October 18, 2024: Outgoing UVA Coach Bennett explains reasons for sudden resignation
October 18, 2024: Outgoing UVA Coach Bennett explains reasons for sudden resignation
Plus: Albemarle County Supervisors adopt legislative positions and priorities
Is the number 746 prime? Of course not, as it is even. It might be odd to ask such questions given that few would care about the significance of a figure that could also go by DCCXLVI. A major goal of Charlottesville Community Engagement is to provoke thought and to encourage questions. In hexidecimal terms, this is edition 2ea and according to the Discordian calendar, today is Sweetmorn, Bureaucracy 72, Year of Our Lady of Discord 3190. I’m Sean Tubbs, and I don’t always know why.
In today’s installment:
UVA men’s basketball coach Tony Bennett explains why he is leaving
Governor Glenn Youngkin issues an another executive order intended to speed up approval processing by state agencies for permits and licenses
On Monday, Albemarle County will begin enforcement of speed cameras in school zones on Hydraulic Road
There’s new material on Albemarle County’s Comprehensive Plan available for review before a series of meetings later this month
Albemarle Supervisors agree to a series of legislative priorities and positions, including a desire for a study on rent stabilization
First shout-out: Charlottesville Community Bikes
In today’s first subscriber supported shout-out, Charlottesville Community Bikes strives to provide wheels to anyone who needs a ride. That includes:
There’s a Kid’s Bike program for people under the age of 12 (learn more)
Several social services organizations refer people to Charlottesville Community Bikes for access to reliable transportation (learn more)
There are mobile repair clinics held all around the area with the next one coming up November 5 at 6th Street with PHAR and The Free Book Bus (learn more)
There’s also a workforce development program that “blends mentorship and comprehensive training in bicycle mechanics” (learn more)
Do you have some wheels you’re no longer using? Community Bikes accepts all bike and bike-related donations, but at the moment, they are especially slim on adult mountain bikes and need kids' bikes of all sizes.
To learn more, visit their website and consider a donation to keep them rolling!
Beloved UVA men’s basketball Coach Bennett explains his sudden retirement
Tony Bennett has announced he will step down as the coach of the University of Virginia men’s basketball team just as the season is set to begin.
“In thinking about this, I would share a quote from a missionary, Jim Elliott, came to mind, and it says, ‘he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose,’” Bennett said at a press conference today. “And I've been here for 15 years as the head coach and I thought it would be a little longer, to be honest, but that's been on loan. It wasn't mine to keep. This position has been on loan.”
Bennett initially said he is leaving to spend more time with his family and to spend more time with his octogenarian parents, but offered deeper explanations as the press event continued.
During his tenure, Bennett won the NCAA Championship in 2019.
“To win six regular season ACC championships, two tournament championships, to be in Sweet sixteen and an Elite Eight, win the national championship and the hard losses, the hard losses in the tournament, it's all part of it,” Bennett said. “I wouldn't trade it for anything.”
UVA Athletic Director Carla Williams explained that she took the job in Charlottesville because Bennett was here.
“The University of Virginia is an amazing place because of people like Tony. Tony is a hall of Fame coach and a world class human being,” Williams said.
Bennett has been lauded for his approach to coaching based on humility and passion.
“Humility means know who you are and have sober judgement,” Bennett said. “And passion means do not be lukewarm, be wholehearted in all you do.”
Bennett held back tears when he said he’s leaving now because he does not believe he is the best coach in the current environment of college sports and could no longer be whole-hearted. He said he supports recent changes that allow student athletes to receive revenue while playing, but it’s created an environment that has affected his ability to coach.
“The game and college athletics is not in a healthy spot,” Bennett said. “It’s not. And there needs to be change and it's not going to go back. I think I was equipped to do the job here the old way, and that's who I am and that's how it was. And my staff has buoyed me along to get to this point, but there needs to be change.”
Bennett said the college game will now be more like professional leagues and that will require collective bargaining and regulations to govern a system in which players can decide to switch schools to another one where they will make more money.
Bennett explained he signed a contract extension earlier this year because that helped the overall program during recruiting. He said he made the decision after the fall break after discussing the matter with his wife.
Assistant Coach Ron Sanchez will serve as interim coach for the rest of the season.
Governor Youngkin issues executive order to make approval process more user friendly
This time next year, the race to be Virginia’s next governor will be well underway, and the person in the office only has a limited time left to leave a legacy.
This morning, Governor Glenn Youngkin issued the latest executive order directing executive agencies to find ways to streamline the process for the issuance of over 600 types of approvals.
“Time spent waiting for an approval is time that could otherwise be spent building houses, teaching students, or undertaking hundreds of other of other productive activities,” reads the introduction to Executive Order #39.
Soon after entering office in 2022, Youngkin created the Office of Regulatory Management and the Office of Transformation with the issuance of Executive Order 19 which directed agencies to eliminate a quarter of their regulatory requirements.
As part of that initiative, Youngkin directed the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality in January 2022 to test a new permitting system which has since been expanded to other agencies. Any member of the public can track changes using the Virginia Regulatory Town Hall and Youngkin claims this has increased processing times.
“Over the past two years, DEQ has managed to improve its permit processing time by 70 percent using the Permitting Enhancement and Evaluation Program,” EO39 continues.
Another order made by Youngkin in early 2022 required the Secretary of Labor and the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulations to speed up processing times.
Now Executive Order #39 now calls on agencies to eliminate any “osolete” regulations and to further reductions in approval processing. Improvement plans must be completed by December 13 and progress reports must be given quarterly.
There’s also Executive Order 5 which established the position of Chief Transformation Officer and ordered a review of the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Virginia Employment Commission.
Albemarle to begin enforcing Hydraulic school zone cameras on Monday
After a 45 day test, the grace period for school zone speed enforcement cameras on Hydraulic Road ends Monday. That’s when anyone caught violating going ten miles an hour above the speed limit will be issued a citation with a $100 fine.
Cameras outside Albemarle County Public Schools’ Lambs Lane campus have been active since September 3 and Jack Jouett District Supervisor Diantha McKeel shared some data on Wednesday.
“We found that 782 cars per day were speeding ten miles or more hour over the speed limit between school start time and end time,” McKeel said. “That’s pretty astounding.”
Violators have been issued warnings and McKeel said the data has shown a reduction in speed.
Citations do not go against a driver’s points but Supervisors are stating it is their position that the General Assembly allow that to happen.
Albemarle growth area groups to meet on Eve of Halloween
Albemarle County staff took a pause this summer on the development of a new Comprehensive Plan to guide the next twenty years of growth. The goal was to make the document easier to read.
Parts of the new AC44 document were revealed to the Planning Commission on October 8 and to the Board of Supervisors on October 16. The Planning Commission will take a look at another new section this upcoming Tuesday.
Albemarle has seven community advisory committees covering different growth areas and none have met this month to prepare for a joint meeting on October 30 in Lane Auditorium.
“It’s all about AC44 so if you want to come and listen, anyone who wants to listen to what’s happening, that’s a good place to do it,” said Rivanna District Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley.
Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley made her comments this past Wednesday.
Materials for the Planning Commission’s meeting are now available and include the draft land use chapter of the AC44 document. More in the next Week Ahead which will come out on Sunday, but here’s a link to the agenda if you want to get started.
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Albemarle Supervisors lay out legislative priorities for 2025 General Assembly
There are now 82 days until the next session of the Virginia General Assembly begins and this is the season when localities across the Commonwealth put together their wish lists for new laws and enabling authority.
On Wednesday, the Albemarle Board of Supervisors finalized their list.
In all, Supervisors have agreed to pursue six legislative priorities and here are the first three according to interim county attorney Andy Herrick. (review their priorities)
“Expanding the photo speed device authority, the $0.01 sales tax option for schools capital,” Herrick said. “We've revised at the board's direction expanding offenses subject to property forfeiture to include community threats.”
The first two are repeat requests.
Albemarle wants to be able to use cameras on stretches of rural roads where speeding is a known issue and where a lack of shoulders make enforcement by officers more difficult. Supervisors also want Albemarle to be on the list of localities allowed by the General Assembly to hold a referendum on a sales tax increase for school construction.
The forfeiture item is new and stems from a series of hoaxes against Planet Fitness in Albemarle County earlier this year. Herrick said the idea has evolved since staff were asked for ways to punish those who cause public safety forces to be mobilized.
“Instead of continuing to pursue cost recovery, that we approach this from a different angle and that is adding these offenses to the list of offenses that are subject to property forfeiture, that would allow for a greater recovery, perhaps be a greater deterrent,” Herrick said.
Supervisor Diantha McKeel said she was not convinced taking someone’s personal property away would have much of an effect.
“You're going to have to give me some more examples because if we're talking about talking a cell phone or a computer and selling it and trying to recoup, I mean, that's just wackadoodle world to me,” McKeel said.
Herrick explained that this approach would be more likely to be accepted by government prosecutors.
“When cost recovery was before the Board, there were some pretty significant objections from the commonwealth's attorney and that would not be present with this procedure,” Herrick said.
Albemarle is also asking for a budget request to help cover the costs of developing county-owned land around Rivanna Station as well as request for funding for a trail project at Biscuit Run.
“We're going to be asking for $11.2 million for targeted phase one readiness funding for the Rivanna Futures project, as well as $1.37 million for a trail segment at the Biscuit Run Park,” Herrick said.
A sixth item came from the work session on September 18.
“A request that there be a legislative or agency study of tools to mitigate rent increase caused by multifamily residential development,” Herrick said.
Herrick said that could help Albemarle in situations where older apartment buildings are purchased and the new owners increase rent to fund renovations. The Free Enterprise Forum, a pro-business advocacy group, published an article on October 14 that claimed Albemarle County wanted to impose rent control.
Supervisor Ned Gallaway disputed that characterization.
“I would hopefully encourage folks to go back and relisten to the discussion that day and know that there it is,” Gallaway said. “Study tools to mitigate rent increases caused by multifamily residential redevelopment. If you want to call it rent control, that's fine. But my guess would be that there would be other scenarios and things that a study could say are good ideas or bad ideas. And just like most decisions we make, we ask for that kind of information before we take action.”
Supervisor McKeel said she would support a study to be conducted by Virginia’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission. Herrick said he understood but it’s likely another agency such as the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development would conduct such a study.
In addition to the six legislative priorities, Albemarle is also taking several legislative positions. (draft list)
“I believe there are 40 positions that the county states in the position documents,” Herrick said. “Seven of them were new as of the last meeting and they're listed here. All of two of these really deal with increased funding, so the county would be in support if the issue arose of increased funding for economic development and site readiness, increased funding for community services, boards, for mental health services, for housing albemarle and for public schools funding.”
The issue of rent came up again. Another new position is to allow for localities to advocate on behalf of tenants.
“Currently, the land violations of the Landlord Tenant act are only enforceable by the tenants themselves,” Herrick said. “There was a request made that we add this to the position statement that we would be in favor of allowing localities to enforce that as well.”
Another position request is that Albemarle would like the law to require public notice when multifamily apartment complexes are sold, similar to the requirement that allows affordable housing organizations to make a counter offer if a mobile home park goes up for sale. There’s another position request to allow localities to stabilize rents.
These requests were made by Supervisor Mike Pruitt.
“Rent stabilization is something that the majority of our peers, Democrats in the House and Senate, do support, and there's been recurring submissions of rent stabilization legislation each year,” Pruitt said.
Pruitt said communities in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads have been requesting the legislation as a tool to help keep units affordable.
In the 2024 General Assembly session, at least two bills related to the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act passed both legislative chambers only to end up being vetoed by Governor Glenn Youngkin. (HB955) (HB1207)
“We know there's probably not going to be anything that happens in the year after that,” Pruitt said. “But a helpful thing is to show that this is something that is on the radar and that is, frankly confronting people outside of NoVa.”
However, there were not four votes to support adding that position to the official list and instead the position states support for a study.
Supervisor Mallek supported power to allow localities to act on behalf of tenants.
“I've been contacted several times in the last several years by people desperate to get improvements to the place they have rented and they don't have a lease,” Mallek said. “There are lots of people who live in places month to month and have no protection from a lease. And the landlord now knows that no one's going to make him or her do anything. And all they have to do is threaten that the person can just go if they don't like what's going on.”
Before the General Assembly meets, there will be a work session with area legislators. That meeting has not been scheduled as of today.
Reading material for #746
‘Voter fraud is a made-up problem’ says UVA political expert, Kate Nuechterlein, WVIR 29News, October 16, 2024
Seeking community help to name project, Sharra Klug, CBS19 News, October 16, 2024
$2.3B Virginia bridge will have impact ‘from Boston to Miami’, Julie Strupp, Construction Dive, October 17, 2024
A Trump victory could reconfigure Falls Church’s legislative priorities, Scott McCaffrey, ARLNow, October 17, 2024
University of Virginia Breaks Ground on New Home for Karsh Institute of Democracy, Dante A. Ciampaglia, Architectural Record, October 17, 2024
Albemarle officials bash 'nakedly partisan screed' against ranked-choice voting, Jason Armesto, Charlottesville Daily Progress (paywall), October 17, 2024
Farewell, #746!
Every single newsletter is the product of one person. I don’t think I expected that I’d still be doing this work thirty years ago, but here I am. I wrote to someone today to express my wish I had more time to work because there’s so much to get to each day.
I’m not a non-profit. I don’t seek awards. I don’t claim to be an authority. What I am is a journalist who cares about process and cares about documenting what government does. I’ve always taken the position that policy matters and should be reported as equally as sports. I’ve not seen a UVA men’s basketball game since 1991, and I’ve never seen a football game. Yet, I suspect this newsletter will get more of an audience because I covered something way outside my usual scope.
The structural changes happening in college athletics remind me of the changes that have occurred in journalism as legacy newspapers deteriorated for a variety of factors that explain why so much talent left the industry. At one point in my life, I quit a job of eleven years when a new executive director told me that no one wanted what I was producing.
Now I’ve been at this for 51 months, and I feel invigorated being able to do this work each and every day. I strive to keep doing this as long as I can my terms, and those terms generally include making sure everyone knows that nothing I write is the final answer on anything.
In any case, it’s now Friday afternoon and it’s time to publish.
Paid subscriptions keep this going, and I’m continuing to consider how I’m going to change things to keep getting more efficient so I can tell stories faster. Many people do not want to pay through Substack, and I understand that. Many people may not want to pay at all. Some want all of the content to be behind a paywall.
The latter is not going to happen. Democracies need information about what governments do.
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