April 28, 2025: Albemarle Supervisors agree to allocate additional $300,000 to climate action fund
Plus: Charlottesville City Council has a very, very short meeting
The Pink Floyd album Dark Side of the Moon spent 741 weeks on the Billboard charts with that run beginning on April 28, 1973. That’s just one of many potential historical items for today that could be mentioned in the opening paragraph of this edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. This newsletter has now been in production for 250 weeks and this comparison is intended for artistic value only. I’m Sean Tubbs, and the lunatic is in my head.
In today’s installment:
Charlottesville finalizes a budget for FY2026 by adopting tax rates for 2025
Albemarle County sets May 15 for a community meeting about planning for the Three Notched Trail shared-use path
A former journalist and science write enters race for Samuel Miller seat on the Albemarle School Board
Albemarle Supervisors agreed to spend another $300,000 on climate action after the final public hearing on the budget
First shout-out: Alliance Française de Charlottesville
The Alliance Française de Charlottesville promotes the French language and francophone culture through educational and cultural programs. Visit the Alliance Française website to learn more about group classes, private lessons, cultural events, and social activities for both kids and adults.
Charlottesville adopts tax rate at shortest meeting of 2025 (so far)
The formal budget adoption process in Charlottesville is now complete. Charlottesville City Council held a very brief meeting on April 24 to hold the second reading of the tax levy for 2025.
“I’m glad to say that we are at the end of the road,” said City Manager Sam Sanders.
The meeting lasted less than two minutes and took place three days after the public hearing for the tax rates. City Council twice postponed that state-mandated requirement due to advertising errors.
“Based on the state code of Virginia, we cannot vote the same night we have the public hearing,” said budget director Krisy Hammill.
There was no discussion. The motion was unanimous.
The website of the City Assessor now contains the land books for 2025. The one for taxable land shows there are 15,137 taxable parcels with a total assessed value of $11,690,032,600. That yields a total of $114,562,319.48 in taxes at $0.98 per $100 of assessed value.
There are 519 tax-exempt parcels with an assessed value of $3,576,772,300. These include churches, nonprofit entities, and the University of Virginia. If table, these properties would bring in another $35 million in revenue.
Take a look at the details for 2025 and previous years here.
If you want to read all of the stories about the budget development process, visit Information Charlottesville.
Albemarle sets May 15 as kickoff for Three Notched Trail
Albemarle is in the early stages of planning for a 24-mile long shared use pathway between Charlottesville to the Blue Ridge Tunnel. This morning the county announced the community kickoff meeting for the Three Notched Trail master plan will be held May 15 at Crozet Elementary School.
“The project is not a construction effort, but rather a strategic roadmap that will lay the groundwork for long-term investments in health, mobility, recreation, and economic development,” reads an information release sent out at 12:05 p.m.
Albemarle received a $2 million planning grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation in August 2022 through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Earlier this year the county announced the hiring of the firm Vanasse Hangen Brustlin to coordinate the work.
Other consultants involved in the effort are EPR and Toole Design.
The first meeting is intended to let people know about the project scope and to take community input.
“We want to hear from residents about what’s important to them,” the information release quotes Kevin McDermott, Albemarle’s deputy director of planning. “Whether it is safety, connections to local destinations, scenic beauty, or economic opportunity. This trail is for everyone.”
For more information, visit the project’s website. A community survey will open on May 15.
Former journalist enters race for Samuel Miller seat on the Albemarle School Board
Graham Paige is not running for another term representing the Samuel Miller District on the Albemarle School Board.
Today, a veteran television journalist with local and national experience formally announced a campaign to succeed Paige.
“We need to ensure that Albemarle schools remain the best in Virginia and that every kid, no matter their circumstances, succeeds academically and graduates on time with the knowledge and skills to be a productive member of society,” said Bob Beard. “It is critical to hire and retain the best teachers and staff in the nation to keep ACPS moving forward.”
Beard has lived in Albemarle for over 20 years and has two children who attended county schools from kindergarten to high school. He’s been the president of the parent-teacher organization at Ivy Elementary and is now a member of the Albemarle Board of Equalization.
In his career, Beard worked for CNN and NBC News before becoming a news anchor at CBS19. He left that position to work as a science writer for the University of Virginia Health System. His campaign has the endorsement of Paige.
“I thank Bob for stepping up to run for this important office in our community,” Paige said. “I support his candidacy and know that he will be a valuable member of the board.”
In Virginia, school board races are strictly non-partisan. Anyone wishing to run follows rules set out for independent candidates to qualify for the general election ballot. The deadline is June 17, the same day as party primaries.
So far Beard does not have any competition. Neither does Jack Jouett District School Board Member Katherine Acuff.
The Rio District seat currently held by Kimberly Pryor is up. Pryor was appointed in January to fill a vacancy left by the death of Chuck Pace. If she decides to run, she will face Jim Dillenbeck in the November 4 election. (this paragraph was added as a correction)
Second shout-out: Camp Albemarle
Today’s second subscriber-supported public service announcement goes out to Camp Albemarle, which has for over 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. Are you looking to escape and reconnect with nature? Consider holding an event where the natural beauty of the grounds will provide a venue to suit your needs. Visit their website to view the gallery and learn more!
Speakers at final budget public hearing ask Albemarle Supervisors to spend more on housing and climate action
A note before this story begins. There was an attempt to turn today’s edition into podcast but I ran out of time. You can hear this story on SoundCloud.
The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors still has nine days before they will update a budget for the fiscal year that begins on July 1. They held a public hearing on April 23 to take public comment on the final document that reflects input from the six elected officials.
Before they opened the public hearing, Chief of Budget Andy Bowman presented an overview of what changes were made.
“Over the last two months, the board has invested a lot of time into this budget,” Bowman said. “This is the start of the 34th hour of a public meeting that we've had after all of our town halls and work sessions.”
Bowman’s presentation was similar to that at previous public hearings and the many town halls held to present the draft budget to the public.
The first speaker, Diane Brown Towns Carolyn Crutchfield, is a resident of the Crozet Meadows community, an apartment complex reserved for older community members people with disabilities. She said she wants the county to exercise more scrutiny over how such places are managed and said there had been a lot of turnover with property management.
“I just got out of a meeting coincidentally today where they told us that they treat us the same as everybody else,” Towns said. “I'd like to see that happen. So I'd like to see more control of the communities, low income communities, communities that we build in this county so that we have choices.”
The second speaker was the Reverend Susan Carlson of the Universalist Unitarian Church. She’s a co-president of IMPACT, an advocacy group that is part of a coalition asking for a commitment of $10 million a year toward affordable housing.
This year’s budget includes for the first time a dedicated portion of real property tax revenue for housing as well as $4 million in one-time spending for a total of $5.2 million for affordable housing. While she is glad there is some commitment, Carlson said it is not enough.
“We're disappointed, however, that once again the county has been unwilling to fund affordable housing at the level that it is needed to truly address our community's housing problems,” Carlson said.
The third speaker also came from IMPACT who said the county may have been able to prevent the sale of the Cavalier Crossings apartment complex if they had previously invested in a housing trust fund.
“If we had had this fund that we've been asking for for years, the county would have been able to purchase that property,” said Denise Zito. “Instead, that complex has been purchased by who knows who, and they are turning it into, yeah, luxury apartments.
A journalist knows who and reports it as I did last September. The firm Bonaventure used an entity called Wahoo Way Investments to purchase Cavalier Crossings for $20.5 million in a deal that closed on May 10, 2024. The property had last sold in September 2017 for $11,199,000.
The second public hearing also offered another chance for other advocacy groups to call for more spending. One is a tenth grader from the Community Lab School who called for $1 million to be put into a fund to be used for projects to respond to climate change.
“These include increasing the extent of sidewalks and bike lanes to reduce reliance on gas powered cars, providing incentives for private renewable energy development and increasing tree cover in urban areas,” said Reed Chrobak.
Several other speakers echoed the call for additional funding for climate action.
This advocacy was organized by the group Community Climate Collaborative, a nonprofit with revenues of $1 million in 2023 according to ProPublica.
“C3 has earned the broad support of this community,” said executive director Susan Kruse. “More than 90 percent of our budget is funded by individuals, private foundations and local businesses. They count on us to hold you accountable.”
Kruse said that funding for recycling and purchases for things like street sweepers should not be considered as investments in climate action because they do not directly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. She said her organization was critical for items such as delivering climate activity kits to 4th grade students.
After the public hearing, Supervisor Michael Pruitt repeated that he would like to see a higher tax rate to allow for more spending but that is too late for this budget cycle. He said he wanted to make a motion to re-allocate $300,000 from a strategic priority fund toward climate.
Supervisor Ann Mallek said she would want to know more about how that money would be spent before allocating it.
“In order to really support a transfer of this money, I would need to know more about or establish a report back or some other definitions before money goes out the door of where it's going to go,” Mallek said.
Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley said she would support such a transfer but agreed that the money should go to where it would have the most impact.
Supervisor Ned Gallaway said he would support Pruitt’s motion, but he would prefer that $300,000 go toward housing first given there has been advocacy for that as well. He said he wanted any funding spent on the issue to be used well. Gallaway was on the Board when they adopted a Climate Action Plan.
“One of my concerns about the plan was identifying actual action steps that we could take to not just achieve the objective we were stating, but also was a way that said we are being responsible with your dollars,” Gallaway said.
Gallaway added that funding for things like bike lanes comes mostly from the state and federal government and would not necessarily be counted in a climate action fund. He pointed out many things can move action forward such as in 2015 when Albemarle became one of the first school systems to install solar arrays on roofs.
“Wasn't our idea, can't take claim for it,” Gallaway said. “It was Albemarle High School students coming and doing what these very students did. A project based piece that got the policymakers to go, you know what, that's a great use of time. It was cost effective and it achieves a goal that we were starting to talk about back then.”
Supervisor Diantha McKeel pointed out that activities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions can take many forms and some of them will take a while. She said the county recently joined Charlottesville in forming a regional transit authority that may one day lead to a bus system that will be used by more people.
“I want to just remind folks too that emissions from transportation make up half of the county's emissions,” McKeel said. “Transportation is a huge part of our problem.”
As the conversation continued, Albemarle County Executive Jeffrey Richardson suggested staff could make an adjustment.
“It feels like based on the discussion, that there's energy with the board, with four more folks that are saying they'd like to see the staff come back with consideration of an additional $300,000 making that climate action fund for next year 500 with a focus on greenhouse emergency,” Richardson said.
However, Supervisor Pruitt said he wanted to take a vote on a motion to send a clear message and it passed unanimously.
The public hearing on the tax rate will be at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday in Lane Auditorium.
Reading material:
Wittman constituents host town hall in his absence to address immigration, federal funding concerns, Ian Stewart, Virginia Mercury, April 26, 2025
Greene newcomer wins PC seat on split vote, Chuck Jackson, Piedmont Journal Recorder, April 28, 2025
ACPS Names Longtime County Educator Principal at New Center, Jay Hart, Cville Right Now, April 28, 2025
Thoughts at the end of #855
I dislike acronyms. One of the stories above included an acronym in the press release that I’ve decided I will not use. Do I get to do that, or do I have to follow policy?
I didn’t say which story. I really try to not say what I think about things but I do get annoyed at over-reliance on acronyms. So I’m not going to use the one, just like I’m resisting the use of AC44 to describe Albemarle’s Comprehensive Plan update.
The main reason is that most people have no idea how any of this stuff works. Even after 20 years or more of reporting here in Charlottesville, I don’t really know anything. I just know where to look to get what I need. I can never assume I know anything for certain. Some of us become journalists because we’re filled with doubt.
I mentioned above I wanted today’s edition to also be a podcast but I didn’t get there. My schedule will be disrupted this week and I’m quite cross about that. I’ll try not to take it out on you and listening to the 8-bit version of Dark Side of the Moon may have medicinal benefits.
Back tomorrow!
Another correction. The resident of the Crozet Meadows who spoke is Carolyn Crutchfield. I regret the error.
The spelling of Reed Chrobak's name was originally misspelled and has been corrected. I regret the error.