UVa has declined to extend Al Groh’s contract, the Post reports, leaving him under contract for just three more years. His record leaves something to be desired among Cavaliers fans, so there’s been support for seeing him replaced with a new football coach.
Archive for December, 2008
The Albemarle Board of Supervisors has asked county staff to prepare a budget with a real estate tax rate of 77 cents, Brandon Shuletta writes in today’s Daily Progress, an increase from the current 71 cents. Declining property values require a tax hike in order to maintain existing services. Ninety cents would keep county revenue level, while 74.5 cents would keep taxpayer payments the same. Every member of the BoS had their own figure in mind, but they ultimately decided on 77 cents, with supervisors Ken Boyd and Lindsay Dorrier (the two conservative members of the board) both dissenting.
In today’s Progress, Rachana Dixit explores the difficulties of calculating the cost of housing in a college town. Looking at the raw numbers, about half of the city is spending more than a third of their income on housing, which is trouble. Except for students, for whom that’s a reasonable thing to do for a few years. Knowing how much people are paying for housing is important, because it’s a key method of determining the fiscal health of the population and the appropriateness of our housing stock. It’s good that we all see the problem of these data—now we’ve got to solve it.
Nelson County has bootstrapped an Ivy-based local-food distribution hub, Erin McGrath writes in the Nelson County Times, providing $10,000 towards its establishment. The non-profit would serve the Thomas Jefferson Planning District (Nelson, Albemarle, C’ville, Fluvanna, Greene, and Louisa), functioning as a badly-needed middleman between farmers and final points of sale like restaurants and grocery stores. It’s the idea of Charlottesville’s Kate Collier and Marisa Vrooman, who figure it’ll take $300,000 to get started. Next they’ll be asking the BoS for $80,000. It’s definitely not a good time to asking any government entity for money, but if they can demonstrate that a significant economic gain will result from enabling this trade, it might be a smart investment for TJPD members.
The Chamber of Commerce has endorsed the establishment of a regional transit authority, the Progress reports, in a move that should surprise anybody following local politics. The Chamber has historically been pretty far to the right—it was just a few years ago that they suggested that government shouldn’t establish a minimum wage—so supporting the creation of a new government entity and a new taxation structure to support it is a sign either of how badly the state has failed to fund transportation or how far that the Chamber has moved to the left.
This leaves Del. Rob Bell in an awkward position, since he opposes allowing citizens to hold a referendum to determine if they should fund a transit authority. Bell surely doesn’t want to go up against the Chamber, especially not on something this large, so he’s likely left having to justify a 180° on this.
Albemarle’s three high schools are preparing to spend $600k apiece to install synthetic turf, Brandon Shuleeta writes in today’s Daily Progress, and not everybody is happy about it. There’s the obvious mixed economic message being sent, although that’s reduced by the anonymous donor who chipped in $325k/school, and some folks just don’t like the idea of playing on synthetic turf. There are concerns about some nasty chemicals found in the fake grass, a problem that the federal government is of two minds about the seriousness of. The Board of Supervisors has agreed to spend $225k to help get together enough money for the turf, leaving the schools $163k short.
A three-judge panel has concluded, after a recount, that Democrat Tom Perriello is now Congressman-elect Perriello, replacing six-term Republican incumbent Rep. Virgil Goode. Perrillo won by 727 votes. He’ll be sworn into the 111th Congress on January 6.
Steve Ashby writes:
Until it shuts down in 6 days, my podcast site will be hosting a series of excerpts from a 1975 Jefferson Cable production “Overview: Downtown Renewal.” With the re-bricking of the Mall, it seems like a good time to look back at just how much controversy the whole idea caused. Despite Hook article article to the contrary, many merchants supported building a pedestrian mall.
I’ve put those excerpts together into a single video, which you can watch here:
Note that it opens with credits, but don’t skip through them—you’ll love the b-roll footage of downtown that’s playing in the background. As a Charlottesville history buff, this stuff is like catnip to me.
12/22 Update: Steve has put an even longer version of the video online in two chunks: Part 1 and Part 2. Thanks, Steve!
The above is a photo of a parade through downtown held in 1917, featuring the Monticello Guard, taken by Rufus Holsinger. UVa’s Special Collections Library has 9,500 photos taken by Holsinger in the first decades of the last century, mostly portraits, but many depicting the goings-on around town during his time. Just under 3,000 of these photos are available on the website, including 800 of Charlottesville and 1,100 of UVa. Most of the Charlottesville ones from the the nineteen-teens.
Some of my favorites are Albemarle Grocery Co. (the pink warehouse), Brown Milling Company, (Beck Cohen), Chancellor’s Drug Store (Qdoba), the Charlottesville Dam, downtown, the Gleason Hotel, McGuffey under construction, Midway (West Main and Ridge/McIntire), a drawing of the National Bank (Wachovia), the post office (the JMRL central branch), the Southern Railroad Depot (Union Station), Temple Beth Israel, Timberlake Drugs, Monticello mountain as viewed from Pantops, and a Charlottesville & Albemarle Railway Company trolley car.
If you’re at all interested in local history, you’d best plan to set aside an hour or two to troll through this list. I’d love to see somebody do a then-and-now series of pairings of some of these images. Maybe one day UVa will provide coordinates and direction data for each of these photos. It would be great to map these.
Lisa writes:
Two firetrucks just came down our road—and I was freaking out since that means there is a fire, an injury or something that means bad news. Turns out it was one truck followed by second carrying Santa Clause! I can tell you that my 9 year old will never get over it. In a cynical day and age, I can tell you that I probably won’t either. Thanks so much to the people that came up with this idea and the people that pulled it off. Merry Christmas!
The Hook has decided to start naming a “Person of the Year” annually, and for this first year, they’ve named City Manager Gary O’Connell. Lindsay Barnes writes:
He’s the CEO of one of Central Virginia’s biggest companies, administering a $162 million annual budget and supervising over 900 employees. Like any CEO, he has a board that stakes out policy positions, but he’s the one who makes things happen. Those facts in and of themselves are enough to make Gary O’Connell a contender for “Person of the Year” any year.
However, this year, perhaps more than any other in his 14-year tenure as Charlottesville City Manager, has found O’Connell at the center of several larger-than-usual controversies.
Much of the piece is turned over to O’Connell “to let him talk about issues, respond to critics, and make the case that he’s consistently given City Council the best possible advice.” The runners-up, incidentally, were Congressman-elect Tom Perriello, Commonwealth’s Attorney Denise Lunsford, businessman James Murray, Bill Crutchfield, and Olympian Lindsay Shoop.
Saga Communications has cancelled Rob Schilling’s Saturday-morning show on WINA, Bryan McKenzie writes in today’s Daily Progress. The conservative talker and former Charlotteville City Councilor’s daily show has been airing for two years, Monday through Saturday. It’s one of just four shows being produced at WINA now, along with their morning show, Coy Barefoot’s afternoon show, and their “Best Seat in the House” sports show.
The Michigan-based Saga bought Eure Communications’ stations in 2004, which was when it became clear that change was coming to 3WV, WINA, and Z95, and not for the better. Station management wasn’t available to comment by the Progress’ press deadline, so Schilling himself is the source of the story. His show will be replaced with the Laura Ingraham Show. Whatever one thinks of Schilling or his show, there’s no doubt that the area is better served by his local show than a nationally-syndicated one.
Courtesy of the Albemarle County Historical Society, from the Russell “Rip” Payne Collection. Merry Christmas!
Brian McNeill reports in today’s Daily Progress that Robert Hauser Homes appears to be in some financial trouble. One homebuilder is suing Hauser, alleging that Hauser was contractually obligated to buy $2.56M in lots, but didn’t, and the builder is now stuck with the land (and mortgage payments). And one of the developers behind Old Trail has sued Hauser over a similar matter, in that case nine lots worth $1.4M. And a county flooring company went after Hauser in court for unpaid bills, though that’s since been sorted out. Like many local businesses (especially developers), they’ve laid off employees, shut down one of their offices, and dramatically scaled back construction plans. Bob Hauser tells McNeill that “it’s been slow…it’s been very challenging.”
This is something I’ve had my eye on for a while now. To my eye, Hauser was hugely overextended when the bubble burst. They’d expanded to construction in developments near Fredericksburg (Fawn Lake and Somerset, if memory serves) while riding the bubble hard here in town. I’ve worked with and gotten estimates from a bunch of guys in the construction business in the past year, and more than a few have told me that they’re hurting because of outstanding debts from Hauser.
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