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Good morning, RVA! It’s 41 °F, and today’s a bit warmer than the last couple of days, with highs in the mid 50s. You should expect a bit of rain throughout the weekend, and—you’d never expect this—highs in the 70s on Sunday. In December! OK!

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OneVirginia2021 has released their proposed constitutional amendment to create an independent redistricting commission (PDF). The method for selecting commission members is really interesting and shoots for balance rather than being a-political—which, duh, the group of a-political humans that exists that would serve on a redistricting commission is probably a null set. After formed, the commission would then go about their work, prioritizing a bunch of factors: preserving boundaries and residential subdivision lines, creating districts with equal population, following contiguity and compactness, and not drawing districts “to favor or disfavor any political party, incumbent legislator, member of Congress, individual or entity, nor…to abridge or deny the ability of substantial racial or ethnic minority communities to elect representatives of their choice.” The General Assembly will redraw the Congressional maps in 2021, so if this sounds like something you can get behind, holler at your legislators by signing up with OneVirginia2021. Michelle Hankerson at the Virginia Mercury has more background if you need it!

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Good morning, RVA! It’s 30 °F, and, while the sun will stick around today, the temperatures will scooch down to the mid 40s.

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Ruh roh Raggy, Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that folks are pushing to get Councilmember Agelasto removed from City Council after Robinson reported that Agelasto no longer lives in the 5th District. Call me cynical, but it does not seem like a coincidence that former 5th District Councilmember and 2016 mayoral candidate Chuck Richardson is leading this particular charge. I dunno y’all, rules is rules, and out of all sitting Councilfolk, Agelasto is the most intense about following the rules! So this really flips my lid. That said, for whatever reason—Agelasto’s long record of hard work in the 5th District, his encyclopedic knowledge on legislation in the 5th and citywide, that he’s not living out in Chesterfield or Henrico but down the road in the 1st District—I have a hard time getting my hackles up about this. I’m also nervous about losing one of the most detail-oriented people on Council right as we head into the heart of the conversation about the proposed Coliseum redevelopment.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 32 °F, and, with highs barely in the mid 40s, today it feels like the end of fall out there. Highs will shoot way up over the weekend, though, so maybe not quite yet.

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The 1st and 2nd (and now 3rd?) street bike lane is back! Kind of! Today, you can give your input (again) on these planned and paid-for bike lanes at the Main Library from 5:00–7:00 PM. As a Northsider, I’m super familiar with the lack of safe ways to get from my part of town to Downtown, and, because I’m an obnoxious bike person, I obviously support these bike lanes. But I want to be super clear about the benefit and purpose of these specific bike lanes: They begin to safely connect low-income, majority-Black residential neighborhoods on the City’s Northside to jobs Downtown. That’s what they’re for, that’s what they do. Today, a ton of folks already take that trip on bike, and we should make it safer for them to do so.

Blerg, Mark Robinson reports, in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, that the Richmond Sheriff’s Office has way overrun their budget 💸. Sounds like most of the problem is overtime pay due to vacancies, which can be a tough problem to solve. Is the agency so underfunded and salaries so low that no one wants to take these jobs? Would fully funding the Sheriff actually bring overall costs down (I have no clue what that looks like, but this is one of the things we should listen for during next year’s budget season)? Or does the Sheriff just need to do a better dang job and make hiring staff a top priority? Tough to know, but it’s definitely a blerg, because now the City needs to find a few million dollars in the municipal couch to cover the overrun.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 38 °F, and today should be a bit cooler. Expect highs in the upper 40s and a lot more sun than yesterday.

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Michael Paul Williams’s column in the Richmond Times-Dispatch today again looks at the proposed Coliseum redevelopment 💸 , and he again remains skeptical—although not about the need for a new arena. Williams also talks with Councilmember Gray who says a thing I agree with: “Nobody’s seen the plan. How can someone be for or against something they haven’t seen?” While we still lack the details to know exactly what’s going on with this massive project, it has started to smell more and more inevitable. But! I do truly believe that the details are up for debate—and, more than that, I believe that the Mayor really does want a ton of input on how to make the pieces of this project better. With that in mind, here are just a few of the pieces I’d like to see made better, in no particular order: The GRTC transfer station should be an easy and pleasant walk from the Pulse for all folks regardless of the day, time, or weather; the TIF should be way, way smaller and certainly not include any of Monroe Ward; and the Department of Social Service should be on a major corridor—10 minutes off of Route 1 behind a railroad track, some ponds, and a forest doesn’t count! These are just my opinions and the first ones that came to mind this morning; I’m sure you have your own. Precisely because we’re all bristling with ideas and opinions, I’m really looking forward to how the Mayor’s administration, City Council, and the developers of this project set out to do real public engagement after we know all of the details. I reserve the right to be real sad if they just don’t.

Hey, this is neat: The former Mayor of New York City David Dinkins wrote our mayor a letter in support of renaming the Boulevard to Arthur Ashe Boulevard. Dinkins and Ashe were friends, and the former remains the only Black mayor of New York City. The ordinance to make this happen, ORD. 2018–228, sits on the agenda for the December 18th Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee meeting (along with every other ordinance I’m interested in). Related, someone linked me to this well-designed, but seemingly anonymous, Arthur Ashe Boulevard marketing website.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 48 °F. Temperatures today will approach 60 °F, and there’s a chance for a bit of rain on the horizon.

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First, a correction! Last week I mischaracterized Housing Families First after they scooped up a big grant from Jeff Bezos’s philanthropic organization. Kelly King Horne, the director of Homeward who knows more about this topic than I could ever hope to, wrote in to let me know that HFF hasn’t provided transitional housing in years and that this is a better description of the organization: “Housing Families First provides emergency shelter for families with consistently high outcomes for housing placements and connections to employment, provides high quality rapid re-housing for families with significant barriers to housing, and have just developed a diversion team as part of a system-level collaborative to help families find safe and stable alternatives to emergency shelter when appropriate. They use data to drive their decision-making and programming and focus on helping households tap into their natural and long-lasting systems of support.” Horne also gave me some insight and context into why it’s a Big Deal that a Richmond area organization won this grant: “The reason HFF was selected (and the reason RVA punches above our weight nationally on homelessness) is because they transformed to a low-barrier, housing-focused emergency shelter and provide rapid re-housing. The recognition they are getting as part of the Day1 Fund is well-deserved for their current work. Their focus on helping households with children experiencing homelessness get into stable housing quickly is worth highlighting.”

By now it should be exceedingly clear that I do not know enough about housing, even though it’s clearly one of the most important issues facing our region. Keeping that in mind, I don’t understand some of the goals RRHA has for a development RFP in Blackwell, via Mark Robinson at the RTD. Specifically, I don’t get this: The housing authority will seek a developer for 96 properties in the neighborhood, with about half of those “developed into market-rate single-family homes in…an effort to build a mixed-income neighborhood.” I get it. Without a substantial fund to help subsidize affordable housing development, it’s hard for developers or nonprofits to make the numbers work and keep 100% of these properties affordable. This just seems like a big missed opportunity—but we’ll see how some of region’s housing nonprofits answer the RFP next month. Possibly ill-informed side note: I feel weird about our housing authority leading the charge to build a bunch of market-rate stuff in a neighborhood that just went through a stressful community-wide conversation about development and gentrification.

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Good morning, RVA! It’s 35 °F, and, weatherwise, we’ve got more of the same on tap: highs in the mid 50s and sunshine. Over the holiday break, you can expect temperatures to drop a bit and some rain to move into the area on Saturday.

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Speaking of the holiday break, government office have weird hours (the City shuts down at 12:00 PM today), so keep that in mind if you’re planning any municipal errands. I’m also going to take some weird hours to celebrate my most favorite holiday of the year and will speak to you again in this space on Monday!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 50 °F, and highs today look like they’ll top out around 60 °F. The extended forecast is looking dry until this weekend.

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The City’s Land Use, Housing and Transportation Committee will meet today at 1:00 PM and has a couple of interesting things on their agenda. First, ORD. 2018–153 would add an unnecessary left turn lane from southbound Belvidere onto eastbound Broad Street. Councilmember Gray introduced this ordinance back in May of this year, right before the Pulse opened and during the height of Pulse Panic. Turns out the new bus did not destroy the very fabric of reality, everyone lived, and now we don’t need to go adding in more ways for cars to disrupt our public transportation. This ordinance should be withdrawn. Second, ORD. 2018–194, the anti-bike lane ordinance, is still, somehow, on the agenda. Aside from my personal, very pro-bike lane opinions, I‘m real against this political strategy of introducing legislation to prevent a planned, funded, and approved project and then just continuing it forever and ever. It de facto kills the project and is not how our City government is supposed to work. This ordinance should also be withdrawn. Third, ORD. 2018–288 is the new scooter ordinance! I feel bad because I still haven’t had time to really kick the tires on this new attempt to regulate dockless vehicles, but I do know that the City tweaked the vehicle fee structure, bringing it down to something that works out to $265 per vehicle per year for 100 vehicles, $207.50 per vehicle per year for 200 vehicles, and $123 per vehicle per year for 500 vehicles. These aren’t technically per-vehicle fees but application fees based on the number of vehicles you’re putting out on the street. After a quick skim of the legislation, it does look like all the big pieces I was after are in there—although the bit about preventing bikes and scooters from operating after sunset seems too intense.

Richmond City Councilmember Parker Agelasto announced that he would not seek re-election in 2020 (PDF). That election is…a ways a way, but the extreme lead time does give the 5th District plenty of time to find some high-quality candidates. Is that candidate you?

Good morning, RVA! It’s 41 °F, and, somehow, today you can expect highs near 60 °F! Sure! The sky might be a little cloudy, but, other than that, the weather looks great until Thursday when temperatures start to drop.

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Richmond Police are reporting that two people were murdeed over the weekend. At 10:30 AM on Saturday officers arrived at the 1400 block of Bryan Street and found Danzall Seward, 24, shot. He would die at a hospital later in the evening. At 10:09 PM police were called to the 3400 block of Maury Street and found Demon Booker, 31, shot to death.

Photo by: Jonathan Piques

Good morning, RVA! It’s 39 °F, the rain has moved on, and, today, sunshine will take its place. Expect highs in the 50s and similar weather over the weekend.

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Yesterday, the governor signed Executive Order Twenty Five (PDF), which “establishes new state housing policy priorities designed to enhance the quality, availability, and affordability of housing in the Commonwealth.” I continue to not know a ton about how state government works, but this executive order doesn’t seem to do a whole lot of anything—other than some virtue signaling. Which is something? I guess? There are 1,001 housing policy experts in the Commonwealth, and we could ask them today for a very short list of housing policies that would meet the governor’s goals. I bet those lists even already exist on several of their websites! Anyway, we’ll see what the General Assembly feels like doing come spring. I’ve got my housing hopes pinned on Senator McClellan‘s inclusionary zoning bill from last session. Related: The City’s slow and reactive response to scooters makes me wonder what we could be doing now to make sure we have the pieces in place for good local inclusionary zoning legislation if/when it passes at the state level.

Photo by: Jonathan Piques

Good morning, RVA! It’s 39 °F, the rain has moved on, and, today, sunshine will take its place. Expect highs in the 50s and similar weather over the weekend.

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Yesterday, the governor signed Executive Order Twenty Five (PDF), which “establishes new state housing policy priorities designed to enhance the quality, availability, and affordability of housing in the Commonwealth.” I continue to not know a ton about how state government works, but this executive order doesn’t seem to do a whole lot of anything—other than some virtue signaling. Which is something? I guess? There are 1,001 housing policy experts in the Commonwealth, and we could ask them today for a very short list of housing policies that would meet the governor’s goals. I bet those lists even already exist on several of their websites! Anyway, we’ll see what the General Assembly feels like doing come spring. I’ve got my housing hopes pinned on Senator McClellan‘s inclusionary zoning bill from last session. Related: The City’s slow and reactive response to scooters makes me wonder what we could be doing now to make sure we have the pieces in place for good local inclusionary zoning legislation if/when it passes at the state level.

Photo by: Jonathan Piques

Good morning, RVA! It’s 37 °F and rainy. There’s a better than average chance of lots of cold, gross rain throughout day, so buckle up, hold on tight, and wait for tomorrow when the sun comes out for the foreseeable future!

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The Commonwealth Institute has a good post up that throws a bit of cold water—lukewarm water, maybe?—on the Amazon deal (and really all super big economic development projects (maybe you can think of one locally, idk)). The gist: Megadeals are complex and hard to understand, and electeds, media, and normal people should be given the time and resources to work through them.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 43 °F, which is probably close to today’s high, and we’ve got a break in the rain for most of the day. Tomorrow, though, woooo boy. NBC12’s Andrew Friedan says things could even kick off with a little sleet!

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I’m sure y’all saw all the news yesterday that Amazon finally decided that the location of its new HQ2 would in fact be two locations for two HQs: Queens and Arlington. My entire feed filled very quickly with hot takes and stayed full for most of the day. The Governor recorded this pretty bland but on-brand announcement video. Internet Person Taber says we should expect the deal to sail smoothly through the General Assembly and also provided a link to the PDF of the MOUs with both the state and Arlington. Del. Carter points out that Amazon had beefier incentive options elsewhere but still ended up in NOVA, which maybe says something about their municipal Hunger Games. Michael Martz at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a run down of all of the incentives the state gave to the company owned by the literal richest man in the world, in which you’ll hear the familiar political economic development refrain of “there’s zero financial risk.” Plus there were 1,001 articles about how Amazon’s process was a sham, how cities shouldn’t need huge companies and their RFPs to craft better transportation and housing policies, and how Amazon Is A Really Bad Company. Honestly, it was a lot to sort through. If you’ve already done the sorting and a have a favorite Amazon-related read, send it my way!

City Council was a bit of a nothing burger last night. The Mayor chose not to introduce legislation related to the proposed Coliseum redevelopment, he withdrew the ordinance modifying the agreement with Stone Brewing about the Intermediate Terminal building, and he also withdrew the Scooter Ordinance. Working backwards from that list: I think we will see a new and improved Scooter Ordinance on the agenda in December—I should hope so, because, jeez, we’ve been talking about it for almost six months at this point. Next, I have no idea what is going on with the Stone Bistro situation, but wold love some insight / conspiracy theories. And finally, Council’s next scheduled meeting, and last one of the year, will take place on December 10th which is the next soonest date we could see a Coliseum-related legislative package.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 46 °F, and today you can expect highs to juuuuust creep into the 50s. Later this afternoon we may see some rain and other general crumminess. Things dry out for good this weekend, though.

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Tonight at 6:00 PM City Council will meet for their regularly scheduled meeting—one day later than regular due to Veterans Day—and the agenda is long and arduous (PDF). I wish there were some way to track this, but at 43 items, this feels like one of the longest agendas I’ve seen. Only 23 items out of 43 remain active at this moment, and surely more will be continued at today’s informal meeting. I wonder what it means—if anything—that items keep on stacking up rather than making their way to a final vote? Anyway! Of note on tonight’s massive agenda: preventing the state-induced automatic reduction of real estate tax (but still keeping the tax at a much-too-low rate of $1.20), the modified Stone Brewing agreement (which will probably be continued), and a couple ordinances related to dogs and animal bites. Tonight’s show stopper, however, comes at the end of the meeting when the Mayor may introduce a package of ordinances to move the proposed Coliseum redevelopment project forward. Keep your eye on Mark Robinson’s Twitter account as he’ll most likely be in Council Chambers with a first look (assuming anything gets introduced at all).

Michael Paul Williams weighs in on the City’s proposal to move the Department of Social Services from behind City Hall to a deeply inaccessible spot on the Southside 💸. He is not pleased. Neither is locally-famous urban planning professional and professor John Moeser who says, “In a city known for its history, it’s bewildering how often we act as if we had no history at all.” Scudder Wagg, who helped redesign Richmond’s bus system and now works for international public transit expert Jarrett Walker, weighs in on Twitter with “There is no increase in bus service that could address this terrible location choice. This would dramatically increase the time it takes for people to reach the SS office and I would hope that @LevarStoney would reconsider.” I agree. Even with more of the folks served by Social Services living on the Southside, the proposed location is still harder to get to than Downtown—a lot of that has to do with land use and how southern Richmond is very dang spread out and poorly connected. For example, look at this hilarious trip from Walmsley and Route 1 to the proposed location that’s ostensibly also on Walmsley.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 35 °F, and rain dominates the forecast again. Expect temperatures in the 50s this morning, but rain to show up this afternoon and cool things down a bit. Bring your umbrella, of course.

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Late last week, police reported a murder that occurred on the 3300 block of Decatur Street. On Wednesday morning officers arrived and found Dawn S. Dutcher, 50, dead.

Photo by: sandy's dad

Good morning, RVA! It’s 49 °F, and the forecast today is filled with rain. Expect a decent chance of showers throughout the day, followed by a solidly sunny weekend.

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Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has some news about the City potentially relocating the Department of Social Services 💸 from directly behind City Hall to the deep, deep Southside in the old Philip Morris Operations Center. Robinson says the move is to “clear the way for the $1.4 billion redevelopment of the area around the Richmond Coliseum” and that 350 employees and 3,600 clients would now need to make their way out to the new location each and every day. That’s a lot of folks trying to get to a location that’s hard to access by anything other than a car. Sure, the area is currently served by a peak-only bus route, the #88 (PDF), but you’d think that would need to become an all-day route if the move were to happen. Right? I dunno, seems like a far-flung spot for something that needs to be fairly central. To be clear, I definitely have absolutely zero inside knowledge on this conversation, but, from the way, way outside it looks like a plan built without making equitable access a priority. That makes me sad, but I do reserve the right to be corrected and shown how the new location (paired with some transportation improvements) actually makes more sense for the folks who’d need to access it most. Until then, though, I’m sad. Also, while we’re talking new Southside bus routes, check out this more expensive option ($2.8 million) that would provide access to the proposed Social Services site while also improving frequencies across a big chunk of the Southside. Councilmembers Jones, Trammel, and Agelasto: You should check this out! It’s “Service Improvement 93” in GRTC’s TDP (PDF) and you could totally make it happen!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 56 °F, and temperatures will stick right where there are for most of the day. Seems like a reasonable fall day on deck.

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Well, I finally read through the entire 181-page coliseum redevelopment proposal PDF—which I’ve been asked to remind you is not a PDF of the actual proposal, but, instead, a PDF of the 3rd-party analysis of the proposal by Hunden Strategic Partners. Again, you can read through most of the interesting thoughts I had in this Twitter thread, but I am still stewing on at least three things. First, this PDF is not a description of the financial agreement that will make the project work. If you’re expecting specific details about the TIF, interest rates, debt repayment schedules, that kind of thing, you will be disappointed. And to be clear, this is information that folks definitely need to see (even if it’s boring and complicated)! Second, the Convention Center gets a heckuva deal: A new hotel, preferred booking rights in that hotel, access to additional space in the Blues Armory, and, correct me if I’m wrong, they’ll get the entirety of any new lodging taxes create by the project (PDF). I’ll be the first to admit that I know next to nothing about the convention and hotel business, but the arguments and charts and tables laid out in the Hunden PDF didn’t do it for me. Third, there’s almost no analysis of the GRTC Transfer Center. I’ve said before that the need for humane facilities for bus riders is super important, but the need for a single, massive downtown transfer point (several blocks off of Broad Street) is not pressing. Currently, buses do, however, need a spot to congregate in the evening, but I will be upset about a vast many other things if in 30 years (the length of this particular analysis) we haven’t improved bus service to obviate the need for an evening transfer point. If you’d like to weigh in on any of these topics or any other, the developer has scheduled a bunch of public engagement sessions. Interestingly, the last engagement session takes place several days after the final City Council meeting of the year, which I think says something about the timeline we’re working with.

The Urban Design Committee will meet today with a few interesting things on their agenda. Check out this pedestrian improvement and traffic calming project at the intersection of Shafer and Franklin (PDF). Although I’m not a super huge fan of brick crosswalks, this looks like it would slow traffic, improve visibility, and shorten the crossing distances for pedestrians. Tons of humans, VCU and otherwise, cross this intersection on the way to and from the Pulse station up on Broad Street. Speaking of, UDC will also look at streetscape improvements that were funded as part of the Pulse project. More details are theoretically contained within this PDF (PDF), but it was too big to open on my iPad, so I guess we’ll never know? Most exciting, again, theoretically because I can’t really look at the dang PDF, is the planned closure of a bunch of curb cuts. Finally, here are the conceptual “location, character, and extent review” for the new middle school (PDF) and new elementary school (PDF) that the meals tax increase bought us.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 54 °F, and today looks lovely. Expect highs in the upper 60s and lots of sunshine—for the next couple of days, even!

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Gah! What a stressful, wild-ride of an Election Night. Locally, Senator Tim Kaine won his reelection, dominating Corey Stewart—who will now, fingers crossed, just go away. Democratic women flipped three Republican congressional districts: Elaine Luria in the 2nd, Jennifer Wexton in the 10th, and, of course, Abigail Spanberger in the 7th. Cheryl Burke will continue to represent the City’s 7th District on the RPS School Board. Dan Schmitt won the Henrico Board of Supervisors Brookland District Special Election, handing control of the Board back to Republicans. And the two Constitutional Amendments both passed easily. Nationally, lots of things happened, but Democrats retook control of the House, Florida restored voting rights to millions of felons, and Michigan dramatically modernized their voting system. I had four goals going into last night: Democratic control of the House, Democratic control of the Henrico Board of Supervisors, SPANBERGER, and that racist Iowa Representative Steve King would lose. I went two for two.

This Back Page column in Style Weekly by Nikki Patterson-Russel is exactly the kind of thing I think about when we talk about rolling back the recession-era cuts to the property tax. We have deep, immense needs in Richmond—needs that stretch beyond schools and into public housing, affordable housing, and transportation. Whenever we decide to get up the political gumption to have a serious conversation about the property tax, we gotta think about all of our needs.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 56 °F and rainy. The rain will continue through the morning as temperatures warm up a bit—gross start to the day, though.

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Richmond police are reporting a murder that occurred the evening of November 2nd. At 6:46 PM, officers arrived to the 5700 block of Westover Village Drive and found Brandon Law, 22, shot to death.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 69 °F, and highs are back up in the 70s again. Rain will move in this evening, and clouds will fill the sky until then. The weekend’s weather is looking pretty fine, though!

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The proposed Coliseum redevelopment continues to dominate the news! Yesterday, after Mark Robinson’s report that the TIF had leveled up to a BigTIF, the Mayor’s office held a press conference to announce that “the City of Richmond has reached an agreement, in principle, with the nonprofit NH District Corporation for the development of the Navy Hill neighborhood north of Broad Street.” You can read a full transcript of the Mayor’s remarks here. I stopped by the press conference for a quick second and found a couple things interesting. First, in Stoney’s rundown of how this project would benefit Richmond, replacing the Coliseum came in eighth on the list—below jobs, contracts for minority businesses, affordable housing, a GRTC transfer center, restoring the Blues Armory, raising up Leigh Street to grade (!), and a 500-room hotel. Second, he said something that sounds like a soft no against rolling back the recession-era property tax cuts (at least until the State kicks in more funding for education): “We know the state has shortchanged Richmond Public Schools in education funding. And that same state government, which we are home to as a capital city, has many lovely buildings that occupy a substantial portion of our downtown—and don’t pay taxes. We can—and we are—demanding more. But until that happens, we can’t burden our homeowners and residents with more taxes and higher costs.” Third, he addressed what I wondered about in this space yesterday (and continue to wonder about): How much revenue will the area contained in the new BigTIF generate if we just let it grow organically? PDFs should drop today addressing this, but ahead of those he said, “In fact, based on the analysis of our third party, we believe that this project could provide our city with over $1.7 billion of revenue over 30 years. This far exceeds the revenue that would be generated if we did nothing. Ladies and Gentleman, there is a cost for doing nothing.” Of course, I wouldn’t characterize rebuilding the downtown neighborhood currently occupied by the hulking Coliseum with an interesting and thriving mix of small-scale uses as “doing nothing.” But I am, admittedly, an optimist who has read at least most of Jane Jacobs’s book. Anyway, stay tuned for those PDFs and for an ordinance to hit Council’s agenda in the next couple of weeks.

Medicaid expansion in Virginia went live yesterday, and Bridget Balch at the Richmond Times-Dispatch says a record number of folks are calling in to figure out what’s what. This is a big deal! Before yesterday’s expansions, Virginia’s Medicaid qualifications were embarrassing and draconic. As Virginia Interfaith Center’s Kim Bobo says in the aforelinked article, “[Medicaid expansion] puts flesh on the Golden Rule.”

Good morning, RVA! It’s 69 °F, and highs are back up in the 70s again. Rain will move in this evening, and clouds will fill the sky until then. The weekend’s weather is looking pretty fine, though!

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The proposed Coliseum redevelopment continues to dominate the news! Yesterday, after Mark Robinson’s report that the TIF had leveled up to a BigTIF, the Mayor’s office held a press conference to announce that “the City of Richmond has reached an agreement, in principle, with the nonprofit NH District Corporation for the development of the Navy Hill neighborhood north of Broad Street.” You can read a full transcript of the Mayor’s remarks here. I stopped by the press conference for a quick second and found a couple things interesting. First, in Stoney’s rundown of how this project would benefit Richmond, replacing the Coliseum came in eighth on the list—below jobs, contracts for minority businesses, affordable housing, a GRTC transfer center, restoring the Blues Armory, raising up Leigh Street to grade (!), and a 500-room hotel. Second, he said something that sounds like a soft no against rolling back the recession-era property tax cuts (at least until the State kicks in more funding for education): “We know the state has shortchanged Richmond Public Schools in education funding. And that same state government, which we are home to as a capital city, has many lovely buildings that occupy a substantial portion of our downtown—and don’t pay taxes. We can—and we are—demanding more. But until that happens, we can’t burden our homeowners and residents with more taxes and higher costs.” Third, he addressed what I wondered about in this space yesterday (and continue to wonder about): How much revenue will the area contained in the new BigTIF generate if we just let it grow organically? PDFs should drop today addressing this, but ahead of those he said, “In fact, based on the analysis of our third party, we believe that this project could provide our city with over $1.7 billion of revenue over 30 years. This far exceeds the revenue that would be generated if we did nothing. Ladies and Gentleman, there is a cost for doing nothing.” Of course, I wouldn’t characterize rebuilding the downtown neighborhood currently occupied by the hulking Coliseum with an interesting and thriving mix of small-scale uses as “doing nothing.” But I am, admittedly, an optimist who has read at least most of Jane Jacobs’s book. Anyway, stay tuned for those PDFs and for an ordinance to hit Council’s agenda in the next couple of weeks.

Medicaid expansion in Virginia went live yesterday, and Bridget Balch at the Richmond Times-Dispatch says a record number of folks are calling in to figure out what’s what. This is a big deal! Before yesterday’s expansions, Virginia’s Medicaid qualifications were embarrassing and draconic. As Virginia Interfaith Center’s Kim Bobo says in the aforelinked article, “[Medicaid expansion] puts flesh on the Golden Rule.”