Cville Tomorrow News

O’Connell has served city well

1/31/2010 * Daily Progress Editorial [full story]

City Manager Gary O’Connell has handed Charlottesville City Council a big job: Finding a replacement.

Mr. O’Connell will become the executive director of the Albemarle County Service Authority come May, ending nearly three decades in city management. His tenure with Charlottesville has been exemplary.

Mr. O’Connell was chosen as city government’s top executive in 1995 upon the retirement of Cole Hendrix, having served as deputy city manager for the preceding 14 years.

Water main break forces officials to issue boil order

1/26/2010 * Daily Progress [full story]

Albemarle County officials are warning some residents to boil their tap water or risk becoming ill.

Warnings were hand-delivered to residents’ homes Tuesday morning after a water main broke late Monday night, according to the Albemarle County Service Authority. Resi-dents in the Camelot, Briarwood and North Pines subdivisions may have potentially hazardous water, officials said.

“It’s really a precautionary kind of thing. Rivanna had a water main break and part of the system had very low pressure,” said Gary Fern, the service authority’s executive director. “The concern is when the system loses pressure — and in some areas where you lose water completely — there’s a chance for bacteria to form.”

Chamber luncheon to focus on water plan

1/26/2010 * Daily Progress [full story]

While critics have called for new studies and alterations to the area’s community water plan, the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce continues to support the plan as it is, officials say.

The water plan is the focus of the chamber’s 2010 Community Issues Luncheon on Thursday and officials will outline exactly what the plan entails. The luncheon will also provide Mayor Dave Norris a chance to discuss the city’s concerns with the plan, which was approved by a previous City Council.

“The chamber is an advocate for the community water plan, and we’ve been an advocate for many years,” said Tim Hulbert, chamber president and chief executive. “The plan was approved by the City Council, [Albemarle County’s] Board of Supervisors and state and federal regulatory agencies. It has all of the permits to go forward. It provides a water supply for the future and has been reviewed and accepted.”

Rural land coffers grow in Albemarle

1/26/2010 * Daily Progress [full story]

Albemarle County added nearly 11,500 acres in 2009 to the county’s stock of preserved rural land, according to figures released Tuesday.

The county often preserves rural land through conservation easements, as well as a land-use program in which residents receive tax breaks for temporarily committing to maintain land as agricultural, forestry or open space property.

Of the 11,500 preserved acres, 3,800 were permanently protected in the rural area through conservation easements, bringing the total acreage of conservation easements in Albemarle County to more than 81,000. Other property will remain rural acreage for at least four to 10 years, as part of the terms of the county’s land-use tax breaks.

Plans to pave Amtrak lot set

1/26/2010 * Daily Progress [full story]

The large gravel parking lot next to Charlottesville’s Amtrak station is likely headed for a smoother fate, according to those involved with paving negotiations.

“They have told us they intend to do it,” Jim Tolbert, director of the city’s Neighborhood Development Services, said Tuesday.

The bumpy lot at the corner of West Main and Seventh streets, on the eastern side of the train station, has been the subject of several different area groups’ attention — including businesses along West Main Street, the city government and backers of the new Amtrak passenger rail service that began in October. All of those parties, whether only recently or for years, have been imploring for the lot to be paved over with asphalt, whether it be to help customer traffic into businesses or to encourage rail ridership.

In jobs we trust?

1/26/2010 * C-Ville Weekly [full story]

Local leaders are pumped that high-paying government work is coming to Albemarle County. But Will the Defense Intelligence Agency payoff match the promise?

O Dear Citizen of Albemarle, I know you’re excited. The Defense Intelligence Agency is here.

We’ve been hearing about them for years: Eight-hundred twenty-eight employees descending on Albemarle County like a swarm of locusts. But these locusts will be a boon, not a plague, sowing a luscious bounty. In the words of the wise men of business:
 
“I think [the DIA] is going to be a real shot in the arm for us,” Michael Harvey, president of the Thomas Jefferson Partnership for Economic Development, told the Daily Progress this fall. “Something like this, creating good, high-paying jobs, is really good for the community. I think [the DIA] will bring more to this community than people can imagine.”
 
“This is the kind of development and economic improvement that every community in this country would just die to have coming to their area,” said Leonard Sandridge, UVA’s chief operating officer, in November. “Whether I’ve got my University of Virginia hat on or I’ve got my regional hat on, I think this is something we all need to be paying attention to. We need to do everything we can to take advantage of what is a very, very good opportunity to all of us.”

County reductions would close JMRL branches in Scottsville, Crozet

1/26/2010 * C-Ville Weekly [full story]

Budget books to shut library doors?


As Albemarle County whittles away at a budget, community relations director Lee Catlin wrote last week in a press release that the county asked multiple community agencies “to assess the impacts of a five-percent and 10-percent funding reduction from the County.” The same day, Jefferson-Madison Regional Library Board President Anthony Townsend called a press conference at the Central Library and reported that a 10-percent cut in county funding would close both the Scottsville and Crozet library branches.

“Per capita library use here is 19 percent higher than in comparable communities across America,” read Townsend from a prepared statement. He added, however, that “Albemarle County’s library support is $33.74 per capita,” roughly $1.50 lower than the state average.
 
Why the branch closures? While the county and city split funding for every other library branch based on their circulation shares, Scottsville and Crozet are funded solely by the county. The JMRL’s projected FY2011 cost for Scottsville is $178,454. Based on the JMRL’s numbers, a five-percent overall budget cut would total $158,657—leaving Scottsville with less than $20,000.

Van der Linde agrees to pay $600,000 in settlement

1/26/2010 * C-Ville Weekly [full story]

Did Peter van der Linde fight the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority into a settlement stalemate of sorts, or vice versa? This much we know: Months after the RSWA filed an amended complaint against the recycling center director to the tune of a $30 million racketeering charge, the RSWA came to settlement terms last week with van der Linde, who agreed to pay the RSWA a sum of $600,000 over the next five years.
 
“With an attempt of this nature, to reach a settlement, all parties involved have to look at things from their own interests,” says Tom Frederick, Executive Director of the RSWA. “It turned out that, through discussions, we were able to find mutual interests, and were able to agree on the terms of the settlement.”
 
The $600,000 price tag may ultimately be a less expensive bandage for van der Linde; City Councilor and RSWA Board member David Brown told C-VILLE that van der Linde was accused of “intentionally not paying as much as a million dollars in fees due to Rivanna.” The RSWA’s case against van der Linde was slated to go before Charlottesville Federal Court in June, when van der Linde’s payments will now begin.

University Limited to turn Alcove condos into 31-roomer

1/26/2010 * C-Ville Week [full story]

Hotel, added traffic coming to 14th Street?


With the Landmark Hotel still serving as the city’s largest monument to failed accomodations, it bears asking whether Charlottesville needs another hotel, no matter the size. Then again, for Whit Graves, maybe size matters after all.
 
Last week, Graves brought early—very early—site plans for a 31-room hotel on student-mobbed 14th Street to the Board of Architectural Review (BAR) and Neighborhood Development Services (NDS). The site, 207 14th Street, is currently home to The Alcove, a 21-unit condo assessed at $2.2 million and completely owned by University Limited LLC—Graves, his mother and his uncle.
 
At the BAR meeting, member Brian Hogg criticized the plan’s “lack of articulation,” a comment that was echoed by a few other members. Given the sloppy student foot-traffic around 14th Street, the most pressing questions for Graves concerned traffic flow, from around a 15th Street entrance and valet to the Wertland Street garage, and maintaining public sidewalks on 14th Street, along what will be a pedestrian entrance to the hotel.

Norris sees opportunity to establish housing fund

1/24/2010 * Daily Progress [full story]

The third time could be the charm for Mayor Dave Norris’ desire to establish a dedicated affordable housing fund in Charlottesville’s budget, ensuring that such programs would always be financed.

“Now that we have a new council, it’s going to come forward in some form or fashion,” Norris said.

The mayor’s push for such a fund has not been a secret. Norris campaigned on creating a dedicated affordable housing fund that would be financed with local revenues when he first ran for the council in 2006, and he tried to convince his fellow councilors to support the idea in 2008, shortly after he was chosen as mayor for the first time.