Good morning, RVA! It's 48 °F, and today you can expect highs near 50 °F, cloudy skies, and a chance of rain this afternoon which increases later in the evening. The wet weather should move out of the area by tomorrow morning, and then the rest of the week ahead of us looks pretty dang nice.
Water cooler
Pulitzer Prize Winner Michael Paul Williams has a great piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch about a tacky billboard on the site of the Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground. I defer to the folks involved in the project about whether the billboard should stay and advertise the existence of the site—which has, multiple times, been torn up, buried under, and paved over up by infrastructure projects—or have it carefully removed. Regardless, the businesses advertising on the billboard should pull their ads today, and Lamar, who owns the billboard, should donate the space to the City—forever. Doesn’t sound like Lamar is too interested in that, though, because Councilmember Robertson says they’re “willing to swap that billboard out for a different site or a billboard that the city may own.” I think that’s gross, and MPW puts it best: “I’d like Lamar to view this as a form of community repair, and not seek a quid pro quo.” 1000% agree, and I hope now that a literal Pulitzer Prize Winner has weighed in, Lamar will choose to do the right thing.
Also in the RTD, Michael Martz reports on how the Governor’s silly speech at a mock convention at Washington & Lee led directly to the Senate killing his basketball/hockey arena proposal. Now, a version of the proposal still exists in the House and maybe in the budget, so I sort of feel like this is mostly for show on the part of Democrats. But when Democrats control your state’s legislative body and you go around saying that they “do not believe in — nor do they want — a strong America,” what do you expect to happen? For all Youngkin’s talk about working together to move Virginia forward, the instant he’s given even the smallest stage, he reverts back to his rightwing, Trumpian talking points. Is he still running for president? Like, what did he gain from this? I don’t get it.
RTD hat trick! David Ress has put togehter a long history of the development transforming Scott’s Addition. Worth reading to remind yourself of the insatiable need we have for more and denser housing. We could build multiple other Scott’s Additions all across the city and still face a housing crisis!
Jack Jacobs at Richmond BizSense reports that Bon Secours has plans to move from their space at the Washington Training Center, down a couple blocks, to the Sauer Center. This is Step One in returning the Training Center space to the public. As for future uses by the City: Do we need an urban pump track / bicycle skills course / skate park? I mean, maybe we do??
Tonight, City Council will meet for their regularly scheduled meeting, and, remember, you can tune at 5:45 PM to catch new City Council host Jason Roop kick off the night’s events. I think you either do that through their website, over the radio, or maybe even on City Council’s stream? Anyway, Council will consider two papers I’ve got on my ordinance tracker:
- ORD. 2023-356 — Lower the speed limit on Brookland Parkway. This one’s on the Consent Agenda, so it should pass without issue. The width and swoopy curves of this particular street lend itself to racecar driving, and, while lowering the speed limit is certainly a thing to do, I don’t necessarily think it’ll be the thing that slows drivers moving through that neighborhood.
- ORD. 2024-024 — Fix the meals tax situation. Maybe “fix” is too strong of a word here, but this ordinance will, fingers crossed, get local restaurant owners out of an infinite loop of late fees if they happened to miss one meals tax payment at some point in the past. This paper also sits on the Consent Agenda.
RES. 2023-R011, the ordinance to start moving Evergreen, East End, and Forest View cemeteries to City ownership has, once again, been continued (until March 11th). Introduced 364 days ago, tomorrow this bill joins the Continued For Years club, which, to be clear is a bad club to be in.
This morning's longread
In Praise of Pointless Goals
Listen, there’s a lot going on in the world right now, and maybe a pointless goal that requires a non-trivial amount of your effort is exactly what you need?
But best of all, chasing a pointless goal sends you on a journey, and people rally around journeys; a hero on a stupid quest is a magnet for helpers and co-conspirators. Cross, the journalist, never did nail the wheelie, but she won another prize instead—time with her 12-year-old son, who started learning the trick alongside her. Fans showed up along Bearsun’s route, too, to bring him food and escort him on busy roads. Their kindness moved him profoundly, he said. These pursuits often push us to engage with the world around us, instead of the one playing out on our screens. (As Price notes, your silly goal probably isn’t more pointless than scrolling through Twitter or Instagram.) A common aphorism says that we should enjoy the journeys in life, not just the destinations; big meaningless goals encourage this attitude because whether we reach the destination truly doesn’t matter.
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Picture of the Day
At least Pittsburgh’s convention center has some cool outdoor spaces.
