Good morning, RVA! It's 67 °F, and you should expect hot weather today with highs in the mid 90s. Dang! Stay cool, stay hydrated, and expect the same sort of temperatures for the next couple of days.
Water cooler
Lots of interesting details keep falling out of the General Assembly’s recent budget compromise. First, in the debut edition of their Axios Richmond newsletter, Karri Peifer and Ned Oliver report that plans for a Richmond-based casino just got way harder to implement: “State House and Senate budget negotiators released their compromise spending plan over the weekend, which explicitly bars the city from holding a second referendum this year.” Instead, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission will study a potential casino in Petersburg. It’s unclear to me whether it’s a casino in Petersburg instead of one in Richmond, or in addition to one in Richmond. I feel like we’ll be hearing more about this from the Mayor, Sen. Morrissey who represents Petersburg, and from a court or two. Second, Patrick Wilson, at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, reports on new budget language that would “create a new criminal misdemeanor in state law for possession of more than 4 ounces of marijuana in public.” Eyeroll at Republicans’ continued attempts to create marijuana crimes. Just give it up already! Third, VAPLAN points out $100 million dollars for the creation of a College Partnership Laboratory Schools Fund. This is the Governor’s half-step plan to create charters schools everywhere by starting with schools run by institutes of higher learning. I think this small part of his plan had some bipartisan support, but it’s hard not to worry about the future of state-level funding for our public school systems.
The City’s Department of Public Works will start Phase 1 of the Hull Street Road Corridor Improvement Project this week, focusing on the section between Warwick and Hey Roads. For the next entire year, crews will do the boring-yet-critical work of relocating utilities. But! In late spring 2023 we’ll start to see: widened medians, new crosswalks, streetlights, curbs and gutters, and, most excitingly, sidewalks and shared-use paths! I’d love to see the plans for this project—is this the implementation of the decade-old Hull Street Corridor Revitalization Plan? Is it something else? Either way, safe and dedicated infrastructure for people walking, rolling, and riding on Hull Street is something to get excited about. As Councilmember Mike Jones says, “Who’s ready to bike Hull Street?”
City Council meets today for a special meeting to consider a bunch of time-sensitive papers and to introduce two for expedited consideration. You can find the full agenda here, but I’m interested in: ORD. 2022-154 which sets aside some cash to help WIC-eligible families buy infant formula that’s not currently available through WIC, ORD. 2022-156 which extends until August 5th the due date for your probably-more-expensive car tax bill, and a mysterious resolution introduced “regarding the City of Richmond’s Master Plan.” Innnnteresting. Let’s check back tomorrow on that last one.
Richmond BizSense’s Mike Platania has a good walkthrough of the plans for all of Dominion Energy’s downtown properties. Developers hope to bring 600 new apartments to Dominion’s buildings at 8th and Main Streets—and that’s not even including whatever ends up on the site of the old, now-imploded tower at 7th and Cary Streets. It’s taken literal decades, but I think we might be close to having a downtown that doesn’t immediately turn off at 5:00 PM!
Quote of the Day goes to an entomologist at Virginia Tech who has this to say about invasive fire ants: “It’s never happy hour with fire ants, it’s always angry hour.” You can and should read more about Virginia’s ant invasion in this fascinating piece by Rex Springston at the Virginia Mercury.
This morning's longread
Lost Cities of the Amazon Discovered From the Air
Never not fascinated by abandoned urban centers—especially ones hundreds and hundreds of years old in a jungle.
The aerial view with trees stripped away revealed two centers, each anchored by a large network of regional settlements connected by numerous causeways. Those passageways radiate out from the centers like spokes on a wheel, and stretch for several miles. These connect sub-urban settlements, ranging from small settlements closer to the centers to more distant and even smaller sites that may have been used as temporary campsites. Similarly, canals also stretch from the main centers and connect to rivers and Laguna San José, which apparently delivered water to Cotoca.
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