Good morning, RVA! It’s 68 °F, and today you should expect highs in the mid 80s and some thunderstorms possibly developing later this afternoon.

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On Friday evening, Richmond Police officers responded to the 3900 block of Peyton Avenue and found Sherece Cook, 21, shot to death.  

Good morning, RVA! It’s 77 °F, and you can expect today’s highs to hit 91ish. Should be a bright, maybe cloudy, day. Enjoy!

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The City’s Department of Budget and Strategic Planning along with Richmond Public Schools finance staff have “completed a preliminary reconciliation of all RPS managed capital projects through the end of the 2018 fiscal year.” The result? About $10 million in remaining funds spread across a couple of accounts. It’s hard to tell from the aforelinked City release, but if you read this Justin Mattingly piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch 💸, it definitely sounds like money that just…kind of got lost in a spreadsheet somewhere. Superintendent Kamras says “I’m happy to have it, but we didn’t have it on our books…This is new to us.” 😳. I mean, no matter how you look at it, it’s not great to have your books off by seven digits. That said, I’m glad the new administration is steadily and publicly wading through all these embarrassing issues the previous set of leaders—all of them: superintendent, School Board, City Council, and mayor (some of whom are still around!)—left behind.

Michael Paul Williams in the RTD has a reflective piece before this weekend’s anniversary of Charlottesvillle 💸, it’s got good quotes from state Senator Jennifer McClellan, Mayor Stoney, and an excellent one from Jonathan Zur—“Bryan Stevenson argues that the foundational step toward achieving justice is proximity. In the Richmond region, it is very easy to not be proximate to those who have different lived experiences. People can then assume that their experience is the dominant or only experience.”

Good morning, RVA! It’s 77 °F, and you can expect today’s highs to hit 91ish. Should be a bright, maybe cloudy, day. Enjoy!

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The City’s Department of Budget and Strategic Planning along with Richmond Public Schools finance staff have “completed a preliminary reconciliation of all RPS managed capital projects through the end of the 2018 fiscal year.” The result? About $10 million in remaining funds spread across a couple of accounts. It’s hard to tell from the aforelinked City release, but if you read this Justin Mattingly piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch 💸, it definitely sounds like money that just…kind of got lost in a spreadsheet somewhere. Superintendent Kamras says “I’m happy to have it, but we didn’t have it on our books…This is new to us.” 😳. I mean, no matter how you look at it, it’s not great to have your books off by seven digits. That said, I’m glad the new administration is steadily and publicly wading through all these embarrassing issues the previous set of leaders—all of them: superintendent, School Board, City Council, and mayor (some of whom are still around!)—left behind.

Michael Paul Williams in the RTD has a reflective piece before this weekend’s anniversary of Charlottesvillle 💸, it’s got good quotes from state Senator Jennifer McClellan, Mayor Stoney, and an excellent one from Jonathan Zur—“Bryan Stevenson argues that the foundational step toward achieving justice is proximity. In the Richmond region, it is very easy to not be proximate to those who have different lived experiences. People can then assume that their experience is the dominant or only experience.”

Good morning, RVA! It’s 75 °F, and highs should settle into the low 90s today. A bit cooler than yesterday, but still pretty dang hot.

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As we approach the one-year anniversary of Charlottesville—which has become another place we say the name of with a certain inflection to mean a certain unspoken thing like Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook—the governor has declared a state of emergency, allowing state resources to be used in responses of whatever does or does not happen on August 12th. You can read the governor’s release here, see a helpful list of what a State of Emergency is and is not over on the Virginia Department of Emergency Management’s website, and if you really want to get into the specifics you can check out the text of the executive order (PDF) for more details (like the authorization of $2,000,000 for “state and local government mission assignments”).

Whoa, the big public transportation news in Richmond keeps on coming! In his CEO Connector newsletter, GRTC CEO David Green announced he’d be leaving the transit agency for “new challenges and professional growth” at the end of the month. Green leaves behind a pretty impressive list of accomplishments including the Pulse, the redesigned routes, unlimited ride fare passes, and the as-yet-to-be-launched high school bus passes. This is a big moment for our city, and I hope GRTC will find an interim leader while starting a national search for some bright, amazing, rockstar transit CEO. Move to Richmond! It’s awesome! You’ll love it!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 75 °F, and highs should settle into the low 90s today. A bit cooler than yesterday, but still pretty dang hot.

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As we approach the one-year anniversary of Charlottesville—which has become another place we say the name of with a certain inflection to mean a certain unspoken thing like Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook—the governor has declared a state of emergency, allowing state resources to be used in responses of whatever does or does not happen on August 12th. You can read the governor’s release here, see a helpful list of what a State of Emergency is and is not over on the Virginia Department of Emergency Management’s website, and if you really want to get into the specifics you can check out the text of the executive order (PDF) for more details (like the authorization of $2,000,000 for “state and local government mission assignments”).

Whoa, the big public transportation news in Richmond keeps on coming! In his CEO Connector newsletter, GRTC CEO David Green announced he’d be leaving the transit agency for “new challenges and professional growth” at the end of the month. Green leaves behind a pretty impressive list of accomplishments including the Pulse, the redesigned routes, unlimited ride fare passes, and the as-yet-to-be-launched high school bus passes. This is a big moment for our city, and I hope GRTC will find an interim leader while starting a national search for some bright, amazing, rockstar transit CEO. Move to Richmond! It’s awesome! You’ll love it!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 75 °F, and today you should prepare for heat. Temperatures will reach the mid 90s but probably feel way hotter. My eternal advice: Stay hydrated.

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Apparently, a couple of poorly-named, pro-Confederate, white supremacy groups plan to hold a Lost Cause rally in Richmond on August 19th. First, these people are just not good at coming up with names for their groups: “CSA II” and “Virginia Task Force of Three Percenters aka the Dixie Defenders”? Lol! (If you were wondering, the VTFoTPakaDD are so named because “only three percent of the population of the Thirteen Colonies fought against the Kingdom of Great Britain during the American Revolution,” says Wikipedia.) Second, this quote from Dixie Defender Wendy Hayslett is illustrative, “Once we found out that the mayor is pushing more about taking Jefferson Davis down, putting signs around our statues, we knew we had to defend Dixie.” If you thought “adding context” in the form of small, tasteful plaques would keep white supremacists from parading around Monument Avenue with their little flags, think again! As for this upcoming rally, in the past these events have been laughably attended, so I will continue with my eyerolly tone, but I guess be aware. Oh, also! Mark Robinson answers my questions about who got cleaning crews out to the Lee Monument so quickly on a weekend—it was the state’s Department of General Services.

I am OK-pleased with this headline from Justin Mattingly at the Richmond Times-Dispatch: “Richmond Public Schools has fewer teacher vacancies now than at this point last year.” This easily could have gone towards something like “Richmond has the most teacher vacancies in the region yet again.” The district, just like Henrico which has 62 vacancies, plans to have them all filled before the start of the school year. Keep in mind we’re still a couple weeks out before school starts.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 74 °F, and you should expect highs in the mid 90s. Looks like you might could avoid thunderstorms today, though!

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Somehow I missed this column in the RTD by Mayor Stoney about keeping a citizenship question off the 2020 Census. If we want to know how many people live in Richmond (and beyond) we need to make sure folks aren’t intimidated to fill out the dang Census questionnaire. Why’s this important? Fewer people living in Richmond (as determined by the Census) could mean fewer federal dollars when those dollars are distributed in a per-person way. You can let the Department of Commerce know that the citizenship question is a bad idea by filling out this form—you’ve got until tonight at midnight. The Southern Poverty Law Center has some language to help you with your response should you need it.

NPR has a good piece about what’s done with Confederate monuments after they come down. It’s a national piece, but does have some quotes from Christy Coleman, the CEO of the American Civil War Museum. She says they can’t take them, so don’t get any ideas. The best quote, and one that we should think long and hard about as we process the recommendations of the Monument Avenue Commission, comes from Ben Wright of the Briscoe Center for American History, “[The monuments] say things about gender, they say things about race, they say things about militarism that would take more than a plaque to sanitize.” Let’s keep that in mind as we begin talking about what “adding context” looks like on Monument Avenue.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 75 °F, and it looks like you’ve got a hot day ahead of you with highs near 90 °F and a small chance of thunderstorms this afternoon.

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Ali Rockett has an interesting story in the Richmond Times-Dispatch about the New Virginia Majority trying to get stop-and-frisk data from the Richmond Police Department. RPD claims the data doesn’t even exist at the moment but a police spokesperson says, according to Rockett, that the department “plans to try to provide the information in the future.” Honestly, the data the New Virginia Majority is after doesn’t seem that intense or onerous to collect: total number of civilians stopped, how many of those resulted in frisks or searches, how many of those resulted in an arrest/summons/warning, and demographic data. Obviously, without data like this there’s no way to check in on who’s being stop-and-frisked and if the RPD’s policy is implemented in a racially inequitable way—intentional or otherwise. Related, just yesterday I was reading the latest email from local brilliant person Tressie McMillian Cottom, and came across this bit, which applies deeply to this exact situation: “We will not even keep track of police violence because to create a category for something - an ontological place holder says something is possible - undermines the entire enterprise. Not that data would help much beyond building some careers, perhaps. Still, I would like to have the data even if these kind of technocratic solutions are rarely tools for justice.” Data helps, but it doesn’t get us to justice by itself.

Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury has the drone photo you’re looking for of the red-paint vandalism at the Robert E. Lee Monument. Thumbs up to Oliver for a fantastic headline, with “Someone threw a lot of red paint on the Lee Monument in Richmond.” Here’s a thing I’m interested in: Who made the weekend call to get cleanup crews out there ASAP?

Good morning, RVA! It’s 75 °F, and it looks like you’ve got a hot day ahead of you with highs near 90 °F and a small chance of thunderstorms this afternoon.

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Ali Rockett has an interesting story in the Richmond Times-Dispatch about the New Virginia Majority trying to get stop-and-frisk data from the Richmond Police Department. RPD claims the data doesn’t even exist at the moment but a police spokesperson says, according to Rockett, that the department “plans to try to provide the information in the future.” Honestly, the data the New Virginia Majority is after doesn’t seem that intense or onerous to collect: total number of civilians stopped, how many of those resulted in frisks or searches, how many of those resulted in an arrest/summons/warning, and demographic data. Obviously, without data like this there’s no way to check in on who’s being stop-and-frisked and if the RPD’s policy is implemented in a racially inequitable way—intentional or otherwise. Related, just yesterday I was reading the latest email from local brilliant person Tressie McMillian Cottom, and came across this bit, which applies deeply to this exact situation: “We will not even keep track of police violence because to create a category for something - an ontological place holder says something is possible - undermines the entire enterprise. Not that data would help much beyond building some careers, perhaps. Still, I would like to have the data even if these kind of technocratic solutions are rarely tools for justice.” Data helps, but it doesn’t get us to justice by itself.

Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury has the drone photo you’re looking for of the red-paint vandalism at the Robert E. Lee Monument. Thumbs up to Oliver for a fantastic headline, with “Someone threw a lot of red paint on the Lee Monument in Richmond.” Here’s a thing I’m interested in: Who made the weekend call to get cleanup crews out there ASAP?

Good morning, RVA! It’s 73 °F, and looks like we’re in for cooler temperatures and a decent chance for rain scattered throughout the day. Keep an eye on the sky!

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Michael Paul Williams weighs in on the possibility of bringing a homeless shelter (and space for needed services!) to the south side of the river. Please do not stare directly at this quote without protective eyeware, because, daaaanng: “‘I too, wish [the proposed homeless shelter] could remain a church,” one reader commented on the blog entry. ‘A lot of people were saved there.’ Apparently, saving souls is fine as a religious enterprise, but saving the homeless from freezing temperatures — and perhaps landing them in permanent housing — is an endeavor best carried out in another neighborhood far away. Not in my backyard!” Tangentially, I think this continual distinction between Richmond and RVA is unhelpful. There have always been NIMBYs—lots of them racially motivated—who have worked hard to destroy and segregate our community. We see the impact of their decades-old work today in Fulton, Jackson Ward, Manchester, and everywhere else. But, now, there are lots of folks whose vision for “RVA” includes the desegregation of schools and neighborhoods, the humanizing of public and affordable housing, and the rebuilding of a regional public transportation system stunted by racism. Of course that doesn’t describe everybody we toss in the “RVA” bucket, but, in my life, there are more YIMBYs than NIMBYs.

If you’d like a perfect example of how not to behave in life followed by a perfect example of how not to react when you face consequences for your behavior, read this story about the firing of Classic Rock 96.5’s Brady DeAngelo in the RTD. You can see his original post in this Twitter thread and how he then responded to criticism from the official 96.5 Facebook account. HOT TAKE: If you roll up to the bar and a woman instantly turns her chair away, having sex with you is probably the last thing on her mind and maybe you should just mind your own business? Wait, wait, wait, here’s a better HOT TAKE for most of life’s situations: Maybe you should just mind your own business?

Good morning, RVA! It’s 75 °F, and you can expect more of the same: Highs in the mid 80s and a chance of rain throughout the day.

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Did you see yesterday’s Big Bus News? VCU and GRTC signed a one-year agreement giving all VCU students, faculty, and staff unlimited free rides effective immediately! This includes VCU Health System, too. That’s over 50,000 people (31,036 students and 22,888 employees) that now have the option to get to and from work or school for free without using a car. Additionally, as part of the $1.2 million deal, GRTC will increase the frequency of the Pulse up to every 10-minutes on weekdays from 5:30 AM to 7:00 PM, effectively making peak hours most of the dang day. The Pulse is the way most bus riders move east-west in our city. The increase in frequency makes the system better for everyone—VCU fam or otherwise. My next question is: Which other major employers will offer free transit access to its employees?

If you’re looking for even more bus coverage, Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury has a very fair piece on all the transit-related things going on in Richmond over the past couple of months. The focus on what’s next is a good one. Which, speaking of the future, yesterday, GRTC released their 2018–2022 Transit Development Plan which includes one million facts about the current and future state of our transit agency. If nothing else, check out the recommendations section in the executive summary (p. xv) to get a feel for just how badly we’ve underinvested in transit as a region: We’d need to basically double GRTC’s budget and invest $47.91 million to pay for all of the short- and medium-term recommendations (out to 2028).

Photo by: sandy's dad

Good morning, RVA! It’s 76 °F, and today looks a little hotter than yesterday, with highs in the upper 80s and another chance for storms this afternoon.

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Y’all, I think I’ve done given up on Richmond’s bike share system. Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that there “is no target date for completing the system’s expansion.” Well that’s grim. Right now, we’ve got 15 operational stations instead of 40. This is even five fewer than the original 20 promised as part of Phase 1—we’re moving backwards! With so few stations, the coverage area is small and has large gaps around important destinations like the Main Library, Carytown, most of the East End, and the entirety of the Southside. I don’t know what we need to do to move this project forward, but, as a person who loves getting around by bike, this is incredibly frustrating. I guess we just wait for dockless bikes and scooters to show up and provide the coverage we need to make a useful system? I dunno. What a missed opportunity.

Photo by: sandy's dad

Good morning, RVA! It’s 76 °F, and today looks a little hotter than yesterday, with highs in the upper 80s and another chance for storms this afternoon.

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Y’all, I think I’ve done given up on Richmond’s bike share system. Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that there “is no target date for completing the system’s expansion.” Well that’s grim. Right now, we’ve got 15 operational stations instead of 40. This is even five fewer than the original 20 promised as part of Phase 1—we’re moving backwards! With so few stations, the coverage area is small and has large gaps around important destinations like the Main Library, Carytown, most of the East End, and the entirety of the Southside. I don’t know what we need to do to move this project forward, but, as a person who loves getting around by bike, this is incredibly frustrating. I guess we just wait for dockless bikes and scooters to show up and provide the coverage we need to make a useful system? I dunno. What a missed opportunity.

Photo by: sandy's dad

Good morning, RVA! It’s 72 °F, and, what’s this? A chance of thunderstorms? You don’t say! Expect highs in the mid 80s and a decent opportunity for some rain later this afternoon and through the evening.

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Richmond Police are reporting a murder that took place on Sunday evening. At 11:47 PM, officers were called to the 3100 block of Meadowbridge Road and found Joseph Lewis, III, 19, shot to death.

Photo by: sandy's dad

Good morning, RVA! It’s 72 °F, and, what’s this? A chance of thunderstorms? You don’t say! Expect highs in the mid 80s and a decent opportunity for some rain later this afternoon and through the evening.

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Richmond Police are reporting a murder that took place on Sunday evening. At 11:47 PM, officers were called to the 3100 block of Meadowbridge Road and found Joseph Lewis, III, 19, shot to death.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 74 °F, and rainy, and it’s likely to stay rainy for a good part of the day. You should expect temperatures to stay right where they are, though, as a result.

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As part of their response to the police-involved killing of Marcus-David Peters, the Richmond Police Department has released several documents related to its Crisis Intervention Team training and Use of Force training. Other than a General Order on the use of force (PDF), the documents appear to be high-level presentations summarizing the training officers receive. This is a step towards transparency, but I’m going to hazard a guess that folks will want to see even more detailed documents related to these trainings.

Update: Richmond Public Schools has, as of this minute, sold 3,265 Barack Obama Elementary T-shirts, which surpasses their goal. I guess since folks are still out there buying up shirts, they’ve extended the deadline another 13 or so days. If you’ve procrastinated until now, congratulations, you’ve been rewarded!

Photo by: PMillera4

Good morning, RVA! It’s 75 °F, and, today, we might could squeak by without anymore rain. Fingers crossed. Expect highs up in the 90s, though.

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Michael Paul Williams at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has some more/different thoughts on the proposed Coliseum redevelopment 💸. The surrounding counties have mostly decided that sports tourism (a huge lacrosse tournament, for example) is a safer investment than glitzy, sportsy spectator events (like the A-10 Tournament). The former you build a couple fields here and there, the latter you construct an arena. Reading this MPW piece really highlights for me how wild it is that both Chesterfield and Henrico are basically like nah when it comes to supporting an arena that would definitely be used by the entire region. I mean, you don’t fill a 20,000-seat arena on the regular with just City residents.

Photo by: kyle tsui

Good morning, RVA! It’s 70 °F, and we’ve got a break in the rain! For the entirety of today, there is no significant chance of rain, showers, or thunderstorms. I guess, as a result, the high is back up in the 90s—but still!

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Jake Burns at WTVR looks at the rising real estate assessments in the City and talks to the Assessors Office about how they get their job done. I do take a little bit of issue with the chosen headline of “Longtime Church Hill resident moves to Henrico amid property value surge,” which I thought implied that a person moved to Henrico after their property tax bill increased. Instead, this is really a story about the lack of affordable housing in Richmond forcing people to look outside the City when buying a home (necessarily increasing their transportation costs in turn).

Photo by: BeyondDC

Good morning, RVA! It’s 74 °F, and…there may be more thunderstorms later today. But maybe not! I’m really digging the cooler temperatures, though.

Be aware: The flash flood watch remains in effect.

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Good morning, RVA! It’s 74 °F and rainy. We could see rain and possibly thunderstorms for most of the day, so buckle up—seriously, there’s a flash flood watch until tonight. Temperatures are pretty chill, though.

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Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has your Westhampton School rezoning update from last night’s City Council meeting. I don’t think I even mentioned it in yesterday’s preview of Council’s agenda because it seemed, at that point, not super controversial. Councilmember Addison had done a ton of legwork with the community and his constituents, plus Planning Commission just approved the rezoning last week. However, Council’s 5–4 split vote in favor of the rezoning shows you what I know (Y: Addison, Gray, Larson, Robertson, Newbille; N: Hilbert, Agelasto, Trammell, Jones)! The no-votes seem to have a mix of concern for the preservation of the old school building that sits onsite plus a touch of still-fresh angst over the Washington Training Camp deal. Forcing Bon Secours to preserve the school—which they say they’ll do, although now they can technically raze it to the ground—would have been an easy way to remind Bon Secours that the current Council is still unhappy with the Training Camp situation.

Michael Paul Williams, also at the RTD says bike lanes, especially the ones planned for Brook Road, are a good thing 💸. He gets ahold of Najeema Davis Washington, co-founder of Black Women Bike, who says: “Given the economic environment, the needs of people, anything that limits access to more affordable transportation options does everyone a disservice, but particularly people of color.” This is true for bikes, for public transportation, and even for pedestrian infrastructure like sidewalks. The proposed bike lanes on Brook Road would provide a way for folks living nearby on the Northside—which includes some incredibly dense neighborhoods with majority Black residents—to safely ride downtown to school, work, whatever. If you live in the 2nd or 3rd Districts, consider letting your Councilmember know what you think about their proposal to prohibit a safe, affordable transportation option on Brook Road (make sure you copy their liaison).