Good morning, RVA! It's 45 °F, and temperatures have started to creep back up. Today you can expect highs in the mid 60s, tomorrow the 70s, and then, by this weekend, highs in the mid 70s. Every day for the next handful of days should be more beautiful than the last! Get excited!
Water cooler
Whoa, big news in my inbox from the City’s Department of Public Works: A portion of the lanes in the roundabout at Monument and Allen, aka Marcus-David Peters Circle aka the old Lee Circle, will close on May 10th at 8:00 AM for installation of landscaping. If all goes as planned, on July 7th, the roundabout will reopen—without the horrible fencing! That’s just two months away! Now that we’ve got a short-term plan for the circle that removes the horrible fencing, I’d love to hear more about the long-term plans for reimagining this particular circle, yes, but also for reimagining the entirety of Monument Avenue. I don’t think folks are going to forget that both the City and the State have committed in various ways at various times to run some sort of process to think through how best to use that space. I certainly haven’t forgotten!
Anna Bryson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch sat down for a Q&A with Lisa Coons, Virginia’s newish Superintendent of Public Instruction. Coons comes to the Commonwealth from Tennessee, which, we all know how their state-level government is going at this point. But, setting that aside, you should read this interview if only to have something to reflect back on as the Governor’s administration works with the General Assembly to finalize this year’s budget—which, depending on whether or not they decide to cut taxes for the wealthiest Virginians, could mean millions more for public schools. Related, here’s an interesting excerpt to keep in mind: “When the accreditation system is changed, do you think those schools that lose their full accreditation should receive more resources from the state? 100%. The goal of accreditation is to support our schools so that every child can have the same equitable opportunity. So if a school is deficient in their accreditation, it is our responsibility as a state agency to give them the support they need to provide that opportunity for that child.”
Richmond BizSense’s Jonathan Spiers reports on the City’s progress toward finalizing a location for the planned slavery museum in Shockoe. It seems like there are a ton of moving pieces to this project, but a few of them are maybe starting to fall into place?
You should definitely read the entirety of this look back at the 1974 Cherry Blossom Music Festival by Em Holter in the RTD. What started with a promotional poster promising “no hassles” from cops, ended when “officers, with more than 50 handcuffed concertgoers in tow, fled to the stadium's field house only to return wearing University of Richmond football helmets.” The pictures are great, too.
Lane Casadonte at WTVR reports that the Virginia High School League will now allow Name, Image, and Likeness deals for high school athletes. The NCAA approved these deals—which are like sponsorships that pay athletes directly—for college students last year, and that’s why you’d see VCU’s star point guard Ace Baldwin in Amtrak ads (RIP). Now high school students can sign the same sorts of deals, which kind of blows my mind. Tap through to read some of the guidelines and restrictions, including this one that makes me think the whole thing’s not yet fully baked: “School staff are also prohibited from counseling or offering any advice to student-athletes about any prospective NIL opportunities unless they are the student-athlete's parent.“ I’m interested to see how this plays out both at schools like John Marshall, which routinely attract Division 1 talent, and at well-resourced schools whose talent level may not be as high but whose parents/alumni roster might include a ton of local businesses with extra cash to spend.
This morning's longread
Why I Keep My Eyes — and My Mind — on the South
Tressie McMillan Cottom looks at the expulsion of the two Justins from Tennessee’s legislature and explores why the South acts as predictor for where the country as a whole is headed. I can’t stop thinking about the first four sentences of the below paragraph!
I keep my eyes on the South for a lot of reasons. This is my home. It is the region of this nation’s original sin. Nothing about the future of this country can be resolved unless it is first resolved here: not the climate crisis or the border or life expectancy or anything else of national importance, unless you solve it in the South and with the people of the South. I also keep my eyes on the South because the Republican strategy of disenfranchisement is a state-by-state strategy. It looks like judicial rule where they cannot win. Where they cannot win by judicial rule, they will rule by procedural theft. Where they cannot persuade voters to vote for them, they will persuade the candidate they voted for to become one of them. This Republican strategy of winning by losing can work in any state, but it is most brutally efficient in states where we consider nonwhite voters — especially Black voters — inherently illegitimate.
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Picture of the Day
Where they keep VCU’s internet.
