Author Archive for Waldo Jaquith

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VPTC Blogging Panel

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 16, 2005 in Business. 7 Comments

I’ll be speaking at a Virginia Piedmont Technology Council panel on Thursday (tomorrow). The 90-minute lunch, “‘Casting for Customers,” is all about blogging and business. Sean Tubbs, Edward Cossette, Michael Prichard and I will talk about how businesses can embrace blogs, take part in the Charlottesville blogging community, and use it for the betterment of their business and of the blogosphere. (I wrote a little about this topic last month.)

The event runs from 11:30am – 1:00pm, is held at the Omni, and costs $30 for VPTC members and $40 for non-members. I encourage you to attend.

Experimental Albemarle School Board Podcast

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 16, 2005 in Education and Politics. 1 Comment

Two and a half years ago, I address City Council, proposing that they have a podcast of Council meetings. Of course, we didn’t have the word “podcast” then, so I settled for describing it as a web-based archive of MP3s of each Council session. Nothing happened, of course, but a fella gets used to that.

So, naturally, Brian Wheeler has picked up the ball and run with it. As a one-shot effort, working with Sean Tubbs, he’s created a podcast of the October 27 Albemarle School Board meeting. Brian writes:

I do not plan to create additional Podcasts of the meetings I am participating in, but I hope this will serve as an example that might motivate others in the community to help us get our public meetings available on the Internet. While the City of Charlottesville is able to broadcast their School Board meetings on local cable TV, the County of Albemarle has no similar capability. Podcasting, whether done officially by the School Board or by interested citizens or students, would be a great public service project.

Some business whose customers consist of adults with school-aged children would do well to sponsor an ongoing podcast of Albemarle School Board meetings, putting a brief promotional message for their business at the beginning of each podcast.

Municipal podcasts are useful for a great many reasons, but the two that really stand out are that meetings become more accessible, and a permanent archive of past meetings is created. Both of these are really valuable, certainly more valuable than the cost of putting together such podcasts.

Since City Council isn’t likely to do this anytime soon, it would be great if somebody could TiVo each Charlottesville City Council meeting, MP3 the audio, and turn that into a podcast. I bet Charlottesville Podcasting would even host the audio.

Albemarle Again Backs the Dem.

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 10, 2005 in Politics. 15 Comments

When Republican Jim Gilmore won his 1997 race against Democrat Don Beyer, he did so with 54% of Albemarle’s votes. But in 2001, when Democrat Mark Warner won his race against Republican Mark Earley, Albemarle had switched to supporting the Democrat by a 56% majority. The trend continued with Tuesday’s election, with Democratic Governor Elect Tim Kaine garnering a surprising 61% of the vote, significantly more than his 52% victory statewide.

Part of this can be attributed to population growth, though part of this can also be attributed to the leadership of the Albemarle Republican Party, which is one of the more far right in the state, something that has got to impact involvement.

Surprisingly, the results in Greene County didn’t change at all from 2001. I’d assumed that, with more Charlottesville and Albemarle residents moving to the surrounding counties (where property is affordable), we’d see a spike in support for Democratic candidates, but there was no such effect.

In today’s Daily Progress, Bob Gibson writes about this trend in Albemarle and in counties around the state.

Election Results

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 8, 2005 in Politics. 12 Comments

Democratic Lt. Governor Tim Kaine won big, defeating Republican Jerry Kilgore. Republican Bill Bolling squeaked out a victory against Democrat Leslie Byrne for Lt. Governor. And, as of this writing, the attorney general’s race is up in the air, too close to call, but it’s trending towards a very narrow victory for Republican Bob McDonnell over Charlottesville Senator Creigh Deeds.

Local House of Delegates races put Democrat David Toscano over Republican Tom McCrystal by a landslide and Republican Del. Rob Bell kept his seat with 56% against challenger Steve Koleszar.

On the Board of Supervisors, Dennis Rooker easily fended off Republican Christian Schoenwald, besting him by a 3:1 margin. David Slutzky pulled off a shockingly strong victory over Republican Gary Grant and independent Tom “Dr. J.” Jakubowski (seriously, that’s how he’s listed on the ballot) in the Rio District with 58% of the vote in what can only be described as a rallying endorsement of growth restrictions in the county.

Finally, the elected school board referendum passed in Charlottesville easily, by nearly a 3:1 margin.

Pre-Election Discussion

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 7, 2005 in Politics. 14 Comments

I’ve never created a story just for for the purpose of discussion, but it was suggested, and I think it’s a good idea.

So, tomorrow’s elections. We’ve got several BoS seats, constitutional officers, several HoD seats, several school board seats, and the statewide races. Any predictions as to who is going to win, and by how much? What issues will decide the race? Who will pull ahead in the Rio race and why?

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