Good morning, RVA! It’s 54 °F, but highs today will hit a summery 80 °F. Assuming the sun finds its way out from behind the clouds, we’re heading into a top-notch Wednesday.

Water cooler

Richmond Police are reporting three murders in the City—the first in over a month. This past Saturday, officers were called to the 1300 block of Coalter Street and found Malik D. Banks, 21, shot to death. Then, on Monday, police were called to the 1800 block of Southlawn Avenue and found Tijuan D. Davis, 20, and Eric D. Wheless, 21, shot to death in a vehicle. The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Ali Rockett has a few more details on the double homicide and an update on this year’s statistics. You can always find a list of Richmond’s homicide victims on the RPD’s website.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 54 °F, but highs today will hit a summery 80 °F. Assuming the sun finds its way out from behind the clouds, we’re heading into a top-notch Wednesday.

Water cooler

Richmond Police are reporting three murders in the City—the first in over a month. This past Saturday, officers were called to the 1300 block of Coalter Street and found Malik D. Banks, 21, shot to death. Then, on Monday, police were called to the 1800 block of Southlawn Avenue and found Tijuan D. Davis, 20, and Eric D. Wheless, 21, shot to death in a vehicle. The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Ali Rockett has a few more details on the double homicide and an update on this year’s statistics. You can always find a list of Richmond’s homicide victims on the RPD’s website.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 41 °F, and today you should expect highs near 70 °F and less of that dang wind. Tomorrow, temperatures could hit summer-time levels! Get excited!

Water cooler

Is it hot in here or is it just BUDGET SEASON? The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Mark Robinson has the details from yesterday’s budget work session. Most interesting to me is this list of amendments from members of City Council. As of right now, we’ve got five folks signed on to Councilmember Hilbert’s proposed amendment to keep the real estate tax at its Recession-era austerity level of $1.20 (Addison, Hilbert, Gray, Larson, and Trammell). Councilmember Newbille, on the other hand, proposed an amendment to increase the rate to $1.25. Adopting either of these amendments would force Council to find $21 million and $9 million of cuts (or new revenue) respectively to balance the budget. So, with five opponents on record, it looks like the Mayor’s proposed $1.29 rate is dead, yes? Not so fast! Alright, hold on to your butts, because we’re going to take a thrilling dive into the City’s Charter. First, City Council must adopt a balanced budget by May 31st (§ 6.05 and §6.11). If they cannot do so “the budget as submitted by the mayor shall be the budget for the ensuing year.” Not only that, but “the ordinances providing additional revenue, if any, as recommended by the mayor shall have full force and effect to the same extent as if the same had been adopted by the council.” So: If City Council doesn’t want to roll back those Recession-era real estate tax cuts, they’ve got to build a five-member consensus on how to cut $21 million from the Mayor’s proposed budget or the Mayor’s original budget becomes the One Budget To Rules Them All. Additionally, and thanks to Mark Robinson for pointing this out, the second paragraph of § 6.11 says that the “mayor shall have the power to veto any particular item or items of any city budget ordinance…Council may thereafter override the mayor’s veto with a vote of six or more of the currently filled seats on council.” I am not a lawyer, but it sure seems like even if City Council could find five votes to make tens of millions of dollars in cuts to desperately needed City services, that the mayor could just veto the whole shebang. I definitely have no idea if there are six Councilfolk that reaaaally want to be forever be defined as the people who cut millions from schools. Anyway, there’s lots of discussion left to be had, and City Council: Endgame is about to get really interesting. Conspiratorial P.S.: Keep your eye on that last bit of § 6.11 that says “six or more of the currently filled seats,” especially after yesterday’s news of further legal action toward removing Councilmember Agelasto from his 5th District seat. I also definitely have no idea if that’ll come into play or not, but those words exist in the charter.

Because it’s fascinating, you should read this article about combined sewer overflow events in Richmond at the Virginia Mercury by Daniel Berti. After reading that and getting a handle on the scope of our sewer-related needs, you should read this piece by WCVE’s Roberto Roldan about Councilmember Gray and Trammell’s proposed budget amendment to cut the planned increases in utility rates.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 41 °F, and today you should expect highs near 70 °F and less of that dang wind. Tomorrow, temperatures could hit summer-time levels! Get excited!

Water cooler

Is it hot in here or is it just BUDGET SEASON? The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Mark Robinson has the details from yesterday’s budget work session. Most interesting to me is this list of amendments from members of City Council. As of right now, we’ve got five folks signed on to Councilmember Hilbert’s proposed amendment to keep the real estate tax at its Recession-era austerity level of $1.20 (Addison, Hilbert, Gray, Larson, and Trammell). Councilmember Newbille, on the other hand, proposed an amendment to increase the rate to $1.25. Adopting either of these amendments would force Council to find $21 million and $9 million of cuts (or new revenue) respectively to balance the budget. So, with five opponents on record, it looks like the Mayor’s proposed $1.29 rate is dead, yes? Not so fast! Alright, hold on to your butts, because we’re going to take a thrilling dive into the City’s Charter. First, City Council must adopt a balanced budget by May 31st (§ 6.05 and §6.11). If they cannot do so “the budget as submitted by the mayor shall be the budget for the ensuing year.” Not only that, but “the ordinances providing additional revenue, if any, as recommended by the mayor shall have full force and effect to the same extent as if the same had been adopted by the council.” So: If City Council doesn’t want to roll back those Recession-era real estate tax cuts, they’ve got to build a five-member consensus on how to cut $21 million from the Mayor’s proposed budget or the Mayor’s original budget becomes the One Budget To Rules Them All. Additionally, and thanks to Mark Robinson for pointing this out, the second paragraph of § 6.11 says that the “mayor shall have the power to veto any particular item or items of any city budget ordinance…Council may thereafter override the mayor’s veto with a vote of six or more of the currently filled seats on council.” I am not a lawyer, but it sure seems like even if City Council could find five votes to make tens of millions of dollars in cuts to desperately needed City services, that the mayor could just veto the whole shebang. I definitely have no idea if there are six Councilfolk that reaaaally want to be forever be defined as the people who cut millions from schools. Anyway, there’s lots of discussion left to be had, and City Council: Endgame is about to get really interesting. Conspiratorial P.S.: Keep your eye on that last bit of § 6.11 that says “six or more of the currently filled seats,” especially after yesterday’s news of further legal action toward removing Councilmember Agelasto from his 5th District seat. I also definitely have no idea if that’ll come into play or not, but those words exist in the charter.

Because it’s fascinating, you should read this article about combined sewer overflow events in Richmond at the Virginia Mercury by Daniel Berti. After reading that and getting a handle on the scope of our sewer-related needs, you should read this piece by WCVE’s Roberto Roldan about Councilmember Gray and Trammell’s proposed budget amendment to cut the planned increases in utility rates.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 61 °F, and that is the basically temperature for the rest of the day. Last night’s storms have cooled things down a bit, but, don’t worry, we’ll get back into warmer weather tomorrow.

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Today, because I can already hear your eyes rolling when I bring up the Mayor’s proposed budget yet again, I will condense all of my budget-related thoughts down into a single paragraph. First, City Council will meet today to propose budget amendments to a huge stack of departments as well as begin to balance Capital Improvement Plan amendments. I haven’t seen either sets of amendments yet (if you have, send them my way!) but am nervous that someone on Council will decide to strip the $965,000 of new GRTC funding out of the Mayor’s proposed budget. Second, RPS’s School Board meets tonight at 6:00 PM on the 17th floor of City Hall. If you wanted to let your School Board representative know that you support the Mayor’s budget and his Big Time investment in schools, tonight would be the night to do so. The public comment period is right at the beginning of the meeting, and you do not need to sign up ahead of time. Easy peasy. Third, Superintendent Kamras has a great column in his email today about trust (scroll down to the bottom). By far the most common refrain I’ve heard from progressives who do not support the Mayor’s proposal to roll back the Recession-era real estate tax cuts is that they’re convinced RPS cannot be trusted with any more money. If that describes you, please, please read this piece by the Superintendent, and ask yourself: What more could he and the school district do to begin winning your trust? Dude has already done a ton of planning, cutting, efficiency-finding, and it’s time to give him the resources he needs to start rebuilding our school system. Fourth, something to keep in mind and on your calendar: City Council will hold their public hearing on the budget on April 22nd at 6:00 PM. This is the time for the physical manifestation of support for the Mayor’s budget (by showing up in the room). You can, of course, digitally manifest your support (by emailing your councilmember) at any time.

A while back, Councilmember Agelasto moved out of the 5th District—which he was elected to represent—and into the 1st District. As he continues to serve the 5th District he’s faced a couple of challenges to the legitimacy of his position, and this new one, from former 6th District Councilmember Sa’ad El-Amin (circa 1998–2003), seems the realest. Commonwealth’s Attorney Mike Herring says that while he appreciates El-Amin’s stance he doesn’t want to disrupt budget season with litigation. First, hmmmmmm! Second, how come the only people working to oust Agelasto are former Richmond City Councilfolk?

Good morning, RVA! It’s 61 °F, and that is the basically temperature for the rest of the day. Last night’s storms have cooled things down a bit, but, don’t worry, we’ll get back into warmer weather tomorrow.

Water cooler

Today, because I can already hear your eyes rolling when I bring up the Mayor’s proposed budget yet again, I will condense all of my budget-related thoughts down into a single paragraph. First, City Council will meet today to propose budget amendments to a huge stack of departments as well as begin to balance Capital Improvement Plan amendments. I haven’t seen either sets of amendments yet (if you have, send them my way!) but am nervous that someone on Council will decide to strip the $965,000 of new GRTC funding out of the Mayor’s proposed budget. Second, RPS’s School Board meets tonight at 6:00 PM on the 17th floor of City Hall. If you wanted to let your School Board representative know that you support the Mayor’s budget and his Big Time investment in schools, tonight would be the night to do so. The public comment period is right at the beginning of the meeting, and you do not need to sign up ahead of time. Easy peasy. Third, Superintendent Kamras has a great column in his email today about trust (scroll down to the bottom). By far the most common refrain I’ve heard from progressives who do not support the Mayor’s proposal to roll back the Recession-era real estate tax cuts is that they’re convinced RPS cannot be trusted with any more money. If that describes you, please, please read this piece by the Superintendent, and ask yourself: What more could he and the school district do to begin winning your trust? Dude has already done a ton of planning, cutting, efficiency-finding, and it’s time to give him the resources he needs to start rebuilding our school system. Fourth, something to keep in mind and on your calendar: City Council will hold their public hearing on the budget on April 22nd at 6:00 PM. This is the time for the physical manifestation of support for the Mayor’s budget (by showing up in the room). You can, of course, digitally manifest your support (by emailing your councilmember) at any time.

A while back, Councilmember Agelasto moved out of the 5th District—which he was elected to represent—and into the 1st District. As he continues to serve the 5th District he’s faced a couple of challenges to the legitimacy of his position, and this new one, from former 6th District Councilmember Sa’ad El-Amin (circa 1998–2003), seems the realest. Commonwealth’s Attorney Mike Herring says that while he appreciates El-Amin’s stance he doesn’t want to disrupt budget season with litigation. First, hmmmmmm! Second, how come the only people working to oust Agelasto are former Richmond City Councilfolk?

Good morning, RVA! It’s 58 °F, and today we’ve got another day on deck with highs in the mid 70s. You probably should expect some rain later this evening and into Saturday morning. Runner-types are gonna get wet, but at least they won’t be wet and cold.

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Speaking of runner types, the Monument 10k runs from 7:00 AM to 1:00 PM this coming Saturday. This means you’ve got the opportunity to take part (or at least witness) a lot of rad, weird, and very-Richmond things–in fact, here’s a PDF from Sports Backers with every single detail you could want. If you’re trying to get around on Saturday, note that some roads are closed—like Monument, duh—but also a handful of streets in the Fan near the starting line. The Pulse will detour up to Leigh Street and skip the VCU/VUU station. The #14, #20, #76, #77, and #78 will all see detours of some sort. If you’re trying to get to the action without driving and parking, I recommend going by bike, but also the #5 bus (PDF) remains undetoured (autocorrect suggests undeterred, which, sure!) and will get you right to Monroe Park. For some background, Tim Pearrell at the Richmond Times-Dispatch talks with Sports Backers’s Jon Lugbill about the last 20 years of the race. Not to be a bummer, but, at some point, we’ll probably need to have a conversation about how one of the biggest events in Richmond is focused on (and named after!) a street full of Confederate monuments, right?

Whoa! This seemingly-boring announcement is a big deal, I think! The City will increase the cost of their work-in-street permits and change the structure of the fee to a “pay-by-time format.” Part of the reason it’s so easy to forever close a sidewalk in the City is that the permits cost a flat fee of $20–100. That encouraged folks to close public rights-of-way and…just leave them closed. Seems boring, I know, but this will have a real impact on the City’s Vision Zero goals of keeping pedestrians safe. Also, color me interested in what the Mayor means when he says “More to come…”

Good morning, RVA! It’s 58 °F, and today we’ve got another day on deck with highs in the mid 70s. You probably should expect some rain later this evening and into Saturday morning. Runner-types are gonna get wet, but at least they won’t be wet and cold.

Water cooler

Speaking of runner types, the Monument 10k runs from 7:00 AM to 1:00 PM this coming Saturday. This means you’ve got the opportunity to take part (or at least witness) a lot of rad, weird, and very-Richmond things–in fact, here’s a PDF from Sports Backers with every single detail you could want. If you’re trying to get around on Saturday, note that some roads are closed—like Monument, duh—but also a handful of streets in the Fan near the starting line. The Pulse will detour up to Leigh Street and skip the VCU/VUU station. The #14, #20, #76, #77, and #78 will all see detours of some sort. If you’re trying to get to the action without driving and parking, I recommend going by bike, but also the #5 bus (PDF) remains undetoured (autocorrect suggests undeterred, which, sure!) and will get you right to Monroe Park. For some background, Tim Pearrell at the Richmond Times-Dispatch talks with Sports Backers’s Jon Lugbill about the last 20 years of the race. Not to be a bummer, but, at some point, we’ll probably need to have a conversation about how one of the biggest events in Richmond is focused on (and named after!) a street full of Confederate monuments, right?

Whoa! This seemingly-boring announcement is a big deal, I think! The City will increase the cost of their work-in-street permits and change the structure of the fee to a “pay-by-time format.” Part of the reason it’s so easy to forever close a sidewalk in the City is that the permits cost a flat fee of $20–100. That encouraged folks to close public rights-of-way and…just leave them closed. Seems boring, I know, but this will have a real impact on the City’s Vision Zero goals of keeping pedestrians safe. Also, color me interested in what the Mayor means when he says “More to come…”

Good morning, RVA! It’s 44 °F now, but later this afternoon get excited for some more temperatures in the mid 70s. I’m loving this spring!

Water cooler

I’ve been going on and on about the budget for the past couple months with a focus mostly on the Mayor’s proposed investment in schools, but the potential funding for streets is important, too! We all use our streets—either driving alone in our cars (boooo!), taking the bus, riding a bike, or just crossing the street on foot. Bike Walk RVA has a good post up linking the Mayor’s financial commitment to streets in his budget to his Vision Zero policy commitment from a couple years back.

More Brookland Park Boulevard news! Yesterday, we learned that there’s room for a new brewer on the Boulevard, and, today, Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense says the Brookland Park Threatre building is officially for sale. Richard Hayes at RVAHub has the beer pun I was looking for yesterday.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 44 °F now, but later this afternoon get excited for some more temperatures in the mid 70s. I’m loving this spring!

Water cooler

I’ve been going on and on about the budget for the past couple months with a focus mostly on the Mayor’s proposed investment in schools, but the potential funding for streets is important, too! We all use our streets—either driving alone in our cars (boooo!), taking the bus, riding a bike, or just crossing the street on foot. Bike Walk RVA has a good post up linking the Mayor’s financial commitment to streets in his budget to his Vision Zero policy commitment from a couple years back.

More Brookland Park Boulevard news! Yesterday, we learned that there’s room for a new brewer on the Boulevard, and, today, Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense says the Brookland Park Threatre building is officially for sale. Richard Hayes at RVAHub has the beer pun I was looking for yesterday.

Photo by: sandy’s dad

Good morning, RVA! It’s 52 °F, and get ready for an excellent day. Expect sunshine, highs in the 70s, and no excuse not to spend at least some of today out of doors.

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Taikein Cooper, Executive Director of Virginia Excels, writes about his experience growing up in Prince Edward County, why we need to heavily invest to truly bring an end to separate-but-equal schools, and why he supports the Mayor’s proposed budget. I agree strongly with this next bit, and it applies to citizens and councilmembers both: “Subsequently, I’ve witnessed many people say that they want to enrich the city’s infrastructure, enhance our schools, and make Richmond a better place for all, but then they are adamantly against taking any of the necessary steps to accomplish those things. The proposed budget is not flawless, but instead of turning it down, we should work together over the coming weeks to perfect it for those who need it the most.” We can dismiss the Mayor’s proposal to roll back the Recession-era tax cuts out of hand—and the investments in schools, streets, housing, and transit along with it—or we can figure out how to work together to do something big. Now is not the time for cuts, austerity, or political posturing. It’s time to do what’s right, get to work, and begin undoing decades of disinvestment in our City.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 63 °F, and we’ve got another warm day ahead of us. Expect temperatures in the mid 70s and cloudy skies until later this afternoon.

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Mike Platania at Richmond BizSense says City Council approved a special use permit last night (at their regularly scheduled meeting, which I totally forgot to mention yesterday) for 224 apartment units on Brook Road right next to the post office. I’m officially excited about the intersection of Brook and Lombardy! It’s near Downtown and the Fan, at the intersection of two bike lanes, close to transit, has a plan for the area that’s part of the City’s Master Plan (PDF), and is seeing development that matches that plan. Meanwhile, Planing Commission is working their way through the process to officially rezone parts of the area to help make sure future development lines up the Mater Plan and to discourage a thousand and one special use permits. Tangentially related: If you’re into zoning and rezoning, I highly recommend this PDF from the Department of Planning and Development Review about how the VUU/Chamberlayne rezoning will work and how it will impact the neighborhood.

David Streever writing for Richmond Magazine has a neat profile of Jeremy Hoffman, the Science Museum of Virginia’s earth and climate scientist. This dude is an actual, literal scientist using actual, literal SCIENCE to make Richmond a better place to live. I think that’s rad. He’s a good follow on Twitter, too.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 61 °F, and, whoadang, we could see highs in the upper 70s today—or even 80s! Expect some rain later this evening that carries on through tomorrow morning.

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This morning, City Council will meet for another budget work session at which they’ll hear their final set of presentations. Today’s theme is “Responsive Government” and includes Citizen Service and Response, Finance & Risk Management, Human Resources, Procurement, and Non-departmental—the latter is a bucket for all sorts of things like GRTC, the ambulance authority, and a bunch of other grants to nonprofit-type organizations. Then Council will spend the afternoon discussing proposed amendments which were fairly uncontroversial…until now! Over the weekend, Councilmember Jones tweeted out the latest round of proposed amendments and the first look at how some councilfolk plan to balance the Mayor’s budget without rolling back the Recession-era real estate tax cuts. On the revenue side, Councilmember Hilbert wants to up the proposed cigarette tax from $0.50 to $0.80 and increase the admissions tax from 7% to 12%. This, plus “repeal tax exemptions by designation” (which I don’t understand yet), gets him about $5 million, leaving him to make $16 million of cuts. Here’s what Councilmember Hilbert plans to cut: $2.1 million from street paving (despite an enormous amount of poor-quality streets in the 3rd District); $6.1 million from the City’s contribution to schools; and 1.5% of the budget from every. single. city department (leaving a handful of departments—unrelated to schools, streets, housing, or any of the Mayor’s proposed investments—with less money than they had last year). All of those cuts frustrate me, but it’s the last one that really gets me. I called it “weak and lazy” on Twitter, which, in retrospect, perhaps wasn’t the nicest way to put it—but is exactly how I feel. If some councilmembers don’t want to raise revenue, they should make the hard decisions of where and what to cut. This blanket, city-wide cut feels like a hands-off attempt to distribute the burden equally but is exactly why I talk about the difference between equality and equity. This is the exact definition of an inequitable distribution of resources, and there’s no reason why departments providing services to those who need it most should face out-of-the-blue, unrelated budget cuts.

Related: The Mayor made his case for rolling back the Recession-era real estate tax cuts in the paper over the weekend.

Photo by: cpjRVA

Good morning, RVA! It’s 50 °F, and, after yesterday’s most beautiful weather, today we’ve got a bit cooler temperatures and rain probably lasting the entire day. This weekend’s weather looks great, though.

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Today, the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a column by Omari Al-Qadaffi, Takein Cooper, and Amy Wentz focused on how the Mayor’s proposed budget addresses some of the historical and systemic inequities and racism built into our City’s very infrastructure. Here’s the truth, in their words: “Now is the time for Richmond, with more than a quarter of its residents living beneath the poverty line, not only to attempt to build wealth for its historically marginalized residents, but to give to its youth, families and the city as a whole the justice they so rightfully deserve.”

Photo by: VaDOT

Good morning, RVA! It’s 40 °F, but later today it will be 70 °F and sunny. That sounds wonderful.

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The hands-free driving bill predictably died yesterday at the General Assembly, and I’m predictably frustrated. I assume some legislator somewhere will submit a similar bill during next year’s session, which is how these things go sometimes, but I’m still angry about the Republican trickeration that killed a bill which literally passed both houses of the GA. Gah! There are, of course, still policies we can and should implement to make our streets safer at the local level while state-level policies flounder. Take, for example, the recent move to lower speeds on some of our high-injury streets and this announcement from Mayor Stoney yesterday: “I’ve directed my team to begin the work of introducing an ordinance that will add an extra penalty for drivers who are distracted by the use of their cell 📱 while driving in Richmond.” Sounds great! Also, an ordinance requiring sidewalks to remain open during construction is another policy we could pass locally.

Photo by: tess_marie

Good morning, RVA! It’s 31 °F, but dang if highs won’t hit nearly 70 °F today. Too cold to ride a bike this morning, perfect bike-riding weather this afternoon: The Story of Spring.

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I don’t typically talk about the Board of Zoning Appeals, even though this is Richmond’s premier zoning and rezoning daily email newsletter. But today the BZA will hold a public hearing to consider an application for turning the Lee Medical Building on the southwest corner of Monument and Allen into 63 apartments (PDF) (1:00 PM, City Hall, 5th Floor Conference Room). If I understand it properly, the current office building doesn’t fit the existing zoning (R-6, single-family attached residential) and, after altering the building, the new, proposed apartments wouldn’t fit the existing zoning either. So off to the BZA we go. Councilmember Gray is against these apartments and distributed a letter to residents in the area—on official Council letterhead, even!—citing concerns over parking, traffic, a negative impact on property values, and the vague threat of “student housing.” These apartments are an opportunity to take an existing structure in a walkable, bikeable, close-to-transit neighborhood and convert it to over 60 places for folks to live! Richmond needs more, denser housing, and we shouldn’t squander any opportunity to create it. The thing that I can’t get over is that literally one block away there are MASSIVE apartment buildings on both the northwest and southeast corner of Monument and Lombardy, yet somehow we all survive. Anyway, if the above was too wonky/boring, read more about how the particulars of zoning work against creating a thriving neighborhood in this wonderful and human-readable thread from Twitter user @SmithNicholas.

Photo by: tess_marie

Good morning, RVA! It’s 31 °F, but dang if highs won’t hit nearly 70 °F today. Too cold to ride a bike this morning, perfect bike-riding weather this afternoon: The Story of Spring.

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I don’t typically talk about the Board of Zoning Appeals, even though this is Richmond’s premier zoning and rezoning daily email newsletter. But today the BZA will hold a public hearing to consider an application for turning the Lee Medical Building on the southwest corner of Monument and Allen into 63 apartments (PDF) (1:00 PM, City Hall, 5th Floor Conference Room). If I understand it properly, the current office building doesn’t fit the existing zoning (R-6, single-family attached residential) and, after altering the building, the new, proposed apartments wouldn’t fit the existing zoning either. So off to the BZA we go. Councilmember Gray is against these apartments and distributed a letter to residents in the area—on official Council letterhead, even!—citing concerns over parking, traffic, a negative impact on property values, and the vague threat of “student housing.” These apartments are an opportunity to take an existing structure in a walkable, bikeable, close-to-transit neighborhood and convert it to over 60 places for folks to live! Richmond needs more, denser housing, and we shouldn’t squander any opportunity to create it. The thing that I can’t get over is that literally one block away there are MASSIVE apartment buildings on both the northwest and southeast corner of Monument and Lombardy, yet somehow we all survive. Anyway, if the above was too wonky/boring, read more about how the particulars of zoning work against creating a thriving neighborhood in this wonderful and human-readable thread from Twitter user @SmithNicholas.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 30 °F, and today’s highs will top out in the 40s—plus there’s a decent chance of rain later this evening. Boooo! But don’t worry: Beginning tomorrow, the rest of the week looks springlike and incredible.

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If you support the hands-free driving bill and safer streets across Virginia, just like the majority of both houses of the General Assembly did earlier this year, take one minute this morning and let Speaker of the House Kirk Cox know. Additionally, if you have a Republican delegate or senator you can use this handy form over on Bike Walk RVA’s site to get them to talk to their good pal Delegate Cox about bringing the amended hands-free bill to the floor for a vote.

Tammie Smith at the Richmond Times-Dispatch was at a panel on food insecurity in the East End yesterday and reminds me that the new grocery story at 25th & Nine Mile opens on April 29th. Smith talks to some folks, including Senator Mark Warner, about how building grocery stores in lower-income areas often isn’t profitable until the area starts to (or already has) gentrified. I think you’re definitely seeing some of that in the northern part of Church Hill today. The big, tough question—as always—is how do we keep folks from being displaced? The smaller, still-tough question is how do we make sure folks have access to healthy food regardless of where they end up living? I’m glad smarter people than me are working on finding answers to both of these questions.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 32 °F, and our brief flirtation with fancy, late-springlike temperatures is over—check back on Wednesday. Today highs will just creep into the 50s, so bring a jacket.

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We’ve got a lot to get through this morning, so lets get started! Today, City Council will continue working through their scheduled budget work sessions. They’ll tackle “Safe Neighborhoods,” which includes presentations from the Commonwealth’s Attorney, Police, Fire and Emergency Services, Emergency Communications, and the Sheriff’s office. After that they’ll presumably discuss amendments. You can listen to these (fascinating) meetings by subscribing to the Boring Show podcast.

I’d hoped Superintendent Kamras would address the new, more expensive school construction cost estimates in his weekly email, and I am not disappointed! Let me just quote this bit, a thing I didn’t explicitly say but maybe does need saying outloud: “First, this is not a case of cost-overruns. The initial estimates were just flat-out wrong. The current numbers reflect the true, current market cost of building three schools in Richmond in 2019.” The $30 million increase is a case of bad forecasting, not of poor project management or waste or grift or whatever. Moving forward, Kamras will recommend that a 3rd party compile up-to-date and accurate construction costs for the rest of the new schools we need to build. There’s a lot more to like in this email, but I love his closing sentence: “If we can collectively avoid the inclination to weaponize every issue for the political fight of the day, and instead roll up our sleeves and the do the hard work of fixing our problems, there’s nothing we can’t achieve for our children.”

Photo by: Accretion%20Disc

Good morning, RVA! It’s 48 °F, and, whoa, get ready for a beautiful day. Highs in the mid 70s that will continue through tomorrow plus a generally dry forecast. We may see some cloudy skies, but the rain should hold off until Sunday. Fingers crossed!

Water cooler

A couple of days ago, Kelly Avellino at NBC12 posted this story about how the 17th Street Farmer’s Market project has run out of money for things like landscaping, benches, and fire pits. There’s a lot going on in that piece, but there a couple things on which I can cut the market some slack. First, the Franklin Street cut-through under the train station is a separate project, and, until it’s finished, breaks a useful connection between Downtown, the Market, and the Capital Trail—and probably makes the northern end of the space feel like a construction zone. Second, the utility shed redesign did have to go through the Urban Design Committee for approval late last year, and I imagine that’s holding up some finishing touches. However, a thing I cannot cut a single bit of slack about is the lack of seating—especially on a day like today, with sunshine and highs in the 70s. Enrichmond, the nonprofit that programs the space, should pull a Janet Sadik-Khan, and throw down a couple dozen lawn chairs today—this morning even. To inspire anyone with a checkbook and the authority to humanize our new public plaza, here’s a quick excerpt from Sadik-Khan’s book, Streetfight, about her pedestrian-focused redesign of Times Square: “We had café chairs and tables on order, but the wheels of municipal procurement didn’t move as fast as our traffic barrels, and it would be weeks before they arrived. The moment called for creativity and a bit of dumb luck. Tim Tompkins of the Times Square Alliance made feverish phone calls to find cheap seats, locating 376 beach chairs in lollipop colors at $10.74 each from Brooklyn’s Pintchik hardware store. The result was an immediate Broadway sensation. Within minutes of the closure there wasn’t a free beach seat in the house.”