Good morning, RVA: A collective bargaining ordinance, abortion stats, and love bombs

Shout out to Knitorious M.E.G. for doing a cool thing for 10 entire years!

Good morning, RVA! It's 74 °F, and today looks hot. You can expect highs in the 90s again and probably a real sweaty shirt if you decide to ride your bike home in the late-afternoon sun like I did yesterday. At the moment, we're looking at triple-digit temperatures forecasted for Saturday and Sunday. That's too hot!

Water cooler

Yesterday, at their special meeting, City Council introduced ORD. 2022-221, the new collective bargaining ordinance patroned by both the Mayor and all of City Council. Previously, Council and the Mayor each had their own visions for collective bargaining, the latter wanting to start with a small pilot group of City employees, while the former wanted everyone (cops included) to get their own union powers. I pulled up the new, compromise paper, scrolled around, and found the list of bargaining units recognized by the ordinance: Police, Fire and Emergency Services, Labor and Trades, Professional, and Administrative and Technical. Turns out, this is the same list from Councilmember Trammell's original Everyone Gets a Union ordinance submitted at the end of last year (ORD. 2021-345). That must mean the compromises reached by Council and the Mayor lie somewhere deep within the dark workings of the legislation—too deep and too technical for me to understand. Patrick Larsen at VPM and Lyndon German at the Richmond Times-Dispatch have some coverage, but don't really get into the differences between this new ordinance and the competing versions that came before it. I guess it doesn't really matter, but I still want to know! Anyway, Council will skip the committee process and will most likely vote on ORD. 2022-221 at this coming Monday's meeting, where it should pass without much discussion—save for some victory-lap speeches.

While we're talking Council, one other tiny update: The Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee will meet today and discuss the "Composition of the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority Board of Commissioners." I don't know exactly what about the composition of the RRHA Board they'll discuss, but I'm super interested to learn more. Appointing RRHA board members is Council's most direct way for maintaining oversight of Richmond's public housing authority. Whenever you hear someone on Council talk about RRHA's leadership, remember that it is Council that appoints the Board of Commissioners!

Richmond Axios's Ned Oliver pulled the numbers on the timing of (reported) abortions in Virginia: "Out of 16,249 abortions reported by health care providers in 2021: 97% took place in the first trimester, which spans conception to the 12th week of pregnancy. 3% took place in the second trimester, which spans weeks 13 to 26. Fewer than five total abortions took place in the third trimester, at which point abortions are limited to situations in which the health of the mother is at risk." I expect this data to be used to argue both for and against decreasing access to abortion at this coming General Assembly session.

The RTD's Jessic Nocera has a quick update on the new location for Richmond Public Schools' bus depot, after the previous building burnt down last month. At their meeting last night, RPS's School Board voted to move the depot to a property off 6th Street over in Manchester. As always, KidsFirst RPS has the most thorough recap of the entire School Board meeting, if you want to dive in.

You should definitely check out this piece in RICToday about Knitorious M.E.G.'s decade of yarn-based street art. It's wildly impressive to do anything for a decade, especially something surprising and wholesome like yarny love bombs. To celebrate ten years of the project, M.E.G. hopes to knit and deploy 150 installations. Love it.

Via /r/rva, a picture of a tiny kitten on a leash down at the river. Adorable!

This morning's longread
No Victims Allowed

I continue to love the Weekly Sift, and recommend it as a really good, thoughtful, and low-volume read. This week's featured post looks at Republicans' ability to filter out the terrible impacts that their policies have on real people. I think you'll nod along in agreement while reading the post. Content warning: Since it's a piece about current Republican policies, there are mentions rape and gun violence.

Every few weeks, though, something happens that is too big for the filter to handle, like a school shooting. The connection to policy couldn’t be clearer: Children are dead because the shooter had easy access to weapons that should only exist on a battlefield. Democrats would like to ban or restrict or control such weapons, but conservatives have blocked restrictions, and have even pushed to make such weapons more ubiquitous. Republican lawmakers and judges have innocent blood on their hands...That’s when you can see the conservative bubble’s immune system in its purest form.

If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.