Good morning, RVA! It's 33 °F, and winter in Richmond is back. Along those lines, today you should expect a partly cloudy sky, highs just below 50 °F, and crisp, clean air that turns your cheeks red. I’ve got a pretty good set of layers worked out for bike commutes in this sort of weather, and it definitely involves a Survivor-style buff. “Look dumb, stay warm”, that’s my motto!
Water cooler
Tonight, at 7:00 PM (doors at 6:00 PM), Mayor Levar Stoney will give his final State of the City address. You can stop by the Science Museum tonight with your actual human body, although this thing is usually live streamed over on the City’s YouTube or by one of the TV stations. Typically, the Mayor will use the State of the City as a chance to highlight his accomplishments over the last year, tease a few of the priorities in his upcoming budget, and push any big policy initiatives he wants to move forward on in the coming year. This year, though, we might could see a different, more reflective tone from Mayor Stoney as he gets ready to pack up his office in City Hall and move on to the next thing. Or, I guess, since that next thing is a gubernatorial primary against Rep. Spanberger—who’s currently raised more than four times the money—maybe he takes a broader, more sweeping, visionary tone? I dunno, but I’m excited to find out. I really enjoy watching this specific speech (while shouting at the screen or into the group chat, of course)—it really sets the tone for Budget Season and the coming year.
This morning I stumbled across two interesting policy agendas from local organizations working on issues we all care about. First, Richmond Public Schools has put together a nice PDF of their advocacy priorities for the current General Assembly session. It lists out six points, and over half of them focus on fixing/tweaking state funding formulas to make sure the City’s public school system continues to get the money they need to not only function but also to thrive. Also, make sure you sign up for the weekly advocacy update email from RPS’s Director of Advocacy & Outreach Matthew Stanley. As we move through the GA session, he’ll connect you with ways to help support (or oppose!) the bills related to RPS’s priorities.
Second, the Partnership for Housing Affordability has posted their 2024 policy agenda, too. Tap through to read through the five main priorities, each of which has a nice description of the policy, why it’s important, and examples of similar work from across the country. I love this! Note that while some of these priorities would be a lot easier if we passed a bunch of pro-housing bills at the state level (see the legislative agendas from Housing Opportunities Made Equal and Virginia Housing Alliance), most of these are things we can tackle locally and regionally—like “prioritize affordable housing on publicly owned land” or “increase local investments in affordable housing programs.” By the way, that last one is something that we can and should see reflected in the Mayor’s upcoming budget.
David Ress at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that the Governor’s proposals to ban kids from TikTok have mostly all died in various General Assembly ways. Across the Commonwealth Teens rejoice, I’m sure, but also...maybe we do need to regulate these companies who strip mine our attention in ways that humans brains are just not built to withstand? It’s an overwhelming problem, but I keep thinking of this essay from Cory Doctorow in which he argues for, as a first step, regulations that protect our privacy. That makes a lot of sense to me.
Following up on a sad story from a couple months back, NBC12 reports that the man who killed a well-known deer near Hollywood Cemetery “was arrested Sunday and charged with 19 wildlife violations related to illegally killing three deer during the hunting season.”
Karri Peifer reports that Jason Roop, former editor of Style Weekly, is, as of last week, now City Council’s official MC. He’ll preview the meetings at 5:45 PM and then do a bit of a wrap up whenever they manage to finish. Hosting City Council is a strange job—one that’s been vacant for a bunch of years since the legendary Dick Harman retired back in 2018 (after 700 meeting, says Peifer!). I’m interested to see Roop’s take on the role. Mark it down on your calendar: Council next meets on February 12th.
This morning's longread
How to Turn Anything into Soup
LITERALLY ANYTHING. OK, not anything, but you can turn a lot of what’s left over in your fridge into soup if you keep a few key concepts in mind. I’ve got a family member who has a strong anti-soup disposition, so I’m starting to experiment with non-traditional soups. Is this a soup or is it just leftover meatloaf in a bowl on top of some other stuff?? Who can say!
Your starting point needs to be fat. More often than not, that fat will be extra-virgin olive oil. But if you want to shake things up a bit, you can use butter (ideal in a squash soup), you can render bacon or sausage (excellent in a lentil soup), you can even use lard, if you’re the kind of person who keeps lard around, in which case, respect. Once you heat your fat, you add your aromatics. In France, you would add mirepoix. In Italy, you would add soffritto. Fun fact: those are the same thing – a combination of chopped onions, carrots, and celery. Don’t have celery? Just add onions and carrots. Don’t have carrots? Just add onion. The main thing is that you season at this stage with salt because you don’t want Tom Colicchio showing up to your kitchen saying, “You didn’t develop any flavor.”
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Picture of the Day
Let’s build like ten more of these lining the block.
