Good morning, RVA! It's 59 °F, and today looks sunny and wonderful. Expect highs around 80 °F but with a lot less of yesterday’s sticky humidity. Looking ahead at this week’s exceedingly dry (but lovely!) forecast, and I don’t know if yesterday’s intermittent sprinkles cut the mustard for all of my outside plants. If I’m late for a meeting or a hangout, it’s probably because I’m carrying buckets of water this way and that and lost track of time!
Water cooler
Cars ruin Carytown. That’s just a fact! Cars make Carytown—one of Richmond’s densest, most popular urban shopping districts—unsafe and way less fun. This is super apparent when events like the annual Watermelon Festival open Cary Street up to people and everyone loses their minds about how great it is (despite the inevitably sweltering heat). We could make Carytown a place for people, not cars, whenever we wanted—maybe we could even take a baby step (which is way safer on a street without cars) and start with just one Sunday a month. We choose not to do this for some frustrating reason. So if you want to publicly proclaim your frustration while supporting a good cause, you can pick up the 2023 version of the Cars Ruin Carytown T-shirt with proceeds benefiting Richmond City Safe Routes to Schools. As for who holds the levers of power to make this car-free vision an actual reality? I’d say the 1st, 2nd, and 5th District councilmembers, but only if the Carytown Merchants Association gets onboard first. If I had unlimited free time and energy to work on removing cars from Cary Street in any sort of regularly recurring way, I’d start by talking with members of the Merchants Association.
While I wait for the City to update their legislative website with last night’s Council votes, Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense reports that they easily passed the Casino 2.0 papers, with only 2nd District’s Councilmember Jordan voting against. The General Assembly still needs to sort out their feelings on the matter, but, even with that bit still undecided, I think there’s an above average chance Richmonders will see another casino referendum on the ballot this November. Spiers also reports that Council approved the operating agreement for the riverfront amphitheatre, too.
From my inbox: the Richmond City Democratic Committee released the (semi-surprising) result of their House District 79 and Senate District 14 straw polls ahead of next week’s Primary Election. In the 79th, members picked Rae Cousins over current Councilmember Lambert, and in the 14th they chose Katie Gooch over current State Senator Bagby. Fascinating! RCDC is quick to remind you that “the results of this Straw Poll are not a formal endorsement by the Richmond City Democratic Committee, however, it should be regarded as a sign of enthusiasm from RCDC members, democratic voters and activists throughout Richmond for their respective candidates.” You can show your own signs of enthusiasm by early voting at the registrars office until Saturday at 5:00 PM, and then you can vote at your assigned polling place a week from today.
Several months ago, City Council posted the Civilian Review Board staff job, and, somehow, I totally missed it. This position is “responsible for coordinating and analyzing the administrative and operational performance of programs and projects related to the Richmond Civilian Review Board.” Honestly, this is probably a pretty critical role in making sure RIchmond’s CRB is as effective as possible and would, I think, require a certain type of person to successfully coordinate between the public, the CRB, the police, and the City. If that’s you and you want to take the jump into public service, submit an application this week!
Tonight at 6:00 PM, you can join RVA Rapid Transit at Common House (303 W. Broad Street) for their State of Transit 2023 Reception. Stop by, learn about the vision for public transportation in our region, and figure out how you can get involved in pushing us towards that vision. If you really want a gold star, you can read through RVA Rapid Transit’s 2023 State of Transit report before you show up. Check out page 18 for a quick commentary on building bus stops that should sound familiar if you read last week’s longread on the La Sombrita. You might be shocked by how long it takes to install a bus stop shelter! Tonight’s event is free, but you should register over on the Eventbrite.
This morning's longread
When life threatens to become smaller, this is what I do
I love Tressie McMillan Cottom’s New York Times email, and in this edition she writes some advice for herself. I feel like when a brilliant, incredible person is like “here’s some good advice that I try to follow” it’s probably worthwhile for the rest of us regular people to listen.
Having an end goal for everything I do has had an unintended effect on my choices: It has started to narrow my vision of what’s possible to things that I think I can win at doing. This is why I experiment with living life outside of optimization. My job description has a version of not being the best at a few things but finding joy in doing things I am not very good at doing at all. That’s why I sing. I suck at it. I love it. Here is a secret. There is no singing authority. Those cops really are in your imagination and you can evict them at any time.
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Picture of the Day
Still delicious after all these years.
