Good morning, RVA! It's 62 °F, and today looks warm with a chance of rain later this afternoon. However! NBC12's Andrew Freiden says, "Today's weather will be the last taste of summer we get for a while, with a cold front bringing a BIG CHANGE for later in the week. It'll be warm and humid (low to mid 80s today) with 70s likely tomorrow and most of Thursday will be spent in the 60s!" I don't know about you, but I can definitely justify boots to myself when its in the 60s.
Water cooler
It's Tuesday, and that's COVID Dashboard Day for me (my mornings are weird). Here are the all-time graphs of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in Virginia. We're definitely at some sort of inflection point, whether it be peak or plateau who can tell. Fingers crossed for the former. Over on the vaccine side of things, we no longer see the steady, fear-of-delta-fueled increase in vaccinations, but I do still have hope that employer mandates will kick in soon and drive a nontrivial amount of vaccinations. As for my Tuesday check-in on VDH's K–12 outbreaks dashboard, it looks like as of this past Friday Richmond had zero outbreaks, Henrico had one (at Henrico High School), and Chesterfield had three (at L.C. Bird High School, Woolridge Elementary School, and St. Edward-Epiphany). Remember that "outbreaks" has a specific epidemiological meaning here (mostly, it's about transmission of COVID-19 within a school) and that it's not the same thing as "cases reported at a school." Also remember that Chesterfield County Public Schools have been back in action for a bit longer than either Richmond and Henrico. Still! Here we are, on the precipice of fall, and the in-person school situations seems to be going pretty much as planned.
City Council's Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee meets today at 3:00 PM with an absolutely packed agenda—including some potentially worrisome legislation. First, RES. 2021-R026 is back. This is the resolution asking the Planning Commission to do the heavy lifting on constructing a single amendment to Richmond 300 out of Council's mostly inconsistent and sometimes incoherent list of proposed changes. I don't know that Planning Commission will be stoked to do that work should this resolution pass. Second, Councilmember Jordan has proposed a height overlay district for, I think, the majority of the southern side of Broad Street between Arthur Ashe and Ryland (RES. 2021-R070). Should this resolution—and all the subsequent rezoning steps—pass, buildings would be capped at four or five stories on Richmond's literal biggest and broadest commercial corridor. I need to learn more, but didn't we just redo the entire rezoning of this area to appease the anti-affordable-housing and anti-density people living south of Broad? Didn't we just declare a climate crisis threatening all of society and humanity? I don't see how restricting density where density makes the most sense achieves any of our climate goals. Third, Councilmember Jordan also has proposed a design overlay district, RES. 2021-R062, for Jackson Ward. I have no idea what a design overlay district entails, but the legislation says that "residents and businesses...have express the desire to protect the character of that neighborhood and its history." Typically protecting character just means preventing new housing, but this neighborhood is truly packed with history and we, collectively, have a long history of not protecting that history. I need to learn more, but there are a ton of surface parking lots floating around back there, and I'd hope that a design overlay district would not prevent developing them into homes for hundreds of people. I think we can protect history while also building more (and more affordable) housing. Fourth, there are just a ton of administrative papers authorizing and requesting funding for sidewalks and bike infrastructure! I'm not sure I've ever seen a single agenda contain so many fun projects that'll make it easier and safer to get around the city. Fifth, and finally, Councilmember Larson has ORD. 2021-230, which adjusts—and loosens I think—the rules and regulations around shooting a bow and arrow within the city limits. Like I said, packed agenda!
Mel Leonor at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has the update on the Virginia Redistricting Commission's first stab at a pair of statewide, partisan redistricting maps. I'm not smart enough to grok the maps themselves, but the Virginia Public Access Project has a nice analysis that will let you dig in and see what's changed.
Do you need a whole stack of longreads by some of the smartest and most interesting people in town? Check out the Richmond Racial Equity Essays, a project put together by smart and interesting person Ebony Walden. I mean, dang, just scroll through this list of headshots and you won't even know where to start! If reading words isn't your thing, you can listen to the podcast or watch the videos.
This morning's longread
Facebook Employees Flag Drug Cartels and Human Traffickers. The Company’s Response Is Weak, Documents Show.
The Wall Street Journal put together this series of deeply depressing stories about Facebook. Here's one about how they contribute to human trafficking.
Facebook treats harm in developing countries as “simply the cost of doing business” in those places, said Brian Boland, a former Facebook vice president who oversaw partnerships with internet providers in Africa and Asia before resigning at the end of last year. Facebook has focused its safety efforts on wealthier markets with powerful governments and media institutions, he said, even as it has turned to poorer countries for user growth. “There is very rarely a significant, concerted effort to invest in fixing those areas,” he said.
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