Cville Plans Together

west view Carlton Avenue 2003
March 1 City Council endorsed the affordable housing plan, the lead piece of the three part Cville Plans Together effort. The three easy pieces, the housing plan, a rewritten “Comprehensive” plan and a rewritten zoning ordinance. Who will make the money from this effort? Who will loose?
Carlton Views III under construction
The 4.86 acre H.T.Ferron plant, once zoned for manufacturing, is now zoned for PUD. No one agrees what PUD is. That is what is so wonderful about PUD. You see what you want to see. Possibly we’ll rezone the entire city PUD?

Community meetings

Once upon a time the public stage was an open place to see and be seen
Sometime the being seen was without a particular message. Maybe one’s presence expressed support? Maybe it expressed a watchfulness.
LanCoVa BOS
There is information available from body language and the context in which it is thrown down
signs
There are means, within the physical space, even if it is not your turn to be heard to be heard.

Now there are all forms of electronic meetings. Have they increased accessibility? Have they increased effective citizen participation in governance?

Heel Dust

Dr. Tarron Richardson
Dr.T’s shoes, March 6, 2019

Charlottesville’s City manager, Dr. Tarron Richardson, resigned today. Will we ever know the who, what, where, why, when and how?

Sandy Hausman of WVTF asked:

Is there something particularly difficult about managing in Charlottesville. I know in general local government management tends to move around a lot, but it is a tough situation when you are reporting to both the Council and to the voters in a sense but is Charlottesville particularly challenging, is it a bunch of people who are too smart for their own good? Why would you say that we have had so much turnover? I’d like to hear from both the manager and the Mayor on that…

And so, the City Manager leaves the city in his heel dust. Leaves with a $205,000 severance check and his health insurance paid for the coming twelve months.

colleagial

Dave Norris and Holly Edwards
Missing the time before the Charlottesville Council Chambers turned into the Thunderdome. Our Mayor at the time, Dave Norris, had a public access TV show, Postcards From Charlottesville. Here he chats with Councilor Elect Holly Edwards . Good days.

quadrennial

Wish I was in South Carolina today. There would be pictures .


“People who complained that New Hampshire was no place for a presidential primary just haven’t been to South Carolina. The flinty Granite State has its faults, but it looks like an island of tolerance compared with this capital of implacability, fierce fundamentalism and dirty politics.”

Losing Battles (Washington Post, 2/20/2000) Mary McGrory