Good morning, RVA! It's 38 °F, and today you should expect highs in the mid 40s with a slight chance of rain for most of the day. This weekend: Pretty much the same. Fingers crossed for folks running the marathon that they don’t have to do it in freezing cold rain. John Boyer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch says it’ll just be cold and windy, which sounds funnnnn.
Water cooler
Richmond Public Schools, Safe Routes to Schools, and the City have launched a new school crossing guard program at 11 schools spread throughout the District. The crossing guards already work at the schools in some capacity, and the new program provides a stipend for their additional work—work, you know, that helps keep drivers from killing kids while they cross the street. NBC12 has the full list of schools, which were chosen by the number of students who commute by foot.
The Richmond Marathon (no relation to Richmond Mayorathon, of course) takes place tomorrow from 7:45 AM to mid afternoon. Its route (PDF) takes it through the Fan, along the river on the Southside, back into Downtown, and around the Northside. Depending on where you live, you could actually be encircled and trapped by the marathon! Not only that, but, as you can imagine, bus service—including the Pulse—will see mega detours. Check out this slightly overwhelming map to figure out your bus’s temporary new route and this long list of street closures.
I am not an expert in digital privacy, which is a complicated thing, but, dang, this automated wifi tracking attendance system VCU is piloting makes me feel weird. The program, VCU Ram Attend, checks your wifi logins against your class schedule and if it looks like you’re in the classroom you’re supposed to be in, you get automatically marked as in attendance. I dunno, feels weird! Students: If you’re taking UNIV 111, UNIV 112, or UNIV 200 you have until November 21st to opt out of the pilot by filling out this form.
InLight, one of my favorite art-related Richmond things, takes place tonight and tomorrow from 7:00–11:00 PM in Chimborazo Park. It’s a light-based, public art installation that moves around the city each year and really transforms wherever it ends up. I’m excited to see how artists use the park, as it’s an inherently complicated space: “Two key moments in the park's history include being the location of the largest Confederate military hospital during the Civil War and following Emancipation, hosting a Freedmen’s community for formerly enslaved African-Americans. 1708 seeks artists and projects that respond to, elaborate on, and propose new ways of understanding these complex histories.” This is definitely something you need to put on your calendar and make your way out to the East End to see!
NoBro updates! This weekend you’ve got THREE more opportunities to learn and discuss the Mayor’s proposed downtown arena project—assuming you’re not maxed out on learning and discussing. First, you can join the Partnership for Smarter Growth on Saturday, 3:00 PM–5:30 PM, for a Walk and Talk. Meet at City Hall, walk the project area, talk about its potential impacts, and then wash the whole thing down with a few beers at Capital Ale House. Be aware: Some of the streets will still be closed for the marathon. Second, the Navy Hill Development Advisory Commission will meet on Saturday morning at the Richmond Southside Government Community Services Center (4100 Hull Street Road) from 9:00 AM–12:00 PM. They’ll focus on “Arena Demand and Synergy”—brief agenda here (PDF). Finally, the Mayor and Team will host a townhall on Sunday at the Peter Paul Development Center (1708 N. 22nd Street) from 4:00–5:30 PM. If you make it out to all three maybe you get a special-edition collector’s pin!
This morning's longread
Too Much Democracy Is Bad for Democracy
“Party leaders” sounds gross, but I...agree with this?
The U.S. primary system compounds the problem by adding its own elements of randomness. For example, the front-loading of primaries in the 2020 race allows a candidate to wrap up the nomination based on a small share of the electorate voting in a handful of states. Moreover, because the ballot registers only each voter’s first choice, it provides no additional information about the intensity of preferences for other candidates. If the electorate splits its vote among several candidates competing in the same political lane—say, two or three pragmatists facing an extreme partisan—the extremist can win even if she is the last choice of the majority. Under the old convention system, by contrast, party leaders would move to a more broadly representative second-choice candidate if the plurality candidate was unacceptable to the larger coalition. Party leaders did so on several occasions, the most famous being Lincoln’s selection over front-runner William Seward, in 1860.
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