April 7, 2025: Halifax County Supervisors to hear from Treasurer after citizen complaints in March
Plus: Budget work session in Albemarle, budget public hearing in Louisa County, and injunction filed to stop one in Charlottesville
A rainy start to the day and the week but this has washed the pollen away. This weekend I managed to pull out all the creeping vines taking over the bushes that are about to bloom right in front of my window. I’m ready for the season and ready to get going with another week of writing about what’s coming up in meetings across Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District.
Halifax County Supervisors to hear details on spongy month treatments
The eight member Board of Supervisors in Halifax County meet tonight at 6:30 p.m. in the County Administration Building at 1050 Mary Bethune Street in Halifax. (agenda packet)
Halifax County prints the Standards of Conduct for elected officials and appointed official in every agenda packet.
“Persons holding a position of public trust are under constant observation by the media and interested County residents,” reads a portion of the full list.
There are five presentations:
Ruth Oakes will make a presentation from the Treasurer’s office. According to the minutes from the March 3, 2025 meeting, three residents complained about service. Supervisors immediately scheduled a presentation for this meeting.
Ben Templeton of the Virginia Department of Agricultural and Consumer Services will make a presentation on Spongy Moth Treatments scheduled for May and June. Here’s more information on the VDACS page. Also read page 75 for specifics about how aircraft will be used to spread the treatment.
The company Energy Right is presenting an award to Halifax County as its County of the Year for a “responsible solar development approach.” (learn more)
Dwight Spangler will present on the annual “Crossing of the Dan” celebrated every February to commemorate an event that “turned the tide of the American revolution.” Learn more on the Halifax County Historical Society’s website.
The Virginia Department of Transportation will present the Secondary Road Six Year Plan. (learn more)
There are six items under new business.
There is a vote on a conditional use permit for a 197-foot tall monopole wireless telecommunications tower in Election District #7. (learn more)
There is a vote on a rezoning permit from a property from Agricultural-1 to Residential-2 to construct two multi-family dwellings. (learn more)
There is an item with the title “Local Government Guarantee for SSRPSA” and this is for the county’s participation in a regional landfill operated by the Southside Regional Public Service Authority. The current document filed with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality is outdated. (learn more)
There is a resolution to accept two community development block grants from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. One is $1.25 million from Riverdale Drive. Another is $60,000 for Memorial Drive. There’s also a memorandum of understanding for Southside Planning District Commission related to services at Memorial Drive. (learn more)
There will be a discussion of a request for proposals for legal services. Sands Anderson was the only respondent. That firm is also providing legal services for the City of Charlottesville on a temporary basis. (learn more)
Then there will be a a resolution to schedule the budget public hearing for FY2026 for May 5, 2025. The tax levy public hearing was held on March 18.
There are two items under pending business including staff updates and a discussion of a tanker truck for the Midway Volunteer Fire Department. (learn more on the latter)
There are four items under consideration in the closed session including a potential acquisition or disposition of public property. One thing I like about how Halifax County does this is that they list the full closed session moments and tell you if there will be a vote afterward.
Supervisors will next meet on April 15 with a joint work session with the Planning Commission.
Charlottesville City Council scheduled to hold public hearing on 2025 tax rates but an injunction has been filed seeking a delay
The Charlottesville City Council will meet at 4 p.m for a work session with one single topic followed by a regular meeting at 6:30 p.m. Will there be a closed session in between? There’s no specific resolution in the packet, so we’ll find out tomorrow. (meeting overview)
For months, Charlottesville City Manager Sam Sanders has been promising Council they will get to see a transition plan to get the city to become compliant with the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act.
“This work session will provide the City Council with an informational update on drafting the City's updated ADA Transition Plan and gather critical feedback and questions on the draft document from the elected body and the public,” reads the staff report. “Once finalized, the updated transition plan will not only serve as a comprehensive assessment of existing accessibility gaps but also as a strategic roadmap for prioritizing investments and guiding the implementation of necessary accessibility improvements.”
I’m unclear at publication time on whether the actual draft plan is available for review but I know there is one reader who will let me know. Here is the city’s ADA transition plan website which hasn’t been updated since April 2024.
The regular session begins at 6:30 p.m. and there are several items on the consent agenda.
The first is a series of minutes from the budget work sessions as well as the March 17, 2025 meeting. I made a choice to document Albemarle’s budget development over Charlottesville’s seeing how there is only one of me. I wish I had time to do it all, but for now I rely on the March 13, 2025 minutes to give me a sense of one budget work session. March 17, 2025 was the first budget public hearing and you can get a sense of who said what here. There’s also two pages of minutes from the March 27, 2025 budget work session and so I think I’ll have to write that one up. I’m particularly interested in hearing the discussion on transit funding.
The second is a second reading on allocations from the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund. I’ve got a story from the first reading from March 17, 2025 but there’s also the staff report.
The third is for Council’s approval of a special exception permit under the city’s new Development Code. This one is related to a build-to line for a studio to be built at 1114 East High Street. The Planning Commission recommended approval on March 11, 2025. (staff report)
The fourth is for Council’s approval of a special exception permit under the city’s new Development. This one is related to another accessory building but at 1418 Emmet Street. (staff report)
The fifth is to accept more funding from the Virginia Department of Transportation for an intersection improvement project at Monticello and 2nd Street. The staff report doesn’t have a lot of information about this project except that VDOT has identified more funding. A second attachment describes that the project will involve construction of “curb extensions at intersections to increase visibility of pedestrians and reduce the crossing distance” and to build a “bus stop in way to encourage passengers entering and existing [sic] bus to cross behind bus to allow bus to safely enter travel stream when break in traffic.” I could not find a description of this project on VDOT’s Culpeper District page.
The written report from City Manager Sam Sanders states that an announcement will soon be made regarding a new city attorney. The city has been without someone in the position for a full year since Jacob Stroman was at first placed on leave in April 2024 and then resigned as soon as he was exonerated.
On Friday, Charlottesville resident Jim Moore filed an emergency motion in Charlottesville Circuit Court seeking a temporary injunction to postpone the public hearing for the tax rates for calendar year 2025. In his complaint, Moore alleges that City Council Clerk Kyna Thomas did not post a notice in the appropriate location in City Council.
Is this enough to cause a further delay? If Moore’s suit has merit, was there just no one in City Hall to check? The public hearing has already been delayed once due to an advertising error on the part of the Charlottesville Daily Progress. I’ll know more on Moore’s motion Monday and how that process will work. The case # is CL25000277-00 for anyone playing at home. (still don’t have
For the moment, let’s assume the public hearing is still on. City Manager Sam Sanders’ budget is not based on an increase in the real estate tax rate but the lowered tax rate required to bring in the same amount of real property tax revenue is $0.9128 per $100 of assessed value. Virginia Code requires this figure to be advertised in a public notice, but it is not mandated to be in a staff report or the budget itself. (tax rate public hearing staff report)
The second public hearing is on the budget itself. Council would not actually adopt the budget until a special meeting on April 14 but will the injunction be successful? (staff report)
For a broad background on the Charlottesville budget process, take a look at my thorough coverage over the past several years over at Information Charlottesville.
Next up is the second reading of the Parks and Recreation Master Plan. That’s a story I believe has been underreported in light of the $78 million price tag as well as a decided lack of information about regional coordination with Albemarle County or the University of Virginia. (staff report)
Finally there will be a presentation on the general operations plan for the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau. There’s no staff report, but this seems like the kind of thing that would have been a work session at 4 p.m. (read the document)
Council will return on April 10 for a budget work session.
Louisa County Supervisors to hold public hearing on $190.6M budget for FY2026
The seven-member Louisa County Board of Supervisors will meet a little earlier than usual at 4 p.m. for a work session on the Virginia Department of Transportation’s Secondary Six Year Plan. That’s the planning document for funds that mostly go to the paving of rural roads. They’ll meet in the Louisa County Public Meeting Room. (agenda with no information)
The regular meeting begins at 5 p.m. when they go into closed session. The closed session motion is not included in the agenda. (meeting packet)
I may not say this enough, but if you really want to know about Louisa County, check out Tammy Purcell’s Engage Louisa newsletter.
The public hearing for the real property tax rate was held on March 17, 2025 and the minutes contain testimony from many who are concerned about the increase in assessments in Louisa County. (read the minutes)
There are several items on the consent agenda worth noting.
There is a resolution to authorize additional federal and state funds for the Louisa County Department of Human Services. (learn more)
The Sheriff’s Department is seeking permission to apply for a Byrne Justice Assistance Grant of $51,830.28 from the U.S. Department of Justice to pay for the replacement of 15 in-car laptop computers. The county would contribute a $17,276.76 match. (read the resolution)
Supervisors will also be asked to approve a $5,000 grant from Walmart for the Department of Fire and EMS for supplies for a training prop at the Zion Crossroads Fire Station. (read the resolution)
Supervisors will also be asked to approve a request by the Sheriff’s Department to apply for a $149,245.84 grant for a FY26 NG911 Additional Funding Grant. This appears to be the program. (learn more)
Deputy County Administrator Christoper Coon has been named by Virginia Business to their Top 40 Under 40 honoree in 2025. (read the resolution)
Supervisors will approve contracts for several engineering firms to be on call to the county for various services. Thirteen proposals were received and Austin, Brockenbrough & Associates, LLC, Dewberry Engineers, Inc., Koontz Bryant Johnson Williams, Inc., Short Elliot Hendrickson Inc. and Timmons Group, Inc made the cut. (read the resolution)
The Sheriff’s department also needs approval of a pass-through in $100,000 in funding from a Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services grant for enhancing digital forensic capabilities. (read the resolution)
After the public comment period, there will be a presentation from the Virginia Department of Transportation. This information is available for review in advance here.
There are four items under new business.
One is consideration of a request from the Louisa County Water Authority for $110,000 to replace a “headworks screen” at the Louisa Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant. The Town of Louisa is funding the other half of the $220,000 total cost. In wastewater terms, the headworks is the initial point of entry of effluent into the system. You can learn more about that here. Civilization is expensive! (read the resolution) (more details on the screen)
The second is consideration of a request from the Department of Parks and Recreation for $33,583.40 for a maintenance capital improvement program at the Betty Queen Center. (read the resolution) (read the estimate)
The third is for the approval of refunding of bonds from the Virginia Public School Authority issued in the 2007A and 2009A series. (learn more in the resolution)
The fourth is to approve a budget supplement of $788,000 from long-term reserves to the Louisa County Public School Board for various projects with the largest amount of money going to repairs to parking lots. (learn more)
There are two public hearings.
The first is on the proposed budget of $190,578,981 for Fiscal Year 2026. While that’s a smaller number than in FY2025, it is based on an increase of about $8 million in real property taxes. That could make the public hearing interest as the political make-up is different than in Albemarle where there have been groups calling for additional tax revenue and spending. (learn more)
The second is on the relocation of two election precincts. (resolution) (details)
Supervisors will return on April 28, 2025 for their next regular meeting.
Albemarle Supervisors to hold budget session
The budget town halls that are currently underway in Albemarle County are not times when Supervisors provide direction for the proposed document for FY2026. That’s what the budget work sessions are for and there’s one that takes place at 3 p.m. in Room 241 of the county’s office building at 401 McIntire Road.
I’ve written up the March 10 and the March 12 work session and you can find several stories at Information Charlottesville. I decided not to write anything from the March 17 edition and still need to hear the March 19 edition before I write up this one.
This particular work session has three topics:
Affordable Housing and the Capital Improvement Program
Continued Human Services Funding Process Discussion
Identification of Any Remaining Board Adjustments
I believe to cover this stuff right, you have to go through all of it. And that’s what people pay me to do. Thank you to paid subscribers!
There are three more budget town halls left. There have now been 67 views of the one available online. Let’s get that to 70 by Monday! (meeting info)
Reading material:
Group forms in Charlottesville to support Musk amid protests, Mark Gad, CBS19, April 4, 2025
Charlottesville 911 call center experiences overnight service outages, Maggie Glass, WVIR 29News, April 4, 2025
Chase falls short; Earle-Sears declared Republican nominee for governor, setting up fall campaign against Spanberger, Cardinal News, April 5, 2025
County Sets Funding Plan for Eastern Avenue Bridge, Lisa Martin, Crozet Gazette, April 5, 2025
White Hall Vineyards closes, Emily Hemphill, Charlottesville Daily Progress (paywall), April 5, 2025
School Board Narrows Deficit Spending Gap, Lisa Martin, Crozet Gazette, April 5, 2025
Thousands attend nationwide “hands-off” rally at Shops at Stonefield against Trump, Musk, Mark Gad, CBS19, April 5, 2025
Charlottesville protest takes aim at Trump, Musk in nationwide movement, Gabby Womack, WVIR 29News, April 5, 2025
Dominion Energy requests largest base rate increase in over 30 years, Samuel King, WSLS10, April 6, 2025
UVa restricts new hires, development as Trump cuts into funding, Emily Hemphill, Charlottesville Daily Progress (paywall), April 6, 2025