Good morning, RVA: Vaccines for all, a State budget, and Richmond Connects

I’m pretty excited about the Richmond Connects process—which kicks off in
earnest today.

Good morning, RVA! It's 63 °F, and today looks pretty pleasant with highs in the mid 80s. Can anything top this past weekend though? What wonderful weather!

Water cooler

Over this past weekend, each necessary domino of vaccine authorization fell, and, as of Saturday, “all Virginians from the age of six moths and older are eligible now to get a free COVID-19 vaccine.” Finally! This is great news, and I know a wave of relief washed over a bunch of families out there who’ve waited to vaccinate their babies for years at this point. If that describes you and your family but you’re still trying to figure out where to make a vaccination appointment, you’ve got a bunch of options: Firstly, you should call your pediatrician (if you have one), but you can also head down to your neighborhood pharmacy for kids three and older, or check the list of vaccination events put on by the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts. I’m not trying to raise a Mission Accomplished banner on COVID-19 or anything like that, but having everyone eligible for vaccination does seem like a big milestone. Great work, everyone.

Jenna Portnoy at the Washington Post continues to write about “the embattled Virginia health commissioner who in comments to his staff and media interviews dismissed the role of structural racism in public health.“ In a piece published this past Friday, Portnoy reports a couple new items, including that the Commissioner issued a statement—expressing regret yet not apologizing—saying in part “I am fully aware that racism at many levels is a factor in a wide range of public health outcomes and disparities across the Commonwealth and the United States. I also deeply regret that any of this has caused you to feel discounted or disrespected; such has never and will never be my intent.” Senator McClellan called the statement “gaslighting.” Looking forward, the Commissioner will give a report to the State’s Board of Health this coming Thursday—the chair of which thinks he should resign.

We have a State budget! Michael Martz at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Governor Youngkin will ceremonially sign the budget today. “Today is a good day in Virginia,” the Governor said—but it’s not all sunshine and roses for the Gov and his platform. Neither the gas tax holiday, which would have had almost zero impact on Virginians while crippling transportation funding, nor the sneaky amendment to further restrict abortions in the Commonwealth made it into the final budget. Things could have been a lot worse, and I’m thankful for the Democrats’ razor-thin margin in the Senate.

Today at 12:00 PM the City will host an online meeting to kick off the Richmond Connects process. What is Richmond Connects? Well, RVAConnects.com is glad you asked! “Richmond Connects is the process to develop the City’s strategic multimodal transportation plan. It’s focused on equity and will work towards healing past injustices by elevating the voices of people harmed in the past.” I am so incredibly excited about this plan—mostly since Richmond’s current transportation plan is an old, desiccated husk in desperate need of updating but also because the pre-planning that took place over the last couple of months (aka Path to Equity) was pretty wonderful. The entire Richmond Connects process will produce two documents, an action plan (of actual projects the city should prioritize over the next 10 years), and a scenario plan (a longer-term look at “high-level projects and policies for the 2050 planning horizon). Expect to hear a lot from me on this over the next forever, until the planning process wraps up in fall of 2023. Get stoked!

The City’s Planning Commission meets today with a medium-sized agenda and two Richmond 300-related items of note. First, RES. 2022-R033 would adjust some maps in Richmond 300 to change Oregon Hill’s future land use from Neighborhood Mixed Use to Residential. I do not think Oregon Hill will keep winning their decades-long battle to prevent more development in their neighborhood, but I guess we’ll see. Second, the Commission will have a discussion “regarding the City Council resolution to amend the Richmond 300 Master Plan.” This is the resolution that I’ve written about a ton before and is titled “Embarrassing amendments to R300” in my local legislation Trello board (RES. 2021-R026). I have a feeling today’s conversation about what Council is asking the Planning Commission to do could get spicy. Tune in at 1:30 PM to find out!

FYI! Crews are out there starting to paint the Pulse’s bus-only lanes today, so that means delays and detours and alternate stop locations. The general plan is for the Pulse to use the nearest local service stops instead of the stations, but you can find a precise list of changes in this Twitter thread.

This morning's longread
Meet the Peecyclers. Their Idea to Help Farmers Is No. 1.

Setting aside my initial reaction of “Peecycling!”, I do think the feeling of creating a sustainable cycle between yourself and the things you grow is pretty compelling. This is definitely why (some) people get so into composting.

One of the biggest problems, though, is that it doesn’t make environmental or economic sense to truck urine, which is mostly water, from cities to distant farmlands. To address that, the Rich Earth Institute is working with the University of Michigan on a process to make a sanitized pee concentrate. And at Cornell, inspired by the efforts in Niger, Dr. Nelson and colleagues are trying to bind urine’s nutrients onto biochar, a kind of charcoal, made, in this case, from feces. (It’s important to not to forget about the poop, Dr. Nelson noted, because it contributes carbon, another important part of healthy soil, along with smaller amounts of phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen.)

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