Good morning, RVA! It's 53 °F, and today’s weather looks just as incredible as yesterday’s. Expect a lovely day with highs in the low 80s. Maybe social distance some beers in your best pal’s backyard?
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 872↘️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 39↗️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 76↘️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 32, Henrico: 20, and Richmond: 24). Since this pandemic began, 361 people have died in the Richmond region. VCU’s number of new cases continues to drop, and they’re holding steady at just under 50 total active cases between students and employees. University of Richmond, on the other hand, has zero active cases and hasn’t reported a new case since the week of September 6th. I don’t know what everyone’s doing out there, but, good job and keep doing it—that is unless you’re just not getting tested or not reporting your potential illness. Don’t keep doing that.
Yesterday, the Mayor proposed a new dedicated funding stream for the City's Affordable Housing Trust Fund, and I'm not sure I'm smart enough to have a great opinion on it. Lemme quote from the release: "Under the proposal, the future tax revenues from properties leaving the real property partial tax exemption rehabilitation program will go directly to an AHTF special fund to build new affordable units. In short, as properties are phased out of tax-exempt status, the Finance Department would direct that new revenue to the AHTF." So the City has an existing program that gives folks who rehabilitate old buildings a tax exemption for a while—it's a complex program of which I don't fully understand the details. The Mayor's proposal would take any tax revenues from those buildings, once the exemptions expire, and put them into a special bucket designated solely for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. According to the Mayor's office: "The administration anticipates that this will result in $2 million in revenues in FY22, growing by approximately $2 million each year for the next five years. Therefore, in FY2026, the revenue to the AHTF will be an unprecedented $10 million." I have lots of questions, but will wait patiently for some of the Housing Big Brains to tell me what I should think about the Mayor's plan. Because I can't help myself: I don't think I love permanent special funds and do wonder, though, if a proposal like this would prevent future reforms/changes to the existing rehabilitation exemption program. Anyway, like I said, I will make space for the Big Brains. P.S. At the bottom of that press release, the City teases the release of their Equitable Affordable Housing Plan, which will drop on September 28th. I'm sure we'll all excitedly be keeping an eye out for that PDF.
Gregory J. Gilligan at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Bow Tie Cinemas wants to sell all or some of their property on Arthur Ashe Boulevard. They don't plan on closing either Movieland or The Criterion, which, assuming movies still exist in the future, makes me breathe a sigh of relief. How about this: What if the City bought the 5.88 acre wooded lot directly east of the Movieland parking lots and turned it into a park as part of the proposed Greater Scott's Addition "Crescent Park?"
GRTC has the details on the shuttle that they'll run from City Hall to the new office of the General Registrar at the end of Laburnum. It's an hourly bus that runs weekdays from 7:45 AM to 5:15 PM beginning September 23rd. It's not great, and still makes trips to the Registrar more difficult, but it's something. I'm not going to celebrate a mildly workable transit solution to a problem that was 100% avoidable and is, still, mostly fixable with some creative thinking about what services folks needs from the Registrar.
Those two resolutions—to rename Route 1 within the City (ORD. 2020-153) and the long-running Vision Zero priorities resolution (RES. 2019-R068)—passed yesterday’s Land Use, Housing and Transportaiton committee. That means, at the moment, we’re gearing up for a pretty packed City Council meeting on September 28th. Should the agenda hold, they'll take up the two aforementioned papers along with reducing fees for sidewalk dining, maybe two resolutions to increase contributions to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund (although Mark Robinson at the RTD says Councilmember Robertson will co-patron the Mayor's AHTF proposal, so I wonder what impact that will have on her own resolution), asking to increase pay for public defenders, rezoning the area around a couple of Pulse Stations, and the Equitable Affordable Housing Plan presentation. Of course, now that I’ve spoken it aloud, all of these papers will get continued into oblivion. You can check out the always-temporary full agenda here.
I've made a few tweaks and updates to the Big List of Richmond's 2020 Candidates Trello board. I've added a few useful reference links and attached each of the RTD's questionnaires to the appropriate candidate card. I would love, love, love for folks to send me links to additional questionnaires for any and all candidates. I want this resource to be as comprehensive as possible, so, seriously, send me links. Finally, don't forget about the Big List of 2020 Candidate Events document. Turns out there are a ton of candidate events. Was it always this way? Are we just more interested in this particular election? Has the pandemic trapped us at home so all we can do is watch candidate events? Anyway, I know I said I wouldn't, but I'm going to shout out one in particular: The Mayorathon will host a 2nd District forum tonight at 6:30 PM via Zoom. I'll be moderating this one, in as much as "moderating" means asking smart candidates interesting questions.
This morning's patron longread
That Time $50 Used Apple Laptops Caused a Stampede
Submitted by Patron Ryan. Remember the “Henrico Laptop Stampede?” This piece in Vice gives some background and history and points out that, while embarrassing for the region, it was more about systemic (and probably racist) lack of access to technology than anything else. Also, even the moniker feels gross and dehumanizing, right?
There are two stories about the Henrico County, Virginia school district worth discussing in the context of computing history: The fact that the school may have been one in the first in the country to give a laptop to nearly every student, and what happened to those laptops after the district decided to upgrade. The first is a story about a forward-thinking district leveraging its largesse for the purposes of equipping its student body for the future. The second, unfortunately, kind of has a Lord of the Flies-type vibe. Let’s spend a little time talking about the first part, because it really was an innovative program.
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