Podcast appearances and mentions of chris suarez

In this episode of Listing Bits, Greg Robertson sits down with Ben Kinney, CEO and co-founder of Place, to talk about Place's acquisition of Remine, how Ben built his PropTech empire from the ground up, and what's next for the platform. Ben shares his personal journey from growing up in rural Washington to building a half-billion-dollar business, and lays out his vision for supporting agents, MLSs, and consumers through technology, services, and long-term stability. Key Takeaways Place Acquires Remine – Ben shares why his team bought Remine out of bankruptcy, what they plan to do with the platform, and how MLSs can expect immediate support. A Business Built for Agents – Place focuses on helping top teams across brokerages run more profitable and efficient businesses without trying to replace brokers or compete with their models. Three Keys to Product Adoption – Ben breaks down his framework for driving usage: show users how, show them why, and show them others who've succeeded. From CRM to Services – Place provides agents with everything from CRMs and marketing tools to bookkeeping, HR, title services, and even AI-powered handwritten notes. CCP and Cooperation – Ben shares his views on Clear Cooperation and listing exclusivity, emphasizing transparency, consumer benefit, and the importance of cooperation. Long-Term Vision – Ben discusses Place's public company aspirations, upcoming acquisitions, and consumer-focused services like moving support—all while keeping control of the business. Links Place.com https://place.com Active Rain https://activerain.com Mom's “No Bake” Cookie recipe 1 stick of butter 2 c sugar 1/4 c cocoa powder 1/2 c milk 3 c oatmeal 1/2 c crunchy peanut butter 1 tsp vanilla Stir butter, sugar, cocoa, milk in saucepan until boil. Boil at low for 2 mins. Remove from heat and add in oatmeal, peanut butter, vanilla.   WAV Group Interview: Meet Ben Kinney and Chris Suarez of Place – new owners of Remine - https://www.wavgroup.com/2025/04/22/meet-ben-kinney-and-chris-suarez-of-place-new-owners-of-remine/ Our Sponsors Trackxi – Real Estate's #1 Deal Tracking Software Giant Steps Job Board – Where ORE gets hired Production and editing services by: Sunbound Studios

Join host Lucas Sherraden and Chris Suarez, co-founder of PLACE, on the Built HOW Podcast as they dive into building successful real estate teams. They explore maximizing per-agent productivity using a six-step process centered on psyche, preparation, process, promotion, performance, and post-activity. Chris reveals insights on sustaining long-term growth, providing systems that empower agents, and fostering a business environment where quality meets quantity. Gain valuable takeaways on creating a scalable, productive real estate business that benefits agents and clients alike. Learn more about PLACE at https://place.com/  ---------- Visit www.builthow.com to sign up for our next live or virtual event. Part of the Win Make Give Podcast Network

Join Ryan Greigg and Jacqueline Smith in this invigorating episode of the "15 Point Plan" podcast as they delve into the concept of perfectionism and how it impacts our well-being. Inspired by their business partner Chris Suarez, they explore the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, which celebrates imperfection and impermanence. Jacqueline and Ryan share personal struggles with perfectionism and discuss strategies to overcome them, including redefining success and adjusting goals. The episode explores how the 15 Point Plan can be customized to fit different life seasons, emphasizing progress over perfection. This episode is a heartfelt discussion about embracing our perfectly imperfect selves and redefining success on our terms. ---------- Connect with the 15 Point Plan: 15 Point Plan: https://WinMakeGive.com/15-point-plan/ Win Make Give Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/WinMakeGive   Learn more about the co-hosts: Jacqueline Smith: https://www.instagram.com/jacquelinerae_smith/ Ryan Greigg: https://www.instagram.com/bentleysoldman/ Book one of our co-hosts for your next event: https://WinMakeGive.com/speakers/ Part of the Win Make Give Podcast Network

CHRIS SUAREZ - EP. 8 - BROKERS DESK PODCAST - REAL ESTATE PODCAST JOE HERRERA TAYLOR PRINCEBrokers Desk Podcast - Real Estate Coaching, Leadership & Collaboration PodcastJoin real estate experts, Joe Herrera and Taylor Prince weekly at The Broker's Table as they collaborate with the brightest minds in the real estate industry. This podcast offers invaluable insights, proven techniques, and keeps its listeners up-to-date on the latest trends in the ever-evolving real estate market. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting out, 'The Broker's Table' equips you with the knowledge and tools to enhance your business. When it comes to staying ahead in real estate, this podcast is your trusted sourceJoe Herrerahttps://www.instagram.com/joeherrera/Taylor Princehttps://www.instagram.com/_taylorprince_/Watch Us On Youtubehttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGfoU8p4bdOArl2G0KIXpEQhttps://open.spotify.com/show/4Qea9kLQ6LaXHMElnliiPi?si=bb27256ea8e349bb

Resilience is a crucial skill that can empower individuals and businesses to navigate challenges and thrive even in uncertain times. In this episode, Brendon speaks with Chris Suarez from Place.com and dives into practical strategies, mindset shifts, and actionable insights to help you develop the resilience needed to withstand economic fluctuations. By the end of this episode, you'll be armed with invaluable tools and a renewed sense of determination to not only survive but thrive in the current economic climate. Get ready to revolutionize your approach to challenges and embrace resilience as the key to your success. “Recalibrating toward action and progress is how I think about resilience. It's a recalibration towards two things which are action and progress.” If you're looking for tips on how to be resilient in the current economy, this episode is for you! 1. Get the GrowthDay app for all your personal development in one place:  https://growthday.com 2. Read my bestselling book, High Performance Habits: https://amzn.to/2vhf82C 3. Get the High Performance System online (the full course and assessment!): https://www.growthday.com/hps 4. Get the Confidence Masterclass: https://www.growthday.com/confidence 5. Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brendonburchard

In today's episode, we're talking about our decision to join Place, the thought process behind this move, and the value proposition Place delivers to real estate teams. When you hear about Place and many top real estate teams joining it, you probably wonder why a team in a brokerage like eXp would want to bolt on this set of services to their organization. Place encompasses a lot and brings a ton of value to the table. We're going to share why we believe in Place and the team behind it, the opportunities we're going to create for our agents and staff, and why the whole industry needs to be paying attention to it.    We believe that it would have been irresponsible not to join Place, especially with where real estate is headed. We believe in Place's system and what Ben Kinney and Chris Suarez are doing - it's the right way to operate a real estate team today, and it would be hard for any team to top or even match what they are bringing to the table.   We get to latch onto something that's already headed in the right direction, and our agents and staff are going to get the value proposition they deserve.   CTA   ​​Please leave us a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/nla

In today's episode, I'm going to share some thoughts on a recent call I was on with PLACE Inc's Chris Suarez about influence, how it works and why it's key to recruiting and real estate sales.    Whether we're trying to recruit an agent to our brokerage or get a seller to work with us, influence is the name of the game. Converting a person and helping them move forward into something that's right for them isn't a surface level thing. We have to interrupt patterns and programs that are so deeply rooted, a tactical conversation just won't cut it.    Even if you're presenting the right thing for them, you're going against years of identity, beliefs and psychological barriers. Today I share how influence helps us get past that.   CTA ​​Please leave us a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/nla

Don't miss BuiltHOW LIVE!   BuiltHOW LIVE is back in a brand new location! Join hosts Debbie De Grote, Ben Kinney, and Chris Suarez in beautiful Palm Springs, California on March 22nd-24th as they interview amazing top professionals from across the nation to discover how they are winning professionally and personally.   Get ready to be inspired by our keynote speakers then mix and mingle with your peers at an outdoor networking reception set against a stunning desert mountain backdrop.   Join us for 2.5 days of discovery and networking (PLUS an optional half-day mastermind).   This is a MUST-ATTEND event for every professional who is ready to reignite their passion and discover the untapped potential in their life and business.  ---------- Visit www.builthow.com to get registered   Part of the Win Make Give Podcast Network

In today's episode, we're talking about our decision to join Place, the thought process behind this move, and the value proposition Place delivers to real estate teams. When you hear about Place and many top real estate teams joining it, you probably wonder why a team in a brokerage like eXp would want to bolt on this set of services to their organization. Place encompasses a lot and brings a ton of value to the table. We're going to share why we believe in Place and the team behind it, the opportunities we're going to create for our agents and staff, and why the whole industry needs to be paying attention to it.    We believe that it would have been irresponsible not to join Place, especially with where real estate is headed. We believe in Place's system and what Ben Kinney and Chris Suarez are doing - it's the right way to operate a real estate team today, and it would be hard for any team to top or even match what they are bringing to the table.   We get to latch onto something that's already headed in the right direction, and our agents and staff are going to get the value proposition they deserve.   CTA   ​​Please leave us a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/nla

Cell and gene therapy scientists are under increasing pressure to achieve results faster and produce cells and cell products more cost-efficiently. Field applications scientists from their major suppliers can provide invaluable support, helping to optimize processes, utilize new platforms and technologies more effectively, and avoid costly errors. In this podcast, three veteran Field Applications Scientists from Corning Life Sciences - Austin Mogen, Catherine Siler, and Chris Suarez - share their expertise and lessons learned over decades of experience. 

In today's episode, I'm joined by real estate team leader, co-founder and co-CEO of Place Inc, Chris Suarez. With over 1000 agents/teams on the platform, and a billion dollar valuation, Place is focused on not only plugging small holes by solving singular problems but facilitating consumer decisions at all points of the transaction and for the whole life cycle of homeownership.    Chris Suarez is the co-founder and co-CEO of PLACE Inc., a full service real estate and technology platform that partners with the top 1% of agents and teams by helping expand their profitability, value proposition to the consumer, and grow their unique local brand, all without having to leave the brokerage where they are currently affiliated Chris is passionate about coaching and speaking and leads a number of coaching and consulting programs. You will also find Chris speaking at industry events across the globe.   Prior to PLACE Inc., Chris founded and served as the CEO of Xperience Real Estate, one of the top real estate expansion organizations in the US. Chris has been recognized as an Inman Innovator, RISMedia Real Estate Newsmaker and maintains a presence on the Real Trends "The Thousand". In addition to his real estate team, Chris owns and operates five real estate brokerages in the United States. Chris' personal mission is to build “xperiential” lives through real estate. Chris lives this mission through travel and by creating lifetime “xperiences” with his wife and two daughters.   This problem trickles down to how we treat our clients, why they aren't loyal to us and why so many tech companies have been able to disrupt parts of the transaction. According to Place Inc's co-founder and co-CEO, Chris Suarez - this problem comes from us not trusting our model enough to be consistent with it. If we trusted our business models and showed up consistently, we would not only have more stability, we could blow disruptors out of the water with solutions that make the whole cycle of homeownership a thousand times better.    Guest Info   Chris Suarez is the co-founder and co-CEO of PLACE Inc., a full service real estate and technology platform that partners with the top 1% of agents and teams by helping expand their profitability, value proposition to the consumer, and grow their unique local brand, all without having to leave the brokerage where they are currently affiliated Chris is passionate about coaching and speaking and leads a number of coaching and consulting programs. You will also find Chris speaking at industry events across the globe.   Prior to PLACE Inc., Chris founded and served as the CEO of Xperience Real Estate, one of the top real estate expansion organizations in the US. Chris has been recognized as an Inman Innovator, RISMedia Real Estate Newsmaker and maintains a presence on the Real Trends "The Thousand". In addition to his real estate team, Chris owns and operates five real estate brokerages in the United States. Chris' personal mission is to build “xperiential” lives through real estate. Chris lives this mission through travel and by creating lifetime “xperiences” with his wife and two daughters.   For more information, go to https://place.com/ or connect Chris on LinkedIn and Facebook.  CTA   ​​Please leave us a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/nla  

Debbie De Grote interviews Chris Suarez about how he balances life & business. Chris discusses how he built his business with consistent actions, creating relationships with his clients, and following a system that gets proven results. ---------- Visit www.builthow.com to sign up for our next live or virtual event.   Part of the Win Make Give Podcast Network

Good morning, RVA! It's 58 °F, and it rained! The storms have moved through, though, and now we've got a pleasant fall day ahead of us. Expect highs in the mid 60s, some clouds, and dry weather for at least the next couple of days. Water cooler One quick coronaupdate this morning for iPhone users: iOS 15.1 came out yesterday, and that means you can now store your vaccination card in the Wallet app. Just fill out this form on vaccinate.virginia.gov, and you'll end up with a QR code and a link that'll automatically load up your information as a fun card in Wallet.app. I think once you get boosted, you can even update it with that information, too. Neat! The Richmond Times-Dispatch's Chris Suarez has the update from last night's final City Council meeting on the Mayor's proposed ARPA spending plan, and it sounds like Council approved the whole shebang. You can find more details on the City's ARPA page, but the big-ticket investments are parks, trails, and community centers; the Affordable Housing Trust Fund; stormwater infrastructure; and a new Healthy Equity Trust Fund. While the full spending plan is approved, this huge bucket of money will be allocated over two years. Someone should definitely set up a spreadsheet or a Trello or something to track progress on all these rad projects. In particular, I can't wait for some of the new trails! Whoa there is a lot in this piece from Jessica Nocera in the RTD about how Chesterfield County Public Schools' unnecessary and mostly imaginary battle against Critical Race Theory does in fact have a chilling effect on folks in the County working against systemic racism. It's not hard to see how a policy banning CRT-related professional development has already led to the District rejecting a principal's request to take diversity, equity, and inclusion training from VCU. Not great—both scary and embarrassing. Side note: I really love the way Nocera reports this story without a lot of both-sidesism (or as NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen calls it, The View From Nowhere). Tonight at 5:00 PM, Council's Public Safety Committee will meet and hear recommendations presented by the Civilian Review Board Task Force. As a fun pregame to tonight's meeting, you can read the Task Force's recommendations yourself, one of which is "that the CRB will have its own department to avoid conflicts of interest; this is aligned with the recommendations of the City Attorney's Office. As such, we recommend creating a department or office of 'Community Oversight and Police Accountability' independent from other City departments or offices." I don't know a ton about how CRBs should work, but that is exactly why we tasked a taskforce to come up with recommendations! If you'd like to holler at your councilmember in support of the Task Force's recommendations—including the creation of an Office of Community Oversight and Police Accountability—you can find the big list of councilmember contact information here. One final note, and I'll assume that it was not intentional, but it does not seem particularly even-handed to schedule the Richmond Police Department to present on "Police Staffing and Morale" immediately before the CRB Task Force gives their presentation on police accountability. Well, I guess it's official. VPM's Ben Paviour reports that "The Virginia Redistricting Commission has missed a final deadline to draw new state legislative maps, kicking the process to the Virginia Supreme Court." Paviour helpfully lays out the next steps and timeline for the judges to get these maps drawn. This coming Thursday, October 28th, the Community Foundation will host a free, online panel focused on Everyday Nonprofit Advocacy. We've got a lot of issues to tackle in Richmond, and a ton of them are systemic issues requiring big-time policy changes to make our city a better place to live. Nonprofit advocacy (and regular-person advocacy!) plays a big role in that, and I deeply agree with this bit from the event description: "the community needs leaders who engage decisions makers well." Maybe systems-change work is too daunting or exhausting to think about—that's fine! How about this, then: Richmond Public Schools needs volunteers to provide no-contact grocery delivery to RPS families. That's about as finite and concrete of a task as you can get. This morning's longread Could removing parking requirements help revitalize Virginia's cities? I thought I'd move this extensive piece from Wyatt Gordon at the Virginia Mercury down to the longread section—it's packed with the impacts of free parking on a city like Richmond. Luckily, at least one of our councilmembers wants to make some incremental changes to the currently broken system. “People see the language of the resolution and worry I'm getting rid of parking,” said Addison, “But eliminating parking minimums just means we're not putting a burden on business owners and developers to provide and build more parking than they actually need. Parking minimums are a big barrier to housing affordability and people choosing other modes of mobility. Eliminating those outdated calculations on how much parking establishments need gets us closer to a market for shared parking that works better for everybody.” If you'd like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol' Patreon.

Dr. Chris Suarez and Jeanette Murray from Corning Life Sciences discuss adherence cell culture scale-up and how to choose the optimal scale-up platform for maximizing your cell production while minimizing footprint and process time.

Back on the Xperience Growth podcast is Mark Willis. This time, the roles are flipped and I share an interview from when Willis recently included me on his podcast about the journey to build a business that now spans three continents and more than $2B in yearly sales and $100M in annual revenue.You won't hear us talk numbers though. In this episode we focus on:-The power of people-The path to self enlightenment & personal growth- Building an experiential life while growing and managing multiple entreprises- How to integrate competing priorities -The exponential win of developing those around youMark labeled this conversation as one of the most stimulating conversations in his career. This is more of a conversation than an interview, and we are excited to share Mark's perspective on all things “Xperiential”!Links:Role Models In Real Estate - Video Episode Mark Willis LeadershipMark Willis - Instagram—Explore past episodes: XperienceGrowthPodcast.comSign up for our newsletter here: XperienceChrisSuarez.comIf you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a short review on Apple Podcasts. I love reading reviews and engaging with our community.Follow Chris:Twitter: twitter.com/Xperience_ChrisInstagram: instagram.com/xperiencechrissuarezFacebook: facebook.com/XperienceChrisSuarez

Excited to share a recent interview hosted by my friends over at the Win Make Give podcast. I've always believed if we can win on the playing field of TIME, then winning in life will become a habit!I joined the team for an honest conversation around time mastery. In this episode learn how to: -Become more purposeful with your time-Coach your team around efficiency and effectiveness-Integrate your work life and personal life -Flip your perspective on the value of time and using time as an investmentLinks: Win Make GiveWin Make Give - Podcast—Explore past episodes: XperienceGrowthPodcast.comSign up for our newsletter here: XperienceChrisSuarez.comIf you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a short review on Apple Podcasts. I love reading reviews and engaging with our community.Follow Chris:Twitter: twitter.com/Xperience_ChrisInstagram: instagram.com/xperiencechrissuarezFacebook: facebook.com/XperienceChrisSuarez

Good morning, RVA! It's 71 °F, and today looks like another hot and humid scorcher. You can expect temperatures in the 90s and Feels Likes closer to 100 °F today, tomorrow, and, honestly, straight on through until Friday. As always: Stay hydrated.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths as: 169, 7, and 6.6, respectively. VDH reports a seven-day average of 16.1 new cases in and around Richmond (Richmond: 1.7; Henrico: 10.3, and Chesterfield: 4.1). Since this pandemic began, 1,356 people have died in the Richmond region. 46.5%, 58.1%, and 54.7% of the population in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.We reached some big vaccination milestones over the weekend: Over five million Virginians have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, 50.4% of the entire commonwealth is now fully vaccinated, and more than nine million total doses have been administered since late last December. Those are big numbers! Great work, everyone. The daily rate of new folks getting vaccinated looks like it has started to level out, which you can see in this graph. Leveling out is better than continual decrease, but, at this rate, it'd take more than a year to vaccinate the entire population of Virginia. That's not a reasonable goal, though, as some folks will never choose to get vaccinated.Thursday is the big marijuana legalization day, and the Richmond Times-Dispatch's Mel Leonor had a good piece over the week working through how the new law is still just one step towards equity. There's lots of work left for the General Assembly to do on clarifying legal gray areas that will, undoubtedly, lead to inequitable enforcement—open container definitions, application of the laws to renters, and, of course, undoing previous marijuana convictions. I imagine the newly created state agency will start working on some recommendations in the coming months and that, fingers crossed, the GA will take up a few clarifying weed bills this winter.City Council meets tonight, and you can flip through the agenda—as it stands—here. Of note, the agenda includes a handful of small rezonings, but both the rezonings of Greater Scott's Addition and of Broad Street between the Science Museum and the VCU & VUU Pulse stations have been continued until July 26th. Also a dozen or so honorary block dedications in Jackson Ward have ended up on the Regular Agenda. These dedications are part of the JXN Project and would honor residents of Jackson Ward like Lucy Goode Brooks, Neverett Eggleston, Lillie Ann Estes, and Charles Sidney Gilpin. The ordinances are definitely worth tapping into to get a brief biography of each person and their contribution to the neighborhood and beyond. I'm not sure why they're all on Regular Agenda instead of the Consent Agenda. Maybe to give folks a chance to speak in support of each ordinance? Chris Suarez at the RTD has some more details on the project.John Reid Blackwell, also at the RTD, has an extensive look at the future of whatever we're calling the area around Hardywood—which developers want to call “Brewer's Row.” I'm stoked to see a mostly industrial wasteland turn into a place for people, and I'd love to see more trees, more shade, and more pedestrian and bike infrastructure as the area grows!Speaking of places for people, Mark Robinson at the RTD has an article focusing mostly on the cost of the market-rate homes that are part of the larger Armstrong Renaissance development, a development which I love and find beautiful from both an urbanism and aesthetic standpoint. Just 28 single-family homes in the 256-unit neighborhood are market-rate, which makes them way unaffordable to, well, most folks. But this is what you get when you build mixed-income communities, and I'm not surprised when the (limited) market-rate components reflect the current market rate. As Robinson reports, the Armstrong Renaissance is a, “mixed-income community, which also features deeply affordable and workforce rentals,” and we should build more of this sort of thing throughout the region.I loved reading these RPS graduates' strong and determined reflections on this past school year via Alan Rodriguez on VPM. I am inspired and encouraged! Listen to Open High School graduate Jasmine Twiman when she says, “I'm proud of us. It was touch-and-go for a while, but I'm proud of us.”This morning's longreadWhere Did the Coronavirus Come From? What We Already Know Is Troubling.Well this was fascinating and also scary.Years of research on the dangers of coronaviruses, and the broader history of lab accidents and errors around the world, provided scientists with plenty of reasons to proceed with caution as they investigated this class of pathogens. But troubling safety practices persisted. Worse, researchers' success at uncovering new threats did not always translate into preparedness. Even if the coronavirus jumped from animal to human without the involvement of research activities, the groundwork for a potential disaster had been laid for years, and learning its lessons is essential to preventing others.If you'd like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol' Patreon.Picture of the DayMe and this guy are fighting.

Good morning, RVA! It's 53 °F, and we have another beautiful day ahead of us. Expect a continued break from the humidity, highs in the mid 80s, and lots of opportunities to wander around your neighborhood. Enjoy, because tomorrow could bring a bit of rain.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths as: 130, 15, and 5.4, respectively. VDH reports a seven-day average of 13.3 new cases in and around Richmond (Richmond: 1.7; Henrico: 6.6, and Chesterfield: 5). Since this pandemic began, 1,352 people have died in the Richmond region. 45.9%, 57.4%, and 53.9% of the population in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.As we talk more and more about variants, especially the delta variant, I wanted to surface this Variants of Concern dashboard on the VDH website (which is updated weekly on Fridays). You can see a pretty deep breakdown of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths by variant type. Variants are scary, especially the way in which they're covered in the media sometimes, but two things reassure me: 1) Getting vaccinated is your best protection against all of the variants of concern at this point, and 2) thus far, just six people have been hospitalized as a result of the deltavariant across the state. That's a small number, but, of course, still certainly one worth keeping an eye on.City Council's Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee meets today and will take up, once again, RES. 2021-R026, the laundry list of councilmember-proposed changes to Richmond 300. I think last we spoke of this, each councilmember who wanted to change the master plan—a plan which just won the Master Plan Heisman for the depth and extent of community engagement involved—would grab a meeting with City staff. I have no idea if those meetings happened. I also have no idea how the committees plans to make sense of this list of changes and get the appropriate level of community involvement and buy-in that any amendments to our new master plan should require.The Richmond Times-Dispatch's Chris Suarez found a single story that ties together Richmond's housing shortage, lack of public transportation options, and restrictive zoning. Unfortunately, I don't know what the short-term solution is for Mike, who lives in a convenient but illegal trailer. Longer-term, though, allowing and building hundreds and thousands of Accessory Dwelling Units would help a lot of folks like Mike.The Governor announced that he will call the General Assembly back for a special session on August 2nd to “fill judicial vacancies and allocate more than $4.3 billion in federal relief funding.” That is a lotof money, and I'm on pins and needles over here waiting to see how the GA decides to spend it. A month ago the Governor and a handful of GA leaders released this joint statement outlining their priorities for the ARP money, but you never really know what'll come out the other side of a lightning-quick special session until it's all said and done. Also, I wonder if localities will get their share of ARP money before the state? Or does the state need to figure out what to do with their share before Richmond and Henrico see the federal direct deposits show up in their bank accounts?Ben Paviour at VPM has a nice look back at the 1971 update to Virginia's Constitution on the eve of its 50 year anniversary. I had no idea that so much Jim Crow language was embedded in the actual 1902 Constitution, which was written as a sort of white supremacist middle finger to the federal government and the 14th Amendment. The Library of Virginia will host a panel discussion on the Constitution on July 1st, plus they'll have original copies of four of Virginia's constitutions on display from June 29th through July 1st! Deeply nerdy, deeply cool.Via r/rva, I will just quote the title of the postin full: “About a week ago, I went on a run near Clover Hill High School & came upon a guy who hit a bear with his car. Cop was positioned nearby with tranquilizer gun and was waiting for the injured bear to come out of a woodsy area. I just moved to Midlothian from South Dakota. Are bears common around here?”This morning's longreadThe Lie We Tell Ourselves About Going to Bed EarlyAs I get older and my body is less willing to stay asleep, I can totally relate to this concept of “revenge bedtime procrastination”—but in the reverse. Sometimes I just want to out of bed even earlier, that'll show…myself??According to the CDC, about 70 million Americans have chronic sleep problems. Insomnia affects between a third and a half of U.S. adults at one point or another. And we Americans are not unusually afflicted—one 2016 study reported that worldwide, 10 to 30 percent of the population experiences insomnia; some studies find rates as high as 50 to 60 percent. But behind this torment resides an opportunity to increase our quality of life, if we can change our relationship with our slumbering selves. Instead of worrying about how we can more efficiently induce sleep, we need to stop resisting it. And to do that, we need to stop seeing sleep as purely physiological and start considering its transcendent significance.If you'd like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol' Patreon.Picture of the DayLife finds a way.

Good morning, RVA! It's 77 °F, and, later today we should get a reprieve to the opressive heat. You can expect highs in the 80s, but rain should move in late morning or early afternoon to cool things down. Tomorrow's forecast looks like a real winner, so get excited.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths as: 136, 21, and 6, respectively. VDH reports a seven-day average of 18.7 new cases in and around Richmond (Richmond: 0.9; Henrico: 11.9, and Chesterfield: 6). Since this pandemic began, 1,352 people have died in the Richmond region. 45.8%, 57.2%, and 53.7% of the population in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.Despite the VDH dashboard's stubborn refusal to tick over from 69.9% of adult Virginians with at least one dose to the full 70%, the Governor declared victory yesterday at Hope Pharmacy in the East End. From the release, “Virginia is the 16th state in the nation to meet this goal set by President Joe Biden in early May and reaches the key vaccination milestone two weeks ahead of the nationwide July 4 target. To date, over 8.8 million doses of vaccine have been administered in Virginia and more than 4.2 million individuals, or 60.3 percent of the population 18 and older, are fully vaccinated.” That's pretty rad, and we're seeing some good progress at the local level, too: 53.6%, 69.1%, and 65.9% of adults in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield have had at least one dose. We should celebrate this local progress but also take these local number with a grain of salt. According to the dashboard, a full 1,080,323 people have not been “mapped,” which I assume means they aren't tied to a locality. That's 22% of all people with at least one dose! Doing some reprehensible napkin math and assuming that those one million untethered folks are distributed equally and evenly, (aka just adding 22% to the local-level percentages), we'd end up with 65.4%, 84.3%, and 80.4% of adults across our three localities with at least one dose. Now, of course, I have no reason to think that's how the math would actually work out—in fact, the Richmond Times-Dispatch's Sabrina Moreno reports that it may be weighted towards people living near the North Carolina border—but a million folks is a lot of people in a state with a total population of 8.5 million. Anyway, good work everyone, and good luck in the continued work!Welp, add one to the enormously long list of “shows what I know”s. The RTD's Chris Suarez reports that “On Monday, the Richmond Planning Commission declined to recommend whether the City Council should authorize the mayor's administration to remove the bases for the J.E.B. Stuart, Jefferson Davis and ‘Stonewall' Jackson statues on Monument Avenue, along with the one for the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Libby Hill. The commissioners did not vote on whether to endorse the removal of the Matthew Fontaine Maury monument's pedestal and several smaller monuments on Monument Avenue and in Monroe Park after ending their meeting early Monday evening because of technical difficulties. The commission did, however, endorse plans for the removal of the A.P. Hill statue at the intersection of Hermitage Road and Laburnum Avenue, citing traffic safety concerns there.” I certainly did not expect that! And I certainly did not expect that the Governor's office, who sent a letter of opposition via Chief of Staff Clark Mercer, would get involved, either! What seemed like a straightforward plan to get rid of racist garbage and present the community with a blank slate from which to work, now seems incredibly messy with differing levels of involvement and expectations from the City, the State, and the public. We'll see what City Council decides to do next, but I'm not sure they're going to love the State weighing in on on this particular issue at this particular moment in the process. I also have some thoughts on this Reimagining Monument Avenue group, which is not directly associated with the City or its Department of Planning, but seems to be who everyone assumes will do the eponymous work of reimagining Monument Avenue. But! I would like to learn more first.I have to link to this editorial in the RTD supporting GRTC's decision to remain fare-free for another year, because I never thought I would read these sentences in our local paper: “And in the long term, we have to find better solutions than our dependency on cars. Multimodal transit is the answer, and GRTC is a key part of that emerging framework.”Tonight at 6:00 PM you can attend an actual in-person, indoors public meeting—if you feel comfortable with that sort of thing. The City will host a conversation about the draft City Center Plan at the Convention Center and, of course, simultaneously on Microsoft Teams. This, I think, is the only public meeting on this plan before it works its way through the legislative process, so, while you'll have plenty of public comment opportunities moving forward, this might be your best chance to influence tweaks, changes, and edits. You can read the full plan and leave comments using Konveio here. I know Konveio is a drag to use, but if you've got thoughts and feelings I really encourage you to go drop a bubble or two—I already see a handful of “WHERE'S THE PARKING??” comments that probably need some balancing out.This morning's longreadGaslit: How the fossil fuel industry convinced Americans to love gas stovesGas stoves are maybe terrible, turns out. This is like when I learned the auto industry invented jaywalking to help sell cars.Beginning in the 1990s, the industry faced a new challenge: mounting evidence that burning gas indoors can contribute to serious health problems. Gas stoves emit a host of dangerous pollutants, including particulate matter, formaldehyde, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides. One 2014 simulation by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that cooking with gas for one hour without ventilation adds up to 3,000 parts per billion of carbon monoxide to the air—raising indoor concentrations by up to 30 percent in the average home. Carbon monoxide can kill; it binds tightly to the hemoglobin molecules in your blood so they can no longer carry oxygen. What's more, new research shows that the typical home carbon monoxide alarms often fail to detect potentially dangerous levels of the gas.If you'd like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol' Patreon.Picture of the Day

Good morning, RVA! It's 58 °F, and today looks beautiful. Expect highs in the 80s, plenty of sunshine, and all the reason in the world to hold hands in the park. Temperatures increase over the long weekend, so get out there and enjoy it today.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths as: 145, 27, and 10, respectively. VDH reports a seven-day average of 17.9 new cases in and around Richmond (Richmond: -0.3; Henrico: 9.9, and Chesterfield: 8.3). Since this pandemic began, 1,345 people have died in the Richmond region. 45.4%, 56.7%, and 53.2% of the population in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Welp, we'll have to wait until next week to see if Richmond's miraculously negative cases sort themselves out.OK! Virginia continues to creep closer and closer to President Biden's vaccination goal—like, really, really closer. As of this morning, 69.4% of adult Virginians have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. I think, fingers crossed, by Wednesday we should have this thing in the bag. Then, I wonder, what the next fairly arbitrary goal will be? 70% of adults fully vaccinated? 70% of kids? 70% of everyone before the end of the year? Maybe something with booster shots? Like I keep saying, this next phase of vaccination work will be slower and more methodical, and, as much as they're kind of made up, these point-in-time goals do create a way to regularly measure progress (and create a thing to write about in this section of the email multiple times each week).Chris Suarez and Kenya Hunter at the Richmond Times-Dispatch have a surprising update to ongoing George Wythe…story? saga? drama? Yesterday, Mayor Stoney announced that he will “request design proposals for a new George Wythe High School this week against the wishes of the Richmond School Board, which recently voted to wrest control of school construction projects from the city administration.” Stoney said, “This is me exhausting my legal ability to do everything I can to ensure that a new school is built as quickly as possible.” What happens next is anyone's guess, but School Board has a meeting on June 28th at which, I imagine, they'll at least discuss this whole situation. To me, and you may disagree, the tenor of the public narrative about building a replacement for George Wythe High School is decidedly against the School Board. The way the stories I read are framed, the Board comes off like they're unwilling to compromise, unwilling to even have a dialogue with the City, and dug in over their heads. We'll see if and for how much longer the five board members driving this process can keep their alliance intact while, at least in my eyes, public pressure against them grows.Local coverage of Pulitzer Prize Winner Michael Paul Williams continues, and VPM's Ian Stewart has an interview with Williams about what's next (you know, now that he's won the Pulitzer Prize).Today at 12:00 PM, RVA Rapid Transit will host another Transit Talk, this one featuring Sean O'Brien, Director of Community Health with Bon Secours, and Julie Timm, CEO of GRTC. They'll talk about Bon Secours's recent work to get 14 fancy, new bus stop shelters installed in the East End and RVA Rapid Transit's new Better Bus Stops program.Today is the last day of school for RPS and Chesterfield Public Schools students! Congratulations! You made it through the most bizarre school year of your entire lives, and things are looking up as we head into the summer. I hope each of you finds the time to rest, relax, play Fortnite, swim in the river, ride bikes, eat pizza, and do all of the things that I wish I were doing for the next couple of months. You've earned it!Related, and if you can handle thinking about school for just a minute more, RPS families and students can attend the Southside reopening conversation tonight at 6:00 PM. Zoom-in info here.Because it feels very summery, single-game tickets go on sale today for the Richmond Flying Squirrels. Baseball, nachos, beers as big as your head: A classic part of a Richmond summer.Logistical note! I will be taking tomorrow off from this email as it's a state holiday—Juneteenth (observed)—and it sounds like, as of yesterday, it will soon be a federal holiday, too. The New York Times has a nice Juneteenth explainer if you've not heard the history of the holiday before. And, finally, I've seen a handful of Juneteenth events floating around, if you're looking to celebrate locally: Juneteenth Jubilee in the Park and a Juneteenth Celebration at Dorey Park to name two. Meredith Moran at Richmond Magazine has a longer list if you want to stack your calendar.This morning's longreadThe Back to the Office MaximumAnne Helen Peterson! She really hits on a lot of the things I've been thinking about when it comes to returning to offices and workplaces. Y'all should really subscribe to her newsletter.The “good” news is that the pre-COVID, the in-office playing field was unlevel as shit. It favored and advanced a certain type of worker, with a certain type of working style, and a certain availability and eagerness to work in person in an office. It favored extroverts, it favored dudes, it favored neurotypical workers with no physical or psychological conditions that would prevent them from sitting in a chair for nine hours a day, five days a week. It privileged people with the desire and ability to live in proximity to their industry hubs. It implicitly or explicitly promoted those without care responsibilities and/or those most effective at masking or ignoring care responsibilities. We should stop buying the farcical argument that in-office work was some ideal opportunity scenario. It was deeply, deeply exclusionary for many — it's just that those people aren't the ones asked to write the thinkpieces about the benefits of returning to the office.If you'd like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol' Patreon.Picture of the DayWithin this bear hides a trash can.

Good morning, RVA! It's 64 °F, and, dang, how nice was yesterday? Today you can expect more of the same with sunshine and highs in the 80s. Enjoy—for at least another day, too!Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths as: 134, 27, and 10.7, respectively. VDH reports a seven-day average of 11 new cases in and around Richmond (Richmond: -1.6; Henrico: 5.3, and Chesterfield: 7.3). Since this pandemic began, 1,345 people have died in the Richmond region. 45.2%, 56.5%, and 53.0% of the population in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. I thought Richmond's data would have sorted itself out by now, but, what do I know? VDH reports a negative number of cases in Richmond for five of the last nine days!For fellow data humans, VDH has updated their vaccine dashboard to now include a map of percent of the adult population with at least one dose by locality. Because I'm sure you're curious about how our region is progressing towards the Biden Goal: 52.9%, 68.4%, and 65.2% of adults in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield have had at least one jab. Henrico definitely has a chance to hit the Biden Goal before July 4th, but I'm not too sure about RIchmond and Chesterfield. I have to keep reminding myself that this goal—and it's impact on the health of our communities—is pretty arbitrary. There are lots of real, legitimate, and complex reasons why we see differing uptake rates across differing localities.I love this public transit update: GRTC will continue their free fares for (at least) another year. Yesterday, the GRTC board met and voted on a new budget which extends zero fares through June 30, 2022. That means, by then, Richmond will have had free bus service for all who care to use it for 833 days. From the aforelinked press release, the money to cover the now-missing revenue from fares will come from “federal COVID relief funds.” This is great news as it lets our region (for now) use its public transportation dollars for improving and expanding the bus system.While we're talking about it, I find this Systemwide Ridership Three Year Comparison graph endlessly fascinating. Bus ridership has already started to creep above pandemic levels, but still trails numbers from two years back—when folks had just started to use the bus system at record-breaking levels. I mean, look at these comparisons of this past May's numbers (p. 51): they're down 1% from a month ago, up 20% from a year ago, and down 18% from two years ago. A heckuva rollercoaster! I am really interested to see what happens to systemwide ridership when VCU returns to in-person instruction this fall. October is typically the highest-ridership month of the year, and returning students plus possibly returning office workers could also make for a big, joyous return to the bus.The Richmond Times-Dispatch's Chris Suarez has some more reporting on this past Monday's City Council meeting, specifically their conversations about how (or how not) to earmark the as-yet-received ARP money. It's a great background piece if you've been ignoring this thrilling conversation for the past couple months. I am on the whole entire same page as 4th District Councilmember Larson who says of the resolution attempting to earmark future ARP funds for district-specific needs: “I personally think it's in our best interest to vet these projects … and see if they actually qualify before we send anything to the mayor…We need to look at the whole picture and decide as a body what's best for the whole city.” Yes! Please look at the entire city and make a cohesive plan for how best to spend this once-in-a-generation pile of cash. Important note! That does not mean we should divide this money up evenly across the whole city! I would, for example, be totally OK with a massive investment in Southside infrastructure. Equality ≠ Equity.Pulitzer Prize Wining Columnist Michael Paul Williams has a very gracious first column back after winning the Pulitzer Prize. To quote a bit: “But there is undeniable joy in the recognition that Richmond, and the staff of this newspaper, are putting in long-overdue work. Now is a time to celebrate. But after we put the champagne down, there's plenty of work that remains.”VPM's Alan Rodriguez has a piece about Critical Race Theory, the Loudoun County School Board, and our gubernatorial candidates that you should read to get an early lay of the land ahead of November's election. While Critical Race Theory may be a real and actual thing in some academic circles, when used by Republican politicians it means nothing and is almost always an indicator of someone acting in bad faith. If you find yourself explaining, supporting, or arguing for “Critical Race Theory,” you've already lost. Republicans' campaign against this mostly made up thing is a poorly-executed slight-of-hand to distract from what they actually oppose: the work to make our communities a more equitable place. I'm with this quote from Loudoun County Supervisor Juli Briskman: “She calls the backlash to these reforms ‘the Massive Resistance of our generation…It's basically along the same lines as the fear of integration, and this is just an evolution of that.'”This morning's longreadHumpback whales can't swallow a human. Here's why.Read this to get well-actuallyed about whales by National Geographic.On Friday, a lobster diver made headlines when he described miraculously surviving being “swallowed” by a humpback whale off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Michael Packard told the Cape Cod Times that he felt a shove, and “the next thing I knew it was completely black.” He recalled struggling inside the whale's mouth for about 30 seconds before it surfaced and spat him out. Though a humpback could easily fit a human inside its huge mouth—which can reach around 10 feet—it's scientifically impossible for the whale to swallow a human once inside, according to Nicola Hodgins of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation, a U.K. nonprofit.If you'd like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol' Patreon.Picture of the Day

Good morning, RVA! It's 65 °F, and, wow that was a lot of lightning in the storm that rolled through last night. I think, however, it brought with it cooler temperatures, because we can expect highs in the mid 80s today. NBC12's Andrew Freiden says the next couple of days look stellar.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths as: 140, 32, and 10.4, respectively. VDH reports a seven-day average of 11.3 new cases in and around Richmond (Richmond: 0.7; Henrico: 2.4, and Chesterfield: 8.1). Since this pandemic began, 1,343 people have died in the Richmond region. 45.1%, 56.4%, and 52.8% of the population in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.Do you still need a reason to get vaccinated? How about this set of headlines: “Distorted, Bizarre Food Smells Haunt Covid Survivors,” “Many Post-Covid Patients Are Experiencing New Medical Problems, Study Finds,” or “Coronavirus infections dropping where people are vaccinated, rising where they are not.” While the least serious of these headlines, the first one terrifies me. I once lost my sense of smell for a week and it was awful—so much of eating is smell-related! Don't lose your sense of smell or have it rewired by a coronavirus infection! Go get vaccinated today!City Council met last night and adopted a bunch of papers I had my eyes on: the rezoning of the Southern States silo (ORD. 2021–115), a resolution to earmark $7.1 million of ARP money for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund (RES. 2021-R028), and, of course, the casino resolution (RES. 2021-R034). The Richmond Times-Dispatch's Chris Suarez has the meeting recap and reports that, as foretold, the casino resolution passed 8–1, with Councilmember Jordan as the only No vote. Now the decision of whether or not to build a casino in the 8th District moves to…us! If the gubernatorial election was somehow not enough to motivate you to vote this November (which, gasp), maybe having a casino on the ballot will?Ali Rockett at the RTD reports on the RPD's crime data meeting, which ended up going in an entirely unexpected, billboard-related direction. The Richmond Coalition of Police, who you may remember from this year's budget discussions when they demanded double extra raises for police, has put up a billboard saying “The safety of the city is in jeopardy. Public safety is in a CRISIS due to poor pay & staffing.” I imagine the Mayor does not love having every person driving down 95/64 see such a billboard, and I bet it puts his police chief in a tough spot when he has to answer questions about it. About the data though, making any sort of year-over-year comparisons—about crime or anything else—will be tough given the year we just had.I hesitate to even share this ConnectRVA constrained project list. It's part of our larger region's long-range transportation plan, and represents a whittled down list of potential projects the region wants to build (down from the “universe of projects”). It's an important list because it will ultimately guide future big transportation projects—like sprawly road widenings or new bus rapid transit lines—that will stick around for our entire lifetimes. Typically this sort of thing is totally my jam, but, unfortunately, these are an almost indecipherable set of documents. Here's the four-page spreadsheet of projects if you dare. It includes things like a “widening with added capacity” of Old Hundred Road (boooo) and a bunch of segments of the Fall Line Trail (yaaaay). Theoretically, this here is a map of that entire spreadsheet on which you can leave comments or you can just comment on this blog post. I don't know how a person who cares is even supposed to intelligently interact with this information. I guess you could leave a general anti-road widening, pro-climate comment? It's honestly pretty shocking the number of road widenings and expansions we're considering over the next twenty or so years given how quickly we're incinerating our planet. Anyway, you have until 5:00 PM on June 17th to share your thoughts and opinions!It's wild to go from road widenings to this piece by Sarah Vogelsong in the Virginia Mercury about the impact sea-level rise will have on the 757. Here's a quote from Virginia Beach's stormwater engineer: “We want Virginia Beach to remain a viable coastal destination for people to come to…the discussion in Virginia Beach is learning to live with water.” Bleak! It's just bananas we're over here in Central Virginia planning on ways to incentivize more and more driving and more and more climate-destroying sprawl while our neighbors down the road slowly slip into the sea.Richmond Public Schools will host their East End-focused reopening conversation tonight at 6:00 PM. If you've got questions about how in-person school will look in the fall, now is the time to ask them. Although, honestly, maybe keep a list of those questions somewhere because there's a whole lot of time until the first day of school (85 days), and who knows what will change between now and then. Zoom-in information here.This morning's longreadA treasure map for an American tyrantThe Boston Globe put together a series of short pieces describing the top reforms they'd like to see to keep our American democracy safe from future Trumps. This is pleasant to read, but it all hinges on the idea that Republicans should be motivated to make these changes because the next autocrat could be a Democrat. That's a little naive as Republicans at the federal and state level seem intent at warping our democracy to prevent Democrats from being elected entirely. Kind of eliminates the incentive to limit power, doesn't it?Trump may not have destroyed the American presidency, but he did put the institution on a perilous path. Because while Trump himself has been sitting in Mar-a-Lago brooding over his loss to Joe Biden, all the weaknesses in our legal and constitutional system that he exploited remain, waiting for a future presidential miscreant to take advantage of them — maybe even for Trump himself, if he is reelected in 2024. That's why Congress and the current president must act fast and impose more durable legal guardrails on the commander in chief. By passing stronger anti-corruption laws, strengthening existing norms and creating new ones, and deterring future presidents from abusing their power by making an example of Trump and holding him accountable, the country can protect itself against future — and potentially far more devastating — presidential corruption and misconduct. The nation can, and must, prevent the rise of an American tyrant.If you'd like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol' Patreon.Picture of the DayI bought a bead curtain.

Good morning, RVA! It's 71 °F, and who's excited for more of the same?? Today you can expect highs in the 80s and a chance for downpours. NBC12's Andrew Freiden says we could catch a break this weekend, though.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths as: 198, 31, and 7.7, respectively. VDH reports a seven-day average of 19.4 new cases in and around Richmond (Richmond: 3.9; Henrico: 6.6, and Chesterfield: 9). Since this pandemic began, 1,331 people have died in the Richmond region. 44.7%, 55.9%, and 52.3% of the population in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. This week's stacked chart is really something to look at—across the board you'll see the lowest levels of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths pretty much since this pandemic began. I know a lot of folks are holding their breath until fall—when things took a turn last year—but, for now, the data is down and things are looking up!Biden Goal update! With 68.5% of adults in Virginia with at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and one day to go, we're definitely going to miss my projection of hitting 70% on June 12th. Honestly, at the current rate, hitting July 4th might turn out to be a photo-finish. Either way, this is a dumb thing to be so focused on! Vaccinating the rest of these folks will take long, slow, methodical work—like over the course of this entire year. Shouting about the president's fairly arbitrary goal won't get us there any faster (I will continue to shout about it for reasons I don't really understand!).Y'all! Richmond 300, like, the plan itself, has won a major award! The American Planning Association announced that Richmond 300 won the Daniel Burnham Award for a Comprehensive Plan, making it the #1 comprehensive plan in the country. As one friend put it, this is like winning the master plan Heisman. Congratulations to all of the City staff who worked so hard on Richmond 300, and congratulations to many of you who also served on committees, attended meetings, and submitted public comments. Let me quote a bit from the APA writeup: “Expansive community engagement, unlike any seen in the city's history, led to the creation of Richmond 300: A Guide For Growth…Recognizing the city's history of racist policies that left many residents distrustful of the planning process, Richmond's planning team took special care to ensure all Richmonders can see their influence Richmond 300….After extensive outreach—including the formation and training of a community engagement team to help reach Latinx, Black, and low-income residents—planners succeeded in helping to elevate voices that had gone unheard for decades.”Chris Suarez at the Richmond Times-Dispatch covered yesterday's Urban Design Committee meeting, which, after a bunch of discussion, approved removal of nine Confederate monument remnants. Sounds like the plans will now move to the Planning Commission and then to full Council before the end of the month (assuming things don't get caught up along the way).Richmond BizSense's Mike Platania reports that Torchy's Tacos will open up a shop in the new Carytown Exchange shopping center in 2022. I know they now have tons of other locations, but time was that friends who went to SXSW would rant and rave about a trip to Torchy's.I don't think there's any new information here, but how weird is it to see a virginia.gov website with a marijuana leaf as its logo? Also, I know we already all know this, but some of these rules are farcical, and I have to believe that next year's General Assembly will try to speed up the 2024 commercial sales timeline. I mean this is what we have to live with for three years: “Beginning on July 1, adults 21 and over can grow up to four marijuana plants per household (not per person), for personal use,” but “It will remain illegal to sell marijuana seeds, clones, flower, or any other part of the marijuana plant in Virginia before 2024. Although there are some states that already have legalized marijuana sales, it remains federally illegal to move marijuana across state lines.” I guess if you can apparate a marijuana plant into your house, you're good to go!This morning's longreadGrowing up queer in AppalachiaAnother great essay in Scalawag, this one from back in 2017 around the time North Carolina was kicking around its transgender / bathroom legislation.I visit often, but I never moved back home. In large part I stayed away for the same reason anyone from the rural South does: to find work. That said, I'm not the only person from our small school who came out and moved to New York. There's a reason it's a classic. Lots of us left, or tried to. Some of us have been forced back into the closet. Some were able to stay put and strike a balance, but not nearly enough. I have a very typical queer Southern expatriate chip on my shoulder: furious at what happened to me there, furious at what still happens to my people, furious that anyone else would use their suffering as a rhetorical cudgel to distract from the exact same shit happening in their own backyards. Guilty for leaving them behind.If you'd like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol' Patreon.Picture of the Day

Good morning, RVA! It's 53 °F, and today looks lovely—in fact, NBC12's Andrew Freiden say today's your best day of the week weatherwise. Expect highs in the 80s, low humidity, and not a bit of rain. Looks like severe weather could be in the forecast later this week, though, so organize your out-of-doors calendar accordingly.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths as: 347, 45, and 17.6, respectively. VDH reports a seven-day average of 44.6 new cases in and around Richmond (Richmond: 6.6; Henrico: 18, and Chesterfield: 20). Since this pandemic began, 1,329 people have died in the Richmond region. 43.5%, 54.3%, and 50.7% of the population in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.Over in vaccine world, we are so, so close to reaching President Biden's goal of 70% of adults with at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by July 4th. Right now, according to the VDH dashboard, 67.0% of Virginians 18 and and older have had their first jab. I'd said to mark your calendars for June 12th, but we may cross the 70% threshold even sooner. As per always, data reporting issues continue to ruin my pretty little graphs and have made unclear, at least to me, the picture of how many new people are getting vaccinated each day in the Commonwealth. That number's not falling off a cliff though, so that's something. Locally—defined as Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield—I don't think we'll hit Biden's goal by the 4th, but we'll be close. Check out our creeping progress towards (mostly) that goal on this chart. I can't find daily, 18+ vaccination data for localities on VDH's dashboard, so this is what I've got!Over the weekend, Jessica Nocera at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported on the now-faltered effort to create a Civilian Review Board in Henrico County. Disappointing stuff: “For now, [Supervisor] Nelson said if there is a different Board of Supervisors in a few years, maybe the civilian review board would come back for consideration.” Nelson had led the effort to create the County's CRB, but met a lack of support from the police and, more importantly, from the rest of the Board of Supervisors. Rather than push forward and end up with something with no actual power or authority to, you know, review the police, Nelson has decided to hang it up until he's joined by a few more progressive boardmembers. Local elections, y'all! So important.Also in the RTD, Chris Suarez reports that Richmond's bike share system may finally expand beyond its 17ish stations. I mean, sure, that sounds awesome. Although, it's sounded awesome for a bunch of years now, and somehow we have fewer stations than we did when the system launched. When it comes to Richmond's bike share system, I'm in definite believe-it-when-I-see-it mode . Suarez says we should have some opportunities to weigh in on the locations for the new stations soon and that the City will look in to providing RRHA residents with free memberships. Free bus fares plus free bike share memberships (and an expanded bike share network) would really open up some transportation options for folks with lower-incomes. I'm excited to see if we can make all of these pieces work together in a cohesive system.Mike Platania at Richmond BizSense asks a big question that I also have: “What's next for Bow Tie Cinemas site after failed pitch to become a casino?” While the owners don't have an answer yet, the property is zoned TOD-1 which allows for all sorts of fun things that would be more interesting than the expansive parking lot currently in place. I'm hopeful!I don't know quite what to make from this chart of endorsements Ned Oliver put together in the Virginia Mercury, but I just spent too long playing with it this morning. I think one of the interesting things to me is how there's no solidified McAuliffe ticket.Northsiders and park lovers! The Bryan Park Bike Races return tonight after a one-year COVID hiatus. This means that from 5:30–8:00 PM on Tuesdays throughout the summer you should expect to see portions of the park's paths closed off and people on bikes zipping around in a circle. If you've got a planned Tuesday evening stroll or roll, adjust accordingly! This is the 47th season of these races, which is incredible.This morning's longreadI'm Not Scared to Reenter Society. I'm Just Not Sure I Want To.I'm way into the title of this piece.You could admit that you'd accomplished nothing today, this week, all year. Having gotten through another day was a perfectly respectable achievement. I considered it a pass-fail year, and anything you had to do to get through it—indulging inappropriate crushes, strictly temporary addictions, really bad TV—was an acceptable cost of psychological survival. Being “unable to deal” was a legitimate excuse for failing to answer emails, missing deadlines, or declining invitations. Everyone recognized that the situation was simply too much to be borne without occasionally going to pieces. This has, in fact, always been the case; we were just finally allowed to admit it.If you'd like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol' Patreon.Picture of the Day

Good morning, RVA! It’s 68 °F, and today looks hot—but not as hot as yesterday. Expect highs near 90 °F, and, luckily, NBC12’s Andrew Freiden says to expect less humidity soaking through your shirts.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths as: 394, 40, and 13.6, respectively. VDH reports a seven-day average of 29.9 new cases in and around Richmond (Richmond: 5.4; Henrico: 14.3, and Chesterfield: 10.1). Since this pandemic began, 1,324 people have died in the Richmond region. 42.6%, 53.1%, and 49.6% of the population in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. For whatever reason, Chesterfield actually reported -43 new cases yesterday, so that accounts for the significant drop in its seven-day average of new cases. Data Reporting: There’s always something.Now that Virginia is so dang close to reaching President Biden’s goal of 70% of adults with at least one does by July 4th, I cannot stop watching the numbers slowwwwwly tick upwards. Two days ago 65.7% of Virginia’s adults had one dose, today 66.2%. Forgetting for a second that fewer people are making the decision to get vaccinated each day and pretending that we’ll just continue along at the same rate we’re seeing right now, we should hit Biden’s goal on June 12th. Mark your calendars (which is a thing I actually just did)!Chris Suarez at the Richmond Times-Dispatch went through the terms sheet of the newly put-forth casino project so you don’t have to (but you totally still can if you’re into that sort of thing). Suarez reports that the casino would give the City a $25 million cash payment within 30 days of the referendum (should it pass, of course), $30,000 annual payments to Richmond Public Schools for five years, reimburse the City for up to $500,000 it spent during the casino evaluation process, and, of course, a chunk of the gambling-related revenue each year. And that’s just a short list, the terms sheet is 20 pages long and includes all sorts of things about jobs, wages, construction, and even a $325,000 annual payment to “support transit mobility solutions to support travel of its employees to and from work.” I’m interested in all of these things, but I’m particularly interested in what happens to that $25 million in cash. If it were me, I’d put it in a special fund dedicated specifically for new infrastructure improvements on the Southside with a focus on the neighborhoods near the casino. I certainly would not let it end up in the general fund, and I would be really careful to not let this $25 million get used to replace funding already earmarked for Southside projects. This is new money and should be used for new projects. I wonder if Council will start putting together a plan for all this hypothetical new money before the actual referendum as a way to sell the public on the casino?Also, the RTD continues their ongoing series talking to Richmonders one year after the murder of George Floyd. Make some time to read this piece by Kenya Hunter about Corey Stuckey, founder of the 381 Movement. You might recognize Stuckey and the 381 Movement, because recently they’ve been focused on “trying to convince the School Board to rescind a resolution that gave the board control over school construction.” I’ll tell you what, it’s life-giving to see movements built during last summer grow and expand into influencing some of the important (but day-to-day) policies of our city.Another sign that post-pandemic life finds a way: Mary Scott Hardaway has a list of newly opened, recently opened, and newly reopened restaurants in Style Weekly.It’s Thursday which means the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts will host a free COVID-19 community testing event at Diversity Thrift (1407 Sherwood Avenue) from 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM.This morning’s longreadWeekly Obsession: CicadasQuartz has these lovely Obsession emails, put together by Friend of the Email Susan Howson, to which you should most certainly subscribe. This week they tackle cicadas, which are big and weird but also pretty cool.Love them or hate them (at Quartz, we’re divided), they are undeniably a net positive for our ecosystem. They don’t damage plants once they emerge from the ground. They don’t bite, they don’t spread disease, they feed a lot of other wildlife, and their exoskeletons decompose into nice tree fertilizer. In a lot of ways, periodical cicadas are one of nature’s more spectacular reminders that, for the most part, the planet is still operational. If Brood X hadn’t made its entrance, it would have been a truly terrifying sign. It may feel like a bug invasion, but cicadas have been doing their thing for hundreds of millions of years. How long have you been doing yours?If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.Picture of the Day

Good morning, RVA! It’s 68 °F, and today you can expect too-hot highs in the 90s for much of the day. Later this evening we could see some severe thunderstorms roll through, but it won’t do much to cool things off. Temperatures return to springlike this weekend, so, until then, accept the sweat and stay hydrated!Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths as: 418, 39, and 13.6, respectively. VDH reports a seven-day average of 44.6 new cases in and around Richmond (Richmond: 6.6; Henrico: 18.0, and Chesterfield: 20.0). Since this pandemic began, 1,322 people have died in the Richmond region. 42.5%, 52.9%, and 49.4% of the population in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. I rewrote the top of this email! What do you think? I may keep tweaking it over the next couple of weeks—thrilling stuff!Yesterday, Moderna announced that it plans to submit some new data to the FDA and will seek Emergency Use Authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine for kids ages 12 through 17 in early June. The Washington Post has more details. This would be big news, even though we have loads of Pfizer laying around for this age group; the Pfizer vaccine is just so challenging to work with. Expanded authorization of Moderna would make things easier for folks on the ground who are still out there planning vaccination events and jabbing arms.I didn’t expect this! The Roanoke Times reports that “students, faculty and staff at Virginia’s community colleges will not be required to be vaccinated to be on campus this fall.” Hmmm, I wonder that that means.Whoa, Ali Rockett and Chris Suarez in the Richmond Times-Dispatch have an entire piece today, titled “Mayor Levar Stoney wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times reflecting on last summer. Here’s what he left out:,” point-by-pointing fives specifics the Mayor included in his recent column. I think I agree with most of these fives things and, if it had been me after this past summer in Richmond, I definitely would not have written a national opinion piece with the same tone. That said, it was just that: an opinion piece. The Mayor doesn’t have to mention his current tussles with the Civilian Review Board or the ongoing investigation about the cost of tearing down the monuments. He can tell his story how he wants, which most certainly casts himself as this summer’s hero. You can disagree with his telling of events, but I do think the NYT piece probably accomplished the Mayor’s political goals and raised his profile—especially among Virginians outside of Richmond. I do appreciate the local journalists who put this together to provide a more complete picture for readers of what happened a year ago.Richmond Together has put out a thoughtful candidate questionnaire for the Commonwealth’s Attorney race, and you can read the responses from incumbent Colette McEachin and challenger Tom Barbour. Have I ever read a candidate questionnaire for Commonwealth’s Attorney before? I’m not sure. If you haven’t either, take the opportunity to do so today—especially if you’re not even sure what the Commonwealth’s Attorney does. This questionnaire and the responses will give you a good idea for some of the roles and responsibilities one of these two candidates will have once elected.VPM’s Roberto Roldan reports on the Valentine Museum’s struggle to come to terms with the racist history of its namesake, sculptor Edward Valentine. I like local scholar Ana Edwards’s quote in this piece, "They all started off as institutions born into, if not the Confederacy per se, certainly the white supremacist South…That’s where they come from, that’s where their money comes from, that’s where their sensibility comes from.”Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense reports on “the start of construction of a 36-home section at Armstrong Renaissance, the massive redevelopment of the 22-acre site along North 31st Street in Richmond’s East End.” Armstrong Renaissance is by far my favorite new development in the entire city—it’s beautiful, mixed-income, and has a lovely blend of density all set just a few feet from a decent bus line. I mean, check out these totals for the entire development: “130 income-based rental units, 90 apartments for seniors, and the 36 for-sale homes for both lower-income and market-rate buyers.” Sounds great, now do this everywhere.Today the City’s Governmental Operations committee will meet and take up a deeply nerdy ordinance that will officially change the logo of the City from the brassy skyline, James River, and bridge situation, to the more contemporary silhouette of the bateau boatman (ORD. 2021–128). This doesn’t really impact anything or any one, as the new logo is already in use, I just think it’s neat reading the in-ordinance text descriptions of the old and new logos.This morning’s longreadThe Dark Side of Congo’s Cobalt RushCobalt is in probably two or three things you’re touching right now or can see from where you’re sitting.The man stopped digging in his yard. Instead, he cut through the floor of his house, which he was renting, and dug to about thirty feet, carting out ore at night. Zanga Muteba, a baker who then lived in Kasulo, told me, “All of us, at that time, we knew nothing.” But one evening he and some neighbors heard telltale clanging noises coming from the man’s house. Rushing inside, they discovered that the man had carved out a series of underground galleries, following the vein of cobalt as it meandered under his neighbors’ houses. When the man’s landlord got wind of these modifications, they had an argument, and the man fled. “He had already made a lot of money,” Muteba told me. Judging from the amount of ore the man had dug out, he had probably made more than ten thousand dollars—in Congo, a small fortune. According to the World Bank, in 2018 three-quarters of the country’s population lived on less than two dollars a day.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.Picture of the DayAn adventure is afoot!

In this episode of Beers & Bytes, we had the opportunity to interview Chris Suarez, General Manager of Bear Chase Brewing. Tune in for a fascinating conversation about Bear Chase, dogs, and tidbits about the brewing process. Bear Chase Brewing Company is Loudoun County, Virginia’s newest craft beer destination. Located on the same picturesque, wooded property as historic Bear Chase Manor, BCBC’s Brew Barn includes two complete brewing systems, a taproom for taste testing, and plenty of room for exciting special events or simply relaxing with a cold brew. At Bear Chase, it’s all about the experience.Beverages:Power Moves IPA - https://www.aslinbeer.com/Hoppy Place IPA - https://www.oldoxbrewery.com/beer/hoppy-place-ipa/ Golden State Cerveza - http://www.goldenroad.la/beers/golden-stateGuinness - https://www.guinness.com/Alaskan Icy Bay IPA - https://alaskanbeer.com/Evening Sunset - https://bearchasebrew.com/More Information:Bear Chase Brewery - https://bearchasebrew.com/Beers & Bytes - https://beersandbytespodcast.comFortify 24x7 - https://fortify24x7.comFluency Security - https://fluencysecurity.comIf you want to watch our video cast, check us out on YouTubeSupport the show (https://beersandbytespodcast.com)

Good morning, RVA! It’s 61 °F, and highs today will stick around in the 80s. Tomorrow though, tomorrow you should expect unseasonably hot temperatures and all kinds of reasons to stay inside. If you want to get out and around, today’s your day!Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 76 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 10 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 12 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 4, Henrico: 7, and Richmond: 1). Since this pandemic began, 1,320 people have died in the Richmond region. The seven-day average of new reported cases across the state sits at 378. Whoa! Look at these new numbers! Fewer than 100 new reported cases across the Commonwealth and single digit case counts in all three local jurisdictions. The last time my spreadsheet says that happened was over a year ago, on March 27th, just three days after I started tracking local numbers. What great news—let’s hope it continues!Over in vaccine world, I can’t remember if I mentioned it or not, but the VDH vaccine dashboard now reports that over 50% of Virginians have received at least one dose of the vaccine (53.2%). And, maybe even more exciting if you’re into tracking progress towards quasi-arbitrary goals, 65.7% of adults have had at least one dose. With 40 days remaining, I think we’ll hit Biden’s 70% goal with time to spare. That’s more great news that I hope continues!Today, the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a ton of retrospective stories from Richmonders reflecting on the year that’s passed since George Floyd was murdered by a police officer. Make sure you carve out some time today to work your way through them all, but, especially, these from Kalia Harris who helped organize mutual aid, artist Jowarnise Caston, Henrico Supervisor Tyrone Nelson, and I’ll just quote the one from the Richmond Police Department in its entirety: “Thank you for reaching out about this opportunity. RPD courteously declines to participate in this story at this time.”OK! City Council met last night and did some work. Hilariously, I totally forget they’d planned on passing the budget—which they totally did! So much for being in love with budget season, am I right? Chris Suarez at the RTD has the budget details, none of which have really changed since last we spoke. Aside from the budget papers, It looks like the resolution kicking off the process to get rid of parking minimums passed—which should get retail and restaurant owners excited. The two other papers I’ve got my eye on, those embarrassing Richmond 300 amendments and requesting that money from the ARP end up in the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, both got continued until later meetings.Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense sat down with Kevin Vonck, the new, bow-tied acting director of Richmond’s planning department. Here’s Vonck on…zoning(!): “Obviously, there are some areas of the city where we do need the zoning to catch up and reflect the market demand and development that’s occurring. We deal with a number of special-use permits because the market will maybe be ahead of where the zoning is at, and now that we have Richmond 300 in place, we have some guidance in terms of what the future land use should be in some of these areas.” He ends his interview with maybe the best description of Richmond I’ve ever read: “a cool place to end up.”In a press release yesterday, the City, Virginia Union University, and RRHA announced a “first-of-its kind partnership and 20-year commitment to support and empower residents of the Gilpin Community.” Specifically, VUU will offer STEM programming targeted at middle schoolers through their Community Mentoring Initiative alongside some new workforce training programs. The housing authority will identify and enroll folks while the City will chip in $100,000 to help pay for the new program. I like this quote from the Mayor, who calls it “a great example of being a good neighbor.” This is not the first time VUU has stepped in to help support Richmond’s youth. Remember when they started giving 50 RPS students full rides a couple years back?There’s a bunch of bicycle stories in the new issue of Richmond Magazine! If you’ve only got time to read one, because you’re so busy riding a bike of your own, make it this one by Eileen Mellon about the Urban Cycling Group.Bittersweet news, VPM’s Roberto Roldan is leaving to take a job in Louisville, which, honestly, sounds wonderful. Roldan is a great city reporter and was a crucial voice during last summer’s protests against police violence. I’ll miss his reporting! VPM has posted the job to replace him, so, if you want to be Richmond’s Next Great City Reporter, get after it!The New York Times has a really shocking rendering of Tulsa before the 1921 Race Massacre. Included are some really horrifying pictures of streets (that look a lot like Richmond’s older streets) after a mob of white people burned the buildings to the ground.This morning’s longread‘The Fledglings Are Out!’Whoa. To be able to write like this as a young person!This diary chronicles the turning of my world, from spring to winter, at home, in the wild, in my head. It travels from the west of Northern Ireland in County Fermanagh to the east in County Down. It records the uprooting of a home, a change of county and landscape, and at times the de-rooting of my senses and my mind. I’m Dara, a boy, an acorn. Mum used to call me lon dubh (which is Irish for blackbird) when I was baby, and sometimes she still does. I have the heart of a naturalist, the head of a would-be scientist, and bones of someone who is already wearied by the apathy and destruction wielded against the natural world. The outpourings on these pages express my connection to wildlife, try to explain the way I see the world, and describe how we weather the storms as a family.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.Picture of the DayIt took a decade, but now my blueberry bush has some decent berries on it.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 50 °F, and today looks great. Expect highs in the mid 80s and sunshine. Make sure you remember to water your plants, OK?Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 378 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 13 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 55 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 33, Henrico: 19, and Richmond: 3). Since this pandemic began, 1,309 people have died in the Richmond region. The seven-day average of new reported cases across the state sits at 464. As I mentioned yesterday, you should continue to take these numbers with a grain of salt as things get back on track after a weekend of server maintenance and the ol' Data Reporting Issues. One thing I do wish I’d started tracking last week—and will add a column for somewhere in my spreadsheet—is the number of 10–19 year olds with at least one dose (currently 184,778). That’s a weird age range to bucket, given the eligibility requirements of the various vaccines, but you take what the dashboard gives, ya know? Anyway, vaccine uptake in children is really fascinating to me, and I’m interested to see how quickly (or slowly) it grows.OK, I’ve got some follow up on yesterday’s Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee meeting which I put on as soothing background music while doing real work. First, the committee voted to recommend for approval RES. 2021-R027, the first step in getting rid of parking minimums. Full City Council should consider this paper at their meeting next week. I think it’s got the votes, but even in this small committee there were a few concerns. For example, via Chris Suarez in the Richmond Times-Dispatch this quote from Councilmember Jordan: “I don’t think the city is at a point where we can just eliminate them wholesale right now…Knowing the parking situations that we deal with currently, I don’t think this … can be realistic.” Before you nod your head in agreement, remember that getting rid of parking minimums does not remove any parking at all! It just stops forcing businesses to pay for dedicated parking spaces that they may not need or want. Plus, the 2nd District is, by far, the most walkable and bikeable district in the entire City, so maybe ditching parking minimums will have an added benefit of encouraging more active modes of transportation. Anyway, if you’d like to dig in more on what Richmond 300 says about parking, you can check out the 2019 DESMAN parking study.Second, Maritza Pechin, head of the City’s Office of Equitable Development and the person who managed all of the entire Richmond 300 master planning process, gave a presentation on why Council’s messy, unorganized laundry list of amendments to the master plan is unneeded and bad process. Really what you’re after is slide 16 in that aforelinked presentation: Of Council’s proposed amendments, 17 are already included in the plan, five just clarify existing parts of the plan, 24 aren’t even within the scope of a master plan (which is ultimately about land use), and 21 are fundamental changes that should require a robust community engagement plan like we saw originally with Richmond 300. I only caught parts of the next steps, but the committee did recommend the resolution be continued and I think encouraged councilmembers with proposed amendment to schedule a meeting with Pechin.GRTC had a board meeting yesterday, which reminded me that it’d been a while since I last checked in on their monthly ridership reports (p. 31). We’re in a really fascinating moment where we can now compare ridership numbers pre-pandemic, deep-pandemic, and coming-out-of-pandemic. Back in April 2019, GRTC saw 767,179 rides across their entire fixed-route transportation network (local service, express service, and the Pulse). In April 2020, that number plummeted to 522,922. But now, as more and more folks scooch back into the world, ridership in April 2021 topped out at 640,941. That’s still a 16% decrease from pre-pandemic times, but it’s a solid 23% jump from last year. While who knows what this all really means, I think you can say that public transit will not bottom out at deep-pandemic levels and stay there forever. Honestly, this was never really going to be the case in Richmond where our bus system serves so many people who don’t have a ton of other options to get around.Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury takes a look at new data published by the State this month and reports that “Black drivers in Virginia are almost two times more likely than white drivers to be pulled over by police and three times more likely to have their vehicles searched.” In fact, Oliver says Black Virginians account for 30% of all traffic stops despite making up only 19% of the state’s population. A public defender interviewed for this piece suggests that this is less the result of direct racial bias and more an effect of where police are choosing to set up shop, which sounds like a systemic issue. It reminds me of this quote from yesterday’s longread about housing discrimination: “Systemic is the price comparison model…When you only compare homes to like peers in neighborhoods that have been discriminated against, you essentially just recycled discrimination over and over again…You have individual acts of racism and you have more systemic reasons why. Both are robbing people of individual and community wealth.”This morning’s longreadIt’s Time For America’s Fixation On Herd Immunity To End, Scientists SayWhile I’m not fixated on herd immunity, I am fixated on people trying to figure out how to quantify the end of the pandemic.The appeal of this notion is clear. Achieving herd immunity sounds like a simple goal that spells the end of the coronavirus. It feels concrete — something to grab onto in a time filled with so much uncertainty, a finish line for which to strive. But the problem with framing the goal that way, say the scientists who actually build the models, is that the herd immunity threshold is far harder to calculate reliably than many in the public realize.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.Picture of the Day

Good morning, RVA! It’s 48 °F, and cloudy. You can expect pleasant temperatures in the mid 70s for most of the day, despite the lack of extreme sunshine.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports…something. VDH had some server maintenance done over the weekend, which meant their data dashboards went 404 for the past couple of days. They’re sort of up now, showing screenshots for most of the dashboard pages, but, like, you can’t scroll down on any of them and that makes finding “Richmond’ in an alphabetically sorted list a challenge. I’m missing data in my spreadsheet since Thursday, so expect numbers and chartsandgraphs to be weird for a while.This past Friday afternoon, Governor Northam “lifted Virginia’s universal indoor mask mandate to align with new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” He recorded a short video of the announcement, too, if you’d rather hear his soft Eastern Shore drawl than read a press release this morning. The gist is the same as what we went over last week: If you’re fully vaccinated you can do whatever, whenever with a handful of exceptions (transit, health care facilities, and a few other spots). Additionally, businesses can still choose to require masks, so pay attention before you saunter into a place maskless. The Governor also announced that he’ll “ease all distancing and capacity restrictions on Friday, May 28th.” That’s two weeks earlier than planned and right before Memorial Day weekend—an, I’m sure, not unrelated fact. Until the 28th, though, we’re stuck in this limboland of mixed messaging around who can do what and for what reasons. Can I pack a big room full of maximally vaccinated people? I think the Governor’s restrictions prevent it, but the guidance says it’d be fine. Confusing. Regardless of how you feel about the sudden lurch in masking guidance, we’ll have a lot more clarity at the end of this month. I like how President Biden put it: “The rule is now simple: Get vaccinated or wear a mask until you do.”The school procurement and construction situation continues to evolve? devolve? Over the weekend the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Chris Suarez reported that Mayor Stoney and three City Council members “are asking the School Board to reconsider its plans for the school division to manage the construction of a new George Wythe High School.” Via Councilmember Lynch’s newsletter, here are screenshots (first page, second page) of the letter sent by Mayor Stoney and Councilmembers Lynch, Robertson, and Newbille (that’s the Council President, Vice President, and George Wythe’s council rep) outlining how the new proposed process will work. It sounds like the City will hire a third party to help both sides with the procurement and construction process for “the entirety of the process.” Importantly, via Suarez’s piece, swing-vote School Board member Jonathan Young seems interested in the idea. School Board meets tonight, so maybe tune in to see if they choose to respond to this letter publicly.A Chris Suarez double header! He reports that the City has withdrawn a $75,000 contribution to the Enrichmond Foundationafter complaints about how they’ve involved (or failed to involve) volunteers and descendants—folks who have been working to preserve and restore those cemeteries for years and years. This is a long-simmering conflict and, from reading the article, does not sound nearly resolved. Also of note in a political intrigue sort of way, near the bottom of the article, Del. Delores McQuinn weighs in to disagree with Mayor Stoney’s decision.The Department of Public Works has a new survey up (until May 30th) for folks to weigh in on potential new bike lanes for the summer 2021 and spring 2022 paving seasons. You‘ ll be asked to weigh in on how bike lanes should look on six potential corridors: Brookland Parkway (not Brookland Park Boulevard), Colorado Avenue, Grove Avenue, Marshall Street, Walmsley Road, and Warwick Road. It’s so incredibly exciting to me that bike lanes are now just part of the regular paving process. Not too long ago, each of these pieces of proposed bike infrastructure would have involved a huge, drawn out, months long battle in public meetings and in the media. Progress!The City’s Planning Commission meets today and there’s a lot of interesting stuff on the agenda—including some cool pedestrian plaza stuff, a public stairs project (which you know I love), and the rezoning of the Southern States silos. Probably most interesting to readers of this newsletter is the presentation on the rezoning of the area around the Science Museum, Alison Street, and VCU & VUU Pulse stations. Last time this particular rezoning popped up on agendas there was much rending of garments and gnashing of teeth from nearby residents about all the typical stuff (height, density, shade, crime, sewers, etc, etc, etc). We’ll see how the City plans on moving this rezoning forward, now that we’re coming out of the pandemic and the Planning Department has new leadership.Important civic duty reminder: Today is the deadline to register to vote or update any of your voter information if you want to vote in the June gubernatorial primary.This morning’s longreadWhy The Vaccines are a Home Run Despite the Yankees’ OutbreakThis was the best analysis of the New York Yankees COVID-19 story that I read. It’s a challenge to remember that, with so many folks vaccinated, new cases are far, far less important than the number of hospitalizations and deaths. This piece made me want to rewrite the template for the top section of this email!A case of vaccine breakthrough is not the same thing as an unvaccinated or non-immune person catching COVID-19. Personally, if I had tested positive while unvaccinated, I’d be worried until it played out. Post-vaccination? For me, testing positive would be but a curiosity unworthy of my anxiety. There’s a reason that vaccine trials and real world data show so few severe cases, let alone hospitalizations or deaths. Post-vaccination, the virus would no no longer be able to surprise my immune system as a novel pathogen, and I’m not that worried whether it replicates just a bit in my nose before getting shut down.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.Picture of the DayThis was the best lunch I’ve made in months.

Being a winner means mastering your time. Join Bob and Chad as they pick the brain of a true master of time Chris Suarez. Chris joins the podcast to talk about how everyone can become more purposeful in how they use their time. Learn Chris's top tips that you can implement immediately in your life to have more time for the things that are important to you.   Join our Facebook group at www.facebook.com/groups/winmakegive   Part of the Win Make Give Podcast Network

Good morning, RVA! It’s 65 °F, and today’s weather looks a lot like yesterday’s. Expect highs in the 90s and a chance for thunderstorms later in the day. Stay cool, stay dry, and stay safe.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 611 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 16 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 90 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 35, Henrico: 29, and Richmond: 26). Since this pandemic began, 1,286 people have died in the Richmond region. The seven-day average of new reported cases across the state sits at 999. Whoa, what’s this? A barely three-digit seven-day average of new reported cases! The last time that happened was way back on October 20th. This, for some brains-are-weird reason, feels like real progress to me. The number of deaths is still pretty high, though. I know I’ve done the flu-comparison math before, but I think it’s helpful to revisit it. According to the CDC, Virginia had an “influenza/pneumonia” death rate of 11 per 100,000 people back in 2019. If you take today’s seven-day average of COVID-19 deaths (14.4), multiply it by 365 (5,256), and then divided it by 85.35 (the state’s population divided by 100,000), you get 61.58. According to this quick and shoddy math, that’s a coronadeath rate about 5.6 times higher than that of the 2019 flu. That year, 1,100 people died from “influenza/pneumonia”, which is about three people per day, if you want to look at it that way.Huge vaccine news in the New York Times: “The Food and Drug Administration is preparing to authorize use of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine in adolescents 12 to 15 years old by early next week.” Dang that was fast! I have no idea how many 12–15 year olds exist in Virginia or in our region, but I’m sure it’s thousands and thousands—and I’m sure many of them are stoked to get vaccinated (including the one I live with). The NYT also says to expect a similar announcement from Moderna soon. Get excited for another, smaller flurry of vaccine news and for some interesting reporting on what adolescent vaccination means for this fall’s school year.I haven’t yet listened to (or posted to The Boring Show) yesterday’s two budget sessions, but will do so today. Also, looking at the City’s legislative calendar, I see they’ve added another budget session today at 3:00 PM. The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Chris Suarez did listen in yesterday and reports that Council agreed on raises for all city employees and did it in a way that has support from the Mayor’s administration. Given how employee salary conversations have gone over the past couple weeks with this group, a compromise acceptable by both sides seems like a big win. Other updates from yesterday: The Civilian Review Board will get funded at about $200,000 and the Affordable Housing Trust Find will have to wait until the American Rescue Plan money rolls in. One note about the CRB: I don’t know if that $200,000 is funding for half a year or a full year, but neither number is close to the “about 1% of the police budget” number we’d kicked around late last year. For context, RPD has a proposed FY22 budget of $95 million.RPS’s school board also met yesterday to discuss, among other things, their recent takeover of school building procurement and construction. This, from the RTD’s Kenya Hunter seems ominous: “Still, Kamras has moved forward to comply with the Board’s directive, proposing three positions to beef up the school system’s procurement department, including a director of school construction, a construction project manager, and a construction procurement manager. City Hall already approved the Board’s budget request prior to the move; it’s unclear from which pot the money to pay for those positions would come.” Emphasis mine and a thing I keep asking to the, like, four other people I know who follow School Board, City Council, and budget season.Mike Platania at Richmond BizSense reports on a couple of rezonings y’all might be interested in. I predict that 17th Street between Broad and Dock Street is headed for a dramatic transformation over the next couple of years—new development, street redesigns, and potential investment in a big-deal museum are all headed that way.I don’t know why, but I found this photo essay—by VPM’s Alex Scribner—from the Safe Space market up on Lakeside very soothing. It’s nice to see people out doing things together in a COVID-responsible way, I think! Also, I’m super into pickles, so now I need go find some Dayum this is my Jam dills.I love this deadpan headline from Kate Masters in the Virginia Mercury: “More Virginians are foraging for ramps. Many are poisoning themselves by picking the wrong plant..” To summarize, do not eat false hellebore, which, “in the most severe cases, it’s led to hospitalizations, with symptoms including vomiting, cardiac arrhythmias, dangerously low blood pressure and even seizures.” Also fascinating, from the Wikipedia, “The plant was used by some tribes to elect a new leader. All the candidates would eat the root, and the last to start vomiting would become the new leader.” So, yeah, maybe don’t put it in your pasta.Northside members of the RPS community, tonight at 6:00 PM you can join a Northside-specific version of the District’s Reopen With Love 2.0 conversations. Tap the previous link for call-in info!This morning’s longreadWhat the “Infrastructure” Fight Is Really AboutInfrastructure week comes and goes so fast and we never seem to get any infrastructure out of it. This piece in Politico explains that, kind of, but is also just a really interesting look at how infrastructure changed American history.Together, twin revolutions in transportation and information (inspired by the U.S. Post Office, which subsidized the delivery of newspapers and magazines, and after 1848, the telegraph) drew disparate communities into closer connection with one another and with an emerging market economy that relied on credit, surplus production and trade. America evolved quickly from an agrarian republic into a capitalist democracy. It was a world that many Americans welcomed—but which equally as many dreaded and resisted.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.Picture of the Day

Good morning, RVA! It’s 66 °F, and today you can expect slightly cooler—but still lovely—highs in the 70s. Things get a bit chilly overnight, but the weekend ahead of us looks incredible.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,187 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealthand 16 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 121 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 58, Henrico: 34, and Richmond: 29). Since this pandemic began, 1,279 people have died in the Richmond region. The seven-day average of new reported cases across the state sits at 1,051. Here’s this week’s stacked chart of new reported cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Cases: way down; Hospitalizations: flat, but still way above this past summer’s level; Deaths: I still don’t know what’s even happening with this chart but it doesn’t look too, too terrifying. Related, maybe, the Governor announced he’d update the Commonwealth’s outdoor mask guidance to match the CDC’s new guidance. He also, effective immediately, upped the spectator capacity for outdoor recreational sports to 1,000 people. That change was announced a while back for implementation on May 15th, but taking it live now “will allow additional spectators to participate in final games of the current high school sports season and the summer sports season.”The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Sabrina Moreno reports on how the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts will adapt their vaccination strategies now that demand has started to cool down. A big shift is the dedication of a vaccination event on Wednesdays at George Wythe High School to walk-ups—no appointment required! Just walk on up! If walking up for a vaccination is a bit too spontaneous for you, you can, of course, go schedule a vaccination appointment yourself at vax.rchd.com or by calling 804.205.3501. Also, because she never sleeps, Moreno has a nice story about the Health District’s vaccination partnership with the Islamic Center of Henrico. Not related but still important: Sabrina Moreno, whose name you’ve seen a ton in this newsletter over the last year and twice already in today’s edition, was named the Virginia Press Association’s 2020 Outstanding Young Journalist. From protests to COVID-19, I can’t imagine trying to figure out what the heck is happening in our town without her hard work.Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury reports that the first of three planned increases to Virginia’s minimum wage goes into effect this Saturday. Folks making minimum wage will now earn $9.50 per hour, which, while still not a liveable wage, is better than $7.25 per hour. This stat kind of blew my mind, though: “the number of employees who are paid at the federal minimum [in Virginia] is relatively small—federal statistics put the number at about 15,000.” Looking forward, the state’s current plan is to scooch the minimum wage up to $12 per hour by 2023, which is basically 100 years from now. To me, this seems slow and unacceptable, and it’ll be interested to see if the current crop of democratic gubernatorial candidates want to accelerate that timeline (or if the federal government wakes up and overcomes its filibuster-induced paralysis).I learned two things from this next link: 1) Today is Arbor Day, and 2) the Science Museum has built a pedestrian- and bike-only path called the ProtoPath that connects the museum’s campus to the existing bike lane on Leigh Street. You had me at “pedestrian- and bike-only”, ProtoPath, but, also!, the path is lined with all kinds of native tress and shrubs. Plus seating! I mean dang, this seems like a legit neighborhood amenity. How do I request one for my neighborhood?I put Council’s third budget amendment work session up on The Boring Show yesterday, for your listening pleasure. I’m still working my own way through the second session, which, yet again, had plenty of spicy moments related to police and fire pay. I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to spending some quality time this weekend listening to my favorite Council pals.I hadn’t seen this made official anywhere yet, but Chris Suarez reports that Councilmember Mike Jones will suspend his campaign for the 69th District House of Delegates seat. Jones failed to get on the primary ballot after he submitted some paperwork to the state after the due date. Rough for Jones, but, selfishly, I was nervous about finding an equally as urbanist-minded replacement for him on Council.Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Virginia has uploaded all of their Fair Housing Month town halls to their YouTube channel. I know readers of this newsletter crave housing news almost as much as they do zoning and rezoning news, so this should help slake some of those cravings—at least for a while. Take some time this weekend (when you’re not listening to City Council debate the budget) and learn about the basics of fair housing, the history behind redlining, and some of your housing rights. Good stuff!This morning’s longreadThe Unlikely Story of the World’s First Tactical ChairI had no idea how much these chairs, which seem familiar and ubiquitous, cost today!As similar losses mounted, the U.S. Navy embarked on a campaign to rid its combat ships of almost everything that would ignite. A new ban prohibited cork insulation, linoleum flooring, rugs, and curtains, along with items from sailors’ personal belongings, like excess books, dress uniforms, and hair oils. When elimination proved impossible for some necessary items, such as wooden mess benches, the Navy sought non-flammable alternatives. A proposal seeking submissions for a new shipborne chair caught the attention of a young Baltimore engineer named Wilton Dinges. The chairs had to be waterproof, fire- and corrosion-resistant, and light yet tough enough to endure constant abuse and withstand a torpedo blast. With help from aluminum producer Alcoa, Dinges created the seven-pound Model 1006 (“ten oh six”).If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.Picture of the Day

Good morning, RVA! It’s 65 °F, and today you should expect another warm and awesome day with temperatures returning to the mid 80s for at least the next two days. Get out there and enjoy it!Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,105 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealthand 18 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 128 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 52, Henrico: 49, and Richmond: 27). Since this pandemic began, 1,273 people have died in the Richmond region. The seven-day average of new reported cases across the state sits at 1,098.Yesterday, the CDC released new guidance on wearing masks outside and put together this helpful page about “choosing safer activities.” I really like the framing of information on this page, putting common activities on a spectrum of risk for both vaccinated and unvaccinated folks (rather than a prescriptive DO this or DON’T DO that). The big change is that the CDC now says both vaccinated and unvaccinated people can, unmasked, “walk, run, or bike outdoors with members of your household” and “attend a small, outdoor gathering with fully vaccinated family and friends.” This is great news for tweens patiently (or not so patiently) waiting for the FDA to authorize the Pfizer vaccine for 12–15 year olds. Don’t throw away your masks, though, because you’ll still need them for crowded outdoor events or almost all indoor situations. This is life for a long while, I think!And, just as a reminder, all Virginians aged 16 and older (sorry tweens) are eligible for vaccination. Richmonders and Henricoans can now go to vax.rchd.com and schedule an appointment for themselves directly—no more pre-registration!—or call 804.205.3501 and have an appointment scheduled over the phone. We’re no longer in a place where demand for the vaccine far outstrips supply, so finding an appointment to get jabbed has never been easier.Richmond Police are reporting a shooting on the 4000 block of Midlothian Turnpike involving five people. Here’s the statement from the police: “At 6:31 p.m., Richmond Police responded to the 4000 block of Midlothian Turnpike for a shooting. Officers arrived on scene and located two adult females, two teenagers, and one child suffering from gunshot wounds. The victims were transported to a local hospital, two with non-life threatening injuries, two victims with life-threatening injuries, and one adult female succumbed to her injuries while at the hospital.” And here’s a brief statement from Mayor Stoney: “Earlier this evening, five innocent bystanders in our city were shot, one fatally, in a single, senseless act of gun violence. This is a tragedy that no community should have to experience. My heart aches for our families. The investigation is ongoing, and we will continue to monitor the situation. If you know anything, please say something. Call Crime Stoppers at (804) 780–1000.”Chris Suarez at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has some really interesting casino updates on the thoughts and feelings of local civic associations. For example, the Richmond Highway Neighborhood Civic Association supports the proposed 8th District location, meanwhile “nearly a dozen neighborhood groups in the Fan District and North Side are opposing” the proposed 2nd District location. On my walks and rides through the Northside, I’ve definitely seen “No Casino @ Bowtie” signs (as seen above) pop up in the last week or so—even as far away as Ginter Park. It’ll be real interesting to see how much the public support/opposition plays into the final decision made by the City’s evaluation panel.Tangentially related and directly a bummer, Gregory J. Gilligan, also at the RTD, says Movieland has scrapped its plans to build a drive-in movie theatre in its parking lot this summer.Yesterday, I mentioned RPS’s #ReopeningWithLove2.0 community conversations—Northside, your conversation is up next on May 4th. In the meantime, if you’re interested in learning more about the District’s reopening plans, you should read Superintendent Kamras’s email from yesterday. He’s got a partial list of health and safety measure that families, students, and teachers should expect when school reopens this fall along with three guiding principles for reopening: 1) Extend grace and love to all students, staff, and families, 2) Protect everyone’s health and safety, including their mental health, and 3) Communicate, communicate, communicate. If you’ve been paying attention, these are basically his three guiding principles for all things, but they fit really well here, too. I especially appreciate the first! Folks reentering the world will do so at their own pace and face their own challenges, and we should all be supportive of that!City Council’s second budget amendment sessions is up on The Boring Show, and actual City Council, not the podcast version, will meet today for their third amendment work session. Based on Roberto Roldan’s tweet from earlier this week, it sounds like Council still has a lot of work to do. Speaking of, here’s Roldan’s write up of Council’s decision not to move forward with an unvetted salary increase for police and fire employees—an increase that would have been in addition to and outside of the approved Gallagher compensation study. I’m still kind of surprised Council even considered it.Now that the rad Ms. Bee’s parklet has approval from the City, you can help fund part of its construction by chipping in a couple of bucks on this GoFundMe. Even the pre-fabbed parklets popping up around town are expensive, so I imagine an entirely custom, bee-themed parklet will cost a chunk of change. Honestly, I think getting this parklet funded and built is important: Richmond needs to see, with their own eyes, what’s possible with the existing parklet program. Renderings can only do but so much convincing!This morning’s longreadEnvisioning a Federal Program to Increase Transit ServiceOperational funding for public transit is yet another example of federal COVID relief programs that we should just keep doing forever and ever.But the need to invigorate American transit service predated the pandemic. And after the pandemic recedes, a federal program to support transit service could yield immense dividends. In most American cities, the fundamental shortcoming of transit is its sheer scarcity. Buses and trains simply don’t come often enough or connect enough places to be a reliable transportation option. More abundant service promises to unlock economic opportunity for people with low incomes, improve mobility for Black and brown residents who rely on transit the most, and reduce carbon emissions. The current federal transportation policy regime, however, has done little to change the scarcity of transit service.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.Picture of the Day

Good morning, RVA! It’s 41 °F, but this afternoon looks excellent. Expect highs in the mid 70s and a wonderful evening to spend sitting on the porch. Watch out for tomorrow night, though, when a cold front moves through—especially if you’ve already put in your garden!Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 978 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 14 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 141 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 50, Henrico: 53, and Richmond: 38). Since this pandemic began, 1,260 people have died in the Richmond region. The seven-day average of new reported cases across the state sits at 1,464. Mel Leonor at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a quick report from the Governor’s COVID-19 press conference yesterday. Of note, the Gov said “We’re making a few small tweaks to guidelines. We’ll have more to say about that in the coming weeks.” Plus the Gov tweaked existing restrictions to allow, and this is not a joke or a typo, 68 runners at the starting line of a cross country event instead of 50. I would love to know how they got to 68. Plus, “performances, like drama and musicals, will be reclassified as athletic events rather than social events,” increasing the amount of spectators allowed. The thought of drama as athletics makes me laugh, too, but it didn’t make any sense why basketball players could have their families and friends come watch them perform while oboists could not.FYI: The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will hold an emergency meeting to discuss the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on April 23rd at 11:00 AM–5:00 PM. Woof, that’s a long meeting.The RTD’s Kenya Hunter has updates on the RPS School Board’s recently passed resolution to take control of procurement and construction of school facilities. Yesterday afternoon, members of school board, council, and the mayor held a press conference outside of George Wythe High School to advocate against the Board’s resolution, which would most likely delay construction of a replacement building for Wythe while RPS staffs up to handle overseeing that whole process. Side note: Just getting members from all our elected bodies together to advocate for a single thing is kind of impressive. Anyway, last night, School Board had a discussion about how to move forward without delaying construction of Wythe’s replacement, and, to be completely honest, I fell asleep before they got to the good parts. I hate how School Board continually has these very important conversations in the middle of the night / 10:00 PM! So, maybe they came to some sort of consensus last night, but it was after my bedtime and after reporter deadlines, so, for now, your guess is as good as mine.Hey now, this seems like big news: The City has acquired 1305 N. 5th Street “the known location of the historic Burial Ground for Freed People of Color.” This is the small lot bounded by Fifth, Hospital, the highway, and the railroad tracks. Over the years this site, which was established as a burial ground for enslaved people and freed people of color in 1816, has been isolated, nipped, tucked, built upon, and all but forgotten as sacred space. The DC2RVA high-speed rail project will, potentially, as have a half dozen other transportation projects over the last 200 years, impact this site. With the City now in control of the land, I feel like there’s at least the possibility to bend the rail around the historic site.City Council’s Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee meets today and will consider ORD. 2021–086, which will accept about $2 million from the Department of Rail and Public Transportation to paint the Pulse lanes red. This is the easiest kind of ordinance to pass—one that accepts money from the state to do a thing—so I’m confident LUHT will smile upon it. But, just like in the General Assembly, bills can die quickly and in interesting ways, so I’ll continue to keep an eye on this one. I’m already emotionally invested in its outcome.Related, Chris Suarez at the RTD, has some interesting news on Henrico’s involvement in GRTC. The County has had a growing interest and investment in bus service over the last couple of years—which is great—and I think it does make sense for them to be more directly involved in the decision-making process moving forward. That said, that vast, vast majority of the bus service is in the City, and the City should have a lot a lot of say in what happens to that bus service. Figuring out this leadership structure will be complicated, especially since running even infrequent bus service out to far-flung suburban centers in Henrico will be expensive. With just a couple of new routes, Henrico could be spending more than the City, but have far fewer actual bus routes for humans to use. In fact, Suarez reports that the County “expects to allocate $13.9 million to GRTC in the 2022–2023 fiscal year.”I’m continually impressed with the way the City’s Office of Sustainability communicates around their RVAgreen 2050 initiative. In their most recent email, which you can sign up for right here, they included this maphighlighting where in the City the feedback on RVAgreen 2050 is coming from. It’s not the most diverse map, with most of the feedback coming from the whiter parts of the city—the Fan, the 4th District, Forest Hill, and the Northside. This is pretty much par for the course when it comes to online civic surveys in Richmond, but I don’t think I’ve seen folks—especially folks working for the City—be so transparent and upfront with this data while a survey is ongoing. I love it. You can weigh in on RVAgreen 2050 (regardless of where in Richmond you live) here.This morning’s longreadThieves Nationwide Are Slithering Under Cars, Swiping Catalytic ConvertersMy Nextdoor is awash in complaints from folks—especially Prius owners—who have had their catalytic converters stolen. Turns out, it’s a nationwide trend. Who knew!Determined to deter future thieves, Mr. Fontanive, who often uses metal in his artworks, drew on his metalworking skills. He bought an aftermarket metal guard for his catalytic converter, then made his own modifications, with security screws and hardened steel bell pins that would be hard to saw through. “I really went overboard,” he said. “If they look under my Prius now, they’re just going to be like: ‘No way.’” For car owners who aren’t trained in metalworking, or don’t want to dole out money for a metal guard, the police advise parking in secure garages or well-lit areas. Etching a vehicle identification number or license plate ID on the converter could also help track it down if it does get stolen.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.Picture of the DayYou can find it?

Good morning, RVA! It’s 54 °F, and it rained some last night. Today looks a bit cooler, a bit cloudier, and, with any luck, a bit less polleny. Expect highs in the mid 60s and fewer yellow footprints.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,301 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealthand 4 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 158 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 57, Henrico: 59, and Richmond: 42). Since this pandemic began, 1,249 people have died in the Richmond region. The seven-day average of new reported cases across the state sits at 1,579. Also, for what it’s worth, I’ve switched the first number in the subject line to the statewide, seven-day average.An update on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine pause: The NYT reports that ACIP, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices which advises the CDC on immunization practices (duh), “determined on Wednesday that they needed more time to assess a possible link to a rare but serious blood-clotting disorder.” Sounds like the J&J pause will continue for at least a week, which, other than limiting vaccine supply here in the United States, has big consequences elsewhere in the world. From the same article: “South Africa, devastated by a worrisome variant of the virus that emerged there, also suspended use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Australia announced it would not purchase any doses. And the European Union indicated that it would consider new deals only with companies that were not using the technology employed by the Johnson & Johnson or AstraZeneca vaccines.” Stressful.The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Kenya Hunter reports on the Richmond School Board’s recent vote to “take back its authority to build new schools, a process that since 2018 has been led by a team of city and school officials.” Superintendent Kamras opposed the resolution and “the city is researching whether the resolution is binding”—never a good sign. School construction is one of the handful of issues that involve all three elected parts of our government, and, honestly, I thought the current status quo worked pretty OK. To get our three, recently-built new school buildings—Henry L. Marsh Elementary, River City Middle, and Cardinal Elementary—required the Mayor to raise the meals tax in his budget, Council to approve that budget, and then the City and the School Board to work together on construction through the Joint Construction Team, which meets weekly. School Board does not control the City’s Capital Improvement Program nor does it have the authority to raise its own money for school construction. They don’t have the staff to get this done at the moment and would need to hire “four new positions that would provide the school system with the capacity to oversee school construction, something Kamras said the division doesn’t have.” Seems like a lot to take on in this current pandemic-recovery moment, especially with the RFP for a new high school to replace George Wythe about to head out the door.The audio from City Council’s fourth budget work session now exists on The Boring Show. I haven’t listened yet but the last couple minutes of comments from Council seem juicy, and I’m excited to put it on while I casually ride my bike around the city. We’ve got just one more work session left before the first of the amendment sessions, which is when we’ll see if Council wants to tinker with the Mayor’s proposed budget or not. For example, Councilmember Jones has already promised to submit an amendment funding the Civilian Review Board. Of course, I’m interested in how much and where the money comes from. Note: There are about seven minutes of silence at the top of this episode for some reason.The RTD’s Chris Suarez helps me understand why the City sent out a press release stating that “the Stoney Administration has informed the three remaining respondents to the city’s Resort Casino RFQ/P that the city will not consider alternative sites to the primary site identified in their proposals.” Suarez unlocks it for me, reporting that “after facing backlash from Stratford Hills area residents, a development company is asking Richmond officials to consider an alternate location for its proposed casino resort.” So that’s fascinating and speaks to the seriousness with which at least the developers are taking the recent (negative) feedback from the nearby communities.Roberto Roldan at VPM reports that the Richmond Electoral Board has hired Keith Balmer as their new General Registrar. Balmer replaces Kirk Showalter, who headed up the office during a time when all sorts of situations landed the Registrar on the front page of the paper. Balmer has some ideas for how the Registrar can work with the public moving forward, but, if it were me, my primary goal would be that I not end up on the front page of the paper for a minute.I’ve got two interesting ways for you to learn more and get involved today. First, at 5:00 PM the City’s Office of Sustainability will host RVAgree Gab: Buildings and Energy, a virtual event focused on how to “accelerate the equitable transition to healthy, resilient, climate neutral buildings and energy sources.” Second, at 6:30 PM RVA Engage, which is an initiative out of the Community Foundation, will host a panel discussion on discovering and evaluating civic-related information. This panel features some librarians and a civic leader (the 8th District’s Amy Wentz!). Obviously I believe knowing how to find information about your city or county is extremely important and a lot of fun—but maybe that last part is just me (and probably those librarians)./r/rva has gone the extra mile, and user AndrewTheGovtDrone watched 16 hours of footage of the Brookland Park Boulevard Stop for People sign and reported the results. Over the course of 16 hours spread across three days, the sign was hit by 22 drivers! At some point, someone tied balloons to the sign and: “As silly as the balloons were, they had a significant positive impact on driver behavior. Prior to the balloons, the sign was hit six (6) times on Monday. Following the balloon placement, the sign was hit only one (1) time.”The Richmond and Henrico Health Districts will host a free COVID-19 testing event today at Hotchkiss Field Community Center (701 E. Brookland Park Boulevard) from 1:00–3:00 PM. With the rise in cases, you need to go get COVID-tested should you start experiencing COVID symptoms. By the way, this location is just down the street from that poor Stop for People sign that folks keep crushing with their cars.This morning’s longreadThe Unlikely Rise of the French TacosFrench tacos sound amazing. Honestly, anything folded inside of anything else and toasted on a grill is totally my scene.French tacos are tacos like chicken fingers are fingers. Which is to say, they are not tacos at all. First of all, through some mistranslation or misapprehension of its Mexican namesake, the French tacos is always plural, even when there’s only one, pronounced with a voiced “S.” Technically, the French tacos is a sandwich: a flour tortilla, slathered with condiments, piled with meat (usually halal) and other things (usually French fries), doused in cheese sauce, folded into a rectangular packet, and then toasted on a grill. “In short, a rather successful marriage between panini, kebab, and burrito,” according to the municipal newsletter of Vaulx-en-Velin, a suburb of Lyon in which the French tacos may or may not have been born.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.Picture of the DayDo you think this guy is stoked on all the pollen?

Good morning, RVA! It’s 56 °F, and today looks great weatherwise. I mean, it is still a Monday and the air may still be filled with pollen, but you can expect temperate weather with highs in the 70s. I think that’s worth an “Enjoy!”.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,227 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealthand 14 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 157 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 47, Henrico: 67, and Richmond: 43). Since this pandemic began, 1,245 people have died in the Richmond region. I don’t know how to do the math in Google Sheets, but the slope of the trend line for the last month of new reported cases would be a very small positive number. The seven-day average of cases continues to increase but pretty slowly—it sits at 1,486 at the moment, for what it’s worth.Over in vaccine world, here’s this week’s chart of total vaccine doses administered in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield along with the statewide number of doses received. I think we should start seeing the lack of Johnson & Johnson start to show up this week, that is unless an increase in Pfizer of Moderna masks it. Stay tuned! Also, only about two weeks in, and the graph of progress towards “local herd immunity” (which I’m still not sure is even a thing) shows us visibly closing the gap. We’re closing the gap statewide, too: Over three million Virginians, or 36.3% of the Commonwealth have gotten their first jab. We’re doing this thing!And the big news, which I’m sure you’ve all heard by now, is that the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts have moved into Phase 2 of the vaccine rollout. That means every single person aged 16 and up is now eligible for vaccination. If, for some reason you haven’t already, please go to vaccinate.virginia.gov and pre-register so you can get that jab! Read more about what Phase 2 means for Richmond and Henrico here.City Council will host their fourth budget work session today at 1:00 PM, and you can tune in live here or wait for me to put the audio up on The Boring Show. Today, the esteemed Bill Echelberger will continue his operating budget presentation and, assuming there’s time, dive into a similar analysis of the Capital Improvement Program. I’m telling you: If you skipped Budget Session #3 you missed out on one of the best budget presentations I’ve heard and that’s all because of Echelberger. While I do feel some sad feelings that this year’s budget season lacks the endless parade of department heads telling Council why they deserve to exist, I think I’ve learned more (so far) from the new Echelberger format. Also, and not entirely unrelated, Council will meet for their regularly scheduled meeting tonight at 6:00 PM. You can find that agenda here. The budget papers have show up on the agenda, which, in the past hasn’t meant a ton, but, according to this year’s budget calendar, tonight Council will hold a public hearing on the Mayor’s proposed budget. Do you have budget thoughts?? Surely! Today/tonight would be a time to send them Council’s way (but not the only time!).Chris Suarez has an interesting piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch about some of the Black families who live in the area near the location of the proposed 4th District casino. I learned a lot from this piece—including that there may, or may not, be graves located within the proposed casino site. This quote in particular got me: “They’re trying to erase our history…They’re waiting for the right time…so that they can justify removing things. Now they’re interested in the land that was no good to them before—that’s how we got this land here. Now, it’s a commodity.”This full-page ad for bicycles in the May 4th, 1919 Richmond Times-Dispatch is SO cool! How about this pro-bike, anti-transit ad from a Richmond retailer, 100 years ago, also deep in a pandemic: “Germs love crowds but nobody else does. Why be crushed and trampled night and morning and pay for the privilege? On a bicycle seat there is always room. The air you breathe as you ride is clean, not burdened with infection. Make your trip to and from work something to look forward to with pleasure instead of dread.” Apparently a bicycle parade took place on May 7th from Capitol Square to “Reservoir”, which I think was Byrd Park. We should resurrect this tradition and do it again!Yet Another Civic Survey! The folks at RVAgreen 2050 need your feedback on the “RVAgreen 2050 roadmap which aims to achieve a 45% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and help the community adapt to Richmond’s climate impacts.” As is their custom, they’ve put together a menu of ways to get involved, each requiring a different amount of your precious time. You can leave comments on the entire document, take the full community survey, or take the short community survey. I love this approach to digital engagement!How do people keep running over that Stop for People sign on Brookland Park Boulevard, you may ask? Via /r/rva, here’s a video of a handful of people taking left turns off of Richmond-Henrico Turnpike headed west on Brookland Park Boulevard and absolutely annihilating the sign with their cars. And if the sign were something else about that height that happened to be in the middle of a crosswalk, like, say, a kid? I’m thankful for these signs, and I’m thankful for how this one has provided physical evidence of how dangerous this intersection actually is.This morning’s longreadWhat Can I do? A Calculator.I know some folks take issue with Emily Oster, but I really enjoy her newsletter. This one from last week felt especially useful in how it compares coronarisks for vaccinated people to other risks we take on the day to day. Maybe y’all are already there, but I need to read about ten more things like this before I’m mentally ready to return to the world.People do not want to be unsafe. They do not want to be irresponsible. They want to think carefully about these choices and how to make them as safely as possible. But they are hard and confusing. As I thought about answering this questions, regular readers will be unsurprised to learn that I decided we needed…a framework! But then I realized that wasn’t quite enough. The complexity of these questions needed something more precise; basically, they needed a calculator. With actual numbers. So today I’m going to try to give you both: a framework (really, a simplification) which addresses some of your questions, and then a calculator for the rest.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.Picture of the Day

Good morning, RVA! It’s 51 °F, and, once again, today looks beautiful. Expect highs near 80 °F accompanied by maybe a few more clouds than yesterday. Sounds like a day worth enjoying.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,023 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealthand 31 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 154 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 51, Henrico: 61, and Richmond: 42). Since this pandemic began, 1,232 people have died in the Richmond region. Case counts across the state are on a downward trend—at least over the last five or so days. Plateau or nah? You can question the local case count similarly, I think. Check out the graph of the combined 7-day average of new reported cases in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield. Hmmm…definite notes of plateau.Over on the vaccine side of the house, parts of Virginia are already in Phase 2: Everybody Else. As of yesterday, the Chesapeake, Norfolk, and Virginia Beach Health Districts have all moved in to Phase 2. Actually, looking at this map, there area bunch of Health Districts already in Phase 2. We’ll get there soon, y’all—hold tight. And until then, remain vigilant, wear a mask, keep your distance, and work from home if you can!Eric Kolenich at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has an update on something I wrote about yesterday and reports that University of Richmond’s board of trustees has decided to pump the brakes on leaving racists' names on two campus buildings. This comes after the faculty senate voted to censure the rector of the board of trustees. This all feels so predictable and avoidable, doesn’t it? I wonder if the board underestimated the amount of blowback they’d get or if they didn’t even consider it.Related, the RTD’s Chris Suarez sat through yesterday’s Council meeting and reports on how Council will move forward on disposing of the Confederate monuments. Well, kind of. In a very Council way, they couldn’t decide if they wanted to go through the disposal process themselves or if they wanted the Mayor’s administration to handle it instead. Or maybe the Mayor’s administration could do most of the work but keep Council in the loop? TBD! To Council’s credit, though, they have lost a ton of staff recently, and, with the budget season ramped fully up, I doubt Confederate monument disposal is high on anyone’s list.Jonathan Spiers in Richmond BizSense has the details on these perpendicular-to-the-street townhomes proposed for a site in Highland Park. Every one comes with a spiral staircase to access the shared lawn! I’m fascinated by this concept (the perpendicular townhomes, not the spiral staircases) and interested in if we start seeing more of these pop up. Converting a big lot in a single-family neighborhood into 12 homes is definitely one way to do some mild density.Tonight you’ve got two ways to learn more about the candidates running to represent you in various ways. First, the University of Richmond School of Law will host a virtual policy platform discussion with the Commonwealth’s Attorney candidates today at 12:00 PM, featuring both incumbent Colette McEachin and challenger Tom Barbour. Second, Virginia State University will host the first televised Democratic gubernatorial debate tonight at 7:00 PM, featuring Lee Carter, Jennifer Carroll Foy, Justin Fairfax, Terry McAuliffe, and Jennifer McClellan. I’m familiar with this entire cast of characters (some for better reasons than others), but I’m really interested to see them all on stage together—some very different vibes across the group.The New York Times has a nerdy but important update from the Senate after the parliamentarian issued new guidance about the budget reconciliation process: “The guidance could substantially weaken the filibuster by allowing the majority party to use budget reconciliation—a powerful tool that allows measures related to taxes and spending to pass on a majority vote—multiple times in a single fiscal year.” For this newsletter, that means there’s a possibility for the Senate to pass Biden’s big infrastructure bill with a simple majority! Bring on that federal public transit funding!This morning’s longreadOne weird trick to fix our broken child care systemAnne Helen Petersen! Here she is writing for Vox about publicly funded child care.Early childhood care is, as one policy expert put it to me, a total market failure, and has been, whether we realized it or not, for decades. How do you fix a fundamentally broken system? It’s not as simple as blowing it up and starting over. The failure is so textured, so tied up in ideas of gender and race, of women and work, of “choice” and “kids are best cared for at home,” solutions thus far have largely been piecemeal: Add an incentive here, cut a cost there, even take the big step of establishing universal pre-K. Some of these reforms have meaningfully changed kids’ (and parents’) lives, but the entire process feels, as Lea Austin, executive director of UC Berkeley’s Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, put it to me, “like pouring water into a bucket with a hole in the bottom.”If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.Picture of the Day

Good morning, RVA! It’s 48 °F, and today looks beautiful. Enjoy highs in the mid 70s and lots of sunshine. If you work from home, take the opportunity to sit outside for a minute. If not, take a minute to enjoy your commute.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,267 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealthand 42 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 146 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 60, Henrico: 65, and Richmond: 21). Since this pandemic began, 1,225 people have died in the Richmond region. First, I apologize for my unannounced absence on Friday. As a member of Phase 1c (non-frontline public health worker), I got my Johnson & Johnson shot Thursday afternoon, and, whew, I did NOT sleep well Thursday night. But, just 24 hours later I was back in action. Science is amazing. Here is the stacked graph of new reported cases, hospitalizations, and deaths that I normally share on Friday. Please ignore the deaths graph for at least another week until it sorts itself out.Over in vax world, I have a graph correction to make! Unfortunately, my previous attempt at a graph illustrating our progress toward herd immunity plotted doses administered, not people with at least one dose. Big failure on my part. Double unfortunately, I don’t know how to mine the VDH website for historical “people with at least one dose” data, so I’m starting from scratch. That’s OK, though, it’s fun to watch these graphs grow—here’s the corrected version. Also vaccine-related, the governor announced that all of Virginia will be in Phase 2: Everybody Else by April 18th, one day before President Biden’s goal of April 19th. If you’ve patiently waited for your vaccine as part of Phase 2, make sure you pre-register over on vaccinate.virginia.govahead of time.City Council and Friends have a lot going on today! First, Council will host their third budget work session (audio, of course, to appear on The Boring Show later this week). Looks like they’ll walk through the operating budget via this in-depth presentation by the Council Chief of Staff. Scroll down through that aforelinked PDF to see how each department plans on adjusting its expenditures in this year’s budget. Second, Planning Commission will also meet today and consider CPCR.2021.095, a resolution to declare an intent to do a citywide rezoning that would allow for Accessory Dwelling Units in all residential zones. ADUs are just one tool to start addressing our housing crisis, and we should get this thing passed as quickly as possible so we can move on to more solutions to address our affordable housing shortage. As y’all are intimately aware, this is just one step in the long and public rezoning process. Don’t worry, though, I’ve added this paper to my legislation tracker so we can all keep an eye on it. Finally, Council’s Organizational Development committee meets today and will dive into the details of the Confederate monument disposal process! There are three really interesting documents available if you too want to dive in to the details: How the disposal process works, who all requested monuments and their applications, and how those applications will be scored.Quick casino update from last week: Chris Suarez from the Richmond Times-Dispatch almost got some public comments from 8th District Councilmember Reva Trammell about the proposed casino in her district: “Reva Trammell, who represents the area where media conglomerate Urban One plans to build its casino off Commerce Road, denied an interview request and did not respond to two sets of emailed questions this week. A representative of the company, however, said she’s ‘actively supporting’ the project.” Like I said, almost a public comment. I get not wanting to weigh in for fear of disrupting negotiations, but, at some point, we’ll need to hear what each councilmember thinks about the core idea of bringing a resort casino to Richmond, right?The Collegian, UR’s student-run newspaper, reports that “by unanimous voice vote, The University of Richmond Faculty Senate censured Paul Queally, the rector of the Board of Trustees, for ‘his decisions regarding the renaming of Ryland and [Mitchell-Freeman] Halls, his disrespectful treatment of university employees and his reference to White students as regular students.’” Also, and whoa, “a request to bring a motion for a vote of no confidence against Queally will be taken up in the April 9 meeting.” This piece from the Collegian is filled with great quotes form faculty and is worth reading to get a sense for how out of step Queally’s comments feel for—at least some—of the University community.Should we keep the GRTC free-fares pilot forever? RVA Rapid Transit’s Kendra Norrell, Faith Walker, and Nelson Reveley present convincing arguments for yes in this column in the RTD. I mean, this speaks right to it: “Zero-fare has put upward of $1,000 directly back in the pockets of each rider, money that has gone a long way on tight budgets.” The tension here, though, is that every bit of money spent on zero-fares is money that could have gone to create more and better bus service. We, meaning the region, will have to find a balance between equitable fare policy and providing equitable service. I believe that balance can be found, though!The Mayor’s Equity Agenda is back! At least according to the most recent email I got from the City’s Office of Sustainability, which says you’ve got until April 18th to leave your feedback on the ol' EA. If you missed the chance last time I went on and on about this, consider this your chance renewed!This morning’s patron longreadClimate Anxiety Is an Overwhelmingly White PhenomenonSubmitted by Patron Jeremy. Climate change, environmental justice, and racism are frequently all wrapped up into the same conversation.One year ago, I published a book called A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety. Since its publication, I have been struck by the fact that those responding to the concept of climate anxiety are overwhelmingly white. Indeed, these climate anxiety circles are even whiter than the environmental circles I’ve been in for decades. Today, a year into the pandemic, after the murder of George Floyd and the protests that followed, and the attack on the U.S. Capitol, I am deeply concerned about the racial implications of climate anxiety. If people of color are more concerned about climate change than white people, why is the interest in climate anxiety so white? Is climate anxiety a form of white fragility or even racial anxiety? Put another way, is climate anxiety just code for white people wishing to hold onto their way of life or get “back to normal,” to the comforts of their privilege?If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.Picture of the DayLook at this little baby turtle.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 52 °F, and it’s raining. You should expect it to continue raining throughout the morning and maybe even into the late afternoon. Tomorrow, though! Tomorrow’s weather looks amazing.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,267 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealthand 10 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 128 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 56, Henrico: 57, and Richmond: 15). Since this pandemic began, 1,191 people have died in the Richmond region. Are Virginia’s case counts on the rise again, or are we riding it out on a bumpy plateau? The seven-day average of new reported cases bottomed out ten days ago at 1,291 (still real, real high), and, over the last week or so, it has crept back up to 1,442. We’re seeing similar trends locally, too, with a low of 129 new reported cases (that’s a seven-day average) back on March 10th. Today’s seven-day average sits at 146. The amount of virus out there is still a lot! Don’t go frolicking around without taking proper safety precautions!Speaking of frolicking around, yesterday at his press conference, the Governor announced that he’d “ease certain mitigation measures.” You can read the full updated Executive Order 72 here (PDF), but here’s the gist: 50 people can now gather indoors and 100 people out of doors, outdoor entertainment venues can operate at 30% of their capacity with no cap on the number of attendees, and more spectators are allowed at recreational sporting events. Also, trumpet and trombone enthusiasts rejoice, because “entertainment and amusement business” employees “who must remove their masks to play a wind instrument during a performance or rehearsal” are exempt from mask requirements as long as they maintain 10 feet of distance from others. These updates take effect on April 1st.Hey now, this is interesting: Jessica Nocera at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Henrico County officials are publicly asking the state to allocate more vaccine doses to the ongoing Richmond Raceway vaccination events. This feels like a very un-Henrico Way to go about things, but I’m really interested to see if it works. There’s definitely no denying that the County, which runs the vaccination site, has the capacity to efficiently vaccinate thousands and thousands of people. Nocera says that the Raceway received “just” 11,994 doses this past week, and we know from Supervisors Nelson that the County can jab out that number of doses in just a couple of days. I hope Henrico can make this happen and secure more doses for our region.I’ve got a lot of boring news this morning—which, for me, is exciting! First, I uploaded City Council’s budget work session to The Boring Show. This first session is only an hour long, and at 2x speed I was able to get through a good chunk of it while getting ready for bed. Totally normal-person stuff to listen to while brushing your teeth! You can stay up to date on this year’s budget season directly—hearing it straight from the nine horses' mouths—by subscribing to The Boring Show podcast. Also budget-related, Chris Suarez at the RTD says Councilmembers Lynch and Jones have “said they would support increasing the proposed $2.9 million allocation for the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund to $10 million.” Council has final say on the budget, so we’ll see if either of these councilmembers introduces amendments to increase this year’s allocation to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund—and bonus points if they take the time to figure out how to pay for those amendments, too.Second, the Governmental Operations committee meets today and will discuss RES. 2021-R019, a pretty boring paper that would request the CAO to create a digital connectivity map for the City. Council hopes to use this map to plan out the best way to provide universal broadband access for, specifically (like, mentioned in the resolution text (PDF)), Black and Brown families. That’s not boring at all, and you’ll remember Henrico was working on a similar thing a couple months back.Third, the Mayor introduced ORD. 2021–078, which will officially accept about $2 million from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transit to paint the Pulse lanes red from Hamilton to Foushee Street—the center-running section of the Pulse. Red lanes, which is a Bus Rapid Transit best practice, will help keep drivers (and pedestrians) out of the bus lanes and keep the buses moving quickly and safely. I’m stoked on this, and the Mayor’s press release says we should see the project completed by next spring! Because I can’t not, I’m interested in what this sentence in the Background portion of the ordinance means: “The project consists of a Design and Construction phase that will determine if solid red-pavement travel lanes will be active 24 hours a day or a combination of hatched red-pavement lanes will be active 7–9:30 AM and 4–6:30 PM.” Are portions of the bus-only lanes peak-only? I don’t think that’s the case, but I’ve been trapped in this house for a long time and maybe have forgotten some details about how the world works! I’ve written about red bus lanes before, if you want to get into it.This morning’s longreadThe Holy Grail of Transportation Is Right in Front of UsIn Richmond, we need the CVTA to fund more regional bus service, and then we need Richmond and Henrico to restore the money they cut from GRTC’s operating budget a couple years back. Then we’d really be at the start of a grail quest.People have said for years that the bus could be the next big thing in transportation. Now we can make that a reality. With the proper investment, city buses might be transformed into the sort of next-generation transportation service that technology companies and car companies have spent billions over the last decade trying to build — a cheap, accessible, comfortable, sustainable, reliable way to get around town. How might we come upon this transportation nirvana? Not through some great technological innovation or a grand infrastructure project. The holy grail is right there in front of us; it’s been right there for decades. All we’ve got to do is buy more buses, hire more bus drivers and, in some places, give buses special privileges on the road. All we’ve got to do is care enough to build bus systems that work.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.Picture of the DayRelated.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 40 °F, and it’s cold again. Today you can expect highs in the 50s, a bunch of clouds, and maybe some rain this evening. Actually, there’s a decent chance for rain most days this week.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,173 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealthand 34 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 150 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 62, Henrico: 53, and Richmond: 35). Since this pandemic began, 1,169 people have died in the Richmond region. On March 14th, 2020 I started keeping my spreadsheet of coronavirus cases and have continued to do so every single day for an entire year. That’s bananas, and I’m impressed with myself, but I do really need to figure out what my metrics are for wrapping up this project. The COVID Tracking Project, which was part of The Atlantic, shut down on the 11th. Maybe I should follow suit once the COVID-19 numbers drop to flu-like levels? Something to noodle on!Over on the vaccine side of things, there’s still plenty of interesting stuff to consider, though. Last week, for the second week in a row, the region hit its newish Stupid Math Goal of administering 37,000 vaccines. Henrico Supervisor Tyrone Nelson said on Twitter that the region vaccinated 12,500 people just between Thursday and Saturday. That’s impressive and great. Also great: GRTC has partnered with the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts to provide free, on-demand trips to vaccination appointments for residents they identify with transportation barriers during ongoing community outreach. You can learn more about what that community outreach looks like in this piece from the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Sabrina Moreno about how community health workers have helped Richmond’s Latino communities throughout this pandemic.And then, not great: Software continues to stymie the vaccine rollout in Richmond and beyond. Please take a minute to read this piece in the New York Times all about the headaches caused by PrepMod’s busted appointment registration platform. When addressing the fact that anyone can share a PrepMod link—a link to register for an actual vaccination appointment—with their friends, family, and to the randos on Facebook, a PrepMod spokesperson had this to say: “That’s not a problem with our system. That’s a problem with people who should be responsible.” Yikes. Blaming users for issues with software is never a good look—especially when those users are anxious, frustrated people trying to get a life-saving vaccine.Tonight, perhaps, the RPS school board will vote on moving the District to a year-round school calendar. The Superintendent has put together another slide deck explaining the particulars of the proposal, which now includes the updated results of the parent/caregiver and teacher/staff surveys. Those data are now disaggregated by race, income, students with IEPs, and English learners. Here’s the top-line takeaway: “With over 4,600 family responses and over 1,800 staff responses, our calendar survey indicates that a plurality of both stakeholder groups are ‘comfortable’ or ‘very comfortable’ with the proposed calendar, as is every subgroup (race, economic status, IEP status, and English Learner status).” We’ll see how that translates into votes tonight, though. Tune in at 6:00 PM on the Richmond Public Schools Facebook page, and read this piece by Kenya Hunter in the Richmond Times-Dispatch for some more details.Well this is unexpected! The RTD’s Chris Suarez reports that GRTC’s route #111–Chesterfield’s only local service route—“is meeting GRTC’s ridership expectations despite the pandemic, exceeding a daily average of 140 rides during the week.” Not only that, but, “After decades of limiting bus service to only a few rush-hour commuter routes, the county is now looking to run more buses and regular routes to low-income communities with limited transportation options, to foster growth and redevelopment in aging suburban highway corridors.” Whoa! Who knew that putting decent transit along a corridor full of people and stuff would result in people riding transit to stuff!I don’t know what this is all about, but NBC12 reports that someone toppled a bunch of gravestones at Hollywood Cemetery over the weekend. It’s a big enough deal that Mayor Stoney released this statement: “This weekend’s desecration at Hollywood Cemetery is morally wrong. Disturbing final resting places is contemptible, criminal and will not be tolerated.”In sports news, five men’s basketball teams from Virginia (VCU, UVA, Virginia Tech, Liberty, and Norfolk State) made it to the NCAA tournament—this despite COVID-19’s best attempt at ruining the postseason for a whole lot of folks. I mean, really, it’s despite everyone’s better judgment on doing indoor sports at all, but, whatever. Anyway, the Bracket is set, and you’ve got just a couple of days to get yours filled out. The clock is ticking!This morning’s patron longreadAmerica Is Not Made for People Who PeeSubmitted by Patron Lisa. Remember when we almost had a public bathroom as part of the Monroe Park redesign? It’s disappointing how few places we have to pee downtown—unless you buy something.In the 19th century, the United States did set up public toilets in many cities. They were often called public urinals, abbreviated as P.U. (this may be part of the origin of “P.U.” to mean something that stinks, although there are competing theories). In the early 20th century, these were supplemented by “comfort stations” for men and women alike, but most closed in waves of cost-cutting over the years. That’s partly because this is a class issue. Power brokers who decide on infrastructure priorities can find a restaurant to duck into, while that is less true of a Black teenage boy and utterly untrue of an unwashed homeless person with a shopping cart.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.Picture of the DayBaby goats: So cute! Adult goats: Who left the portal to hell open again?

Good morning, RVA! It’s 58 °F, and maybe a little rainy. Today you can expect clouds and slightly cooler temperatures—but still pretty warm for March. Highs in the 60s for most of the weekend. Enjoy!Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,250 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealthand 53 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 107 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 58, Henrico: 33, and Richmond: 16). Since this pandemic began, 1,146 people have died in the Richmond region. Here’s this week’s stacked chart of new reported cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. The deaths chart may be useable again in the next week or two, and the hospitalizations chart still shows a worryingly large number of people sent to the hospital every day. Locally, the number of new cases continues to decrease, but maybe has started to plateau a bit. I’m hoping warmer weather, more time outside, and more humans vaccinated means those numbers will continue to tick downwards.I think President Biden’s speech last night is worth watching if you didn’t catch it live—not only for the coronavirus updates but just to remember what it’s like to have a real president again. Over the course of about 20 minutes, Biden set out a few goals applicable to this section of the newsletter. First, all states will open eligibility for vaccination to all adults by May 1st. That doesn’t mean everyone will have the opportunity to be vaccinated by May 1st, just they they’ll be eligible for vaccination. Depending on supply of the vaccine, this could be really great or it could further infuriate folks already stressed out about a confusing process. The last thing we want to do is declare everyone eligible but not have enough vaccine for all of those everyones. Remember when the governor did exactly that a bunch of weeks back? Yeah, not great. Second, Biden thinks we’ll have made enough progress on vaccinating the general population that small, safe backyard hangs will be possible by July 4th. Huge if true, and I shall make Alton Brown’s soft pretzels in celebration. Third, he mentioned a new website to help folks find vaccination appointments near them. I don’t know what that last thing means, but I do know the technology behind letting folks know they’re eligible for vaccination and getting them registered for an appointment currently sucks.Also, given the reactions in a couple of my group texts, Slacks, and on my Twitter time line, it looks like the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts open up a bunch of appointments to frontline essential workers and folks aged 16–64 with underlying conditions and disabilities. If you’re in either of those categories and waiting on a vaccination appointment: Check your email!The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Chris Suarez has a wide-ranging piece about development, community engagement, and casinos on Richmond’s Southside. The piece is not really about the ongoing casino discussion, but this quote from organizer Sean Crippen is great “It doesn’t help us. If someone came to you and said, ‘Hey, what does your community need?’ A casino would be at the very bottom. You wouldn’t even think about it…It makes no sense. But if you’re going to do it, at least provide jobs, let us help.”Wyatt Gordon at the Virginia Mercury reports on a new bill the General Assembly passed this year allowing localities to lower their speed limits to 15 miles per hour. Speed kills, plain and simple. Check out these graphs from Pro Publica showing the dramatic rise in risk when you’re involved in a 20mph crash vs. a 40mph crash. And while the best way to slow drivers down is to change the physical design of our streets, Gordon quotes author Angie Schmitt on the impact of speed limits: “Folks often think that just changing the signs won’t make any difference, but that’s not true…Research shows lower speed limits reduce average speeds. Lowering the speed people are struck by even just 5 mph can make a huge difference, especially if the victim is older”Also for the Virginia Mercury, Graham Moomaw explains Virginia’s version of the Voting Rights Act—a first for a Southern state. While still needing the Governor’s signature, the bill would “require local election officials to go through a review process before making election-related decisions like consolidating or closing polling places, changing district boundaries, creating at-large seats on local governing bodies or school boards or affecting the ability of non-English speakers to vote.” Moomaw even mentions how a law like this maybe could have prevented the City’s decision to move the registrar’s office to a location only accessible by car—or at least required some more public conversation around that decision.Via /r/rva, take a look at these pictures of a Seward trunk that one of the redditors found at a Colonial Heights Goodwill. Then read the top comment for a fun history of the Seward Trunk Co. which was based out of Petersburg.This morning’s longreadI Used to Insist I Didn’t Get Angry. Not Anymore.I loved this piece about women’s anger, and it helped me process some of the anger I’ve been feeling lately. I mean, a lot of us have been angry about a lot of different things over the last year, and that’s OK.Confronting my own aversion to anger asked me to shift from seeing it simply as an emotion to be felt, and toward understanding it as a tool to be used: part of a well-stocked arsenal. When I walked in the Women’s March in Washington a year ago — one body among thousands — the act of marching didn’t just mean claiming the right to a voice; it meant publicly declaring my resolve to use it. I’ve come to think of anger in similar terms: not as a claiming of victimhood but as an owning of accountability. As I write this essay eight months pregnant, I don’t hope that my daughter never gets angry. I hope that she lives in a world that can recognize the ways anger and sadness live together, and the ways rage and responsibility, so often seen as natural enemies, can live together as well.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.Picture of the DayBig tree, big church.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 29 °F, but today looks pretty wonderful with warmer highs in the mid 50s. Expect highs in the 70s later this week, and potentially no rain until Friday. We’ve got some good weather lined up this week, y’all.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,163 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealthand 77 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 150 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 79, Henrico: 40, and Richmond: 31). Since this pandemic began, 1,120 people have died in the Richmond region. Also as of this morning, I have 359 rows in my coronacounts spreadsheet, and on Sunday I’ll have entered a new row in the spreadsheet every day for an entire year. An entire year! That’s a long time to do anything, and only because I’m mostly trapped in my home each and every day—by the coronavirus—am I able to commit to updating a spreadsheet at 12:30 PM every afternoon. I’m sure this week you’ll see lots of One Year Later reflections in the media, and if you read any worth sharing, please send them my way.Last week the region hit the new Stupid Math Goal of 37,000 vaccines administered in a week. Here’s the graph of vaccines administered in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield, plus the same (dubious) graph with statewide supply of vaccine overlaid on top. According to the Governor’s public schedule, today we’re seeing some of the first doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine administered at the Raceway during a vaccination event for seniors. It feels like a lot of the pieces are starting to come together, doesn’t it?OK! Some 2021 Budget Season updates! First you can download the entire proposed FY22 budget here and the entire proposed FY22 Capital Improvement Program here. Second, this Budget Hub the City put together does a pretty good job at highlighting the Mayor’s priorities: schools, a few new interesting positions here and there, and a focus on maintaining. Third, I uploaded both the CIP presentation to the Planning Commission and the Mayor’s budget presentation to Council to The Boring Show podcast. The Boring Show only exists because I know there are, like, four other people in Richmond who want to listen to public budget meetings but would rather avoid the City’s website and its video player—and do so while riding their bike, taking the bus, or doing some sort of mindless work. It’s a service I provide mostly to myself but hope it is useful to others! Finally, Chris Suarez at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has an overview of the Mayor’s budget and explains what the freeze on vacant jobs means. With the City fully in maintain mode, I get it, but running a city with 600 vacant positions is not sustainable. For the first time this budget season, I’ll say it: At some point, we will need to raise the real estate tax to fill these positions and pay for basic services.The Mayor will present his draft Equity Agenda to City Council at their informal meeting today. I don’t know what that means for the public input timeline, but the page to leave feedback on the Agenda still exists, so, if you haven’t already, go leave at least two or three comments. Scrolling through the document, and a bunch of interesting ideas have been added since last I looked—great job everyone.A little while back, I wrote about University of Richmond’s decision to change the names of two dorms by adding names rather than scrubbing off the names of enslavers and racists. Here’s an open letter from Black UR students and alums which says, in part, “We believe that the University’s plans as stated create a dangerous false equivalency between Ryland and the people he enslaved as well as between Freeman and Mitchell. This false equivalency suggests that all parties are worth honor and respect when that is simply not the case concerning Ryland and Freeman. Thus, we are calling on the administration and the Board of Trustees to heed the student body’s wishes and remove the names of Robert Ryland and Douglas Southall Freeman from Ryland Hall and Mitchell-Freeman Hall.” There’s also a petition for UR-adjacent folks to sign in support of the open letter.The South of the James Farmers Market will return to Forest Hill Park on Thursday evenings starting May 6th. Note! Thursday evenings are not Saturday mornings! If you show up to Forest Hill Park the weekend of the 6th, you will be disappointed. However, if you need some fresh produce, the Market spends its Saturdays up in Bryan Park. More info over on their Facebook.This morning’s longreadE-mail Is Making Us MiserableA perfect longread for a Monday morning! Bleh.To return to our motivating question, there are many reasons why e-mail makes us miserable. It creates, for example, a tortuous cycle that increases the amount of work on our plate while simultaneously thwarting, through constant distraction, our ability to accomplish it effectively. We’re also, it turns out, really bad at communicating clearly through a purely written medium—all kinds of nuances are lost, especially sarcasm, which leads to frustrating misunderstandings and confused exchanges. But lurking beneath these surface depredations is a more fundamental concern. The sheer volume of communication generated by modern professional e-mail directly conflicts with our ancient social circuits. We’re miserable, in other words, because we’ve accidentally deployed a literally inhumane way to collaborate.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.

Create a value proposition in real estate is more important than ever before. As competition from a tight market, Big Tech encroachment, and traditional agent competitors, understanding how to create a value proposition in real estate is essential to your ability to survive and thrive in the real estate industry. Chris and I go in-depth on opportunity costs in creating and evaluating value propositions for brokerages and for agents trying to stand out in a tight market. We discuss a myriad of topics including what we can learn from Amazon and Facebook, reducing cost and complexity in the lives of our customers and the role that opportunity cost plays in all of this.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 29 °F and gross out there. It’s raining or sleeting or snowing or some combination of all three, and the forecast says you should expect that to continue until at least tomorrow. We are still under a Winter Storm Warning until 7:00 AM tomorrow, and the National Weather Service at Wakefield says “a crippling ice accumulation is expected across the hardest hit areas from the previous system.”As you’d expect, all the normal thing are closed: schools, local governments, and VCU. The City has even posted a list of steep streets preemptively closed due to potential ice build up. Basically, this is serious biz, you shouldn’t leave your home if you don’t have to, and, if you must, plan to take it way, way slow.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 2,284 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealthand 38 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 289 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 102, Henrico: 126, and Richmond: 61). Since this pandemic began, 723 people have died in the Richmond region. The seven-day averages of both cases and deaths continues to fall while the seven-day average of hospitalizations continues to stay pretty flat. I continue to not know what that means.Yesterday, the Governor did announce the new statewide COVID-19 vaccine call center, which you can reach at 1.877.VAX.IN.VA (1.877.829.4682). The new call center can answer basic vaccine questions and help you or a loved one fill out the new statewide pre-registration form. Local health district call centers do still exist, though, so if you’ve got a burning question about a specific local thing, you may want to start there (the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts call center number is 804.205.3501). Ana Ley, a reporter with the Virginian Pilot, says 69 of the 750 call center staff speak Spanish, and, as of this morning, it does look like the new pre-registration form has been translated into Spanish by an actual human, rather than relying on the Google Translate bot. One other update: The search to see if you’re in the State’s system is no longer case sensitive. Iterative progress!Unfortunately, today’s gross weather has cancelled a bunch of regional vaccination events, too. If you had an appointment today, check out this page on the Richmond and Henrico Health District’s website and this page on the Chesterfield Health District’s website to learn more about when you should expect to have your appointment rescheduled.I don’t know what to make of this blossoming relationship between Councilmember Jones, who’s running for the 69th House District seat, and the City’s 8th District Councilmember Trammell. Here they are out front of the CVS on Walmsley demanding that that location begin vaccinating individuals, reports Sabrina Moreno and Chris Suarez in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Unpopular opinion, maybe, but the Walmsley location (4715 Walmsley Boulevard) is pretty tough to get to unless you have a car. Yeah, it sits right on the #86 bus line, but that bus only comes once an hour—which means lots of waiting either before or after vaccination appointments for seniors. The Forest Hill location (5001 Forest Hill Avenue), is, undeniably, in a more affluent neighborhood, but at least it’s accessible by a 30-minute bus route and a 15-minute bus route (the #20 and #2). Plus it’s within walking distance from the apartments along Westover Hills Boulevard near George Wythe High School. As Councilmember Trammell says, “We represent some of the poorest of the poor…They don’t have cars, they can’t drive. They’re elderly. They don’t want to cross the river.” At some point, I’d love to see our City’s leadership, planners, advocates, everybody, move past the idea that bus service just existing is good enough. Critical and essential services should be located along and accessible by useful bus service.Density! Mike Platania at Richmond BizSense reports that City Council has granted a special use permit for a co-housing project on Arthur Ashe Boulevard. This project will bring 148 homes to what is currently a parking lot. Co-housing means shared living space, but it also means rent around $800 per month. Also! Check out this amazing quote from an actual REAL ESTATE DEVELOPER: "I worry that the parking decks that I’m building will become an albatross around my neck in 15 years…With Uber, Lyft, and scooters—whatever it is, there’s a lot of pressure being taken off the need to own a car. All these neighborhoods are walkable; everything is going in that direction.” Yes, yes it is!Assuming folks have power this evening, here’s a Zoom worth hopping on to: STAY RVA’s monthly STAY CHAT will host Genevieve Siegel-Hawley and Danny Greene for a discussion on “the history, the legacy, and the current state of segregation/integration in our schools.” The event is free, but you need to go sign up on the Eventbrite. If you have time, your optional homework ahead of the chat is to listen to this episode of the Revisionist History podcast about Brown v. Board of Education.This morning’s longreadThe Nightmare ShareThis is a story about a horrible roommate, but, really, it’s a story about a housing crisis.New York roommate stories often begin with a kind of claustrophobic, reluctant symbiosis: Two people, linked solely by necessity, now also have to share the same bathroom. Here, finding a place to live is so notoriously difficult, the hunt so mythologically cutthroat, that the parties tend also to be united in desperation. Agreements are forged hastily via text message, in the DMs of third-party apps, as last-minute promises. Owners, renters, subletters, sub-subletters, Airbnb hosts, and Craigslist couch surfers alike learn to size one another up in relation to their own needs; how red the flags appear often depends on how broke you are.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.Picture of the DayForeshadowing.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 25 °F, and it snowed! It’s cold, the roads look a mess, and you can expect more winter precipitation—probably in the form of freezing rain—tomorrow. It’s going to be an actual winter weekend! Please, if you’ve got to leave your house and get in a car, be careful and take it slow.Because it’s Richmond, area schools are closed: Richmond Public Schools, Henrico County Public Schools, and Chesterfield County Public Schools.Also of note: City and County offices are closed, and GRTC is (at this moment) operating on snow routes.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 3,699 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealthand 26 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 565 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 338, Henrico: 136, and Richmond: 91). Since this pandemic began, 717 people have died in the Richmond region.As you can see from the stacked graph, cases have dropped and leveled out a bit but hospitalizations are doing something entirely different. I don’t know what that means, but I’ve got my eye on that percentage of hospital beds occupied graph, though. With all of the vaccine news, I haven’t written about percent positive in a long time, and guess what? It’s still really bad (although rapidly improving). Across the Commonwealth just over 10% of tests are coming back positive, with similar numbers locally (Richmond: 7.4%, Henrico: 9.3%, and Chesterfield: 11.8%). This is boring to write about, but we know what works to contain this virus—masks, distance, working from home—but it’s such a hard message to communicate after folks have been doing the same dang thing for almost an entire year. Hope is on the horizon, but don’t lose focus with the finish line in sight (aka don’t get lazy and catch the 'rona right before your opportunity to get vaccinated).Just a bit of vaccine news today, although I expect to have a bunch more for you on Tuesday. From RPS Superintendent Jason Kamras’s email it sounds like this weekend’s inclement weather has pushed an RPS vaccination event to next weekend. I mention it just to connect the dots between local vaccination efforts and the Governor’s recent request that all schools offer some sort of in-person learning by March 15th.Yesterday, the Mayor gave his State of the City address in a pre-recorded format that you can watch at your leisure over on the City’s YouTube channel. The State of the City is a time for the Mayor to celebrate the past year’s accomplishments and outline priorities for the next year (usually priorities illustrated in the impending budget). Despite a pandemic, recession, and general uncertainty all around, the Mayor still managed to squeeze in some exciting things which we can look forward to. Most exciting to me: The City has secured a grant from DRPT to paint the Pulse’s bus-only lanes red! I felt real and deep sadness a bunch of years ago when I learned our brand new BRT would not have red lanes. It’s a best practice, and such a cheap and easy way to keep cars out of transit-only lanes and keep buses moving faster. I’m very happy to see that on the agenda, and it sounds like the administration will submit an ordinance to accept the money from DRPT later this month. Also up my alley is “a new bikeshare program,” which I will believe when and only when I see it. But I like the language the mayor’s using here: “We plan to pilot the program with bike share stations near the most populous public housing communities after robust community engagement.” The City’s Office of Sustainability has a good Instagram post up detailing some of the high-level prioritiesand Chris Suarez at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a more in-depth recap.Rezoning news! Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense reports that the City wants to rezone “Greater Scott’s Addition,” which is what they call the area around the Diamond. As you might have guessed, Richmond 300 (our newly-adopted master plan) recommends this rezoning. As you might have also guessed, in order for VCU, the City, and the State to begin building the “VCU Athletic Village” out that way, they need to rezone the area. This will help speed up the process by allowing developers to build denser, mixeder-use projects without needing to get a trillion SUPs (Special Use Permits). Sounds like the City’s Planning Commission will take a look at this next week.Episode three of Black Space Matters, the video series hosted by Duron Chavis and the ICA, is out and available for your enqueueing. This week Chavis talks with Daryl Fraser, a licensed clinical social worker, professor at the VCU School of Social Work, and the former president of the Richmond Association of Black Social Workers. Make some time and check it out.I guess I will just link to impeachment.fyieach morning until this whole thing is over (which should be soon!). The trial is fascinatingly depressing, and this email coverage of it is just deep enough to make me feel informed yet not overwhelmed with despair remembering the events of January 6th. Yesterday, the House Managers wrapped up their arguments, and today at noon the remnants of Trump’s legal team begin their defense. Should be a spectacle.Logistical note! Monday is a State holiday, and, as such, I’ll take the morning to get some much needed rest. I hope you have a wonderful and warm weekend. Until Tuesday!This morning’s longreadThe Curse of the Buried TreasureBuried treasure and just deserts!But some detectorists make discoveries that are immensely valuable, both to collectors of antiquities and to historians, for whom a single buried coin can help illuminate the past. Scanning the environs of King’s Hall Hill, the men suddenly picked up a signal on their devices. They dug into the red-brown soil, and three feet down they started to uncover a thrilling cache of objects: a gold arm bangle in the shape of a snake consuming its own tail; a pendant made from a crystal sphere banded by delicately wrought gold; a gold ring patterned with octagonal facets; a silver ingot measuring close to three inches in length; and, stuck together in a solid clod of earth, what appeared to be hundreds of fragile silver coins.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.Picture of the DayAn empty, idyllic lot at 53 Rodman Road.

Hey Guys! Thanks for hanging out! Had my younger brother, Chris on the show. I didn't really get to dive too deep into how he adjusted to the Philippines while he was away. So we dig a little in this episode. Overall Im just happy that he was able to adjust. Its interesting to see how he did in this episode. I know he's a shy guy and I wanted to try to get him out of his shell. I hope you enjoyed this episode! Dont forget I do want to hear YOUR Thoughts: edspace.podcast@gmail.com For more of CHRIS: https://www.instagram.com/_suarezchris/ For More of EDSPACE: https://www.instagram.com/_edsuarez https://www.instagram.com/edspace.fm --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/edspace/support

Good morning, RVA! It’s 31 °F, and it’s gently snowing. Probably by the time you read this it’ll have stopped, but right now it’s pretty out there. For the rest of the day you can expect cold temperatures in the 30s with warmer temperatures headed our way for the rest of the week.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 2,861 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealthand 10 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 410 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 144, Henrico: 161, and Richmond: 105). Since this pandemic began, 680 people have died in the Richmond region. Given yesterday’s notice about VDH data reporting issues, I’m still skeptical of today’s drop in new reported cases—but maybe we’re already quickly sliding down the backside of January’s horrible peak. On the vaccine side of things, our region continues to squeeze every last drop out of the existing vaccine supply as we head into what sounds like a weekslong vaccine shortage. Here’s the total number of vaccine doses administered in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield grouped by week (thanks to Patron Victoria for telling me how to make this happen in Google Sheets!). As you can see, last week the region far exceeded our share of the Governor’s statewide goal of 25,000 shots per day, which works out to around 20,000 shots per week in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield combined. Next up: 40,000 shots per week!—which is what I think Dr. Danny Avula said is our longer-term goal at a recent press conference. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of hope in keeping up this pace in the face of the coming vaccine shortage. But, like I said yesterday, it’s comforting to know that once supply does hit, our region has proved it can put vaccine into arms quickly.Related, I’ve heard lots of folks ask about how the Health District prioritizes such a limited supply of vaccine in the face of such overwhelming demand—over 60,000 people aged 65 and older have filled out the Richmond and Henrico Health District’s vaccine interest form! Sabrina Moreno at the Richmond Times-Dispatch tuned into a health district press conference yesterday (which you can watch in full on Facebook) featuring Jackie Lawrence, Director of Health Equity at the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts. From Moreno’s piece: “Jackie Lawrence, health equity director for local VDH, said the three main prioritization factors for Richmond and Henrico are age; then race and ethnicity; and finally, who signed up first.” Those folks—the oldest members of our Black and Brown communities—have seen this disease impact their communities the most throughout this pandemic, and, generally, have fewer resources to support them through it.Last night the Richmond Electoral Board voted to remove Kirk Showalter as the City’s general registrar. Here’s Chris Suarez’s report in the paper, and here’s a real stressful twitter thread with some videos from the meeting. Assuming this decision is final and whatever legal situation Showalter decides to pursue fails, I’m pretty interested to see what kind of practical effects a new registrar could have on elections within the City. Is the goal just to screw up fewer things? Or can the position actually make voting easier and better? I honestly have no idea!Richmond’s School Board met last night, and, if you want to get into it, here’s the 70-page PDF of public comment—almost all in support of extending Superintendent Jason Kamras’s contract for four years. Val, to whom I’m married, took the time to tally them all up and came up with: Three comments in support of a two-year contract, nine comments in support of renewal with an unspecified time-frame, and 217 comments in support of a four-year contract. Because I can’t help myself, here are two silly graphs of what that looks like: a pie chart and a bar chart.I’d wondered about what would happen if the General Assembly decides to legalize marijuana, but, like three years down the road. Do we still punish folks for possession despite having broadly acknowledged it shouldn’t be a punishable offense? Mel Leonor at the RTD says gubernatorial candidate and current state senator Jennifer McClellan has a bill for that. Here’s the quote from the Senator: “If we’ve already made the moral decision that possession shouldn’t be a crime, then it’s more equitable to say we’re not going to continue punishing people for it…We should go ahead and end prohibition. There’s consensus in the Senate around that.” I’m dumb about state-level legislative process, but I’m under the impression that the Senate is the more deliberative and slow-to-move of the two bodies. I’m excited to see where this ends up.Finally, let’s end today with this video of a machine designed to shake off and collect oranges from a street tree. This is amazing, of course, but, also, kind of exactly why we sometimes don’t want to plant fruiting trees in sidewalks.This morning’s patron longreadThe Coup We Are Not Talking AboutSubmitted by Patron Sam. Facebook and its pals aren’t just doing gross things with your personal data, they’re using it to break our democracy.First, we go upstream to supply, and we end the data collection operations of commercial surveillance. Upstream, the license to steal works its relentless miracles, employing surveillance strategies to spin the straw of human experience — my fear, their breakfast conversation, your walk in the park — into the gold of proprietary data supplies. We need legal frameworks that interrupt and outlaw the massive-scale extraction of human experience. Laws that stop data collection would end surveillance capitalism’s illegitimate supply chains. The algorithms that recommend, microtarget and manipulate, and the millions of behavioral predictions pushed out by the second cannot exist without the trillions of data points fed to them each day.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 37 °F, and you can probably expect clouds, rain, and slightly warmer temperatures for the rest of the day. Keep an eye on Thursday, though: It’s our first, best chance for actual snow.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 3,792 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealthand -1 (???) new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 438 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 164, Henrico: 180, and Richmond: 94). Since this pandemic began, 647 people have died in the Richmond region. I think we’re past a peak. Case counts are lower than at any point this month and the rate of new hospitalizations (which is still extremely high) has started to level off. Maybe we’ve suffered through all of the new cases that spawned from the end-of-year holidays? Maybe the nauseatingly high numbers from a couple weeks back really were a data reporting issue? Whatever the case, things seem to be cooling off a bit. Unrelated, for now at least, both UR and VCU have opened up their spring semesters (last Tuesday for the former, today for the latter). You can follow each school’s COIVD dashboard, if that’s your thing: coronaspiders go here and coronarams go here. Keep in mind that VCU has decided to start the semester virtually while UR has partially returned to in-person learning. I guess we’ll see how that goes, as Chris Suarez at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that the UR has already “sent a letter to students Friday warning that parties and other violations of COVID-19 safety protocols could jeopardize in-person learning this semester.” As some public schools continue their own debate on returning to in-person instruction, keep your eye on VDH’s COVID-19 Outbreaks by Selected Exposure Settings dashboard. You can filter this list down by locality or facility type (like K–12) and see all the outbreaks currently in progress. Keep in mind, though, that “outbreak” has a specific meaning(PDF) and does not include cases of students or staff who get infected outside of a school setting.Taikein Cooper, Theresa Kennedy, Bryce Robertson, and Thad Williams have a column in the paper about extending RPS Superintendent Jason Kamras’s contract for four years—a contract which ends this coming June. Y’all know the gist, but I’ll quote this part just to remind you: “A change in leadership, whether by board action or Kamras finding employment elsewhere, in turn would consume the rest of this term. We can’t expose our kids to that risk right now. Now is the time for persistent implementation of a long-term strategy.” Our neighboring county got this right last year when their School Board extended Superintendent Amy Cashwell’s contract. Two years into a four-year contract and the Board decided to make it six (extending the contract all the way to 2024) so that “Cashwell and her administration can focus on navigating the school system through the challenges of the pandemic and heightened attention around issues of racial justice.” The right and obvious move! A move that we can and should make on this side of the city-county line!City Council will meet today for their regularly scheduled meeting, and, for the first time that I can remember, there’s nothing on the regular agenda (PDF). My head wants to write “should be a short meeting,” but my heart knows that the agenda is basically never finalized and councilmembers can always find a way to extend these meetings deep into the evening. Two items of note from the informal meeting immediately preceding: 1) Amy Popovich from the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts will give an update on vaccination and 2) Reggie Gordon (DCAO for Human Services) and Sharon Ebert (DCAO for Economic Development) will give a “homelessness update.” I don’t see presentations for either hanging out on legistar yet, but I bet they’ll exist tomorrow.Related to the DCAO’s presentation on homelessness, Homeward released “new, verified data on the number of people serviced in 2020 by coordinated shelter programs and the Homeless Crisis Line.” This past year, emergency shelters served 2,927 people and the the HCL handled over 52,000 calls. 128,000 “shelter bed nights were recorded.”From a couple of days back, Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense has an update on the planned slavery memorial in Shockoe Bottom. You can read through the property disputes if you want, but mostly I’m interested in reminding myself about the renderings of what this project could look like. Adding a bunch of public green space to that part of town would really change the entire neighborhood for the better. Fingers crossed that the City and the Loving family can figure out their beef.Finally, could today be the day the Robert E. Lee statue gets removed from its plinth? I dunno, but there is a lot of big equipment out there this morning.This morning’s patron longreadStop Keeping ScoreSubmitted by Patron Susan. A good January reminder for those of us putting together goals, resolutions, and themes for 2021.Relying on external rewards lowers satisfaction. You will like your job less if your primary motivation is prestige or money. You will appreciate your relationships less if you choose your friends and partners based on their social standing. You will relish your vacation less if you choose the destination for how it will look on social media. The scorecard approach to life also feeds right into a known human tendency that drives us away from happiness: People often have trouble finding lasting satisfaction from worldly rewards, because as soon as we acquire something, our desire resets and we are looking to the next reward. Check one box, and another one immediately appears. And, of course, it’s always a bigger box.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 28 °F, and our warmish winter continues. Today you can expect highs near 50 °F, but, alas, we’ll have a bit of rain move into the area this afternoon. Maybe we’ll see a bit more on Saturday, but, by Sunday, we should pick right back up where we left off with clear(er) skies and temperatures that make me go hmmmm. Enjoy!Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 5,294 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealthand 74 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 388 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 146, Henrico: 133, and Richmond: 109). Since this pandemic began, 621 people have died in the Richmond region. As you can see, our mini-trend of three days below 5,000 new cases reported did not continue. Here’s the stacked graph of statewide new reported cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, and here’s the graph of the seven-day average of cases in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield. All of these graphs are discouraging. It really seems like our statewide strategy is to ramp up vaccination and just hold on tight for the next several horrifying months.To whit, the Governor held a press conference yesterday where he announced moving folks aged 65 and up and people with “certain conditions or disabilities that increase their risk of severe illness from COVID-19” into Phase 1b of the vaccination distribution plan. Tap that previous link for a list of the conditions we’re talking about here. Cancer, obesity, smoking—it’s a lot of folks. In fact, Sabrina Moreno and Mel Leonor at the Richmond Times-Dispatch say now about half of all Virginians fall into Phase 1b.Additionally, the Governor told public schools that they need to start putting together a plan for reopening to in-person learning. Kate Masters at the Virginia Mercury has the details, and you can read through VDH’s interim guidance in this PDF. I’ve only skimmed that document, but it sounds like they’re flipping the CDC’s core indicators and prioritizing a school’s ability to implement mitigation measures (social distancing, masks-wearing, that sort of thing) over the amount of coronavirus in the community. I still believe that schools aren’t a major driver in the spread of disease, but I also believe we can’t have school without teachers! Remember that article by Eliot Haspel? If we can’t keep teachers and staff safe and healthy outside of school, we’re gonna have a hard time doing school at all.As far as I can tell, the Governor did not announce any new restrictions or guidance to help slow the spread of COVID-19.Ronald E. Carrington at the Richmond Free Press has an update on the RPS school board’s discussion over extending Superintendent Jason Kamras’s contract: “According to the sources, the School Board is aware that Mr. Kamras will not accept a two-year contract and, if one is offered, he would leave the district…Sources close to the board said board member Kenya Gibson, 3rd District, initiated an effort to restrict the contract term.” It is totally incomprehensible to me that a single member of the school board—let alone four—would even consider screwing around with Kamras’s contract in such a way. Especially after the job he’s done over the last couple of years unearthing and repairing decades of broken systems, rebuilding trust with communities (or just building from scratch in a lot of cases), and leading the entire region in his response to the pandemic. @amyinthe8th put it well on Twitter: “Our students need consistency, something our Boards rarely give superintendents. We are constantly in transition mode, making it hard to ever achieve progress.” The School Board needs to stop playing political games, extend Kamras’s contract by four years, and get back to work.Readers! I think it’s probably time to once again fire up your email clients and let your school board rep know that they need to vote to extend Kamras’s contract by four years and avoid throwing the District into turmoil. This advocacy action applies to folks without children in Richmond Public Schools, too! The quality and consistency of our public school system is something everyone cares about and something everyone can have a say in. This next thing is stupid but true: Business owners and homeowners have outsized power in local politics. If either of those describe you, you should definitely email your school board rep. Also, from reading the piece in the Richmond Free Press, it sounds like 4th District’s Jonathan Young is the swing vote, so folks living in the 4th need to be especially vocal.You can find all of the School Board’s contact information here, and I’m sure they’d love to hear from you.What is even happening this weekend?? The City has declared a state of emergency, and City Council has a special meeting at 1:00 PM to discuss “plans to protect public safety.” The Richmond Police Department will close a bunch of streetsbeginning Sunday, January 17th at 6:00 AM through 6:00 PM on January 18th (ostensibly Lobby Day). The RTD’s Chris Suarez got this quote from the Governor: “I’ve just heard the intelligence…that all 50 capitals in this country are potentially under attack this weekend and during inauguration…We take those seriously. We’re going to be prepared.” I think I’d recommend everyone staying as far from Downtown as possible until…late next week? Or maybe just wait until 2022?Via /r/rva: Trains can be really long!FYI, if you need it: Today, from 1:00–3:00 PM, the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts will host a free community testing event at the Eastern Henrico Health Department (1400 N. Laburnum Avenue).Logistical note! Monday is a holiday, which means I will be taking the morning off—and, whew, after the week that was, I need it. Together, we’ll resume our endless march forward on Tuesday! Have a great weekend, get some rest, and stay hydrated.This morning’s longreadThe Dark Reality of Betting Against QAnonThis is genius. Q is so completely and utterly wrong, you can reliably make money by just betting against whatever they say.Cage began scanning PredictIt for QAnon theories and betting against them. He’d look for anything weird—usually something like suspiciously high odds that a Democrat would be indicted. Then he researched to make sure he hadn’t missed something in the news cycle. “If I saw conspiracy-theory chatter in the comments section of Google News articles, that was a plus for me,” Cage said. When he couldn’t find any legitimate news on the bet, he’d dive into QAnon YouTube channels or message boards. If he determined that people were following a QAnon theory, he’d bet against them. Cage has made money every time QAnon has been wrong—which they have been on every bet he’s made so far, he told me. He’s put about $800 in and made around $400 in profits.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 38 °F, and we have a chance of snow this morning. Not, like, good, fun snow, but snow may fall from the sky, distracting thousands of kids stuck inside for virtual learning. NBC12’s Andrew Freiden says, “this is far from an ideal Snow setup for us.” Booooo!Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 5,379 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealthand 49 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 497 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 189, Henrico: 196, and Richmond: 112). Since this pandemic began, 577 people have died in the Richmond region. The seven-day average for statewide new reported positive cases continues to break records and now sits at an all-time high of 4,728. Locally, our seven-day average of new cases—478, also an all-time high—has doubled since December 5th. With today’s data dump, our region will pass an ominous milestone: All three localities will have reported over 10,000 coronavirus cases since March. Here’s the stacked graph of new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, and here’s the graph of new cases in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield. As another sign of how things are trending, Sabrina Moreno at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that area hospitals have started instituting no-visitors policies to help keep the disease from spreading within their facilities. Also, now that I’ve got about two weeks of data, I’ll try to put together some vaccine-related chartsandgraphs over the weekend.RPS Superintendent Jason Kamras has a good reaction to this week’s violent coup attempt, which I’m going to quote at length: “Yesterday, mostly white men seized and vandalized the United States Capitol—and were then allowed to simply walk away. Last summer, peaceful, mostly Black protestors, who had gathered a block away from the White House to make their voices heard, were gassed and forcibly removed with military tactics, including the use of a US Army helicopter. I shudder at the thought of what would have transpired if the individuals who attacked the United States Congress were Black. As educators and parents, we need to talk about this with our children. And those of us who are white have a special responsibility to do so. For our national ‘reckoning’ on race to yield tangible results, we must actively and repeatedly call out inequity, educate our children about it, and teach them to uproot it. Yesterday’s events were horrific. But rather than run from them, let’s confront them and the uncomfortable truths about race that they laid bare. In doing so, perhaps we can take one more step towards fulfilling the ideals symbolized by the United States Capitol.” While the world’s chaos makes me feel dangerously unmoored, it is so clarifying and anchoring to hear one of our leaders simply say what they believe and tell me how to put the chaos into context. I guess I am defining leadership, and it feels good to be led through this mess.When folks are like “The federal government needs to send more coronarelief money to local governments!” this piece by Chris Suarez in the RTD is what they’re talking about: “Funding for an emergency child care program serving about 1,000 Richmond Public Schools students during the COVID-19 pandemic will not last the rest of the school year.” Kind of related, Mayor Stoney has a column in the paper asking the state to extend its COVID-19 Relief Fund—a fund which “distributes money collected through the taxation of skill game machines.” 1) Yes, 2) It’s hard for my brain to not connect the dots from this column to the City’s recent efforts to bring in a resort casino. I expect to read a bunch of sentences like these once we get closer to the potential November casino referendum: “In Richmond, we are using the funds to keep the wheels of government turning, paying the salaries of vital public service providers and accounting for the increased cost of service delivery during a global pandemic. Those needs won’t go away in a matter of months.”Are you a small business based in Richmond and would like a free box of PPE? This coming Monday and Thursday, the City will distribute 500 boxes of cleaning supplies, hand sanitizer, masks, and gloves from 9:00 AM–5:00 PM at the Convention Center. You should preregister to speed things up and make folks' lives easier, and you’ll need to bring along your biz license or utility bill or some other document showing your business is located in the City.I’ve now got a chart of total unemployment insurance claims in Virginia from the start of the pandemic through the end of the year. The most recent update in data, which covers the week ending January 2nd, saw a 9.4% increase in total claims—driven almost entirely by a 64% increase in initial claims. Things are, of course, “better” than they were back in the spring but still way outta wack compared to pre-pandemic times.To close, a video of some rad dudes skateboarding around parts of Richmond you’ll probably recognize. Pretty amazing stuff (but please wear a mask if you’re outside within six feet of another person (or just don’t get within six feet of other people at all)).This morning’s longread10 Stupid yet Robust Games for Video CallsAs the virus burns and rages, these seem like fun. “Draw the third biggest duck” got me.2020 is a weird year. A lot of people are relying on video calls for holiday gatherings. This is fine, but it does limit the type of holiday games that can be played. For some participants, setting up a video call might push their technical skills to the limit. Asking them to also download an application, share a screen, learn a video game, or install something would lead to disaster. I’ve come up with (or, more accurately, adapted, stolen, or lightly improved) 10 stupid robust games for video calls. They’ve all been tested. Criteria: Will work over video chat; Cannot require special items, applications, or elaborate preparation; Cannot rely on the physical fitness of any participants; Are not intellectually challenging; Are sufficiently ridiculous that anyone who gets overly competitive will feel a bit silly, yet still retain a degree of competition.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.

Chris Suarez is the co-founder of PLACE Inc., a real estate, technology and ancillary services platform that includes numerous real estate brokerages and the world's largest real estate team. Chris likes to say that he lives an integrated life which has allowed him to carry forth his mission of building “xperiential lives” through business. In each episode, Chris will share how his professional life and his personal life intersect to power big business and more importantly, a fulfilling life. Throughout the podcast journey, discover the six pillars for living experientially: career, relationships, personal growth, health, wealth and spirituality.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 33 °F, and today it will rain. It is slightly too warm for snow, so, instead, we get lots and lots of cold rain. Boooo! Expect the rain—which is not snow—to really kick in this afternoon.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 3,160↗️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 56↗️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 329↗️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 172, Henrico: 82, and Richmond: 75). Since this pandemic began, 506 people have died in the Richmond region. This is the third straight day with a decrease in new reported positive cases statewide, and new hospitalizations have at least leveled out (albeit at an extremely high level of around 100 per day). Does this mean we’re past the peak? Or are we still just waiting to catch up from the weekend? I don’t know, but maybe folks got the message—or at least a portion of the message—and are making better public-health decisions. Speaking of getting things, Governor Northam will be on hand at 12:00 PM today as the very first VCU Health System frontline workers get their first round of COVID-19 vaccine! So rad. My coronacounts spreadsheet has 278 rows in it, and it feels so bizarre that, in just under a year, we could be looking at the beginning of the end of this pandemic. It also feels so bizarre that I’ve been keeping a pandemic spreadsheet for almost 300 days now. Weird feels all around.The Virginia Public Access Project has pulled the demographic information for the 88 people who have applied to serve as citizen members of the state’s Redistricting Commission. The results are real predictable and real bad: The vast, vast majority of applicants are rich old white dudes. This needs to change! If you are not a rich old white dude, please consider applying for this commission before December 28th! Of course, the prospect of serving on a volunteer commission—with a time commitment of “unknown” (PDF) but “serious and substantial”—is set up to favor rich old white dudes with a bunch of time to kill. These are the results you should expect when “posting the application online” is pretty much the extent of your outreach. Del. Cia Price, who’d been pretty publicly against the redistricting amendment, puts it better: “Cue up the folks with the ‘well anyone can sign up’ and ‘well we can’t make people sign up’ but that’s the difference between an announcement and OUTREACH! You don’t get diversity through the chosen methods for promoting the applications. So yeah. No.”Today, the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Michael Paul Williams has a good piece about the Lost Cause narrative and how Republican’s attempts to toss out the election results mirrors the South’s attempts (and partial success!) to toss out the results of the Civil War. I’m just going to quote this excellent paragraph: “Our notions of the past shape our present and our future. Richmond’s unabashed celebration of its Confederate heritage sent contradictory messages about the virtue of white supremacy, winners and losers, truth and reconciliation, and loyalty to nation. Our post-election turmoil dramatizes the historic willingness of a chunk of Americans to embrace misinformation and forsake this nation’s stated principles—be it freedom prior to Emancipation or free and fair elections today.”Also at the RTD, Chris Suarez reports on GRTC’s most recent board meeting, which you can watch here or scroll through the agenda here (PDF). Mindblowing to me is that ridership on local routes actually increased month-over-month by 1.45%, and, still, year-over-year ridership on local routes has only fallen by 6.01%. I think this continues to speak to the critical role public transit plays for essential workers in Richmond. Two other transportation-related bits of news: First, Congress’s new compromise COVID bill could contain $15 billion for public transit; Second, President-elect Biden has named Mayor Pete as his Secretary of Transportation. Transit Twitter had all kinds of takes on the Mayor Pete announcement, but I think it’s mostly fine.As I lamented above, we will NOT see snow today, but Karina Bolster at NBC12 reached out to Henrico County Public Schools spokesperson Andy Jenks about the possibility for snow days during virtual school. Take heart: “I think folks reacted very positively to the idea that it might still be a thing…That won’t get changed; that won’t get taken away, everything else might be different, but snow days might still be a thing.” The situation might be different in Richmond Public Schools where more faculty and staff are working from home than in the County, so don’t take too much heart—just the appropriate amount of heart.With so much happening in 2020 can one single Year in Review contain it all? Style Weekly says no!, and has six Year in Reviews for you to scroll through and go “Whoa, that was this year??”This morning’s patron longreadThe intriguing maps that reveal alternate historiesSubmitted by Patron Sam. In addition to giving you lots of cool, fake maps to explore, this piece is filled with alternate-history novels to put on your reading list.Such maps can also help us see the past and present with fresh eyes. For example, any alternate history is not simply a point of divergence, followed by seat-of-the-pants conjecture. True masters develop scenarios and fleshed-out histories, ones that simply beg for a slew of maps to go along with them. The alternate history textbook For Want of A Nail by Robert Sobel is such a scenario, exploring what if the United States had lost the American Revolution. Or, as this textbook from an alternate 1970s might put it, if the Rebellion had been crushed by the British Empire.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 43 °F, cold, and rainy. Expect temperatures to stay right about where they are and for the chance of rain to stick around until this evening. Such a bleh compared to yesterday’s absolutely incredible weather.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 3,294↗️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 2↗️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 250↗️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 73, Henrico: 115, and Richmond: 62). Since this pandemic began, 503 people have died in the Richmond region. The state’s seven-day average of new cases sits at 3,837 following a couple of days with more than 4,000 new cases reported. And, locally, over the weekend we hit a grim milestone of more than 500 COVID-19 deaths. However, I think we have cause to feel hope! On Friday evening, the FDA issued emergency use authorization for the Pfizer vaccine. That means as soon as 10:30 AM this morning, COVID-19 vaccine will start showing up around the country. I know it’s boring, especially when folks are getting sick each and every day, but the logistics of shipping millions and millions of a thing—something that requires dry ice and ultra-cold storage—to locations all across an enormous county fascinates me! When the world slows down a little, I’d love to read more about it. Also, remember! The Governor’s new restrictions took effect this morning. You’ll need to stay at home from 12:00–5:00 AM, wear a mask when outdoors with other folks, keep your gatherings to 10 or fewer folks, and work from home if you can do so.Today’s the day! City Council will vote on the City’s new master plan, Richmond 300, at their regularly-scheduled meeting tonight. If you’d like to submit a public comment in support of the plan, you can do so until 10:00 AM. Last week, I didn’t really know what to expect at tonight’s meeting, but, after reading this piece from Chris Suarez in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, I think it’ll easily pass this evening, maybe even unanimously. And that’s because of you! Councilmembers didn’t magically change their minds over the last 14 days—they listened to constituent emails and tweets and facebooks and whatevers pouring in and reconsidered their positions. While it is annoying to spend our civic energy pushing a plan that’s been in the works for years across the finish line, I’m glad y’all decided to do so! Civics: Sometimes it works. Totally related: Also on tonight’s agenda is ORD. 2020–152, which will rename the portion of Jefferson Davis Highway located within the City.Michael Schwartz at Richmond BizSense thinks someone wants to build a casino on the Movieland property at the corner of Arthur Ashe and Leigh. You all know how I feel about casinos. But! I think I will wait until I have some more information before angrily pulling up all of the Richmond 300 recommendations for that part of town.You know I love digital detective stories! Eric Kolenich at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a good one about researcher Shelby Driskill’s (re)discovery of a cemetery for enslaved people on the University of Richmond campus. You can read Driskill’s full report here.The Electoral College, in as much as it is a singular thing, meets today to do the actual electing part of the presidential election. In Virginia, that means you can stream the meeting here, which begins at 12:00 PM and has a very long and stately agenda. If you want to entertain dark thoughts, you can read through this NYT piece about how and why Congress could (but won’t) overturn the Electoral College’s results.The Richmond and Henrico Health Districtswill host a COVID-19 testing event today at Diversity Richmond (1407 Sherwood Avenue) from 2:00–4:00 PM. Planning on spending time with family over the holidays? Get tested, quarantine, and make good public-health decisions.This morning’s patron longreadDesigned to Deceive: Do These People Look Real to You?Submitted by Patron Abigail. This piece in the NYT about AI-generated faces is worth it just to move through the hundreds of blended faces frame by frame. When does your brain register a face as a man vs. a woman? Fascinating.The creation of these types of fake images only became possible in recent years thanks to a new type of artificial intelligence called a generative adversarial network. In essence, you feed a computer program a bunch of photos of real people. It studies them and tries to come up with its own photos of people, while another part of the system tries to detect which of those photos are fake. The back-and-forth makes the end product ever more indistinguishable from the real thing. The portraits in this story were created by The Times using GAN software that was made publicly available by the computer graphics company Nvidia.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 52 °F and rainy. It’s gonna keep raining, too, so keep an eye out for potentially severe storms later this morning and into the early afternoon. Temperatures will hangout in the mid 60s which seems totally fine for the last day of November.Water coolerThe Richmond Police Department is reporting that last Monday, Chae’Meshia Simms, a woman in her 30s, was shot to death. Police were called to the 800 block of Cheatwood Avenue for a report of a vehicle colliding into a structure and found Simms dead in the vehicle.As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 2,325↗️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 4↘️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 212↗️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 74, Henrico: 75, and Richmond: 63). Since this pandemic began, 464 people have died in the Richmond region. The seven-day average of new statewide cases passed 2,500 over the long weekend and sits at 2,592—the tenth consecutive day over 2,000. Locally, our seven day average of combined new cases in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield is 222 and has topped 200 for the last eight days. Because it’s been a while, here’s the stacked graph of new statewide cases, hospitalizations, and deaths and the graph of new cases in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield. Please keep in mind that reporting is weird over weekends and holidays, and that could mean either days with unusually big numbers or days with unusually small numbers. We should know more about if our troubling hockey-stick trends will continue in a couple of days.Right before the long weekend, Chesterfield County Public Schools announced they will reverse course and put the brakes on in-person learning as case counts increase across the region. Jessica Nocera at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has the details. The County’s decision puts the entire region’s public schools—other than Hanover County—virtual until at least the early parts of 2021. Chesterfield’s administrators focused on the seven-day average of new cases per 100,000 people and planned on changing course once that metric crossed a threshold of 25. Honestly, I don’t know much about their decision to use that particular metric and threshold, but you can find that specific number for a given locality here (Richmond: 21.1, Henrico: 25.1, Chesterfield: 26.1). Bizarrely, some winter sports will still (for now) take place? You can read the Virginia High School League’s guidance document here (PDF), but some of it seem a lot like coronatheatre. For example, basketball will eliminate the jump ball? I guess because players are too close to each other? But, like, wait until they hear about rebounding? To its credit, the document does say on every single page “During times of significantly increasing disease spread, organizers of such events should consider cancelling or postponing competition in favor of lesser risk activities such as low‐contact drills or practices.” I guess we’ll have to wait for schools and school districts to make their own sports decisions moving into the winter.I don’t have a picture of it yet, but the City put down part of a new bike lane on 1st Street! This is part of the planned north-south connection from 95/64 all the way to the Downtown Expressway (PDF)—a regular Tour de Urban Renewal. The 1st Street section will head from Duval to Franklin, then you’ll take the Franklin Street Bike Lane to 3rd which will take you down to Byrd Street. It’s a bit of a jiggity-jog but does provide a safe, nice, and needed way to move perpendicular to Franklin Street.I’ve written a bunch about the new pot of transportation money the Central Virginia Transportation Authority will start to provide any minute now. It’s important to remember that while the money is divided up into three buckets, other than the bucket allocated to public transit, the money can be used for almost anything transportation-related that your urbanism brain can dream up. That’s why pieces like this one from Chris Suarez in the RTD are important to remind us (really, to remind our elected leadership) that transportation money does not have to mean widening highways or paving streets. It can mean filling needed sidewalk gaps, building ADA-compliant ramps, and making accessible bus stops!Speaking of, via /r/rva, look at all of these fun urbanist issues on the front page of yesterday’s newspaper!Will Manchester get a grocery store? Maybe, says Mike Platania at Richmond BizSense. That neighborhood’s going to need a massive improvement in pedestrian infrastructure to make crossing Commerce Road something you can safely do without taking your life in your own hands. See above for potential funding sources.I don’t know what to make of this other than “seems bad”: the RTD’s Mark Robinson says that the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority Board voted back in 2019 to transfer a bunch of vacant land to nonprofits so they could build some affordable housing. Here we are, a year and a half later, and that transfer has yet to happen. Apparently, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development needs to sign off on a thing, but HUD says they need more info from RRHA. I dunno who’s to blame here, but the end result is property has sat vacant for months and months and months, and fewer affordable homes exist in Richmond.This morning’s longreadHousebound.Over the weekend I watched Run on Hulu and was pretty impressed by actress Kiera Allen. Here’s a no-spoilers interview with director Aneesh Chaganty about how he thought through making a moving centered around someone with a disability while not being disabled himself.Chaganty was conscious of the fact that “[he’s] not disabled, [but] telling this story of somebody who is”. Once Allen was on board, he consulted with her constantly. “I gave her the script and the production design layout of the house and asked her to please note it up—tell us what is wrong, what you wouldn’t do. So much changed because she told us that this is not how she lives. Her costume, her room, bits of her motion, her dialogue and her backstory changed. We were very open to that. I’d ask her about the title—is the title Run offensive? We’re doing a double-play on it, but is it mean? I made sure that was okay with her.”If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 40 °F, but highs today should hit somewhere in the mid 60s. Wonderful! The entire weekend, really, looks pleasant and filled with good opportunities to spend some time outside.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,954↗️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 36↗️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 176↗️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 68, Henrico: 53, and Richmond: 55). Since this pandemic began, 446 people have died in the Richmond region. Here’s this week’s stacked chart of Virginia’s daily reported positive cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. This week I’ve focused on the new hospitalizations data, and yesterday, for the first time since since back in July, the state reported over 100 new hospitalizations in a single day. That scares me, especially as the Central Region creeps up towards having 90% of its hospital beds occupied. I wonder if we’ll start seeing folks begin dusting off some of those early, springtime plans to convert the Convention Center into an emergency field hospital? Locally, we’re seeing consistent, springlike new case numbers—also scary.A bunch of interesting emails showed up in VPM’s Roberto Roldan’s inbox yesterday. The first, from the state Democratic Party, calling for Richmond’s General Registrar to resign after this month’s rough and confusing election process. The second, from the Party’s lawyers laying out some of their legal concerns. The third, in which City Council candidates Tarvaris Spinks and Amy Wentz, who saw their vote totals bounce around after Election Day in a weird and concerning way, joined the call for the Registrar’s resignation. Not in Roldan’s inbox, but fellow VPM reporter Alan Rodriguez Espinoza says, “During his COVID-19 press briefing, Mayor Levar Stoney says he agrees with calls for the General Registrar to step down.” Finally, a note from the Registrar herself saying she will not resign and is currently recovering from COVID-19. As for who gets to decide the Registrar’s fate, Chris Suarez at the Richmond Times-Dispatch says: “In Virginia, registrars are appointed by local three-member electoral boards. Circuit court judges appoint the board members, but state law requires that two members of the board belong to the same party as the governor, so local party officials typically recommend candidates for appointment…The boards, according to state law, are permitted to remove by majority vote any registrar or election officers who do not comply with election law.”NPR, like, national NPR, has a story about how folks living in Richmond’s redlined neighborhoods—today!—have dramatically lower life expectancy than folks living in, say, the West End. It’s pretty bad: “They compared the [redlining] maps to the current economic status and health outcomes in those neighborhoods today and found higher rates of poverty, shorter life spans and higher rates of chronic diseases including asthma, diabetes, hypertension, obesity and kidney disease.” The two most important maps for understanding Richmond, in my opinion, are the 1930s redlining map and the map of annexation. Understand those two maps and you understand a ton about why things are the way they are.The City has hired Jason Alley as “a provisional policy advisor to liaise between the restaurant community and city administration. In this position, he will assist in innovating and implementing safe ways to support restauranteurs and their staff during this challenging time for the restaurant industry.” You might know Jason Alley as the chef and co-owner of both Comfort and Pasture (RIP) and Bingo Beer Co., plus he’s been featured on some Duke’s Mayonnaise commercials. I think he might be as close to a celebrity chef as we have in Richmond. Karri Peifer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch says the job’s CARES Act funded and will, at least for now, end before the start of the new year. I dunno! I’m trying not to be cynical over here! I hope Alley has more success working with the City on creating safe, outdoor space for folks over the next couple of weeks than did a mess of advocates throughout the entire spring, summer, and fall. Lots of (most?) cities figured this out months ago, so it’s not like we need to invent rocket science: Make it dead easy for restaurants to remove parking to make space for distancing while eating and drinking—bonus points if you can help businesses keep folks warm while outside through these winter months. There’s a whole separate conversation we can and should have about how this new work plays out equitably across the city. We can’t just suddenly pop up a bunch of new outdoor dining in Scott’s Addition and call it a day. See the previous paragraph!An update on the Richmond Police Department’s External Advisory Board, which, remember, does not replace the ongoing work to create a Civilian Review Board: Earlier this week the RPD released the names of the EAB’s members(Facebook). Police leadership and EAB membership had previously balked at taking this board public due to some reasonable worries about potential harassment.Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury, who may officially have the weed beat, asks eight interesting questions to consider as the General Assembly gets ready to debate legalizing marijuana.For the past bunch of years, Better Housing Coalition has hosted the Gingerbread House Challenge, which raises funds for a good cause (BHC) and tests folks' baked architecture and sugar construction skills. It’s like making a show stopper in the Great British Baking Show, but without any of the crushing stress or unreasonable timelines. Plus, if you win, you get to take home a $1,000 prize curtesy of Hardywood Park Craft Brewery. This year BHC has waived the entry fee but is asking teams to raise $250 for the good of the cause. Teams have until November 27th to register.This morning’s longread‘We deserve it’: Larimer residents reflect on the neighborhood’s history and the long fight for redevelopmentDo you need an inspirational community housing story to take you into the weekend?But much has changed in recent years, largely due to grassroots advocacy from residents to spur development projects like the transformation of the former Larimer School into housing and the building of the Cornerstone Village mixed-income housing complex. Both projects are being funded in part with a $30 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. “We deserve it,” Dolores Marinello, 80, said. “We’ve waited a long time. We fought hard to get the money to redevelop, the whole community did.” She calls the projects “a dream.” But in reality, they’re the result of years of work by Larimer community members who refused to let their neighborhood be forgotten even through hard economic times and lack of government investment.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 51 °F, and the fog has returned! Once it burns off, though, we’ve got a great day ahead of us—and a great weekend ahead of us, too. Expect highs in the mid 70s, sunshine, and, if we’re lucky, presidential election results.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,366↗️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 11↘️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 149↗️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 38, Henrico: 58, and Richmond: 53). Since this pandemic began, 438 people have died in the Richmond region. Here’s this week’s stacked graph of new reported cases, hospitalizations, and deaths across Virginia. Seven-day averages of new cases over 1,200 definitely represent a new peak for the state, and we haven’t seen seven-day averages of hospitalizations around 60 since back at the end of August. The number of people dying each day remains low (all things considered), and I think that’s still a testament to how much we’ve learned about how to treat COVID-19—but, keep in mind, deaths typically lag a couple weeks behind hospitalizations. I mean, at some point, we need to change our behavior and not just sit around and watch these numbers tick up and up and up, right?Elections! They are…ongoing. Still. Locally, Alexsis Rodgers officially conceded, and you can read her statement here. I’m excited to see what’s next for Rodgers and hope she sticks around and continues to, in her words, “fight for a Richmond that works for all of us.” As for City Council races, who knows! 2nd District Candidate Katherine Jordan said in an email that the registrar told her “not to expect anything until late Tuesday.” Blerg. Nationally, blergs also abound. Overnight, Biden took the lead in Georgia by about 1,000 votes, he holds a 47,000 vote lead in Arizona, and Trump leads by just 18,000 votes in Pennsylvania with something like 234,000 ballots left to count. Plus whatever’s going on in Nevada. Not much has changed since yesterday, and we’re still in the same holding pattern: If Biden can hold Arizona and win any other state or win Pennsylvania, then we can start thinking about what a Trump-less federal government looks like.Chris Suarez at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that the “RVA Coalition of Concerned Civic Associations”, a NIMBY-drenched name if ever I heard one, has filed suit to stop City Council from voting on upzoning the area around the Science Museum, Alison Street, VCU & VUU Pulse stations. The Concerned want to delay the vote “until the city can hold more public in-person meetings about the plan and provide records the coalition has requested.” I do not believe this is a good-faith request, and think they are using “community engagement” as a delay tactic to ultimately kill this particular rezoning (which has been in the works for three years). Regardless of whatever historical or architectural or neighborhood-character arguments you may read by tapping the above link, preventing this upzoning—along and around our City’s biggest and most transit-friendly corridor—is about keeping people out. It’s about making the desirable parts of our City available to only a certain group of people that already live in those neighborhoods and can afford to file lawsuits to keep it that way. It’s about working to undermine our climate, housing, and transit goals. It’s about maintaining the status quo and keeping Richmond a place that only works for some of us.Jack Jacobs at Richmond BizSense asks “Will Richmonders want to eat outside in the winter?” Restaurants are banking on it, he says. OK, now the next logical question is: Will the City finally move on a comprehensive slow streets program to give people more safe outdoors space? The answer throughout the spring and summer was a resounding and disappointing “No!” But, maybe after a year of coronavirus, elections, and rising case counts we’ll see that change?The City’s Department of Public Works will host an asynchronous virtual meeting about the proposed Gillies Creek shared-use trail from November 5th–19th. Flip through this 13-page presentation (PDF) and then take this survey. The plan is to build a Capital Trail-esque path on the west side of Stony Run Road down by the BMX track, eventually connecting the Capital Trail itself to the northern parts of Church Hill. Fingers crossed, the City hopes to have construction begin by May! Filling out the survey will take you just a couple of minutes and will help the City move forward with building another piece of separated bike infrastructure. Get it done!Check out this cool project, Portrait of Immigrant Voices over on the RVA Strong website. Starting back on October 28th and running through Thanksgiving, the collaboration between the City’s Office of Multicultural Affairs and Studio Two Three will unveil a new portrait of an immigrant—both illustrated and written—each day. I love when the City finds a way to have its own voice and directly share the stories it thinks are important. Sabrina Moreno at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has some more details and background on the project.Perhaps unbeknownst to you, I continue to make this graph of weekly unemployment claims in Virginia. The numbers are still shocking: Over 100,000 Virginians filed for unemployment insurance the week ending October 31st. That’s, like, over 80,000 more filings than the same week last year. So it’s not a great situation, but the steady and increasing decline in claims means, unless something changes, I’ll just share this chart at the end of each month.This morning’s longreadMaking Amends With Lean CuisineSad, I think, but well-written.The thing about Lean Cuisine is that you had to look at the picture on the box while eating it. Self-deceit was the only way to convince yourself that the low-calorie frozen entree didn’t taste like homework, Facebook photo albums, syndicated reruns, nights home alone, and, actually, hunger. (This was when TV dinners became desktop dinners but before lunch al desko and breakfast con smartphone.) With Lean Cuisine, you never knew if you were going to burn your tongue or hit a cold patch, but you could always count on feeling bad about yourself.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 48 °F, and I think we’ve said goodbye to the rain for a good, long while. Expect cooler temperatures today, with highs in the mid 50s. I hope you enjoy the sunny, dry fall weekend and don’t spend it crushed into a tiny ball by anxiety over the approaching election.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,429↗️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 20↘️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 116↗️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 51, Henrico: 52, and Richmond: 13). Since this pandemic began, 434 people have died in the Richmond region. This is the highest number of new cases reported in Virginia in a single day since the weird reporting backlog on October 8th, and, after that, you’ve got to go back to August 7th to find a single day with over 1,400 reported cases. Here’s the stacked graph of daily reported cases, hospitalizations, and deaths to give you some context on today’s numbers. While the seven-day average of new reported cases is almost as high as its ever been, check out the number of daily hospitalizations. It’s far less than back in the spring (however, those numbers have crept upward over the past two weeks). We’re seeing a similar trend locally with new reported cases also approaching highs from earlier this summer and spring. The pandemic isn’t over! Look at these graphs and adjust your personal coronabehavior accordingly!Yesterday, I wondered aloud about what the heck was going on with Richmond’s task force to design and launch our Civilian Review Board. I have impeccable timing, because VPM’s Roberto Roldan says just this week City Council’s Public Safety Committee nominated six people to serve on the task force—two of which are former law enforcement. I’ll tell you what, I am not super stoked that the Public Safety Commission, made up of some of our most pro-cop councilmembers (committee members: Trammell, Gray, and Hilbert), get to shape the task force putting together the CRB. While I do get the need to have some form of law enforcement knowledge and expertise available to the committee as they do their work, I remain unconvinced that cops and ex-cops need to be members of the body. Councilmember Jones will suggest alternatives at the next full Council meeting saying, "If we are setting up a body that is going to do oversight of the police, I don’t know that we should have members of law enforcement, past or present, a part of that task force…That gives individuals who are not trusting of the police for their own reasons a moment of pause.”Whoa: The Mayor announced a quasi universal basic income pilot called the Richmond Resilience Initiative. From the release, “18 working families who no longer qualify for benefits assistance but still do not make a living wage will receive $500 a month for 24 months.” The cash for this program comes from both the Robins Foundation and CARES Act money, and participants will be pulled from folks already working with the City’s Office of Community Wealth Building. The cliff effect is real, y’all! It is an entirely real thing that people can make enough money to lose access to social programs but not make enough money to, you know, live. UBI and UBI-like programs address this, and probably cost Society™ less in the long run (he says confidently without bothering to do a Google). Chris Suarez at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a few more detailssince I can’t find the press release on the City’s new website.Due to the pandemic (seriously!), Richmond’s Green City Commission will give away 12,000 Eastern Redbud seedlings. The goal with this initiative is to increase the urban tree canopy and decrease temperatures—especially in parts of town that experience hotter-than-average temperatures due to a history of redlining and racist urban planning policies. You can get involved in a couple of ways. First, volunteer to help staff pickup sites over the next couple of weekends. Second, 12,000 is a lot of trees, so if you know of or are part of an organization that can grab a ton of tress and put them to good use, let the Green City Commission know. Third, go pick up a tree or three for your own yard. However! Before those of you (like myself) who live in a part of town with no history of redlining and plenty of tree canopy go snatching up all of these trees, consider volunteering to help distribute trees to parts of town that could really use some more dang shade. My own Redbud is pictured above, and, as a friend of mine says—heart-shaped leaves, beautiful flowers in the spring, what’s not to love?Alright, we’ve entered into the Stressful Voting Window. If you haven’t yet voted, the last day for you to vote early in-person is Saturday. If you have requested a mail-in absentee, I would think extremely hard before dropping that thing in the mail and instead drop it off at the registrar’s office (which, as we all know is a pain to access without a car) on Election Day. If you plan on voting in-person on Tuesday, please mask up, respect folks' distance, and give your poll workers an extra helping of grace on what is sure to be a stressful day.This morning’s longreadThe Island That Humans Can’t ConquerI’m starting to realize I really enjoy certain genres of articles—genres like “person goes to a really inaccessible place and tells you all about how inaccessible it is.”St. Matthew Island is said to be the most remote place in Alaska. Marooned in the Bering Sea halfway to Siberia, it is well over 300 kilometers and a 24-hour ship ride from the nearest human settlements. It looks fittingly forbidding, the way it emerges from its drape of fog like the dark spread of a wing. Curved, treeless mountains crowd its sliver of land, plunging in sudden cliffs where they meet the surf. To St. Matthew’s north lies the smaller, more precipitous island of Hall. A castle of stone called Pinnacle stands guard off St. Matthew’s southern flank. To set foot on this scatter of land surrounded by endless ocean is to feel yourself swallowed by the nowhere at the center of a drowned compass rose.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.This morning’s Instagram…doesn’t exist! Instagram currently displays this text when I go look at #rvanews (which is where I pull the daily Instagram from): “Recent posts from all hashtags are temporarily hidden to help prevent the spread of possible false information and harmful content related to the election.” Whoa!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 52 °F, and, look!, another great day of weather sits ahead of us. Expect highs in the upper 70s and lots of good vibes. Rain moves in and sets up shop for most of the day tomorrow, though.Water coolerThe Richmond Police Department is reporting that Daniel A. Stark, a man in his 30s, was murdered this past Tuesday. Officers arrived to the 1800 block of Fernbrook Drive and found Stark “unresponsive and suffering from trauma.”As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 805↗️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealthand 9↘️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 58↗️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 20, Henrico: 31, and Richmond: 7). Since this pandemic began, 382 people have died in the Richmond region. Here’s an updated stacked graph of new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. While we have had a couple of 1,000+ days of reported new positive cases recently, you can see how this week’s reporting issue continues to skew the seven-day average upward (currently at 1,131). You don’t see a similar, corresponding uptick in hospitalizations. I wonder if the upward trend we’re seeing in the number of new local cases is related to the statewide reporting issue or not? The level of community transmission, updated weekly and tracked on the Pandemic Metrics Dashboard, did revert back up to “substantial community transmission” after a couple weeks at the lower “moderate community transmission” level. That was a lot of words and links to say “stay vigilant, wash your hands, wear your mask, and keep your distance.”This piece by Eric Kolenich at the Richmond Times-Dispatch about the varying procedures (and subsequent COVID-19 case counts) at our colleges and universities has some interesting tidbits. I’m surprised-but-not-surprised by the fact that the State has not mandated some standard way for colleges—especially public colleges—to track, test, and report the coronavirus on their campuses. It makes it extremely hard to understand why the virus has spread in some places and not others—which, if you’ll remember that good longread from a couple days ago, is maybe just this virus’s scene. Also, for what it’s worth, I don’t believe student behavior varies from campus to campus. Young people will young people wherever they may roam, and I don’t believe that the personal behavior of Rams vs. Dukes will tell us much about how to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus.Chris Suarez, also at the RTD, has an update on City Council’s plans for last year’s budget surplus. The vast majority of that money will head into a rain-day fund, and that sounds great to me. Council did quash the Mayor’s plan to spend $500,000 of that extra cash on some health initiatives, which is a lot of money but only 2.6% of the total estimated surplus. This Council has, in the past, often spent large amounts of time deliberating tiny amounts of money. Sometimes, I think that comes from a place of good oversight—Councilman Addison said he’d be concerned about using this one-time money to fund on-going initiatives. Sometimes, though, it feels like City Council wants to flex against the mayor. And sometimes it just feels like Council loses the big picture and gets caught up in the details.I wrote about GRTC’s Route #77 community meeting yesterday, and I wanted to make sure to link y’all to the full and final public comment PDF. Out of 96 total comments received before the meeting, 76 were in favor of the new-and-improved #77 and 20 were opposed. Many of those in favor even live in the Fan itself! That’s great work, and I felt real emotions reading through some of these pro-bus comments. It’s just incredibly comforting to know that lots of folks out there are willing to put in the work to make our city a better place.What to quote from in this RTD column by Don O’Keefe?? There’s just so much! How about “automobile use is a public health crisis.” Or “To counter [spawl], we need to concentrate new development in already-settled areas. This means increasing density, and every neighborhood should play a part in providing new sites for housing and other functions.” But this right here is the best bit: “If we continue to limit housing supply, fight nonresidential uses and impose parking requirements, we will perpetuate the same sins that guided Richmond’s ill-advised, anti-urban and racist planning decisions in the mid-20th century. We must not continue to prioritize the aesthetic preferences of middle- and upper-class whites over the needs of working people who increasingly are priced out of urban neighborhoods. Living in a walkable urban neighborhood should not be a privilege for the few; it should be a viable option for families of any income level.”Speaking of, Mike Platania at Richmond BizSense says developers will try to rezone the surface-level parking lot on the northwest corner of Broad & 17th to TOD-1. This zoning category would allow for density, housing, retail—all kinds of things that are 100% better than a gravel parking lot in the dang center of our city. With a lot of planning work going on in and around Shockoe, I wonder how new private development will fit into those efforts. I would want whatever replaces this gross parking lot to thoughtfully co-exist with the plans for a museum and public space interpreting enslavement in America.Oh, snap! From Attorney General Mark Herring’s twitter account yesterday morning, “Judge says he will GRANT our request to extend voter registration deadline until 11:59pm on Thursday, October 15. Register to vote now!!” If your extremely last-minute plans to register to vote were dashed by a fiber optic cable mishap, you now have until 11:59 PM tonight to register. DO IT.Today, from 9:30–11:30 AM, at Epiphany Lutheran Church (1400 Horsepen Road), the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts will host another COVID-19 community testing event. This one is drive-thru only, but!, I now know that they will accept walk/roll-ups if your car is in the shop or is a bus or a bicycle.Logistical note! I am out of town tomorrow, so you should not expect a email from me—or at least you shouldn’t expect a morning email newsletter from me. If you send me an email directly for some reason, I’ll probably respond!This morning’s patron longreadWhy Women Are Biking in Record Numbers in N.Y.C.Submitted by Patron Lisa. This is so exciting to see, and just highlights the need in Richmond to keep striping bike/walk/roll lanes as fast as possible. The pace really has picked up, but lets keep at it.In many cities, but perhaps most notably in New York, much of that growth has been driven by a surge in the number of women who took to bicycling after lockdown orders eliminated the main barrier research has shown keeps women from cycling: streets that often feel perilous for cyclists. In New York, there were an estimated 80 percent more cycling trips in July compared with the same month last year, with biking by women rising by 147 percent and increasing by 68 percent among men, according to data from Strava Metro, a mobility tracking application used by 68 million people globally.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 58 °F, and I think we might see the sun again today! Expect a dry day with highs in the upper 70s. Looks like we’ve got a pretty good stretch of nice weather ahead of us.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 854↗️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 3↘️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 79↗️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 32, Henrico: 32, and Richmond: 15). Since this pandemic began, 381 people have died in the Richmond region. As Chesterfield County returns a small portion of their students to in-person instruction this week, I wanted to link to this document from the Virginia Department of Health: VDH Algorithm for Evaluating a Child with COVID-19 Symptoms or Exposuire. I like this document because, in all honesty, it’s not too hard to follow, and it makes me feel better for not knowing what to do in any one of the million and two edge cases—turns out, figuring out what to do is complicated! Make sure you check out the bottom left hand corner where some of the possible outcomes are based on the new CDC School Metrics (number of positive cases per 100,000). I think this might be first time I’ve seen a direct “if the numbers are this, do that.”For whatever reason, I absolutely blanked on yesterday’s City Council meeting. As foretold, Council approved the good tweaks to B-3 zoning making it less car-centric (ORD. 2020–209) and resoundingly voted to strike the resolution asking the Richmond Police Department to stop using less lethal weapons against protestors (RES. 2020-R048). The process for the latter is a bit weird, but since the Public Safety Committee recommended the resolution be stricken, a majority of councilmembers would have had to vote during their informal meeting to put RES. 2020-R048 back on the agenda. They did not, so this bill never even made it in front of full Council and folks didn’t have a chance to speak for or against it in the time-honored, formal public-comment way. Councilmember Jones, one of the paper’s sponsors, had this to say on Twitter: “City Council voted 2–7 to strike the paper on banning certain non lethal weapons. COUNCIL has the power to bring about change. They lacked the compassion to allow the public to speak about their concerns. That is not transparency. That is not leadership. This is undemocratic. What infuriates me was that Councilmembers knew there were people who wanted to speak on this paper. However they still didn’t allow for their voices to be heard. I wouldn’t do that even if I wasn’t in favor of something. I’d hear from the people.” I don’t know the rules about reintroducing legislation that has already once been stricken, but, perhaps with a more progressive City Council, we could try again in January? I dunno. I’m not surprised by this result, but I’m still upset by it.Marc Cheatham posted his third “Who’s Got Next” column, this one featuring Alexsis Rodgers. Yet again I agree with almost everything Marc says, and I’m thankful he spent the time writing these things so I didn’t have to. First and foremost, as Marc puts it, “Rodgers doesn’t have a lot of ‘BAD’ to highlight.” She got into the race immediately following Mayor Stoney’s response (or lack thereof) to this summer’s police violence—a response which was, in Marc’s words, “trash.” She’s young, hip, smart, strategic, and, to a lot of her supporters, a more progressive alternative to Stoney. That said, while her policy platform is good, I don’t think it’s considerably more progressive than what we get with our current mayor. Will she execute better, faster, and more coherently? Maybe! But, out of the Progressive Candidate, I want more than the mostly pragmatic stuff I find on her policies page. To quote from the piece, “Now, how much more progressive is Rodgers than Stoney? My read is not as much as most progressive activists on Twitter tend to think.” I do disagree with Marc on the experience needed to run the mayor’s office, though. He says: “Being the Mayor is not a matter of experience as much as it’s a matter of priorities,” which, I think I agree with in any other election year (including back in 2016, when the current mayor got elected with basically the same/zero experience). The next two-plus years, however, are going to be absolutely brutal for Richmond as we crawl out of this pandemic-sized hole. At the moment, I’m still unconvinced that we can afford a period of on-the-job training—especially if that’s not paired with an exceedingly bold and progressive agenda to pull us all forward.I want to put a pin in this piece about Richmond’s anticipated budget surplus from last year by Chris Suarez at the Richmond Times-Dispatch. If it were me, I’d sock it all away to make ends meet over the next couple of year—see above paragraph about the absolutely brutal financial crisis looming on the horizon. We’ll know the final, actual surplus when the city’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Reportdrops. Longtime readers will remember when all we ever talked about was CAFRs! Here’s what I had to say back on November 14, 2017: “Whoa, y’all! Yesterday evening, the Mayor announced that the city has completed everyone’s favorite financial report—the CAFR (Comprehensive Annual Financial Report)—three weeks early. I would not have bet on the City getting this thing in on time, let alone early. Hats off to the Finance Department and the Mayor, who made early promises that his administration would turn the CAFR in on schedule for the first time in four years.” Simpler times!Today is the literal last day to register to vote before the election. You can do this online or in person, but either way you should do it. I feel like most readers of this, Richmond’s premier zoning and rezoning email, should already be registered to vote. Don’t disappoint me, readers!Equality Virginia will host their 7th Annual Transgender Information & Empowerment Summit this week, Wednesday through Saturday. Spaces like this are so important: “During one of the most transformative years of our lifetime, highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide uprisings for Black lives, we believe the power of community has never been more clear. TIES offers an opportunity to foster that community by learning from and with each other in a safe and welcoming space.” This year’s summit is all-digital, free, and the keynote speakers are all Black trans folks. You can register here.This evening, the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts will host a community COVID-19 testing event at Second Baptist Church (3300 Broad Rock Boulevard) from 4:00–6:00 PM. This is a drive-thru only event, so bring your car or you’re out of luck.Via r/rva, a picture of a Sally Bell’s boxed lunch to brighten your morning.This morning’s longreadThis Overlooked Variable Is the Key to the PandemicI learned a lot from this piece in the Atlantic about the unintuitive way in which COVID-19 spreads. It also made me feel like we made a bunch of wrong decisions in what to open/close in response to the virus.There are COVID-19 incidents in which a single person likely infected 80 percent or more of the people in the room in just a few hours. But, at other times, COVID-19 can be surprisingly much less contagious. Overdispersion and super-spreading of this virus are found in research across the globe. A growing number of studies estimate that a majority of infected people may not infect a single other person. A recent paper found that in Hong Kong, which had extensive testing and contact tracing, about 19 percent of cases were responsible for 80 percent of transmission, while 69 percent of cases did not infect another person. This finding is not rare: Multiple studies from the beginning have suggested that as few as 10 to 20 percent of infected people may be responsible for as much as 80 to 90 percent of transmission, and that many people barely transmit it.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 67 °F, and, while it may get a tiny bit warmer later this afternoon, this is pretty much what we’ve got for the rest of the day. Expect rain to roll in, set up shop, and stick around until some point tomorrow.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 845↗️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 45↗️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 97↗️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 35, Henrico: 41, and Richmond: 21). Since this pandemic began, 349 people have died in the Richmond region. Yesterday’s caveat about the new death numbers still applies, and this note still appears at the top of VDH’s data dashboard: “Regarding the death data for Wednesday, September 16, 2020, there is an existing data backlog. VDH is working diligently to identify COVID-19 related deaths using vital record death certificate information.” I haven’t written about testing in a while, but the number of daily testing encounters has steadily declined over the last month and a half. I wonder if that’s a result of testing availability, testing fatigue among Virginians, or something else entirely. I haven’t heard much about folks having a hard time finding a test—in fact, here’s a big list of places you can go get tested. However, I can easily see, as the pandemic wears on, folks less willing to go get brainswabbed if they’re experiencing some COVID-19 symptoms.Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch digs into the most recent fundraising numbers for the mayoral race. If you want, you can check out the VPAP profiles for Mayor Stoney, Councilmember Gray, and Candidate Rodgers yourself. Unsurprisingly, Stoney significantly outraised and outspent his competition. The 2016 race was about a million dollar race, something that still blows my mind, and, with just a handful of weeks left to go, Stoney has raised more than half that for his reelection campaign. Robinson also pulled each candidate’s major donors—and all three candidates have major, major donors. Just this reporting period, the Mayor collected $10,000 each from a homebuilder and an Altria-related group, Gray landed a $30,000 donation from a local realtor, and Rodgers saw a Charlottesville couple give her campaign $25,000. Rodgers is way out in front on donations of $100 or less this period with 505—nearly triple her competitors. Lots of small donations is good, but you probably can’t win without a few large donations floating the majority of your boat. For example, just two donations (0.3%) accounted for 41% of all the money raised this period by Candidate Rodgers. Again, Richmond’s mayoral race is a million dollar race, and you can get there in a lot of different ways—but 10,000 $100 donations sounds like of work. And that’s why (among other reasons) I’ll never run for office!I didn’t explicitly highlight this, but in the announcement of the City’s new Office of Equitable Transit and Mobility, the Mayor came out in support of zero-fares for GRTC bus service. Chris Suarez at the RTD says that now all three candidates mentioned above—Stoney, Gray, and Rodgers—support zero-fares. And it’s not just folks running for office talking about this: The GRTC board just heard a presentation on the impact of zero-fares at their board meeting earlier this week (you can flip through those slides here (PDF)). I’m a zero-fare convert, mostly because I think that the pandemic presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experiment with going fare-free across the entire bus system. If not now, probably never. Of course, ditching fares does come with some risks. Mayoral candidates can talk a big game now, but, when it comes to funding GRTC in their budgets, will they put in enough cash to keep fares free AND expand bus service? It’s absolutely unacceptable to make our currently inequitable transit system free and call it a day. Additionally, are these candidates willing to continue to increase funding to GRTC to keep up with the inevitable ridership that’ll come with getting rid of fares? It’s a fun campaign platform for candidates, but this is a big decision that will have long-term impacts on Richmonders trying to get to work, school, healthy food, all kinds of things.The Virginia Mercury’s Kate Masters says that the State Corporation Commission “agreed to extend an existing moratorium on utility disconnections until Oct. 5.” That sounds like good news, but I would not want to have my utilities cut off with colder temperatures just around the corner. Apparently the General Assembly is working through how to use their special-session budget update to address this issue for folks who have unpaid bills. Fingers crossed.Related to yesterday’s news about the Pizza Hut on Patterson closing down, several folks sent in the Used to Be a Pizza Hut blog. So what used to be a Pizza Hut? Mostly other restaurants, but some pharmacies, liquor stores, and even a church or two. Do we have any used-to-be Pizza Huts in town? I feel like surely.Did you read that part about coronavirus testing up at the top of this email? Because if you’re experiencing COVID-19 symptoms and would like to get tested, the Henrico and Richmond City Health Districts will host a free community testing event today at the Robinson Theatre (2903 Q Street) from 9:00–11:00 AM. Rain or shine (most likely rain)! No excuses!This morning’s longread“Fixer Upper” Is Over, But Waco’s Transformation Is Just BeginningWell, I have now learned a lot about “Chip and Jo.” Also, because this is the sort of thing I do when I read an article about a place I’ve never been, if you have a second, go pull up The Silos in Waco on a satellite map and just look at all the surface parking lots scattered around their downtown. No wonder there’s plenty of opportunities to fixer-upper the place.Like so many small cities across America, Waco had lost its downtown core and the economic vibrancy that once accompanied it. (Unlike most small cities, the process had been catalyzed by a 1953 tornado that killed 114 people and razed 196 buildings.) And in the ’90s, it lost its reputation to the deadly 1993 standoff between federal agents and Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh, who had established a compound near town. As the two-person engine of an entire small industry and economic boom, the Gaineses have cleaved history in two: Before Chip and Jo, and After. The Old Waco, and the New.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 72 °F again, but, today, highs should stay out of upper 90s. Expect at growing chance of rain throughout the afternoon and into the evening. Saturday looks hot, but Sunday looks pretty A+.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 951 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 17 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 106 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 60, Henrico: 13, and Richmond: 33). Since this pandemic began, 195 people have died in the Richmond region. Remember that today most of the region moves into Phase Two of the Governor’s plan for recovery. This means a lot of things, but, mostly, that 50 folks can gather together with the proper social distancing and masks and sanitization and so on. After the Governor announced the move into Phase Two (which still, at this moment in time, has not made it to the State’s recovery website), I was pretty confused about what business were supposed to do who could now open to 50% of their capacity but that 50% capacity was more than 50 people. Turns out, I’m not the only with questions! Lane Kizziah at the Richmond Times-Dispatch says the Dominion Raceway in Spotsylvania was also confused and had planned to hold a race on Saturday with upwards of 1,200 folks. Turns out, they’re only allowed 50 spectators not 50% of potential spectators. I don’t blame them for misunderstanding the guidance. It’s a 41-page PDF, and, despite what you read in this email, people generally don’t love looking through massive PDFs. I think this quote from the racetrack’s sales manager also speaks to the lack of lead time businesses were given before the upshift into Phase Two: "We had a plan on Monday, and it changed on Tuesday…The governor’s information came out on Wednesday, and we changed again. Now it’s Thursday, and it appears we’re changing again.”Yesterday, the Governor gave a speech about why he’s now ordered the removal of the Robert E. Lee monument, which you can read as prepared here. Listen, I don’t think it’s always super helpful to criticize folks on how the end up doing the right thing, but this speech from the Governor didn’t do it for me. Northam continued veneration of Robert E. Lee, calling him “wise,” quoting him in a positive light, and perpetuating the myth of the kindly General Lee. Here, for context and so we remember, is a quote from Lee on slavery: “I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things.” Whitewashing Lee, even just a little, does not help destroy the Lost Cause narrative and gives space, even just a little, for White supremacy to work. The rest of the Governor’s speech was fine, although this bit makes me wonder what changed for him over the last seven days: “What do you say when a six-year-old African American little girl looks you in the eye, and says: What does this big statue mean? Why is it here?” Take a minute to read Michael Paul Williams’s column which is both more and less cynical. I enjoy this quote from one of John Mitchell Jr.’s descendants about what Mitchell Jr. would say today: “I think he would say ‘I told you so.’” Anyway, the Department of General Services has been asked to come up with a plan to get rid of the thing as soon as possible—which, if I were to make an uneducated guess, would be measured in weeks, not days.Locally, it looks like we’ve got the necessary votes on City Council to approve Mayor Stoney and Councilmember Jones’s ordinance to take down the rest of the Confederate monuments on Monument Avenue. 1st District Councilmember Addison’s announcement that he’d join as a co-patron to the paper made the YESes a majority, and Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch says that 3rd District Councilmember Hilbert will also join the supporters. That leaves Councilmember Larson (4th District, undecided), Councilmember Gray (2nd District, supports a “thoughtful and deliberative process that is inclusive and unifies people” aka undecided), and Councilmember Trammell (8th District, did not return Robinson’s calls).Pandemic, Confederate monuments, and yet each night still people take to the streets to protest and demand police and criminal justice reform. It’s been seven consecutive nights! The RTD’s Sabrina Moreno has a good thread of last night’s protest at RPD’s Fourth Precinct on Chamberlayne Avenue and, also with the RTD, Chris Suarez has a few shots from Carytown. At any other time, hundreds of people sitting in front of the police precinct—heck, hundreds of people on Chamberlayne Avenue for any reason at all—would have made for headline news. As we work through the civic process to make these protestors' demands into laws and policies, do not forget that they are still out there each and every night.Last night, I hopped on a wonderfully helpful call set up by the Richmond Transparency and Accountability Projectabout two of the reforms sought by protestors that you’ve probably heard about: the Marcus Alert and a Community Review Board (or, Civilian Review Board, but, like, aren’t cops civilians, too?). I’m still trying to wrap my head around CRBs, but you can read about how RTAP—the local experts on this—views the issue over on their website. Two things I heard loud and clear on the call: 1) the Richmond community, especially those who suffer the impacts of over and inequitable policing, should decide for itself the details of any future CRB, and 2) if the CRB needs subpoena power (a massive difference between Oakland’s and Charlottesville’s), the General Assembly will have to change some state laws. Both of those two things will take time, and I’m interested in how to balance that reality with the demand for immediate action from the Mayor. Your homework for the weekend: Learn more by reading through the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement website.Richmond Animal Care & Control, which found a cow on the Northside a couple days ago, found an actual bear downtown yesterday? /r/rva has a video of it chilling on the Northbank trail before it found its way down to 5th Street. NATURE IS RETURNING ETC.This morning’s longreadThe Antiracism Starter KitI found this Antiracism Starter Kit helpful, especially the four stages of becoming antiracist: 1) Awareness, 2) Education, 3) Self Interrogation, and 4) Community Action. Here’s an excerpt from the Self Interrogation stage and a bit about why it’s important to do this internal work first before rushing out to get involved.In this stage, you start to ask yourself the hard questions that start the process of you identifying, unpacking, and dismantling the ways in which your past and present behaviors are perpetuating white supremacy in the same ways that relate to what you’ve seen manifested during the education stage of becoming antiracist. You do the work laid out in this stage because there is no way for you to stop engaging in these behaviors without identifying them within your personal patterns of behavior in the first place. And there is no way for you to actually enter into the community action stage without potentially causing great harm to Black, Indigenous, and People Color with your continued perpetuation of white supremacy due to your unchanged behaviors.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.

We talk with Chris and Justin about their famous Gertrudes Ghost IPA. How they are helping to feed Loudoun County servers during Covid, and what are their plans for the brewery once the County opens back up.

The one lead generation source that is free and can yield immediate cash----this open house strategy shared by Super Agent Chris Suarez should be the blueprint for every agent that wants to double their business. Safe is easy---safe is comfortable. Without discomfort there can be no growth--- Check out more episodes at www.superagentslive.com visit our sponsor  www.myradioexpert.com www.expmodel.com    

The one lead generation source that is free and can yield immediate cash----this open house strategy shared by Super Agent Chris Suarez should be the blueprint for every agent that wants to double their business. Safe is easy---safe is comfortable. Without discomfort there can be no growth--- Check out more episodes at www.superagentslive.com visit our sponsor  www.myradioexpert.com www.expmodel.com    

Mega Agent Chris Suarez shares his system, strategy and best practices that allowed him to build a $30M business by holding open houses! Leads are the lifeblood of your business - and in this podcast you'll learn the exclusive strategies used by Chris Suarez to generate them on-demand, as needed, and without the cost of buying leads from the big portals!

Chris Suarez's band EL DONUTS has a new album dropping August 1st! Along with talking about that, we discuss masterbating in a relationship, drinking, the ATL music scene, and more.

Miguel and Sonja talk to Chris Suarez, Miguel’s best friend from the Air Force. They talk about experiences they’ve shared from crazy nights out, vacationing gone bad, marriage, sex and of course their families. Intro: “Find a Way” by Lakey Inspired Outro: “Shoulder Closures” by Gunnar Olsen Website http://www.oppositesattractpod.com Android https://play.google.com/music/m/Iahtnhuaatyq55m4dvse4727fui?t=Opposites_Attract_Podcast iPhone https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/opposites-attract-podcast/id1459824237 YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3BA4Z-uf0qlwqsWvBbAt2g Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/oppositepod/ Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/349814445877951/?source_id=298895574340925

The Alcohol Biz Tom Dunlap speaks with Scott Harris of Catoctin Creek Distilling, Chris Suarez of Bear Chase Brewing and Matt Hagerman of Lost Rhino Brewing about the challenges in starting an alcohol focused business.  They discuss everything from ABC licenses to trademark wars to challenges during start up.

Wall Street and venture backed tech companies are betting on a future with more tech and less agents. This is drawing attention to the value proposition that a real estate agent offers to the transaction. By becoming more professional, acting more than a real estate sales person, but more of a CEO, disruption in a real estate agent's individual business can be disrupted. Chris Suarez shares strategies on how to do this.

Buying online leads is becoming more expensive, and agents are choosing to leave teams when they find out leads can just be bought from online aggregators. What else should you be offering your agents? Why is it so important to focus on increasing your profit margins and investing more in our people? How do systems, tools, and coaching lead to earning more and building a happier team? In this episode, Chris Suarez shares on increasing profit margins and providing real value to your agents. The greatest business opportunity is to find complicated problems and come up with simple solutions -Chris Suarez   3 Things We Learned From This Episode Knowledge of the market can compensate for lack of experience (06:40-07:20) You can build credibility and win a lot of business if you have better knowledge of the market than your competition. Nobody will ask you about your time in the business if you already come across as experienced and knowledgeable. Providing leads isn’t enough to make agents loyal to you  (26:00-29:00) Buying leads from aggregators not only damages your profitability, but can also contribute to a high turnover rate. When you have nothing else to offer but leads, agents don’t have enough incentive to work for you. They can buy the same leads themselves and work individually. High profit margins are your best competitive advantage  (19:30-24:00) The more money you make, the more you can invest into buying the best systems, supporting your agents, and hiring the best people. Focusing on this aspect of the business will also allow you to pay your agents what they are worth, lowering your turnover rates.   The scarcity mindset has led many team leaders to pay for leads, believing that there won’t be enough leads on the market otherwise. However, online platforms that generate leads have gotten so expensive over the years that it’s far more profitable for teams to find other ways to generate their own business. Buying leads not only hurts profit margins, but also impacts the team culture. If a team leader only offers leads to his agents, there’s not enough incentive for agents to stay. Anyone can find their way into production by buying leads. Offering systems, tools, and coaching will help your agents grow while also giving them reason to stay with you.   Guest Bio- Chris Suarez is the CEO of PDX Property Group at Keller Williams and specializes in urban housing. During his career, he represented over 1,000 buyers and sellers and has over $250 million in closed volume. Last year, his team sold over 220 homes, and he constantly works on new ways to improve his strategy by participating in quarterly meetings with masterminds and top agents from across the country.

Chris Suarez SUCCESS CALL ***Note: If you can not see the audio player above, REFRESH your browser and try again. . . . . To listen on iTunes, click HERE. To listen on Google Play, click HERE. To download, right click the “Download” link below and “save as” to your computer. Download FULL Running Time: […]

Leverage is something a lot of agents are never taught or trained on. What do you do when your business is stressing you out and overwhelming you? Why did Chris Suarez invest in MAPS coaching? How did he implement the 80-20 rule, and how did it help him grow his business and develop his mindset? On this episode, Chris Suarez shares his journey from merely working a job to having a vision, and how that impacted his business.    Real estate agents want systems, because it allows them to make the money they want in half the time. -Chris Suarez   Three Things We Learned from this Episode Think leverage; not adding more to your schedule. When you think you have a time management issue, reframe what you think the problem is. Take the time to really drill down to underlying issues in the business. It’s not about cramming more into your day, it’s about putting leverage and systems in place. Don’t let opinion breed ego If you’re going to believe that a model can take you somewhere, and you believe in a system that has been proven to be successful, you have to let go of opinion. Opinion tends to lead to ego and even if you’ve been successful on your own, you have to be able to allow someone else to help you be successful in a different way. Success has to be defined internally It’s easy to tell yourself that you want to focus on being successful by imitating a successful person, but you have to consider what success looks like to you. Take the time to define success on your own terms so that you build a life that resonates with you.   For the most part, what we think to be a “time management” issue is usually a “leverage and people management” issue. Having very clear systems and models in place will solve this for you because they are duplicatable, leverageable, and expandable. If you feel like there’s more work to do than time, take a step back and try to spend a little time outside of the world that you call your business. It will help you get clear on what you really want for your life.       Speak with a Business Growth Advisor about the next step in your business. Click here to schedule your free Business Consultation.   Guest BioChris Suarez is one of Portland’s top producing Real Estate Consultants. He combines his New York style of marketing and negotiation skill with the unique neighborhood feel of Portland, OR. Suarez founded PDX Property Group at Keller Williams Realty to combine a unique blend of luxury customer service, high class marketing, top level negotiation tactics, and an intense knowledge and interpretation of the local real estate market. His high-energy focus on results and commitment to delivering concierge level customer service has allowed him to consistently rank among the top real estate producers in the city, region, and country. Go to http://www.kw.com/kw/agent/chrissuarez for more info.

The gang sits down with Tracy Callahan from Xperience Real Estate to discuss what it's like being Chris Suarez's expansion team. They discuss leverage and how joining a team is a great way to take your business to the next level.

What’s the foundation of your expansion? Is it lead generation, talent, location, consulting or coaching? In our latest episode, Chris Suarez shares how his group has expanded to every quadrant of the country by building a coaching and consulting platf...