Good morning, RVA! It's 17 °F, and, as a temperature that starts with a one, that’s cold. Bundle up and shiver it out, because once we get through today, warmer weather moves in, and, by the end of the week, we could see highs near 70 °F. I’m not saying that’s desirable in the last week of January, but it does require less of a bundle to step outside!
Water cooler
I’ve got a couple of municipal government reminders for you this morning—which is just how normal people want to start the day! First, City Council will meet this evening with a pretty lengthy agenda, but the entirety of it sits on the Consent portion. That means, despite the long agenda, they should have a pretty short meeting. As they whizz through the docket, I do have my eye on ORD. 2023-358 and its accompanying paper. That ordinance will provide funding for a new bridge over the railroad tracks on the southern side of the T. Pot Bridge and, fingers crossed, massively improve the current Trusit parking lot situation (which I hate).
Second, School Board meets tonight—their first public meeting since the court-ordered release of the Graduation Day shooting report. Despite not having an official agenda item for it, you can almost guarantee that they’ll want to talk through the report, what it means, and any potential next steps. Unlike City Council, they’re in for a long night. Because...also on their full, meaty agenda is a presentation from Superintendent Kamras on his recommended FY25 budget. If I’m reading the PDF correctly, it looks like the Superintendent will recommend a $36.2 million increase in funding, with $25 million of it coming from the City—that sounds like a lot! Tap through and flip to page 17 to see an overview how that $36.2 million breaks down (the majority of it covers staff and salary increases) and then flip to page 36 for a look at where they hope all of that money comes from (almost 70% from the City’s budget).
Related to schools and school budgeting, Megan Pauly at VPM checks in with our state legislators and their plans to update Virginia’s complex education funding formulas at this year’s General Assembly session. It sounds like at least some sort of updates will happen in the next couple of years, but whether or not Richmond Public Schools will see an increase in funding remains surprisingly unclear. In fact, it reads like the District expects to see a sizable decrease in cash from the state—which makes no sense at all. I guess stay tuned?
Richmond BizSense’s Mike Platania reports on VCU’s planned Athletic Village complex over by the Diamond District: “Athletics Director Ed McLaughlin said this month that he expects demolition to begin by the spring on the 42 acres that will eventually house the school’s ‘Athletic Village’ at 2601-2901 Hermitage Road.” An important thing that I was confused about: The Athletic Village will proceed separate and unconnected to the demolition of Sports Backer’s Stadium and development of the Diamond District. So if, for whatever reason, progress on the Diamond District starts to slow, slip, or fall, we’ll still end up with new VCU sports-related stuff on the eastern side of Hermitage Road in the next couple of years (starting with some practice fields just north of Rhoadmiller Street). Side note: I’d love to see the transportation plans for this area, because catching a bus from VCU’s Monroe Park campus to this part of town is not the quickest or most straightforward process.
This morning's longread
The scariest sound on TikTok
I love this sort of article which explains a viral trend I had no idea existed—one that’s a combination of multiple other things I’d also had never even heard about. Definitely tap through and read this one, making sure to follow as many of the links as possible. You won’t be disappointed!
It begins with a beat of silence, just enough to grab your attention in a sea of TikTok noise, and then, it booms with bass. “YO, HO, ALL, HANDS.” For the rest of the minute, the song bellows deep and low and terrifying, singing of the seas and death and survival...Somehow, I ended up deep in North Sea TikTok, with those videos and those YO HOs all over my For You page. Pretty soon, I started to see the same song alongside TikToks about mythical monsters, phobias, storms, and other things that cause your palms to get sweaty and your body to suddenly get very still. This 60-second clip has become the unofficial soundtrack of the scary side of TikTok.
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Picture of the Day
I’d read something about convention center carpet.
