Good morning, RVA! It's 72 °F, and highs today will creep up into the mid 90s. Highs will continue to do their creepy thing until at least Saturday. Drink plenty of water, and stay inside if you can!
Water cooler
The City kicked off their master planning process yesterday in front of a crowd of sweaty people on top of City Hall. I realize this whole thing could sound boring to people who aren't obsessed with PDFs, but the master plan is important and really does guide where we're going as a city over the next bunch of years. It has a concrete impact on every planning decision made by the City—each ordinance that that makes its way through the Planning Commission or the Urban Design Committee has a section describing how it fits with the current master plan. The master plan informs the Capitol Improvement Program—the part of the budget set aside for building cool stuff. And who could forget about zoning—this is, after all, Richmond's #1 daily zoning and rezoning newsletter! If you want more restaurants and breweries, denser housing, and better public space, all of the zoning changes to make that happen shake out of the master planning process. Basically, it's a big deal, and I'm excited about it. So if you too are excited about it, you should get involved!
Vanessa Remmers in the RTD writes about the transit recommendations in Chesterfield County's Northern Jefferson Davis Special Area Plan. She talked to...me!...about how the plan's recommended replica trolley thing—based off of a successful system in Roanoke—could work. I'm not saying a similar thing in the County wouldn't work, and it's delightful that an actual plan from Chesterfield has actual public transit included within it, but we have a great transit provider in town that's already providing great transit just a hop, skip, and a jump north of this corridor. IMHO, Chesterfield should skip the cutesy transit options and pay GRTC to provide hourly, local service from the city limits to John Tyler seven days a week.
Speaking of GRTC, they just and announced a new apprenticeship mechanic program. A paid, on-the-job training program where you end up a "certified journey-level mechanic" with a chance to be hired by GRTC as a full-time employee sounds awesome.
Ned Oliver has updates on City Council's search for a new auditor. Sounds like they're considering splitting the position into two distinct roles.
Speaking of Ned Oliver, he's doing an Ask Me Anything over on the RVA subreddit today at 9:30 AM. If you've ever had a question you wanted to ask Ned, literally anything at all!, you can ask and he probably will answer.
If you had to, I do not think you would ever guess what type of liquor Boulevard Burger & Brew sells more than anywhere else in the state. Catherine Amos Cribbs will tell you the answer when you give up guessing. Also, her description of the current weather as "stuck at a crowded festival without shade" is perfect.
This story from WRIC about a rogue curb in the tiny town of Mineral is peak local news, and I love it.
Sports!
- Squirrels fell to Eerie and look to avoid the sweep today at 12:05 PM.
- Premier League in Richmond! Kickers take on Swansea City tonight at 7:30 PM! Get your tickets online.
- Nats beat the Angels, 4-3, and wrap up that short series tonight at 10:07 PM.
This morning's longread
How the Cleveland Clinic grows healthier while its neighbors stay sick
Tales from another city with a large, tax-exempt institution slowly soaking up lots of land.
There’s an uneasy relationship between the Clinic — the second-biggest employer in Ohio and one of the greatest hospitals in the world — and the community around it. Yes, the hospital is the pride of Cleveland, and its leaders readily tout reports that the Clinic delivers billions of dollars in value to the state. It’s even “attracting companies that will come and grow up around us,” said Toby Cosgrove, the longtime CEO, pointing to IBM’s decision to lease a building on the edge of campus. “That will be great [for] jobs and economic infusion in this area.” But it’s also a tax-exempt organization that, like many hospitals, fought to preserve its not-for-profit status in the years leading up to the Affordable Care Act. As a result, it doesn’t have to pay tens of millions of dollars in taxes, but it is supposed to fulfill a loosely defined commitment to reinvest in its community.