Good morning, RVA! It's 59 °F, and we may see the sun later today! But, beware the wind! We’re under a wind advisory until 4:00 PM, and you should expect 15-25 mph winds with gusts up to 40 mph. After all that rain, some stuff may fall down, and your power could even go out! Saturday and Sunday look pretty rad though.
Water cooler
Police are reporting that Leon T. Robinson, 27, was shot to death on the 1600 block of Mechanicsville Turnpike, near the 804 Market, on Wednesday night. This is the fifth murder of 2020.
Elections matter, and every single dang day the New Democratic Majority has pushed for consequential laws that make the lives of Virginians better. It’s really been something to watch. Graham Moomaw at the Virginia Mercury says that the House and the Senate have both passed versions of HB 1663, the Virginia Values Act, which “not only adds sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in housing, employment and public accommodations, it establishes a new framework for people who feel they’ve been discriminated against to take legal action against the offending party.” Those bills still need to do the crossover dance and get signed by the Governor and what not, but seem like they’re in a good place. Of course, there’s more work to be done! Side by Side, an excellent organization focused on creating supportive communities for Virginia’s LGBTQ+ youth, has a couple of ways for you to support HB 145 and SB 161, which direct the Virginia Department of Education to create policies regarding transgender students. You can read an open letter from Side by Side and a bunch of other local, youth-focused organizations about this legislation over on RVA Mag, which you should, because you’ll learn that “according to Side by Side’s November 2019 youth survey, 21% of transgender youth were ‘always’ afraid of getting hurt by someone at school and 72% had some level of fear attending schools in Virginia.” Finally, if you want to get involved in the work to push these bills across the finish line, you can attend an event at Diversity Richmond (Facebook) (1407 Sherwood Ave) this coming Monday, February 10th, from 6:00–7:00 PM.
Labor law in Virginia is something I’m still learning about. Growing up in the Commonwealth, I’ve accumulated an insidious internal background noise that whispers bad things about unions. I’m working to get rid of that, and it’s nice to see progress on several pro-labor bills at this year’s General Assembly push my personal conversation, but also the public conversation, on labor forward. In fact, Mayor Stoney has a column in the Washington Post about HB 582 and SB 1022, bills lifting the ban on public-sector collective bargaining. And, like I off-handedly mentioned the other day, Del. Carter’s bill to repeal Right to Work made it out of committee. See previous point about how elections matter.
Sarah Vogelsong at the Virginia Mercury has the details on the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which has emerged, fresh and mewling, from the Labor and Commerce Committee and on to the House floor. Again, elections matter! This is, of course, exciting, but I’d still like to see more aggressive transportaiton legislation and funding as it relates to climate change. Transportation is the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, and, while electrification is most certainly an important and critical piece of the puzzle, we’ve also got to work hard on policies that incentivize and make it easier (or even possible!) for folks to use their cars less. That’s just the facts, Jack!
This Saturday, the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden will host a seed swap from 1:00–3:00 PM! Did you know that Lewis Ginter has a seed library? They totally do and, not to minimize the importance of this work, I think it’s such an awesome Busytown-type thing! The seed swap and seed library (which is in an actual card catalog library box thing) are free for members or included with admission.
The Oscars are this coming Sunday, which, if you start right now you should still have enough time to finish The Irishman before showtime. Wikipedia has my preferred list of nominations and eventual winners.
This morning's patron longread
California, Mired in a Housing Crisis, Rejects an Effort to Ease It
Submitted by Patron Lisa. California’s legislature once again failed to pass a bill that would allow for dense housing near good transit. The fascinating thing here is the alliance between classic NIMBY folks and the people (legitimately) worried about increased housing costs and getting pushed out beyond the reach of the transit system. In Richmond, of course we need to allow for more, denser housing near our best transit—but we also need to figure out ways to keep some of that housing affordable for a wide range of folks.
For years, a determined state senator has pushed a singular vision: a bill challenging California’s devotion to both single-family housing and motor vehicles by stripping away limits on housing density near public transit. Now the state will have to look for other ways to relieve its relentless housing crisis. On Thursday, one day before the deadline for action on the hotly debated bill, it failed to muster majority support in a Senate vote. In the end, in a Legislature where consensus can be elusive despite a lopsided Democratic majority, the effort drew opposition from two key constituencies: suburbanites keen on preserving their lifestyle and less affluent city dwellers seeing a Trojan horse of gentrification. The failure marks the third time since 2018 that State Senator Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat and one of the country’s most outspoken advocates for reforming local zoning laws, has tried and failed to push through a major bill meant to stimulate housing production.
If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.