Good morning, RVA! It's 58 °F, and today looks ominous as we wait for storms to move in this evening. For much of the day you can expect temperatures in the 70s and cloudy skies, then, tomorrow, the rain (and possibly severe weather) starts and probably doesn’t stop until at some point Sunday morning. I think you should definitely plan on spending some time inside, curled up on the couch with a good book or movie!
Water cooler
GRTC will close the brand new Downtown Transfer Station at 7:30 AM today for “critical infrastructure improvements [that will] limit access by buses and passengers for safety reasons.” They’ll open it back up as soon as possible, which hopefully means whatever’s broken or failed isn’t something major. The Once and Future Temporary Transfer Plaza will rise from its grave and again handle transfers until things get sorted (on 9th between Marshall and Clay).
If you know any genius planners who want to help Richmond live up to its potential when it comes to equitable and transit-oriented development, make sure they apply to become the City’s next Deputy Department Director for Transit and Regional Transportation Planning and Investment. Although the title’s been tweaked a bit, I’m pretty sure this is Maritza Pechin’s old job (RIP). Just like Pechin, this person will end up having a big impact on how the city grows over the coming years, so spread the application far and wide!
Speaking of, want to learn a lot about the municipal finance details required to make the Diamond District happen? Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense has your back and reports a ton of details about the Economic Development Authority, a new community development authority, and tax increment financing (TIFs!). Who among us does not love a good municipal finance read early in the morning!
Sean Jones at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that the state, Henrico County, and the Henrico County sheriff have settled out-of-court with the family of Irvo Otieno: “The five-page agreement filed in Henrico Circuit Court this week outlines that the county will pay $4.45 million, the state of Virginia is paying $2.55 million, and the Henrico sheriff will pay $1.5 million.” Interestingly, Jones also reports that the Governor eventually got involved in the process.
In his email yesterday, RPS Superintendent Kamras mentions that September is Library Card Sign-up Month, which is a great reminder to go get a library card if you haven’t already. Richmond residents can get library cards for not only the city’s library system, but also for Henrico’s and Chesterfield’s. That means when you get the Libby app on your device, which you should definitely do, you can search all three libraries for the book you’re looking for from the comfort of your own couch. I do this constantly! I’m currently working my way through R.F. Kuang’s Babel (checked out through Henrico) and Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses (via Chesterfied). Libraries: They’re pretty rad!
Exciting news: In-person early voting at your local registrar’s office begins today! For Richmonders, that means probably driving a car out to the incredibly hard to reach Office of Elections at the end of Laburnum (2134 Laburnum Avenue)—but these are the things we do for democracy! The next two important election deadlines to keep in mind are October 16, the last day to register to vote or update an existing voter registration, and October 27th, the last day to apply for a ballot to be mailed to you (my preferred way of voting). It feels like I’ve been writing about the importance of this November’s election for years, and now folks can actually get out there and vote in it. Exciting/stressful!
This morning's longread
The end of the Googleverse
First, I wish this piece was more about the fall of Google than the history of Google, but the latter is still pretty interesting to read/remember. Second, I hope it’s intentional, in this article about how Search Engine Optimization has ruined the internet, that the URL ends with “google-search-memes-images-pagerank-altavista-seo-keywords.”
There is a growing chorus of complaints that Google is not as accurate, as competent, as dedicated to search as it once was. The rise of massive closed algorithmic social networks like Meta’s Facebook and Instagram began eating the web in the 2010s. More recently, there’s been a shift to entertainment-based video feeds like TikTok — which is now being used as a primary search engine by a new generation of internet users. For two decades, Google Search was the largely invisible force that determined the ebb and flow of online content. Now, for the first time since Google’s launch, a world without it at the center actually seems possible. We’re clearly at the end of one era and at the threshold of another. But to understand where we’re headed, we have to look back at how it all started.
If you’d like to suggest a longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.
Picture of the Day
After a couple of years, I finally have weird berries on my Hearts A’bustin!
