Monthly Archive for April, 2008

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Rob Bell Won’t Run for AG

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 14, 2008 in Politics. 18 Comments

Del. Rob Bell has often been cited as a likely contender for attorney general in the 2009 election, largely on the basis of his sizeable war chest, an artifact of going without a serious challenger in his tailor-made Republican district (in which I live). Now Bell tells Bob Gibson that he won’t be running for AG, citing his impending second child as a higher priority. Of course, there’s nothing keeping him from changing his mind: Paul Harris, who used to hold Bell’s seat, declared on March 10 that he wasn’t running for AG, only to announce precisely the opposite fifteen days later.

Democrats had hoped that a distracted Bell would either retire from his seat in order to run for AG (unlikely) or simply be unable to defend his own seat, and lose it to a centrist challenger. Straight-up running against him isn’t likely to get Dems real far. As Will Goldsmith explained in C-Ville Weekly last month, Bell works hard and gets a lot done. Though a lot of folks might not like what he gets done, neither corruption nor laziness exist to provide a purchase for prying him out of his seat.

County Sets $0.71 Tax Rate

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 10, 2008 in Politics and Taxes. 2 Comments

Albemarle County set a $0.71 real estate tax rate last night, Jeremy Borden writes in today’s Progress. It was 4-2, and you know how that vote broke down. That’s a $0.03 increase over the current rate, and precisely the same as the $0.71 ceiling that the BoS recently set. That leaves the county with a $334.7M budget.

Homeless Population Climbs

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 8, 2008 in General News. 54 Comments

The local homeless population is climbing, Seth Rosen writes in today’s Progress. 292 people in the area are now homeless, an increase from 266 this time last year. A different study, conducted by local schools, has found that the number of homeless children has climbed from 303 to 354. Half of the homeless folks surveyed say that they were evicted or simply couldn’t afford increased rent costs.

And before somebody drags out the long-discredited claim that Charlottesville is some sort of a magnet for the homeless, remember that it just ain’t true. 63% of the local homeless population here is from here, and 23% are from other parts of Virginia. That means that the homeless are way, way more likely to be from here than you are.

South Street Teardown

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 7, 2008 in Development. 12 Comments

Dave McNair writes in The Hook:

The Blue Moon Fund is getting ready to demolish a 13-year-old apartment building on its property at 222 South Street to make way for a new 6,800-square-foot conference center. But an adjoining property owner wonders why the philanthropic organization dedicated to “new economic, cultural, and environmental approaches to resource use, energy use, and urban development” didn’t take him up on his proposal to save landfill space by simply letting him move the building next door.

Tearing down a structure to build an environmentally friendly one is like…uh…help me out here. Pushing your poodle out of a moving car to save a mutt from the SPCA? Selling your child to organ thieves to foster another one? Hacking off a limb to replace it with a less calorically-demanding carbon fiber prosthetic?

Pick a CSA, Any CSA

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 2, 2008 in Agriculture. 21 Comments

It’s that time of year when a young man’s thoughts turn to picking out a Community Supported Agriculture program. Like many cvillenews.com readers, I’ve gone with Horse and Buggy Produce (not a true CSA, but more of a local farming aggregator for farmers who don’t want to run their own CSA) for the past couple of years, and ought to get off my duff and sign up again. And many friends speak highly of Best of What’s Around. For a review of all of the options, Cathy Clary provides a listing of seven area farms and explains the concept in the current C-Ville Weekly, while Erika Howsare airs some sour grapes about Horse and Buggy from local farmers.

The schtick, for those who aren’t familiar, is that you pay a big chunk of change up front — $150-$675 — to a local farmer to pick up a big box of fruits, vegetables, flowers, grains and herbs every week. They’re often (but not necessarily) organic, and “local” might mean grown right in Albemarle or from as far afield as the valley. Some CSAs require that you pitch in a few hours to help work on the farm. And some will let you pay extra for a weekly bonus supply of beef, chicken, unpasteurized milk or flowers. (I did the chicken and milk last year, and now I’m totally ruined.)

Now’s your chance to convince people to discover that Mexican stuff they’re buying at Food Lion is crap. Does anybody want to offer any specific recommendations for a CSA?

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