Good morning, RVA! It's 72 °F, and things have started to cool down just the littlest bit today. NBC12’s Andrew Freiden says you should bring an umbrella with you, should you venture outside, as we could see sporadic slow-moving storms this afternoon. Various plants in my backyard would really appreciate a good, slow-moving storm right about now.
Water cooler
The New York Times reports a possible Not So Fast on President Biden’s plan to roll out booster shots to the general public in the coming days. Specifically, it sounds like next week we may only get Pfizer boosters for “older Americans and others who are particularly vulnerable to serious illness.” I mean, a couple weeks back when Biden was like “And lo! Boosters shall flood the land on September 20th!” it did kind of feel like he was out ahead of the science a little bit. Since then, the NYT says we’ve had dueling studies released, with one in The New England Journal of Medicine saying boosters are great and [one in The Lancet][1] saying “current evidence does not...appear to show a need for boosting in the general population.” I don’t know how much the FDA’s advisory committee particularly cares about what the president wants, his previous proclamations, or his proposed booster timeline, but we’ll learn more when they meet on Friday. [1]: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02046-8/fulltext
Is this a first? The Free Lance-Star via the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Fredericksburg City Public Schools will require all student-athletes to be vaccinated by November 8th. I don’t think I’ve heard of any other student vaccine mandates in our region but could easily have missed something given everything else that’s going on. Student vaccine mandates make a ton of sense to me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw similar—or even expanded—mandates pop up around town as school districts do whatever they can to keep school buildings open to in-person instruction.
Richmond City Council’s Finance and Economic Development committee meets today, and will consider ORD. 2021-235. Due to state legislation, the City must pass this ordinance each year to prevent its real estate tax from automatically plummeting 10.75% to $1.071. Should Council fail to pass the ordinance, it would mean an instaloss of $44 million dollars because of some Republican or suburban legislator’s fever dream of a tax-free dystopia where we all drill our own wells, pave our own streets, and administer our own vaccines during a pandemic. Anyway, these types of ordinances usually have broad support on City Council and pass without comment—I’m just salty about it.
Job alert! RVA Rapid Transit, a local public transit advocacy nonprofit and my former place of employ, is looking to hire a new executive director. Do you deeply love public transit and want to do the work of expanding its reach and access? Do you want to run a nonprofit doing this very thing?? Well, you’ve got until October 1st to apply!
If you wish to yell at the TV, tonight at 7:00 PM you can cut on the first of two gubernatorial debates. CBS or the Appalachian School of Law’s YouTube are your best bets to watch live.
Could we have fewer sewage spills into the river? WTVR reports that a sewage truck, something I did not know existed before now, overturned down by Brown’s Island spilling 200 gallons of sewage “onto the roadway and pathways to the James River.” Gross.
From RPS Superintendent Kamras’s email last night: “To all who observe Yom Kippur, I wish you a meaningful and easy fast. On a personal note, as someone of the Jewish faith who observes this holiday, I'll add that it's traditional to seek forgiveness on Yom Kippur. And so I'll conclude tonight by asking for your forgiveness for any ways I've missed the mark as RPS Superintendent and for anything I've done or said over the past year that may have negatively impacted you. I sincerely apologize.” This guy! I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this from any local leader before, and, given his past words and actions, I truly believe him. It feels good to read authentic things—especially apologies!—from folks running our city.
This morning's longread
By Design
This essay about kitchen design starts in one place, ends up in another, and is packed with great sentences.
There are cooling drawers too. The drawers are mostly built into kitchen islands. Although it’s increasingly common for the ultra-rich to have them installed in bathrooms for temperature controlled face creams. “Most people put four — or possibly six” cooling cubbies in the kitchen. What are all these drawers filled with? Mostly drinks. Like...so many drinks. That’s mostly what fills the second fridge too. The rich enjoy a cooled bottled beverage. The article doesn’t dig into whether the chilled bathroom drawers hold drinks too. But I bet there’s some bottled water in there. Filtered through the crystal caves of an untouched island before being bottled in artisanal plastic, or whatever.
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