Browsing Category Politics

A Plug for VPAP – Tracking Money in Charlottesville and Albemarle Elections

The Charlottesville City Council and Albemarle County Board of Supervisors races are going to be interesting this year. Take note: local politics matter.

Albemarle County on VPAP

City of Charlottesville on VPAP

If you don’t think local politics matter, read this story in yesterday’s Daily Progress about the proposed ramp at Best Buy … you have City of Charlottesville, Albemarle County and VDOT folks discussing a transportation project that will affect how many of us get around.

Heck, John Grisham is mighty involved in local politics, having given $20k to local candidates over the past two years. So are Realtors.

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Batesville Store is Closing

And it’s a damn shame. I find it inexplicable and infuriating that, if everything that is reported is true – that Friday was the owners’ first notice that they were in violation – then the State’s choice to enforce their rules and shut down the store is inexcusable and unacceptable. The Batesville Store is part of what makes Albemarle Albemarle.

The Batesville Store is was an integral part of the community. Personally, I’d like to see the community of Batesville, if they were so inclined, refuse to let the state shut the store down.

At RealCrozetVA – read the letters from the owners.

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Albemarle Axes Another Road – Now Let’s Build the Monorail

Now they can focus on other roads that they have neither the political will nor funding to build .

The Albemarle Board of Supervisors voted Wednesday to remove the proposed Eastern Connector from a list of potential road projects to be considered by the county.

…For a hint at the likelihood of them building the Eastern Avenue in Crozet, have a look at their “coming soon” sign . Sometimes I think that the City and County would be better off focusing on building a monorail.

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Eminent Domain in the Charlottesville, Take 2

I’ll be 50 before this road is built. (that’s just less than 15 years) Curiously, it’s taken nearly two years to get to this point ; Rachana Dixit reported in the Daily Progress June 15, 2009 : Charlottesville officials will attempt to exercise eminent domain to acquire the land necessary for Hillsdale Drive Extended’s first section, which is being built as a part of the new Whole Foods grocery store. The city is trying to get roughly 1.5 acres that are privately owned to start the multimillion-dollar road project, which would begin before the store’s construction. Those behind the new Whole Foods — Meadowbrook Creek, LLC is developing the property at 1801 Hydraulic Road under a 99-year ground lease that began in 1964 — agreed that the first portion of Hillsdale Drive Extended would be built as a condition of the project. But the road, designed to connect Hydraulic Road through the Seminole Square shopping center to Hillsdale Drive in Albemarle County, cannot be constructed until the land has been designated for public use.


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