Today's Patreon-fueled shout-out is from a supporter who wants you to consider a donation for Monica Johnson, a Pro Strongwoman who will be competing in a charity powerlifting event on November 21 called Make Every Rep Count. Gregory Carey-Medlock is donating 30 cents for every pound Monica squats to the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank. You can choose between three other charities. Learn more at Shenandoah Power. Sponsors accepted through November 14.
Today marks eight months since Governor Ralph Northam declared a state of emergency due to the novel coronavirus, and localities soon followed suit. The seven-day average for positive COVID-19 tests has jumped to 6.5 percent today, up from 6.2 percent yesterday. That number was 4.5 percent on October 12.
The Virginia Department of Health reports another 1,521 cases of COVID-19 in the Commonwealth today, bringing the seven-day daily average to 1,546. There have been another 17 deaths reported in the last day, bringing the total to 3,758.
There has been another death in the Blue Ridge Health District bringing the total to 79. The deceased is a resident of Albemarle County. Since the pandemic began, all of the fatalities have been of people over the age of 50.
There are another 28 cases in the district and the 7-day daily average is now 27. That consists of 16 from Charlottesville, seven from Albemarle, four from Greene, and one from Fluvanna. Since the pandemic began, there have been a total of 4,761 cases in the district. Of those, nearly 45 percent have been in people between the ages of 10 and 30. People over the age of 80 have made up 5.1 percent of cases, but 59.5 percent of all fatalities.
Looking at Southwest Virginia, cases have been increasing in VDH’s Far Southwest region for 52 days and the percent positivity is 13.7 percent. Outbreaks in congregate centers are also increasing. The percent positivity rate in the Near Southwest region is 5.9 percent and the number of cases has been increasing for 20 days. Percent positivity in the Eastern region is 5.6 percent, 5.9 percent in the Central region and 6.7 percent in the Northern region. Albemarle and Charlottesville are within the Northwest region, where cases have been increasing for 21 days and the percent positivity is 5.3 percent. (VDH’s region metrics page)
Several inches of rain fell on the area within the past day, and the National Weather Service depicts the North Fork of the Rivanna River near Earlysville above flood stage this morning with a projected crest of 17.48 feet. Flood stage is 14 feet. The James River is expected to crest at 20.7 feet sometime early tomorrow morning with flood stage considered at 20 feet. The Town of Scottsville announced on their Twitter feed that flood control pumping is underway and that people should use caution if going to view the river.
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State Farm Insurance will no longer use the building it owns on Pantops as an operations center. The Albemarle office is one of 12 such facilities that will be closed but employees will continue to work from home.
“Most employees assigned to these locations have been working from home since March and will continue to do so,” said Gina Morss-Fischer, a public affairs specialist with State Farm. “As a company, maintaining flexibility in how and where we work is just one of the many ways we can better serve customers.”
Morss-Fischer said a timeline will be developed for the withdrawal from the facilities. According to Albemarle’s GIS, the 35 acre property is owned by an LLC called JDM II SF NATIONAL LLC C/O STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE with an address of One State Farm Place in Bloomington, Illinois.
The future land use map in the Pantops Master Plan considers the area an employment district. (page 32, here!)
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Parents and guardians of students in Charlottesville City Schools have until tomorrow to tell school officials whether they plan to return to in-person instruction or remain online-only. The city School Board has not yet made a final decision for how to proceed in January and February but there is a plan.
“For students in pre-K through 6th grade we would offer four days a week in-person and with Fridays like they are now,” said school spokeswoman Krissy Vick in a video about the Return to Learn plan. “For students at Buford, [Charlottesville High School] and Lugo-McGinness Academy, the in-person option would be two days a week at school and three days virtual.”
All students will be required to comply with a safety plan and would be asked to quarantine if there was a case in their classroom. The “learning intent form” also requests whether the pupils will need bus services and states that such service will be extremely limited.
More information is available on the school’s Return to Learn website.
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Albemarle County moved to a hybrid in-person model this week, but all school buildings will be closed today due to concerns over flooding. The School Board meets at 6:30 p.m. and will get a COVID-19 update from Superintendent Matt Haas. The presentation included in the packet cites low positive percentivity and a 14-day trend of decreasing caseloads. (presentation)
Other items on the agenda include approval of the design for the Boys and Girls Club facility planned for the Lambs Lane Campus and an update on implementation of the division’s anti-racism policy. On the consent agenda, they will also approve schematic design for High School Center II, for which funds have not yet been appropriated. (agenda)
Schools in Greene County are also closed today.
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Today at noon, the Central Virginia Regional Housing Partnership will unveil a new online portal intended to connect people who are looking for housing units whose costs are partially covered with a subsidy or otherwise made affordable. Chip Boyles is the executive director of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission, which runs the housing partnership.
“The goal started out to be to help both families and property owners search for and market affordable housing,” Boyles said. “And then the pandemic hit and we determined that there was a much more immediate need to pursue assistance for rental housing knowing that a lot of people might be relocating due to negative effects of the pandemic.”
Boyles said the project will concentrate on rental housing at first but will add for sale units.
“Even at the regional level there are very few for-sale products in the inventory and so having a search tool with only a very limited number of products is not going to be very useful to people,” Boyles said.
Boyles said the regional housing locator will likely soon include Augusta County because of the large number of people who work in the Charlottesville area but reside in that community.
Register for the event in order to attend.
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Today in meetings, there’s an awful lot going on today.
Charlottesville City Council meets at 6 p.m. for a work session on the capital improvement program. That’s the separate budget that lays out what big projects the city is going to work on in the next five years. The agenda for meeting states they will discuss the idea of adding additional floors to a future municipal parking garage, whether to spend money to improve access to the Dogwood Memorial in McIntire Park, and funding improvements that would address traffic safety on 5th Street. A petition calling for the latter now has 1,374 signatures.
The main thrust of the meeting is a discussion of current debt and whether taxes may have to be increased to pay for future capital projects. A chart in the presentation projects increased spending on debt service in the next few years. Around $10.6 million is expected to be spent on debt service in the current fiscal year, but that is expected to be over $15 million by FY2027. Of concern is whether the city can continue to keep its AAA bond rating, which keeps interest payments lower.
The current draft of an affordable housing plan being created as part of the Cville Plans Together initiative calls for $10 million a year in funding to increase the number of below-market units in the city. Other questions include if the city wants to proceed with a long-planned project to reconfigure city schools and how it should proceed with future phases of the West Main Streetscape. (presentation)
Other meetings:
The Crozet Community Advisory Committee meets virtually at 7 p.m. and review community input to date on the Crozet Master Plan update. They will also look at a draft Future Land Use Map that seeks to guide the direction of growth in the unincorporated designated growth area. (meeting info)
The Albemarle Solid Waste Alternatives Advisory Committee will meet at 4 p.m. On the agenda is a presentation from Patrick McDonald of Sonoco Recycling. (meeting info)
Interested in the idea of a pedestrian bridge to connect eastern Charlottesville with the Pantops area of Albemarle County? The Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission will hold a meeting to demonstrate a feasibility study for two options. One would cost $11.3 million while the other would cost $15.3 million. Neither the Board of Supervisors or Charlottesville City Council have discussed such a project, though the two communities did participate in a 2014 study the TJPDC conducted that looked at alternatives to relieve congestion on Free Bridge. (feasibility study)
The Charlottesville Police Civilian Review Board meets at 6:30 p.m. and will get a review from Delegate Sally Hudson on legislation on civilian oversight that passed the special session. (agenda)
The Charlottesville Community Development Block Grant Task Force at 3:30 p.m. (meeting info)
The Louisa County Planning Commission meets at 7 p.m. in person at the the Louisa County office building. (agenda)
November 12, 2020: Eight months into the pandemic; State Farm to vacate Pantops operations center