Monthly Archive for January, 2010

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Library Considering Closing Crozet, Scottsville Branches

Published by Waldo Jaquith on January 19, 2010 in Education, Government, Politics and Taxes. 22 Comments

The Jefferson Madison Regional Library is looking at closing their Scottsville and Crozet locations, Hawes Spencer writes for The Hook. In a press conference yesterday, the chair of the Library Board of Trustees said that if Albemarle County cuts their budget by just 5%, the Scottsville library will get the axe; with a 10% cut, Crozet will fall, too. County staff has recommended that the library simply cut their hours to 40 per week (less than six hours per day), but board chair Tony Townsend objected, writing in a press release that “forty hours per week of library service is less than that supported in Virginia’s poorest counties.” Library director John Halliday says that it’s just not practical to cut hours more—the savings there comes from cutting salaries, and they can’t recruit competent staff on such limited pay and hours. The Crozet and Scottsville branches are only open eight hours a day, six days a week as it is. The library system has long needed to expand the tiny Crozet branch, the fourth-busiest branch in the whole JMRL system; instead, they may be closing it. Note that Albemarle is the only municipality in the five served by JMRL that’s planning on cutting library funding.

JMRL has been pretty patient in the decade that I’ve been watching them, quietly watching as their physical infrastructure crumbles, simply appreciating the funding that they do get. It looks to me like they just aren’t willing to take it anymore. The timing is tough for the two newest members of the Board of Supervisors, Duane Snow and Rodney Thomas, both of whom ran on cutting spending and taxes—given that the library already has pretty limited hours, relies strongly on volunteers, and has foregone essential maintenance for years now, mantras like “zero-based budgeting” have little to offer what is fundamentally a political problem. It’ll be interesting to see how they handle this, their first government spending test.

Local Media Forum Successful, May Be Repeated

Published by Waldo Jaquith on January 14, 2010 in Business, Meta News and Site News. 7 Comments
Local Media Forum

Tuesday night’s forum on the future of local print media went really very well. There were something like 85 people there, but it was tough to get a count, because the space was so overfilled. Dozens of people stood for an hour and a half and didn’t complain once, which was very generous. Our speakers were engaging and interesting, the audience had great questions, and I think everybody had a good time. (The Daily Progress’ Josh Barney was a clear crowd favorite. That guy should go on the lecture circuit.) But the whole affair left most people wanting more—a display of hands at the end showed that about 80% of the audience wanted to do this again soon, which surprised the heck out of me. I’d love to hear from folks about what they’d like a follow-up event to focus on, what should be done differently, what should be done the same, and who they’d like to hear speak. I’m grateful to everybody for coming out, to Left of Center for co-hosting this with cvillenews.com, and to all four of our speakers for their willingness to participate.

Sean Tubbs recorded the event for posterity, and you can listen on the Charlottesville Podcasting Network website.

BoS Talks Development

Published by Waldo Jaquith on January 14, 2010 in Development, Government and Politics. 7 Comments

The post-election debate over the future of the county continued at yesterday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Brandon Shulleeta writes in the Progress today. In a far-ranging, intelligent-sounding conversation, the two factions on the BoS squared off about whether Albemarle needs to keep growing. While conservative members of the board are looking to turn Wendell Wood’s bought-cheap rural land along Route 29 into valuable growth area land, the liberal members of the board argue that with so many empty storefronts throughout the area, adding more retail space would just make the problem worse. (Albemarle Square is close to having tumbleweeds blowing through it; Fashion Square appears to be letting just about anybody rent a space these days.) Ann Mallek pointed out that there’s something like 2,500,000 square feet of new retail already approved for construction; Ken Boyd countered that the reason that they’re not getting built is because of too much regulation. (Never mind the recession.) No decisions were reached, leaving county staff unsure of how to proceed, and the board intends to pick up the discussion again at an upcoming meeting.

These discussions might strike some folks as a bit tired, but it’s not often that the BoS talks in such a direct, broad way about issues of growth and transportation. With the board at a transition point, politically speaking, the result of these talks may shape the area in the years to come.

Reminder: Local Media Forum Tonight

Published by Waldo Jaquith on January 12, 2010 in Meta News and Site News. 3 Comments

Here’s your day-of reminder: the cvillenews.com / Left of Center future of local print media forum is tonight, at Rapture, at 7:00 PM. Based on the RSVPs, it looks like this going to be packed. Given the planned candid talk by editors from three local publications, alcohol, free tasty foods from Rapture, and lots of good company, I can see why. RSVP on Facebook or, hey, just show up.

BoS Takes a Turn to the Right

Published by Waldo Jaquith on January 11, 2010 in Business. 14 Comments

The Board of Supervisors is already taking a sharp turn to the right under its new conservative majority, Brandon Shulleeta wrote in yesterday’s Daily Progress. Saying that the county is insufficiently friendly to businesses, they passed a resolution in support of a six-point action plan, apparently based on the recent campaign promises of Duane Snow and Rodney Thomas, that includes making economic development “the top fiscal priority” for the county, directing county staff to work with the Chamber of Commerce, a private pro-business organization, “to develop a plan…to significantly increase non-personal tax revenues…[without] increased taxes to our business community.” (Charlottesville Tomorrow provides an account of the meeting, complete with audio.) The resolution passed along ideological lines, with Ann Mallek and Dennis Rooker dissenting.

As evidence of the county’s anti-business attitude, local developer Wendell Wood complains that the county wouldn’t approve the development of a new Walmart directly next to the existing Walmart, a project that would have required spending $25M to build a bridge across the Rivanna River just to be able to get to it, and it would have meant rezoning Wood’s functionally worthless rural Hollymead land into super-valuable commercial land, basically handing him millions of dollars in land value. Wood laments the loss of the $9M that Walmart was prepared to put up to defray the cost, but no word on where the other $16M was supposed to come from. Supervisor Ken Boyd says that he wants to reconsider providing that giveaway to Wood. Which would appear to be exactly the opposite of the stated goal of reducing taxes. Elections have consequences, and a more conservative BoS is perfectly sensible, but this is the kind of stuff that gives politicians a bad name.

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