Good morning, RVA! It's 71 °F already, and temperatures today should heat up just a little more. At some point, a cold(er) front will move through and maybe even bring some rain with it!
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 236 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 9 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 29 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 7, Henrico: 16, and Richmond: 6). Since this pandemic began, 1,320 people have died in the Richmond region. The seven-day average of new reported cases across the state sits at 406. The NYT reports that, countrywide, new COVID-19 cases have dropped to levels not seen since last summer.
Over in vaccine world, first, check out the graph of new people in Virginia with at least one dose and see how a change in VDH's reporting has made this graph...less satisfying to look at. A couple days back, VDH started including doses administered by the federal government into this dataset (specifically the Bureau of Prisons, Department of Defense, Indian Health Service, and Veterans Administration). This resulted in a massive, one-time spike and an unknown daily increase in folks with at least one dose. I'm bummed because now I can't tell if the increase in folks getting their first dose is a result of this new reporting change or because a bunch of kids 12–15 decided to get vaccinated. Maybe that latter thing is better represented in this graph of total doses administered locally, in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield. We've seen a pretty sizable increase in total jabs, and, while I have no way of knowing, doesn't seem like it's 100% explainable by adding in federal doses. Finally, I updated this graph to reflect progress towards 70% of local folks vaccinated instead of 75% (I also made it a bit easier on the eyes).
Mayor Stoney has a reflective column in the New York Times as part of their series on George Floyd and America. I think a lot of local folks are going to take issue with the Mayor's retelling of events in this piece. There are a handful of pro-police hedges and qualification that will rub some people—myself included—the wrong way. The Virginia Mercury's Graham Moomaw points out the worst of these on Twitter: framing the RPD's use of tear gas as unintentional in the New York Times when, over the summer, we were all told something entirely different.
Kind of related, Ali Rockett at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that the task force setting up the Civilian Review Board, touted by Stoney in that NYT piece, is frustrated with the Richmond Police Department's lack of input and involvement: "Only after applying public pressure in the form of a tweet has the task force heard any response from [Police Chief] Smith." Apparently the taskforce has asked the chief to get involved for at least a month with no luck. This quote from a task force member is particularly damning: "At some point, the unwillingness to engage with this body does start to feel like arrogance. I don’t think we can overlook it...If you’re watching a task force creating a civilian review board that could potentially just co-opt your authority, and there’s nothing. It makes me feel like they don’t believe it or they’re just not going to deal with it. They think they can get out of it.” The task force meets again on Wednesday, so we'll see if Chief Smith shows up.
City Council will tackle a handful of interesting items today at both their informal and formal meetings. First, the Mayor's team will give a presentation on the revised Equity Agenda. The presentation includes five general examples of the changes they'll make, but I haven't found an actual updated document yet. When it exists I'll let you know. Then, at their formal meeting and as part of the more intense Regular Agenda, Council will consider RES. 2021-R026 (the embarrassing Richmond 300 "amendments"), RES. 2021-R027 (getting rid of parking minimums), and RES. 2021-R028 (saying out loud that they'd like to put $7.1 million from the American Rescue Plan money into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund). I bet we will not see all three of these pass tonight—in fact, it looks like the Richmond 300 amendments have already been continued to the June 28th meeting.
If you're into beer, Paste Magazine has a review of (all?) 37 breweries in the greater Richmond area. I like how this piece opens, remembering that before the General Assembly relaxed the laws regulating breweries we had a grand total of one single brewery for the longest time. For what seems like forever, we all just drank a ton of Legend Brown—as if having a brown ale as your city's flagship local beer is a normal thing.
Via /r/rva this lovely golden-hour drone photo of the river, the skyline, some bridges, and something going on at Brown's Island. It's about to be summer, y'all!
This morning's longread
Why Confederate Lies Live On
Clint Smith writes about the persistent Lost Cause narrative and begins his story at Blandford Cemetery down in Petersburg.
We left the church, and a breeze slid across my face. Many people go to places like Blandford to see a piece of history, but history is not what is reflected in that glass. A few years ago, I decided to travel around America visiting sites that are grappling—or refusing to grapple—with America’s history of slavery. I went to plantations, prisons, cemeteries, museums, memorials, houses, and historical landmarks. As I traveled, I was moved by the people who have committed their lives to telling the story of slavery in all its fullness and humanity. And I was struck by the many people I met who believe a version of history that rests on well-documented falsehoods.
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