#weareallunionhill #noacp #StandWithUnionHill
Category: government
steam grate

Eat Me

housing housing housing (people?)
elected mayor?



Twelfth. Use of streets; abuse of animals. Insofar as not prohibited by general law, to prevent the riding or driving of animals at improper speed, to regulate the speed and manner of use upon the streets of said city of all animals or vehicles; to prevent the flying of kites, throwing of stones, or the engaging in any employment or sport in the streets or public alleys, dangerous or annoying to the public, and to prohibit and punish the abuse of animals.
Thirteenth. Drunkards, vagrants and beggars. To restrain and punish drunkards, vagrants, mendicants and street beggars.
Fourteenth. Offenses generally. To prevent vice and immorality; to preserve public peace and good order; to prevent and quell riots; disturbances and disorderly assemblages; to suppress houses of ill fame, and gaming houses; to prevent lewd, indecent or disorderly conduct or exhibitions in the city, and to expel from said city persons guilty of such conduct.
January 20, 2009

sense of place

Trees and the CIP

The 2018 CIP proposal in front of us now includes $50,000 per year for the Urban Tree Preservation and Planting line item. This represents a 60% reduction in Parks & Rec original request for $125,000 to perform this work. The original request was carefully considered with input from the Tree Commission. This line item must cover maintenance and preservation of city owned trees that includes: 1) treatments for Emerald Ash Borer and Dutch Elm Disease (estimated at $20K); 2) structural pruning and arboreal maintenance of downtown mall trees and Corner trees (estimated at $25K); and, 3) arboreal maintenance of other city trees in parks, road right-of-ways, schools, etc. (estimated at $30K). Proactively maintaining and preserving the City’s existing trees alone will cost $25,000 MORE than this CIP’s total amount. Needless to say, there will be no funds available for planting new trees or replacing trees that are removed due to storm damage or age.
This news is especially disturbing coming on the heels of last year’s Tree Canopy Study which found that Charlottesville experienced a canopy loss of 6.2% (roughly 420 acres) over the past ten years.
Parks & Rec was able to offset insufficient funding for City trees in recent years with the infusion of VDOT funding for the parkway and route 29 projects. That funding is now gone. The 2013 Comprehensive Plan’s goal to “expand and protect the overall tree canopy of the City” cannot be achieved with the currently proposed CIP funding level. To simply maintain the City’s current trees will require about $75,000. To meet Tree Commission recommendations to plant 200 new trees per year, at a cost of about $50,000, will require a total CIP funding level of $125,000. I urge the Planning Commission and City Council to increase the Urban Tree Preservation and Planting CIP line item to $125,000. To accept the proposed, much reduced CIP funding level is to knowingly decrease protection and maintenance of the City’s existing trees and totally eliminate the planting of new trees. The City’s tree canopy will continue to decline along with the health and financial benefits it provides to our community.
pop up office TSA-Pre


