Good morning, RVA! It's 37 °F, and today looks cloudy, chilly, but dry—which seems like an upgrade from yesterday. Expect highs in the 50s today and then one more decentish day before rain and winter weather roll through on Saturday. Do your outside stuff today or tomorrow!
Water cooler
Today, at 2:00 PM, City Council's Education and Human Services committee will meet and hear a presentation from RPS Superintendent Jason Kamras on the school district's "requested budget versus funded budget." I'm not sure when this item ended up on the agenda and if it predates the Mayor's decision to flat fund RPS due to the School Board's failure to submit their budget on time. I don't feel like I have a good sense for where each member of Council stands on the current School Board budget shenanigans, so I'm hoping today's committee conversation will be an illuminating one and will set the tone for full Council's discussions in the coming weeks. There's lots going on in this year's budget worth Council's attention, but I think funding RPS will take the most time and generate the most headlines (that and the utility rate hikes).
Megan Pauly at VPM has a really thorough explainer on what the heck's going on with admissions at governor's schools. Recent changes in admission procedures to increase the number of Black students at the Very Prestigious Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in NOVA have led to lawsuits claiming racial discrimination. It's complicated, at least for me, a person with a very Richmond-centric point of view, because the majority of students at this school are not white but Asian—something we don't really see in Richmond. I'm not sure if or how any of these eventual court decisions will impact the Maggie Walker Governor's School in Richmond, which just this past fall updated its admission procedures with the aim of increasing equity.
Yesterday, the Richmond Police Department released a statement on the violent arrest that took place at the Family Dollar on Westover Hills Boulevard. Police action aside: Because I spend a lot of my life thinking about words, I can't not point out how RPD use the most passive language in describing the arrest: "In response to her noncompliance and physical resistance, the officer used force to gain compliance and that force is presently being investigated to include video footage that precedes the video being circulated on social media at this time." Watch the video for yourself and see if "used force to gain compliance" accurately describes what happened. Careful if you do decide to tap through because the video is violent and disturbing.
The Chesterfield Observer's Sarah King has a good overview of GRTC's planning process to expand Bus Rapid Transit into Chesterfield. First, it's amazing to even write that previous sentence. Second, while I wish we would have started this planning process the day after the Pulse opened, I'm glad the region has moved on the next phase of truly regional, truly rapid public transportation. It's gonna take a while get fast, frequent buses on the ground, so no time like the present to get started.
Mike Platania at Richmond BizSense reports that Stone Brewing increased their brewing capacity last week. That's cool and all, I do love beer, but really I think you should tap through just to see the four huge tanks arriving at Rockett's Landing on a river barge.
Via /r/rva, an organ abandoned at Texas Beach. This has been your Very Richmond moment of the day.
This morning's longread
What Pundits Don’t Understand About the San Francisco Recall
You probably heard about the recall of three school board members in San Francisco a while back. Here's the fascinating local angle(s) that you probably missed when the story made national headlines.
In summation, this recall was a vote about a lot of issues, but overall it was a vote against incompetence. The coalition that came together to recall the board members was an extremely unique patchwork. Some people cared deeply about Lowell. For others, that was way down or not even on their list. And yes, San Francisco parents were anxious about school reopening and safety plans. But what really set them off was that the board had no plan, and that it stopped Matthews and other officials from making a plan. All of these issues are fraught and complex and required care and consensus-building. Instead, it felt like the board was playing politics, very ineptly. They prioritized performativeness over performance, and they brushed away any critique as coming from people who were insufficiently radical.
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