Local Breweries, Collective Bargaining, and Francine is Back
Cheers RVA!
Today will be partly cloudy with a high of 83 and a low of 69. Temperatures are expected to cool down a bit later in the week with highs in the upper 60’s.
the juice:
Former Richmond City Council candidate Taveres Floyd was indicted Monday by a grand jury on four counts of felony election fraud.
The charges are the result of a 10-month investigation by the Virginia State police.
Floyd previously served as a liaison to 6th district councilmember Ellen Robertson, and received nearly 15% of the vote in last year’s election, ultimately losing to his former boss.
the pulp:
The Richmond Public School board will vote tonight on major changes to its collective bargaining agreement, via the Richmonder. While dozens rallied outside City Hall on Monday fearing a rollback of collective bargaining rights, Superintendent Kamras acknowledged the process could be improved in the RPSDirect newsletter and responded to criticisms regarding teacher’s free speech:
Based on this and other feedback, in consultation with the School Board, we compiled a few key suggestions for revision to the underlying collective bargaining resolution. These include:
Streamlining duplicative grievance processes, a common point of feedback from employees;
Simplifying (while still maintaining) impasse procedures;
Asking both parties to come to the table with a focused set of issues to negotiate;
Agreeing to implement agreed-upon provisions only when funds are available to do so; and
Ensuring that negotiations and advocacy do not disrupt the school day or daily operations for students.
To be clear, despite allegations to the contrary, absolutely no restrictions on teachers’ free speech rights were ever discussed. RPS has always, and will always, strongly support our teachers’ freedom of expression. I personally have gone to bat for teachers’ free speech rights time and time again.
The beloved Lowe’s cat Francine has returned to Richmond. After weeks of a community-wide effort to locate the cat who had wandered onto a truck headed for a distribution center in Garysburg, NC, Francine was located Monday morning and has returned to her residence at the Lowe’s on Broad Street.
the dive:
As the craft beer industry begins to cool, Mary Scott Hardaway for styleweekly dives into how local breweries are responding:
All the brewers and beer industry folks I chat with are old (and young) enough to remember what that beer boom felt like, when everything was shiny and new and special. And those who waited in line for half a day to get their hands on a limited release or seasonal one-off felt, by association, special too.
Competition is increasing from other breweries, and the rise of hard seltzers, hard tea, and canned cocktails, as well as the fact that gen Z is consuming less alcohol, means breweries must adapt to current trends.
“Breweries need to adapt to the changes and the trends,” says Ardent Craft Ales head brewer Tasha Dixon, who has been in her current role since 2024, at Ardent since 2020 and part of the Richmond beer scene for more than a decade. “We’ve got to stay relevant, that’s all anyone can do.”
Read the full article here.
the vibe:
Have a sensible day RVA!
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