Good morning, RVA! It's 36 °F, and if we didn't hit an actual freeze overnight we got real close. Today, though, looks pretty nice with clear skies and highs in the 60s. The weather over the weekend—at least on Friday and Saturday—looks wonderful. Get excited!
Water cooler
Today, City Council's Finance committee meets and will consider three different papers that set the City's real estate tax rate at three different levels: $1.20 (which keeps it where it stands today), $1.16, and $1.10. As I've written many times over the past several months, either of these rate cuts would be mistakes and wouldn't provide the relief that these Councilmembers are looking for. Take a random example from the Washington Park neighborhood, where assessments have increased at some of the highest rates in the city. This property saw their total assessment rise almost 50%, from $81,000 in 2022 to $119,000 in 2023, which meant a $456 increase in their real estate tax bill—that's a lot! If Council were to reduce the real estate tax rate to $1.16 this year, assuming no further increase to the property's assessment (which is a dumb assumption), next year they would see their tax bill drop just $47. That's still over $400 more than they were paying back in 2022 and hardly a substantial relief. Now, another example, this time from Windsor Farms, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the City. This property, assessed at $1,564,000 in 2022 and $1,716,000 in 2023 (up just 10%), saw their tax bill increase $1,824. The four cent real estate tax cut would drop their tax bill by about $686. This an absolutely perfect picture of how equality is not equity. With an across-the-board rate cut, the City gives more money back to its wealthiest homeowners while failing to provide the substantial relief needed to those of modest means. Plus, remember that every penny reduction of the real estate tax rate means losing $3.5 million from the City's budget, further stripping the City's ability to provide services to those who need it most. I know Council is prevented from addressing this problem by state law in a lot of frustrating ways, but an across-the-board tax rate cut is not it. We need better solutions, and, until we can figure out what those are, I would recommend issuing one-time tax refunds using some of this year's budget surplus. It'd at least give us a year to figure out how to truly, equitably address the issue at hand.
Jake Burns at WTVR reports on a new effort from our region’s police departments to reduce the number of catalytic converter thefts. Because sometimes science requires precious metals and always people will find a way to make money off of anything, catalytic converter thefts are on the rise in the region: Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield have seen a 20% increase in thefts this year over last (1,579 compared to 1,306). The local PDs have worked out a deal with local Midas locations to spray paint catalytic converters for free, hopefully deterring thefts (and deterring scrap metal dealers from buying stolen catalytic converters). I don't know if it'll work, but it's cheap and it's something!
Here's two bad sentences from Ned Oliver at AXIOS Richmond: "Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin spent Wednesday sharing a stage with Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. Lake is a 2020 election denier who refuses to say if she will accept the results in her own race if she loses."
Via /r/rva, this fun thread of things only Richmond locals know. For whatever reason, the Agee's Bicycle jingle has been running on repeat in my house for the last week. We bring out the best in you! bum bum bum bum.
Today at 12:00 PM, RVA Rapid Transit will host a Transit Talk featuring Daniel Sonenklar, from the Virginia Department of Rail & Public Transportation, who will talk through how the State is working to build an equitable transit future. Specifically, Sonenklar will share some info from the recently released Virginia Transit Equity and Modernization Study. Scroll to page 36 of the study to see a list of recommended actions—including providing state-level policy on bus stop design! It'd be great if actual policy prevented localities from dropping a sign in the middle of a puddle of mud and calling it a bus stop.
This morning's longread
Rootin' tootin' charcutin'
I'd never really thought about how posting these showy, enormous charcuterie boards on social media is—like a lot of social media—a public performance of abundance and excess.
Charcuterie boards are among the big snacking and entertaining trends of the last year, and they’ve become a familiar feature in the mamasphere — momfluencers love them. They may be ostensibly about food, but charc boards are also potent visual displays, ideological crafting projects, and capitalist-fantasy roleplays. Charcuterie is a food trend that has emerged through an entanglement with Instagram. The visual style and scale of contemporary American charcuterie boards is built to be appealing in a photo or, even better, a reel that pans an entire table. These boards are delightful, they are uncanny, they are hilarious, they can be grotesque, and they contain at least as much socio-cultural information as they do Driscoll berries.
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Picture of the Day
I don't know what this pile of feathers means, but it can't be good.
