Good morning, RVA! It's 61 °F, and, dang, wasn't yesterday just so unbelievably pleasant? We get mostly more of the same today—with slightly higher highs in the mid 80s—so get out there and keep enjoying it.
Water cooler
Turns out I was big wrong about velocity of the generosity of Good Morning, RVA readers! Not only did yesterday not see a half-life decay in new contributions, but I reached my goal of finding $200 in new monthly Patreon contributions in just two days! That's not exponential decay at all! Anyway, I'm pretty surprised and very thankful to everyone who joined or upped their donation; it means a lot to me that so many people think what I write each morning is useful enough to support it with actual, real currency. The Patreon is still, of course, open to new members, so if you didn't get a chance to chip in a couple of bucks, don't let my fairly arbitrary goal stop you. You can do so at: patreon.com/gmrva. Thanks y'all!
Tonight, from 6:00–8:00 PM at the Hippodrome (528 N. 2nd Street), the Reconnect Jackson Ward Feasibility Study team will host a community meeting to "unveil a recommended framework to help reconnect Jackson Ward and surrounding neighborhoods, while meeting the ideals of inclusion, unification, access to everyone and keeping Black history alive." I'm tracking a ton of City-run projects lately, so I wouldn't fault you for forgetting what this particular project is all about—but it's a fun one. The City and the State will put together a plan to undo some of the damage done by I-95/64—most likely in the form of capping that highway and building cool stuff right on top of it. Because engineers are basically dark wizards at this point in history, you can put pretty much whatever you want on top of a highway (in fact, Kanawha Plaza and the entire building at 9th and Canal sit on top of a highway cap). I don't think anyone's trying to build a single massive building of that scale straddling I-95/64, and tonight we'll learn more about the specific plans for building those (literal) bridges across the the divide we cut into our own city 70-some years ago. Once this plan exists, I think the City and State will apply for a federal grant that'll get us a couple more steps down the road towards implementing whatever's presented tonight. Exciting!
Speaking of big, City-run projects, Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense reports that the three finalists for the Diamond District development all managed to get their homework in on time yesterday. Next steps? An evaluation panel will review the final submissions, make a recommendation to the Mayor, and then "a final developer agreement or contract would require City Council approval via a seven-vote supermajority." Council has a lot of stuff cooking this fall, I hope they're up to the challenge!
Andrew Cain at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has an early look at the legislators lining up to take away women's rights at next year's General Assembly session. Worth reading, though, is this statement from Swing-vote Senator Joe Morrissey: "Still, I defend the position that women should have safe access to the procedure, at the very least, up to the moment a fetus can feel pain which many agree is 20 plus weeks of a pregnancy; in cases when a mother’s health or life is at risk; in cases of rape that result in a pregnancy; and in cases of incest that result in a pregnancy. Just to be very clear: I do not believe the government, whether Federal or State, should be telling women what to do with their bodies." In Virginia abortion is available through 26 weeks and 6 days from the first day of your last period, so it does sound to me like you can expect Morrissey to side with Republicans on at least some curtailing of access to abortion in Virginia. But! There are many, many months until legislators reconvene in Richmond, and if the last couple of years have taught me anything, it's that you just can't predict what will happen that far out.
Kind of related, yesterday, Mayor Stoney announced some proposed tweaks to the City's noise ordinance with the goal of limiting harassment at, among other places, health care facilities that provide abortion. The RTD's Chris Suarez has the details, and you can check out ORD. 2022-219, which was introduced at this past Monday's City Council meeting. I can't really tell what's changed in the new ordinance since it's a wholesale replacement of the previous text. Unfortunately, I do see that the new ordinance does nothing to ban leaf blowers, a real loss for us all (it carves out an exception for "domestic power tools such as power lawn mowers, chain saws, and weed eaters" between the hours of 7:00 AM and 9:00 PM). We'll see if this ordinance has it's good and intended impact or if it becomes another tool for police and police-adjacent Party Patrols.
This morning's longread
Welcome to Party Island on Lady Bird Lake
OK OK, one more total distraction of a longread, and then I promise I'll get back to dark and depressing The Atlantic articles about the demise of democracy. For now, read this piece from Texas Monthly about a floating mass of humanity, alcohol, and hot summer vibes in Austin's Lady Bird Lake.
The first time I saw the “Brotilla,” so dubbed by Redditors, I was canoeing on the lake in 2020, during the oppressive juncture of the COVID-19 pandemic when there was nowhere to socialize but outside, but outside was too hot. My boyfriend and I navigated our canoe through the floaters gingerly, like we were in the returned lifeboat in the final scene of Titanic. Party Island was less populous then, as was Austin, but even so, there were bodies as far as the eye could see, shimmering on the horizon. The mass has grown each subsequent summer. From Lamar Boulevard Bridge, downriver, Party Island is visible in all its crowded glory, fanning out from its jam-packed center like the Spiral Jetty.
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