October 8, 2024: Witt releases fundraising numbers for July through September; Charlottesville Area Transit unveils performance dashboard
Plus: UVA continues to plan for 2,000 beds to allow second-year mandate to proceed
October 8 is now where we are, and how to describe it? In previous times during this tenth month, Charlottesville Community Engagement has reminded the audience of the time when CB culture was closer to the mainstream. According to the code, 10-8 means “in service” which is certainly what this collection of information seeks to be 10-8 towards. I’m Sean Tubbs, and there’s no other possibility.
In today’s installment:
As Florida braces for Hurricane Milton, the long work of cleaning up from Hurricane Helene continues
The Democrat in the race for an open seat in Virginia’s Fifth congressional seat has turned in her campaign finance report for 2024’s third quarter
Charlottesville Area Transit has unveiled a dashboard to allow people to see whether service is hitting performance targets
There may soon be changes to the way that the Virginia Department of Transportation classifies some area roads including ones in Fifeville and the Woolen Mills
UVA continues to plan to build up to 2,000 new beds to so a requirement for second-year students to live on Grounds can proceed
First-shout: Friends of Charlottesville shine a Downtown Spotlight
Friends of Cville have launched a new web show called the Downtown Spotlight that brings conversations from local business owners, community leaders, and more who make up the Downtown Mall. Each episode will feature in-depth interviews, behind-the-scenes looks at beloved local establishments, and stories that highlight the spirit of our community. The most recent show featured:
The Executive Director and Artistic Director of the Virginia Film Festival
The Executive Director of the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau
The owner of PawPrints Boutique about all things Doggie Howl-o-ween!
The Downtown Spotlight will air the second Thursday of each month, at 2:30pm. View all of the episodes through the organization’s Facebook page.
Hurricane Milton approaches central Florida at category strength
The current trajectory for Hurricane Milton shows the storm heading out into the Atlantic Ocean after it crosses over central Florida, which means it is not a direct threat to Virginia.
However, as much of the southeast continues to recover from Hurricane Helene, the entire region is bracing for the impact.
“A large area of destructive storm surge will occur along parts of the west coast of Florida,” reads a page on Hurricane Milton created by the U.S. Census Bureau. “This is an extremely life-threatening situation and residents in those areas should follow advice given by local officials and evacuate immediately if told to do so.”
The storm was downgraded this morning to a category 4 but is still considered an incredibly dangerous storm.
Here are three resources on the Census page:
Florida Governor Ron Desantis declared a state of emergency on October 6 (read it)
President Joseph Biden declared a federal state of emergency on October 7 (read it)
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has a page with related resources (go look)
Locally there are still many efforts to help those who continue to be affected by the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene. The storm hit land as a category 4 storm and is responsible for at least 230 deaths. For some of the latest, take a look at a live newsfeed from ABC News.
CBS19 reports that Cunningham Creek Winery will have a concert on October 18 to support the United Way of Asheville and Buncombe County in North Carolina. (read the story)
NBC29 reports that Frank Hardy Sotheby’s International Realty is working with the Virginia Floydfest to collect items for relief with the next drop-off period scheduled for October 9 (read the story)
Know of any others? I’ll keep posting these as I hear about them.
Witt turns in federal campaign finance report early
Candidates running for the United States House of Representatives do not have to turn in their next campaign finance report to the Federal Election Commission until October 15, but the Democrat in the race for Virginia’s Fifth District has gone ahead and filed.
Gloria Tinsley Witt raised $218,627.38 in funds from July 1 to September 30. That’s nearly 79 percent of the total amount raised during the entire campaign.
Most of the funding comes from individuals with only $9,000 from political action committees. Unlike Virginia, United States law puts a cap on how much direct funding campaigns can receive from individuals, corporations, or political action committees.
Witt reported spending $90,845.45 during the period, or just over 80 percent of the total amount. There was $164,904.68 cash on hand as of October 1.
In a message to supporters, Witt described how some of the funding would be spent.
“With your help, we’ve already secured a comprehensive Broadcast TV buy that will reach voters across the entire district,” reads an email sent out on October 7.
Witt faces State Senator John McGuire in the election. McGuire narrowly defeated incumbent Bob Good for the Republican nomination in the June 18 primary, a victory confirmed by a full recount of the ballots.
McGuire has until October 15 to file a report for the third quarter. The last report covered the period of May 30 to June 30 and McGuire reported total receipts of over $1.4 million and total spending of $1.3 million. There was a balance of $115,822.52 reported on June 30, 2024.
Some of the total receipts include transfer of funds from the McGuire Victory Fund set up for his election to Virginia Senate District 10 in the November 2023 election. (review McGuire’s most recent filing)
Good also will have to file a report even though the campaign failed to secure a place on the November ballot. Through June 30, Good’s campaign received a total of $1,352,560.14 and spent $1,231,742.64 and had $167,832.17 on-hand. (review Good’s most recent filing)
CAT director urges existing riders to review new schedules that debut October 26
When Charlottesville Area Transit makes service changes on October 26, service on Route 6 between Willoughby Shopping Center and the University of Virginia hospital will not be removed. (review the new schedule book)
That information was incorrectly stated in a press release the agency sent out on Thursday according to CAT director Garland Williams.
“We put out a press release about some improvements that we're going to be making to the Route 4 and the Route 6,” Williams told City Council on Monday. “The Route 6 has a line in it that says we were going to improve it, basically going to 30 minutes service, which we are. It's an hour service now, but it had a line in the press release that says we were moving service to the hospital. That is not correct. So we're going to make sure everybody is aware of that. We are not removing service on the Route 6 to the hospital.”
Williams made those comments during a presentation on a new public dashboard on how well CAT routes are performing.
“It's a culmination of a promise that we made to City Council and to this region to be much more transparent in how CAT operates,” said Garland Williams. (view the dashboard)
The city has paid the firm Nelson Nygaard to create the public dashboard using data collected by automatic passenger counters installed on each vehicle. The data on the dashboard currently is limited to January 24 through May 24 of this year.
“They are filtering the information and making sure that it is in a usable form so everybody can see the analysis behind the scenes,” Williams said.
Using the map function, people can take a look and see the average for how many people get off and on at each stop.
There is also information on how each route performs. For instance, the Route 6 was on time 44.4 percent of the time, early 47.2 percent of the time, and late 8.4 percent of the time. Williams said that is not acceptable.
“From a transit agency point of view, that is horrible,” Williams said. “Most transit agencies want to be in the high nineties. If you're in the seventies, that's kind of considered reasonable and acceptable, but you need to be working on trying to improve that.”
Williams said service changes will be made to try to address the various issues such as adding frequency. Additional time points will be added to stop routes from passing by stops before they are scheduled.
“Early is not good,” Williams said. “That means people have missed our service.”
CAT’s new schedules are expected to go into effect on October 26 and every single route will be different as the agency makes a series of adjustments.
“When you may have started early in the morning on the Route 6 or the Route 5, the times may have adjusted because we needed to,” Williams said.
But don’t get too used to any one schedule. Williams said adjustments will be made every three to four months.
Williams said buses will also no longer queue up at the Downtown Transit Service all at once but will be staggered with departure times at every 15 minutes.
Other changes to be made with the October 26 change are adding another bus to Route 4 to increase frequencies to twice an hour as well as extending service on Route 11 to the Center at Belvedere.
The increase to 30 minute frequencies on Route 6 was paid for by $1 million from the city’s surplus for Fiscal Year 2022.
Second-shout out: Senior Statesmen of Virginia forum on elections
Want to know as much as you can about how local officials are preparing for this year’s elections? The Senior Statesmen of Virginia are holding a presentation on the topic at the Center at Belvedere on October 9 at 1:30 p.m.
Lauren Eddy, the General Registrar and Director of Elections for Albemarle County. She has worked in the department for 18 years, including serving as the Deputy Registrar for 16 years. Lauren is a Virginia Registered Election Official, as well as a National Certified Election/Registration Administrator.
Taylor Yowell, Director of Elections and General Registrar for the City of Charlottesville. She got her start in elections after being recruited by her sister, the Director of Elections in Madison County. She was hired four years ago as Charlottesville Deputy Registrar. Six months later, she was promoted to her current position.
Jim Nix, member of the Charlottesville Electoral Board and one of the directors of the Sr. Statesmen, will moderate.
This presentation is free and open to the public. Since space is limited, please register at https://thecentercville.org/calendar/event/118768/3
Changes may be coming to how VDOT classifies area roads
Not every roadway in Virginia is the same. The Virginia Department of Transportation classifies each section of each street by something called “functional classification.”
“Functional classification is a process by which streets, highways, are grouped into different classes or systems according to different functions they are intending to serve,” said Sarah Simba, a planner with the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission.
VDOT updates these classifications every ten years after the U.S. Census. The Policy Board of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization got an update on August 28. In all, there are seven functional classifications are defined by the Federal Highway Administration.
“Interstates, other freeways and expressways, other principal arterials, minor arterials, major and minor collectors, and then local roads,” Simba said.
Each classification represents what purpose a road serves. Interstates, freeways and arterials are intended to move vehicles through without providing direct access to businesses and homes. Roadways that do provide direct access include collectors and local roads.
Federal and state officials want the system to work efficiently, so arterials are to connect to other arterials.
As part of the review process, localities can request changes be made. Charlottesville has made several requests to change several roadways. These include:
Hillsdale Drive from local road to major collector
Cherry Avenue from Ridge Street to Roosevelt Brown from major collector to minor arterial
Chesapeake and East Market Street in the Woolen Mills from local road to minor collector
Franklin Street from Meade to Carlton Avenue from local road to minor collector
Prospect Avenue from 9th Street SW to Bailey Road from local road to minor collector
Bailey Road from Fifth Street SW from local road to minor collector
Rose Hill Drive from Oakleaf Lane to Rugby Avenue from local road to major/minor collector
Simba said changing the classifications is a step toward planning for the future.
“Functional classification helps determine eligibility for funding for many federal funding sources, and this helps in maximizing potential for future funding as well,” Simba said.
At the end of their briefing at their August 28 meeting, the Charlottesville Area Metropolitan Planning Organization deferred action on a recommendation to support the requested changes. TJPDC Executive Director Christine Jacobs wanted to develop a map of the proposed revisions before their meeting in October.
More details on UVA’s plans to build 2,000 new beds for second-year students
The strategic plan for the University of Virginia calls for capital investments to make sure there is enough room to make it mandatory for all second-year students to live on campus.
“In order to house both first and second year students, plus retain accommodations for third and fourth years who want to live on G rounds, we need to build probably between 2000 and 2400 new beds,” said Colette Sheehy, senior vice president for operations and state government relations.
Sheehy recently explained to the Buildings and Grounds Committee of the Board of Visitors how UVA will enter into a public-private partnership to pursue the work. Interviews have been conducted with firms that responded to a request for proposals.
“And this is a case where the developer comes with an architect, with a contractor, and with all of their subconsultants as a package, rather than us hiring an architect separately and then hiring a contractor,” Sheehy said.
There are two sites where development of student housing will occur. One is at the former University Garden apartments on Emmet Street at a location that includes the current site of Afghan Kebob. This is close to the Lambeth section of the UVA campus. The other is at the western edge of the Emmet Ivy corridor next to the Karsh Institute of Democracy.
Under the proposal, UVA will run the housing operations when the beds come online. Sheehy said the Buildings and Grounds Committee will be asked to agree on a finalist later this year.
Reading material for #741
UVA leaders reflect on community partnership initiative five years in, Avery Davis, WVIR 29NBC, October 6, 2024
Harris, Kaine ahead in Virginia by comfortable margins, new poll says, Markus Schmidt, Virginia Mercury, October 7, 2024
Solar industry electrifies pushback in rural areas of Chesapeake Bay region, Jeremy Cox and Ad Crable, Chesapeake Bay Journal, October 7, 2024
Cornell professor lauds Charlottesville's 'rare,' 'brave' zoning plan, Jason Armesto, Charlottesville Daily Progress (paywall), October 7, 2024
Study finds three Virginia universities with ‘some’ viability risks, Nathaniel Cline, Virginia Mercury, October 8, 2024
First years feel pressure as next year’s housing search is underway, Brandon Kile, Cavalier Daily, October 8, 2024
Virginia congressional candidate creates AI chatbot as debate stand-in for incumbent, Greg Bensinger, October 8, 2024
There’s nothing more to be said for #741 except these bits
I know at least one person who has evacuated from Florida and I’m hoping to hear that my family members there have a plan. So, that’s why I put that at the top of the newsletter today. Increasingly I’m more comfortable with using the first segment to write about items that are not strictly local, but all of us know people all over the country.
When I started the Charlottesville Podcasting Network back in 2005, it was to experiment with longer items such as this interview with someone who left New Orleans in advance of Hurricane Katrina. I am hoping to do more interviews, or to help other people do interviews. There is more to journalism than reporting meetings.
The goal of Town Crier Productions is to keep expanding capacity and to continue increasing efficiency. About one in five readers are paying something toward the upkeep and there are other ways revenue comes in, too. Today’s first shout-out comes from a double Substack/Patreon subscribers, and the second one is for a Substack supporter who pays $200 a year.
That is not necessarily an efficient system for me, but I want the shout-outs to be items that are useful to people and not just selling products.
In any case, support also comes from Ting in the form of a sponsorship where they match the first Substack payment. That means that $200 a year supporter was matched with another $200. Hooray!
This is a great sponsorship and I’m grateful. If you sign up for service and you are within Ting’s service area, enter the promo code COMMUNITY you’re going to get:
Free installation
A second month for free
A $75 gift card to the Downtown Mall
