Good morning, RVA! It's 71 °F, and today you should expect heat, humidity, and a chance for rain until this evening. Then, this evening, you should expect a chance for a lot of rain. Things dry and and cool down tomorrow, though.
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 449↘️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 13↘️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 24↘️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 15, Henrico: -1 (???), and Richmond: 10). Since this pandemic began, 366 people have died in the Richmond region. Whoa, that is a low number of new reported positive cases! That's the fewest number of new cases reported in a single day since July 6th. I have no idea if that's a reporting issue or what, but it does seem like we're riding a downward trend—at least for this particular metric. Speaking of metrics, the Virginia Department of Health released a new Pandemic Metrics dashboard that may interest some of you. The gist here is that you can look at a single, rolled-up metric for your region, called "transmission extent," and see the status of the coronavirus at that point in time (calculated weekly). A bunch of numbers and trends get wrapped up in to transmission extent, so I think it's probably helpful for decision-makers to use while figuring out what to close down or open up. It's certainly better than everyone just refreshing the percent positivity chart over and over again. If you really want to nerd out, check out the methodology document for how they put together transmission extent (PDF). The "region," as defined by VDH, though, is super big, so I'm not sure transmission extent will help you decide whether or not you should stockpile toilet paper and barricade your doors. However, there is a CDC School Metrics tab (which lines up with the CDC's recently-released indicators for school decision-making table) that you can filter down by locality. While focused on helping schools decide how to move forward with their reopening plans, this tab is probably more helpful for those of us obsessed with local data. Unfortunately, as of this moment, none of the tabs load for me! I'm sure VDH will get their IT issues sorted later this morning, though🤞. Kate Masters at the Virginia Mercury has a screenshot to tide you over until then.
At last night's City Council meeting, which you can watch here, Council passed a lot of the papers I had my eye on—including the resolutions asking the Mayor for more money for both the Affordable Housing Trust Fund (RES. 2020-R053) and public defenders (RES. 2020-R054). These types of resolutions are fine, and clearly lay out Council's budgetary priorities to the Mayor, but, always remember that resolutions are non-binding. Plus, ultimately, City Council approves the budget! Keep both of these resolutions and their patrons in mind when we get into next year's budget season. Will these same legislators fight for these priorities with their actual legislative authority? Or will they just ask the Mayor to do the work and move on? I imagine money will be in short supply next year, so are they willing to make cuts and hard decisions to get these priorities funded? We'll have to wait and see, but, in the mean time, I need to figure out how to keep track of stuff like this (another Trello board??). Also, surprising literally zero people, Council decided to continue the paper rezoning the area around the Science Museum, Allison, and VCU & VUU Pulse stations (ORD. 2020-103). As foretold: "In a letter to the planning department earlier this month, a coalition of seven neighborhood and civic associations representing those areas asked the council to hold off until COVID-19-related meeting restrictions are lifted. The letter says residents feel they have not been able to adequately review the plan and discuss it with city officials." Chris Suarez at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has more, but you can probably guess at most of it. I think we're at the point where folks need to email their Councilmember and tell them to support more space for more people to live next to our best public transit infrastructure. Voting against this rezoning is voting against our City's housing, climate, and transit goals. It's unacceptable. You can find councilmember contact information here, and don't forget to copy their liaisons.
Sort of related, the Mayor presented part of his plan for increasing affordable housing to Council last night. Roberto Roldan at VPM has some of the details and you can download the full One Richmond: An Equitable Affordable Housing Plan (PDF) for yourself. There is a lot to dig in to here, and I literally just opened the PDF for the first time a minute ago, but, as I scroll through at a rapid pace, I like what I see. Actual policy and program recommendations start on page 38—some of which aren't even "ask the state to make more things legal for localities"! For example, under the second goal, "Housing & Services for Residents with Special Needs", the plan recommends amending the zoning ordinance to "allow two- and three-family dwelling units in all residential zones." Love it! Honestly, a lot of the things I see in this plan match up nicely with the goals and recommendations in the draft Richmond 300 plan, and I appreciate the coming-at-it-from-all-angles approach. Roldan says that Council will need to adopt the plan, so you should look forward to all sorts of public conversations about it.
The Henrico and Richmond City Health Districts will host a free community COVID-19 testing event today at the Broad Rock Community Center (4615 Ferguson Lane) from 4:00–6:00 PM. If you've got questions, you can always call the corona-hotline at 804.205.3501. Spread the word, not the virus!
You can watch a presidential debate tonight! I'm not sure you want to, but you totally can! Tune in to your favorite news channel tonight at 9:00 PM for the 90-minute debate that will surely be...something.
This morning's longread
Vote ”yes“ on VA’s redistricting constitutional amendment
I'll be voting yes on Amendment #1 in November. It's not perfect, but it's our last chance in a good long while to help curtail gerrymandering in Virginia.
But here’s the crucial fact about that substitute legislation: those changes would have reset the clock. That is, it wouldn’t have been the second time that the legislature had voted on this amendment, but the first time they had voted on a new amendment, requiring a pause of two years (so there could be an intervening legislative election) before the legislature could have the second vote. If it passed in 2023, and then voters backed it that November, that amendment would happen years too late for the 2021 redistricting, and have no effect at all until 2031.
If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.