Good morning, RVA: A stack of NoBro news, #NoCarNovember, and a very important cheese update

Good morning, RVA! It’s 41 °F, and that’s at least 40 degrees colder than yesterday afternoon. Dang, cold front! Today, you can expect clear skies and temperatures in the mid 50s, and more of that throughout the weekend.

Water cooler

First, a correction. Yesterday, I said that the Nats had brought home the first baseball championship to D.C. since the 20s. This is not correct! The Washington Grays, a Negro League team that split time between Pittsburgh and D.C., won a championship in 1943, 1944, and 1948.

RVA Rapid Transit, my place of full-time employ, released its position on NoBro’s proposed GRTC Transit Center. Basically, as currently described, the thing is too big, too far away from the Pulse, and solving a problem that mostly no longer exists. But don’t get it twisted: Bus riders do need shelter, bathrooms, and humane places to wait for their bus. The proposed solution, though, just isn’t the right one. Also, I want to point out that it’s pretty incredible how much public transportation has featured in the discussion around NoBro—I think we’d be having an entirely different conversation five years ago. But if we are going to invest all of this time and money into redesigning downtown, we’ve got to build something that’s going to complement and grow our bus system for all riders.

Mark Robinson and Karrie Peifer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch report that the folks behind NoBro have picked a new manager for the arena. I don’t know anything about how these deals normally work, but Spectra has agreed to both pay $8 million to “furnish the new arena” and “cover any annual operating loses over its 30-year contract.” That seems like something; is that something? Also in the RTD, Michael Hallmark, NoBro’s chief architect, has a column about his take on arena-based urban redevelopment. I like that he opens with a couple sentences about how we can raise taxes (to pre-Recession Era levels, remember how I used to say that constantly?) to pay for basic and necessary services.

The Navy Hill Development Advisory Commission will meet tomorrow at 9:00 AM at the Hickory Hill Community Center (3000 E. Belt Boulevard). They’ll focus on “the draft Risk Matrix,” which sounds like a fascinating document. Also, the Commission’s website—which I’m pretty sure I made fun of in this space before—has started to turn into a pretty solid home for documents and resources related to the Commission’s work. Good job, Commission!

Ben Teresa and Kathryn Howell have co-authored a column in the RTD about our eviction and housing crisis and some of the next steps we need to take towards a solution. It comes down to cash: “We need a commitment of resources — real money — for affordable housing that comes from a dedicated funding source, and we need to target those funds to serving those earning less than 50% of area median income. This is a complex problem, and if we do not step up, there might be a lot of noise but little to show for it.” It is a complex regionalproblem, but that’s a pretty straightforward solution. Keep this in mind as we move into local budget seasons and the General Assembly session. What are localities and the state doing to provide more money for affordable housing?

Y’all! It’s not just me that’s obsessed with reducing Richmond’s dependence on cars: Councilmember Addison has decided that “the 1st District team will be foregoing personal vehicles while in the city and using our feet, our bikes and the GRTC bus system to get around…We can all do our part to reduce carbon emissions and reimagine our streets as places for people instead of exclusively a way to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. Join us in the NoCar November challenge even if it’s just one or two days a week.” #NoCarNovember! I love it! And while giving up cars for an entire month is definitely not an option for some folks—as I am frequently reminded—I do think everyone can take a day or two each week and try and limit the amount of time they spend driving around our region. You can follow the Councilmember’s adventure over on Twitter (@andreasrva).

Yesterday, I mentioned that 5th District Candidate Thad Williamson did an AMA over on /r/rva, and now you can read all of his (very thorough) answers. By the way, I was totally wrong about people peppering him with NoBro questions—not a single person asked him an arena-related question, and, instead, we got a bunch of thoughtful questions about what sets Williamson apart and how will he help make day-to-day life in the 5th District better. Good job, /r/rva!

Important cheese news from RVA Hub: A new cheese shop, Truckle Cheesemongers, has opened in Blue Bee Cider in Scott’s Addition. Never have I wanted to spend $35 per month more than after I learned Truckle has a monthly cheese share.

Remember! Sunday is when we do a thing with our clocks for…reasons. I always screw up whether we are now starting Daylight Saving Time or stopping Daylight Saving Time, so let’s just say you’ve get an extra hour of sleep on Sunday and be done with it.

This morning’s longread

An Undeserved Gift

Essays like this are The Bitter Southerner’s speciality, and no one does it better. This one’s about okra.

No one can say for sure who carried the first okra pods across the Atlantic. The location of origin is also obscure and its lineage unclear. Botanists squabbled for centuries over okra’s classification, finally settling on Abelmoschus esculentus, from Arabic abu-l-mosk, or father of musk, and a Latin root word for delicious, full of food. It is a member of the Malvaceae, or mallow family, kissing cousins with cotton, cocoa, durian, and hibiscus. When the pods get too big and fibrous, okra takes on the characteristics of its inedible relative balsa wood. Some scientists argue okra came out of the Ethiopian Highlands, then spread across the Arabian Peninsula and onward to the African subcontinent on two principal trade routes known as the Monsoon Exchange.

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