June 2, 2025: Charlottesville City Council candidates answer questions at Free Enterprise Forum event
Plus: The Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority’s Board of Directors adopt a $550 million capital improvement plan
In doing research into the meaning of this month’s name, I came across a practice in ancient times called Damnatio memoriae. There are cases in Roman times when certain emperors would be removed from historical accounts. This prompts me to wonder how well these times we are in will be remembered millennia from now. Each attempt at producing an edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement seeks to get a lot of ideas out there in the hopes they’ll be useful to the now. I’m Sean Tubbs, greatly assisted by the existence of stories I wrote years ago.
In today’s installment:
The Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority adopts a budget for FY2026 as well as a $550 million capital improvement program over the next five years
Three candidates for the Charlottesville City Council outline position at event held by the Free Enterprise Forum
First -shout out: Rivanna River Otter Monitoring
Have you seen a river otter lately? The Rivanna Conservation Alliance wants to know! The group is conducting a study of the presence of Lontra canadensis. The creatures have been spotted throughout the Rivanna River watershed—in rivers, streams, and even backyard ponds!
While they’re best known for their playful antics, river otters are also important indicators of stream health. They depend on clean water, healthy riparian buffers, and abundant prey sources (including fish, amphibians, and benthic macroinvertebrates) for survival. As such, their presence or absence within our waterways can provide valuable insights into the overall health of our rivers and streams.
To learn more, the Rivanna Conservation Alliance has launched the Rivanna River Otter Monitoring Project to gather valuable data on river otter populations while encouraging community members to get outside and explore our local waterways. This project aims not only to inspire public appreciation for river otters, but also foster a deeper community connection to our rivers and streams and the diverse wildlife populations they support.
To learn more and consider a donation, please visit the Rivanna Conservation Alliance.
Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority adopts budget for FY2026, $550 million capital improvement program
Tonight the Charlottesville City Council will hold a public hearing on utility rates including a sharp increase in the price of water.
The current summer rate is $88.83 per 1,000 cubic feet. The proposal is to increase that effective July 1 to $100.52 per 1,000 cubic feet, a 13.16 percent increase.
The current winter rate is $68.33 per 1,000 cubic feet. The proposal is to increase that to $77.33. That’s a 13.17 percent increase.
Much of the reason for the increase is related to a $550 million capital improvement program (CIP) adopted by the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority at their meeting on May 27, 2025. That’s paid for by the Albemarle County Service Authority and the City of Charlottesville.
“We've had a number of generational projects, as we've called them, and they're moving forward,” said Bill Mawyer, executive director of the RWSA.
One of those projects is called the Central Water Line, a five-mile long pipe that will connect water from the Stadium Road area to Long Street. That’s one of those generational projects in the CIP. The RWSA recently asked contractors to make construction bids on the first phase and they all came in within budget.
“We did receive five competitive bids earlier this month ranging from 39.7 to 68.5 million,” Mawyer said. “We continue to evaluate those bids and expect to make a record recommendation to the board in June for an award.”
The first phase covers about four miles.
Other items to increase capacity involved the Ragged Mountain Reservoir. The RWSA is moving ahead with plans to increase the pool height of the reservoir in anticipation of another capital project that will allow it to be filled more quickly.
Mawyer said Faulconer Construction was the lone contractor that responded with a $12 million bid, or about double the anticipated estimate.
“We are negotiating and working with Faulconer right now to see how we can maybe bring the price down,” Mawyer said.
One constraint with the project is that trees can only be cleared between November 15 to March 31 due to the presence of an endangered species. Northern long-eared bats are on the federal Endangered Species Act in part resulting in protection, according to the Virginia Department of Forestry.
Later in the meeting, RWSA Chief Engineer Jennifer Whitaker gave a review of the CIP.
“Our main goal with the Capital Improvement Plan, if you take nothing else away, is to plan, deliver and maintain dependable infrastructure,” Whitaker said.
The $550 million plan covers items that will be built over the next five years including the Central Water Line and the long-awaited nine-mile pipeline to connect Ragged Mountain Reservoir with the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir.
“It's a large diameter main as well as a new intake facility and large pump station here at the northern end,” Whittaker said. “We're looking at bidding that late fall into the winter and then awarding early in 2026. That is an approximately $117 million project.”
The RWSA’s Board of Commissioners consists of three representatives from Albemarle and three from Charlottesville with a seventh member appointed by both City Council and the Board of Supervisors. There are agreements in place that determine how much each community pays based on their need for additional capacity.
“ACSA is paying for approximately 69 percent of the total capital budget,” Whittaker said. “The city's paying the net of 31 percent or $173 million.”
The projects had the support of City Councilor Brian Pinkston.
“This is a really strong plan and even though it is a significant lift financially, the community should feel good about the fact that where their system stands,” Pinkston said.
Supervisor Ann Mallek also expressed support.
“We've been working on this for 30 years, so everything is more expensive than it was if we'd done it right a long, long time ago,” Mallek said.
After adopting the CIP, the RWSA Board also had to adopt rates and a budget for the next fiscal year. The only two customers are the ACSA and the City of Charlottesville. Of the $64 million budget, $33 million is debt service to pay for capital projects.
“Our $64 million budget is going to be about 16 percent higher than last year, driven primarily by increases in our debt Service for the $550 million CIP program and the charges that would be allocated to the city and the service authority accordingly,” Mawyer said.
The only speaker during the public comment period was former City Councilor Dede Smith, a longtime opponent of the community water supply plan as well as the Central Water Line. She claimed that the latter project was too risky and could lead to some people in the city having their water connections severed.
“I've followed this for decades now and I've just never seen anything like this,” Smith said. “And there just seems to be no recognition about the impact of these kinds of rate increases.”
Smith called the RWSA a monopoly and expressed concern that people living in the urban area do not have a choice.
The RWSA Board approved the budget and the rates charged to the ACSA and Charlottesville will take effect on July 1, 2025.
Second shout out: Charlottesville E-bike Lending Library
The rolling topography of the Charlottesville area might keep some people away from choosing cycling as an option to get around. Perhaps an e-bike is in order?
That’s where Charlottesville’s eBike Lending Library comes in! E-bikes are a great way to get around the community but there are many brands and styles to choose from. Because many e-bikes are sold online, it can be a challenge to try an e-bike before buying one.
The Charlottesville E-bike Lending Library is a free, not-for-profit service working to expand access to e-bikes in the area. They have a small collection of e-bikes that they lend out to community members for up to a week, for free. You can experience your daily commute, go grocery shopping, or even bike your kids to school, and decide whether e-bikes are right for you. Check out this service at https://www.ebikelibrarycville.org!
Charlottesville City Council candidates respond to questions at Free Enterprise Forum
There are just over two three weeks until party primaries in Virginia and all localities have one on the Democratic side to determine general election candidates for Attorney General and Lieutenant Governor. To learn more about the Democrats vying for Lieutenant Governor, go visit this story on the Virginia Political Newsletter.
In Charlottesville, there are three candidates vying for two Democratic nominations for City Council. No independent or Republican candidates have yet emerged, so this may be the only time voters get to have a choice this year.
One way for people to learn about the candidates is a campaign forum. The Greenbrier Neighborhood Association had one on May 14 that offered one way to get to know Jen Fleisher, Brian Pinkston, and Juandiego Wade. I have a summary of some of what was said.
The Free Enterprise Forum had another on May 28 and Neil Williamson served as co-moderator.
“The goal of the City Council Democratic Primary Candidate Forum is to provide a venue for these candidates to speak about many issues,” Williamson said.
You can watch the whole event on YouTube below. At publication time, there have been a dozen views.
There were six questions in all, but the event began with opening statements. The candidates' speaking order was drawn from Neil’s hat and incumbent Juandiego Wade got to go first. He grew up in Richmond, graduated from Norfolk State University, and came to Charlottesville to attend the University of Virginia to get a master’s degree in Urban Environmental Planning.
“As part of my thesis. I work with the local NAACP on a national program and I got to meet many of the individuals, African Americans in this community, that shoulders that I now stand on,” Wade said.
Wade left for one year after graduating in 1990 but came back to the community to work as Albemarle County’s transportation planner.
“I got involved with this community at a very granular level and working with nonprofits, mentoring, and then ascending to being on board leadership,” Wade said. “I just learned so much about this community and really haven't stopped since 1991, being involved and connected to this community, whether it's serving on the school board for 16 years, being president of the United Way, I was really involved at different levels.”
Jen Fleisher is a public health program officer with the Blue Ridge Health District who said she led efforts to provide vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“My work now at the health department involves the community health needs assessment and the community health Improvement plan,” Fleisher said. “So that means I work every day to improve the health of our residents and the residents of the surrounding counties.”
Fleisher is also involved in local transportation planning as a public health professional and said that is key to providing better outcomes for housing and community health.
“I moved here 24 years ago, and I am a resident of the Belmont neighborhood, and I look forward to bringing the skills and expertise I've learned Being a regional leader to City Council,” Fleisher said.
Incumbent Brian Pinkson rounded out the opening statements. Like Wade, he also moved to the area to attend graduate school at UVA. He and his family lived in Greene County initially, but he moved to the city in 2015.
“My background and career has been in project management,” Pinkston said. “I like to say that project managers put people, resources, and ideas together to get things done. And that's what I've done in my career. I work at UVA and Facilities Management.”
Pinkston said when he and Wade were elected in 2001, Charlottesville’s government was not functioning very well. He said the current City Council has helped turn things around and positioned the city to begin to get things done.
“We now have a really sharp, strong city manager and Sam Sanders, he's doing great work,” Pinkston said. “He's in turn hired a whole range of people that work for him. And we now have people in the City Manager's office who really want to be in Charlottesville, and they're making real contributions.”
The full video of the event has all of the questions but here are a selection of responses. Here’s part of the third question.
“Do you continue to support the commitment in Charlottesville's affordable housing plan that Council spend at least 10 million [a year] on affordable housing construction and maintenance,” Williamson said. “Would you consent to a third party audit of how the money is being spent?”
Pinkston said he does support $10 million a year and is glad Council has been exceeding that amount in recent years. He understands that many have questions about how the money is being used.
“I'd be interested,” Pinkston said. “What I'm going to turn that into though, is a set of questions for our staff because I trust our staff to give us those kinds of data without having to bring in an outside consultant.”
Pinkston added that city investment is assisting the Piedmont Housing Alliance and the Charlottesville Redevelopment Authority develop new housing and preserve places to live. He said the city also needs to help make sure places that are currently affordable stay that way.
Wade said when he first got on Council, he wanted to know how the city has been using the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund that was created in 2007.
“They could not answer that question,” Wade said. “And that's a lot of money to not knowing what was going on. Today, I feel highly confident that we can answer that with a high degree of accuracy because we have gotten our ducks in a row. We know we have the staff in place that we can answer that question.”
Fleisher said $10 million is the minimum amount of city investment required to begin to create more affordable units.
“The third party audit, I would have questions about that only [about] who's paying that third party and what can we offer the transparency and the accountability that the audit is seeking ourselves,” Fleisher said. “Can our staff and our teams continue to track our progress with the fund in a way that all city members and residents know exactly where that money is being funded without paying for a third party consultant to do that work.”
In late 2021, City Council had been briefed on a study the firm HR&A conducted on the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund as part of the Cville Plans Together initiative. There’s a link to that report in the story I wrote back then.
The sixth question covered the state of relations between the University of Virginia and the City of Charlottesville.
“City Councilor Michael Payne recently wrote an article calling out UVA for being the ultimate recipient of the Federal Executive Institute, writing that the University's acquisition would have an immense negative impact on the students in Charlottesville's public schools and the town writ large,” said co-moderator Sean Tubbs. “Do you agree?”
Wade said he hears from many people in the Venable neighborhood about some of the immediate impacts such as a preponderance of red Solo cups littering the landscape. But he said if not for UVA, people like his family would not have settled in Charlottesville and called it home.
“We have a current administration that understands both the positive and the negative impacts that the University of Virginia has on the community,” Wade said. “And they're trying to address with things like the Pathways program… and their support of building 1500 affordable units.”
Wade acknowledged that the recent decision related to the former Federal Executive Institute has angered many but the city has to move on and find other ways to work with UVA.
Fleisher agreed with Payne’s statement but said this provides a way for the community to put pressure on UVA to provide other avenues to support early childhood education.
“That does open other doors for UVA to be a better neighbor and to support the community outright and particularly the schools and the School Board by offering other opportunities for space and physical structures and facilities that might support that same intention that the School Board had with FEI,” Fleisher said.
Fleisher added that in her professional experience, she sees UVA Health working to be a better community partner.
Pinkston said he’s not in a position to be able to offer an opinion on Payne’s statement, but acknowledged his colleague has strong feelings. He said he was not privy to any of the discussions but pointed out that the UVA administration and the Board of Visitors may have different motivations. Pinkston said he knows about Payne’s desire to compel UVA to pay a “payment in lieu of taxes” to help cover the cost of local infrastructure.
“I don't know the answer to those questions, but I think I always put it a little bit like a marriage,” Pinkston said. “You know, if you get into a point in a marriage where you're arguing about every little thing as opposed to realizing you've got more in common together and you should make that work, then, then things are not heading in the right direction. And so what I want to do with the university is do everything I can to make sure we're, you know, we're, we're moving together.”
As of June 1, 1,002 voters in Charlottesville have cast an early vote.
Community Climate Collaborative holding forum June 3 at JMRL Central Branch
When I first worked at Charlottesville Tomorrow in 2007, one of my jobs was to make sure our readers had access to all of the campaign forums. In that spirit, I’m going to try to write out the events so far.
The Greenbrier Neighborhood Association held an event on May 14 and the recording is available for members. It is not on their website. I reported on some questions but not all and have not had time to make all of it available. I wrote up a story and there’s an audio segment in the May 25 podcast edition of this newsletter.
The organization Cville Inclusive Media had a forum on May 27 called Governing Charlottesville that touched on many of the same issues and included candidates for other offices as well. I will likely not have time to write this one up but the video can be viewed here. There have been twenty views of the recording of the stream.
There is one more campaign forum on June 3 sponsored by the Community Climate Collaborative that will include both Council and Supervisor candidates. This will take place from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the JMRL Central Library in the Jefferson Room. I am told there will be no recording.
The end of #873
I’m visiting my parents and my mother has a condition similar to Alzheimer’s and my dad is texting me that she’s concerned I’m not there yet so I skipped reading material and putting in no end-note, either.
I’ll leave you with another meeting I want to write up and placing it here to remind me.