Author Archive for Waldo Jaquith

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Downtown Just About Rented Out

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 20, 2009 in In Brief. 7 Comments

The city says that 94% of retail space on the Downtown Mall is rented. I wonder if that’s by square feet or by units?  #

Volunteer Farm to Help Stock Food Bank

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 20, 2009 in Agriculture. Closed

The World Foundation for Children is setting up a volunteer-run farm in Culpeper County to provide meat and vegetables to the Charlottesville branch of the Blue Ridge Food Bank, Nate Delesline III writes in the Culpeper Star-Exponent. The organization has leased 100 acres for the next decade. They plan to start small, growing ten acres of potatoes, and move up from there. A couple of similar projects have been underway in the Shenandoah Valley for a while now, run by the same organization, reputedly with great success.

AHS Loses One of Its Turf Donors

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 20, 2009 in In Brief. Closed

AHS’ secret corporate turf donor has backed out, citing the housing market.  #

Efficiency Study Makes C’ville Recommendations

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 18, 2009 in Government. 12 Comments

UVa’s Weldon Cooper Center has released the results of their efficiency study of the city government, Rachana Dixit writes in the Progress, and has recommended a series of ways that Charlottesville can save money without reducing the quality of government. One recommendation is to take another look at school funding, which has increased substantially per pupil in the past decade. Interestingly, the study found that Charlottesville’s staffing levels are pretty lean—save for the police and social services, which are at appropriate levels—which is the same conclusion drawn in the efficiency study of Albemarle, which was done by a totally different organization. It’s also recommended that some taxes and fees be increased slightly, including taking the personal property tax rate from 4.2% to 4.28%, which would match Albemarle’s rate.

You can read the study itself (2.5MB PDF) for the full details.

Furloughs at Area Businesses

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 18, 2009 in Business and Meta News. 8 Comments

GE Fanuc and The Daily Progress are both furloughing employees to save money. The Progress reports on their own furloughs, writing that employees will have to take ten days off without pay in the coming months, with the paper’s offices closing on those days, but “the paper will continue to be produced and delivered each morning without interruption.” It’s tough to see how the staff is supposed to put out a decent paper the following day but, then, Media General’s cost-savings efforts have generally involved doing things that will make their product worse. GE Fanuc is furloughing their employees for two weeks, Brian McNeill writes in the Daily Progress, leaving 300 employees—half of their workforce—on unemployment for a couple of weeks. They will, however, continue to receive benefits.

There’s word of layoffs at LexisNexis, though unconfirmed, with an anonymous commenter (anonymous to you, not me) explaining that it’s of “temps”, though some of those temps have been working there for many years in the manner of full-time employees, so presumably LexisNexis doesn’t have to call them “layoffs.” The company has been gradually laying people off for months, rather than canning a bunch of people at the same time. That’s got to make it a grim place to work.