It seems that we have arrived at the end of May 2026, as well as the end of another busy week at Charlottesville Community Engagement. This week began with a holiday and ushered in a switch to a morning publication as opposed to an afternoon one, a transition intended to prepare for a more active future covering local and regional government in the community. One hopes.
Mostly every story that features soundbites from a meeting is produced using skills I learned in radio over 30 years ago. The podcast is a weekly digest of some of those stories and is a slightly different edition from the award-winning radio show that airs on WTJU every Saturday. Well, one award. The Alliance for Community Media recently recognized the radio show with a 2026 Hometown Media Award for Best News Program. Hit play and listen!
In this edition show:
Albemarle Supervisors briefed on how county government plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (read the story)
Charlottesville Planning Commission briefed on environmental reviews underway (read the story)
RSWA can now safely accept lithium batteries; new baling facility cost less than expected (read the story)
RSWA Board approves $11.7 million budget for FY2027 (read the story)
Biosolids company reduces amount of land requested to be sludge eligible (read the story)
Health-oriented community fair happening midday Saturday at Washington Park (read the story)
The Charlottesville Board of Architectural Review takes a look at new design for a student housing building near Westhaven (read the story on C-Ville Weekly)
First shout-out: Charlottesville Jazz Festival is less than two weeks away!
In conjunction with the 50th anniversary of Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall, JazzFest2026 will offer audiences a chance to enjoy nationally and internationally acclaimed artists and many of Charlottesville‘s finest musicians over four days of club, concert, and featured performances.
Multiple stages in the Downtown Mall area will host special events with outstanding artists and the festival will feature a two-night/multi-venue Club Circuit with no cover charges. One way to learn what’s happening is to follow the Charlottesville Jazz Society’s Facebook page.
The Charlottesville Jazz Festival’s mission is to bring people together through the spirit of jazz—celebrating its culture and qualities of innovation, improvisation, and collaboration.
JazzFest 2026 will foster those qualities for the benefits they offer both the art form and the community.
Second shout-out: Consider support for Town Crier Productions!
In July, this newsletter and occasional podcast will mark the 6th anniversary. There have now been at least 1,060 regular editions, over 360 Week Ahead Versions, and dozens of property transaction editions. All of the work is done from my sense that people should know what’s happening in local and regional government.
I’m only able to do this work because of a steady stream of people who want to help cover the costs to research and produce stories about land use, transportation, economic development, and whatever else I can get together in a given edition.
This continues to be an experiment and one worth doing as long as I can. The business model is overly simple.
I’ll report as much as I can and keep building up a system that allows me to do more reporting
People who want to support the work can do so through ways that make sense to them
On that latter point, paid subscriptions through Substack work quite well. There is a chance at some point that the newsletter delivery mechanism moves somewhere else, but that’s a project term at least two or three horizons away. Any amount helps, but be warned I may increase the base price in July.
I’ve also set up a way for people to make a charitable contribution to support the journalism. This is through the Tiny News Collective and I’ve got a lot of ideas on what that might mean for the future of this work.
A bit about shout-outs. When I launched this venture back in 2020 during the pandemic, I promoted a Patreon account and offered brief promotional messages in exchange for them being at a certain tier. Many are still paid for that way, but I’m no longer taking new ones.
Instead I have an ever-evolving media kit for a sponsorship package that’s received a few bites. I introduced a line at the top of the regular newsletter and am trying to measure how many people click. This media kit is currently available by request because I am very much still trying to figure out that system.
In any case, the real question is: Did I read all of this in the podcast version or did I say something else? You’ll just have to hit play!
