Podcasts about virginia festival

Ismée Williams is the award-winning author of the young adult novels Water in May and This Train Is Being Held, which won an International Latino Book Award for Best Young Adult Romance, and a coeditor of the anthology Boundless: Twenty Voices Celebrating Multicultural and Multiracial Identities. Her debut picture book, Abuelo, the Sea, and Me, is available for pre-order now. Coming in May 2024,  Abuelo, the Sea, and Me is a tender, heartwarming picture book that vividly explores intergenerational connections, family history, and the immigrant experience.Ismée has been an invited speaker at The Virginia Festival of the Book, The Miami Book Fair, The NYC Teen Author Festival, The Southern Kentucky Book Festival, The Texas Book Fesival and The Bronx Book Festival among others. Ismée is a co-founder of the Latinx Kidlit Book Festival as well as a pediatric cardiologist in New York City where she lives with her family. She is the daughter of a Cuban immigrant and grew up listening to her abuelo's bedtime stories. Follow her on X  and IG @IsmeeWilliams and her website: ismeewilliams.com.The Latinx KidLit Book Festival was created in 2020 during the COVID pandemic by members of Las Musas Books. Their aim was to connect Latinx authors and illustrators with readers and educators in classrooms around the globe. Since then, and with the help of countless volunteers, the festival has continued to foster a love of story and literacy as well as increase empathy and conversation among educators, students, and book lovers while uplifting the voices of Latinx kidlit book creators. https://www.latinxkidlitbookfestival.com/Support the showRead the full show notes, visit the website, and check out my on-demand virtual course. Continue the adventure at LinkedIn or Instagram. *Disclosure: I am a Bookshop.org. affiliate.

The Virginia Festival of the Book, a program of Virginia Humanities, is preparing for its 30th annual event, which will bring together writers and readers to promote and celebrate books, reading, literacy, and literary culture. The event will take place March 20-24 in Charlottesville. “We're pulling out all the stops when it comes to celebrating our 30th anniversary,” said festival director Kalela Williams. “We're starting with a 90s themed rooftop party featuring Rob Harvilla, author of 60 Songs that Explain the ‘90s, and concluding with a toast at Decipher Brewing. But the big 30th celebration everyone is talking about is...Article LinkSupport the show

On Episode 1355… the boys get their brains blown by new Ai tech that can read your thoughts through an EEG monitor, Navalny missing, Operation Volt Typhoon, Otter Smuggling, Taser Immunity, and MUCH more… Timestamps: (00:00:00) Intro (00:02:05) Join us live on youtube.com/hardfactornews - you're missing out! (00:03:50) Get your Holiday shopping in over at patreon.com/hardfactor or store.hardfactor.com (00:04:50) ‘Anti-woke: Michael Jordan declines Nike's $10 million offer' - Diving right into the Facebook comments (00:09:34) Herndon, Virginia Festival permanently canceled after more than 40 years of celebrations: Officials cite ‘staff shortages,' but one commenter has a different thought

Pamela D. Blair, Ph.D., (pamblairbooks.com) was a psychotherapist for thirty years. She is the co-author of I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye now considered a classic in bereavement literature. She is also the author of The Next Fifty Years: A Guide for Women at Midlife and Beyond and Getting Older, Better. She has appeared on national television, been a guest on dozens of radio shows, and has spoken at the Virginia Festival of the Book, the Vermont Women's Expo, Women's Images Conferences, and was filmed for a television special entitled “Widowsville." She lives in Shelburne, Vermont with her husband and two mischievous cats. Bradie McCabe Hansen, M.A. is a clinical psychologist-master in private practice who has been working in the field for over twenty years. Bradie is also a fiber artist and crafter and teaches children and adults about the wonderful world of handcrafting, both for its creative and healing possibilities. Fiber art has become an integral way that she works with people who are interested in visually expressing their lived experience. She lives in Shelburne, Vermont with her husband, two children, one dog and two cats. ABOUT THE BOOK An essential grief guide and recovery workbook for those who have said, “I thought I'd feel better by now.”   Grief does not follow a timeline or a set path. It is nonlinear and messy, doubling back on itself just when you thought you were out of the woods. Those who have experienced the loss of a loved one know this unequivocally, but Western society still seems to think that grief should only last six months to a year—tops—when in fact, grief can last throughout a person's entire life and manifest as serious mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, anger, and despair.   The Long Grief Journey, co-written by a psychotherapist and a clinical psychologist who have both worked with grieving individuals for decades, is for the people who are past the acute pain and effects of a sudden loss and are now learning to live beyond that. It is for those who by all appearances seem to have “moved on.” They're working, carrying out their responsibilities, showing up for important life events, yet they quietly bear the weight of their sadness and longing for their loved one. There's a name for this type of long-term, unresolved grief. In fact, there are several: complicated grief, traumatic grief, complex bereavement, prolonged grief, extended grief, abnormal grief, exaggerated grief, and pervasive grief disorder. If you feel "stuck" after experiencing the death of a loved one, even if much time has passed, this book is for you.   With exercises, journal prompts, and rituals that will further help readers along their grief path, The Long Grief Journey, co-written by one of the authors of the classic grief book, I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye, is designed to educate, support, and coach you to rekindle a desire to live life fully, all while still cherishing and embracing the memories of your loved one.  

It's pawpaw season! So today we have a very timely episode for you all, an interview with Neal Peterson of Peterson Pawpaws. Neal has spent decades working with Asimina triloba, collecting fruits from orchards across the Eastern United States and improving the largest tree ripened fruit of North America into the seven named cultivars that we know so well today. Allegheny, Potomac, Rappahannock, Susquehanna, Shenandoah, Tallahatchie, Wabash...you may have heard of these cultivars, but do you know how they came to be? In this episode we take a deep dive into Neal's breeding work and learn about the selection process that lead to these improved fruits release into the nursery industry. We also discuss the growing requirements for pawpaw, the culture that has evolved around this species over the past half century, food allergy/annonacin content concerns, and much more. This is an episode not to be miss missed, stick with us. Peterson Pawpaws: https://www.petersonpawpaws.com/ Places to buy pawpaws in the northeast: Cricket Hill Garden - https://www.treepeony.com/ Broken Arrow - https://www.brokenarrownursery.com/ Logees - https://www.logees.com/ Perfect Circle - https://www.perfectcircle.farm/ Upcoming festivals (shoutout to Encygropedia for this epic list!): Ohio Pawpaw Festival: https://ohiopawpawfest.com/ Frederick Maryland Festival: https://ecologiadesign.com/paw-paw-festival-longcreek-homestead/ Powhattan, Virginia Festival: https://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state-parks/event?id=2023-05-24-17-33-29-969019-x6b Pawpaws at West Farm Nursery, Branchburg, NJ: https://nofanj.org/event/farm-tour-pawpaws-at-west-farm-nursery/ 1st Annual Pawpaw Festival, Louisville, KY: https://www.louisvillenaturecenter.org/upcoming-events/2023/7/27/first-annual-pawpaw-festival York County Pawpaw Festival, York, PA: https://hornfarmcenter.org/pawpawfest/ West Virginia Pawpaw Festival, Morgantown, WV: https://arboretum.wvu.edu/wv-pawpaw-festival Annonacin Content Research: Progressive supranuclear palsy and pawpaw - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7156197/ Annonacin and Squamocin Contents of Pawpaw - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32761515/ Annonacin in Asimina triloba fruit: implication for neurotoxicity - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22130466/

Mary McDaniel Cail earned her PhD and two additional graduate degrees from the University of Virginia. Her op-eds, articles and essays have been published by the Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald, the Chicago Tribune, Maria Shriver's Architects of Change series, and the University of Virginia alumni magazine, Virginia, among others.  Alzheimer's: A Crash Course for Friends and Relatives was chosen for inclusion in the 2015 Virginia Festival of the Book, and her work to create social opportunities for Alzheimer's patients and caregivers in her community was featured on the Charlottesville, VA Newsplex series, Stephanie's Heroes. In this episode, Mary bravely shares: her experiences of profound grief; how she made it through the unthinkable and how her pain has blossomed into her life's work; the importance of informed compassion (and what that means)-- and how to be an all-weather-friend to those you love. She is the author of Alzheimer's: A Crash Course for Friends and Relatives— and her forthcoming book, Dementia and the Church: Memory, Care, and Inclusion, is to be released by Fortress Press on September 19, 2023.

September is a busy month here at Greenwood Library. Listen as Natalie and Sarah break-down all of our upcoming events in this episode:Faculty Bookplate Ceremony, September 1, Oppenheimer Gallery*, 5PMWriting for Well-Being Journaling Workshop, September 7, Greenwood Library, 1PMFamily Weekend & Heart of Virginia Festival, September 16-17Banned Books Week, September 18-24Banned Books Reading, September 21, Greenwood Library, 11AM & 3:30PMFinding Meaning in Suffering Author Talk, September 30, Radcliff Hall, 7PMThanks to mriedl, rodedawg81, sjturia, and Tuudurt for the sounds used in this episode (https://freesound.org/people/mriedl/sounds/410548/, https://freesound.org/people/rodedawg81/sounds/77065/, https://freesound.org/people/sjturia/sounds/370919/, https://freesound.org/people/Tuudurt/sounds/258142/).

After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond by Bruce Greyson. ACU Sunday Series.  Watch this interview at- https://www.vabook.org/2021/06/17/iafter-i-dr-bruce-greyson-on-near-death-experiences/ Or on YouTube at-  https://youtu.be/IXJ54zkM8f0 Dr. Bruce Greyson, author of After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond, offers a scientific perspective of near-death experiences using his forty years of research and clinical experience. His lifelong journey to understand what happens with near-death experiences results in a book about dying, but also about life and living. In conversation with Barbara Bradley Hagerty. Presented as part of the SHELF LIFE series of virtual events from the Virginia Festival of the Book, a program of Virginia Humanities. Learn more at VaBook.org.   About the Book- After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond by Bruce Greyson M.D.  March 2, 2021 The world's leading expert on near-death experiences reveals his journey toward rethinking the nature of death, life, and the continuity of consciousness. Cases of remarkable experiences on the threshold of death have been reported since ancient times, and are described today by 10% of people whose hearts stop. The medical world has generally ignored these “near-death experiences,” dismissing them as “tricks of the brain” or wishful thinking. But after his patients started describing events that he could not just sweep under the rug, Dr. Bruce Greyson began to investigate. As a physician without a religious belief system, he approached near-death experiences from a scientific perspective. In After, he shares the transformative lessons he has learned over four decades of research. Our culture has tended to view dying as the end of our consciousness, the end of our existence―a dreaded prospect that for many people evokes fear and anxiety. But Dr. Greyson shows how scientific revelations about the dying process can support an alternative theory. Dying could be the threshold between one form of consciousness and another, not an ending but a transition. This new perspective on the nature of death can transform the fear of dying that pervades our culture into a healthy view of it as one more milestone in the course of our lives. After challenges us to open our minds to these experiences and to what they can teach us, and in so doing, expand our understanding of consciousness and of what it means to be human.   Purchase the book at your favorite book seller or from Amazon/Audible at- https://www.amazon.com/After-Doctor-Explores-Near-Death-Experiences/dp/B089YWZXWF/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=   HELP ACU SPREAD THE WORD!  Please go to Apple Podcasts and give ACU a 5 star rating. Apple canceled us and now we are clawing our way back to the top. Don't let the Leftist win. Do it now! Thanks. Forward this show to friends. Ways to subscribe to the American Conservative University Podcast Click here to subscribe via Apple Podcasts Click here to subscribe via RSS You can also subscribe via Stitcher FM Player Podcast Addict Tune-in Podcasts Pandora Look us up on Amazon Prime …And Many Other Podcast Aggregators and sites   Please help ACU by submitting your Show ideas. Email us at americanconservativeuniversity@americanconservativeuniversity.com Please go to Apple Podcasts and give ACU a 5 star rating. Apple canceled us and now we are clawing our way back to the top. Don't let the Leftist win. Do it now! Thanks. Help CSI Stamp Out Slavery In Sudan Join us in our effort to free over 350 slaves. Listeners to the Eric Metaxas Show will remember our annual effort to free Christians who have been enslaved for simply acknowledging Jesus Christ as their Savior. As we celebrate the birth of Christ this Christmas, join us in giving new life to brothers and sisters in Sudan who have enslaved as a result of their faith. https://csi-usa.org/metaxas   https://csi-usa.org/slavery/   Typical Aid for the Enslaved A ration of sorghum, a local nutrient-rich staple food A dairy goat A “Sack of Hope,” a survival kit containing essential items such as tarp for shelter, a cooking pan, a water canister, a mosquito net, a blanket, a handheld sickle, and fishing hooks. Release celebrations include prayer and gathering for a meal, and medical care for those in need. The CSI team provides comfort, encouragement, and a shoulder to lean on while they tell their stories and begin their new lives. Thank you for your compassion  Giving the Gift of Freedom and Hope to the Enslaved South Sudanese

The first hint of Andy Straka's future as a mystery writer came at the age of four when he appeared at his small-town neighbor's back door carrying a butcher's knife. Thankfully, the neighbor called Andy's mother instead of social services. A bestselling, award-winning author, Andy's novels include the recently released Split City, the first in a new amateur sleuth series, the #1 bestselling private eye novel A Witness Above (part of the Shamus Award-winning Frank Pavlicek series), and a number of other crime novels and thrillers. A past finalist for the Agatha and the Anthony Awards, he is also the co-author of the inspirational memoir The Reason for Tears by Tony Weedor. Andy is a former college basketball player and licensed falconer. A graduate of Williams College, he holds an MFA from Lindenwood University, is a three time judge for the Edgar Allan Poe Award, and also co-founded the popular Crime Wave program at the annual Virginia Festival of the Book. Rumor also has it that he hails from upstate New York, where he often spent Sunday afternoons, growing up, bowling with his parents and identical twin brother.https://www.andystraka.com/ Today's episode is brought to you by John's full series of crime thrillers available right now. You can get them through Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/John-A.-Hoda/e/B00BGPXBMM%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share  You can also sign up for the newsletter at http://www.JohnHoda.com to get a free copy of John's new novella Liberty City Nights. Thank you for listening. If you have a moment to spare please leave a rating or comment on Apple Podcasts as that will help us expand the circle around our campfire. If you have any questions please feel to reach out to me via my website http://www.johnhoda.com

Victoria Chang, a 2021 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards winner for poetry, joins The Asterisk* to discuss the weather of grief, clarity in writing and her relationship with her ancestors. The daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, Chang's first two degrees, from the University of Michigan and Harvard University, were in Asian studies. But as her interest in poetry grew, she detoured into earning an MFA from Warren Wilson College. She lives in southern California and serves on the faculty at Antioch University. Her fifth collection of poetry, Obit, met with a chorus of critical praise. It won an Anisfield-Wolf prize and was a finalist for a National Book Critics Award. Anisfield-Wolf juror Rita Dove responded strongly to Obit: “At first one might think: What a gimmick, to force each poem into the narrow column of a newspaper obit! How can these compressed language gobbets be called poems, anyway? And yet after the requisite announcements (name of the deceased, time, cause of death), each obit plunges to the source of its bereavement, skewering as it darkens, until I'm left speechless, bereft, in Keats' ‘vale of soul-making.'” Chang sat down with The Asterisk* in March of 2022 at the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville, Va. 

Today’s visit to the National Day Calendar reveals what many would regard as plain old silliness. Apparently it is National Chocolate Custard Day, National Garden Meditation Day, National Two Different Colored Shoes Day and National Lumpy Rug Day. If Charlottesville Community Engagement had a budget for promotional prizes, one would go for a winning photograph in a contest to capture the essence of all four of these fantastical days. In all seriousness, May 3 is also World Press Freedom Day and I’m honored to be able to bring your this information on as many days as possible. On today’s program:The chair of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors will run for the Virginia House of Delegates Several tourist destinations across the region receive matching funds from the Virginia Tourism CorporationThe head of the Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless briefs Council on progress towards getting everybody housedAnd the Albemarle Architectural Review Board takes a first look at a project to build 81 units of permanent supportive housing Today’s first shout-out goes to LEAPWe’re now well into spring, and many of us may have already turned on our air conditioning units for the first in months. To see what you can do to get the most out of your home, contact LEAP, your local energy nonprofit, to schedule a home energy assessment this month - just $45 for City and County residents. LEAP also offers FREE home weatherization to income- and age-qualifying residents. If someone in your household is age 60 or older, or you have an annual household income of less than $74,950, you may qualify for a free energy assessment and home energy improvements such as insulation and air sealing. Sign up today to lower your energy bills, increase comfort, and reduce energy waste at home!Supervisor Price running for 55th House of Delegates The chair of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors has announced she will be a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the new 55th District for the Virginia House of Delegates, whether the next election is held this year or next. Scottsville Supervisor Donna Price announced this morning on Facebook that yesterday’s leak of a Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade prompted her to file for her candidacy. “I yesterday morning filed my campaign committee paperwork to be a candidate - whether it be this year as a result of the Federal District Court case of Goldman v. Brink; or, next year as regularly scheduled,” Price wrote.Federal Judge David Novak is currently deliberating on whether Richmond Attorney Paul Goldman has the legal standing to have filed a suit claiming Virginia’s current legislative districts are unconstitutional because they are still based on the 2010 Census. The Virginia Supreme Court adopted new districts drawn by Special Masters in late December 2021 after a redistricting commission failed to reach consensus. The incumbent in the 55th District is Republican Rob Bell, who currently sits in the 58th District. The new 55th District covers most of Albemarle County, western Louisa County, and northeastern Nelson County.Price joins Kellen Squire as declared Democratic candidates in the 55th District. Squire ran against Bell in 2017 for the 58th District and was defeated 61.2 percent to 38.71 percent. Bell outraised Squire $471,519 to $115,210 that year. Squire was briefly a candidate in the 2021 Lieutenant Governor’s race. The first campaign finance report for the next House of Delegates race is not due until July 2022. In her announcement on Facebook, Price said she was running now to protect reproductive rights, which she said are one vote away from being overturned in Virginia. “While I support the legal basis of the Goldman v. Brink plaintiff, I have been holding personal concerns about elections in 2022 given the mood of the country,” Price wrote. “Those concerns no longer exist.  We are in a legally existential battle for the rights of Americans.”Price was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2019 by beating Republican Michael Hallahan on a 55.21 percent to 44.44 percent margin. Hallahan raised $92,256 to Price’s $38,234. Squire, an emergency room nurse,  said he will be making a formal announcement on Friday but responded to a question this morning.“I filed the first week of March, but have spent the last two months building the local, regional, and statewide support that will be necessary to win this race,” Squire wrote. “I've been told by both current and former local, regional, and statewide elected officials of both parties that the Virginia GOP intends to dump whatever resources are necessary to keep this seat in their column.” Squire credited his 2017 race with laying the groundwork for the eventual Democratic takeover of the House of Delegates and the Senate in 2019. Youngkin decries leakAs for that leak, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts has confirmed the publication of a draft opinion.“Although the document described in yesterday’s reports is authentic, it does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case,” reads a press release from the Court.Roberts has directed the Marshall of the Court to investigate the source of the leak.  In a statement, Governor Glenn Youngkin decried the leak and said it was premature to speculate on what the actual ruling will be. “We learned from listening to Virginians over the last year that we have much common ground on this issue. I am pro-life, and I have been very clear about that since the day I launched my campaign,” Youngkin said. As of today, there’s no ruling from Judge David Novak on the Goldman v. Brink case. Area tourism efforts receive funding from the Virginia Tourism CorporationGovernor Glenn Youngkin has announced the award of 259 grants to entities across the Commonwealth to mark National Travel and Tourism Week. The funding comes from the Virginia Tourism Corporation’s Marketing Leverage Program & Regional Marketing Program Grants“This funding cycle, local partners will commit more than $12.4 million to match the VTC funding, providing more than $15 million in new marketing activity,” reads a press release sent out on Monday.  The recipients are:Blue Mountain Barrel House and Organic Brewery in Afton for their Road Trip to Nelson 29 promotion ($5,000)Boars Head Resort for their Winter Wander promotion ($5,000)Center for Independent Documentary Inc in Charlottesville for the La Loba Festival ($5,000)Charlottesville and Albemarle County for the Historic Vines, New Roots promotion ($20,000)Crozet Park for the Crozet Arts and Crafts Festival ($10,000)Ix Art Park Foundation for the Cville Arts Winter Weekends / Charlottesville Arts Festival ($10,000)Louisa Chamber of Commerce for Unplug & Play 2.0 ($5,000)Louisa County Parks, Recreation and Tourism for the Happening Around Corner: Louisa County Events / Visit Louisa Mobile App ($24,936)Love Ridge Mountain Lodging of Charlottesville for the launch of the program ($10,000)Nelson County for the Nelson County Dark Skies Trail and the Nelson Winter Market ($20,000)Orange County for the Orange Uncovered promotion ($20,000)Queen City Mischief & Magic in Staunton for the Queen City Mischief & Magic Festival ($16,616)Quirk Charlottesville for their program History, Hiking, and Heritage: A Trip to Charlottesville ($10,000)Southern Revere Cellars LLC for the Land Made promotion ($10,000) Staunton Augusta Art Center for the Art in the Park promotion ($3,000)Staunton Music Festival for the Staunton Music Festival / BaroqueFest 2022 program ($13,750)Summer Stage LLC for the Summer Stage @ the Blackburn program ($10,000)The Front Porch of Charlottesville for the Boots and Bling Fall Gala ($4,350)Tom Tom Foundation of Charlottesville for the Tom Tom Festival ($10,000)Virginia Festival of the Wheel in Charlottesville ($10,000)Wayne Theatre Alliance in Waynesboro for an Outdoor Production ($10,000)Waynesboro for the Family Friendly Waynesboro program ($20,000)Shout-out to Camp AlbemarleToday’s second subscriber-supported public service announcement goes out to Camp Albemarle, which has for sixty years been a “wholesome rural, rustic and restful site for youth activities, church groups, civic events and occasional private programs.”Located on 14 acres on the banks of the Moorman’s River near Free Union, Camp Albemarle continues as a legacy of being a Civilian Conservation Corps project that sought to promote the importance of rural activities. Camp Albemarle seeks support for a plan to winterize the Hamner Lodge, a structure built in 1941 by the CCC and used by every 4th and 5th grade student in Charlottesville and Albemarle for the study of ecology for over 20 years. If this campaign is successful, Camp Albemarle could operate year-round. Consider your support by visiting campalbemarleva.org/donate. Council briefed on increase in homelessness in Charlottesville areaThe Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless (TJACH) is the lead agency in this region for the U.S. Department of Housing and Development’s Continuum of Care program. They cover an area including Charlottesville, Albemarle, and the other localities in the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. “We believe that everyone deserves a safe place to call home and we believe that is a human right,” said Anthony Haro, TJACH’s executive director. (download Haro’s presentation)Haro said the goal of TJACH is to make homelessness as rare, brief, and nonrecurring as possible. He said homelessess is a symptom of a system that lacks enough resources and coordination. Every year, TJACH participates in the Point in Time survey to measure the size and scope of homelessness in a community. “Every year we do it in January with the goal of trying to identify folks at a time when we’re hoping most people are in sheltered settings because of the weather,” Haro said. The count is reported to HUD and the same methodology has been used for the past 12 years. The number of people in emergency shelters increased from 144 in January 2021 to 228 in January 2022. “The most significant shift has just occurred over this past year and it’s directly related to the pandemic and also things that the pandemic has brought with it like high housing costs and lack of available affordable housing,” Haro said. During the pandemic, congregate shelters moved to non-congregate settings as people were set up with private rooms in hotels. TJACH has partnered with Virginia Supportive Housing and the Piedmont Housing Alliance to purchase the Red Carpet Inn on U.S. 29, which has been converted to an emergency shelter. More on that in a moment.Just under seventy percent of those counted are male, and 98 percent of those counted are individuals. Fifty-two percent are white, 41 percent are Black, and seven are listed as other. Haro said the number of people who were chronically homeless dropped from 76 in 2012 to 32 in 2014. He attributes that to the opening of the Crossings at Fourth and Preston, a 60-unit single room occupancy building built by Virginia Supportive Housing. That number has begun to increase and Haro said there’s a need for more housing. “The other real key component to address unsheltered homelessness is street outreach programs and so we have street outreach though the PATH program at Region 10 which is focused people living outside with mental health and or substance issues but those resources haven’t really changed significantly in a long time,” Haro said. The Point in Time count isn’t the only metric. Haro said TJACH also measures the total number of people served each year and that figure increased from 290 in 2013 to 528 in 2021. He also said people are staying longer in emergency shelters with the average length of stay in 2021 was 136 days. “Before the pandemic it was around 40 days, 30 to 40 days in shelter was the average,” Haro said. That leads to a lack of turnover in those shelters, leading to shortages in emergency shelter capacity. Haro said the forthcoming 81-unit project at Premier Circle will provide relief when it’s built, but it will take some time. Ground is expected break ground next May and will be supported by Low Income Housing Tax Credits as well as Housing Choice Vouchers. Vice Mayor Juandiego Wade said constituents have asked him if TJACH had any outreach to people who panhandle on medians within the city. “Have you all, or is there a way to reach out to them, to say yes, here is service?” Wade said. “They say they see many of the same people in the same intersection and it concerns them. Sometimes they say it seems dangerous and I tell them there’s really not anything we can do.”Haro said many of those individuals may not be homeless. Some may be paying for hotels and some may be living in their own places. “People choose to panhandle for many different reasons,” Haro said. “For some people it’s a social interaction activity and for other people they are paying to stay in a hotel that night and so it varies widely. We do have outreach workers who are familiar with many of those individuals. There are new individuals that pop up every now and again and that I see panhandling and I notify outreach team to see if they are aware of those individuals coming through.” ARB makes comments on Premier Circle projectOn Monday, the Albemarle County Architectural Review Board took a look at the initial site for Premier Circle which involves construction of a four story building as part of a three building campus.. The property is within the county’s Entrance Corridor Review guidelines.“The focus is largely on the site landscaping and the building design in the Entrance Corridor facing elevation of the first phase one building,” said Khris Taggart, a planner with Albemarle County. Staff recommended approval of the initial site plan with some recommendations for revisions. That means things like hiding electrical equipment from view, requiring windows to avoid blank walls, and to include a plan indicating how demolition of existing structures should proceed.The building is being design by BRW Architects and they were represented by Whitney McDermott.“The TJACH Premier Circle initial plan before you today is a component of a larger vision that is a partnership between the Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for, Homeless, Virginia Supportive Housing who are developing the building before you today, and the Piedmont Housing Alliance,” McDermott said. McDermott said the design of the whole plan is to allow for the existing motel units to exist for as long as possible. The Piedmont Housing Alliance will eventually build a 60-unit multifamily building as part of phase 2 and the third phase will be a future mixed-use building. View the entire ARB meeting: 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

Lissa Warren has worked at several Boston publishing houses including David R. Godine, Houghton Mifflin, and Perseus Publishing. She most recently served as Vice President, Senior Director of Publicity and Acquiring Editor at Da Capo Press, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group. In January of 2019 she established Lissa Warren PR, which focuses on publicity for authors and books.The author of The Savvy Author's Guide to Book Publicity (Carroll & Graf, 2004), she has spoken about publishing for the Virginia Festival of the Book, Lesley University, Publishers Marketing Association, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, Publishers Association of the South, BookBuilders of Boston, ForeWord magazine, Grub Street, the New Hampshire Writers' Project, the Cape Cod Writers Conference, and the Adirondack Writer's Conference, among others. In addition to teaching at Emerson, she's on the advisory council of Southern New Hampshire University's M.F.A. writing program, serves on the advisory board at Beacon Press, and blogs about publishing for the Huffington Post. Ms. Warren's poetry has appeared in Quarterly West, Oxford Magazine, Black Warrior Review, and Verse, and she's a poetry editor for the literary magazine Post Road. Her latest book, a memoir called The Good Luck Cat: How a Cat Saved a Family and a Family Saved a Cat, was published by Lyons Press in October of 2014.This episode is offered as a gift to the writers in our adoption community. Lissa shares the hard truth about the publishing world and how to best handle our stories. Her expertise provides a road map to those seeking to publish their books. Our deepest hope is that by understating more about the publishing “game” and we can move forward on the path of least resistance. As we navigate our own effort to publish Pulled By The Root- An Adoptees healing from Trauma, Shame and Loss, Lissa's advice could not have been more helpful. Your story matters and we want you to reach as many people as possible.

The only constant is change, a dynamic that frustrates many but a phen upon which others thrive. Charlottesville Community Engagement is intended to document as much of what’s coming as possible in the hopes that more people can affect outcomes if they simply have information. It’s March 9, 2022, and I’m your host, Sean Tubbs. Charlottesville Community Engagement is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.On today’s program:The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals hears arguments in a case that could require the Virginia Board of Elections to hold a House of Delegates race this NovemberAnother church in Charlottesville wants to build housing on its propertyAlbemarle’s top official explains to business leaders how the county works And one of Charlottesville’s former city managers has dropped a suit against the City Council ‘And singer songwriter Michael Clem talks about his upcoming appearance at the Center at Belvedere First shout-out goes to the Rivanna Conservation AllianceIn today’s first 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.Community meeting for 72-unit apartment complex on Locust Grove church propertyThe Mount View Baptist Church on St. Clair Avenue in the Locust Grove neighborhood is seeking a rezoning to allow for the construction of up to 72 units on their lawn. “With this rezoning request, Mount View Baptist Church seeks to remain operational on the property and expand opportunities to serve the community by requesting to have the ability to establish a day care on their property,” reads the announcement for a community meeting tonight. Shimp Engineering has been hired to oversee the land use application process for the 3.4 acre property. Sixty of the units would be built in a series of “linked townhouses” and the rest would be for the church to build in the future should they want to do so. The property has potential road connections onto several roads in the neighborhood. Not all of the property is connected to the church. An entity called Route 250 Homes purchased two single family homes that front onto Otter Street last June, and these two properties are being added to the church’s property. A community meeting for the rezoning begins at 6:30 p.m. tonight. (register) (more information)Former City Manager Richardson withdraws suit against the cityAn attorney for former Charlottesville City Manager Tarron Richardson has filed a motion with the United States Western District Court ending a lawsuit against his former employer. Richardson had filed a civil rights suit against the City Council and the city attorney in November alleging his rights were violated by the terms of his severance agreement. However the suit was not formally served to the city until late December, and the individual defendants were never served. The motion from attorney Kevin French is a voluntary dismissal with prejudice. For more information, read Ginny Bixby’s story in the Daily Progress. Federal appeals court hears oral arguments in suit to force 2022 electionA three judge panel of the United States Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has heard arguments in a case that could force the state of Virginia to run elections for the House of Delegates this year, and then again in 2023. Richmond attorney Paul Goldman has argued those elections in 2021 are unconstitutional because the districts are based on Census data from 2010, and he sued the state Board of Elections. However, the 40-minute session largely dealt with procedural issues such as whether Goldman has the legal standing to bring the case forward or whether the appeals court was the appropriate venue. (hear the arguments on Youtube) Andrew Ferguson is the Solicitor General for Virginia, and he inherited the case from the previous administration. “The plaintiff in this case contends that Virginia broke the law when it failed to hold the 2021 election on the basis of Census data that did not exist when the electoral process began,” Ferguson said. “We strongly disagree, but the question before the court today is whether it has Article 3 jurisdiction to decide this case at all.”Article 3 refers to the U.S. Constitution which lays out how the nation’s courts systems should work. Ferguson argued that Goldman could not demonstrate how he was personally harmed by the elections. Last week, he filed a motion to return the case back to a lower court in order to get a ruling on that issue before taking up Goldman’s underlying claim. Ferguson argued the court should not even weigh in on what is referred to as a “sovereign authority” claim. “I think that the reason that sovereign immunity shouldn’t be addressed before determining standing is that if the court were to issue an opinion on sovereign immunity but subsequently determined there had never been any standing in this case, that sovereign immunity opinion is effectively an advisory opinion because the court never had jurisdiction to issue it in the first place,” Ferguson said. After a long and legally nuanced discussion about this issue, Goldman was asked to go ahead and make his argument which is built upon a 1981 federal case called Cosner v. Dalton that forced Virginia to hold House of Delegates’ elections in 1982. Goldman argued that the current districts are not balanced by population, a violation of the “one-person, one-vote principle.” “I am asking and am here for an election in 2022,” Goldman said. “They say there won’t be an election in 2022. I want to run in 2022 and the state says they’re not going to hold an election in 2022. I say Cosner says I have a right to run in 2022. They say it doesn’t.” Goldman said the legal remedy should be a new election to ensure that people are properly represented as is their Constitutional right. But he said his standing is based on being a potential candidate. “I gotta wait until 2024 before my new district kicks in,” Goldman said. “I am still represented by the people picked in the old districts and that’s the harm, that’s why you can’t do it. That’s the unusual circumstance in this case.” Goldman cited data that shows the imbalance. “There’s one district that’s got 130,000 people in it and there’s another district with 67,000,” Goldman said, “They propose that doesn’t change until 2024. That blatantly unconstitutional and I’m in this courtroom today to try to get justice,” Goldman said In rebuttal, Ferguson continued to press on the question of Goldman’s legal standing, but said the Commonwealth would not be afraid to argue against his claims.“If the courts conclude that Mr. Goldman has standing to maintain his claim, we will vigorously defend the constitutionality of the 2021 election,” Ferguson said. “We do not think the 14th amendment requires states to reapportion on the basis of Census data that don’t exist when the electoral process has begun.”The three judges will take the matter under advisement and will issue an opinion at a later date. For more on the topic:Fourth Circuit hears arguments in case challenging Virginia House of Delegates election, March 8, 2022, Courthouse NewsSecond shout-out goes to an arboreal event at the Virginia Festival of the Book In today’s second subscriber-supported Public Service Announcement, the Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards wants to draw your attention to a Virginia Festival of the Book event coming up on March 16. Michelle Nijhuis will lead a virtual conversation on “Seeing Trees, Saving the Great Forests”. Nijhuis will speak with forest scientists and preservationists Meg Lowman and John Reid. Lowman is the author of The Arbornaut: A Life Discovering the Eighth Planet in the Trees Above Us. Reid is the co-author of Ever Green: Saving Big Forests to Save the Earth. The event on March 16 begins at noon. To register, visit vabook.org. Albemarle County officials address business community at Chamber eventOn February 18, the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce held the first ever State of the Community forum, where leaders from Charlottesville, the University of Virginia, and Albemarle got the chance to introduce themselves to business leaders. Yesterday’s edition of this program featured comments from city officials, and today we’ll hear from county leaders.Emily Kilroy is the director of community and public engagement for Albemarle County. She said she wondered why there had never before been a gathering with city, county, and UVA officials.“It felt like such a natural convening of our community’s leaders,” Kilroy said. “And of course being together today, we are reminded that the community is not just our individual pieces of the pie, but we all do together to grow the entire pie.” County Executive Jeff Richardson said the event was a chance to discuss what he called community opportunities and to introduce his leadership team to the Chamber. “The most effective leaders anticipate where the community is headed and they see changes before others do,” Richardson said. Richardson recently put that statement out to community leaders and there were some common threads about what they thought was needed.“Three basically said equity, access, [and] affordable housing, which means good paying jobs and access to health,” Richardson said. “So it’s keeping the community affordable at all economic levels, that was three out of six.”Richardson said one person said there was a need to find a “new normal” post pandemic and  another said shoring up support for public safety first responders. Richardson said local government needs to be working in all of these areas. “It’s not just one thing,” Richardson said. “It’s so many things.” The county’s strategic plan is intended to prioritize where county investments should go. For Richardson, that means making sure his employees are stable and that there is investment in economic development.  (read the strategic plan)“Recently at the end of our past budget year, we closed the year our better expected financially so an example of this working in real time is that we put $5 million in our economic development fund, $4.1 million was transferred to capital to move infrastructure along, $3.1 million into a dedicated housing fund, and $1 million went to our workforce stabilization which made our human resources director very happy,” Richardson said. Richardson urged people to apply for vacancies on various boards and commissions. There’s a list on the county website if you’re interested. The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors will hold its first budget work session today beginning at 3 p.m. (meeting info)See also: Richardson presents $565M “Transform Albemarle” budget to supervisors, Information Charlottesville, February 23, 2022Michael Clem to kick off The Center’s Thursdays around Five series This next piece is more of a podcast piece, but I advise clicking on the songs below as you read! The Center at Belvedere opened in June 2020 to offer a gathering space for people of all ages with a new facility with much more room than the former facility on Hillsdale Drive. The relatively new Center has a performance space, and this Thursday singer songwriter Michael Clem will kick off a concert series for the press. “For over 30 years, Michael Clem has been playing bass, singing, and writing songs for the national touring act he co-founded, Eddie from Ohio,” reads the event listing on the Center’s website. “Since relocating to Charlottesville, he’s established quite a foothold in the musical scene.”It’s a return performance for Clem, who appeared there last fall. “This is a very well-attended event,” Clem said. “People from the community come out and they bring their lawn chairs, and I’m playing in basically like a theater-type of environment. This wasn’t just me playing incidental white noise music while people were gabbing and socializing. They were there focused, facing forward, giving the singer songwriter exactly what a singer songwriter would want! An attentive crowd!” Clem said the last show was an artistically satisfying event where he got to play original songs and he’s looking forward to playing Thursday’s show. I spoke to Clem two years ago at the beginning of the pandemic. Like so many others, he began performing online to people at home, and contributed the proceeds to restaurants. “I felt really bad for these businesses that were taking such a hit, specifically the ones who butter my bread, the restaurants and the music venues,” Clem said. “And a number of them didn’t survive the shutdown which is really sad.” One of them that survived is the Local, where Clem hosts a singer-songwriter open mic night on Mondays, though that’s currently on what he called Omicron hiatus. The downtime also allowed him to take on a personal challenge. “I decided I would dedicate the month of April to writing one song a day, and I did!” Clem said. “I’m not saying that every song was great but just having that exercise was important to battle the hypocrisy because I teach a songwriting class and that was another thing that moved online. My songwriting class is through the Front Porch, and I did a number of them on Zoom.”Clem said he would play some of these songs, some of which are on an album he produced with Rusty Speidel. You can hear some of them tomorrow night at the first Thursdays Around Five. The website states the event begins at 5:01 p.m. The event is free, but registration in advance at the Center is required. (register)Support the program!Special announcement of a continuing promo with Ting! Are you interested in fast internet? Visit this site and enter your address to see if you can get service through Ting. If you decide to proceed to make the switch, you’ll get:Free installationSecond month of Ting service for freeA $75 gift card to the Downtown MallAdditionally, Ting will match your Substack subscription to support Town Crier Productions, the company that produces this newsletter and other community offerings. So, your $5 a month subscription yields $5 for TCP. Your $50 a year subscription yields $50 for TCP! The same goes for a $200 a year subscription! All goes to cover the costs of getting this newsletter out as often as possible. Learn more here! This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to an appropriately named month, one that marks the beginning of meteorological spring in the Northern Hemisphere. That’s a phrase I’ve not known until today, nor did I know that the equinox in three weeks marks the beginning of vernal spring. There is so much to be learned about the world around us, and every installment of Charlottesville Community Engagement seeks to bring a little of it to your attention. I’m your host, Sean Tubbs.Sign up for free to make sure you get all of the information, and decide whether to pay later! On today’s program:Governor Youngkin issues his first veto, and a round-up of bills that have not passed the General Assembly The Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority agrees to issue $23 million in bonds for a California firm to renovate Midway Manor An international panel releases new information about the efforts to slow the rise in global temperaturesFirst shout-out goes to the Rivanna Conservation AllianceIn today’s first 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.Governor Youngkin vetoes Arlington police auditor billArlington County will not be able to appoint an independent auditor to monitor the police department with the same powers as a civilian review board. Governor Glenn Youngkin has vetoed HB670 which would have granted the Arlington County Board that ability. The measure passed the House of Delegates on a 65 to 35 vote and the Senate on a much closer 21 to 19 vote. In his veto statement, Youngkin said such a move would grant too much power without appropriate protections for law enforcement officers. “Investing in a single politically-appointed individual the power of judge, jury, and executioner without any input from law-enforcement officers or delineated qualifications for such [an] individual constitutes an undue burden for those who protect and serve the community,” Youngkin wrote in his statement. More on the General Assembly later on in this newsletter. IPCC releases new reportA new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that rising global temperatures are causing disruptions for nature and humanity across the planet. A working group of scientists from 195 nations gathered for two weeks to review and approve Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. “The world faces unavoidable multiple climate hazards over the next two decades with global warming of 1.5°C (2.7°F),” reads a press release for the report. “Even temporarily exceeding this warming level will result in additional severe impacts, some of which will be irreversible. Risks for society will increase, including to infrastructure and low-lying coastal settlements.”The report urges continued work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and suggests ways this can be done while improving people’s lives, but also points out that growing urbanization and social inequality will hasten the problem. The full report is 3,675 pages long but the technical summary is a bit more manageable at 96 pages. I suspect most readers and listeners will opt for the 36-page summary for policymakers. “This report has a particular focus on transformation16 and system transitions in energy; land, ocean, coastal and freshwater ecosystems; urban, rural and infrastructure; and industry and society,” reads the introduction to that summary. “These transitions make possible the adaptation required for high levels of human health and wellbeing, economic and social resilience, ecosystem health, and planetary health.” For more information on what local and state governments are doing to meet their greenhouse reduction goals, here are some resources:Albemarle Climate Protection webpageCharlottesville Climate Protection webpageUniversity of Virginia SustainabilityVirginia Coastal Resilience Master PlanYesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case that challenges the power of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Read the transcript of the argument here or listen to the oral arguments. Read one account of how it went on Bloomberg Law.  CRHA approves $23 million in bonds for Midway Manor renovations The Board of Commissioners for the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority has taken the first step toward issuing up to $23 million in bonds for a California-based company to renovate Midway Manor in a way that will keep existing affordability requirements in place. “This is a 98-unit elderly affordable housing development on Ridge Street very close to the Greyhound station and the proposal is to issue some bonds to assist with the financing of a comprehensive renovation of this project,” said Delphine Carnes, the legal counsel for the CRHA.Standard Communities closed on their $16.45 million acquisition of Midway Manor on January 13. They say that the current affordability levels will be maintained, and common spaces and amenities will be upgraded. They’re asking the CRHA to issue “exempt facility” bonds to renovate the 98 units. No new market-rate units would be added. “The role of the housing authority in this particular project is as a conduit bond issuer,” Carnes said. That means the CRHA would not have any obligations for the property, and neither CRHA or the City of Charlottesville would be responsible for paying back the bonds. Carnes said there were benefits to issuing the bonds. “First, they ensure the continued renovation and redevelopment of affordable housing units in the City of Charlottesville which is very complementary to your own mission but it doesn’t cost you a dime,” Carnes said. “As a matter of fact, it creates some revenue to you because you are receiving a fee for being the issuer of these bonds.” Carnes did not have a number on hand at the public hearing, but said the funding could be used for any purpose by the CRHA. The CRHA will need to approve the project once more after the bond documents are finalized. Steven Kahn is a director with Standard Communities. During the public hearing, he acknowledged that many do not know what his company does. “We’ve got about 13,000 units of affordable housing across the country in 19 different states,” Kahn said. “This will be our first project in Charlottesville but hopefully not our last as we see to it that we try to do our business the right way and always get invited back for repeat performances and we’ve done that very successfully across the country.”Kahn called Midway Manor a tremendous asset that has served a population in need of housing and a need for certainty. The current affordability requirements are running out. “And our intentions with Midway Manor are to take the federal rental subsidy contract that does expire in a couple of years and renew that for as long as the [U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development] to do so which is at present is a 20-year contract,” Kahn said. “And in partnership also work with [Virginia Housing Development Authority] to receive an allocation of four percent low-income housing tax credits which will allow us in partnership with these bonds to do a very extensive renovation of the property.” Kahn said the renovations would be expansive with full upgrades of interiors as well as an energy-efficient retrofit of heating and cooling systems and electric systems. The specifics of how renovation will work are not yet available, but Kahn said the hope is to not relocate tenants while the work is done over an 18-month period. “We’ve got a tremendous amount of experience doing that,” Kahn said. “North of ten thousand units completing renovations without displacing residents, even during the renovation process.” The executive director of the Public Housing Association of Residents asked for careful consideration of the issuance of the bonds. “I’ve spoken with two resident leaders at Midway Manor and their desire is to come to an answer as expeditiously as possible about the status of the building,” said Shelby Marie Edwards. “To be clear, I know CRHA does not own the building. And if anybody can help them make sure the units are affordable and that the building is upgrade and becoming of our citizens they would be grateful for the help. They are looking for the answer to the question: What’s going to happen to the resident. Where are we going?”Kahn said Standard Communities is a “high-touch” organization when it plans for these projects to make sure residents know what is going on. He said there will be a kickoff meeting for residents when the project is closer to moving forward. “Miscommunication or misinformation spreads very quickly through communities and we try to make sure that it is not something we are a part of,” Kahn said. Kahn said they are hoping to close the sale of the bonds this summer and get started with construction soon after. In the meantime, he said there were a number of issues that Standard Communities know need to be fixed. “There are a lot of things that we became aware of during our due diligence of the property that need some attention before then,” Kahn said. “We’ve put those underway. Elevator modernization is one of them. I know there [are] some concerns with the intercom system at the entryway.” The five CRHA Commissioners who were present on the virtual meeting voted unanimously to authorize the bond issuance. It is important to note that the Low Income Housing Tax Credits are in a separate category than the competitive ones that are being sought for other projects in the area. “The four percent LIHTC pool is noncompetitive while the nine percent pool is very competitive,” said John Sales, executive director of the CRHA. Sales said Council will also have to approve the issuance of the bonds. More from the CRHA meeting in a future version of the program.Second shout-out goes to an arboreal event at the Virginia Festival of the Book In today’s second subscriber-supported Public Service Announcement, the Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards wants to draw your attention to a Virginia Festival of the Book event coming up on March 16. Michelle Nijhuis will lead a virtual conversation on “Seeing Trees, Saving the Great Forests”. Nijhuis will speak with forest scientists and preservationists Meg Lowman and John Reid. Lowman is the author of The Arbornaut: A Life Discovering the Eighth Planet in the Trees Above Us. Reid is the co-author of Ever Green: Saving Big Forests to Save the Earth. The event on March 16 begins at noon. To register, visit vabook.org. General Assembly update:  Divided government edition The 2022 Virginia General Assembly has just over two weeks left to go, and the pattern remains much of the same. Many bills that narrowly passed in one House of the bicameral legislature are now being defeated in committees of the other, a clear sign of divided government. Let’s go through some of those today. A Senate bill (SB27) to expand the Education Improvement Scholarships Tax Credit was tabled by the House Appropriations Committee. A Senate bill (SB290) to require local and state government agencies to construct energy efficient roofs on new public buildings failed to report out of the House General Laws Committee on a 10 to 12 vote. A Senate bill (SB559) to require more disclosure from registered lobbyists was tabled in the General Laws Committee on a 12 to 9 vote. Senate Bill 576 would have allowed betting on Virginia college sports, but it was tabled in the House General Laws Committee on an 18 to 4 vote. A Senate bill (SB310) that would have prohibited plastic guns and made their sales or posession a Class 5 felony was tabled in the House Public Safety Committee on a 12 to 10 vote. This had passed the Senate on a 22 to 18 vote. Now over to the Senate. House Bill 1301 would have directed the Department of Environmental Quality to withdraw from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. It passed the House of Delegates on a 52 to 48 vote, but was tabled in the Senate Agriculture, Conservation, and Natural Resources Committee on an 8 to 7 vote.Another bill that would have watered down the Air Pollution Control Board’s requirements for renewable energy had passed the House of Delegates on a 53 to 47 vote, but was passed by indefinitely in the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee on a nine to five vote. (SB81)A bill that would have required parental notification of the use of any sexually explicit materials in public school failed to report from the Senate Education and Health Committee on a 7 to 8 vote. (HB1009)A bill to advance Governor Glenn Younkgin’s Lab School initiative was passed by indefinitely by the Senate Education and Health Committee on a 9 to 6 vote. (HB356)House Bill 539 would have required public colleges and universities to notify would-be students that they could be disqualified by “certain criminal convictions.” That bill was passed by indefinitely in the Senate Education and Health Committee. Localities would not have been allowed to require contractors to provide certain benefits if HB58 had passed. The Senate General Laws and Technology Committee passed this by indefinitely on an 8 to 7 vote.Virginia’s Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion will retain that name. HB1300 would have required the renaming to Director of Diversity, Opportunity, and Inclusion was passed by indefinitely on an 8 to 7 vote. Currently law-enforcement officers who are in a community with a police civilian review board are subject to a different interpretation of the Law-Enforcement Officers Procedural Guarantee Act. HB70 would have changed that, and the Senate Judiciary Committee passed that by indefinitely on a 9 to 6 vote. Law enforcements will continue to not be allowed to stop motorists for minor infractions. House Bill 79 would have removed those provisions passed by a Democrat-led General Assembly and it passed the Republican-run House of Delegates on a 52 to 45 vote. The Cemocrat-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee passed this by indefinitely on a 9 to 6 vote.Currently if you have a firearm stolen from you, you must report that to a law-enforcement agency. House Bill 325 would have dropped that requirement by the Senate Judiciary Committee passed this by indefinitely on an 8 to 7 vote. Other House bills related to firearms were also defeated. One would have repealed a recently passed law that allows firearms to be removed from the possession of people deemed to be a risk (HB509). Localities will also continue to be able to prohibit firearms in public places (HB827). Support the program!Special announcement of a continuing promo with Ting! Are you interested in fast internet? Visit this site and enter your address to see if you can get service through Ting. If you decide to proceed to make the switch, you’ll get:Free installationSecond month of Ting service for freeA $75 gift card to the Downtown MallAdditionally, Ting will match your Substack subscription to support Town Crier Productions, the company that produces this newsletter and other community offerings. So, your $5 a month subscription yields $5 for TCP. Your $50 a year subscription yields $50 for TCP! The same goes for a $200 a year subscription! All goes to cover the costs of getting this newsletter out as often as possible. Learn more here! This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

Let’s begin with a Patreon-fueled shout-out. Colder temperatures are creeping in, and now is the perfect time to think about keeping your family warm through the holidays. Make sure you are getting the most out of your home with help from your local energy nonprofit, LEAP. LEAP wants you and yours to keep comfortable all year round, and offers FREE home weatherization to income- and age-qualifying residents. If you’re age 60 or older, or have an annual household income of less than $74,950, you may qualify for a free energy assessment and home energy improvements such as insulation and air sealing. Sign up today to lower your energy bills, increase comfort, and reduce energy waste at home!On today’s show:One of Charlottesville’s former police chiefs wants to sue the city for wrongful terminationAlbemarle Board of Supervisors formally begins Comprehensive Plan review Albemarle may also have a potential budget surplus of over $13 million ProPublica takes a look at the links between industrial air pollution and cancer The Virginia Festival of the Book will return to an in-person event next March Former Charlottesville Police Chief RaShall Brackney has filed a complaint with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging she was wrongfully terminated by former City Manager Chip Boyles. Boyles resigned on October 12 citing personal and professional abuse in the aftermath of the firing. Brackney and her lawyer Charles Tucker held a press conference this morning to announce the complaint as well as a demand for millions in damages. Tucker appeared to make the claim that Brackney is still the chief.“She’s not here today to talk about an abrupt termination,” Tucker said. “She’s here today to talk about a wrongful attempt at termination.” Tucker alleged collusion to remove Brackney by Council, top police officials, and former manager Boyles. Complaints to the EEOC are private and information is only available to be released the individual who files the complain as well as the subject of the complaint. A spokesman for the EEOC told me today he could neither confirm or deny the existence of the complaint. He noted that an EEOC complaint is the first step toward filing a lawsuit. Learn more about this process on the EEOC’s website. The agency’s authority comes from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There’s also a FAQ worth reviewing.  Tucker is employed by the Cochran Firm, a national law firm founded by the late Johnnie Cochran.  Cochran was part of the legal team that successfully defended former football player O.J. Simpson on double murder charges in October 1995. Special thanks to Dori Zook of WINA for providing the audio. Take a look at coverage on NBC29 for more information. One of Charlottesville’s most popular events will return to some in-person events next spring. The Virginia Festival of the Book was canceled in 2020 and was held virtually in 2021, but will return with a hybrid event from March 16 through March 20. The Festival has also been holding online programs year-round as part of its Shelf Life series. Headlining speakers for the 28th festival will not be announced until January. Review previous programs on the VABook website at vabook.org. Industrial investigationAn investigation by ProPublica has identified the Radford area in the New River Valley as one of the places in Virginia where residents are more likely to contract cancer due to air pollution. That’s due to the presence of the U.S. Army Radford Ammunition Plant.“This facility alone is estimated to increase the excess cancer risk for people living within five miles by an average of 1 in 4,100,” reads their summary of the Radford area. ProPublica’s interactive map also shows pollution hotspots in Richmond and Petersburg. Their work is based on analysis of five-years of data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Learn more in a story on NBC29 that’s part of a collaboration between Gray Communications and ProPublica. You’re reading Charlottesville Community Engagement and it’s time for two more Patreon-fueled shout-outs. The first comes a long-time supporter who wants you to know:"Today is a great day to spread good cheer: reach out to an old friend, compliment a stranger, or pause for a moment of gratitude to savor a delight."The second comes from a more recent supporter who wants you to go out and read a local news story written by a local journalist. Whether it be the Daily Progress, Charlottesville Tomorrow, C-Ville Weekly, NBC29, CBS19, WINA, or some other place I’ve not mentioned - the community depends on a network of people writing about the community. Go learn about this place today!Albemarle Comprehensive Plan processTwo stories from Albemarle today. First, Albemarle County has formally begun the process of updating its Comprehensive Plan. The Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution on November 3 that kicks off a multiphase process and public engagement plan for the first round. But let’s get a reminder on what this is from planner Tori Kanellopoulos. “The Comprehensive Plan is a guiding document for the county and is a twenty year plan which includes housing, transportation, land use, economic development, natural and historic resources,” Kannellopoulos said. The plan influences everything from the Capital Improvement program to decisions on land use such as rezoning. Supervisors last adopted a plan six years ago.“Since the current Comprehensive Plan was adopted in 2015, there have been a variety of new policies and plans adopted by the Board including the Climate Action Plan, an updated housing policy, Project ENABLE and an updated Strategic Plan,” Kannellopoulos said. “Additionally the Office of Equity and Inclusion was created and the Board adopted the new organizational value of community.”Since 2015, Kanellopoulos said 4,000 new dwelling units have been built and the population is expected to continue growing. With that comes increased demand for urban services to be delivered by the local government.  The first phase will take a look at the county’s growth management policy, which has been embedded in the Comprehensive Plan for decades. That will include a capacity analysis for the county’s ability to provide new housing, as well as the needs of economic development. “Phase 2 will identify the main topics of the Comprehensive Plan, evaluate existing conditions for each, and provide updated frameworks using the lens of equity and climate action,” Kannellopoulos said. “Phase 3 will identify recommended action steps to implement the plan and metrics to track progress. And Phase 4 will finalize the document for adoption.” At the same time, Supervisors have asked for some changes to the zoning ordinance to happen concurrently with the Comprehensive Plan review.  The winter holidays are approaching so there will not be a public kickoff for this process until January. Between now and then, a working group of community members and other stakeholders will be assembled to oversee the process. Supervisor Ann Mallek said the process to update the Crozet Master Plan at times was more difficult due to the lack of institutional memory and history about how that area has been a designated growth area. “There was a real challenge to help people to get enough background to be able to understand what they were being asked,” Mallek said. “And I think getting that knowledge base will prevent a lot of frustration that happens when people are asked to respond to a survey about which they’re given no information. And they just get mad.” Mallek also wants more public meetings in places that aren’t government buildings. Supervisor Ned Gallaway said he wants to make sure that the public knows the review is underway.“It can be frustrating I would imagine for everybody involved where community members maybe come late to the game,” Gallaway said. “We do our best effort to put things out there that this is going to be worked on and the ways to participate are there. And then if they are missed, we get ‘Well, where is this coming from?’ at the 11th hour. Whatever we need to do [public relations] wide to engage the community, we’ll have to do.”The Albemarle Planning Commission will have a work session on the Comprehensive Plan review at its meeting on November 16. This is a reminder that I created Town Crier Productions specifically to cover this kind of topic. I have never and will never take any payment from Albemarle County for this service, nor will I take any direct payment for any other level of government. This program is supported by contributions from listeners and readers, and the goal there is to keep this reporting independent and to be transparent when you do hear shout-outs and the like. Closing out FY21 Our second story from the November 3, 2021 Albemarle Board of Supervisors meeting comes from a fiscal update that came from a briefing from County Executive Jeffrey Richardson on the closing of Fiscal Year 21, which ran from July 1, 2020 to this past June 30. Like all localities, Albemarle was affected by the pandemic.“The last 20 months have been unlike any in my professional working career and I probably speak for staff when I say our challenges and the kinds of issues and problems we face are unlike any that we have faced in our career,” Richardson said. The pandemic began officially in Virginia on March 12, 2020 with the declaration of a state of emergency. That happened just as Albemarle was finalizing the budget for fiscal year 2021. A decision was made to rewrite the budget to pause some spending while more was known about underlying economic conditions.  Richardson said staff initially assumed the worst case scenario. “We artificially lowered our budget base so we had to go in and we had to make drastic cuts for fiscal year 21,” Richardson said. Richardson said the economic outlook did not turn out to be as severe and he detailed the reasons why in his presentation. There has also been federal funding in the form of the CARES Act of 2020 and the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Here’s one example from Albemarle budget chief Andy Bowman. “The county was able to reimburse a significant portion of its public safety expenditures which created a one-time savings in the middle of fiscal year 2021 which the Board of Supervisors used to establish a local pandemic reserve,” Bowman said. Now the time has come to begin preparing for the budget for FY23, which will be adopted by the Board next May. That comes as the fiscal year 2021 budget is audited which will reveal whether there are additional funds leftover that be reprogrammed to achieve the county’s strategic goals. This is known as “one-time” funds. In FY21, revenues were up 5.3 percent over budget and county spending was down 4.9 percent. “Unaudited, we expect there to be $13.2 million in one-time funding that can be available to be reprogrammed as the county is heading into the season again of financial planning,” Bowman said. Richardson told the Board that the local economy is strong, and there are many ways this funding could be used to make further investments in economic development.“You met recently with your [Economic Development Authority] and I think that we need to consider more and I think now is the time to do more to set ourselves up for the future to help business expansion and to be a catalyst in this community to continue to strengthen our economic foundation,” Richardson said. Richardson also suggested the Board consider a mid-year salary increase for county personnel could also be an option. The Board will have a work session on “workforce stabilization” on December 1. Other suggestions from staff will continue to come to the Board in weeks to come. The next immediate step is a meeting of the Audit Committee on November 19. (meeting info)A major change this upcoming year is that real estate reassessments for calendar year 2022 will be sent out a month earlier than usual due to issues with the post office and potential for delays caused by mail. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

In today’s first Patreon-fueled shout-out is for the Plant Northern Piedmont Natives Campaign, an initiative that wants you to grow native plants in yards, farms, public spaces and gardens in the northern Piedmont. Native plants provide habitat, food sources for wildlife, ecosystem resiliency in the face of climate change, and clean water.  Start at the Plant Northern Piedmont Natives Facebook page and tell them Lonnie Murray sent you! In today’s show: Several odds and ends from the Charlottesville Planning Commission meeting The Virginia Film Festival will return to movie screens in Charlottesville this OctoberYour input is requested on thoughts and concerns about future natural disastersWe begin today again with today’s COVID numbers. Today the Virginia Department of Health reports another 4,066 cases today. The number of COVID deaths since the beginning of the pandemic in Virginia is now at 12,170. Since September 1, there have been 309 reported, with 52 reported today. That does not mean all of those fatalities happened within a 24-hour period, as that number is tallied as death certificates are reported to the VDH. When natural disasters strike, governments across the region often cooperate with each other to lend a hand in the emergency response and recovery efforts. Before they strike, there is a federally-mandated document intended to provide direction on how to prepare to lessen their impacts.“The purpose of the Regional Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan is to prepare for natural disasters before they occur, thus reducing loss of life, property damage, and disruption of commerce,” reads the current plan, which was put together by the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission.The last plan was adopted in 2018 and it is time to put together the next one as required by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Virginia Department of Emergency Management. The TJPDC wants your input in the form of a survey which is now open. Participants are asked if they’ve ever experienced a natural disaster and if so, what the specific impact was. You’ll also be asked what hazards you are concerned about, ranging from dam failure to winter weather. (take the survey) The Virginia Film Festival will return to in-person events this October when the long-running series returns for action. Last year the event pivoted to drive-in and virtual screenings, but will return to the Violet Crown, the Culbreth Theatre, and the Paramount Theater. “The Festival will also continue its very popular Drive-In Movies series at the beautiful Morven Farm in Eastern Albemarle County.” said festival director Jody Kielbasa in a release. “As always, the Festival will work to create the safest environment possible for its audiences, requiring masks at all indoor venues.”The festival will run from October 27 to October 31, and the full program will be announced on September 28. Tickets will go on sale on September 30. A major highlight this year will be the screening of an episode of Dopesick, an upcoming series on Hulu about the nation’s opioid epidemic. The series is based on the work of former Roanoke Times journalist Beth Macy and the event at the Paramount will be presented in partnership with the Virginia Festival of the Book. For more information, visit virginiafilmfestival.org.Albemarle Supervisor Ann Mallek is one of 16 elected officials from around the United States to be appointed to an advisory panel of the Environmental Protection Agency. EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan made appointments to the Local Government Advisory Committee and its Small Community Advisory Subcommittee, and Mallek will serve on the latter. “From tackling climate change to advancing environmental justice, we need local partners at the table to address our most pressing environmental challenges,” Regan said in an August 25 press release. Kwasi Fraser, the Mayor of Purcellville in Loudoun County, is the only other Virginian appointed to either of the two groups. Speaking of appointments, last week Governor Ralph Northam appointed several Charlottesville residents to the Virginia Board of Workforce Development. They are:Rich Allevi, Vice President of Development, Sun Tribe SolarJohn Bahouth Jr., Executive Vice President, Apex Clean EnergyTierney T. Fairchild, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Resilience EducationAntonio Rice, President and Chief Executive Officer, Jobs for Virginia GraduatesThe Virginia Board of Workforce Development will meet next week for a special briefing. The board’s executive is Jane Dittmar, a former member of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors. You’re reading Charlottesville Community Engagement. Time for two quick Patreon-shout-outs. One person wants you to know "We keep each other safe. Get vaccinated, wear a mask, wash your hands, and keep your distance."And in another one, one brand new Patreon supporter wants you to go out and read a local news story written by a local journalist. Whether it be the Daily Progress, Charlottesville Tomorrow, C-Ville Weekly, NBC29, CBS19, the community depends on a network of people writing about the community. Go learn about this place today!For the rest of the show today, highlights from last night’s City Planning Commission meeting. I want to state up front that this newsletter does not feature the meeting’s main event, which was a public hearing for 240 Stribling in the Fry’s Spring neighborhood. That conversation that focused on a novel method of funding infrastructure improvements to support additional vehicular and human-powered traffic. I’m going to focus on that in an upcoming newsletter, but I want to get one concept on your mind. Let’s get some legal guidance from City Attorney Lisa Robertson about that mythical beast known as a “proffer.” For large developments that require a rezoning or a special use permit, you may also see the applicant offer cash or specific improvements as a required condition if their desired land use change is accepted. “Proffers are really to deal with impacts generated by the development itself and to provide cash for infrastructure that’s more directly sort of connected to or necessitated by the development,” Robertson said during the Commission’s pre-meeting. “In this situation as evidenced by the fact that the Stribling Avenue need for sidewalks has already been documented for a number of years in the city’s master plans and [Capital Improvement Program].”Southern Development is the applicant behind 240 Stribling had wanted to make its willingness to fund some of the infrastructure improvements in a proffer, but Robertson asked to pursue the matter in a different way because proffers are not two-way agreements. What happened with that? We’ll come back to that tomorrow. Highlights from the meetingAt the top of the actual meeting, the Commission elected Lyle Solla-Yates to serve as the body’s Chair. Solla-Yates was appointed to the seven-person body in March 2018 and succeeds Hosea Mitchell, who will remain on the commission. “Thank you very much Chair Mitchell for your two years of excellent service and for this honor and attempting to follow you,” Solla-Yates said. “Remarkable opportunity.”Next, Commissioners gave various reports on the various committees they are on. This is a good way to find out quickly a lot of things that are going on. Commissioner Mitchell said he and Commissioner Jody Lahendro with city Parks and Recreation officials reviewing a major problem in McIntire Park.“The drainage in McIntire Park is also creating a violation of the Department of Environmental Quality, their standards,” Mitchell said. “That is going to be a top priority and that’s going to be about $350,000 that we will be asking Council to approve but this is a must-do. We are in violation if we don’t fix that.” Mitchell said repairs to bring the outdoor Onesty Pool back next summer will cost about $400,000. There’s a lot of erosion and standing water at Oakwood Cemetery that will cost about $52,000.“And the last must-do thing is a comprehensive master plan,” Mitchell said. “We haven’t had anything like that in a number of years and our future is going to be relentless for Parks and Rec if we don’t do that and that’s going to be about $150,000.”Mitchell said the Smith Aquatic and Fitness Center is not expected to open now until late fall. Smith has been plagued with air quality problems since it opened in 2010. The facility shut down for several weeks in 2015 to install new exhaust pipes and has been closed since the spring of 2020 for at least $2.25 million in repairs. At least, that’s what Council approved as a capital improvement program budget line item in the Fiscal Year 2021 budget. In any case, Mitchell also announced that Todd Brown will be leaving his position as director of the city parks and recreation department to take a position in Fredericksburg. Bill Palmer, the University of Virginia’s liaison on the Charlottesville Planning Commission, reminded the Commission that UVA is working on an update of its Grounds Framework Plan. Palmer did not have much specific information but the closed-door Land Use and Environmental Planning Committee got a briefing at their meeting on July 23. “The Plan will be underway from Summer 2021 to Fall 2022 and includes a robust engagement process with the University and regional community,” reads a presentation made to LUEPC. The Grounds Framework Plan is intended to guide planning and development over the next 20 years with an emphasis on sustainability, resiliency, and equity. Some guidance in the presentation is to “capitalize on the potential of existing and new facilities” and “holistically consider Grounds as an integrated campus of mixed-use buildings and green spaces.”The firm Urban Strategies has been hired to conduct the work, which will build on smaller plans developed in the past several years ranging from the 2015 Brandon Avenue Master Plan to the 2019 Emmet Ivy Task Force report. UVa is also undertaking an affordable housing initiative to build up to 1,500 units on land that either UVA or its real estate foundation controls. The community also got a first look at Jim Freas, the new director of the City’s Department of Neighborhood Development Services. “Today is my second day so still finding my feet and learning my way around the building,” Freas said on Tuesday. Freas comes to the position from a similar one in Natick, Massachusetts. Natick consists of over 16 square miles in Middlesex County and has a population of 37,000 according to the U.S. Census. Thank you again for reading today. Want one of those shout-outs? Consider becoming a Patreon supporter. For $25 a month, you get four shout-outs spread across the various programs. That price will increase in the near future. Questions? Drop me a line! This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

In today’s Substack-fueled shout-out, Code for Charlottesville is seeking volunteers with tech, data, design, and research skills to work on community service projects. Founded in September 2019, Code for Charlottesville has worked on projects with the Legal Aid Justice Center, the Charlottesville Fire Department, and the Charlottesville Office of Human Rights. Visit the Code for Charlottesville website to learn more, including details on three projects that are underway. On today’s show:Albemarle Supervisors hold their first work session on the proposed $466 million budget for FY22Virginia Festival of the Book kicks off tomorrowAlbemarle expands in-person instruction on Monday, and schools are still looking for input on name of Murray Elementary SchoolCharlottesville City School returned to in-person learning for kindergarten through 6th grade this week, and next week Albemarle County will move forward to its next phase of in-person learning. Graham Paige is the chair of the Albemarle School Board. “We will open in stage 4 on March 15,” Paige said. “This move was approved by the Board on February 11 and in this stage, pre-K through third graders will be able to receive four days of school instruction and grades four to 12 will have two days of in-school instruction. We expect approximately 7,600 students will receive in-person instruction with nearly 6,000 other students opting to receive virtual.” Paige said a survey showed that only 60 percent of respondents said they had suitable Internet access to participate fully in virtual learning. A soft opening took place this week to help new students get to know their learn their new school. Paige said the future name of Virginia L. Murray Elementary School will soon be decided this week, and it could perhaps remain the same. The school system is reviewing names. Respondents to a recent survey suggested keeping the name. “While the large majority of survey participants supported retaining the school’s current name, the most popular suggestion for a new name was Ivy Elementary School in reference to the school’s location in the western part of the county,” Paige said. An online survey continues to be open through March 18. To find out more, visit the school system’s page on renaming. In other school news, Charlottesville Superintendent Rosa Atkins has announced she will retire effective May 31. We’ll have more from that announcement on a future program. *The Virginia Festival of the Book gets underway tomorrow one year after canceling the last one in the early days of the pandemic. Jane Kulow is the director of the event, which will be held entirely online this year. “This will be our 27th outing,” Kulow said. “This year’s festival runs two full weeks. Saturday, March 13 to Friday March 26, 2021. It is all virtual, it is all free, and it includes books in all genres and for all ages.” Unlike in previous years, events will be held one at a time which means someone could theoretically watch every single hour live. “We believe we’ve found a way to offer some of our best features, and make the festival more accessible than ever,” Kulow said. “We invite you and everyone to explore the schedule and find events to attend.” Kulow spoke to the Albemarle Board of Supervisors on March 3.   View the schedule hereThe Albemarle County Board of Supervisors have begun their detailed review of the recommended $466 million budget for fiscal year 2022. The season has been slightly extended this year with adoption scheduled for May 5 after a series of work sessions. On Wednesday, the Board began with a look at the operating budget and began recommending potential things to add or to cut. Andy Bowman is the chief of budget. “Fiscal year 22 is really going to be a transitional budget,” Bowman said. “Our economy is stabilizing but it has not stabilized. Our community is adapting as our circumstances change and people are impacted by the pandemic in very different ways.” Budget schedule for FY22On Monday, they’ll talk about the school budget and next Thursday they’ll talk about public safety. At the Thursday meeting, they will also set a maximum tax rate for advertisement if they decide to increase from the current $0.854 per $100 of assessed value. County Executive Jeff Richardson’s recommended budget proposes no increase. But on Wednesday, Bowman told the supervisors that the transitional budget is intended to prepare for a post-pandemic world. “So even this is a transitionary budget, we had to reflect in making recommendations on what are those things we can do to build a bridge now to make sure that we are an even more resilient  organization and community when we reach the other side of our future?” This year’s budget is 17 percent higher than the current fiscal year, and Bowman said a lot of that is due to a larger capital improvement plan. “The board may recall at the state of the Fiscal Year 21 budget, many capital projects have been put on hold and some of those have been restarted and that certainly plays into that as well,” Bowman said.  Since Richardson unveiled his budget in late February, the General Assembly adopted a state budget. Bowman said staff are continuing to review how that might affect Albemarle’s budget, so there may still be adjustments based on new revenues. They’re also reviewing the American Rescue Plan to find out that affect the budget. “In my mind, I think of this as almost another round of the CARES coronavirus relief funds that were received in the last calendar year,” Bowman said. The recommended budget does not include any of those federal funds, and budget staff are checking to see what the rules for their usage will be. Virginia is expected to receive $6.8 billion for state and local aid from the ARP, according to the Associated Press.The county is putting $3 million in one-time funds toward expanding broadband in Albemarle and by creating an Office of Broadband Access. Supervisors directed staff to go in that direction in a joint meeting with the Albemarle Broadband Authority on February 17. Trevor Henry is the assistant county executive.“We all experienced the tsunami of internet need that occurred over the past year and really we have all been in that mode since a year ago,” Henry said. Henry said that even households that thought they had good access to broadband taxed their connections when almost every group event went online. “And so the work that has come since a year ago has only intensified the critical needs and we have a lot of opportunities in front of us now to do some meaningful work,” Henry said. “We have programs at the federal, state and local level.” Some of the work will be to pay for the “last mile” where clusters of structures are near a fiber line but their owners may not be able to afford to make the connection. Details of the program will come back to the board later this spring. But to make it work, staff will also need to be hired. “The addition of an operations person, an administrator, will help us set up purchase orders, taking care of all of the billing, taking citizen requests, responding, tracking that data,” Henry said. “Those kinds of metrics, making sure that the action items on all of the various meetings related to broadband get tracked and captured and we’re working to executive them.”Albemarle will also work on an effort to help people pay for the service once. Supervisors were all supportive of the recommendations to move forward. Both Louisa and Nelson have announced plans to move toward universal broadband through public-private partnerships with electric cooperatives. Earlier this month, the Louisa Board of Supervisors announced a $15 million investment. There’s a meeting today facilitated by the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission to see how the model being used in Louisa and Nelson can be expanded to cover what’s known as the “middle mile.” Legislation to allow Dominion and Appalachian Power to expand their broadband efforts passed the General Assembly this year and awaits action by Governor Ralph Northam. (HB1923)The work session also covered public safety. Supervisor Diantha McKeel observed that new legislation requires localities to change the way service calls related to mental health crises are handled. “I know there’s some discussion about creating a team between so the police don’t have to respond by themselves to many of our mental health calls,” McKeel said. “There’s nothing in the budget Andy right now around that initiative.”Bowman confirmed that and suggested Police Chief Ron Lantz will be giving an update on that in the near future. Another new expense in the budget is the hiring of five people to staff the North Garden Volunteer Fire Company during the day with fire and rescue service by the fall of 2022. “Currently there are no county staff down there, they are entirely volunteer,” Bowman said. “We received a letter from them in the fall requesting supplemental staffing during the weekday daytime.The budget also includes purchase of an ambulance for the North Garden department. Bowman said that over the past four budgets, the county has added 32 full-time equivalents to fire and rescue. Some of those positions have been supported by grants from the federal government and to increase coverage to meet the needs of a growing population. A more in-depth discussion of public safety budgetary issues will be held at the March 18 work session. On March 22, they will talk in detail about transit. Charlottesville Area Transit had requested $1.47 million but the draft budget only recommends a million. Albemarle would contribute $6,137 a year for the new Afton Express and $2.18 million for Jaunt. CAT provided an update on proposed route changes at the February 24 Regional Transit Partnership. “In fiscal year 21, there are two studies that are taking through the Regional Transit Partnership,” Bowman said. “One of those is a longer-term regional transit vision plan and the other one is funded in 21 looking at some Albemarle specific transit services and we’ll be looking to what comes from that report for FY23 and beyond.”  Supervisors wanted more information on several things, including current response times for North Garden, the status of daytime staffing of the Earlysville Volunteer Fire Company, the and cost of operating the future Biscuit Run county park. This patron-supported public service announcement is from an anonymous supporter. Do you want to support your public library by picking up a mystery bag of books? The Friends of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library are resuming their Pop-up Book Sale this Sunday at the Gordon Avenue library. For $5, you can pick up a sealed, pre-selected bag, choosing from mystery, popular fiction, literary fiction, classic literature, biographies, sci-fi / fantasy. The JMRL Pop-Up sale begins this Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Gordon Avenue Library. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

In today’s Patreon-fueled shout-out...your local energy nonprofit, LEAP, offers FREE home weatherization to income- and age-qualifying residents. If you’re age 60 or older, or have an annual household income of less than $75,100, you may qualify for a free energy assessment and home energy improvements such as insulation and air sealing. Sign up today to lower your energy bills, increase comfort, and reduce energy waste at home!On today’s show:A quick COVID update from Dr. Denise BondsThe Virginia Festival of the Book prepares for a virtual event Albemarle Schools wants input on alternate names for Virginia L. Murray Elementary School This year will feature a study and input for a Regional Transit Vision Plan In today’s COVID news, the director of the Blue Ridge Health District briefed Council last night on the latest in efforts to get vaccinations in as many people’s arms as possible. The district has begun to receive additional supply above the 2,850 doses a week it received in February. That has allowed vaccinations of more types of people to begin. “We have begun to tackle individuals who work in manufacturing, agriculture and groceries,” said Dr. Denise Bonds. “We have made good inroads into people over the age of 75. We are still vaccinating a large number of people over the age of 65. We have not really been able to start age 16 to 64 with an underlying medical condition, although the vaccine availability is improving significantly and we anticipate being able to open that up shortly.”Dr. Bonds said work to vaccinate people incarcerated at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail began last week. She also said the district will begin to administer the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which was just approved last week for emergency use and only requires one shot. “We have requested 2,000 doses here in the district and we’ll be running what we call large vaccination events,” Bonds said, adding that these will be invitation-only events to help get through the large number of people currently eligible. The Virginia Department of Health also issued a press release saying the South African strain has been identified in its Northwest Region. Last night, City Council also adopted a proclamation for the Virginia Festival of the Book, which is holding a virtual ceremony for the second year in a row due to the pandemic. Jane Kulow is the festival’s director. “We encourage everyone to explore our schedule and find an event that may be of interest,” Kulow said. “We hope that we have found a way to offer some of our best features and make them more accessible than ever.” The schedule is available at vabook.org and the two week festival begins on March 13. I’ll have more from that City Council meeting in a future update. Albemarle County Schools are seeking input on ten possible names for Virginia L. Murray Elementary School in Ivy, which is named after a pioneer in Black education in the community. In 2018, the school system adopted a policy to review all buildings named after people. Last year, what had been Cale Elementary on Avon Street Extended became Mountain View Elementary last July. 92 percent of respondents to an online survey posted in January said they would prefer to keep the V.L. Murray name and four people spoke at a February 10 meeting in favor of that outcome and none spoke for another. However, the policy requires the naming committee to submit ten names for the School Board’s consideration, so another survey has been sent around. A final  survey asks people to choose three possible suggestions. The committee will hold a final open meeting on this issue on March 24. (survey)Last month, the Albemarle Historic Preservation Committee discussed potential historic markers to commemorate Black and Women’s history in the county.  One of three proposals would recognize Murray. All localities in the Thomas Jefferson Planning district except Nelson County experienced population growth in the last decade. To reduce the likelihood of traffic congestion, local governments and organizations are seeking ways to improve transit service throughout the community. Last week, the Regional Transit Partnership held its first meeting of the year. One of the first actions was to allow a group called the Charlottesville Area Alliance to sit on the body as a non-voting member. Jessica Hersh-Ballering is a transportation planner with the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. “The Charlottesville Area Alliance was formed in 2016 to lead the advancement of an age-friendly community,” Hersh-Ballering said. “Working with Albemarle and Fluvanna counties and the city of Charlottesville, they successfully applied to be a member of the AARP and World Health Organization’s age-friendly network to bring best practices to our area.” This year, work will begin to create a vision for regional transit, as well as a second study to determine how to increase bus service in Albemarle County on U.S. 29 North, Pantops and Monticello. The TJPDC has issued a request for proposals for a technical consultant to do work that is partially paid for through grants from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation. Hersh-Ballering said study just got under way and the goal is to wrap it up in ten months in order to qualify for a different funding stream. “That timeline is really strict because we’re hoping the implementation plan will put a transit provider in the position to apply for a demonstration funding with the next round of funding applications from the DRPT,” Hersh-Ballering said. (paragraph below was corrected March 3, 2021)Currently, Albemarle pays Charlottesville Area Transit for fixed-route service. All but one routes currently terminate at the Downtown Transit Center.  Hersh-Ballering said the regional transit vision will recommend where different types of transit should be ranging from express, high-frequency local, low-frequency local, and on-demand. “The corridor specific service recommendations are intended to be a visual document like a map that uses the initial work product to determine what type of transit service can be best supported on each corridor in the region,” Hersh-Ballering said. “If that sounds really familiar, that’s because that’s very similar to what Richmond did in their vision plan.”The Richmond plan was endorsed by the Richmond Regional Transportation Planning Organization in April 2017. The RTP also heard details about potential changes to Charlottesville Area Transit routes. Read a story by Allison Wrabel in the Daily Progress. Finally today, Charlottesville City Hall will be closed tomorrow to commemorate Liberation and Freedom Day. There are all sorts of events going on this week to celebrate the occasion, which was designated as a city holiday on July 1, 2019. The day marks when Union Major General Phillip Sheridan and his troops arrived in Charlottesville liberating over 14,000 enslaved people.  The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center has a whole series of events this week. Visit their website to learn more. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

On today’s show:A COVID update from the Blue Ridge Health DistrictCouncil denies special use permit for 11 units in BelmontLocal real estate group releases report for 4th quarter of 2021The Virginia Festival of the Book goes virtual for 2021With the COVID pandemic still raging, today’s Patreon-fueled shout-out from an anonymous contributor is once again to state clearly: "We keep each other safe. Wear a mask, wash your hands, and keep your distance."A second mass vaccination site at Seminole Square Shopping Center is now in place to be used by the University of Virginia and the Blue Ridge Health District to administer doses, though the supply is still limited. Ryan McKay is the policy director for the health district. “Right now we are receiving 2,850 doses each week,” McKay said. “That’s for the entire district. That’s for everyone.”  McKay said more than half of Virginia’s population is eligible for Phase1B and health districts are still working to ensure everyone in Phase 1A is vaccinated. “You can imagine  the number of people it’s going to take to get through 1B and the amount of time it’s going to take given our current allotment,” McKay said. “It’s going to be a matter of months before we can provide that widespread access to all of those individuals in that particular group.”Over 40,000 have filled out the survey that the Blue Ridge Health District has used to begin to tackle the logistics. That also means creating a third space for municipal employees.“We’ve partnered with the city and Albemarle County to have them open and operate a site at Charlottesville High School where they are providing access to Phase 1A city employees, so this would be people in health and human services, social services, and then Phase 1B educators,” McKay said.The Biden administration has stated they are working to increase supply, and more information will come out over the next few weeks. “There are other vaccines on the horizon but we don’t know how readily available they will be,” McKay said. “Some of those vaccines, such as the Johnson & Johnson, is actually a one-dose vaccine but the efficacy on that vaccine is less. I think it’s at about 65 percent. So as more vaccines become available we’ll obviously have to educate our communities about those vaccines and the benefits and comparisons to the ones that are currently out there.” There are now more people vaccinated in Virginia than the total number of cases since last March. McKay said there was a surge following the holidays, but that has begun to wane. “Over the last couple of weeks we have seen a downward trend both in the percent positive from test results, and we’ve also seen a downward trend in the total number of cases and case incidence per 100,000,” McKay said. “So we believe at this point after three weeks or so of a downward trend, that we’ve worked our way beyond the surge but also recognize that there is always that potential for increased cases and transmission in the community.” Charlottesville City Council has denied a special use permit for additional density at a site in Belmont that would have added 11 units at 1000 Monticello Road. Brian Haluska is a city planner. “1000 Monticello Road already has a development on it, so that project as its currently developed has more units than what the zoning would allow,” Haluska said. “The project was built in the 70’s and was rezoned in 2003.”That rezoning was part of a comprehensive rezoning across the city. This portion of Belmont was put in the Neighborhood Commercial Corridor category, which is why there are so many restaurants clustered nearby. Several members of the Charlottesville Low-Income Housing Coalition asked Council to deny the permit. Laura Goldblatt is a member of the Board of Commissioners for the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority and a Belmont resident. “It doesn’t meet the affordability that we need,” Goldblatt said. “One of the things that we need to demand of developers is affordable housing. The only way we’re going to start to see a lack of displacement and that we’re going to see Charlottesville be more inclusive and welcoming is if developers really have their feet held to the fire and have to do it.”  Many expressed anger that the owner, Piedmont Realty Holdings III LLC, raised rents in the current building after purchasing the property in February 2019 for $2.75 million. Haluska said staff could not take that into consideration.“Past actions of an applicant are not something we take into account and you can kind of get into trouble with that when you do that,” Haluska said.He also said the number of units proposed in the new structure do not trigger provisions in the city code that require a portion of them to be sold or rented to people whose incomes are less than 80 percent of the area median (AMI). (link to code) “Altogether this project does not have enough square footage within all of its buildings including the new building to make it over that line,” Haluska said. The applicant had volunteered to make five units comply with the city’s affordable dwelling unit policy anyway, at roughly 65 percent of the AMI. However, Council did not trust the guarantee. Here’s Councilor Lloyd Snook.“To me the issue is, are we as a city better off if we have 11 units, five of which are affordable at this roughly 65 percent of AMI,” Snook said. Councilor Michael Payne was among the three Councilors who voted to deny. “Just because an SUP is in front of us doesn’t mean we have to approve it,” Payne said. “It’s our policy decision and we can evaluate all SUPs on the merits and make a policy decision there. Given the adverse neighborhood impacts, the fact that it doesn’t conform with our Comprehensive Plan, the existing zoning there, and under our current ordinance for the criteria for standards for issuance I think there is a strong case to be made that there are adverse neighborhood impacts on the surrounding neighborhood.”Payne made a motion to recommend denial and it carried 3-2. Mayor Nikuyah Walker and Vice Mayor Sena Magill voted to deny and Snook and Councilor Heather Hill voted to approve. A rewrite of the city’s affordable housing policy is underway. The public comment period for the draft has closed, but the document is available for review. The Planning Commission will discuss the draft at their meeting on February 9. (draft affordable housing plan)The Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors has released its home sales report for the final quarter of calendar year 2020. In summary, mortgage rates are at a historic low which may be fueling recent activity in the market. (download the report)“Sales are surging in the CAAR area housing market,” reads the executive summary of the report. “There were 1,278 sales in the 4th quarter, a 23 percent jump from last year.”There has also been an increase in the median sales price, which was $348,050 in the region during the period, or a 13 percent rise over the previous year. There are also fewer homes on the market, which is likely contributing to the increase in sales prices. The report covers the same jurisdictions in the Thomas Jefferson Area Planning District. They are Charlottesville, Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, and Nelson. Download the reportFor the second year in a row, the Virginia Festival of the Book will not be held in person this March. However, the festival will proceed virtually from March 13 through March 26 on both Zoom and Facebook Live. More than forty events will be held with authors and all of it is free to the viewing audience. But if you can’t wait until then, there are many recorded events available on-demand at vabook.org. There are also several events coming up this month as part of their Shelf Life program. The festival has been running since 1995 and is a service of Virginia Humanities. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

Today's Patreon-fueled shout-out is for the Plant Northern Piedmont Natives Campaign, an initiative that wants you to grow native plants in yards, farms, public spaces and gardens in the northern Piedmont. Native plants provide habitat, food sources for wildlife, ecosystem resiliency in the face of climate change, and clean water.  Start at the Plant Northern Piedmont Natives Facebook page and tell them Lonnie Murray sent you! On today’s show:City Council suspends search for a new city manager Three Georgia men have been arrested in connection with a shooting yesterdayAlbemarle’s design review panel briefed on restoration of several “entrance corridors”Details on two “community reads” currently being assisted by the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library The Virginia Department of Health is reporting another 4,377 cases of COVID-19 today, and reports another 59 deaths. The percent positivity rating has risen to 16.2 percent, up from 12.2 percent a week ago. In the Blue Ridge Health District there are another 55 cases and one more death, bringing the total COVID-related fatalities in the district to 97 since March. Yesterday the Blue Ridge Health District posted a video that showed the inside of the temporary structure that has been erected in the former KMart parking lot. The structure will be the location of mass vaccinations beginning tomorrow. Blue Ridge Health District spokeswoman Kathryn Goodman said in an email this morning Emergency Medical Services personnel, Region 10 residential facility staff and dialysis center staff will be the first to receive doses as part of Phase1A of the vaccine roll-out. Meanwhile, many health care workers at the University of Virginia and Sentara Martha Jefferson hospitals have received their second doses. Source: Virginia Department of Health*Charlottesville Police have arrested three men from Columbus, Georgia and charged them with several felonies related to a shooting on Emmet Street yesterday. According to a release, a 21-year-old resident of Fluvanna County was shot and is in stable condition at the University of Virginia Hospital. The suspects were apprehended by the Albemarle County Police Department and being held in the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail pending a bond hearing. *Charlottesville City Council has suspended its search for a new city manager to replace Dr. Tarron Richardson, who resigned last September. "Council has decided to pause working with a search firm for the City Manager recruitment and is evaluating next steps to stabilize the organization over the next 12-24 months,” reads a statement from Council sent to the Daily Progress yesterday by Councilor Heather Hill. “We anticipate providing additional information to the public in advance of our next regular meeting on January 19th."  In a Facebook post, City Councilor Lloyd Snook said the city had interviewed five search firms in October and selected Ralph Andersen and Associates in part because one of that company’s officials had made a statement that “it is going to take a special kind of person to want to come to Charlottesville at the moment.”  That official was Robert Burg, the company’s vice president.  According to Snook, Burg had a virtual meeting with city staff on December 4. A story in the Daily Progress today based on a Freedom of Information Act request from Tanesha Hudson quotes an email from Police Chief RaShall Brackney in which she described Burg as “unprofessional.” In his post, Snook said that Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker had disagreed with the hiring of Ralph Andersen and Associates. He quoted a December 10 email from Walker in which she said she would not meet one-on-one with Burg, but only as an entire Council. In the email, she said she did not think the firm was interested in hearing her point of view. “I explained to you all in the summer that I believed that it would be extremely challenging to select a city manager with this current council and that I had hoped that things would have worked out with the previous city manager,” Walker said in that email. Walker’s first four-year term is up later this year, as is the first four-year term of Councilor Heather Hill. In 2017, Walker was the first independent candidate elected to Council since 1948, and she announced last February she would seek another term. In his Facebook post, Snook said Burg told that he had never seen this level of dysfunction before and that it would be difficult to hire a manager at this time.“In my opinion, we will not be able to hire a permanent City Manager until after the next election, in November, 2021, and we should not try,” Snook wrote. Council has now had four managers since the contract of Maurice Jones was not renewed in 2018. Deputy City Manager Mike Murphy served as interim until May 2019, when Richardson took over. City attorney John Blair is serving as interim manager.  Council also recently suspended its strategic plan process. They are next scheduled to meet on January 12 in a joint meeting with the Planning Commission. That meeting will be on the Capital Improvement Program. So far, no candidates for Council have filed paperwork, according to an email received this morning from City Registrar Melissa Morton. *Albemarle County might soon pursue scenic and historic designations for roadways that until recently have been under the jurisdiction of the Architectural Review Board. The ARB reviews projects within what are known as Entrance Corridors, but several roads such as Route 6 do not qualify because the Virginia Department of Transportation does not classify them as “arterial” roadways. Margaret Maliszewski is an Albemarle County Planning Manager.“For four of the non-arterial streets, we are recommending that they be upgraded to arterial status,” Maliszewski said. “They include the full length of Avon Street Extended, Barracks Road from the city limits to Georgetown Road, Thomas Jefferson Parkway or Route 53 for the full length, and Richmond Road from Route 22 to the County.”Maliszewski said staff is also recommending restoring a county-level scenic or historic designation for several other streets such as the rest of Barracks Road, Route 6 and Route 22. Other roads could become Scenic By-Ways, a designation granted by the Commonwealth Transportation Board.  The Board of Supervisors will be presented with the information at their meeting on February 3. “If the Board wants us to start to consider the county scenic highway and the historic designation that is a multi-step process that would have public hearings and we’re not ready to jump into that yet. Really what we’re asking for in February is whether they want us to start pursuing it.”ARB Member Frank Stoner said he wasn’t sure that all of the entrance corridor designations needed to be restored.“Some of these corridors don’t really have any commercial development on them and I just wonder whether it’s worth the effort to pursue this designation,” Stoner said. “I don’t exactly know what’s involved once you get into VDOT.” Stoner said he was most concerned about restoring ARB’s jurisdiction over Avon Street Extended, which he said was not a major arterial. “And it’s a road that already has a fairly industrial character and so I worry that there aren’t many places anymore in the county where you can actually build something akin to a warehouse or a purely functional structure and Avon already serves that purpose,” Stoner said. *The year is still relatively new and there’s still time to pick up the habit of reading a book. If you’d like to read along with several hundred other area residents, the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library has the book for you as part of their Same Page program. “So this year for 2021 our Same Page pick is Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson,” said Abby Cox, a reference librarian with JMRL. “This is the same book we picked for last year but Same Page takes place during March so as you can imagine, most of our book groups did not get to meet last year to discuss the book and we weren’t able to bring her in person because of the pandemic.”Cox said Brown Girl Dreaming is a memoir in poetry of Woodson’s childhood in South Carolina and New York in the late 60’s. And this year’s programs will also be virtual due to the continuing nature of the pandemic. JMRL has adapted. “We have pivoted a lot of our programming to virtual programming so we’ve been having book groups meet through Zoom where people can also call into participate so that’s really how this is going to look for our Same Page programming,” Cox said. Woodson will be on one of the sessions on March 17 at 7 p.m. as part of the Virginia Festival of the Book, which will be entirely virtual this year. The “community read” is under the Same Page program, which is funded by the Friends of the Library group in partnership with the Virginia Festival of the Book. It used to be called the Big Read and was paid for through a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts. The University of Virginia’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are also doing a “community read” in commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr. Their book for 2021 is Dr. King’s 1967 work Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community. A panel discussion for that will be held on January 25 at 6 p.m. (details)“One of the things that is so great about a Community Read is it gives people to have conversations with neighbors or members of the community that they may not otherwise be in dialogue with,” Cox said. Copies of both Brown Girl Dreaming and Where Do We Go From Here are available to be checked out from JMRL branches. Are you going to read it? If so, let me know. Let’s have some dialog!Details on the Same Page program are on the JMRL website*Today in meetings, the Charlottesville Tree Commission meets at 5 p.m. They’ll discuss their annual report to Council and hear a report from the city’s arborist. (agenda) This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s episode is brought to you by all of those who have opted to pay for the show through various means. I’ll run down those ways at the end of the show. On today’s program:Governor Northam discusses how a COVID vaccine may soon be distributed in VirginiaA Greene County woman was shot early Tuesday morning, the latest in a series of homicides in the regionAlbemarle Board of Supervisors agrees to move forward with public hearing for a county cigarette tax Charlottesville Chamber of Commerce hands out awards at Rebound Ball*Governor Ralph Northam yesterday talked about how Virginia is preparing to distribute a COVID-19 vaccine. But first, he said that all regions of the Commonwealth are experiencing community spread.“Our percent positivity is now at 8.3 percent,” Northam said. “It was at 5 percent just a few weeks ago. Our hospitals are seeing higher numbers of people hospitalized with COVID than they have during this pandemic.”Northam said that while Virginia has had lower numbers than many states, the Commonwealth is connected to fellow jurisdictions.“In our border communities, people routinely cross state lines to work, shop, and visit their families,” Northam said. “What happens in these other states affects us here in Virginia. For example, health officials believe Tennessee’s lack of a mask requirement and other restrictions has increased the spread of the virus in neighboring Virginia communities.” Northam said that people are letting their guard down by not wearing masks in small gatherings. “Virginia, you know the truth,” Northam said. “You don’t wear a mask, and you don’t social distance, and you think your right to ignore public health advice trumps your neighbor’s right to get infected by you, these cases will just continue going up.”Northam did not impose any new restrictions yesterday. He said vaccines are on the way.“I want to outline for Virginians what to expect in the coming weeks and months,” Northam said. “First of all, we have every reason to believe that these vaccines are safe. Remember that this is a global pandemic and the best science available worldwide has gone into developing and researching these vaccines.” Northam drew upon his experience as a doctor to vouch for the process, but said Virginians needed to be patient while the logistics of delivering the vaccine to those who need it first are worked out. “And last night the advisory committee on immunization practices voted to put health-care workers and residents of long-term care facilities first in line,” Northam said. “Virginia is planning a phased approach which aligns with CDC guidelines. As we get more vaccine, we will be able to prioritize other groups such as medically vulnerable people.” Source: Virginia Public Media (screenshot from their feed) Northam said Virginia is ready to mobilize.“The Virginia Department of Health has been planning for this vaccine for several months starting in the summer,” Northam said. “They’ve worked with hospitals, long-term care facilities and providers in the community and have the systems in place to keep track of this large scale operation.” Northam said if the Food and Drug Administration grants the emergency use request to approve, vaccines could ship to states as early as mid-December. “Virginia expects to get about 70,000 doses from Pfizer in the first wave, enough to 70,000 individuals to get their first dose of the vaccine,” Northam said. This will depend on the procurement and use of ultra-cold storage facilities. The current vaccines from both Pfizer and Moderna require two doses, so the success of this endeavor depends on those supply chains working out.  Northam said vaccines from other companies are also working their way through the approvals process, and that he is personally ready.“When our turn comes, my family and I will have no hesitancy about getting vaccinated, and I strongly encourage every Virginians to get the vaccine,” Northam said. “That is our only path to getting back to that near normal that we speak about.”Northam said this will take months, so social distancing, mask-wearing, and hand-washing are necessary to help reduce transmission of the virus. Today the Virginia Department of Health reports another 2,023 COVID-19 cases this morning. The seven-day average for positive PCR tests has increased to 8.8 percent today. One thing to note is that the VDH in the past seven days has processed half as many tests as they did the week before. (124,108 in the past seven days, 229,432 in the week before). In the Blue Ridge Health District, there are another 22 cases reported today, and the seven-day daily average is 27 cases a day. This weekend, the Blue Ridge Health District and UVA Health will offer 2,000 free self-administering COVID-19 tests at an event at Albemarle High School. The U.S. The Department of Health and Human Services is providing the tests, which will be available for people over the age of 13 from noon to 4 p.m. Pre-registration is required and can be done at this website. If you have questions, contact Dawn Niles at dn8a@virginia.edu or 434-924-2946. *A Charlottesville woman is dead after being shot just after midnight on Tuesday in the 700 block of Celt Road in Greene County. Terry Beigie reports in the Greene County Record that 21-year-old Sara Hammond is the victim, but that the Sheriff's office had not yet ruled the incident as a homicide. In November, three people were murdered in Charlottesville in individually unrelated cases and suspects have been taken into custody in two of those incidents. Charlottesville Police continue to investigate the murder of 31-year-old Tanya Renee Wheeler. In late November, the Daily Progress reported that Albemarle County Police arrested James Elliott Fitch in the killing of 55-year-old Yyvette Fitch near Covesville. Another Albemarle man was arrested earlier in the month and charged with the second degree murder of Madeline Colvin, according to a report from NBC29. *The Albemarle Board of Supervisors has agreed to take the next step in a plan to levy a 40 cent tax on all packs of cigarettes sold in the county. Albemarle and the vast majority of Virginia’s other counties did not have that ability until legislation passed the General Assembly this year giving them the enabling authority. Lori Allshouse is the assistant chief financial officer for policy and partnership. “Up until now, only Virginia’s cities and towns and two counties were able to impose a cigarette tax,” Allshouse said. Allshouse recommended that Albemarle enter into a regional approach with some of its neighbors to prevent one locality from having a competitive advantage in the former of lower prices for cigarettes. She said Northern Virginia has a regional tax. “Nineteen jurisdictions have gotten together to administer the tax in a regional way, with a regional board,” Allshouse said. On Tuesday, the Thomas Jefferson Planning District held a webinar on the topic, and executive director Chip Boyles told me in an email that they plan to invite a member of the Northern Virginia Cigarette Tax Board to speak to interested localities. Allshouse acknowledged that revenue from the tax is likely to decline as cigarette smoking usage continues to drop. She suggested the Board could dedicate the tax to a specific purpose and added that the county will apply an equity lens to the decision. Albemarle also received the ability to levy a tax on plastic bags, but Allshouse said the county wants to take more time to study the effect that would have on small businesses during the pandemic. “A lot of times they have to program things different within their stores to be able to impose this tax so we’re pausing on bringing that forward to you today because of that,” Allshouse said. Source: Albemarle County*The Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce held its annual award dinner last night the only way such things really happen these days - virtually. “Welcome to this year’s celebration of our business community, which has extra special meaning to all of us during this unbelievably crazy and challenging year,” said Elizabeth Cromwell, the Chamber president and CEO. This year, the Chamber handed out special awards to recognize businesses that adapted to the pandemic. The PIVOT Award went out to: Animal ConnectionBrooks Family YMCAChick-Fil-A at Fashion SquareCulinary Concepts ABJefferson Area Board for Aging (JABA)King Family VineyardsMichie TavernVirginia Institute of Autism (VIA). The PIVOT Award also went to marketing firm Bright Ideas. Here’s the company’s owner, Janet Baellow. “It’s really ironic that we should win the PIVOT Award because during the past several months, which feels like several years to me, we heard the word ‘pivot’ so many times, ‘this company pivoted, this company didn’t pivot, this supplier pivoted, this supplier didn’t pivot’ and I got to the point with my staff where I said if I hear the word pivot one more time I’m going to scream. Well, I’m really happy to hear the word pivot in this context,” Baellow said the employee. Another PIVOT award went to Culinary Concepts AB and chef Antwon Brinson. “This year going into 2020, we were forecast to have one of the best years thus far in our business, and like businesses all around the world, in March, everything came to a screeching halt. And when I say a half, I mean nothing. Flat line. BOOOOOOP! Nothing.”However, Brinson said he was gifted with more time, which gave him perspective.“Where people see March as a barrier, I saw it as an opportunity, an opportunity to look at my community and see where the needs where, and create solutions that allow me to fill the gaps,” Brinson said. He ended up spending the early days of the pandemic figuring out how to create virtual classes, and he partnered with 4P Foods. “They work with regional farmers, giving them an opportunity to sell their produce to business and consumers such as yourself,” Brinson said. “The next stage was how do we connect the dots? How do I educate people around the seasonality of produce? How do I inspire you to get in your kitchen and create something different?”Attendees of the Chamber’s Rebound Ball also learned about progress made by the Network2Work program. Ridge Schuyler is the dean of community self-sufficiency at Piedmont Virginia Community College.“Network2Work is built on the principle that a community thrives when all of its residents thrive and to thrive, families need enough incomes to meet their basic needs and begin building wealth,” Schuyler said. “Network2Work identifies people who have been left behind in our community using a novel network of neighborhood based connectors. These connectors match job seekers to employers like you who offer jobs and careers that pay family-sustaining wages.” Governor Northam has recently announced he wants to take the program statewide. Schuyler said the local program has worked with over 1,000 people looking to recover from setbacks since 2014. I’ll  have more from the Rebound Ball in Friday’s newsletter. In meetings today:An advisory group overseeing creation of the capital improvement budget for Albemarle’s next fiscal year meets at 2 p.m. (meeting info)The Natural Heritage Committee meets at 5:30 p.m. (meeting info)The Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission meets at 7 p.m. (meeting info)The Virginia Festival of the Book has another Shelf Life event. Mystery authors Jasmine Aimaq (The Opium Prince) and Nev March (Murder in Old Bombay) will discuss their debut novels with Meredith Cole. (link)How to support this work:To make all of this work, I have launched a new business called Town Crier Productions in order to make a living as I go about my work researching public policy in our community.  You can help me by making a contribution: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's Patreon-fueled shout-out is for the Plant Northern Piedmont Natives Campaign, an initiative that wants you to plant native plants in yards, farms, public spaces and gardens in the northern Piedmont. Native plants provide habitat, food sources for wildlife, ecosystem resiliency in the face of climate change, and clean water.  Start at the Plant Northern Piedmont Natives Facebook page and tell them Lonnie Murray sent you! *Virginia has set another one-day total for new COVID-19 cases today with 2,544 new cases bringing the total since March to 213,331. The seven-day average for new cases is now at 2,010. The seven-day average for positive tests has declined slightly to seven percent statewide. The total number of new cases per 100,000 population statewide is now 288.4. That number was 230.4 a week ago and 205.3 two weeks ago. In the Blue Ridge Health District there are another 36 cases today, with 12 from Albemarle, eight from Charlottesville, seven from Louisa, four from Nelson, three from Fluvanna, and two from Greene. An additional COVID-19 fatality has been recorded in Nelson, bringing the total for the Blue Ridge Health District to 81. Statewide the death toll is 3,912. Sometime today the nation will cross the quarter-million mark for COVID deaths. Different parts of Virginia continue to have different experiences with the pandemic this month. While not reliable as a sole indicator of community spread, percent positivity can give a glimpse into what’s happening. Central - 5.2% Eastern - 6%Far Southwest - 15.2%Near Southwest - 10.8% Northern - 8.2%Northwest - 5.5%The Charlottesville School Board last night cautiously directed staff to continue planning to begin hybrid in-person education in January, though some members stated they would continue to watch the COVID numbers. (presentation from meeting)“I also want to say that the Board at our January 4, or at our next meeting after the December 19 meeting looks at the data and says the data is going in the wrong direction, which I fully anticipate it doing, that we have to pull back,” said Chair Jennifer McKeever. Under the current plan, pre-K through 6th grade would begin phasing back to class on January 11 and 7th through 12th would return on February 1. Sherry Kraft is another member of the School Board.“I’m comfortable with the idea of affirming or voting to continue working on these preparations with the understanding that we are not locking ourselves that we’re not locking ourselves into what the model says right now,” Kraft said. Two-thirds of Charlottesville households with students want their students to return in-person according to materials presented to the School Board. Overall, 83 percent of households with students returned the survey. White families had a 92 percent return rate and households identified as People of Color had a 76 percent return rate. Teachers were also asked to give their preference on returning and were given four options and could only choose one. Of 275 elementary teachers surveyed, 97 said they wanted to be in-person, 77 said online, 26 said both in-person and online, and 75 said they would go wherever they were needed. McKeever said she was concerned there might not be enough teachers to move forward.“I want elementary schools to start and to the extent that we have enough teachers, I don’t want us to get into a situation where [human resources] has to tell a teacher that ‘I need you back in the class’ or I need you to resign’,” McKeever said. Superintendent Rosa Atkins said the school system will do what it can to stay intact. “COVID will not last forever,” Atkins said. “We are going to get through this. It’s a difficult time for everyone and there are a lot of adjustments we’re all having to make. But we want to make this as clear and transparent as possible. We don’t want to lose any of our teachers. We want them to stay. We want to work with our staff. Keep them on board.”The School Board will make a final decision at their meeting on December 16. They directed staff to find a way to reduce asynchronous learning in 7th graders and up. The Board also agreed to hire a firm that can provide temporary bus drivers to provide extra trips to get students to school. COVID restrictions limit capacity to 20 students and assistant director for pupil transit Sherry Eubanks said the additional drivers are required to make sure everyone can get to school. “We currently are using every driver we have to drive the students that we are transporting right now, so without extra help, even getting the 383 students to school is going to be a struggle,” Eubanks said. The Board approved a process through which a contract will be worked out for the temporary drivers. *A volunteer group of computer programmers and technical experts will hold an information session tomorrow to find out more about what projects it can work on to benefit the greater Charlottesville community. Jonathan Kropko is the volunteer lead with Code for Charlottesville.“Code for Charlottesville is a local chapter of Code for America which is a national network of groups that begin volunteers with tech or data or code or design or research skills to work on a project for a community partner,” Kropko said. So far, Code for Charlottesville has worked on projects for the Legal Aid Justice Center, the Charlottesville Fire Department and the Charlottesville Office of Human Rights. To find new partners and volunteers, they are holding a work session tomorrow at 4 p.m for people who want to be part of the leadership team. Kropko said the goal of the session is to listen to what the community wants. “There’s a huge movement in the tech industry, the phrase they use is social good and I want to put that in quotes,” Kropko said. “Because a lot of time when they talk about the tech for the social good, it’s not really doing anything good for society. A lot of time these projects fizzle out without doing anything useful.”Kropko said the goal of the information session is to try to come up with useful projects. He said that starts by recruiting volunteers. “You have to do a good job with organizing so that people know what they are working on and what the goals are,” Kropko said. “And you have to do a really good job communicating with your partner in the community. The Code for Charlottesville MeetUp begins tomorrow at 4 p.m. for people interested in civic tech. Register here. *The Virginia Festival of the Book has announced it will hold next year’s literary celebration in a virtual capacity. The 27th annual festival will take place virtually from March 13 to March 26. “All virtual events are free and purchasing participating authors’ books is encouraged but not required,” reads the announcement on the Virginia Humanities website.Since April, the Virginia Festival of the Book has been holding online events called Shelf Life and they say they have had more than 22,000 viewers. *Today in meetings, the Charlottesville City Council will hold a budget work session at 1 p.m. and are expected to make some decisions on the capital improvement program. Last week they were asked to either make cuts or give consent to a plan to fully utilize all of the city’s borrowing capacity. The draft affordable housing plan calls for $10 million in spending every year for ten years. There’s a multimillion dollar project to create a new streetscape for West Main. There’s a long-running request from the schools to reconfigure the middle schools. And on Monday, they were told they’d need to spend up to $4 million to build a roundabout to calm down traffic on 5th Street.  I’ll be producing a story on that to let you know what happens. *Tonight at 7 pm, Live Arts will hold another Coffeehouse. These are a series of musical acts from local artists. There are musical performances by Rob Craighurst, Courtney Jacobs, Tanya Kae, Joshua Tucker and more. This is available for free on their YouTube channel, but they are asking people consider paying what they can. Learn more on the Live Arts website. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

Support for this program comes from the many people who have decided to fund it through a monthly contribution through my Patreon account. For $25 a month, you too can have me read a shout-out! Support also comes from those who have paid for a subscription through this newsletter service. Either way, thank you!  Over 3,540 Albemarle voters have already cast their ballot in early voting, according to county registrar Jake Washburne. Jim Heilman, a member of the county’s electoral board, gave an update to the Places29-Rio Community Advisory Committee last night as part of their monthly meeting. There are 39 days including today until November 3, the final deadline for voting in this year’s federal election. Early voting is underway across Virginia and local election officials are trying to get the word out about what has changed in this pandemic year. “We have basically a perfect storm of an election this year,” said Jim Heilman, a member of the Albemarle County Electoral Board. “All presidential elections are a storm for sure but this one has a lot of added things to it. We have a whole raft of new election laws.”These include expanded early voting and no-excuse absentee voting. Heilman said the electoral board is not seeing a spike in new voter registrations. “Voter registration is something that normally is spiking right now in a presidential year, but it’s not spiking here,” Heilman said. “It’s going up but it’s not spiking, and I think the main reason for that is because the normal ways of getting voter registration up by door-to-door registration drives and registration drives at concerts, Fridays after Five, none of those are happening.” Heilman and the rest of the electoral board and staff are recommending people vote in advance to avoid large crowds on election day. There is a pandemic after all. “However we do want to assure our voters that all 30 of our polling places will be open, and that we are making out best efforts to make that they are safe and clean on election day,” Heilman said.If you still need to register to vote, visit this site. *There are another 941 cases of COVID-19 reported today by the Virginia Department of Health, for a total of 144,433 since the pandemic began. At some point, Governor Ralph Northam and First Lady Pamela Northam will be among that number, as both tested positive for COVID-19 yesterday. That means they will be isolating for ten days. “As I’ve been reminding Virginians throughout this crisis, COVID-19 is very real and very contagious,” said Governor Northam in a release. “The safety and health of our staff and close contacts is of utmost importance to Pam and me, and we are working closely with the Department of Health to ensure that everyone is well taken care of.”Contact tracing is now underway. Another 23 deaths are reported today, but that figure represents a continuing update as death certificates come into the VDH. The seven day average for positive PCR test results has dropped to 5.1 percent. Statewide, there is an additional case of the Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children, for a total of nine to date. There are another 48 cases in the Thomas Jefferson Health District with 25 new cases in Charlottesville, and 18 from Albemarle. Looked at another way, there are 52 new cases per 100,000 people in Charlottesville, and 16.6 new cases per 100,000 in Albemarle. The seven-day rate for positive tests is now at 4.9 percent, up from 4.7 percent. The University of Virginia reported another 22 cases yesterday, all students. The official number of active cases is now at 238, and that means people tested at UVA who were positive in the past ten days. *Many who live in this region are unaware the confluence of the Rivanna and James Rivers in Fluvanna County is sacred ground for the Monacan Nation. Now the National Trust for Historic Protection has named the site known as Rassawek as one of its 11 most endangered places. “Researchers verified Rassawek’s location in the 1880s, the 1930s and the 1980s,” reads a Preservation Virginia blog post on the announcement. “It is the Monacan equivalent of Werowocomoco, the Powhatan capital now planned to be a national park.”The James River Water Authority has planned to locate a pump station on the site as part of an effort to bring public water to Zion Crossroads. In August, public pressure from the Monacan Nation and others led the Authority to hit pause on the planning process to explore previously discarded alternatives. The next meeting of the James River Water Authority is October 14. (read Allison Wrabel’s Daily Progress article from August)*Every part of the Earth contains plants that are home to that specific region. Some of these have fruits that make their way into the rest of the world, if they are a product that can be sold. But, what about the rest of the ecosystem from which that food comes from? Enrique Salmónis an ethnobotanist whose work is based on the belief that “all life-forms are interconnected and share the same breath.” That’s according to the materials for a presentation the Virginia Festival of the Book offered yesterday on Salmón’s book, Iwígara: American Indian Ethnobotanical Traditions and Science. He said he often gives his students this example. “I ask them, ‘well, how many of you like guacamole?’ And of course most of them will raise their hands although there are always a couple that don’t like the texture of avacado,” Salmón said. “I ask them where does guacamole come from, and most of them will know that it’s avocado. And then I ask them what does an avocado tree look like, and that’s when only one or two hands will go up and then I ask when do you pick avocados and most of the time, they don’t really know.”Salmón is head of the American Indian Studies Program at Cal State University-East Bay, in Hayward, California. The event can be watched on the Virginia Festival of the Book’s Facebook page.  *There are two meetings today both under the auspices of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission (TJPDC). The TJPDC’s Regional Housing Partnership begins a fall speaker series. At 11 a.m., Dr. Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist with Virginia Realtors, will talk about the impact of COVID-19 on the Charlottesville Area housing market. (register)The Rivanna River Basin Commission will hold its annual conference at noon, this time virtually. There will be an update on the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Improvement Plan (WIP), a presentation on Best Management Practices for Stormwater Management, and updates on local efforts to improve water quality. You can listen to the 2018 conference here.  (more info and registration)If you made it to this point, I thank you. You are also likely someone who would be interested in filling out this survey I am doing as part of a course I am taking with the Community Investment Collaborative. As I launch this new venture, I am seeking ways to understand more about how what people think about news and information. This is my first ever attempt at market research, and if you have a moment, I’d love to get your thoughts. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

Monday, August 17, 2020Today’s installment has a final shout-out to the CVille STEM fundraiser to pay for boxes for scientific school supplies. We’re pleased to announce they have met their $30,000 goal! Thank you for your support. *Another day, another new set of numbers. The Virginia Department of Health reports another 734 cases of COVID-19 today, and another 4 deaths for a total of 2,385 fatalities to date. The statewide seven-day average for positive tests has dropped to 7 percent, a figure that was last reported on July 15. That’s when caseloads were in the middle of an increase in the Commonwealth. This average hit a high of 8.2 percent on July 21. There are another 18 cases reported in the Thomas Jefferson Health District, with seven from Albemarle, two from Greene, one in Fluvanna, five in Louisa, and three in Nelson. There were no new cases reported from Charlottesville and no new deaths in the district.  The COVID-19 reproduction rate in Virginia has increased but only slightly, according to the latest model from the University of Virginia Biocomplexity Institute. The reproduction rate listed in the August 14 report is at 0.917 statewide, up from 0.909 on August 7. Numbers higher than 1 indicate higher levels of community spread.  Sixteen health districts in the Commonwealth are experiencing surges, including three in the southwest and one in the central region. The far southwest region has a reproduction rate of 1.139.  In all, the model suggests that Virginia has avoided 922,941 cases since May 15 through various interventions.The model itself has been updated this week to take into account past and current trends, and to factor in possible increases due to school reopenings and changing weather patterns. As of right now, the model is expecting a ten to twenty percent increase in transmissibility. “With the new modeling approach, the current course predicts a peak the week of September 27th with 14,743 weekly cases,” reads the model. “With a 10 percent increase in transmissibility beginning on Labor Day, we would expect to see cases peak at 18,000 the week of October 11th. A 20 percent increase in transmissibility leads to a slightly later peak the week of October 18th with over 23,000 weekly cases.”***So far there have been no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in meat and poultry processing facilities in Virginia this month, continuing a downward trend of infections from highs of 604 cases in April and 552 in June. The Virginia Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control worked with plant operators to put in interventions including requiring face coverings, and adding physical barriers between workers where physical distancing is not possible. In all, there were ten COVID-19 deaths related to these facilities. ***Earlier in the pandemic, a couple of physicians at the University of Virginia wrote a children’s book to explain COVID-19 to children of color. “We’re Going to Be Okay” by Dr. Ebony Jade Hilton and Dr. Leigh-Ann Webb is intended to simplify the language of this time. The book is co-created by illustrator Ashleigh Corrin Webb. They spoke about their work on a Virginia Festival of the Book webinar last week. Here’s Dr. Leigh-Ann Webb, who had never written a book before. “This is the first time that I’ve really seen the power of that intersection of health, art, creativity and how you use those two things to connect with an audience,” said Dr. Webb. Ashleigh Corrin Webb had ten days to draw the book.“It was exciting, an exciting challenge and I think it was exciting because the purpose was to serve and that’s what drives me and what I do and why I do what I do,” said Corrin Webb, likening the collaboration to a dance. “I need the information. I obviously don’t have the knowledge that Ebony and Leigh-Ann have so I need that and then I’m like that give that to me and I’ll figure out how to present it in a way to hopefully make it resonate with people.” The book is available for download. ***There are lots of government meetings today. Charlottesville City Council will meet at 6:30 p.m. and has five public hearings. The first regards a request from the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority (RWSA) for an easement for the waterline to connect the Ragged Mountain Reservoir and South Fork Rivanna Reservoir.  The project is the second phase of a community water supply plan adopted by Albemarle and Charlottesville in January 2012. (staff report)“This water line will replace the existing Upper Sugar Hollow Pipeline and increase raw water transfer in the urban water system,” reads the staff report for the item. “The water line is anticipated to be constructed between 2027 and 2040 for an estimated cost of $80 million.”The next four are for:A request for Dominion Energy for an easement for electrical lines at the Ragged Mountain Natural Area and the Heyward Community Forest  (staff report)A request from the International School of Charlottesville for a drainage easement for their new facility near Rives Parks (staff report)A request from a landowner to purchase 0.13 acres of city property adjacent to Northeast Park (staff report)A request to support the three Smart Scale applications being submitted by the Charlottesville-Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization. They are:Hydraulic/29 Intersection Improvements ($24.6 million)Hillsdale Avenue South Extension ($29.7 million)Fifth Street Trail Hub ($3.7 million) (staff report).Council will also hold a second reading on changing the ordinance to prohibit firearms on city property. (staff report)Also meeting today are the Albemarle Architectural Review Board at 1 p.m. and the Places29-Hydraulic Community Advisory Committee at 530 p.m. They will get an update on the ambassadors at county parks who are there to enforce physical distancing guidelines. There will also be an update on the renovation of Charlotte Humphris Park and an update on development projects underway in the area. (meeting info)The Louisa Board of Supervisors meets in person at 5 p.m. for a meeting that includes a report on the state of Lake Anna, an update on the Shannon Hill Regional Business Park, a discussion on an application for a solar field, and a conversation on the Trevilian Battlefield’s request for a tax exemption. (agenda) This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

PubTalk Live is a publishing talk show, broadcasting live to YouTube every 2nd and 4th Saturday at 9pm Eastern. Host Sarah Nicolas is joined in each episode by a Guest Co-Host and at least one Special Guest. They talk about all aspects of the book publishing industry, including its intersections with other media and libraries. This episode of PubTalk Live was pre-recorded and features authortuber and author Lily Meade. Lily Meade twitter.com/lilymeade patreon.com/lilymeade instagram.com/lilymeade lilymeade.com youtube.com/c/lilymeadebooks Your Host, Sarah Nicolas: www.sarahnicolas.com @sarah_nicolas on Twitter @presidentSarah on Instagram Become a PubTalk Live patron: https://www.patreon.com/pubtalklive Subscribe via email: http://eepurl.com/gE3ahb Originally broadcast at: https://youtu.be/FYaddeT9gYQ Thank you to my Patreon Podcast Sponsors Brenda Drake, Jae Lynn, and reframecons.wordpress.com PubTalk Live Logo adapted from art from freepik.com. --News-- Hachette & Woody Allen: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/82609-hbg-staffers-stage-walkout-over-woody-allen-memoir.html https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/82624-hbg-will-not-publish-woody-allen-s-memoir.html VAT charge on digital books: https://twitter.com/hmtreasury/status/1237731947813777408 ViacomCBS selling Simon & Schuster: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/business/media/simon-schuster-for-sale-viacom-cbs.html Underlined: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/82576-delacorte-debuts-ya-line-with-an-internet-connection.html Audie awards: https://www.audiopub.org/uploads/pdf/2020-Audie-Awards-Winners-Press-Release.pdf Lightning Source removing books in violation of content policy: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/manufacturing/article/82526-lightning-source-to-introduce-content-integrity-guidelines.html Star Wars: The High Republic: https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-the-high-republic Barbara Nealy: https://mysterywriters.org/barbara-neely/ London Book Fair cancelled: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/04/london-book-fair-cancelled-over-coronavirus-fears-amid-growing-anger Bologna Children's Book Fair: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/international/trade-shows/article/82641-prh-pulls-out-of-rescheduled-bologna-book-fair.html Other cancelled events include National Book Critics Circle Awards, Tucson Festival of Books, Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, Nova Teen Book Festival, Paris Book Fair, Poets & Writers 50th Anniversary Gala, LA times Festival, Virginia Festival of the Book, Texas Library Association Conference, and the Orlando Book Festival Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh sentenced: https://www.baltimoresun.com/politics/bs-md-pol-pugh-sentenced-20200227-7yffn67n2nhfbmzhjdo4pzomku-story.html Beijing food delivery app to deliver books: https://www.abacusnews.com/tech/bookstores-hit-hard-coronavirus-can-now-deliver-books-using-food-delivery-app/article/3073924 Everywhere Book Fest May 1-2: http://everywherebookfest.com

In this episode, we consider books that we'd recommend to students as great choices to read independently. As the world around us has drastically changed and continues changing, we decided on this topic and talked about some of our favorites, including R. J. Palacio's Wonder, Jenny Han's To All the Boys I've Loved Before series, Nicola Yoon's books, and anything by Jason Reynolds, as well as some other favorites. We focus our discussion on books we think students can access without teacher support and on books that are not extremely heavy but leave the reader with a sense of hope. (We shared our long list on our Bookish Faves post this past Monday.) Be sure to let us know ones you'd recommend on the comments here or on our Instagram posts.   Our Recommendations R. J. Palacio’s Wonder Jenny Han’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (Ep 90) Jason Reynolds’s Track series or When I Was the Greatest (or any of his other works) (Ep 34) John Green’s Turtles All the Way Down Nicola Yoon’s Everything, Everything and The Sun Is Also a Star (Ep 75 - book-to-film adaptation) Victoria Jamieson’s Roller Girl Cece Bell’s El Deafo Raina Telgemeier’s Drama and Guts Julie Murphy's Dumplin’  (Ep 63 about the book & Ep 64 about the adaptation) David Yoon’s Frankly in Love   Other Mentions Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman’s Dry R. J. Palacio’s Auggie & Me: Three Wonder Stories (including The Julian Chapter), White Bird: A Wonder Story Click here to view the discussion between Jason Reynolds and Laurie Halse Anderson from Virginia Festival of the Book 2019   Give Me One - Something that Makes Us Happy Jen - flowering trees and spring Sara - red wine Ashley - roller coasters   Interested in what else we're reading? Check out our Featured Books page.   Want to support Unabridged?   Check out our Merch Store! Become a patron on Patreon.​ Follow us @unabridgedpod on Instagram. Like and follow our Facebook Page. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Check out our Teachers Pay Teachers store. Follow us @unabridgedpod on Twitter. Subscribe to our podcast and rate us on Apple Podcasts or on Stitcher. Check us out on Podbean.       Please note that we a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

I’m thrilled to have made friends with Dr. Amy Laura Hall. Not only is she back on the podcast to talk about Stanley Hauerwas’ influence on her work and theology, she’ll be our special guest in June at our annual live podcast at Annual Conference in Roanoke, Va. Amy Laura Hall was named a Henry Luce III Fellow in Theology for 2004-2005 and has received funding from the Lilly Foundation, the Josiah Trent Memorial Foundation, the American Theological Library Association, the Child in Religion and Ethics Project, the Pew Foundation and the Project on Lived Theology.At Duke University, Professor Hall has served on the steering committee of the Genome Ethics, Law, and Policy Center and as a faculty member for the FOCUS program of the Institute on Genome Sciences and Policy. She has served on the Duke Medical Center’s Institutional Review Board and as an ethics consultant to the V.A. Center in Durham. She served as a faculty adviser with the Duke Center for Civic Engagement (under Leela Prasad), on the Academic Council, and as a faculty advisor for the NCCU-Duke Program in African, African American & Diaspora Studies. She currently teaches with and serves on the faculty advisory board for Graduate Liberal Studies and serves as a core faculty member of the Focus Program in Global Health.Professor Hall was the 2017 Scholar in Residence at Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington D.C., served on the Bioethics Task Force of the United Methodist Church, and has spoken to academic and ecclesial groups across the U.S. and Europe. An ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, Hall is a member of the Rio Texas Annual Conference. She has served both urban and suburban parishes. Her service with the community includes an initiative called Labor Sabbath, an effort with the AFL-CIO of North Carolina to encourage congregations of faith to talk about the usefulness of labor unions, and, from August 2013 to June 2017, a monthly column for the Durham Herald-Sun. Professor Hall organized a conference against torture in 2011, entitled “Toward a Moral Consensus Against Torture,” and a “Conference Against the Use of Drones in Warfare” October 20-21, 2017. In collaboration with the North Carolina Council of Churches and the United Methodist Church, she organized a workshop with legal scholar Richard Rothstein held October, 2018.Amy Laura Hall is the author of four books: Kierkegaard and the Treachery of Love, Conceiving Parenthood: The Protestant Spirit of Biotechnological Reproduction, Writing Home with Love: Politics for Neighbors and Naysayers, and Laughing at the Devil: Seeing the World with Julian of Norwich. She has written numerous scholarly articles in theological and biomedical ethics. Recent articles include "The Single Individual in Ordinary Time: Theological Engagements in Sociobiology," which was a keynote lecture given with Kara Slade at the Society for the Study of Christian Ethics in 2012, and "Torture and American Television," which appeared in the April 2013 issue of Muslim World, a volume that Hall guest-edited with Daniel Arnold. Her essay “Love in Everything: A Brief Primer to Julian of Norwich" appeared in volume 32 of The Princeton Seminary Bulletin. Word and World published her essay on heroism in the Winter 2016 edition, and her essay "His Eye Is on the Sparrow: Collectivism and Human Significance" appeared in a volume entitled Why People Matter with Baker Publishing. Her forthcoming essays include a new piece on Kierkegaard and love for The T&T Clark Companion to the Theology of Kierkegaard, to be published by Bloomsbury T&T Clark.Laughing at the Devil was the focus of her 2018 Simpson Lecture at Simpson College in Iowa and has been chosen for the 2019 Virginia Festival of the Book. She continues work on a longer research project on masculinity and gender anxiety in mainstream, white evangelicalism.

I’m thrilled to have made friends with Dr. Amy Laura Hall. Not only is she back on the podcast to talk about Stanley Hauerwas’ influence on her work and theology, she’ll be our special guest in June at our annual live podcast at Annual Conference in Roanoke, Va. Amy Laura Hall was named a Henry Luce III Fellow in Theology for 2004-2005 and has received funding from the Lilly Foundation, the Josiah Trent Memorial Foundation, the American Theological Library Association, the Child in Religion and Ethics Project, the Pew Foundation and the Project on Lived Theology.At Duke University, Professor Hall has served on the steering committee of the Genome Ethics, Law, and Policy Center and as a faculty member for the FOCUS program of the Institute on Genome Sciences and Policy. She has served on the Duke Medical Center’s Institutional Review Board and as an ethics consultant to the V.A. Center in Durham. She served as a faculty adviser with the Duke Center for Civic Engagement (under Leela Prasad), on the Academic Council, and as a faculty advisor for the NCCU-Duke Program in African, African American & Diaspora Studies. She currently teaches with and serves on the faculty advisory board for Graduate Liberal Studies and serves as a core faculty member of the Focus Program in Global Health.Professor Hall was the 2017 Scholar in Residence at Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington D.C., served on the Bioethics Task Force of the United Methodist Church, and has spoken to academic and ecclesial groups across the U.S. and Europe. An ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, Hall is a member of the Rio Texas Annual Conference. She has served both urban and suburban parishes. Her service with the community includes an initiative called Labor Sabbath, an effort with the AFL-CIO of North Carolina to encourage congregations of faith to talk about the usefulness of labor unions, and, from August 2013 to June 2017, a monthly column for the Durham Herald-Sun. Professor Hall organized a conference against torture in 2011, entitled “Toward a Moral Consensus Against Torture,” and a “Conference Against the Use of Drones in Warfare” October 20-21, 2017. In collaboration with the North Carolina Council of Churches and the United Methodist Church, she organized a workshop with legal scholar Richard Rothstein held October, 2018.Amy Laura Hall is the author of four books: Kierkegaard and the Treachery of Love, Conceiving Parenthood: The Protestant Spirit of Biotechnological Reproduction, Writing Home with Love: Politics for Neighbors and Naysayers, and Laughing at the Devil: Seeing the World with Julian of Norwich. She has written numerous scholarly articles in theological and biomedical ethics. Recent articles include "The Single Individual in Ordinary Time: Theological Engagements in Sociobiology," which was a keynote lecture given with Kara Slade at the Society for the Study of Christian Ethics in 2012, and "Torture and American Television," which appeared in the April 2013 issue of Muslim World, a volume that Hall guest-edited with Daniel Arnold. Her essay “Love in Everything: A Brief Primer to Julian of Norwich" appeared in volume 32 of The Princeton Seminary Bulletin. Word and World published her essay on heroism in the Winter 2016 edition, and her essay "His Eye Is on the Sparrow: Collectivism and Human Significance" appeared in a volume entitled Why People Matter with Baker Publishing. Her forthcoming essays include a new piece on Kierkegaard and love for The T&T Clark Companion to the Theology of Kierkegaard, to be published by Bloomsbury T&T Clark.Laughing at the Devil was the focus of her 2018 Simpson Lecture at Simpson College in Iowa and has been chosen for the 2019 Virginia Festival of the Book. She continues work on a longer research project on masculinity and gender anxiety in mainstream, white evangelicalism.

For our last Unabridged Highlight episode of season 2, we're discussing the influence of one of our favorite YA authors, Laurie Halse Anderson. After seeing her at the Virginia Festival of the Book and reading her new memoir in verse Shout, we were inspired to consider her place in YA literature. It's the 20th anniversary of her seminal work Speak, and the new edition features some excellent resources and an afterword by Jason Reynolds, another Unabridged favorite. We were also happy to revisit a couple of other favorite novels. Take a listen, and then let us know @unabridgedpod what Laurie Halse Anderson and her work mean to you! timeline *Introduction and General Discussion: 00:00 - 13:37 *Shout: 13:38 - 25:30 *​Speak: 25:30 - 40:30 *The Impossible Knife of Memory and Wintergirls: 40:31 - 57:00 other mentions  *The Virginia Festival of the Book (Listen to our episode on that experience here!) *Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak: The Graphic Novel, illustrated by Emily Carroll *Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings *Steve Mertzger's Huggapotamus, illustrated by Gabriele Antonini *Chris Lynch's Inexcusable *Portia de Rossi's Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain Check out what's coming up next.   want to support unabridged?Become a patron on Patreon.​ Follow us @unabridgedpod on Instagram. Like and follow our Facebook Page. Follow us @unabridgedpod on Twitter. Subscribe to our podcast and rate us on iTunes or on Stitcher. Check us out on Podbean.

While Miss E is waiting for another round of test results to come back, Cam's behind the microphone with updates on her cancer fight and the well-wishes and kindness shown by hundreds of folks from around the country, as well as a look at Farmville's Heart of Virginia Festival and an update on the baby goats bouncing around the 40 acres.  

In this Unabridged podcast episode, we focus on our field trip to the Virginia Festival of the Book, held in Charlottesville, VA, from March 20-24. We offer our impressions of four sessions, including a dream conversation between Jason Reynolds and Laurie Halse Anderson and a serendipitous afternoon when we got to see the April Book Club Book authors Beth Macy (with Chris McGreal) and Jarrett Krosoczka in back-to-back sessions.You can find out more information about the annual festival here.   timeline *American Addictions: Our Opioids Crisis: 00:00 - 11:31 *Carol Troxell Reader: Jarrett Krosoczka: 11:31 - 17:51 *Hate / Speech: Confronting Discrimination with Free Expression: 17:51 - 29:07 *Writing Tough Topics with Laurie Halse Anderson and Jason Reynolds: 29:07 - 43:17 books mentioned from VA Festival of the Book Authors  *Beth Macy's Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America *Chris McGreal's American Overdose: The Opioid Tragedy in Three Acts  *Jarrett J. Krosoczka's Hey, Kiddo: How I Lost My Mother, Found My Father, and Dealt with Family Addiction *Arjun Sethi's American Hate: Survivors Speak Out *Nadine Strossen's Hate Speech: Why We Should Resist it with Free Speech, Not Censorship *Laurie Halse Anderson's Shout *Jason Reynolds's Track series other mentions  *Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness Check out what's coming up next.   want to support unabridged?Become a patron on Patreon.​ Follow us @unabridgedpod on Instagram. Like and follow our Facebook Page. Follow us @unabridgedpod on Twitter. Subscribe to our podcast and rate us on iTunes or on Stitcher. Check us out on Podbean.

This week in Mal’s World, Mal Vincent shares his pick for the Virginia Festival of Jewish Film: “Cast A Giant Shadow,” starring Kirk Douglas and Senta Berger with cameo performances by John Wayne and Frank Sinatra. It is being shown Monday, January 28 at 7:15 p.m. at the Naro Theater. It is the Hollywood account of Israel’s recognition of independence in 1948 and as Mal puts it, an example of how they used to sell movies. Get tickets and register at https://2019filmfestival.abilafundraisingonline.com/shadowregistration.

Cocktail Work. With History, Great Local Ingredients, and That Elusive Yummy Factor. Welcome to Edacious! In Episode 95 we talk with bartending master Micah LeMon of The Alley Light. Having enjoyed many a fine adult beverage up their back stairs it was great to finally sit down and chat about Prohibition, the evolution of bartending, current trends, and his new book, The Imbible. We talk a lot about the difference between good cocktails and great ones. Micah truly believes in striving to achieve that benchmark. That moment you take the first sip and proclaim your drink YUMMY beyond all measure. What makes a cocktail yummy? What doesn't? He takes me to school. The Doctor's Orders cocktail I sipped on through the entire episode was very yummy indeed. Micah's first book, The Imbible, is a labor of love and libation. Not only does it include history, recipes, and technique, but Micah provides basic tables so you too can become a Master Mixologist within the confines of your own bar cart. Micah will be mixing cocktails and offering up advice at The Spice Diva, Wednesday, March 21st from 6-7pm as part of the Virginia Festival of the Book. The Imbible is perfect for the beginning mixologist in that he takes classics like the Manhattan and the Daiquiri and shows perfect technique before offering suggestions as to how folks can create their own personalized beverages. Crawl before you can walk. And after some of these, you might be crawling. Micah's book shows you how, unlike those old recipe books which give you an ingredient list and leave you to your own devices. The Imbible acts as a bridge between old-school cocktails and the fancy 15-ingredient craft cocktails that are so prevalent today, although those old recipes are making a comeback at area bars, including The Alley Light, which makes a damn good classic daiquiri. Not from a machine. Served in a proper daiquiri glass. Gorgeous photos, cocktail history, technique, the components of a good cocktail and detailed tables in the back that help aspiring mixologists get started on their own programs. How does Mr. Potato Head fit into the equation? Buy the book! How did Micah become the pre-eminent Curator of Cocktail Knowledge in the Charlottesville area? His background is fascinating considering he was raised Pentecostal, which prohibits alcohol. How does the documentary Jesus Camp fit into his story? The SNL Church Lady? You'll just have to listen. It shocked me that someone so obviously good at what he does suffers from Imposter Syndrome as I do. We talk about that, including what methods we use to overcome it. How does he develop his recipes? What is The Dealer's Choice? How is a mixologist like a chef? Why is mentorship important? How did the book come about? And what about his recent bout with Tennis Elbow? Recorded in The Wine Room at the Alley Light while sipping a Doctor's Orders cocktail. Which worked so well I don't quite remember the last 15 minutes of the episode. What did I say? Give a listen! Micah will be appearing as part of the Virginia Festival of the Book on Wednesday, March 21st from 6-7pm at The Spice Diva. From the Book Fest website, "Micah will give a demonstration of various and sundry recipes from his cocktail guide, sharing anecdotes and wisdom from his years behind the bar at beloved local watering holes." Don't miss it! SHOW NOTES – Links to resources talked about during the podcast: Why Food Writing Matters! - I'm teaching a course as part of the Tom Tom Founder's Festival! Come be a part of the fun! Tuesday, April 10th from 7-9pm at The Pie Chest. We'll talk food writing, do some fun creative exercises, give away huge amounts of food writing books, and eat pie. Lots and lots of pie. Don't miss this chance to GET EDACIOUS! Goat Snuggling - Every Sunday through Mother's Day, Caromont Farm will be snuggling goats and passing the hat as part of their DACA initiative to make sure their employees are safe. Come participate in this important community effort. Ian Glomski of Vitae Spirits - This fine fellow is collaborating with Micah on creating an ABSINTHE. YES! Sign me up. No'lasses - Sorghum whiskey. It's quite delish. The Spice Diva - A one-stop shop for all of your fancy cocktail ingredients like bitters. Subscribe to This Podcast. Stay Edacious! - Come on, after this episode? You know you want to. Subscribers get new episodes instantly, while non-subscribers have to wait a few hours or days depending on the iTunes gods. Never miss a chance to be edacious! Subscribe to Edacious News - Never miss a food event in our area! Learn about regional and national food stories so you can stay edacious! Leave a review about Edacious! - Click the link, then "View in iTunes" then "Ratings and Reviews". Whether you think it's great, or not so great, I want to hear from you. I might just read your review on the air! Whoa! #famousforahotminute This episode is sponsored by Teej.fm and listeners like you who donated their support at Patreon, who wants every creator in the world to achieve a sustainable income. Thank you.

This week in Mal’s World, Mal Vincent recalls his meeting with Liza Minnelli, star of the film, Cabaret. It’s one of the movies presented by the Virginia Festival of Jewish Film, JANUARY 20 – 28, 2018 at the Naro Theatre in Norfolk. You might even hear Mal sing a line, or two! For more information on the festival and other films being featured, visit http://www.simonfamilyjcc.org/culture-enrichment/virginia-festival-of-jewish-film/

Dessert Work. With Sheri Castle and Ronni Lundy at The Virginia Festival of the Book. Welcome to my latest episode! Were you a bad food enthusiast? Did you miss "Save Room for Dessert! Cookbooks With A Sweet Tooth!" at the Virginia Festival of the Book? No worries, Edacious taped it for you! It might be May, but we're still celebrating. In this exclusive panel moderated by yours truly. Sheri Castle was born in Boone, North Carolina. The Queen of Hustle, Sheri is a professional food writer, culinary instructor, and public speaker known for melding storytelling, humor, and culinary expertise. She wrote her first recipe at 4 years old, mailed it to a TV show, and never looked back. She's written three books, been in countless magazines, and appeared on Vivian Howard's show, A Chef's Life. Her books have been IACP Award finalists, won the SIBA award, and been mentioned in the New York Times and Washington Post. Nigella Lawson (yes THAT Nigella) counts herself a fan and has made recipes from her latest book, Rhubarb, on her website. "We always had rhubarb...I love it raw...I can remember when I was little going up to the garden and snapping off stalks...whereas my grandmother would sprinkle salt on hers...I would take a cup or a handful of Tang...and dip rhubarb in the Tang and eat it that way." ---Sheri Castle "That is a characteristic of Appalachian food and Southern food in general. It's very agrarian, it's very resourceful, and it is knowing how to make the best of what you have. And sometimes what you have is modest and sometimes it's glorious but it's knowing how to do right by ingredients and give them regard and dignity." ---Sheri Castle Ronni Lundy was born in Corbin, Kentucky and has spent much of her life chronicling the people of the hillbilly diaspora as a journalist and cookbook author. Her book Shuck Beans, Stack Cakes and Honest Fried Chicken was recognized by Gourmet magazine as one of six essential books on Southern cooking. In 2009, Lundy received the Southern Foodways Alliance Craig Claiborne Lifetime Achievement Award. She has contributed to Eating Well, Gourmet, Bon Appétit, Esquire, among many others. Her latest book, Victuals: An Appalachian Journey, With Recipes won the IACP 2017 American Cookbook of the Year, as well as two 2017 James Beard Foundation awards for American Cookbook of the Year and Book of the Year. Food historian and heirloom seed saver Bill Best called Victuals, "The 67th Book of the Bible!" Victuals explores the foodways of Appalachia, the most bio-diverse region in the world, including many located right here in Virginia. "Victuals is for me not just a story about food and sustainable foodways but it's also a way to illumine the people of this region in ways that people are often surprised by." ---Ronni Lundy  Both ladies have been past podcast guests and I consider them dear friends. In this talk, we explore rhubarb, its uses in dessert as well as in savory dishes, and Appalachian foodways and its history of preservation, resourcefulness, and sustainability, including desserts that most folks have never heard of like apple stack cake and caramel cake. As well as a host of other things including how social media has impacted recipes for both good and ill. Yes, we got off topic, but so what? All good conversations do. Enjoy these multiple-award-winning authors, and thanks so much to everyone who came out to listen. Cheers! "Because of social media and food tv...most people now assume a recipe to be a visual thing more than it is a written thing. And that can be both good and really burdensome sometimes too." ---Sheri Castle  "I used to get asked do you actually test your recipes and I used to find that an offensive question...although now there are books that are going out where people are not testing recipes which blows my mind!" ---Ronni Lundy SHOW NOTES – Links to resources talked about during the podcast: Sheri Castle was on the podcast before! Give a listen! Ronni Lundy appeared on this podcast a while back. Give a listen! Trampoline - This graphic novel by Robert Gipe is the most creative thing I've read in years. A young girl grows up in Appalachia, unwittingly becoming an environmental spokesperson for her region all the while getting into trouble she can't seem to get out of. Poignant, thoughtful, and hysterically funny. Gipe is a great new voice. I expect great things from him in the future. Click here to listen to an excerpt! In Praise of Ugly Food - Kat Kinsman ode to ugly edibles appears in the 2016 Best of Food Writing anthology. Flora Restaurant - Oaxacan cuisine with a great tequila selection. In Richmond. Thank you so much to Michele Jones and Jason Alley who gave an incredibly generous amount to my recent Big Love Birthday campaign. Their donation helped bring us over the top! Big Love guys! Help Scotty Recover - My best friend has Stage 3B Colorectal cancer. Bills are piling up. He can't work. Can you help? Share! Donate! No amount is too small. Thank you and BIG LOVE to everyone who donated and shared the Big Love Bake Sale and Big Love Birthday! Next up? Tee shirts! Look for them soon. Subscribe to This Podcast. Stay Edacious! - Come on, after this episode? You know you want to. Subscribers get new episodes instantly, while non-subscribers have to wait a few hours or days depending on the iTunes gods. Never miss a chance to be edacious! Subscribe to Edacious News - Never miss a food event in our area! Learn about regional and national food stories so you can stay edacious! This episode is sponsored by Teej.fm and listeners like you who donated their support at Patreon, who wants every creator in the world to achieve a sustainable income. Thank you.    

The Big Love Bake Sale is a community-based effort and the first fundraiser here at Edacious to benefit today's podcast guest, Scott Nichols. Happening Saturday 4/15, 9am-noon at Charlottesville City Market!  Concierge Work. Community Fundraising Work. With Cookies. Maybe the most important episode I've ever done. I truly believe every choice you make in your life sets you on a path. You might not understand the choice at the time or even the path you find yourself on, but eventually, it all comes together. In this episode meet Scott Nichols, a concierge with more than 20 years experience. A concierge who because of recent life developments has had to put his career on hold. A concierge who just also happens to be my best friend. Now concierge might not be the first occupation you envision when you think of Food Work, but hotels and restaurants have a symbiotic relationship, one that operates behind the scenes, with hotel staff and restaurant employees often working for each other's benefit, coming together to make sure both establishments remain successful. It's a relationship often misunderstood, and one most travelers never take advantage of. Hopefully, this episode changes that. First some background. We reminisce on our shared food adventures, as well as what it means to manage a Mrs. Field's Cookies. Yes, we met in a food court which acts as its own type of community, a place where employees help each other despite long hours and little pay. It's hard work and there's a great deal of hustle. At the time we were young and didn't appreciate where things came from and how our actions might affect others. Working for such low wages forced us to get creative to survive. Not making excuses. That's just the way it was. Working in a retail food court provides more life experience than sitting in a college classroom. It teaches you responsibility. Teamwork. On your feet problem-solving. All of which are good training for the hospitality industry or for owning your own business. Or for real life.  Thousands of people toil in fast food all over the world. It felt good to give them a voice. To throw some honor their way instead of shame in the form of degrading stereotypes you see in movies and on TV. We compare our cookie tray burns still visible after 30 years. Battle scars. We reveal Debbie's secret recipe. We reminisce about the hilarious methods we used to keep up morale. We talk about how Mrs. Fields actually provided great training for the career Scott embarked on and one he excels at...concierge. After moving to DC, Scott started in hotel reservations, slowly working his way up to the front desk. Learning as much as he could, networking, soaking up every piece of knowledge like a sponge. It was the 80's, people were traveling, so tips were good. The relationship between a concierge team and their hotel employers is often volatile. So when the entire team walked off the job one day, Scott stepped in and a career was born. A career where he thrived because of his ability to connect, converse, and anticipate the needs of his customers. Knowing what they wanted before they did. Anticipating what they needed just by looking at their suit, the make of their watch, their demeanor as they stepped up to the desk. A job so demanding he often had to sleep on a cot in a closet behind his desk. "I started knowing nothing and I'm a quick learner...whatever I lacked...I understood the value of presentation, preparedness, and potential...show up, bring your best, do your best." What did he enjoy most about the work and still does to this day? Making people happy. Making sure every guest feels welcomed and their visit is a trip to remember. "You learned early on that if you give people what they want and don't let them see you sweat and don't let them know how much trouble it was...then they are more comfortable asking you for whatever they want. People know when they're asking for something exotic...That's where I learned my philosophy of I work hard and I expect to be compensated fairly...(You must) understand that level of access and professionalism brings with it a certain cost and value." Learning, realizing what you're worth. Your own value in your chosen career. An important lesson in any profession. An important lesson for your LIFE for that matter. This isn't as Scott says, "McDonald's Concierging". This is building relationships. Spending 10 minutes having a conversation and getting to know your guest. Using your observational skills. Reading the customer. What time of day is it? How are they dressed? What does the woman's makeup look like? What shirt is the man wearing? These things can tell you whether or not the guest is hungry, has had a drink (or three), or even their mood. "If you make friends with a concierge you will take your time in any city to the next level and have the most amazing experience of your life." Whether you're a business traveler or a tourist, utilizing your concierge makes for a better travel experience. You don't have to be a millionaire. Be honest, form a relationship, and your concierge will work to tailor an unforgettable occasion within your budget. For example, if you're proposing to a future spouse, a concierge can help you make that an experience of a lifetime. Nowadays people use Internet "Best Of" lists to tick off every box. By keeping an open mind and trusting a concierge you will still have the most amazing experience, just maybe not the one you planned. Way better than consulting a Top 10 list on Yelp. Need a table at Rose's Luxury but don't like standing in line? A good concierge can hire you a line sitter. Which brings us to restaurants. Any concierge worth his salt has professional symbiotic relationships with restaurants, often with the hostess, a server, or even the chef. Often restaurants hold open houses for hotel staff, enticing them to recommend their establishment to travelers. This "Favor System" isn't without its flaws, but remains an important aspect of driving business. Best case scenario? The entire team of restaurant and hotel come together to make things happen so everyone involved goes away happy. How does this relate to Charlottesville and its burgeoning wedding and hotel industries? Scott has definite thoughts on maximizing growth. Pro tip: hotels have morning meetings where they go over customer reviews. If a guest says they loved a certain restaurant, staff will remember and send them there next time. So it's a good idea for restaurants to get to know the folks in that brand new hotel that just opened down the street. Most important thing to remember? Don't be intimidated. No question is too silly or strange. Even if you're on a budget and want a good seat at The Cheesecake Factory, a concierge can make that happen. The stereotype of the snobby desk clerk you see in the movies just isn't true. A great concierge gets their own fanbase. Customers will even follow them if they change hotels. We also talk about the reality of working at a hotel with a conservative owner who deals with the far right and the prejudices that come with that on a daily basis. How do you serve a customer who clearly hates your lifestyle? What about ageism? Workers over 50 are more reliable, professional, have life experience, have usually been successful in a previous career, often want part-time hours, and are a plentiful, viable section of the workforce. Don't overlook them. Last summer, Scott was diagnosed with Stage 3B colorectal cancer and had to leave his chosen profession for treatment. Medical bills began to pile up. So I stepped in to help, as friends do, by creating a GoFund Me campaign. The love and support for this campaign from friends, family, and even total strangers have been overwhelming. He is so very grateful. "The GoFund Me has been such a blessing from God...I'm still having trouble wrapping my brain around it...I've been on the hustle so long...I just don't understand strangers giving me money...But I'm thankful for it...the prayers mean a lot...I wouldn't be alive today without the love that I'm getting from the world...that keeps me going on bad days...because now I have little investors in my outcome...so I kind of have to deliver...none of those people want to get a note from you that says thank you for your contribution but he didn't make it...I need to go on after this and do great things...I'm really excited about, "Oh my God there might be a next chapter!"...after coming this far through the treatment process, I'll be damned if I'm going to spend one day doing something that doesn't make my heart happy on some level...people not only invested in me but sort of my reawakening of this second chapter of my life...This is an opportunity and we're going to go forward and it's going to be amazing." I agree. It will be amazing. His first round of treatment has gone well. But unlike the movies, there is no instant dramatic outcome good or bad, but rather a long series of, "Now we wait and see." Meanwhile the bills continue to roll in. But Scott, his husband Brian, me, and all his family and friends remain optimistic. In fact, it is his unwavering optimism that I adore most. He will get better. We will get this campaign funded. The Big Love Bake Sale, created after a phrase he uses often, will help with that. I just know it. When I started this podcast two years ago, I had no idea I'd end up interviewing my best friend. But I'm so glad I did. Not only is this the BEST episode I've ever done, it's the one fully inhabiting the mission I set for myself. Community and Connection. It lives the intention I set each and every morning when I sit down and put on my headphones. It will be the one I present when folks ask, "Which episode should I listen to first?" Of course, I'm biased. Beyond that, this episode not only presents deep story, it fulfills my podcast's purpose, and in such a beautiful way. I saw a different side to my friend, one I hadn't witnessed. It made me prouder of him than I've ever been. And it made me damn glad to know him. All those years I spent baking cookies. All those years I spent planning events for others. All those years I spent in fundraising and development. Work I knew was valuable but wasn't really my favorite thing. All that training has brought me to this moment in time. I truly believe that. Give a listen then head out to Charlottesville City Market for the bake sale. Big Love everyone. Big Love. Thank you to all of the community sponsors helping Scott fully fund his GoFund Me campaign as part of the Big Love Bake Sale, which happens Saturday 4/15 from 9am-noon at Charlottesville City Market: The Pie Chest - Thank you, Rachel Pennington! Splendora's Gelato - Thank you, PK Ross! Justin Vesser - Thank you, buddy! Gearhart's Fine Chocolates - Thank you, Tim Gearhart! Chutney Ferret Industries - Thank you, David Hopper! Virginia Festival of the Book - Thank you, Sarah Lawson and Sheri Castle! WTJU - Thank you, Nathan Moore! SHOW NOTES – Links to resources talked about during the podcast: Big Love Bake Sale! - Come out, buy some cookies, and help out one of our own. This Saturday 4/15 at Cville City Market! Help Scotty Recover - my best friend has Stage 3B Colorectal cancer. Bills are piling up. He can't work. Can you help? Share! Donate! No amount is too small. George Hamilton - Back in the day this movie star sold suncare products. And we bought the tee shirt. Subscribe to This Podcast. Stay Edacious! - Come on, after this episode? You know you want to ;) Subscribe to Edacious News - Never miss a food event in our area! Learn about regional and national food stories so you can stay edacious! This episode is sponsored by Teej.fm and listeners like you who donated their support at Patreon, who wants every creator in the world to achieve a sustainable income. Thank you.

Community Work. In a Diner. With Chef Ashley Christensen at The Virginia Festival of the Book. Welcome to my latest episode! Were you a bad food enthusiast? Did you miss Chef Ashley Christensen of Poole's Diner giving her stupendous talk at the Virginia Festival of the Book? No worries, Edacious taped it for you! Ashley grew up in North Carolina as part of a family who felt it important to cook and eat meals together no matter how busy their lives. It's a philosophy she took to her adult life. Putting creative energy into food and watching people share it which often develops into deep conversations over it. She went to NC State, intending to move to a big city after graduation, working in restaurants while attending classes. Like so many of her co-workers, she worked in kitchens until she could decide what was next. Until the day she realized this was it. This is what she wanted to do. This is what's next. She realized she could do all the things she wanted right there in Raleigh. And she could do them by cooking food. A small fundraiser she organized for AIDS research turned into a massive fundraiser. That sealed the deal. As she looked about her college town, she realized she could contribute and make great strides right there. Graduation became less of a concern. She dropped out and started cooking in earnest. Her initial curiosity and interest in food quickly developed into a catalyst for social change and community. Setting her intention, she decided to create a higher level of hospitality, one that starts with food but goes deeper to connection. A hospitality which creates a profound level of trust between the chef and the guest. Customer is something she considers "The C-Word," and something never to be uttered in any of her restaurants. Her commitment to this belief isn't just lip service. She has the word "Guest" tattooed on her forearm. "We like to use the word 'guest' (instead of customer) because I like to remove the idea of it being a transaction. Dining together, and the energy that we put into it, the chance that you take on us I think conveys a relationship...It really helps all the folks who work with us to really understand and respect and value that idea." Her first restaurant, Poole's Diner, reflects this intention. It's not fancy, but a place you visit once a week. Or more. A place where you can be a regular. All the menus are on chalkboards so you have to physically get up and move about to decide. Which sparks conversation because most of them hang above booths. The double horseshoe bar encourages conversation because no matter where you sit, you can see the other patrons. Even the word "diner" evokes comfort. It's a place where someone in a tux can dine next to somebody just off work in a dirty tee shirt. The story of how she went from working in other restaurants to starting her first is beautiful, poignant, and so inspiring it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. You'll have to listen to hear it for yourself! Ashley now owns six, including one serving fried chicken with honey in honor of a childhood nickname. In fact, all of her restaurants in Raleigh contain story whether it's in the name or the food they serve, once again taking the simple idea of a place to gather for eating to a more meaningful level. Folks are responding. She's been nominated for a James Beard Award several times and won the title of Best Chef Southeast in 2014. Her restaurant Death and Taxes was a finalist last year. Her first cookbook, Poole's Diner, is a volume reflecting a life lived rich and full through sharing food. How to use a safe, comforting space to give back and effect social change. Comfort is a fairly novel concept in this world of fancy schmancy, where tattooed-covered Tweezer Punks with dusts, strange ingredients, and 14-course meals constantly want to take you on a journey. We've sometimes forgotten the soul-filling concept of a simple bowl of grits. The recipes in this volume embrace comfort. They don't change the essential meaning of classic Southern dishes, nor reinterpret them, but simply add Ashley's personal spin. It's a gorgeous volume evoking the comfort and simplicity of a meal at Poole's. Now more than ever in these challenging times it's important for folks from different backgrounds to come together over food on a regular basis. Food can spark conversation. Maybe folks who disagree can find commonality somehow over something they mutually love and respect. A terrific talk and my favorite one of the festival. Ashley's mission is one I strive for here on the podcast each and every day. Connection, community, and conversation with food as a starting point. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Cheers! SHOW NOTES – Links to resources talked about during the podcast: Virginia Festival of the Book - most of the authors who attend are unpaid, and travel here out of their own pocket. Food writing is a challenging business. Your donation will help cover expenses and get some of the big names here in 2018! Help Scotty Recover - My best friend has Stage 3B Colorectal cancer. Bills are piling up. He can't work. Can you help? Share! Donate! No amount is too small. Subscribe to This Podcast. Stay Edacious! - Come on, after this episode? You know you want to ;) Subscribe to Edacious News - Never miss a food event in our area! Learn about regional and national food stories so you can stay edacious! This episode is sponsored by Teej.fm and listeners like you who donated their support at Patreon, who wants every creator in the world to achieve a sustainable income. Thank you.

Food Writing Work. With the Best Food Writing 2016 Panel at The Virginia Festival of the Book. Welcome to my latest episode! Were you a bad food enthusiast? Did you go see Walter White at JPJ last Sunday and *NOT* go to the Best Food Writing 2016 talk? No worries, Edacious taped it for you! This year's multiple award-winning panel included moderator and editor of the series, Holly Hughes, and contributors Joe Yonan, Food & Dining Editor for The Washington Post, Jason Tesauro, author of The Modern Gentleman, and Todd Kliman, author of The Wild Vine. Writer Monica Bhide, author of Karma and the Art of Butter Chicken was scheduled to appear but had a family emergency. All of the panelists consider themselves writers first, food being just one aspect of their work. Because food is the starting point for so many deeper conversations, a philosophy that informs this podcast as well. Holly began editing the Best Food Writing series back in 2000. Through sixteen volumes published annually, she has presented hundreds of great pieces covering humor, travelogue, politics, memoir, history, as well as hard-hitting journalism covering all the different aspects of food. The series was conceived as a bedside table book, not a kitchen one. It makes a great gift because everyone eats. Pieces are short so you can dip into whatever strikes your fancy. Way back when the first edition was published, the time was right. Food was becoming its own thing, its own cultural trend. Folks like Anthony Bourdain, Michael Pollan, Ruth Reichel, and magazines like Saveur and Lucky Peach made food a thing to contemplate and read about. It went beyond reading a recipe or restaurant review. Reading about food became entertainment. Food became more than just what would I eat for dinner tonight? Then food blogs came along providing writers a massive platform for publishing their own in-depth pieces immediately. It raised food consciousness, putting it much more centrally focused in the national conversation. Why has food remained in the cultural zeitgeist? Why is it more important to us now? That's just one topic covered during this terrific panel discussion. Another? The current state of fine dining. As Joe Yonan so succinctly put it: "You don't always want the journey. They (chefs) always want to take you on a journey. I'm tired of traveling. I just want to sit here and eat my damn dinner!" This year's pieces include a love letter to ugly food, another one to the chicken tender, and the fabulous pieces read aloud by our panelists. Works about Chef Bo Bech, chicken fried steak, and eating tacos in Mexico City appear simple on first glance. Keep reading. As with so much great food writing what's on your plate or the person cooking it is only a starting point. It's never just about the food. It's about the deeper topics, the thoughtful life questions that connect us all. The same mission behind Edacious. Using food as an entryway. There's a reason these pieces were chosen as among the best. They have a story, great storytelling, a strong sense of narrative, a profound message. Give a listen. You won't regret it. SHOW NOTES – Links to resources talked about during the podcast: Virginia Festival of the Book - most of the authors who attend are unpaid, and travel here out of their own pocket. Food writing is a challenging business. You donation will help cover expenses and get some of the big names here in 2018! Help Scotty Recover - My best friend has Stage 3B Colorectal cancer. Bills are piling up. He can't work. Can you help? Short Stack Editions - Love letters to a single ingredient. Sheri Castle, author of Rhubarb,  appeared at the festival and on this podcast. Victuals - Ronni Lundy's seminal work won the 2017 IACP Award for Best American Cookbook and is up for a James Beard Award later this month. She appeared at the festival and on this podcast. Subscribe to This Podcast. Stay Edacious! - Come on, after this episode? You know you want to ;) Subscribe to Edacious News - Never miss a food event in our area! Learn about regional and national food stories so you can stay edacious! This episode is sponsored by Teej.fm and listeners like you who donated their support at Patreon, who wants every creator in the world to achieve a sustainable income. Thank you.

Why are modern day readers still responsive to "Jane Eyre," and how do their readings influence the life of the text? UVA's Linden Kent Memorial Professor Karen Chase (Brontë scholar and author of "Eros & Psyche") leads a discussion with author Patricia Park ("Re Jane") and RBS curator Barbara Heritage (“Shaping Eyre”) about the enduring influence of Charlotte Brontë’s nineteenth-century novel, "Jane Eyre." This program, held on 23 March 2017, is part of the 2017 Virginia Festival of the Book, and is sponsored by Rare Book School and the UVA Libraries.

Writing Work. With Wine and Intention. Welcome to the last in a series of FOUR podcasts celebrating the Virginia Festival of the Book! From March 16th to 19th you will hear from the country's best and brightest when it comes to food writing. Today's episode? Writer and sommelier Jason Tesauro, author of The Modern Gentleman and a contributor to this year's Best American Food Writing series for his profile of chef Bo Bech. Jason will be appearing at an event Sunday, March 26th at JMRL as part of a panel discussion. Event details are listed below. I first became aware of Jason's writing because of his book. We know so many of the same people in the food world and I'm sure we've met briefly during my many forays to Barboursville Vineyards where he's been a sommelier for 15 years. So it was a thrill to finally coordinate our busy schedules for a talk. Not just any journalistic back and forth, but a real honest-to-goodness deep conversation about food writing which evolved into his philosophy of setting your intention as you move throughout your day. And your life. Something I can definitely get behind in this age of instant gratification. Slowing down. Making that tiny bit of extra effort. Living awake and aware. "My job as a writer...I want you to see past my words into the intention of that grower of that chef of that restaurateur." Jason's passion comes out in the piece selected for this year's Best Of series about Chef Bo Bech, a Michelin-starred chef in Denmark, who self-describes as "Complicated Simple". With every beautiful raw ingredient he selects, he sets his intention to transforms it for the plate, while preserving its simple essence. For example, changing the shape of an avocado so when you go to taste it your mouth goes on a journey of discovery and surprise. Chef Bech is no precious "Tweezer Punk" (Tesauro's term), but an innovative chef exploring boundaries. Pushing the diner's expectations and understanding of an ingredient. Continually setting his intention with every plate to create a unique dining experience for his patrons. One so special they'll never forget it. Which behooves Jason to take a similar approach when it comes to reporting. "The complicated part is how do I put my ego aside and how can I explore the humanity? It's about a beet, but it's not really the beet, it's the the heartbeat of the grower who survived the winter and made the ground sing." The deeper themes are the complicated part when it comes to food writing. Tesauro's piece is a travelogue of Virginia with Jason taking Chef Bech to all his favorite haunts, "foraging" simple ingredients for a one-off pop up in New York called The Bride of the Fox. Fifteen hundred people signed up, but only six invitations went out. A mere ninety minutes before the dinner was due to start. How did Jason get this sweet gig? What was his game plan? Listen to find out. "What I love about Bo Bech's food, he will take two ingredients that we're all familiar with and put them on a plate in a mashup we've never experienced...I think Bo never plays it safe. And I'm drawn to artists who live in that space...I like to be around people who are not pushing the envelope for innovation's sake, but they're challenging themselves to evolve and grow." Not resting on your laurels. Pushing yourself to do more. Jason is an embodiment of that himself, a true Renaissance man who not only writes, works as a sommelier, but who has created an entire lifestyle choice with his book and website The Modern Gentleman which espouses the belief no matter your age or background, there's no reason to move through life sloppy and half-assed, as my Momma used to say. The origin story behind the book fascinated me, then convinced me to buy a copy for my nephew. Because a huge part of that story involves setting your intention, saying "Yes" to opportunities, and overcoming fear. Just showing up. "To me intention is the important word here. Because the intention behind growing, behind sourcing, behind plating, I think that is immediately apparent (when it comes to restaurants). The 3-star (restaurant) wanted to show me their ego. They wanted the show. The 1-star nourished me and showed me her heart and her intention. And I came away with an understanding of each dish. A memory. Wheras the 3-star was a blitz of theater, of smoke, of polished meticulousness. But it felt souless." Future plans? Jason recently submitted a wine piece to Esquire. It's one he fought hard for because instead of talking about the beverage in the technical terms most sommeliers use, he went emotional. No flavor or sensory descriptors here. Jason focused on questions like how do you feel while tasting this wine? What does it make you want to do? In what time and place would you drink it? If the wine were a person, who would it be? That style of writing conveys so much more to the reader. It's more accessible. There are more opportunities for connection. While writing the piece, Jason set that intention and hoped for the best. He knew it might be rejected, but he showed up anyway. Guess what? The editors loved it and his article will appear in the Spring. I can't wait to read it and hope more food and wine writers follow his example. I know I'm inspired to do so. "I hope it leads to a shift in the way that we talk about food and wine. Because ultimately it's not just a bunch of salt and acid mixed up together. It's soul. It's place. It's intention." This talked propelled me. I left feeling energized, ready to set my own intentions for the podcast. Wandering through Jackson Ward made me nostalgic for my hometown which made me remember. Which made me rush home and write a blog post that garnered more response from readers than anything I've written in months. Maybe there's something to this intention thing? Listen and discover it for yourself. Then head out Sunday for his panel talk. See you there! Best American Food Writing 2016 Sun. March 26, 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM Central JMRL Library, 201 E Market Street, Charlottesville, Virginia Join food writers Todd Kliman, Jason Tesauro, Joe Yonan, and moderator Holly Hughes as they discuss the Best Food Writing 2016 series. SHOW NOTES – Links to resources talked about during the podcast: Rally for Ally - Help out one of our own, a chef who recently suffered a debilitating accident. Help Polina Recover - Help out one of our own, a baker, who recently suffered a debilitating accident. Help Scotty Recover - My best friend has Stage 3B Colorectal cancer. Bills are piling up. He can't work. Can you help? Virginia Festival of the Book - Head out to the food writing events among tons of others. Yes, I'm biased. To Your Health, WPVC 94.7 - Thanks to host M.C. Blair for having me as a guest! Here is the audio. Luca Paschina of Barboursville Vineyards - The man. The legend. In researching Jason, I came across this quote and knew I'd start the talk with it. It's from Bryan Curtis's piece in The Ringer called, "The Rise (and Fall?) of Food Writing." In a fully digitized world, food offers the promise of writing about something tangible. “I feel like people are longing for connection,” said the writer Jason Tesauro. “We’ve gotten to a place where soul and authenticity and genuineness — there’s a dearth of it about. A lot of food writing just deals with surface — it’s restaurant reviews and hype and ‘Look at what I’ve found that you haven’t heard about yet.’ But peel that back and what you’re really getting is an excuse to write about what’s real. Subscribe to This Podcast. Stay Edacious! - Come on, after this episode? You know you want to ;) Subscribe to Edacious News - Never miss a food event in our area! Learn about regional and national food stories so you can stay edacious! This episode is sponsored by Teej.fm and listeners like you who donated their support at Patreon, who wants every creator in the world to achieve a sustainable income. Thank you.

Writing Work. Victuals Love. Sorghum and Salt. Welcome to the third in a series of FOUR podcasts celebrating the Virginia Festival of the Book! From March 16th-19th you will hear from the country's best and brightest when it comes to food writing. Today's episode? Food writer Ronni Lundy whose newest creation, Victuals, is a celebration of Appalachian foodways, one ingredient at a time. Victuals just won the 2017 IACP award for American Cookbook of the Year and is a finalist for the James Beard award in American Cooking. Seed saver Bill Best has called Victuals, "The 67th book of the bible!" and I agree wholeheartedly. This volume is going all the way baby! Ronni will be appearing at three events as part of the festival, including a talk I'm moderating, "Save Room! Cookbooks With a Sweet Tooth!" Event details are listed below. This episode is a re-airing of the lovely talk I had with Ronni at the tail end of the 2015 Appalachian Food Summit. Can you really get a sense of a region's history through one ingredient? This food writer and Appalachia advocate knows you can. Her books, Victuals, and Sorghum's Savor do just that. While both contain recipes, a good portion of the books talk about ingredient history, what each is and isn't, and the fascinating stories behind the folks who bring that food to your table. As one of the founders of the Appalachian Food Summit, Ronni knows such stories are integral to understanding the evolution of a culture. Which is why we begin this episode's discussion around the history of salt. At the 2015 gathering, we were fortunate enough to have Nancy Bruns of JQ Dickinson Salt Works, a 7th generation salt farmer. Nancy considers salt an agricultural ingredient because in her words it is harvested from the ground and ripened by the sun. The history and evolution of this ingredient relate well to Appalachia's history as a land of extraction, as well as providing a base camp for all sorts of stories and anecdotes related to its history, harvest, and use. Appalachia is a storytelling culture, and Ronni deftly uses this to incorporate important lessons into her tales. Because the purpose of the summit is to not only preserve but to move Appalachia into the growing, abundant, thriving, economically and environmentally productive region we all know it can be. It's an heirloom that just needs a little spit shine. It's time for a revival. The fellowship from food gatherings is one of the hallmarks of Appalachia. Food as communion. Food as revival. Not food as performance where chefs come out after sweating their butts off in a kitchen just to receive a smattering of applause. There's a reason people crave the homemade meals from their upbringing. Food grown from heritage seeds taste better, keep longer, are better for the environment, and preserve history. We discuss The Appalachian Food Summit, its goals, and how Facebook helped get it started, Why was it important to serve the meal at the 2015 gathering cafeteria style? What exactly does Chef Travis Milton mean when he called this dinner a "fancy-ass Picadilly"? You're in for a treat guys. Ronni Lundy is a kick-ass broad. You're going to learn a lot. But these lessons are mixed in with great stories. Or as Ronni's says, "A little sugar before your medicine." Enjoy this episode then head out to all three events! See you there! BONUS LISTENING BELOW! JUST HIT THE DOWNLOAD BUTTON! Hear Ronni's talk at the 2016 Appalachian Food Summit: The Biscuit Love Rocking Chair Keynote: The Magical Mammy & the Granny Woman: How Malinda Russell’s Journeys Break the Chains of Myth Toni Tipton-Martin, author of the James Beard Award-winning, The Jemima Code and Ronni Lundy of Victuals discuss how exploring foodways can give voice to people and cultures otherwise ignored or misrepresented in history, and how that changes our ideas of where we come from and who we are. [button color="dark" link="http://traffic.libsyn.com/edacious/066_BONUS_Ronni__Toni_SS_at_AFS.mp3" width="200" id="Download"] Download Episode[/button]   Save Room! Cookbooks with a Sweet Tooth Wed. March 22, 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM Barnes & Noble, Barracks Road Shopping Center, Charlottesville Cookbook authors Sheri Castle (Rhubarb) and Ronni Lundy (Sorghum’s Savor) will discuss their work. Cooking Demos Thu. March 23, 12:00 PM - 3:00 PM The Charlottesville Cooking School, Meadowbrook Shopping Center, Charlottesville Join Sheri Castle (Rhubarb), Shane Mitchell (Far Afield), and Ronni Lundy (Victuals), as they each give a cooking demonstration of recipes from their cookbooks. Food Traditions and Women Chefs Thu. March 23, 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, 233 4th St NW, Charlottesville, Virginia Join Ashley Christensen (Poole’s Diner), Shane Mitchell (Far Afield), and Ronni Lundy (Victuals) as they discuss traditional food and cooking methods and their experiences as female chefs. SHOW NOTES – Links to resources talked about during the podcast: Rally for Ally - help out one of our own, a chef who recently suffered a debilitating accident. Help Polina Recover - help out one of our own, a baker, who recently suffered a debilitating accident. Help Scotty Recover - my best friend has Stage 3B Colorectal cancer. Bills are piling up. He can't work. Can you help? Virginia Festival of the Book - Head out to the food writing events among tons of others. Yes, I'm biased. Subscribe to This Podcast. Stay Edacious! - Come on, after this episode? You know you want to ;) Subscribe to Edacious News - Never miss a food event in our area! Learn about regional and national food stories so you can stay edacious! This episode is sponsored by Teej.fm and listeners like you who donated their support at Patreon, who wants every creator in the world to achieve a sustainable income. Thank you.

Wine Work. Taco Work. Writing Work. Welcome to the second in a series of FOUR podcasts celebrating the Virginia Festival of the Book! From March 16th to 19th you will hear from the country's best and brightest when it comes to food writing. Today's episode? Award-winning food author Todd Kliman, former critic for The Washingtonian, author of The Wild Vine, and a contributor to this year's Best American Food Writing series. Todd will be appearing at an event Sunday, March 26th at JMRL as part of that series. Event details are listed below. I first became aware of Todd's writing because of his Oxford American piece on Peter Chang which went viral and did much to promote that nomadic chef's mystique. But it was during Todd's 2014 presentation at the SFA Summer Symposium in Richmond, where he talked about his book The Wild Vine, that I knew I'd have to meet him somehow. The Wild Vine isn't just about grapes, but about identity, immigration, and overcoming fear to reinvent yourself. A truly American-born idea. Daniel Norton discovered the only true American grape, the Norton, way back in Jefferson's time. Norton Street, a 2-block long narrow lane in Richmond marks the location of Magnolia Farm where the discovery took place. His gravestone in Shockhoe Hill Cemetery lies forlornly in a forgotten corner. "I didn't write the book because I'm a lover of Norton...I like it...but I like it for what it seems to embody to me...I knew that this was a good story." Today accomplished vintner Jenni McCloud of Chrysalis Vineyard is Norton's champion, an expert in appreciating this often overlooked and misunderstood wine and the only transgender vineyard owner in America. Recognition for Norton and his grape are building. Developments are happening. Listen to learn more. The book is marvelous, such a great story, and it was a thrill to discuss it with him. Likewise, Todd's piece in the Best of American Food Writing 2016 is about way more than tacos and mezcal in Mexico. It's about democracy, his own sense of disorientation, then discovery, and the danger and sense of extremity of culture that permeates everything when you live on the edge of the volcano that is Mexico City. How does one bite of a beetle transport you back 400 years while at the same time showing you the future of foodstuffs? We talk about it. "You can tell a story and that will be interesting on its surface...but if there's going to be a connection...there has to be something for me to speak through...I have to be able to connect with it...to bond with it...so I can get into the deeper tissue of it and then write from out of that...my heart and my brain is entirely engaged." Most people don't even know what food writing is, assuming we're all either cookbook authors or critics. Which simply isn't the case. Food writing goes deep causing the writer to think, to consider, to connect. When you read a Yelp review or even a review from an esteemed critic, it's flat, consisting of their opinions and stars. A soundbite that doesn't do nearly enough to encompass the real work and passion dozens of folks have done to bring forth that meal to your plate. "I think a piece of writing should be an experience in its own right...when you read it, it stands alongside it, that experience of eating at the restaurant...But that's not how most people come at it...most people want the information (only)." The eating environment has changed as well, with fewer folks being "regulars" at restaurants. There's just not that many places for folks to meet face to face anymore and when they do, they're on their phones. Social media has changed food. It's changed how people connect on an elemental level. What is Todd doing to fix that? Stay tuned! Like Norton and McCloud, Todd is in the process of reinvention, refusing to be pigeonholed into the "food writer" label. He left his position at The Washingtonian and is expanding his horizons, including a new book which explores yearning, loss, memory, time, and the nature of joy called, "Happiness is Otherwise".  Look for it soon. After this conversation? I can't wait to read it. "One of the things I find liberating about not being in the role of critic anymore is this constant assessing of what matters and what doesn't. What's relevant and what's not. I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in the ways that food connect people to other people. Or don't. It's also a way of erecting barriers. It has been. And continues to be." It was such a privilege to talk at length with one of my favorite food writers whose work I've followed for many years. Anyone interested in writing, literature, or who loves the deep questions in general, will get a lot out of this episode. Todd and I connected on so many levels, including our love of African literature, writing, our similar grief process, our parents, and the expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka. Multiple connections guarantee a fantastic conversation. Which this definitely is. The conversation went another hour after I hit stop. I hope it's the first of many. Enjoy! Best American Food Writing 2016 Sun. March 26, 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM Central JMRL Library, 201 E Market Street, Charlottesville, Virginia Join food writers Todd Kliman, Jason Tesauro, Joe Yonan, and moderator Holly Hughes as they discuss the Best Food Writing 2016 series. SHOW NOTES – Links to resources talked about during the podcast: Rally for Ally - help out one of our own, a chef who recently suffered a debilitating accident. Help Polina Recover - help out one of our own, a baker, who recently suffered a debilitating accident. Help Scotty Recover - my best friend has Stage 3B Colorectal cancer. Bills are piling up. He can't work. Can you help? Virginia Festival of the Book - Head out to the food writing events among tons of others. Yes, I'm biased. Wole Soyinka - We connected over our love of African literature. The Silent Woman - A novel, and inspiration for Kliman's new book, "Happiness is Otherwise". Oskar Kokoschka - Expressionist painter who informed Kliman's newest work. Subscribe to This Podcast. Stay Edacious! - Come on, after this episode? You know you want to ;) Subscribe to Edacious News - Never miss a food event in our area! Learn about regional and national food stories so you can stay edacious! This episode is sponsored by Teej.fm and listeners like you who donated their support at Patreon, who wants every creator in the world to achieve a sustainable income. Thank you.

Writing Work. Rhubarb Love. And Hustle. Welcome to the first in a series of FOUR podcasts celebrating the Virginia Festival of the Book! In the next four days you will hear from the country's best and brightest when it comes to food writing. Today's episode? Food writer Sheri Castle, whose newest creation, Rhubarb, presents this misunderstood vegetable in a way it's never been discussed before. Sheri will be appearing at two events as part of the festival, including a talk I'm moderating, "Save Room! Cookbooks With a Sweet Tooth!" Event details are listed below. Sheri wrote her first original recipe at the tender age of four, mailing it off to a television show. But never once did she consider food as a job. Her goal was similar to that of most writers: get a PhD in English, write stories, become a professor. Instead she headed into the corporate world. But her bosses always had her writing. Then suggesting she bring in her delicious food for potlucks. So when she was offered a severance package she headed to culinary school, intending to become a teacher. Writing was something she left behind. It wasn't until a woman approached her during class with a food column offer that she reconsidered. It didn't pay much, but here she was writing again. The rest is chocolate gravy!  As she says, "In hindsight everything was inevitable, but naivete got me a lot farther than the ambition. If I had known how hard this was going to be, I never would have attempted it...I'm a writer. And my cooking is in support of that." It's a story I've heard many times. Food writers who wear several different hats, doing two to five jobs in order to make a living. Food writers who fall into the profession backwards from other careers. Hustling to succeed. "In hindsight everything was inevitable, but naivete got me a lot farther than the ambition. If I had known how hard this was going to be, I never would have attempted it...I'm a writer. And my cooking is in support of that." Do you need culinary training to be a good food writer? Not necessarily, according to Sheri. Just as a doctor doesn't need to know every disease, a writer doesn't have to be a chef. By the same token, there is a clear difference between a food writer and a food typist, someone with only an interest and a blog. You've got to have a clear, profound STORY, not just an anecdote. Rhubarb, part of the ever-popular Short Stack series, is definitely that, a compendium of recipes and stories. Lots of stories about her connection, and ours, to this tart and tangy item. Each Short Stack volume is a love letter to an ingredient. Rhubarb is no exception and Sheri was thrilled to be asked to write about this misjudged vegetable which isn't just for pies! It has the same flavor profile as citrus, is very high in vitamin C, and works incredibly well in savory dishes. "An anecdote or a memoir helps a writer understand what they think about a topic. Good food writing helps the reader understand what they think about a topic." In Rhubarb she shares all of this, as well as its long history going back to the Victorian era. We discuss how to grow it, tips for storage, the differences between fresh and frozen, its medicinal properties, and her fond memories of dipping fresh-cut stalks into Tang as a snack. Yes, Tang! Did you know you can purchase hothouse rhubarb year-round? That's what Sheri did while doing research for this book. At one point she guesstimates she had 90 pounds of the stuff in her fridge. Lordy be! Nigella Lawson, yes THAT Nigella, counts herself as a fan of this book and talks about it often on her website. It was during Rhubarb's launch party that a Short Stack editor showed Sheri a text. From Nigella. Praising the book. So, there's that. True Rhubarb Love from across the pond! "Stories happen only to those who can tell them." Food writing is a rich style of narrative that informs and entertains. Hemingway, Dickens, and Proust all wrote about food although it wasn't sold as such. As Sheri says, "The vehicle of a food memory was the most effective vehicle to convey a thought." We are both such champions for the genre which covers politics, history, culture, memoir, comedy, fiction, philosophy, health, and many many stories. It's never just cookbooks. How do you make recipes into stories? Sheri knows and talks at great length about her process. Folks seem to be catching on, with many recent award-winning cookbooks adding narrative to their recipes. Backstory which gives the reader context, heft, and authority to the food they are making. Way better than just Googling a recipe for brownies. "Food writing is good writing. The topic just happens to be about food." Sheri also talks about her lengthy process for recipe testing. Often cookbook recipes never turn out at home. Why is that? Sheri explains, and she should know, having tested ones for Bill Smith's Seasoned in the South as well as Vivian Howard's award-winning cookbook, Deep Run Roots among many many others. Sheri has also appeared on Vivian's show, A Chef's Life, talking about her love of casseroles. As I've said, she wears many hats. Her favorite topper? To get up in front of a group of people and tell food stories. Which is why you should definitely get your butt down to ALL of her events. After you listen to this episode of course. Cheers! "I'm interested more in how the field peas got on the plate, rather than what the field peas taste like on the plate." Save Room! Cookbooks with a Sweet Tooth Wed. March 22, 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM Barnes & Noble, Barracks Road Shopping Center, Charlottesville, Virginia Cookbook authors Sheri Castle (Rhubarb) and Ronni Lundy (Sorghum’s Savor) will discuss their work. Cooking Demos Thu. March 23, 12:00 PM - 3:00 PM The Charlottesville Cooking School, Meadowbrook Shopping Center, Charlottesville, Virginia Join Sheri Castle (Rhubarb), Shane Mitchell (Far Afield), and Ronni Lundy (Victuals), as they each give a cooking demonstration of recipes from their cookbooks. SHOW NOTES – Links to resources talked about during the podcast: Rally for Ally - help out one of our own, a chef who recently suffered a debilitating accident. Help Polina Recover - help out one of our own, a baker, who recently suffered a debilitating accident. Help Scotty Recover - my best friend has Stage 3B Colorectal cancer. Bills are piling up. He can't work. Can you help? Will Write for Food - Dianne Jacobs wrote the seminal work on how to be a food writer. My bible. Nigella Lawson - She's a fan of Sheri's book, Rhubarb! And her website is pretty great too. Stir - The best piece of food writing I read last year. It should've won a James Beard award. Subscribe to This Podcast. Stay Edacious! - Come on, after this episode? You know you want to ;) Subscribe to Edacious News - Never miss a food event in our area! Learn about regional and national food stories so you can stay edacious! This episode is sponsored by Teej.fm and listeners like you who donated their support at Patreon, who wants every creator in the world to achieve sustainable income. Thank you.

Gluten-Free Work. Welcome to a conversation about bread, community, and how one small business owner is trying to tie those two things together. Susan Weiner of Orange Dot Baking Company, with her gluten-free Major Muffins, wants to not only provide a delicious bread to folks suffering from celiac disease but also hopes to provide job training for folks in our community who so desperately need it. Betty Hoge of the Central Virginia Small Business Development Center recommended Susan and after speaking with her I'm so glad this recommendation came my way. We recorded in the conference room of the Community Investment Collaborative where Susan is a graduate, and I will be taking part in their next class series on developing a business. Can't think of a better place to talk about food, community, and doing it your own way. Programs like CIC can walk you through the nuts and bolts of starting a small business from the ground up. Aligning your lofty goals with the realities of running a successful business. Something Susan was driven to do as a way to give back to her community and also to make delicious bread for folks who cannot tolerate gluten. Folks like her son and herself. Despite the gluten-free backlash, there are millions of folks out there who can't eat bread but would like to. Susan fills that gap. And she truly does. This isn't cardboard folks. Major Muffins have the texture of bread, the flavor of bread. On first bite I was reminded of a really great seeded whole grain. If you hadn't told me it was gluten-free I never would've guessed. The Rustic Rosemary tastes great, and the Chocolate Chip made with French Callebaut chocolate? Extraordinary! Six other varieties including Everything Better, Cinnamon Raisin, and Santa Fe Savory hit every flavor profile. Great on their own or toasted. Serve with wedges of cheese. Make a sandwich. Anything you would use a seeded cracker for is a perfect vehicle. You can find Major Muffins at many retail outlets including Market Street Market and Rebecca's Natural Foods. Buy a sandwich at Bellair Market, or eat one of her delicious creations (try the Figgy Piggy!) at the Charlottesville City Market. There are ten grams of protein per muffin because it's made with high protein flours like oat flour, oat bran, quinoa, amaranth and other ancient grains. Xanthan gum and guar gum are not to be found because of its tendency to upset stomachs. Instead, she uses ground chia seed and powdered psyllium husk which adds fiber. All good stuff. Her development process was extensive involving lots of trial and error, tastings and testings, even custom-baked pans developed by a local company working in the air and space industry! Her secret proprietary baking process is the major reason Major Muffins taste so great. Virginia Tech, a land grant institution and active leader in the local food innovation business, helped Susan with nutritional testing. Janet Dob, co-owner of The Bageladies, helped with suggestions for packaging. Pair that with Susan's CIC training and you've got a company made in this region, by this region, for this region and beyond. Orange Dot is named after the Orange Dot Report written by Ridge Schuyler and Great Stone Bakery of Ben and Jerry's fame, which has an open-hiring policy and who work to alleviate poverty in their own community. Susan envisions a similar company goal, one with a quadruple bottom line: social, environmental, financial, and nutritional. It's a way to wrap all of her passions together into one. Ultimate goal? To have an Orange Dot Bakery in every single major American city so she can impact folks who are gluten-free as well as those who need work, providing a source of job training for those folks on the first rung of the economic ladder. Future plans? Frozen sandwiches you can pop in the microwave, french toast, and mini-pizzas. Perfect for an instant lunch or for shipping care packages to college kids who don't get the nutrition they need. Subscription services are the way of the future, something Splendora's and Arley Cakes have started recently. Both companies past and future podcast guests respectively. A lactose-free version is in development. Susan would also like to get Major Muffins into restaurants. Are you listening Citizen Burger Bar? We also talk about Susan's other joint venture with Ian Pascarelli and Allie Hill, The Kitchen Network, a way for food businesses to rent a commercial kitchen Airbnb-style. What a fantastic idea! Forbes magazine has profiled them. The future of food business starting right here in Charlottesville. Enjoy the ambient sounds of me chewing almost every variety of Major Muffin...then go get some for yourself. Cheers! SHOW NOTES – Links to resources talked about during the podcast: Scotty Nichols Cancer Fund - My best friend has cancer. Can you help? No amount is too small. Thank you. Virginia Festival of the Book - Food writing is my passion! Come see all the great authors 3/22-3/26/17. Marc Maron - He's the reason I podcast. And my hero for his courage to get vulnerable twice a week. Community Investment Collaborative - Helping small business owners find their footing. Orange Dot Report - A report on poverty in Charlottesville and the origin of Susan's company name. Ed Lee's Mentorship Program - Chef Ed Lee is training folks who need jobs so they can work in restaurants. The Bageladies - Janet Dob is a wonder and mentor to Orange Dot. Hope to talk with her soon! This episode is sponsored by Teej.fm and listeners like you who donated their support at Patreon, who wants every creator in the world to achieve sustainable income. Thank you.

Charlottesville Pie Fest is coming! Are you ready? In this BONUS episode we talk about this beloved competition that has occurred semi-annually in the Fall since 2009 to help area charities. This year's beneficiary is the Crozet United Methodist Church Food Pantry, a feeder for the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank. Meet Brian J. Geiger and Marijean Oldham, Pie Fest founders and aficionados. Pie Fest began with the Pie Down. Back in 2008 during Twitter's infancy, someone innocently asked who made the best pie in Charlottesville. Marijean, of Jaggers Communications, insisted she did and Brian, The Food Geek, countered his was better. Within minutes judges volunteered and a contest was born. Which morphed into a Charlottesville pie revolution and a true grass-roots community event because the contest happened with only 10 days preparation and almost 100 people attended. Who won? You'll have to listen to find out! Both founders have deep food and pie backgrounds. Brian's site, sadly in semi-retirement, covers the science behind food and Marijean is well-known around town for holiday pies she makes for friends as well as the classes she teaches for the pie-shy. Her Butterscotch Pecan Pie is insanely good. As a matter of fact, when The Pie Chest opened (owner Rachel Pennington will be a judge) folks called to ask if it was Marijean's new store! To participate, register your pie at the website and arrive between 10am and noon with TWO pies in hand. One will be for judging, the other will be entered into the silent auction. Not sure of your skills? Bring one exhibition pie for the auction and skip the judging. The best pies receive fabulous prizes! And it's not all sweet pies. Enter your savory pie, quiche, cheesecake or even fried hand pies. All rules and categories are on the website but for the most part this is a pie-inclusive competition. All are welcome at this pie stand! You don't even have to use your own recipe, so go ahead and dig in grandma's stash or grab an old issue of Garden and Gun magazine. Even store-bought crust is okay, although homemade usually rates higher in judging. This contest is all about execution and taste so believe in yourself and put on that apron! Pie shy? No worries, you can purchase three tastings for $5. Plus live music by The University of Whales! No pie-eating contest here because the founders feel it disrespects the pie and the baker who put forth so much effort to create such a terrific treat. And it's kind of messy. This is a popular event with folks coming from as far as North Carolina to participate. Attendees often talk for months sometimes years, about special pies they tasted at previous festivals. I still remember the caramel green tomato pie I won at silent auction back in 2010 baked by blogger Elena Brent Rosemond-Hoerr. Yum. Pie contests and pie festivals are quickly becoming extinct with even the Virginia State Fair eliminating their contest. So the one in Charlottesville is it people! Don't miss it! In this episode there's a little trash talk, more pie discussion than you'll ever need, and lots of laughter. Enjoy. See you at pie fest this Sunday! We're looking for prizes and sponsors! Interested? Tweet me @edaciouspod or send an email. One sponsorship benefit is you get to create your own pie category! Albemarle Cabinet Company is sponsoring a Gluten-Free Pie category for example.  So get creative! Be a sponsor today! SHOW NOTES – Links to resources talked about during the podcast: Crozet Arts & Crafts Festival - happening the same day! Visit them first then head over after. Dutch Pantry - authentic Mennonite store/bakery serving up delicious pies, including fry pies! The Charlottesville 29 - Thank you to Simon Davidson for his piece about pie fest that ran last Friday! Virginia Festival of the Book - Are you a restaurant owner willing to donate your space for a food event? Then VA Festival of the Book wants to talk to you! Contact me for more details. This episode is sponsored by MarieBette Café & Bakery.

Wine Work. Sometimes in my travels, I meet a person whose excitement and passion for what they do is so all-encompassing I decide I must talk with them immediately. Meet Erin Scala, sommelier at Petit Pois and Fleurie restaurants in Charlottesville, Virginia.  I met Erin during an incredible and completely unplanned experience at Fleurie during the Virginia Festival of the Book. Chef Nora Pouillion, Gail Hobbs-Page, and Martha Stafford invited me to dinner, so of course I said yes. When I observed Erin's enthusiasm for pairing wine with food, I asked her to be on the podcast right then and there. Erin came to the wine world unexpectedly when she started working in restaurants to support a burgeoning career as a drummer. Which ultimately brought her to Fleurie. One day she overheard the chef talking with the distributor about a wine that smelled of olives. This created a spark of interest. After tasting this wine paired with a tapenade, a passion was born. Soon after she was spending all of her extra time and money buying wine, reading about wine, learning and living the world of wine. Her approach to pairing is unique and fascinating. The Washington Post agrees. As a sommelier, Erin observes her customer closely. What do they order? Is it meats or a light salad? Are they trying to impress a date or client? Do they butter their bread heavily or not at all? Do they drink their water without ice? What cocktail are they enjoying? Only after gathering this information does she make her suggestions to give the diner perfect synergy between food and wine. She keeps records of what wine they ordered last time and whether or not they enjoyed it. This kind of attention to detail ensures excellent customer service. It's a challenging skill to create a wine list. You must choose ones that taste good, are a good value, but still meet your bottom line. How does she make her selections? By not padding it with popular selling varietals instead choosing carefully, making sure each wine pairs well with the food served in each restaurant. She pulls from her past experience as a musician to "compose" every pairing, using music-related words to describe the wines to folks who might be intimidated by the numerous choices. It's worth it to put your trust in the sommelier if the wine list looks good. They took the time to create it and know it better than anyone. Pro tip: doing a bit of research on the sommelier and learning what wines they're passionate about prior to visiting can enhance your dining experience. What is Erin's "passion point"? We talk about it. Above all, don't be intimidated by the sommelier. Talk to them frankly about your needs, likes, and dislikes. They are there to guide you, not make you look stupid. Trust them. Although you don't need certification to work as a sommelier, in the current era of booming demand the profession is becoming more academic by the minute.  An entire industry onto itself. New programs are springing up everywhere, a huge change from the past when this knowledge was passed down informally to each succeeding generation. What are the effects of the business becoming credentialed and maybe at times, dogmatic? We talk about that as well as the special challenges with regard to the drinking age in this country. Erin is currently working toward her Master of Wine (MW) degree. There are fewer than 300 of them in existence. Consider it a PhD in wine because as a pre-requisite she completed all three levels in The Wine and Spirits Education Trust and was awarded a Diploma of Wine & Spirits (DWS) degree. No small feat! We also talk about the Winemaker's Research Exchange in Charlottesville. The first group of its kind in the world! Wine makers, sellers, distributors, and sommeliers getting together to learn from each other doing research on grape varietals, experimenting with all sorts of different kinds of wine and comparing results. That's what I call a community connection! Why does riesling get a bad rap? Are wine consumers different in New York than they are here? How did the sommelier profession begin? How is the Fleurie name related to wine? What is orange wine and how is it made? Can we ever make grappa here in Virginia? Does she have unique challenges being a female in a male-dominated field? We discuss all of it. We also head down the rabbit hole and do a live wine tasting because I asked the question, "What is the ultimate good pairing?". Which of course meant we also had to experience the ultimate bad one. Such fun. Plus, I discovered my new favorite wine. What was in both pairings? Listen to find out! I recently dined at Fleurie again, where Erin's husband Joseph is a co-owner along with chef Brian Helleberg. The experience was extraordinary. I felt completely taken care of in every aspect. It got me thinking. How many restaurants out there are like that? Places where you feel you can totally relax the minute you step in the door because you can confidently put your trust in every person on staff. You don't even have to think, just sit down and say, "Order for me." Fleurie is definitely one of those places, and Erin's wine skills are a huge reason why. I love wine but don't know much about it. So I learned a ton during this episode and I know you will too. The biggest thing I learned? There are terrific wines in every category. So step outside of your comfort zone, don't order that sauvignon blanc you always do, and put your trust in a great sommelier like Erin Scala. Santé! SHOW NOTES – Links to resources talked about during the podcast: I'll Drink To That! - A terrific podcast all about the people doing the work of wine. Very similar to Edacious! Erin does the introductions to every podcast, offering up great stories and information about all things grape. Thinking-Drinking - Erin's blog, full of news, musings, stories, and tons of information about wine. Somm - Sommeliers compete for the ultimate title. Entertaining, but also kind of ridiculous in my opinion. What do you think? The Supersizers Go! - British personalities Giles Coren and Sue Perkins eat their way through almost every era in history. Ridiculously funny and entertaining. Charlottesville Pie Fest - Do you have what it takes? Register your pie at the link! Can't master pie crust yet? Then show up and eat a slice to benefit the Crozet United Methodist Church Food Pantry. October 9th at Crozet Mudhouse. We need sponsors! We need judges! We need prizes! Contact me for details, and don't miss my BONUS episode about the pie festival this Monday! Appalachian Food Summit - In its 3rd year, this summit started over a discussion on Facebook as to whether or not cornbread contains sugar. Its mission is to educate everyone on the valuable contributions Appalachia has made to food culture, and to celebrate its vibrant and thriving foodways. We're not living in the past people! Appalachian food is alive and well, growing and changing all the time. Experience it for yourself! Virginia Festival of the Book - Are you a restaurant owner willing to donate your space for a food event? Then VA Festival of the Book wants to talk to you! Contact me for more details. This episode is sponsored by MarieBette Café & Bakery.

Bread Work. In France, the boulangerie or bakery is the epicenter of any great neighborhood. Folks stop in daily for fresh bread and pastries, sharing news of the day, making small talk, and commiserating over neighborhood issues. Not just a place to pick up simple, delicious food made with yeast, salt, and water but a gathering place. A community space. Meet Jason Becton and Patrick Evans of MarieBette Café & Bakery who are accomplishing the same thing in the Rose Hill neighborhood of Charlottesville, Virginia. MarieBette just won numerous accolades in the Best of Cville Awards, including "Best Pastry" and "Best Bakery". There's a reason everyone who visits me requests a trip to this great bakery and neighborhood family restaurant serving lunch and brunch. Not dinner because from the moment they started, Jason and husband Patrick made a commitment to be home in time to eat with their children, Marian and Betty, the bakery's namesakes. Jason started in advertising before heading to culinary school and working in restaurants like The Four Seasons and L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon. Patrick followed a similar route, working at Dan Barber's Blue Hill, then several bakeries throughout Manhattan. Working in all of these different environments taught both what they wanted for their own business. Simple, tasty, ingredient-driven dishes. Fresh herbs. Seasonal, local ingredients with no heavy sauces. Not exclusively French but European inspired. So they moved from New York to Charlottesville, where Patrick has roots. Neither one had ever owned a business. How did they develop their plan? The answer will surprise you! MarieBette is the result of that plan, a family place in the truest sense of the word. Patrick's father's paintings adorn the walls. His mother upholstered all of the seating. And together Jason and Patrick work to ensure each side of the establishment thrives and complements the other. Partners in life and terrific partners in business. Don't miss the story of how they met. It's the ultimate chef-related "Meet Cute" if you ask me. Patrick handles the bread while Jason handles the restaurant side. They separate responsibilities to match their working styles and personalities,  operating a flourishing business together. If you've ever tried to eat brunch on a Saturday you know what I mean. Does being married offer up special challenges to running a business? What was one major argument involving a popular bakery item? Listen to find out! Patrick makes each croissant, baguette, and pastry by hand every day. Most places get their croissant dough shipped due to the amount of work. So that's really something. Everything is authentically European, so it's never a bomb of sugar. I've learned so much about French pastry since MarieBette opened. And after tasting their canelés and kouign-amann I'm spoiled for anything else. Not to mention the brioche feuilletée! What happens to a small bakery when one of their pastries goes viral? A blessing or a curse? This is what happened last year when local food writer C. Simon Davidson ate one, fell in love, coined the term "bronut", and off it went. Lines around the block. Eater, Food & Wine, and other major sites hounded them. Demands came in from around the country. But shipping bronuts? Out of the question because they wouldn't taste as good. They still sell out and the day I was there the platter sat empty, a testament to just how delicious this brioche/croissant hybrid really is. The restaurant side is equally stellar. Terrific sandwiches and seasonal salads, great mains like Quiche Lorraine. Salad Niçoise that's out of this world. But brunch remains my favorite. Classic Oeufs En Cocotte, eggs baked in a water bath till they are just done and finished with cream, garlic, and fines herbs. Served with toast sticks for dipping. Yum. And it's not all bread and brunch. MarieBette also hosts a monthly wine and cheese tasting as part of the Charlottesville Alliance Française, part of a national nonprofit organization promoting French and French culture. Check out their Facebook page for updates on these great events. Is Charlottesville a utopia of acceptance for LGBT-owned businesses? We discuss this important issue and the triumphs and challenges it can bring to a family considered nontraditional by some. Love is love folks. And family restaurants, no matter what form they take, help make a community stronger. Speaking of community, what about development in Rose Hill? Should we be excited? Worried? How does MarieBette fit in and what do the neighbors think? We talk about the growing pains Charlottesville is experiencing, including the growing parking problem in and around Preston Avenue. You can find MarieBette bread at the Charlottesville City Market, Foods of All Nations, Threepenny Café, and JM Stock and Provisions. The energy in the space is so happy and positive, so much so after the interview I asked Jason if I could record future conversation there. I'm thrilled to say he said yes and I'm so grateful for this new partnership. This was one fantastic conversation, both for the topics and because Jason has such a great laugh! Even though Patrick couldn't join us, he was hard at work downstairs developing the next delicious creation. I can't wait to devour it! Now go listen guys. I'm headed downstairs to inhale an olive baguette. Yum. SHOW NOTES – Links to resources talked about during the podcast: Taste This! - Jason is on the board of Meals on Wheels and helped organize this year's event to benefit that important organization. More than 25 area restaurants offer up their best morsels for your enjoyment. September 20th at the Boar's Head Inn! Charlottesville Pie Fest - Do you have what it takes? Register your pie at the link! Can't master pie crust yet? Then show up and eat a slice to benefit the Crozet United Methodist Church Food Pantry. October 9th at Crozet Mudhouse. Appalachian Food Summit - In its 3rd year, this summit started over a discussion on Facebook as to whether or not cornbread contains sugar. Its mission is to educate everyone on the valuable contributions Appalachia has made to food culture, and to celebrate its vibrant and thriving foodways. We're not living in the past people! Appalachian food is alive and well, growing and changing all the time. Experience it for yourself! Virginia Festival of the Book - Are you a restaurant owner willing to donate your space for a food event? Then VA Festival of the Book wants to talk to you! Contact me for more details. This episode is sponsored by MarieBette Café & Bakery.

The Work of Teaching Cooking. Since 2008, Martha Stafford of The Charlottesville Cooking School has been guiding folks in her beautiful kitchen in the Meadowbrook Shopping Centre to become more confident in the foods they prepare. Why a cooking school? From a young age Martha wanted to teach. And from a very young age she was always cooking. The atmosphere of cooking classes, the energy it creates, with everybody participating and not just sitting around watching, becomes a communal experience. And after everyone sits down and eats together of the food they prepared? It becomes something much more. Martha wants to help people find a sense of joy in food preparation. How to appreciate the experience in and of itself and not just as a way to get to the next activity in your day. Especially for folks who grew up not having big family dinners. She believes cooking simply, but cooking well, involves way more than, “Set it and forget it,” to quote a well-known TV personality. It involves being in the moment, being present. Taking the time to do it well instead of speeding ahead to the next thing. Not only does that keep you from cutting yourself but it can create a bit of peace within your day. Mindfulness in cooking. Cooking as a peace exercise instead of a chore to get through. Plus, if you cook food well, if it tastes really good, you feel satiated. This is true for something as simple as zucchini. By cooking everything well (not well-done, but WELL), you don’t have to limit yourself. Dieting becomes obsolete. Martha realized this early on at Peter Kump’s Cooking School in New York, now the Institute of Culinary Education, where she paid for tuition by washing dishes and scrubbing floors. After her training, she spent time in numerous restaurants before traveling to Charlottesville with her husband Phillip, one of the founders of C&O Restaurant. At the school Martha uses seasonal ingredients and local and organic as much as she can. Her instructors have all been professionally trained. This is important because at The Charlottesville Cooking School you will find the same curriculum you would find in any professional school. This isn’t a quick, “home cooking” course but a thorough one based on classic French methods and techniques you could take and use in any kitchen. Leagues away from watching YouTube videos or learning from books because in her kitchen you train using all five senses. Hearing the onions when they’re near doneness, feeling the pasta dough, smelling the cake baking. Learning by doing is the best kind of learning. There are classes for nervous cooks, kids and teens, and any folks interested in acquiring skills with knives, breadmaking, cakes, pies, and just about any cuisine you can think of. Her Asian classes sell out regularly. Did you know Martha offers team building activities for companies? Instead of doing a boring day-long retreat, offices can come and cook together, then share what they’ve created. Team building by cooking a project cooperatively. What a concept! And I bet you can guess which individual in the office always wants to man the grill… In addition to the school, Martha has worked with The Virginia Festival of the Book since 2009. She’s been instrumental in increasing the number of food-related book events at the festival and this past March both her cooking demonstrations and panel with organic chef Nora Pouillon, who I interviewed for this podcast, were very well attended. How can we makes the crowds more diverse? How can we attract more people from the food community? We talk about that. Martha has also worked with Charlottesville City Schools to begin revamping school lunches by meeting with dietitians and the head of school services to teach knife skills, develop recipes, and offer support to create a centralized kitchen. Her black bean and brown rice taco was scooped up by students who loved it so much they were licking the plates clean. Let’s hope the work she began continues. Because ketchup isn’t a vegetable. Why is her Healing Your Relationship To Food class so popular? How does she encourage nervous cooks? Why did one student call her school “Heaven’s Kitchen”? What are her thoughts on food services like Blue Apron? We talk about it all. Her passion and dedication to teaching the essentials in the kitchen come through so clearly in this conversation and I loved talking with her. Enjoy! SHOW NOTES – Links to resources talked about during the podcast: Chili Cookoff to benefit Service Dogs of VA – I’ll be a judge. Pray for me! ? Business of Food Conference Homepage The Charlottesville 29 Restaurant Auctions Finding Yourself in the Kitchen – Learning to be in the moment while cooking instead of speeding through it onto the next thing. Elizabeth Andoh – The leading English-language expert on Japanese cuisine. Fraisier Cake! The Unwanted Job – Chef Chris Hill outlines why the dishwasher is the unsung hero of any restaurant. This episode is sponsored by In A Flash Laser Engraving.

It's time for the 2016 Virginia Festival of the Book! In this special episode I'm thrilled and honored to present Chef Nora Pouillon, who will speak and sign copies of her book, My Organic Life, on Friday, March 18th at 2pm in New Dominion Bookshop. Chef Pouillon is a pioneer in the farm to table movement. For 37 years Restaurant Nora in DC has implemented sustainable practices and in 1999 became the first organically-certified restaurant in the US. Before the government even coined the term “organic” Chef Pouillon was working with farmers and creating her menus daily based on what was seasonal. She pushed for local, additive-free food at a time when folks considered it "hippie food" - lentils and lettuce. As we know from its popularity today, it's anything but. In this episode we talk about the laborious process involved in certifying a restaurant, something that had never been done before she thought of it, as well as the extra effort it takes to keep up the certification and train staff in organic practices. She has a 3-ring binder of certifications for every ingredient. Her water filtration system takes up an entire room. She must buy drums of oil rather than small bottles. And I haven't even mentioned the organic cleansers, the paint on the walls, the carpeting, the dishes. She stays incredibly organized. And this is on top of all her other restaurant duties. What's the ONE item in her restaurant she can't source organically? Listen to find out. It's probably not what you think! How do we slow down and become aware of what we're putting into our bodies? Especially when we live in a world where chemicals and additives are everywhere, not just in our food but in our clothes, our mattresses, our children's toys. Even in our water. What are small, doable ways to incorporate organic into everyday living? Can we see making dinner as not just another chore, but as a way to slow down, be more aware, to reflect not just on what we eat but how we spend our days? Can we learn to visit the local butcher and talk with them instead of just throwing a prepackaged meat from who knows where into our grocery carts? Yes, organic is more expensive than typical produce. It's challenging to grow, there's more hand labor, the farms are smaller, and there aren't any tricks to keep the produce fresher longer. It's the difference between wearing a designer dress and something from WalMart. Organic produce has more nutritional value because there are no pesticides, so in the long run you will be healthier. And wouldn't you rather spend your money on food than the doctor? Plus it tastes so much better. Presidents and celebrities, including James Beard, have dined at her eponymous restaurant. Chef Pouillon remains an inspiration to all women in the food industry because at a time when most didn’t work outside the home, she was running a successful restaurant. She is one of the most fascinating women I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. Her passion and dedication to organic living is one to emulate. I know you'll enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Cheers! This episode is sponsored by In A Flash Laser Engraving. Thank you to Team Podcast who helped me with sound issues on this episode. Christy Haussler is a MASTER of the medium and worth every penny. Cheers Christy!

Yet another study's come out showing US students are failing to learn their history and civics lessons. On this week's 40 Acres & A Fool, Cam explores ways to make history fun, starting with scrapping the textbook. And if geography's more your thing, there are plenty of small town festivals to explore this time of year, including Farmville's "Heart of Virginia Festival". Plus, the latest from the 40 Acrers and your own garden plots and farmland!

On todays show we discuss the topic how to find or get a Work-At-Home job. We were joined by author Leslie Truex   Leslie Truex truly knows how to combine comfort with making a living. For nearly two decades, she worked at home, often in her pajamas, and helping others do the same. In 1998, Leslie started sharing her real life experiences and tips to other work-at-home wannabes through Work-At-Home Success. Today the website is recognized by telework and small business associations as a quality resource for work-at-home information. She has appeared on The Daily Buzz, CNN.com and in a host of other media outlets. She is the author of The Work-At-Home Success Bible and several other homebased career books, informationproducts and online courses. She teaches telecommuting,work-at-home and publishing courses at Piedmont Virginia Community College. She has spoken at the Virginia Festival of the Book and the Virginia Writers Club.   To learn more about the book and Leslie you can visit: The Work at Home Success Bible www.workathomesuccess.com        You can listen live by going to www.kpft.org and clicking on the HD3 tab. You can also listen to this episode and others by podcast at:http://directory.libsyn.com/shows/view/id/moneymatters