Good morning, RVA! It's 52 °F, and we've got another beautiful day on deck. Enjoy temperatures in the upper 70s, sunshine, and being nice to your neighbors. The pleasant weather continue for the next couple of days, so enjoy!
Water cooler
Jessica Nocera at the Richmond Times-Dispatch checks in on Chesterfield County Public Schools and the success they've had at mitigating the spread of COVID-19. To date, the District has had just over a thousand reported cases since school started, which is something like 1.6% of the student population. Plus, the vast majority of those cases were brought in from outside of school; VDH's outbreaks dashboard lists five ongoing outbreaks, the largest at Thomas Dale High School with 12 cases. A related thing that's kind of blowing my mind: Most of the schools on VDH's list of K–12 facilities experiencing outbreaks are high schools. These aren't exactly correct numbers as some private schools and rural schools combine a bunch of grade levels, but eyeballing things gives six elementary schools with outbreaks, four middle schools, and 17 high schools. That's exactly opposite of what I'd expect since littler kids both cannot get vaccinated and are, at least, twice as grubby. Maybe mitigation measures like podding are easier with elementary students who don't switch classes? Maybe it's impossible to keep high school students from touching each other?
Richmond Together, which put out some of the smartest analysis of how Richmond should spend its $155 million of ARPA money, will host an ARPA town hall this coming Saturday, October 2nd, at the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia (122 W. Leigh Street) from 10:00–11:30 AM. The City's Acting CAO, Lincoln Saunders, will be on hand to answer questions, which seems like a really rare and great opportunity to get in front of the very high-level, senior leadership that will end up actually making a lot of the ARPA-related decisions. In fact, if you've got burning questions about how the Mayor plans on spending this bucket of cash, you can send them to <togetherrichmond@gmail.com data-preserve-html-node="true"> and they might could end up in the queue! If ARPA is all you think about, you can continue to get involved by attending an in-person community meeting tonight at 6:00 PM at Diversity Richmond (1407 Sherwood Avenue) or submit your feedback by filling out this ARPA survey until October 4th.
Quick reminder that 3rd District Councilmember Lambert will host an in-person community meeting tonight at the Police Training Academy (1202 W. Graham Road) from 6:30–8:00 PM. This is a good opportunity to hear 1) how Brookland Park Boulevard's already-approved parklet apparently got put on hold and, and 2) why the concrete bump outs on the same street got ripped out and replaced with ugly patches of asphalt.
Trevor Dickerson at RVAHub reports that The Valentine will acquire "the entirety of Style Weekly's photograph archives including prints, negatives, slides, and some digital photographs, as well as bound issues of the publication from its founding in 1982 to 2016." Lots of history happened in the last 30-some years, and I'm glad it's not all just vanishing into a black hole/trash can. Dickerson says that it'll take "years" before the collection is digitized and available, but you know I'm excited to scroll through whenever that happens!
Part of life in Virginia, via the Chesterfield Police twitter account: "No worries; we’re working with RPD and VSP to remove a Civil War era canister from underneath the bridge in Walmsley."
This morning's longread
Simone Biles Chose Herself
You should read this, but you should definitely read to the end where the author asks Simone Biles if anyone can ever be as good as Simone Biles.
The trouble started after qualifiers. She fumbled event after event. Biles and her coaches moved frantically to find fixes. They tried using foam pits and surfaces that might make her feel safer. Nothing worked. “I was not physically capable,” she says. “Every avenue we tried, my body was like, Simone, chill. Sit down. We’re not doing it. And I’ve never experienced that.” Biles is known in the sport for her independence. Even among coaching staff, she is respected for her ability to self-moderate, to pull back when necessary. But rarely does she pull back because she can’t do something.
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