Good morning, RVA! It's 38 °F, and, disappointingly, our window for snow later this week seems to be closing. Today, though, you can expect more clouds and highs in the 60s. Hmph.
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 6,172 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 3 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 665 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 299, Henrico: 235, and Richmond: 131). Since this pandemic began, 647 people have died in the Richmond region. Yesterday I said we were past a peak, and today we've got new case counts over 6,000. I don't know what it means—especially when you look at the numbers locally. We've only ever had four total days with over 600 combined new reported cases in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield. Outside of the massive increase two weeks ago this is an extraordinarily bad number of new cases. I hate saying it, but: Stay tuned. Over on the vaccine side of things, last week saw 17,742 vaccines administer in the region. That's just a vaccination event or two shy of Ross's Stupid-Math Goal of 20,000 new vaccines per week (which is our proportional share by population of the Governor's 25,000 vaccines per day goal for the entire state). Given the national shortage of vaccines, I'd expect this number to decline for the next...who knows how long. But, all things considered, it looks and sounds like our region is doing well when it comes to administering vaccine: Our numbers are pretty strong only one month into vaccination, and, anecdotally, I've heard almost 100% positive experiences from folks who have attended the mass vaccination clinics at either the Raceway or at the Arthur Ashe Center. I know the lack of supply is frustrating–forcing people to fight for prioritization on a confusingly broad prioritization scale—but folks are working hard to get the region vaccinated in spite of those challenges. Also, and unrelated, I tried my very hardest to group the vaccination data by week, but failed. Maybe some Google Wizard out there knows how to do that without creating another sheet for me to update?
Get excited, y'all! Yesterday, City Council released the Fiscal Year 2022 budget season calendar! Things kick off with the Mayor submitting his budget to Council on March 5th at 3:00 PM. That's followed by five work sessions (my favorite part), three amendment work sessions, a public hearing or two, and a May 31st deadline for adoption. The work sessions in particular are excellent opportunities to both hear how Council (especially a New Council) works and to listen to each City department talk through their priorities for the coming year and beyond. I love it, and you can learn so much about our City's government by listening in. Until I figure out a better way to share this information, here's all of the budget dates copy/pasted out of an email and into a public Google Doc. Keep in mind, once we really get into it, these dates can shift if Council gets behind schedule—which, honestly, hasn't really been a problem since Councilmember Newbille started running the show.
The Lee statue still exists this morning, but the State's Department of General Services installed fencing around Marcus-David Peters Circle to "ensure the safety of visitors and workers as part of DGS's plan to prepare the site for the removal of the Lee statue." Additionally, they said, "As we await the resolution of legal challenges that have delayed the statue’s removal, DGS wants to be prepared to act quickly upon a final determination. The fencing is not intended to be permanent." Richard Hayes at RVAHub has a few good pictures of what the new temporary fencing looks like.
Mike Platania at Richmond BizSense says CoStar has purchased their downtown building from WestRock for $130 million. I mention this because of the article's final sentence about the adjacent property CoStar owns: "CoStar has not announced or filed any plans for the Tredegar Street parcel, though sources have said it is eyeing a new office tower for the site." While the parcel, I think, is outside of the now-dead proposed NavyHill BigTIF, this hint of a new tower does show that an arena isn't necessary to spur large development elsewhere Downtown.
Yesterday's picture of the day featured a storm drain with a manhole cover painted bright pink. I wondered aloud why and what that meant, mostly to goad the very excellent @rvah2o Twitter account into unraveling the mystery for me. It worked, turns out! "Pink means the drain and pipe below has recently been cleansed and is squeaky clean! However, as of last week, we asked for a little less pink, and future 'cleaned' markings will be a small pink or green dot and a little less like a Rorschach test."
This morning's patron longread
Indian Bent Trees: History or Legend
Submitted by Patron JChap. I can't vouch for the accuracy of this site, especially since the sidebar contains an ad for Pet Portraits by Jill, but this explanation of bent tress is fascinating. I know I've seen some trees like this locally, right?
In the woods near my home is an unusual tree. At some point in its long life the tree was bent into a distinctive L-shape. The trunk is almost perfectly horizontal and nearly touches the ground, running almost five feet before making an abrupt 90 degree turn towards the heavens. It’s a perfect place for two people to sit back and observe the forest hillside and all its goings on. But it is much more than a handy bench – it is an ancient form of communication and a little-understood piece of Native American cultural history
If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.