March 19, 2025: Albemarle’s fire and police chiefs explain requests for more funding
Plus: Charlottesville wants you to tell them where the potholes are
These words are carbon-dated to March 19, 2025 and this is Charlottesville Community Engagement. We’re so close to spring and Sam Cooke was right that this could be a wonderful world but I’d suggest it can definitely be that way if we all had more knowledge of history, biology, science, and even French.
As for the first one: on this day in 1649 the English House of Commons voted to abolish the House of Lords. Did that stick? Stay tuned or look up the story yourself! I’m Sean Tubbs, and I suppose I’d better come back to the present.
In today’s installment:
Governor Youngkin begins to sign legislation and a brief look at some of what will soon become law
Charlottesville is planning a Pothole Blitz and wants you to report broken roads
A review of some of the expenditures in Albemarle County’s FY26 budget
Albemarle’s fire and police chief explain why they need more staff
First shout out: Charlottesville E-bike Lending Library
The rolling topography of the Charlottesville area keeps 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!
Governor Youngkin approves dozens of bills in first wave of action
The 140 legislators elected to the Virginia General Assembly will return to Richmond two weeks from today to take action on whatever Governor Glenn Youngkin has done with the bills they sent him during the 2025 session.
Today, the Virginia Legislative Information System indicates that a total of 89 bills have been approved by Youngkin. That’s 59 bills that originated in the House of Delegates and 30 from the Senate. So far there have been no vetoes.
Many of these bills are technical such as one related to how the Virginia Economic Development Partnership Authority should include audit information in its annual report. Several communities had requested changes to their charter such as the City of Chesapeake, the Town of Broadnax, and the City of Martinsville. Same with the City of Danville and the City of Roanoke. In the Town of Urbanna, the Mayor will now be a member of the Town Council.
Here are some highlights:
HB1706 amends the Virginia Residential Property Disclosure Act to include aircraft noise in a list of disclosures and requires the Virginia Department of Aviation to establish and provide a public portal with maps of noise zones. This was a recommendation from the Virginia Housing Commission.
HB1799 prohibits the disclosure of names of lottery winners who have won $1 million or more in prizes. The current threshold is $10 million.
HB1860 allows for nursing programs to ask for a waiver from the requirement that there be a 10 to 1 ratio from students to faculty and to go as high as 15 to 1.
If you’re running a charitable bingo game, you can’t pay the people running it more than $100 a session. HB1920 increases that to $200 and establishes that amount will automatically increased according to inflation after 2029.
The fee to register an aircraft will be increased thanks to HB2022. This actually came up during the Albemarle Board of Supervisors’ first work session on March 10.
With the approval of HB2128, localities can now pursue civil penalties on commercial buildings that are derelict. Currently they can only do that with residential property. Might this mean more power for Charlottesville over the Landmark?
HB2151 makes a change to the definition of “community land trust” under Virginia code.
In an era where President Trump has asked for the CHIPS Act to be overturned, HB2358 creates the Current and Mature Semiconductor Technology Grant Fund.
Bills that have been approved by Virginia’s governor without any suggested amendments do not require further action by the General Assembly.
“Unless the bill has a re-enactment clause, which means the bill would have to be approved again next year in order to take effect,” said David Blount, the legislative liaison of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission.
Any bills that Youngkin vetoes can be overridden but it will require a two-thirds majority in both chambers. Blount points out that requires 67 Delegates and 27 Senators. That could be difficult with Democrats holding narrow majorities in both.
Close to press time, Governor Youngkin sent out an information release that stated he’d signed 180 bills, but the Legislative Information System has not yet caught up. So, more information in the future.
Charlottesville Public Works to begin Pothole Blitz
The blossoming spring and the impending arrival of warm weather means it is time to fix roads impacted by a colder than usual season.
The City of Charlottesville is planning on an intense campaign of repairing any sections of degraded asphalt and is seeking information.
“Public Works encourages residents to help in our ‘Pothole Blitz,’ which will run from March 24 to April 4, by reporting potholes in need of repair,” reads an information release sent out today. “If you see a pothole, take note of its location and report it to the City as we work to improve the safety of our streets.”
All of the work will be done in-house.
You can call them in to the public service division at 434-970-3830, by using the MyCville app, or submitting a candidate online.
“Potholes and other maintenance activity occurs year round, as weather permits, but after especially harsh winters with low temperatures and more moisture potholes and pavement issues increase so we typically see an increase in volume,” said Afton Schneider, the city’s director of communications and public engagement.
The Pothole Blitz is separate from normal paving that the public service division will also undertake this spring. See below a list for the current schedule.
Also, an attempt was considered to convert this all into a song to the tune of the 1973 song Ballroom Blitz by The Sweet, but time was a factor. If you’d like to try your hand, here is a link to the song.
Second-shout out: Design Develop
In today’s Patreon-fueled shout-out, architectural firm Design Develop is offering a new service aimed at the development community that the rest of us might want to know about , too — 3D point cloud scanning! This technique uses specialized equipment, such as 3D scanner systems, to gather a large amount of data points that represent the surface of the scanned object or scene. This really comes in handy when working with historic structures, as the firm knows from its experience in Baltimore and Charlottesville. Read their blog post for more information!
The applications of 3D point cloud scanning are extensive and cover various fields, including architecture, construction, cultural heritage preservation, virtual reality, industrial design, manufacturing, and more. These applications require accurate 3D spatial information, and Design Develop’s workflow provides precise and comprehensive results, all while being more cost-effective than traditional methods.
Design Develop has expertise in this workflow for their own needs and now has a dedicated team offering this service in the Charlottesville and Albemarle Area. If you're involved in the real estate, design, or construction industry, contact them for more information or a free quote.
Visit their website for an introductory video that captures the 3D point cloud scanning of the Downtown Transit Center and a booklet that will explain more!
Albemarle budget staff provide broad overview of where $480.5 million in spending will go in FY26
We resume the attempt at thorough coverage of the development of Albemarle County’s budget for fiscal year 2026 with a return to the March 10, 2025 work session. In the previous edition we went through revenue in the general fund budget. This time around, Assistant Chief Financial Officer Andy Bowman goes through where the money will be spent.
Or went through. These actualities are nine days old.
The general fund consists of $480.5 million and 45 percent of that amount goes to Albemarle County Public Schools. Sixteen percent goes to public safety, nine percent goes to capital and debt service, and six percent goes to county administration. Four percent goes to the City of Charlottesville per an agreement revenue-sharing adopted in the 1980’s to prevent annexation.
“That total amount will exceed $20 million in fiscal year 26,” Bowman said. “That's an increase of 2.4 million or 14 percent.”
Bowman did not go into details at this work session about why there was an increase but the calculation is based on data from 2023. This is the largest increase since Albemarle County switched to annual assessments.
If Supervisors agree to the four cent increase on the real estate tax rate as well as the increase in the personal property tax rate, the changes will apply to the entire calendar year which includes the second half of the current fiscal year.
“With the impact of personal property increasing the 4 cents on real estate and we also included in this the impact of the stronger than anticipated reassessment that would generate $11.1 million of one time money in fiscal year 25,” Bowman said.
Staff recommends $6 million to go to Albemarle County Public Schools, $3 million to the affordable housing fund, and $1 million to the economic development fund. The rest would go to the capital improvement plan.
Added to the list:
One Supervisor sought additional clarity about how the City of Charlottesville assesses property as well as a historical analysis of how much revenue is generated by each penny on the real estate property tax rate
Albemarle’s police chief and fire chief explain why they need additional funds
Spending on public safety is the second-largest category of spending in Albemarle County totaling a project $78.3 million in fiscal year 2026. Of that amount, 42 percent goes to the Albemarle County Police Department and another 42 percent goes to the Albemarle Fire Rescue.
The rest goes to the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail (7 percent) and the Emergency Communications Center (7 percent) with the remaining two percent to other agencies.
Both Fire Rescue Chief Dan Eggleston and Police Chief Sean Reeves were on hand at the March 10 work session to explain why they need additional funds. The majority of the proposed four cent increase in the real property tax rate increase would go to public safety.
Reeves has asked for an additional six officers to add two officers per shift and to increase response teams.
“There are several occasions where we're at our minimum staffing levels right now based on our rotating schedules and how we are deploying our resources,” Reeves said. “Those six officers, they're going to be specifically identified for patrol, not the specialty divisions, not special operations, not investigations or any other function. It is purely for patrol.”
Andy Bowman, the county’s assistant financial officer, added that the department will also receive additional funding for vehicle replacement, new equipment, and training.
Eggleston went next and began with a description of how the Fire Rescue system is set up.
“Our system is made up of 14 fire stations, fire rescue stations,” Eggleston said. “Six of them are fully staffed with career staff and there's a legend there to show you which ones are. Six of them are a mix of career and volunteer staff and then two of them are fully staffed by volunteer staff.”
The goal for Fire Rescue response is to arrive on scene within eight minutes in the urban areas, 90 percent of the time and 21 minutes in the rural areas 90 percent of the time.
To increase response times and guarantee constant coverage throughout the county, Albemarle has been hiring additional firefighters with initial payments covered by a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. As with the police department, calls for service have been increasing with a 21 percent increase since 2019.
“What's unusual is that their call types are increasing across the board, including fires, which is not necessarily a good thing,” Eggleston said. “Some communities, the fires are declining. We're seeing an increase across the board.”
Eggleston said climate change has meant there are more weather-related calls, something he has testified before the U.S. Congress to point out. He also testified along with other fire safety professionals to explain the importance of the federal grant.
“We just got through working Capitol Hill to ensure that our federal legislators know how important these are to our locality because that paid for people to go to training for three years and then to be deployed,” Eggleston said. “We have $12.7 million in federal funds to jump start these folks. But what's happening now with those grants starting to age out. So we have to pick up those expenditures which is a huge driver in this FY26 budget.”
Eggleston said the alternative would be to let the new personnel go, but that would reduce response teams. He also said the additional investment has meant Albemarle no longer pays the City of Charlottesville for additional coverage. Instead there is a mutual aid agreement but at no cost to the county.
And that brings us up to March 12. More in the future!
Reading material:
FCPS introduces metal detectors at high school, Pimm Dyar, CBS19 News, March 18, 2025
Plug pulled: Federal funding halt leaves Virginia’s EV future in limbo, Nathaniel Cline, Virginia Mercury, March 19, 2025
Requiem for #834
First up - shouldn’t the plural of chiefs be “chieves”? And who gets to decide?
Maybe it’s foolish to be committed to go through Albemarle County’s budget to inform people with the discussions, even if my stories might be out of date by the time you see them.
Maybe it’s also foolish to have relaunched Fifth District Community Engagement, but I’ve done that out of a feeling there’s a need to understand how the 24 localities fit together.
But, I gladly call myself a fool. After all, in my very brief acting career I did portray a jester once! I even have a picture I would scan right now but I’m late with this edition.
I really wanted to be an actor, but a bad experience in 6th grade ended that. There was a kid in the front row who kept making fun of me, mimicking me. It was awful, and I didn’t get much support from my parents because my dad’s business partner had just died in a car crash so he wasn’t there. But, then again, my family made fun of my stuttering just like so many of my classmates. People are cruel and I’m just used to that now.
So I retreated into myself and spent a lot of time on a computer, like I do now. I got bored playing video games, and began writing. I’m still going. I pushed myself to confront the stutter, and now I’m perhaps a fool pushing myself to write as much as I can. If this were a musical, final track of the first act of Hamilton.
Anyway, the video today is another encouragement for someone to write me a parody version of Ballroom Blitz describing the Pothole Blitz! I apologize in advance if this gets stuck in your head. The Dead Milkmen did a parody of the intro, but I think if I start posting Dead Milkmen tracks I will lose subscribers.