Good morning, RVA! It's 65 °F, and it looks like you should expect some rain at some point today—probably this morning, maybe this evening. Temperatures should stay right about where they are for most of the day.
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 539 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 10 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 96 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 52, Henrico: 28, and Richmond: 16). Since this pandemic began, 1,295 people have died in the Richmond region. The seven-day average of new reported cases across the state sits at 762. Precipitous! The number of new reported cases continues to drop, and, over the weekend, the seven-day average of new hospitalizations fell off the around-60-per-day plateau. While certainly not the case across the entire world, these numbers and trends are encouraging. Almost 50% of all Virginians have at least one dose of the vaccine, and we haven't even gotten to people under the age of 16 yet!
Over in vaccine world, I'm starting to put together a nice little collection of vaccine-related graphs. First, the chart of new people with at least one dose in Virginia continues to show a nearly linear day-to-day decline. It's not awesome, but it is fascinating. Second, the region administered fewer doses last week than it has in months. Again, not awesome, but I think to be expected. Like I said last week, the shift away from mass vaccination sites to clever, targeted vaccination efforts will come with a slower vaccination rate. That means more "work" per vaccine given, but it's still good and important work. Third, here's the graph our our steady march to "regional herd immunity" which is not really a thing, but tracking our progress to having 70% of the region with at least one dose is still useful I think. Remember: If you haven't gotten your shot yet, you can head over to George Wythe High School on Wednesdays and get your one-and-done Johnson & Johnson vaccine with absolutely zero appointment or forethought required.
City Council has a heckin' busy day today. First, at their informal meeting, they'll host Director of Public Works Bobby Vincent to discuss the annual paving plan. Sounds boring, but, remember, the budget now contains a single "complete streets" bucket from which they'll handle paving, traffic calming, and bike- and pedestrian-related projects. This is, theoretically, an efficient and smart way to handle things: Pave a road, stripe a bike lane at the same time. It does, however, mean that the rollout of critical projects to make our streets safer for people sometimes relies on where and when the City decides to pave. You can see the map of the city's pavement conditions here, which is how DPW prioritizes paving. I don't know how they sub-prioritize within conditions, though. Like, I'd pave 100 "poor" streets on the Southside before tackling the "very poor" streets in Windsor Farms. After their informal meeting, Council will move into the formal portion of their night and try to tackle an existing agenda AND approve the Richmond Public Schools budget. Of note, Council will consider the legislation to put all future American Rescue Plan money into a special reserve so they can have a bit more control over it than they did with the CARES Act money (ORD. 2021-105). Also, they'll vote on finalizing the process for "the final disposition...of certain Confederate monuments" (RES. 2021-R025). If you want to give a public comment on the schools-portion of the budget, tonight is your night!
A small casino update: The two remaining casino competitors, Cornish and Urban One, have updated their information sheets on the City's website. I have a hard time telling what's changed and what some of the marketing speak means. For example, what does "$200 million in additional upfront/ongoing payments to support critical city services" mean? Is that just, like, real estate taxes over 30 years or additional, cash payments to the City? Also here's this small timeline update from the same press release: "The city’s Resort Casino Evaluation Panel is now entering into the negotiation phase of the evaluation process with the objective of making a recommendation to Mayor Stoney before the end of May on a recommended operator, location and negotiated terms."
Virginia's Republican Party used ranked choice voting this past weekend to pick their nominee for Attorney General—and that's pretty cool (the ranked choice part)! Terrifyingly, though, Jason Miyares narrowly defeated Chuck Smith, who you can see in this picture standing next to Amanda Chase holding an assault rifle. Mel Leonor at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has all the details of how the convention went, if you're interested. I don't know anything about the internal dynamics of the Republican Party of Virginia, but the tight AG race would make me nervous that Amanda Chase has an actual chance of picking up the gubernatorial nomination.
During the deep-pandemic lockdown, I read a bunch of post apocalyptic books, and I kept thinking about how I would need to find a way to make coffee or tea after the collapse of society. That led me to discover yaupon, America's only native caffeine-producing plant. John Reid Blackwell at the RTD has a nice write up from this past weekend on Frank Community Farm, a local farm that grows yaupon and handles all the hard work of turning it into tea for you. This is a good stopgap—for now—but if you want to corner the post-apocalyptic morning drink market, you'll need to get to planting some yaupon in a green space near you.
This morning's longread
The Case for Moving Back to Your Hometown
Home, family, and tradition—however you create and define those things—have always been more exciting and attractive to me than big-city adventure.
I am wired for coming home in the same way it is assumed we are wired for leaving. Any adventure that lures me out is no match for the ties that draw me home again. I come home in the way you’d fall asleep after a day spent in the heat of the sun—before you know it’s happened, before you know you want to. Half the pang of growing up for me was realizing that I’d somehow have to create a sense of home wherever I went, that for all the effort I spent trying to leave, all I would ever want to do is figure out homecomings, ways of returning to the place where I feel the most like me.
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