Good morning, RVA: 1,700 • 42; Kamras kept; and Richmond 300 amendments

Good morning, RVA! It’s 39 °F, and drizzly. Expect highs in the mid 50s today which makes it the warmest day of the week. Temperatures will fall over the next several days, and we might be looking at another chance for snow in a couple of days!

Water cooler

As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,700 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealthand 42 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 339 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 219, Henrico: 81, and Richmond: 39). Since this pandemic began, 709 people have died in the Richmond region. A case count number that starts with a one?? We haven’t seen such a thing since the day after Christmas—which surely must be a data reporting issue—or November 30th before that. I don’t know what’s going on, but let’s keep it up for the next several months. Over on the vaccine side of the house: Here’s the graph of the weekly cumulative vaccinations administered by Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield. For each of the past two weeks the region has hit its Stupid Math Goal of 20,000 total vaccines administered, which I think is wonderful given the nationwide shortage of vaccine. Unfortunately, I don’t know that it’s realistic to expect that kind of progress to continue until the federal government starts shipping more doses—which sounds like it could be a while. If you want the full update on the region’s vaccination situation, you should watch this briefing from Amy Popovich at the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts(Facebook), or you can read this good summary by Tom Lappas at the Henrico Citizen. Both speak to the soon-to-launch federal CVS vaccination program (which is different than CVS’s agreement with the feds to vaccinate long-term care facilities). Details are scarce—just like vaccine—which I’m sure won’t make for a stressful situation at all.

Last night, the RPS School Board voted 6–3 to renew Superintendent Jason Kamras’s contract for four more years (YES: Doerr, Young, Harris-Muhammed, Burke, Page, Jones; NO: White, Gibson, Rizzi). VPM’s Alan Rodriguez has the details. What great work by advocates—like you!—over the last several weeks. Look what happens when folks get involved! I’m pretty dang excited for what the next four years brings at Richmond Public Schools. One tangential note: While I deeply disagree with the NO votes, I do support Boardmember Gibson’s desire to shift the superintendent’s contract renewal date away from the election cycle. It’s unfair to plop such an important decision in front of a newly-elected board still trying to get up to speed. Luckily, this is pretty easy to do: In two years, extend Kamras’s contract for another two years. Henrico County just did this, and, as far as I can tell, that County’s public school system still exists to this very day!

Related: RPS School Board will meet again tonight for a budget work session. Perhaps more interesting—or at least more immediate—Superintendent-For-The-Next-Four-Years Kamras will address the Governor’s recent request that all K–12 school districts offer in-person learning by March 15th. I don’t see a presentation on the Board’s website yet, so you’ll just have to tune in tonight to hear what details Kamras unearthed about the Gov’s plan/edict/request/whatever.

City Council also met last night and adopted both RES. 2020-R056, the work-from-home study resolution, and ORD. 2020–256, the participatory budgeting ordinance. I feel like I so rarely get to mark off legislation I’m watching as “adopted.” Great work everyone. Also, and slightly vomit-inducing, I found the list of requested amendments to the Master Plan (PDF), and, y’all, there is a lot in here: changing language, deleting entire objectives, adding new details. I see several places where Councilmembers want to reduce the allowable height for buildings recommended by the Plan (“height” is mentioned 19 times in this document). Is this a normal part of the process? Do we want to allow wholesale line-item amendments like this when we literally just spent years methodically working on this document as a community? Have planners been involved at all? What’s the legislative process for approving each of these? Surely not as a package, right? I have a lot of questions.

Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense reports that the City has reached a deal “for a multimillion-dollar redevelopment of Richmond’s city-owned Public Safety Building property.” The ordinances to make this an official done deal were introduced at Council’s meeting last night. What makes me most excited about this particular project is the opportunity to reopen and reconnect Clay Street. Also, lets put a pin in this sentence: “The project would relocate the existing GRTC transfer station on Ninth Street to the surface parking lot across Ninth from the building.” The number of trips taken from the transfer plaza has reduced in recent years, but those folks that do still use it need a place to sit and a place to stay dry when it rains. “Surface parking lot” does not do either innately.

Today, the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts will host a free COVID-19 community testing event at Diversity Richmond (1407 Sherwood Avenue), from 10:00 AM–12:00 PM. See those low case count numbers up in the first paragraph? Help keep them low by getting tested if you think you may have been exposed!

The Senate trial portion of Impeachment 2: Cruise Control kicks off today at 12:00 PM. Dan Sinker’s Impeachment.FYI has all of the details for how this second impeachment trial of Donald Trump will play out. As he says, “hold on to your butts.”

This morning’s patron longread

Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?

Submitted by Patron Susan. While I do think this article from 2017 conflates screens with social media a bit, it’s still terrifying! And what now, in 2021, where digital contact with each other is one of the only safe ways to stay in touch?

At first I presumed these might be blips, but the trends persisted, across several years and a series of national surveys. The changes weren’t just in degree, but in kind. The biggest difference between the Millennials and their predecessors was in how they viewed the world; teens today differ from the Millennials not just in their views but in how they spend their time. The experiences they have every day are radically different from those of the generation that came of age just a few years before them. What happened in 2012 to cause such dramatic shifts in behavior? It was after the Great Recession, which officially lasted from 2007 to 2009 and had a starker effect on Millennials trying to find a place in a sputtering economy. But it was exactly the moment when the proportion of Americans who owned a smartphone surpassed 50 percent.

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Picture of the Day

Charming row houses at 1031 Tilden Street.