Good morning, RVA! It's 53 °F, and I had a really pleasant bike ride yesterday despite all of the wind. Today you can expect highs in the 70s, more wind, but continued dry skies. Wet weather could move in tomorrow, so, if you can, get out there on your porches and patios tonight!
Water cooler
Land Value Tax is rad and, if implemented properly in Richmond, could help sustain much needed revenue while making the distribution of who pays how much tax more equitable. The idea is you split our current, single real estate tax rate—$1.20 per $100 of assessed value of the land and the building which sits on the land—into two rates—a big one for the land and a small one for the building. You can see how this has a couple of impacts, like encouraging denser development: The amount of tax a developer would pay on a vacant lot downtown would be about the same that they would pay for a lot with an apartment building. Councilmember Addison has been hard at work on getting an LVT implemented in the City and has a nice explainer this week in his newsletter. Check it out, and tap through to some of the resources he includes, especially this helpful video from Strong Towns.
The Diamond District Hunger Games continues! Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense reports that the City has announced the three finalists in the competition to redevelop the huge area over by the Diamond. The remaining three will need to submit another, more detailed proposal by June 28th, and the City hopes to pick a preferred developer in July. Once we get those more formal proposals, I'm definitely going to need someone to walk me through all three PDFs—assuming the proposals end up in front of the public at some point.
Michael Martz at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Governor Youngkin's candidate to run the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles has had a history of "inappropriate behavior on the job," including sexual harassment, "screaming fits of anger," and showing up to meetings wasted. Here's a quote from the IndyStar: "IndyStar found the resignation came one day after Lacy appeared intoxicated during an executive meeting with about 30 top BMV officials. Participants in the meeting said Lacy slurred his words, seemed confused and made an off-color remark about Viagra to a female staffer." Martz reports that the Governor has since rescinded the job offer. Embarrassing.
I'm such a sucker for these videos where Superintendent Kamras announces the Richmond Public Schools' Teacher of the Year and will never not link to them. Congratulations to Boushall Middle's Kiara Thompson!
I continue to really enjoy Grace Todd's Attack of the Killer Thumbs column in RVA Mag. In this edition, she nails what I love about gardening: "I think many of us feel an immense amount of pressure toward 'completion.' ... Gardens, though, defy the very concept of completion. There is always something to be moved, divided, pruned, or pulled; always a sense of what could be done differently next year; always a grapple with this season being a little different from the last, just when you thought you had it all in hand."
Shared by one of my favorite municipal-adjacent Twitter accounts, RVAH2O, here's a cute and surprisingly complex flowchart for what to do if you find a baby bird. I definitely scanned the flowchart for the part where mama birds will reject their babies if they smell your gross human scent, but, turns out, "most birds do not have a sense of smell." What other dark lies has my life been built upon? You can learn more over on the Wildlife Center of Virginia's website.
Finally, Richard Hayes at RVAHub asks "why is a bell in this tree?" Now I, too, want to know why a bell is in that tree. Maybe a reader knows?
This morning's longread
Banning abortions will not stop abortions
My favorite COVID-19 epidemiologist, Katelyn Jetelina, takes an epidemiological look at abortion and the impacts of removing access to abortion.
If we add # out-of-state abortions + # abortion pills + # in-state abortions, a small decrease (10%) in overall abortions was observed in Texas after the law was enacted. Even then, though, the discrepancy may be accounted by other avenues of abortion that are not readily available in data sources, like traveling to Mexico for prescriptions or procedures, or illegal procedures within the state. Nonetheless, a close to zero change in abortions is consistent with international research: the abortion rate is 37 per 1000 in countries that prohibit abortion and 34 per 1000 in countries that allow abortion.
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