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Good morning, RVA! It’s 73 °F, and we’ve got highs in the upper 80s and, again, a pretty decent chance of rain starting after lunch and continuing throughout the day.

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Virginia, we have a budget and it includes Medicaid expansion! Michael Martz at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has the details along with some grumpy quotes from Republicans who were unsuccessful in keeping health care from hundreds of thousands of Virginians.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 74 °F, and today you can expect highs in the mid 80s plus…some more rain. There’s a pretty good chance of thunderstorms beginning around lunchtime and lasting through the end of the day.

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It looks like, fingers crossed, that Virginia could have a budget today and it could be one that includes Medicaid expansion. To get to this point, yesterday the Senate Finance Committee experienced the General Assembly version of a rap battle in which Sen. Emmett “also a Republican” Hanger left Sen. Tommy “anti-Medicaid evil genius” Norment crumped and discarded like a used tissue. To normal people, this is pretty boring, but as far as things in the General Assembly go, it was the ultimate, sickest of burns. People in the room gasped! Here’s a thread on twitter that’ll give you the blow-by-blow, but to quickly summarize: Norment got the committee to pass his anti-Medicaid amendments to budget. This was fine because the votes to expand Medicaid exist in the full Senate. But then, in a sneaky-like-a-fox move, he wanted to reconsider for a second time Hanger’s pro-Medicaid amendments which had failed earlier. For whatever procedural reasons, should this have happened the full Senate would not have been able to pass a pro-Medicaid budget. Hanger figured out what was going on and gaveled the committee meeting adjourned before that could happen (that’s when people gasped). OH SNAP / THAT’S ACTUALLY PRETTY BORING. Stay tuned today for the exciting conclusion of Virginia’s Attempts at Medicaid Expansion in 2018.

Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has this week’s zoning and rezoning news. Last night City Council rezoned a property near the 17th Street Farmers Market from M-1 Light Industrial to TOD-1 Transit-Oriented Nodal District, which allows for more height and less parking. You may remember TOD-1 from such great rezonings as Scott’s Addition last fall. By the by, if you ever wanted to know the zoning for any neighborhood or property, you should check out the City’s zoning parcel map.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 74 °F, and today you can expect highs in the mid 80s plus…some more rain. There’s a pretty good chance of thunderstorms beginning around lunchtime and lasting through the end of the day.

Water cooler

It looks like, fingers crossed, that Virginia could have a budget today and it could be one that includes Medicaid expansion. To get to this point, yesterday the Senate Finance Committee experienced the General Assembly version of a rap battle in which Sen. Emmett “also a Republican” Hanger left Sen. Tommy “anti-Medicaid evil genius” Norment crumped and discarded like a used tissue. To normal people, this is pretty boring, but as far as things in the General Assembly go, it was the ultimate, sickest of burns. People in the room gasped! Here’s a thread on twitter that’ll give you the blow-by-blow, but to quickly summarize: Norment got the committee to pass his anti-Medicaid amendments to budget. This was fine because the votes to expand Medicaid exist in the full Senate. But then, in a sneaky-like-a-fox move, he wanted to reconsider for a second time Hanger’s pro-Medicaid amendments which had failed earlier. For whatever procedural reasons, should this have happened the full Senate would not have been able to pass a pro-Medicaid budget. Hanger figured out what was going on and gaveled the committee meeting adjourned before that could happen (that’s when people gasped). OH SNAP / THAT’S ACTUALLY PRETTY BORING. Stay tuned today for the exciting conclusion of Virginia’s Attempts at Medicaid Expansion in 2018.

Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has this week’s zoning and rezoning news. Last night City Council rezoned a property near the 17th Street Farmers Market from M-1 Light Industrial to TOD-1 Transit-Oriented Nodal District, which allows for more height and less parking. You may remember TOD-1 from such great rezonings as Scott’s Addition last fall. By the by, if you ever wanted to know the zoning for any neighborhood or property, you should check out the City’s zoning parcel map.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 69 °F, and we’ve got clouds as far as the eye can see. Today, we should avoid the rain that’s headed our way later this week.

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I hope I’m not stealing anyone’s thunder, but GRTC has a new trip planning tool that’s preeeeeeetty neat. This is the kind of thing you discover if you’re the type of person who has a recurring reminder to check GRTC’s project page for new information every couple of days. Anyway, this new tool will tell you how to get where you’re going on the bus using both the current and future systems—that way you can compare and contrast the two. A couple of notes! First, take advantage of the “depart at / arrive by” button for figuring out situations like getting to work on time or leaving after school lets out. Second, the new system offers not only improvements in trip time, but trip frequency. This means you may have more flexibility with when you can leave—aka more time for you to get stuff done instead of sitting around waiting for your pokey, hourly bus. Again, I haven’t seen the official announcement about this tool, but I think it uses the new official timetables. So get excited, and start planning your trips, y’all!

Tonight, City Council meets for their first regularly scheduled meeting after successfully passing the budget. You can read through the entire agenda (PDF), which is, as always, susceptible to change. A ton of stuff has been continued or withdrawn, leaving a pretty slim agenda, but Councilmember Addison’s ordinance to open up some more of the City’s data remains (ORD. 2018–127) as does the ordinance which will allow for one week of free rides when the Pulse and new bus network open (ORD. 2018–151).

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Good morning, RVA! It’s 65 °F, we’ve got another beautiful day on deck. This weekend the rains return, and don’t even look at next week’s forecast yet—I’m sure it’ll clear up, right?

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Update: Richmond Police Chief Alfred Durham will hold a press conference today at 11:15 AM and update media on the killing of Marcus-David Peters by a police officer. The title of the RPD’s media release says “Release of Videos - Security Cameras and Body-worn Camera,” but the body of the release doesn’t mention any footage, so I’m not really sure what’s going on with that. Check your favorite online news source this afternoon for more information. New Virginia Majority will host a meeting this Saturday from 2:00–4:00 PM at Second Baptist Church (1400 Idlewood Avenue) for folks to speak out and mobilize.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 65 °F, and today’s highs are back up in the mid 80s. It’s like a sunny, summertime day out there. Meteorologist John Boyer says we can even expect a (temporary) dip in the mugginess! Enjoy!

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Vanessa Remmers at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has an eye-opening update on Chesterfield’s Goodwill + Uber pilot program. The program, which is only available to Chesterfield residents who receive treatment for opioid addiction, has served 11 total people. Eleven. I’m sure that this service has proved critical for those 11 people, and it’s pretty incredible that, in the face of a countywide transportation desert, Goodwill just went and created a solution for some folks in need. But dang y’all, do not let anyone tell you that a program serving 11 people is a good faith effort to provide meaningful public transportation into and out of Chesterfield County.

I know I keep talking about this Franklin Street bike lane, but I’ve ridden my bike in it to a bunch of meetings over the past couple of days and it just feels so magical! While I was pretty underwhelmed and disappointed at the eventually watered down Floyd Avenue Bike Walk Street, today, I feel 100% the opposite about Franklin Street. This is strong bike infrastructure that will get more people out biking around Richmond in a totally no-big-deal kind of way. While the lane is technically open for business, crews are still installing some finishing touches: First, signs went up yesterday to help confused car drivers figure out where to put their vehicles (see above picture). Second, we’ve got the first (I think) turn boxes in the City! A turn box helps people on bikes make turns across car traffic, and, because Canadians are helpful, here’s a YouTube from Calgary that shows you exactly how to use one. I clamor for more protected bike lanes! Immediately!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 69 °F, and with highs in the mid 80s, today’s a bit warmer than yesterday. And, yes, there is Yet Another Chance of Thunderstorms this afternoon. Things should dry out after today, though.

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The General Assembly, faced with a pressing need to pass a budget and expand Medicaid to hundreds of thousands of Virginians, did not cease their futzing yesterday. In fact, the Senate Finance Committee continued to futz and decided they wouldn’t even meet this week! As you can imagine, folks are displeased with the continued delay tactics—including the Governor, who weighed in with: “This unnecessary delay is made more insulting to Virginians by the reality that the House of Delegates passed a budget that expands health care weeks ago, and a majority of Senators have indicated they would vote for a similar measure if the Senate would simply put one on the floor. Virginians have waited long enough.” To be continued until next week or whenever Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment decides to do a thing—your guess is as good as mine on that guy.

Further fallout from that NYT article about eviction and something to keep an eye on: Yesterday, the Campaign to Reduce Evictions (CARE) hosted their first meeting to present data, and the RTD’s Ned Oliver was there to catch some quotes. If you’ve got an eviction story of your own, you can help their efforts by contributing that story over on CARE’s website.

Photo by: JOzPhotography

Good morning, RVA! It’s 67 °F, and…there’s a chance of thunderstorms this afternoon. I am sorry. Maybe it’ll miss us, though! You don’t know!

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The General Assembly could get over themselves and pass a budget that includes Medicaid expansion as early as today, says Michael Martz at the RTD. That sounds great, but I’ll believe it when I see them quit futzing around and, like, actually schedule the meetings needed to pass the dang budget.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 71 °F, and today’s highs will hit about 80 °F. There’s a bit of a chance for more rain this evening, but we might, if we’re lucky, skate by rain-free. Speaking of, please note the active River Flood Warning, which means: Stay out of the river! Emergency responders have way better things to do with their time than fish you out of a ragin’ James.

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Richmond police are reporting a murder that took place the afternoon of May 17th. Officers arrived at the 4200 block of Walmsley Boulevard and found Elizabeth M. Zeigler, 34, fatally shot.

Photo by: The Piques Family

Good morning, RVA! It’s 68 °F, and temperatures today will stay in the upper 70s. The chance for thunderstorms continues throughout most of the day and into tomorrow. In fact, there’s at least a chance of rain every day between now and Monday.

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Ned Oliver at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has the excellent news that the John Marshall Courts Building will no longer turn people away with cellphones, leaving folks to stash their electronics in the bushes, or, as one ingenious person on Twitter said, in the stacks at the Library of Virginia. This much-needed change wouldn’t have happened without Emily Badger’s NYT story about evictions (journalism!). It is the lowest hanging fruit for reforming Richmond’s eviction system, but it’s also welcome news for anyone that walks, bikes, or transits to the courthouse for any reason.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 72 °F, cloudy, and there’s a good chance of thunderstorms throughout the day. If we’re being honest, there’s a good chance of thunderstorms for the foreseeable future.

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On Monday, a police officer shot and killed an unarmed, naked man, Marcus-David L. Peters, 24, near the I-95 northbound on-ramp from Chamberlayne Avenue. In a press release, Police Chief Durham said, “Our officers do not take the use of deadly force lightly. I think it’s important to remember that being naked does not remove a threat. So far, the eyewitness accounts we’ve heard have been consistent: our officer tried using verbal commands, then used non-lethal force first by deploying his Taser before using his service weapon.”

I was not there and am not in anyway knowledgeable about police procedures, but I’d hope there are at least a few steps between deploying a taser and killing a person.

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Good morning, RVA! It’s 67 °F, and today we’ve got highs in the 90s, some winds, and maybe a chance for some rain here or there. The forecast for the next couple of days looks pretty wet, so if you need to spend some time outside, do it today!

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City Council met last night and passed the FY2019–2020 biennial budget, and with the Mayor’s approval, thus ends the 2018 budget season. Highlights of this year’s budget include: $150 million via the new meals tax to pay for school construction, new afterschool programs, extended hours at some Parks & Rec facilities, a $1,000,000 contribution to the affordable housing trust fund, paid maternity leave for City employees, and pay increases for City employees. Lowlights include: No new revenue from a cigarette tax, the decision to rebate credit card processing fees on the entirety of the meals tax at the cost of $1.4 million annually, stealing $3 million from the Percent for Arts fund, no dedicated funding for Vision Zero work, and whatever all those embarrassing shenanigans were over CIP amendments. Now everyone can take a hot second to catch their breath before they start lobbying in the fall for whatever changes they’d like to see pass during next year’s budget season. It never ends!

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Good morning, RVA! It’s 64 °F, and this past weekend’s hot weather will stick around today bringing highs around 90 °F. Stay vigilant this afternoon, as there’s a chance for thunderstorms.

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Police are reporting two homicides that took place this past Friday. Early Friday morning, officers were called to the 3100 block of Avlis Avenue and found Russell J. Long, 22, shot to death. Then, later that evening, Richmond Police were called to the 2500 block of Peter Paul Boulevard where they found Desiree S. Fletcher, 21, also shot to death.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 61 °F, and today we’ve got highs in the upper 80s on tap. This weekend, temperatures shoot up into the 90s, so please remember to stay hydrated.

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Michael Paul Williams takes the time today to explain how to work the floating parking next to the almost-completed Franklin Street Cycle Track (aka two-way bike lane). It’s pretty simple: Just don’t park in the bike lane. The big news for me, though: The City plans to open our newest piece of bike infrastructure next Friday! There is so. much. cool. stuff. coming online this year that I kind of can’t contain myself. We’ve got the Pulse, the redesign of the bus network, the Franklin Street Cycle Track, a second phase of bike share, and the fancied-up Monroe Park. 2018!

If my calculations are correct, today is RPS Superintendent Jason Kamras’s 100th day on the job. He had a pretty intense 100-day plan (PDF), and while I don’t know if he knocked each item out, I do know that he definitely checked off a bunch of them. Here’s just a few that I’m aware of: Visited every RPS schools, held nine district town halls, launched the RPS Direct email newsletter, launched a teacher recruitment campaign, launched a The New Jim Crow book study, walked the Richmond Slave Trail, launched a strategic planning process, engaged the Council of Great City Schools to conduct a budget audit, and launched the RPS Shines staff recognition program. Like I said, I have no idea if he knocked out all 30 items in his plan, but he seems like the kind of guy who will let us know either way over on his twitter.

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Good morning, RVA! It’s 60 °F, and, other than a chance for some evening thunderstorms, we’ve got another banger queued up. Expect highs near 90 °F today!

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We’ve talked a lot about affordable housing in the past couple of months—and we should talk about it more. For example, something I didn’t say earlier this week that I should have: That Carytown Exchange development is the perfect spot to increase the height of the buildings fronting W. Cary Street and include housing. While we’ve got to take every opportunity we can to encourage private developers to build more housing, we also need to use City-owned resources to unabashedly build affordable housing whenever possible. This tweet from Councilmember Addison expressing support for Seattle’s 80–80–80 policy would be a great step in that direction. You can read more about 80–80–80, but the quick and dirty is that Seattle’s transit authority must “offer 80 percent of suitable surplus property to affordable housing developers that make at least 80 percent of units on site affordable to people earning 80 percent or less of area median income (AMI).” GRTC, unfortunately, doesn’t own a ton of land, but other departments in the city do. A policy like this directed at City-owned land and coupled with other affordable housing strategies like the affordable housing trust fund and the land bank, as the Addison mentions, would be excellent. It’d certainly be stronger than existing the 10% affordable units resolution (RES. 2017-R086) that’s been treading water in committee for months.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 53 °F, and highs in the 80s mean another beautiful day ahead of you.

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Yesterday, I wrote about Councilwoman Grey’s proposed Scott’s Addition bike and pedestrian path and how, in her own words, the “number one goal is to have a walkable, bikeable space.” Today, unfortunately, there’s this piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch by Mark Robinson about a press conference she held in opposition to a bus stop and part of the new bus network redesign. The redesign, which you can check out on this sweet-looking new system map (PDF), sends two hourly routes and one 30-minute route past a single block of Grace Street. Setting aside all the classic reasons folks use to argue for removing bus stops and service from their neighborhoods (my favorite is that 60 buses per day is a lot of buses—I live in a spot that sees 70 buses per day and when you miss your bus it is an interminable amount of time until the next one shows up), I do think it’s important to remember, in bold lettering, that City Council does not have the authority to alter bus stops or routes. This has been true since July 22nd, 2013 when Council adopted ORD. 2013–144 (PDF). You can imagine a million and one scenarios where having Council in charge of bus stops is bad news bears, but, specifically, allowing folks with access, privilege, and political power to circumvent good transit policy for what usually boils down to NIMBY concerns is really, really dangerous. GRTC can’t design a useful, city-wide public transportation system—something critical to the life of our city—if a single block of homeowners can disrupt the entire thing. Anyway, as for this particular situation, it sounds like GRTC has a couple of tweaks they’re looking at and will pass them through their regular, non-political process at some point after the launch of the new system on June 24th.

Patron Matthew alerted me to this list of public outreach opportunities Richmond Public Schools has posted as part of their process to rename J.E.B. Stuart Elementary School. In addition to some public meetings, the first of which is tonight at J.E.B. Stuart Elementary from 6:00 – 8:00 PM, there’s a form for you to suggest new names for the school. Like…just a wide-open box into which you can type whatever you want, anything at all. I feel bad for the person who’s responsibility it will be to cull and collate those responses. P.S. Patron Matthew posted this in the Good Morning, RVA Slack, which is open to all patrons!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 56 °F, and today looks like another excellent day with highs in the upper 70s. There’s a small, small chance of rain this afternoon, so be aware (but not too aware).

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Justin Mattingly tells the tale of the Richmond Public Schools’ Joint Construction Team, which the RPS School Board approved last night with a 5–2 vote. It’s a confusing tale about whose responsibility it is to build new schools, and its one I’m not sure I have too strong an opinion on. Michael Paul Williams thinks that responsibility lies with the School Board, saying “It stands to reason that educators should be best-equipped to oversee the design and building of education spaces.” I dunno, that kind of thinking reminds me of the time Homer Simpson designed a car for the average American. And then, when School Board Member Young starts talking about school buildings designed for “a radical new approach to education,” I remember my high school: Built in the 70s and designed with open classrooms that all had to be retrofitted with partitions because it turns out walls are important. Superintendent Kamras says it best, I think, “We are and education system, not a construction company.”

After reading that New York Times piece about eviction rates in Richmond, state lawmakers and housing experts are getting together to see how they can help (journalism at work!). Graham Moomaw from the Richmond Times-Dispatch has the details, and you should read this piece for the great Laura Lafayette quotes! P.S. I’m still waiting for someone at the City to just go ahead and install some dang lockers at the John Marshall Courts Building. Just do this thing and make a bunch of folks’ lives better!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 58 °F, and today looks beautiful with highs in the mid 70s and a few clouds in the sky. Great weather continues throughout the week!

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Mark Robinson has written up a nice recap of this year’s budget season and begins with this excellent sentence: “After 40 hours of deliberations spanning six weeks, the Richmond City Council did not make a single cut to the $715.3 million general fund budget Mayor Levar Stoney proposed in March.” I’m not trying to suggest that Council’s success should be measured by how much their budget differs from the Mayor’s (I’d disagree with that sentiment a lot), but there was sooooo much consternation among Council over what to add, what to cut, and how to balance. To end up cutting nothing at all seems entirely anticlimactic and makes me feel exhausted—and all I did was listen to their meetings! Robinson also does a good job at explaining the Capital Improvement Program shenanigans that, in my opinion, did some lasting damage to Council and the Mayor’s Administration’s working relationship. I hope they get over it quickly, because the Education Compact team has two meetings coming up this month, and I’d love for everyone to head into to those meetings ready to work—not nursing budget-related wounds. Throughout the season, school facilities and maintenance funding have remained the biggest tension point, and I still believe that only by interacting with each other like regular humans can School Board, City Council, and the Mayor come up with a path forward on schools. The Education Compact provides them the opportunity to do just that.

Speaking of the Education Compact and the path forward for schools, Jesse Perry at RVA Dirt has done a heckuva a job pulling together a master list of schools-related PDFs. There’s audits dating back to 2007, facilities plans going back to 2002, and strategic plans from eight years ago. You better believe I have stored this page away in my Database of PDFs. I don’t agree with her on everything, but I’m with Perry on this: After a decade, Council’s constant requests for more audits, more studies, and more plans seem like a way to deflect, defer, and delay progress rather than to move forward on schools.

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Good morning, RVA! It’s 68 °F, and it’s another day with highs in the 90s. Temperatures should drop about 20 degrees over the weekend, though!

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Richmond Police are reporting a murder that took place on Wednesday morning at the 2000 block of Creighton Road. Police arrived at the scene and found Lorenzo L. Dinkins, 26, shot to death.

Photo by: sandy's dad

Good morning, RVA! It’s 68 °F, and it’s another day with highs in the 90s. Temperatures should drop about 20 degrees over the weekend, though!

Water cooler

Richmond Police are reporting a murder that took place on Wednesday morning at the 2000 block of Creighton Road. Police arrived at the scene and found Lorenzo L. Dinkins, 26, shot to death.