I don’t think a downtown arena is the highest and best use for that land, and it would have been nice to have that discussion before making an arena the centerpiece of an RFP. Additionally, I don’t buy the false dichotomy that should we not replace the Coliseum that “tourism will slip away” and “we won’t create new money for schools.” In fact, we had an amazing opportunity last budget season—which still exists, by the way—to create more money for schools, housing, transit, and everything else by rolling back the Recession-era real estate tax cuts. Council couldn’t get behind that plan, but it certainly didn’t involve a downtown arena. So while I don’t think that this project, or any downtown arena, is the best or only way to make Richmond a place where everyone can thrive, you are welcome to disagree with me! Just don’t pitch me that it’s strictly a choice between the North of Broad project as presented or some horrible austerity Mad Max future dystopia.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 62 °F, and today’s highs are in the 70s! Welcome back, wonderfully temperate weather. I hope you stick around for at least a couple of days. This list of Virginia’s 12 seasons, via /r/reddit, is super applicable.

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Police are reporting that Antoine Deleston, 28, was shot to death Thursday afternoon on the 2000 block of Conrad Street. Anyone with information about this murder can call Detective A. Coates (804.646.0729) or Crime Stoppers (804.780.1000, 7801000.com).

Good morning, RVA! It’s 73 °F, and today temperatures will hang out in the mid 80s. While cooler, there’s a pretty good chance of rain throughout today. The weekend weather looks temperate and amazing, though.

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Local housing expert and CEO of Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Virginia Heather Crislip has a column in today’s paper about the federal government’s attempts to revise the disparate impact rules as they relate to housing. Preventing policies that seem fair from having a “disparate impact” on certain groups of folks is critically important, and, as Crislip says, disparate impact standards are “one of the few tools we have to root out systemic racism and discrimination.” We deal with this in transportation, too, where changes to a transit system cannot have a disparate impact on people of color or folks with lower incomes. It’s the reason for the equity analysis that went into the recent redesign of Richmond’s bus network (PDF, p. 33) and also the impetus behind this past spring’s Title VI complaint against GRTC. City Lab has a bit more background on the issue as it relates to housing.

Justin Mattingly at the Richmond Times Dispatch has a small update on the Richmond Public Schools rezoning process 💸. He says that the new George Mason Elementary currently under construction in the East End, which is built for 750 students, will only host 422 students under each of the three rezoning options we have at the moment. I don’t know if this is because Cropper—the folks putting together these maps—doesn’t want to count on the new facility opening in time for the 2020 school year or what. I do think, just based on how quickly and substantially the elementary school options on the City’s Northside changed, that the East End’s zoning options are open to changes based on feedback from the public as well. You can give the school district that feedback by letting them know your thoughts, feelings, and concerns via this online form.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 73 °F, and today’s highs are back up in the mid 90s—it’s still August out there. Just like the last couple of days we could see some rain later this evening.

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Whoa! Big news out of nowhere: GRTC has hired Julie Timm as their new CEO. Timm served as the Director of Development for Nashville’s transit agency and had also previously worked for Hampton Roads Transit. I know almost nothing about this person, but am excited to learn more. Honestly, I’m just glad GRTC finally got the top job filled. We’re in a critical moment of Richmond’s transit history—with tons of momentum from our recent investments in transit infrastructure paired with a group of elected leaders that value public transportation. We’ve continued to make transit progress in the region for the last year or so despite the lack of permanent leadership at GRTC and that’s stressful! With new leadership, though, I’m excited to see what we can do. Also, (and maybe also stressful) Timm has an immediate hire to make: GRTC’s Director of Planning, Garland Williams, recently left to take a job as the director of Charlottesville Area Transit. P.S. GRTC’s Director of Communications points out that Richmond’s bus company now has a female CEO, a female COO, and four female directors.

Speaking of transit, here’s an ultra true comic by @shannonprints on Instagram about a brutal fact of bus life: Shade is so, so important.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 73 °F, and today’s highs are back up in the mid 90s—it’s still August out there. Just like the last couple of days we could see some rain later this evening.

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Whoa! Big news out of nowhere: GRTC has hired Julie Timm as their new CEO. Timm served as the Director of Development for Nashville’s transit agency and had also previously worked for Hampton Roads Transit. I know almost nothing about this person, but am excited to learn more. Honestly, I’m just glad GRTC finally got the top job filled. We’re in a critical moment of Richmond’s transit history—with tons of momentum from our recent investments in transit infrastructure paired with a group of elected leaders that value public transportation. We’ve continued to make transit progress in the region for the last year or so despite the lack of permanent leadership at GRTC and that’s stressful! With new leadership, though, I’m excited to see what we can do. Also, (and maybe also stressful) Timm has an immediate hire to make: GRTC’s Director of Planning, Garland Williams, recently left to take a job as the director of Charlottesville Area Transit. P.S. GRTC’s Director of Communications points out that Richmond’s bus company now has a female CEO, a female COO, and four female directors.

Speaking of transit, here’s an ultra true comic by @shannonprints on Instagram about a brutal fact of bus life: Shade is so, so important.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 76 °F, and dang that was a lot of rain. I guess it cooled things down a bit, as today’s highs are in the low 90s instead of the mid 90s. There’s a small chance of rain throughout the day—it’s oh so small, but still a chance, and you saw what yesterday’s small chance of rain led to, right?

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The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Justin Mattingly has the report from this week’s RPS School Board Meeting. The highlight (lowlight?): Just 10% of Richmond Public Schools students are “ready for college and a career” 💸 (which, I think, is based on SAT and PSAT scores). You should definitely download the surprisingly readable presentation (PDF) given to the Board. It checks in on the academic and enrollment goals set by Dreams4RPS, the District’s five-year strategic plan, and is packed with charts and tables that set the stage for the next half decade at RPS. It’s important to keep in mind that this is a 2018–2023 strategic plan, and the numbers in the aforelinked presentation—like the 10% college readiness number—are baselines. They’re just getting started. Anyway, I think this presentation is part of a set that work through each of the 10 goals in Dreams4RPS, and now I feel compelled to go catch ‘em all. Once I’ve got them collected, I’ll make sure to link them for y’all here in an easy to process way.

Mark Robinson, also at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, says that the City ended last fiscal year with a $15.4 million surplus. The Mayor wants to use the surplus to cover cost overruns in a few departments, give City retirees a cost-of-living adjustment, and pay back the money Council took from the Capital Improvement Program so they could avoid restoring the real estate tax to pre-Recession levels. Robinson says this data comes from a recent report, which I’m not sure where to find, but, while poking around on the City’s website I did find these really interesting monthly financial reports.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 74 °F, and it’s hot again today with highs in the mid 90s. There’s an OK chance for rain late this evening—nothing that’ll wash out your afternoon plans but something that could bring some relief to the heat.

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Roberto Roldan at Virginia Public Media, which is now the name of our local public media…group? collection of stations? squad?…looks into the affordable housing component of the proposed North of Broad development. Here’s the deal: The developer will build 80 affordable units by 2022 and then “the developer expects to build another 200 in the next five to seven years. The developer will also need to help raise $10 million in private donations. That money would go to the nonprofit affordable housing developer Better Housing Coalition, which will build 200 affordable apartments elsewhere in downtown.” That’s how we get to the Mayor’s promised 480 affordable units.

Of course, as with all conversations about affordable housing, the word “affordable” does a lot of the lifting. Roldan says that, of those 480 units, 40% will go to folks who make 60% of the area median income, and 60% will go to folks making 80% of the area median income. That’s a majority of the affordable, income-restricted units reserved for people who make $46,000 per year. It’s not that I’m against building housing for people making moderate incomes like that—we, of course, need to build more housing for everyone. But I am unconvinced that a downtown arena and the required BigTIF is the only way to get more housing for those folks. @_SmithNicholas_ on Twitter even points out that the private market in Richmond is already building similarly affordable units on its own.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 76 °F, and highs today will hit somewhere in the mid 90s. Today looks like a sunny, humid, and great way to start the week.

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So many arena-related things happened while I was out of town that it was hard to keep track of everything. The tl;dr, as I understand it, is that Richmond will have zero Arena Referenda on the ballot this November (at one point we could have had as many as two). That’s a really simple resolution to what felt like two weeks of continual arena onslaught. Both the Paul Goldman-led referendum, which ended up with too few signatures to make it on the ballot, and the non-binding, advisory referendum sponsored by Councilmembers Gray and Trammell, which failed in Council by a slim margin, were anti-arena referendums. However, I don’t know that we can extrapolate Council’s general position on the proposed Coliseum replacement from their votes on this referendum—I’d have voted against it, too, regardless of how I feel about the project. The important takeaway from all of this is that Council is divided on the matter, and whoever gets elected in the 5th District special election will most likely be the swing vote—a stressful (or powerful) position for a new, baby legislator. Anyway, as far as news coverage goes, I really enjoyed this column from one of the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s sports reporters, Paul Woody, about the proposed coliseum replacement 💸. He highlights what I think are two compelling arguments against the project: 1) It’s a regional amenity and the region should help pay for it (this is how things work with the convention center), and 2) The BigTIF, which may generate swimming pools of cash at the end of 30 years, kneecaps the City’s general fund possibly for decades. More on this, I’m sure, in the coming weeks as everyone continues to dig through the documents and City Council’s advisory board starts to get to work.

This week’s email from Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras has some good reflections on the recently released RPS SOL scores. I liked this bit in particular: “In terms of growth, we actually outperformed the counties. Yup, you heard that right. We were the only school division in the area to see gains in three subject areas. Of course, we still lag far behind the counties in overall achievement. But I do think it’s worth noting when RPS distinguishes itself academically.” If you want to dig in for yourself, you can download massive spreadsheets from the Virginia Department of Education that contain all of the scores for all of the schools in RPS or any division in the state. In other schools-related news, we’re still in the midst of the public conversations about rezoning. Make sure you check the summer rezoning meeting schedule for this week’s meeting dates, times, and locations.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 75 °F, rainy, and, while highs have dropped a bit in to the mid 80s, the chance of rain continues for much off the day and into the weekend.

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Richmond Police are reporting that two people were shot and killed early Thursday morning on the 3000 block of Chamberlayne Avenue: Olajuwon Akeem Elleby, 34, and Jammie Lee Walker, 39. According to the Richmond Police Department, 35 people have been murdered in 2019—up from 29 at this time last year.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 75 °F, rainy, and, while highs have dropped a bit in to the mid 80s, the chance of rain continues for much off the day and into the weekend.

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Richmond Police are reporting that two people were shot and killed early Thursday morning on the 3000 block of Chamberlayne Avenue: Olajuwon Akeem Elleby, 34, and Jammie Lee Walker, 39. According to the Richmond Police Department, 35 people have been murdered in 2019—up from 29 at this time last year.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 67 °F, and the weather sameness continues. Expect highs in the 90s, humidity, and lots of sunshine until evening. After today, though, the 10-day forecast looks like a lot of opportunities for rain.

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Big news in the Washington Post for Republicans: State officials have decided that Del. Nicholas Freitas will NOT appear on the ballot in November. I’m sure dudeman will appeal the decision and head to the Courts as soon as possible, but, assuming those efforts fail, he’ll have to run a write-in campaign. That’s not an impossible thing to win, but it’s sure way more challenging than, like, just filing your paperwork on time. Voters in the 30th District will still find Democrat Ann Ridgeway on the ballot in a couple of months.

Yesterday, I told y’all about how my son and I got yelled at for riding our bicycles in the street by a dude in a pick up truck. I also said this sort of thing is extremely common and you just need to ask literally anyone who rides a bike and they’ll have similar stories. Look! Here’s a screenshot of the Bike Walk RVA facebook page as proof. Remember, the Mayor and the Department of Public Works could fix this particular dangerous intersection—Broad & Lombardy—by removing a few parking spaces. They don’t/won’t, and, because of that, people will get hurt.