It’s budget season. For four months every year, council and staff hold public meetings about the coming year’s priorities. For four months, I sit through what I am absolutely certain is the exact same PowerPoint at least a dozen times. Much of it remains inscrutable to me. I am growing comfortable with the idea that […]
It’s budget season. For four months every year, council and staff hold public meetings about the coming year’s priorities. For four months, I sit through what I am absolutely certain is the exact same PowerPoint at least a dozen times. Much of it remains inscrutable to me. I am growing comfortable with the idea that […]
Many Charlottesvillians spent the last few weeks enjoying a festive holiday season on the Downtown Mall. But have we been strolling, shopping, and dining in the company of species Rattus? No question the mall has rats—the place is packed with restaurants, which means food waste, which means rat heaven. And just so you know, the […]
The Downtown Mall is not faring well, at least according to the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville, which wants the city to pump up the maintenance and provide DBAC with $250,000 for advertising, staff, rent and holiday lighting. Business in the entire city of Charlottesville dropped $14 million—nearly 12 percent—in September, the Charlottesville Regional Chamber […]
Some business owners say the Downtown Mall hasn’t been quite the same since shield-wielding white supremacists and neo-Nazis invaded it over the summer, followed immediately by the onset of a pilot parking meter program that required drivers to pay to park for what was once a free space. So what better way to welcome back […]
No one likes paying taxes. And Charlottesville property owners who saw their commercial assessments go up 65 percent, 90 percent or 100 percent really don’t like it—and they’re letting the city know with a record number of appeals. “Totally outrageous,” says Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville president Joan Fenton, who owns a “little bitty” parcel […]
Chaps owner Tony LaBua spoke for those not in the thick of last week’s Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville coup: “I’m confused. Is George not president?” George Benford wasn’t chair at that point early in an August 17 DBAC board meeting, but within 45 minutes, he was elected co-chair, and Joan Fenton, who had […]
Simmering undercurrents from the parking war between the city and Charlottesville Parking Center over the Water Street Garage have splintered the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville, whose chairman abruptly resigned August 8 after being told he was illegally elected. The move leaves some members confused about who’s in charge and one who is working to […]