Today’s Patreon-fueled shout-out comes from an anonymous supporter who wants to say - "We keep each other safe. Wear a mask, wash your hands, and keep your distance."
Today at noon is the deadline for mail-in ballots to arrive at local registrars in Virginia in order to be counted. Ten out of eleven of the state’s Congressional Districts have been resolved, but challenger Nick Freitas has not conceded in the 7th District Race and trails incumbent Abigail Spanberger by 4,744 votes. The Virginia Department of Elections website estimates that 90 percent of the absentee ballots were counted, but continues to state that *these statistics may not take into account all surrendered absentee ballots.*
As of this recording there was still no resolution of the presidential election and early voting and mail-in ballots were still being counted in Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
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There are another 1,568 cases of COVID-19 in Virginia today as reported by the state Department of Health. That brings the seven-day average for new daily cases to 1,304. The number of deaths reported by the VDH actually declined by six people for a total today of 3,682. The seven-day average of new positive test results increased to 5.9 percent, up from 5.8 percent yesterday and up from 4.9 percent on October 6.
After a week of single-digit increases for new cases in Albemarle and Charlottesville, both localities went back to double digits today. Albemarle added 18 new cases and Charlottesville added 22 cases. Including those numbers, the soon-to-be-named Blue Ridge Health District added 43 cases. The percent positivity rate for today is 1.8 for PCR tests and 2.1 for all tests.
The University of Virginia COVID-tracker displays 41 active cases with 19 of them students.
Case counts in far Southwest Virginia continue to rise. Wise County now has a total number of new cases per 100,000 population of 613. That number is 531.2 in Washington County, 896.3 in Scott County, 819.8 in Lee County, and 486.9 in Montgomery County, the home of Virginia Tech. For comparison, Albemarle’s total number of new cases per 100,000 population is 105.8 and Charlottesville’s is 220.3. Fluvanna’s is 97.08, Greene is at 116.3, Louisa is at 114.2, and Nelson is at 40.44.
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A regional housing initiative coordinated by the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission will soon launch an online portal to help people locate affordable places to live. Christine Jacobs is the chief operating officer and housing director for the TJPDC, and she told Commissioners last night that the portal will serve a dual purpose.
“One of them is to provide streamlined access to the resources that currently exist throughout the region both in the localities in the region and the state and so that will be one piece of the website,” Jacobs said. “Another piece of the website will be a way to connect property owners and developers that have affordable units with community members that are searching for those units.”
The website will at first focus on rental issues, but Jacobs said it will increasingly expand to cover for sale units. TJPDC executive director Chip Boyles said roll-out of the regional housing locator has been expedited due to a looming crisis.
“We have really hurried this along as Christine talked about because we think it is so crucial to have the rental portal in place when evictions begin from some of the families that haven’t been able to take advantage of the rental assistance programs,” Boyles said.
The regional housing locator will be presented at the Regional Housing Partnership’s next presentation on November 12.
Boyles also asked Commissioners for their input on a potential name change for the TJPDC.
“A number of agencies and churches are looking at changing their name from Thomas Jefferson to other things,” Boyles said. “It’s something we looked at a few years ago but we haven’t looked at since.”
No one made a comment about the change at the meeting.
The health district will become the Blue Ridge Health District on January 1.
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On Wednesday, the Albemarle Board of Supervisors voted 4-2 to deny a special exception to allow a homestay operation on Northfield Road to have five rentable rooms, as opposed to the two allowed by-right. Supervisor Donna Price told the TJPDC Board that Albemarle has rules in place to protect residential neighborhoods.
“We see those as being different from AirBnB type thing because it’s supposed to be an accessory use as opposed to a primary source of revenue and obviously the difference between a location in a residential neighborhood versus in a rural area, distance to other properties, all of those things we have to take into account,” Price said.
Price said that special exceptions currently go with the land rather than the owner, and the Board has asked the county attorney to investigate legislation to make a change.
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Oral arguments got underway this morning in the Virginia Supreme Court for the city of Charlottesville’s appeal of a court ruling that the Robert E. Lee Statue in Market Street Park was a protected war memorial at the time City Council voted to remove it. An injunction remains in place to keep the statue in place even after legislation passed the Virginia General Assembly this year.
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Work has concluded one month early on a grade-separated interchange on U.S. 29 in Warrenton. The firm Shirley Contracting Company was awarded a design-build contract in February 2018 to remove a traffic signal at Lord Fairfax Drive and Business U.S. 29. Construction began in March 2019 and the interchange partially opened this summer. (project website)
VDOT spokesman Will Merritt gave credit to Shirley Contracting and subcontractor Dewberry for the early completion.
“The interchange was built slightly to the north of the old signalized intersection which allowed the design-build team to complete the majority of the project without interfering with traffic,” Merritt said. “The design of the project coupled with favorable weather and a mild winter in 2019 allowed the project team to get ahead and finish the project one month ahead of schedule.”
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Interstate highways cut off wildlife habitat and lead to hundreds of collisions with vehicles each year. Albemarle’s Natural Heritage Committee learned about efforts by the Virginia Transportation Research Council to reduce such incidents through better design.
“Wildlife crossings which are either underpasses or overpasses across a road are really already established over the past two to three decades as the most effective way to reduce collisions and connect that habitat across roads,” said Bridget Donaldson of the VRTC. She said the next federal transportation bill may have up to $250 million in funding for such crossings.
Nine states including Virginia have passed legislation to create plans for where such places could go. Donaldson has worked on a pilot project for fencing along U.S. I-64 in Albemarle County.
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No meetings today, but two things to preview. Tonight, Live Arts will hold another virtual studio visit. Box Office Manager Darryl Smith will speak with local artist, actor, poet and storyteller Edwina Herring beginning at 7 p.m. (Live Arts website)
On Sunday, the Jefferson Madison Regional Library and the Friends of the JMRL will hold another in a series of pop-up book sales at the Gordon Avenue Library from 10 a.m. at 2 p.m. Visit the library website for more information.
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