Good morning, RVA! It's 40 °F, and my weather app says “chance of flurries for the next hour,” which I find to be especially cruel. Later today, when this quick reminder of winter passes, you can expect partly cloudy skies and highs in the mid 60s. Those warmer temperatures will continue throughout the weekend along with a decent chance for rain until, like, Tuesday.
Water cooler
The project outline for the Cultural Heritage Stewardship Plan, which, up until this point, I’ve referred to as the Cultural Resources Management Plan, now exists for you to download, flip through, and, if you dare, comment on via Konveio. This document is literally the proposed outline for a future document—the plan itself—so don’t dive in expecting a lot of details. That said, I quickly scrolled through and was glad to see sections staked out to address equity (2.2.1), balancing historic preservation and development (2.2.3), and housing affordability (3.2). Honestly, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the City request feedback on a document outline before, so it’s a bit odd, but I’m kind of into it! You have until February 15th if you wish to leave a comment or two.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Eric Kolenich reports on a potential upzoning for the Richmond side of Rocketts Landing that would shift the volleyball court and boat storage building (just upriver from the Boathouse) from industrial to TOD-1. The developer has plans for an office building, and they “guaranteed at least one public access point to the [Capital Trail] through the property.” I love an upzoning, of course, but this development, paired with the recently announced padel facility on the Canal Walk, makes me wonder if we need to put our excellent public pathways into some sort of easement? Time was, the land down by the canal and certain parts of the James River wasn’t desirable—maybe even considered trash!—but that’s no longer the case. We’re going to see more and more development in, around, and on these public pathways, and I’d like to see access to and through them permanently protected. Maybe this is already the case? Maybe it’s addressed in a plan somewhere, like the Riverfront Plan? I need to learn some more.
Ben Paviour at VPM reports on some of the bills floating around the General Assembly trying to address the mess Republicans have made of the state’s voter roles after they were taken in by a baseless conspiracy theory a couple years back. Unfortunately, it sort of feels like the ship’s already sailed on some of this stuff—especially Virginia’s membership in the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), the multi-state voter registration database. So while several paths remain for the Commonwealth to come back to ERIC, hat in hand—specifically, two bills and a budget amendment—a couple of legislators have set about improving the current, broken system instead:
- Sen. VanValkenburg has a bill to improve our new, haphazard data-sharing agreements with other states, which seems promising (SB 196).
- Sen. Rouse introduced a proposal to help prevent erroneous voter purges, which, great (SB 300).
Related, the Virginia Mercury’s Meghan McIntyre has this week’s Three Interesting Bills, which you’ll want to read for HB 1025 alone. I can’t decide which section to quote, they’re all just so good, but: “This bill from Del. Tony Wilt, R-Harrisonburg, allows any person to claim a deer, bear, turkey or elk that appears to have been killed in a motor vehicle collision...His bill would also permit the person who claims the animal to use it for whatever purposes they want, including eating it or claiming the head as a trophy. Some subcommittee members, like Del. Rob Bloxom, R-Accomack, raised concerns that allowing people to eat roadkill whose time and manner of death are unknown could be dangerous. Wilt said that “if you see an animal lying on the road and it’s blown up twice its size, it’s probably not a good bet … but you still have to get permission.’ ‘If you feel brave enough that you want to chance it,’ he added, ‘you would have that opportunity under this legislation.’”
Via /r/rva, a clever Inception picture taken down at the GRTC Transfer Station.
This morning's longread
Toward a unified taxonomy of text-based social media use
I’m not sure this article is for me, or maybe I’m not online enough for this article? Either way, this basic typology of community members makes sense: Posters, reply guys and commenters, influencers and brands—and the lurkers, who outnumber everyone else, are the audience.
Generally speaking, posters generate Discourse; reply guys and commenters continue and refine it; finally, influencers and Brands capitalize on it. It is possible, though rare, for reply guys, commenters, and influencers to generate Discourse, but the point is: someone has to kick it off and usually that someone is the person with the least inhibitions. The friendliest of the influencers and posters are over in the petting zoo section, where commenters and reply guys can reach into the water and touch them. The less friendly ones occasionally smash through the glass to take someone out; put in the same tank, they may consume each other. This sort of thing tends to draw visitors — who doesn’t want to be in the splash zone when the shark gets fed?
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Picture of the Day
Bulbs???!
