July 7, 2025: Charlottesville down a deputy city manager as Ratliff moves back to Pennsylvania
Plus: Written versions of two stories that were in Saturday’s podcast
Today, July 7, marks the 97th anniversary of the first time anyone sold sliced bread. An inventor named Otto Frederick Rohwedder made a prototype back in 1912 but it was destroyed in a fire and it took several years to build a fully working machine. The Chillicothe Baking Company in Missouri was the first time it was used commercially and within five years, 80 percent of bread in America was sold pre-sliced. This has absolutely nothing to do with Charlottesville Community Engagement, but how many greatest things have happened since? I’m Sean Tubbs, and it’s time for a sandwich of information.
In today’s installment:
One of Charlottesville’s Deputy City Managers has left to take a job in Pennsylvania
City Manager Sam Sanders looks back at FY2025
Charlottesville Area Transit seeks votes in the annual bus art contest
Seventy-four new Americans took the oath of citizenship at Monticello on July 4
Three hours later, around four hundred people gathered at the Rotunda to protest federal interference in University of Virginia governance
First-shout: Brandon Wayne & His Lonesome Drifters at Offbeat Roadhouse this Friday
Brandon Wayne & His Lonesome Drifters, the East Coast’s finest up and coming rockin’ hillbilly and honky tonk band, will pull into Offbeat Roadhouse Friday night, July 11, for a concert which will also be broadcast on WTJU.
This powerhouse quartet is a modern day blast from the past. Their shows are a smoking hot mix of Brandon Wayne’s superb originals and choice covers in the style of early to mid-20thcentury classic vintage country, rockabilly, hillbilly boogie and western swing along with original surf instrumentals.
This is a free event, open to all. You can also listen to Offbeat Roadhouse on the radio (91.1 FM) or on-line, and even video stream it at WTJU’s YouTube channel. WTJU is located at 2244 Ivy Rd in Charlottesville, right next door to Vivace. There is plenty of parking, both in the WTJU lot as well as the Sentara lot next door.
Former Deputy City Manager Ratliff moves back to Pennsylvania
There’s a lot to be learned from City Manager Sam Sanders’ written report for the July 7 meeting of the Charlottesville City Council, but one recent departure is not among them.
Eden Ratliff is no longer Charlottesville’s Deputy City Manager for Administration and on July 9 will take over as manager of Middletown Township in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Ratliff’s last day in Charlottesville was May 9 according to Afton Schneider, the city’s director of communications and public engagement.
According to a June 10 article on Levittownnow.com, Ratliff will be paid $215,000 a year. Much of his managerial career has taken place in Pennsylvania where he is a native.
The city’s website does not list a vacancy for the position and there is no opening listed on an employment site used by Charlottesville. Schneider said the position will be filled.
James Freas is still listed as the Deputy City Manager for Operations and Ashley Marshall is still listed as Deputy City Manager for Social Equity.
Ratliff was hired in January 2024 and began work in February 2024. One task given to him by Sanders was to shepherd the creation of a new strategic plan for the city. He gave a status update in April. Schneider said his departure will not affect the schedule.
(this story was updated shortly after publication at 3:17 p.m.)
Sanders looks back at FY2025 in written report
We’re now a week into the new fiscal year, and City Manager Sam Sanders took the opportunity in his written report for tonight’s City Council meeting to look back.
“I reflect during this time of year as it is perfect for thinking about what went well, what did not,
what can we do next year, and how do we get it done,” Sanders wrote.
Sanders said the city has recently filled the positions of Human Resources director, Social Services director, and the City Attorney. He said other successes include adoption of a new transition plan for the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as a master plan for Parks and Recreation. Sanders also said Council did not increase any of the tax rates this year.
“While the reassessment increased the revenue, the budget does not compound the issue for residents and property owners by levying even more taxes,” Sanders said.
Sanders took the opportunity to announce organizational changes that have now taken effect after the dissolution of the Office of Community Solutions.
The Office of Budget and Performance Management is now known as the Office of Budget and Grants Management.
Housing operations that were under the Office of Community Solutions are now in the Department of Neighborhood Development Services.
Brenda Kelley, hired many years ago to be the city’s redevelopment manager, now works in the Office of Economic Development as the Downtown Strategy Manager.
Other items from the rest of the report:
In January, Council amended the city’s human rights ordinance to facilitate a planned partnership with the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. The idea is to permit city employees to investigate federal Fair Housing complaints. So far the department under the Trump administration has not moved forward but the report said a conversation was held on June 17 and the contract is under review and more information will be available this month.
A 262.9 kilowatt solar photovoltaic array is being installed at the Charlottesville Area Technical Education Center (CATEC) and is expected to be completed by September.
The city continues to encourage the purchase of e-bikes by opening up a third round of their $1,000 vouchers. More information is available here.
Charlottesville Area Transit seeks votes on bus-wrapping project
While the community waits for a return of Sunday service on Charlottesville Area Transit, the agency and the city’s Office of Sustainability are holding their annual contest to wrap one of the vehicles with the work of a local artist.
Voting begins today and there are 30 designs to review. Each was created by a prompt that candidates would showcase “sustainability and environmental stewardship.”
“The winning artworks will transform our buses into moving canvases that inspire and educate Charlottesville and Albemarle communities,” reads a city webpage on the contest.
‘Voting ends on July 13 and two winners will be selected on July 16. One will be chosen by popular vote and the other will be chosen by a panel of judges. Both will be awarded $750.
Second shout-out: Charlottesville Community Bikes looking for bikes!
In today’s second 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)
Keep an eye on their calendar for the next mobile repair clinic (learn more)
There’s also a workforce development program that “blends mentorship and comprehensive training in bicycle mechanics” (learn more)
Right now, Charlottesville Community Bikes is especially in need of 24” bikes and all sizes of kids' bikes to meet the demand. If your child has outgrown their bike, please consider donating it back. You’ll help Charlottesville Community Bikes get another kid rolling. Drop off donations at 917D Preston Ave during shop hours
Visit the Charlottesville Community Bikes website today to learn more!
Seventy-four new Americans take oath of citizenship at Monticello
(Note: This story originally went out in the podcast version on July 5, 2025 and is edited down from a radio script)
July 4, 2025 was the 249th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. In the morning, Monticello once again played the role of being a federal court for the purposes of swearing in 74 new citizens of the United States of America. Introduced by the Lewis and Clark Fife and Drum Corps, the annual event is an opportunity to celebrate citizenship and of course this well-known document penned by Thomas Jefferson.
This is the 63rd time that Monticello has served as the backdrop for a naturalization ceremony on July 4.
“The fundamental principles embedded in the Declaration, liberty, equality and self government, are still the basis for our nation's promise and its aspirations,” said Molly Hardie, chair of the Board of Trustees of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. “Throughout our history, they have provided a rallying cry for freedom movements within our country and around the world.”
Dr. Jane Kamensky is the president of Monticello began her remarks by noting the many community partners including one that is currently without its own leader following a demand from the federal government that Jim Ryan step down.
“The great and good university hatched from Thomas Jefferson's commitment to the public education of a virtuous citizenry,” Kamensky said. “Our partnership with UVA goes back to 1817, or even, by some reckoning, to 1779, the year of Virginia's Bill for the Greater Diffusion of Knowledge.”
Kamensky said that the naturalization ceremony exemplifies what she described as the exceptionalism of the United States.
“There are many distinctive things about the American experiment, which turns 249 years old today,” Kamensky said. “The fact that the nation has a knowable moment of origin for one thing. But the exceptional thing I'm thinking about this morning is that almost everyone in the United States at the time of its founding had come there from someplace else in the not too distant past.”
Kamensky said that included people of African descent who were brought here against their will.
“Those African migrants accounted for nearly half of the 585,200 people arriving in North America between 1700 and 1776,” Kamensky said. “The enslaved people at Monticello were mostly born in Virginia, but their parents and grandparents came from West Central Africa and the Gold coast and the Bight of Biafra. And those languages and cultures were living memory here, just as the Saxon heritage of the English colonists was.”
Kamensky said Jefferson believed in immigration and felt the new country would serve as a beacon for people who wanted a better life or had to leave.
“The ability to leave one's country and join another, Jefferson wrote in 1817, was a, ‘natural right, like our right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,’” Kamensky said. “He thought it was not only right but strategic for the United States to be, quote, a sanctuary for those whom the misrule of Europe may compel to seek happiness in other climes.”
The speaker for the July 4 ceremony was filmmaker and documentarian Ken Burns who called Jefferson a person of contradictions and an enigma worth studying to this day.
“He was a lifelong champion of small government who took it upon himself to more than double the size of his country,” Burns said. “He distilled a century of enlightenment thinking into one remarkable sentence. The purest expression of freedom and liberty the world knows. Yet he owned more than 600 human beings and only freed perhaps 10 of them.”
Burns and his colleagues are working on a documentary on the American Revolution which will be released in November. He asked the crowd to think about the historic importance of the colonists decision to break free from Great Britain.
“In 1776, kings still ruled in France and Britain, a tsarina in St. Petersburg, a sultan in Constantinople, a divinely invested emperor in Beijing, and a shogun in Japan,” Burns said. “But in Philadelphia, a group of men met there to see whether they might be able to govern themselves.”
However, Burns said the six-part series will tell much more than the stories of people referred to as the founding fathers as there are many stories worth telling today. But he focused on Jefferson’s role in a country that has become divided nearly a quarter of a millennia later.
“How do we mediate the self division, as Robert Pen Warren would say in Thomas Jefferson and ourselves,” Burns said. “We want so to decide to nail him down. Is he good? Is he bad? Is he a Democrat? Is he a Republican? Is he mine? Is he yours? He is both. And we are both. And he and we are in this together. The greatest service we can render to Jefferson and our country is to accept his self divisions as a great mirror of our own possibilities and failings and to go forward.”
The ceremony did move forward.
“As Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, it is my distinct honor and privilege on behalf of all of the judges of our court, to welcome our applicants to citizenship, our distinguished hosts and guests, and all who join us today to celebrate Independence Day with a naturalization ceremony at beautiful Monticello,” said Judge Elizabeth K. Dillon.
The 74 new citizens raised their arms to swear an oath to the country, then recited the Pledge of Allegiance, before everyone sang the Star Spangled Banner. The new group comes from all corners of the world and all were invited to speak at the end including one woman who arrived here in 2020.
“Leaving my home country was not easy but it was necessary for my safety, freedom and my girl's future,” said the first speaker. “I'm deeply grateful for the rights and freedom that are [given] to us here right that many people around the world are still fighting to have.”
Another person emigrated from Ireland in the 1990’s and met his wife in 1999. He said he wanted to become a citizen to give back to his new country.
“I want to take part in the responsibilities of this country, not just the opportunities,” said Derek Naughton. “And I want my voice to count as a neighbor, a parent, and now finally, as an American.”
If you have a moment, take a look at the video of the entire ceremony or just skip to the end to hear all of the powerful stories.
Hundreds of people protest federal interference in UVA governance at July 4 event
Just a few hours after the naturalization ceremony ended, around 400 people descended on the grounds of the University of Virginia along University Avenue just by the Rotunda.
The event was organized by Uprise! Creative Collective of Charlottesville and co-sponsored by Indivisible Charlottesville to protest the demand from the United States Department of Justice that President Jim Ryan resign due to alleged violations of federal civil rights laws. Here’s
“The United States has come down harshly on the university this past week, and we are rising to refuse to comply, to refuse to comply, and to pressure the Board of Visitors, the governor, the attorney general, and anyone else who might listen to push back,” said one of the first speakers. “They work for us, not for Trump, and we stand up en masse and in our full humanity to demonstrate that. So we're excited about this program moving ahead.”
One of the speakers at the event was John Kluge III, the organizer of a petition for seven specific actions including urging the Board of Visitors to reject the resignation, a Constitutional amendment to guarantee academic freedom, and to reform the way BOV members are selected. At first, Kluge read from an editorial he wrote in the voice of Thomas Jefferson.
“The federal government has struck a blow against the University of Virginia, forcing the resignation of our president, Jim Ryan,” Kluge said. “His crime, championing initiatives of diversity, equity and inclusion, efforts that foreign in name in my era, echo the pursuit of justice and understanding I believed essential to a virtuous republic. The Trump administration, brandishing the threat of withheld funding, demanded his removal to settle an investigation into these very initiatives.”
Kluge as Jefferson said this federal overreach will spread to the court system and to the press and must be countered.
“In my day, I stood resolute for the rights of states and institutions to govern themselves free from the tyranny of a centralized authority,” he said. “The actions of this administration are betraying that creed. They seek to transform our universities into instruments of political design, using financial coercion as their weapon.”
Other speakers echoed the call for reform of the Board of Visitors, including moving away from a system where the Governor gets to appoint all of the members.
There will be a hearing on July 18 in Fairfax County Circuit Court on a preliminary injunction to bar Ken Cuccinelli from continuing to serve on the UVA Board of Visitors. In March, Governor Glenn Youngkin appointed the former Virginia Attorney General to replace the fired Bert Ellis.
On June 9, the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee failed to confirm Cuccinelli but current Attorney General Jason Miyares advised former UVA Rector Robert Hardie to ignore the vote out of a legal claim that the General Assembly has to vote on the nomination. Nine Democratic Senators filed the suit.
There are a series of videos from the event available on YouTube. Here’s a link to one:
Reading material:
Virginia doesn’t have statewide data center regulations [and] localities are making their own rules, Shannon Heckt, Virginia Mercury, June 20, 2025.
EdgeCore to develop 1.1GW data center in Louisa County, Virginia, Jason Ma, Data Center Dynamics, June 25, 2025
Chairman Adams says he’d vote ‘no’ on proposed third Amazon data center campus in Louisa County, WVIR, June 27, 2025
Amazon data center sparks controversy and conversation in Louisa, Andrew Hollins, C-Ville Weekly, July 2, 2025
Charlottesville pledges to restore new zoning code, Sean Tubbs, C-Ville Weekly, July 4, 2025
Charlottesville Police Chief describes ‘reckless’ shootout that injured five, Gabby Womack, WVIR 29 News, July 5, 2025
Community gathers at Abundant Life after July 4th shooting, Pimm Dyar, WVIR 29 News, July 5, 2025
Following Ryan’s resignation, faculty gather to discuss next steps, Xander Tilock, Cavalier Daily, July 5, 2025
Commentary: what is happening with the income tax for social security, Bill Bolling, Virginia Political Newsletter, July 7, 2025
Construction spending drops for fourth straight month, Zachary Phillips, Construction Dive, July 7, 2025
LCPS officials raise questions about proposed data center campus near high school; BOS to consider proposal for more lakeside condos; Hamilton Rd. Bridge nominated for historic register; PC preview, Tammy Purcell, Engage Louisa, July 6, 2025
How the megabill allows Trump to expand mass deportations, curb immigrant benefits, Ariana Figueroa, Virginia Mercury, July 7, 2025
#892 is at an end
Five years into this experiment, I’m getting pretty good at following the rhythm. On Friday, I was able to get out the radio version of the newsletter for WTJU, which meant creating two new stories from scratch. As a result, the naturalization story is quite long because I was deliberately seeking to eat up the clock.
I went ahead and kept that version intact for the written version, even though it could stand an edit.
Today I also wrote out a second version of the protest story for C-Ville Weekly, only repeating one quote. I pulled in new information and got fresh quotes, because I try to avoid recycling. Since adding a second story each week, I seem to be able to find balance. This does means a seven-day work week, but I find room to live my life.
That often takes the form of cooking and trying out a new recipe. Today I’m making a Bolognese recipe, which meant going to the grocery store this morning to find three pounds of Roma tomatoes and other ingredients. I published today’s Fifth District Community Engagement newsletter and then off I went. I took about an hour and a half to shop and prepare everything to be put in the slow cooker.
These are turbulent times. I find I must ground myself every now and then, and I’ve lost touch with cooking. I’ve also lost touch with reading, but when I hit send, I plan to sit outside under a tree and read for a good hour.
Of course, it’s always possible something new will happen. I feel like this edition is missing so much but I’ll get back to work and do another four or five hours.
Please know that working is how I relax. If I am not working, I get anxious. This is a very ambitious venture and I’m fueled by paid subscriptions. They’ve been coming in lately, and so I keep at it!
Yesterday I listened to the first four albums by the Lemonheads and this song feels important to me even though I didn’t really know it until 24 hours ago:
One full second passed after I hit publish and saw the incorrect date. Something about the new fiscal year is messing up my clock.