Good morning, RVA! It's 61 °F, and we’ve got another—if slightly warmer—pleasant day ahead of us. Expect highs in the upper 80s and few clouds here and there.
Water cooler
While it only updates on Fridays and Richmond and Henrico public schools have not yet returned to in-person instruction, it’s probably worth taking a look at VDH’s Outbreaks By Selected Exposure Settings dashboard. As of this past Friday, Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield all posted exactly one ongoing outbreak in a public K–12 setting—and, remember, Chesterfield’s school year started back on August 24th. We’ll check back in this coming Monday to see how, if at all, things have changed.
The City sent out a press release on Saturday notifying the public that they’ll close a bunch of roads around the Lee Monument beginning tonight at 6:00 PM through 6:00 PM on Saturday. This means the work on taking down the Lee monument starts this evening! Mel Leonor at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that fencing goes up tonight, the statue comes down on Wednesday morning, and plaques come off Thursday while crews replace a time capsule in the plinth. I have so many questions about what exactly they’ll take down, what they’ll leave up, and what the next steps are for MDP Circle and the entirety of Monument Avenue. Honestly, now would be a good time for the Reimagining Monument Avenue folks to start kicking things off (whatever those things may be).
Over the weekend, Mark Robinson, also at the RTD, reports on some of the human-scale impact RRHA’s 10,000-person ban list had. To quote a pretty much worst-case scenario from the article, “For Green, who is Black, the ban had cascading consequences. He was arrested a second time when police saw him sitting on his sister’s porch about six months after he was initially barred. His presence there put her at risk of eviction for violating the terms of her lease. When he could no longer stay with her and get to school easily, he dropped out and never earned his diploma.” Recently, RRHA has trimmed the list, added a process to automatically remove folks after three years, and clarified how people end up on the list in the first place. Definitely all improvements, but as RRHA board member Barrett Hardiman says, “It’s light years better than it had been, but there’s an opportunity to do even better.”
Hey! Do you live in the city and want to serve on a board or committee? It’s, as the boards and committees website says, a great way to “play an active role in the governance of your city.” Applications for all sorts of boards and committees are due on a rolling basis, and the next due date is September 15th. Some interesting vacancies that could be filled by you or yours: a 1st District resident for the Advisory Board of Recreation and Parks, a person with a disability or a person who cares for someone with a disability for the Aging and Disabilities Advisory Board, two someones for the Planning Commission, one someone for the Safe and Healthy Streets Commission, a member of “the faculty of a design or arts division of a local college or university” for the Urban Design Committee, and three openings on the Urban Forestry Commission. Incumbents will fill some of these slots—especially on higher-profile groups like the Planning Commission—but if you’re interested you should definitely apply. It’s good practice and will get your name in the system.
Via /r/rva, a marijuana plant thrown out in a recycling supercan in some city alley. First, what a strange new world we live in! Second, I learned a lot about how (and why) to properly dispose of a marijuana plant from the comments.
This morning's longread
My nemesis, the piano
Have you started back up a hobby from the long ago? Or maybe picked up a new hobby since the pandemic started?
But I was rusty — very rusty — and I’d been classically trained, which meant I was more comfortable reading music than just jamming. After a few painful renditions of “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” I gave up, and the piano sat, mostly untouched, in the corner of my office for the next couple of years. Besides, I was too busy to take up an actual hobby; the idea of having a hobby — something I did just for the enjoyment it brought me — seemed almost confusing. You mean to say that I could do things that weren’t some kind of side hustle or attempt at social media clout? I could do something that was … just for me?
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