Good morning, RVA! It's 65 °F, and, wow that was a lot of lightning in the storm that rolled through last night. I think, however, it brought with it cooler temperatures, because we can expect highs in the mid 80s today. NBC12's Andrew Freiden says the next couple of days look stellar.
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths as: 140, 32, and 10.4, respectively. VDH reports a seven-day average of 11.3 new cases in and around Richmond (Richmond: 0.7; Henrico: 2.4, and Chesterfield: 8.1). Since this pandemic began, 1,343 people have died in the Richmond region. 45.1%, 56.4%, and 52.8% of the population in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Do you still need a reason to get vaccinated? How about this set of headlines: "Distorted, Bizarre Food Smells Haunt Covid Survivors," "Many Post-Covid Patients Are Experiencing New Medical Problems, Study Finds," or "Coronavirus infections dropping where people are vaccinated, rising where they are not." While the least serious of these headlines, the first one terrifies me. I once lost my sense of smell for a week and it was awful—so much of eating is smell-related! Don't lose your sense of smell or have it rewired by a coronavirus infection! Go get vaccinated today!
City Council met last night and adopted a bunch of papers I had my eyes on: the rezoning of the Southern States silo (ORD. 2021-115), a resolution to earmark $7.1 million of ARP money for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund (RES. 2021-R028), and, of course, the casino resolution (RES. 2021-R034). The Richmond Times-Dispatch's Chris Suarez has the meeting recap and reports that, as foretold, the casino resolution passed 8-1, with Councilmember Jordan as the only No vote. Now the decision of whether or not to build a casino in the 8th District moves to...us! If the gubernatorial election was somehow not enough to motivate you to vote this November (which, gasp), maybe having a casino on the ballot will?
Ali Rockett at the RTD reports on the RPD's crime data meeting, which ended up going in an entirely unexpected, billboard-related direction. The Richmond Coalition of Police, who you may remember from this year's budget discussions when they demanded double extra raises for police, has put up a billboard saying "The safety of the city is in jeopardy. Public safety is in a CRISIS due to poor pay & staffing." I imagine the Mayor does not love having every person driving down 95/64 see such a billboard, and I bet it puts his police chief in a tough spot when he has to answer questions about it. About the data though, making any sort of year-over-year comparisons—about crime or anything else—will be tough given the year we just had.
I hesitate to even share this ConnectRVA constrained project list. It's part of our larger region's long-range transportation plan, and represents a whittled down list of potential projects the region wants to build (down from the "universe of projects"). It's an important list because it will ultimately guide future big transportation projects—like sprawly road widenings or new bus rapid transit lines—that will stick around for our entire lifetimes. Typically this sort of thing is totally my jam, but, unfortunately, these are an almost indecipherable set of documents. Here's the four-page spreadsheet of projects if you dare. It includes things like a "widening with added capacity" of Old Hundred Road (boooo) and a bunch of segments of the Fall Line Trail (yaaaay). Theoretically, this here is a map of that entire spreadsheet on which you can leave comments or you can just comment on this blog post. I don't know how a person who cares is even supposed to intelligently interact with this information. I guess you could leave a general anti-road widening, pro-climate comment? It's honestly pretty shocking the number of road widenings and expansions we're considering over the next twenty or so years given how quickly we're incinerating our planet. Anyway, you have until 5:00 PM on June 17th to share your thoughts and opinions!
It's wild to go from road widenings to this piece by Sarah Vogelsong in the Virginia Mercury about the impact sea-level rise will have on the 757. Here's a quote from Virginia Beach's stormwater engineer: "We want Virginia Beach to remain a viable coastal destination for people to come to...the discussion in Virginia Beach is learning to live with water." Bleak! It's just bananas we're over here in Central Virginia planning on ways to incentivize more and more driving and more and more climate-destroying sprawl while our neighbors down the road slowly slip into the sea.
Richmond Public Schools will host their East End-focused reopening conversation tonight at 6:00 PM. If you've got questions about how in-person school will look in the fall, now is the time to ask them. Although, honestly, maybe keep a list of those questions somewhere because there's a whole lot of time until the first day of school (85 days), and who knows what will change between now and then. Zoom-in information here.
This morning's longread
A treasure map for an American tyrant
The Boston Globe put together a series of short pieces describing the top reforms they'd like to see to keep our American democracy safe from future Trumps. This is pleasant to read, but it all hinges on the idea that Republicans should be motivated to make these changes because the next autocrat could be a Democrat. That's a little naive as Republicans at the federal and state level seem intent at warping our democracy to prevent Democrats from being elected entirely. Kind of eliminates the incentive to limit power, doesn't it?
Trump may not have destroyed the American presidency, but he did put the institution on a perilous path. Because while Trump himself has been sitting in Mar-a-Lago brooding over his loss to Joe Biden, all the weaknesses in our legal and constitutional system that he exploited remain, waiting for a future presidential miscreant to take advantage of them — maybe even for Trump himself, if he is reelected in 2024. That’s why Congress and the current president must act fast and impose more durable legal guardrails on the commander in chief. By passing stronger anti-corruption laws, strengthening existing norms and creating new ones, and deterring future presidents from abusing their power by making an example of Trump and holding him accountable, the country can protect itself against future — and potentially far more devastating — presidential corruption and misconduct. The nation can, and must, prevent the rise of an American tyrant.
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