Good morning, RVA! It's 32 °F, and today, January 6th, looks like another delightful fall day. Expect highs in the mid 50s and lots of sunshine. The long range forecast suggests we may see temperatures in the 70s this weekend? OK, sure.
Water cooler
Richmond Police are reporting, what I think is, the first murder of 2020. On the morning of January 3rd, officers arrived to the a hotel on the 2600 block of Chamberlayne Avenue and found William O. Hurt shot to death.
Ali Rockett from the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a recap of last year’s deadly violence in Richmond 💸. In 2019, 66 people were killed. This is pretty close to the average number of killings over the previous three years (2016: 61; 2017: 78; 2018: 58). The three years previous to that saw an average of 40 people killed. I’d love to read something on what changed—either culturally, structurally, or even something with how the police report murders.
Hello! Welcome to 2020! It’s been a while, and there’s a lot to cover. Do I even remember how to write an email? Let’s dive right in and find out...
The Navy Hill Development Advisory Commission’s final report (PDF) came out the Monday after we last spoke. It’s pretty long at 70 pages, but there’s a nice, color-coded summary table on page 16. The commission looked at 24 “assumptions, projections, costs, benefits, or impacts” of the entire NoBro project and came back with a “yes, no, or insufficient data/no position” on each. These assumptions are things like: is there a risk to the General Fund, are the project’s schedules realistic, are the TIF assumptions valid and reasonable. As you could probably predict, the Commission marked “insufficient data / no position” on the vast majority (15) of the 24 assumptions. However, here’s the list of things that a majority of the commission could agree upon that support advancement of the project: the TIF assumptions are valid and reasonable, the VCU benefits are reasonable, the street grid benefits are reasonable, the “minority goals” are appropriate, and mixed-use is the right approach. And here’s the list of things the majority agreed do not support the advancement of the project: there’s a risk to the General Fund, there’s a risk to school funding, the estimated costs of the program and project are not reasonable, and if the proposed arena is even a sound public investment. That’s a heavy list of negatives right there. While I don’t think that this report will change many hearts and minds (especially on Council), it does give NoBro opponents a pretty solid foundation to stand on in the following couple months of public discourse. Next up: Council’s paid consultant will deliver their report in a bit, and then we’re teed up for a late winter / early spring vote. Reminder: The Mayor needs seven out of nine votes on City Council.
Tonight at 5:00 PM, City Council will hold a special meeting to consider RES. 2019-R071, Councilmember Jones’s third attempt at a resolution asking the General Assembly for the authority to take down our Confederate monuments should we ever get up the gumption to do so. This is NOT legally binding, and does nothing more than ask for authority from the GA. Passing this resolution is a no-brainer, has been a no-brainer, and will continue to be a no-brainer for as long as the State’s racist legislation prevents local control of Confederate monuments. Mark Robinson has some details over in the RTD, Marc Cheatham has some excellent words over on the Cheats Movement blog, and you can read some of the Councilmember’s thoughts in this great Twitter thread. Cheatham reminds us that 2nd District (and Monument Avenue) representative Councilmember Gray was the only Black person on City Council to vote against the 2018 resolution. There are a million and one great quotes in his piece, but I want to pick two for folks to read ahead of Council’s vote: First, “While it is easy to single out Gray, she was joined in her opposition by every white member of RVA Council. None of them should get a pass because they are white. White people have a responsibility to dismantle white supremacy.” and “...local control of city monuments is just a needed step to dismantling white supremacy and charting a new course in Richmond. It’s not going to replace the harder work of education and economic justice. BUT it’s the least that can be done. And if this Council is not capable of getting the easy stuff right, there is no way they should be trusted to tackle the much harder work.”
On Wednesday, the General Assembly returns to Richmond for their whirlwind, 60-day 2020 session. I’m always out of my depth when it comes to covering what’s happening down at the Capitol—mostly because the process feels like it’s specifically designed to keep the public in the dark as the legislative sausage gets made. That said, during the GA season we do see our local media shift a lot of resources to cover what the heck our elected officials are doing down there for those 60 days. I’m thankful for that! Mel Leonor and Michael Martz at the RTD have a high-level look at some of the Democrats’ priorities this year 💸, and the team over at the Virginia Mercury looks at potential legislation on energy, marijuana, education, and voting rights.
Oh my! Ipanema, the bar of my youth and longtime VCU basement staple, has been sold to a new operator says Richmond BizSense’s Mike Platania. I’m obviously way too old to spend my weeknights hanging out in one of Ipanema’s booths until close, but I have a lot of good memories of doing just that—some even before the smoking ban! Anyway, I hope a couple more generations of Richmonders get to spend some time making good memories down in that basement, too.
I’ve already written too many (boring) words about City civic stuff, BUT the Planning Commission also meets today and will take up at least three interesting papers: ORD. 2019-352, Councilmember Gray’s paper limiting density on certain parcels (🙄); ORD. 2019-328, a Special Use Permit allowing a homeless shelter on the 1900 block on Chamberlayne Avenue (👍); and ORD. 2019-343, the City’s Airbnb ordinance (🤔). You can read through the full agenda here (PDF).
Richmond Public Schools will hold its first renaming session for George Mason Elementary School at tonight’s School Board meeting—that’s 6:00 PM at George Mason (813 N. 28th Street). The Board will hold a public hearing to give folks the first of a couple chances to express their thoughts and feelings.
This morning's longread
The Untold Story of New Year’s Novelty Glasses
Submitted by Patron Matt. Here’s a charming, and slightly sad maybe?, story to welcome you into 2020.
“We were always coming up with ideas — they’d just pop into our head and we’d scribble them down — but we’d never do anything about them,” Sclafani tells me. “We’d somehow gotten onto drawing novelty glasses and had ideas sketched out. Pete drew the number 2000 and put a couple of eyeballs inside the zeros. I took one look at it and had this vision of the year 2000 in Times Square, and all the people wearing these glasses. It was really a vision.” Sclafani and Cicero immediately knew they had something, but the year 2000 was still a decade away. “Then Pete draws the year 1991, and we realize, ‘Gee, you could use that too! There’s a circle for the eyes!’ That’s when we really got excited and started dancing around the room,” Sclafani laughs. “I don’t think either of us slept for at least a few days after that.”
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