Author Archive for Waldo Jaquith

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Revenue Sharing Agreement Debated Again

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 9, 2010 in Politics and Taxes. 18 Comments

The city and county are back to fighting about their decades-old revenue sharing deal, Rachana Dixit and Brandon Shulleeta wrote in the Progress on Sunday. (I’ve had no power, telephone line, or mobile phone service; now that I’m in a hotel, I’m catching up.) The more conservative members of the Board of Supervisors want to eliminate the deal, in which a chunk of the county’s taxes go to paying the city, in exchange for the city not annexing any of the county’s land. The BoS doesn’t want the city to expand (which would have a much greater impact on their coffers than revenue sharing), but they also don’t want to keep paying—they just want to back out of the contract while getting the best of both worlds, or at least renegotiate it on friendlier terms. City Council has no interest in such a change, although annexation would likely be of enormous financial benefit to the city.

The county’s taxation rate of real estate is 74.2¢ per $100 of assessed value, while the city’s is at 95¢, Councilor Satyendra Huja points out, so it’s not like the county is helpless to generate more revenue. The city also emphasizes that the payments—$18M this year—go to projects of regional benefit, such as the bus system, parks, county fire stations, affordable housing, and the recycling center.

Snowmageddon Photos

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 6, 2010 in Transportation and Weather. 2 Comments

I just had to drive from Stony Point to Airport Road and back again, and my wife took some photos along the way during the two-hour journey. If you’re wondering how things look in 20N, Proffit Road, 29N, or Airport Road, here are some snapshots.

Folks are starting to upload their snow photos to the Charlottesville Flickr group, too, so flip through that for some images from across town. And, if you put photos on Flickr, join the group add your own pictures!

Snowmageddon (aka snOMG) is Upon Us

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 4, 2010 in Weather. 52 Comments

The National Weather Service is calling for 20–28″ of snow over the next couple of days, beginning around dawn tomorrow. While this is less than the December Snowpocalypse, after the snow that we got a couple of days ago and the snow that we got a couple of days before that, we’re basically all dreading it at this point. Schools are closed in the city and the county, UVA has (quite unusually) declared that they’re shut down tomorrow to all but essential staff, and VDOT has signs up along 29 declaring that conditions are going to be very dangerous, encouraging people to stay off the roads. Where things will get tricky is tomorrow afternoon and evening, when the heaviest snowfall is slated to coincide with strong winds, which will—in the words of the NWS—”make travel very hazardous or nearly impossible.” If we’re lucky, this will all come down in the form of snow, as is forecast; if some of this turns into ice, we’re headed for a very unpleasant next few days.

If you don’t have a shovel, and if you’re not stocked up on food, well, too late. If you do wind up stranded in your car, or in a house getting dangerously cold without heat, then knock on a stranger’s door and ask for help rather than freeze to death. At home tonight, round up your batteries, flashlights, weather radio, sleeping bags, candles, etc., and prepare for the worst while hoping for the best. If you’re feeling anxious, do some panic-cooking so that you’ll have some vittles while the power’s out. Bring the cat inside. Basically, expect to spend the next 3-4 days huddled around our collective internet-based hearth on your favorite local blogs, Facebook, etc. If we’re lucky, the power will stay on, and that hearth will be purely virtual.

With the last big storm, the best outlets for regular updates about the outside world came from The Daily Progress on Twitter, CBS-19 on Twitter, and The Hook’s blog, so folks hungry for information might check there for the best updates.

USPS to Shutter Processing Facility

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 2, 2010 in Business. 51 Comments
USPS Distribution Facility
The USPS Distribution Facility on Airport Rd.

The USPS is shutting down the Charlottesville mail processing facility, NBC 29 reports. They announced in August that they were going to conduct a study of whether they should scale it back, and then, to nobody’s surprise, announced in October that they’d be consolidating some services, but wouldn’t say the extent to which they’d be curtailing local services. (All of this after they’d built a new sorting facility in Sandston, east of Richmond, raising significant doubts as to whether they’d ever intended retain the C’ville location.) It turns out that they’re just going to shut it down entirely. Officially, there will be no layoffs, because the USPS will offer people jobs at this or another location; those who cannot sell their house in this market to move, or who won’t make the eighty-mile each-way commute through Richmond traffic, will be judged to have quit.

City, County Property Assessments Decline

Published by Waldo Jaquith on January 30, 2010 in Government and Taxes. 16 Comments

Assessments are in for Charlottesville and for Albemarle, Rachana Dixit and Brandon Shulleeta report for the Daily Progress, and the trend is strongly downward.

For the first time since 1976, there’s been a decline in Charlottesville home values—a 2.19% drop—plus a 0.34% drop in commercial property values. That adds up to a $175k drop in city revenue, assuming a stable tax rate, which isn’t bad. Last year, home values went up 1% in the city, despite the national trend.

Albemarle home values dropped by 4%, while commercial properties dropped by 0.64%—basically the same ratio that the city saw. That’s not as bad as the county planned. With the current property tax rate at 74.2¢ per $100 of assessed value (that is, a 0.742% tax on property value), they’d have to take the rate up to 76.6¢ to keep revenue stable. Given the opposition to a tax increase among the Republican majority on the board—they support keeping the rate at the current rate—that’s going to mean a a 3.2% decrease in spending based on that income.

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