Good Morning, RVA: What to wear?
Cold now, warm later. Decisions, decisions!
Photo by: sally_monster
Good morning, RVA! It’s 36 °F, but today’s highs will hit the mid-60s. It’s one of those days you’ll need to wear a lot more clothes exiting than you will entering the house. Layer up wisely!
Water cooler
On Friday evening the mayor’s office posted both the proposed admendents to the biennial fiscal plan (PDF) and the proposed 2017-2021 capital improvement program (PDF). You should at least read the mayor’s letter at the front of either of these documents. One big takeaway is the intense discrepancy between the amount of funds asked for by the public school system for school facility maintenance and the amount included in the mayor’s capital improvement program. I made a chart about it. The administration says, “Regular preventative maintenance will provide quality environments for the students of the City of Richmond with the added benefit of achieving operational cost efficiencies”–which, to be fair, is good advice that we should definitely give ourselves should we become time travelers and head back several decades to when we decided to stop doing exactly that. It’s a little late now, though. On the table to make up the funding gap are the real estate tax referendum and new legislation the mayor will introduced that will “allocate a percentage of all incremental new real estate tax revenue to fund school construction and renovation projects.” School Board will meet tonight to discuss.
Oh, also, if the mayor’s budget is approved by Council (there are many, many meeting between now and July 1st when the new fiscal year begins), we’ll all be paying an extra $2.50 a month on our utility bills for leaf collection.
Wednesday at 5:30 PM our own Susan Howson will co-host Richmond Ballet’s Studio Two: In Studio Rehearsal Viewing & Reception. It’s a chance for you to get even up-closer and personal-er with the ballet folks as they work through doing the amazing things that they do. Plus, afterwards, you can schmooze a bit with the dancers and feel truly ungraceful and trundley.
There was a Democratic debate yesterday–no one made any off-color jokes. The New York Times has a recap and a nice table of where all the candidates stand after this weekend. More primaries tomorrow (Hawaii Republican caucus, Idaho Republican primary, Michigan, and Mississippi)!
Sports!
MARCH MADNESS!
- Rams couldn’t hold on to beat Dayton in overtime, falling 68-67. They won a share of the A-10 regular-season title and will play the winner of Rhode Island and Massachusetts on Friday at 6:30 PM.
- Spiders lost to George Mason, 73-83. Richmond and Fordham meet at 12:00 PM on Thursday in the Atlantic 10 Tournament.
- #4 Wahoos finished out the season with a 68-48 drubbing of Louisville. They’ll take on the winner of Clemson and Georgia Tech at 7:00 PM on Thursday.
- Hokies handled #7 Miami 77-62 to earn a 6-seed in the ACC tournament. Tech will face the winner of Florida State and Boston College on Wednesday at 9:00: PM.
This morning’s longread
The rise of American authoritarianism
Here’s that Trump piece everyone is talking about. You should defintiely read it–it gives you a great framework to understand what’s going on in America right now and hints at what the political landscape might be like after the elections.
And so the rise of authoritarianism as a force within American politics means we may now have a de facto three-party system: the Democrats, the GOP establishment, and the GOP authoritarians. And although the latter two groups are presently forced into an awkward coalition, the GOP establishment has demonstrated a complete inability to regain control over the renegade authoritarians, and the authoritarians are actively opposed to the establishment’s centrist goals and uninterested in its economic platform.
This morning’s Instagram
— ∮∮∮ —
Want to automagically get Good Morning, RVA in your inbox every morning? Sign up below!
-
Recommend this
on Facebook -
Report an error
-
Subscribe to our
Weekly Digest
Ross Catrow
Founder and publisher of RVANews.
There is 1 reader comment. Read it.