Good Morning, RVA: Budgets, interns, training camps, candidates, and menus
Real pleasant out there today.
Photo by: Floridaman1985
Good morning, RVA! It’s 41 °F, and today will look and feel a lot like yesterday: Sun for days and highs in the 60s. We’ve got about three more days of this on the books, so get used to it. Then, go find your shorts, because it’s about to get for-realsies warm!
Water cooler
Governmental budgets are very complicated, and–depending on the type of person you are and what you like to do with your free time–very boring. But if you want to understand how we can fund Richmond Public Schools you’ve got to understand how these dang budgets work. Teresa Cole continues to do the very important heavy lifting to make this topic accessible and even, dare I say, entertaining (of course I dare, because this kind of stuff is right up my alley!).
Quasi-related, our fabulous intern Chris Bolling was one of the many students who walked out of school on Monday to protest in support of Richmond Public Schools. He wrote about the experience here. Excuse me while I burst with pride.
Finally on the schools tip, I guess you should read this back-page piece in Style by Carol A.O. Wolf because Folks Are Talking About It. There are definitely true things in there, but the reality is that by the time the Mayor first called up the team from Washington to talk about building them a training center, Richmond had been underfunding school maintenance for a long time. Until 2015, we spent $0.06 per square foot per year on school maintenance. Common industry practice says you should be putting $4.08 per square foot per year towards maintenance (PDF, page 35). That’s 6,800 times more than what we were doing! So yes, it’s ridiculous that we pay an NFL team for the privilege of seeing their faces a couple weeks out of the year, but the poor decision making when it comes to funding schools predates this whole debacle.
Ned Oliver would like you to meet two of the new people running for City Council. Compare his list with the list of folks who’ve filed the papers required to raise money and you get a sense of the current candidate picture. We’re still 61 days out from the filing deadline, though, so if you think you’d make a good Council Person get started collecting your signatures and filing your paperwork. It’s the perfect time to get involved in local politics; At least 3-4 of the districts will be wide open!
I would like you to meet all of the dang spring restaurant week menus. There are many restaurant weeks like it, but this one is ours.
If you want to get real bummed, read the executive summary of Chicago’s Police Accountability Task Force report (PDF). Definitely check out the fascinating / depressing chartsandgraphs.
Oh, there’s a Democratic debate tonight at 9:00 PM on CNN. Been awhile!
Sports!
The Flying Squirrels will have fireworks tonight, so, no, that’s not someone breaking into your house. Here’s the full list of fireworks dates if you want to put them on your calendar.
- Squirrels lost to Reading, 4-6. But! They return home tonight for Opening Night! They’ll face Altoona at 6:35 PM, and you can get tickets here.
- Nats picked up their fourth straight win, moving to 6-1. They wrap up the series with the Braves today at 4:05 PM.
- 1st-seeded Caps host the 8th-seed Flyers tonight at 7:00 PM in their first game of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
This morning’s longread
Classic ’80s and ’90s Personal Ads From New York
What a time to be alive!
Before Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, and OkCupid, mortals had to navigate the maddening nuances of everyday social rituals to find romance. Just kidding — they had New York Magazine, which in the golden age of print was famous for its “Strictly Personals” section. There’s some comfort in knowing that even before Tinder was allegedly ruining dating, Richard Gere look-alikes and Bulgarian princesses were turning to outside help in their great search for love. Below, we’ve combed through the New York Magazine archive room, poring over issues from 1983 to 2001, to bring you 33 highlights from the personals.
This morning’s Instagram
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Ross Catrow
Founder and publisher of RVANews.
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.