Good morning, RVA! It's 68 °F, and today looks sunny and wonderful until maybe some thunderstorms later tonight. Expect highs near 90 °F and exceedingly summery temperature.
Water cooler
Richmond police are reporting that three people were murdered over the weekend in separate incidents. Leonard S. Carr, 38, was found shot to death on the 3400 block of Walmsley Boulevard; Jamar L. Anders, 32, was shot at an event on the 4300 block of Government Road and would later die at the hospital; and Terrain L. Hunter, 35, was found shot to death in a car on the 100 block of Wythemar Road.
Ali Rockett at the RTD has an update on this year’s homicide stats.
It’s the first day of school for Richmond Public Schools! Good luck students, parents, teachers, faculty, and staff! May your outfits look extra fresh and may you not cry too hard as your kids just keep on growing up.
Since it’s the first day of school, you should definitely read Mayor Stoney’s column in today’s paper. Two important takeaways for me! First, I’m really looking forward to this coming budget season. If all goes according to plan (and it always does, right?), the mayor looks to have the first phase of our approx half a billion dollar school funding need covered in five years. We’ll have to wait on the Education Compact team to see what exactly that entails, but we should start hearing some interesting news out of that group soon. Second, if/when this process gets off the ground, Paul Goldman’s ballot referendum is gonna look real superfluous—like, more superfluous than it already does, I guess.
Finally on schools, I think today is the last day to fill out the Richmond Public Schools superintendent search survey. So if you haven’t done that yet, take a minute and let the school system know what characteristics you’d like to see in the next superintendent.
Michael Martz has a teensy few new details about the most recent plan to replace the Coliseum. The group of business leaders involved in the project aren’t yet ready to let many details slip, but if the project includes any city funding (keep in mind the mayor’s budget priorities from two paragraphs ago), I imagine it’s going to be a tough sell. Yet another thing to keep an eye on!
Planning Commission meets today at 1:30 PM, and you can find the agenda here (PDF). Of note, the Commission will consider new zoning, the B-7 Mixed-Use Business District, which is part of the Pulse Corridor Plan. They’ll also discuss rezoning Scott’s Addition according to the recommendations in that same corridor plan which will allow for more density and, fingers crossed, fewer special use permits. This has been your weekly zoning update!
Here’s an editorial from the Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial board that encourages people to build more Confederate monuments on private property. It calls this new Confederate monument in Alabama “powerful” and describes the current movement to remove monuments that venerate men who fought to enslave humans as “the whims of public opinion.” Ostensibly, this editorial is about free speech on private property.
Mike Platania at BizSense says that Nate’s Bagels is getting a storefront! Starting this winter, you’ll no longer have to chase down Nate and his delicious bagel pop-up, you can just head right over to 19 S. Allen Avenue.
Sports!
- Squirrels split the series against Bowie and wrapped of their 2017 season! See ya next year, Squirrels.
- Kickers were held scoreless against the Independence, 0-3.
- Spiders slipped against Sam Houston, losing 34-48.
- #21 Hokies beat the #22 Mountaineers, 31-24
- Wahoos took care of business against the Tribe, 28-10.
- Nats beat the Marlins, 7-2. That series continues tonight at 7:10 PM.
This morning's longread
Will Trump Break His Promise to Dreamers?
Here’s a good explainer on what DACA is, how it works, and what’s going to happen when Trump ends the program.
President Donald Trump may soon end Barack Obama’s signature immigration initiative, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which protects immigrants without legal status who came to the United States as children. Although DACA supporters are mobilizing to save the program, a looming lawsuit is likely to sink it even if Trump does not. A tougher question is what Trump—and Congress—plans to do with the “Dreamers” once the policy is gone.