Y'all!

Once upon a time I ran a news site, now I just have opinions on the news. 

Good morning, RVA: Do something NOW, Washington Training Camp debt, and Comfort

Good morning, RVA! It's 40 °F, and today you can expect highs near 60 °F and plenty of sunshine. Soak up the sun because we’ve got rain and clouds for the next couple of days.

Water cooler

WTVR reports that the Corey Frazier, the person hit by a driver while biking across Main Street on Saturday, has died. Aaron Williams responded with a powerful thread on Twitter that reminded me of a couple of things: 1) A plan for traffic calming on Main Street at Allen Avenue already exists and has for at least two years, 2) We could implement these sorts of traffic-calming projects right now with paint, posts, and planters. There is no reason to wait until money for concrete magically appears in the City’s budget—because we’ll be waiting forever and people will continue to die. The Department of Public Works need to be empowered by City leadership to get out there and solve these problems with temporary solutions NOW.


Mark Robinson was at last night’s City Council meeting and has a recap in the Richmond Times-Dispatch that focuses on the details of the City’s decision to refinance the Washington Training Camp loan. Council really didn’t have much of a choice in this particular matter—except, I guess, for those members of Council that were around and voted for the original deal back during the Jones administration. Regardless, it’s not great to have Council’s regularly scheduled meeting constantly devolve into a “we’ve got to vote for this thing or else” situation. At some point, the Mayor’s administration and City Council need to get a little further ahead of the game so that every meeting’s not a crisis. I realize this takes time, but still!

This is amazing: Starting March 1st, Comfort will donate all of its net profits to fight food insecurity. Like, all of them. Forever. That’s their new business model! This makes me feel emotions; one time I saw Chef Jason Alley speak about his life growing up in a food-insecure household and how partnering with FeedMore to combat hunger means so very much to him. That made me feel emotions, too. Comfort is located at 200 W. Broad Street—just a block from a future Pulse Station—and now you’ve got a pretty great reason to make a reservation and head downtown.

Vanessa Remmers at the RTD checks in on the Liberal Women of Chesterfield County and their plans between now and the next set of elections. I’ll tell you what, if I were an elected official in Chesterfield, I would take the LWCC very, very seriously. From the article: “The LWCC wants to unseat all the local supervisors on the Chesterfield board—even the lone Democrat.” They’re passionate, organized, and not kidding around!

SaraRose Martin at Richmond Magazine has a bunch of quotes from yesterday’s Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America meeting—including this super gross, tone deaf one from Virginia Citizens Defense League President Philip Van Cleave: “Bump stocks are fun.”

J. Elias O’Neal has the word in Richmond BizSense on a new mixed-use development coming to Main Street near VCU (and near Dinamo). The plans include “10,000 square feet of retail on the ground level,” which seems good. Fingers crossed this helps make that section of Main Street feel more alive and not obliterated by a faceless, massive, block-sized building.

Sports!

  • Hokies knocked off #5 Duke, 64-63.

This morning's longread

The Rise and Fall of the American SRO

Here’s a really interesting, comic of sorts about Single Room Occupancy housing—something we instantly think of as low-income housing. This was not always the case!

The same cities that struggle to provide affordable housing today eliminated their critical-but-maligned flexible housing stock after World War II...CityLab visual storyteller Ariel Aberg-Riger takes a look back at the critical role Single Room Occupancy housing played in early 20th urban life.

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Good morning, RVA: Vision Zero, school bus delays, and gun violence legislation

Good morning, RVA: Vision Zero, an Affordable housing reading list, and invasive plants