Good morning, RVA! It's 45 °F, and highs are back up in the 60s today—plus we should see lots of sunshine. Sounds great to me!
Water cooler
Yesterday, Virginia voted and Joe Biden came out ahead in the Commonwealth and across much of the country's Super Tuesday primaries. I'll leave the national race prognostication to someone else and focus on what, if anything, the results mean locally. First, turnout was way, way up from 2016's Democratic primary—@taber says up 64% this year! I imagine that—if we survive until November—turnout will also be way, way up in the General Election. That means lots of folks voting locally for Mayor, City Council, and School Board. Looking at the results by Council District and using Bernie vs. Biden as a lazy proxy for progressiveness, I think extremely progressive/urbanist candidates should run for City Council in the 2nd District, 5th District, 6th District, and 7th District. Of course, I could also phrase that as "incumbents in the 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 7th should run on extremely progressive/urbanist platforms." Here's Bernie's margin in each of those districts, respectively: +28%; +13%; -8%; -2%. I didn't have time to throw Elizabeth Warren votes into Bernie's bucket, but I think you get the picture. Especially in the 2nd District, where Councilmember Kim Gray has started to explore a run for mayor, I think there's support for a very progressive voice on City Council.
Speaking of people running for mayor, I was at the Main Library yesterday and someone asked me to sign a petition to get Paul Goldman on the ballot for mayor? I don't know what that means, but I thought I'd share it with you.
Did you know that because Richmond is a centuries-old city that it also has a centuries-old old sewer system? Sometimes that system discharges untreated sewage into the river, by design, during extreme rain or flooding. It's called the Combined Sewer Overflow system, and the Department of Public Utilities has a charmingly boring video explaining more than you ever wanted to know about how sewers work. Michael Martz at the Richmond Times-Dispatch says the General Assembly is getting closer to passing legislation requiring (and funding?) Richmond to clean up its act and prevent untreated sewage from spewing into the river during extreme weather events 💸—which will happen more frequently in the future due to climate change. I'd hear it from the tree people if I didn't also say that depaving our city by planting more vegetation and more trees is an excellent way to reduce the amount of runoff that ends up in the sewer in the first place.
Let's close with a bunch of restaurant news. First, Style Weekly's State of the Plate issue is out. Tap through to see their restaurant of the year and their favorite dishes of 2020.
Next, taco watch: En Su Boca will open up a VCU outpost in the old Roxy and The Pit and The Peel spots later this summer. Mike Platania at Richmond BizSense has the details.
And, finally, it's your mid-week reminder to hit up some of the restaurants participating in this year's Black Restaurant Experience. Reader David even created this handy map, in case you're trying to plot a route to each and every spot.
This morning's patron longread
Why Do Corporations Speak the Way They Do?
Submitted by Patron Alexis. Every group has its own vernacular, but there's something darkly insidious about corporatespeak.
I worked at various start-ups for eight years beginning in 2010, when I was in my early 20s. Then I quit and went freelance for a while. A year later, I returned to office life, this time at a different start-up. During my gap year, I had missed and yearned for a bunch of things, like health care and free knockoff Post-its and luxurious people-watching opportunities. (In 2016, I saw a co-worker pour herself a bowl of cornflakes, add milk, and microwave it for 90 seconds. I’ll think about this until the day I die.) One thing I did not miss about office life was the language. The language warped and mutated at a dizzying rate, so it was no surprise that a new term of art had emerged during the year I spent between jobs. The term was parallel path, and I first heard it in this sentence: “We’re waiting on specs for the San Francisco installation. Can you parallel-path two versions?”
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