Good morning, RVA! It's 35 °F, wet, and we will probably not see any snow this morning. We will, however, see lots of drizzle-drazzle, doom-n-gloom, and plenty of excuses to stay inside—preferably under a blanket. The sun may come out right before it decides to set. If ever there was a day to call in sick and watch classic Star Wars movies, it'd be today!
Water cooler
Henry Graff at NBC12 reports that 4th District RPS School Board Member Jonathan Young "plans to introduce a school consolidation plan" at tonight's budget work session that would close five schools across the city: Woodville Elementary, Swansboro Elementary, Fairfield Court Elementary, Henderson Middle, and John Marshall High. None of these schools are even in the boardmember's 4th District, and the proposal, as it stands, would leave the entire Northside without a middle school or comprehensive high school. Worst of all, Young hasn't done a single second of community engagement or even the basic work of bringing alongside his fellow board members from the 5th, 7th, and 3rd Districts who would all lose schools. This is an unserious proposal from a person who, when talking to Graff, put the specter of utility costs ahead of the upheaval and chaos his proposal would cause. I think this is a troll, and, unfortunately, I fell for it. We'll see how far it goes with his colleagues at the budget meeting. You can stream tonight's meeting at 6:00 PM over on the RPS YouTube or stop by Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch's Michael Martz reports an unexpected-but-predictable story about Sen. Joe Morrissey: the Senator is "banned from visiting the Henrico County Jail for three months after an incident in which Sheriff Alisa A. Gregory said the lawmaker threatened staff over the weekend." Here's a great sentence from Martz: "In response to the sheriff’s ban, Morrissey said, 'She’s not going to ban me.'" If you really want to feel deep dismay, Cameron Thompson at WTVR has a transcript of the events from the sheriff’s office. I'm excited for whenever this man eventually recedes from the headlines for good.
You can stream the Mayor's full, 45-minute-long State of the City Address over on the City’s YouTube. I haven't watched it yet because I got sucked in to a total nail-biter of a VCU basketball game, but Em Holter at the RTD has nice a recap.
I loved this quick, four-minute video interview of Andrew Alli by the James River Association, taken while hiking the Buttermilk Trail. Alli is the James River Parks System's trail manager, so if you've had a blast out there walking, hiking, or shredding, you have him to thank. I really enjoyed his thoughts on how important, unique, restful, and surprisingly awesome Richmond's trails can be.
The General Assembly, really all law-making bodies, can be strange. One minute they're debating whether or not to strip basic human rights from an entire class of people and the next they're deciding to name the Chincoteague Pony the official pony of the Commonwealth (HB 1951). Don't worry, this bill reported out of committee with a 12-3 vote yesterday. P.S. Tapping around to find the text of this bill, and I stumbled upon the full list of Virginia's "official emblems and designations." I knew some of these, like our official insect is the Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly, but did you know that our official television series is "Song of the Mountains" out of Marion, Virginia which I had never even heard of?
This morning's longread
Mercedes-Benz is the first to bring Level 3 automated driving to the US
To be sure, self-driving cars—at least ones safe enough to not worry about them randomly killing people—will never exist in my lifetime. It's absolutely wild to me that we're allowing these things on the road without even exploring other technology like the simple speed governors found in every scooter you see on the sidewalk.
To be sure, Level 3 systems are not without their risks. Most autonomous vehicle operators, including Waymo and Cruise, have said they think Level 3 is too dangerous, preferring to work exclusively on Level 4 technology. The reason is the need for drivers to stay attentive despite the vehicle performing most of the driving tasks. There have been studies that show that hand-off between automated system and human driver can be especially fraught. When people have been disconnected from driving for a longer period of time, they may overreact when suddenly taking control in an emergency situation. They may overcorrect steering, brake too hard, or be unable to respond correctly because they hadn’t been paying attention. And those actions can create a domino effect that has the potential to be dangerous — perhaps even fatal.
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Picture of the Day
An enormous bug attacking the skyline!
