Good morning, RVA! It's 61 °F, and today you should expect more of those same, cooler temperatures. Enjoy highs in the 80s from here to as far as the three-day forecast can see!
Water cooler
Yesterday, Mayor Stoney announced that he'll require City employees to be fully vaccinated by October 1st or face some sort of HR disciplinary actions. Chris Suarez at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has some more details and quotes. The mandate will apply to all City staff—including police and fire—but will not cover Richmond Public Schools employees. Although, Superintendent Kamras says RPS is noodling on their own mandate, and I've seen at least one School Board member share the City's announcement on Facebook. I definitely wouldn't be surprised to hear RPS make a similar announcement in the next week. Employees will be required to submit documentation of their vaccination status by August 18th, and I'm really interested to see particulars of how they go about doing that. If you're a City employee and have already lost your vaccination card and are starting to freak out, don't worry: You can request your immunization record online via this VDH form. I think this move by the Mayor will have a huge impact. Like I said yesterday, once a few high-profile places (like the City) break the seal, more and more employers will feel OK about instituting their own vaccine mandate.
Speaking of more and more employers, today at 2:00 PM Governor Northam has called a press conference to "provide updates on Virginia’s continued response to COVID-19 and vaccination efforts." I've got three guesses as to what he'll announce: 1) A mask mandate for K–12 schools, 2) A vaccine mandate for state employees, or 3) Nothing at all, but he'll speak broadly about how employers and schools districts should strongly consider both mask and vaccine mandates. Tune in to find out!
Good poop news! VDH has lifted their recent raw sewage advisory, and folks are free to get back into the river with their bodies. However! As of Monday, Tuckahoe Creek "still had elevated levels of bacteria observed at two sites," so you'll need to avoid taking a dip in the creek for at least a couple more days. Do people recreate in Tuckahoe Creek? I have no idea.
Today, with most of City Council business pushed until September, the Education and Human Services committee will meet and consider RES. 2021-R049, which would "declare the existence of a climate and ecological emergency that threatens the city of Richmond, the surrounding region, the Commonwealth of Virginia, civilization, humanity, and the natural world." That sentence got intense at the end! Though a non-binding resolution, you should still tap through to see what kind of things Council would like to see happen after they do declare climate change a crisis—things like funding climate-related projects with ARPA money; creating a plastic bag tax; expanding funding for existing City offices; getting more out of our urban forestry program; and, this one surprised me, recognizing "that the continued operation of the City's gas utility is an obstacle to the City's goal of Net-Zero emissions." If you've wondered why the City's bus fleet runs on compressed natural gas and not electricity, this is perhaps a partial reason! Like the City's recent resolution declaring racism a public health crisis (RES. 2021-R039), this resolution doesn't _do_ anything on its own, but it does lay down a piece of a foundation to support other, future climate-oriented work.
Ben Paviour at VPM reports that the General Assembly is fixing to use federal stimulus money to give Virginia State Police officers $5,000 bonuses. Paviour says, "Some progressive groups, meanwhile, say the raises shouldn’t happen at all." I agree with these progressive groups! First, if you scroll alllllll the way down to the bottom of the article, you'll see that VSP officers just got an 8% raise and a $500 bonus in February. Second, if we feel like police pay is too low (which, maybe it is), I'd like to see bonuses and raises like this tied to police reforms. Unqualified $5,000 bonuses seem like a reward for police behavior last summer, which makes me feel gross. Also, if Republicans in the Virginia Senate feel like police across the state are underfunded, one-time bonuses are not a sustainable solution to that problem. Michael Martz at the RTD has some more details on what the Senate got up to last night.
Violins of Hope sounds pretty neat: "Violins of Hope is a collection of violins that survived the Holocaust. Violins from the collection will be on exhibit at three locations in Richmond; they will be played in concert; and their stories will be shared in lectures and various educational programs." You can see the actual violins at the Virginia Holocaust Museum, the Virginia Museum of History & Culture, and the Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia. You can learn more about the concerts and grab some tickets here.
This morning's longread
Defining Goals
I thought this essay in Style Weekly from local advocate and activist Phil Wilayto was thought provoking. What role can white people play in the work of dismantling white supremacy?
For example, the Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality is an all-volunteer, multiracial organization. We’re best known for our ongoing work to reclaim and properly memorialize Richmond’s Shockoe Bottom, once the epicenter of the U.S. domestic slave trade. We crafted and popularized that phrase “epicenter of the U.S. domestic slave trade,” which correctly describes the historical significance of the site. Personally, I believe the argument can be made that Shockoe Bottom also is the birthplace of the Black nation in North America. But we don’t say that. As a multiracial organization, it’s not our place to promote that definition. That’s something only the Black community as a whole has the right to do. This gets to the bedrock principle that should guide white people in their relations with people of color: respect for the right of oppressed peoples to self-determination.
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