Good morning, RVA! It’s 20 °F, which is still cold, but not quite as arctic as yesterday. Highs today will reach a balmy 41 °F—early next week we could see temperatures in the high 60s!

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Michael Paul Williams in the Richmond Times-Dispatch has the incredibly sad news that Lillie Estes died yesterday. Estes had an enormous, impossible-to-overstate impact on community organizing in Richmond.

Last night, Mayor Stoney gave his 2019 State of the City Address, which you can read in full (as prepared) (PDF). On the eve of Black History Month, inclusivity was the theme, and Stoney focused on racial reconciliation, schools, and housing. He voiced support for renaming the Boulevard after Arthur Ashe, dinged the state for failing to keep up their end of education funding, and, in the biggest bit of new policy, announced an eviction diversion program (PDF). The proposed Coliseum redevelopment got a shoutout, too, of course.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 20 °F, which is still cold, but not quite as arctic as yesterday. Highs today will reach a balmy 41 °F—early next week we could see temperatures in the high 60s!

Water cooler

Michael Paul Williams in the Richmond Times-Dispatch has the incredibly sad news that Lillie Estes died yesterday. Estes had an enormous, impossible-to-overstate impact on community organizing in Richmond.

Last night, Mayor Stoney gave his 2019 State of the City Address, which you can read in full (as prepared) (PDF). On the eve of Black History Month, inclusivity was the theme, and Stoney focused on racial reconciliation, schools, and housing. He voiced support for renaming the Boulevard after Arthur Ashe, dinged the state for failing to keep up their end of education funding, and, in the biggest bit of new policy, announced an eviction diversion program (PDF). The proposed Coliseum redevelopment got a shoutout, too, of course.

Photo by: Stanley Zimny

Good morning, RVA! It’s 14 °F?? POLAR VORTEX! Sure, that’s not as cold as many places across the country, but it’s pretty dang cold for Richmond—and cold enough to delay area public schools by two hours. If you must go outside, be careful and wear a ton of clothes/coats.

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Tonight, at 6:00 PM at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture, Mayor Stoney will give his 2019 State of the City Address. I don’t know if any local TV media will broadcast or stream it, but the full text of the speech is usually posted on the City’s website afterwards. You can, of course, follow along live on Twitter—probably your best bet is to dip into the #rvacouncil or #rvamayor hashtags. If I were to guess, schools first and affordable housing second will be the priorities in this year’s speech. I also don’t think he can get away without at least mentioning the proposed coliseum redevelopment.

Photo by: JOzPhotography

Good morning, RVA! It’s 23 °F, and we escaped yesterday without any slush or snow or slushy-snow. Today, expect highs in mid 30s and some gusty wind. Bundle up, but definitely don’t tell your friends in the Midwest that you’re bundled at all in any way whatsoever.

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Yesterday, I shrug-emoji’d about whether or not the plan proposed by Virginia’s Republicans for redistricting reform was a step forward or not. A reader sent me this thread on Twitter from Ben Williams, a legal analyst at the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, who says, no, no this is not progress. In fact, Williams says “this is the opposite of reform.” So that certainly doesn’t sound great.

Photo by: JOzPhotography

Good morning, RVA! It’s 23 °F, and we escaped yesterday without any slush or snow or slushy-snow. Today, expect highs in mid 30s and some gusty wind. Bundle up, but definitely don’t tell your friends in the Midwest that you’re bundled at all in any way whatsoever.

Water cooler

Yesterday, I shrug-emoji’d about whether or not the plan proposed by Virginia’s Republicans for redistricting reform was a step forward or not. A reader sent me this thread on Twitter from Ben Williams, a legal analyst at the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, who says, no, no this is not progress. In fact, Williams says “this is the opposite of reform.” So that certainly doesn’t sound great.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 31 °F, and, with highs in the 50s, you can expect rain later today and possibly some sort of slush-snow situation this evening. We’ll see what below-freezing temperatures overnight mean for that situation tomorrow morning, I guess!

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Whoa, what a fascinating night at City Council! The agenda was packed, the house was packed, and even the #rvacouncil hashtag was packed. Bottom line, it’s exciting to see so many people interested and involved in what their local government is up to—and, dang, did local government put on a show last night. First, the particulars: Six-pack chickens passed, a paper to expand VCU’s jurisdictional foot print passed, the new scooter ordinance passed, and the ordinance prohibiting the Brook Road bike lanes failed on a 3–6 vote (NO: Addison, Larson, Agelasto, Robertson, Newbille, Jones; YES: Gray, Hilbert, Trammell). You can find links to all of these papers, and video from the meeting when it gets posted, over on legistar. Second, this was Council President Newbille’s first go at running a contentious meeting, and her leadership style is way different than Councilmember Hilbert’s hands-off approach. At one point—early in the evening while Council discussed the paper about expanding VCU Police’s footprint—the crowd got a little rowdy, Councilmember Trammell got a little rowdy in response, and, instead of having folks escorted out of Council Chambers by the police, President Newbille called for a recess. What wisdom! If she’d have thrown out the loud audience members—during a discussion about the police, no less!—that would be the entire story this morning. Instead, she shut down the exchange, and when she gaveled the meeting back in order, she moved immediately to a vote with no further discussion and the tension in the room dissipated. I was impressed. Third, a million and one people turned out to speak in favor of the Brook Road bike lanes. It’s incredible that Bike Walk RVA managed to get dozens and dozens of folks organized and educated to give thoughtful and respectful public comment during an hourslong meeting on a Monday night. They are the local advocacy game in town. As for the bike lane ordinance itself, I think Nicholas Smith on Twitter nailed the long term consequences: “Ironically, this ordinance hugely backfired. Safer, better biking and walking infrastructure is now the mainstream, popular position. Opposition is the politically risky one. Politicians and staff who support biking will be rewarded; those who oppose, ostracized.”

In news you will absolutely not believe, the Richmond Times-Dispatch has hired Pamela Stallsmith as its next opinions editor (the first woman to hold that title), they’re ditching unsigned editorials, and they’ll “create a Community Advisory Board to help facilitate dialogue between the readers and the opinions staff about key issues and topics…” This is…shocking! I didn’t think meaningful change on the editorial side of things was possible without wholesale leadership change. Stallsmith starts on February 18th. Mark your calendars.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 31 °F, and today’s looking sunny and chilly. Expect highs in the low 40s. There’s may be a small chance for a little bit of snow tomorrow night—stay tuned. John Boyer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, as always, has a very detailed look at the upcoming forecast.

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Today, at 11:00 AM, students, teachers, parents, and all sorts of folks who support more state funding for education will march from Monroe Park to the Capitol. This is part of the #RedforED campaign and is put on by Virginia Educators United. Wonder why I’m constantly talking about state funding for education and why we need more of it? Let former Virginia Secretary of Education Anne Holton convince you. Also, because the route takes marchers down Franklin, the Franklin Street bike lane is closed from 10:00 AM–1:00 PM. I think this is first time I’ve ever come across an official notice of a Richmond bike lane closure, and I feel seen.

Speaking of education, here’s the latest email from the Superintendent. One thing I appreciate is that when talking about the $13 million of cuts he plans on making to the District’s central office, he says “I want to reiterate that we have many dedicated individuals at the central office who give their all on behalf of our schools. It pains me to put forth a proposal that means some of them will lose their jobs.” It’s good (and hard) to say out loud what budget cuts actually mean and to not always ambiguously describe them as “cuts.”

Good morning, RVA! It’s 29 °F, and today you can expect a bit of wind, a bit colder temperatures, and a bit more sunshine. Highs will top out in the mid 40s, but the sky looks dry!

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Two people were murdered in Richmond earlier this week, police report. On Tuesday Johnathan R. Holloman, 33, was found dead in his home on the 5500 block of Westower Drive. Yesterday, on the 3400 block of Decatur Street, “emergency crews were responding to an unrelated medical call in the same block and were treating a patient in the back of the ambulance, when they heard shots fired. Moments later, they found [Charleston B. Scott, 27,] in the driver’s seat of the ambulance with apparent gunshot wounds. “ Scott would die of his wounds at the hospital.

Photo by: taberandrew

Good morning, RVA! It’s 59 °F, what the heck! It’ll stay warm and rainy throughout most of the day, and temperatures will drop into the low 30s tonight.

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Richmond’s own Rodney Robinson is now one of four finalists for the 2019 National Teacher of the Year! The Governor was on hand at the Virgie Binford Education Center yesterday to announce the news. We’ll learn later this spring if Robinson wins the whole shebang, but if he does, he’d be just the third Virginian—joining Mary V. Bicouvaris (1989) and B. Philip Bigler (1998)—to take home the national recognition.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 31 °F, and today looks to be far less freezing cold than the last couple of days. In fact, temperatures should steadily climb overnight into the 60s. There’s a bit of a chance for rain today, but mostly that’s for tomorrow.

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Yesterday afternoon, the Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee met to consider a handful of things and the conversations had were fascinating (but the audio is not yet posted on the internet). First, the committee voted to move the ordinance prohibiting bike lanes on Brook Road (ORD. 2018–194) to Council with no recommendation. This means it’ll show up on Council’s regular agenda next week, there will be another public hearing, and we’ll get to rehash the entire conversation that took place last night. Bike Walk RVA will help you get involved in the final push to kill this unnecessary ordinance. Second, the Committee continued the ordinance to add back in a left turn lane from southbound Belvidere onto eastbound Broad Street (ORD. 2018–153)—another unnecessary ordinance that would disrupt the Pulse. Aside: How much City staff time have we wasted by requiring DPW staff to show up prepared to speak to this paper over the last eight months? Finally, the ordinance to rename the Boulevard to “Arthur Ashe Boulevard” (ORD. 2018–228) will also head to full Council with no recommendation. I got heated about this last one over on Twitter after hearing some of the public comment against the renaming. The whole meeting is worth listening to, especially comments on a variety of topics from Councilmember Jones, who’s new to the committee. Once the audio shows up on the City’s website, I’ll try and link to it in this space.

Justin Mattingly at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has the first few details on Superintendent Kamras’s new budget. If you read the Superintendent’s email from yesterday, you won’t be surprised that he plans to cut funding from the central office—but you may be surprised at the scale of those cuts: $13 million. I recommend taking a look through the (very readable) budget presentation (PDF) yourself. I know I always say this, but even when it comes to even very readable budgety documents like this, my brain melts into a useless mush. So someone help me out: It looks like the Superintendent will cut from the central office to cover a shortfall that results from using last year’s one-time funds for recurring costs, and, additionally, will ask for $16 million of new dollars from the City. Yes? If so, two thoughts! First, I can’t but help think about what we could do with $16 million of new money for pedestrian, bike, and public transportation infrastructure or operating funds. Second, Kamras’s willingness to create a strategic plan that involved the community and then use that plan to inform his funding requests—while slashing his administration budget by $13 million—at least gives him solid ground on which to stand while asking the City for more money. Now we’ll have to wait a couple months to see if it works.

Photo by: sandy%27s%20dad

Good morning, RVA! It’s 13 °F, and highs today won’t make their way above freezing. Warmer, and wetter, weather returns over the next couple of days.

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Apology time! This past Friday, I said I was skeptical of a new report out of VCU’s Center for Urban and Regional Analysis because I disagreed with the methodology they used for a previous report about our region’s bus network. That was unfair of me, and I apologize. Even worse, my unwritten implication was that all future CURA reports deserved my skepticism. That was also unfair. I use CURA’s research in my work frequently, especially Understanding the Jobs-Affordable Housing Balance in the Richmond Region (PDF), and we’re lucky to have them in town. I went too far last week, and I’ll do better moving forward!

Photo by: sandy%27s%20dad

Good morning, RVA! It’s 13 °F, and highs today won’t make their way above freezing. Warmer, and wetter, weather returns over the next couple of days.

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Apology time! This past Friday, I said I was skeptical of a new report out of VCU’s Center for Urban and Regional Analysis because I disagreed with the methodology they used for a previous report about our region’s bus network. That was unfair of me, and I apologize. Even worse, my unwritten implication was that all future CURA reports deserved my skepticism. That was also unfair. I use CURA’s research in my work frequently, especially Understanding the Jobs-Affordable Housing Balance in the Richmond Region (PDF), and we’re lucky to have them in town. I went too far last week, and I’ll do better moving forward!

Photo by: Jonathan%20Piques

Good morning, RVA! It’s 36 °F, and today you can expect highs near 50 °F. Soak it up, because the rain returns this weekend and cold temperatures arrive on Sunday.

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Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury has the disappointing but predictable gun bill update from the General Assembly. Everything, even a gun violence proposal supported by President Trump, was voted down by Virginia’s gun-obsessed Republicans. I should note, however, that Senator Glenn Sturtevant, who represents parts of Richmond, was the only republican to vote for the Trump-supported bill. Related, why are media still talking to Philip Van Cleave from the Virginia Citizens Defense League as if he’s a person with a reasonable point of view? Remember, he’s the guy who showed up on Sasha Baron Cohen’s This is America to support giving stuffed-animal guns to four-year-olds. This man is not representative of a sane positions on gun violence, no one should present him as such, and lawmakers who side with him should be ashamed.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 30 °F, and today you can expect highs around 40 and plenty of clouds. Seems glum.

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Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a national day of service, and there are lots of ways for you to get involved and give back. The Community Foundation has a post up highlighting a couple of easy ways to do exactly that—if you’re paralyzed by the number of choices, participating in the RPS School Supply Drive is probably the easiest of the group. Since I’ve talked about it in this space recently, on Monday you can also head over to Evergreen Cemetery and help clear weeds and record grave information. Bonus for volunteers that speaks directly to my heart: You can ride GRTC to the cleanup for free! Of course you don’t need to let the Community Foundation’s list or even by MLK Day constrain your volunteerism. HandsOn maintains an enormous database of volunteer opportunities in and around town with incredible variety on basically any day you should wish to volunteer.

This article by Graham Moomaw in the Richmond Times-Dispatch makes me think we’re pretty close to the General Assembly passing a solid distracted driving bill (that’d be HB 1811 and SB 1341). The current law only prohibits reading email or text messages while driving, not, say, posting to your Instastories or selling your Magic: The Gathering cards on eBay. Sen. McClellan sits on the Senate Transportation Committee which could tackle their version of the bill next week, if you wanted to let her know how you feel about it.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 31 °F, and highs today will take us way past the frozone and into the upper 40s—should see a fair bit of sun, too.

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Ask promised, and thanks to the handful of folks that sent this my way in several different forms, here are City Council’s new standing committees and other appointments (PDF). The Education and Human Services committee is all new, and, close to my heart, the Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee has switched out Councilmember Larson for Councilmember Jones. Also of note, Councilmember Addison will now represent Council on the Safe and Healthy Streets Commission, replacing Councilmember Trammell.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Mark Robinson has your regularly-scheduled check-in on the proposed Coliseum redevelopment project. There’s no new news, other than just that: There’s no new news. We’re all just still waiting around for the final details of the proposal to be made public. Meanwhile, Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense says Tom Farrell gave a presentation about the project to the Greater Richmond Association for Commercial Real Estate at…the Country Club of Virginia. I get that the CCV is—like it or not—probably where people involved in an association for commercial real estate in Richmond hang out, but, dang, that’s a bad look.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 31 °F, and highs today will take us way past the frozone and into the upper 40s—should see a fair bit of sun, too.

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Ask promised, and thanks to the handful of folks that sent this my way in several different forms, here are City Council’s new standing committees and other appointments (PDF). The Education and Human Services committee is all new, and, close to my heart, the Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee has switched out Councilmember Larson for Councilmember Jones. Also of note, Councilmember Addison will now represent Council on the Safe and Healthy Streets Commission, replacing Councilmember Trammell.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Mark Robinson has your regularly-scheduled check-in on the proposed Coliseum redevelopment project. There’s no new news, other than just that: There’s no new news. We’re all just still waiting around for the final details of the proposal to be made public. Meanwhile, Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense says Tom Farrell gave a presentation about the project to the Greater Richmond Association for Commercial Real Estate at…the Country Club of Virginia. I get that the CCV is—like it or not—probably where people involved in an association for commercial real estate in Richmond hang out, but, dang, that’s a bad look.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 29 °F, and today we’ve got highs in the mid-30s, just above freezing. Richmond should be cold and grumpy, but definitely open for business.

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It’s been awhile but RPS Superintendent Kamras is back with another email you should read. There’s lots to dig into in this issue, but I’m most interested in the links to the District’s 2019 legislative agenda (PDF), the Superintendent’s advice on how to get involved in state-level advocacy, and a neat toolkit (PDF) that’s got a lot of useful information for anyone wanting to advocate for anything at any level. I especially like that the legislative agenda exists as a public document so folks can know exactly what to yell at their state legislators about instead of just “more and better education funding.”

Richmond City Council met last night to approve a higher minimum wage for City employees, and Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has the details. I neglected to mention this yesterday, but the plan has been kicking around City Hall for a while. Also, committee assignments and appointments were announced! I don’t think the full listing exists on the internet anywhere, but I do have this incomplete picture via Councilmember Jones. With any luck, I’ll dig up a PDF later today.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 27 °F, and highs may creep above freezing for a few hours this afternoon. Due to the thin sheet of ice covering every surface, things are canceled, closed, or delayed! This means schools and governments, too. Be careful if you’ve gotta leave the house.

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This past Friday evening, police arrived to the 2400 block of Carmine Street and found Timothy Garnett, 28, shot to death.

Photo by: ZEISS%20Microscopy

Good morning, RVA! It’s 28 °F, and we are officially under a winter storm watch (remember watch < warning). Today you can expect highs in the upper 30s and plenty of sun. This weekend you can expect snow. Andrew Freiden says most of Richmond is in the 3–6 inches zone which now includes a quarter inch of sleet or freezing rain. The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s John Boyer says 2–4 inches but with the standard science-y caveats.

With the winter weather arriving mostly on Sunday, I…don’t have a lot of hopes for Richmond’s institutions on Monday. Remember: Check event websites and Facebooks and Twitters before heading out, because a lot of things already are or soon will be canceled.

Good luck out there, y’all.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 47 °F, and it may get a little warmer this afternoon but not much. Snow still seems to be in the forecast for this weekend, maybe start putting together your Monday contingency plans now.

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Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch looks at a new citywide payroll report from the City Auditor 💸. If you are not an RTD subscriber, you can dig into the 24-page, pretty-dang-readable report for yourself (PDF), if you wish. The report’s Finding #1 says that just 41 employees (less than 1% of the City’s workforce) were paid $1.3 million in overtime pay (8.1% of the City’s entire overtime expenditures). That means that individuals pulled in over 700 hours of overtime last year, with one employee claiming 1,889 hours of overtime! The quick math: 1,889 / 52 = 36.3 hours per week. I sympathize with Chief Administrative Officer Selena Cuffee-Glenn, the City is and has been chronically understaffed, yet mission-critical work still needs doing. Something I’d like to look into but ran out of time for this morning: Remember the audit that Mayor Stoney commissioned when he took office back in 2017? What did it say about fully staffing City departments and filling all these vacant positions? Has he made progress in that area? Too many vacancies and too much overtime pay are expensive, but also, I imagine, real bad for employee morale.

SCOTUSblog says that the Supreme Court has rejected a request by Virginia legislators “to put lower-court proceedings in a case challenging the legislative districts drawn for the state’s House of Delegates as the product of unconstitutional racial gerrymandering…on hold until the justices rule on the case.” That means the map nerd brought on by the federal court to redraw the state’s districts can continue their nerdy map work ahead of the November election (at least for now).