Good morning, RVA! It's 71 °F, and those were some exciting early morning storms! The chance for more thunderstorms continues throughout the day and really picks up this evening. Stay dry out there!

The chamber of commerce has come out in support of the Coliseum redevelopment proposal with this piece co-written by both the ChamberRVA chair and president. They end their argument for the proposal with a bunch of questions, but none of them are the questions I’d start with. Honestly, it’d have been nice to have a public conversation about whether or not we even need a downtown arena. Assuming that we do (which, meh), I think we first have to ask whether taking on this project impacts our ability to fund our existing, critical schools, public housing, and transit needs over the next couple of decades. These are things that we know we need and we know will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to cover decades of underinvestment. We shouldn’t let an arena hold us back from our obligation to invest in the basic needs and infrastructure of our city. I’m not saying this particular proposal will do that, and I’m also not saying we can’t redevelop the Coliseum while also funding schools, public housing, and transit. We’ll just have to look at the financials details when they come out and let all of our elected officials know how we feel about them then.

Vanessa Remmers in the RTD has a long piece about the difference in how Chesterfield County has handled the old Cloverleaf Mall site compared to the entire Jeff Davis corridor

Good morning, RVA! It's 69 °F, and we’ve got a whole day of cooler temperatures! Expect highs in the mid 80s and the rain to probably even stay away until tomorrow.

Infuzion, the Scott’s Addition Club outside of which a quadruple shooting took place a couple weeks ago, has closed says Karri Peifer in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. I don’t know anything more than what’s in this story, and I definitely don’t know the specifics of Infuzion’s liquor license (which was revoked the day after the shooting) or their relationship with the building’s owner, but I do want to quote from what Marc Cheatham wrote earlier this week: “But my next thought was a concern for Infuzion, one of the only hip-hop clubs in that area (I think it’s the only one in Scott’s Addition). Will they now become a target of the high-level scrutiny that only a club with majority black patrons can be subject too? ... When I heard the news, my thoughts turned to: Will Infuzion be subject to some sort of forced evacuation? Let’s face it, Scott’s Addition, “the upcoming neighborhood” that is a hub for new breweries and an influx of young professional patrons – I don’t know any of those breweries to be black-owned and the majority of their patrons who visit them are not black – may not want a hip-hop club and lounge in their ‘up and coming’ mix.” And now, back in the Karri Peifer piece, I want to quote from the building’s owner: “Our goal is to lease the space to a tenant that complements the building and the neighborhood.” Again, I don’t know the specifics of anything, but I’ve been thinking about Marc’s words since he wrote them, and then, today, this.

Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury says a new effort out of the VCU Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs will try and tackle the why of Virginia’s high eviction rates. The effort, RVA Eviction Lab, hopes to have an initial report out later this year, and, in my opinionation, it can’t come soon enough. With local and state legislators apparently pretty motivated to get a handle on the Commonwealth’s eviction problem, they need to have the best data available to craft effective policy.

OK, this piece by Graham Moomaw in the RTD about Corey Stewart and a possible tie between one of his staffers and a group of white supremacists is juicy and weird. Don’t let it get lost in the details, though, that dude HAS TIES TO WHITE SUPREMACISTS. Like, we’re arguing over whether this particular staffer actively participated in a white supremacist group chat? No! Just being in a white supremacist group chat should preclude you and yours from running for office!

Mike Platania in Richmond BizSense has more news about the continued development along Brookland Park Boulevard.

Driver runs into a Pulse station, news for days. Driver offroads onto the sidewalk around the farmers’ market (!) causing thousands of dollars of damage and delaying the opening, hardly hear a peep.

Good morning, RVA! It's 69 °F, and we’ve got a whole day of cooler temperatures! Expect highs in the mid 80s and the rain to probably even stay away until tomorrow.

Infuzion, the Scott’s Addition Club outside of which a quadruple shooting took place a couple weeks ago, has closed says Karri Peifer in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. I don’t know anything more than what’s in this story, and I definitely don’t know the specifics of Infuzion’s liquor license (which was revoked the day after the shooting) or their relationship with the building’s owner, but I do want to quote from what Marc Cheatham wrote earlier this week: “But my next thought was a concern for Infuzion, one of the only hip-hop clubs in that area (I think it’s the only one in Scott’s Addition). Will they now become a target of the high-level scrutiny that only a club with majority black patrons can be subject too? ... When I heard the news, my thoughts turned to: Will Infuzion be subject to some sort of forced evacuation? Let’s face it, Scott’s Addition, “the upcoming neighborhood” that is a hub for new breweries and an influx of young professional patrons – I don’t know any of those breweries to be black-owned and the majority of their patrons who visit them are not black – may not want a hip-hop club and lounge in their ‘up and coming’ mix.” And now, back in the Karri Peifer piece, I want to quote from the building’s owner: “Our goal is to lease the space to a tenant that complements the building and the neighborhood.” Again, I don’t know the specifics of anything, but I’ve been thinking about Marc’s words since he wrote them, and then, today, this.

Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury says a new effort out of the VCU Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs will try and tackle the why of Virginia’s high eviction rates. The effort, RVA Eviction Lab, hopes to have an initial report out later this year, and, in my opinionation, it can’t come soon enough. With local and state legislators apparently pretty motivated to get a handle on the Commonwealth’s eviction problem, they need to have the best data available to craft effective policy.

OK, this piece by Graham Moomaw in the RTD about Corey Stewart and a possible tie between one of his staffers and a group of white supremacists is juicy and weird. Don’t let it get lost in the details, though, that dude HAS TIES TO WHITE SUPREMACISTS. Like, we’re arguing over whether this particular staffer actively participated in a white supremacist group chat? No! Just being in a white supremacist group chat should preclude you and yours from running for office!

Mike Platania in Richmond BizSense has more news about the continued development along Brookland Park Boulevard.

Driver runs into a Pulse station, news for days. Driver offroads onto the sidewalk around the farmers’ market (!) causing thousands of dollars of damage and delaying the opening, hardly hear a peep.

Good morning, RVA! It's 70 °F, and highs are stuck in the upper 80s. Take it all in, because there’s some weekend rain headed our way.

This morning, the Richmond Times-Dispatch talks to the other elected members of our government—City Council and School Board—to get their thoughts on the Coliseum redevelopment proposal. The School Board has no say, authority, or input on the proposal, but takes advantage of the media opportunity to remind everyone that our school facility needs were not fully funded by this year’s meals tax increase

Good morning, RVA! It's 70 °F, and highs are stuck in the upper 80s. Take it all in, because there’s some weekend rain headed our way.

This morning, the Richmond Times-Dispatch talks to the other elected members of our government—City Council and School Board—to get their thoughts on the Coliseum redevelopment proposal. The School Board has no say, authority, or input on the proposal, but takes advantage of the media opportunity to remind everyone that our school facility needs were not fully funded by this year’s meals tax increase

Good morning, RVA! It's 71 °F, and yesterday’s rain has cooled things down a bit. Expect highs in the upper 80s for the next little while.

Alright, my dudes, I went to yesterday’s Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee meeting so you wouldn’t have to. Here’s the update on the four bills that I’d prefer to never see on an agenda again:

Two down, two to go; this is all good news. Alix Bryan at WTVR has an excellent piece of reporting on how the traffic levels on Brook Road make it a great candidate for a road diet, and, in the process, debunks a bucketful of bogus traffic-related claims made by Councilmembers Hilbert and Gray. But! There’s still work to be done to save this bike lane, and we’ve got until the September 19th Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee meeting to do it. So, if you want to learn how to advocate for things in the region—bike lanes or otherwise—you can and should sign up for Bike Walk RVA’s advocacy academy. It’s a no-joke time commitment, but, by the end of August, you’ll have all the tools you need to get out there and change the world.

Justin Mattingly at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a long update on Richmond Public Schools’ ongoing and much needed attempt at rezoning

Good morning, RVA! It's 71 °F, and yesterday’s rain has cooled things down a bit. Expect highs in the upper 80s for the next little while.

Alright, my dudes, I went to yesterday’s Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee meeting so you wouldn’t have to. Here’s the update on the four bills that I’d prefer to never see on an agenda again:

Two down, two to go; this is all good news. Alix Bryan at WTVR has an excellent piece of reporting on how the traffic levels on Brook Road make it a great candidate for a road diet, and, in the process, debunks a bucketful of bogus traffic-related claims made by Councilmembers Hilbert and Gray. But! There’s still work to be done to save this bike lane, and we’ve got until the September 19th Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee meeting to do it. So, if you want to learn how to advocate for things in the region—bike lanes or otherwise—you can and should sign up for Bike Walk RVA’s advocacy academy. It’s a no-joke time commitment, but, by the end of August, you’ll have all the tools you need to get out there and change the world.

Justin Mattingly at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a long update on Richmond Public Schools’ ongoing and much needed attempt at rezoning

Good morning, RVA! It's 76 °F, and we’ve got highs in the 90s with a reasonable chance of thunderstorms after lunch. ‘Twould be nice to cool things off a bit.

Richmond Police are reporting that a 19-year-old shot last month has died from his injuries. Andrew K. Hensley was fatally shot on June 29th on the 5800 block of Willow Oaks Drive.

Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch got to fly-on-the-wall a meeting yesterday focused on evictions with Mayor Stoney, Lt. Governor Fairfax, and a bunch of Richmond’s affordable housing advocates. It’s great seeing local and state-level leaders listening to local and state-level advocates before charging ahead with policy. Kind of unrelated, but something I keep wanting to say out loud: Near the bottom of the article, Robinson talks about affordable housing policies the Mayor is exploring, one of which is “a way to protect longtime property owners from rising property assessments.” A very smart person continually reminds me that Richmond already has both an existing Tax Relief and Tax Freeze program available to low-income seniors which could be expanded, but it’s often home repair costs that displace low-income home owners. Keep in mind that longtime home owners are not necessarily low-income home owners. Which brings us back to the article: I’m too lazy to look it up, but I assume the majority of Richmonders with low incomes are renters, so the work to reduce evictions in town is a critical part of the discussion around displacement and affordable housing.

Hey, this is a great idea: To fund the renaming of J.E.B. Stuart Elementary to Barack Obama Elementary, Richmond Public Schools will sell T-shirts through Bonfire, a local shirt-related fundraising group. At this exact moment, they’ve sold 461 shirts and hope to sell 3,000 to help cover the costs of a new marquee, banners, notebooks, stationery, and floor mats. Bonfire works in a sort of Kickstartery way, where you’ve got to buy your shirt within a designated window of time—12 days in this case, so don’t put it off too long. For some context, it cost the City of Petersburg around $18,000 to rename their J.E.B. Stuart Elementary. Superintendent Kamras says you can also give directly to the Richmond Public Schools Education Foundation.

City Council’s Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee meets today at 1:00 PM in Council Chambers (900 E. Broad Street). On the agenda: All kinds of things that frustrate me. We’ve got ordinances to ban bus stops on N. Davis Avenue, revoke control of bus routes from GRTC on that same block, and prohibit a bike lane on Brook Road (one that’s already planned, designed, and funded). I didn’t even mention the ordinance to force the City’s traffic engineers to reinstate a left turn lane on Belvidere that they’ve already decided is unnecessary. Because reasons, we don’t know which of these ordinances will be continued or withdrawn ahead of the meeting, but none of them are great. All of these ordinances are patroned or co-patroned by Councilmember Gray, if you’re a 2nd District resident and feeling emaily this morning.

Marc Cheatham reminds me that the quadruple shooting in Scott’s Addition last week happened near a hip-hop club and that we should be very aware of any sort of coded—or outright—racism as the neighborhood rallies and moves forward.

Michael Paul Williams weighs in on the Coliseum redevelopment proposal

Good morning, RVA! It's 76 °F, and we’ve got highs in the 90s with a reasonable chance of thunderstorms after lunch. ‘Twould be nice to cool things off a bit.

Richmond Police are reporting that a 19-year-old shot last month has died from his injuries. Andrew K. Hensley was fatally shot on June 29th on the 5800 block of Willow Oaks Drive.

Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch got to fly-on-the-wall a meeting yesterday focused on evictions with Mayor Stoney, Lt. Governor Fairfax, and a bunch of Richmond’s affordable housing advocates. It’s great seeing local and state-level leaders listening to local and state-level advocates before charging ahead with policy. Kind of unrelated, but something I keep wanting to say out loud: Near the bottom of the article, Robinson talks about affordable housing policies the Mayor is exploring, one of which is “a way to protect longtime property owners from rising property assessments.” A very smart person continually reminds me that Richmond already has both an existing Tax Relief and Tax Freeze program available to low-income seniors which could be expanded, but it’s often home repair costs that displace low-income home owners. Keep in mind that longtime home owners are not necessarily low-income home owners. Which brings us back to the article: I’m too lazy to look it up, but I assume the majority of Richmonders with low incomes are renters, so the work to reduce evictions in town is a critical part of the discussion around displacement and affordable housing.

Hey, this is a great idea: To fund the renaming of J.E.B. Stuart Elementary to Barack Obama Elementary, Richmond Public Schools will sell T-shirts through Bonfire, a local shirt-related fundraising group. At this exact moment, they’ve sold 461 shirts and hope to sell 3,000 to help cover the costs of a new marquee, banners, notebooks, stationery, and floor mats. Bonfire works in a sort of Kickstartery way, where you’ve got to buy your shirt within a designated window of time—12 days in this case, so don’t put it off too long. For some context, it cost the City of Petersburg around $18,000 to rename their J.E.B. Stuart Elementary. Superintendent Kamras says you can also give directly to the Richmond Public Schools Education Foundation.

City Council’s Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee meets today at 1:00 PM in Council Chambers (900 E. Broad Street). On the agenda: All kinds of things that frustrate me. We’ve got ordinances to ban bus stops on N. Davis Avenue, revoke control of bus routes from GRTC on that same block, and prohibit a bike lane on Brook Road (one that’s already planned, designed, and funded). I didn’t even mention the ordinance to force the City’s traffic engineers to reinstate a left turn lane on Belvidere that they’ve already decided is unnecessary. Because reasons, we don’t know which of these ordinances will be continued or withdrawn ahead of the meeting, but none of them are great. All of these ordinances are patroned or co-patroned by Councilmember Gray, if you’re a 2nd District resident and feeling emaily this morning.

Marc Cheatham reminds me that the quadruple shooting in Scott’s Addition last week happened near a hip-hop club and that we should be very aware of any sort of coded—or outright—racism as the neighborhood rallies and moves forward.

Michael Paul Williams weighs in on the Coliseum redevelopment proposal

Good morning, RVA! It's 77 °F, and today’s high is a toasty 94 °F. If we play our cards right, some rain tomorrow should cool things down a bit for the rest of the week.

Richmond Police are reporting a murder that occurred on Friday. At 2:07 AM, officers arrived at 1400 Roseneath Road and found Terrance C. Peters, 46, shot to death. This murder was part of an incident in Scott’s Addition where three other people were also shot.

In his Friday email, RPS Superintendent Jason Kamras announced a Bathroom Blitz—his commitment to “fixing and beautifying every single bathroom in RPS by the start of the school year.” I love this idea! I love even more that the idea came from students: Kamras says that better bathrooms are the number one thing students have told him would improve their school buildings. And, because he can already hear you revving up your “fixing bathrooms is just a tiny bandaid stuck on top of an almost billion dollar facilities need” arguments, he ends the email with “These efforts, while critical, won't address our long-term facilities needs. Over the coming months, I look forward to working with the Mayor, the Council, and the Assembly to craft a long-term, sustainable funding plan that addresses our brick-and-mortar needs once-and-for-all. Let's get this done, Richmond. Our students are watching us.”

If you’ve been over the Leigh Street Bridge recently, you’ve seen the amazing mural going up on one of the stark concrete walls at the eastern end of the span. Michael Paul Williams at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has the word on who’s behind the work and how its more than just paint on a wall