Look Back for 2024 Part One: A partial look at happenings in Charlottesville
It's time for the annual review of the past year to prepare for whatever happens in the next one!
A cynical observer might make a comment about how year in review pieces are nothing more than an attempt to keep content going while there’s not much going on. But a more forgiving one would understand that 2025 can’t really begin until the staff at Town Crier Productions have really processed what happened in 2024.
So welcome to a series of pieces that seek to review 2024 from the perspective of stories that were published in the newsletter and then archived at Information Charlottesville. At a conference earlier this year, someone asked me why there are two sites. Isn’t that counter-productive?
Possibly, and there may well be changes in the future. After all, the work of Town Crier Productions is largely experimental having begun with a podcast in March 2020. I left journalism in the spring of 2018 reluctantly as my eleven years of work for a nonprofit carried no sweat equity. I kept writing anyway and somehow managed to get back here. The pieces are still coming together.
So what follows is a sense of what 2024 was as I try to formulate the questions for 2025. Thanks to supporters, donors, sponsors, and the overall audience I feel confident I’ll be able to keep going on this mission to give people information about what’s happening without telling you what to think.
A partial look at the year in Charlottesville
Charlottesville City Council welcomed newcomer Natalie Oschrin in January and selected Juandiego Wade as Mayor and Brian Pinkston as Vice Mayor. At the start of the year, City Manager Sam Sanders said one of the biggest issues would be adopting a new classification and pay scale, something he said would be expensive. He began the year with one only one deputy but ended up with three by the end of the year.
City Manager Sam Sanders continued to fill out his cabinet with the appointment of Eden Ratliff as Deputy City Manager of Administration in January. Ratliff had been the manager of the Borough of Kennett Township in Pennsylvania. A former deputy city manager in Petersburg was hired to serve as the deputy city manager for operations, but Lionel Lyons only lasted for a day or two. A new job posting was listed within a week, and Neighborhood Development Services Director James Freas was hired for the position in late March.
Both men joined Ashley Marshall who has been a deputy city manager since being hired alongside Sanders by former City Manager Chip Boyles in the summer of 2021.
As the year concludes, Charlottesville remains without a dedicated city attorney as a new year begins. Jacob Stroman was placed on administrative leave in April for sixty days, but that period extended into September. Stroman was cleared of any wrong-doing in a personnel incident, but resigned the same day he was reinstated.
Budget and finance
One of the first duties City Council had in January was to allocate the $21.73 million surplus for FY23. No one spoke at the public hearing on January 22. At a February 5 work session, Councilor Brian Pinkston sought amendments such as using some of the surplus to cover the cost anticipated personnel increase. After hearing talk about anticipated increases in the real property tax rate, Councilor Lloyd Snook expressed concern about doing so at a time when there was such a large surplus.
That month they also considered the use of just over $4 million in unspent American Rescue Plan Act funds to pay the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority for land at 405 Avon Street that the initial staff report said would be evaluated for a permanent shelter for the unhoused. Council approved the purchase in February. The CRHA continues to use the site for its maintenance facility and will be involved with the eventual redevelopment of the site.
According to Finance Director Chris Cullinan in March, the money for the purchase of CRHA land came from a pool of funds that were intended to replace revenues lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These came with fewer restrictions. At their last regular meeting of 2024, Council would get another report on ARPA funds and would agree to spend $3 million in unused funds on the Salvation Army’s capital campaign for the expansion of their facility on Ridge Street.
Later that month, the CRHA purchased the 310-315 East Main Street on the Downtown Mall for $2.65 million for use as a new headquarters.
“It’s a 22,000 square foot mixed-use development with three commercial spaces, three dedicated office spaces, and three three bedroom apartments,” said CRHA Executive Director John Sales at the January meeting of the Board of Commissioners.
In early March, City Manager Sam Sanders released his recommended budget for FY25 which included a two cent increase in the real property tax rate, an increase in the lodging tax, and an increase in the meals tax. Sanders recommended leaving the personal property tax rate at $4.20 per $100 of assessed value. However, Council opted to increase that by 20 cents at the direction of Councilor Natalie Oschrin.
“Lower personal property taxes are a hidden subsidy for cars and we need to stop doing that,” Oschrin said at the time.
Oschrin originally wanted to raise the rate to $6 per $100 in order to eliminate the need for a raise in other taxes.
At a work session in March, at least two Councilors also broached the idea of increasing the cost that city residents pay for curbside trash pick-up.
“I just don’t think that we should be subsidizing people’s trash,” said City Councilor Brian Pinkston said. “Maybe there’s some level at which we do that. I think we should have the conversation about it.”
That conversation has not yet occurred but likely will in the lead-up to the FY2026 budget. In December, the city hired the firm NewGen Strategies and Solutions to conduct a study of the cost of providing solid waste services.
Sanders’ initial budget recommended significant funding increases for several non-profits including $456,000 for the BUCK Squad. Councilors pushed back on the idea of giving some non-profits that amount of money. In response, Sanders told Council they had not specified a cap on the amount available through the Vibrant Community Fund.
“If you don’t set up a cap you’re going to ask for whatever and if there’s enough money available, you would get it,” Sanders said. “That’s part of my soapbox.”
In his final draft before adoption, Sanders dropped the amount back to $200,000. Council had also asked that CRHA’s request for $137,000 be added. At their final budget work session, Council also requested the removal of $12,000 in funding for the Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia.
“It does feel a little petty to be taking out $12,000 for something that’s a valuable program,” said Councilor Brian Pinkston. “On the other hand, maybe it’s what we need to do to sort of make clear that we want some things to change.”
In March, the Teamsters announced they would represent the city’s fourth collective bargaining unit, representing full-time and part-time employees “associated with maintenance and skilled crafts” or “job classes of workers performing duties that result directly in the comfort and convenience of the general public or contribute to the maintenance of capital assets, land and infrastructure of the City.”
During the public hearing on the budget, a former member of the Planning Commission who grew up in the northeastern United States said he supported unions but was concerned about what he said could be ever-escalating costs.
“Public service unions have bankrupted many a city in Pennsylvania over the years,” said John Santoski. “Not saying that it’s not a good thing, but you City Councilors won’t be here when that starts to happen ten or fifteen years down the road so be very, very careful.”
Other tidbits of information:
Property assessments were up an average of five percent in Charlottesville in 2024.
As 2025 begins, there is still no new agreement between Charlottesville and the Charlottesville-Albemarle Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals about the latter’s operation of the state-mandated animal shelter.
In August, Council voted on a massive increase for the amount of money paid to the Charlottesville Parking Center for the ground lease for the Water Street Parking Garage. The city now pays the company and sole shareholder Mark Brown $1.8 million a year.
The year in review for Charlottesville is not complete, but stay tuned! I’ll have more of a look back tomorrow! This is a weird week and a weird time.
If you see this part, too, tomorrow’s edition will have an announcement of sorts!
Also, this is the final time I’ll tell you that Ting matches initial subscriptions because… that sponsorship ends on Tuesday. It’s been a good run. What takes its place? That’s what the announcement is about.
If you sign up for service and you are within Ting’s service area, enter the promo code COMMUNITY you’re going to get:
Free installation
A second month for free
A $75 gift card to the Downtown Mall
