Be bald, and be free! That’s the slogan for one of the supposed holidays for October 14, and I hesitate to even mention it at all except to say I represent. I’ve always thought of pawns as bald, and this is National Chess Day as well. Supposedly it’s also National I Love You Day, but rest assured that Charlottesville Community Engagement has that sentiment every day with a sunrise and a sunset. I’m Sean Tubbs.
In this edition:
A Charlottesville man was killed by gunfire early this morning in the 200 block of East Market Street
Charlottesville has announced that the opening of an overnight shelter on October 21 will coincide with a restoration of closing times in Market St. Park
A public hearing date has been set for University of Virginia Foundation’s request to rezone part of the North Fork Discovery Park to include up to 1,400 residential units
Snippets from two candidate forums for the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors
First shout-out: Charlottesville Community Bikes
In today’s first subscriber supported shout-out, Charlottesville Community Bikes believes that bicycles can be a means to social change, addressing issues of equity, access, and inclusion. They provide free bikes to adults who need one, and have a special program that provides free bikes to children. Want to learn more or support their work? Visit charlottesvillecommunitybikes.org to learn more. And stay up to date by following them on Facebook.
Man shot to death on Market Street early this morning
A 48-year-old Charlottesville man is dead after a shooting on East Market Street in Charlottesville just before 3 a.m.
The Charlottesville Police Department reports that Daniel O’Brien Hall of Charlottesville was shot and died after being taken to the University of Virginia Medical Center. The assailant was at-large at publication time and police are looking for more information.
“A suspect has not been identified at this time,” reads the release. “Anyone who witnessed this incident is requested to contact CPD with any information.”
The release asks businesses in the area who may have security cameras to review the footage for any information they could share with detectives. The incident occurred in the same block as Market Street Park but the release makes no reference to the encampment.
Charlottesville to restore closing times at Market Street Park on October 21
There are now over two dozen tents in Charlottesville’s Market Street Park as several people without houses have been allowed to stay there after closing times were lifted on September 20.
The city announced on Friday that operating hours will be restored on October 21, the same day that PACEM is set to begin operating seasonal overnight shelters.
“I have asked our staff to engage with various service providers to strategize ways we can support this process so that anyone in the park will receive the assistance that they need to ensure a smooth transition,” Sanders said in a press release sent out just before noon today.
“This work has already begun and will continue through whatever period necessary,” Sanders continued.
Sanders outlined a homelessness intervention strategy at Council’s meeting on October 2 that included asking PACEM to begin their season early. He also suggested Council provide some funding for the early operations.
In an undated press release, PACEM announced they will be able to open their 20th season early because of several donations.
“This collaborative effort helps relieve encampment congestion in Market Street Park and addresses these neighbors’ need for a safe place to sleep at night,” reads that press release.
Support for the early opening comes from Charlottesville First United Methodist Church, the PATH Team, the Salvation Army, and the City of Charlottesville.
In advance of the resumption of a closing time at the park, PACEM will begin reaching out to those who are staying there at the moment.
“We meet folks where they are,” the release quotes Board Chair Cliff Haury. “We adapt to what they need. Right now, they’re in the park and need shelter – that’s something we already know how to address.”
PACEM’s winter season will run through April 12, 2024. Between now and then, Council will begin a budget process that will likely include discussions of funding to purchase property for an overnight shelter. That’s in Sander’s mid-term strategy as is the pursuit of regional collaboration to operate that future shelter.
Items for long-term action include building new permanent supportive housing like the units at the Crossings at Fourth and Preston. Another item is the provision of deeply affordable housing means below 30 percent area median income. That is an area that the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority has indicated they want to provide service as they prepare for their future.
Sanders will discuss this item in more detail at Council’s meeting on October 16.
Public hearing set for UVA Foundation’s rezoning request for North Fork
It’s been a busy month in planning for land use changes in northern Albemarle County.
Riverbend and a second company have filed for an amendment to the rezoning for RST Residences.
Stony Point Development Group and the Dominion Realty Partners seek a rezoning for about 500 units just to the south in a project to be called Holly Hills.
Now the University of Virginia Foundation’s application for a rezoning at the North Fork Discovery Park is moving forward with a public hearing scheduled for the Albemarle Planning Commission’s meeting on October 24.
“ZMA202100016 is a proposal for a request to rezone the southern area of the North Fork UVA Discovery Park to NMD, Neighborhood Model Development, to allow residential uses, approximately 1,400 units,” reads an October 6 letter sent to adjacent property owners.
The University of Virginia has identified North Fork as one of three areas where housing guaranteed to be below-market would be built. UVA officials have previously stated work here won’t begin until after the rezoning. The Piedmont Housing Alliance has been selected to develop a site on Fontaine Avenue and a group called Preservation of Affordable Housing has been selected to develop one at 10th and Wertland. Read my story from August 25 for more on those two projects.
The request for North Fork also seeks a rezoning for the northern area to add seven acres of land that is not currently designated with the Planned Development Industrial Park zoning for the park.
The size of the NMD request in the southern area is about 172 acres. The total size for the entire rezoning is 543 acres.
There are a mix of Comprehensive Plan designations on the land including Urban Mixed Use, Office/R&D/Flex/Light Industrial, and Light Industrial.
This proposal was originally filed in late 2021 and was reviewed by the Land Use and Environmental Planning Committee around the same time. (read my story from the time)
A new application was filed on September 8. Here’s a link to the new version.
Second shout-out: Charlottesville Jazz Society
In today’s second subscriber-supported shout-out: The Charlottesville Jazz Society continues a new monthly series showcasing this area’s great local jazz talent. On October 29 at Miller’s beginning at 6 p.m., the spotlight will be on Vocalist Tina Hashemi with guitarist Michael McNulty
The pair will play in the early evening before opening things up to any musicians who want to sit in and jam. These Local Jazz Spotlight shows are free and open to the public and are sponsored in part by WTJU Radio. The CJS is grateful to Miller’s for their long-time support of jazz in Charlottesville, and for offering a home for this new series.
For more information on The Charlottesville Jazz Society, now in its 16th year of preserving jazz through live performances and education, visit cvillejazz.org.
A round-up of comments from two candidate forums for Albemarle Supervisors
One reason I created the Charlottesville Podcasting Network in 2005 was to experiment with the power of being able to bring people long-form audio of events in the community.
I made a long podcast about Dominion’s application for a third nuclear reactor at Lake Anna and the community process
I recorded the Albemarle County Fair’s fiddle contest that year
I tried to make available discussions such as one from April 2005 on inequality from an event at the University of Virginia.
But my first attempt at a business like the one I have now was to get paid to produce the audio in the first place. The Free Enterprise Forum paid me that fall to record campaign forums for the Board of Supervisor races that fall. At this moment, all I can find from that is the audio of the October 2005 Jack Jouett Candidate Forum. Here’s more information on elections that year if you’re interested.
Over the years to follow, I spent a lot of time recording campaign forums and spent a lot more time devoted to covering the local elections. That’s fallen out of favor now, and I don’t have the resources to go out and record everything and produce them like I used to be able to do.
So this segment is an attempt to catch up with what I can from the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors races going on right now. Early voting is already underway in Virginia. As of October 13, 4,751 people had cast ballots so far according to data made easily available by the Virginia Public Access Project.
There are three magisterial districts up for election this year in Albemarle. The Scottsville District seat being vacated by Donna Price only has one candidate on the ballot in Democrat Michael Pruitt.
In the Rivanna District, Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley is facing a challenge from Independent T.J. Fadeley.
Newcomer Brad Rykal is challenging four-term incumbent Ann Mallek in her race for a fifth and final term. So far, Rykal has only appeared at one forum alongside his opponent.
The source material for all of this comes from three events but we’ll start with the first one.
Mallek and Rykal appear at Crozet Town Hall Candidate Forum
According to the 2020 U.S Census, the White Hall Magisterial District had a population of 20,859, or a sixth of the overall population in Albemarle. Crozet is a Census Designated Place with a 2020 count of 9,224. View the Census webpage for more information.
Crozet is also the largest stand-alone growth area in Albemarle, with all others abutting the City of Charlottesville. Development is to be guided by the Crozet Master Plan which was last updated in October 2021 according to the Daily Progress.
At a September 11, 2023 town hall in Crozet, the two candidates for the White Hall District were asked to introduce themselves. Incumbent Ann Mallek began by explaining how she spent many years as an advocate and activist before seeking her first term in 2007.
“Over 20 years I learned about process and expertise on topics,” Mallek said. “Prior to being elected, I studied, I spoke at Board meetings and advocated about issues. I have a record on it.”
Mallek said she studies each agenda packet for each meeting to prepare to ask questions of staff.
We’ll hear more from Mallek later, as she appeared at two other candidate forums whereas her opponent Brad Rykal declined to attend the Free Enterprise Forum and the Senior Statesmen Forum. Rykal said he chose to be an independent for a reason.
“Republicans think I’m Democrat and Democrats think I’m Republican so I’m on to something there,” Rykal said.
Rykal served in the U.S. Army and served two terms in Iraq. He’s been a chief operating officer of a private company and said his experience managing budgets prepares him for local government.
“My experience is in getting things done,” Rykal said. “Conversely I think we’re tired of hearing excuses of why things that have been listened to and planned for aren’t getting done and these excuses sound compelling. Supervisor Mallek is one of the most polished politicians you will ever come across in your life.”
Rykal said he was running to represent Crozet and said living there qualifies him to speak for the community.
Questions at this forum focused on Crozet and infrastructure needs. Planning for one of the roadways called for in the plan suffered an implementation setback this year when the cost estimate rose to nearly $39.5 million. (read my story from August 25)
Rykal lamented that it has not yet been built.
“It was a critically important piece of infrastructure for Crozet,” Rykal said. “It was a third way in and out and to be able to maneuver around and something we’ve been planning for for 20 years and the number of beds increasingly skyrocketed over that same amount of time.”
Rykal had this interpretation of the discussion in August of the cost escalation.
“The county came forward and said ‘hey, let’s not do it,’ so the plan as of right now is that it’s never going to be done,” Rykal said.
Mallek said the project is not canceled.
“It is being redesigned, remastered and perhaps relocated in an effort to reduce costs but that is all of the information that’s available today,” Mallek said.
Keep in mind this is now from September 11 and there is new information about transportation in Albemarle that I still need to get back to writing about soon.
Mallek said she was shocked about the cost escalation of the Eastern Avenue project but said it is crucial to public safety in Crozet. She said she has not given up on bringing the project to implementation.
That’s just a small flavor of the Crozet Town Hall forum. If you want to learn more, read Lisa Martin’s piece in the October edition of the Crozet Gazette. That periodical has also posted the entire video for more. There’s also a forum between School Board candidates.
Four of five candidates appear at Free Enterprise Forum
(Updated shortly after publication with comments from candidate Rykal)
Let’s move ahead now to September 25 when the Free Enterprise Forum invited all five Supervisor candidates to an event co-hosted by Steve Rappaport of NBC29. Rykal did not attend and I received this response after publication.
“The [Free Enterprise Forum] and Senior Statement [forums] didn't happen because I have been focusing on community events in my district and in my backyard here in Crozet. The FEF event coincided with a date and time when a large group of neighborhoods were actively working to bring about positive change in Crozet. They invited me to participate in their efforts leading into a planning commission meeting. In the case of the Senior Statesmen, I was already committed to engaging with people here in Crozet in the run-up to the election.”
The four candidates candidate who did participate in the Free Enterprise Forum/NBC29 event were first asked to give an opening statement. Here’s a selection from Mike Pruitt, the only candidate on the ballot in the Scottsville District. He said he grew up in South Carolina, moved around the United States a lot in the U.S. Navy , but never felt home until arriving in this community.
“When I moved here to Albemarle to retrain as a civil rights attorney, this was the first opportunity I had to build the kind of roots in a community that I cared about and wanted to stay,” Pruitt said. “What I’ve increasingly become worried about is that that is not an opportunity that is afford to everyone. Not everyone who grows up and comes of age in our community anymore is still able to afford to stay here and not everyone who works here has the opportunity to make this their own home.”
Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley did not face an official challenger in her first race for the Rivanna District but she does this second time around. In her opening statement, she did not address anything that she’s achieved in the past four years, nor did she give specifics on what she would do in another term. Instead, she gave an overview of her career in California before retiring to Albemarle County.
“I was a principal, I was a director in charge of 24 elementary schools when I retired,” LaPisto-Kirtley said. “I’m proud to say that my life has been one of public service.”
The public service included 20 years as a City Councilor in Bradbury, California, a community with a 2020 population of 921 according to the U.S. Census.
Newcomer T.J. Fadeley said he’s running to provide an alternative choice for Albemarle.
“A lot of people have asked me why I’m running,” Fadeley said. “The answer is to give Albemarle residents an alternative to increasing taxation and ever-growing government, to put the brakes on excessive spending, and to encourage a more efficient government, to work at reducing costly and unfruitful government growth in programs that show no return on investment.”
Supervisor Ann Mallek had this to say about her opponent.
“I wish my opponent were here because I and others would be interested in hearing his views,” Mallek said.
The four candidates present were asked a variety of questions including several on Albemarle’s cell tower policy, vocational education, the relationship between the Board of Supervisors and the School Board, and many more. I don’t have enough time to go through the entire event but the video is available by downloading it from DropBox.
But here’s one question about growth that’s worth a review.
“Over the last five years, Albemarle Supervisors have approved new residential projects at 58 percent of Comprehensive Plan density,” said Steve Rappaport. “Where do you see new growth happening? In denser development areas or in terms of expanding the development areas?”
Supervisor Ann Mallek said she understands the frustration many have with the approval of more residential units without adequate infrastructure.
“There would be far less pushback about new developments coming in if the people who live there now have sidewalks to push their stroller in order to get to the nearby facilities or the roads and bridges they need to get around smoothly,” Mallek said.
T.J. Fadeley said he would support expansion of the development areas in part to replace some of the land lost when the Commonwealth of Virginia purchased land for what was to have been Biscuit Run State Park.
“Modernizing frequently waived standards for urban, suburban, and rural areas,” Fadeley said. “Crossroad and transitional development areas I believe should be part of the question as well going forward for the future of Albemarle County.”
Mike Pruitt said the existing growth areas are where people want to live, but the current zoning code makes it difficult to build housing.
“I think it’s really incumbent upon the Board to really try and make it so that we streamline this process so there’s not such an onerous process that anyone who wants to invest the capital to try and expand either the commercial real estate or the housing properties in this community has to go through,” Pruitt said.
LaPisto-Kirtley said that many people in the community don’t want to live in a place at the upper ranges of the density limits.
“While we do want to have higher and denser, we get a lot of community push back,” LaPisto-Kirtley said. “A lot. The community pushback also delays the projects for the developers. That costs them money and time to the point where they are not able to build anymore because they missed out on opportunities for grants, [Federal Emergency Management Agency} funding, and things like that.”
LaPisto-Kirtley said Albemarle should continue to focus on the existing development areas but expansion will eventually have to take place. Until then, the county has to work to make the development areas work.
Questioning each other
The Free Enterprise Forum andNBC29 event offered the chance for candidates to ask each other one question. LaPisto-Kirtley asked a question of her opponent.
“He has been saying in the forums that we’ve been attending and such that he wants to cut the taxes,” LaPisto-Kirtley said. “Fifty-seven percent of our monies go to the schools. Fifteen percent goes for public health and safety. Fire, police, etc.”
The question: How much of those services would her opponent cut?
“So it would be none of the above,” Fadeley responded. “Because those are what every taxpayer looks to fund. Good education. Safe communities. So none of those. Where I would look to cut spending would be the 445 percent increase in three years on Community Development. That’s just shy of $30 million. The $1.2 million increased to Human Resources. All of that is money that can go to prioritize first responders and hiring more police.”
A little more on Community Development. The adopted budget for that department in Fiscal Year 2021 was $10,384,548, a year affected by the pandemic and an anticipated economic downturn that was not as prolonged as originally expected. (page 22 of the adopted FY21 budget)
The department’s budget for FY24 increased to $14,392,115. That’s more of a 38.59 percent increase. (page 53 of the adopted FY24 budget)
Here’s some more context for what program areas that funding actually covers from the FY24 budget.
“Community Development Administration, Planning, Zoning, Engineering, Inspections, and Economic Development Office. In addition, Virginia Cooperative Extension Service, and transit agencies such as the Charlottesville Area Transit (CAT) and Jaunt fall under this organizational area.”
Mallek asked LaPisto-Kirtley what she was proud about for her first term.
“I know Stony Point Volunteer Fire Department received an ambulance for the very first time in its history,” LaPisto-Kirtley said. “An ambulance also went to the East Rivanna station.”
Among other things, LaPisto-Kirtley also pointed to a recent decision to turn Free Bridge Lane into a car-free zone, investment in Biscuit Run Park, and the creation of a parks foundation.
Fadeley asked LaPisto-Kirtley about the transient occupancy tax which was increased to eight percent in fiscal year 2023. She said that was to match the amount charged by Charlottesville. Five percent goes to the county’s general fund and three percent goes to the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Pruitt asked his question of Supervisor Ann Mallek.
“You have served a significant time on this Board and you have a wealth of experience that folks like me can learn from,” Pruitt said. “I would love to hear what you are most proud of that you’ve accomplished in your service.”
Mallek pointed to the work she did both before being elected and in office to reform the land use taxation process which took gaining support from the agricultural community.
“The county now calls [it] revalidation in order to make sure that our property tax deferral for properties in agriculture and forestry, otherwise known as the land use program is actually run perfectly, cleanly, and accurately so that only those properties that qualify due to their productive nature,” Mallek said.
Mallek claimed her opponent wanted to make changes to the program.
Rykal was not on hand to answer, nor would he be on hand at the October 11 Senior Statesmen event. That one will have to wait until another edition of this newsletter. I also have to produce a podcast of the event so I can make sure all of it is there for you the reader or listener.
Since 2005, my focus has shifted a little away from podcasting for podcastings’ sake and more to being whatever it is I do now. I thank you for your patience as I try to cover as much as I can.
Reading material:
Resident's lawsuit against expanding University Village thrown out, Hawes Spencer, Charlottesville Daily Progress (paywall), October 7, 2023
Company celebrates launch of high-speed fiber service in Crozet, Associated Press, CBS19, October 11, 2023
Community counters Abigail Shrier event with protest and “Coming Out Day” demonstration, Merrill Hart, Cavalier Daily, October 12, 2023
Fluvanna leaders to learn more about process for solar projects during work session,
What can you do about a problem like #589?
A major rule for producing this newsletter and podcast now is to get it out by 5 p.m. If I had a staff and other people to work on this, there would be a more routine schedule. Until then, please check out my production updates on Substack notes.
Today’s edition focuses on the elections because the point of a democracy is to have conversations about ideas and to have at least some force that tries to provide as neutral and balanced description of what’s happening as possible.
This newsletter and podcast seeks to provide some of that force because anyone who knows me knows that my opinions are mercurial and have a short half-life. I do this work because I’m drawn to the wishy-washy nature of the milquetoast.
Or rather, that’s how I’m drawn, like my bald imaginary friend Charlie Brown.
Thanks to paid subscribers to this Substack newsletter as well as Patreon supports. Ting has also been a sponsor for nearly two and a half years now, matching initial payments. Ting’s doing a lot in the community to sponsor civic activity while providing fast Internet to their customers.
Maybe you’re in the market for a new high speed internet provider? If so, check out Ting! If you sign up for Ting at this link and enter the promo code COMMUNITY, you’ll get:
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October 14, 2023: Public hearing set for UVA Foundation's rezoning request for up to 1,400 homes at North Fork Discovery Park