Good morning, RVA: 911↗️ • 16↗️; moving the Registrar's office; and civic homework for the weekend

Good morning, RVA! It’s 75 °F, and today looks slightly cooler than the last several punishing days. I hope y’all got some rain last night.

Water cooler

As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 911↗️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealthand 16↗️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 117↗️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 48, Henrico: 43, and Richmond: 26). Since this pandemic began, 287 people have died in the Richmond region. Here’s my stacked graph of statewide new cases, new deaths, and new hospitalizations since the end of March. I’m not sure you can compare new cases now to new cases back in May since we’ve really ratcheted up our testing game: The Commonwealth now regularly reports over 15,000 tests each day. You can compare the ebb and flow of hospitalizations and deaths though, which is (morbidly) interesting. The latter lags behind the former by a couple of weeks. Also, the most recent COVID Tracking Project post says that, looking at the national data, “it took 27 days after cases began to rise in early June for deaths to start rising as well.” Virginia’s cases started to really rise around the first week of July, so keep that in mind as we get closer to that 27-day threshold here in the Commonwealth.

I’ve got two ways for you to get involved in Richmond City civics this morning—perfect homework for the weekend. First, the application for the Task Force on the Establishment of a Civilian Review Board is up and open! If you want to help the City figure out how its Civilian Review Board should work, this is the task force for you. They need nine members, include one person 18-years-old or younger, one person with a disability, and one person living in public housing. It’s unclear to me what kind of commitment they’re asking for—although building a CRB from scratch by March seems like a lot of work for a group of volunteers. Also, if you know a youth who’d be a good fit and they need some help with their application, please let me know! I’d love to help or find someone to help. Second, the City will hold the official public hearing on removing Confederate monuments at their meeting this coming Monday, August 3rd at 5:00 PM. A reader reminded me that, because the State says so, this public hearing must be conducted in person (PDF). That means if you really, really want to go sit inside with a bunch of other people for what could be several hours to give a public comment on monuments that have already been removed, you are totally welcome to do so. Alternatively, you can and should email the Clerk’s office ([email protected]) with your comment in support of this paper before 10:00 AM on Monday, August 3rd.

Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense reports that the City’s Office of the General Registrar will move from City Hall to 2143 Laburnum Avenue sometime before Labor Day. Unlike City Hall, which is eminently accessible by foot, bike, or bus, this new location at the far west end of Laburnum, crammed up against the highway, is just plain hard to get to unless you’re driving a car. In fact, this BizSense article mentions parking four times and “ample parking” twice. However, not mentioned is that the new location’s only bus access is a 12-minute walk to the hourly #91 bus (it’d take you at least 45 minutes to get there from Downtown and over an hour from Southside Plaza), biking on the wide and speedy Laburnum is terrifying, and to get there on foot you must cross over a highway on-ramp and under two overpasses. Not only that, but in early August, VDOT plans to tear up the street directly in front of the Registrar’s new office to build a roundabout—adding navigating construction to an already significant stack of accessibility challenges. But why is the accessibility of the Registrar’s office important? This is where folks can register to vote, get an absentee ballot in person, and drop off an absentee ballot in person. I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but there’s a pandemic on and the number of folks who will want to vote absentee in November is gonna be enormous, and the City just made it that much harder for people to safely cast their ballot. Remember yesterday when I said that we desperately need “transportation staff who live, breath, lead on this stuff and deeply integrate it into every nook and cranny of civic decision-making”? This is exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about. Luckily, all is not lost, and City Council will consider ORD. 2020–163 on August 10th which will create a satellite in-person absentee polling place at City Hall for two weeks before the November election. If it were me, I’d have the satellite locations operating for the entire time in-person absentee ballot drop off is allowed, but it’s probably too late to make that happen as there are some state-enforced timelines involved when adjusting polling locations. Anyway, ORD. 2020–163 is a very important ordinance, deserves your support, and you should email the City Clerk ([email protected]) about it over the weekend (your third piece of homework!).

This seems like good news: The Governor has asked the Virginia Supreme Court to ban evictions until September 7th, Justin Mattingly at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. Mattingly also says that Mayor Stoney and Council President Newbille have asked the local Richmond-Civil General District Court for a 60-day ban on evictions.

It’s Friday, so I’ve updated my unemployment insurance claims chart with the new numbers from the week ending on July 25th. While totals claims have dropped continuously over the last month, new claims have steadily increased. I think I said this a while back and just haven’t had time to look into it, but I’d love to read some analysis on what kind of jobs are folks losing and has that changed over the past couple of months. You can read the Virginia Employment Commission’s post about this week’s numbers over on their website.

I don’t really know how to talk about this piece about bike lanes in the RTD by Sabrina Moreno. I’ve got a lot of issues with it, starting with the headline (which is usually not written by the reporter). But, I don’t know that anyone needs to hear anymore opinions about bike lanes from a 3rd District white man who rides his bike everywhere. I’ll just say that I deeply agree with 9th District Councilmember Jones that, compared to sidewalks, bike lanes and shared-use lanes are cheap and quick to install. I think we should put them in on as many roads as possible to help folks safely walk, roll, and ride through their neighborhoods to access food, shopping, and public transportation. As Jones says, “I should feel comfortable that I can walk without worrying about a white person calling the police or a police car slowing down and that’s our reality.”

My god, did you now that the parking requirements for multifamily buildings in Chesterfield is two parking spaces per unit? Even if they are one-bedroom units?? This blows my mind! Jack Jacobs at Richmond BizSense says the County will consider shrinking those requirements down to a still-too-chubby 1.5 spaces per one-bedroom unit.

This morning’s longread

Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation

John Lewis wrote this essay before he died and asked that the New York Times publish it on the day of his funeral.

While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Millions of people motivated simply by human compassion laid down the burdens of division. Around the country and the world you set aside race, class, age, language and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.

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