Good morning, RVA! It's 53 °F, and highs today are up in the 70s—enjoy while you can because cooler temperatures move in tomorrow.
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 3,645 positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth, and 75 people in Virginia have died as a result of the virus. VDH reports 555 cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 145, Henrico: 291, and Richmond: 119). On the ever-evolving data beat, Patrick Wilson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch looks into why 54.3% of the data published by VDH marks “not reported” for race. This is in response to some of the emerging data from across the nation that shows the coronavirus kills Black people at disproportionately high rates (due to decades and decades of racist policies—health-related and otherwise). Northam says he’ll do what he can to require labs to collect the appropriate demographic data moving forward.
The Governor announced an elections thing and a couple of liquor-related things yesterday. First, restaurants can now sell mixed drinks for takeout or delivery. Like, we’re not talking gin & tonics here, right? I’ve got all that stuff at home. But what is the best mixed drink to survive delivery and still taste delicious once it arrives at your door? Tiki drinks? I’m interested to see what the barfolk come up with. Second, and more important than on-demand piña coladas (🤮), the Governor requested that the General Assembly move May elections to November and June primaries to June 23rd. This doesn’t impact us a ton in the Richmond region, but some of us will have a primary to vote in, and, if you live in Ashland, the town council vote looks headed to November. One cool thing about the Governor’s election proposal is that now people have until this fall to register to vote.
City Council will meet today for a special meeting at 3:30 PM. They’ll (fingers crossed) pass the legislation that they introduced a while back which allows them and—the public—to participate in the civic process remotely (ORD. 2020-093). Here’s the clerk’s instructions on how to participate in today’s meeting (PDF), which I’m guessing will be the process moving forward. You’ve got a bunch of different options if you want to get involved: calling in to a listen-only conference call, watching the livestream of the virtual meeting, giving written public comment by email, or providing a virtual public comment live via Microsoft Teams. The last two have deadlines (10:00 AM this morning for this particular legislation), so keep that in mind if you’ve got thoughts and feelings on future ordinances or resolutions. This seems...pretty good! If they can get all of the technical bits worked out, I think I’m OK with this setup over the next couple of months. The real, hard work for Council remains, though, and that’s making sure their constituents know what legislation is coming up when. They’ll need to dig deep into their community contacts and look beyond their district email list! It’s no joke a lot of work, but I believe it’s possible to keep people involved—maybe even more so than in pre-virustime!
John Reid Blackwell at the RTD has an interesting business-on-the-street look at how local companies are faring with the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program. Seems chaotic, uncertain, and not nearly enough funds available to address the need.
I think we’re solidly in the “folks are looking for ways to help” part of this crisis. Here’s an easy one: Donate a couple of bucks to this Go Fund Me that’ll pay for 13,200 plastic face shields for Richmond’s health workers. RVA’s maker community set this up, and I love when people figure out how they can use their existing skills to help out in real ways during times of need.
The RTD’s Wayne Epps Jr. says local sports radio hosts Greg Burton, Matt Josephs, and Andrew Wallace were laid off from ESPN Richmond radio 💸. Burton has been part of Richmond’s sports landscape for as long as I can remember, but it makes sense. We have no more sports. I do wonder, though, if we’ll see esports start to fill the sports-shaped hole in people’s lives? Or, like, individual time trials stuff? Maybe we start watching helmet-cam footage from folks riding bikes or snowboarding? And there’s always the Marble League to get into.
This morning's longread
Coronavirus Reveals Transit’s True Mission
From bus big brain Jarrett Walker, this piece on public transit’s true purpose gets it right.
The goal of transit, right now, is neither competing for riders nor providing a social service for those in need. It is helping prevent the collapse of civilization. What’s more, transit has always been doing that. Those “essential service” workers, who are overwhelmingly low-income, have always been there, moving around quietly in our transit systems, keeping our cities functioning. Too often, we have patronized them by calling them needy or dependent when in fact everything would collapse if they couldn’t get to work.
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