Podcasts about Albemarle County Public Schools

It's the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month of the Twenty-Third Year of the Twenty-First Century. That's 105 years since the Armistice that ended World War One. That's a good reason to put out a special edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement to honor Veterans Day and to mention a few other things. This is also the 600th edition of the newsletter and podcast, and it's good to day to reach a milestone. I'm Sean Tubbs. On today's program:* The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors honors Veterans Day * A delegation from Guatemala is coming to visit Charlottesville* There will soon be another round of maintenance of trees on Charlottesville's Downtown Mall First shout-out: Virginia Veterans Services FoundationIn today's holiday-focused public service announcement, there are 700,000 veterans living in Virginia after serving in the armed forces in conflicts ranging from World War Two to the present day. Many need assistance from time to time, and the Virginia Veterans Services Foundation exists to provide that help. They seek contributions to support:* Virginia Veteran and Family Support* Veterans Care Centers* Virginia Values Veterans Program* Virginia Veterans Cemeteries* Veterans Benefits ProgramVisit the Virginia Veterans Services Foundation website to learn more.Albemarle County Supervisors marks Veterans Day Today is the 85th anniversary of Veterans Day and earlier this month, the Albemarle Board of Supervisors marked the occasion. “Throughout our nation's history, the United States of America has called on its citizens in uniform to serve and to protect our national security,” said Donna Price, the chair of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors and herself a veteran and is a retired U.S. Navy Captain in the Judge Advocate Generals. Price read from a proclamation recognizing the continued celebration of the national holiday.“On this day and every day, we remember the millions of patriots who have served and sacrificed for the betterment of our nation,” Price said. There are many veterans serving in Albemarle County government and in Albemarle County Public Schools and the proclamation is intended to salute their contributions now and in the past. “We, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, do hereby recognize November 11, 2023 as Veterans Day and celebrate all who have served our country around the world,” Price said. Deputy County Executive Trevor Henry is also a retired Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy. “In local government and in schools we believe we have well over 200 employees that in a prior life raised their right hand to support and defend our Constitution,” Henry said. “And when there period of service ended via either retirement or an obligation, they also found their way to our organization.”Three of those employees appeared before the Board to tell a bit of their stories and what they do now. Sergeant Dale Shoop served in the U.S. Army from 1983 to 1986 with some of that time in the demilitarized zone in Korea. He now works in Community Development as an inspector.“Heartfelt acknowledgment to my great grandfather, my grandfather, and my uncle for serving in the Royal Air Force, the Royal Army, and Royal Navy in Great Brain and England,” Shoop said. “Thank you to my father who served in the United States Army and my son who served in the United States Army and continues to serve in the intelligence sector.” Sergeant Roger Snodgrass served in the U.S. Coast Guard from 2002 to 2007 before joining the U.S. Army where he served under active duty through 2014. “Sergeant Snodgrass joined Albemarle County as a police officer in 2014 and currently holds the rank of sergeant on evening shift patrol,” Henry said. Snodgrass thanked the county for being an organization that's friendly to veterans. “As an individual who has multiple friends and family members in other local government, I do have the opportunity to say that this is a high performance organization,” Snodgrass said. “With our Board of Supervisors, our county executive's office, and our command staff with Albemarle County police department, they allow us to be able to provide outstanding customer services, day in, day out.”Reynaldo Avali served in the U.S. Army Reserve as a bridge crew member with the 299th Engineering Division beginning in 1995 with multiple deployments to Iraq. “During the first deployment to Iraq, they placed two bridges over the Euphrates River for combat operations,” Henry said. “The second time his unit was responsible for maintaining the bridges, training Iraqi engineers, and responsible for removing six bridges for retrograde operations.” During that time, Avali has also worked in building services for Albemarle County Public Schools where he continues to serve. Supervisor Bea LaPisto Kirtley thanked all of the veterans assembled in Lane Auditorium for their service. “It is something that you all do for us to keep our democracy safe, to keep all of us safe,” LaPisto Kirley said. “It is a solemn oath that you take to protect all of us and please be aware that all of us appreciate it. I think all of America really appreciates your service.”Supervisor Ned Gallaway expressed his appreciation as well and said he recently went back to his hometown to clear out his parents' home.“And we found my dad's formal dress uniform which  I had never seen in my life,” Gallaway said. “My brother-in-law who also served was navigating me around the different patches and such telling me, informing me what those were. And then we also found in a trunk a bunch of letters that my grandfather sent my grandmother during the war, but we found the official communication that he was [missing in action]. He was a prisoner of war and he thankfully was able to return at the end of World War II and he became a police officer.” Supervisor Diantha McKeel took the opportunity to share some resources that are available through Region 10 to veterans. Take a look here if you would like more information. “Region 10 currently has a partnership with Virginia Lock and Talk with resources available for all individuals including veterans to receive medical lock boxes and bags as well as trigger locks for firearms to assist individuals and families in locking up lethal means,” McKeel said. “Virginia Veterans Service Foundation also has a homeless veterans' fund and has been able to provide one-time assistance to homeless veterans to support rent, utility, and rental deposits.”   McKeel said Region 10 has also recently hired a peer support specialist to specifically assist veterans. Supervisor Ann Mallek used her time to mention the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2044 in Earlysville and American Legion Post 74 in Shadwell.“These organizations take care of their own,” Mallek said. “They raised funds most recently to buy a new medical transport van to help their fellows get to remote medical services.”Those services are currently a one-way 90-mile drive to south of Richmond. Mallek called for a veterans clinic to be located closer to home, particularly with the potential for expansion at Rivanna Station. Mallek also put in a plug for an organization called Living Free Together which also provides support to veterans and military families.  Price thanked Mallek for bringing up the role that families play and said that she was grateful for support from hers during her career. “Military service is frequently a family affair,” Price said. “From the Civil War through World War One, World War Two, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, to today…My father, a 97-year-old World War II Navy Combat vet. My son, a major in the Marine Corps. Myself with my own service. You'll find that people who work with or serve the county often have other family members who similarly provide public service.” Albemarle County also held a ceremony at 11 a.m. to mark Veterans Day.   Guatemalan Sister City delegation visiting next week Technically, Huehuetenango is not one of Charlottesville's Sister Cities. Instead, the western Guatemalan community is a Friendship City which is one step away. Either way, a delegation from that community will be visiting next week. “The goal of the delegation's visit is to forge initial ties between the government and citizens of Charlottesville and Huehuetenango,” reads a press release announcing the trip that will take place Monday through Wednesday. This is the first time more than one person from Huehuetenango has visited the area since the relationship was formalized in 2021.  There are two public events happening:* Coffee Open House, Tuesday, November 14, 9:00 – 11:00, Omni Hotel (212 Ridge McIntire Rd, Charlottesville, VA): This is a chance to learn more about Charlottesville's Sister and Friendship Cities and an opportunity to meet the delegation and drink free Guatemalan coffee brought from Huehuetenango. * Public Reception and Program, Wednesday, November 15, 6:00 PM – 7:30 pm, City Space (100 Fifth St NE, Charlottesville, VA): Charlottesville Mayor Lloyd Snook and Huehuetenango Mayor Gustavo Cano will signing of the Friendship declaration between the two communities. “The event will feature Marimba Music, a short program featuring words of friendship and welcome between the two cities and a choral arrangement from CHS ensemble.” The way toward this relationship dates back to the work of The Ixtatán Foundation, a group formed in 2001 to help build a high school in a small town in the greater Huehuetenango province. Charlottesville prepping for more work on Downtown Mall treesA dozen and a half people gathered on a recent Monday evening on the Downtown Mall outside the Charlottesville Parks and Recreation Department's offices to learn more about impending tree work to address safety. Urban Forester Steve Gaines held a laser pointer and directed it towards a dead branch he said presents a hazard. “If you think about like mid summer or in the weeks that we have the holidays coming up,” Gaines said. “How many people are going to be walking on the Mall? Thousands a day.” Gaines said his job as an arborist is to protect people and the trees themselves by trying to understand how they may react. “What is the probability of that branch failing? And if it does fail, does it land on another branch on its way down? Is it going to hit a building? Is it going to hit a person? What's the probability? When might it happen? Would it take a major wind event? A major snow event, something like that?” The bosques of Willow Oaks planted in the mid-70's are a very important component of the historic Lawrence Halprin design for the pedestrian mall. Many are also approaching their 60th year and their health has not always been closely watched. In December 2015, a report was published that called for a management plan. (read the report)“Despite the good initial outward appearances of the tree planting, the stand of oak trees is in a fragile, declining state,” reads the executive summary of that report. “The overly tight spacing of the trees and the insistence on paving right up to the base of the trunks of the trees has set in motion a series of biological factors that is beginning to push many of the trees to the point of failure.”  In the summer of 2017, there was momentum toward putting a management plan in place with another tree walk similar to the one from late October. (Could Downtown Mall trees be on the chopping block?, Kayli Wren, Charlottesville Tomorrow, July 26, 2017)Downtown Mall tree management faded as a priority as other events took place in the summer of 2017. Earlier this year, the city moved forward with a plan to remove several damaged or dead trees. Urban forester Steve Gaines held another walk on October 30 to prepare for another round of maintenance. “The purpose here was mostly to inform folks about tree work that is very likely coming this winter once the trees go completely dormant,” said Steve Gaines, the urban forester for the City of Charlottesville. “We will be going through to do some pruning. We call it crown cleaning as in we are removing some of the obvious hazards. Two inch deadwood and above.” Gaines said the event also had provided an opportunity to explain more about a forthcoming plan to manage the trees on the Downtown Mall going forward. The firm Wolf Josey Landscape Architects won the contract from the City of Charlottesville for the management plan.The work that Gaines talked about on October 30 was more pressing and continued work done in January of this year.“Every year I do an assessment and I take pictures and hit trees with the mallet and figure out what we're doing with decay,” Gaines said. Gaines held the event and will do more like it in the future because he understands how important the trees are to Charlottesville. “This is the Downtown Mall's tree, so it's a very sensitive, very historic topic and people feel very strongly about these trees and we just want to make sure that everybody is well-informed about what is going on with the trees and make people realize that they are going through an inflection point right now and to some degree there is some hazard,” Gaines said.“Most of those bigger limbs are very dead,” he said to the group while looking at one cluster of trees in front of the parking garage. During the tour, Gaines also explained more about how the trees interact with fungus, with bugs, other chemicals, and how they're affected by a changing climate. Stay tuned for more information about trees on the Downtown Mall and across the entire area. Reading material:* Charlottesville moves forward with apartment-quashing land buy, Hawes Spencer, Charlottesville Daily Progress (paywall) November 8, 2023* Charlottesville High School principal resigns, Jason Armesto, Charlottesville Daily Progress (paywall) November 9, 2023* Bigger at last: Text for historic marker recognizing Charlottesville slave trade revealed, Hawes Spencer, Charlottesville Daily Progress (paywall) November 10, 2023Concluding notes for #600Saturday editions feel good to produce, especially after taking a couple of days off in which I tried to not even think about this work. This week's time change took its toll on me, which I always hope won't happen but does all the same. Rest is not my ideal state of being, but it's good to be ready for the rest of the year. There's still so much to get through, and I'm grateful you're here to read or listen. As there is no regular schedule as of yet, you can find out if I'm publishing on a given day by looking at my page on Substack Notes. I also talk a little from time to time about the fact that is a business and there's plenty of room to grow. If you'd like to support this work and help it grow, do consider a Substack subscription or become a Patreon supporter. As with Election Day, today is not the day for the hard sell. I just want you to read or listen and to help me grow the audience! Ting supports a lot of great work and great spaces here, and if you're in the market for high-speed Internet, give them a try! Maybe you're in the market for a new high speed internet provider? If so, check out Ting! If you sign up for Ting at this link and enter the promo code COMMUNITY, you'll get:* Free installation* A second month for free* A $75 gift card to the Downtown Mall This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

Albemarle County Schools will be hosting a ZOOM Meeting Wednesday night regarding the divisions transgender policy. (Hint; It sounds a lot like Loudon County's... what could go wrong?)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do the wheels of the bus go round? How is the community squaring a desire for a more robust public transit system with the existing logistics? There are no direct answers to those questions in this or any other edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement, but this particular episode will inform you of some current thoughts by movers and those who tell the movers what to do. I'm your host, Sean Tubbs, somehow remembering a Ratt song… what comes around goes around. But will it get you there on time?  On today's program:* A brief summary of who's who and what's what in area transit providers * The Afton Express reports on ridership in its first 16 months of operations and looks ahead to the future* The CEO of Jaunt provides a glimpse into how it is recovering from recent funding errors caused by potential mismanagement * Albemarle School transportation is raising the bar on driver pay* The University Transit Services talks about their current night pilot and need for drivers* Charlottesville Area Transit briefs the Albemarle Board of Supervisors on its contract to provide microtransit service later this yearFirst shout-out goes to Camp AlbemarleToday's first subscriber-supported public service announcement goes out to Camp Albemarle, which has for sixty years been a “wholesome rural, rustic and restful site for youth activities, church groups, civic events and occasional private programs.”Located on 14 acres on the banks of the Moorman's River near Free Union, Camp Albemarle continues as a legacy of being a Civilian Conservation Corps project that sought to promote the importance of rural activities. Camp Albemarle seeks support for a plan to winterize the Hamner Lodge, a structure built in 1941 by the CCC and used by every 4th and 5th grade student in Charlottesville and Albemarle for the study of ecology for over 20 years. If this campaign is successful, Camp Albemarle could operate year-round. Consider your support by visiting campalbemarleva.org/donate.An introduction to this installmentToday's edition is a little different. I've written about transit planning in this community for many years and was present at a February 2008 meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors and the City of Charlottesville where they heard from consultants who suggested the creation of a Regional Transit Authority. For various reasons, the idea was shelved but came back in the form of a Regional Transit Partnership. That group has met since the fall of 2017 to talk transit. Here are some highlights of where we are right now:* Charlottesville Area Transit continues to be a six-day a week service due to staffing shortages caused by the pandemic that remain challenging despite a raise for starting drivers and mechanics to $21 an hour. Route changes for the city-owned service went through a public process in 2021, but implementation remains delayed.* Jaunt continues to rebound from allegations of fraud and misuse of public funds by its former CEO. Those allegations forced Jaunt to receive less funding for a time but new CEO Ted Rieck recently made the rounds of local governments to speak of the agency's plans.* The University Transit Service continues to be a separate entity that exists to serve students, faculty and staff in a highly concentrated area. UTS receives no federal funding and its schedule depends on whether the University of Virginia in session. * There is an ongoing study to recommend a governance structure for an expanded regional transit system. More on that as we go through this newsletter. Now, to some individual stories. Afton Express to expand service in 2023 One of the topics discussed over the years at the Regional Transit Partnership has been planning for new service in the Staunton area and the Charlottesville area. The Afton Express launched on September 1, 2021 and the Central Shenandoah Planning District Commission recently issued an annual report for the first 16 months of service. “Despite launching the service in the midst of a global pandemic when many commuters were working from home, a small group of dedicated riders showed up and have continued riding ever since,” reads the executive summary of the report. “This group of passengers grows each month.” In all, 12,261 people used the service from September 2021 to the end of last year. On the western side of the mountain. the most popular pick-up spots are the Waynesboro Park and Ride Lot and the Staunton Mall. On the eastern side, Central Grounds Garage and the UVA West Hospital Complex. Fares are $3 one way, or $25 for ten rides. The report also explains how service times were adjusted to reflect an increase in traffic as the pandemic continued to recede last spring. The report also looks ahead to the future with an expansion of service as well as a conversion from start-up funds for a demonstration to recurring funding through the section 5311 formula. Afton Express is part of the BRITE service and the idea is this would become another of their regular routes. “The expansion will add a third bus into the rotation to increase frequency of service. With additional stop times in Charlottesville and adding a fifth trip in the evening, Afton Express will be able to serve more commuters with schedules outside of the traditional 9:00 am to 5:00 pm work hours.” Interested in checking out the service? They started a new schedule on Monday. Take a look and let me and others know what you think. Jaunt provides update at Regional Transit Partnership Yesterday I got an email that the Regional Transit Partnership for February has been canceled. So, let's quickly go through some of the highlights of the January 26 meeting. Charlottesville Area Transit Director Garland Williams was not present, nor was one of Albemarle's Deputy County Executives. We'll hear from them later.Every single meeting of the RTP begins with a chance for people to speak out about transit-related issues. At the January meeting, the town manager of Scottsville put in a word for Jaunt, the only transit service to serve his community and Buckingham County. “I just want to represent the Scottsville neighbors who rely on this service,” said Matt Lawless. “Elders going to appointments and the few younger commuters who are really happy to use Jaunt regularly in their commuter service.” That cued up an update from Jaunt to begin the year. Jaunt is a public service corporation with stock held by five area localities.  (view the presentation)“Our organizational structure is the same as [Greater Richmond Transit Company] in Richmond,” said Ted Rieck, the CEO of Jaunt. “We think we're a good investment. Other studies have shown that every dollar spent on transit turns over seven times in the community.” Rieck does not shy away from acknowledging a rocky few years for Jaunt. “Jaunt has been set with challenge over the last couple of years,” Rieck said. “That's no news. A couple of years ago the agency became embroiled in controversy with staff members that made some bad decisions.” One of those was to mix federal funds for rural service with federal funds for urban service. The Federal Transit Administration penalizes such actions. This will have a strain on the ability to purchase new rolling stock that serves the rural area. Rieck said a future Regional Transportation Authority will have to contend with many of these same issues. Jaunt is planning for the future by being ready to provide microtransit service, planning for the use of alternative fuels, and recovering ridership that is still rebounding post-pandemic. They have applied for a grant to begin implementing the recommendation of a committee that suggests going electric is the answer for fixed-route service. Albemarle Schools continues to seek ways to address drive shortagesOne of the main issues facing any transit agency is the shortage of drivers. That's certainly the case for pupil transportation at Albemarle County Public Schools. Charmane White is the director of transportation and she said her team is preparing a strategic plan to address the issue. “Part of that recruitment and retention, as you know, is that we went up to $21.50 an hour,” White said. White said the system has also implemented a step scale for experienced drivers and one plan is to let people know of the potential. “Meaning we have drivers now making $32, $35, $38, $40 an hour because of their years of experience,” White said. Another component will be outsourcing of pupil transportation to private companies. White said employees have some trepidation. “This doesn't mean we're eliminating jobs,” White said. “Absolutely not. What we're trying to do is give some relief for our employees. Right now they're doing a lot of double-back runs and I'm trying to figure out a way how I can help.”One request for quotations that's currently out there is for buses that can transportation grade 3 elementary students to a field trip to Amazement Square in Lynchburg this March. (view the RFQ)White said the fleet now has two electric buses which are soon going to be put on the road. They have also added more 14-passenger buses which do not require a commercial's driver license. UTS continues night-service pilot, should receive four electric buses this yearThe University Transit Service offers 15-minute headways while school is in session. Last year, the service began to offer some late-night service. Kendall Howell is the assistant director of UTS.“We run one route that kind of goes through most popular areas like the library, the Corner, the dorms,” Howell said. “And then we run what used to be known as Safe Ride but it has been rebranded as UTS On-Demand.” Howell said that more data on the service will be brought before the Partnership in the future. He added that UTS has four battery-electric buses on order and they will be available this summer. “But we'll have a ribbon-cutting probably in September or October and we hope those buses join our service before the end of the year,” Howell said. Howell said UTS also suffers from driver shortages and needed 12 additional drivers as of the January meeting of the RTP.  He said UTS recognizes the important role that drivers play. “The main thing I think for me is this concept of elevating the bus driver in the public consciousness from sort of an entry level position to a trade, a trade that you choose along the level of an electrician or a plumber,” Howell said. A brief CAT update The update from Charlottesville Area Transit was given by Juwhan Lee, the agency's assistant director. He said ongoing studies include an alternative fuels study, a transit strategic plan, as well as planning for microtransit. We'll hear more about microtransit in a moment. But the biggest issue is the lack of drivers and Lee said the city will pattern a similar program to Albemarle's step scale program. Lee also said the city would like to hire third-party vendors to help with its driver shortage for the school system as well. Governance study updateWork continues on a study for what it would take to bring all of the various transit agencies under one umbrella, even if just for the purposes of securing more funding. The firm AECOM is receiving $150,000 for the work. There will be a more full update at the March meeting of the Regional Transit Partnership, but if you want to know more background, I've got you covered:* Regional Transit Vision update, May 20, 2022* Partnership briefed on potential vision for regional transit, June 1, 2022* Albemarle and Charlottesville officials weigh in on Regional Transit Vision, June 14, 2022* Council considers spending $30K toward governance study; Jaunt hopes to play a role, September 23, 2022* Charlottesville Area Transit to operate on-demand demonstration project in Albemarle, August 24, 2022* Governance study: A primer on regional transit systems, December 15, 2022Stories could be written about the cumulative price of all of this planning. Will any of it ever come to pass, or is it make-work? It's not my job to answer that last question, but I do remind you I was in the room on February 11, 2008 when I was so much younger then, but I'm older than that now. Second shout-out: Rivanna Conservation AllianceIn today's second Patreon-fueled shout-out, interested in helping a local organization keep our local river clean and protected? The Rivanna Conservation Alliance is holding an open house on Wednesday, February 15 at their offices on River Road in Charlottesville. Come by anytime between 4 and 7 p.m. to learn about their programs and the many ways you can get involved. Staff will be on hand to share information about monitoring, restoration, education, and stewardship activities. New and current volunteers are welcome! Light refreshments will be provided. Visit rivannariver.org to learn more. Planning continues for CAT to run microtransit in Albemarle County Charlottesville Area Transit has a contract to work with Albemarle County to provide microtransit service in the area along U.S. 29 in the urban ring as well as in the Pantops area. “Microtransit is an on-demand transportation solution really being implemented across the nation and here in Virginia,” said Jessica Choi, a transit planner with the firm Kimley Horn. “Folks can make real time trip requests and those trips are dynamically routed and programmed through the application and the vehicle is dynamically routed to serve those trips.” Microtransit is seen as a way of providing an alternative to driving for people who live in Albemarle's growth areas. In January, the Board of Supervisors got an update on how preparations are going for service to begin later this year. Last year, the Board of Supervisors agreed to apply for a grant from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation to find a one-year pilot of the service.. That's similar to the pilot for the Afton Express. The idea was to provide service in Pantops and U.S. 29. “We funded our portion of the grant and Charlottesville Area Transit made application for this pilot program and it was awarded last summer,” said Deputy County Executive Trevor Henry at the January 18, 2023 meeting of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors.The total amount of the grant to Charlottesville Area Transit is for $1.94 million, including a match from Albemarle of $388,000. The service is owned solely entirely by the city of Charlottesville. CAT hired the firm Kimley Horn to provide logistical support to get the project up and running. “Kimley Horn was brought in to augment CAT staff, to evaluate the program, best practices, options as far terms of implementation with a focus on execution and customer experience  in these two areas,” Henry said. This service would operate as a CAT-branded service according to Choi. “One of the things that we did want to make clear to you all and about this service is that this microtransit service and the operator will be operating under the CAT umbrella of services and not be its own standalone entity,” Choi said. The service on U.S. 29 would operate from 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and would feature three vehicles which are much smaller than the large buses used on fixed-route services. “The projected riders per weekday is 75 with the potential to grow to 360 daily riders and an average wait time for riders of less than 15 minutes,” Choi said. There would be only one bus for Pantops which would operate on the same schedule. The projected number of riders is 25 a day with a growth potential to 240. Charlottesville Area Transit will issue a request for proposals for a third-party to provide the microtransit service. “And then the [request for proposals] will come back as part of our finals and hopefully come back to the Board hopefully in April or May timeframe to kind of give you a detailed analysis of where we are,” said Garland Williams, the manager of Charlottesville Area Transit. Williams said a date for when the service will launch depends upon the results of the RFP. There are many different components. “So the software implementation, that could take anywhere from four to six months for implementation so whoever we procure as an operational partner, the implementation from installation to testing and training could take four to six months to make sure we work out all of the bugs,” Williams said. Then there's an open question of what the fare would be if one is charged. CAT is currently operating fare-free through a grant from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation.  He said because CAT doesn't charge now, adding a fare for microtransit could trigger a need for federal review of compliance with the Civil Rights Act in a process known at Title VI. The budget for the grant also includes $135,000 for marketing and advertising to make sure people know about the service. Supervisor commentsSupervisor Diantha McKeel has been a member of the Regional Transit Partnership since it was formed in 2017. She said it is critical that CAT and Albemarle pull this off. “Whether or not our community chooses to use this pilot will determine the interest in transit ridership in our community, so it's critical,” McKeel said.McKeel added that she felt the hours were too limited and might not work for people who work at Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital. Henry responded that the hours were those that were specified in the grant application. “As we experience the project, we certainly could look to expand it if it is successful,” Henry said. Williams said the RFP could be set up with a foundation of the stated hours but an add-on could be listed for additional housing. McKeel said she was concerned about having the service branded as Charlottesville Area Transit. “Based on what has happened with the pandemic and the decrease in ridership and the struggle around bus drivers in our community, many folks have an impression that CAT… they struggle with CAT,” McKeel said. “Let's talk about it. Let's face it. And I have a lot of folks who say CAT is not reliable in my urban ring. How are you going to address that if the microtransit service is labeled CAT?” Williams said that marketing will help with that service, and that the third-party service would be responsible for staffing and providing the vehicles. “From the community standpoint, when they call that number, that will be a dedicated group of drivers that are dedicated strictly to microtransit and it won't be pulling from the existing numbers of drivers,” Williams said. Williams added that microtransit drivers do not need a commercial driver's license, so that will open up the potential pool of applicants. Supervisor Jim Andrews said he was concerned that if the ridership doesn't materialize, the cost could be expensive. “A quick calculation based on the 75 plus 25 is 100 riders per day, and if that's six days over 50 or 52 weeks, that's about 30,000 trips a year,” Andrews said. “When you consider the amount of money being put into it at about $75 per trip if it is not scalable.” Williams said that is a valid concern but he believes there is pent-up demand on the U.S. 29 and Pantops corridors that will lead to higher ridership than the conservative estimates included in the original study that led to the DRPT project. “I think those numbers are kind of the floor but I don't think those are the ceiling,” Williams said. Supervisor Ann Mallek said she wanted whatever firm is hired to have a track record for delivering this service already and not learning how to do it at Albemarle's expense. She said she's also concerned about lack of service on Sunday service. “It is a real burden for people who get off shift and its dark and it is raining and they're walking down U.S. 250 to get home, and that's really hard on a Sunday,” Mallek said. “And we've certainly heard about that circumstance both to the hotels and hospitality locations as well.” Currently CAT is not offering any Sunday service and has not done so since the pandemic due to driver shortages. Supervisor Ned Gallaway said he's supportive of the pilot because he doesn't think fixed-route transit will work on U.S. 29. For instance, how would that ever help someone get from Woodbrook to the Rio Hill Shopping Center without a car? “When [Fashion Square Mall] was a vibrant location and you could get people from downtown to the Mall and vice versa, that was an effective fixed-route,” Gallaway said. Gallaway was fine with going fare-free but riders should be asked what they would be willing to pay. He said he just wants it up and running.“This speaks to our climate action policy, this speaks to helping eliminate traffic congestion,” Gallaway said. “This helps with economic development because more people could be out and moving around in the local economy spending their dollars where they are going.” How will it all turn out? How will you know? Charlottesville Community Engagement will strive to tell you the story. Reading material for when you're on transit: * FRA To Expand Passenger Rail Grant Amount, AASHTO Journal, February 2, 2023Housekeeping for #497This is perhaps the longest stretch between two podcasts in a long while. Part of this is due to a trip I took last week in which I did not take everything I needed. Part of this is due to a quick illness I seem to have contracted on Sunday. And part of it is because I wanted to do a transit edition. I also disclaim I briefly worked as an advocate, and part of that time I spent trying to get people to use the bus.Since the pandemic, I stopped being a regular rider as I work from home, but I'm still interested in how the various policies come together, or don't come together. Transit is often seen as the solution to congestion that comes with more people living in the community, but who is going to make sure that all of the visions come to pass? This newsletter is the only information outlet that seeks to cover transit as a beat, and it's just me doing the work. Do the things that get announced at meetings come to pass? There's so much to write about and that's what I intend to keep doing. But I need your help. Not just in the form of new paid subscriptions to this newsletter via Substack, but I need your perspective. What do you think? What are the barriers that keep you from getting on a bus? That's an ongoing conversation and one day I'll figure out how to include more of your voices in this podcast.For now, it's on to the next one. So this one ends with a notification that Ting will match your initial Substack subscription. That's a big deal because it allows me to keep paying my bills. I am not a non-profit and and I will not seek grant funds. Doing so allows me to be independent. It's only me who decides what I write about, and this time, I felt it was important to write about transit.What about Ting? Well, if you're looking for high speed Internet, consider signing up. If you sign up at this link and enter the promo code COMMUNITY, you'll get:* Free installation* A second month for free* A $75 gift card to the Downtown MallThanks for Wraki for music and the Fundamental Grang for whatever it is that that entity does.   This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

Longwood assistant women's basketball coach Loretta Coughlin talks about Cassie Ensley from recruitment to graduation in this special 20-minute podcast.  Coughlin assisted Head Coach Shirley Duncan from 1985-1998, served as Softball Head Coach from 1986-1995, and taught 20 years at Longwood in the Department of Kinesiology.   She retired from Albemarle County Public Schools in June 2022 after a 17-year teaching career.  Listen to a related Lancers Past podcast, a 40-minute interview with Cassandra Ensley Storer.

There is perhaps nothing else to be said about December 9 except that it is National Llama Day. I am unaware of any way to celebrate this occasion except to tell as many people as possible. How many other animals have a national day? How much of this matters? There are no answers, only questions, and an increasing number of episodes in the archives of Charlottesville Community Engagement. I'm Sean Tubbs, wondering where the nearest llama may be.On today's program:* The Charlottesville Climate Action Plan is to be added to the city's Comprehensive Plan and you can comment on this at the December 13 public hearing* A run down on recent procurement activity in Charlottesville * The Miller School seeks expansion to as many as 500 students, as well as other Albemarle County developments * The first in a two-part series on this week's meeting of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors and School Board on planning for future improvements and new facilities This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

It's the eleventh day of the eleventh month, marking the time 104 years ago when Armistice ended the First World War One. Today we mark it as Veterans' Day and local government is closed. This is the first edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement after a brief break to get ready for all that is yet to come. Today, though, is a good day to look back and all of those who have done so much to get us to this point. On today's show:* A round-up of election results from the area * Albemarle County recognized veterans Day* Charlottesville City Council gets a report from Interim City Manager and discusses recent violence downtown and possible solutions Sign up to get all of the free newsletters and podcasts and considering paying to help support the work!First shout-out: Free jazz concerts coming up week of November 15In the first subscriber-supported shout-out, the Charlottesville Jazz Society wants you to know about an upcoming series of free concerts by Professor Bill Cole and the Untempered Ensemble. The Untempered Ensemble are artists in residence at the University of Virginia Department of Art and will give three free concerts the week of November 15th. The group includes members of Indigenous American (Wabanaki and Nipissing), Asian-American, and African-American descent. The musicians play a wide variety of wind, string and percussion instruments from six different continents offering audiences the opportunity to form a world view of sound.The shows:* Tuesday, Nov. 15 at 5:00 pm | Memorial to Enslaved Laborers, UVA Grounds | FREE* Wednesday, Nov. 16 at 7:30 pm | The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center | FREE* Thursday, Nov. 17 at 7:30 pm | The Dome Room of the Rotunda, UVA Grounds | FREEFor more information about Professor Bill Cole and the Untempered Ensemble, visit arts.virginia.edu. Election results across the planning districtThe results are now more or less in for Election 2022 in Virginia but let's go through some of the details. Republican Bob Good defeated Democrat Joshua Throneburg to win a second term representing Virginia's Fifth Congressional District. With 354 precincts of 378 reporting, the Virginia Department of Elections lists Good with 57.86 percent of the vote. He carried 21 of  the 24 localities in the Fifth District. Throneburg only won in Albemarle County, Charlottesville, and Danville. Nearly 87 percent of voters in Charlottesville cast a ballot for Throneburg, compared with 66.1 percent in Albemarle, and 53.2 percent in Danville. Just under a dozen Albemarle residents voted in the 7th District due to the small sliver. Fourteen people voted for Republican Yesli Vega and seven people voted for Democrat Abigail Spanberger. Overall, Spanberg was re-elected to a third term with around 52 percent of the vote. The only other election on the ballot in both Albemarle and Fluvanna was for Scottsville Town Council. Two candidates were on the ballot, and several people made a write-in bid. Final votes won't be counted on Monday but incumbents Meredith Hynes, Dan Gritsko, and Bill Hyson were all re-elected. Turning to Greene County, Vega won the county with 60.8 percent of the vote. Kimberly Breeden Tate won an uncontested race to be Commissioner of Revenue. Rebecca Roach won an uncontested race to be on the School Board representing the Stanardsville District. Michael A. Payne won an uncontested race to be Mayor of Stanardsville. Three people were on the ballot for four seats on the Stanardsville Town Council and all three made it as did a write-in. There was a contested School Board race in Louisa County, where Lloyd Runnett defeated David Harold Rogers in the Mineral District with 67.8 percent of the vote. R. Garland Nuckols remains the Mayor of the Town of Louisa in an uncontested race. In the Town of Mineral , Ed Jarvis leads Pamela Harlowe with 98 votes to 70 votes with slightly more votes to be counted. For information on Town Council races in Louisa County, visit the Virginia Department of Elections webpage. Albemarle Supervisors mark Veterans' DayToday is Veterans Day and nine days ago, the Albemarle Board of Supervisors passed a resolution honoring the occasion. Donna Price, Chair of the Board of Supervisors, read from a proclamation. “WHEREAS, the United States of America, founded on the principles of liberty and justice for all, has called on her men and women in uniform to protect our national security,” Price said.* The preservation of our national interests, our rights and our freedom, has been ensured by the service of these individuals* On Veterans Day we remember and pay tribute to the millions of patriots whose courage and sacrifice have secured our freedom and defended our values both at home and abroad* Over one hundred veterans continue to serve their country in public schools and government as teachers and other professionals providing services to the students and citizens of Albemarle County* These veterans employed by Albemarle County Public Schools and Local Government deserve recognition for their continued service.“NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors hereby recognizes all veterans and the men and women that are currently serving in our armed forces around the world; an BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors hereby appreciates and honors the continued contributions and sacrifices of the Armed Forces veterans employed by local government and public schools,” Price read. Price herself is a retired U.S. Navy Captain in the Judge Advocate General's Corps. Albemarle Police Lieutenant Elizabeth Gomez accepted the proclamation. She enlisted in the Army National Guard in September 1991 and served as a combat medic and ambulance driver, becoming a police officer in 2000. “We do what we do now based on our choices earlier on in life to serve and protect our community,” Gomez said.While local and state government may be closed today, information about resources is available on the internet. A good place to start is the Virginia Department of Veterans Services and the Central Region. Second shout-out: UVA Helps Ensure Climate Resilient Buildings, Landscapes, & CommunitiesIn today's second subscriber supported shout-out, UVA Lifetime Learning, Office of Engagement, has an event this Saturday morning for readers following climate action and resilience planning. At the UVA School of Architecture, faculty, staff, and students are leading innovative research on climate resilient buildings, landscapes, and communities — from the coastal landscapes of Virginia's Eastern Shore and the Chesapeake Bay region to community development in the Arctic; from renewable biomaterials for building construction to new planning methods for restorative urbanism. Join Dean Malo André Hutson this Saturday morning at 10 a.m. for an opportunity to learn more about this exciting work, the diverse methods of community-centered design research it employs, and the actionable ways it addresses the future health of our built environment. This takes place at Alumni Hall as part of the More than the Score program or watch online! Register on Eventbrite for Designing for Climate ResilienceCharlottesville Council discusses gun violence; many governance details in written report The Charlottesville City Council had a full meeting on Monday, and one I'm finally able to get to after taking a couple of days off from a deadline. We start the coverage with the consent agenda, which included an extension of the contract for the Robert Bobb Group for the services of Interim City Manager Michael C. Rogers. According to a staff report, that will give enough time for a new police chief to be hired as well as for Council to adopt a strategic plan. Then there's also the matter of the budget. No one spoke during the opportunity to comment about the contract extension. Next, there was a review of the written city manager report followed by comments about recent shootings in the area. Let's go through the report first: (read the report) * Rogers said a new executive director for the Police Civilian Oversight Board will be hired as soon as possible. The Board's operating procedures will be reviewed by Council at their meeting on December 5. * New procurement rules adopted by Council in October will make it possible to use private dollars to help pay for energy savings projects in large capital projects. (story on InfoCville)* New employee Ben Chambers is now the transportation planner for the Department of Neighborhood Development Services. The position is intended to help address a backlog of stalled projects. Council was briefed on a “reboot” for transportation planning this past May. (story on InfoCville)* More people are seeking out the services of the Office of Human Rights with 2022 volumes higher than all of 2021. We'll hear more about a proposal to hire two more staff for the office in a future installment of the program. * The average review time for a building permit is now below is now down below 40 days according to a chart provided in the report. That's because the city sought help from the University of Virginia with a backlog and hiring two people to serve as both a new building code official and a support services manager. The new goal is to bring reviews down to 14 days, which the report states will take hiring more personnel. In City Manager Rogers addressed the recent shootings on the Downtown Mall. “A week or so ago there was a violent incident on the mall at one of our establishments that resulted in the death of someone and two bystanders being hit by stray bullets,” Rogers said. Rogers convened a meeting with Friends of Downtown Cville to discuss the incident and steps to improve security.  “When there is violence in the community in a concentrated period, naturally people are going to be upset and people are going to fear being in the location where those things are occurring,” Rogers said. “By and large when you consider the statistics in our community, it's still safe.”  Interim Police Chief Latroy Durrette offered some statistics about responses to calls for services related to gunfire. (view the data)There were 185 such calls in 2017 and 181 calls in 2018. “A slight decrease in 2019 with 172,” Durrette said. “In 2020, we started to see an increase of 298 and a greater increase in 2021 with 322.As of October 23, there have been 211 calls for service for shots fired. Durrette said shots fired incidents are not common on the mall and he showed maps showing where they are focused. For this year, that's the Tenth and Page neighborhood as well as the Orangedale-Prospect area according to one of the images. He said he has increased patrols on the Downtown Mall. City Councilor Brian Pinkston said he was more concerned about reducing gun use in the parts where it is concentrated. “Whenever I talk to folks, people remind me that this is complicated, the causes and how we try to effect change is complicated too because there are unintended consequences,” Pinkston said. Vice Mayor Juandiego Wade was at that Friends of the Downtown Cville event which was attended by a wide variety of stakeholders.“People came together from all sides of the community to talk about a very serious issue and I think we had some really good discussions,” Wade said. “Some of those discussions included de-escalation. I think that there was some understanding that when police arrive at these scenes, a lot is going and they want to preserve the scene. Part of it is that we wanted to talk about de-escalation,”Rogers said the city has been speaking with law enforcement at the University of Virginia about sharing information and resources. “We'll be following up on that and I think that there's opportunity for the city, the county, and the University law enforcement to join forces and approach this as a truly regional issue,” Rogers said. During matters from the public, several people addressed the issue including Emily Morrison of the Front Porch, a music training entity with space on 3rd Street SE.“My staff would  benefit from de-escalation trainings in the event of a conflict near our building so that we can know what to do in the event of an emergency,” Morrison said. More from this City Council meeting in future installments of the show. Articles you may have missed from other outlets:* Charlottesville and Albemarle County get bluer, Alice Berry, Daily Progress, November 9, 2022* Youngkin to propose new agency for workforce development, Markus Schmidt, Cardinal News, November 10, 2022* Maybe it's not just ‘the economy, stupid': winners and losers from the 2022 midterms, Bob Lewis, Virginia Mercury, November 11, 2022 (commentary)An inventory of end notes for #458We begin the end with a humbling confession. I got the beginning of the November 8 newsletter wrong by writing without actively engaging my brain. Election Day is the first Tuesday of the month unless it's the first day of the month, or something like that. I won't correct this error but will lead people to this blurb. These blurbs come at the end of a lot of writing. Is it possible I made this error just to bring new readers to this point? Possibly. The point of this section is to thank subscribers and point out that Charlottesville Community Engagement is a service of Town Crier Productions, a company formed to write as much as possible. Sometimes that does mean taking a quick break which I did Wednesday and Thursday. If you want to know when the next edition may come out, do consider joining the Chat function in Substack. It's still a work in progress, but I'm exploring non-Twitter alternatives. All of this work is paid for by many of you readers and listeners via Substack, in addition to the various individuals and entities who pay me through Patreon. More details on that later, as you don't need to read that every time. But, I do want you to know I appreciate the one in four who pays to keep my attention focused on a wide variety of things. You support my beat reporting which allows me to see patterns and incongruities. Ting match Substack subscriptions, though. I have to mention that! And even if you don't sign up for a paid subscription to this newsletter, Ting wants your business, and if you sign up through a link in the newsletter you will get free installation, a $75 gift card to the Downtown Mall, and a second month for free. Just enter the promo code COMMUNITY. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

A common phrase in the cybersecurity world is “cybersecurity is not a priority until it has to be.” Security measures are essential to schools, and as we will discuss in this episode, good procedures ensure safety success. In this episode presented by Telos, Our guests today discuss bad actors, sensitive data, low-hanging data, federal funding, and why cyber security is an essential core function of every school district. Today's guests are Pete Cevnini and Vincent Scheivert. Pete is the former Montgomery County Public School (MD) Chief Information Officer & Former Maryland State Department of Education CIO. Pete was named to the “Leading Data and Technology Executives U.S. Public Education List” by Chief Data Officer Magazine. He is a career educator, having served many other roles, including high school principal, curriculum director, and graduate professor. Vince is the Vice President of Solutions and former Director of Technical Strategy at Telos Corporation, helping businesses, governments, and school systems improve their cybersecurity protections and operations. Prior to joining Telos, Vince was the Assistant Superintendent for Digital Innovation at Loudoun County Public Schools and the Chief Information Officer at Albemarle County Public Schools, where CoSN recognized him as the Chief Technology Officer of the year. He has also held IT leadership positions at the Downington Area School District, the West Chester Area School District, and Fairfax County Public Schools. This episode of The CoSN Podcast is supported by Telos. Learn more at https://www.telos.com/solutions/k12-and-higher-education/. Engage further in the discussion on Twitter. Follow: @CoSN @MindRocketMedia @telosnews. The CoSN Podcast is produced in partnership with MindRocket Media Group and published on edCircuit. To learn more about CoSN, visit www.cosn.org. Learn more about MindRocket Media Group at www.mindrocketmediagroup.com.

We find ourselves now at the August 19 mark, which seems like it is close to the end of 2022. Yet, inputting certain figures into the Year-O-Meter would indicate the passage of time has not passed the threshold of two-thirds. If numbers aren’t your metric, consider the sun will rise and fall 34 more times before the Fall Equinox. Either way, this is another Friday edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement intended to bring you information you may need between now and then. I’m Sean Tubbs. You can sign up for free, but Ting will match your initial payment if you opt to support this work financially. See below for details. In the next several hundred words:The Albemarle County Economic Development Authority has endorsed a $600,000 pay-out for Habitat for Humanity’s redevelopment at Southwood There’s a new principal at Charlottesville High School and two elementary schools The Charlottesville Alliance for Black Male Achievement is holding an event this Sunday to get students ready for the beginning of the school year next WednesdayThe Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources took steps this week to restore an endangered species to the James River First shout-out: Livable Cville event on zoning rewriteIn today’s first Patreon-fueled shout-out, Livable Cville wants you to mark your calendar for August 31 for an educational talk about the next steps in the Cville Plans Together initiative. They’ve invited James Freas, the city’s Director of Neighborhood Development Services, to talk about the rewrite of the city’s zoning ordinance in an online webinar.  The talk will include a presentation on the Draft Zoning Diagnostic & Approach Report and the soon to be released Market Analysis/Inclusionary Zoning Study. The talk begins at 5:30 p.m. and will include a question and answer period. Sign up to get your place at the virtual table for Livable Cville’s Update and Next Steps for the Cville Plans Together initiative. Redevelopment work continues at Southwood Work continues to redevelop the Southwood Mobile Home Park as a mixed-use community that will offer new homes to those who have lived there. The chief executive officer of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville gave an update to the Albemarle County Economic Development Authority on Tuesday. “So when Southwood is done it will be somewhere between 1,000 and 1,100 homes and up to 700 of them will be affordable depending on subsidies that we get and how things develop,” said Dan Rosensweig, Habitat’s chief executive officer. Habitat entered into a performance agreement with Albemarle and the EDA to provide a certain amount of affordable housing in exchange for financial payments and tax breaks.“Our work at Southwood is part and parcel of our larger scale work to create mixed income neighborhoods and affordable home ownership in the region,” said Dan Rosensweig, the chief executive officer of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville. “We were a pioneer in this. We were the first Habitat nationally to do it and the first in the country to do mixed-income neighborhoods. We’ve now done ten mixed-income neighborhoods and built almost 300 homes in those neighborhoods.”Rosensweig said in 2004, Habitat stepped in to save the Sunrise trailer park in Charlottesville from development and the result is a mixed-income community. “Sunrise today is a neighborhood of front porches and back porches and open space for the community to use,” Rosensweig said. “To our knowledge it is the first mobile home transformation without displacement and that sort of set us up for Southwood.” Habitat purchased the land in 2007 and the agency has operated it ever since.“It was a mess,” Rosensweig said. “There were fires, trailers catching on fire, sewage bubbling into people’s trailer through their commodes. And it’s large. It’s on an enormous scale.” Rosensweig said Habitat invested in infrastructure and entered into an agreement with Albemarle County for how redevelopment as a collaborative relationship as well as the performance agreement worth $3.2 million in both cash and tax rebates. “Our deliverables in the first phase… are 75 affordable homes and our milestones are multiple,” Rosensweig said. “We’ve had to meet milestones in terms of submitting building permits, getting Low Income Housing Tax Credits apartments under contract.”The latest milestone was to raise at least 95 percent of the funds necessary to purchase the building materials for the Habitat units. That released an appropriation of $600,000. “We’re overperforming that performance agreement by quite a bit in that first phase,” Rosensweig said. “Per the performance agreement we’ve promised 75 affordable homes in the first phase alone. We’re building 207 affordable homes.”As part of the first phase, the Piedmont Housing Alliance is constructing an apartment building financed through Low Income Housing Tax Credits. Rosensweig said construction of two Habitat homes is almost complete and site work is underway for the rest. The second phase of the project still needs a rezoning and this will go before the Board of Supervisors on September 21. Full build-out of the project will take another dozen or so years. “As part of phase 2 we’re planning a business incubation center and a little bit of a neighborhood downtown,” Rosensweig said. “Some of the uses we’re trying to attract are shared commercial kitchen, a business incubation center, a cafe, early childhood education center and potentially some other non residential uses such as a credit union.”  Habitat has offered to reserve seven acres for a school that Rosensweig hoped would be more urban in scale with at least two and a half stories. However, they can’t give the land over for free. “In the $500 million cost of Southwood, by far the largest contribution to filling up the bucket is market-rate lot sales and so if we were to give that away we would lose tens of millions of dollars of lot sales which cross-subsidize the affordability,” Rosensweig said. “What we have done is proportionally offered a discount if the school would like to purchase it.”The final determination of what will happen remains to be seen especially with a rezoning vote pending. Deputy County Executive Doug Walker weighed in.“There is ongoing dialogue between the planning staff and the school staff about the viability of this site for their plans so that we can be in a position to share with the Board of Supervisors whether this is a viable site or not,” Walker said. “I do know that those conversations are ongoing.”Rosensweig said the way the proffer is worded gives the county until 2027 to make a decision. The EDA unanimously approved a resolution to acknowledge the latest milestone and release the $600,000. New faces at Charlottesville City SchoolsWe are now five days away from when school will go back into session in Albemarle County and Charlottesville. There will be some new faces at some schools. Rashaad Pitt took over as the principal of Charlottesville High School earlier this week after serving most recently as assistant principal of George Wythe High School in Richmond. Pitt began his educational career teaching history in Petersburg City Public Schools and has also worked in Chesterfield County, Hampton City Schools, and the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice. According to a release, his area of expertise includes community outreach, restorative justice, instructional leadership and professional development. Pitt succeeds Eric Irizarry, who stepped down after six years at CHS to become Director of Equity, Family, and Community Relations for Albemarle County Public Schools. “I am excited to begin this next chapter,” Pitt is quoted in the news release. “I want to build on the strong success and good work of Dr. Irizarry, and I look forward to working with the excellent leadership team and staff at CHS.”Two other principals in Charlottesville have been promoted from within the school division. Chantel Beverly is the new principal at Venable Elementary School. Beverly has been assistant principal at Greenbrier Elementary since 2019 after teaching in Petersburg and Richmond. Carmella Johnson took over as principal at Clark Elementary School in July. Since 2017, she has been an assistant principal and instructional coach at Johnson Elementary School and before that Johnson taught at Greenbrier for ten years. Free haircuts to be offered this SundayWith school fast approaching, it’s time for many to get their appearance ready. This Sunday, several groups will gather at the Boys and Girls Club at Buford Middle School for back-to-school bash from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. There will be free hair cuts, among other things. The Charlottesville Alliance for Black Male Achievement is organizing the event with 100 Black Men of Central Virginia, House of Cuts Barber Shop, the Uhuru Foundation, Peace in the Streets, as well as the Boys and Girls Club of Charlottesville. “Free haircuts, braids, and raffle prizes will be available and Prolyfyck Running Creww will be giving out free shoes to high school students,” reads a press release on the city’s website.”De-La-Roll will provide free skate lessons to those interested as well.” The event is open to all. Second shout-out goes to Camp AlbemarleToday’s second subscriber-supported public service announcement goes out to Camp Albemarle, which has for sixty years been a “wholesome rural, rustic and restful site for youth activities, church groups, civic events and occasional private programs.”Located on 14 acres on the banks of the Moorman’s River near Free Union, Camp Albemarle continues as a legacy of being a Civilian Conservation Corps project that sought to promote the importance of rural activities. Camp Albemarle seeks support for a plan to winterize the Hamner Lodge, a structure built in 1941 by the CCC and used by every 4th and 5th grade student in Charlottesville and Albemarle for the study of ecology for over 20 years. If this campaign is successful, Camp Albemarle could operate year-round. Consider your support by visiting campalbemarleva.org/donate. Spinymussel returns to James River A small invertebrate that scientifically goes by the name James River Spineymussel  has not been seen alive in the waterway its named for since the late 1960s. “We’re pretty confident that they’re extirpated from the main stem river and even if they’re still out there, they’re probably at such low levels that they’re not really biologically like they should,” said Brian Watson, a top biologist for freshwater mussels at the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources. On Wednesday morning, Watson and his crews were at five locations on the James River to reintroduce about 1,300 individuals back into the waterway. These were all raised at a mussel hatchery in Charles City. The goal is to repopulate a species that is one of dozens of freshwater mussels that used to be commonplace in what is now North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.For many years, biologists in Virginia have taken this seriously. “We have about 80 species which ranks us about sixth in the United States in terms of diversity,” Watson said. Watson said there are roughly 900 species of freshwater mussels across the globe and around 300 are in the United States. One of those species is the James River Spineymussel, which is on the federal endangered species list as critically endangered. Watson said the small creatures play an important role in the ecosystem as they feed from their position on the beds of rivers and lakes filtering water for food and nutrients. “We often talk about freshwater mussels as the livers of the river,” Watson said. “When you’re heard historically about how oysters could clear the Chesapeake Bay, the entire water volume, within about a month when oysters were at their heyday, freshwater mussels used to do a similar thing for our freshwater creeks and streams and rivers.” For decades, aquatic biologists have sought to restore creatures back to habitats that became uninhabitable due to all sorts of pollution. An interesting adjective to describe mussels is “benthic” which means anything that lives on the bed of a waterbody. “And since these are benthic organisms that live in the stream bottoms and they don’t move around like freshwater fishes do, they are relatively good indicators of water quality so if something is going wrong at a site or there’s a change for the negative for water quality, mussels are usually going to give you an indication that something’s going on.” To get mussels to be in a place takes a lot of factors, so Watson said putting them back in a former habitat from which they’ve disappeared means a lot of biological steps will need to be taken.“They kind of have a unique life cycle for an invertebrate,” Watson said. “They are an obligate parasite, most of them are. They have a larva that typically has to attach to a particular fish species to complete their life cycle. So it’s a really small larvae that females hold inside of their gills.” Watson said a small shell that looks like a Pac-Man will snap shut when in the presence of the fish to hitch a ride. They’ll use chub, minnow, or several other species. “And if they’re successful and stay on the fish, they will transform into a juvenile, drop off, and if they happen to drop off in a suitable location and conditions are right then they will grow to be a sub-adult and then an adult.” If the fish have moved on, then the life cycle is interrupted. Some species of mussels can live for decades, but they may die out if the waters are impaired. For decades, biologists have been restoring fish to rivers made more habitable by the Clean Water Act. Now research into doing the same thing for invertebrates, including this release of the James River Spineymussel. To make that work, the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources has approached the local governments in Albemarle, Buckingham, and Fluvanna counties to ask for permission even if might not strictly have been necessary. “The way the language reads in our current regulation is that if we’re going to introduce any new species to an area that is a game animal or a game bird or a fish that we need the authority and the cooperation of the local government of the locality it will be released into,” Watson said. “So when you look at that language it doesn’t necessarily say freshwater mussel or invertebrates.”Watson said notifications have been made because of the regulated nature of the James River Spineymussel. In Albemarle, its presence in the 1980’s was enough to put regulatory approval of the Buck Mountain Reservoir in doubt and the project was abandoned. In 2022, Albemarle’s consent for the release was on the consent agenda for their May 18 meeting. Watson had an audience with the Buckingham County Supervisors earlier this month but had not heard back from Fluvanna as of this past Tuesday when our interview was conducted. The project definitely has the support of Matt Lawless, the administrator of the Town of Scottsville. “Having a healthy and scenic river that’s accessible and safe for everybody to use is what Scottsville is all about,” Lawless said. “That’s been our history for hundreds of years and we feel really responsible for our little piece of the river and we take its quality and its health very seriously.”  The individual mussels released are all three years old and Watson said they should be ready to reproduce.  “Right now we would consider them adult mussels,” Watson said. “They should be reproductively mature so that when they are released into the river, assuming that every goes right, that they should start reproducing next year or within the first years that they’re out in the river so that they’re not young individuals that are just dropping off of the fish.” The work to propagate mussels dates back to the late 90’s and Watson said teams used to send them out at an earlier stage in the life cycle. The results were not successful. This batch has been kept in the hatchery longer than usual due to various approval processes. So, how will Watson and his team measure success? There are three metrics. First, they’ll check to see how many survive. “The second is are they reproducing after you put them out,” Watson said. “So at the certain time of the year when the females would have those larvae inside of them, we will try to monitor those locations and check some of those animals to see if they are what we call ‘gravid’ or not and that’s when the females have the larvae inside their gills.” The third step is to see if those larvae can get onto the fish as part of their role as obligate parasite. All of the individuals that went out this week are tagged so they can be monitored. “So the hope will be that as we monitor these in the future, if we start to see younger individuals that do not have tags on them, then that tells us that they are new individuals that are recruiting into the population.”Watson said it is inevitable that many of the introduced species will float downstream over time and that they won’t be detectable. Still, he predicts survival rates will be high. Monitoring efforts will continue and Watson said people should be patient for results. “And it could take a decade or two to actually see something going on,” Watson said. “There have been some restoration and recovery work with rare mussels out in the Mississippi River where they put lots and lots of individuals out there. You’re talking like thousands to tens of thousands of animals out in spots and they are just now starting to see recruitment in some of these areas where they’ve placed large  numbers and you’re like a decade later.” Housekeeping for Episode #419I had not expected to take two days to get to another installment, but somehow that’s what happens. I am the sole writer and producer of this newsletter, which also means I have to do all of the business activity. Yesterday there were things needed to be attended to, but I hope to get to all of the stories I want to write in the coming days and weeks. I’m glad to have written about something a little different in the last segment. It’s amazing to think how everything we see in front of us came to be. In the case of the Spineymussel, I’m inspired by all of the steps necessary to make it all work out. I hope to be here well into the future.To get there, I will need to navigate the waters of accounting and finance, which is a long way of saying I depend on reader and listeners support to keep this going. About a third of you paying, which is a pretty good showing. But, I need more to do so or I’ll have to consider a different path. Perhaps the best way to support me is through a Substack subscription. If you do so, Ting will match your initial payment! And, if you sign up for their services through this link you’ll get a free standard install, your 2nd month free, and a $75 downtown mall gift card! Enter the promo code COMMUNITY for full effect. Either way, I thank you for reading or listening. Today’s podcast outro is completely different from this, so go and listen to see what I said. I enjoy being mysterious. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

Fifty-three years today, human beings landed on Earth’s moon. As far as I know, they didn’t stay very long but I’ve not had the chance to check out the scene myself. But with enough subscriptions to Charlottesville Community Engagement, I will consider purchasing a rocket just to make sure. For now, it’s the July 20, 2022 edition of the program and I’m your lunatic host, Sean Tubbs. On today’s program:The city of Charlottesville opens up cooling centers as temperatures continue to climbInterim Charlottesville City Manager Michael C. Rogers and his staff provide updates on the Crescent Halls bus stop as well as efforts to make walking school routes saferChamber’s Minority Business Alliance seeking applications for 2022 Vanguard AwardA local brewery unveils the official lager of the University of Virginia Charlottesville wants more people to apply to various boards and commissionToday’s first shout-out: Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards to lead more walksIn today’s first subscriber supported public supported public service announcement: Want to know more about our majestic wooden neighbors that help purify the air and provide shade on these hot summer days? The Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards have two upcoming walks where you can learn more about trees in the area: This Saturday at 9 a.m., a group will be led through Darden Towe Park beginning at the Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center to see Ancient tOsage Orange trees, a historic Monticello Tulip Tree, elm tree devastation due to the emerald ash borer, and common deciduous and conifer trees. (register)On July 29 at 9 a.m, three stewards will lead a walk through Belmont with about twenty stops to explore urban (register)Become a member, and you’ll get access to even more Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards events!Charlottesville opens up cooling centersWith temperatures this week in the 90’s and possibly above, the city of Charlottesville has officially launched several places where people can go to stay out of the heat.  Key Recreation Center, Tonsler Recreation Center, and the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library have been designated as cooling centers during the day until further notice. Key Recreation Center is located at 800 E. Market Street.  The hours of operation are 5:30pm– 9pm Monday through Friday; 1pm– 6pm on Saturday and Sunday.  Tonsler Recreation Center is located at 501 Cherry Avenue.  The hours of operation are Noon – 9pm Monday through Friday; 1pm-6pm Saturday and closed on Sunday.Jefferson – Madison Regional Library (Central Branch) is located at 201 E. Market Street.  The hours of operation are 9am-9pm Monday through Thursdays; 9am-5pm Friday and Saturday; closed Sunday.Planning for heat for near-term, long-termThe Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission is working on an update of the Regional Hazard Mitigation Plan, which is intended to help coordinate public response to natural disasters. There’s a section on extreme heat that may be useful to know at a time when heat records are being surpassed across Europe. “Extreme heat can be defined as temperatures that hover 10°F or more above the average high temperature for the region, last for prolonged periods of time, and are often accompanied by high humidity,” reads page H-25 of the plan. “Under normal conditions, the human body’s internal thermostat produces perspiration that evaporates and cools the body. However, in extreme heat and high humidity, evaporation is slowed, and the body must work much harder to maintain a normal temperature.”As with COVID-19, extreme heat effects take a toll more strongly on the elderly, people with respiratory difficulties, and those with other health vulnerabilities. The City of Charlottesville recently produced a summary of hazards associated with climate change. (read the report)“The climate models show that by 2050, Charlottesville may experience more than twice as many extreme heat events annually as there were in 2020,” reads page 3 of that report. “By 2100, there may be almost seven times as many.” One way to cool off is at an outdoor pool. Both Albemarle County and the city of Charlottesville have struggled to fill positions this summer. Charlottesville has offered signing bonuses for lifeguards and pool managers, but Deputy Parks and Recreation Director Vic Garber told City Council on Monday that the decision to only open one outdoor pool a day is still in effect.“We are probably 70 percent there so we’re still rotating Washington Park and Onesty but we’re working very hard,” Garber said. The issue also came up at today’s meeting of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors.“In the next ten days, we’re looking at temperatures each day going over 90 up to 100,” said Supervisor Chair Donna Price. “The last seven years have been the hottest in recorded history. Climate change is real and I would ask everyone to be careful, to do what you can to reduce the heat footprint that you are creating.”Price said that includes reducing driving, drawing shades, and raising the thermostat for air conditioning. What do you do when it gets hot out? Say something in the comments. City Manager Rogers provides updates on Crescent Hall bus stop, other mattersOnce a month, interim Charlottesville City Manager Michael C. Rogers publishes a written report that summarizes recent activities. In my fifteen years of covering and monitoring Charlottesville government, this is one of the most thorough and useful documents produced by the city. (read the report)On Monday, Rogers offered some verbal updates taken from the report. Earlier this year, Charlottesville Area Transit had proposed moving a bus stop at Crescent Halls, a temporarily vacant apartment complex owned and operated by the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority. In April, the Public Housing Association of Residents pushed for CAT to reconsider and Rogers said the city has listened.“A decision has been made and the bus stop will not be moved,” Rogers said. “The bus stop will not be moved. It will stay right there so we are very pleased to make that announcement.”The stop is currently served by Route 6, which currently travels between the University of Virginia Health System, Downtown Mall, and Willoughby Shopping center. There are plans to change the route to eliminate the UVA connection, but implementation of those changes are delayed due to a lack of drivers. (Next steps for Charlottesville Area Transit route changes outlined at partnership meeting, June 24, 2022)Rogers said work continues on development of a collective bargaining ordinance and Council will have a work session at 4 p.m. on August 15. The company Venable LLP has been hired to assist with the work. A firm has also been hired to assist with a search for a new police chief.“We selected a company called Polihire out of Washington, D.C.,” Rogers said. “They will work with us on developing an aggressive community outreach program. We look forward to hearing from the community with respect to what kind of chief do they want.”The city has also hired Steve Hawkes as the director of information technology and Caroline Rice as the new Public Engagement Coordinator. Kyle Ervin will be the Public Information Officer for public safety. He was formerly the marketing coordinator for CAT. Sanders provides updates on school walk zonesDeputy City Manager Sam Sanders said the local government continues to work to address driver shortages for the school system. There are 35 days to the first day of school and there will not be as many bus routes. “We are working in collaboration with Charlottesville City Schools to solve the various issues that may result from having an additional 750 kids having to walk to school this year,” Sanders said. Last week, the Charlottesville Planning Commission told Council they wanted to see solutions in place before school begins. (read that story)Sanders said talks have been held with Albemarle County Public Schools about collaborating with one possibility being for special needs students to make sure they can get to school. Another collaboration could be with Jaunt to see if there is a possibility to share drivers.“We won’t be able to use their equipment because of the federal nature of the funds that they receive but when drivers are working for Jaunt they may be able to drive for us so we’re looking to see if we can figure out a way to make that possible,” Sanders said. Sanders said the planning affects multiple localities across the region and regional approaches are required. He said the city is also looking to find ways to work with groups who want to solve the identified problem. “We’re looking to capture proposals from neighborhood led groups hoping that we’ll be able to deploy those groups in doing some of the work as well since they have offered to do so,” Sanders said. That includes suggestions from Livable Cville and the city’s Bike and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. In a future edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement, we’ll hear more about the possible addition of $500,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funding to cover the costs of some of the work. “Our goal will be to quickly get some of these things out and basically available to make this process a little bit easier,” Sanders said. If you have a student or students in Charlottesville Public Schools, what do you plan to do? Second shout-out: WTJU staging the Cville Puzzle Hunt on August 27In today’s second Patreon-fueled shout-out: By now, readers and listeners know WTJU’s position on algorithms. But do you know that the radio station celebrates puzzles? In fact, on Saturday, August 27, WTJU is organizing the Cville Puzzle Hunt, a huge, cerebral puzzle that will spool out across downtown Charlottesville. The Cville Puzzle Hunt will take you and a team of friends on a wild afternoon running around trying to untangle five diabolical, large-scale puzzles inserted into the urban landscape. The opening clue will be read at 1 p.m. at the Ix Art Park. Find out more about this WTJU-organized event at cvillepuzzlehunt.com. Chamber’s Minority Business Alliance seeking applications for 2022 Vanguard AwardDo you know someone who should be recognized for their efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion? Or a small business or group that seeks the same goals? The Minority Business Alliance of the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce is taking applications through August 5 for the John F. Bell Sr. Vanguard Award. “The MBA Vanguard Award is named in honor of John F. Bell Sr., a strong, determined and respected business leader and citizen who established successful businesses during a time when the larger society wasn’t welcoming to or supportive of the Black business community,” reads a press release for the award.This will be the tenth annual award. Previous recipients include Community Investment Collaborative, William Jones III, Hollie Lee, Eugene and Lorraine Williams, Forward Adelante Business Alliance, and Kaye Monroe.Nominations can be submitted here. Champion to make official lager for University of VirginiaThe Champion Brewing Company began operations ten years ago with a small brewery in downtown Charlottesville. Now they’ve expanded to multiple places across Virginia and are part of the larger Champion Hospitality Group with restaurants in Stonefield, Gordonsville, and across Charlottesville.In 45 days, the first University of Virginia home football game will be held at Scott Stadium. Yesterday, Champion announced that its Cavalier Lager will become the officially licensed beer for UVA sporting events.“As life-long UVA sports fans, it’s been a dream of the team to have a Cavalier beer offered at UVA games,” said Champion CEO Hunter Smith in a release. “It’s a hometown lager brewed with our college athletes and their fans top of mind.”The beer will also be available in area stores. This is the first year that the University of Virginia has licensed an official beer. Vacancies still remain on various board and commissions in CharlottesvilleThe next edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement will provide details of who got appointed to the Charlottesville Planning Commission. Council made those appointments at the end of the July 18 meeting, and I’m going through that one chronologically. Earlier in this meeting, Charlottesville Mayor Snook LLoyd pleaded with the public to consider getting involved.“We need more people applying for Boards and Commissions,” Snook said. “We’ve got a couple of Boards and Commission that are down a couple of people. The Region 10 Community Services Board is one. The Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority is another. Historic Resources Committee. The Jefferson Area Community Criminal Justice Board. Jaunt. [Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau] needs a representative from the tourism industry.” If you’d like to apply, visit the city’s website. Here’s a list of all the boards.Housekeeping items for the end of #410Thanks for reading today. Charlottesville Community Engagement is a service of Town Crier Productions, a limited liability company set up to produce information about the public policy and the built environment in Charlottesville and beyond. We are now in the third year of this publication, and this is installment 410. Please consider a paid subscription to ensure I make it to the fourth year. There’s a lot at stake as we continue to live our complex lives in a democratic civilization that always needs its community members to pay attention and to look at the documents up close. The podcast version contains music created by the entity currently known as Wraki and made available with permission. To support that band, consider buying the album regret everything, available on Bandcamp on a ‘pay as you can’ basis. Support for Charlottesville Community Engagement also comes from Patreon supporters of Town Crier Productions, who also help fund other projects such as Fifth District Community Engagement and the Information Charlottesville archives.If you sign up for a paid subscription through Substack, the company Ting will also match your initial payment. Their support for Charlottesville Community Engagement is a crucial element required for the sustained production of all of my work. I’m grateful, and hope to continue answering the calling I hear to help inform you of things that are happening. Charlottesville Community Engagement is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

Today is the antepenultimate day of Fiscal Year 2022, and we’re counting down the hours to when the metaphorical ball will drop in Richmond marking the beginning of FY2023. Are you prepared? Feel free to review previous installments of Charlottesville Community Engagement to revisit the hundreds of stories written in the tinfopast 12 fiscal months. Or head on over to Information Charlottesville to see I’ve been able to cover at least. The “I” here is Sean Tubbs and thanks for reading. On today’s program: Charlottesville City Council gets details on a water infrastructure project in advance of a vote today by the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority Many people had an opinion about whether the name of the regional library system but it’s up to elected officials to decide on a change How much trash was processed in Virginia last year? The Department of Environmental Quality has a new report.And about two hundred people attended an open house on the forthcoming update of the city’s zoning codeToday’s first shout-out goes to WTJUIn today’s first Patreon-fueled shout-out: Algorithms know how to put songs and artists together based on genre or beats per minute. But only people can make connections that engage your mind and warm your heart. The music on WTJU 91.1 FM is chosen by dozens and dozens of volunteer hosts -- music lovers like you who live right here in the Charlottesville area. Listener donations keep WTJU alive and thriving. In this era of algorithm-driven everything, go against the grain. Tune in and support freeform community radio on WTJU Consider a donation at wtju.net/donate.Around 200 people turn up at Pavilion to get details on the city’s zoning processWhen the Cville Plans Together Initiative began in early 2020, there were plans to engage people at a series of meetings while the work of crafting an affordable housing plan and the Comprehensive Plan update was conducted. However, the pandemic forced all of that public engagement work to go online. Council adopted the Affordable Housing Plan in March 2021 and the Comprehensive Plan last November. Both call for additional residential density across the city and an update of the zoning code is the next step. This time around, people can meet in large numbers, and an open house was held yesterday at the Ting Pavilion where attendees could get a look at the new Diagnostics and Approach Report for the zoning rewrite. People could go through the entire process to date and ask questions of consultants, city staff and each other. I dropped by briefly and spoke with James Freas, the city’s Director of Neighborhood Development Services since last September.  (read the Zoning Diagnostic and Approach report)“We’ve just released the report about two weeks ago and what we’re really looking for is where can we answer clarifying questions, where can we answer questions about what we’ve already shared and what’s in there, and what else should we be considering?” Freas said. Freas said even half an hour into the event, he could see how community engagement will be different for this phase of the Cville Plans Together initiative. “If you look around, people are having conversations,” Freas said. “You can’t do this on a Zoom environment. So it’s really exciting to be back in person talking to people face to face, introducing ourselves, having a conversation, and even if we don’t agree, because we’ve met and talked face to face, we’re able to walk away in a move civil environment.” Freas said the city will collect comments through August, and he will be visiting various neighborhood associations to explain the idea. Then the diagnostics report will be finalized in September for the Planning Commission and Council to review, followed by the actual rewrite. DEQ releases solid waste reportMore than 22.7 million tons of solid waste were sent to processing facilities in Virginia last year, with nearly 5.4 million coming from out of state. That’s according to the annual solid waste report for 2021, released yesterday by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. “The total amount of solid waste received increased by one percent or 225,524.95 tons compared to 2020,” reads the report.However, the amount that came from another jurisdiction dropped by 5.28 percent. About 44 percent of out-of-state came from Maryland, 18.7 percent came from New York State, and 14 percent came from Washington D.C. Around 11.8 percent of the waste was incinerated and 73 percent went into landfills. Another 8.24 percent was recycled. All but one of Virginia’s 204 permitted solid waste facilities submitted reports. Locally, the landfill operated by Louisa County buried 23.1 tons of solid waste and has 10.2 years left of capacity. Two transfer stations included in the reporting are the Ivy Materials Utilization Center in Albemarle County as well as the Nelson County transfer station. Speakers express multiple views on renaming of library system The Board of Trustees of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library met yesterday at the Northside Library on Rio Road for the usual things such as a five year plan and a budget. But the main item throughout the meeting was whether the system’s name should be changed. “I don’t expect that we will have a vote on the issue of the library’s name change today,” said Thomas Unsworth, the chair of the JMRL Board. “In fact the Board would be able to call a public hearing if need be to collect further feedback from commentary on that issue.”The public comment period came at the beginning of the meeting before comments on the topic from JMRL Director David Plunkett. The topic came up at the last trustee meeting in May when Myra Anderson asked for the change because Thomas Jefferson and James Madison owned people as enslaved workers. We’ll hear from Anderson again in a minute.  The first speaker identified himself as Nickolaus Cabrera and said he was a rising senior at the University of Virginia as well as president of the school’s chapter of Young Americans for Freedom. “We lose our future when we burn our past,” Cabrerra said. “What you all are considering today is a direct burning of our past. Why is this discussion happening? On what basis?” Cabrerra said the name change would do nothing more than promote a “woke agenda” and this would be an example of censorship. The next several speakers sided with this view. Others did not, including Gloria Beard of Charlottesville. “It’s time for a change for all people and I hope you all consider what we’re trying to bring across to you,”  Beard said. “It’s time to change so all people feel like this community is for everybody.” Others felt Jefferson and Madison’s legacy was too important not to honor. “Without Jefferson we would not have the freedoms we have so that is just so important for people to research, come to libraries that are full of books,” said Ann McLean of Richmond. “Yes, he loved books.” McLean said the Declaration of Independence was more important than the works of Shakespeare, the Magna Carta, and the writings of Cicero.“Without the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence, we would have no rights and no liberties and be completely at the mercy of the government,” McLean continued. “Which we do not want to be!”Myra Anderson described herself as the president of the Reclaimed Roots Descendants Alliance and a descendant of enslaved laborers.“Six of my ancestors were sold on the auction block in 1829 at the second estate sale of Thomas Jefferson,” Anderson said. “At the time the Declaration of Independence was written and it was declared that all men are created equal, my sixth great grandfather and grandmother were enslaved at the time at Monticello.” Anderson said libraries should be inclusive spaces and the name should change to reflect the updated values of the system. She said to her, the name Jefferson does not just conjure up greatness. “It represents the trauma, the oppression, the pain, and the part of Jefferson that most white people want to gloss over when they talk about his greatness, but unfortunately that’s the part that put Black people on a trajectory of struggle,” Anderson said. Anderson said the precedent for such a change was set locally when the health district dropped his name last year. Director’s reportAfter the public comment period was over, Plunkett gave his report on how the name is currently codified and how it might be changed. He said state law for regional library boards deal with how trustees are appointed and the rules for spending money.  There’s no mention of who gets to name them. Plunkett said the current name has informally been in place since 1972 when the regional system was created to pool resources across a wider area. “The big reason though that Charlottesville, Albemarle, Greene, Louisa, and Nelson joined forces to create JMRL was because of state aid funding which was amplified in the 70’s,” Plunkett said. “Basically the state incentivized localities to get together and share their resources in order to provide library services.” The original agreement from 1972 did not yet include Greene County, and Plunkett said it was originally called the Thomas Jefferson Regional Library. “The library board heard a comment from a library board member who made a plea to them to change the name from the Thomas Jefferson Regional Library to the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library,” Plunkett said. Plunkett said that board member wanted to recognize the “special friendship” between Madison and Jefferson. He noted Madison did not live in the service area now operated by JMRL. Greene County joined in 1974 and the name was officially changed in an amended agreement. Plunkett said he’s sought legal advice about who gets to change the name. “The legal counsel that the library board has received is that the authority for changing the library name rests with member jurisdictions, with Charlottesville, Albemarle, Louisa, Greene, and Nelson,” Plunkett said. Plunkett said the agreement is overdue for its mandatory five-year review and a five-member committee with one appointed by each jurisdiction should begin that work and consider a new name as part of that process. “If there were changes made to the regional agreement at that point, they would need to take them back to their Boards of Supervisors or City Councils to vote on before that could come back as an amended regional agreement,” Plunkett said. Plunkett said the Blue Ridge Health District did not have to ask for permission to make a change and it was made administratively. He added Albemarle County Public Schools have a policy in place regarding school names (learn more). The University of Virginia has a Namings & Memorials committee. Board discussionDuring the Board discussion, Trustee Lisa Woolfork of Charlottesville noted the library was not named to honor the two former presidents, but their friendship. “It wasn’t about ‘Oh, look what they did for the Bill of Rights and the Declaration and et cetera,” Woolfork said. “It was, ‘these guys are friends!”’Woolfork noted that Charlottesville’s Unitarian church recently dropped Jefferson’s name from its official name. “I really do believe that we are in a moment where our democracy is being challenged in a variety of ways and I feel as though we have the opportunity to make some true progress to reflect some of the growth that Charlottesville has made,” Woolfork said. One of Albemarle’s trustees, Michael Powers, said at issue is that different people view as the primary legacy of Jefferson. “I think it’s clear to me that many people primarily associated Jefferson and Madison with their practice of slavery, but it’s also clear that whatever the origin of the name was at the time, over the last 50 years many people have come also to primarily associate these figures with powerful and fundamental American values, principles and ideals,” Powers said. Powers said the JMRL Board has to take both considerations into account and he spent some time defending how others have sought to defend Jefferson’s legacy. He cited the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as the main legal tool used in the Civil Rights movement. “So we hear in the 14th amendment, equal protection for life, liberty, they are very familiar echoes of Jefferson’s ‘All men are created equal’ and ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” Powers continued. JMRL Chair Thomas Unsworth said while the JMRL can’t directly change the name, they can make recommendations or suggestions to local officials as part of the agreement review. Woolfork was clear that she feels the name must change and she resisted framing the issue as one of two equal sides. “It seems to me that that true energy of what a library does and brings and provides should be robust enough and substantial enough that we can serve our services areas and provide the things we continue to provide and not being called Jefferson Madison will not impede our ability to do that,” Woolfork said. The trustee from Louisa County pointed out that two of the five localities have already voted on resolutions opposing a name change. Neither resolution in either Greene or Louisa specified any further action. (Louisa Supervisors unanimously oppose name change, June 9, 2022)The trustee from Nelson County said she was concerned about the resolutions.“They put that out before even hearing what the other people in the area,” said Aleta Childs. The Board had a long discussion of the matter and in the end opted to pick up the conversation at its next meeting in July. By then, Tony Townsend of Albemarle will be the chair. “My agenda here is to make sure that the area’s most inclusive, diverse, and free resource doesn’t get sidetracked or handicapped by this discussion,” Townsend said. “I think it’s a good discussion. I think it needs to happen. I think we can probably come up with a plan that will allow everyone to have at least input.” Townsend said the process is just beginning. Woolfork said she wanted to know if Louisa and Greene would leave the regional system as a result. “Are they that committed to their adulation of Jefferson and Madison that they will just say ‘we don’t want to have a library with you anymore, thanks, and nice knowing you,’” Woolfork asked. The JMRL Board of Trustees next meets on July 25 at 3 p.m. Second shout-out is for LEAP’s new Thermalize Virginia program In today’s second Patreon-fueled shout-out: Have you been thinking of converting your fossil-fuel appliances and furnaces into something that will help the community reduce its greenhouse gas emissions? Your local energy nonprofit, LEAP,  has launched a new program to guide you through the steps toward electrifying your home. Thermalize Virginia will help you understand electrification and connect you with vetted contractors to get the work done and help you find any rebates or discounts. Visit thermalizeva.org to learn more and to sign up!  RWSA to vote today on Central Water Line projectToday the Board of Directors for the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority will meet to select an alignment for a five mile pipeline that the organization says is necessary to help secure drinking water infrastructure. Last week, Charlottesville City Council got a briefing on the project. (view the presentation)“So we call it the Central Water Line project because it was recommended to be located in the central portion of the city to provide the greatest water benefit to our regional water supply system,” said Bill Mawyer, the executive director of the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority. Mawyer said planning dates back to a drought in 2002 that led to a long discussion about how to expand the community water supply plan. That involved expansion of the Ragged Mountain Reservoir by building a new earthen dam, as well as an upgrade of the Observatory Water Treatment plan. This Central Water Line is to transfer water to a location in Pantops. “We realized later, it was not part of the original Community Water Supply plan, that we needed to have a large pipe coming away from the Observatory Treatment Plant so that we can distribute that water to all parts of the city and the county, the urban water area as we call it,” Mawyer said.The current cost share is a 52 to 48 percent split with the Albemarle County Service Authority picking up the larger share. Various versions of this pipeline have been considered in the past to increase capacity, and a report released last year called the Urban Finished Water Master Plan recommended this central pipe through the city. “If we expand the water treatment plant and we replace the raw waterline to get it to the treatment plant, it has no benefit if we can't put that water out into the system,” Mawyer said. Mawyer said the work would be done in segments of several hundred feet at a time with most of the work underneath city streets. “We expect the schedule to be from 2024 through 2028,” Mawyer said. Mawyer said the RWSA has presented to six neighborhood associations along the route and mailed out information to every parcel on the way. He said that led to another visitation of the five alignments and other alternatives that had been examined. One of the alignments would have used the Route 250 bypass but that would have taken eight years. “Work on the bypass was going to be quite a challenge [and] that likely would have to be completed at night due to the impacts on traffic,” Mawyer said. Other alignments included Preston Avenue, West Main, and along Harris Street and Fifth Street Extended. Mawyer said the latter got further attention during the neighborhood meeting phase. “Now, when we had our neighborhood meetings, they said, well what about going down Harris Street all the way to Fifth Street and come up Fifth Street ,” Mawyer said. “So we took a careful look at that and found that there were two disadvantages. One,  it was going to be about $8 million more expensive because it’s a much longer route.”Mawyer also said Fifth Street carries heavy traffic including emergency vehicles. Another potential alternative was to go underneath Shamrock Road which would have been shorter and cheaper, but other problems were identified.  “But Shamrock is such a narrow street, with no shoulder on one side, with on street parking, very congested, [and] you have the railroad track and the vertical curve,” Mawyer said. The Cherry Avenue alignment was deemed to have the least amount of traffic and to take the least amount of time to complete. “We think this southern Cherry Avenue [alignment] when all things are considered provides the greatest benefit and opportunity for us,” Mawyer said. “We recognize that there will be impacts along the way.” The RWSA’s chief engineer said she ran models on all of the various ways to connect the water line.“The connectivity that we get from the… Central Water Line that ties in all of these mains and provides this main corridor that goes east-west through the city in a relatively straight line really did provide the greatest hydraulic benefits to the system under the most number of conditions,” said Jennifer Whitaker. Councilor Michael Payne acknowledged he is not an engineer but he said he had concerns about the preferred alternative along Cherry Avenue in part because he felt RWSA’s assessment of impact to neighborhoods had been subjective. “Is that really the best route in terms of objective criteria and how much that decision has been made via subjective criteria,” Payne said. Payne said the Northern route would be cheaper with a price tag of $28 million. That alternative would also require moving ahead with an $11 million upgrade of the Emmet Street water main that was not otherwise required until the 2030’s. “It raises my eyebrow that a project that at least on my understanding while adding some redundancy to the whole system is primarily benefiting the Pantops area is being routed through the southern part of the city, particularly public housing and low income communities,” Payne said. Councilor Brian Pinkston has been on the RWSA Board of Directors since January. He supported the Cherry route and said it would have benefits for the southern portion of the city. “One of the extra benefits of doing it this way is that you get larger transmission lines on the southern side of the city,” Pinkston said. “That’s not something that’s been brought up tonight but its an important reason why I think this is the most reasonable route.” Pinkston also noted that much of the opposition is based on an idea somehow this would all be done for the benefit of people in Albemarle’s growth area. “I don’t know why it’s a problem that we would to help people in the county, particularly when they’re paying 52 percent of it,” Pinkston said. Council did not take a vote on how to direct Pinkston and the city’s two other RWSA members. Charlottesville Community Engagement is free to receive, but supported by paid subscriptions. If you subscribe, Ting will match your initial contribution! This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

Today marks 21 years since the death of Douglas Adams, a writer whose importance to my formation is not necessarily worth noting, but the commemoration of his passage is being noted all the same. Each of us is mortal and for the most part do not know when we will breathe our last. Until mine, I feel it is important for me to document as much as possible, and that is the mission of each and every installment of Charlottesville Community Engagement, a program that most definitely would not have existed if not for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The jury is still out on the Celestial Homecare Omnibus. Share and enjoy! On today’s program:Workers at one of Bodo’s Bagels three locations want to unionizeThe latest version of Consumer Price Index is out, and inflation is up but not quite as much as last month Area businesses involved in the Community Climate Collaborative’s Green Business Alliance report Greenhouse Gas Emissions reductionsAnd more study on future planning for transit takes place at a time when existing systems are struggling to find enough drivers Shout-out: RCA seeks input on the restoration of Riverview ParkThe first Patreon-fueled shout-out today is for the Rivanna Conservation Alliance and their work to help the City of Charlottesville with the restoration of Riverview Park. The RCA wants your input to inform a project that aims to restore a 600-foot section of the Rivanna riverbank in an area that’s designated for public access to the waterway as well as a 200-foot section of a dangerously eroding stormwater channel nearby. How should the work be prioritized? That’s where you come in with your input. Visit rivannariver.org to learn more about the project, which seeks to help Riverview Park continue to be a welcoming place to exercise, cool off, paddle, fish, play, explore, observe nature, and escape from the day-to-day stresses of life.Workers at Bodo’s franchise seek to unionizeTwo members of Charlottesville City Council will be on hand this afternoon as employees of the Bodo’s Bagels’ location on the Corner announce their desire to unionize. “Employees with the union organizing committee cite several concerns leading up to the effort, including understaffing, a lack of pay transparency, inadequate paid sick leave, and wages that aren’t keeping up with the rising cost of living in Charlottesville,” reads the press release from the United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 400.That group already represents grocery workers at Kroger and Giant Food. The release states that “approximately” 14 employees are involved and that they presented signed union authorization cards to Bodo’s management on Tuesday and seek voluntary recognition. “The employees also filed for an election with the National Labor Relations Board in the event that management refuses to voluntarily recognize the union, at which point an election will be conducted by the federal labor department,” the release continues. However, representatives from Bodo’s management said the cards were not presented. In a statement, they also said the company has always sought to set a high standard. “Bodo’s has been doing the best we can in every way we can for the Charlottesville community for over thirty years, and we've always been keenly aware that that's a moving target,” wrote Scott Smith and John Kokola to Charlottesville Community Engagement. “We support the right of our employees to choose whether or not they want to bring in a third-party representative, though we have always worked hardest to be that advocate by offering substantially above market wages, and hands on, proactive, compassionate management,” their comments continued.Both Payne and Magill are advocates for a collective bargaining agreement that would allow city employees to unionize. Municipal employees in Virginia could not do so until legislation passed the Virginia General Assembly in 2020. Last August, Council directed former City Manager Chip Boyles to pursue study of a collective bargaining ordinance. Boyles was out of office two months later. In March, the city issued a request for proposals for a firm to help establish a collective bargaining program, but so far a contract has not been awarded. (city bid page) “There will be an award forthcoming, but the process of evaluating the submissions is ongoing so there is no date that can be provided of when the contract will be awarded,” said David Dillehunt, the interim deputy director of communications. See also: Charlottesville to study collective bargaining options, August 19, 2021Bureau of Labor Statistics: Inflation continues to growThe federal agency that keeps the official metric on the cost of goods has released the numbers for April, and the Consumer Price Index rose 0.3 percent, a slower increase than reported in March. “Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 8.3 percent before seasonal adjustment,” reads the release that was published this morning. That’s a lower number than when the numbers were reported in April, when the increase was 8.5 percent. The prices of shelter, food, airline fares, and new vehicles were the categories that increased the most. Food increased 0.9 percent over March, but the energy index actually declined in April. Gasoline dropped 6.1 percent, but natural gas and electricity increased. There are two sub categories for food. The price of “food cooked at home” increased 0.9 percent and “food away from home” increased 1 percent. Nonprofit group claims success in effort to reduce GHG emissions in business cohortLast May, the Community Climate Collaborative formed the Green Business Alliance to encourage sixteen companies to take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The goal is to reduce their collective emissions by 45 percent by 2025, five years ahead of when both Albemarle County and Charlottesville pledged to meet the same objective. This morning the nonprofit entity reports the group has a collective 28 percent reduction in the first year since a baseline was established. “Comparing 2021 emissions to the baseline year, which varies by member, the [Green Business Alliance] Boffset a total of 4,800 metric tons of CO2-equivalent,” reads their press release. Some of the ways those reductions have been made are by relocations to new buildings. For instance, Apex Clean Energy moved to a new building that consolidated all employees in one place. “The mass-timber Apex Plaza, which features green building materials, solar power generation, and on-site battery storage, is on the cutting edge of sustainable design—mirroring Apex’s work at the forefront of the new energy economy,” reads a description of the new building on the company’s website. While the Apex Plaza building is not LEED-certified, it is one of the largest timber-built structures in the nation, and timber-built structures have a lower carbon footprint than those built of concrete or steel. Additionally, the Quantitative Investment Management moved to the CODE Building, which is LEED-certified. Other participants have moved to LEED-certified building since their baselines, including the Center and the CFA Institute. In addition, eight of the 16 companies installed over 1,600 solar panels on their properties, offsetting another 550 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. For more information, read the Community Climate Collaborative’s blog post on the topic. Watch a video with highlights of Apex Plaza: Second shout-out to JMRL’s How To FestivalIn today’s first subscriber-supported shout-out, the Jefferson Madison Regional Library will once again provide the place for you to learn about a whole manner of things! The How To Festival returns once more to the Central Library in downtown Charlottesville on Saturday, May 14 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. There is something for everyone in this fast-paced, interactive and free event!There will be 15-minute presentations and demonstrations on a diverse set of topics. Want to know how to do a home DNA test? Tune a guitar? What about using essential oils to repel mosquitoes? Visit the library website at jmrl.org to learn more. Schedule is coming soon! That’s the How To Festival, May 14, 2022. Regional Transit Partnership updated on studies and drive shortagesThe audience for Charlottesville Community Engagement may have successfully doubled the number of views for the April 28, 2022 meeting of the Jefferson Area Regional Transit Partnership. At the tail end of the program, I called upon you all to take a look at the meeting and I can successfully report there have now been 11 views. But, of course, the reason you read a newsletter like this is so you don’t have to view them. So, as promised, here are some highlights from the rest of the meeting. The Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission continues to oversee the creation of a Regional Transit Plan, and the Regional Transit Partnership will have a full review at their meeting scheduled for May 26. But, the members of the partnership had the materials in the packet for the April 28 meeting. You have access to those materials here via cvillepedia.“The project started in the fall of 2021 and the team developed a land use assessment and a transit assessment,” said Lucinda Shannon, a transportation planner for the TJPDC. “They identified community goals and solicited community input for the vision for the future of transit in the region.”The consultants are currently writing up network and corridor improvements. “And in June the team will gather public input on the proposed improvements and then will make adjustments and then the project should finish by August,” Shannon said. The vision plan will be presented to City Council and the Board of Supervisors this summer. This is not to be confused with a governance study that is in the planning stages to inform what a potential Regional Transit Authority might look like. “The governance study is more on how we’re going to pay for the vision and the projects,” Shannon said. This is also not to be confused with the draft route changes proposed by Charlottesville Area Transit that have not yet been implemented due to driver shortages. “We’re extremely limited on our driver numbers and are actually really short,” said Garland Williams, CAT’s director. “We’ve got to figure out how to get more drivers in the hopper to do the level of service that the community wants.” As of April 28, Williams said CAT needed 20 additional drivers. He said he’s lost several drivers to the private sector which have higher-paying jobs. As of today, that number is down to 17. “We currently have 3 new drivers in training,” said Kyle Ervin, the marketing coordinator for CAT. The topic of driver shortages topic came up during a recent non-RTP roundtable of transit providers. Karen Davis, the deputy director at Jaunt, said her agency has been meeting with CAT and University Transit Service to work out solutions. “Jaunt has identified some potential overlap of CAT routes with [Albemarle County Public Schools] routes which warrants discussion,” Davis said. Davis said the City of Charlottesville has also approached Jaunt to assist with better transit service to Crescent Halls when it reopens later this year. The next meeting of the Regional Transit Partnership is May 26. Until then, let’s see if we can get the number of views on the April 28 meeting up to 20! And let’s get likes up to 2! This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to the Ides of March. Should you beware? I’d recommend always being somewhat skeptical, but willing to trust if there can be confirmation that your friends, Romans and countrypeople will lend you their ears and not their knives. This is Charlottesville Community Engagement for March 15, 2022. I’m your host Sean Tubbs, grateful that you’re here to lend me your ears or your eyes, depending on what format of the program you’ve decided to experience.Sign up to make sure you find out what happens next! On today’s program: Albemarle Supervisors take the first review of a $368 million operating budgetA very small fraction of that budget comes from a proposed 5 cent tax on plastic bagsSite plans are filed for two projects in AlbemarleAlso, it’s the two-year anniversary of the first installment of the Charlottesville Quarantine Report, a show I produced to figure out what was happening. Go take a listen to that first episode, which was the basis of this newsletter!Today’s first shout-out goes to LEAPYou don’t need the “luck of the Irish” to be safe and comfortable in your own home. To see what you can do to get the most out of your home, contact LEAP, your local energy nonprofit, to schedule a home energy assessment this month - just $45 for City and County residents. LEAP also offers FREE home weatherization to income- and age-qualifying residents. If someone in your household is age 60 or older, or you have an annual household income of less than $74,950, you may qualify for a free energy assessment and home energy improvements such as insulation and air sealing. Sign up today to lower your energy bills, increase comfort, and reduce energy waste at home!Plastic bag tax included in Albemarle’s next budget The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors has now held two work sessions on a proposed $565 million budget for the fiscal year that begins on July 1. The budget goes by the name Transform Albemarle and for the first time anticipates a very small portion of revenues from a tax on plastic bags.“It is proposed to be effective January 1, 2023,” said Andy Bowman, the chief of the Office of Management and Budget for Albemarle. Those revenues are projected to be $20,000, and Bowman said their use is limited. “And for this there are uses that are restricted by the state for environmental clean-up programs, pollution and litter mitigation programs, educational programs on environmental waste reduction, and also providing reusable bag to participants in the programs,” Bowman said.  Five localities have already taken advantage of a law that passed the General Assembly in 2021 allowing them to collect a five cent tax for each disposable bag, according to the Virginia Department of Taxation. Albemarle will monitor Roanoke, Alexandria, Fredericksburg, Fairfax County and Arlington County to see how much revenue they bring in. Albemarle Supervisors will also have to approve an ordinance to enable the plastic bag tax. The budget also anticipates a decrease in the personal property tax rate as well as an increase in the food and beverage tax as well as the transient lodging tax. Supervisor Donna Price said this would help the county become less reliant on its biggest source of revenue. “I really appreciate the county looking to take action to reduce the 68 percent of total revenues coming from the real estate tax and in particular the transient occupancy tax going up three percent,” Price said. “Those are tourists who come to our area. The meals tax going up two percent is not limited solely to transients who may come through and our tourists, but it’s a relatively small amount.” The budget will also need to be updated to reflect the Virginia budget, which has not yet been finalized.  The General Assembly adjourned on Saturday without doing so and a special session will be called to finish up. Albemarle Supervisors review $368.25 million operational budget When they were done talking about the revenues that make up the next budget, Bowman turned the Supervisor attention to the anticipated spending of $368.25 million. Forty-five percent is transferred to Albemarle County Public Schools. The next largest expenditure is for public safety at fourteen percent, followed by a 10 percent that goes to the capital fund mostly for debt service. Bowman went department by department to explain various aspects of the budget. One of the overarching themes is a need for workforce stabilization. Bowman said that seven percent of the county’s positions are currently unfilled. “We have included $2.8 million to fund a four percent salary increase that will be effective July 1 for our employees,” Bowman said. There’s another $500,000 for a study of how the county’s salaries compare to others, as well as another $1 million to implement that study. “The intent of this funding at this time is not to say specifically what will happen, but position the Board and the organization to move forward whenever that right time will be,” Bowman said. “The county does have need for a plan to evaluate its compensation.”Supervisor Ned Gallaway said he feels the county needs to attend to the issue, citing that seven percent figure again.“I mean 18 to 36 positions above usual turnover, and then we haven’t talked about retaining staff which the comp study is all about, frankly,” Gallaway said. Mia Coltrane became the new director of Human Resources for Albemarle in September, and she agreed the compensation study is intended to keep people working for the county “That’s one of the tasks of really getting a good pulse of every department  and where the energy needs to be focused,” Coltrane said. “We know public safety is one but as we’ve mentioned, it’s not just public safety. We’re seeing it across the board, even with [human resources].” The budget also anticipates the hiring of two temporary positions to help with community engagement on the Comprehensive Plan that is currently under review. Emily Kilroy is the Director of Communications and Public Engagement.‘The staff that are working on the Comprehensive Plan, which is estimated to be about a three-year endeavor, are the same team that currently supports the seven community advisory committees,” Kilroy said. “In order for them to focus on the work of the Comprehensive Plan there was an identified need to look at staffing those differently. So the thought was let’s bring in temporary positions sort of in alignment with the timeline for the Comprehensive Plan onboard to support the needs of those communities.” Another position will be based out of the Yancey Community Center in the southern portion of Albemarle.The recommended fiscal year 2023 budget continues a trend toward greater county spending on fire and rescue services. The FY21 actual budget saw $15.73 million spent in this category and that has increased to around $21.6 million in FY23. One reason for the increase this year is the addition of around the clock fire and rescue service operating out of the Pantops public safety station. “That is to further support and strengthen the fire rescue service there in the county’s development area,” Bowman said. “In the long term, this will also reduce our reliance on the city of Charlottesville for calls east of the city.” Albemarle is expected to pay Charlottesville around $240,000 for FY23, but Bowman said the contract between the two jurisdictions will soon be renegotiated. There’s another $100,000 in the budget to reimburse volunteer medics and firefighters for fuel used in the call of duty. “Volunteerism has been a special challenge of late and it’s not anticipated to get any better so something that will help show our volunteers the support we have for them is greatly appreciated,” said Supervisor Price. The budget also covers the cost to establish a Community Response Team to respond to public safety calls with people trained to deal with people in mental health crises. “This is an effort led by the Department of Social Services with a police officer, a firefighter/EMT, and a social worker working to respond to calls to individuals in crisis and depending on the details of the call, the team would adapt their response to best meet the critical needs of the person to ensure the safety of all parties involved,” Bowman said. A portion of the funding comes from the cigarette tax that has begun to be collected in Albemarle. Supervisor Diantha McKeel said the Community Response Team is a step in the right direction. “I am looking forward to an upcoming discussion among staff and the supervisors about how that team could be used to assist in our panhandling issues, many of who might fall into this category,” McKeel said. The recommended budget provides $275,000 in a reserve fund for a pilot project to run microtransit service on Pantops and U.S. 29 North.Review the video of the first budget work session on the Board of Supervisors’ website. The second is not yet available, but the third is scheduled for Thursday at 8 a.m. (meeting info)Today’s second shout-out goes to WTJUAlgorithms know how to put songs and artists together based on genre or beats per minute. But only people can make connections that engage your mind and warm your heart. The music on WTJU 91.1 FM is chosen by dozens and dozens of volunteer hosts -- music lovers like you who live right here in the Charlottesville area. Listener donations keep WTJU alive and thriving. In this era of algorithm-driven everything, go against the grain. Support freeform community radio on WTJU and get ready for the station’s 85th anniversary on April 1! Consider a donation at wtju.net/donate.New convenience center for Southern Albemarle likely to be delayedWork continues to design a new place for people in southern Albemarle to drop off household waste and recycling. Albemarle’s current budget included $1.1 million for a “convenience center” to be built in Keene. The idea had been to open the center this fall, but the county’s director of Facilities and Environmental Services said there will be a delay. “We are anticipating supply chain issues with some key elements including the trash compactors that will collect the tag-a-bag program as well as the containers themselves that collect the recyclables,” said Lance Stewart. “Everything’s made from steel.” The proposed FY23 budget proposed spending $180,500 for the first six months of operating at the new convenience center. The proposed capital improvement budget anticipates $1.62 million being spent in FY24 on a northern convenience center to serve U.S. 29 North. Site plans filed for 100 homes at River’s Edge and utility-scale solar projectStaff in the relevant Albemarle County departments have until April 21 to respond to two site plans for projects that have already been approved by the Board of Supervisors.One of them is for 100 units along the North Fork of the Rivanna River at the northern edge of the county’s development area. The Board of Supervisors approved a rezoning for River’s Edge in August 2020 that will allow for 32 three-story buildings and two two-story buildings at a density of three dwelling units per acre. The other is for a utility scale solar facility on a 145 acre property that will generate 12.5 megawatts of electricity. The project on Route 53 southeast of Charlottesville will disturb about 90 of those acres. Supervisors approved a change to the zoning ordinance in June 2017 that allowed for solar panels to be installed in the rural area with a special use permit. Support the program!Special announcement of a continuing promo with Ting! Are you interested in fast internet? Visit this site and enter your address to see if you can get service through Ting. If you decide to proceed to make the switch, you’ll get:Free installationSecond month of Ting service for freeA $75 gift card to the Downtown MallAdditionally, Ting will match your Substack subscription to support Town Crier Productions, the company that produces this newsletter and other community offerings. So, your $5 a month subscription yields $5 for TCP. Your $50 a year subscription yields $50 for TCP! The same goes for a $200 a year subscription! All goes to cover the costs of getting this newsletter out as often as possible. Learn more here! This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

It doesn’t seem at this moment like a holiday week, with so many items happening at public meetings before Thanksgiving. But, I’m grateful you are listening to this installment of Charlottesville Community Engagement, and I’m hopeful that you’ll share it with others. Most people read the newsletter, but the secret is that each one is produced for audio, as my professional career in journalism began in radio. More than a quarter-century later, I’m glad to be bringing you information as often as I can and this is what I have for November 22, 2021. Let’s begin today with a Patreon-fueled shout-out! WTJU is hosting Classical Listening Parties, a series of four free, casual events on Tuesdays in November. These four events are led by Chelsea Holt, pianist, teacher, and one of WTJU’s newest and youngest classical announcers. She’ll guide you through all the eras of classical music and tomorrow night at 7 p.m.: the Romantic period. For a list of the others, visit wtju.net to learn more and sign up! On today’s show:Albemarle’s Planning Commission gets an update on the county’s capital improvement budget for the next fiscal yearA hedge fund sets its sights on the Daily Progress and its parent company The EPA seeks to reestablish jurisdiction in the Waters of the United StatesAnd the University of Virginia seeks a tuition increase for undergraduatesPandemic updateAs the week begins, the seven-day average for new COVID cases is at 1,644 new cases a day and the percent positivity is at 5.9 percent. The Blue Ridge Health District reports another 29 new cases today and a percent positivity of 5.5 percent. Three more fatalities have been reported since Friday for a total of 311 since the pandemic began. Fatal fireA fire in an apartment in the 1200 block of Carlton Avenue in the Belmont neighborhood on Sunday has killed one person, according to a release from the Charlottesville Fire Department. Crews began fighting the fire soon after arriving and then looked for anyone trapped. One adult was rescued but died soon after being taken to an unidentified hospital. Fire marshals are investigating the cause. This is the third fatality from a fire this year. Newspaper consolidation continuesThe Charlottesville Daily Progress and most other daily newspapers in Virginia might soon have a new owner. Alden Global Capital has announced in a letter that it will pay $24 a share for Lee Enterprises, thirty percent over the Friday’s closing stock price. “We believe that as a private company and part of our successful nationwide platforms, Lee would be in a stronger position to maximize its resources and realize strategic value that enhances its operations and supports its employees in their important work serving local communities,” reads the letter. Alden Global Capital is a New York based hedge fund that owns the Tribune Publishing Company and Media NewsGroup. Among their newspapers are the Chicago Tribune, the Denver Post, the Mercury News, and the New York Daily News. The company already owns six percent of Lee Enterprises. “Scale is critical for newspapers to ensure necessary staffing and in order to thrive in this challenging environment where print advertising continues to decline and back office operations and legacy public company functions remain bloated, thus depriving newsrooms of resources that are best used serving readers with relevant, trustworthy, and engaging content,” the letter continues. Lee Enterprises completed the purchase of the Daily Progress from BHMedia in March 2020. BHMedia is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, which purchased the Progress from Media General in May 2012. Media General purchased the paper from Thomas Worrell Jr. in 1995 as part of a $230 million deal. The Progress was first published on September 14, 1892. Other Virginia papers owned by Lee Enterprises include the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Lynchburg News Advance, and the Roanoke Times. Learn more about the potential takeover from Rick Edmonds on Poytner.org or at Virginia Business. The real question is - who gets the Daily Progress March? In April 2005, the Charlottesville Municipal Band unveiled a tune written by Nellysford composer Paul T. Richards. Check out my news story from that time!Crozet school redistrictingAn Albemarle committee appointed to study scenarios to alleviate overpopulation of elementary schools in the western part of the county has unveiled their recommendation. After meeting four times and holding two public comment sessions, the Crozet-Brownsville Redistricting Committee has suggested a total of 219 students be moved from Brownsville to Crozet Elementary at the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year. By then, Albemarle should have completed a $21.25 million addition to that school which includes 16 new classrooms. (committee website)Water quality rulesTwo federal agencies that regulate land use as it relates to water quality have announced plans to reinstate a more robust definition of what constitutes the “waters of the United States.” Both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers use that phrase as a basis for enforcement of the Clean Water Act of 1972 which among other things regulates industrial discharges into “navigable waters.” A rule change made in the previous presidential administration reduced the geographic scope of the definition, potentially limiting the jurisdiction  of the EPA and the Army Corp’s reach. The Southern Environmental Law Center and other conservation groups sued to overturn the rule. “The prior administration stripped protections under the Clean Water Act from countless streams, lakes and wetlands, leaving thousands of stream miles, many public recreational lakes, and millions of acres of wetlands without protections that have been in place for decades through every other administration and putting our communities and water supplies at risk,” reads a statement issued last week.The SELC argues that preserving wetlands can help preserve the ability of communities to reduce flooding and deal with extreme weather events. To learn more, visit the EPA’s Waters of the United States website. UVA tuitionThe Cavalier Daily reports that tuition at the University of Virginia could increase between 3.5 percent and 4.9 percent in the each of the next two academic years. That’s according to two representatives from the UVA Finance office who spoke to Student Council last week. Public comment will be taken at a forum on December 2 followed by a vote by the Board of Visitors at their meeting a week later. Tuition was frozen for the current academic year. For a sense of scale, the current tuition for most undergraduate student in the College of Arts and Sciences is $14,188 for a Virginia resident and $48,036 for an out-of-state resident. Third-year students pay slightly higher. First-year engineering students from Virginia pay $22,566 for a year’s tuition, with non-Virginians paying $56,730. These figures don’t include fees. Take a look at the UVA website to learn more about how much students are charged for their education. To learn more about the proposed increase, read Eileen Powell’s article in the Cavalier Daily. You’re reading Charlottesville Community Engagement. Let’s have two more Patreon-fueled shout-outs. The first comes a long-time supporter who wants you to know:"Today is a great day to spread good cheer: reach out to an old friend, compliment a stranger, or pause for a moment of gratitude to savor a delight."The second comes from a more recent supporter who wants you to go out and read a local news story written by a local journalist. Whether it be the Daily Progress, Charlottesville Tomorrow, C-Ville Weekly, NBC29, CBS19, WINA, or some other place I’ve not mentioned - the community depends on a network of people writing about the community. Go learn about this place today!Albemarle Planning Commission’s capital budget briefingTomorrow afternoon at 2 p.m., an advisory committee appointed to help Albemarle County shape its capital improvement program budget for the next fiscal year will hold its first meeting. Last week, the seven-member Planning Commission got an overview including a reminder that last year was very different. (watch the meeting)“Last year when we were putting together the FY22 budget, there was no [capital improvement program],” said Andy Bowman, the chief of budget in the Finance and Budget office. “The county was in the middle of the pandemic and there was a tremendous amount of uncertainty and really at that time it was decided instead of focusing on a long-range picture, to focus on the impacts of the pandemic and what might be able to be unpaused from a number of projects that were paused at the start of the pandemic.”Bowman said the economy has rebounded much better than initially anticipated with outlooks becoming more favorable with each passing month. As the FY23 budget approaches, Bowman said the county is not immune to inflationary pressure, with bids for some capital projects coming in higher than budgeted. The process starts with a review of what’s currently in the works.“We have a capital program currently underway, before we even start anything from 2023 to 2027, of around $147 million for about 65 projects,” Bowman said. “Of that $147 million, $91 million has been appropriated in the last eleven months now, from what was unpaused in January which included the expansion at Crozet Elementary.” Bowman noted that over the course of the next five years, the county will adopt a new Comprehensive Plan and the Board of Supervisors will update their strategic plan. Both documents as well as the School Board’s strategic plan will guide future decisions on capital spending. Bowman said the focus this cycle will be on the immediate year to give flexibility on future needs. The CIP advisory committee consists of Supervisors Bea LaPisto-Kirtley and Donna Price, School Board members Kate Acuff and Jonno Alcaro, and former Planning Commissioners Bruce Dotson.and Cal Morris. “They’re charged to do a few things,” Bowman said. “First they will review and evaluate a proposal that is recommended by staff as a starting point and then the CIP committee will sort of make a recommendation and modify that starting point.” Bowman said there will be additional revenue from the cigarette tax and potential revenue from a tax on plastic bags. The county also refinanced its debt earlier this year.“Given the current market we were able to issue a large amount of [borrowed proceeds] at low interest rates and that will create some capacity that didn’t exist in the prior plan prior to the pandemic,” Bowman said Bowman said staff is also reviewing through the details of the American Rescue Plan Act to see how that funds can be used to leverage local dollars capital spending. In August, Supervisors used $4.5 million in federal COVID-relief funds for broadband expansion. One of the biggest items in the capital improvement program is the need for school maintenance and expansion. Rosalyn Schmitt is the chief operating officer of Albemarle County Public Schools. She briefed the Planning Commission on the school’s strategic plan.“Getting the right resources to educators and students for their teaching and learning is key to our success,” Schmitt said The school system has a Long-Range Planning Advisory Committee and their most recent recommendations were published on September 9, 2021. The eleven projects have a cumulative cost estimate of $196 million, with most of the projects containing either word “renovations” or “capacity.”“Adequate capacity continues to be a need for the school division,” Schmitt said. “This is supported by the ten-year enrollment projections and reinforced by both the recently completed development and student yield analysis, and a thirty-year population forecast.”  One item is $40 million for another elementary school in the northern feeder pattern and another would be to purchase land for the western feeder pattern. “As these schools all reach a saturation point where expansion is no longer practical, we recommend a strategy for land acquisition and the construction of new facilities,” Schmitt said. “I think for the first time in a long time you’ll see several new schools on this list.” There’s also a recommendation to improve air quality within schools. There is a possibility that federal ARPA funding could be used for that purpose. “That is a comprehensive program around mechanical improvements that there is some opportunity to have some matching funds from ARPA funding that we are pursuing,” Schmitt said. Luis Carrazana is the associate architect of the University of Virginia and a non-voting member of the Albemarle Planning Commission. He noted that the recent adoption of the Crozet Master Plan update called for capital infrastructure, as did the relatively recent update of the Pantops Master Plan and adoption of the Rio Small Area Plan. “And so I’m wondering how we’re looking at those approved master plans with the CIP and putting the same rigor as we seem to be doing with the School Board,” Carrazana said. Planning Director Charles Rapp said implementation of many projects in the master plans are dependent on lining up ideas with funding opportunities.“A lot of those infrastructure related improvements, we identify them in these master plans or small area plans or corridor studies and that’s often the first phase of identifying a project,” Rapp said. The next day, Bowman gave a similar presentation to the Board of Supervisors. This one has more specifics about the developing budget. (watch the presentation)Supervisors were reminded that there is a significant “positive variance” from the FY21 budget of more than $13 million that can be used for one-time money.“We are proposing, not really for discussion today but this will come back on December 15, to invest some of the one-time fiscal year 21 funding into the economic development fund,” Bowman said. At their December 15 meeting, the Board will also be asked for direction on whether to explore tax relief programs. They’ll also be given a review of what additional revenue sources could be pursued in Richmond.The Board of Supervisors will have a work session on December 1 related to the way the FY23 budget will be developed. Another change this year is the December release of Albemarle’s property assessments for 2022. That will be presented to the Board of Supervisors on December 15, a month earlier than usual. See also: Albemarle may close FY21 with $13.2M in one-time money, November 9, 2021Unsolicited fact of the dayFinally today, sometimes there are pieces of information I come across during my reporting, or facts that people tell me that don’t quite make their way into a news story. These facts are not entirely random, but they may seem that way.First up, the commercial portions of the Stonefield development have paid a total of $841,955 in connection fees to the Albemarle County Service Authority for water and sewer between 2012 and 2020. That’s according to information provided to me by Gary O’Connell, the director of the ACSA. That figure does not include residential connections. Before anyone can connect to water and sewer in Albemarle, they have to pay a hefty connection fee. For instance, for one commercial unit on Bond Street to connect in 2021, they had to pay $14,280 for water and $13,505 for sewer. Both of these fees include a portion paid to the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority to cover the cost of capital projects to expand capacity. Special announcement of a continuing promo with Ting! Are you interested in fast internet? Visit this site and enter your address to see if you can get service through Ting. If you decide to proceed to make the switch, you’ll get:Free installationSecond month of Ting service for freeA $75 gift card to the Downtown MallAdditionally, Ting will match your Substack subscription to support Town Crier Productions, the company that produces this newsletter and other community offerings. So, your $5 a month subscription yields $5 for TCP. Your $50 a year subscription yields $50 for TCP! The same goes for a $200 a year subscription! All goes to cover the costs of getting this newsletter out as often as possible. Learn more here! This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

Let’s begin today with two Patreon-fueled shout-outs. One person wants you to know "We keep each other safe. Get vaccinated, wear a mask, wash your hands, and keep your distance."And in another one, one Patreon supporter wants you to go out and read a local news story written by a local journalist. Whether it be the Daily Progress, Charlottesville Tomorrow, C-Ville Weekly, NBC29, CBS19, WINA, or some other place I’ve not mentioned - the community depends on a network of people writing about the community. Go learn about this place today!On today’s show:COVID update from Dr. Denise Bonds of the Blue Ridge Health District Charlottesville Council indicates support for Charlottesville Food Equity Initiative, but funding decisions will come in the months to come A quick look at commercial office space in the Charlottesville areaCharlottesville’s public housing agency is owed $52,000 in unpaid rent Two million for affordable housing projectsThe Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission is seeking applications from private, public, and nonprofit developers for projects to increase affordable housing stock throughout the region. The TJPDC received $2 million from the entity formerly known as the Virginia Housing Development Authority for the purpose of building actual units. The first step is for applicants to submit a proof of concept. “This proof of concept will be issued to collect key details about the proposed project, including number of proposed units to be constructed, partner development experience, and location of development,” reads the release. “The requested proof of concept will serve as a precursor to a more detailed formal project application.”The funding is part of a $40 million statewide initiative. Proposals are due on November 29 at 5 p.m. Visit the TJPDC’s website to learn more about the application.Sixth Street site planTomorrow, the city of Charlottesville will hold a site plan conference for the next public housing project to be redeveloped by the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority. Plans for 39-units at Sixth Street will be reviewed. The CRHA Board of Commissioners’ got an update on this topic at their meeting on October 25. Brandon Collins is now the redevelopment coordinator for CRHA. (read his report )“Resident-led planning continues and to update you all in case you don’t know, the plan is in the space along Monticello Avenue where the garden currently is we’re going to knock down six apartments on the end of the garden to get a little extra room and build an apartment building,” Collins said.Collins' redevelopment report for October states that a three-story building had been originally, but architects suggested a fourth story would make the project more competitive for Low Income Housing Tax Credits.“Residents seem to be generally in favor of that,” Collins said. “There’s a lot of process questions that we’re all going to work through to get a decision on that.”The site plan conference begins at 10 a.m. on Wednesday. (meeting info)Former Planning Commissioner Lisa Green resigned from the CRHA Board of Commissioners on October 5. No reason was given but Green had been on the Redevelopment Committee. Council is seeking applications to fill the vacancy as well as other open positions on boards and commissions. Take a look at the list on the Charlottesville City Hall website. At the CRHA meeting, Executive Director John Sales reported that some tenants owe tens of thousands in back rent. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development currently considers CRHA a “troubled” agency which requires additional scrutiny from the federal agency including increase inspections. “A big item that we should always discuss is the delinquency account for tenants,” Sales said. “We’re currently at $52,000. That is probably our biggest concern in terms of exiting out of troubled status. The $52,000 represents about a hundred tenants.”Sales said that represents about a third of public housing residents. He said there is a CRHA staff member working on rental assistance to help cover the back log and to find out what barriers are in place to paying the rent. Office space check-inThe Charlottesville office market had a vacancy rate of 4.9 percent in the second quarter of this year according to an analysis from Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer. That’s less than the same period in 2020, but below the forecasted amount. The report states that office space remains high in demand. “Absorbency in the market was down for the quarter but that is more a reflection of large new deliveries than lack of demand and remains net positive for the past 12 months,” reads the report. “In fact, 87 percent of the nearly 380,000 square feet of office space under construction is already pre-leased and since Q1 2020 there has been more space delivered than in prior decades.” The report states that rents continue to rise. The current average is $27.52 per square foot, a 55 percent increase over the 2015 average. Pinkston’s bountyElection results will come tomorrow. One final piece of information before the votes are tallied. Brian Pinkston’s campaign for one of two seats on City Council received a last-minute contribution of $3,000 on Monday from the Democratic Party of Charlottesville.COVID updateThe number of new COVID cases reported each day continues to decline. “If you look at the trend over the past couple of weeks here, a month or so, it’s really been on a downward trajectory indicating that we may be past the worst with regards to the Delta virus,” Bonds said.Today the Virginia Department of Health reports another 1,245 new cases today, and the Blue Ridge Health District reports 41 new cases. There have been 12 deaths reported in the district since October 25. Since Dr. Bonds last addressed Council, booster shots are now available for all of the three major vaccines. The Moderna booster is available for those over the age of 65 or those with some underlying condition or situation. “If you got [Johnson and Johnson] as your first one, it’s a little different,” Bonds said. “Anyone who got J&J as their first vaccine for COVID is eligible as long as you’re over the age of 18.”Bonds said anyone who got the J&J vaccine can also opt to switch to the Moderna or Pfizer as a booster. “Really the best person to talk to about this would be your physician,” Bonds said. “There are some reasons to think that mixing and matching may be beneficial. You get higher antibody levels with the rMNA boosters but there’s some evidence that if you get J&J it activates more of a different part of your system called T-cells.”Vaccines are available at the Community Vaccination Center at the former Big Lots in Seminole Square Shopping Center. Visit the Blue Ridge Health District website to learn more. Dr. Bonds said the district will have a limited quantity of Pfizer doses for children between 5 and 11 when they are available next week.“It’s going to one third of the amount that anyone 12 and over gets,” Dr. Bond said. Because there is a limited amount, the District is prioritizing shots for the most vulnerable children, working with school districts and pediatricians to identify those people and schedule shots. “There will be a small amount of vaccine that is available at our Community Vaccination Center,” Dr. Bonds said. “It is by appointment only and those vaccines.gov should be out and available by Friday of this week we believe.” In all, the District will get an initial distribution of 6,300 doses. You’re reading Charlottesville Community Engagement. In today’s second Patreon-fueled shout-out, Code for Charlottesville is seeking volunteers with tech, data, design, and research skills to work on community service projects. Founded in September 2019, Code for Charlottesville has worked on projects with the Legal Aid Justice Center, the Charlottesville Fire Department, and the Charlottesville Office of Human Rights. Visit codeforcville.org to learn about those projects. Dr. Denise Bonds spoke at the City Council meeting last night. The meeting was overseen by the two deputy city managers in the wake of the resignation of former City Manager Chip Boyles on October 12. That meant it was up to Sam Sanders to provide responses from previous comments for the public. Who maintains the mall side streets?“The first item was in regards to side street maintenance near the Downtown Mall and I did check in with staff in regards to who is responsible for maintaining those side streets and that is a function of Parks and Recreation,” Sanders said. “They have been short-staffed and struggling to keep up with everything that needs to be done is what I am hearing at this moment.”The second item dealt with a request to install a four-way stop on Rose Hill Drive at Burley Middle School, which is owned and operated by Albemarle County Public Schools.“There is a speed study underway and its in relation to the configuration that’s being proposed for Walker Upper Elementary, “ Sanders said. “Even though it is not the same impact area, they will be able to take a look at what is happening on Rose Hill Drive.”Sanders said the last study of the area around Burley dates back to 2004 and some traffic calming efforts were installed in the second half of the decade. He referred people interested in the topic to the city’s Traffic Calming Handbook as well as the petition to begin the process. Food Equity discussionThe main item last night was a report on Charlottesville’s Food Equity Initiative. The nonprofit group Cultivate Charlottesville has been the recipient of city funding for the past three years and seek additional money for years to come. They also want two percent of the meals tax to go a new Food Equity Fund.“We believe that food is a human right and we operate from that perspective that everyone, all Charlottesville residents, deserve access to fresh produce and high quality food,” said co-executive director Richard Morris.Morris said food equity is an outcome where all residents have access to food that meets nutritional and cultural needs. Earlier this year, Council was presented with a Food Equity Initiative Policy Platform which seeks to serve as a strategic plan to fund a variety of initiatives, and they’ve sought support for funding through an online petition. Much of this work is also finding its way into the draft Comprehensive Plan which Council will consider on November 15. One challenge is that the Urban Agricultural Collective has lost or soon will lose control of land it has used for community gardens. Land at the public housing site at Sixth Street SW is slated to be used for redevelopment. “The overall budget for the Food Justice Network has been about $400,000, $155,000 of what was the Food Equity Initiative contributed,” said co-director Jeanette Abi-Nader. “And you’ll note that the majority of the budget goes toward staffing.” The group is seeking a multiple year commitment, despite the fact that elected bodies in Virginia cannot appropriate money beyond the next fiscal year. The request comes outside of the budget cycle, as well as the Vibrant Communities process through which nonprofits apply for funding. That process used to be conducted jointly with Albemarle County. Mayor Nikuyah Walker praised the report submitted with the funding request, but had concerns. “If we are adding this as a three-year item, that the way other nonprofits have to compete for funding, I have some reservations there,” Walker said. Abi-Nader said Cultivate Charlottesville did not apply for Vibrant Community funds in the past two years because they had been funded by Council outside of that process. She explained how she thinks the current request is different. “We see the Vibrant Communities funds as really about programs that impact the community, like direct support programs and engagement, and this program is seen as a support for a function of city government,” Abi-Nader said. Walker noticed there have been several groups funded outside of the budget cycle and the Vibrant Community fund, such as the B.U.C.K. Squad and Peace and Streets.“I think our whole process needs to be reviewed and if there is a list of community partnerships that are doing the work the city thinks is essential that can’t be done without that partnership, then that needs to be a separate list from the Vibrant Communities but the way things are set up now, I don’t think it’s a fair process,” Walker said. Councilor Lloyd Snook appeared to agree that the resolution as presented was not appropriate. “Franky it appears to me to be an attempt to circumvent the budget process,” Snook said. Misty Graves, the interim director of the city’s Human Services Department, said the resolution came up because the initiative was a creature of City Council. “So I think that’s why it’s coming to back to City Council for whether or not it is a renewed commitment and if this is still a priority of City Council,” Graves said. Next year will be the fourth year of the initiative. The $155,000 will be built into the general fund budget that will be introduced by whoever will be City Manager early next March. The vote was 3 to 2 with Walker and Snook voting against and the resolution does not guarantee funding for FY23. The other request was for two percent of the meals tax proceeds to go to a Food Equity Fund. In Fiscal Year 2020, the city collected $12.6 million from the meals tax, which would have generated just over $250,000 for this purpose. (Charlottesville’s 2020 annual report) Abi-Nader said this fund would cover infrastructure to support food equity goals.“And by infrastructure, I mean that informally, not like literally always physical things, but infrastructure support for our city to move from a foodie city to a food equity city as an overall goal,” Abi-Nader said. “There are things that go beyond what an individual nonprofit can do.” One idea is a cooperative grocery store to be located near subsidized housing. Another is to build a new community garden in a section of Washington Park.“There’s space there to sight a quarter-acre park,” Morris said. “We’re talking about 10,000 square feet which from a growing perspective that’s a space that can grow a lot of food.”Councilors did not commit to the idea at this point in the budget cycle, but there was general support for the initiative. “For the record, I really support this group,” said Vice Mayor Sena Magill. “What they are doing is amazing work and it’s greatly needed work. I know I’ve been learning from them for the last three years now.” Another issue worth continuing to track into the future. Special announcement of a continuing promo with Ting! Are you interested in fast internet? Visit this site and enter your address to see if you can get service through Ting. If you decide to proceed to make the switch, you’ll get:Free installationSecond month of Ting service for freeA $75 gift card to the Downtown MallAdditionally, Ting will match your Substack subscription to support Town Crier Productions, the company that produces this newsletter and other community offerings. So, your $5 a month subscription yields $5 for TCP. Your $50 a year subscription yields $50 for TCP? The same goes for a $200 a year subscription! All goes to cover the costs of getting this newsletter out as often as possible. Learn more here! This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

This edWeb podcast is sponsored by Project Tomorrow.The edLeader Panel recording can be accessed here.American education has been forever changed by the events of the past two years. Beyond the obvious changes in school formats, there is also a new awareness in our schools and communities about the critical need to address inequities in education. This awareness is driving discussions about the quality of students' learning experiences, their engagement in school, and how well we are preparing all students for future success beyond the classroom. In this year's annual Speak Up Congressional Briefing, we share the latest research findings on student engagement and self-empowerment in learning today, and where opportunities exist to create more equitable learning experiences for all students. Of special note is the focus on how the changes over the past two years have impacted our students and what that means for their future success. The 2021 Speak Up Congressional Briefing is a virtual event again this year enabling participation by a wider audience of K-12 education stakeholders. The research data comes to life with a panel of students from around the country. The student panel includes a 7th grader from Albemarle County Public Schools, VA; an 11th grader from Arrowhead Union High School District, WI; an 11th grader from Buffalo Public Schools, NY; and a 12th grader from San Marcos Unified School District, CA. They respond to the findings and provide their own recommendations for improving American education. This edWeb podcast is of interest to school and district leaders, teachers, librarians, policymakers, and all who are interested in the potential of student ideas to improve education.Project Tomorrow Preparing today's students to be tomorrow's innovators, leaders, and engaged citizens.

Death. Taxes. Should we add rising global temperatures to the list of the inevitable, or is there something that can be done? Is that thing adaptation? A massive behavioural shift? These are the questions that come to mind as we begin this September 10, 2021 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. In today’s Patreon-fueled shout-out: Help support black-owned business in the Charlottesville area. Check out the Charlottesville Black Business Directory at cvilleblackbiz.com and choose between a variety of goods and services, ranging from beauty supplies, professional services, and e-commerce. Visit cvilleblackbiz.com as soon as you can to get started!On today’s show: The Albemarle Board of Supervisors is briefed on the county’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to address climate changeLessons in adaptation from officials across the mid-Atlantic from the recent Resilient Virginia conferenceIt has been about a month since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes issued an update on progress toward efforts to keep the average global temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees. Achieving that ambitious goal will take coordinated action at all levels of government, including the county-level in Virginia. Earlier this month, the Albemarle Board of Supervisors learned the county is not currently on track to meet a goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent of 2008 levels by the year 2030. A second goal is to become at net-zero by the year 2050. To get there, the county has a Climate Action Plan that Supervisors adopted in October 2020. (read the plan)“This report increases certainty in what we’ve already known,” said Gabe Dayley, Albemarle’s climate program coordinator. “Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities like burning fossil fuels, deforestation, and other sources of greenhouse gas emissions are causing climate change.”Dayley said the IPCC report also links increased instance of extreme weather with climate change. He said there is a sense of urgency in the report and the Climate Action Plan is intended to document the various ways emissions can be reduced. “The climate action plan has 135 actions,” Dayley said. “They run across five chapters on transportation, buildings, renewable energy, waste management, and landscape/agricultural/natural resources.”The plan will help guide investment in various programs. So far, Albemarle has provided funding to the Albemarle Home Improvement Program and LEAP to install energy-efficient improvements in homes of people with lower incomes. “That program has gone really well in the first six months of this year,” Dayley said. “We’ve had 15 homes that were retrofitted with better insulation, with improved appliances to help reduce homeowners energy bills and then of course the weatherization to help folks who are losing a lot of heat.”Dayley said the county is working on an assessment to determine who and where in Albemarle is most vulnerable. That work has been funded by the Piedmont Environmental Council and a report is due in mid-November. But about those emissions targets? To get a sense of where Albemarle currently is, a greenhouse gas inventory was conducted based on data from 2018. “We calculated that in 2018 the community wide emissions for the county where 1,419,367 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent,” Dayley said. “We calculate that we saw a ten percent decrease in community-wide emissions between our last inventory in 2008 which is the baseline for the county’s targets.”Dayley said that happened despite an increase in population, which generally leads to an increase in emission. He said explanations include greater fuel efficiency, the increase of carbon-neutral or lower-carbon energy sources, and more efficient heating and cooling systems. However, to hit the 2030 target, Dayley said the community needs to cut reductions by another 40 percent. The next inventory will come out in two years based on data from 2020. The University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and Albemarle County are working together to implement various action plans. Supervisor Diantha McKeel wanted to know how that work would influence various policies, such as how to move transit fleets away from fossil fuels.“We have five transportation systems in this community of somewhere around 150,000 people using diesel buses right now,” McKeel said. “And I understand that there’s a change in Albemarle County Public Schools towards electric school buses and that’s all great. But what is our outreach to [Charlottesville Area Transit] and the University of Virginia all working together? Where is that connection happening?”McKeel referred to a statement made earlier this summer that CAT is continuing to study the right way forward and is pursuing a study of compressed natural gas. Dayley said that transportation is the largest sector of emissions and there is a high priority to address the issues. He hoped that further program development of the climate action plan will help to facilitate those conversations. “One of my next steps is to reach out to them and hear in a little bit more detail about how that’s going and how the climate program team can help advance that effort,” Dayley said. Lance Stewart, the county’s director of facilities and environmental services, said a closed door group consisting of UVA, Albemarle, and Charlottesville staff have “touched upon climate” at their meetings. The Land Use and Environmental Planning Committee (LUEPC) last met on July 23 and discussed the University of Virginia’s plans to comply with an executive order from Governor Ralph Northam to reduce single-use plastics. (disclaimer: Both PEC is one of my sponsors and LEAP contributes through a $25 a month Patreon contribution. I am not involved with either organization beyond these transactions and the occasional copy)*In today’s second Substack-supported public service announcement: The Charlottesville Jazz Society at cvillejazz.org is dedicated to the promotion, preservation, and perpetuation of all that  jazz, and there’s no time like now to find a time to get out and watch people love to play. The Charlottesville Jazz Society keeps a running list of what’s coming up at cvillejazz.org. * Let’s go back in time a bit to last month’s conference on adaptation from Resilient Virginia. The nonprofit organization seeks to build awareness of available resources to plan and build for a world where the weather has warped. All over the country, scientists and planners are turning resilience from an abstract concept into policies Amanda Martin is the Chief Resilience Officer for the state of North Carolina, which is based within their Department of Public Safety. “We were created in 2018 after Hurricane Florence when this additional massive infusion of federal recovery funding and I say additional because we had just Hurricane Matthew in 2016,” Martin said. “It became clear that the state needed some new administrative capacity to handle disaster recovery funds.”One result of the department’s formation has been the creation with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality of a North Carolina Resilience Plan. Part of its purpose is to coordinate activity across multiple state agencies, and to define working regions. (read the document) “The scale of community and the scale of region is really important to address resilience challenges,” Martin said. “That’s both because of the legal and regulatory authority that local government has but also because of the regional nature of our climate impacts. A lot of them are bigger than a municipality but smaller than a state.”Martin said in North Carolina, cities are taking on the resilience work in regions and one concern is that rural areas may be left behind. The plan seeks to address that balance. In Virginia, much of the focus has been on coastal resilience where Rear Admiral Ann Phillips is the special assistant to Governor Ralph Northam for coastal adaptation. Phillips said Virginia is not as far along as North Carolina in terms of preparing.“We are just starting down this path,” Phillips said. “We have taken some substantial steps through the course of a number of gubernatorial administrations but have been kind of challenged to get over the hump to actually get started and get moving because there was no direct funding focused in this area within the Commonwealth’s budget or fiscal plan.”Phillips said Virginia has been fortunate to not have received a direct hit from a major hurricane in recent years, but preparations are underway to know how to respond.  In Virginia, the Secretary of Natural Resources is the chief resilience officer and that’s been Matthew Strickler since action by the General Assembly in 2020. (HB1313)“My position was created by the 2018 General Assembly,” Phillips said. “I do not effectively have a direct staff or a budget. That is still the case. However, with Virginia joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and creating in 2020 a Commonwealth-wide flood resilience fund, we now have capacity to do statewide studies of significance.”A master plan for coastal adaptation is underway and is expected to be ready for review in November.  (learn more)So far, Virginia has received over $89 million from proceeds from auctions of carbon credits for companies likely to exceed their emissions limits. (RGGI auction results)“I should note that of the RGGI funds, 50 percent go to a Department of Housing and Urban Community development energy efficiency fund, 45 percent go into this community flood preparedness fund,” Phillips said.The rest goes for the administrative costs. The Department of Conservation and Recreation administers that flood preparedness fund. Phillips said around 6 million of Virginia’s population of 8.5 million live within eight coastal planning district commissions. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative covers most of the mid-Atlantic. Shaun O’Rourke serves two roles in the the managing director of the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank and the chief resilience officer for the state. He’s held that position since September 2017 and helped create the Ocean State’s first resilience plan called Resilient Rhody. “We were looking at all of the natural hazards and impacts the state was facing with regard to climate change and to be able to propose solutions across a number of themes — critical infrastructure, natural systems, emergency preparedness and so on — that could better Rhode Island,” O’Rourke said.Resilient Rhody suggested 61 actions for state government to take including what the municipal role would be. “One of the things that I say all of the time is that better prepared municipalities are going to equal a better prepared Rhode Island,” O’Rourke said. “And that’s exactly why we established a municipal resilience program as an outcome of our Resilient Rhody strategy.”O’Rourke said the infrastructure bank is lined up to fund projects to support adaptation efforts, prioritized by a number of factors. The bank has funded over $2.5 million of action grants in its first two years for stormwater management projects and infrastructure upgrades. “They are often times very targeted specific projects that they know they need to get done now and stormwater management very much falls into that category,” O’Rourke said. “We’re seeing roads and bridges and parking lots flooded all the time. We’re addressing those issues, that low-hanging fruit that demonstrates progress and momentum, and then working with these  municipalities on the larger more complicated projects that may not have permitting and design as a technical assistance follow-up.”Since O’Rourke and the others spoke, Hurricane Ida caused dozens of deaths across New England, and some parts of Rhode Island received up to ten inches of rain. We’ve heard from North Carolina and Rhode Island. The major difference in Virginia is that cities and counties are independent of each other.  Here’s Rear Admiral Ann Phillps with an explanation. “We have 38 independent cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia and then 95 counties, and the independent city moniker is quite unique,” Phillips said. “There are 41 in the country, and 38 in Virginia, ten in Hampton Roads. So what that means is that cities are responsible for their own destiny.” Phillips said regional cooperation will be crucial in Virginia’s efforts to adapt. “The state’s role is to try to align efforts so that we can move forward collectively to try to make progress,” Phillips said. How much coordination is occurring at this local level? This is a question that Charlottesville Community Engagement seeks to answer. Your homework, should you choose to accept it, is to visit the Climate Action Together website to see what Albemarle, Charlottesville, and the University of Virginia have done and might do. And then, let me know what questions you have? What steps have you taken? Or, is climate change something you don’t think will affect your life? I’m curious to know. Leave a comment below or drop me a line. You can just reply to the newsletter. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

In today’s Patreon-fueled shout-out: As we head into summer and the weather heats up, your local energy nonprofit, LEAP, wants you and yours to keep cool. LEAP offers FREE home weatherization to income- and age-qualifying residents. If you’re age 60 or older, or have an annual household income of less than $75,100, you may qualify for a free energy assessment and home energy improvements such as insulation and air sealing. Sign up today to lower your energy bills, increase comfort, and reduce energy waste at home!On today’s show: Updates on capital projects and cybersecurity from the Rivanna Water and Sewer AuthorityA look at how the pandemic affected transportation behaviourAnd the Jefferson Area Regional Transit Partnership discusses ways to get a better system by connecting various moving parts Over three quarters of a million Virginians on Medicaid now have access to mental health and dental benefits. Governor Ralph Northam marked the occasion on July 1 while launching a new medical and dental center in Richmond. The change came in the form of an increased line item in the budget, which went into effect on yesterday. Medicaid members are now eligible for three cleanings a year as well as preventive care. The benefits are administered by DentaQuest, who can be reached at 1-888-912-3456 or visiting dentaquest.com. (press release)The Board of Directors of the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority (RWSA) met virtually on June 22. The RWSA builds and maintains the infrastructure that treats drinking water and processes wastewater in the various urban locations. That takes a lot of money, and there are a total of 54 projects in the agency’s capital improvement program over the next five years, at a cost of $170.1 million. But planning is also underway for projects that will be built after that time.  (CIP highlights)“The theme in our infrastructure and master planning you may note is pipelines,”  said Bill Mawyer, the executive director of the RWSA. “We’re working on a central waterline that is going to largely go through the center area of the City of Charlottesville.”A route has been identified for this project, and a cost-share allocation between Albemarle and Charlottesville has been discussed. The current capital program does include about $43 million for a new waterline between the Ragged Mountain Reservoir and the Observatory Hill Water Treatment Plant. That amount includes an upgrade of the water treatment plant that will increase its capacity to 10 million gallons a day. The RWSA is still working to secure easements for a nine-mile pipeline to connect the Ragged Mountain and South Fork reservoirs. The project has a cost estimate of $80 million and has a current estimated completion date of 2033. Another project that needs an agreement between Albemarle and Charlottesville is the replacement of the Schenk’s Branch interceptor. That’s an aging sewer line for which the first phase has been completed. The hold-up is the project’s alignment, which can either go on city property underneath McIntire Road south of Preston Avenue, or it can go on land owned by Albemarle County at its main office building. The RWSA’s monthly update on project has more information about the nearly $4 million project. “Following pipe alignment determinations, the design plans will be updated, and the construction approach will be coordinated with a City project planned for the same general area,” reads the update.The Board also got an update on security issues from the RWSA’s information systems administrator.“Cyber-attack is the number one threat right now to our water infrastructure,” said Steven Miller.  It’s been nearly two months since a ransomware attack led to the shut-down of the Colonial Pipeline, leading to temporary fuel shortages in Virginia and other southern states. In February,  a water treatment plan in Oldsmar, Florida was attacked by a hacker who sought to increase the levels of sodium hydroxide in order to poison people. That attack was stopped by monitoring by an employee. (Industrial Defender article)Miller described the vulnerability that was exploited.“Somebody left a remote access program on a machine and just left it sitting there and the operator’s password was acquired somehow and they were able to break in,” Miller said. Mitigating tips include requiring multifactor authentication and backing up critical systems so they can be replaced if access is shut down through a ransomware attack. Miller said there are several layers of protection.“So our first layer basically is physical,” Miller said. “We lock our water plants. We don’t just let people walk up to computers and use them.”Other layers include camouflaging the RWSA networks through the next generation of firewalls.“That software will also allow us to do something called geo-fencing which allows us to block all traffic from a specific area,” Miller said. “There’s really no reason we should have any traffic going to or from China.”Details on the Oldsmar incident are part of Miller’s presentation Next, the RWSA got an update on the federal and state permits required to draw water from the natural environment for urban water supply. The permits issued by the Virginia Department of Environment Quality and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers expire in 2023 and will need to be reviewed. Jennifer Whitaker is the RWSA’s chief engineer.“We luckily submitted our permit for the urban system in May of 2021 and are working our way through the process,” Whitaker said.Since the last permits were issued, there’s a new dam at Ragged Mountain and the upgrade of two water treatments are underway. Future elements in the water supply plan include the construction of the South Fork to Rivanna waterline, the eventual raising of the water level at Ragged Mountain, and the decommissioning of the North Rivanna water treatment plant. There are separate urban water systems for Crozet and Scottsville, as well as Glenmore. The RWSA Board will next meet virtually on July 27 shortly after the meeting of the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority. The pandemic affected how Americans traveled, with fewer vehicle miles traveled at a time when people were asked to stay at home as much as possible. The Commonwealth Transportation Board had a briefing on the numbers at their meeting on June 22 from Laura Schewel, the chief executive officer of StreetLight Data. (view the presentation slides)“Everything that moves these days has some sort of technology on board to help measure it,” Schewel said. “It can be the geolocations in your phone, connected car data, data from car fleet management systems.”StreetLight takes that data and analyzes it to describe how people are using roads across the whole country. Nationwide, vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in urban communities was at 60 percent of normal levels in April 2020 at the height of the lockdowns. The decrease was not as high in rural counties.“Urban areas saw far more VMT decline and still haven’t recovered to the same level as the more rural and suburban counties,” Schewel said. Schewel said while VMT is back up, there is evidence congestion is down in part to more people driving outside the traditional peak hours.“We’re using our existing assets more evenly and that means we’re using our existing assets better,” Schewel said. “And that may mean that in some areas,  we have reduced the need for road expansion or new roads because we’re doing a better job of using the roads we have.”Schewel said better data may help transportation planners make better decisions about what might be needed in the future and that more time and data collection is needed. “I think for the future, or really right now what we need to is to measure, we need to predict, but I don’t think we should make a prediction,” Schewel said. “We need to predict in ranges because we know there is uncertainty and we know things can change. We need to predict a range of outcomes.” A comparison between April 2019 and April 2021 indicates that vehicle miles traveled (VMT) continues to be lower in urban areas versus rural areas (Credit: SearchLight Data) The Virginia Department of Transportation’s traffic division uses 512 counting stations to measure traffic volumes mostly on major highways. Engineer Mena Lockwood said Virginia saw a sharp decline in VMT in the early days of the pandemic but there has been a rebound. “Since then we’ve been relatively steady and over the last couple of months we’ve actually had our traffic at above typical conditions and the all vehicle traffic has just been below typical conditions.” Lockwood showed data that indicate that congestion in Virginia’s metropolitan areas is beginning to return to pre-pandemic levels. Several members of the CTB noted that this is the time for employers to consider incentive programs for teleworking and other programs to reduce vehicle miles traveled. Another factor in the fall could be the full return to in-person school. Mary Hynes represents the Northern Virginia District on the CTB and she said localities need to be prepared.“I’m a little worried about that, particularly in the really urban places, that we’re just going to have traffic jams beyond believe in September all about taking kids to school,” Hynes said. Credit: Virginia Department of Transportation (read more)You’re reading Charlottesville Community Engagement and it’s time for another reader-supported public service announcement.The future of passenger rail in Virginia got a lot more brighter this year as the Commonwealth of Virginia signed agreements with CSX to purchase hundreds of miles of railway corridors for three billion dollars. Virginians for High-Speed Rail are holding a transportation town hall on July 15 at 1 p.m. on the “True Story of the Virginia-CSX Deal: Lessons Learned and the Future of Passenger Rail.” Virginia Transportation Secretary Shannon Valentine and Amtrak President Stephen Gardner are the speakers. (register here)If you’re interested in driving less, and you want to know what’s happening to improve transit, a good place to start is the Jefferson Area Regional Transit Partnership. The group consists of representatives from Charlottesville Area Transit, Jaunt, and the University of Virginia Transit Service, as well as elected and appointed officials. It’s also a place where people can comment on transit issues. One speaker at the June 24 meeting was Ethan Heil, who decided last year to get more involved.“Last September I was excited to hear my appointment to the CAT Advisory Board,” Heil said. “Unfortunately since then I haven’t received any follow-up communication.” Heil said he understood the body might not have been a priority during the pandemic, but that the advisory board should play a role going forward. “I’m hopeful and respectfully request that we could find an opportunity to reengage the CAT advisory board,” Heil said. Council discussed whether to keep the CAT Advisory Board as an entity last October when they reviewed the status of various appointed bodies. The Board has not met since the pandemic began. At the end of the meeting, City Councilor Lloyd Snook said Council considered the fate of the CAT Advisory Board last October. “We basically decided at that point that there really wasn’t a lot of reason why the CAT Advisory Board should be sort of a Council-level appointment,” Snook said. “It ought to be something that worked directly with Garland [Williams] and the transportation piece more directly rather than have us involved.” Garland is Garland Williams, the manager of CAT. He said the advisory board is important, its its function needs to be studied. “I think it needed to be looked at and I asked for your authorization to hire a consultant to look at what the CAT advisory board does and then bring back a recommendation to Council sometime this year or early next and you authorized me to do so,” Williams said. One item on the partnership’s agenda was new guidance on getting assistance from VDOT staff for Smart Scale projects that seek to move more people onto to transit and other multimodal solutions. Chuck Proctor is an engineer in the Culpeper District.“We can help you develop sketches for infrastructure improvements, if you wanted to put out a bus pull out or if you’re going to be doing bus stops,” Proctor said. “Even bike-pedestrian facilities to and from a transit stop.”This year, the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission succeeded in securing $3.38 million in Smart Scale funding for a park and ride lot in Exit 107. That would be on the route of the Afton Express service between Staunton and Charlottesville that is slated to start in September.  The next deadline for the next Smart Scale cycle is not until the summer of 2022. Transit agencies can make their own applications. Proctor said there are efforts to find a location for a park and ride lot on Pantops. There had been one at the Pantops Shopping Center. Supervisor Diantha McKeel said she wanted to know more information about how people use park and ride lots, given the rising cost of land in the community. “We don’t want to go out and take good valuable land or space and end up with, I mean we just need to know what we’re doing before we go ahead,” McKeel said.Becca White, the director of parking and transportation at the University of Virginia, said park-and-ride has to be part of a coordinate strategy in order for it to work. “It’s not park and ride for park and ride’s sake,” White said. “It has to be the right amenities. It has to be lighted properly. It has to have waiting areas. It has to be linked to either transit or car pool trips. It can be very successful but it’s not a park and ride for park and ride’s sake.”CAT is studying possible locations for a park and ride lot on U.S. 29 in Albemarle County’s northern growth area. CAT Director Garland Williams said such a facility would be ideal for people driving to the University of Virginia. “It would also add a hub for transit where you would have dedicated restrooms for our facilities moving forward,” Williams said. The TJPDC is also studying expanded service in Albemarle’s northern growth area. The first round of public engagement efforts should begin in July. Scorecard for the Exit 107 Park and Ride lot (read the full list)One change that will happen in the short-term is that CAT buses will no longer travel through the Rio Hill Shopping Center. Williams told the partnership that the property owners asked for the stop to be removed. “Their reasoning was the shopping center will be undergoing a renovation of the storefronts and  the current bus route will not work with the vision of the shopping center,” Williams said. The shopping center would still be served, but the buses will not travel on the Rio Hill Shopping Center property. (learn more about the renovation in the February 6 CCE)Toward the end of the meeting, Jaunt’s planning manager Steven Johnson posed an interesting question. Could bus stops used by multiple transit agencies be given names that could be shared?“So that in our literature everybody is referring to the same stop by the same name,” Johnson said. “I think that would be a good thing for users of our systems.” In June, City Council approved an appropriation of federal funding for Charlottesville Area Transit to purchase eleven buses, all of which will be powered by fossil fuels. CAT is conducting a study on how to proceed. (read more in June 24 CCE)But some area transit fleets have bought a few electric vehicles. Jim Foley, the director of pupil transportation for Albemarle County Public Schools, said his system applied to Dominion’s electric school bus program. “I’m not sure we’ll get them, but we gave it a try,” Foley said. “We did go visit Louisa County who did get two of the electric buses and they love them, plus Dominion came out with a program to reimburse schools for fast-chargers which would save hundreds of thousands of dollars.”Foley said he drove one of the vehicles and found it to be smooth and powerful. Christine Jacobs, the interim director of the TJPDC, said she would convene a workshop of various stakeholders outside of a partnership meeting in order to discuss the issue.“Just sit everybody at the table so we can all share all of the information that we have,” Jacobs said. “Results from studies that are being done, data on the different types of buses. I think it’s something that there’s a real momentum and a craving for us all to share information and make sure that we’re all on the same page. Williams expressed caution about having community members decide what kind of buses to purchase.“The community doesn’t get involved when you’re talking about the selection of fire trucks, or police vehicles, or any of the other vehicles associated so it’s a little interesting there’s a lot of concern about selection with individuals who have not run a transit system and do not have any information about running it and what it takes to make sure that I am going to be reliable.” Williams said a study will soon get underway to determine the best pathway forward and to develop a plan to transition the fleet. In the meantime, he does not want his hands tied. “I’m not going to be subject to a command telling me to buy an electric bus when I have no confidence that it’s going to work,” Williams said. Finally today, as reported here before, route changes are pending for Charlottesville Area Transit. The information has been presented to the Regional Transit Partnership and the City Council, but this summer the public will get the chance to ask questions in two virtual meetings. (Council Briefed on Proposed Transit Changes, June 2, 2021)Both the Connetics Transportation Group and the firm Kimley-Horn have as been working with Williams on the changes. Here’s Williams at a June 29 press briefing.“When we went into the pandemic, there was concern like most transit agencies about how when we get out of the pandemic, what do we do the make the system better for all who use it?” Williams asked. Williams said the route changes are intended to reverse a period of ridership declines that was happening before the pandemic. In 2013, CAT carried over 2.4 million riders a year, but that dropped to just over $2 million in 2018. Williams also acknowledged there are a lot of moving parts in transit at the moment. “This is not the end-all to-be-all,” Williams said. “The region is doing a visioning study so this was designed as a temporary measure over the next couple of years while that study is done to prevent us from having continued rapid decline in ridership.”In the current system, all but one of the CAT’s 13 routes goes to the Downtown Transit Station. In the changes, at least one route will be oriented north-south to travel between Stonefield and the Willoughby Shopping Center. Jim Baker is with the Connectics Transportation Group.“We’ve proposed introducing some new crosstown service from south Charlottesville to U.S. 29 so no longer will you need to travel to downtown, transfer to a bus to continue up to U.S 29,” Baker said. “You can do all of that on the same bus.” Another change is that CAT service would be extended to Mill Creek in Albemarle County. Service would also go through the South First Street public housing complex. Other routes would have Sunday service for the first time. The two public meetings will be on Friday, July 16 at noon and Wednesday, July 21 at 6 p.m. Before you go:Thanks so much to everyone for their financial support. No pitch today. I just want to thank you for reading. As I said in the podcast, the fact that you’re reading this shows that you care about the future of our community. I do as well, and have dedicated my life to reestablishing my pathway as a journalist. As you celebrate with friends and family, please tell others about the work. I’m about to begin Year Two and would like to expand the audience! This work is free and the work is paid for by the quarter of the audience that’s decided to contribute. I’m grateful to everyone who thinks this work is worthwhile enough to keep going. Thanks again, Sean Tubbs, Town Crier Productions This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

Presented and produced by Seán Delaney. My guest on the podcast this week is Dr. Pam Moran who is the Executive Director of the Virginia School Consortium for Learning and is a former superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools. Among the points we discussed in the podcast were the following: The role of a superintendent in US education Desmos software that is used to teach mathematics. The reintroduction of maker skills into US education in response to narrow testing and the benefits of it MAKER LEARNING Students who take making courses Safety in maker learning Involving the wider family in maker learning How maker learning is reflected in the school curriculum PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR TEACHERS Her thoughts on professional development that works best for teachers Professional development to help teachers teach online Flipgrid EDUCATION FOR THE 21ST CENTURY What schools need to do to be more relevant to the twenty-first century (automation, climate change, working from home, demographic changes, superficial learning for tests) Edward Hess books: Learn or Die, Humility is the New Smart and Hyper Learning: Learning at the speed of change) How she would reform the mathematics and science curriculum to make it more relevant for students The book she co-authored, Timeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation, and Zero-Based Thinking Change Schools. Reimagining education using zero-based thinking Ira Socol. Yong Zhao episode on Inside Education. Catherine Cronin's interview on Inside Education. Pam O’Brien, Mags Almond, John Heffernan. Maya Angelou, Séamus Heaney Stories from the Pandemic. Website of Pam Moran and Ira Socol

Today’s episode is supported by the Kindness Cafe, open for curbside pickup Wednesday through Saturday from 8 am to 11 am at the Brooks Family YMCA in McIntire Park. Visit the Kindness Cafe website to place your order. *The school boards in Albemarle and Charlottesville have both voted to proceed with virtual instruction for the first nine weeks of school year, though some Albemarle students will attend in-person if they have either special needs, are learning English, or do not have any access to the Internet.  This is known as Stage 2 of the county’s reopening plan and was recommended in part out of a concern that there is not enough testing capacity. “This is of concern,” said Rosalyn Schmitt, chief operating officer for Albemarle County Public Schools. “Access to testing remains limited and those that are tested are seeing much longer delays in the results and we know a key strategy of keeping our students and staff safe will be able to identify cases quickly and isolate them and quarantine them quickly, and our testing will not allow that.” Two-thirds of staff who responded to a survey said they did not feel comfortable with returning to school. However, two-thirds of parents surveyed said they wanted schools to open. Superintendent Matt Haas recommended Stage 2 at this time, and any returning staff and teachers would be volunteers. After being presented with the options, School Board Member Katrina Callsen made the motion to move forward with Stage 2.“I move that the Albemarle County Public School institute Stage 2 to begin the 2020/2021 school year encompassing the first nine week marking period and further that four and a half weeks prior to the end of the marking period the superintendent shall make a recommendation to either continue stage 2 or initiate the educational program of another stage for the following marking period,” Callsen said. School Board Member Ellen Osborne said she could not support Stage 2.“I just don’t feel like I can put our most vulnerable students into the middle of a grand experiment and then have them take that home to their communities which are already being disproportionately affected,” Osborn said. The motion passed four to three, with School Board Member Dave Oberg changing his vote from initially voting against it. In Charlottesville, the School Board voted unanimously to proceed with an online option. They did so after a long public comment period. Both communities will begin online learning on September 8. *There are another 984 new cases of COVID-19 in Virginia today, for a cumulative total of 89,988. The death toll rose by another 33 fatalities today for a cumulative total of 2,174. The seven day positive testing rate remains at 7.2 percent for a second day. The numbers for the Thomas Jefferson Health District were not available at recording time. *The organization that encourages and promotes the humanities in the Commonwealth will move its headquarters to the redeveloped Dairy Central building at the corner of Preston Avenue and 10th Street. Virginia Humanities is moving to the location in part because it is more centrally located and will allow more space for public discussions. Dairy Central a redevelopment of the old Monticello Dairy building, itself a protected historic building whose facade was required to remain intact. The property in the 10th and Page neighborhood is being redeveloped by Stony Point Design Build. During the review process, some in the neighborhood noted the potential for gentrification. “We’re conscious of this history and we are also aware of the positive and negative impacts that a development like Dairy Central can have on a neighborhood,” said Virginia Humanities Executive Director Matthew Gibson. “We want to be an asset to the community and be good and collaborative neighbors.” The $1.7 million move will take place early next year, and has been delayed due to COVID-19. (release)*When students return to Grounds for classes at the University of Virginia, they will be asked to use public transit only when necessary. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, buses on the University Transit System are restricted to no more than 20 passengers who must also use the rear doors. On August 3, routes will also change and buses will not run down McCormick Road, the main roadway through central Grounds. There will also be changes to parking, with some annual spaces being converted into hourly, weekly or monthly permits. “For those who want to park by the day or the week, we will have new online options for people to purchase these virtual permits with their credit cards,” said Parking and Transportation Director Becca White in an interview with UVA Today. “The customers supply their license plate numbers online, which will be fed into the license plate recognition system on our enforcement vehicles. People who use the meters and the Parkmobile application are already doing this.”Employees are also being encouraged to telework if they can. That strategy was already being implemented as part of a transportation demand management plan adopted in 2019. (transit routes)*The Board of Trustees for the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library will hold a special session today to conclude their discussion about when they can move to a new tier in their COVID-19 response. Currently some libraries are open for curbside pick-up under Tier 4, but the Board will continue a conversation about moving to Tier 3, which would allow people to come into the library under appointment. The meeting begins at 3 p.m. (agenda)Are you enjoying this service? Please consider supporting our Patreon account. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

Vicki Hobson, Teacher for Albemarle County Public Schools, and Whitney Owens, Chief Learning Officer at Cincinnati Museum Center, joined Kelly Jackson and Jamie Schwartz on “Women Changing Our World!” “Women Changing Our World!” airs every Monday at 10:15 am on The I Love CVille Network!

Today the Getting Smart team is bringing back a past episode of an interview they did with Dr. Pam Moran.   Last summer, Pam wrapped up 32 years with Albemarle County Public Schools. Starting as a science teacher and concluding with a dozen years as superintendent, Dr. Moran quietly became one of America’s leading educators because the work she leads is so compelling. With two of her Albemarle colleagues, Moran published a book of lessons learned called, Timeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation, and Zero-based Thinking Change Schools.   In this interview, Tom talks to Pam about the process of writing her book with her co-authors Ira and Chad, their collective philosophy on education, and the contents of the book. Pam also talks about why she originally wanted to become a teacher, some of her key focuses in education, and her thoughts on multi-age spaces and the ways in which schools can help ready students for adulthood.   Key Takeaways: [:14] About today’s throwback episode! [:54] Tom welcomes Pam to the podcast and she describes her passion for her career. [3:42] When did Pam decide she wanted to be a teacher? [5:56] When and why Pam decided to write her book, Timeless Learning with co-authors. [15:10] Pam talks about one of her key focuses: seeing children more clearly. [17:30] About Pam’s and her co-authors’ collective philosophy. [25:22] Pam talks about multi-age spaces and the benefits of children learning in these spaces. [31:10] About an initiative Pam is working on, and one of the major ways schools can help ready students for college and career. [36:10] If Pam were going to write a headline for each of her co-authors, what would they be? [38:25] How did Pam and her co-authors write the book? [42:01] Why Pam and co-authors decided to include the “take action” section at the end of each chapter. [45:06] Pam reflects on and gives her thoughts on Better Together.   Mentioned in This Episode: Albemarle County Public Schools Timeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation, and Zero-based Thinking Change Schools, by Ira David Socol, Pam Moran, and Chad Ratliff Virginia School Consortium for Learning MakerEd.org Better Together: How to Leverage School Networks For Smarter Personalized and Project Based Learning, by Tom Vander Ark and Lydia Dobyns Wiley Publications   Get Involved: Check out the blog at GettingSmart.com. Find the Getting Smart Podcast on iTunes, leave a review and subscribe.   Is There Somebody You’ve Been Wanting to Learn From or a Topic You’d Like Covered? To get in contact: Email Editor@GettingSmart.com and include ‘Podcast’ in the subject line. The Getting Smart team will be sure to add them to their list!

The gender balance in education leadership is stark and evolving.  Join us as we look at the shifting demographics of teaching and what it means for the career prospects of men and women in education. Follow on Twitter: @blairteach @tomwhitby @pammoran @bamradionetwork Dr. Pam Moran is Superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools in Virginia. She believes that the voices of educators and the young people they serve are critical to informing the transformation of contemporary learning cultures. She blogs spacesforlearning.wordpress.com, among other virtual spaces.

Today's podcast is all about designing spaces for learning. Often, we think of a teacher's role as creator - someone who is making the learning happen within their room. But we can look at this in a more nuanced way. To completely steal Ryan Hopkins-Wilcox's explanation from in this podcast, when we plan an experience, we're already aware of what outcomes will be achieved. We're planning for what's going to happen next and already have each step in mind. In contrast, to design an experience - or space - we're opening possibilities for students to learn in multiple fashions. We have a general idea of where we want to be, but we're side-by-side in that learning experience.This is an incredibly powerful message that is core to progressive education. We speak about student voice and choice but that's not choosing from preset options given by the instructor. When we say choice, we're referring to a plethora of possibilities that each student has to meet a learning goal. And we want to make that learning goal as broad as we possibly can to ensure that all students are engaged.I think the thing that excites me most about education is the ability to craft learning experiences. My "why" in education is to find cool ideas, make simple foundations and structures for them to flourish, and pass almost all control over to students to make it happen. Of course, a lot of barriers exist to making the why of our purpose as educators happen.Some of us get caught up in the systematic barriers to learning - whether they be topics that seem meaningless, students who aren't getting enough support, our lack of free time or pay, or just the general way our classrooms look and feel. And I think many - if not most - students are in the same boat. They may be excited from time to time on their why at school - after all, everyone loves to learn about things they care about...there's just a lot getting in the way.Walk into most school buildings and you'll find a fairly bland and sterile environment. It may be even prison-like. Lack of funding is partially to blame, but there's also a system of control that manifests itself in having a comatose environment. Make everything too crazy and maybe the students will go crazy? I'm not sure. The fact is that as educators, we have the capability to design learning spaces that tear down the barriers as much as they can be torn down.Sure, there's a lot of things outside of our control - and sometimes we're working against the best interests of our employer, the state, board, etc. that may have lost their way on what learning is (as they're more concerned about state test scores or upholding the way things were when they were in the school.) But we can continue to press on and design the most open and interesting environments we can.These learning environments are both physical - the ways things look and feel, as well as conceptual - how our learning is designed.We have four guests on today that exemplify these ideas - from a superintendent who designs schools to be honestly incredible, to a music educator who's making his classroom equitable and democratic, to an administrator at an International school who's designing experiences for students and staff, to two parents and educators who created their own school to do what's best for their children.GUESTS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCEDr. Pam Moran, superintendent of the widely acclaimed Albemarle County Public Schools and co-author of Timeless Learning. Pam is an avid proponent of progressive education and designing schools that ignite learning.Tim Fawkes, a high school music educator set on redesigning the classroom as an equitable, democratic space through embracing student voice, choice, and experiential learning.Ryan Hopkins-Wilcox, an international educator and current assistant principal at the International School of Uganda, where she focuses on igniting learning through well-designed opportunities for staff and students.Tosha Woods and Natalia Parker, founders of the Discovery Lab, a self-described “micro school.” Tosha and Natalia started this school as concerned parents and community members to provide an outlet of progressive learning to students.RESOURCESTimeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation, and Zero-Based Thinking Change Schools by Pam Moran, Ira Socol, and Chad RatliffHRP Review of Timeless LearningPam Moran’s recent TEDx TalkThe Application of Critical Pedagogy to Music Teaching and Learning by Dr. Frank AbrahamsDiscovery LabHRP’s 1 Page PD: CurationFURTHER LISTENINGS2 Highlight: Restoring Humanity to....Education (Critical Pedagogy)S2 Highlight: Timeless Learning w/ Ira Socol See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dr. Pam Moran is a nationally recognized Superintendent from the great state of Virginia and co-authored the progressive education must-read Timeless Learning. During Dr. Moran’s tenure, Albemarle County Public Schools has become one of the top performing school divisions for students in the state with an on-time graduation rate of 95 percent. Two out of every three high school seniors graduate with an Advanced Studies Diploma, 30 percent higher than the state average for all school divisions. In 2014, Albemarle County students had the second highest SAT scores among 133 school divisions in Virginia in critical reading and the third highest SAT scores for writing and math. In 2017, a national survey organization ranked Albemarle County Public Schools in the top three of all school divisions in Virginia and among the top two percent of all school divisions in the county. Pam is a world class educator and a tremendous advocate for children. Show Resources Pam Moran on Twitter Pam Moran’s Blog --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

In today’s episode, the Getting Smart team is exploring why environment matters — more specifically, why your learning environment matters. Joining the podcast today is Randy Fielding, the founding Chairman of Fielding Nair International — a global leader in designing learning communities. He is also the founder of DesignShare, a facilitator of ideas and resources about best practices and innovation in schools from early childhood through the university level.   Recently, Randy and Tom found a quiet corner on the Microsoft campus to talk about agency and how spaces and experiences can help learners cultivate and develop their own agency. They discussed why vistas are important to school architecture, the rise of flexible spaces and learning community concepts, variables and principles that are important in Randy’s architecture work (especially when designing school buildings), and more.   Listen in to hear more about how Randy and Fielding Nair are transforming education through design!   Key Takeaways: [:15] About today’s episode with Randy Fielding. [1:15] Tom welcomes Randy to the podcast. [1:46] Randy talks about his education experience and what led him to become an architect. [4:10] How did Randy come to focus his architecture practice on schools? [5:38] Randy asks Tom how he originally became interested in poetry and what made him include poetry in his talks. [7:59] Randy reads a small piece of poetry by Kipling and explains why it particularly strikes him and relates to architecture. [9:38] Why are vistas important to school architecture? [10:38] Randy’s favorite school building vista. [12:29] The most important principles for Randy’s work when designing school buildings. [15:25] What variables are important in Randy’s architecture work? [16:39] Randy speaks about their contribution in helping Albemarle County Public Schools. [17:33] The rise in flexible spaces and learning community concepts. [19:46] Where did the idea of Pathfinder Spaces come from and how does Randy see communities using them going forward? [23:52] Randy speaks about the importance of seating for students’ physical wellbeing. [26:52] Why student agency is so important to Randy and to our future as a culture.   Mentioned in This Episode: Fielding Nair Microsoft Flagship Schools The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs William Stafford Early Morning: Remembering My Father, William Stafford, by Kim Stafford Rudyard Kipling Strathcona Tweedsmuir School Design 39 Campus High School for Recording Arts (“Hip Hop High”) Larry Rosenstock Albemarle County Public Schools “Designing for Student-Centered Learning” (Video of Canadian space) Singapore American School Pathfinder Spaces: An Action Research Project At Singapore American School   For More on Learning Spaces, Check Out: Episode 163 where the Getting Smart team talked with Pam Moran about her book, Timeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation, and Zero-Based Thinking Change Schools.   Get Involved: Check out the blog at GettingSmart.com. Find the Getting Smart Podcast on iTunes, leave a review and subscribe.   Is There Somebody You’ve Been Wanting to Learn From or a Topic You’d Like Covered? To get in contact: Email Editor@GettingSmart.com and include ‘Podcast’ in the subject line. The Getting Smart team will be sure to add them to their list!

Dr. Pam Moran served as the Superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools in Virginia from January 2006 through June of 2018. She now serves as the Executive Director at the Virginia School Consortium for Learning. Pam has a clear vision of what educational experiences should be for students in today’s world and embodies the paradigm ...

This episode of NWP Radio features a discussion with Pam Moran and Ira Socol about their new book Timeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation, and Zero-Based Thinking Change Schools. The conversation takes imaginative leaps into what schools could be and shares practical advice for how to make the imagined possibilities reality. Guests Pam Moran, Superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools, Virginia Ira Socol, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, Albemarle County Public Schools Tanya Baker (Host), Director of National Programs, National Writing Project Links from the Show Timeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation, and Zero-Based Thinking Change Schools "Insufficiently Transformative" by Ira Socol "Why Zero-Based Thinking is MissionCritical in Reimagining Education" by Ira Socol Hacking Schools: Getting Ourselves to Yes, Pam Moran, TEDx El Cajon "The Phygitals World: Speaking the Language of Creativity" by Pam Moran "What does it mean to build a school? What are our responsibilities now?" by Ira Socol "Habitable Worlds of Learning" by Pam Moran "Why do we read? Why do we write?" by Ira Socol

Albemarle County Public Schools' Debbie Collins, Asst. Superintendent of Student Learning, Jennifer Sublette, Director of Professional Learning, and John Hobson, Lead Coach-Social Studies join me to discuss the processes and philosophies involved in the process of designing a coaching model, as well as the way in which the ACPS coaching model has both persisted and evolved in the past decade.

Today, Tom talks with Pam Moran, who just wrapped up 32 years with Albemarle County Public Schools as she transitions into a leadership role at the Virginia School Consortium for Learning.   Starting as a science teacher and concluding with a dozen years as superintendent, Pam has quietly become one of America’s leading educators because the work she leads is so compelling. With two of her Albemarle colleagues, Moran just published a book of lessons learned called, Timeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation, and Zero-based Thinking Change Schools.   In this interview, Tom talks to Pam about the process of writing her book with her co-authors Ira and Chad, their collective philosophy on education, and the contents of the book. Pam also talks about why she originally wanted to become a teacher, some of her key focuses in education, and her thoughts on multi-age spaces and the ways in which schools can help ready students for adulthood.   Key Takeaways: [:15] About the guest today, Pam Moran. [:52] Tom welcomes Pam to the podcast and she describes her passion for her career. [3:40] When did Pam decide she wanted to be a teacher? [5:55] When and why Pam decided to write her book, Timeless Learning with co-authors. [15:00] Pam talks about one of her key focuses: seeing children more clearly. [17:28] About Pam’s and her co-authors’ collective philosophy. [25:20] Pam talks about multi-age spaces and the benefits of children learning in these spaces. [31:10] About an initiative Pam is working on, and one of the major ways schools can help ready students for college and career. [36:06] If Pam were going to write a headline for each of her co-authors, what would they be? [38:23] How did Pam and her co-authors write the book? [41:59] Why Pam and co-authors decided to include the “take action” section at the end of each chapter. [45:03] Pam reflects on and gives her thoughts on Better Together.   Mentioned in This Episode: Albemarle County Public Schools Timeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation, and Zero-based Thinking Change Schools, by Ira David Socol, Pam Moran, and Chad Ratliff Virginia School Consortium for Learning MakerEd.org Better Together: How to Leverage School Networks For Smarter Personalized and Project Based Learning, by Tom Vander Ark and Lydia Dobyns Wiley Publications   Get Involved: Check out the blog at GettingSmart.com. Find the Getting Smart Podcast on iTunes, leave a review and subscribe.   Is There Somebody You’ve Been Wanting to Learn From or a Topic You’d Like Covered? To get in contact: Email Editor@GettingSmart.com and include ‘Podcast’ in the subject line. The Getting Smart team will be sure to add them to their list!  

This week on the Getting Smart Podcast, Tom is talking to his colleague, Emily Liebtag. Emily is the Director of Advocacy at Getting Smart. Emily has been a teacher, and a learner, in a myriad of different classroom spaces — ranging from K-12 public schools to online institutes of higher education.   In the last several weeks, The Getting Smart team has visited so many unique, innovative schools. They've been to cities across the country, visiting well over a dozen different schools — all of which serve as great examples of successfully implementing deeper learning, design thinking, and student agency.   In this episode, Tom and Emily talk all about their favorite design-thinking schools, positive trends happening in schools across the country, and the changes they have observed in schools after implementing design-thinking. They also discuss design-thinking across the curriculum, supporting design with skill-building, formative assessment, and extended challenges.   Key Takeaways: [:14] This week, Tom is talking to Emily Liebtag to discuss all of the amazing, innovative design-focused schools they have had the pleasure of visiting in the last several weeks. [:31] Emily's favorite school from the last several weeks: Agnor-Hurt Elementary. [3:40] About Tom's recent visit to Tacoma Public Schools' Science and Math Institute. [4:46] Why The Getting Smart team thinks design focus is so important in today's education. [6:50] How design-thinking has changed in education from years ago to now. [8:47] One of Getting Smart's favorite schools is One Stone, that is a great example of well-structured design-thinking methodology. [10:09] An example of a successful project by a student, that came out of a design-thinking school. [11:51] Positive trends taking over schools across the country. [14:28] All about D39 — a school that embodies these new, innovative trends. [15:36] What Emily loves about Del Lago Academy. [16:47] About VIDA school — a school that was going to shut down but reinvented themselves as a design-thinking school. [17:38] What Emily and Tom love about High Tech High in San Diego. [19:55] Tom's thoughts on Purdue Polytechnic Institute. [21:18] How the design-thinking frame helps students to incorporate different skills. [23:26] Some elements of design-thinking in Albemarle County Public Schools that have really stood out to Tom and Emily. [27:27] SAMI and other schools in the Pacific Northwest that Tom would like to shed a light on. [29:30] Recapping this week's episode. [31:25] Where to learn more about school visits.   Mentioned in This Episode: Emily Liebtag Agnor-Hurt Elementary School Albemarle County Public Schools Tacoma Public Schools: Science and Math Institute (SAMI) One Stone Design39 (D39) Del Lago Academy VIDA High Tech High High Tech High International El Paso School District Purdue Polytechnic Institute Carnegie Mellon University of Pittsburgh Grable Foundation Woodbrook Elementary School Design Tech High School Emily@GettingSmart.com (Emily's email)   Get Involved: Check out the blog at GettingSmart.com. Find the Getting Smart Podcast on iTunes, leave a review and subscribe.   Is There Somebody You've Been Wanting to Learn From or a Topic You'd Like Covered? To get in contact: Email Jessica@GettingSmart.com, Tweet @Getting_Smart, or leave a review. The Getting Smart team will be sure to add them to their list!  

A3House (Albemarle Alternative Arts House)is creating student PRODUCERS! Take a listen to how Chance Dickerson and Bernard Hankins of Albemarle County Public Schools approach education, and how the A3House is focusing on design and producing authentic student work. Bios: Chance Dickerson Chance Dickerson is a multidimensional artist and integrator of identity, work, and purpose. As a Charlottesville native, he desires to help people in his community be there true self, overcome fear, and pursue their dream. Chance has invested four years in fulfilling his Life’s purpose through Albemarle County Public Schools as the co-director of A3 House, an arts platform for students pursuing creative passions. Bernard Hankins Bernard Hankins is a philosopher, musician, spoken word poet, and creative catalyst. Originally from Chesapeake, VA, he currently lives in Charlottesville,VA, where he teaches workshops on Hip Hop and creative identity. His passion is inspiring others to discover their creative identities in order to find purpose and ultimate meaning in their lives. In 2015, Bernard was the Tedx Charlottesville Open Mic winner, and Tedx Charlottesville Conference closing speaker. He currently works at Albemarle High School as co-director of the A3 House Program, a creative incubator for young people pursuing their passions. Bernard holds a degree in Architecture from UVa.

Mary McIntyre is a candidate for the Rio seat on the Albemarle County School Board.Three of the seven seats on the board will be determined in the November 7 election. Other candidates in this race include Katrina Callsen.  Each candidate was interviewed by Charlottesville Tomorrow and asked 11 questions about their qualifications, priorities and important education issues.  Included in the box at the right are links to the full transcript and audio recording of those interviews.   Bio: Mary grew up in North Carolina and is the daughter of two retired teachers. Her first love, music, led her to attend the Governor’s School of N.C. for violin. During her first teaching job she met and married her husband, and they began traveling the world as a military family. While working and raising their family, Mary earned two master’s degrees in education. The perspective and experience Mary gained teaching in five different school systems, including Albemarle County, has given her a strong understanding of educational policy and further solidified her commitment to public education and community service. Education:  Bachelor’s of Music Education- 2001. University of North Carolina-Greensboro. Master’s of Music Education- 2007. University of Michigan. Master’s of Education in Curriculum Studies for Literacy Specialists-2017. University of Hawaii. Current Occupation: I am a teacher but am not currently employed. Last employer was Albemarle County Public Schools. Previous political experience: No previous political experience. Age on Election Day: 38 Neighborhood: Woodbrook Neighborhood Hometown: Greensboro, NC. Family: Married; one daughter and one son Interests: My husband, Marshall, is an intelligence analyst and an Air Force veteran. Our daughter is in 5th grade, and our son is in 2nd grade. Both attend Woodbrook Elementary School. Phone number : 434-260-0397 Email: mary4albemarleschools@gmail.com Website: www.mary4albemarleschools.com Download

Democrat Liz Palmer is a candidate for the Samuel Miller District seat on the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors. Three of the six seats on the board will be determined in the November 7 election. Other candidates in this race include: John Lowry (R). Each candidate was interviewed by Charlottesville Tomorrow and asked 10 questions about their qualifications, priorities and important quality of life issues.  Included in the box at the right are links to the full transcript and audio recording of those interviews.     Bio: Dr. Palmer is a veterinarian, small business owner and mother who has been deeply involved in local civic and environmental issues for 20 years. She has represented the Samuel Miller District on the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors since 2014. She also currently sits on the Board of Directors of the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority, the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority, the Albemarle County Broadband Authority, and the Charlottesville Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization. She lives in Ivy with her husband, Herb Stewart, and their dog Alice. Her children, now grown, all attended Albemarle County Public Schools. Education: Va Tech: BS and Auburn College of Veterinary Medicine: DVM Occupation: Veterinarian self-employed mobile veterinary practice Previous political experience: Board of Supervisors 2014 to present, Albemarle County Service Authority 2006 through 2013 Age on Election Day: 62 Neighborhood or area of residence: Ivy Hometown: Grew up primarily in Virginia and Delaware Family: Herb Stewart husband. Children Clay, Ben, Matt, Bailey all went to Albemarle County schools. They are now grown and doing well. Other interests and experiences: Spending time with family, hiking, camping and studying macroeconomics, herpetology, and most science related topics. Website: lizpalmerforsuperivsor.vote Email: lizpalmerforsupervisor@gmail.com Telephone: 434-964-7876 Download

Our guest has an evolved view around setting the ideal climate for high school students. Tune in to hear how he balances freedom and control. Follow: @pammoran @irasocol @bamradionetwork #edchat Dr. Jesse Turner currently is an administrator in the Albemarle County Public School system where he serves as the principal of Monticello High School. A former high school teacher, Jesse has worked as a coordinator of an alternative program and an elementary and secondary assistant principal. He also has served as a district-level hearing officer for Albemarle County Public Schools.

Our guest believes that testing mandates are sucking the life of schools and creating what one educator calls the testing sweat shop mentality. What is the right role of testing in education and how can we restore balance? Follow:@pammoran @coolcatteacher @bamradionetwork #edtechchat #edchat #edtech Pamela Moran has served as the Superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools since January 2006. She oversees a division with an annual operating budget of $151 million, with more than 1,100 teachers educating 13,000 students in 26 schools.

Our guest believes that testing mandates are sucking the life of schools and creating what one educator calls the testing sweat shop mentality. What is the right role of testing in education and how can we restore balance? Follow:@pammoran @coolcatteacher @bamradionetwork #edtechchat #edchat #edtech Pamela Moran has served as the Superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools since January 2006. She oversees a division with an annual operating budget of $151 million, with more than 1,100 teachers educating 13,000 students in 26 schools.

The transition to digital learning and digital classrooms has begun. In this summary of the 10/07/13 Edtechchat we explore the questions being asked and some of the guidelines emerging to help educators through the digital transition. Follow: @pamoran @maryannwolfed @gkleiman2 @thomascmurray @bamradionetwork Pam Moran is superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools in Virginia. Her blog is http://spacesforlearning.wordpress.com. Mary Ann Wolf, PhD is the CEO of Wolf Ed. She co-directs the MOOC-Ed on the Digital Learning Transition; wrote the Culture Shift: Teaching in a Learner-Centered Environment; and co-authored two papers on mobile learning for UNESCO and CoSN and the Leveraging Teacher Preparation 2.0 for CTQ. Glenn Kleiman is the Executive Director of the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation and a Professor at the NC State University College of Education and founder of Teaching Tools Software, Inc. and the author of Brave New Schools: How Computers Can Change Education. Tom Murray serves as the Director of Technology and Cyber Education for the Quakertown Community School District in Bucks County, PA.

In this inaugural episode of Why School? we start at the 30,000 foot level and take a look at the forces demanding that we rethink the meaning and purpose of school as we know it. Lisa Brady has been an educator for 27 years in both urban and suburban school districts. A superintendent for nine years, and currently the superintendent for the Dobbs Ferry, New York schools. Dr. Pamela Moran, Superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools - during Dr. Moran’s tenure, ACPS has become one of the top performing school divisions in the state with an on-time graduation rate of 93 percent.