Two Vacant Manufacturing Plants Get Tenants

Published by Waldo Jaquith on March 20, 2011 in Business and Development. 8 Comments

There were a pair of stories from Bryan McKenzie in the Daily Progress last week that, hopefully, add up to a larger economic narrative. The area lost a lot of its admittedly small manufacturing base a decade ago, a result of NAFTA and manufacturing’s move to China. (Ix, Comdial, Technicolor, and Nimbus all come to mind readily.) Many hundreds of people were left unemployed, often with very specific sets of skills for which there were no reasonable replacements—a lot of these folks wound up, at best, underemployed. One of those was Comdial, which laid off its final 200 people in 2001. The company that bought the building wanted to turn it into a shopping mall, but that obviously never went anywhere.

Now comes the news that screen printer CustomInk.com is moving into the Comdial building, having been looking around for a facility to expand into. CustomInk.com is a custom, small-batch screen printer—you can submit a design online, and they’ll print and ship the shirts. They already have 32 employees in Albemarle, and intend to hire enough to get them up to about 100.

The other bit of good news is that the Coca-Cola bottling plant on Preston has a tenant: Indoor Biotechnologies, a local biotech company that specializes in allergens. They’re located on Harris Street now, so it’s a short move to their newly purchased building. Unlike the Comdial building, which sat idle for a decade, the Coke plant has only been out of commission since last year. Folks who have been in the building recently tell me that it’s an unusual building, since it was constructed explicitly for the purpose of bottling soda, receiving shipments of syrup, and sending out shipments of the finished product, meaning that it’s a bit too oddly laid out for most potential tenants. Apparently it’s right for Indoor Biotechnologies.

03/22 Update: The Comdial building is not entirely empty, it turns out—it was divided up. Googling for its address reveals a bunch of tenants: VAMAC, MSV, Roberts Home Medical, TransDigital, and Worrell Water Technologies all show up there. Although I imagine that CustomInk.com will be the largest single employer there, they’ll hardly be alone.

How to Make a FOIA Request

Published by Waldo Jaquith on March 17, 2011 in Government. 18 Comments

It’s Sunshine Week, that time each year when media outlets through the country remind their audiences of the importance of open government. (The Daily Progress editorialized on the topic on Tuesday.) I’d like to take this opportunity to get one simple message across about open government, and that’s this: All you have to do to find out something about government is ask.

Although it is a convenient shorthand phrase, there really is no such thing as “making a FOIA request.” Sure, Virginia has a Freedom of Information Act (here’s a detailed explanation of how it works), but it’s so simple that you don’t really need to know much about it. It says, simply, that when you ask a local or state unit of government for information, they’re obliged to provide it to you promptly. You don’t have to say “I’m filing a request under FOIA.” You don’t have to explain why you want it. You just have to ask. If you want the minutes from a committee meeting, if you want to know how much money was spent on a traffic improvement, if you want to know who got the contract to install new computers, you just have to ask. They have the right to tell you that your request is going to cost money—they can charge the actual cost associated with them providing that information. It’s best to submit requests in writing (e-mail is fine), so that you have a written record of the request. There are a whole mess of exemptions to FOIA: personnel records, administrative investigations, and security records, among others, but the government will be happy to inform you if your question can’t be answered.

I’ve submitted many requests to the city and the county over the past decade, and they’ve always been answered completely and promptly. The few that I’ve submitted to the state have likewise worked out just fine.

Still feeling nervous at the prospect of making a FOIA request? Check out these simple how-to videos about making a FOIA request in Virginia.

BoS Votes to Hold Property Taxes at Current Rate

Published by Waldo Jaquith on March 14, 2011 in Government, Politics and Taxes. 11 Comments

A divided Board of Supervisors has agreed not to raise real estate taxes, Brandon Shulleeta reports for the Progress. Although they haven’t set the rate, they have agreed to advertise a rate of 74.2¢, and in doing so they set a ceiling that they are not permitted to exceed.

Last year, Republican Duane Snow was part of the four-man majority that prevented the advertisement of a higher rate, but this year he switched sides, joining Ann Mallek and Dennis Rooker in wanting to advertise a 75.2¢ rate. With the remaining three members of the BoS refusing to compromise, the unlikely trio backed down. Snow pointed to low construction costs, saying that now is the time for the county to build the new library in Crozet, and to the state’s offer to match transportation construction funds, saying that we should put money towards improving roads.

By the county’s math, the decreased property assessments should leave most people paying $36 less in property taxes, assuming that the 74.2¢ rate becomes law. They’ll have a hearing about it in a couple of weeks.

Debbie Ryan Retiring

Published by Waldo Jaquith on March 12, 2011 in Sports. 2 Comments

After coaching UVA’s women’s basketball team for longer than I’ve been alive, Debbie Ryan is retiring at the end of the season, Jerry Ratcliffe reports for the Progress. Ryan took over as head coach in 1977, and in the intervening years she established a career record of winning 69% of games. The university is launching a nationwide search to find a replacement for her.

Charges Dropped Against Former Mayor

Published by Waldo Jaquith on March 3, 2011 in Law and Justice. 3 Comments

Assault charges against former mayor Frank Buck have been dismissed, the Daily Progress reports. He’d been accused of attempting to choke his own client while in court, but he and his (presumably former) client reached a settlement, allowing the judge to dismiss the charge. Buck says he intends to be more selective in his selection of clients.

Admittedly, this isn’t terribly exciting news, but I think that after reporting that somebody has been charged with a crime, if they’re acquitted or charges are dropped, that should probably get as much attention as the initial story.

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