Good morning, RVA! It’s 67 °F, and today looks like a stunner. Expect highs in the mid 80s and tons of sunshine. Enjoy!

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This morning, state legislators will head back to work for a special session on gun violence. What will they do? Will they do anything? Will they pass a single thing? I have no idea, but today might be a day to set up the General Assembly livestream in the background and follow along. To kick things off, Virginia’s Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security and Secretary of Health and Human Resources have co-authored a column in the Roanoke Times to head off Republicans’ constant refrain that we need fewer gun laws and more mental illness laws. The Secretaries note that improvements in mental health legislation are important but “While mental illness is a serious issue in our communities, it is not causally linked to gun violence. In fact, people with mental illness are much more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators.” They also point out that the report produced following the 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech (PDF) made legislative recommendations—including background checks—which have not yet been passed by the General Assembly. Locally, here’s a short video of Mayor Levar Stoney telling folks what he thinks of the NRA and the Virginia Citizens Defense League. And over in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Graham Moomaw and Patrick Wilson say that Republican Senator Tommy Norment has submitted legislation banning guns in “any building owned or used by a locality for governmental purposes in the Commonwealth.” You can read the full legislation here. You should also know that Norment most likely has no intention of supporting his own bill. He’s got a history of playing childish games with legislation, wasting his constituents’ and Virginians’ time for his own political gain. It’s irritating, transparent, and cowardly—especially when it comes to important issues like minimum wage, climate change, and gun violence. Anyway, since this is a special session, the number and scope of bills legislators have submitted is relatively small, and one could look through them all in a single morning!

Superintendent Kamras’s weekly email continues to exist—even in the depths of summer vacation! This week he reminds us of all the different ways to get involved with RPS Shines 2019. Also, and this late notice is totally my fault, Kamras highlights the Richmond Peace Education Center’s rally before the opening of today’s gun violence special session. If you can, join other folks who support passing laws to help prevent gun violence at 9:00 AM at the Capitol Bell Tower.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 76 °F, and while its not raining now, it could rain today—especially later in the afternoon. This is the price you pay for cooler temperatures in the middle of the summer!

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Over the weekend, Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch had this story about the new head of the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority’s vision for the future of our public housing neighborhoods 💸. CEO Damon Duncan wants to tear down our current old / crumbling public housing and replace it with new construction (of some sort, more on that in a minute). Remember how I keep saying we have over $1 billion of capital needs related to public housing neighborhoods? Well Robinson says that a 2009 plan found that demolishing Gilpin Court and building a new, mixed-income community in its place would cost $503 million. And that’s just one of six large public housing neighborhoods in the City! So what does Duncan want to put in Gilpin’s place after its gone? Similar to the old plan, “Duncan said he envisions a denser, mixed-income neighborhood replacing the Gilpin community, but he cautioned that all current residents wouldn’t necessarily end up there.” This is the part that concerns me. I am not a housing expert by any stretch of the imagination, but not building enough housing for current residents and promising vouchers to some folks instead seems like a fraught path. Where are the apartments that accept housing vouchers in the region? Are they near transit like the existing public housing neighborhoods? Or are we making it (perhaps unintentionally) more difficult to access to jobs, education, healthy food, and all of the other things folks need to thrive. I honestly don’t know the answer to this question, but I think such a map may exist and will put it on my list of things to look for. If you want to dig in yourself, RRHA’s draft five year plan is up on their website. Apparently, today is the last day of the public comment period on the plan (which opened on May 20th) and to do so you must submit written comments to the RRHA offices (901 Chamberlayne Parkway). Uhhh OK.

Tomorrow the General Assembly’s special session on gun violence begins! What will come of it? Who knows! Mechelle Hankerson at the Virginia Mercury has the best explainer about what’s going to happen and what each side wants—Spoiler: Democrats want laws that will stop gun violence, Republicans…do not. It’s illustrative that the section listing bills Democrats want passed is at least nine items long, while the Republic section just has no items at all.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 72 °F, and highs today are way up into the mid 90s. There may be some relief headed our way this evening with a bit of rain, but maybe not! After that, you can expect a persistent but low chance of rain until next week—which may impact your fireworks situation.

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Richmond Police are reporting that Tyrell J. Thomas was shot and killed on the 2300 block of Bethel Street on Monday night. According to the RPD, Thomas is the 29th person murdered in Richmond so far in 2019.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 66 °F, and it’s hot again. Today, highs will creep into the 90s, and we should avoid any rain until tomorrow. After that, though, there’s a chance of precipitation as far as the weekly forecast can see.

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Assessments! A couple days ago I asked folks to send me their assessments and their thoughts/feelings on any changes over last year’s numbers. I got a couple dozen emails and tweets from various homeowners living in various parts of the City, and every single one of them saw their assessments increase—some by less than 5%, some by more than 20%. The thing that I thought was neat was that nearly every single person either thought it was a fair increase to bring their assessment in line with their actual home value and/or that the increase in tax revenue would be vital for the future of the City.

I know that homeownership is a complicated thing and that rising assessments can mean less affordability for folks (something a bunch of readers expressed concerns about, too). I also know that we don’t have as many programs to keep (or make) homes affordable for all Richmonders—and we can blame the State for a lot of that. But I think it’s important to point out that the angry voices on Facebook or Next Door yelling about a $200 tax bill on their West End rental property are not the only voices in Richmond. There are lots of folks who are ready and willing to pay more for better schools, humane public housing, useful public transit, and just a radder City in general. They’re not always the loudest voices, and they’re certainly not representative of the entire City, but they do exist! Here are just a few thoughts, quotes, and paraphrases from some of them:

Good morning, RVA! It’s 68 °F, and today you can expect highs in the mid 80s—so not as hot as this past weekend. The skies look dry until at least Wednesday.

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City Council will meet tonight at 5:00 PM to vote on the Mayor’s ordinance to preemptively ban guns from city-owned buildings and parks (ORD. 2019–165). The General Assembly will meet for their special session next week on July 9th.

Even though we’re defintitely fully in to summer break, there’s a new edition of RPS Superintendent Kamras’s email out for you to read. Of note, RPS Shines 2019 has launched, and it’s a great way for you to get involved at your neighborhood school—doing things like mowing, painting, fixing up bathrooms, and painting murals. If you’re looking to go beyond sending thoughtful emails to elected representatives about school facilities and funding, check out what RPS Shines has available, and do some stuff with your actual hands! Or, heck, just donate some cash from the comfort of your own couch. Kamras also links to four different summer reading programs for students, and that makes me wish we had summer reading programs for adults.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 71 °F, and we’ve got another heckin’ hot day on deck. You should expect highs in the mid 90s throughout most of the day, and steamy temperatures continue through the weekend. If we make it through Sunday, there’s a chance things will cool down the tiniest bit on Monday.

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I feel real bad about this, but yesterday I forgot to mention that the Richmond Public Schools rezoning committee met to look at some first drafts of the school rezoning maps. Here are is the PDF you’re looking for: maps of all the new zoning options for elementary, middle, and high school plus a bunch of tables of potential enrollment numbers. You can also zoom around on this digital version of those same maps. Additionally, this page on the RPS website has a bunch of additional maps and resource that are probably worth scrolling through as well (make sure you tap on the “Committee Meeting #2” header in the menu). There is a lot a lot going on with all of this information, and I have taken absolutely zero time to try and process it all. But! We should all get to processing and then get to letting the committee know all of our thoughts and feelings! This sounds like a great plan for the weekend, right?

At this past Monday’s City Council meeting, Councilmember Kim Gray introduced RES. 2019-R025 (PDF) which would “initiate an amendment to the City’s zoning ordinance to require a minimum lot area of 750 square feet per dwelling unit when a nonconforming use is changed to a multifamily dwelling within certain residential zoning districts.” To translate out of zoning and into human English, this resolution would require 750 square feet of land for every dwelling unit when converting something to a multi-family development if it sits in certain single family zones (R-1 through R-8). To further translate, if you’re taking a big old building in a residential neighborhood and converting it to apartments, this sets a pretty significant cap on the number of units you can put in that big old building. For example, the Lee Medical Building on the southwest corner of Lee Circle sits on about 17,000 square feet of land. Today, developers are planning to covert those offices into about 60 apartments. This zoning change would limit that building to about 22 units, unnecessarily increasing the size (and probably cost) of those apartments. If you scroll down to the human-readable summary in the resolution PDF you’ll see that “The patron’s goal is to prevent the inappropriate development of units that are too small in [sic] and that would result in inappropriate dense conversion in neighborhoods that are designed for such conversions.” Reducing residential density is the absolute opposite direction of where our City’s housing policy should be headed, and I’d argue that dense conversion are exactly what we need in more and more neighborhoods across Richmond.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 68 °F, and highs today will hit 90 °F. Stay cool and stay hydrated.

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WTVR is reporting that a driver hit four people near the 17th Street Market on the 1700 block of E. Main Street, killing one and sending at least one other to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. There are almost no more details on this incident at this moment.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 76 °F, and summery weather continues. Today you can expect highs in the upper 80s, some clouds, but probably no real chance of rain. Spend some time today on a proch, deck, or patio.

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Yesterday, Mayor Stoney announced that he would introduce legislation banning firearms in city parks and city buildings. This is, of course, not something that’s currently allowed by state law, but the Mayor’s ordinance is intended to take effect should the General Assembly deign to grant localities the tiniest modicum of authority to address gun violence in municipal spaces. I’m into this! I’m double into this quote from the Mayor, too: “Every Richmonder and every Virginian deserves to feel safe. Commonwealth residents have had enough of the spineless leadership on this issue from some of our state lawmakers. If they are unwilling to act, they should move out of the way.” As I’ve said previously in this space, I’m looking for clever, creative, and bold local solutions to (most) state Republicans’ forever-support of gun violence. The Mayor’s ordinance does not “solve” gun violence, but it is definitely not nothing. The text of the ordinance has not hit the City’s website yet, but when it does I’ll make sure to link to the PDF. The General Assembly will reconvene for a special session on gun violence on July 9th.

Emily Thomason has an excellent piece up on Streets Cred about the southern terminus of the Lombardy Street bike lane and how it vomits folks out directly into a stack of parked cars. This makes for a stressful and dangerous merge that I do on the regular while casting withering glares over my shoulder at drivers attempting to squeeze between me and oncoming traffic. I will do this very thing today, in fact. Wish me luck, I guess!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 76 °F, and summery weather continues. Today you can expect highs in the upper 80s, some clouds, but probably no real chance of rain. Spend some time today on a proch, deck, or patio.

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Yesterday, Mayor Stoney announced that he would introduce legislation banning firearms in city parks and city buildings. This is, of course, not something that’s currently allowed by state law, but the Mayor’s ordinance is intended to take effect should the General Assembly deign to grant localities the tiniest modicum of authority to address gun violence in municipal spaces. I’m into this! I’m double into this quote from the Mayor, too: “Every Richmonder and every Virginian deserves to feel safe. Commonwealth residents have had enough of the spineless leadership on this issue from some of our state lawmakers. If they are unwilling to act, they should move out of the way.” As I’ve said previously in this space, I’m looking for clever, creative, and bold local solutions to (most) state Republicans’ forever-support of gun violence. The Mayor’s ordinance does not “solve” gun violence, but it is definitely not nothing. The text of the ordinance has not hit the City’s website yet, but when it does I’ll make sure to link to the PDF. The General Assembly will reconvene for a special session on gun violence on July 9th.

Emily Thomason has an excellent piece up on Streets Cred about the southern terminus of the Lombardy Street bike lane and how it vomits folks out directly into a stack of parked cars. This makes for a stressful and dangerous merge that I do on the regular while casting withering glares over my shoulder at drivers attempting to squeeze between me and oncoming traffic. I will do this very thing today, in fact. Wish me luck, I guess!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 65 °F, and today you can expect highs in the 90s. At this point, the long-term forecast looks like we’ll avoid any rain for the entire week.

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Richmond Police are reporting that Arthur Robinson III, 33, was shot to death on the 5000 block of Old Warwick Road on Friday night.

Photo by: JOzPhotography

Good morning, RVA! It’s 72 °F, and today looks beautiful. With highs in the mid 80s and no real chance of rain, make sure you spend some time outside taking it all in. This weekend’s weather looks pretty great, too.

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This is incredible news: The VMFA will install a massive Kehinde Wiley statue, Rumors of War, at the entrance to the museum this coming December. You probably saw Wiley’s work at the VMFA in 2016, or have seen the official presidential portrait he did of Barack Obama. This new work “is the artist’s direct response to the ubiquitous Confederate sculptures that populate the United States, particularly in the South. Sitting astride a massive horse in a striking pose, Wiley’s young, African-American subject is dressed in urban streetwear.” The statue will debut in Times Square on September 27th before heading to its permanent home in Richmond. What a big deal, and what awesome news!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 75 °F, and, while warmer, today looks a lot like yesterday. Expect highs in the 90s and a chance for storms later this afternoon / evening.

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The 2019 Arthur Ashe Boulevard Celebration kicks off today, and the list of planned events is pretty great. Tonight, you can catch the Social Justice Forum and a screening of Ashe ‘68 and Johnnie and Arthur (7:00–9:00 PM at the VMFA). The Big Unveiling takes place on Saturday at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture from 11:00 AM–12:30 PM and features keynote speaker Rep. John Lewis! Whoa!

Chuck Richardson has formally announced his candidacy for the 5th District City Council seat, says NBC12. That makes five candidates in the running (that I know about): Nicholas Da Silva, Stephanie Lynch, Jer’Mykeal McCoy, Chuck Richardson, and Thad Williamson. It’s a crowded field already, and we’ve still got a couple of months until the filing deadline. I’m excited, though! This race should be good practice for the 2020 City Council elections—which, for sure, will be PACKED with candidates.

Photo by: natashalcd

Good morning, RVA! It’s 73 °F, and today you can expect cooler temperatures in the low 80s and the possibility for rain throughout the day.

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Richmond Police are reporting a murder that occurred on Monday night. Officers arrived to the 2300 block of North Avenue and found Omar T. Green suffering from a fatal gunshot wound.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 73 °F, and highs today are back up near 90 °F. There’s also a steadily increasing chance of rain throughout the day and into the night.

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Amy Howe at the SCOTUSblog has an analysis of yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling that Virginia’s new House of Delegates maps—ones created to undo racial gerrymandering—are legal. I guess, technically, the SCOTUS ruled that the General Assembly doesn’t have standing to appeal a lower court’s decision. This means the new maps will stand for November’s election, and means that some previously Republican-held districts (specifically House Speaker Kirk Cox and Del. Chris Jones) are now even further up for Democratic grabs. Robin Bravender at the Virginia Mercury and Graham Moomaw at the Richmond Times-Dispatch have the local coverage, and here’s the Governor’s statement on the ruling.

Yesterday, Senator Tim Kaine and Mayor Levar Stoney met with “family members of gun violence victims and other advocates” to talk about the need for more and better gun violence laws. Stoney had the money quote saying, “the public is tired of ‘spineless leadership’ and wants immediate change.” Yes! I don’t have a lot of hope in July 9th’s special legislative session, but this is the kind of language folks should use leading up to it. It’s effective and true. Unrelated P.S. This article refers to the Mayor as “a potential future gubernatorial candidate,” so get ready for that narrative for the next two years.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 73 °F, and temperatures are back up in the 90s today. Prepare to sweat, and then this evening prepare for a chance of rain.

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Whoa, read this OpEd by Attorney General Mark Herring about how he thinks Virginia needs to begin the process of legalizing marijuana. And it’s not just legalizing, either, he wants to “decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana, address past convictions and start moving toward legal and regulated adult use.” One other thing he should consider for whenever we end up with legal weed in Virginia: Giving folks impacted by inequitable enforcement of drug laws first dibs on the permitting process.

The Virginia Mercury has two stories up about gun violence in Virginia. First, this piece by Katie O’Connor focuses on suicide—65% of gun-related deaths in Virginia were suicides. Second, Ned Oliver says that the only Democrat in the General Assembly endorsed by the NRA now supports stronger gun violence laws. Remember, the Governor has called a special session of the GA to address gun violence on July 9th.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 56 °F, and today looks beautiful! With highs in the upper 70s, lots of sunshine, and almost entirely no chance of rain, your day has the potential to be awesome from the start.

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Y’all! Today’s is the last day of the school year for Richmond Public Schools! Congratulations students, parents, teachers, and staff. It is an early-release day, and kids are bound to be a little extra, so please keep an eye out for errant and excited youth if you are driving around our city today.

Speaking of RPS, they keep texting me about this family engagement survey. If you’re part of the RPS community and you’ve yet to fill it out, today is your last chance. It won’t take long—plus, weighing in on stuff is free and often has a bigger impact than you’d think.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 64 °F, and rain is here now but on its way out. Today you can expect highs near 80 °F and maybe some more rain later this afternoon—maybe. At this point, though, weekend weather looks excellent.

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Whoa, look at this unexpected news in the Richmond Times-Dispatch from C. Suarez Rojas: Henrico County will give the Maggie Walker Community Land Trust $580,000 💸. That means that the Trust will have the resources to buy up to 10 properties in the County and make them permanently affordable. With Henrico getting in on the action, I think this officially makes the Trust a regional affordable housing group. That’s big! Of course the region needs to do more, more, more on the affordable housing front, but this is a good step in the right direction.

Last week in this space, I complained that the proposed development going in near the Whole Food and adjacent to the Addison Street Pulse Station had way, way too much parking—a 790-space parking deck! Yesterday, Streets Cred ran this post by Nicholas Smith which really lays out the case for why it’s bad for cities to build hundreds and hundreds of parking spaces in bikeable, walkable, and transit-accessible neighborhoods. I’m not sure there’s much to be done about this specific development mistake, but, moving forward, we can push our City Council to update our zoning laws to lower the minimum number of required parking spaces. When we get that done we can talk about creating a maximum number of allowed spaces for developments like this. Actually, a piece about parking minimums and maximums sounds like a good future Streets Cred post…

Good morning, RVA! It’s 64 °F, and rain is here now but on its way out. Today you can expect highs near 80 °F and maybe some more rain later this afternoon—maybe. At this point, though, weekend weather looks excellent.

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Whoa, look at this unexpected news in the Richmond Times-Dispatch from C. Suarez Rojas: Henrico County will give the Maggie Walker Community Land Trust $580,000 💸. That means that the Trust will have the resources to buy up to 10 properties in the County and make them permanently affordable. With Henrico getting in on the action, I think this officially makes the Trust a regional affordable housing group. That’s big! Of course the region needs to do more, more, more on the affordable housing front, but this is a good step in the right direction.

Last week in this space, I complained that the proposed development going in near the Whole Food and adjacent to the Addison Street Pulse Station had way, way too much parking—a 790-space parking deck! Yesterday, Streets Cred ran this post by Nicholas Smith which really lays out the case for why it’s bad for cities to build hundreds and hundreds of parking spaces in bikeable, walkable, and transit-accessible neighborhoods. I’m not sure there’s much to be done about this specific development mistake, but, moving forward, we can push our City Council to update our zoning laws to lower the minimum number of required parking spaces. When we get that done we can talk about creating a maximum number of allowed spaces for developments like this. Actually, a piece about parking minimums and maximums sounds like a good future Streets Cred post…

Good morning, RVA! It’s 54 °F, and the return of the spring-like weather continues. Today, expect highs in the mid-70s, some clouds, and an ever-increasing chance of rain the closer we get to tomorrow.

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You came, you saw, you voted in the primary—or I am extremely disappointed in you. The Department of Elections has the full results from all of last night’s election excitement, but your Democratic General Assembly primary winners from the Richmond Region are: Lindsey Dougherty, Ghanzala Hashmi, Amanda Phol, Debra Rodman, and Joe Morrissey. Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury has a recap of some of the upsets and more exciting races from around the state. At some point, I’m going to talk about Morrissey and what it means to elect a man who used his position of power to take advantage of a child. For now, though, the other candidates on that list worked hard and will need your help in beating their Republican opponents come November. I encourage you to reach out and get involved in their campaigns as soon as you can!

In other election news, City Council’s 5th District has another candidate: Nicholas Da Silva. I’ve heard rumors and rumblings about a bunch of other potential candidates, too, and will try my best to mention them in this space. The filing deadline for this race is still a ways a way, so there’s plenty of time for folks to get out there, knock on doors, collect some signatures, and get on the ballot.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 54 °F, and the return of the spring-like weather continues. Today, expect highs in the mid-70s, some clouds, and an ever-increasing chance of rain the closer we get to tomorrow.

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You came, you saw, you voted in the primary—or I am extremely disappointed in you. The Department of Elections has the full results from all of last night’s election excitement, but your Democratic General Assembly primary winners from the Richmond Region are: Lindsey Dougherty, Ghanzala Hashmi, Amanda Phol, Debra Rodman, and Joe Morrissey. Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury has a recap of some of the upsets and more exciting races from around the state. At some point, I’m going to talk about Morrissey and what it means to elect a man who used his position of power to take advantage of a child. For now, though, the other candidates on that list worked hard and will need your help in beating their Republican opponents come November. I encourage you to reach out and get involved in their campaigns as soon as you can!

In other election news, City Council’s 5th District has another candidate: Nicholas Da Silva. I’ve heard rumors and rumblings about a bunch of other potential candidates, too, and will try my best to mention them in this space. The filing deadline for this race is still a ways a way, so there’s plenty of time for folks to get out there, knock on doors, collect some signatures, and get on the ballot.