Photo by: Accretion%20Disc

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

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

Good morning, RVA! It’s 27 °F, but later this afternoon we’ll see temperatures in the mid 60s! Sounds great, can’t wait.

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Listening to one of the recent episode of the Boring Show, probably March 18th’s, I heard a couple councilmembers bring up increased costs for the three new schools currently under construction and funded by the recent meals tax increase. Last night, I got this combo statement from both the City and RPS (PDF) about those costs now that the procurement process has wrapped up. The total for all three schools is up by $30 million from the 2017 estimates, and the two administrations point to increased construction costs industrywide, an increase in the size of E.S.H. Greene Elementary (which accounts for $7 million of the increase), LEED Silver requirements, and “a 2% contingency.” From this statement, I also learned of the existence of the Joint Construction Team, which seems like legit group of folks, meets weekly. and has their minutes uploaded to Board Docs (IMHO they should be in Granicus, too, see below). I don’t know anything about school construction, so I have absolutely no idea if these increases seem obvious or out-of-whack. I imagine we’ll hear more about this over the next week or so.

Today, City Council’s Governmental Operations committee will meet and hear a presentation titled Granicus Opportunities (PDF). What is Granicus? Oh, it’s only the software that the City uses to publish all of the agendas, minutes, and PDFs I’m always overly excited about. It is literally one of two bookmarks that I keep in all of my browsers, and I’ll tell you what: I’m overly excited about this presentation. There are all kinds of features buried in the software that the City isn’t using that could increase transparency and accountability—top on my list: how votes went down on each ordinance or resolution! If I were King of Richmond for a day, I’d also encourage/force every one of the City’s bodies, committees, commissions, boards, and hangouts to use Granicus and publish a minimum set of documents. It’s more work for City staff, sure, but don’t you want to know what’s going on at, say, the Safe and Healthy Streets Commission?

Good morning, RVA! It’s 27 °F, but later this afternoon we’ll see temperatures in the mid 60s! Sounds great, can’t wait.

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Listening to one of the recent episode of the Boring Show, probably March 18th’s, I heard a couple councilmembers bring up increased costs for the three new schools currently under construction and funded by the recent meals tax increase. Last night, I got this combo statement from both the City and RPS (PDF) about those costs now that the procurement process has wrapped up. The total for all three schools is up by $30 million from the 2017 estimates, and the two administrations point to increased construction costs industrywide, an increase in the size of E.S.H. Greene Elementary (which accounts for $7 million of the increase), LEED Silver requirements, and “a 2% contingency.” From this statement, I also learned of the existence of the Joint Construction Team, which seems like legit group of folks, meets weekly. and has their minutes uploaded to Board Docs (IMHO they should be in Granicus, too, see below). I don’t know anything about school construction, so I have absolutely no idea if these increases seem obvious or out-of-whack. I imagine we’ll hear more about this over the next week or so.

Today, City Council’s Governmental Operations committee will meet and hear a presentation titled Granicus Opportunities (PDF). What is Granicus? Oh, it’s only the software that the City uses to publish all of the agendas, minutes, and PDFs I’m always overly excited about. It is literally one of two bookmarks that I keep in all of my browsers, and I’ll tell you what: I’m overly excited about this presentation. There are all kinds of features buried in the software that the City isn’t using that could increase transparency and accountability—top on my list: how votes went down on each ordinance or resolution! If I were King of Richmond for a day, I’d also encourage/force every one of the City’s bodies, committees, commissions, boards, and hangouts to use Granicus and publish a minimum set of documents. It’s more work for City staff, sure, but don’t you want to know what’s going on at, say, the Safe and Healthy Streets Commission?

Photo by: sandy%27s%20dad

Good morning, RVA! It’s 27 °F, but today’s highs will be right back up in the mid-to-upper 50s accompanied by plenty of sunshine.

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Michael Paul Williams has a column today about believing victims of sexual assault, especially when those victims are Black women 💸. This column comes immediately after—and maybe prompted by—this terrible, offensive quote by Marty Jewell in the New York Times: “We do know that women, through their scorn, have made false charges against men to get even.” The Times article is worth reading, despite Jewell’s comments, and stitches together the stories of Justin Fairfax’s accuser Meredith Watson, Chicago-based activist Aliyah Young, R. Kelly, and some gut-wrenching statistics. For example: More than four in 10 Black women experience physical violence from an intimate partner during their lifetimes.

Photo by: Tony Webster

Good morning, RVA! It’s 43 °F, and warmish temperatures continue with highs in the mid 50s. Yesterday’s rain has come and gone, and we’ve got maybe an entire week ahead of us for things to dry out.

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Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch says Council passed RES. 2019-R009 last night, and, honestly, I don’t know what to think about it or what it means. The resolution is, of course, nonbinding, so maybe it means nothing at all? Assuming it does mean something, RPS now has a funding stream that sounds a lot like The Roanoke 40—let’s call it The Richmond 55.4. The idea is that Council will appropriate 55.4% of the real estate tax receipts to RPS each year. The positives of a plan like this is that it would, theoretically, remove politics from the conversation about funding schools, although I’m sure the politicians would still manage it somehow. No longer would you have this annual drama about how much the Mayor, or ultimately City Council, will fund/underfund schools. It’d just be 55.4% of the real estate tax, every year, to be reevaluated every three years. I have questions! Does the Education Compact—the Voltron-like group made up of School Board, City Council, the Superintendent, and the Mayor—support this plan? What happens if our real estate tax receipts change dramatically (in either direction)? Why is the amount of funding suggested by this resolution less than what RPS says it needs? What other options, presumably being explored by the Education Compact, exist that still dedicate funding to schools and keep the political garment-rending to a minimum? This passed with so little fanfare and so few PDFs to read, that I don’t know what to do with myself!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 53 °F, and warm weather finally returns in earnest. Highs today are basically 70 °F. Get excited, but keep in mind it does look like rain could fall this afternoon and into tomorrow morning.

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1st District School Board Representative Liz Doerr has two posts for you to read today: 1) a nice piece about why she supports the Mayor’s proposal to roll back the Recession-era real estate tax cuts; and 2) a great companion piece explaining why certain line items in the Richmond Public Schools budget have increased or decreased. The latter is wonderful and addresses a lot of the concern/trolling/concern-trolling I’ve seen floating around the internet. I would love more of this from all of our elected representatives! I know that she’s a busy person and has things to do besides knocking out 2,400 words explaining the budget and its mysterious ways, but, dang, those are some valuable words and I really appreciate them.

It’s Monday, so here’s the link to this week’s RPS Superintendent email. As you might have guessed, the Superintendent focuses on the budget, and there’s some pretty heavy budgetchat along with a useful budgetFAQ that you should take the time to read through. He also points out that the application for the VUU is RVA program is now live (in both English- and Spanish-language versions. It was a literal forever ago, but maybe you remember VUU announcing they would award full rides to 50 current 8th graders who graduate from an RPS high school. Applications must be submitted by April 15th, so take a minute today and think hard about which young person in your life you should encourage to apply.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 45 °F, the rain has stopped, and highs today will hit the mid 50s. The sun should stick around for the weekend and we might even see temperatures in the 60 before Monday shows up.

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Have you seen The Chart floating around? You know the one, it’s blue and purportedly shows that the City spends a jillion times more on “general government administration costs” per capita than a whole list of other localities—neighbors, peers, and far-flung places you’ve never even heard of, like Loudon and Stafford. Generated with actual state data, The Chart has been used as Exhibit #1 by folks against the Mayor’s proposal to roll back the Recession-era cuts to the real estate tax. It is, of course, a deeply misleading chart in this context. “Look at all that waste and incompetence!” they say while proposing more and more cuts to City services that are already hanging on by a thread. Thad Williamson has a very thorough dunking on that chart in Style Weekly, if you want to dig in, but the tl;dr is that the City categorizes expenses differently than other localities. Ultimately, and you know this, we’re not going to find the amount of money needed to reverse decades of disinvestment in our streets, schools, housing, and transportation in the couch cushions. P.S. Williamson links to this City Auditor’s report (PDF) from August that compares per-capita costs of functional areas of government across localities. It’s a quick and interesting read.

The Governor signed a couple bills that make it easier for folks with autism to get health insurance regardless of their age. Michael Martz at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a neat, human story about how these new laws made their way through the long and arduous legislative process to the governor’s desk.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 44 °F, and today looks a lot like yesterday, but with a steady chance of rain. Things may dry out after dinner—or maybe they won’t!

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One thing that I think about a lot lately is how facts are broken, and social media (starting with talk radio) has done this new and terrible thing to the way we communicate about anything folks could disagree about but, specifically, about politics. For whatever reason, Republicans and Democrats have different communication strategies in this weird, fact-free moment of time—and I’m going to generalize here so don’t email me with #notallrepublicans. The president employs a Childish Sick Burn Strategy and it’s followed by a lot of Trump-adjacent Republicans and by folks who are just continually against things. It’s incredibly effective and almost impossible to address with facts or civil discourse or whatever normal-person thing you might want to attempt. Democrats, in response to a Childish Sick Burn, typically want link to a 300-page PDF with several appendixes of footnotes to prove that the Sick Burn is actually inaccurate and therefore must be rejected. It never works of course, because the audience for Sick Burns is massive and the audience for 300-page PDFs is small. Sometimes, some Democrats (again, I know, I know #notalldemocrats) will attempt to address this communication power imbalance by attempting their own Childish Sick Burn. Graham Moomaw at the Richmond Times-Dispatch gives us an excellent example of how this is almost always a bad idea and usually results in a stupid own-goal. The model for effective progressive communication is, of course, AOC. You can scroll through her timeline to get a feel for the strategy, but it almost always involves 1) speaking to your room not the person who disagrees with you (in her case, her supportive Twitter followers); 2) Making a joke or pointing out something ridiculous the opposition said; and 3) pivoting to a positive position you hold. It is never, ever just hanging a Childish Sick Burn out there with no connection to policy or progress.

Richmond Magazine’s Sarah King looks back to 1979 and how prescient then-Mayor Henry Marsh III was to fear the negative economic impacts of building the I-295 beltway around the City. This story features both highway-building and annexation—two of my favorite topics!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 27 °F, and you can expect temperatures in the mid 50s along with some rain later this evening. That rain will probably continue through tomorrow.

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1st District Councilmember Addison’s always thorough newsletter is out, and in this addition he addresses the Mayor’s proposal to roll back the Recession-era real estate tax cuts (PDF). The Councilmember does not mince words, “I am opposed to this tax increase.” he says. He’s also the first Councilmember (I’ve seen) to propose the ~$21 million of offsetting cuts needed to balance a budget which does not include any of the Mayor’s proposed new revenue. Y’all, I wish that Richmond were in a place where all this new money was needed to take us to the next level, to make us a tier-one city as the previous mayor liked to say. The unfortunate reality is that Mayor Stoney’s proposal to add $24 million of new revenue is absolutely necessary to permanently fix decades of disinvestment in extremely basic city services. It’s not for shiny new things, it’s for streets, schools, houses, and buses. It gets us back to a barely acceptable baseline. While I agree with the Councilmember that we should explore every possible way to increase funding, if there were some magic public-private partnership out there waiting to solve all of our problems, we’d have found it by now. It’s not new news that almost every aspect of City government is underfunded—just listen to a budget work session or two. It’s been that way for ages, and now’s the time to do the hard work to get it fixed.

Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a short recap of yesterday’s event with former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. Here’s more from Katja Timm writing for the Capital News Service. Does video of this conversation exist somewhere? Anywhere? Please let me know if you come across it!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 27 °F, and you can expect temperatures in the mid 50s along with some rain later this evening. That rain will probably continue through tomorrow.

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1st District Councilmember Addison’s always thorough newsletter is out, and in this addition he addresses the Mayor’s proposal to roll back the Recession-era real estate tax cuts (PDF). The Councilmember does not mince words, “I am opposed to this tax increase.” he says. He’s also the first Councilmember (I’ve seen) to propose the ~$21 million of offsetting cuts needed to balance a budget which does not include any of the Mayor’s proposed new revenue. Y’all, I wish that Richmond were in a place where all this new money was needed to take us to the next level, to make us a tier-one city as the previous mayor liked to say. The unfortunate reality is that Mayor Stoney’s proposal to add $24 million of new revenue is absolutely necessary to permanently fix decades of disinvestment in extremely basic city services. It’s not for shiny new things, it’s for streets, schools, houses, and buses. It gets us back to a barely acceptable baseline. While I agree with the Councilmember that we should explore every possible way to increase funding, if there were some magic public-private partnership out there waiting to solve all of our problems, we’d have found it by now. It’s not new news that almost every aspect of City government is underfunded—just listen to a budget work session or two. It’s been that way for ages, and now’s the time to do the hard work to get it fixed.

Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a short recap of yesterday’s event with former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. Here’s more from Katja Timm writing for the Capital News Service. Does video of this conversation exist somewhere? Anywhere? Please let me know if you come across it!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 27 °F, but we should see temperatures a few degrees warmer than yesterday and basically no rain—drizzles or otherwise.

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Reminder: Mayor Stoney will host the first of four budget-related town halls tonight at Woodville Elementary (2000 N. 28th Street) from 6:30–8:00 PM. This is an excellent opportunity to ask the Mayor specific questions about both his budget and his proposal to roll back the Recession-era cuts to the real estate tax. If you’re already on board with the Mayor‘s proposals and supportive of new revenue for basic city services, bring that support (and your IRL body) into the room tonight.

Justin Mattingly at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, says 4th District RPS School Board member Jonathan Young will not vote for any RPS budget that relies on the Mayor’s proposal to roll back tax cuts. That’s certainly an interesting strategy for a guy who did just vote for a schools budget that included millions of dollars in additional funding requests from the Mayor. Ultimately, City Council, not School Board, will decide the fate of the real estate tax, but it definitely wouldn’t hurt to have as many of the School Board members on board, too. So, if you want to let your elected representatives know how you feel about taxes and budgets, you can find School Board contact info here and City Council contact info over here.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 36 °F, and we’ll see temperatures top out right around 50 °F later this afternoon. You can expect warmer weather as the week progresses.

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Budget season continues today with Council hosting their second work session from 9:00 AM–1:00 PM. I didn’t realize this until right now, but each session has it’s own cute(ish) name: last week was “21st Century Richmond,” and today is “Strategic Infrastructure.” As you might expect from the name, today we’ll hear from Public Works, Information Technology, capital improvements, and Council offices. I would guess that we’ll get some questions ranging in tone from pointed to intense during DPW’s portion of the day. Last week, a couple Councilmembers wanted to know more about the $2 million they asked be shifted into streets and sidewalk repair late last year, and the response from the administration wasn’t the clearest thing I’ve ever heard. I imagine Council will look to dig in further this morning. I haven’t done enough digging myself on this to know what’s going on, but I did find the resolution Council passed to ask the Mayor to shift that money around: RES. 2018-R098 (PDF). Anyway, I’ll get the audio up from today’s session on the The Boring Show as soon as I can.

Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a good, human-centered story about the Homeless Crisis Line 💸 (804.972.0813, put it in your phone!) and homelessness in Richmond that you should read if you’re able. This story reminded me that City Council passed ORD. 2018–241 this past December requiring the CAO to develop a Homeless Strategic Plan by October, which, of course, lines right up with when folks need to start getting their budget requests in line for next year’s budget season. Maybe we’ll see some funding go towards whatever recommendations fall out of the strategic plan?

Good morning, RVA! It’s 62 °F, and highs today return to the mid 70s. There’s a chance of rain this evening, but the rest of the weekend looks pretty dry—cooler, but dry.

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Former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu will visit Richmond this coming Tuesday, March 19th, from 9:30–11:00 AM at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. Landrieu will chat with our Mayor during this public event and is in town as part of his E Pluribus Unum initiative to “bring people together across the American South around the issues of race, equity, economic opportunity and violence, proving the American motto that ‘out of many, one.’“ You may remember Landrieu as the guy who just up and took down four of his city’s prominent Confederate monuments several years ago. In a surprising twist, New Orleans did not crumble to dust and remains standing to this very day. The Mayor’s press release says members of the public can RSVP by emailing info@unumfund.org, but the event is free and open to the public with doors at 9:00 AM.

Whoa, the Richmond Times-Dispatch has an column by four former Virginia Secretaries of Education supporting Mayor Stoney’s proposal to fully fund RPS by restoring the real estate tax to its pre-Recession levels (oh, and, adding a cigarette tax, too). Heavy hitters! Three of these folks served under Democratic governors, and one under a Republican.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 45 °F, and today you can look forward to highs in 70s. Enjoy!

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The Richmond Police Department is reporting a murder that occurred the night of March 12th. That evening, officers were called to the 2300 block of Halifax Avenue and found Husain El-Amin, 59, shot to death.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 41 °F, and, while not as nice as yesterday’s preview of spring, today still looks pretty OK. Expect lots of sunshine and highs in the mid 50s.

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The Mayor will host four town hall meetings across the City to discuss his proposed budget—on March 19th, March 21st, March 27th, and April 2nd. While you’re welcome to discuss any aspect of the budget at these meetings, I’m pretty sure the focus will be on his much-needed proposal to roll back the Recession-era real estate tax cuts. These meetings are an opportunity for folks to get in there, ask him some questions, and show him (and, with any luck, City Council members in attendance) some support.

Speaking of the real estate tax, Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has the early vote count for rolling back the tax cuts. Using my gut—which is based on absolutely nothing other than beer, and, lately, a lot of Chex mix—and interpreting the words in this article I’d say that the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 9th District are all gettable votes; the 2nd and 8th District are probably not; leaving one from the 1st, 3rd, or 4th District to get this thing to pass. You should definitely contact your Council person and let them know you support more revenue for basic, necessary services—especially if you’re represented by Councilmembers Addison, Hilbert, or Larson. But really, all Councilfolk, even those that support this bold budget from the Mayor, will need your support (and cover) if they’re going to vote for this to pass. Should Council choose not to go along with the Mayor, they’ll have to cut millions of dollars from his proposed budget. But, as Robinson notes, “Last year, this council didn’t make a single cut to the mayor’s proposed general fund budget after more than 40 hours spent in work sessions.” Now those would be interesting budget sessions.

Photo by: sandy’s dad

Good morning, RVA! It’s 53 °F, and, this afternoon, you can expect highs in the 60s! Better than that, you can even expect warmer days later this week—perhaps an opportunity for things to dry out a bit.

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It’s really and truly budget season, and that means City Council will begin holding their epically long meetings at which representatives from each City department make a presentation, answer questions, and try to justify their existence. It’s fascinating, an excellent way to learn about the status and needs of our City, and I love it. Today, up first through the gauntlet: Richmond Public Schools; Public Utilities; Economic Development; Housing and Community Development; Planning & Development Review; and Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities. This year we’ve got the interesting twist of the Mayor’s proposal to roll back the Recession-era real estate tax cuts. Lots of departments will have an influx of cash, and I’m looking forward to hearing them advocate for keeping that cash. The best way to consume these sessions, in my opinion, is to subscribe to The Boring Show podcast and listen at 2x speed.

Photo by: sandy’s dad

Good morning, RVA! It’s 53 °F, and, this afternoon, you can expect highs in the 60s! Better than that, you can even expect warmer days later this week—perhaps an opportunity for things to dry out a bit.

Water cooler

It’s really and truly budget season, and that means City Council will begin holding their epically long meetings at which representatives from each City department make a presentation, answer questions, and try to justify their existence. It’s fascinating, an excellent way to learn about the status and needs of our City, and I love it. Today, up first through the gauntlet: Richmond Public Schools; Public Utilities; Economic Development; Housing and Community Development; Planning & Development Review; and Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities. This year we’ve got the interesting twist of the Mayor’s proposal to roll back the Recession-era real estate tax cuts. Lots of departments will have an influx of cash, and I’m looking forward to hearing them advocate for keeping that cash. The best way to consume these sessions, in my opinion, is to subscribe to The Boring Show podcast and listen at 2x speed.

Photo by: Jonathan Piques

Good morning, RVA! It’s 30 °F, the clouds are back, and with them maybe some rain later this evening. The chance for rain continue through the weekend, unfortunately, but warm weather returns in a big way on Sunday.

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FYI, Sunday is the “Spring Forward” portion of our relentless commitment to the oppressive regime of Daylight Saving Time and when we enter Eastern Daylight Time. I’ll value an hour of sleep over an hour of daylight any day of the week, including this Sunday.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 24 °F, and today’s highs won’t break 40 °F. But! It looks like a dry and sunny day ahead of us. I’ll take it; my back yard is starting to mold over.

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Today, at 3:00 PM in Council Chambers, Mayor Levar Stoney will present his proposed budget to City Council, officially kicking off Budget Season aka the most wonderful time of the year. I didn’t invent the saying, but it’s true: You can tell a City’s real priorities not by what politicians say but by what’s in their budget—ideally the two things align. So what priorities will the Mayor lay out this year? If I had to guess it would be a continued commitment to schools (which may not mean more money over last year, but certainly not less) and housing (possibly framed around eviction). Of course, if I tell my brain to hush and let my heart take hold, I would love to see more money for transit, more money for bike infrastructure, more money for Vision Zero, and, really, just more money in general. I haven’t banged on the Increase the Property Tax™ drum in a while, but, at some point, we’re gonna need more revenue. Council will kick off their deliberations on Monday, March 11th, with a daylong meeting of presentations by departments trying to justify their budgetary existence. On the agenda: Public Schools; Public Utilities; Economic Development; Housing and Community Development; Planning & Development Review; and Parks, Rec. and Community Facilities. With Councilmember Newbille leading these meetings, they may actually get through all of those scheduled presentations in a single day! I will post the audio from the meetings, beginning with today’s initial budget presentation, to The Boring Show podcast as quickly as a I can. Go ahead and subscribe now.

I forget who sent it to me, so, apologies, but this article about the history of slavery at Bermuda Hundred in Chesterfield is excellent. Great work by Rich Griset in the Chesterfield Observer, and you should mark this as your reading homework for the day.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 25 °F, but, after the sun comes out, things should warm up a bit. Later on this afternoon, you can expect highs in the low 40s and a bunch of sunshine.

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FYI, Today is Mardi Gras aka Fat Tuesday aka Shrove Tuesday. I don’t really know what that means for folks in Richmond, but I imagine people are out there getting ready to eat some king cakes and drink some booze.

Superintendent Kamras’s email from this past weekend is, again, worth reading. He devotes the majority of the space to a discussion of why he wanted to keep portions of the budget confidential: To spare the RPS employees losing their jobs from first hearing about it in the newspaper. This, of course, is exactly what happened, and today the Richmond Times-Dispatch ran a story titled “Which jobs are being eliminated by Richmond Public Schools? Here’s the list.” I think if I were about to lose my job, I’d find that title a little flippant. Anyway, I really respect the way the Superintendent communicates, even when his Board and the community ask him to do things he’d rather not do. One other detail mentioned in his email that I wish I would have know about earlier or had the time to dig into: “In an effort to be responsive to Board requests, we developed the ‘full,’ roughly 230-page version of the budget recently. Please note that this comprehensive document is normally prepared much later in the budget process—after RPS knows how much funding it is going to receive from the City and the State.“ Hmmm.