March 5, 2025: Council skeptical of proposed changes to trash collection system in Charlottesville
Plus: UVA has a plan to update its main fuel plant to transition from coal
Careful readers of Charlottesville Community Engagement will note that there have been two references in the last month to the science of Galileo Galilei being deemed criminal by a religious autocracy. Well, there’s enough astronomical heresy to go around at the beginning of this March 5 edition. On this day in 1616, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres by Nicolaus Copernicus was added to the Index of Forbidden Works. Copernicus himself had no comment at the time, as he had died shortly after its publication in 1543. I’m Sean Tubbs, and I guess now I can get to work.
In today’s installment:
Charlottesville City Council pushes back on scheme to replace trash sticker system with monthly fee for carts
The University of Virginia’s Buildings and Grounds Committee will consider adding several items to the Major Capital Plan including an upgrade to the main heating plant
First-shout: Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards
It’s way too windy and rainy today to get outside, but this is the time to get ready for spring!
One resource available to me comes through the Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards, an organization devoted to promoting and protecting native species which can also be choked and blocked by species that don’t originate in North America and thus may not have creatures that like to eat them.
On Tuesday, March 11, Tree Steward Tim Maywalt will hold a Tree Basics on Zoom Class with the title “Select, Plant, and Care for Trees.” Tim will discuss best practices for planting and show you how to care for your newly planted tree and your other landscape trees for the long term.
Learn how to select a tree for your property that will have the best chance to survive and flourish in the place that you choose for it.
The sessions are free but donations are always welcome! Register here!
Councilors push back on proposal to replace trash stickers with monthly trash fee charge more for trash collection
This edition does not have a story on the release of Charlottesville City Manager Sam Sander’s recommended budget for FY2026. Cville Right Now reports that he’s not proposing any new tax rate increases. I’ll have details tomorrow.
Before the Charlottesville City Council was briefed on the budget, they spent about an hour learning how the city could raise additional money to cover the costs of the city’s municipal trash collection. The program currently brings in $1.1 million in revenue but costs $2.7 million to operate.
“The last time there was a discussion on this or any changes was in 2007,” said Stephen Steven Hicks, the city’s director of public works. “So I do think, at least just to have a dialogue of where we are on our rates is helpful.”
The city hired the firm NewGen Strategies last year to review the program and laid out the first philosophical question for Council. (view the presentation)
“How much of the cost of providing service do you want to fund through rates?” asked Seth Cunningham of NewGen Strategies. “And by rates, like right now, those rates would be through stickers and decals versus through supplementing with the general fund.”
And that’s just for curbside pickup. There are other services such as leaf collection, compost drop off programs, and large item pick-ups. Those all add up to another $1.1 million in costs. Right now the city brings in revenue through the sale of stickers and decals as well as a charge for large-item pickups.
For the core services, Cunningham calculated the current revenue stream at $6.19 a month based on about 15,300 customers. The average cost to provide the service is closer to $16.19. The costs of stickers has not gone up whereas hauling costs have increased.
“One alternative is certainly to keep the exact same structure you have and increase cost,” Cunningham said. “If you did an across the board increase, it would take approximately 150% increase in the sticker and decals to get that $1.1 million get to closer to 2.7 million and that's approximate.”
Cunningham said another challenge of the current program is that there is no way of knowing if the contractor is removing stickers from trash cans. If the city moved to a cart system, existing trash cans would not be be retained and everyone would get a new one from the city.
NewGen is recommending moving to a system where residents and businesses would pay a monthly fee based on the size of the cart they would receive. They’re recommending three tiers with 32 gallon, 64 gallon, or 96 gallon carts. Recycling would be included and would carry on as usual.
The system currently doesn’t allow the city to track how much each household uses the system. Cunningham said the next step would be to do outreach to find out what people think. City Councilor Lloyd Snook has already heard from constituents.
“I've already heard from a number of people who have said, ‘I'm living on a fixed income, my husband and I are the only ones here and wee don't generate anywhere near as much garbage as you think we are, and you're effectively going to be quadrupling our garbage costs,’” Snook said.
Cunningham does not recommend allowing for smaller carts such one that carries 24 gallon because they are more easily blown over by wind and the trucks have a harder time picking them up.
Another possibility is that under the new system, the city would own and operate the trash trucks rather than contracting out the service.
“More localities are reconsidering that just to be able to control the cost a little bit better just because there are a few that are literally just monopolising the industry,” Hicks said.
Vice Mayor Brian Pinkston said he remains concerned that the city is subsidizing trash collection but he said eliminating the smallest possible sticker could get him in trouble with his wife.
“It's amazing how little trash we put out so if we were to get rid of the 13 gallon sticker, she'd be really mad at me,” Pinkston said. “But because she and I think lots of people the emails that we saw there, like lots of people saying, ‘look, I can get down to not much trash at all.’ I think it would be a mistake to get rid of that option because it allows a lot of people to really minimize the trash put out.”
City Councilor Michael Payne said he would be concerned about the effect on people on fixed-incomes and saw solid waste collection as a core service.
“It just kind of seems like a backhanded way to raise revenue in an even more regressive way than the real estate tax, depending on where we want to set the revenues at,” Payne said.
City Councilor Natalie Oschrin said she was not expecting to see a recommendation for a new system that eliminated the lowest sticker. She has also received a lot of messages that resonated with her.
“I maybe put my trash can on the curb twice in three months,” Oschrin said. “I don't go through a whole sheet of stickers in a year. And there's lots of other people out there like that.
Oschrin said she supported the idea of increasing the price of stickers and decals to recover revenue.
“If I suddenly had to pay $10 or $16 for the trash collection every month, even though I'm not using it at all, that is not the incentive structure to reduce my trash volume,” Oschrin said.
After the discussion, Council indicated support for increasing the cost of stickers and decals. City Manager Sam Sanders said he would return with more information in the future.
Second 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!
Buildings and Grounds panel to consider new names, additions to UVA’s major capital plan
The University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors is in town again this week and on Thursday the subcommittee charged with the built environment will be meeting.
The Buildings and Grounds Committee will meet beginning at 2:30 p.m. in the Board Room of the Rotunda.
The main item on the agenda will be two additions to UVA’s Major Capital Plan.
“The Buildings and Grounds Committee determines whether a project should be added to the Major Capital Plan, and the Finance Committee evaluates whether there is a sound financing plan to pay for the estimated project cost and additional operating costs expected once a project is complete,” reads the staff report.
This time around the request is to add a $5.9 million expansion of the Mail Order and Specialty Pharmacy. The existing facility is at capacity. There’s also a $2 million request for planning and design for a Clinical Lab at Town Center IV at the North Fork Discovery Park. .
Several items are also being requested to be added to the Capital Plan. There are for:
Main Heat Plant Fuel Conversion - $38 million (learn more)
The Park Renovation - $8 million (learn more)
Millmont Renovation: Transportation Administrative and Bus Service Facility - $10 million (learn more)
Research Data Center - $72 million (learn more)
Darden Faculty Office Building Renovation - $20 million (learn more)
School of Data Science and Entrepreneurship Building - $77 million (learn more)
Lannigan Track and Field Renovation - $7 million (learn more)
There are also two studies that are being requested to be added. One is for the reconfiguration of multiple buildings used by the College of Arts and Sciences and the other is for Warner Hall.
There will also be an update on the main capital projects under construction at the Fontaine Research Park. That information is not available in the packet.
Namings
There will also be a request to approve the names of items in four areas:
There will be a new central spine road at the Fontaine Research Park, which currently has two roads known as Ray C. Hunt Drive and Natural Resources Drives. As part of a reorganization of the traffic network, UVA is proposing one road be known as Guerrant Drive and the other will be known as Hetherington Drive.
Dr. Richard Guerrant is the founding director of UVA’s Center for Global Health Equity. Mavis Hetherington was a faculty member in the UVA Department of Psychology for 29 years.
There are also proposed new names for the road network on central Grounds. What has been called Whitehead Road between Alderman Road and Stadium Road would be renamed “Carl Smith Way” to honor a man who made a $25 million donation in 1997 to support renovation at Scott Stadium.
Dr. Richard Whitehead served as Dean of the Medical Faculty from 1905 to 1916.
“To continue memorializing Dr. Whitehead’s extraordinary contributions to UVA and to medical education more broadly, the University requests the Board’s approval to rename Chemistry Drive,” reads the staff report.
Next up will be a renaming of an athletic facility slated to open in the fall of 2025. The new Olympic sports center will be named for the Harrison family.
“The Harrison family has been longtime, generous supporters of the University, beginning with Marjorie Harrison Webb’s father and mother, David and Mary Harrison,” reads the staff report. “David Harrison earned a bachelor’s degree from the University in 1939 and a law degree from UVA in 1941.”
The Olympic facility will support student-athletes competing in 27 varsity sports.
Finally in renamings, one spot at the Virginia Tennis Complex at the Boar’s Head Sports Club will be known as the Jeffrey Cudlip Memorial Court. Cudlip was a 1990 graduate of UVA who has since passed on. He was the son of Frances Dickenson and Charles Cudlip.
Reading material:
UVA ReUSE Furnishes Hope for Central Virginia Youth, Bryan McKenzie, February 28, 2025
Construction of the Verve along Emmet St. S causes detours, delays for students, Brandon Kile, Cavalier Daily, March 4, 2025
Students share their reactions to emergency lockdowns issued by the University, Lidia Zur Muhlen, Cavalier Daily, March 4, 2025
#825 is over and time to feed the meter again
Can I publish two stories and still call it a newsletter? Well, that’s happening today. I don’t really remember this morning as I couldn’t sleep in the night. The idea was to get right to the city’s budget, but at some point I needed to have a bit of a kip.
My parents emigrated from England in the 1960’s. They didn’t really assimilate and so when I go visit them in their retirement community, I always take them British food I get from Food of All Nations. As I write this, I’m watching Liverpool play in the UEFA Champions League.
I often think about whether I should move to England and have thought I might retire there one day where people will use many of the same terms and expressions as me. But, then I think about how much I would miss this place where I have lived my life. I have devoted the past five years to this work and occasionally looking after my parents.
I recall now that I spent this morning producing the audio for yesterday’s segment on Representative John McGuire’s February 26, 2025 telephone town hall. Audio is not nearly as popular as the writing, but I love to produce radio segments and podcasts. It’s likely that will be posted here as a podcast tomorrow (there might be two this week).
But perhaps you might like to take a listen now? If so, go to the post on Information Charlottesville. While you’re there, take a look at the ads! I’m hoping to put that media kit together as the click rates for the two I have up currently are pretty good! I never thought about advertising before, and now I’m hopeful to keep developing a visual vocabulary.
But two stories? Is that enough for a newsletter? Today, yes. Yes it is. More tomorrow.
Let’s conclude today with a little Dave Brubeck. I saw him play once in Concord, New Hampshire, back in 1996. There have been a lot of things along the way. I really hope people much younger than me are having full lives because they deserve to do so.
Thanks Sean for the info about trash stickers. I am so old I remember when we just had to have cans in front of any fencing, pick up was free and it was TWICE a week. Late seventies.
I agree with most of the councilors comments. I usually put out our trash can once a month. I put out two large recycling cans twice a month. Having to pay for trash pick 3/4th of a month that are not used just isn't fair. It is why I buy the daily stickers instead of the can decal. Thanks again for all you do to keep us informed.