Good morning, RVA! It's 50 °F, and you should expect warmer temperatures today but lots of rain—rain in the morning, rain in the evening, rain at supper time. Over the weekend though, the weather looks to be pleasant and clear.
Water cooler
From the Richmond Police Department:
One of three people shot yesterday in Mosby Court has died. Taliek K. Brown, 15, of the 400 block of East Brookland Park Boulevard was pronounced dead at 4:27 p.m. at a local hospital after being removed from life-support.
At approximately 1:21 a.m., Wednesday, March 29, RPD officers were called to the 1900 block of Accommodation Street for a report of gunfire. They arrived and found Taliek and a juvenile female lying on the ground in front of an apartment building. Both juveniles were suffering from life-threatening gunshot wounds.
An adult female was also located suffering from a non-life threatening gunshot wound.
Alert! The Monument 10k takes place on Saturday! This means thousands and thousands of people will stream into the Fan and run around the town on purpose. Check out the road closures and parking restrictions on the police department's website, and wish all the runners in your life good luck!
You may have heard that the southern end of the T-Pot bridge is closed for asphalt work. When you heard this news maybe you scoffed loudly, made a comment about wasting city funds, and threw your hands up like a real life representation of the shrug emoji. Well, I reached out to the Department of Planning and Development Review to see what the deal was and if ¯\_(ツ)_/¯s were called for. Looks like the contractor "made an error in the installation" of the asphalt and, to ensure ADA compliance, the contractor is fixing their mistake at no cost to the city. Whew, city funds saved. Here's a map of what's closed, what's open, and what you can expect for the next two or so weeks.
Michael Paul Williams writes about a fascinating idea for food deserts, specifically Fulton. Awful history and interesting geography have isolated Fulton from the rest of the City, but maybe that's slowly starting to change? Following behind this brilliantly designed restaurant pop-up, coming changes to transit will definitely help reconnect this neighborhood. When the Richmond Transit Network Plan launches, that part of town will suddenly have two, very frequent bus routes connecting it directly to the Pulse and, by extension, the rest of the city.
WTVR encourages you to "Click the image to watch a reporter being TASERed by police." I did not click the image and would not have volunteered to be TASERed. That's just me though.
Chesterfield Supervisor Dorothy Jaeckle continues to get ink in the region's press. Here's an interview with her in Richmond Magazine by Cole Smith. This quote of hers, when talking about poverty in the region, really stuck out to me: "If you look, everybody’s poverty increased. Ours did increase more. I can’t remember how much more, but I would be a lot more worried if I was Richmond than Chesterfield when you look at the numbers." Unfortunately, this "well at least we're not as bad as them" attitude is what we're facing when we look to address issues—poverty, employment, transit—across jurisdictional lines.
SpaceX launched a rocket into space using part of another rocket they'd previously launched into space! This is a big deal because, as you might imagine, rockets are expensive and reusing parts of them lowers the cost of space travel. You can watch video of the launch here (skip to 18:00 for the good part). I love and feel emotions about how stoked the cheering rocket nerds are in the background.
Sports!
- Kickers travel north to face the New York Red Bulls II on Saturday at 4:00 PM.
This morning's longread
The Compact
A big part of Mayor Stoney's campaign platform was a promise to rework the relationship between his office, City Council, and the School Board. The governmental implementation of that promise is the mayor's Education Compact, which Garret Prior of Richmond Forward explains for you.
Coordinating school facility investment with the city-wide master plan is exactly what is needed to form a Captain Planet-style team with investment in transportation, housing, health, and the environment to crush poverty! Our current Capital Improvements Plan (CIP), which directs all capital funding, is a real mess. Cleaning this up will take time, and with the master plan update to planned to be completed in the fall of 2018, we have the perfect opportunity to realign the central document in funding Richmond’s future.