Good morning, RVA! It's already 70 °F, and today looks like a truly summer day with highs peaking right around 90 °F. It's definitely that time of year where no matter how easy I take it on the ride into work, I show up to meetings sweaty and smelling...not the best. Deal with it, I say! Normalize sweat due to non-car commutes!
Water cooler
Just a quick reminder this morning that the Good Morning, RVA membership drive continues! I hit my goal on Tuesday, surpassed it on Wednesday, and am stoked regardless of whatever happens today or tomorrow. Thank you again to all patrons—new or old and grizzled. I deeply appreciate you! So, if you've been meaning to chip in a couple of bucks to support this daily newsletter, you can do so at: patreon.com/gmrva. Thanks, y'all.
I continue to track a lot of plans and developments going on in the region, and the Staples Mill Road Small Area Plan is one of them. It's a little out of my typical coverage zone and is—at least at this point—vastly suburban, but 1) the area sparkles with potential, and 2) getting to the Staples Mill Road Train Station in a safe and convenient way would sure be nice. To that end, tonight at 6:00 PM, VDOT will host an online public meeting to discuss the "multimodal transportation needs and improvements on Staples Mill Road and other key streets near the Staples Mill Road Amtrak Station in Henrico County." If you can't make, what's sure to be, a thrilling meeting but would like to weight in, you can, of course, fill out a survey! For serious though, tap through and fill this thing out, because there are some intensely progressive options for remaking Staples Mill Road—including one with sidewalks, physically separated bike lanes, and a dedicated transit-only lane. Small Area Plans are not construction work orders, so who knows what will really happen in the corridor's future, but I don't think I've ever filled out a local infrastructure survey that let me pick an option that included dedicated, safe space for four modes of travel (foot, bike, bus, and car).
Eric Kolenich at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has an update on the Governor's attempts to jam himself into Virginia's community college system. Earlier, the Virginia Community College System Board ran a search for a new chancellor without including the Governor's team, things kind of ran off the rails, and now the Gov has told boardmembers to get in line or he "will accept your resignation by June 30 with gratitude for your service." I'm really interested in why Governor Youngkin cares so much, and I think Del. VanValkenburg gets closest to it, saying, "At the end of the day, he’ll insert culture-war politics in our community college system like he’s done with K-12." Seems like there's something else, though—maybe a nefarious plot afoot to combine the charter school-adjacent "lab school" concept with community colleges somehow? I have no idea, but this is a lot of work and a lot of bad press just to wrest control of a community college board.
Yesterday, a fire broke out at building Richmond Public Schools leases off Chamberlayne Avenue for fleet maintenance, and the Richmond Fire Department Twitter account has some scary video. This is another huge bummer for RPS, who just cannot seem to catch a break lately. Additional bummer: WTVR reports that the District's Lit Limo was one off the vehicles destroyed in the fire.
Here's a quick video of the Mayor and Councilmember Mike Jones playing pickleball on the new courts at the Broad Rock Sports Complex. I am easily charmed by stuff like this.
This morning's longread
The Supreme Court’s coming war with Biden, explained
OK, back to doomreads! Earlier this week, I read this really fascinating explainer in Vox about how federal regulation works and how West Virginia v. EPA could totally upend that system. Worth reading as the SCOTUS closes out its summer sesh.
At least since the Franklin Roosevelt administration, federal agencies have had wide latitude to implement the policies the president campaigned on. And agency-initiated regulations answer such important questions as who has access to health care, how much workers are paid for their labor, and a wide range of environmental questions that go well beyond the Clean Power Plan. So, no matter what issue you care about, there is likely a federal regulation that shapes the nation’s approach to that issue. If the Supreme Court strips the government of much of its power to promulgate these regulations, it could effectively grind down the Biden presidency — not to mention dismantle much of American law.
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