Good morning, RVA: HIGH COVID-19 Community Level, RPS budget stress, and poke weed

Today I've got two stories about native plants—it's Richmond's only zoning,
budget, and plant-obsessed email newsletter!

Good morning, RVA! It's 58 °F, and today looks lovely! Expect highs in the mid 80s, some sunshine, and a further break in the humidity. You can expect an absolutely enjoyable Friday, so make sure you out there and enjoy it! The A+ weather—with some rain tomorrow—continues through the weekend, but then things heat up in an unpleasant way on Monday.

Water cooler

As of last night, and for the next week, the COVID-19 Community Level remains high for Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield. The 7-day average case rates per 100,000 people in each locality are 270, 260, 247, respectively. This means that the CDC guidance continues to recommend that everyone, regardless of vaccination status, wear masks in indoor public places! Our current coronamoment is all about riding the waves, and this particular wave sure looks like a weekslong extended plateau.

I haven't seen much reporting on how the proposed but still-in-limbo state budget impacts Richmond Public Schools, but KidsFirst RPS has a quick write up from earlier this week and, yikes, it's not looking good. From the piece: "The state’s budget means that the district is getting $3.1 million less than what the Administration had expected. And, with a mandate to give teachers $2.2 million in one-time bonuses — which wasn’t in RPS’s budget — that means we now have an additional $5.3 million gap in our school budgets for next year...The answer to this complicated math problem? RPS kids are short by more than $12 million." First, RPS's School Board, despite pleas from City Council, didn't even request the full budget amount suggested by the Superintendent, which, in retrospect, seems like an unforced error that's going to have compounding consequences. Second, I think there are a couple of ways out of this $12 million hole that don't involve slashing support for Richmond's kids—but they'll all require the School Board, City Council, and the Mayor to get on the same page. Possible but probably exhausting.

Eric Kolenich at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports on the announcement of the Richmond Health Equity Fund's first funding recipients. Full disclosure: I work on the HEF as a small part of my day job and think it's a pretty rad idea. Crossover Healthcare Ministries, Nolef Turns, and the Richmond Behavioral Health Authority received a combined $230,000 from the Fund to do a bunch of work—COVID and otherwise—to address public health disparities and to keep our communities healthy. I think the HEF is a great example of using the influx of one-time federal coronamoney to stand up something that can create sustainable change in our city. Nominations for future projects and programs opens on June 16th!

Richmond Magazine's Eileen Mellon reports that today and tomorrow you can stop by a handful of local spots and grab some yaupon tea: "Perk, Stir Crazy Cafe, Sub Rosa Bakery and Blanchard’s Coffee on Morris Street will be serving nonalcoholic takes on the buzzy beverage, while Fuzzy Cactus, Laura Lee’s, The Jasper and Poe’s Pub plan to offer spiked versions, with each competing for the title of best iced tea and cocktail." I am not-so-secretly obsessed with yaupon, because its North America's only native caffeinated plant, and one that's native to our area, too! I have summer day dreams of planting a yaupon in my back yard and making my own tea as insurance against any impending apocalypse—if you can make morning drink, you're definitely a valuable member of the post-apocalyptic society. If, instead, like a normal person, you'd like to buy some yaupon for yourself, head over to Project CommuniTea's website and place an order or find them at a farmers' market near you.

Via /r/rva, a plant identification question that pointed me to this absolutely wonderful Instagram post by @blackforager about how to cook and eat poke weed! Which is poisonous! I have some poke weed coming up in a bed full of zinnias that are on my list to pull up this weekend, and now that I've watched this video...I am still going to pull the poke weed up. But! I will certainly be more thoughtful while doing so.

This morning's longread
The Queen Conch’s Gambit

Want to read a long piece about conchs? It's Friday, so, yes, I think you totally do.

That first hatchery, its lab a glorified shed with a windmill, was part of the utopian vision of a navy nuclear engineer turned philosopher-biologist named Chuck Hesse. Before commercial tourism took off in the Turks and Caicos, he saw the islands as a model biosphere for ocean conservation, alternative energy, and aquaculture. In her two years running the outpost from 1981 to 1983, Davis proved that, under the right conditions, queen conchs will undergo their metamorphosis—from pearly eggs to swimming veligers to shelled infants—in the lab. Once they’re tiny sea snails with 4-millimeter-long shells, they can be moved to an outdoor nursery, where they take another year to grow into finger-long conchs. Bulking into a breeding-age queen can take three years longer or more.

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