Good morning, RVA! It's 50 °F, and, idk, is the rain done? I think it might be—at least until this weekend. Today, though, you can expect highs in the mid 60s, absolutely no rain, and to even see the sunshine at certain points throughout the day. That sounds pretty OK!
Water cooler
Em Holter at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that, following last week’s Freedom of Information Act situation and whistleblower complaint, the City has updated how they will respond to future FOIA requests. Holter got ahold of a memo the City’s Chief Administrative Office sent City Council in which he proposes five changes to the current process:
- reinstating a decentralized FOIA response process
- appointing a new interim FOIA officer
- establishing a new FOIA email
- creating a new inner-department strategy to address requests
- hiring a legal firm to assist with FOIAs moving forward.
Tap through to get a better sense of what those changes actually mean. Mostly, it sounds like they’ll move back to having departments handle their own FOIA requests—or, at least, having departments responsible for “receiving requests, compiling them and reporting them back to the FOIA officer.” I imagine at least a few reporters out there will want to stress test this new system as soon as it gets up and running, so keep an ear out for more FOIA news in the coming weeks.
Sarah Huffman at Richmond Magazine sat down for a nice interview with not-so-newly appointed 9th District Councilmember Nicole Jones. As you’d expect, since she comes to Council direct from School Board, Jones has a focus on RPS and young people, and—a councilmember after my own heart!—“looks forward to the upcoming budget season.” Don’t we all!
Over on VPM today, we’ve got A Tale of Two Headlines.
First, “Lawmakers want Virginians to eat more blue catfish” got me to tap through right away, for which I was rewarded with this wonderful lede: “Introducing the species to the area has been like releasing ‘a Siberian tiger out into our ecosystem.’” The blue catfish is an invasive species and has started to clog up Virginia’s rivers, forcing out other native fish. Luckily, “the most popular solution so far is to simply fish and eat more blue cats.”
Second, “Council doesn’t plan immediate action on Chamberlayne safety report” also got me to tap through right away, but this time less deliciously and more angrily. I’ve written about the Chamberlayne Road Safety Assessment before and was stoked to see some neat recommendations the City could implement right away and some recommendations that would take more time, planning, and money. This morning’s headline got me heated: Why would Council pass up those easy, quick, and cheap recommendations? But, if you read to the very bottom of the article, you’ll see: “‘The near-term solutions are those that are relatively low cost and are already funded in many cases,’ said Chris Dailey, of VHB. ‘Things that we can go out and do almost immediately like signs, marking some changes to traffic signals, lane usage, things of that nature.’ The city’s already received state and federal funding for some of these projects, according to VHB’s assessment.” OK, whew, that sounds better. Plus, a lot of the near-term projects—and maybe even some of the intermediate recommendations—wouldn’t require City Council’s involvement anyway.
Mike Platania at Richmond BizSense wants to challenge the supremacy of the above lede about Siberian tigers with one of his own: “Where biscuits once rose for decades, a new hotel is set to rise much, much higher.” After that work of art, Platania reports that Shamin Hotels plans to build a 12-story hotel on the site of the Arthur Ashe Boulevard Hardee’s. I think, in my mind, housing > hotels > Hardee’s, but, anything’s better than surface level parking, right? This story also reminds me that we desperately need to figure out public transit on Arthur Ashe Boulevard if we’re putting all of this stuff along it. A wonky, 30-minute route will not cut it!
The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Michael Martz reports on the Virginia’s budget and has some bad news for Governor Youngkin: “The House and Senate compromise on the state budget will not include creation of a state authority to finance a $2 billion sports and entertainment district that Gov. Glenn Youngkin has proposed in Alexandria.” Of course nothing in the General Assembly is dead until it truly is, and the Governor still has a couple options left to try and squeak his pro stadium deal into this year’s budget: “He will have 30 days after the assembly adjourns to act on the budget and other legislation, leaving open a window for potential horse-trading on the proposed arena. After the governor announces vetoes and proposed amendments, the assembly will reconvene on April 17 to consider them.”
P.S. I love this sentence from Martz: “Youngkin had made the proposed Monumental sports and entertainment district for an Alexandria arena project the centerpiece of a legislative agenda that the Democratic-controlled assembly has left in tatters.” Tatters!
Random thought: What if Sauer’s bought that quarter-acre square of Mayo Island and built some sort of mayonnaise-themed tourist attraction?
This morning's longread
Full of Themselves: An analysis of title drops in movies
\1) I love a title drop, and I love making title drop jokes. 2) I love a website that has just exactly one purpose—especially one that’s built for a single article and its accompanying piles of research. 3) How wild is it that they only say “Patton” one time in the movie Patton! Bonkers!
But how common are these title drops really? Has this phenomenon gained momentum over time with our postmodern culture becoming ever more meta? Can we predict anything about the quality of a film based on how many times its title is mentioned? And what does a movie title mean, anyway? There have been analyses and oh so so many listicles of the title drop phenomenon before, but they are small and anecdotal. Here's the first extensive analysis of title drops for a dataset of 73,921 movies that amount to roughly 61% of movies on IMDb with at least 100 user votes*. I'm looking at movies released between 1940 and 2023.
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
I planted “bulbs” for the first time ever last year, and it’s finally happening!
