Good morning, RVA: Banning books, giving away books, and Casino 2.0 language

It’s telling that City leaders in favor of the casino would rather not
mention the casino part of the deal.

Good morning, RVA! It's 59 °F, and we’ve got some real beautiful weather ahead of us. You should expect highs in the mid 80s for at least another handful of days, and then temperatures may start to creep up a bit. Today looks dry, but keep an eye out for a chance of rain tomorrow, which, while a bummer for the start of the weekend, is a real boon for my new azaleas.

Water cooler

VPM’s Lyndon German has a deeper dive into how Hanover County Public Schools’ inane book-banning policy works. News to me: the committee reviewing potential books to ban is “made up of seven Hanover residents, one from each magisterial district, along with the school district's assistant superintendent of instructional leadership or a designee. Committee members are appointed by the school board each August for one-year terms with no term limits.” Despite this committee—which will surely reflect to incurious, book-banning proclivities of the Board who appoints them—the School Board can step in and remove “any and all materials from libraries, classrooms, school buildings or the entire division by majority vote.” German also has a list of the 17 books banned by the Board this week, which includes two of the Sarah Maas books about fairies (that everyone I know is reading) and The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (that everyone I know should read). All of this sounds like a huge, unnecessary burden on teachers, and I wouldn’t be surprised if folks across the district start dusting off their resumes. P.S. Richmond Public Schools currently offers all teachers a $4,000 hiring bonus.

Ned Oliver at Axios Richmond points out that the folks pushing the Casino 2.0 project have mostly dropped the casino language from their public pitches. In fact, Oliver’s eagle eyes noticed that in the Mayor’s statement following Council’s approval of Casino 2.0 he never once used the word “casino.” I mean, if the City wanted to build a “destination resort” or a “spa” or a “new venue for live acts,”—all things mentioned by the Mayor and Council—it could totally do that without attaching a predatory casino. It’s telling that City leaders would rather not mention that part of the deal...except for Councilmember Jones, who, while I disagree with him on this, I do appreciate the honesty of his home-team take of “people are going to gamble, and when they do, he thinks they should do it in Richmond, not Petersburg.”

Exciting news for the tiny humans in your life: Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library has expanded to parts of the Richmond region. Tap through to the aforelinked website, fill out the form, and sign up to have free books mailed to your child—addressed to them, which I think is a nice touch—each and every month. So cool! Is there anything Dolly Parton can’t do??

Jack Jacobs at Richmond BizSense reports that Chesterfield may tweak their zoning to make developing residential projects easier in places currently zoned for agriculture. More houses is usually good, but this change seems like it would lead to an increase in sprawl, car-dependency, and climate-unfriendly development patterns. How about, instead, the County increase incentives for developers to build denser, taller, more transit-accessible neighborhoods along Chesterfield’s major corridors?

I’ve got two public meetings for you to consider attending tonight. First, at 5:30 PM in the Shockoe Apartments community room (206 Hospital Street), you can join a discussion about how to properly memorialize the Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground. This cemetery, located along 5th Street and the highway, has had its history and physical boundaries slowly chipped away over the last 200 years by a series of massive transportation projects—that is, until a single woman, Lenora McQueen, got involved after she discovered one of her ancestors is buried there. Memorializing this space could/should probably happen in conjunction with all of the the existing Shockoe projects floating around. Second, Richmond’s Charter Review Commission will hold a public hearing tonight at 6:00 PM at the Richmond East District Initiative Center (701 N. 25th Street). If you’re interested, and I think you should be, scroll through this comprehensive list of changes the Commission is considering (starting on page nine).

This morning's longread
What Happens When You Die? Unlike Most People, I Know. I Even Have Video.

I’ve written before about how I can’t resist stories of people returning to life after actually dying. This story, of a man who died suddenly while playing hockey, is a lot darker than the last one I linked to and kind of made my chest tighten up with anxiety while reading it. Reader beware, I guess!

My death occurred while playing beer-league hockey at the Winterhawks Skating Center in Beaverton, Oregon. My signs of life—breath, heartbeat, movement, the ability to perceive and form memories—left me. When I came back, I became fixated on the period I’d lost, what had happened to me and where I’d gone. It turned out there was more out there than I bargained for. This is the forgotten story of my forgotten death.

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

Picture of the Day

I stepped on a nail literally the same day I got a tetanus booster and the nail went exactly between two of my toes. Whew, everything’s coming up Catrow!