Good morning, RVA! It's 71 °F, and you might see some rain this morning! After that, though, we're back to the standard hot and humid Richmond summer.
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 888↗️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 4↘️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 87↗️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 20, Henrico: 38, and Richmond: 29). Since this pandemic began, 270 people have died in the Richmond region. I think it's pretty clear now that reported positive case in Virginia are trending upward, and the last time the Commonwealth saw the same number of cases while they were increasing was back in mid April (so on the way up the previous spike, not on the way down). The number of tests reported does continue to increase, yet the statewide percent positivity also has crept up almost a percentage point as of the last couple weeks of June. Since the Governor has stopped his regularly-scheduled COVID-19 press conferences, we've got to catch him at public appearances, like this one in Hampton Roads. In light of the worsening coronastats, he announced that he "won't hesitate to impose restrictions if needed," and that, if necessary, he'd consider a move back into Phase Two or modifying Phase Three's requirements around large gatherings. About schools (more on that below) the Gov said "...if our numbers don’t stay where they are and we can’t remain in Phase Three then we are not going to be able to move forward with that.” So keep an eye on that and the willingness to monkey around with the requirements of Phase Three to avoid moving back into Phase Two and forcing the closures of schools.
Last week, I recapped the Richmond School Board meeting where they heard from experts and discussed possible plans for reopening the District. At the time, the Superintendent had put forward two plans—Plan A and Plan B—one would have students in schools a couple of days a week, one would have students in schools every day, both would provide fully-virtual options for families that wanted to stay home. Now the Superintendent has three more plans, Plans C through E. Plan C would have elementary schools students back for full-time, in-person instruction and everyone else would do fully virtual learning. Plan D would allow for full-time, in-person instruction for high-needs students with every one else fully virtual. Plan E would keep everyone fully virtual for the first semester. Note with every plan, all students will have the option to go fully virtual, and, in the Superintendent's words, "No RPS employee will be forced to work in-person. Period. Full stop." Plan C is the exact modification to Plan B I wrote about last week, so I'm glad its now an official, lettered option. School Board will have another meeting this Tuesday, tomorrow, to further discuss all of these options and to try to chart a path forward. If you've got thoughts and opinions, you can make an official public comment by emailing <speakers@rvaschools.net data-preserve-html-node="true"> (which they will totally read at the meeting) or you can email the Superintendent (<jkamras@rvaschools.net data-preserve-html-node="true">) and the School Board directly.
Mayor Stoney announced the folks that will make up his Task Force to Reimagine Public Safety, and you can read through that list at the bottom of this press release. They've got 45 days to do their work, which the release describes as, "reviewing the police department’s use of force policies, exploring an approach to public safety that uses a human services lens and prioritizing community healing and engagement." I'm hoping this Task Force stays aware of and aligned with Council's current stack of pending police reform legislation—which you can expect an email from me about later today—and that we don't see a bunch of duplicative work. Councilmember Ellen Robertson does sit on the Task Force, so, fingers crossed. Also, I don't know a lot of the names on this list, but, if it's true that there's not a single Latinx voice on the Task Force, then that's unacceptable.
Speaking of police reform, Ali Rockett at the Richmond Times-Dispatch says that the RPD's use-of-force report from June didn't include any of those times that police officers gassed protestors or shot them with rubber bullets. That is until Rockett started poking around, and then, three days later, RPD updated their data. I honestly can't tell if this is a case of bad and slow process or an intentional attempt to mislead. Either is bad, especially since the literal reason folks are protesting—and continue to protest—is bad, violent, and racist police policies. Fudging the data on their use of violence is exactly that!
Two quick monument notes: First, Michael Martz at the RTD says the Department of General Services has approved a plan to remove the Lee monument—whenever the legal stuff gets sorted out. The plan involves cutting the statue up into three segments because the statue as a whole won't fit under highway overpasses. That's a surprising concern to me, because I thought for sure the bronze parts would end up somewhere in town at a museum or a cemetery or something. Also, DGS apparently has plans to remove the granite pedestal, too. I absolutely think they need to consider calling a timeout on that and, at the minimum, boot up a public engagement process around what to do with the plinth. It's evolved into a public memorial over the last couple of months, and I just don't think you can box it up without first talking to anyone. Second, the AP reports that the Arthur Ashe statue will not be taken down.
The WaPo reports that Washington's football team will retire their name today and announce a new name at a later date. Dang, they're about to make so much money off of merch sales.
This morning's longread
Don’t Fall For The 'Cancel Culture' Scam
Michael Hobbes from the You're Wrong About... podcast has a good explainer of the Cancel Culture Letter you may have seen floating around last week.
On Monday, 153 prominent writers, academics and public figures signed their names to a statement entitled “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate.” According to the signatories, “The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted.” While the letter itself, published by the magazine Harper’s, doesn’t use the term, the statement represents a bleak apogee in the yearslong, increasingly contentious debate over “cancel culture.” The American left, we are told, is imposing an Orwellian set of restrictions on which views can be expressed in public. Institutions at every level are supposedly gripped by fears of social media mobs and dire professional consequences if their members express so much as a single statement of wrongthink. This is false.
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