Good morning, RVA! It's 36 °F, and today highs look...not very high at all. Expect temperatures in the mid 40s for most of the day. Things will warm up pretty dramatically over the weekend, though.
Water cooler
Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a tough story about the Market @ 25th 💸, the new East End grocery store: “After six months, the independent grocer has suffered millions in operational losses that Markel has personally covered.” Dang. According to Robinson’s piece, folks feel like the Market’s prices are too high and that the store is yet another sign of gentrification. First, I don’t know how an independent grocer is supposed to compete on prices with a supply-chain monster like Walmart—which is just down the road on Nine Mile. Second, a lot of folks have been working to bring a grocery store to that neighborhood for at least a decade, if not longer. Now that it exists—at the same time more and more affluent White people exist—is it part of a wave of gentrification? I don’t know. But it’s certainly complicated, and it’s going to take longer than a couple of months to figure out. At least Steve Markel, who’s bankrolling the whole thing, takes the long view: “To measure success in this project, we’re not talking a year or two, we’re talking about five or 10.” Robinson also says that the J. Sargeant Reynolds will push back the opening of the nearby culinary school to summer 2020 💸.
As part of my day job, I talked with Roberto Roldan at VPM about the proposed GRTC Transit Center that’s part of the Mayor’s NoBro project. More importantly, and definitely more interesting than what I have to say, Roldan got this statement from new GRTC CEO Julie Timm on the Transit Center: “Without further conversations on these topics, there is a real risk that the location could lock the system into less than optimal connections to the Pulse now and in the future...I am excited and encouraged that these conversations are happening.” Heck yes! I’d love it if the NoBro folks reopened the conversations about the location (or locations) of the proposed transit center. Let’s make it happen and ask riders how they think connections should work! You can read RVA Rapid Transit’s full list of concerns with the proposed Transit Center over on their website.
Another small piece of bus-related news: Police have completed their investigation into last month’s fatal crash involving the Pulse and have decided not to file any charges against the bus operator.
I enjoyed this column from Robert Zullo at the Virginia Mercury about what’s next for Governor Northam and the Democrats in the General Assembly now that they have a bunch of new power to swing around. I’m way into this tweet from Del. Carter that Zullo included: “We're going to see a struggle between Democrats who think the way you hold a new majority is by doing very little (in an attempt to avoid GOP attacks), and Democrats who think we hold a majority by delivering change. I know which side I'm on.”
From the people that brought you The Circuit, skeeball is coming to Scott’s Addition, says Mike Platania at Richmond BizSense. Skeeball is definitely not my favorite arcade offering, but I am married to someone who will quite happily set up shop at a skeeball lane with a cup full of quarters. Slingshot Social Game Club, which also includes the return of duckpin bowling to the City (!), opens today at 1304 MacTavish Avenue.
This morning's longread
The Republic on the Brink of Collapse
This whole piece from the Thomas Jefferson Hour is dark, but I hadn’t thought about Republican senators fearing for their lives should they eventually vote to remove Trump from office.
We have read, and I believe, that if there could be a secret ballot in the Senate, twenty Republican Senators, at least and already, would vote to convict the President and remove him from office. Perhaps thirty. In other words, there is a widespread tacit agreement in the most senior political body in the United States that it would be best for the republic if Donald Trump were removed from the Presidency using this legitimate constitutional tool. But it will not be a secret ballot. Even if Senator X believes the president should be removed, even if he thinks the president should go to prison, she may not dare to make that judgment for fear that an angry mob of Trumpites will burn down her house, or shoot through his windows, or run her down while jogging. I am not joking. The fear of the wrath of Trump’s supporters is real, and it goes well beyond fear of being primaried in the next election cycle.
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