Good morning, RVA! It's 70 °F, and, as foretold, highs today should top out around 80 °F—but you gotta deal with all of this rain in return. Decent trade, I think! This weekend's weather looks pretty great, with steadily increasing temperatures until we're right back on the surface of the sun by the middle of next week.
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: 176, 25, and 5.9, respectively. VDH reports a seven-day average of 20.3 new cases in and around Richmond (Richmond: -5.9; Henrico: 21.4, and Chesterfield: 4.7). Since this pandemic began, 1,359 people have died in the Richmond region. 46.8%, 58.6%, and 55.1% of the population in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. That's nearly half a million people in the region (496,085) with at least some protection from this disease! That's great, but having even more folks vaccinated would be greater. Here's this week's stacked chart of new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths across the Commonwealth, and you can see slight upticks across the board. And, if you're not yet vaccinated and need something more convincing than a couple of charts, read this terrifying piece in The Atlantic about what the darkest of winters could look like due to the delta variant.
Yesterday, the Governor's state of emergency expired and that brought with it some confusion about where and when masks are required, recommended, or not needed at all. VDH has a helpful press release laying the whole thing out. Here's the gist: people older than five are required to wear a mask "while indoors at a public or private K-12 school" and on planes, buses, trains, and other forms of public transportation. People who are not yet full vaccinated—including children under the age of 12—should still wear masks while indoors, following the current CDC recommendations. At the moment, the CDC and VDH are not recommending that fully vaccinated people need to wear a mask, but you totally can if you would feel more comfortable doing so. The VDH press release also includes this slightly ominous line: "Masks may be especially important now that recent cases of the “Delta variant” (B.1.617.2) have been identified in Virginia." Don't throw out all your favorite masks yet, I think.
As we inch closer to ARP money hitting the City's bank account, I still don't have a great feel for the goals or processes for deciding how to use this huge influx of cash. Luckily, smarter people than I are on the case, and the folks at Richmond Together have updated their comprehensive proposal for how to deeply, equitably invest this money into our city. Compare and contrast the programs created and funded in this document—investments that would begin to address some seriously systemic issues—to the extremely narrow district-by-district priorities found in Council's RES. 2021-R030 (which has not yet passed). Anyway, Richmond Together's document is a pleasure to read, and I hope you'll take the time to do so and then send your favorite highlights (or the entire thing) to your set of elected officials.
If you haven't seen it yet, the City's Office of Equitable Transit and Mobility has put together a kind of pre-survey as they kick off the process for a much-needed update to the City's transportation plan. It's a MetroQuest survey, which is not my favorite, and it asks you to mark transportation barriers on a map, which I think is a huge barrier for a lot of folks who aren't great at reading maps. That said, I'm excited for this process, and will take some of my weekend to dutifully mark this map with several dozen places that are terrible for people trying to walk, roll, ride, or bus around.
In his still-great email, RPS Superintendent Jason Kamras highlights a special School Board meeting on July 13th at George Wythe High School to discuss the construction of a replacement for George Wythe High School. This sounds like a positive step in the right direction—at least I hope so! It's certainly an improvement over the Board's previous position of just not wanting to discuss any possible compromise with City Council and the Mayor about who's in charge of building schools. Also positive and of note, public comment at this meeting will be limited to the first 30 minutes.
Scott Wise and Cameron Thompson at WTVR report that a "free marijuana seed giveaway at a CBD Store on Lauderdale Drive in western Henrico County was temporarily shut down early Thursday due to the large crowds." Amazing.
Logistical note! I'm headed out on vacation and will take a break from Good Morning, RVA for the next two weeks. You'll hear from me again on July 19th, but, if you miss me or have excellent PDFs to share, you can always email them to me at <ross@gmrva.com data-preserve-html-node="true">. Have a great fortnight, and please take good care of Richmond for me while I'm gone!
This morning's longread
42,000 lbs. of pistachios stolen in Tulare County, California
I feel like I've shared a longread about nut heists before, but maybe about almonds? People will steal anything, I tell you what.
While completing orders and going over inventory, employees at a San Joaquin Valley pistachio company realized something didn't add up. They seemed to be missing some nuts — and more than just a few. An audit launched earlier this month revealed that roughly 42,000 pounds of pistachios had vanished. Touchstone Pistachio Co. reported the missing merchandise to law enforcement on June 17, officials with the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office said. It didn't take authorities long to crack the case.
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