Good morning, RVA: $1.20, a School Board meeting to untangle, and a private parcel sneak peek

Flirting with lowering the real estate tax rate is not how we're going to
fix billions of dollars and decades of disinvestment.

Good morning, RVA! It's 41 °F, but today you can expect sunny skies and highs in the mid 70s. Get out there and squeeze the last remaining drops of summer out of the empty, pulpy rind of 2021.

Water cooler

It's been a while, so here are the all-time graphs of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in Virginia. You can see in all three that we're still steadily sliding down the backside of this summer's delta peak, which feels great. Honestly, I almost feel like I did during those blissful three weeks of early summer, where it looked like we'd have this whole thing wrapped up by fall. I've learned my lesson and now I'm optimistic but wary—fool me once, etc—especially when the New York Times has this to say on their global State of the Virus page: "Cases are rising again in Europe, where pandemic restrictions have been relaxed and temperatures have dropped." Relaxed restrictions and dropping temperatures is totally us just a couple of weeks from now!

As foretold, the Richmond Times-Dispatch's Chris Suarez reports that City Council passed the ordinance necessary to maintain the City's real estate tax rate at $1.20 with Councilmembers Trammell and Jones voting against. I think this is the first time, that I can remember, that more than one councilmember joined in on a vote to decrease the tax rate—which, again, I think is absolutely bonkers. Yes, assessments have increased and that has resulted in increased revenue, but in what world does it make sense to reduce the real estate tax rate to keep the City's budget flat?? Is anyone living in the Richmond right now looking around and saying "Yep, we're done here, this is the best we can do!" If rising taxes for lower-income home owners is a concern, let's certainly address that with thoughtful and clever legislation. But once the tax rate goes down, it's never going back up—and in five, ten, fifteen years from now, when these members of Council have moved on, we may desperately need that additional revenue.

Another Monday past and another bizarre Richmond Public School Board meeting to untangle. Here's a thread from @KidsFirstRPS if you dare to dig in, and here's a piece by the RTD's Kenya Hunter about the Board backing away from the District's vaccine mandate. I'm more interested, though, in the motion introduced by Boardmember Young that would, apparently, reassign RPS building maintenance funds to cover architecture costs for the construction of a replacement for George Wythe High School. Theoretically, this would be reimbursed by Council at a later date? I am confused, and I look forward to learning more. However, as I've said this entire time, City Council and the Mayor hold all the monetary leverage in this situation. If I were the School Board, I would be super careful about initiating any sort of game of budgetary chicken.

Patrick Larsen at VPM has a short update on Virginia's attempt at redistricting that provides a tiny, perfect illustration for how, across the country, Democrats and Republicans aren't even playing the same game. Lemme quote three sentences at you: "A group of Democratic Virginia senators complained that Republicans nominated partisan map drawers for the derailed redistricting process. The Republican nominees have either recently accepted money from Republican groups or worked on maps that were later struck down due to partisan gerrymandering...Democrats proposed three academics who have published books and papers on redistricting and partisanship." We'll see what's more effective: Democrats complaining or Republicans blatantly nominating experienced gerrymanderers.

You need to make sure this weekend's InLight is on your calendar. On November 12th and 13th, light- and sound-based art installations will pop up in Great Shiplock Park, Chapel Island, and along the Capital Trail. It's one of my favorite Richmond Things and a great excuse to explore the city at night. Also, I just learned that the Capital Region Land Conservancy and The Conservation Fund will temporarily open up the parcels they recently acquired along Dock Street! That's a boring sentence, but this section of riverfront has been private and off limits for as long as I can remember and now's your chance sneak a peek at what will eventually make for a billion-times-better connection for the Capital Trail.

This morning's longread
What Hulu's Newest Series Won’t Show You: A Virginia Community Solving Its Opioid Crisis

I didn't know any of this stuff about Martinsville—either their nation-topping opioid prescription rates or the local work to turn things around.

The year prior, Martinsville reported 399.9 opioids prescribed for every 100,000 people that lived there, according to CDC data. By comparison, the U.S. average in 2016 was 66.5. A year later, journalist Beth Macy released her book “Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America.” In it, Macy covered not just the situation in Appalachian Virginia – like that in Martinsville – but also why it came about. This month, a scripted Hulu series with the same name based on Macy’s writing debuted to largely positive feedback from critics. But for Appalachians who have lived and continue to live in communities strained by the predatory practices of a pharmaceutical industry giant, their stories won’t be reflected on the small screen. Their struggles didn’t end when the director said cut. They are still working to solve the problems Purdue Pharma brought to their hometowns.

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