Good morning, RVA! It's 30 °F, and today—this whole week, really—looks pleasant. Expect highs in the 50s, sunshine for at least part of the day, and to find the time to let someone know they're doing a good job.
Water cooler
The Richmond Police department is reporting that Sara Andrews, a woman in her 20s, was found shot to death on the 3300 block of Stockton Street.
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 7,245 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 10 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 785 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 314, Henrico: 286, and Richmond: 185). Since this pandemic began, 627 people have died in the Richmond region. This is a shocking number of new cases—both statewide and locally. On Sunday, VDH reported 9,914 new cases, clearly an all-time high, and almost twice the previous high. In fact, the daily average of new cases over the last three days is 7,972 with no mention of a classic VDH data reporting issue in sight. In fact, the Richmond Times Dispatch's Sabrina Moreno reports the opposite, that "Health department officials have said that it's not a data error and is likely due to exposure during the holidays." The number of new cases, number of people ending up in the hospital, and number of people dying each day is quantitatively worse than this spring, and yet, collectively, we act like we're living back in June or July. I don't get it, and I feel gaslit by the folks with the authority to impose restrictions—just like they did last spring—to help save lives.
While local progress with vaccine distribution does give me hope, Dr. Danny Avula, the state's vaccine distribution coordinator, said that last week the state requested 300,000 doses and only received 106,000. Not great. Supply of the vaccine constrains everything, including the Governor's decision to move the state into an expanded Phase 1b by the end of the month. Folks aged 65 and essential workers (like bus operators) who heard that they could start making vaccination appointments as soon as this week are inevitably going to be angry and disappointed. If we want to accelerate and broaden the folks who can get the vaccine—and this is obvious—we need more vaccine. Less vaccine means really hard choices about who gets what when. If you want someone to blame for this huge screw up, look toward the federal government who just straight up lied about having a massive stockpile of vaccine. Now this mess falls into Gov. Northam's lap. I'm interested to see if he changes some of his public vaccination goals and adjusts his rhetoric of "use it or lose it" since there's just far, far less to use.
Richmond's School Board meets tonight and while they won't vote on Superintendent Kamras's contract until next month, it's a good time to email them all and let them know that failing to extend Kamras's contract for four years would be absolutely catastrophic for the district (see today's longread). I think we're pretty close to the sound-the-alarm stage on this, so if you know folks who haven't yet emailed their school board rep, please spread the word. Also, your email does not need to be a beautifully crafted argument: Simply state your name, which district you live in, and that you'd like to see the board extend Kamras's contract for four years—bonus points for having kids in RPS, owning a home, or owning a business (stupid but unfortunately true). You can find all of the Board's contact information here.
Also at the School Board meeting tonight, Kamras will present his FY22 budget. He's put together a great PDF (which includes a really helpful budget primer section) that you should flip through. The whole thing is worth reading, but here's probably the most important part: "The Administration’s FY22 budget assumes $9 million in additional recurring funding ($4 million from the state and $5 million from the city) and $25 million in one-time funding from the federal stimulus—for a total of $34 million." Kamras proposes spending that recurring funding mostly on raises and rising healthcare costs. As foretold, almost $10 million of this year's one-time federal stimulus money will go to boring but necessary HVAC upgrades. Finally, page 27 details what a proposed year-round school schedule would look like and how much it would cost (at least $8 million). Double finally, this is just a really, really nice budget document and an excellent way to officially kick off the 2021 budget season.
To be honest, I checked out of the internet yesterday and missed whatever happened with the gunpeople down at the Capitol. It seems like not much? I like this headline from Graham Moomaw at the Virginia Mercury: "‘I’m just trying to get on TV:’ Gun rally draws fringe groups, lots of media to Richmond" I'm still pretty confused why these gun fanatics were allowed to walk around Richmond with assault rifles after the City specifically passed a law preventing just such a thing because of these exact fanatics. I mean, the systemic support of white supremacy obviously, but still.
The Richmond and Henrico Health Districts will host a free community COVID-19 testing event today at Diversity Richmond (1407 Sherwood Avenue) from 10:00 AM–12:00 PM. Given this weekend's numbers, if you've been out and about you...probably should go get tested.
This morning's longread
If You’re Worried about Richmond’s Public Schools, Now Might be a Good Time to Panic
Here's a piece by Marland Buckner that gets it right about how catastrophic it'd be for the Richmond Public School Board to fail to renew Superintendent Kamras's contract for another four years.
For reasons that pass all human understanding and despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, some Members seem to believe that Kamras has been ineffective and that at best only a two-year contract extension is warranted. That is patent absurdity posing as a “middle ground” solution. No person of Kamras’ abilities would take a two-year deal. Members know it and Kamras has said as much. Clearly, the goal of Members pushing a two-year deal is to send Kamras packing for one of the many truly reform minded school districts ready to snatch him up. If they succeed, they will be inviting precisely the type chaos now on full display at the Richmond Region Housing Authority (RRHA) whose CEO turnover issues have rendered that agency virtually incapable of serving RRHA families; the very same families nearly all of whose kids attend RPS.
If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.