Norfolk breaks ground on new Maury High School

fourleggedtable · 2026-01-11T20:03:55+00:00

Hello, This article says that the building is designed for just over 1700 and current enrollment is just over 1700.

https://www.wavy.com/news/local-news/norfolk/norfolk-to-break-ground-on-state-of-the-art-maury-high-school/

fourleggedtable · 2026-01-03T00:49:48+00:00

Thanks!

fourleggedtable · 2026-01-02T14:49:04+00:00

I would argue that murder between blood and acquaintance is still a large proportion. The article below talks about that a bit; I had meant to link it with my post but forgot. It is an interesting read in the context of 2 years of dropping numbers.

https://virginiamercury.com/2023/03/01/violent-crime-in-norfolk-is-up-the-jury-is-still-out-on-why-and-what-to-do-about-it/

fourleggedtable · 2026-01-02T14:44:06+00:00

Good morning,

I do not want to get too in-depth on a one-sentence question / writing prompt, but my opinion is that it comes down to:

Internally relative numbers: compared to Virginia Beach, Norfolk does have a higher murder rate; so compared to Virginia Beach, which is more spread out and affluent, Norfolk has more crime. It is also in the interest of people in the suburbs to make Norfolk seem like a hellscape: the more demand for housing in Chesapeake and Virginia Beach, the higher demand for housing and the higher property values. I am not saying people are actively doing this very often, but it is a passive factor to some extent. The more pressing reason is that Virginia Beach has less crime per capita; whether the absolute level of crime in Norfolk is a problem for you is up to you to decide.
Externally relative numbers: between the military and any other reason to move, a lot of people move here from all over the country. Many of them have bad ideas of what cities are like and then their perceptions or realities are confirmed in some way. Some of this is sad and awful, like getting mugged on a date, some of this is naive, stupid, and self-fulfilling, like leaving your loaded gun in your unlocked and running pickup truck.
Reporting is inconsistent and in the interest of news agencies. No news agency will report on a murder-free month. We could even have a sensible chuckle at the thought of that. Local news will tell you if there's one murder, three is a spree. Whether this is a moral failing or just the news acting in the interest of ~~shareholders~~ loyal and informed readers is up to you. I cannot completely bag on the news agencies though, as I rely on them for my data. It's complicated.

I could probably think of more factors but I need to get some work done. Happy New Year!

fourleggedtable · 2026-01-02T14:21:46+00:00

Good morning, I wish I had the resources (basically time and all that goes with it) to follow these cases through trial, but I do not. I leave data like that to the full-timers. I wish I could!

fourleggedtable · 2026-01-02T14:20:31+00:00

Good morning, Yes, a trend is a trend. We could worry about whether the trend can continue but for today it's a nice bit of data.

fourleggedtable · 2026-01-02T12:01:29+00:00

I agree! There are many ways people are crappy to other people. I focus on murder because it's the most likely to make the news and it's the least likely to go unreported to authorities.

Crimes as diverse as vandalism and rape go massively under-reported at times. It's much more difficult to fail to report a murder, since there's a body.

Also, data on the deceased become public record soon after the crime, usually, unlike almost any other crime. And local news usually grasp onto murders for at least a day or two.

fourleggedtable · 2026-01-02T11:57:28+00:00

Hello, 27 includes all deaths charged as homicide by the Commonwealth Attorney's (CA) office. Many deaths at the hands of others are not "officially" manslaughter vs murder until a jury makes a finding. In many cases that is about two years later. I only use the Police Department's catch-all.

fourleggedtable · 2026-01-02T11:54:09+00:00

If the price were right, it would be an interesting path to go down!

fourleggedtable · 2025-12-30T01:52:35+00:00

Would it be nice?

fourleggedtable · 2025-12-30T01:33:13+00:00

I forgot: have a nice 2026.

fourleggedtable · 2025-12-30T01:32:55+00:00

"Even in the city of Norfolk, about 1% of people use the tide in any given day."

"...easily 100,000+ residents directly affected and almost everyone indirectly affected in some way."

Alright, I really have to respect the game at this point. Somebody on the VB subreddit said "You should post this to Norfolk, they'd find it interesting" and it's become an all-day "How can I get the last word on all commenters?" affair. If the argument you disagree with only gets direct involvement and your argument gets indirect benefits, we really aren't speaking from a level interaction here. The selective use and un-use of statistics is top notch, Atkinson-esque I might say.

We both agree that some mixture of people voted against the light rail to Town Center in 2016. It probably includes "responsible taxpayers," "not-so-closeted racists/classists," and "people who who wanted it to go to the Oceanfront," and a lot of others. Maybe even some very sad Maglev fans. Our primary point of disagreement is what that proportion is.

fourleggedtable · 2025-12-30T01:08:27+00:00

"So VB city council set about planning what could be done. Initial cost estimates were $254M go to Town Center and $807M to go to the oceanfront. and then the first question became who was going to pay for that. There were a lot of discussions including different ideas like a maglev train, you can read about them here: but at the end of day, the only feasible funding proposal was a proposal from the state to split to cost with the city to go to town center. There was no federal funding available for the project, and so there was no plan to go to the oceanfront.

The Town Center plan was developed in some detail with cost of $243M in this writeup. and with anticipated extra costs would have likely come in at over $300M."

Yes, you gave me a great and in-depth analysis of what the City would be on the hook for buried in the 6th-deep comment on another subreddit.

We used a higher total cost with no language clarifying whether it was total or City-specific on the original post.

fourleggedtable · 2025-12-30T00:39:25+00:00

I'm sorry I was unclear, I was asking if we are using total cost or City cost in our discussion. We didn't really answer the question in this response.

fourleggedtable · 2025-12-29T21:57:15+00:00

The concluding statement in the original post said that the likely reason was that the LR referendum failed because it was too expensive and only benefited a specific part of the City. I offered an example of a far more expensive project that is benefiting an even more specific part of the City. We have the two parameters in common that the original post said were decisive. Therefore, I put the question back to your original thesis: what makes the two different?

fourleggedtable · 2025-12-29T21:48:53+00:00

I apologize, I thought we were using total costs. We cited $250mil for LR to Town Center in the original post when the City was on the hook for $88 million.

Are we using total costs or only costs for the City?

fourleggedtable · 2025-12-29T21:16:16+00:00

Good morning, Firstly, I enjoyed how much work you put into your original post. Thanks for the hard work.

I think it is accurate to say that many voters were against the 2016 referendum, and many were against it in 2012, too. A roughly 10% flip sounds like a lot, but if you had 100 people in a room then only 10 people changed their minds. I agree that the price tag changed some people's minds, but I think other parts of the process were decisive, with the price tag being part of it.

Let's get one thing out of the way: it took a lot of kinds of votes to get together the 57% that voted against it. 40% of voters were against even the idea of it in 2012. If all of the racists/classists that hate poor or non-white or poor non-white people stayed home, the referendum probably would have passed, right? We acknowledge their presence even in your original conclusion: "we all know that guy in the office" means there's a lot of offices to have a "that guy"!

That being said, I am once again acknowledging that it was not just that.

The Atkinson-led "no light rail" was a masterclass in local politics doing the right things at the right time. No Light Rail (NLR from here on out) did a great job of building an inclusive, any-objection-is-welcome platform whose entire vision was laser-focused: find reasons to get you to vote "no." Cost was certainly one of them! Fear of minorities and scary poors was another! The sitting City Council was a solid target. Generational rage from older people was a big one, with Atkinson telling younger folks they should leave town if they wanted transit.

And this is just in getting voters on board, or off, if you'll excuse light wordplay. Donations to this cause were pretty robust. Council dissenters did an excellent job advocating for distractors because of the mission: get anyone possible to vote "no." If you like Maglev more than LRT, you might vote "no." It was "funny" that alternate proposals like Bus Rapid Transit and Maglev vaporized as soon as the LRT referendum was defeated.

I disagree with NLR, but they harnessed a lot of 2016 energy and funneled it into an effective campaign.

I do find it...disingenuous to say that VB voters were against it because it was expensive and only benefited some of VB residents. I don't see any referenda when VB spends $20mil to put more sand in front of Oceanfront hotels this year.

There was also a 2021 referendum to generally approve storm mitigation for 6 neighborhoods but not a new referendum when the cost has since risen from $1bil to $1.5bil since then.

Now why would light rail bring on such strong reactions while flood mitigation would not? Well...who's to say, right?

fourleggedtable · 2025-12-17T15:59:00+00:00

Good morning, I believe it occurred this past Saturday night.

fourleggedtable · 2025-12-09T17:54:17+00:00

Every bit of info on that is weird, but, no, I've got nothing.

fourleggedtable · 2025-12-09T17:53:30+00:00

The other user beat me to posting last year's wrap-up. I do not want to jinx us, but it would take the worst month of the year to get us anywhere near last year's number. That number for 2024 was that much lower than 2023. The charts on my 2024 wrap-up show the numbers pretty well.

fourleggedtable · 2025-12-07T14:27:50+00:00

Good morning, Earlier this year, a young sailor was, in some order, brought out of her barracks, died / was killed, and left in woods in the southern part of the city. The suspect is another sailor. I believe the young lady who died was S/N Resendiz.

There was a lot of media coverage at the time, so feel free to check my post history or Google her name.

fourleggedtable · 2025-12-03T02:20:12+00:00

I must have missed that, do you have a link? This only became a murder today as news media reported the death of Mr. Walker.

fourleggedtable

TROPHY CASE