This evening, 7:00-9:00 pm, there is a City roundtable discussion about budgetary matters. It’s hard to take these meetings seriously after many years, hard not to be sarcastic. The public attends, and speaks. Roundfile…
Budgets are about shepherding and allocating resources. The little money adds up to big money. Our City pats itself on the back for being “Green”. Buying battery operated cars. Hey fellows? Where is the light switch? 13.7 footcandles of light falling on that newspaper. The hot spots on the sidewalk are 47 footcandles! Super size me…
A lighting designer could take the electricity being used on this bridge and light a small village.
Elsewhere on Locust Avenue, north and south of the bridge, illumination levels are sensible, around 0.2 footcandles.
Running through the tanning salon.
Beneath the Locust Avenue bridge is the Richmond Road, Route 250. I tried the pedestrian experience beneath the bridge. There are narrow sidewalks on the left and right. Harrowing.
Category: Charlottesville
reenactors
Our City is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year. That is put into perspective when one sees a 30th generation Japanese rice farmer displaced from ancestral fields by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear melt.
We don’t have that sort of multi-generational continuity here. We don’t have any 250 year old trees, people get impatient and cut the big ones down. We do have a nuke-u-lar plant the next county over. We care for the parts of our history that don’t interfere with the seamless operation of automobiles.
We are sensitive revisionists, we ask “is the military statuary appropriate?”
We remake the place. We remove the parts that offend. Then we apologize.
Teachable Moment
Via the stepwise Parks and Rec ten part “Park Master Planning Process” members of the public are halfway to the finish line, the 18th hole, the goal posts, whatever lousy sports analogy you want to employ. Halfway to adoption by the City Council of a McIntire East Park Master Plan.
(One suggestion to P&R, can we take out the qualifier (Master)?
Were there UVA anthropologists/sociologists (or maybe systems engineers or religion majors) in the room February 28, in native dress, doing fieldwork? Extracting the academic relatable lessons from this painful and painstaking process?
Pictured above, Public Mtg. 4, the Venting phase. Earlier in the evening Chris Gensic oriented the Public and answered questions. Following Mr. Gensic the Public was invited to speak. The Public can be characterized in many dualistic ways. Male/Female, republican/democrat, grid/cul-de-sac, old/young, elitist/populist, eggheads/athletes, polemicists/harmonists, tree-hugging/bulldozing, orator/listener, round-ball/no-ball. The binary way of thinking is divisive, but we think like we walk.
And so people stood on their hind feet and said stuff. Mostly flights of rhetoric, emotional pleas, cants and rants. Some information emerged. For the hardy and open-minded, there were things to learn, as least two of the City Councilors dropped by.
NEXT MEETING: Monday, March 26th, 6:00pm at the Buford Middle School Auditorium, Parks and Recreation Advisory Board Public Hearing.
Many of the speakers represented the local chapter of The First Tee™ .
The First Tee™ was established by the World Golf Foundation in 1997 as a 501(c)3. The initial focus was on creating affordable access for those not previously exposed to the game of golf.
The First Tee™ headquarters is located in the World Golf Village, a 6300 acre real estate development (almost the size of Charlottesville). The World Golf Village is located South of Jacksonville Florida in St Johns County, I-95 south to exit 323, then take the International Golf Parkway.
As of today March 2, 2012 the average home price for homes for sale in World Golf Village is $270,214,
The First Tee™ headquarters gets a walk score of 46, it is located in a suburban landscape.
Honorary Chair of The First Tee™ is President George W. Bush. Former honorary chair was President George H.W. Bush.
The mission of The First Tee™ is “to impact the lives of young people by providing educational programs that build character, instill life-enhancing values and promote healthy choices through the game of golf.”
The life-enhancing “Nine Core Values”:
– Honesty, Integrity, Sportsmanship, Respect, Confidence, Responsibility, Perseverance, Courtesy, Judgement.
The CHO Chapter of The First Tee™ has been chartered since 2004 and is one of 202 Chapters operating in 46 states and five countries.
Amen.
Urban Design
Our City is currently involved in several urban design discussions simultaneously.
Are cities gender neutral? Our city, being Charlotte’s Ville. Maybe she can multitask. Talk about redesigning her central park and her bridge downtown and not cut off the wrong leg by mistake.
I have missed the bridge-design events & discussion. Watching the video by Dan Bluestone and Brian Wimer has me playing catch-up.
Why do we allow our bad things to happen to our cities? Why do we allow our cities to be designed by autos and fire engines?
Jim Kunstler talked a bit about the Law of Perverse Outcomes in his November 2011 “Eyesore of the Month”.
falling
Verdict came down in the case of of The Commonwealth of Virginia vs. George Wesley Huguely V. So did the rain.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Warner “Dave” Chapman addresses the media on the stairs of the Circuit Court following the jury’s announcement of their sentencing recommendation.
anti-icing
Had a few inches of snow Sunday afternoon. In preparation, Saturday night the City applied some manner of brine solution to the streets. I’ve seen this stuff on the interstates before but never in town. Much tidier than the salt slinging trucks…
Henry Graff
I have not seen any out of area broadcast coverage of The Commonwealth of Virginia vs. George Wesley Huguely V.
How does the out of town coverage compare to that of the local broadcast folk?
stake out
The Commonwealth of Virginia vs. George Wesley Huguely, V continues in the Charlottesville Circuit Court, 315 High Street, Charlottesville, VA. Media have the entrances covered. Unobserved approach would be subterranean or under the cover of smoke or darkness.
150 years ago the cavalry had a knack for arriving where it was unexpected but technology has erased that advantage. Even Thomas Jonathan Jackson mounted on Little Sorrel can’t outflank the radio waves.
electronic occupy
National and local media are queuing up for The Commonwealth of Virginia vs. George Wesley Huguely, V in the Charlottesville Circuit Court, 315 High Street, Charlottesville, VA.
The City is Very Organized on this one. TV perimeter is in place. There are assigned locations for stand-up news, a web page, an RSS feed, a 17 page, 4677 word Huguely Trial Media Plan document…
NBC network has a magician working on their support staff. Most of the TV people (including CBS National network, reporter Whit Johnson above) have 81 square foot spaces roped off on the tree lawn on the south of High Street opposite the Circuit Court.
NBC has 900 square feet on the courthouse grounds, beneath 2 magnolias and a white oak.
(Note to City budgeteers. remember to designate money to pay for air-spading, watering and fertilizing all the trees that will be damaged by the electronic occupation.)
Each morning of the trial, a representative from each media outlet must report to the Media Liaison Office at the Levy Opera House on High Street to pick up the Courtroom Day Pass for his/her media outlet. I love this office! In a stairwell of CHO’s 1852 Town Hall. Necessity is the mother…
Brit the Golden Retriever takes his morning constitutional down 4th Street, the designated area for satellite trucks.
On the South side of High Street opposite Circuit Court in the 81 square foot corrals, from west to east:
WSET Roanoke, WRC Washington, WBAL Baltimore, WVIR Charlottesville, WCAV Charlottesville, WTVR Richmond, CBS Network, HLN/CNN network, WWBT Richmond, WUSA Washington, WTTG Washington, WRIC Richmond, WJZ Baltimore, WMAR Baltimore, WBFF Charm City.
Off the record, the news people wonder if this is news.
tectonic
The people at the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia have posted some fascinating information on demographic trends in the last ten years.
They did an extra fine job with the graphics, the information is readily accessible regarding population shifts, who is moving in, who is moving out. Shocking really.
In CHO, they say the average house price has doubled in the past ten years. Salaries sure haven’t.
And while people are moving into CHO and AlbCo, people in the Slabtown county are moving out.
