Podcasts about healthcare association

May 222, 2025 - We explore how the state budget impacts health care facilities, like hospitals and nursing homes, with Bea Grause, president of the Healthcare Association of New York State. We also chat about the bills she wants to push and kill during the remainder of the legislative session.

In the inaugural episode of Season 8, Judy welcomes Bill Poirier, the Executive Director of the Renal Healthcare Association (RHA). RHA provides a support network for independent and community-based dialysis providers. Today, our association has evolved into a trusted leader, serving as a collective voice and advocate for the industry, promoting growth, innovation, and collaboration among our members. Both AVA and RHA serve many of the same patients, and the effects of our work can significantly impact the outcomes for the renal patients served by RHA members.Support the show

What's the one stop shop you can use to find jobs in all of Virginia's hospitals?  Sharon Alexander, Director of Workforce Initiatives at the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association joined me to discuss On Board Virginia. If you want to be part of the conversation about rural health workforce, join the Virginia Rural Health Association at the Rural Health Voice conference in November.  Workforce will be one of our three focus areas.

New data from the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association has shown a 108.9% increase from 2020 to 2023 in hospital emergency department visits during which vaping was documented during the patient diagnosis process. The VHHA reported a significant shift in emergency department visits related to tobacco use. While the number of visits involving patients who vape more than doubled from 23,630 in 2020 to 49,356 in 2023, visits involving patients who used traditional tobacco products such as cigarettes and chewing tobacco declined by 25.4% during this period. The association said the shift is likely due to a number of factors...Article LinkSupport the Show.

This episode is part of Pear VC's series on Medicaid, covering the basics that founders need to know to build innovations that support communities in need. Today, we're delighted to introduce Tracy Douglas, the CEO of Virginia Community Healthcare Association (VCHA), which is the primary care association representing Virginia's Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) .  Tracy brings over 25 years of healthcare administration and operations experience. She has held executive roles in FQHCs in Indiana and Maryland, overseeing multiple locations across both states. In these roles, she led operations, maintained financial strength, and supported strategic goals to achieve excellence in medical practices, programs, and services. Tracy has  managed operations in various healthcare settings, including pediatric centers of excellence, providing cardiac, kidney, and pulmonary services, both clinic-based and surgical. She also oversaw outpatient and inpatient acute care services and led a large health system's managed care division. Additionally, Tracy served as the Executive Director of a for-profit physician-hospital organization. In her current role, Tracy  is responsible for the overall operation, management, program development, and fiscal control of VCHA. She also advocates for the Association's members with federal, state, and local policymakers to ensure they have the tools and resources needed to improve access to primary care for the underserved in Virginia. Tracy received her bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland, College Park, and her master's degree in General Administration with a focus on Healthcare Administration from the University of Maryland University College. In this episode, we learn about the scope of FQHC services, how FQHCs are financed, what challenges they face and how they evaluate vendors.

Rural healthcare is much the same and also very different from state to state across the country. State rural healthcare associations tackle issues that support their members' ability to provide care in their rural communities. On today's episode, hosts JJ and Rachel talk with Jared Kosin, president and CEO of the Alaska Hospital & Healthcare Association. Follow Rural Health Rising on Twitter!  https://twitter.com/ruralhealthpod/  https://twitter.com/hillsdaleCEOJJ/  https://twitter.com/ruralhealthrach/ Follow AHHA! https://www.alaskahha.org/ https://www.facebook.com/alaskahha/  https://twitter.com/alaskahha https://www.instagram.com/alaskahha/ Follow Hillsdale Hospital on social media!  https://www.facebook.com/hillsdalehospital/  https://www.twitter.com/hillsdalehosp/  https://www.linkedin.com/company/hillsdale-community-health-center/  https://www.instagram.com/hillsdalehospital/  Audio Engineering & Original Music by Kenji Ulmer  https://www.kenjiulmer.com/ 

How to Revolutionize and Optimize America's Health Care System: Practical Solutions from Greg Vigdor In this thought-provoking video, Greg Vigdor, a seasoned leader with over 40 years of experience in health and healthcare improvement, offers practical solutions to fix America's broken health care system. With his extensive background as President and CEO of prominent organizations like the Washington Health Foundation and the Arizona Hospital & Healthcare Association, Greg brings a wealth of knowledge and insights to the table. Now an author, Greg shares his expertise and recommendations for transforming the system for the better. Serving as the volunteer President of the not-for-profit Washington Health Foundation and the author of The Irv Tinsley Health Policy Detective series, he dives deep into the intricacies of the healthcare landscape. Recognized for his outstanding work, Greg's recently released novel, The Covid Murders, received a Book Excellence Award for Medical Thrillers from Artisan Book Reviews and earned a Top New Release badge from Amazon. Are you ready to revolutionize America's health care system? Join Greg Vigdor as he provides practical solutions in this captivating video. Click the link below to learn more and be part of the change! https://www.washhealthfoundation.org/book-the-theory-of-irv Amazon.com: Greg Vigdor: books, biography, latest update #healthcare #healthcaresystem #America #revolutionizinghealthcare #GregVigdor #practicalsolutions #healthcaretips #healthcareindustry #healthcarepolicy #publichealth #healthcaremanagement #wellness #medicalcare #affordablehealthcare #healthcareforall #healthcareservices #healthcareprofessionals #healthcaretechnology #healthcarecosts #healthcarereform

How to Revolutionize and Optimize America's Health Care System: Practical Solutions from Greg Vigdor In this thought-provoking video, Greg Vigdor, a seasoned leader with over 40 years of experience in health and healthcare improvement, offers practical solutions to fix America's broken health care system. With his extensive background as President and CEO of prominent organizations like the Washington Health Foundation and the Arizona Hospital & Healthcare Association, Greg brings a wealth of knowledge and insights to the table. Now an author, Greg shares his expertise and recommendations for transforming the system for the better. Serving as the volunteer President of the not-for-profit Washington Health Foundation and the author of The Irv Tinsley Health Policy Detective series, he dives deep into the intricacies of the healthcare landscape. Recognized for his outstanding work, Greg's recently released novel, The Covid Murders, received a Book Excellence Award for Medical Thrillers from Artisan Book Reviews and earned a Top New Release badge from Amazon. Are you ready to revolutionize America's health care system? Join Greg Vigdor as he provides practical solutions in this captivating video. Click the link below to learn more and be part of the change! https://www.washhealthfoundation.org/book-the-theory-of-irv Amazon.com: Greg Vigdor: books, biography, latest update #healthcare #healthcaresystem #America #revolutionizinghealthcare #GregVigdor #practicalsolutions #healthcaretips #healthcareindustry #healthcarepolicy #publichealth #healthcaremanagement #wellness #medicalcare #affordablehealthcare #healthcareforall #healthcareservices #healthcareprofessionals #healthcaretechnology #healthcarecosts #healthcarereform

Although state and federal policymakers, with support from the hospital community, have passed a series of consumer-friendly laws promoting health insurance and hospital price transparency and protecting patients and families, recent polling suggests that Virginians are largely unaware of the reforms.  To address that information gap, Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association is launching the "Control Your Care" public awareness campaign to ensure patients and families know their rights to help them make informed medical decisions. The campaign includes a website, ControlYourCare.com, with information about consumer-focused health care reforms, links to state and federal laws and descriptions of what the laws...Article LinkSupport the show

The head of the Healthcare Association of Hawaiʻi shares how the health care needs of affected residents of Lāhainā are being met; Military veteran talks about leading his evacuation and rescue team on Maui; HPR's Savannah Harriman-Pote underscores the importance of safety when dealing with cleanup and toxicity in burned out Lāhainā; and HPR's Cassie Ordonio discusses the wildfire's impacts to Valley Isle schools

Are you an Infection Preventionist looking to learn more about the Healthcare Association of New York's State Antibiotic Stewardship Collaborative in 2015? Join us as we talk to Dr. Danielle Durant about her research and paper evaluation of the Collaborative. Dr. Durant provides us with an extensive background on HANES and the AUR Module of NHSN, revealing how the Collaborative's two aims were to prepare hospitals for mandated usage reporting and develop a robust program to help them prevent MDROs. With special guest: Dr. Danielle Durant

June 7, 2023 - Healthcare Association of New York State President Bea Grause discusses the ramification of expiring pandemic rules and regulations, including a state COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers.

On this episode, we speak to Emmett Reed, Chief Executive Officer at Florida Health Care Association, an organization that represents 86% of Florida's nursing centers — facilities that provide skilled nursing, post-acute and sub-acute care, as well as short-term rehabilitation, assisted living and other services to the elderly and individuals with disabilities in Florida. Topics discussed include: - The impact of the new website, qualitycaredashboard.org. - The ways the organization tells the story about how good nursing homes are doing in Florida. - Emmett's love of touring the member facilities across the state. - The organization's credibility and trust of the Florida Legislature. - How Covid created a remarkable leadership opportunity for FHCA. - The innovative solution FHCA came up with to fight the workforce crisis. - Emmett's leadership style and how it has changed over the last ten years. Florida Health Care Association - https://www.linkedin.com/company/floridahealthcareassociation/ This episode is brought to you by Experience.Care, the only long-term care EHR backed by guarantees.   Your profitability is our priority and your compliance, our cause. Since 1969. Get your profitability consultation today at Experience.Care/guarantee. Our website is .Care for a reason. We care about your care. Visit us at Experience.Care. #seniorliving #longtermcare #seniors #seniorcare

Roger Stone, Conservative political consultant & longtime Trump adviser Topic: Potential Trump arrest Andy Aronson, President, and CEO of the Healthcare Association of New Jersey Topic: Celebrating NewarkSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jan. 03, 2023 - A recent survey hospitals around New York paints a bleak picture, with facilities facing staffing shortages and financial difficulties. Healthcare Association of New York State President Bea Grause explains the results and discusses what should be done to support hospital operations in 2023.

Jan. 03, 2023 - A recent survey hospitals around New York paints a bleak picture, with facilities facing staffing shortages and financial difficulties. Healthcare Association of New York State President Bea Grause explains the results and discusses what should be done to support hospital operations in 2023.

Jan. 03, 2023 - A recent survey hospitals around New York paints a bleak picture, with facilities facing staffing shortages and financial difficulties. Healthcare Association of New York State President Bea Grause explains the results and discusses what should be done to support hospital operations in 2023.

A former HPR producer now living in London shares the mood of the city as mourning for Queen Elizabeth II draws to a close; the Healthcare Association of Hawaii addresses the shutdown of an air ambulance company and Hawaiʻi's healthcare worker shortage; HPR reporter Casey Harlow talks to Honolulu's new DPP director; and Seabury Hall's creative arts center turns 10

We are very excited to have Robert Vande Merwe, Executive Director of the Idaho Health Care Association, join us for this episode.  Robert has a deep passion for not only the population served by our post-acute providers but also the many who choose to work every day to serve this population. We spend the first half of the episode discovering Robert's background and his journey to becoming the Executive Director of the IHCA.  In the second half of the episode, we discuss the Idaho legislative process and the role that the Idaho Health Care Association plays in ensuring post-acute providers are represented at the State level. To learn more about the Idaho Health Care Association: https://www.idhca.org/Discover the legislators in your area: https://legislature.idaho.gov/legislators/whosmylegislator/Discover who is currently running in the upcoming election:  https://sos.idaho.gov

Award winning leader, Joy Barua, President & Chief Operating Office at Finance Insurance, Ltd. joins the Voice of Business podcast powered by ALTRES. Don't let his outgoing personality fool you, his heart for the community is his true secret to success. Learn how Joy finds meaning in all that he does and in every role from healthcare and community leadership to finance. His authenticity for caring for the people of Hawaii translates into how he treats his staff, clients and is his motivation for community service. “Service is not something you do after hours or on the side, it is a way of life. It gives me purpose.” Joy was named “2020 Business Leader of the Year” by Pacific Business News, which also recognized him for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts as a 2021 Business of Pride honoree. He was also first from Hawaii to be recognized nationally among “Top 100 under 50 Emerging Leaders” by Diversity MBA magazine. Locally, Hawaii Business magazine named him among “20 for the Next 20 – People to Watch.” He was commended by the State of Hawaii's House of Representatives as recipient of the “Champion Award” from Project Vision Hawaii and was honored with the “Corporate Social Responsibility Award” by Pacific Edge Magazine, which also featured him as an emerging leader in healthcare. He received Healthcare Association of Hawaii's “Advocacy Award” and “Public Health Award,” and the U.S. SBA's “Small Business Advocate of the Year” award. Additionally, he was recognized as “40 Under 40 – Hawaii's Best & Brightest Young Businesspeople” and “CFO of the Year” finalist by Pacific Business News. 

The first Saturday in June has arrived, just as it did 364 days ago. This particular day goes by the name June 4, 2022, but it may also answer to Day 155. This particular episode of Charlottesville Community Engagement may be referred to as number 391, a fact whose significance is suspect. If this show were a mystery, I, Sean Tubbs, would be the suspect for host. This newsletter and podcast is free, but Ting will match your initial payment to help keep this brand of community journalist in style! On today’s show:A third Democrat is seeking the nomination for the new 55th House of Delegates The General Assembly takes the next step towards adoption of a Virginia budget for the next two fiscal years The spring 2022 COVID surge continues The University of Virginia’s land use committee reviews the $2.8 billion capital plan, including a 1,000 space parking garage and 440 units of student housing at DardenFirst shout-out goes to a Livable Cville eventIn today’s first subscriber supported shout-out, Livable Cville wants you to know about an online presentation coming up on June 7. The Community Climate Collaborative and Livable Cville are presenting a talk on what they consider Climate-Smart Zoning. Executive Director Susan Kruse and Director of Climate Policy Caetano de Campos Lopes will be the presenters. This is happening on Tuesday, June 7, from 5:30 p.m to 6:30 p.m. Sign up for the free event on EventBrite. Laufer seeking Democratic nomination for 55th District A third Democrat has filed paperwork with the Virginia Department of Elections to be a candidate in the new 55th House District in the next election cycle, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. Amy Laufer is the current chair of the Albemarle County Democratic Committee and was twice elected to the Charlottesville School Board in 2011 and 2015.In 2017, Laufer was one of two Democrats on the ballot for Charlottesville City Council and placed a close third behind Independent Nikuyah Walker and Democrat Heather Hill.  In 2019, she resigned from the School Board when she moved to Albemarle County. Soon after, she ran in the 17th Virginia Senate District against Republican Bryce Reeves. Reeves won with 51.6 percent of the vote with Laufer receiving 48.1 percent.Laufer joins Albemarle Supervisor Donna Price and emergency room nurse Kellen Squire in the nomination race, which could still take place this year pending a federal lawsuit. No new orders have been issued in the Goldman V. Brink case since May 5. The incumbent, Republican Rob Bell, has not announced whether he will seek a new term in the new district, which now includes most of Albemarle County and parts of Nelson and Louisa Counties. General Assembly moves forward with state budgetBoth Houses of the General Assembly have adopted the conference reports that represent compromises in the state budget. It’s now up to Governor Glenn Youngkin to determine whether to sign the bills as presented or make further amendments. He has up until the end of the month to take action. Delegate Barry Knight (R-81) served on the House Conference Committee for both HB29 and HB30, the bills that technically carried the budgets for the current biennium and for the next two years. “It’s been a long haul but I believe the result is a fiscally sound, bi-partisan budget we can all be proud of,” Knight said. Knight said a record growth in state revenue has enabled the General Assembly to invest in core government services.“At the same time, the extraordinary revenue situation has enabled us to protect for the future by using one-time revenues to address long-lingering, one-time investment needs, prepay upcoming commitments, fund capital projects with cash and not bond, and remove the account gimmicks we used to balance our budget during the Great Recession,” Knight said. Those investments include $400 million for public school system capital projects already constructed with each locality getting at least a million, as well as another $450 million for new school construction. Knight said that includes a $750 million payment into the Virginia Retirement Services as well as an additional $250 million if the state hits a certain revenue target. Additional funds will go into the “rainy day fund” to have that balance hit what Knight said was a record-setting $3.4 billion. There’s another $2.5 billion from surpluses that will go to previously committed projects. “In addition, the conference report reflects $4 billion in tax relief for Virginia’s families including an increase in the standard deduction including from $4,500 to $8,000 for individuals, double that for joint filers [and] the full elimination of the state’s sales tax on food,” Knight said. There’s also to be a $250 tax rebate for individuals and $500 for households. HB29 passed the House of Delegates on a 93 to 2 vote and the Senate on a 35 to 1 vote. There was no comment about HB29 in the House, but several Democrats had concerns about some of what was in HB30. Delegate Dawn Adams (D-68) had three reasons why she voted no, but one was a lack of transparency during the conference process. “I haven’t seen this lack of transparency in the process since I’ve been here and there’s a fair amount of policy being written through the budget that I think is really, really concerning and has not involved legislators which is so important in making good laws,” Adams said. Delegate Danica Roem (D-13) said she was concerned that revenue cuts to transportation will take away dozens of millions that she said are required to maintain Virginia’s crumbling system. Others were concerned about changes made to marijuana possession that were made in the budget. Others said there was not enough money being put toward affordable housing, with one Delegate citing a 2020 study by the Joint Legislative Audit Review Committee (JLARC). “We have got billions in surplus revenue,” said Delegate Alfonso Lopez. “Now is the time for Virginia to be forward thinking, to invest in housing. Housing trust dollars are the critical layers of debt and equity needed to develop quality affordable housing.” The vote on HB30 was 88 to 7, with dissenters coming from both parties. Republican Delegates Nick Freitas (R-30) and Phil Scott (R-88) joined Adams and four other Democrats in voting against. The Virginia Senate approved HB30 on a 32 to 4 vote. After the votes, Delegate Terry Kilgore explained the next steps. “The Speaker [of the House Todd Gilbert] and the Lieutenant Governor [Winsome Earle-Sears] have three days to sign and enroll the bill or get it to the Governor,” Kilgore said. “The Governor then has seven days to act on any amendments and then we would need to come back prior to July 1 to act on those amendments so what we can make sure we have a budget for Virginians.” Spring 2022 COVID surge continuesOn Friday, the Virginia Department of Health reported 4,057 new cases as detected through PCR tests, the highest one day total in several weeks but consistent with a growing trend. The seven day average is 2,841, though the actual number of cases is likely much higher due to the number of home tests. The Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association reports 87 patients in intensive care units with 30 COVID patients on ventilators. The proliferation of the second Omicron strain has led to many people contracting COVID for a second time. “We are seeing second infections occurring particularly in people that had infections in December and January and in early February and now we’re three months out from that and because of the strain differences and that time lag and difference, we are seeing breakthrough infections,” said Dr. Costi Sifri, director of hospital epidemiology for the University of Virginia Health System. Dr. Sifri said at least some patients do have lingering symptoms associated with long COVID such as fatigue and brain fog. This is still an active area of investigation. “There is still much to be understood about long COVID, what its pathophysiology is, what are the biologic mechanisms that lead to it,” Dr. Sifri said. “That’s still being an active area of investigation trying to understand that and perhaps at some point better be able to predict who may be more susceptible to it.” Dr. Sifri said it can be expected that additional variants will emerge, but that the outlook is not bleak.“What we’re also seeing is that as this occurs, the relative proportion of people that are needing medical care, that are coming into the hospital because of severe COVID, coming into our intensive care units, and importantly, the proportion of people that are dying of COVID, those are going down,” Dr. Sifri said.However, Dr. Sifri said the public should be mindful of the potential for a more deadly strain to emerge. On Thursday, the White House announced that authorization for vaccines for children under the age of five may come sometime this month. The Blue Ridge Health District said in their weekly newsletter they would be ready to distribute and administer the vaccines when the time comes. Today’s second shout-also goes to WTJUIn today’s second Patreon-fueled shout-out:  This year, WTJU 91.1 FM turns 65 and to mark the occasion, there’s a new micro-museum exhibition this summer! Radio Relics traces WTJU’s storied history of broadcasting for our community. As part of our 65th anniversary celebrations, WTJU has curated photos, artifacts, and t-shirts – so many t-shirts! – spanning more than six decades.The exhibition is free and will be open Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. from June 3 through July 29. The museum space is a renovated, vintage camper parked behind WTJU’s studios at 2244 Ivy Road in Charlottesville. WTJU’s Radio Relics exhibition shows off some of the artifacts collected over the years, many contributed by former WTJU General Manager Chuck Taylor.  In fact, there’s even a new initiative to raise money through the Chuck Taylor Fund for WTJU History. Contact General Manager Nathan Moore to learn more. Or donate today!UVA committee briefed on new capital projects The Buildings and Grounds Committee of the University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors met on Thursday and got an update on capital projects and the next master plan. Colette Sheehy is the executive vice president and chief operating officer at UVA. “So this is the time of year when we ask for approval of the newly revised Major Capital Plan,” Sheehy said. “You’ll recall that we reviewed it with you in March.” The last Major Capital Plan adopted last year was for $3.1 billion worth of projects and several of those have been completed since then such as the University Hospital Expansion, the orthopedic center on Ivy Road, and the student health and wellness center on Brandon Avenue. “We have a lot going on,” Sheehy said. “Thirty-one percent of the value of the entire capital program represents projects under construction and we are going to have a very busy 24 months coming up as many of these projects reach conclusion.” The landscaping and the infrastructure for the Emmet-Ivy Corridor should be completed by next spring. Renovations of Alderman Library and construction of the Contemplative Commons should be completed in the fall of 2023.“The School of Data Science will follow on the heels in December of 2023 and then the following spring, late spring, early summer, the Brandon Avenue undergraduate residence hall,” Sheehy said. Sheehy said the next plan will include several design studies as well as eight new projects, four of which were not on the list in March. One of them would be for student housing at the Darden School of Business. “They are proposing to build about 440 beds that would house two-thirds of their residential MBA students,” Sheehy said. “It is something that competitor business schools do.” There is no cost estimate for that project, which would offer a range of options for students and their families. (read a fact sheet) Sheehy said another project is to construct a 1,000 space parking garage, but she did not elaborate on its location. A fact sheet states the cost estimate is $54 million and would replace parking in the existing Emmet Ivy Parking Garage that will be dedicated to uses such as the future hotel, the Karsh Institute of Democracy, and the School of Data Science. “The current parking inventory displaced by the Ivy Corridor redevelopment must be met in a location that serves multiple constituencies and links effectively to transit,” reads the fact sheet. Other new projects are renovations to the physics building as well as Pinn Hall. After that presentation, UVA Architect Alice Raucher updated the committee on the creation of the 2030 Grounds Framework Plan, which updates a master plan adopted in 2008. The pandemic delayed the work slightly and the end of this installment of Charlottesville Community Engagement will delay my reporting on it. I’ll cover that in a future edition. Sound permitting. Town Crier Productions has a sponsorship thing with Ting!For over a year one year now, Town Crier Productions has had a promotional offering through 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

Welcome to Mother’s Day Eve, a holiday that may not exist, but is certainly a possibility in a world that seems to have an occasion for everything. While we wait for Mommoween to be invented, we’ll just have to settle for another installment of Charlottesville Community Engagement, a newsletter and podcast that is most certainly not funded by Big Greeting Card. Find the info worthwhile? Send it on to others! On today’s program:Greene County’s Commissioner of Revenue resigns after pleading guilty to federal charges of witness tampering Kellen Squire officially launches his race to the Democratic nominee for the 55th House District Dr. Denise Bonds is stepping down as director of the Blue Ridge Health DistrictAnother surge of COVID appears to be in the making, but it’s too early to tell how severe it might be And the City of Charlottesville is taking donations to help cover unpaid utility bills Today’s first 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. This week is the annual Rock Marathon, so tune in and support freeform community radio on WTJU Consider a donation at wtju.net/donate.Snow resigns as Greene County Commissioner of RevenueLarry Snow has resigned as the Commissioner of Revenue in Greene County after pleading guilty in federal court to tampering with a witness. Snow appeared in the Western District Court in Charlottesville Friday to answer to charges that stemmed from a federal investigation, along with his son who pleaded guilty to a charge of heroin distribution. The elder Snow was caught trying to harass and intimidate a confidential informant involved with the investigation.“Elected officials should hold themselves to a higher standard and serve their community responsibly,” said Stanley M. Meador, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Richmond Division in a release sent out by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia. “Mr. Snow violated the faith entrusted to him, and with his son criminally used personal information of community members for their own gain,” Snow was first elected to the position in 1987 and was reelected in 2019 while under indictment with three quarters of the vote. In November 2017, Bryant Snow was arrested on two state counts of distribution after selling methamphetamine and heroin to an informant. He plead guilty to the meth charge in April 2018 and was imprisoned at Central Virginia Regional Jail. While there, the father and son discussed ways to intimidate someone referred to as Person A. At one point, the elder Snow sent out over 12,000 pamphlets to Greene County residents describing how the Sheriff’s Department uses informants in an attempt to dissuade Person A. Larry Snow will be sentenced on July 25 and Bryant Snow will be sentenced on August 1 before Senior Judge Norman K. Moon. Bonds stepping down as director of the Blue Ridge Health DistrictA search will soon get underway for a new director of the Blue Ridge Health District now that Dr. Denise Bonds has announced she’ll step down from the position at the end of this month. She’s been the health director since 2015 and led the agency during the COVID-19 pandemic and during a name change. “Under Dr. Bonds’ leadership, BRHD expanded its HIV testing and prevention services, increased access to testing for sexually transmitted diseases, and broadened the size and reach of the Population Health Division, including launching a robust Community Health Worker program,” reads an announcement from the Blue Ridge Health District sent out yesterday afternoon. Dr. Bonds also served as interim director of the Rappahannock Area Health District from August 2020 to April 2021. The Blue Ridge Health District is also closing down its COVID-19 case investigation team. According to the release, they followed 47,274 cases since March 2020. After this weekend, the Mobile Health Unit created during the pandemic has held 200 events at which over 5,000 COVID vaccinations were administered. A memorial to those lost during the COVID-19 pandemic will be held on May 24, 2022 at the Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital Amphitheater.COVID-19 update A spring surge of COVID-19 continues to rise with the Virginia Department of Health reporting 2,677 new cases on Friday, with a seven-day average for positive tests at 11 percent. That’s about where things were in late February when the Omicron surge was waning. “And that’s up from around three percent, three and a half percent in March, so we have seen an increase in test positivity,” said Dr. Costi Sifri, the director of hospital epidemiology at the University of Virginia Health System. “This is occurring in a background where we’re having less testing in general because of the growth of at-home testing and I would say the vast majority of the people who are testing positive at home through a rapid antigen test are not going on to get a PCR test somewhere else.” The dashboard for the Blue Ridge Health District hasn’t been updated since May 1, and the Virginia Department of Health no longer provides that information in an easily-consumable fashion. The dataset is available here.  The increasing number of cases are not leading to increased hospitalizations. Today the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association reports 30 COVID-positive people in intensive care units and 11 on respirators. At the height of the Omicron surge in late January of this year, that number climbed over 400. Dr. Sifri said the numbers are expected to rise as more people forgo wearing masks indoors and as people move further away from their vaccinations or boosters. “There is some progressive loss of some immune response,” said Dr. Sifri. “And finally, in this background is new subvariants of Omicron.” Dr. Sifri points people to the weekly models produced by the University of Virginia's Biocomplexity Institute. The latest from April 29 predicts a further surge this summer, though with lower death rates due to treatments that are now available, more than two years after the pandemic began. “The open question is how much of an impact will that have on health systems?” Dr. Sifri asked. “Is that going to lead to more hospitalizations? Is that going to lead to more [intensive care unit] hospitalizations and deaths? That’s our concern.”Dr. Sifri said vaccinations may not prevent infection but do limit the severity. City taking donations to cover unpaid utility billsIt’s been nearly a month since the City of Charlottesville announced it would resume the practice of shutting down service for unpaid utility bills. There was a statewide moratorium on such disconnects that expired last September. In all, the city used $557,000 in various federal assistance programs to help some customers.However, they announced in April disconnects would resume. “To date, six accounts have been disconnected and remain out of service,” said Chris Cullinan, the city’s finance director, in an email to Charlottesville Community Engagement. However, the city is taking donations to help prevent further disconnects. Cullinan said that as of Thursday, the city had received $800 from concerned community members. He said checks marked with “Water/WW Assistance” in the memo can be sent to:City of Charlottesville Utility Billing OfficePO Box 911Attn: Water and Wastewater AssistanceCharlottesville, VA  22902Second shout-out goes to a Charlottesville Jazz Society event this weekendIn today’s second subscriber-supported shout-out, the Charlottesville Jazz Society and WTJU are pleased to bring bassist Joe Fonda back to town with his long-standing group the Nu Band. They’ll be appearing Tuesday May 10 at the Bridge at 209 Monticello Road. The Nu Band is a dynamic jazz ensemble from New York City, featuring some of the most unique, compelling and in-demand voices in creative music today. The band was formed in 1999, and since then has released 10 recordings, completed 9 European and several US tours, bringing forward-leaning, provocative and evocative music to the world. All tickets for The Nu Band at The Bridge, May 10th at 7 pm will be $10 at the door. For more information visit cvillejazz.org, Squire launches campaign with ad releaseThere’s still no firm resolution on whether Virginia will elect the next set of members of the next House of Delegates this November or the next, but there are two active candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for the newly drawn 55th District. On Friday, Kellen Squire released a video to launch a campaign for which he filed earlier this spring. He’s an emergency room nurse who ran in the 58th District in 2017 against incumbent Rob Bell. “Just as I believe there’s hope for me when I come home to my family,” Squire narrates in the two-minute video that depicts him driving home from a shift, concluding with him getting out of his vehicle. “I’m Kellen Squire and I’m running for the House of Delegates because as an emergency department nurse, I know that we all do better when we all do better,” Squire continues. “I’ll fight unapologetically for rural Virginia. I’ll put people before party. And I’ll make sure no Virginian gets left behind.” Squire joins Albemarle Supervisor Donna Price in the race for the Democratic nomination, a race in which the winner could take on Republican Rob Bell, who has represented the 58th District since 2002. He’s not yet made an announcement about the next election. The 55th District is geographically different and will consist of most of Albemarle County, western Louisa County, and northeast Nelson County. Price made her announcement on Facebook on Tuesday, a day after someone leaked a draft Supreme Court ruling purporting to overturn Roe v. Wade. (read the story)There is a chance that an election could be held this year due to a federal lawsuit filed by Richmond attorney Paul Goldman arguing that legislators elected in 2021 are in unconstitutional districts. Judge David Novak of the Eastern District of Virginia is expected to rule on whether Goldman has the legal standing to file the case.On Thursday, Novak admonished Goldman for filing a motion to ask the court to consider the draft ruling as evidence for why a House of Delegates race should be run this year. “The Court hereby STRIKES this Motion at patently inappropriate and completely irrelevant to this case,” Novak wrote in an order. “Neither draft opinions nor press reports have any impact on the decisions of this Court.” Novak told Goldman to stop filing additional motions. Help support Town Crier Productions with a paid subscription to this newsletter!For one year now, Town Crier Productions has a 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’s been three months since February 2, prompting the question: Has anyone checked to see how the groundhog is doing? Still, May 2 is the 122nd day of 2022, and we are now mathematically one third of the way through. Perhaps nothing is still. In any case, this is Charlottesville Community Engagement and I remain Sean Tubbs, here for another week and another months of newsletters and podcasts that are hopefully informative. On today’s program:Charlottesville crews are taking down dead Ash and Oak trees this yeCOVID cases are up sharply across Virginia this morningCharlottesville has a new Fire MarshalA Buckingham County resident has died following a fatal crash this morning in Albemarle County City Council will take up two land use items tonight, one of which would double the already approved residential density on a property near the University of VirginiaFirst shout-out goes to the Piedmont Master Gardeners for their annual plant saleIn today’s first subscriber-supported shout-out, the Piedmont Master Gardeners are pleased to announce the return of their annual plant sale! That’s happening on Saturday, May 7, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Albemarle Square Shopping Center. The sale will offer thousands of annuals, perennials, shrubs, vegetables, herbs and houseplants, including a large selection of native plants.In addition, shoppers can purchase garden implements, yard ornaments and other “Green Elephants”; have their tools sharpened by an expert; and drop off their surplus plastic nursery pots for recycling. The sale will also feature a Help Desk for gardening questions and information tables on native plants, soil and composting, invasive plants, conservation landscaping and much more.For more information, visit piedmontmastegardeners.org. COVID-19 update: Numbers trending upward again? As the week and month begin, it’s worth checking in with the COVID-19 pandemic statistics in Virginia. Brace yourselves for this number. The Virginia Department of Health reports another 4,192 new cases today, and the seven day average for positive PCR tests is at 9.8 percent. The seven day average for new tests is at 1,870 new cases a day. However, these cases have not yet resulted in a higher number of people in the hospital for COVID. According to the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association, there are 166 COVID patients currently in hospital care across Virginia and 28 are in intensive care units. Eleven are on ventilators. Those numbers are drastically lower than three months ago when the Omicron surge was at its peak. On Friday, the VDH reported 1,705 new cases. That’s the same day the UVA Health System held its weekly briefing, which included Chief Executive Officer Wendy Horton. She encouraged vigilance. “Among our employees and our workforce, we are seeing an uptick in community exposure in COVID so it isn’t going away in our community and I think a lot of friends and family are experiencing that this week,” Horton said. Dr. Costi Sifri, the director of hospital epidemiology at the University of Virginia, said the actual case counts are likely higher due to the number of home testing and due to the spread of a variant in Omicron. “They are increasingly more transmissible and because of that it’s very reasonable to take precautions,” Dr. Sifri said. “Masking works. It’s always worked. It will continue to work.” Dr. Sifri also encouraged people to investigate whether it is a good time for them to take an additional booster if eligible. “I think the first and foremost thing is to make sure that you are fully vaccinated and that you have completed what we consider the three dose vaccine series,” Dr. Sifri said.With allergy season in play, Dr. Sifri recommends self-testing to protect those you spend a lot of time around. “Your sniffles or scratchy throat that you may wish to attribute to hay fever may not be that but it could be a sign of COVID and to test yourself,” Dr. Sifri said. The Friday briefing also covered another emerging medical issue across the globe. So far there are no cases at the University of Virginia of severe unexplained cases of hepatitis in children, but doctors are keeping an eye out. Dr. Debbie-Ann Shirley is a pediatric infectious disease specialist who says more study is needed after an alert went out in late April.“Both the Centers for Disease Control and the Virginia Department of Health put out health advisories to notify health care providers about an increase in clusters of cases of severe liver diseases in children which we call hepatitis,” Dr. Shirley said in a briefing last Friday. One potential commonality is an adenovirus which can cause a variety of different ailments. The United Kingdom has seen a relatively high number of cases, some of which have required liver transplants. “It’s really the severity of these cases in young children that is causing concern and alarm and the reason that we want to investigate urgently to find out more information,” Dr. Shirley said. Local physicians are encouraged to reach out to UVA Health officials if they see pediatric patients with elevated levels of liver enzymes that are otherwise unexplained. “For parents who are trying to understand what to do when they hear this message, if they see signs and symptoms of hepatitis then to talk to their health care provider,” Dr. Shirley said. That includes yellowing of the eyes and skin, belly pain, and fatigue. I’ll have more on both issues as time moves on. Fatal crash at Hillsdale and Rio intersection this morningA 20-year-old from Dilwyn has died following a fatal crash this morning at the intersection of Rio Road and Hillsdale Drive. According to the Albemarle County Fire Rescue department, Mr. Kyjuan-Shallah Anthony Maurice Bell died at the scene after a collision with another vehicle. “The cause of the crash remains under investigation by the Albemarle County Police Department’s Fatal Crash Reconstruction Team,” reads the press release. “This is the third traffic fatality investigated by ACPD in 2022.”City to remove dead treesThe biological war between the Emerald Ash Borer and ash trees is still being waged, but it’s very much in the favor of the invasive species. That’s been confirmed by the city’s new urban forester, Steve Gaines.“The beetle larvae tunnel under the bark, and damage nutrient and water flow throughout the tree – basically girdling the tree,” Gaines said in email Friday afternoon. “Once infested, the trees usually die within 2-5 years after initial infection.”This morning, Charlottesville’s Parks and Recreation Department began removing six dead ash trees at the intersection of McIntire Road and West Main Street. That will take place Monday through Wednesday between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. and motorists can expect delays. Gaines said it is hard to tell how many more ash trees across the city will die but there will be a focus on removing ones that can cause harm. “It is safe to say that the city will be removing Ash hazard trees for quite a while,” Gaines said. “Standing dead Ash trees are particularly dangerous because the dead limbs are brittle and can easily break and fall during wind/weather events.”Gaines said the city is seeking to treat some ash trees with injections, but this often requires a landowner or organization to help cover the cost of treatment. Later in the week, crews will remove three dead Oak trees from Belmont Park. Gaines said there are many possibilities for why they have died. The Charlottesville Tree Commission meets virtually Tuesday at 5 p.m. (meeting info)Fire Captain Phillips elevated to Fire MarshalA veteran with 23 years of experience on the Charlottesville Fire Department has been named as the city’s new fire marshal. Joe Phillips will replace Deputy Chief Joe Powers, who had been in charge of Community Risk Reduction. According to a release, Phillips joined the department in January 1999 as a firefighter and medic. He has served as a battalion chief and has been in the Fire Marshal’s office since 2017. That’s where the fire department’s Office of Community Risk Reduction is located. A national search is underway for a new Deputy Chief for risk reduction. In today’s other three shout-outs 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. In the middle, I’d like to take the opportunity to wish my nephew, Ryan Craig, a happy 29th birthday. Where did the time go? The final comes from another Patreon 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!Council to review two land use items this eveningLast month, the Charlottesville Planning Commission recommended approval of one land use item and recommended the denial of another at a joint public hearing with City Council. Tonight, City Council will hold final votes on both of them.The first is on the consent agenda. Southern Development seeks an increase of residential density at 209 Maury Avenue near the University of Virginia. Here’s city planner Matt Alfele.“The subject properties were rezoned from R-2U (residential two-family University) to R-3 with proffers in December 2019,” Alfele said. “The original plan called for residential development with 33 units. The new proposal calls for the same configuration but removes the parking underneath building 2 to accommodate additional units.”The new maximum count would be 64 units. As part of the proffers, six affordable units would be built by Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville at the Flint Hill development in the Fry’s Spring neighborhood. Flint Hill is also being developed by Southern Development and that required eight affordable units. Habitat will be building those, as well. Charlie Armstrong is vice president at Southern Development. “Yes, it would create more units if we have more density on this site,” Armstrong said. “It does create more affordable units. Those will need to be off-site and we like the idea of doing them with Habitat at Flint Hill. We need to get Flint Hill through the approval process and built.”Armstrong said University of Virginia students do not drive as much, but the company has agreed to develop a parking plan for the site. They’ll also build a seven-foot sidewalk along Maury Avenue.  An existing structure on the property will be kept as part of the project. The Commission voted unanimously to recommend the increase. Council has opted to put it on their consent agenda rather than discuss it in open session tonight.Planning Commission recommends denial of conversion of apartments to hotel useIn the other matter, developer Bill Chapman sought permission to convert an apartment complex on 14th Street into a hotel. Here’s city planner Dannan O’Connell. “The subject property is currently developed with a 21-unit multifamily condominium use and the applicant wishes to renovate the existing building to accommodate a 19-unit hotel with one residential apartment,” O’Connell said. The structure was originally built as a hotel in 1964 but converted to apartment use some time later. Tonight’s consideration by Council comes just over a year after the city adopted an Affordable Housing Plan that seeks to increase the number of units and nearly six months after a new Comprehensive Plan was adopted.“The proposed redevelopment does meet some of the 2021 Comprehensive Plan’s goals regarding sustainable reuse of existing buildings, protecting the existing identity of city neighborhoods, and retaining successful businesses and jobs,” O’Connell said. “The proposed change of use would also result in a reduction of available rental housing within the city and this area. However, the existing apartment use is non-conforming in nature and located in an area of dense residential apartments geared towards short-term student housing.”Much of the discussion at the Planning Commission was whether the residential units should be removed from circulation. Commissioner Rory Stolzenberg noted that the units rented at what would appear to be what’s known as “naturally occurring affordable housing.” “The studio rents for $770 a month and that includes utilities,” Stolzenberg said. “And then I go look at what that is in terms of [Area Median Income] and it’s right at the 45 percent AMI range for a one-person household.” O’Connell said the application made clear that none of those units were participating in a subsidized program requiring the rents to be that low. “The reason these units are affordable is because they are older and so people can afford to live in them,” said Planning Commissioner Liz Russell. Developer Bill Chapman said the conversion would be similar to what he and his business partners did at the Oakhurst Circle and Inn project at the corner of Jefferson Park Avenue and Jefferson Park Avenue. “My partners and I own nine buildings over here on the south side of UVA in the Oakhurst Gildersleeve Historic District and some of them are apartments and some are private homes and some are hotel rooms,” Chapman said.Chapman said he thought the end result of the renovations of those buildings has made some of those streets better than they been. He said he wants to do the same at 207 14th Street.“The block just down the hill from this property on 14th Street is one of the dirtiest blocks in the whole city in terms of trash and we’re going to transform that a little bit because being in the hospitality business it needs to look good,” Chapman said. Chapman said the apartments are run down and cheap because they are old hotel rooms. He is a contract purchaser, and does not currently own them. He said financing their renovation as an apartment would result in much higher rents. “This property was built as a motel and I think it’s best operated as a hotel especially since it needs this new life brought to it,” Chapman said. “Now, could it go for a few more years as an apartment building? Yeah. Could it go for 20 more years as an apartment building. No.”Russell said she did not think the people living in the apartment were necessarily students. “We have to remember that not just students live in the area around the University but it seems like a pretty great proximity to the UVA Health System,” Russell said. “So many people can’t live in this community let alone proximate to UVA. Russell said she would vote to recommend denial because she housing is more important than hotel rooms. Commissioner Karim Habbab also could not support it.“This is currently exactly the missing middle housing that we are trying to develop in the city and given our affordable housing issue, I cannot see how this would help with that,” Habbab said. The Commission voted 4-2 to recommend denial. Now it’s up to Council to make a decision. Help support Town Crier Productions with a paid subscription to this newsletter!For one year now, Town Crier Productions has a 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

More than half of the first month of 2022 is now in the past, and it’s hard to monitor for certain if time is moving faster or slower than usual. In the absence of precise machinery, the purpose of Charlottesville Community Engagement is to document as much of it as possible in the hopes of better understanding all of the forces at work. I’m your host, Sean Tubbs. This is a free newsletter and podcast so sign up so you can get nearly all of the information! On today’s program:Albemarle Supervisors are briefed on potential transportation projects, including a funding request for a microtransit demonstration projectGovernor Youngkin addresses the General Assembly and lays out his request for charter schools, tax cuts, and more changes to state policy COVID hospitalizations remain at record levels, but there are signs the omicron surge may be slowing  A very brief legislative update First Patreon-fueled shout-out:With winter weather here, now is the time to think about keeping your family warm through the cold Virginia months. Make sure you are getting the most out of your home with help from your local energy nonprofit, LEAP. LEAP wants you and yours to keep comfortable all year round, and 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 $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!Pandemic updateThere are signs the omicron surge is beginning to recede in Virginia, though the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations remains high. The Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association reports 3,948 people in hospital across the state with 676 in intensive care units and 377 on ventilators. However, the seven-day percent positivity has declined to 32.7 percent, down from 36 percent a week ago. The seven-day average for new cases has declined to 15,998. In the Blue Ridge Health District, there are 114 new cases reported today and the percent positivity is at 27.5 percent. No new fatalities have been reported within the last week. Youngkin lays out plan to General Assembly In an address to the General Assembly yesterday afternoon, Governor Glenn Youngkin covered a wide range of his priorities in his speech. The 74th Governor won election with 50.58 percent of the vote. “After years of fractured politics, a deadly pandemic, lives and livelihoods lost, soaring mental health incidents and drug overdoses, rising crime rates, ever-increasing costs for housing, food and fuel, Virginians have sent us here to turn the page,” Youngkin said. Youngkin gave a lot of specifics. For instance, he said he wants to invest $150 million in state funds to create 20 charter schools. “Whether they’re called charter schools, lab schools, or schools of innovation – it doesn’t really matter,” Youngkin said. “I don’t care what we call it. I just care that we do it.” Youngkin suggested these schools could partner with the state’s higher education institutions. He also reminded the General Assembly of his 11 executive actions, including one to ban the use of “inherently divisive concepts” in public education. “Virginia parents want our history – all of our history, the good and the bad to be taught. And they want their children to be told how to think, not what to think,” Youngkin said. “We should not use inherently divisive concepts like Critical Race Theory in Virginia. And why we should not be teaching our children to see everything through the lens of race.”Youngkin also explained why he’s ending the mask mandate for public schools, something many school systems including Albemarle have said they will continue to enforce. He also said he will fight federal vaccine mandates, and in his written comments, he said would not use the power of the executive branch in Virginia to call for any more shutdowns. “The science since the beginning of the pandemic has not been static. We now have therapeutics better testing protocols and fortunately a less severe variant,” Youngkin said. “And of course we have vaccines. It means, educating our friends and neighbors and encouraging them to get the vaccine and the booster.”Youngkin also wants the General Assembly to suspend the gas tax increase that went into effect last year, and to raise the standard deduction for Virginia’s income tax. He also wants to reduce the tax burden for public safety workers and the military. “Anyone who wears the uniform risks their life each day on the job. And this includes police officers, firefighters, EMTs, every first responder that keeps us safe.”Youngkin wants to use $100 million from the American Rescue Plan Act for a new training and equipment grant program for law enforcement. “Furthermore, I’m asking you to dedicate $26 million in state funding for police departments.  But only in localities that are increasing funding for their police departments.”Youngkin also announced he wants to create a Coastal Virginia Resiliency Authority. To watch the whole speech, visit this recording by 13News Now or this one from WAVY TV 10. Albemarle Supervisors name new police chiefLast week, the Albemarle Board of Supervisors has promoted Sean Reeves to be the next police chief in the county. Reeves began his career in Albemarle County as a patrol officer in 2001 and currently holds the rank of Major. He will succeed Ron Lantz who retires at the end of February. “Major Reeves has played a pivotal role in several ACPD priority projects, including creating the cybercrimes unit, developing a community coalition around mental health crisis response, advancing the body-worn camera program, and serving as the lead ACPD personnel in the County’s incident management teams for COVID-19, the At Ready Statue Removal, and the events of August 12,” reads the press release. Legislative update The perfect record of the 2022 Virginia General Assembly is now broken, as the first few pieces of legislation have begun to fail. As of this reporting, eight bills are listed as having failed. For instance:A bill from Senator David Suetterlein (R-19) related to municipal elections was defeated in the Local Government committee. That means all localities will need to move their elections to November. (SB147)A bill from Senator Mark Peake (R-22) to halt the gradual increase of the state’s minimum wage was “passed by indefinitely” in the Commerce and Labor committee.  (SB173)Another bill from Peake that would have allowed localities to hold non-binding referenda was also defeated in the Local Government committee. Other bills have been consolidated into other pieces of legislation, including one from Senator John Edwards (D-21) that would order a review of previous sentences made under mandatory minimum rules. (SB252)Second subscriber-supported shout-outWhat does the phrase “missing middle” mean to you? What does the “missing middle” have to do with the affordability of places to live? On Thursday at noon, the Central Virginia Regional Housing Partnership will hold a webinar with two experts. Suzanne Moomaw is the chair of the University of Virginia School of Architecture and Emily Hamilton is the director of the Urbanity Project at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. The pair will discuss challenges and obstacles to more density as part of the Regional Housing Partnership’s continuing education series. Sign up at tjpdc.org. Albemarle Supervisors briefed on future transportation projectsThere’s a deadline this year for localities and regional bodies to submit projects to the Virginia Department of Transportation for potential funding. Four rounds of the Smart Scale process have taken place so far, and planners across the Commonwealth are preparing applications for a preliminary deadline this spring. Jessica Hersh-Ballering is a transportation planner with Albemarle County and she briefed the Board of Supervisors on January 12. (read staff report)“The top three projects are Avon Street Bicycle and Pedestrian improvements, Fifth Street Extended Bicycle and Pedestrian improvements, and Belvedere-Rio intersection improvements are all projects that we’re considering for smart scale submission as county applications,” Hersh-Ballering said. Hersh-Ballering said the applications will draw from corridor studies recently conducted in all three of those areas. Further study is underway for future projects such as at the U.S. 250 West and U.S. 29 interchange as well as Crozet Avenue and U.S. 250 West. “We need these studies to wrap up and make their final recommendations so know exactly what infrastructure we would be requesting in each of these applications,” Hersh-Ballering said. Some of these projects may be submitted by the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission, which can submit four applications as the TJPDC and four applications as the Charlottesville Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO). Transportation staff will return to the Board of Supervisors later in the spring to get final thoughts from the elected officials.As Albemarle County reviews its Comprehensive Plan, transportation staff will be working on a multimodal transportation plan that will become one of its chapters. That work is being overseen by planning manager Rachel Falkenstein“We’re working closely with Rachel Falkenstein’s team to determine our next steps,” Hersh-Ballering said. Tomorrow the Board of Supervisors will have a long discussion on transit’s future in Albemarle. Hersh-Ballering previewed the discussion of the Regional Transit Vision. (vision website)“The vision plan was intended to create a community driven vision for the future of transit in our region,” Hersh-Ballering said. “There’s a need for additional funding and collaboration to meet the community’s expectations for transit.” Supervisors will be presented with a request for funding to begin a microtransit pilot project on Pantops and U.S. 29 north. “We’ll have someone from the consulting team here with us next week,” Hersh-Ballering said. “He is going to walk us through all of the details of what microtransit is and why they’re recommending it for these two locations.” Charlottesville City Council will be briefed on transit today. This morning a technical committee of the MPO Policy Board was told about a governance study that the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission is coordinating and are applying to the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation for funding. “The study is to establish a formal arrangement to support regional coordination and planning around transit operations,” said Lucinda Shannon, transportation planner with the TJPDC.Shannon said the Regional Transit Vision is recommending a formal authority with an authority that could bring in additional revenue. If the DRPT awards the funds, the 18-month study wouldn’t begin until the new fiscal year. The consultants are AECOM, JWA and EPR.“They’re looking at the model that Richmond is taking on with their new transit authority so they are suggesting creating some type of a regional authority that would levy a small percentage of sales tax and there is the wholesale gas tax,” Shannon said. In 2009, the General Assembly passed legislation allowing creation of an authority but the Republican-controlled legislature did not pass legislation to allow a referendum on a local sales tax increase. The MPO Tech Committee adopted a resolution to proceed with the governance study. Charlottesville and Albemarle will be asked to make a local match. “We want to make sure you were aware of the study,” said transportation director Sandy Shackleford. One reason to plan for transit is to deal with the increasing number of residential units in the area. At the end of the Supervisor’s presentation, planning manager Kevin McDermott listed several developments that are under review. Old Ivy Residences with 490 units off of Old Ivy Road Heritage on Rio on Rio Road West with 250 unitsSouthwood Phase 2 North Fork Discovery Park zoning amendment to add up to 1,400 units Old Dominion Village on Route 240 in Crozet Willow Glenn in Hollymead seeking to increase residential development This was the first time new Supervisor Jim Andrews was briefed on transportation issues. He had this note.“It would be nice to see some maps once in a while where we look at development projects in the context of these reports on the presentations and different road projects,” Andrews said. 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

Will today be an unlucky day? After all, the calendar for today does contain a 13. Would it were we could design our time without so many potential pitfalls! Still, unlike a building, Charlottesville Community Engagement cannot skip ahead to 14 because otherwise we’d fall far behind. I’m the host, Sean Tubbs, and let’s wish fortune has a wide enough brush to cover us all. On today’s program:Governor Northam says goodbye, while incoming Speaker of the House Gilbert says helloAlbemarle County is not planning on in-person meetings for now with the omicron COVID wave still ragingAnother winter storm approaches, and Charlottesville is still adjusting to missed solid waste pick-ups from the last oneAttorney General Herring said the incoming governor can’t pull Virginia out of an interstate carbon cap-and-trade marketTwo Patreon-fueled shout-outsLet’s begin today with 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!Winter storm approaching?Another winter storm is in the forecast with a lot of speculation. According to Weather Underground, Charlottesville could get as much as eight inches on Sunday, though we’ll have more information as that time approaches. On Wednesday, Albemarle Supervisor Ann Mallek had this advice.“Nobody knows what the winter storm Sunday is going to be but I encourage everyone to take a couple of days of sunshine to pre-clean your sidewalks and get your supplies in so we can be ready for whatever comes our way,” Mallek said.The aftermath of the January 3 storm is still being worked through. This morning, the City of Charlottesville announced that normal trash pickup has resumed, but recycling service that was missed due to the storm won’t be made up with an additional run. Trash is collected weekly in Charlottesville but recycling is every other week. “Due to resource capacity issues, our service contractor for Trash/Recycling will be unable to provide make-up recycling collection for those impacted by the suspension in service that occurred the week of January 3rd,” reads a release. “Impacted residents will receive recycling collection on their next scheduled service date.” Residents are encouraged to take their recyclable materials to the McIntire Recycling Center, on McIntire Road, which is operated by the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority. In addition, the city will pick-up debris from the January 3 storm the week of January 24. “Any adjustments to this schedule that may result from volume or operational delays will be provided to the public in as timely a manner as possible,” reads the city’s website on solid waste management. “We also encourage City residents to take advantage of the free storm debris disposal waiver being operated until January 24th at the Ivy Material Utilization Center, located at 4576 Dick Woods Road.”The Ivy MUC is also operated by the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority. Albemarle and Charlottesville are covering the fees to drop off that debris. Pandemic records continue to be brokenThe highest COVID surge in pandemic continues in Virginia with an average of 18,782 new cases a day. The seven-day percent positivity is at 35.6 percent today statewide. Today’s snapshot from the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association, there are 3,894 people hospitalized with COVID, with 646 of them in intensive care units. There are 349 people on ventilators. Those last two numbers are new records. On Wednesday, the Albemarle Board of Supervisors had a work session on what county staff are calling the “Reconstitution” of Albemarle government, which is a way of saying a return to in-person public hearings. Trevor Henry is the assistant county executive. “When we first set this agenda it was prior to the Omicron variant, prior to that wave hitting the region the way it has,” Henry said. This week has seen the highest numbers to date in the Blue Ridge Health District, which includes Albemarle, Charlottesville, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, and Nelson counties. Today there are 480 cases reported. There have been five deaths reported since the beginning of the year, though that figure often lags behind as death certificates are tallied. “At this point, we will not be recommending a date certain on returning to in-person public meetings,” Henry said.Henry and other staff sought direction about how to proceed with a future where those meetings are open. The county has made investments in some rooms in order to allow remote participation by members of the public in a hybrid manner. Both Albemarle County and Charlottesville remain under a local declaration of emergency which allows for remote meetings. County Attorney Greg Kamptner explained how that would end. “The state code and the state emergency law provides when the Board [of Supervisors] in its discretion determines  that there are no further emergency services to be provided,” Kamptner said. Kamptner said the county has come close to that at certain points during the pandemic, but various surges have complicated the matter. Herring: Youngkin alone can’t remove Virginia from carbon cap-and-trade marketUntil Saturday, Mark Herring is Virginia’s chief counsel. On Tuesday, the outgoing Attorney General issued an opinion stating that Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin cannot through executive order or other executive action remove the Commonwealth of Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Virginia joined the mid-Atlantic interstate compact following an act of the General Assembly in 2020. “The [Clean Energy and Community Flood Preparation] Act directs the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality to amend its regulations that established a carbon dioxide cap and trade program,” Herring wrote in the opinion. “The Constitution of Virginia does not grant the Governor the power to suspend laws.”The opinion did not come out of the blue. Herring’s advice was sought by Delegate Charniele Herring (D-46) and Delegate Rip Sullivan (D-48).On Friday, the State Corporation Commission issued a ruling granting approval of a plan from Dominion Energy to upgrade their portion of the electric grid. Dominion’s Phase II seeks to integrate more “distributed energy resources” into the power network. Their plan cites the Clean Economy act as a justification for moving to more solar, wind, and other renewable sources. “There is no doubt that significant volumes of [distributed energy resources] are coming to Virginia,” reads the plan. “The distribution grid must be ready.” The State Corporation Commission had public hearings on the plan last October, which calls for $193.8 million to install net metering infrastructure, $203.9 million on a customer information platform, and other areas to upgrade the grid. The SCC approval notes the importance of educating the public on what’s going to happen. “Customer education will ensure that the full benefits of other [grid transformation] projects are realized by educating customers on the opportunities that such projects provide,” reads page 13 the ruling. Today’s third subscriber supported shout-outMonday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society invites you to hear from their newest board member at a meeting beginning at 7 p.m. Gayle Jessup White is the first Public Relations and Community Engagement Officer for Monticello and the first descendant of Thomas Jefferson and the enslaved community to work for the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Gayle Jessup White will talk about her book Reclamation: Sally Hemmings, Thomas Jefferson, and a Descendant’s Search for her Family’s Lasting Legacy. That’s 7 p.m. on Monday and you can register for the Zoom call or watch on Facebook Live. Sign up now at albemarlehistory.org. Legislative update On the first day of the General Assembly, the 2022 session in the House of Delegates is coming into shape. Delegate Rob Bell (R-58) will chair the Courts of Justice committee and will serve on the Health, Welfare and Institutions committee and the Rules Committee. Delegate Sally Hudson (D-57) will serve on the Finance Committee and Health, Welfare, and Institutions. Delegate Chris Runion (R-25) will also serve on the Finance Committee, the Agriculture, Chesapeake, and Natural Resources Committee, the General Laws Committee, and the Transportation Committee.Several House committees met this morning but there are not yet bills on their agendas. Instead, members of Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin’s cabinet were interviewed by various committees. Over in the Senate, the Committee on Education and Health met. Remember, the Senate is still controlled by the Democratic Party with a two-seat majority, meaning Democrats hold the gavel on committees. Outgoing Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax presides over the Senate until incoming Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears is sworn in. The Senate Education and Health committee did take up legislation and began winnowing out some of the bills, or at least hitting pause on some of them. For instance, the Education and Health heard a bill from Senator Mark Peake to require the Virginia Department of Health to create a program to mitigate algae blooms. Peake said he would edit the bill to make change that requirement to go to the Department of Environmental Quality instead.  (SB171)When I published the January 12 edition of this newsletter, I had initially stated there were around 850 bills submitted. As I write these words, there are 1,634 bills. Four measures passed the House on the first day, including a commendation for former Speaker of the House Kirk Cox. Oh. Now we’re up to 1,677. The trickle is now a flood. Virginia finances up in December The Commonwealth of Virginia has reported that state revenues were up 19.2 percent in December over the previous year. According to a press release from Governor Ralph Northam’s office, that’s the fifth straight month of double-digit increases. Northam leaves office on Saturday when Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin is sworn in. “We have governed with fiscal responsibility and compassion for all Virginians—and with five straight months of double-digit revenue growth, record job creation and historic investments in Virginia families, the results speak for themselves,” Northam said.In his farewell address to the General Assembly last night, the outgoing Governor thanked his cabinet for their service and and honored Supreme Court Justices Donald Lemons and William Mims on their retirement.  He also saluted the tradition of gubernatorial addresses at the General Assembly. “This is a time when elected leaders from different branches of government, different political parties, and different parts of the state come together to talk about the Commonwealth that we all share,” Northam said. Governor-elect Youngkin will address the General Assembly on Monday night. “By then he will be your Governor and I wish him the best and I am confident that he will be lead this Commonwealth well,” Northam said. Northam reviewed his four years in office and said he has tried to govern in order to help people across Virginia. “Virginians choose leaders who will make our Commonwealth better for them and their families, no matter who they are or where they live,” Northam said. “I can confidently say that we have done that. We are leaving this Commonwealth better than it was when we came into office. We have built a state that does a better job of treating people right. It’s more welcoming. It’s more open. It is more fair. And it is more equitable.”After the speech, Speaker of the House Todd Gilbert sent out a tweet that did not share the same spirit of bipartisanship. However, seven hours earlier, Gilbert did sound bipartisan after the House of Delegates unanimously elected him as speaker. That’s a tradition in Virginia politics. “Thank you for the trust that all of you have placed in me willingly,” Gilbert said. “Some unwillingly, admittedly, but thank you nonetheless. I do not take this responsibility lightly and I pledge to you that I will give the utmost to be a Speaker for all of Virginia.”And as we end this installment of Charlottesville Community Engagement, none of the 1,693 bills filed so far have failed. Give it time. 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 January 11, and on this day in history, a lot of things have happened. What are they? That’s not the subject of this podcast and newsletter, which is called Charlottesville Community Engagement. What is the subject of this podcast and newsletter? The Magic 8-ball says “ask again later.” Until then, I’m your host, Sean Tubbs, with another documentation of a few things that have happened and a look ahead to others. Charlottesville Community Engagement is free to receive! Sign up today and decide later if you want to pay to keep this service in service!On today’s show:The Blue Ridge Health District holds a town hall on the pandemic surge amid record hospitalizations in Virginia Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin names his medical advisory team The Sheriff of Fauquier County is Governor-elect Youngkin’s choice to serve as Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland SecurityMore bills are pre-filed before tomorrow’s start of the General Assembly including a halt to Virginia’s minimum wage increase And the Albemarle Planning Commission will take up a rezoning for a hotel on Pantops First Patreon-fueled shout-out! The Plant Northern Piedmont Natives Campaign  is an initiative that wants you to grow native plants in yards, farms, public spaces and gardens in the northern Piedmont. Winter is here, but spring isn’t too far away. This is a great time to begin planning for the spring. Native plants provide habitat, food sources for wildlife, ecosystem resiliency in the face of climate change, and clean water.  Start at the Plant Northern Piedmont Natives Facebook page or the Piedmont Natives Plant Database! Think spring! Pandemic surge expected to continue as omicron spread continues The January 2022 COVID-19 surge continues with another 16,681 new cases reported this morning by the Virginia Department of Health and the seven-day average for new cases is 17,037. Virginia set another new one-day record on Saturday with 26,175 new cases. The seven-day percent positivity has increased to 36 percent. Today, the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association reports another new record of COVID hospitalizations today with 3,845 with 589 of those patients in intensive care units and 328 on ventilators. That’s a record for ICU patients, but today’s ventilator count matches exactly one year ago today. Today in the Blue Ridge Health District, there are 352 new cases and the percent positivity has increased to 29.1 percent. Ryan McKay is the director of policy, planning, and operations for the BRHD and he and others spoke at a Town Hall last night. (view the slides)“We are currently experiencing the highest transmission of COVID since the pandemic started and it’s a pretty drastic increase in what we’ve seen over the last couple of weeks,” McKay said. “And really what we anticipate is that it will continue to increase.” McKay also said these numbers are likely all an undercount as some testing is happening at home and those numbers are not reported to the Virginia Department of Health. Last week’s winter weather also delayed testing events. “These numbers seem a little bit cold but there’s a very human element to all of this in terms of individuals getting sick,” McKay said. “There’s the risk of long COVID which has been proven over the last two years of the pandemic. And then there are broader societal, economic, and infrastructure related impacts that we’re beginning to see.” McKay said the key is getting people vaccinated and boosted. Dr. Michael Williams is the director of the Center for Health Policy at the University of Virginia. He said the surge is causing a strain on staff and resources. As of yesterday, there were 89 COVID patients at UVA Health.“The ripple effects work outward from the units in which we take care of these patients which has become more than just out specialized units,” Williams said. “The ripple effects work their way back into the operating room where I spend a lot of my time as a surgeon where patients are having a difficult time to start there are elective and we’ve had to prioritize patients who have cases like cancer and heart disease that are unstable to make sure those that delayed.”Williams said this extends to emergency rooms and urgent care facilities, which are also feeling the strain during this surge. People are asked not to go to the hospital to get a COVID test. “Honestly if you come to our [emergency department] at UVA Health for a COVID test and that’s the only reason you’re there, you will wait and and you will wait and you will wait because there are people who are sick with any number of things.” Williams said people who need a PCR test should visit their primary care physician or visit a testing center.Dr. Taison Bell spends a lot of time in the intensive care units at UVA and never expected that he would be seeing a record number of COVID patients.“When a patient does have COVID we do have to manage them differently regardless of what their underlying problem is,” Bell said. “We have to put them in isolation so they don’t transmit to other people. Sometimes when they need to be discharged, the rehab facility may not clear them for transfer until they have a negative COVID test so patients stay in the hospital longer. They demand more resources. That makes it overall harder to take care of these patients and it puts a strain on the system.” Dr. Bell said the omicron variant has led to infections in people who are vaccinated and boosted and he explained why. “The vaccines were specifically designed to prevent serious illness and they continue to do that consistently,” Bell said. “We were spoiled early on because they were so effective when it came to preventing infection but omicron has proved to be a very challenging variant. It has shown an ability to try to get over those initial hurdles but that backstop of preventing you from getting seriously ill is still holding firm.” Dr. Bell said most of his patients are still unvaccinated, and he encourages everyone to get their shots, get their booster, and continue to wear masks. “We can expect more people to get infected but if we’re vaccinated and boosted, we can keep people out of the hospital and keep the strain off of the health care system,” Dr. Bell said. Just as this post was about to be published, Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin named the members of an advisory team related to the pandemic. “I recognize the severity of the virus and the significant loss that it has caused. Virginians should rest assured that we are monitoring this variant and doing everything we can to be smart about this. I will enter office ready to reopen Virginia, support our healthcare heroes, and protect the lives and livelihoods of Virginians,” Youngkin said in a release. They are: Chair: Dr. Marty Makary, M.D., M.P.H., Johns Hopkins MedicineNancy Howell Agee, President and CEO, Carilion ClinicKathy Gorman, M.S.N., R.N., F.A.A.N, Executive Vice President and COO, Children’s NationalAlan Levine, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ballad HealthBogdan Neughebauer, M.D., PhD, MBA, CPE, FACP, FIDSA, Sentara HealthcareAnand Shah, M.D., M.P.H., former Deputy Commissioner for Medical and Scientific Affairs at FDAEx-Officio:Secretary of Health and Human Resources John LittelSenator Siobhan DunnavantSenator Todd PillionAlbemarle Planning Commission to hold public hearings on Pantops hotelThe first meeting of the Albemarle Planning Commission begins tonight at 6 p.m. and two of the items on the agenda are public hearings to clear the way for a hotel on Pantops on U.S. 250 just to the west of the Rivanna Ridge Shopping Center. The matter went before the Pantops Community Advisory Committee for an update at their meeting in November. Andy Reitelbach is a senior planner with Albemarle County. “The applicant has submitted this application to request to amend the application and proffers associated with two previous rezonings,” Reitelbach said. The amendments are needed to allow the use of a hotel, which was not anticipated in the rezoning that created the Rivanna Ridge Shopping Center. “The project is in the Rivanna Magisterial District and the parcel is a little over 2.6 acres in size,” Reitelbach said. The plan had not changed since it was before the CAC at a community meeting in January. One aspect of the plan is that left turns onto U.S. 250 will not be permitted. Justin Shimp is the civil engineer for the project. “As some of you are all aware VDOT is getting ready to put up a median up Route 250 all the way from the Wawa up to the top of the mountain and that will restrict our ability to make a full l left turn out of our site,” Shimp said. The Albemarle County Planning Commission meets virtually at 6 p.m. and has two new voting members in Fred Missel and Luis Carrazana. Missel is director of design and development at the University of Virginia Foundation and Carrazana is the associate architect of the University of Virginia. (meeting info)For more information, read Pantops CAC gets a look at the Overlook Hotel from last January on Information Charlottesville. Council meeting in closed session todayAt publication time, City Council is in closed session to interview prospective candidates for the interim city manager position. Late last year the city hired the Robert Bobb Group to provide internal staff to perform the duties of city manager. During the closed session, they are meeting with Bobb directly. Stay tuned until tomorrow’s edition for any potential news. Listen to the podcast to hear the closed session motion, the first such event by this new City Council. Today’s second Patreon-fueled shout-out:With winter weather here, now is the time to think about keeping your family warm through the cold Virginia months. Make sure you are getting the most out of your home with help from your local energy nonprofit, LEAP. LEAP wants you and yours to keep comfortable all year round, and 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 $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!Fauquier County’s Sheriff to head public safety in VirginiaGovernor-elect Glenn Youngkin has selected the Sheriff of Fauquier County to serve as the next Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security. That person oversees the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority, the Virginia Department of Corrections, the Department of Criminal Justice Services, the Department of Emergency Management, and the Department of Fire Programs. Robert Mosier was elected in November 2015 to serve Fauquier County and according to the press release he embraced “new technologies for the enforcement of criminal, illegal drug and gang activities, modern traffic safety concepts, enhancement of school safety and better partnerships with the community.” Mosier has been in law enforcement since he was 19 and Youngkin said he will lead efforts to increase pay and to fully fund police departments across Virginia. “Together, we will protect qualified immunity, and on Day One fire the Parole Board,” Youngkin is quoted in the release. Learn more about Mosier on the Fauquier County website. Inauguration Day is in four days. General Assembly bills continue to be filed, including one to stop the minimum wage increaseThe General Assembly session begins tomorrow and the trickle of pre-filed bills and turned into more of a torrent. Here are some highlights from recent days. Delegate Marie March (R-7) has a bill requiring localities to post copies of their elected body’s minutes on a website seven days after they are officially approved. (HB150)March also wants the state to create one single central database for all public records. (HB154)March has filed another bill limiting a governor’s emergency declaration to a 45-day period and limiting their power. (HB151) This is a common desire by Republican legislators, as Delegate Kathy Byron (R-22) has a similar bill (HB157) and another that would require the General Assembly to take any action on any emergency rule after a 45-day period. (HB158) Delegate Daniel Marshall (R-14) submitted (HB183)March also wants people injured on the job to be required to take a drug test. (HB153)Delegate Candy Mundon King (D-2) wants to amend the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act to require fingerprinting of all employees of companies that have more than four rental units. (HB160)The last General Assembly adopted a law requiring all municipal elections to be held in November, but a bill from Delegate David Suetterlein (R-19) would apply that only to municipalities over 200,000 people. (SB147)Delegate Chris Runion (R-25) has a bill to replace the charter for the Town of Grottoes in Rockingham County. (HB161)Delegate Margaret Ransone (R-99) has legislation that would take the ability of the town council of Colonial Beach to fire the police chief and give it to the town manager. (HB164)Ransone has another bill that would repeal provisions that are set to seal criminal records in some instances. (HB181)Delegate Barry Knight (R-81) has a bill that would authorize the issuance of $101 million in bonds to fund projects at James Madison University and Virginia Tech. (HB165)Delegate Daniel Marshall (R-14) would repeal the state’s minimum wage increase to $11 an hour. (HB171)Marshall has another bill that would allow localities to require screening of solar facilities from secondary roads. (HB172)Delegate Robert Bloxom (R-100) has a bill that would place limits on campaign contributions. (HB174)Another common thread this year is Republican desire to place restrictions on absentee ballots, and Bloxom is advancing several in HB175, HB177, and HB178. Delegate Ranson has a bill to repeal a provision that would allow voter registration up to election day. (HB185)Bloxom would also create the Forest Sustainability Fund. (HB180)Finally today, Delegate Jeffrey Campbell (R-6) has a bill that would create the Nitrile Glove Manufacturing Training Grant Program which would “support the recruitment and training needs of nitrile glove manufacturing companies located in the Mount Rogers Planning District.” (HB186)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

If a year was something that buffered, we’d now be approaching 2.8 percent. It will take some time to see how this particular calendar will resolve, but the past week certainly provides some evidence of turbulence. Still, there’s a long way to go and Charlottesville Community Engagement seeks to provide one channel of information to steady your way. I’m your host, Sean Tubbs. In this installment:Deputy City Manager Sanders briefs City Council on efforts to make 5th Street Extended safer and Council holds first reading on two affordable housing projects on Park Street Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin fills out his cabinet with picks for Labor, Health and Human Resources, and Transportation More legislation is filed in the Virginia General Assembly that shows the signs of a Republican majority in one of the houses A third round of RGGI-funded grant money for flood mitigation has opened Today’s first subscriber-supported public service announcement For sixty years Camp Albemarle, which has 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 ecology for over 20 years. If this campaign is successful, Camp Albemarle could operate year-round. Consider your support by visiting http://campalbemarleva.org/donate. The pandemic continuesVirginia continues to be in a plateau of a high number of COVID cases and hospitalizations. Today the Virginia Department of Health reports a seven-day percent positivity of 35.6 percent with another 15,643 cases. The Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association reports a new record of COVID hospitalizations today with 3,681. Of those, 567 are in intensive care units and 314 are on ventilators. To address the issue, outgoing Governor Ralph Northam has issued a 30-day order to increase the number of hospital beds. “This increase in people hospitalized due to COVID-19—the overwhelmingmajority of whom are unvaccinated—is placing stress on Virginia’s general hospitals and nursing facilities and creating a sudden yet temporary need to increase bed capacity in these facilities,” reads the order’s introduction.Among other things, Executive Order 84 authorizes some state officials to move more quickly with procurement efforts, and allows the State Health Commissioner to temporarily increase the number of hospital bed authorized to operate in the Commonwealth. The Blue Ridge Health District reports another 202 new cases today and the percent positivity has increased to 28.3 percent. District officials will hold a town hall meeting tonight beginning at 7 p.m. The item was rescheduled from last week due to the winter storm. (meeting info)Albemarle and Charlottesville to sponsor vegetation drop-off at Ivy MUCIf you’ve got a lot of damaged tree limbs and other vegetation and have a way to get it to the Ivy Materials Utilization Center, there will be no fees to drop it off through January 17. Albemarle and Charlottesville  have both agreed to pay the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority to waive the fees. The Ivy center is located at 4576 Dick Woods Road and the material can be dropped off during regular hours.“Vegetative debris collected will be ground into mulch and available for purchase at Ivy MUC,” reads a release on the RSWA website. “Residents must show proof of residency and state that the debris is storm-related.”  Last week, Deputy City Manager Sam Sanders told Council the city cannot yet offer curbside pick-up due to staffing shortages that have been worsened due to the pandemic. On Facebook today, the Department of Public Works stated they are “in the process of preparing for a special City-wide debris pickup service, to assist with clean-up efforts from the recent weather event. Timing and scheduling information are still being finalized, and those details will follow soon.”Youngkin fills Transportation, Labor, Health and Human Services postsIn five days, Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin will be sworn in, and he’s now filled a good portion of his cabinet.This morning, Youngkin announced that his Secretary of Health and Human Resources will be John Littel, who has recently been the president of Magellan Health. Magellan was just purchased by another company last week for $2.2 billion. Littel has previously served as the Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Resources in Virginia and as Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy. Youngkin said Littel would “be an asset as we fix our broken mental and behavioral health system, ensure Virginians have access to affordable, free-market healthcare options, and reform our healthcare safety net to save taxpayer dollars and improve healthcare outcomes.” No word yet on a replacement for Norm Oliver as Virginia’s Commissioner of Health. Kay Cole James has been selected as the Secretary of the Commonwealth. James has most recently served as the President of the Heritage Foundation and has a long history of working in Republican administration in both Richmond and Washington, D.C. According to the release, James served as Virginia’s Secretary of Health under Governor George Allen and “developed Virginia’s landmark welfare reform.” James has served as co-chair of Youngkin’s transition team. A long-term member of the Commonwealth Transportation Board will serve as Youngkin’s Transportation Secretary. W. Sheppard Miller served on the board from 2011 to 2014 and joined it again in 2018 when appointed by Governor Ralph Northam. Speaking of the CTB, it next meets tomorrow and Wednesday. Youngkin has selected George “Bryan” Slater as Secretary of Labor. Slater has previously served in Republican administrations in Richmond and D.C. including Secretary of Administration under Governor Jim Gilmore. He served as Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management at the U.S. Department of Labor in the Trump administration.  Margaret “Lyn” McDermid will serve as the next Secretary of Administration, which includes the Departments of General Service, Human Resource Management, and Elections, as well as the Virginia Information Technologies Agency and the Compensation Board, McDermid worked as Chief Information Officer for the Federal Reserve Information Technology from 2013 to 2020. Congressman Donald McEachin has sent a letter to Virginia Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw urging the General Assembly to block the nomination of Andrew Wheeler as Secretary of Natural Resources. McEachin cited several times state legislators have blocked judicial appointments and board nominations. In 2006, the Republican-led Senate rejected Governor Kaine’s choice for Secretary of the Commonwealth. (read the letter)Two days left until the General Assembly The opening of the 2022 Virginia General Assembly is in two days and there aren’t too many days I’ll be able to write out interesting bills, but I will be switching over to reporting on what happens with some of them. Hundreds of bills will be filed, and many will be dismissed in committee. The pace has seriously picked up, so this is a much shorter list. Republicans continue to file bills to undo changes the Democratic majority made to various bills, particularly in the area of criminal justice. For instance, Delegate John Mcguire (R-56) filed a bill to lower the threshold for felony larceny back to $500, down from the increase to $1,000 made within the year. (HB107)McGuire also has a bill that would prevent localities from creating a Police Civilian Review Board. (HB110)Delegate Marie March (R-7) has a bill requiring school buses to have decals that say “In God We Trust” and “One Nation Under God.” (HB113)March has another bill that would prevent governments from doing any activity that a private business could provide. (HB119)Delegate Nick Frietas (R-30) has a bill that would remove powers of the State Air Pollution Control Board and the State Corporation Commission to regulate carbon emissions in order to meet previously stated greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals. (HB118)Delegate Scott Wyatt (R-97) would limit absentee voting to 10 days before an election, would require an absentee ballot to have the last four numbers of a voter’s social security number, and would add other restrictions. (HB121)Delegate Chris Runion (R-25) has a similar bill to Wyatt’s that would require witnesses to absentee ballot certification to also provide a signature, name, address, date of birth, and the last four digits of their social security number. (HB149)Wyatt has a bill similar to others that would repeal provisions that prevent law enforcement from pulling motorists over for certain infractions, ending another Democratic initiative. (HB122)Delegate Glenn Davis (R-84) has a bill that would allow ranked choice voting in party primaries, including the Presidential election. (HB129)Delegate Mike Cherry (R-66) has a bill to repeal the prohibition of having firearms on school property. (HB133)Third round opens for RGGI funded flood programGovernor-elect Glenn Youngkin has pledged to withdraw Virginia from an interstate cap-and-trade program known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) through an executive order. Whether or not he’s successful, Virginia so far has received $227.6 million from the program, and just under half of it is intended to help localities pay for projects to mitigate the threat of additional flooding. The third round for applications has opened for the Community Flood Preparedness Fund.“During the next 90 days, communities across Virginia will be able to apply for $40 million in grants to address the effects of recurrent flooding, sea level rise and extreme weather,” reads a press release for the application. This will be the first round since completion of the Virginia Coastal Resilience Master Plan in December. Charlottesville has had two projects funded so far, and Scottsville has had one. Visit the Department of Conservation and Recreation’s website to learn more. Second subscriber-supported shout-outCode 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 such as an expungement project with the Legal Aid Justice Center, a map of Charlottesville streetlights, and the Charlottesville Housing Hub. Visit codeforcville.org to learn about those projects.Fifth Street Extended safety discussion The first meeting of the Charlottesville City Council is in the books. At the top of the meeting, Deputy City Manager Sam Sanders explained what the city is going to address safety concerns on Fifth Street Extended. According to crash data from the Virginia Department of Transportation, there were three fatalities in 2020 on the divided highway. Police have confirmed there was another on the night of New Years Day. “We very much remain concerned about the serious safety concern along that corridor,” Sanders said. “Our traffic engineer has been working to effect improvements with a few updates. We are pursuing a speed limit reduction. We have been working on that and you will have that matter before you at your next meeting.” Sanders said flashing “signal ahead” signs are on back order and have been delayed due to supply chain issues. He said some intersection warning signs had been installed. “We feel as though they weren’t big enough so we are in the process of expediting their swap-out,” Sanders said. Sanders said the long-term strategy will be to break down the roadway’s current character. “An example of that would be the installation of a roundabout midway on the corridor but that too is going to be very difficult for us to figure out but we’re committed to doing that and we want you to know we’re not moving away from this as a high-priority,” Sanders said. Charlottesville has been awarded several projects through the Virginia Department of Transportation’s SmartScale program in the immediate area. They are:$6.1 million for improvements on 5th Street SW to “reduce congestion, improve safety, and accommodate bicyclists, pedestrians, and transit at the intersection of Ridge Street, Cherry Avenue, Elliot Aveune (sic).” (details)$8.78 million for improvements to Ridge Street to “design and construct multi-modal improvements along the Ridge Street Corridor. Sidewalk and Curb Ramp upgrades; signal improvements at Monticello; Curb extensions on Ridge St. at Dice St. and Oak St..including bicycle lanes.” (details)There’s also West Main Street Phase 1 and Phase 2, two related projects that Council has indicated they will no longer support with local taxpayer dollars. Council holds first reading on Piedmont Housing projects on Park StreetIn their first land use items of the year, and the first rezonings since the Comprehensive Plan was updated in November, Council appeared to approve two projects on Park Street submitted by the Piedmont Housing Alliance. Let’s hear City Planner Dannan O’Connell describe the one at Park Street Christian Church.“The proposed PUD development plan calls for 50 multifamily units and about 54 parking spaces to be constructed at the rear of the existing church site,” O’Connell said. And here is with the project at the Monticello Area Community Action Agency, two blocks to the south. Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville is also participating in that project. “The proposed PUD development plan calls for preservation of the two existing single-family homes, 28 new townhome or duplex units, 65 multifamily units in two buildings, and a maximum of 7,500 square feet of commercial child care space.” Because the public hearings for the items were held in mid-December, anyone who wanted to speak to the matter had to do so at the beginning of the meeting. Brian Day represented the congregation at Park Street Christian Church. “The project for affordable senior housing has had tremendous support from IMPACT Charlottesville and the enthusiastic and unanimous support approval from the Planning Commission as well,” Day said. “To be a vibrant city we need affordable housing and we are ready to help you make this possible. Kimber Hawkey, a Belmont resident, asked Council to delay a vote on the MACAA project. “I’m just asking that the Council take a step back and wait to do any kind of approval on this until there’s more study on traffic impact as well as the affordability,” Hawkey said. “It looks like a promising project but given the traffic and public safety indication, it seems inappropriate in size for the location.”Traffic improvements at the Park Street Christian Church project include improvements granting an easement to the city to allow for brush to be cleared to increase sight distance at the intersection of Park Street and Cutler Lane, as well as a crosswalk across Park Street at Cutler Lane. The affordability level at Park Street Christian Church will depend on a number of factors, including how successful Piedmont Housing Alliance will be in getting low income housing tax credits in the next cycle.“We don’t have specificity in there around the exact depth of affordability in part because you can only finalize that when you have finalized all of the costs and all of the subsidies so you know how deeply affordable you can go,” said Sunshine Mathon, the executive director of Piedmont Housing Alliance.Mathon said the target will be that five units will be households less than 30 percent of the area median income, and the majority will ideally be less than 50 percent of the AMI. All units will accept federal housing vouchers. The city has not yet contributed any funding to this project. According to a preliminary audit of the city’s affordable housing funds by the firm HR&A, Piedmont Housing Alliance has received around $10 million from Charlottesville, including about $6 million for the Friendship Court redevelopment. (read the update from HR&A)Mathon said this project will also require city funding to close a financing gap. Piedmont Housing Alliance has submitted a request for $1.5 million in city funding. “I would rather rely on state or federal sources to cover that gap but inevitably city sources have to be part of that capital stack in the current day and age,” Mathon said. For the Park Street Christian Church, Piedmont Housing Alliance will not submit an application for low-income housing tax credits until the 2023 cycle. The Park Street Christian Church item will go before Council at their next meeting on a consent agenda. There was more discussion about the MACAA project. Transportation improvements include a realignment of MACAA Drive to be directly across from Davis Avenue to make a safer intersection, as well as a crosswalk. The intersection would remain unsignalized. An existing driveway from one of the single-family houses will be eliminated. Councilor Brian Pinkston said there was a lot to like about the project but he was skeptical the traffic improvements would mitigate congestion. “But there’s still this fact that at that intersection particularly where 250 and Park are right now is a difficult place to get through,” Pinkston said. Councilor Michael Payne had concerns about loss of tree cover. An engineer with the Timmons Group said the development would exceed the city’s requirement for replacement. Vice Mayor Juandiego Wade said he felt good about the project, but asked several questions about its impact on traffic. “If we don’t address some of those, I think they’re being addressed, then it won’t be a pleasant living environment for the new residents as well as the current residents of the neighborhood,” Wade said. Mayor Snook said he did not think the additional traffic would result in conditions as hazardous as on Fifth Street Extended.  “It’s just simply not going to happen,” Snook said. “You don’t have a four-lane highway. You don’t have it divided. You don’t have it 45 miles an hour. You may well see some incremental increase in rear-enders, minor low-impact kinds of collisions. I don’t mean to downplay them and to say that’s irrelevant but I think it’s kind of distorting to throw that argument in there.”The MACAA issue will not come back on the consent agenda but will instead come back for a discussion and to allow the applicant to further address concerns raised at the meeting. 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’s the first day of the second week of 2022. Has anything significant happened yet? How have you fared in these initial days of a year that has 357 of them left after today? Are you hopeful for a reset after a tricky start to the year? All very good questions but not necessarily the topic of this installment of Charlottesville Community Engagement, a program that seeks to celebrate National Trivia Day on all of them while ensuring you’re more informed than you were before. I’m your host, Sean Tubbs. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber to Charlottesville Community Engagement.On today’s program:Governor-elect Youngkin will join other states led by Republican Governors in opposing President Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal employees The Omicron surge continues with one-day records set in Albemarle and Charlottesville With the General Assembly meeting in four days, more legislation is filed Clean-up continues after the winter storm of January 3First Patreon-fueled shout-out:With winter weather here, now is the time to think about keeping your family warm through the cold Virginia months. Make sure you are getting the most out of your home with help from your local energy nonprofit, LEAP. LEAP wants you and yours to keep comfortable all year round, and 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 $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!Approaching the pandemic’s third yearThe pandemic continues but the next administration in Richmond will likely take a different approach to the current one. Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin on Friday announced that he and Attorney General Elect Jason Miyares plan to challenge the Biden administration’s imposition of mandates on federal employees. “After the January 15th inauguration, the Commonwealth of Virginia will quickly move to protect Virginians’ freedoms and challenge President Biden’s unlawful CMS, OSHA, and Head Start vaccine mandates,” reads the press release. “While we believe that the vaccine is a critical tool in the fight against COVID-19, we strongly believe that the Federal government cannot impose its will and restrict the freedoms of Americans.”Biden and his Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becarra, want to implement the mandate to increase the percentage of Americans who are fully vaccinated. The action has not gone into effect yet pending existing legal challenges. The form Youngkin’s legal challenge won’t be known for at least eight days, but the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday spent over three hours yesterday in argument on the same topic in two consolidated cases. See below for links. In the meantime, on January 7, the heaviest surge of COVID cases so far continues to test the health care system with trends towards hospitalization levels not seen since this time last year Dr. Reid Adams is the chief medical officer at the University of Virginia. “It is true we are feeling the same thing everywhere else in the state is feeling which is record number of COVID admissions,” Adams said. “We have been able to open additional COVID units to accommodate those patients.”Adams said so far, UVA has not had to implement any emergency procedures but operational teams are meeting every day. “We have had occasions where we’ve had to alter our elective surgical schedule,” Adams said. “Fortunately that’s been fairly modest and we’ve not had to close elective procedures to date.” As of yesterday, the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association reported 3,103 patients in hospital with COVID, The record had been 3,201 on January 13, 2021 but today the VHHA set a new record with 3,478 patients currently hospitalized. Of those current hospitalizations, 558 were in intensive care units and 302 people were on ventilators.On Friday, the Virginia Department of Health updated their dashboard on COVID cases by vaccination status. Through December 25, “unvaccinated people developed COVID-19 at a rate 3.8 times that of fully vaccinated people, and 2.2 times that of partially vaccinated people.” At UVA Health, Adams estimates the number of unvaccinated patients who are hospitalized is between 75 to 80 percent. “Because we care for immunosuppressed patients, we are seeing those patients,” Adams said. “Organ transplants is a good example that are having COVID-related disease and requiring hospitalization but the vast, vast majority are still unvaccinated.” Dr. Bill Petri is an infectious disease expert at the University of Virginia. He said while there are more cases of people getting COVID who are vaccinated and boosted, the vaccine is still offering protection. “Protection from hospitalization is much better with the vaccines with or without the boosters, really,” Petri said. “What we’ve seen is that is being vaccinated in itself reduces your risk from being hospitalized or dying from COVID about ten-fold.”Both Dr. Adams and Dr. Petri gave examples of how the omicron variant seems to be less deadly and destructive as the delta variant. Here’s one of them from Dr. Petri. “One of the good pieces of news is that the omicron variant is less likely to infect the lungs and so we’re seeing less pneumonia than we were with the delta, so that’s one good piece of news,” Dr. Petri said. There won’t be any new data on the number of COVID-cases until Monday, as the Virginia Department of Health stopped reporting it seven days a week when the state of emergency ended. On Friday, VDH recorded 18,309 cases and the percent positivity increased further to 34.6 percent. The Blue Ridge Health District made up 410 of those cases. Albemarle County set its one day record on Thursday with 156 cases followed by 131 cases on Friday. Charlottesville set its record Friday with 140 cases. Other localities have also recently set one-day records. These numbers are likely undercounts as at-home kits are not reported to the Virginia Department of Health, and because of the effects of this week’s winter storm. This week, Governor Ralph Northam announced $5 million will be spent to create nine testing centers throughout Virginia, with the first opening at the Richmond International Raceway today in Caroline County. According to the release, one of these will be in Charlottesville at the existing facilities used by the Blue Ridge Health District. Governor-elect Youngkin will also appoint a new Commissioner of Health, choosing not to retain Dr. Norm Oliver in the position as the pandemic approaches its third year. Wendy Horton, UVA Health’s Chief Executive Officer, said she hopes for consistency. “I think it’s really important to really remain aligned as a Commonwealth and to really have public health and us all just really working together is my recommendation,” Horton said. “I think we do that well but I think it’s increasingly a team sport right now and I think all of us really have to be working together to really care for everyone across the state.” Youngkin will become the next Governor of Virginia a week from today. Resources:  Transcript of National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (audio)Transcript of Biden v. Missouri (audio)Storm clean-up continuesFriday’s winter storm didn’t pose much of a threat, at least as measured by whether the city trash trucks operated. They did. But many continue to be without power throughout the area with temperatures below freezing. Dominion Energy’s outage map now tracks individual projects versus wide swaths of land. The Central Virginia Electric Cooperative reports 3,339 customers without power from a total number of 38,307 customers. Albemarle County continues to offer warming centers today and tomorrow from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The locations are Baker-Butler Elementary, Monticello High School, Greenwood Community Center, and Scottsville Community Center. Water, electricity, and wifi are available at all four, but showers are only available at the schools. Drinking water is also available at the fire departments in both Earlysville. Call 434-297-8415 or visit communityemergency.org for more information. If you’re reading this and you live in Charlottesville, you better have shoveled your public sidewalk by now. The official end of this week’s snowstorm has passed and city ordinance requires pathways in the public right of way to be clear as of 8 a.m. this morning.Two more Patreon-fueled shout-outsLet’s continue today with 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! More General Assembly billsAs the General Assembly session looms, it will become much harder to list all of the pieces of legislation that are introduced. Until then, I hope to continue to bring you some of the highlights as I figure out what my strategy will be for covering the session while also keeping you up to date on local matters. Until then:Senator David Marsden (D-37) introduced a bill to terminate the Major Employment and Investment Project Site Planning Grant program in favor of the Virginia Business Ready Sites Program fund. (SB28)Marsden has another bill encouraging wellness programs to encourage customers get a COVID-19 vaccine. (SB42)Senator Barbara Favola (D-31) filed a bill extending the amount of time a locality’s Planning Commission has to make a recommendation on a Comprehensive Plan Amendment from 60 days to 100 days. (SB35)Favola has another bill that would allow localities to take action to enforce provisions of the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant act (SB43)In a related bill, landlords would not be able to ban tenants from using their space to provide child-care. (SB69)The definition of “critically missing adult” would no longer have a requirement that abduction is involved under other legislation from Favola. (SB49)Senator Chap Petersen (D-34) would prohibit people from spending more than $20,000 on one candidate in a statewide or legislative race. (SB44)Senator Joe Morrissey has a similar bill that would increase that limit to $25,000. (SB111)Petersen has another bill that would prevent public utilities from donating to candidates or their political action committees. (SB45)People in quarantine would be able to petition for delays in legal proceedings related to that status, if another bill from Petersen makes it through. (SB46)Senator Mamie Locke (D-2) filed a bill to increase the limit on the amount of housing opportunity tax credits from $15 million to $150 million, and would end a projected 2026 sunset date for their use. (SB47)Senator Amanda Chase (R-11) filed a bill to require health care providers to dispense hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, two treatments for COVID that have not been proven to have any effect. (SB73)Chase has another bill that would prevent localities from regulating firearms in public places. (SB74)Chase would also repeal the ban on firearms and explosive devices in Capitol Square or within the Capitol of Virginia. (SB75)Senator Thomas Norment (R-3) has a bill that would prohibit the Virginia governor from appointing members of their family to a Secretarial position or chief of staff. (SB95)Norment has another bill related to the state marijuana tax that would redirect funds that are intended now to go to the Cannabis Equity Reinvestment Fund. (SB107)Delegate Lee Ware (R-65) has filed a bill to create the Virginia Pandemic Response and Preparedness Council (HB87)Delegate Wendell Walker (R-23) filed a bill removing a clause that elementary and secondary school students can not be charged with disorderly conduct. (HB89)Delegate Joseph McNamara (R-8) filed legislation to exempt food and personal hygiene products from sales tax (HB90)He has another bill to require the Secretary of Commerce and Trade to study the effects of Daylight Savings Times. (HJ6)Delegate Christopher Head (R-17) filed a bill to create a central registry for complaints about elder abuse and neglect in the Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services. (HB98)Head has another bill that would allow a $2,000 tax credit for individuals or married persons for a stillborn child. (HB100)Incoming Delegate Karen Greenhalgh has another bill that would allow for health care providers to make prescriptions for “off-label” uses. (HB102)Greenhalgh has another bill that would allow educators to have a $500 tax credit, a provision that would also apply to parents or guardians who home-school. (HB103)Senator Emmett Hanger (R-24) has a bill that replace the charter for the Town of Grottoes. (SB99)Senator Joseph Morrissey (D-16) filed a bill eliminating mandatory minimum sentences. (SB104)In SB105, Morrissey has another bill that would make retroactive provisions adopted in the summer of 2020 that prevent police officers from pulling over motorists for certain offenses. In SB108, Morrissey would end the use of isolated confinement in Virginia’s correctional facilities. SB109 would allow parole for people imprisoned for crimes committed before they were 21, and have served least twenty years of their sentence.  SB110 is similar as is SB111.SB115 in update of the six-year capital plan for Virginia which includes new figures for projects at colleges and universities, including a Center for the Arts at the University of Virginia. More bills in Monday’s installment of Charlottesville Community Engagement. 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

The Healthcare Association of Hawaii discusses how the surge in COVID cases is impacting hospitals and hospital staffing across the state; the chair of the Kailua Neighborhood Board talks resolving the dilemma on how to redraw voting districts; and a descendant of a Kalaupapa resident shares efforts to preserve the memory of those exiled there.

The Healthcare Association of Hawaiʻi discusses whether hospitals and long-term facilities are ready for the spike in COVID case counts; AARP Hawaiʻi talks about their concern that the state is lagging in getting boosters to its residents and staff; A local music school instructor shares what his young students learned while recording a Christmas album

Dec. 6, 2021 - What if patient care in New York was better, as the result of improved collaboration between stakeholders in the health care industry? That's the goal of a new effort from the Healthcare Association of New York State, the Iroquois Health Association and the Homecare Association of New York State.

Rodger Fauber is a graduate of E.C. Glass High School and attended Washington and Lee University and Columbia University as well as the Stonier Graduate School of Banking at Rutgers University and the Member American Institute of Banking. Rodger served at Central Fidelity Bank for 30 years, 15 of which as the President of the Western Region until he retired in 1996. He has served on many local boards including the United Way of Central Virginia, Sweet Briar College, Central Virginia Community College Foundation, Centra Health, and the Al Stroobants Foundation, just to name a few. He has also served on the Governor's Advisory Committee for the Regional Competitiveness Act and received the Excellence in Governance Award from the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association. Mr. Fauber is also a recipient of the Alliance's F.M. “Dink” Cloyd Award as well as the 2001 recipient of the George Taylor Stewart III Award for service to the community. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/all-for-business/message

The Navy elaborates on what it's doing to prevent future leaks at its Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility; The Healthcare Association of Hawaiʻi provides a status report on COVID cases in Hawaiʻi; Contributing editor Neal Milner discusses whether the Trump Administration weakened federal agencies; and in celebration of Manu Minute's 1st anniversary, we reflect with Professor Patrick Hart and take a closer look at Kauaʻi's puaiohi.

ResourcesConsumer behavior changes following COVID-19TakeawaysFacebook in hot water Last week the Wall Street Journal released a powerful and damning series on Facebook's negative impact on society and repeated decisions to turn a blind eye. Former Facebook employee, Francis Haugen, identified herself as the whistleblower and soon after shared a congressional testimony.Following this debacle, the entire Facebook ecosystem, including Facebook, Instagram, Oculus, WhatsApp, and Messenger, went down for six hours with limited response from the company.Facebook, following these events, announced that it would be postponing the development of the app 'Instagram for Kids."The outage highlighted how powerful a marketing tool Facebook is and how reliant marketers and businesses are on the platform. The outage may be the catalyst marketers need to diversify their marketing mix and experiment with new channels outside the Facebook ecosystem.Life spheres … but smaller Last year we did a joint study with The Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS) to reveal the long-term consumer behavior changes resulting from COVID-19. One of the changes listed in that was "smaller life spheres."COVID-19 abruptly forced the world to operate from home. From entertainment to education to work to social gatherings – we, as a society, operated from home. Even with fewer restrictions, consumers are now used to traveling shorter distances for goods and services.We call this the shrinking of life spheres — a phenomenon in which people have become accustomed to the convenience of at-home or nearby goods and services and continue to seek that convenience. The question has become: How far are you willing to travel for certain activities?Our team resurfaced this finding and shared new research that demonstrated the trend of smaller life spheres has continued into the present.Stats that support this finding: When it comes to driving, the number of miles the average American has traveled is down to 2007 levels. Air travel is still down 26% from pre-pandemic levels.People will think and act differently about how far they are willing to go. This trend is risky for health systems as retailers like Walgreens and CVS live within miles of every American consumer. Because these options are closer and more convenient, consumers may be more inclined to use them as an alternative.Not to mention CVS's recent announcement to transform hundreds of its retail stores into primary care outlets.Home healthcare is growing rapidly and is predicted to grow almost 8% more by 2028. From a business standpoint, many believe the home is the solution to high healthcare costs.The wheel of fortune Our team came prepared with three different topics to discuss and spun a wheel to select the topic they would talk about randomly. The three trends on the table included the great resignation, nostalgia marketing, and the rise of minimalism. For this episode, the rise of minimalism was selected.The standard definition of minimalism: The movement toward a sustainable self-aware lifestyle where people learn to spend less, save more, and have a less negative impact on earth and resources.While this definition applies to many cases, our team expressed that the motivator behind minimalism may vary. For example, millennials are known to rent items rather than purchase them (think Rent the Runway, Spotify, etc.). In many cases, this trend stems from a desire to reduce clutter.The team noted that they see this trend represented through brands like Apple through packaging Chick-fil-A through billboard design.

September 29, 2021 - Healthcare Association of New York State President Bea Grause helps us make sense of what the state's vaccine mandate for health care workers means for the state's hospitals, which had been grappling with staff shortages before COVID-19 ever arrived in New York.

Listen live weekday mornings 5:30am-9:00am on WGY

The head of the Healthcare Association of Hawaii shares how two local oxygen producers helped the state avert a crisis; an Oʻahu farmer and farming instructor provides insight into the increase in ʻulu theft around the state, and ways to increase community agricultural efforts; and the Honolulu Museum of Art discusses the new exhibit it hopes will stimulate conversations around community issues

We check in with the head of the Healthcare Association of Hawaii about how hospitals and treatment facilities are preparing for a possible overflow of patients. And a new book on West Maui's water rights highlights accomplishments in the face of adversity.

This episode features Cody Hand, Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of the North Carolina Healthcare Association. Here, he discusses the NCHA, its mission, his pride in the organization, and more.

On this episode of our podcast, we're talking with the WV Healthcare Association's Pam Meador about the impact of COVID-19 vaccinations in the long-term care setting.Pam serves as the Association's Director of Regulatory Services. In her role as Director of Regulatory Service, Pam's work focuses heavily on policy and survey review, as well as helping member facilities navigate challenges in the healthcare field.  Pam is a registered nurse and has worked in long-term care for over 30 years. Prior to working for the Healthcare Association, Pam worked for more than 10 years as a project coordinator at Quality Insights, where her work focused on quality improvement assistance to long-term care facilities.  

As COVID infections locally and nationally continue to soar, Hawaii's health centers are discussing the possibility of instituting vaccine mandates for staff members. Hilton Raethel, the president and CEO of the Healthcare Association of Hawaii, said hospitals are having “substantive and serious discussions” about whether vaccines should be required for all health care workers. He added that a climbing positivity rate has many in the industry concerned. On Monday, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced a vaccine mandate for its medical employees. It's the first federal agency to require health care workers to get COVID vaccines. The mandate applies to Tripler Army Medical Center, where 80% of 1,400 health care workers are vaccinated. The remaining 20% have eight weeks to get the shot.

June 28, 2021 - Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently signed legislation designed to overhaul staffing at hospitals, but will it make a big difference in the level and amount of care for patients? We turned to Healthcare Association of New York State President Bea Grause for answers.

President and CEO of the North Carolina Healthcare Association, Steve Lawler discusses the impact of COVID-19 on our hospitals.

President and CEO of the North Carolina Healthcare Association, Steve Lawler discusses the impact of COVID-19 on our hospitals.

To look back on the biggest stories in today's newspapers, Gavan was joined by Jim McGrath, former political advisor and now Commercial Director of the Irish Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association, and Dr. Ilona Duffy GP in Monaghan and medical director for the North East Doctor on Call service. As well as the vaccine rollout, and the housing crisis, they discussed all of Sunday's headlines. On The Record with Gavan Reilly Listen and subscribe to On The Record with Gavan Reilly on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify.      Download, listen and subscribe on the Newstalk App.    You can also listen to Newstalk live on newstalk.com or on Alexa, by adding the Newstalk skill and asking: 'Alexa, play Newstalk'.

AARP's Kealii Lopez and Hilton Raethel of Healthcare Association of Hawaii joined Spotlight Hawaii, a series from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that shines a spotlight on issues affecting our islands, today for a livestream video and took viewer questions.

Courtney Burke is the Chief Operating and Innovation Officer at the Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS). As chief operating and innovation officer, Courtney oversees all of HANYS' operations and ensures optimal alignment of the Association's various functions – from healthcare policy and advocacy to quality improvement and data analysis. HANYS is a nonprofit working to ensure that every New Yorker has access to affordable, high-quality care. Tune in to learn more about Courtney, HANYS and how they  help those on the spectrum! 

Jim McGrath, former political advisor and now commercial director of the Irish Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association, and Grainne Ni Aodha, journalist with The Journal.ie, joined Gavan Reilly to go through the top stories from the Sunday newspapers. As well as that, political correspondent with the Irish Daily Mail, Craig Hughes updated us on the controversial Beacon Hospital vaccine program. Listen and subscribe to On The Record with Gavan Reilly on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify.      Download, listen and subscribe on the Newstalk App.    You can also listen to Newstalk live on newstalk.com or on Alexa, by adding the Newstalk skill and asking: 'Alexa, play Newstalk'.

Healthcare Association of Hawaii on vaccine rollout; Honolulu Fish Company on weathering the pandemic; Reality Check with Civil Beat: Gentleman estates squeeze out serious agriculture potential; Kauai's Neu Mana Hui Farm grows cashews; Preschoolers learn codes in nature

Betsy Johnson, the President of the Kentucky Association of Health Care Facilities, and Brett Willett, the President of the Iowa Health Care Association sat down with Mark Keene, Vice President of Business Development for PCA Pharmacy on March 11, 2021 to discuss the impacts and future of LTC in the scope of COVID-19.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 38 °F, and today looks pretty nice. Expect highs around 50, lots of sunshine, and maybe an opportunity to take an afternoon walk around your neighborhood should you get a minute.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 4,530 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealthand 10 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 366 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 92, Henrico: 188, and Richmond: 86). Since this pandemic began, 591 people have died in the Richmond region. I missed this yesterday, but the seven-day average of statewide new reported cases broke 5,000; this morning’s seven-day average is 5,121. Michael Martz at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association has officially asked the Governor to impose more restrictions to fight the dramatic spread of the virus, specifically to “consider temporarily implementing additional public health measures regarding limits on indoor dining, stricter occupancy limits, expanded use of telework, and requirements for non-essential businesses.” It does make me feel better—in a dark, morbid way—to hear folks with some influence asking the Governor to take further actions to slow down the disease while we wait on the vaccine. Speaking of, on the vaccine side of things, here’s my first attempt at a graph of our regions vaccination efforts. I don’t love it yet and reserve the right to change it in the future! Remember, Ross’s Stupid-Math Goal (which is not anyone else’s goal and should not be treated as such), is around 2,720 vaccinations per day in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield. Over the last seven days, the region averaged 1,683 vaccinations. I think that’s pretty good considering we’ve only been at this for a couple weeks now; the health systems, health districts, and pharmacies are still in the process of ramping up their vaccine machines; and, of course, the ever-present data-reporting issues. Once we do get some more data, though, I think I’ll move to looking at a weekly regional goal of around 20,000 vaccinations.I didn’t watch City Council last night because I had my first ever viewing of the Christian Bale classic Newsies. Which was more drama-filled? Which had more dance fighting? I’ll never know. For those of you that did watch City Council, you saw that ORD. 2020–214, the ordinance that helps fund the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, passed. Interestingly, the amended Monument & Allen medians ordinance, ORD.2020–217, was stricken. You don’t see that a ton, but the patron, Kim Gray, no longer sits on Council and can no longer withdraw bills (which is usually the more common option). I am bummed to have missed seeing all of the first-meeting jitters of the new councilmembers, but I’m glad to have finally been introduced to “Spot Conlon.”Yesterday, the House, for the second time, introduced Articles of Impeachment against Donald Trump. As a result, one of my favorite newsleetter from the twenty-teens, impeachment.fyi, is back. I encourage you to subscribe and let Dan Sinker walk you through the next couple of weeks with a single evening email covering all of the day’s impeachment news. Sinker says the vote on impeachment is set for Wednesday, and the Articles already have enough cosponsors to make it a done deal that Trump will be a twice-impeached president—an American first. What happens in the Senate, though, is anyone’s guess (although I will guess right now: Nothing, nothing will happen in the Senate).Related, the next week or so at the state Capitol promises to be…something. The General Assembly kicks off their 2021 session tomorrow, which means Lobby Day (also MLK Day) is right around the corner. Last year’s Lobby Day was pre-pandemic, which seems hard to believe, and featured thousands of gun-toting men trying to intimidate legislators from voting for some pretty basic gun legislation. Graham Moomaw at the Virginia Mercury says one pro-gun-violence group still intends on going through with whatever kind of rally they plan on hosting this coming Monday. Additionally, Michael Martz at the RTD says the governors (and mayor) of Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. have asked that folks not come to Biden’s inauguration. Very cool and normal stuff here in America lately.This morning’s longreadSix hours of paralysis: Inside Trump’s failure to act after a mob stormed the CapitolWith impeachment back on the table, it’s worth reading this good tick-tock of last Wednesday’s horrible events.But as senators and House members trapped inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday begged for immediate help during the siege, they struggled to get through to the president, who — safely ensconced in the West Wing — was too busy watching fiery TV images of the crisis unfolding around them to act or even bother to hear their pleas. “He was hard to reach, and you know why? Because it was live TV,” said one close Trump adviser. “If it’s TiVo, he just hits pause and takes the calls. If it’s live TV, he watches it, and he was just watching it all unfold.” Even as he did so, Trump did not move to act.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.

Schoetz on effects of Gov. Cuomo's halt to elective surgeries in Erie County Hospitals on Friday. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jim McGrath, former political advisor and now Commercial Director of the Irish Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association and Dr Illona Duffy GP and Head of the North East Doctor on Call Service joined Gavan Reilly to go through the top stories from the Sunday papers. Listen and subscribe to On The Record with Gavan Reilly on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify.      Download, listen and subscribe on the Newstalk App.    You can also listen to Newstalk live on newstalk.com or on Alexa, by adding the Newstalk skill and asking: 'Alexa, play Newstalk'.

Good morning, RVA! It’s 33 °F, and today looks a lot like yesterday. Expect cooler temperatures with highs in the mid 50s, plus plenty of sunshine. Temperatures go up from here!Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 2,071↗️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 25↗️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 186↘️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 42, Henrico: 95, and Richmond: 49). Since this pandemic began, 444 people have died in the Richmond region. This is the third day in a row VDH has reported more than 2,000 new positive cases, and the current seven-day average across the Commonwealth stands at 1,761. I probably need to add the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association’s Virginia Hospital COVID-19 Dashboard to my daily-read list. Right now—and, remember this is statewide data—27% of ventilators are in use as are 74% of ICU beds. Locally, that ICU bed occupancy numbers looks to be 88.3% and juuuuuust barely under the Uh Oh Threshold. VDH also has a couple graphs about the number of hospital beds occupied, which you can filter by region. I don’t know that the Central Region graphtells me much other than we’ve had a high percentage of hospital beds occupied since even before the pandemic began. Honestly, those last two graphs looks pretty different, and I’m not sure why that is. All of that to say, lots of folks are in the hospital right now, and you should do whatever you can to stay out of the hospital—for coronareasons and otherwise.Also, and this is petty, but didn’t Governor Northam give his final press conference until after Thanksgiving last week? At the time, I thought that sounded bananas, and, it turned out to be actual bananas, as he’s had near daily press conferences since his Friday announcement of new statewide restrictions. Mel Leonor at the Richmond Times-Dispatch confirms: “At a news conference a week earlier, the governor had not signaled further statewide mandates and had wished reporters a happy Thanksgiving, promising to not appear again before the cameras until after the holiday.” Oops. Anyway, at his press conference yesterday, Northam did say “all options are on the table” as far as further restrictions go, so we’ll see what that means and if he’ll take any additional action before Thanksgiving. Just thinking out loud: A holiday weekend lockdown would piss a lot of people off, but would probably keep a lot of people from catching COVID-19. Announced soon enough and folks could at least have some time to process what their long weekend will look like stuck inside? I dunno—hard, sad, and complex stuff.As for schools, Karina Bolster at NBC12 reports that 62% of Henrico County Public Schools students (at least those who responded) plan on remaining fully-virtual. I think those responses came before the District pumped the brakes on reopening to in-person instruction, so I imagine those numbers could change. Related, Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Kamras released the ongoing results of his Should We Stay or Should We Go survey, and, as of 2:00 PM on Tuesday, 63% of family respondents would prefer for RPS to remain fully virtual as would 80% of staff respondents. An important reminder from Kamras: “I do want to note that, while our family data is becoming more demographically representative of RPS each day, it is still under-representing families of color, who make up about 90% of RPS but only 65% of survey respondents. Our goal is to achieve a fully representative picture of how our families feel about the second semester, which is why we’re keeping the survey open for the next couple of weeks.” If you’re a member of the RPS community and haven’t take the survey, please do (family survey in English, family survey in Spanish, staff survey)!It looks like we have official, final election results in Virginia, says the RTD’s Andrew Cain, and that means we have official, final results in Richmond’s 2nd District City Council race! Katherine Jordan will now represent the City’s 2nd District, and you can follow her on Twitter @KatherineJRVA if you want to get in an early word. Congratulations, Councilmember-Elect Jordan!University of Richmond made a pretty stunning announcement yesterday: “…the University has announced it will meet the full demonstrated financial need for all RPS graduates who qualify to attend with grant aid—not with loans—up to the full cost of attendance at UR.” RPS Superintendent Kamras put it well, saying “The word ‘equity’ gets thrown around a lot in education, but real equity requires real dollars. And that’s exactly what UR just put on the table. RPS seniors, if you’ve never thought about the University of Richmond because of the cost, well, here’s the link to apply!”If you live within 25 miles of the 2610 Buford Road ABC store, which is, like, everyone in the entire region, you can now order alcohol online and have it delivered to your home. This is amazing, and it only took a pandemic to get it. You’ll need to make sure you’re ordering from the Buford Road store, and it looks like you’re limited to that store’s stock—but still! Look at us! Reasonably modern alcohol laws in Virginia, who woulda thought. Not me!Today, the Richmond City and Henrico Health Districts will host a free COVID-19 testing event at Regency Square (1420 N. Parham Road) from 9:00–11:00 AM. If you can’t make this one, there are many, many places to get tested. Also, if you’re planning to get a test before some sort of holiday travel your window is closing!This morning’s longreadWhy Millennials Are Suddenly So Obsessed With HouseplantsThis is not a great piece, and I mostly eye-roll at “Millennials do X because of Y” reporting. That said, remember 2019?? I got such a sense of The Before Times nostalgia while reading this. Hilarious that people used to do things for any reason other than to make pandemic life a little more livable.In addition to social media connections, getting involved in the plant community also provides countless opportunities to meet up in person. Besides plant swaps, enthusiasts of particular varieties can attend shows throughout the year. This coming weekend, thousands of plant lovers will descend on Miami for the International Aroid Society Show and Sale, which the community has dubbed the “Coachella for plants.” That’s not to say there can’t be a dark side to plant collecting. Some plant parents get wrapped up in hunting down super-rare species, adding too many to their collections and spending more money than they can realistically afford. Like any type of collecting, it’s possible to compromise your quality of life and go overboard.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.

WAMC’s Alan Chartock speaks with Bea Grause, President of The Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS).

Quotes:“I think we’ve made the point a couple of times that there are various models. They change literally every day depending on the data that is put into them and so we haven’t made any adjustments by what we’re seeing. We will certainly continue to follow the trends and if and when we need to make adjustments in our guidelines we will certainly do that. But for right now, continue to do what you’re doing. The stay at home is working. The social distancing and the frequent hand-washing, all of these things are effective. Keep doing the great work.”  - Governor Ralph Northam, April 6, 2020Resources:National Public Health Week resourcesVirginia Health Information websiteVirginia Hospital and Healthcare Association dashboard Camp Holiday Trails

Good morning, RVA! It’s 52 °F, and temperatures today are way up in the 70s. Keep an eye out for some rain later this afternoon. These warmer vibes will continue for the next couple of days.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 2,878 positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth, and 54 people in Virginia have died as a result of the virus. VDH reports 420 cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 108, Henrico: 207, and Richmond: 105). We’ll see how those numbers update today, as Michael Martz at the Richmond Times-Dispatch says that 28 people have died of COVID-19 at the Canterbury Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center in Henrico and 116 residents of the same facility have tested positive for the disease. That’s over half of Henrico’s total reported number of cases. For those of us coping with the enormity and brutality of this situation by tracking data and keeping spreadsheets, here’s an odd sentence several paragraphs down: “The number of deaths from COVID-19 in the Richmond region is not clear because there is no reporting requirement, said Dr. Danny Avula, director of the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts.” Further, a whole team of RTD folks covered the Governor’s press conference and compared the amount of coronavirus testing done in Virginia (24,521) to smaller, neighbor states like North Carolina (40,045). The number of test still has such a huge impact on not only our ability to make spreadsheets but to track and stop the spread of the coronavirus. I don’t know what to make of the apparent low number of tests-per-capita in the Commonwealth.One more bit about data: The Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association has launched their own data dashboard focusing on the number of folks hospitalized for actual COVID-19 or suspected COVID-19. They’ve also got some stats on ICU beds, ventilators, and hospitals that are having difficulty obtaining supplies.I didn’t know where to fit it in the above two paragraphs, but the Governor also said that Virginians should wear masks when they go outside. Time to put those mask-making resource to good use!Yesterday, Richmond Public Schools launched daily, grade-specific, learning-at-home resources for all students. This is a massive resource that required, I imagine, a massive amount of work to put together. If you’ve got a tiny human at home, consider taking advantage of it. Or, honestly, don’t! I’m extremely empathetic for the very specific overwhelmed feeling that comes from tapping on a link and seeing an array of resources that you totally don’t know how, exactly, to put to use. If that sounds familiar, maybe just bookmark the link so you have it for later? Anyway, clearly students need a computer and internet access to take advantage of all of these resources, and Superintendent Kamras says, “we’re working around the clock to get laptops and wifi hotspots ready for distribution…I’m happy to report that they’ll begin going out later this week.”I know I keep reminding you about this, but the application for Richmond’s no-interest loans for small businesses dropped yesterday. You can find more information and the application itself here. Remember, the Economic Development Authority will consider applications in the the order in which they were received. If you’re planning on applying, do it ASAP!If you’ve ever seen me do my day job, or, really, spent any time with me at all, you’ll know that I think annexation (or, more accurately, the State’s prohibition on any future annexation) is one of the most important and defining characteristics of our region. Lucky for us big-time annexation foamers, VCU and UR have made John Moeser’s book, The Politics of Annexation, free to download! Moeser is the literal expert on annexation in our region, and I’m stoked to move this book to the top of my queue (right after Pride, which I’m really enjoying). You can download The Politics of Annexation in a variety of formats here.Via /r/rva, extremely bad news on the cheap beer front. But, on the other hand, you can now get liquor shipped to your door from Virginia distilleries. During a pandemic you win some, you lose some.This morning’s longreadReal estate for the apocalypse: my journey into a survival bunkerThe things rich people do to prepare for a crisis makes me sad for how they view humanity.Vivos was offering more than just the provision of ready-made bunkers and turnkey apocalypse solutions. It was offering a vision of a post-state future. When you bought into such a scheme, you tapped into a fever dream from the depths of the libertarian lizard-brain: a group of well-off and ideologically like-minded individuals sharing an autonomous space, heavily fortified against outsiders – the poor, the hungry, the desperate, the unprepared – and awaiting its moment to rebuild civilisation from the ground up. What was being offered, as such, was a state stripped down to its bare rightwing essentials: a militarised security apparatus, engaged through contractual arrangement, for the protection of private wealth.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.

Scott Fraser joins the Tara Granahan Show to discuss how nursing homes are dealing with the coronavirus.

Scott Fraser joins the Tara Granahan Show to discuss how nursing homes are dealing with the coronavirus.

Peter Van Runkle- Ohio Healthcare Association- They need your help!

Hosts Fred Goldstein and Gregg Masters, MPH talk with Jeffrey Rideout, MD, the President and CEO of the Integrated Healthcare Association a California leadership group representing health plans, hospital systems, physician groups and other healthcare stakeholders. We discuss the launch of IHA’s ‘Symphony Provider Directory’, the first of its kind in the state of California with national implications. To stream our Station live 24/7 visit www.HealthcareNOWRadio.com or ask Siri or Alexa to “….Play HealthcareNOW Radio”. Find all of our show episodes on your favorite podcast platforms. www.healthcarenowradio.com/listen/

Welcome to Business North Carolina's weekly podcast, serving up interviews with some of the Tar Heel State's most interesting people. This week, we talk with Stephen Lawler, president and CEO of the North Carolina Healthcare Association. Lawler discusses hot topics in the health care industry, rural health care access, rising drug costs, and closing the coverage gap in the state

On PopHealth Week our guest is Jeff Rideout the President & CEO of the Integrated Healthcare Association (IHA), a California nonprofit organization representing health plans, hospital systems, physician groups and other healthcare stakeholders. Dr. Rideout is responsible for management of all IHA programs and activities, including its nationally recognized pay-for-performance program, performance measurement and payment innovation initiatives, and efforts to enhance the adoption of health information technology and improve healthcare affordability. Prior to joining IHA, Dr. Rideout was the Senior Medical Advisor for Covered California, supporting clinical quality, network management, and delivery system reform related to the 1.1 million Californians enrolled through the exchange. More about the Symphony Project: Maintaining up-to-date information about provider participation in health plan networks is a challenge not just in California but across the nation. Consumers increasingly rely on provider directories to review networks when choosing a health plan, yet health plans have been challenged to provide accurate public provider directories that reflect the various types of providers available through their networks, their qualifications and capabilities, and their availability. The first of its kind in the state, Symphony Provider Directory, formerly known as the California Provider Directory Utility (PDU), offers a single place for healthcare providers and commercial, Medicare, and Medi-Cal health plans to update their data; simplifying the process and leading to more accurate provider data, improved quality, and a better customer experience for Californians.  

Healthcare Association of Hawaii addresses healthcare job vacancies; Medical care for Hawaii's homeless; Bringing your own containers to restaurants; Manoa Valley Theatre's new Artistic Director Kip Wilborn

Knowing how to distinguish new patients from established patients, apart from ensuring that coding guidelines are being followed, enables you to be reimbursed for the additional work that new patient visits warrant. Moreover, in some cases, not distinguishing new patients from established patients can amount to shortchanging yourself, as you will learn during this edition of Talk Ten Tuesdays, when Terry Fletcher returns to the broadcast to report on evaluation and management (E&M) coding.Other segments to be featured on the broadcast include:The I 10 Coding Report: Yellow fever has been reported in the Americas, and this can be prevented – a warning for people who are planning trips to the Caribbean or Latin America. Nationally recognized coding authority Laurie Johnson, senior healthcare consultant at Revenue Cycle Solutions, LLC, reports on this new travel advisory.News Desk: Timothy Powell, compliance expert and ICD10monitor national correspondent, anchors the Talk Ten Tuesdays News Desk.Dateline Washington: Talk Ten Tuesdays legislative analyst Rhonda Taller has the latest news coming out of Washington, D.C. Rhonda is a member of the HIMSS professional development committee.Tuesday Focus: Sepsis 2 versus Sepsis 3 The Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS) and Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA) were scheduled to meet with New York’s Department of Health (DOH) on Feb. 12 to discuss the health plans' continued use of the Sepsis 3 definition for reviewing claims. New York continues to use the Sepsis 2 definition. Dennis Jones, the administrator of patient financial services for Montefiore Nyack Hospital, reports on the backstory.Guest Talk: Holly Louie, past president of the Healthcare Business and Management Association and the compliance officer for Professional Management, Inc. (PMI), reports on healthcare billing issues that have captured her attention of late.

On Tuesday, the Healthcare Association of New York (HANY) informed its reported 210 member hospitals that the Empire State would not use the UnitedHealthcare (UHC) Sepsis-3 criteria when reviewing claims to validate sepsis for payment. New York state law defines sepsis with systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) criteria, otherwise known as Sepsis-2.Dennis Jones, the administrator of patient financial services for Montefiore Nyack hospital, was there Tuesday when HANY made the announcement during its regularly scheduled managed care advisory group meeting. Jones, who was among the earliest correspondents to join Monitor Mondays in 2010, will return to the broadcast this coming Monday and report on this newly developing story. Also reporting on Sepsis-3 will be Denise Wilson, vice president of Intersect Healthcare + AppealMasters.The broadcast rundown also will include:False Claims Act: Nationally recognized whistleblower attorney Mary Inman, partner in the London office of Constantine Cannon, will report on Intermountain taking its challenge of False Claims Act (FCA) to the Supreme Court.The Audit Report: Healthcare attorney Knicole Emanuel, partner in the Potomac Law Group, will report on the latest activities by auditors, including the Recovery Audit Contractors (RACs).Hot Topics: Monitor Mondays senior correspondent Nancy Beckley, president and CEO of Nancy Beckley and Associates, will return to report on all the latest hot topics.Monday Rounds: Ronald Hirsch, MD, vice president of R1 Physician Advisory Services, will be making his Monday Rounds with another installment of his popular segment.

Community-oriented healthcare ties technology, acute treatment and chronic care together. Above all, it takes into account the full range of each person’s needs, from food availability to social interaction. See what this future looks like through the eyes of a leader in community-oriented healthcare when Nancy Howell Agee joins me on the Leading with Health podcast. Nancy Howell Agee is the President and CEO of Carilion Clinic, a $2 billion not-for-profit, integrated health care system headquartered in Roanoke, Virginia, serving over 1 million people in Virginia and West Virginia. Ms. Agee is the immediate past chair of the American Hospital Association. She was named one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare by Modern Healthcare in 2016, 2017, 2018 and one of the Top 25 Woman in Healthcare by the same national magazine in 2017. She received the Gail L. Warden Leadership Excellence Award in 2018. Ms. Agee is a former member of the Board of Commissioners for the Joint Commission and past chair of the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association and the Virginia Center for Health Innovation. Hosted by healthcare marketing expert Jennifer Michelle, MPH, EMT, President of Michelle Marketing Strategies. Jennifer has a Master’s in International Health & Epidemiology and currently volunteers as an EMT. Her unique background allows her to bring unexpected insight and depth to every interview.  For more information, visit: www.MichelleMarketingStrategies.com

Recorded at Birdman Media Studio. In this episode Birdman chats with Ken Allen, Chief of Physician Services and new position, Executive Director of the NEAR (Northeastern Arizona Regional) Care Team with Summit Healthcare Regional Medical Center. Video @ https://youtu.be/Dy8_bDlqjaU   About Ken Allen: Ken Allen has been a member of the Summit Healthcare Administration since 1995. Responsibilities include leadership for Summit Healthcare’s sponsored physician network, Summit Healthcare Medical Associates. Ken’s goal is to improve access to and availability of healthcare services for residents of the White Mountain Communities. Professional memberships have included American College of Healthcare Executives, Health Care Compliance Association, American College of Sports Medicine, American Association for Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehabilitation, and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. In 2006 and 2015 Ken was recognized by the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association as a Leadership Fellow.   Visit https://summithealthcare.net/  

The current health care system is failing a lot of families — premiums and deductibles are too high, and many services aren’t getting covered. One major problem is that many families have too high of an income to be eligible for subsidies, but too low to afford a good, comprehensive health insurance plan. To discuss how people are virtually falling through the cracks is Linda Quick, president of Quick Bernstein Connections Group and former president of the South Florida Hospital and Healthcare Association, Bernard Oakley, Sovereign Health’s Manager of Operations, and Cornelius, who shares his story of how he almost fell through the cracks, and how he was able to receive treatment.

The Patients Come First Podcast is presented by the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association. Each episode will feature people in the health care community whose work is focused on enhancing patient experience, whether through direct care, medical research, or other efforts. Send questions, comments, or feedback to pcfpodcast@vhha.com or contact us Twitter @VirginiaHHA using the hashtag #PatientsComeFirst.