Good morning, RVA! It’s 71 °F, and today you should expect more of the same weatherwise: hot and sunny. There is a small chance of rain this evening, though

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The RPS Rezoning Squad met last night and discussed two new rezoning options, now know as Option 3 and Option 4 (PDF). They’re not yet up on the interactive map, so I have a hard time spotting some of the smaller differences, but the aforelinked PDF has a helpful pros/cons table after each option. One of the new, bigger changes would be closing Elkhardt-Thompson Middle School and serving the entire area south of the river with three middle schools. Justin Mattingly at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a human-readable summary if maps and tables aren’t your thing.

While the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus skipped yesterday’s Trump event at Jamestown, Del. Samirah from Loudoun attended and disrupted the event, yelling “Mr. President, you can’t send us back, Virginia is our home!” Scroll through some of the delegate’s twitter feed for pics, thoughts, and responses. Del. Bourne has some picture from the VLBC event and a couple of good thoughts, including this one from Del. Bagby: “Blind respect of an institution prevents the very process required to bring the change we are fighting for, and the change for which our ancestors died fighting for.” Mechelle Hankerson at the Virginia Mercury has a write up of all the things you were probably looking to read more about.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 72 °F, and today looks a lot like yesterday: hot and sunny. Expect highs in the 90s—maybe even before lunchtime.

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In more Trump Boycott news, the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus has decided to skip out on today’s events and instead “have arranged alternative commemorative events for this week.” Here’s a quote from Del. McQuinn, “It is unfortunate that the leadership of the American Evolution Board decided unilaterally to invite the President without consulting all of the members of the Board…If I had been asked my opinion, I certainly would have expressed that the President’s offensive and inappropriate tweets have not added value or been aligned with Democracy.” 😬 The VBLC will host a handful of events in town today, beginning at 9:00 AM, at the Capitol, Devil’s Half Acre, and the Virginia Museum for History and Culture.

Justin Mattingly at the Richmond Times-Dispatch took attendance at yesterday’s Education Compact Meeting 💸. Here are the (disappointing) results! School Board: Liz Doerr (1st District), Scott Barlow (2nd), Cheryl Burke (7th), Dawn Page (8th), Linda Owens (9th). City Council: Kristen Larson (4th), Cynthia Newbille (7th), Michael Jones (9th). Plus: the Mayor and the Superintendent. That’s not great, and more of our elected leaders should takes these meetings seriously. These are ultra-infrequent, quarterly meetings that are one of the only chances for the folks in charge of various parts of our city to hang out together. Just put the meetings on your dang calendar! You can download a PDF of the presentation from the meeting here. Mattingly also says that construction costs for the three schools going up at the moment have increased by about 4%. I’ve no idea if that’s something you should expect when building three massive buildings over the span of several years. I also don’t know if the contingency funds they built in to pay for some cost overruns will cover this increase or not. Obviously, there’s a lot I do not know. Story of my life!

Photo by: sandy’s dad

Good morning, RVA! It’s 71 °F, and temperatures are back up in the 90s today. Dry skies until at least through Wednesday, though.

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The Richmond Police Department is reporting a murder that took place on the Southside early Saturday morning. Officers found Trimayne H. Moore, 46, shot to death in a vehicle on the 2000 block of Boston Avenue.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 65 °F, and today looks a lot like yesterday but maybe with some clouds here and there. You can expect more of the same through the weekend, while temperatures creep back up into the 90s.

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WCVE’s Jordy Yager has a story about one possible local impact the high-speed rail project connecting Richmond and D.C will have. Apparently, the planned alignment cuts through the previous site of an African American graveyard. I say previous site, because, over the last 130 years, the construction of 5th Street, the existing rail line, a viaduct, another street, and I-64 all ran right through what was once an active burial ground. Yager also gives us a few details on how the state’s Department of Rail and Public Transportation will help mitigate this impact. I can’t find it now, but there’s a whole PDF of all the ways they promise to get involved where the proposed rail line will impact historic sites, animal habitats, human hangouts—it’s a fascinating read and I’m sure it exists somewhere on the DC2RVA website. While I think this article’s headline is a bit misleading, I do think the situation is complex and that, as one of the descendants of someone once buried at this site said, reclaiming the sacredness of the space is key.

I’m trying not to talk about the Fox-Cary pairing aspect of the planned Richmond Public Schools rezoning forever, because it’s only one small part of a much larger plan. BUT. The Superintendent apparently caught some flack for saying some of the loudest feedback on the proposed pairing “sounds eerily like Massive Resistance 2.0.” I don’t know what folks are upset about, because I think that’s precisely what some of the oppositional feedback sounds like. Especially sentences like this, which I think is exactly the spirit of Massive Resistance, if not the letter: “I know that I, along with many other neighbors, would carefully weigh the decision of whether to send my children to private school or to move out of the district for a better elementary school option for our family.” Luckily, it sounds like things have cooled down a bit, and today, in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Mark Robinson has a report from the most recent rezoning public meeting where he said criticism was voiced in “decidedly less divisive terms.”

Good morning, RVA! It’s 65 °F, and we’ve got another great day queued up. You can expect highs in the mid 80s and sunshine. Honestly, the weather looks lovely until at least the middle of next week.

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Whoa, huge news! Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times Dispatch says City Attorney Allen Jackson will retire November 1st 💸. While you may not hear about the City Attorney a ton, it’s a very powerful position. The lawyer filling the role technically represents both City Council and the Mayor, which, as you can imagine, leads to all kinds of suboptimal weirdness. Robinson closes his report with this tantalizing bit: “The city attorney’s dual role could be up for debate if the council pursues plans to review the charter, as its members have signaled they would, in the coming months.” This kind of charter change is so totally up my alley, I can hardly wait!

You probably heard that Governor Northam joined high-level state republicans in inviting Trump to Virginia’s upcoming event to celebrate the 400th anniversary of democracy in America. That’s wildly disappointing, of course, but not entirely unexpected. However, I didn’t expect this: Graham Moomaw at the RTD says, that as a result of the presidential invite, Mayor Stoney has resigned from the event’s steering committee 💸. I know, I know, resigning from a planning committee right before the event takes place doesn’t do a whole lot to combat the day-to-day problems facing Richmonders—many of which are caused or exacerbated by racism. But, in my opinion, this is the right thing for a progressive elected official to do and an easy decision to make.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 65 °F, and we’ve got another great day queued up. You can expect highs in the mid 80s and sunshine. Honestly, the weather looks lovely until at least the middle of next week.

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Whoa, huge news! Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times Dispatch says City Attorney Allen Jackson will retire November 1st 💸. While you may not hear about the City Attorney a ton, it’s a very powerful position. The lawyer filling the role technically represents both City Council and the Mayor, which, as you can imagine, leads to all kinds of suboptimal weirdness. Robinson closes his report with this tantalizing bit: “The city attorney’s dual role could be up for debate if the council pursues plans to review the charter, as its members have signaled they would, in the coming months.” This kind of charter change is so totally up my alley, I can hardly wait!

You probably heard that Governor Northam joined high-level state republicans in inviting Trump to Virginia’s upcoming event to celebrate the 400th anniversary of democracy in America. That’s wildly disappointing, of course, but not entirely unexpected. However, I didn’t expect this: Graham Moomaw at the RTD says, that as a result of the presidential invite, Mayor Stoney has resigned from the event’s steering committee 💸. I know, I know, resigning from a planning committee right before the event takes place doesn’t do a whole lot to combat the day-to-day problems facing Richmonders—many of which are caused or exacerbated by racism. But, in my opinion, this is the right thing for a progressive elected official to do and an easy decision to make.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 67 °F, and today looks lovely. We’ve got highs in the mid 80s, no real chance of rain, and a couple more days before temperatures return to their summery spot in the 90s. Enjoy!

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Graham Moomaw at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has an update on the whole Del. Nick Freitas situation 💸. Predictably, Republicans have re-nominated Freitas after he withdrew a couple days ago. With a ton of really specific legal questions floating around—like was he ever actually a nominee? did he ever actually get disqualified?—I’m gonna guess that this ends up in court eventually. I think I’ve landed fully in the “idk, just file your paper work properly” camp. If you don’t have the attention to detail to get your candidacy paper work turned in correctly, you’ll probably bring that same distracted demeanor to the important job of writing laws for the Commonwealth.

Do y’all know about the great new trail behind Pine Camp on the Northside? I discovered it this past weekend, hadn’t heard about it before, and so I sent our the City’s trails guy an email to learn more. Turns out, it’s brand new—built just this past spring as a short loop for folks on foot or on bike and for programs hosted out of Pine Camp. You should definitely check it out for the views of Horse Swamp Creek. Pretty amazing natural stuff, just tucked away within the City limits. Richmond is great.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 74 °F, and, hold on to your butts, because that is today’s high. Expect rain throughout the day and temperatures to drop a couple of degrees to the mid 60s. Relief!

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The Commonwealth Institute has a great piece up about the lack of racial diversity in Virginia’s teachers: 75% of the Commonwealth’s teachers report as White. Why is racial diversity among teachers important? To quote a bit, “For Black boys in grades 3–5, the presence of just one Black teacher decreased their likelihood of dropping out of high school by 29%” and “Black students in grades K-3 with just one Black instructor were 13% more likely to enroll in college than those who do not.” TCI has some suggestions on how to get more Black teachers into our schools, including how the State can support its HBCUs. But make sure you read the last couple paragraphs about Virginia’s low teach salaries, because until teacher pay in Virginia is competitive with the national average, it’s always going to be harder to hang on to talented folks.

Zoning update! C. Suarez Rojas at the Richmond Times-Dispatch says that City Council passed the Monroe Ward rezoning last night. I assume that the VUU/Chamberlayne rezoning passed, too, as it was also on the Consent Agenda. This is a big deal for Richmond, and, with these two rezonings in the books, I’m actually not sure what’s next on the list. Maybe a general update/overhaul to bring our current zoning in line with whatever land use Richmond 300 recommends? Anyway, I am especially excited for all of those empty, burning hot parking lots in Monroe Ward to fill up with buildings. Let’s get some shade in that neighborhood ASAP!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 75 °F, and we’re still under a dang heat advisory until 8:00 PM. Today you should expect highs in the mid 90s this afternoon but temperatures will feel about 10 or 15 degrees warmer. Be careful if you’ve gotta spend time outside.

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Police are reporting a murder that occurred early Sunday morning on the 1900 block of Raven Street. Officers arrived at 3:47 AM and found Javonte Mangum, 21, fatally shot.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 77 °F, and, as you probably guessed, today’s gonna be hot. You can expect highs in the mid to upper 90s, and you should know we’re back under a heat advisory. Temperatures are only headed upwards over the weekend (there’s actually an excessive heat watch through Sunday evening), so stay hydrated, stay cool, and stay safe.

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Megan Pauly at WCVE has some of the history and background on Richmond Public Schools’ 2013 rezoning which, at the time, put even more White kids into Fox Elementary. It’s good context for the current conversations folks are having about a pairing of Fox and Cary elementary—one of the options recommended by this year’s planned RPS rezoning. At some point, though, I’m hoping we expand our conversation about rezoning beyond Fox and the Fan, because there’s a whole city out there with changes and tweaks to their school zones.

Graham Moomaw at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has the unexpected news that Republican Delegate Nick Freitas, one of the three state legislators who just plain failed to file their reelection paperwork properly, will withdraw as a candidate 💸. Moomaw has a bit more on Twitter, including the section of code that applies when a nominee withdraws—although was Freitas ever the actual nominee? I guess we’ll learn more over the next couple of days about what Republicans plan to do, but, in the mean time, Ann Ridgeway is the for-now unopposed Democratic candidate.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 78 °F, and, while we survived the heat advisory, today will still be freaking hot. Expect highs in the mid 90s again and a good excuse to stay inside most of the day.

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There are 44 days until August 29th, not counting today. Out of those 44, you can attend a meeting about Richmond Public Schools rezoning on 21 of them. Here’s the entire, overwhelming schedule. These meetings are in different locations, on different days, at different times—and Spanish interpretation services are available at each and every one. There are so many opportunities to get involved and learn about what’s happening that “no one told me” will not be an acceptable excuse when this process wraps up and new school zones are announced. Also, while you’re poking around on the Superintendent’s Twitter timeline, take a minute, scroll a bit, and see some of the support for the pairing of the Fox Elementary and Cary Elementaryzones I talked about earlier this week. Support for increasing the diversity of schools exists, whether you read about it in the paper or not.

Virginia’s alcohol laws are dumb, and Karri Peifer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has the details on a loosening of our open-container laws done in a classically dumb Virginia way: “A bill allowing drinkers to leave a restaurant carrying an alcoholic beverage and walk around with that beverage and into another establishment (that’s not a restaurant) is now legal in Virginia during licensed events and in designated areas.” Additionally, only localities (the City), business improvement districts (Venture Richmond), and nonprofits (basically everyone has a nonprofit, though, right?) can apply for the license, and they can only do so 12 times per year. You can read all of SB 1171 over on the General Assembly’s LIS website. Folks who should apply for this license immediately: First Fridays, Carytown Merchant’s Association, Venture Richmond, some nonprofit on either the Lombardy or 6th Street end of Grace Street, and basically every neighborhood association that has filed their nonprofit paperwork.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 77 °F, and we are under an active heat advisory until 8:00 PM this evening. Expect highs in the mid to upper 90s and a heat index above 100 °F. I know I always tell you to stay cool and stay hydrated, but today’s heat is dangerous, and you should seriously do both of those things!

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C. Suarez Rojas at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has some details on the first new proposed bus route into Chesterfield County 💸 in, I don’t know, forever. First, the good news: The planned bus line down Route 1 will run every 30 minutes on weekdays and maybe Saturdays. The bad news is that the County is still thinking about creating their own special route, with their own special “brand.” Instead of just extending existing GRTC service on Route 1 further down the road (the #3B bus), they want to make their own separate thing and presumably force folks to transfer into the “regular” system once they reach the City line? Whyyyyyyy?? Chesterfield is not a special snowflake and should just have the same bus service as the rest of the region. Honestly, I’m exhausted by how difficult the County keeps making this extremely simple thing.

Justin Mattingly, also at the RTD, has an interesting story about Richmond Public Schools failing to count some students who speak English as a second language 💸. This is a big deal because there’s a pot of money from the State available for helping teach students who are still learning English, and, due to the miscount, RPS missed out on its fair share of cash. With correct numbers in hand, the school system now has access to more money for more teachers (Mattingly says 12 more), and that’s great news.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 76 °F, already! Highs today will climb back up into the mid 90s, and we’ll all be real hot. Stay cool, and stay hydrated, y’all.

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Justin Mattingly at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a disappointing but unsurprising article about Richmond Public Schools’ proposed redistricting titled “Fox Elementary School parents criticize potential ‘pairing’ with John B. Cary Elementary.” 💸 Apparently a vocal handful of current and future Fox Elementary parents are pissed about one of the proposed school redistricting options that would “pair” Fox and Cary Elementaries. It’s Elementary Option 2 on this map and would send kids living both north and south of the Downtown Expressway to Fox for K–2 and then Cary for 3–5. As you can probably guess, this pairing would go a long, long way to racially integrating these two schools. As you can also probably guess, some (and not very many, honestly) parents of Fox Elementary—a school situated an affluent and mostly White neighborhood—had Some Thoughts that you can read for yourself (PDF). The wild thing is that school pairing has been tried before in Richmond. In fact, it was a part of the 1970s attempt to integrate the region’s schools that ultimately ended up in front of the United States Supreme Court in Bradley v. Richmond School Board. I can’t get the Library of Virginia’s newspaper search to load this morning, but you can bet if we pulled up RTD articles from 1971, we’d read the exact same concerns from (White) parents about consistency in schools, adding stress to the school year, property values and taxes, and threats of moving out of the district. There is nothing new under the sun. As a result of the “great deal of feedback” from the Fox and Cary communities, RPS will schedule some community meetings to…hear even more angry feedback from a vocal minority of parents?

City Council’s Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee meets today with a bunch of really fascinating things on their agenda (PDF). First the committee will consider a bunch of Standard Project Agreements for cool bike and pedestrian projects—meaning theoretically uncontroversial ordinances that authorize the City take money from VDOT to build things. I guess you never know, but should be smooth sailing for: A paved path, bike lane, and an ADA ramp at Dock & 17th to provide better connections between the Capital Trail and the T. Pott Bridge; a shared-use bridge (!) and path over the Canal; a shared-use path out by Williamsburg Avenue and Government Road; a shared-use path paralleling Stony Run Road; and pedestrian safety improvements at Semmes near Patrick Henry School. Whew! That’s a lot of good stuff, and hats off to the City staff that absolutely crush getting money out of the State for projects like this. But it’s not all sunshine and bike lanes on the LUHT agenda. The committee will also consider Councilmember Gray’s resolution to prevent certain types of dense residential developments—specifically projects like the conversion of the Lee Medical Building to 60 apartments (RES. 2019-R025). You can read my full thoughts on the resolution here, but, as I said before, reducing residential density is the absolute opposite direction of where our City’s housing policy should be headed. Dense conversions are exactly what we need in more and more neighborhoods across Richmond.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 76 °F, already! Highs today will climb back up into the mid 90s, and we’ll all be real hot. Stay cool, and stay hydrated, y’all.

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Justin Mattingly at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a disappointing but unsurprising article about Richmond Public Schools’ proposed redistricting titled “Fox Elementary School parents criticize potential ‘pairing’ with John B. Cary Elementary.” 💸 Apparently a vocal handful of current and future Fox Elementary parents are pissed about one of the proposed school redistricting options that would “pair” Fox and Cary Elementaries. It’s Elementary Option 2 on this map and would send kids living both north and south of the Downtown Expressway to Fox for K–2 and then Cary for 3–5. As you can probably guess, this pairing would go a long, long way to racially integrating these two schools. As you can also probably guess, some (and not very many, honestly) parents of Fox Elementary—a school situated an affluent and mostly White neighborhood—had Some Thoughts that you can read for yourself (PDF). The wild thing is that school pairing has been tried before in Richmond. In fact, it was a part of the 1970s attempt to integrate the region’s schools that ultimately ended up in front of the United States Supreme Court in Bradley v. Richmond School Board. I can’t get the Library of Virginia’s newspaper search to load this morning, but you can bet if we pulled up RTD articles from 1971, we’d read the exact same concerns from (White) parents about consistency in schools, adding stress to the school year, property values and taxes, and threats of moving out of the district. There is nothing new under the sun. As a result of the “great deal of feedback” from the Fox and Cary communities, RPS will schedule some community meetings to…hear even more angry feedback from a vocal minority of parents?

City Council’s Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee meets today with a bunch of really fascinating things on their agenda (PDF). First the committee will consider a bunch of Standard Project Agreements for cool bike and pedestrian projects—meaning theoretically uncontroversial ordinances that authorize the City take money from VDOT to build things. I guess you never know, but should be smooth sailing for: A paved path, bike lane, and an ADA ramp at Dock & 17th to provide better connections between the Capital Trail and the T. Pott Bridge; a shared-use bridge (!) and path over the Canal; a shared-use path out by Williamsburg Avenue and Government Road; a shared-use path paralleling Stony Run Road; and pedestrian safety improvements at Semmes near Patrick Henry School. Whew! That’s a lot of good stuff, and hats off to the City staff that absolutely crush getting money out of the State for projects like this. But it’s not all sunshine and bike lanes on the LUHT agenda. The committee will also consider Councilmember Gray’s resolution to prevent certain types of dense residential developments—specifically projects like the conversion of the Lee Medical Building to 60 apartments (RES. 2019-R025). You can read my full thoughts on the resolution here, but, as I said before, reducing residential density is the absolute opposite direction of where our City’s housing policy should be headed. Dense conversions are exactly what we need in more and more neighborhoods across Richmond.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 76 °F, and today’s gonna be a hot one. Expect highs in the mid 90s and plenty of sunshine that will sparkle off of your sweaty skin.

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What do we even call the 17th Street Farmers’ Market now that the space is not exclusively the domain of farmers? Colleen Curran at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has the answer: The 17th Street Market 💸. This is good news, because what do you even do with the apostrophe in farmers/farmer’s/farmers’/farmers’s’ market? Curran also says the Market has two new managers that both come with some serious market bonafides and are looking to build the Market into a “sustainable and viable community space.” Sounds like less bacon festivals and more inviting places to just hang out with your pals—definitely the right direction. While Curran has a whole section of “outstanding issues” that need to be addressed with the market, she misses the biggest issue in my mind: Access to the space via Franklin Street under the train station. I have no idea when the (really nice) cut-through will open, but, until it does, actually getting to the Market from points west is an annoying challenge.

A small update, also from Colleen Curran: She confirms that the 2020 edition of the RVA Street Art Festival will paint on the actual Flood Wall itself! That’s awesome, and the stretch of the Flood Wall they’re considering is extremely visible, running along Dock Street facing the Capital Trail.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 76 °F, and today’s gonna be a hot one. Expect highs in the mid 90s and plenty of sunshine that will sparkle off of your sweaty skin.

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What do we even call the 17th Street Farmers’ Market now that the space is not exclusively the domain of farmers? Colleen Curran at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has the answer: The 17th Street Market 💸. This is good news, because what do you even do with the apostrophe in farmers/farmer’s/farmers’/farmers’s’ market? Curran also says the Market has two new managers that both come with some serious market bonafides and are looking to build the Market into a “sustainable and viable community space.” Sounds like less bacon festivals and more inviting places to just hang out with your pals—definitely the right direction. While Curran has a whole section of “outstanding issues” that need to be addressed with the market, she misses the biggest issue in my mind: Access to the space via Franklin Street under the train station. I have no idea when the (really nice) cut-through will open, but, until it does, actually getting to the Market from points west is an annoying challenge.

A small update, also from Colleen Curran: She confirms that the 2020 edition of the RVA Street Art Festival will paint on the actual Flood Wall itself! That’s awesome, and the stretch of the Flood Wall they’re considering is extremely visible, running along Dock Street facing the Capital Trail.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 74 °F, and we’ve got another hot day ahead of us—highs near 90 °F. Looks like we’ll avoid any downpours like yesterday, though.

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C. Suarez Rojas at the Richmond Times-Dispatch says Henrico’s Planning Commission recommended approval of new plans to redevelop Regency Mall 💸. I can’t find the PDF of the plans this morning, but, from Rojas’s description, it sounds like developers want to replace the aging mall with a dense, urban-village-type thing—something Henrico’s been pushing more and more of lately. Infilling old malls (and their associated parking lots) with housing and a bunch of mixed uses sounds great. It’s also sounds like a great excuse for the County to increase the frequency of the #79 bus to at least every 30-minutes. Actually, while we’re dreaming, what if Henrico and VCU extended the Pulse out to Parham where the University plans to move a bunch of VCU Health employees, and then created a new Parham Road route (as suggested by our regional transit vision plan)? That way folks living in this new development (up to 1,250 says the RTD article) and people shopping and working there have easy access to and from the Pulse? This is the kind of thing I think about every time I read about new, dense development in the Counties (or anywhere, really).

I keep forgetting to link to this story by Michael Schwartz in Richmond BizSense about mini-golf coming to Topgolf. This is this second mini-golf link of the week (here’s the first), and that’s totally fine by me. As previously discussed, I am definitely not a Golf Person, but people who are assure me that I will love Topgolf regardless. I have a hard time believing them, but the addition of mini-golf certainly makes me less skeptical. Who doesn’t love mini-golf??

Good morning, RVA! It’s 76 °F, and today you can expect highs right around 90 °F. There’s also a chance for rain this afternoon and through the evening.

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Jenna Portnoy in the Washington Post writes about the results of an investigation into the sexual harassment allegations against former governor Doug Wilder in his role as a VCU professor. The investigation “found Wilder was responsible for ‘non-consensual sexual contact’ but cleared him of three other allegations made by [Sydney Black]: sexual exploitation, sex- or gender-based discrimination, and retaliation.” VCU has an internal process that they’ll now follow which could result in a variety of outcomes. To me, though, abuse of power that leads to sexual harassment is gross and awful and means you’ve got to go. We’lI see if that happens, and I imagine we’ll hear more about this throughout the rest of the summer.

Local twitter user @MzFtz has a short thread to pair with today’s longread that highlights three car crashes on the Northside that all happened yesterday. I don’t know the full details on any of them, but the intersection of Laburnum and Hermitage (at the AP Hill statue) is incredibly dangerous and could have been improved 10 years ago with a roundabout, but Councilman Hilbert prevented that and still hasn’t offered any alternatives. Also, I’m going to guess that speed was a factor for the driver who ended up in a house on W. Laburnum injuring two children in the house and two children in the car. These kinds of incidents are exactly what we mean when we talk about Vision Zero and how injuries caused by vehicles are preventable—but you must put in the work to change the streets and enforce the laws.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 68 °F, and we’ve got another summery day with sunshine and highs in the upper 80s. Stay sweaty, y’all.

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Welp. Yesterday’s General Assembly special session focused on gun violence happened—kind of. Ned Oliver and Mechelle Hankerson at the Virginia Mercury have the details on how Republicans adjourned the session just 90 minutes after it began and after considering exactly zero bills. Theoretically, the GA will take up all of the legislation filed over the last couple of weeks at a November 18th meeting—which is, of course, after the 2019 elections. This tremendously transparent waste of time on the part of Virginia’s gun-worshipping Republicans is totally unsurprising. They’re unwilling to do anything at all to address gun violence, and the only recourse is to vote them out of office this November. Worst of the bunch may be Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment who continues to be an unserious legislator who’d rather spend his time playing games instead of passing laws. After submitting legislation banning guns in government buildings, a bill he never had any intention of actually supporting, Norment said “As currently drafted, the legislation represents neither my views nor my intention. I do not support — nor will I support — any measure that restricts the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.” OK, guy. This dude is not clever, extremely predictable, and out of step with Virginians—even his own party was confused by his amateur-hour strategy, if you can call it that. You can read both Mayor Stoney’s thoughts on the abortive session (“Republicans in the General Assembly proved today that they are not just spineless but flat-out cowardly.”) and the Governor’s statement (“It is shameful and disappointing that Republicans in the General Assembly refuse to do their jobs, and take immediate action to save lives.”).

Yesterday I linked to this excellent piece about racism in Hanover from Samantha Willis at the Virginia Mercury. I think it does the best job at putting together the pieces from all of the County’s recent struggles with race. Today, I read a piece from Micheal Paul Williams in the Richmond Times-Dispatch with this extremely disturbing and outright racist quote about from Hanover Board of Supervisors Chairman W. Canova Peterson: About the actual KKK he said, “If you hate them, you’re a hate group too.” No, that is not how this works, and Peterson should face professional—or at least electoral—consequences for this statement. Our local elected officials shouldn’t get to go about their jobs, business as usual, after making public statements of tacit support for racist hate groups.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 68 °F, and we’ve got another summery day with sunshine and highs in the upper 80s. Stay sweaty, y’all.

Water cooler

Welp. Yesterday’s General Assembly special session focused on gun violence happened—kind of. Ned Oliver and Mechelle Hankerson at the Virginia Mercury have the details on how Republicans adjourned the session just 90 minutes after it began and after considering exactly zero bills. Theoretically, the GA will take up all of the legislation filed over the last couple of weeks at a November 18th meeting—which is, of course, after the 2019 elections. This tremendously transparent waste of time on the part of Virginia’s gun-worshipping Republicans is totally unsurprising. They’re unwilling to do anything at all to address gun violence, and the only recourse is to vote them out of office this November. Worst of the bunch may be Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment who continues to be an unserious legislator who’d rather spend his time playing games instead of passing laws. After submitting legislation banning guns in government buildings, a bill he never had any intention of actually supporting, Norment said “As currently drafted, the legislation represents neither my views nor my intention. I do not support — nor will I support — any measure that restricts the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.” OK, guy. This dude is not clever, extremely predictable, and out of step with Virginians—even his own party was confused by his amateur-hour strategy, if you can call it that. You can read both Mayor Stoney’s thoughts on the abortive session (“Republicans in the General Assembly proved today that they are not just spineless but flat-out cowardly.”) and the Governor’s statement (“It is shameful and disappointing that Republicans in the General Assembly refuse to do their jobs, and take immediate action to save lives.”).

Yesterday I linked to this excellent piece about racism in Hanover from Samantha Willis at the Virginia Mercury. I think it does the best job at putting together the pieces from all of the County’s recent struggles with race. Today, I read a piece from Micheal Paul Williams in the Richmond Times-Dispatch with this extremely disturbing and outright racist quote about from Hanover Board of Supervisors Chairman W. Canova Peterson: About the actual KKK he said, “If you hate them, you’re a hate group too.” No, that is not how this works, and Peterson should face professional—or at least electoral—consequences for this statement. Our local elected officials shouldn’t get to go about their jobs, business as usual, after making public statements of tacit support for racist hate groups.