Podcasts about local food hub

In Episode 9 of the food and farming series Food Trek, Tory Dahlhoff and co-producer Allison Walsh check in with the Central Illinois FarmFED Cooperative in Mount Pulaski, in Logan County.

Today is April 12, 2022, and according to one source, it’s National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day, National Licorice Day, and National Big Wind Day. April 12 is also commemorated across the world as Yuri’s night, marking the day in 1961 that the first person was sent into space. There have been 22,280 days since then, and this is yet another one of them. This is also another installment of Charlottesville Community Engagement, about absolutely none of the above, except maybe the big wind. I’m your host, Sean Tubbs. Help grow the audience by sharing this with friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, and anyone else you think might want to know what’s happening On today’s program:The Virginia Department of Transportation always wants you to drive slowly through work zones, but this is week they really want you to be aware Charlottesville responds to a lawsuit seeking nullification of the Comprehensive PlanThe Local Food Hub will pause drive-through markets this summerCity Council will vote tonight on a one-cent increase in the real estate tax rate First shout-out goes to two important history programsIn today’s first subscriber-supported shoutout, two upcoming history programs. Tonight, at 7 p.m. a multitude of groups are hosting Dr. Anne C. Bailey of SUNY Binghamton presents Remembering the Victims of Charlottesville: The Healing of Charlottesville and a New Way Forward. The in-person registration is full for this Rememberance of Slave Auctions, but there’s still room on Facebook Live. On Thursday at 7 p.m., the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society will host Regina Rush as she tells the story of her family’s journey from enforced servitude in Nelson County to becoming landowners in Albemarle County. After a quarter century of research, she’s published Rushes of Chestnut Grove: One Family’s Journey from Slavery to Freedom. This event is on Zoom or Facebook Live. City responds to Comprehensive Plan lawsuitThe city of Charlottesville has responded in Charlottesville Circuit Court to a lawsuit filed in December by anonymous property owners seeking to void the Comprehensive Plan adopted by City Council last November. The plaintiffs assert the city did not follow state code resulting in a plan that is not “general in nature” and that failed to present a transportation plan to support new density allowed under the plan.  (read the plaintiff’s suit)The city filed two responses, including one requesting the Court order the identities of the plaintiffs to be revealed. The other is a demurrer which argues the plaintiffs have no right legal basis on which to have filed their case. (read the demurrer)“Plaintiffs have no express right of action under Virginia 15.2-2223… to challenge the sufficiency of the Comprehensive Plan,” reads the first section of the demurrer. The city’s response goes on to state that localities have the legal requirement to designate land use categories, and that the General Assembly has given leeway for localities to do so. The response argues that the Comprehensive Plan is a different process than updating the zoning ordinance, which is currently underway.“The adoption of the Comprehensive Plan did not and cannot change the zoning district classification of any of the Plaintiff properties,” the response continues. The second motion to request identification argues that the plaintiffs have not given sufficient reason for why their identities should be protected. (motion to reveal ID)“Upon information and beliefs, Plaintiffs wish to proceed anonymously to avoid potential embarrassment or public criticism for opposing increased residential density—and more types and units of housing affordable to low- and moderate-income persons—within their neighborhoods,” reads the second motion. The City Attorney’s office had no comment. The next step is for the matter to go before a judge for scheduling. Local Food Hub pausing drive-through markets Two years ago, the pandemic shut down much of the economy as people avoided direct contact with each other. The state of emergency was declared at the same time farmers and other agricultural producers were getting ready for market season, but in-person markets were banned to avoid places where people could congregate. Soon after, the Local Food Hub sprang into action and organized a drive-through market at the site of the former K-Mart, as reported in the March 25, 2020 edition of the Charlottesville Quarantine Report. “Over the past two years, we’ve operated 150+ markets, facilitated over a million dollars in sales, partnered with dozens of vendors, and served hundreds of community members,” reads a post on the Local Food Hub’s Facebook page. Two years later as market season begins again,  they’re planning to cease these events. “As the world has reopened – and along with it, more opportunity for in-person, walk-up markets – a drive-through, preorder market doesn’t currently best meet the needs of vendors or customers,” the post continues. The Local Food Hub plans to relaunch the drive-through markets in the fall or if another wave of COVID causes a return to social distancing. VDOT holds work zone awareness weekLast year, the number of vehicular fatalities that occurred in work zones in Virginia increased to 28, up from 11 in 2020. This week, the Virginia Department of Transportation and similar agencies across the United States are marking Work Zone Awareness Week to remind motorists to slow down when traveling through road construction or repairs. VDOT has been doing this every year since 1997 as a way to protect the thousands of people who work within close proximity to speeding throngs of vehicles. The week kicks off today with a tour of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel Expansion Project, which will see a total of four more lanes at a cost of $3.8 billion. On Wednesday, people are asked to wear orange and post pictures on social media with #GoOrangeDay. On Friday, there’s a moment of silence at 10 a.m. Second shout-out: RCA wants your photographs for a new contest!In today’s second Patreon-fueled shout-out, the Rivanna Conservation Alliance wants wildlife and nature photographers to enter their first-ever photography contest! They want high-resolution photos related to the Rivanna watershed and the winning entries will be displayed at the 2022 Riverfest Celebration on May 1. The two categories are 16 and under, and those over the age of 17. You can send in two entries, and the work may be used to supplement Rivanna Conservation Alliance publications. For more information, visit rivannariver.org. And don’t forget, Riverfest starts on April 22 with a big celebration at Rivanna River Company on May 1! Council to adopt budget tonight; poised to increase real estate tax rate by one cent Charlottesville City Council will adopt a nearly $212.9 million budget for FY23 this evening that includes a real estate tax rate increase for the first time in decades. This happens at 5:30 p.m. (meeting info)The personal property tax rate will remain at $4.20 per $100 of assessed value, and there will be a half percent increase in the meals tax. “The reason we’re trying to raise revenue is in my mind is to invest in long-term capital projects which I think will benefit school children for decades,” said City Councilor Brian Pinkston toward the end of an April 7 budget work session. The budget also anticipates using over $12 million in budget surpluses for the current fiscal year to cover the cost of additional spending. The five members of City Council stated their final positions on the budget and the tax rate at a budget work session on Thursday night, April 7. They had previously met on March 31, April 1, and April 2 and gave direction to City Manager Michael C. Rogers via email in preparation for the final work session. “The city manager had circulated a spreadsheet that we were able to feed back to the city manager what our thoughts were on the various decision points that we had to confront tonight,” said Charlottesville Mayor Lloyd Snook at the very beginning of the meeting.On March 31, Councilors were told of an anticipated $12.4 million surplus in the current fiscal year that might yield enough funding to cover the budget that interim City Manager Michael C. Rogers had recommended in early March without raising any taxes. That would also require the drawdown of $11.433 million in from a capital contingency fund. On April 7, Snook said one of the decisions before Council was whether they wanted to fund items not in Rogers’ recommended budget. These include additional funding for Charlottesville Area Transit, more funds to address homelessness, city funding for a sidewalk on Stribling Avenue, nearly $5 million for Piedmont Housing Alliance for two separate projects on Park Street. “And one of the decision points I think we will need to make tonight is are some of these where we ought to say we’re waiting for a plan but we have enough in mind that we think we can at least put a ballpark figure on it and let’s figure out a plan,” Snook said. In February, Council authorized the advertising of a ten cent increase in the real estate tax rate to cover the costs of debt service associated with more capital spending, including $75 million for renovations of Buford Middle School associated with school reconfiguration. That action did not obligate them to actually increasing the rate, but provided a ceiling. During a series of work sessions in March, staff suggested the surplus could be used but the actual number won’t be known until this upcoming December. “We can look with some certainty and feel pretty good that at least most of that is real surplus,” Snook said. “You never want to count your chickens before they hatch but maybe some of these chickens are close enough to being hatched. Remember, we’re three quarters of the way through the fiscal year.” The budget includes a three percent raise for all city employees effective July 1, full funding of the School Board’s request for operating funds, and several new administrative positions. “And in the overall scheme of things, we are also funding the school reconfiguration project through our [Capital Improvement Program] at a $68.8 million level,” said Interim City Manager Michael Rogers said.The School Board is comfortable with that amount, which is based on their use of funding from the American Rescue Plan Act. The City Council agreed to float $54 million in bonds to contribute to the project’s cost. For most of the April 7 budget work session, Council went line by line through a spreadsheet to see if they supported various changes in the FY23 budget. They supported:An additional $55,514 in the budget for an upgrade to the position of housing coordinatorAn additional $81,355 to hire an additional buyer$300,000 in additional funding for the Office of Equity and Inclusion for support for team members such a community health worker to help find homes for “unhoused individuals”$60,528 for an additional person in the Commissioner of Revenue’s office$150,000 for Climate Action Planning$175,000 in additional capacity for affordable housing initiatives$100,000 for MARCUS Alert system$250,000 in additional support for real estate tax relief efforts$325,000 for the public works department for engineering $20,000 to pay Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority for the payment in lieu of taxes they are required to pay the city $25,000 in additional funds for tree planting per a request from the Tree Commission Council agreed to consider the use of FY22 surplus funds to the following purposes, but there will be further discussions before action would happen later this calendar year:$150,000 to replace software used by the Department of Social Services for foster care$100,000 for software for procurement$1 million to purchase two new buses to ensure more service on Route 6An additional $2 million for Charlottesville Area Transit to help get more routes to 30 minute service $2.109 million to cover costs of 15 firefighters once a federal SAFER grant expires in March 2024Potentially set aside $1 million for a fund to be used at the discretion of the next City Manager with consultation from Council Potentially $700,000 for a third section of the Meadowcreek TrailCouncil agreed to commit some of the $11.433 million CIP contingency fund to these two projects, but this would also take a separate Council action outside of the FY23 budget discussion: $6.7 million for school reconfiguration$4.733 million for two Piedmont Housing Alliance projects on Park Street Next steps after adoptionA work session on April 18 will further flesh out how the $150,000 for Climate Action Planning would be spent. Deputy City Manager Sam Sanders explained some potential uses. “Home energy audits is something that we’re doing right now and we could increase those and do more,” Sanders said. “The next time would be a pilot street light conversion that would be to test the notion of what we can do with the lighting choices we are making in the streetlight section.” Sanders said other options could be a supplement to be paid to community members who choose electric vehicles, incentivizing solar installations, and initiatives that may come out of an ongoing study of fuel alternatives for Charlottesville Area Transit and school pupil transportation.As for the funding for public works, Sanders said the funding would go to help increase capacity to allow for projects in the capital improvement plan to move forward. “We need project management capacity, period,” Sanders said. “We need more hands to do the projects that we currently have in our inventory. We need a project manager dedicated to [the Americans with Disability Act.] We are not doing a good job in the ADA space and we know this and we’ve known this for a long time.” Councilor Sena Magill said this topic has come up in her conversations in Washington D.C. to try to secure money from federal sources.“It was made very clear that we have to have our house in order to apply for this stuffSanders said there will be another work session coming up on the city’s relationship with the Virginia Department of Transportation. “We are headed into a facilitated conversation with our district to look at rebooting the size and operations as they exist today,” Sanders said. “It will call for actually potentially canceling projects, turning some projects over to VDOT, and the team keeping some other projects.” Sanders said the city is not ready to take advantage of any future infrastructure funding because of a poor record in delivering in what has already been funded. Tax rate discussionToward the end of the April 7 work session, Council also discussed potentially increasing tax rates. Councilor Brian Pinkston supported a one cent increase in the tax rate which would add $925,000 to the budget for additional spending. He also supported a half percent increase in the meals tax. “I think it’s time for us to position the city for the future,” Pinkston said. “Maybe we could add another penny every year or two.” Pinkston initially said he would support a reduction in the personal property tax rate but changed his mind. Councilor Sena Magill did not support a reduction in the personal property tax rate, and she supported a one cent increase in the real estate tax to avoid relying on the surplus. “A one cent real estate tax that goes straight into a fund to support the schools,” Magill said. Magill did not support an increase in the meals tax. Vice Mayor Juandiego Wade supported a one cent increase in the real estate, a reduction in the personal property tax rate, and a half-percent increase in the meals tax. City Councilor Michael Payne said he would support a three cent increase in the real estate tax rate to apply to future capital spending. “And I think we should just get over with it now and making a down payment on being able to afford what we’ve said we’re committed to but haven’t yet planned to fund,” Payne said. Payne said he supported keeping the personal property tax rate at $4.20 per $100 of assessed value and increasing the meals tax. Snook said he did not support an increase in the real estate tax rate given a sense that real property assessments will continue to increase. “What I’ve seen of the real estate market so far in 2022 is that it has not slackened since 2021,” Snook said. However, four Councilors agreed to the one cent increase up for a vote tonight. Will there be any changes or surprises tonight at 5:30 p.m.? Stay tuned!Support Town Crier Productions through Ting!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

In today’s Patreon-fueled shout-out: With the summer heat in full swing, your local energy nonprofit, LEAP, wants you and yours to keep cool. LEAP offers FREE home weatherization to income- and age-qualifying residents. If you’re age 60 or older, or have an annual household income of less than $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!On today’s show:A new nonprofit launches to promote regional entrepreneurial activitiesA quick review of a recent stakeholder meeting on increasing transit in urban AlbemarleSeveral area destinations receive state funding for tourism marketingAlbemarle County seeking a consultant to help lead upcoming rewrite of the zoning ordinanceThe Virginia Department of Health today reports 2,117 new COVID cases, the highest one-day count in four months. The percent positivity is now at 7.5 percent. The seven day average for new cases is now at 1,733. The Blue Ridge Health District reports another 52 cases today. The percentage of Virginians fully vaccinated is now at 54.8 percent, a number that includes children. The number of adult Virginians fully vaccinated is now 65.8 percent. The seven-day average of shots per day is now 14,124. Source: Virginia Department of HealthNext week, the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles will open a window in the Scottsville Town offices. The DMV Select will open on August 16 in the second floor of Victory Hall at 401 Valley Street. DMV Select offices allow for limited transactions such as picking up registration decals, but do not issue driver’s licenses. For a full list of services, visit the DMV website. You’ll need to schedule an appointment and masks are required. (schedule an appointment)Speaking of Scottsville, repairs have been made to the library following heavy storm damage in late July. The library reopened yesterday at 1 p.m. A new nonprofit is launching in the Charlottesville area to support regional entrepreneurship. Venture Central is to be a partnership between the city of Charlottesville, Albemarle County, the University of Virginia, and the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce. The group has announced the first members of the Board of Directors and will begin a search for an executive director. According to a release, Sarah Rumbaugh of the firm Relish will serve as the chair. Other board members include the economic development directors of both Albemarle and Charlottesville. Governor Ralph Northam has announced the award of $861,080 in matching grants through the Virginia Tourism Corporation’s Recovery Marketing Leverage Program. The initiative exists to help expand the Virginia is for Lovers brand and to encourage new tourism marketing partnerships. (see a full list of recipients)The Charlottesville Convention and Visitors Bureau will get $10,000 for Birthplace of Virginia Wine programDairy Market will get $20,000 for Charlottesville’s Bite-Sized Adventures: A Foodie Bucket ListFront Porch Cville will receive $19,980 for Rivanna Roots: A Riverfront Concert Series 2022Blackburn Inn and Conference Center in Staunton will receive $20,000 for Sip, Stay, and Explore: Hiking Trails and Virginia WinesThe Heifetz International Music Institute at Mary Baldwin University will get $2,182.50 for a marketing programWaynesboro Economic Development and Tourism will receive $10,000 for EXPERIENCE WaynesboroWayne Theater Alliance will get $10,000 for an outdoor production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor DreamcoatPicking back up from the August 4, 2021 meeting of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors, that body agreed to apply for $314,000 in Community Development Block Grant funding for a food security program. Stacy Pethia is the county’s housing policy manager.“The proposed project would serve a total of 470 individuals and households through three distinct programs,” Pethia said. These are $110,000 for a grocery card gift program to serve up to 220 households, and $144,000 for the Local Food Hub’s Fresh Farmacy program to provide fresh produce for 18 months to 100 households. The funding would come specifically from a COVID relief program. Supervisors also agreed to amend a special use permit that allows the Monticello United Soccer Club to operate on land off of Polo Ground Road. Scott Clark is a planner with Albemarle County. “The proposal would increase the number of total number of fields to seven although only four would be used for play at any one time,” Clark said. “This is to enable them to move feels around, rest fields, prepare fields.”The land is within Albemarle’s rural area, and there are no permanent facilities on the property. There is no increase in the number of parking spaces. “This property could easily return to agricultural use in the future with a very low impact on the site,” Clark said. The Mon-U soccer field is on Polo Grounds Road, which is just to the north of where the furthest Charlottesville Area Transit route currently stops. That won’t change when the city-owned and operated agency alters its routes later this year, but CAT is conducting a review of how to expand service to the north. So is Albemarle County and the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. You’re reading Charlottesville Community Engagement and time for another subscriber-supported public service announcement. The Charlottesville Jazz Society at cvillejazz.org is dedicated to the promotion, preservation, and preservation of jazz, and there’s no time like now to find a time to get out and watch people love to play. The Charlottesville Jazz Society keeps a running list of what’s coming up at cvillejazz.org. This week, find out that the Michael Elswick Gathering plays at the Pub at Lake Monticello on Friday and the Eric Franzen Trio plays at Early Mountain Vineyards on Saturday. Take a look at cvillejazz.org. At the same time, Albemarle County and the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission are doing the exact same work as part of a study partially funded by the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation. Boris Palchik is a transit planning project manager with Foursquare Integrated Transportation Planning, a firm hired to help conduct the work. The other consultant is Michael Baker International. Palchik ran a meeting on July 26 that sought to get initial feedback for the study.“It’s really a feasibility study and implementation plan for expanding transit service in both population and employment centers in Albemarle County,” Palchik said. The July 26 meeting was for northern Albemarle County along U.S. 29, and one on July 28 was held for Pantops. We’ll focus on July 26 first. (watch the video)Palchik said the study may not result in several new fixed routes, but may include a combination of on-demand routes and other new transit options. The work consists of a market analysis, a service analysis, and stakeholder outreach. “The market analysis is looking at the underlying environment in which transit operates or needs to operate in the study area,” Palchik said. “The service analysis is looking at what’s happening today on the ground in terms of ridership and productivity.”Stakeholder outreach includes the July meetings and other ways to get a sense of what people might want and need in expanded transit. In addition, to Charlottesville Area Transit, Jaunt provides service in the area through on-demand, one fixed-route service, and through its partnership with Greene County Transit. “There’s really many different ways to provide transit service and each of those ways has its own ideal operating environment,” Palchick said. “When we’re looking at the market analysis, we’re trying to understand the environment that exists so we can make recommendations that are appropriate.”That means taking a look at population density, the built environment, employment opportunities, and other factors to measure the potential for public transit to work. “Transit service is most effective and most efficient in areas that have higher density,” Palchick said. “The kind of tipping point for where fixed route transit service really begins to make sense is once you have more than five people or jobs per acre.”Research conducted so far indicates moderate-to-high transit potential south of the South Fork of the Rivanna River. The highest population density in the area is along Commonwealth Drive, which is currently served by CAT’s Route 5. Service gaps are north of Rio Road and in the Hollymead / Forest Lakes area. A slide from the July 26 presentation (download)This work also comes at a time when Albemarle continues to become more dense, with more properties coming online such as North Pointe, Brookhill, and numerous other developments that will be more dense than single family homes. Palchick said the stakeholder analysis specifically sought out information that may not have come through their initial review. During the service analysis, stakeholders were shown older information on CAT routes, several of which are changing in the coming months. There will be alterations to Route 5, Route 7, Route 8, and Route 11, all of which serve Albemarle’s northern urban area.  Learn more about the CAT changes here. Scott Elliff is a member of the Forest Lakes Community Association’s Board of Directors. The FLCA has used a portion of its homeowner association fees to fight development of a mixed-use development on Ashwood Boulevard known as RST Residences. Elliff took the opportunity to speak at a discussion on expanding transit to point out that the existing character of his neighborhood is suburban. “The challenge that’s happening up here is that we’re starting to get developments that are going to be by necessity pretty dense,” Elliff said. “There’s one that’s being planned which we’re opposing and hasn’t come before the Supervisors yet. It would be a huge high story development on the corner of Ashwood and 29.”Currently there is fixed-route transit service in the Forest Lakes area provide by Jaunt through their Route 29 Express.According to Valerie Long of the law firm Williams Mullen, 75 percent of the apartments in the RST development will be rented to people who can demonstrate household incomes between 30 percent and 80 percent of the Area Median Income. Elliff is concerned that if all of those people drive, it will exacerbate traffic congestion out of a neighborhood that only has two direct connections onto U.S. 29. “The only solution from a transportation standpoint that I can think of is to have a dedicated service that picks people up at those affordable housing apartment buildings and takes them non-stop down to Barracks Road, downtown mall, and UVA where the jobs are,” Elliff said. Elliff claimed there were no jobs in his area. In fact, let’s hear more of what he had to say. “We’re up here in a beautiful area,” Elliff said. “There are no jobs. There are retail jobs… in the shopping centers north and south. If it’s going to be heavily affordable housing, these are people who are going to be working retail and they’re going to be working as administrative assistants or something in small companies but not around here. This is completely residential.”Elliff’s claim made me look up the latest information from the Virginia Employment Commission on the top employers in Albemarle County.  Several of them are within close proximity to the Forest Lakes neighborhood and all rough measurements below are taken from the pool at Forest Lakes South using main roads and Google Earth. (VEC profile)#4 is the Department of Defense and the various military installations at Rivanna Station (4.77 miles away) #6 is the Crutchfield Corporation which operates by the Charlottesville Regional Airport (3.5 miles away)#7 is the Northrup Grumman Corporation located in between both sides of Stonefield on U.S. 29 (4.4 miles away)#9 is Wal-Mart located just south of the South Fork of the Rivanna River on US. 29 (2.2 miles away)#18 is Emerson (listed as G.E. Fanuc) on U.S. 29 north of North Pointe (5.2 miles) #29 is Costco in Stonefield on U.S. 29 (4.5 miles away)#32 is Target in Hollymead Town Center (2 miles away)#36 is MicroAire Surgical Instruments in the former U.S. Postal Service building off of Airport Road (2.75 miles away)#38 is Rosewood Village Associates with facilities in Hollymead Town Center (2.4 miles away) The RST rezoning goes to the Board of Supervisors on September 15. From the Albemarle County profile from the Virginia Employment Commission (download)Now, on to the July 28 meeting, which covered the Pantops area. Fewer people attended that virtual call. Pantops is currently served by Charlottesville Area Transit Route 10, which will also be changing as a result of the upcoming route changes. Here’s Boris Palchik with Foursquare once again reviewing a market analysis. “In the Pantops area north of U.S. 250, there are a number of key kind of activity generators like multifamily housing, the Social Security administration building, but it’s still showing fairly low density,” Palchik said. Dick Hiss, the chair of the Pantops Community Advisory Committee, asked if the various analyses conducted take a look at future land use changes. “Have you considered the changes that we see coming in the Pantops area such as the motor vehicle department going somewhere?” Hiss said. “That building has had a sign on it for years saying it is moving.”Hiss said he is also wondering if State Farm employees will return to that building. State Farm is the fifth largest employer in Albemarle according to the VEC. Sentara Martha Jefferson is the third. Gina Morss-Fischer, a public affairs specialist with State Farm, confirmed in an email to me today that employees assigned to the Charlottesville-Albemarle office will continue to work from home. Palchick said the stakeholder meetings are intended to take note of comments such as this. For a time, Albemarle County had been updating development dashboards which depicted what projects were coming up in the near future. These have not been updated since February 2020 in part because of the pandemic and in part because a staff member moved on. Charles Rapp is the planning director in Albemarle County. “The staff member that was previously managing the dashboards is no longer with the county so we have used this as an opportunity to collaborate with our GDS department and create an updated version of the development dashboard,” Rapp said in an email to me this morning. “This new approach will have automated updates regularly and should provide a more streamlined approach toward conveying information.  We are working through the final details now and hope to have it ready for the public soon.”(review the current Development Dashboards on the Albemarle website)But back to transit. Palchick said on-demand microtransit could be an option for parts of Albemarle in the future.“The main difference between microtransit and Uber and Lyft is that Uber and Lyft operate with a fleet of vehicles that are not infinite, but you never quite know what kind of vehicle you are going to get when you request a service,” Palchick said. “Whereas with microtransit you have a set fleet of vehicles and a set group of drivers that are operating the service so it is more predictable and can be more closely branded with the local public transportation service and be more closely affiliated with it.”Currently, Pantops is also served by Jaunt’s Buckingham Connect East service. “So this service operates between Buckingham County and destinations in Charlottesville and Albemarle County,” Palchick said. “Those destinations include downtown Charlottesville, the University hospital, Martha Jefferson Hospital and the Westminster Canterbury retirement community.” Westminster Canterbury is the 14th largest employer in Albemarle County. A slide from the July 28 presentation on Pantops (download)In addition to the meetings on July 26 and July 28, the consultants are holding individual meetings. The goal is to complete the study by next January in order to apply for funding from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation to pay for a pilot project.Will any of this result in a better transit system? That means to be seen. Another thing I encourage people to see is the staff report of a February 11, 2008 joint meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors and Charlottesville City Council to discuss a study for a Regional Transit Authority that would be one unified system. That never happened, but eight years later, a Regional Transit Partnership was formed to encourage collaboration between area systems. That body next meets on August 26. (RTA staff report) This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

In today’s first Patreon-fueled shout-out:With the summer heat in full swing, your local energy nonprofit, LEAP, wants you and yours to keep cool. LEAP offers FREE home weatherization to income- and age-qualifying residents. If you’re age 60 or older, or have an annual household income of less than $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!On today’s show:The executive director of the Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center talks about the sudden acquisition of a statue A look at upcoming county fairs in the areaAnd a look at upcoming meetings to talk about transit in Albemarle and CharlottesvilleVirginia posts a record surplus for FY2021When the pandemic forced the shutdown of many sectors of the economy in the spring of 2020, many predicted tough times for government budgets. However, the Commonwealth of Virginia closed fiscal year 2021 with a $2.6 billion surplus, the highest in history. Even with the slowdown, budget officials expected revenues to be about 2.7 percent over fiscal year 2020,  but total revenue collections were 14.5 percent over that year. The details will be released on August 18 at a meeting of the General Assembly’s Joint Money Committee, but preliminary information is available in this release. Though slightly outside of our area, the Fauquier County Fair began yesterday in Warrenton. The event is being held for the first time since 2018, having been canceled by the pandemic last year and by construction in 2019. The fair takes place through Sunday on grounds off of Old Auburn Road in Warrenton. There’s a rodeo on Friday night! Learn more in an article on Fauquier Now or take a look at the Fauquier County Fair website. The Madison County Fair also kicked off yesterday through Sunday. We’ve missed the donkey races but the LumberJack show of Champions is on Friday night. The Louisa County Agricultural Fair begins on July 29. The Augusta County Fair begins on July 27.  The Albemarle County Fair is a stripped-down event this year that begins on July 30 at James Monroe’s Highland. “This year the 2021 Albemarle County Fair will focus solely on the exhibition and sale of livestock,” reads a notice on the fair’s website. A group of medical professionals at the University of Virginia’s hospital for youth is opening a food pantry this month at the Battle Building on West Main Street. According to a release from what’s now known as UVA Children’s, the pantry builds on a partnership last November with the Local Food Hub’s Fresh Farmacy program that provided produce to pediatric patients and their families. An internal team put together a program to start the pantry and secured a three-year grant from Molina Healthcare as well as donations from Kroger. Here’s a link to the fundraising site if you want to contribute. The Battle Building will now have a food pantry for qualifying participants. Donate to the cause if you would like to do so. This Friday, riders of Charlottesville Area Transit will get the first of two chances to weigh in on proposed route changes that are intended to help boost ridership. A community meeting begins at noon to hear from representatives of CAT and the consultants Kimley-Horn and the Connectics Group to give public feedback on the new routes, which will extend bus service to Mill Creek. A second meeting will be held next Wednesday (Friday meeting info)But what about people in parts of Albemarle that don’t have bus service? The Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission has hired consultants to study ways to expand routes into urban sections of Albemarle, particularly on U.S. 29 north of Charlottesville, Pantops, and to Monticello. Two virtual meetings are scheduled later this month to get feedback from people with a focus on U.S. 29 north on July 26 and a focus on Pantops on July 28. These are being held through Microsoft Teams. (July 26 meeting) (July 28 meeting) (Read a StoryMap on the concept)Technically, click here for the above information. On Saturday, July 10, 2021, crews hired by the city of Charlottesville swiftly removed two statues honoring two Confederate generals from two City Parks. A few days before, Council had authorized spending up to $1 million for their removal, but a provision in the resolution cleared the way for some of that money to be used for the removal of the Lewis, Clark and Sacagawea statue that stood at the intersection of West Main Street and Ridge Street since 1919. The expedition west began in 1803 shortly after the Louisiana Purchase by President Thomas Jefferson. Just after 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, the city’s communications office put out a notice that Council would meet in an emergency session at noon. Here’s Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker.“Thank you all for coming on short notice,” Walker said. “We are trying to just maximize the opportunity that we have with the crew being in town and taking care of just the legal issue of being able to move the statue on Main Street.”To do so, Council had to adopt a motion waiving a requirement that at least five hours notice has to be given before an emergency meeting. (read the applicable City Code provision)City Manager Chip Boyles said there had been no plan to remove the Lewis and Clark and Sacagawea statue, but there was “an unforeseen opportunity” to proceed because the Confederate sculptures were removed quicker than anticipated.“The tremendous work by the city staff, the construction crews, and by our community support, has given the city an opportunity to finalize the interest that was provided by Council on November 15 of 2019 and then funded on Council on July 7, 2021,” Boyles said. “Council has been clear in their interest to relocate the Sacagawea, Lewis, and Clark statue to another location that’s either owned or co-owned by the city.”Such a location is at Darden-Towe Park, which is co-owned by Albemarle and Charlottesville. Along the banks of the Rivanna River is the Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center, which is run by executive director Alexandria Searls, who was contacted shortly before the emergency meeting. The item on the agenda was simply to relocate the statue, and not to transfer ownership. That will have to happen at a later date. Searls said the center would not take the statue without provisions. “It would be my hope that to eventually if you decided to give us ownership of the statue to actually have provisions agreed to first about the type of interpretation because under my leadership, interpretation agreed with the Native Americans of Virginia and the Shoshone is highly important and I would want to ensure that for the future regardless of whether I’m there or not,” Searls said. Searls said she would want to work with the Native American Student Union at the University of Virginia on interpretation efforts, as well as interpretations from others, particularly from Sacagawea’s own tribe. “The Shoshone, the way that they would like the statue to be interpreted is of paramount importance,” Searls said. “Indigenous women are going missing to an alarming extent. Faces and people are disappearing. So one of the things that the statue in a way interprets is moving beyond sort of the white person fixation on Sacagawea and the way they contextualize her to a larger view of people who are living today and how they are represented.”Rose Abrahamson is the great, great, great-niece of Sacagawea and she offered to Council her support to the statue’s transition to the Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center. She had the chance to speak before the vote.“Mayor, Councilors, city, I would like to say that we have come a long way,” Abrahamson said. “We have come a long way to become the human tribe that we should be and come together in unity and come together to educate our young and our future generations.”Abrahamson said the statue’s new location at the Lewis and Clark Center would not be offensive, and a depiction of her ancestor that she personally finds offensive can be used to address a contemporary crisis.“It can educate the public to the missing, murdered Indigenous Women, the plight of women in our society, the Native women,” Abrahamson said. Crews lift bronze representations of Lewis and Clark and Sacagawea into the air with the Lewis and Clark building in the backgroundWithin two hours of the vote, the city shut down the intersection of West Main, Ridge and McIntire by driving public works trucks into strategic positions. That allowed the same crew to come in to remove the bronze sculpture from its granite plinth.At 2:31 p.m. a crane lifted the sculpture into the air eliciting cheers from the assembled crowd. The sculpture was placed on a flatbed trucks and taken straight to Darden Towe Park where Alexandria Searls was waiting to let them the crew in to drop off the sculpture. It has been placed temporarily on a square of wooden beams behind a orange mesh fence. In February, the city had sent out a request for information for groups interested in receiving the statue, and the Lewis and Clark was just one of groups that fulfilled that request. I spoke to Searls inside the Lewis and Clark Center on Monday about the process that got the statue there, and what comes next. Searls:We were founded right before the Bicentennial and we teach the skills of exploration as well as the local and national history of the Lewis and Clark expedition.Tubbs:Can you just describe where we’re sitting?Searls:We are sitting along the banks of the Rivanna River and we are right underneath the Southwest Mountains as well as near the birthplace of George Rogers Clark. The land that we’re on was once very important to the Monacan nation as part of a whole interconnected group of villages along the Rivanna, or what we call the Rivanna. We don’t know their name for the river. Later this was owned by Jonathan Clark who was the grandfather of William Clark. Tubbs: Now it’s been almost a year and a half since the City Council decided to vote to remove the statue. At that time, was there any interest of it coming over here?Searls:There was interest in it coming over but we didn’t want to lobby for a certain outcome because we felt that it was owned by the community and we wanted to value what the community decision was. So we made it clear that we were open to receiving it if that ended up being the decision. I sent a letter to Council at that point saying that if you move it, we are open to receiving it. Tubbs:Well, let’s go back to that because it seems a bit intractable. I think it was last year when the Council said yet again ‘we’d like to see proposals.’ Can you just talk a little about… obviously it’s here now but before it was here, can you give a sense of what are some of the planning things you need to just to anticipate the possibility of it coming here? Searls:That’s an interesting question because it wouldn’t be here right now if I had not done more work than the [Request for Information] asked for. The county of Albemarle has been a wonderful partner to us. And the park people here are amazing. This park is run so well. And when we answered the call for the RFI, I was taking it very seriously. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t promising something that the county wasn’t going to like and I wanted to research and do everything from how we were going to afford somebody to move it to what the site plan requirements are and I got started on this and I was writing a proposal. I talked to the engineer who prepared At the Ready to be moved. I had the figures. Turned out they didn’t even want to know the figures. So when I said I’m getting the permission of the Board of Supervisors to do this, I was told ‘this RFI is not supposed to be detailed. You’re supposed to write a one page proposal and if we like it we’ll ask you to make a long one. I’m really glad I didn’t listen to that because I basically said ‘Albemarle County is my partner and I’m not going to put in an idea for a proposal without them.’ I had before the day of the emergency meeting approached City Hall, not the Councilors, but the City Hall, to be an option for that because with so little money that we have, I knew that this might be the only opportunity to have it here at least for a while. And we used it today in an educational program for the first time so that was exciting.On the other hand, I also started researching the statue and through a genealogist I located the grandchildren of the sculptor.Tubbs:Who was the sculptor?Searls:The sculptor was Charles Keck. He also did the Jackson that was removed. He did both of those. And I was preparing if we were to receive the statue to do a complete evaluation of what the interpretation would be. So I also consulted art historians, I talked to Indigenous historians, I have begun to read books written about Lewis and Clark in the early 1900’s to get an idea of the mindsets of the time when it was created.Tubbs:And when was it created? Was it created for a specific purpose?Searls:That’s an interesting story because it was created as a commission but they only commissioned Lewis and Clark. They did not commission Sacagawea so basically the sculptor decided to add her and that is significant from what I found out from the family because he was a sculptor that took any commission that went his way because he had lost an amazing amount of money in one of the crashes. He owed his best friend who bailed him out about $100,000 and that’s a lot now but it was even more then. So he wasn’t in a position to be discriminate and could no longer do the sculptures that he wanted to do. So basically she was the only sculpture that he did that he wanted to do. And I haven’t sorted that through completely but it was just one aspect of what I wanted to know about the situation.Tubbs:So one of the critiques of the statue for many years has been that Sacagawea is cowering. Others say that she’s searching. I don’t know the statue that well, but isn’t that part of the interpretation process?Searls:Yes, and I’ve got to say here that I’m not finished coming up with my own reactions to this statue. But let me back up by saying that there’s an interesting phenomenon going on and that’s the phenomenon that when something is up, that means its endorsed. And that is not part of my belief at all. I think a statue whose original intent — and I’m not really talking about specifically about Lewis and Clark, I’m talking all statues —  was one thing, like to glorify a hero that might not be deserving of glory or to reveal the power of the ruler, ruling class. Just because you leave it up doesn’t mean you agree with it. For example, when I look at that Lewis and Clark statue, even though its meant to glorify them as heroes, I do not think that they were flawless heroes. In fact, a lot of what we do here is examine their failings actually. What do you think?Tubbs:Well, I’m still just trying to figure it out because its interesting. If you look at the three statues that were taken down on Saturday, two of them are in an undisclosed location and may never ever see the light of day. We don’t know yet. But at least with this one, it will have a new life, potentially here, especially if you can get some funding to do the proper interpretation and to install it in some way that maybe you haven’t figured out yet. But at least there’s a sense of ‘well, at we’re going to melt it down as one of the descendants said on Saturday.Searls: One phrase that I think of a lot, not just on these issues but in general is that: In war, treat your victories like a funeral. And to me that means if you’re in a war, someone is dying and even if you win you shouldn’t rejoice because it’s better not to demonize your opponent. It’s better to look at them with some empathy of their dead or of their situation. It’s better not to immediately assume that someone who wants to melt down a statue resembles the Taliban. Maybe they don’t. Or it’s better not to think that someone who wants the statues to stay in place is a racist because maybe they aren’t. I get reasons and viewpoints. I receive emails, calls. I’ve listened. And I think that it’s dangerous on so many levels to rejoice in the face of the people who are crying, because any victory anybody somebody is crying. So my effort here is to find a way of compromising even if that might not be possible but at least a way to respect different viewpoints and to let people come to new viewpoints.It’s important to realize that when you have your dead that other people have theirs. For example, if somebody looks at that statue and only sees a heroic Lewis and Clark and doesn’t see the Trail of Tears that followed soon afterwards, that’s celebrating something without crying for the other side. You’re reading to Charlottesville Community Engagement and an interview with Alexandria Searls of the Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center. We’ll be back to that in just a moment. In today’s second Patreon-fueled shout-out: The Rivanna Conservation Alliance is looking for a few good volunteers to help out on Clean Stream Tuesdays, a mile and a half paddle and clean-up to remove trash and debris from popular stretches of the Rivanna River. Trash bags, trash pickers, gloves, and hand sanitizer/wipes will be provided, though volunteers will need to transport themselves to and from the end points. Kayaks for the purpose can be rented from the Rivanna River Company. Visit the Rivanna Conservation Alliance's volunteer page to learn more about upcoming dates.The two male figures continue to look west from their temporary locationThe Lewis, Clark and Sacagawea statue is now on the grounds of the Center inside of Darden Towe Park, which is jointly owned by Albemarle and Charlottesville. Searls said the statue is very different close-up than from where it stood for 102 years and there’s a bit of a mystery. Searls:You know, I still haven’t decided if it’s three people or four people in the statue. I can see the fourth person perhaps now that I can get close to it. When the Shoshone were here, we talked about the terrible plight of missing Indigenous women and since Sacagawea is somewhat missing in terms of when you look at that composition, she’s like down there, and there’s taking up space with their guns. The ultimate sort of disappearing is actually disappearing and never being seen again. And that’s what’s happening to young women today.In terms of white Americans revering Sacagawea at different points because she helped them or she was seen as friendly to white explorers, but really what I would like to see in terms of Indigenous people is really seeing the people of today. And one of the women who came, Dustina Abrahamson, had suggested the statue could be used as some sort of a starting point for people making new art and making people see the people who are disappearing. And I’ve been following her Facebook page since they visited in 2019 and I’ve seen a relative of hers go missing and I’ve seen other challenges that happen in Indigenous communities so I think we need to move beyond these handful of icons that we’ve put up and move into the thousands of native people who are actually here.Tubbs:What can this Center do? Obviously, the whole point is to draw awareness of this past but yet not to say ‘it was this way’ or ‘it was that way.’ People who visit here, what do you want them to takeaway? Do you need the statue to do this?Searls:My staff and I were talking about this today. I don’t think we need anything except the woods, the river, and a place to rest in between. Our programs are very oral. We get all this knowledge and we study and we interpret it and we talk to people basically. You don’t see any signs here telling you what to think about anything. I arrived in Charlottesville on the Greyhound bus or Trailways or whatever it was back then with my duffel bag to be a first year at UVA. I came out of that door with my duffel and there were taxis and there was that statue. I went to high school in New York City and I wasn’t impressed with the statue. All I saw were a bunch of guns and it’s hard for me to imagine that it would become part of my life. And I didn’t even see her. I just saw two men. I didn’t know what it was whatsoever. Let’s go back to what I said about are there three people or four in that sculpture? At first I only thought there were only two when I first arrived in Charlottesville so one of the preeminent art historians, Malcolm Bell from UVA, said that there four people in that sculpture and that she was holding a baby and there’s a cradle-board and the baby’s in there. I didn’t see it. And even though he’s famous with books, I was willing to think he wasn’t right. Then when I encountered the sculpture over there, I saw that he’s very possibly right. And it puts a new spin on it because when you get close you can see that William Clark’s hand and hers are touching along a piece of wood. And they’re both holding it up. You can see a sack in there and you can see more of an extension of something in there in the back. She’s sitting on some rocks and he’s helping her carry that as she’s leaning forward and they’re meant to be on the cliffs looking at the Pacific and so she’s looking down at the ocean and William Clark is looking just ahead and then Meriwether Lewis on top is looking at the far distance and that’s definitely a hierarchy. I mean, it’s Lewis preeminent, William Clark, and then the woman in the way that she is.But it does matter to me whether she’s holding a baby or not and he’s helping her hold whatever it is. So, I haven’t asked Professor Bell what the documentation of this is because I know the sculptor did not take notes of any extent. Now, he did have a collection of books so I think the answer is in what he would have read about Lewis and Clark back then and I read a book written in 1905 about Sacagawea and she never let her baby out of her sight. She was always carrying that baby. So I’m of the opinion now that there are four people in that statue. I’m not 100 percent sure, but I say this to say I’m not exactly sure what’s going on with that statue. I know he wanted to honor her. I know he wasn’t trying to degrade her.And that is important to me. If I felt like he had tried, I would not have wanted that here. And there are people I’m sure who do think that was his goal.Tubbs:So it’s only been here for two days as we’re talking. Now it’s here. You still have the interpretive work. You’re not finished with the work that you thought you were going to have to do to get it here. Suddenly it’s here. How do you feel?Searls: I feel excited. I mean, it is pretty amazing to see these huge faces being pulled up the hill. I was waiting at the gate. I let them in at the gate. It took hours. They told me it would be 20 minutes but I was there for hours. So I opened up the gate and then the cortege comes through.  A flatbed. A trailer. A crane. And about 30 cars with lights. To see them all go up the hill and to see those faces going towards the Center was pretty amazing. I wasn’t at the removal of the Confederate statues but they seemed to be moving backwards with their rears so it was sort of more like they were riding out of town whereas this felt like they were arriving and it was pretty amazing.A close-up of the base of the statueTubbs:You said you were excited about this. What are some of the possibilities now?Searls: I think that some of the possibilities [are] that if you’re showing something that is painful to some other people, it requires some work together. And I do think that out of this will come more partnerships with Native Americans about Indigenous representation and I think that we’ll all be more aware. And the park guy said that a woman this morning came and put up a sign up by the statue briefly that this is Native land and she took a picture of the statue with it and then left. But we teach that this is Native land. We teach about the Monacans. We regularly every two years are invited by to different tribes out west as part of being in a Lewis and Clark group. I think that the focus will be even more on that and I am certainly learning much more. I’m reading Jeff Hantmann’s book Monacan Millennium right now, and I’m reading more about Sacagawea and the attitudes that have been about her throughout the decades. So I think it will make those realities more of the story. Not less. Tubbs:You said that you used it today in the camp. How so?Searls:So, when the kids came, they’re 8 to 11, we all walked over there. And actually I invited their parents too because it is a camp that’s about history and it is about exploration and it is actually historic when a 100-year-old monument moves so I wanted them to be part of that history and the first group.And I basically said: Is there a baby there? This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

In today’s subscriber-supported information announcement. This shout-out is in celebration of Stewart Johnston's birthday. In celebration, please consider donating to your favorite environmental charity in his honor. I’ll put a list at the end of the newsletter. Here’s to you, Stewart, and hope you have a good day. On today’s show:Solar panels are being planned for the long-closed Ivy Landfill The Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority is briefed on what to do with land for the never-built Buck Mountain reservoirOne candidate for City Council has failed to make the primary ballot and another’s slot is still pending The Charlottesville Area Community Foundation make a multimillion commitment to an affordable housing projectAnd the Local Food Hub moves its drive-through market to new location  Only four of the five candidates in the race for two Democratic nominations to City Council have qualified for the June 8 primary, and another’s slot is still pending. Yas Washington did not obtain the 125 signatures of registered city voters required to get on the ballot. That means Carl E. Brown, Brian Pinkston and Juandiego Wade are on the ballot, and the registrar’s office is still waiting to finalize Josh Carp’s paperwork. Carp did turn in at least 125 signatures but has additional paperwork that must be received by tomorrow at 5 p.m.However, a staff member in the Charlottesville registrar’s office told me this morning that Washington can still qualify for the November ballot as an independent should she choose to do so. In 2009, candidate Andrew Williams failed to qualify for the ballot in the Democratic primary, but later ran as a write-in candidate. Williams did qualify for the general election ballot in 2011 as an independent candidate.  Stay tuned for more information about upcoming campaign forums. The Charlottesville School Board has voted to designate Jim Henderson as the Acting Superintendent of the city school system. He’ll take over from Rosa Atkins, who retires as of May 31 and is taking a position in the Virginia Department of Education. Henderson worked in Charlottesville Schools for more than 40 years before retiring in 2020. He began as a teacher at Clark Elementary in 1975. (read more)Source: Charlottesville City SchoolsThe Charlottesville Area Community Foundation has made its largest ever grant with $4.25 million going to Piedmont Housing Alliance for their redevelopment of land on U.S. 29. Piedmont Housing is working with the Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless and Virginia Supportive Housing to redevelop the Red Carpet Inn site for a total of 140 units that will be guaranteed to be rented at prices for people with extremely low and very low incomes. Eboni Bugg is the director of programs for the CACF. “This first came on our radar last April when we received a grant application from TJACH and PACEM and the Haven regarding wanting to ensure that there was a non-congregate option for our homeless community members so that they could weather the pandemic without being in congregate shelter,” Bugg said.The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors rezoned the land for the project in February. The Red Carpet Inn will continue to be used as a shelter by TJACH in the short-term as the project moves forward. Bugg said the CACF’s investment is made in the spirit of community health. There will be an update on grant at an event on April 15. Anthony Haro of the Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless (TJACH) speaks with Eboni Bugg of the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation at the Red Carpet inn (Credit: CACF)Plans are being crafted to install solar panels atop 12 acres of the Ivy Landfill, which has been closed since 1998. The facility is now run by the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority to oversee a remediation program and now contains a Materials Utilization Center where people can discard various items. Dominion Power has been working on the project since 2017, but legislation allowing Dominion and Appalachian Power to proceed with solar energy facilities didn’t become law until last April. Phil McKalips is the director of solid waste. “We just found out about a month ago that our project has been selected by Dominion for the program,” McKalips said. “We’ve already reached out to neighbors in the area and seem to have gotten quite positive feedback from them.”Dominion will need up to a year to finalize interconnection agreements and construction could get underway next spring. The facility will be owned by the Community Power Group and not by Dominion, who will purchase the energy from CPG. They will pay the RSWA $800 per acre per year for a 20-year period. “There is a possibility of later on adding one megawatt, basically 50 percent increase if Dominion seems to think that will be advantageous,” McKalips said. Community Power Group will be responsible for maintaining the landscape and the panels. Albemarle County will need to grant a special use permit for the project. Under the plans, Dominion will get all of the green energy credits associated with the project. Source: Rivanna Solid Waste Authority meeting packet for March 23, 2021You’re reading Charlottesville Community Engagement. What do you know about rock music? Want to put it to the test? Join WTJU virtually on April 16 for their first-ever Trivia Night at 8 p.m. Join a team in the virtual pub and put your screens together to answer rounds of questions with themes that relate to rock, radio, and local lore. There will be merriment! There will be prizes! Trivia Night is just three days before the beginning of the rock marathon, a seven-day extravaganza to help fund the station. Visit wtju.net to learn more! After the solid waste meeting, the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority met and got a presentation on plans to continue owning and managing hundreds of acres of land in the White Hall district. “It’s up in the northern part of the county near Earlysville and Free Union,” said Andrea Bowles, the water resources manager for the RWSA      . The property was purchased in the 80’s for the proposed Buck Mountain Reservoir, but that project was abandoned when the presence of the endangered James River spinymussel was detected. That would have made permitting extremely difficult if not impossible.“There’s a total of 1,314 acres and it cost the Authority $6.95 million,” Bowles said.Some of the land is currently being used to satisfy the terms of an Army Corps of Engineers permit that allowed for the expansion of the Ragged Mountain Reservoir. “Back in 2012, we started working on our mitigation plan for the impacts that we had at Ragged Mountain Reservoir and we impacted a lot of streams and we impacted of wetlands so we used the Buck Mountain property as the stream restoration area or the stream mitigation area,” Bowles said.This meant planting of trees along Buck Mountain Creek and other waterways for a total of about 80,000 linear feet of new riparian buffers. “We planted over 40,500 trees and we placed 600 of those acres into deed restrictions,” Bowles said. In 2019, a landowner came forward to ask to buy some of the land back, and the RWSA Board directed staff to come up with a master plan for how the property should be managed.  “Whatever we’re doing up there, we want to address it through our mission and our values and our strategic plan goals,” Terry said. “So environmental stewardship, we would like to have water quality protection, operational optimization. We’d like to be efficient in how we use those properties and sustainable with the use of resources.”There are 484 acres that are leased for others for agricultural use generating about $1,900 a year in revenue and one recommendation in the plan is to increase the rents to market value. None of the deed restricted lands are leased. “And the other thing we would like to do is evaluate additional parcels for leases,” Staff has also reviewed the possibility of selling some of the land and what the development potential might be. They’re recommending demolishing one structure known as the Buck Mountain House and selling off lots, potentially netting the RWSA between $243,000 and $325,000. There’s also the issue of a bridge over a creek on RWSA land that is failing and many have liability issues. Staff is recommending removing the bridge after 2024, which is when the time RWSA will no longer need to use the bridge.Supervisor Liz Palmer said she needed to hear more voices on that last issue.“I’m just going to put out there that I think we definitely need to know what the neighbors thinks about this before we do anything and hear from them,” Palmer said. Palmer also said that other members of the Board of Supervisors have expressed concerns about selling the lots for development.“Can these be put into conservation easement to remove those development rights so we don’t have clusters of homes?” Palmer asked. No decisions were made and the plan will come back to the RWSA Board in the future.The RWSA Board was also presented with a $38.95 million budget for the next fiscal year, split between $20.533 million for operating expenses and $18,418 million in debt service. The public hearing for the budget will be held on May 25. Last year, the RWSA drew about a million from its reserves in order to prevent rate increases. Bill Mawyer is the executive director of the RWSA.“As we move forward into the next year we have reduced that contribution from our reserve  funds,” Mawyer said. The charges to the Charlottesville Department of Utilities will be increased by 7.6 percent and the charges to the Albemarle County Services Authority will increase by 14.3 percent. The RWSA sells water to the city and the ACSA on a wholesale basis, and those two entities retail rates for individual customers. The RWSA budget has more than doubled since 2007 due to capital projects to expand capacity and to make upgrades to becoming compliant with Virginia Department of Environmental Quality mandates. According to a cost-share allocation, Albemarle can expect larger increases in rates to cover the cost of increased capacity and redundancy. For a year now, the Local Food Hub has been running a drive-through market in order to connect local food producers with customers. They’ve done so in the parking lot of the former K-Mart, but have recently moved to a different space. The market now operates at Seminole Square Shopping Center on land owned by the Great Eastern Management Company. “We’ve realized over the past year that the desire for safe and convenient access to local food is strong and enduring,” said Local Food Hub Executive Director Kristen Suokko in a press release. “As the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel continues to brighten, we remain committed to bridging the gaps between our community and our farmers as effectively as we can.”The market operates on a preorder-only, drive-through basis. Ordering for the Wednesday market is open Thursday at 3:00pm-Monday at 2:00pm. Ordering for the Friday market is open Monday at 3:00pm-Thursday at noon. Place orders at www.localfoodhub.org/market.Some environmental organizations you might consider donating to for Stewart Johnston’s birthday:Blue Ridge Foothills ConservancyChesapeake Bay FoundationJames River AssociationNature Conservancy of VirginiaPiedmont Environmental CouncilRivanna Conservation AllianceSierra Club of VirginiaSouthern Environmental Law CenterVirginia Conservation NetworkVirginia Native Plant SocietyVirginia Outdoors FoundationWild Virginia This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

In today’s Patreon fueled shout-out: The Local Energy Alliance Program, your local energy nonprofit, wants to help you lower your energy bills, make your home more comfortable, and save energy. Schedule your Home Energy Check-Up to get started - now only $45 for City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County residents. You’ll receive energy-saving products and expert advice customized to your needs. Sign up today!In today’s newsletter:Albemarle zoning appeals board upholds North Pointe construction entranceSupervisor Donna Price talks budget, broadband, Biscuit Run Local Food Hub to continue drive-through markets each Today is the last day to comment on a draft affordable housing plan for CharlottesvilleToday the Virginia Department of Health reports 2,417 new cases of COVID-19 in Virginia, and the seven-day average for positive PCR tests has increased to 8.3 percent. Governor Ralph Northam is scheduled to address the Commonwealth at 2 p.m. today. He is not expected to announce any new restrictions, according to a tweet from NBC12 reporter Henry Graff. Source: Virginia Department of Health*The Albemarle Board of Zoning Appeals has ruled that a temporary construction road for the North Pointe development is compliant with the county’s rules and regulations. A former county employee who lives on Pritchett Lane had argued that the original zoning had not authorized the use of his road for construction traffic. “When I worked in zoning for almost 14 years I was taught by the previous zoning administrator and the county attorney that you must always find where a proposed use is allowed, not prohibited because the zoning ordinance is an inclusive ordinance,” said Stewart Wright, adding that his interpretation of the code was that nothing was written down to allow the road to be used for construction traffic. “Construction access points along Pritchett Lane were never proposed by the developer, they were not shown as an element of the approved application plan, and therefore were never reviewed by staff, the Planning Commission, or the Board of Supervisors,” Payne said. The current zoning administrator, Bart Svoboda, had a different interpretation. “There was no prohibition to prohibit construction access on Pritchett Lane,” said Bart Svoboda, the county’s zoning administrator. Deputy county attorney Andy Herrick agreed. “I appreciate the appellant’s frustration and I am sure that the residents of Pritchett Lane don’t appreciate the additional construction traffic and I certainly sympathize with that, but I would say that the unmet expectations there are the result of a fundamental misunderstanding of the special use permit conditions,” said deputy county attorney Andy Herrick. Several people spoke during the public hearing, but the Board of Zoning Appeals must make their rulings based on interpretation of the code, and not public opinion. BZA member Marcia Joseph said she lives across the street from an active construction site and understands the frustration. However, she said that construction entrances are often depicted as part of the erosion and sediment control plan.  That was the case with North Pointe, according to testimony from David Mitchell with the firm Great Eastern Management Company. “The contractor, Faulconer Construction, they got a land use permit from VDOT and they have permission from VDOT to enter at that point and presumably VDOT has assessed that is an acceptable location,” Mitchell said. The BZA voted 5-0 to uphold the county’s determination. Credit: Stewart Wright*It has been over a year since Donna Price was elected to represent the Scottsville Magisterial District on the Albemarle Board of Supervisors, and by now she and her fellow Supervisors would have had held several town hall meetings. However, the pandemic has put that on hold until now. Last night, Price became the second Supervisor to hold a virtual event to take questions from constituents and to give fiscal updates.“We are just at the early stages of preparing our budget for next year,” Price said. “There is great uncertainty as to what that budget will actually end up being. The county gets most of its revenue through property taxes and while residential real estate seems to be doing quite well at the market, that does not necessarily means all of our owners of residential property are equally doing as well financially.” Price said the recent announcement by State Farm that its workers will continue to work remotely and not at the operations center is a demonstration that the market for commercial real estate may be dropping. During the hour-long session, Price said she had concerns about converting agricultural lands to solar panel fields, wants the county to do more to help provide more rural broadband, and that the county should update a policy that discourages building cell towers. “I would rather see a cell tower on a hill and know that my neighbors have the ability to call 9-11 in an emergency and have access to the Internet or their business or their child’s schooling,” Price said. Price also announced that Southern Development has asked to defer a hearing on the Breezy Hill rezoning near Glenmore from December 16 to January 20. She said she would want any altered proposal to go back to the Planning Commission. Someone asked Price why the county was taking on opening of a park at Biscuit Run. The land had been slated for development, but was purchased by-then Governor Tim Kaine in late 2009 in order to become a park. In January 2018, the county agreed to take on the responsibility and leased the park from the state. The construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline was to have brought $5 million to help pay for its infrastructure, but that project has been canceled. Price said eventually the county will find a way to proceed.“In time, and it’s not going to be this year or next year, but in time, Biscuit Run will be for Albemarle County what First Landing State Park has been to Virginia Beach, and I think we just have to be patient and continue to work the success that I really think we’re going to be able to get.”Price said supported an idea from one attendee that a nature education center be included at Biscuit Run, but said that might not be in the first iteration of the park when it is able to open. *The Charlottesville-Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization met yesterday and adopted a new version of its plan to ensure environmental justice for different groups of people. However, there will be a more complete review of the MPO’s Title VI document in the near future.“We are going to do a study on equity in transportation to learn more about the minority groups and how our transportation planning is affecting them and where they are and connect with them and find out what they want,” said Lucinda Shannon with the Thomas Jefferson Planning District.   *Today is the last day to submit comments on a draft affordable housing plan put together by consultants hired by Charlottesville City Council to complete the Comprehensive Plan. As of yesterday, Rhodeside and Harwell had received nearly 200 responses to a request to comment on the plan as well as the guiding principles for the comp plan. People are asked to review the materials on the Cville Plans Together website before filling out the survey. The consultants will revise the draft plan and the goal is to return to City Council with a revised version in January. (survey)These are the draft Comprehensive Plan principles. What do you think? Let the the consultants know. *During the pandemic, the Local Food Hub has continued to connect local agriculture with local customers through drive-through markets held in the parking lot of the former K-Mart Building. The nonprofit has recently announced they will keep going in 2021 after taking a brief break after December 18. The markets will resume Wednesday and Friday from 3:30-5:00 p.m. beginning on January 13. Order taking for that market will begin on January 7. (order) “Developed in response to COVID, the market has been operating since March, and has done over $600,000 in sales,” said Portia Boggs, the director of advancement and communications for the Local Food Hub. According to a press release, vendors at the market include Recurring vendors at the market include: Agriberry, Back Pocket Provisions, Bellair Farm, Caromont Farm, Clover Top Creamery, Carter Mountain Orchard, delli Carpini, Forking Creations, Free Union Grass Farm, Gathered Threads, Gillispie's County Line, good phyte foods, Foresthill Firewood, JAM According to Daniel, Fairweather Farm, Little Hat Creek Farm, Lone Light Coffee, MarieBette Cafe and Bakery, Millstream Farm, Mountain Culture Kombucha, Sussex Farm, Sweet Greens Farm, Elysium Honey Company, Wandering River, Twenty Paces, Pachamama Peru, and The Pie Chest.Some of the items that can be purchased through the Local Food Hub’s drive-through market. (Credit - Local Food Hub)*Today in meetings, the Albemarle Board of Supervisors meets and will have discuss the possibility of levying a tax on cigarettes, will get an audited financial report for the last fiscal year, and will consider a private sewer system for the new Regents School on Fontaine Road Extended. On the consent agenda is a report on the Land Use and Environmental Planning Committee, a group of city, county and University staff that replaced a group that consisted of elected officials top UVA officials. (report)Tonight at 7 p.m., the Albemarle-Charlottesville Historical Society will host the the head of the First Amendment Museum in Augusta, Maine, as part of a new series they are calling Unregulated Historical Meanderings. (zoom registration) (Facebook page)Support my research by making a donation through PatreonSign for a subscription to Charlottesville Community Engagement, free or paidPay me through Venmo This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

Today on “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg,” Dani interviews Kristen Suokko, Executive Director of Local Food Hub. They discuss the impact the impact COVID-19 is having on small farms in Virginia. Suokko shares how Local Food Hub is helping make sure food from local farms reaches local customers. She also discusses how local food systems might look in the future as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. While you’re listening, subscribe, rate, and review the show; it would mean the world to us to have your feedback. You can listen to “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg” wherever you consume your podcasts.

Riverton Local Ladies host Bethany Baldes and Fremont Local Food Hub Podcast host Jack Scmidt sat down this week to discuss a variety of subjects in the Porters 10Cast Studio. They give an update on the Fremont Local Food Hub, Bethany’s adventure into local politics, Wyoming legislation, local agriculture, and much more. Riverton Local Ladies […]

Jack Schmidt's vision for a Fremont County "food hub," continues to take shape. In the spring of 2019, Jack told County 10 he was moving forward with a plan to create a facility that would serve Wyoming-produced meals, allow food entrepreneurs to use a certified shared kitchen, and where folks could sell their products. In October 2019, the plan moved from an idea in Jack's mind to a physical building. The Riverton Local Food Hub opened and began operations in the former Airport Cafe at Riverton Regional Airport. Step one was opening the kitchen to serve travelers and locals breakfast and lunch. Now, the food hub continues to expand. One issue that Jack regularly runs into is travelers who don't necessarily have enough time to sit down and enjoy a meal. So, he's got a plan to bring Wyoming made snacks and meals to the travelers. County 10 reporter Amanda Fehring recently caught up with Jack. Together, they sat down over a meal and discussed the expansion plans on the County 10 Podcast. CLICK HERE FOR THE PODCAST! Or, as always, you can ask your smart speaker to play the County 10 Podcast or find it on your favorite podcast app! http://media.blubrry.com/10cast/content.blubrry.com/10cast/County_10_Podcast_On-Location-1-Riverton-Local-Food-Hub.mp3%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%201-28_Dan_Carter.mp3   The County 10 Podcast is recorded in the Porter's 10Cast Studio. To contact the show, e-mail: 10Cast@County10.com Shows are made possible by: Elevate Rehab: Hand and Orthopedic Physical Therapy Rendezvous Dental Belles and Beaus Clothing Boutique Wyoming Department of Transportation Shoshone Rose Casino.  

Jack Schmidt's vision for a Fremont County "food hub," continues to take shape. In the spring of 2019, Jack told County 10 he was moving forward with a plan to create a facility that would serve Wyoming-produced meals, allow food entrepreneurs to use a certified shared kitchen, and where folks could sell their products. In October 2019, the plan moved from an idea in Jack's mind to a physical building. The Riverton Local Food Hub opened and began operations in the former Airport Cafe at Riverton Regional Airport. Step one was opening the kitchen to serve travelers and locals breakfast and lunch. Now, the food hub continues to expand. One issue that Jack regularly runs into is travelers who don't necessarily have enough time to sit down and enjoy a meal. So, he's got a plan to bring Wyoming made snacks and meals to the travelers. County 10 reporter Amanda Fehring recently caught up with Jack. Together, they sat down over a meal and discussed the expansion plans on the County 10 Podcast. CLICK HERE FOR THE PODCAST! Or, as always, you can ask your smart speaker to play the County 10 Podcast or find it on your favorite podcast app! http://media.blubrry.com/10cast/content.blubrry.com/10cast/County_10_Podcast_On-Location-1-Riverton-Local-Food-Hub.mp3%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%201-28_Dan_Carter.mp3   The County 10 Podcast is recorded in the Porter's 10Cast Studio. To contact the show, e-mail: 10Cast@County10.com Shows are made possible by: Elevate Rehab: Hand and Orthopedic Physical Therapy Rendezvous Dental Belles and Beaus Clothing Boutique Wyoming Department of Transportation Shoshone Rose Casino.  

Riverton Local Ladies host Bethany Baldes catches up with Fremont Food Hub podcast host and Riverton Local Food Hub Executive Director Jack Schmidt. Jack catches us up on the local food scene, they chat about current events, politics, and much more! Riverton Local Ladies is recorded in the Porter’s 10Cast studio in the County10.com offices. […]

We are finishing up our In Her Boots series with Halee Wepking of Meadowlark Organics, talking about the bright future of organic local grains and the role women can play. From planting regional-specific grains to starting a mill, there are lots of business opportunities to think about. In Her Boots Podcast The In Her Boots Podcast celebrates the collaborative spirit of women farmers, sharing ideas and inspiration with each other, and champions women farmers in the sustainable and organic farming movement. Whether you’re a woman with a dream of starting your own farm or already have your hands deep in the soil, there’s something for you here. Hosted by Lisa Kivirist, founder and coordinator of the In Her Boots project. A farmer herself, Lisa runs Inn Serendipity Farm and B&B with her family in Wisconsin and is the author of Soil Sisters: A Toolkit for Women Farmers. Audio engineer is Liam Kivirist of Techsocket.net. Funded initially by NorthCentral SARE. This podcast is available on iTunes and Stitcher. ________________________________________________________________________ Halee Wepking of Meadowlark Organics Episode 108: Halee Wepking on Marketing Local Grains We continue with Halee Wepking of Meadowlark Organics to talk about how she direct markets organic grains to local bakeries and consumers. There are legalities to navigate, she cautions, as she shares how important it is to educate bakers when you’re trying to sell them on grains that are new to them. Episode 107: Halee Wepking on Marketing through Local Food Hub to Manage Risk Artisanal bakers and craft brewers have created a demand for local grains. Halee Wepking of Meadowlark Organics explains how to access these markets and manage risk by marketing through a regional food hub. Episode 106: My Farm Story with Halee Wepking Today we sit down with Halee Wepking as she shares how a Craigslist ad and a unique land transition plan launched her family’s farm, Meadowlark Organics. From a degree in modern dance to stints as a professional cook, Halee’s inspiring journey reminds us to follow our heart and stay open to opportunities. Halee Wepking and her husband, John, run Meadowlark Organics, working with Paul Bickford on his 800-acre farm, shifting the focus from organic feed crops to a diversity of food-grade small grains, buckwheat, edible dry beans, and open-pollinated corn. Halee is mom to two young kids, Henry and Lyda, and also manages a grass-fed beef herd.

Artisanal bakers and craft brewers have created a demand for local grains. Halee Wepking of Meadowlark Organics explains how to access these markets and manage risk by marketing through a regional food hub. Halee Wepking and her husband, John, run Meadowlark Organics, working with Paul Bickford on his 800-acre farm, shifting the focus from organic feed crops to a diversity of food-grade small grains, buckwheat, edible dry beans, and open-pollinated corn. Halee is mom to two young kids, Henry and Lyda, and also manages a grass-fed beef herd.

Abdul speaks with Rebecca Clayton of the Seed FoodHub ahead of the Carrot stock food and music festival this Saturday September 21 at the Everdale Farm. An encore presentation. https://www.theseedguelph.ca/ https://www.theseedguelph.ca/carrotstock http://everdale.org/

Healing Work. It's pretty fashionable to be a chef these days. But it's not always about the $40 plate. It's also about the $5 plate and the hard-working chefs toiling to create fresh, healthy, and yes, DELICIOUS food in America's hospitals. Meet Chef Otis Sims and Executive Chef Denis Callinan of UVA Hospital Nutrition Services. Classically trained culinary professionals making sure patients, staff, visitors, and folks in our community are getting the very best, most flavorful, and healthy dishes possible. This is high-level cooking. Have you eaten at UVA Hospital lately? This isn't mushy potatoes, greasy pizza, and Jell-O squares. I'm talking made-to-order shrimp and grits, fried chicken, and barbecue smoked for 18-20 hours on-site! Chef Otis Sims and I talk about how he learned to cook from his grandmother before heading to Johnson and Wales University in Charlotte. "Chef O" as he's known to fans has cooked at Westwood Racquet Club and the Country Club of Virginia before arriving at UVA. He loves putting his own twist on classic French cuisine and cites Thomas Keller as a personal favorite, hoping to one day eat at The French Laundry. He experiments often with his home sous-vide machine, although his son would rather be eating chicken tenders. No wonder his pork loin with honey-thyme glaze and goat cheese/chive mashed potatoes took top honors at this year's Iron Chef competition at the Tom Tom Founder's Festival! We're joined by Executive Chef Denis Callinan, who trained at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park and previously worked at William & Mary as well as several restaurants and resorts in Florida. Chef Denis doesn't just run the kitchen, but acts as a mentor, allowing Chef O and his colleagues to create menus, develop recipes, and experiment with flavors, often using the Escoffier Cookbook as a reference. Because as long as you can "Cook Outside the Box But Inside the Budget" you ensure your customers, in this case, patients, receive the best the kitchen has to offer. Because if you're a hospital patient the meal is the highlight of your day. Your first path to healing. If it tastes awful, your stay becomes that much worse. And if it does taste bad? No worries. You can expect Chefs Sims and Callinan to visit your room IN THEIR TOQUES. They make these visits regularly to gather comments, criticism, but most of the time, accolades. What other hospital does that? These chefs are breaking preconceived notions about hospital food and pride themselves on creating the best patient menus in America. Despite producing thousands of meals per day, they are committed to local sourcing. A recent acquisition of 7,000 pounds of Polyface sausage through the help of Local Food Hub (a past podcast guest), means guests can now enjoy locally-produced meats in breakfast sandwiches and dinner entrées. That's not all. Sunday nights mean 20-hour braised Texas pot roast. Grilled salmon happens on Tuesday nights. There are gyros with pickled jalapeños. Beef stroganoff made with filet mignon. You heard right, FILET MIGNON. In addition to cooking and working alongside dietitians to develop individual nutrition plans for patients, these chefs also cook for staff, visitors, and do all the catering for large hospital events. Last year's holiday party required 10,000 meals. They also provide meals for a local childcare center and Meals on Wheels. Phew! That's a TON of food! We also discuss big changes in the works for UVA Hospital Café. When it's this good you can't call it a cafeteria. When renovations are finished this December, you'll find a vertical rotisserie, new made-to-order stations, a larger dining room, and many other expanded options and choices for dining whether you're visiting a patient or just grabbing lunch. What do "Essential Employee" chefs do when there's a huge snowstorm? What produce are they not allowed to use because of extreme sanitation guidelines the hospital requires? What is the hospital doing to lower their carbon footprint? Listen to find out. After talking with Chefs Sims and Callinan, I've decided two things. I need to have lunch at the hospital way more often because it's the best-kept secret in Charlottesville. And some smart investor needs to snap up Chef O for their next restaurant. Because he's the real deal. This episode is sponsored by In A Flash Laser Engraving.

Donut Work. Or is it doughnut? When they're this great, who cares? Meet Matt Rohdie of Carpe Donut. How does a former social worker end up in the donut business? Is Matt Rohdie a Shokunin of donuts? I believe so. When starting Carpe Donut, Matt set out to make one food, using the best ingredients, and to make it really well. He wanted to create a comfort food, not necessarily uber-healthy but one every person enjoys. A treat! It came down to fries or donuts. Aren't we thankful he chose the latter because to me, Carpe Donut is head and shoulders above the rest. In this episode we learn Matt's story of how he got his first machine, how he developed his recipe, how long it took, and what sets his donuts apart from others. An important consideration for an increasingly competitive market. Did you know most donut shops use commercial batters with stabilizers? I didn't. Carpe Donuts are 85% organic, natural, additive-free. A warm, apple cider Carpe Donut covered in cinnamon sugar alongside a hot coffee is a great thing indeed. I'm about to devour one in the picture! I met Matt at the Tom Tom Food Business Summit and what he had to say about running a small business was so important I knew I must have him on the podcast so he could share his knowledge. One piece of advice: having only a brick and mortar store is passé. In a market where everybody and their mother is considering a food business you've got to get creative. Figure out other revenue streams. Streams like selling wholesale and doing corporate events and weddings. Carpe Donut's 700-square-foot store is great, but it's his food truck and his wholesale business that keep him solvent, helping him expand. You can find frozen Carpe Donuts at about 100 grocery stores and distributors including Local Food Hub and Whole Foods. Just rewarm and you get 90% of what you experience in his shop. Another avenue stream that's increasingly important to food businesses are weddings, corporate events, and graduations. Big gatherings where folks eat. An entire industry has exploded in the Charlottesville area because of our wealth of wineries, bucolic vistas, and places to stay. People want to gather and eat. What does it mean for us in the future? What can we expect? In the meantime, Matt's mobile donut truck can bring the goodness to you wherever your event takes place. Its built-in machine creates 300 donuts an hour if you run it at full speed so he can serve 3000 people in a few hours. Or just me when I'm edacious. Another important aspect is providing the customer with requested items. Matt now offers lemonade, hibiscus ginger iced tea, Vietnamese coffee, churros, and King Cakes all because customers requested them for their special event. Playing around with different ideas, trying things out, and providing the best possible experience for your customer is not only fun, but keeps you successful. What's the difference between yeast and cake donuts? I thought Carpe was a cake, but it is in fact, a hybrid. Apple cider is mixed into the batter and acts like applesauce in cake batter. The crumb is light and open, very springy, not dense like a typical cake donut. What food movie influenced him the most? What children's book series continually reminds him of the many rewards of running a family-owned business? You might be surprised. It's one I consider the finest example of food writing. What is his approach to training new employees, and why is it important for him to employ artists and musicians? What food trick does he use to keep his donut batter at the right consistency? Listen to find out. I learned so much about the ever-changing food landscape in this area, why percolated coffee is supreme to drip, the ambiguities of gluten-free sensitivity, the importance of zero food waste, and the horrors of Roundup on our wheat. Great talk from a great guy. Enjoy! Then go get yourself a donut! SHOW NOTES – Links to resources talked about during the podcast: The Charlottesville 29 Restaurant Auctions - Every dollar you bid goes toward four meals for our area's hungry. TODAY IS THE LAST DAY TO BID for the chance to win a once-in-a-lifetime culinary experience! Rice, Noodle, Fish - Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture - Matt Goulding travels the country and explores chefs who dedicate their lives to Shokunin or the practice of doing one food and doing it to perfection. My vote for the best food writing of 2015 and a finalist in the 2016 IACP Awards. Incredible piece of work. THE DOUGHNUTS (from the Chicago Public Library Collection), 1963, Weston Woods - Remember this classic? I swear I saw this film every summer as a kid. Homer Price is left to run the local doughnut machine. Hilarity ensues. This episode is sponsored by In A Flash Laser Engraving.  

Meet Laura Brown, Communications & Marketing Associate for Local Food Hub (LFH). Kate Collier of Feast! started LFH, a non-profit organization, because she saw a need. A more streamlined method for local farmers to get their goods delivered to area consumers. A better way so these folks can focus on growing and making rather than logistics. LFH partners with small area farmers to distribute their product to area grocery stores, restaurants, and food banks. But that's not all they do. LFH walks farmers through new food safety regulations, helping them interpret and understand good agricultural practices. Regulations can be costly, so LFH has a cost share program, subsidizing fees for farmers to make it less of a burden. They also offer workshops like Multi-Species Grazing, Organic Orcharding, and Beekeeping, which are free to partner farms, and open to the public for a nominal fee. LFH purchases products outright, taking on full liability, alleviating the burden so farmers can prevent high insurance premiums. It also makes each piece of produce fully traceable to its source. And they pay $.80 on the dollar, much higher than grocery stores. There's a reason there's a waiting list of farms eager to join! When I toured the warehouse, I didn't see just produce. Honey, eggs, grits, cornmeal, pancake mix, vinegar, chestnuts, NoBull Burgers and even local water line the shelves. Local water? Yeah, I "poo-pooed" too, until I tasted it. Yum! Partnerships extend to the community in the form of donations to local area food banks and The Haven, but hunger relief organizations also purchase from LFH, extending the perimeter of folks able to enjoy local food. There are also programs like the Farmacy Prescription and Farm to Workplace, a pilot program with Crutchfield where the company shares in the cost of a CSA delivered to the workplace. Such programs can turn consumers into food citizens by showing them local produce isn't more expensive, and can be convenient. Good ingredients keep the workplace healthy. But probably my favorite aspect of LFH are the Community Food Awards, where LFH recognizes the efforts of farmers, customers, and partners. What a wonderful idea, particularly for the farmers who often toil endlessly without recognition. Bravo Local Food Hub. I really enjoyed talking with Laura Brown whose background is impressive. She's even spent time on Capitol Hill, but returned to her hometown of Charlottesville so she can impact her local community. And we're so glad she did. Donate today! Volunteer tomorrow! And enjoy Episode 23. Cheers! SHOW NOTES - Links to items discussed within the episode: Polyfaces - The Virginia Film Festival will be showing this movie, a profile of Joel Salatin's farm, on November 7, 2015, in partnership with Local Food Hub. Tickets can be purchased here. Watch the trailer, it will get you motivated about local food! This episode is sponsored by In A Flash Laser Engraving.  

Greetings! come join us for an informational filled program.  The kind folks at Charlottesville, Virgina, of the "Local Food Hub" will tell us why they started their Food Hub, who they service, how that impacts their area, how folks are responding to it, what more can be done, and what tips and ideas they have that may help your town start a Food Hub. The Executive Director will tell us about their Mission to have folks be knowledgeable about Food to make better menu decisions and choices.   If you have a Community Garden network where you live, please do consider doing a Food Hub in your area or town.  Do Register with the USDA so that folks can see what your town is doing, there may be companies that will sell or purchase items with you, there may be large Corporations that will lcoate where you are because you want to help the Food System.  Have Good Nutrition in your town, support those who Grow Food Locally, and make a difference.     THANKS! Have a Great Community Garden Day! Mary K. Hukill, Author and Radio Show Host Email:  communitygardenrevolution@gmail.com Books and AudioBooks:  Community Garden Revolution                                         Community Garden Revoluton Notes!