City Beat
By Emily Battle
Fred gets press
Nov. 20, 2008 11:13 am
Here's a spot on downtown shopping that appeared in the Baltimore Sun (scroll down on the page), and here's a similar spot that appeared in this month's issue of Southern Living.
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Tags:
Fredericksburg in the media
Grow up.
Nov. 20, 2008 10:50 am
As a reporter, I'm always glad when stories I have written generate letters to the editor--even when the letters criticize the story. It means someone's reading what I've written and that the story meant something to them. So when two recent letters appeared taking the City Council to task for spending $10,000 to attend the recent Virginia Municipal League conference in Norfolk, it signaled that the story had resonated with at least two people in our area. Too bad those two people don't exist. This letter by Nancy Hobsen, and this one by B. Curtis Richards (nice use of the first initial to signal authenticity, by the way) are, as far as the editorial staff can tell, submitted under fake names. A note on today's letters page signals the mistake. Whoever wrote them knows at least something about the city budget, so I think there's a good chance they read this blog. I'm always looking for a good story, so--since the phone numbers and addresses submitted with the letters were fake--I'm using the blog to seek a story subject. To the writer or writers of the fake letters: Who are you? Can I interview you for a human interest story? As a child, did you have trouble signing your own name on your school papers? My teacher used to make me write my name 100 times if I forgot to put my name on a paper. Did you have to do that a lot? How old are you, anyway? Like, 12? What are you afraid of? Do you think the council members will seek revenge on you by making you stand on the steps of City Hall and read aloud every entry in Matt Kelly's blog? Are you planning to run for council in 2010? President in 2012? Have you run for a council seat or for mayor in the past? Please call me at 374-5413 to schedule an interview. Thanks!
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Tags:
City Council,
politics
Building the courts: Kind of like getting socks for Christmas
Nov. 19, 2008 2:21 pm
...You gotta have 'em, but you're not exactly going to jump for joy when you open the box. Last night, City Council members talked about the challenges they'll face in balancing this year's budget and building next year's. The proposed $60 million downtown courts complex is not going to directly affect next year's buget, but it's a big project on the horizon, whose debt service would start showing up in the 2011 budget. In the middle of all of this talk, Councilman Matt Kelly said he didn't believe the courts would be a revenue generator for the city. He noted the cost, on top of the other pressures on the budget and declared, "We cannot afford it." Kelly's colleagues declined to get into a big discussion of the courts project last night. They'll do that on Dec. 2, and between now and then, they're meeting in private groups of ones and twos with Circuit Court Judge Gordon Willis to hear him make the case for new facilities. Mayor Tom Tomzak has already met with Willis. He said Willis emphasized the need for new facilities to better serve customers and to provide more modern security. (This is not new. See here for some background.) Tomzak also said Willis is more optimistic that keeping the courts downtown would have a positive economic impact. The courts project envisioned for the Post Office site on Princess Anne Street would also include some private office and retail space and a residential component. "We have not picked a time to do this project," Vice Mayor Kerry Devine said at Tuesday night's meeting. "It's not a want, it's a need." Look for more next month.
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Tags:
Circuit Court,
capital projects,
courthouse,
Tom Tomzak,
Kerry Devine,
Matt Kelly
4 million people coming to our area Jan. 20
Nov. 18, 2008 2:29 pm
That's what the Washington Post says today. We've already reported that hotels from DC south to Williamsburg are booked in anticipation of Barack Obama's presidential inauguration. That means camp-outs in the bitter January cold and lodging in private homes will play a big role in housing the inaugural crowd. Up in D.C., even this sarcastic (and fake) room offer drew an offer of $500 for the week. Skimming Craigslist, there are already a few Fredericksburg-area rooms listed for rent for the big day. Here's one in Stafford for $2,000 for the week. In Pentagon City, a guy is trying to get $350 a night from an inauguration-goer for the privilege of sleeping on his fold-out couch. Are there any CityBeat readers out there planning to rent out a room for the inauguration? Know of any great ideas businesses in the area have had to make the most of the anticipated crowds? Don't forget the Jan. 20 inauguration is the day after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. That means it caps a four-day weekend for many government employees and school children. We'll be covering the various aspects of this story up through the big day, so don't hesitate to contact us if you learn of a noteworthy way this huge historic event will affect Fredericksburg.
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Tags:
economic development
Dear Mr. President: Can you send me a new storm sewer?
Nov. 17, 2008 9:58 am
These days, cities across Virginia are putting the final touches on the wish lists they'll send to their state legislators ahead of the Jan. 14 start of the General Assembly session. (And since most of the items on those lists seem to appear year after year after year, a few frustrated Virginia mayors may even be preparing to write to Santa Claus to ask for what they consider to be adequate funding for education, police departments, constitutional officers, etc.). You can see Fredericksburg's legislative agenda here. As Barack Obama prepares to take office as the 44th President of the United States, MSNBC surveyed mayors across the country, asking what they want from the new commander in chief. All of the Virginia cities surveyed had populations under 50,000 (Hopewell, Charlottesville, Martinsville, Blacksburg and Radford). While broad issues like healthcare, energy, jobs and the Iraq war can be found in these mayors' comments, some of these mayors pointed to very specific ways the federal government can help cities. Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris, for example, asked for more federal funding for two things: public housing and transit. Blacksburg Mayor Ron Rordam asked that the feds continue to support the Community Development Block Grant program, which is an important funding source for nonprofits and local government programs that help people find housing, healthcare, legal representation and other basic services (In Fredericksburg, CDBG money helps keep this program going.) Just south of here, small-town mayors in North Carolina asked for help in the very unglamorous (but very necessary) area of water and sewer infrastructure. Read the comments for yourself here.
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Tags:
politics
Plant a tree this weekend
Nov. 14, 2008 9:25 am
Judging from the number of calls and letters we got from people up in arms about the rumor that trees in Hurkamp Park had been cut down for the Sarah Palin rally (That is not true, see here for details.), this event should get a great turnout. From the city's Web site: First Annual Fall Tree Planting Event
Saturday, November 15, 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Rain date: Sunday, November 16, 1:00 - 4:00 p.m. Volunteers are needed to plant 100 trees (3 gallon containers) throughout the City of Fredericksburg. Meet at Maury Park (corner of William Street and Kenmore Avenue) at 12:45 p.m. Please bring gloves and a shovel. This event is sponsored by the Fredericksburg Department of Public Works, the Fredericksburg Beautification Commission, and Tree Fredericksburg. We will be planting trees in the utility strips (grassy areas between the sidewalk and the street) throughout the City. We are looking for locations where neighbors will agree to water the trees for a year. We are also looking for individuals who are interested in planting a tree in their front yard (in the City) that will be watered and thrive and become a canopy tree. This event is open to all individuals free of charge. If interested in more information, call Anne Little 373-4594.
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Tags:
volunteer opportunities,
trees
Budget 2010: Not fun for anybody
Nov. 13, 2008 11:00 am
Forget the stock market news, just reading the local government stories coming over the state newswires these days is depressing. Over just the past two days, Virginia newspapers have reported that Virginia Beach and Norfolk are both looking at shortfalls of more than $20 million as they start planning their 2010 budgets. The situation has one Virginia Beach councilman saying that "The nature of government is going to change." Along with the near universal problems of rising costs and lower sales and meals tax revenues, Alexandria is coming to terms with the fact that real estate assessments in that city will drop 5.5 percent next year. It planned for them to hold steady. (Other Northern Virginia localities are looking at steeper declines in property values, particularly in residential property.) The fiscal squeeze has Manassas looking at installing a program to prevent idling and track mileage in city vehicles, and talking about layoffs. This is the time of year when local governments start to talk seriously, and publicly, about their budgets for the next fiscal year. This year, several factors have contributed to what a lot of officials are calling a "perfect storm" that will make balancing local government budgets across the state extremely tough next year. Very basically, sales and meals taxes are declining because the economy is slow, healthcare, energy and other costs are rising, real estate tax assessments are falling in many localities and the state has promised further budget cuts that will make things even worse. Fredericksburg City Council members will sit down on Tuesday at 6 p.m. to talk about the budget outlook for next year and beyond. Real estate is being reassessed in the city this year, and property owners will get notice of their new values next spring. Next week's presentation has been prefaced for more than a year now with warnings from city staff that the decline in revenues and rise in costs has created a structural deficit in the budget moving forward. Even though taxes went up this year, the city still used one-time money from its reserves to balance its spending plan. That led to this warning from city management in the introduction letter on this year's budget: "The outlook for FY2010 is extremely difficult. The City continues to call upon its dwindling fund balance reserves, while at the same time the construction of the Court complex, the expansion of the Rappahannock Regional Jail, cost inflation, and deferred maintenance items creates additional pressure to raise expenditure levels just to maintain consistent service levels. The city will not be able to use its fund balance reserves in a significant way to construct the FY2010 budget. Without significant new revenue growth, the current austerity climate for the city will continue for at least the next two or three years."
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Tags:
City Council,
budget
Meet the commonwealth's attorney candidates
Nov. 13, 2008 9:25 am
On Dec. 3 at 7 p.m. in City Hall, three city neighborhood groups will host a "meet the candidates" forum, where you can see the three people running for commonwealth's attorney in the Dec. 16 special election. The three candidates are Joseph Hicks, LaBravia Jenkins and Eric Olsen. This event is sponsored by the College Terrace Neighborhood Association, the Maury Neighborhood Association and the College Heights Civic Association.
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elections,
courts
Fredericksburg getting grocery store that makes people cry...
Nov. 12, 2008 11:05 am
...and the tears have nothing to do with the prices, according to this column Washingtonian magazine recently ran about Wegmans, which is on schedule to open on Fall Hill Avenue in Fredericksburg next May or June (if not earlier). In researching a food column, I stumbled upon this mention of the story, accompanied by several comments from serious Wegmans devotees.
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Celebrate Virginia,
Council meeting roundup
Nov. 12, 2008 9:34 am
No big headlines, and the most-repeated line of the night was "I think we've already spent too much time talking about this," in reference to No. 2 on this list. Here are some highlights from last night: 1. 1200 Prince Edward plan moving forward (again). The owner has re-submitted an application for a four-condo plan for the property that the City Council of two years ago rejected. The ARB approved the first level of details on the project Monday night, and the Planning Commission will hold a public hearing in December. Council members last night heard an update on the maintenance work the owner has been doing. Council members George Solley and Kerry Devine remarked on the fact that much of that work was done on a volunteer basis by local homeless people, as reported by Amy Umble last week. "I certainly hope the owner, because of the volunteer labor, would consider a donation to a homeless shelter or program," Devine said. "That would certainly be a wise thing for the owner to consider." 2. Council not going to ask for complete reimbursement from political campaigns, after all. Two weeks ago, on the heels of two major political rallies in town, council members decided that the high-dollar presidential campaign operations should be asked to reimburse the city for the roughly $20,000 it cost to provide police, public works support, street closings and other services for both rallies. The city had already agreed to charge the Republican National Committee $1,700 for specific services related to the Sarah Palin rally, which was held on city property. It did not charge anything for Barack Obama's visit to the University of Mary Washington, since that visit was not on city property and did not require any kind of city special events permit (even though it cost the city more than the University to staff). Last night, Mayor Tom Tomzak brought the matter back up, saying he never felt good about billing both campaigns for every penny anyway. Council members talked for a while about how great it was for the city to get national press exposure when the campaigns rolled through, and about how it needs to welcome special events, not deter them. Bottom line, they're going to send the Republicans the bill they originally agreed on (which doesn't cover all of the costs related to the Palin rally) and call it a day. For a little more detail, keep an eye out for a followup story in the paper. 3. Idlewild proposals rejected. Nothing different from what we reported here, but Leif Johnston, who submitted one of the proposals, did make a plea for the council to act soon to save the old house, before it deteriorates beyond repair. 4. School board spending questioned. When new Ward 1 Councilman Brad Ellis wanted to know more about a nearly $300,000 expenditure the schools plan to make on software from the $1.1 million left in their fund balance from last year, he was warned by his colleagues about the way budgeting between local governing boards and school boards works in Virginia. Although local governing boards approve the tax rates that bring in the money that they then give to their elected or appointed school boards (in Fredericksburg, the school board is elected), they do not have the authority to tell school boards how to spend that money with much specificity. This separation causes tension in some localities, but in Fredericksburg, the two boards have tended to work together fairly peacefully. "I'd like to keep it that way," Councilman Matt Kelly said. He said next year's budget talks are "going to be a tough discussion to begin with, and throwing out any extemporaneous off-the-cuff remarks right now is not where we need to be." This came after Ellis noted that he was "just asking a mere question" about this agenda item, and that the money for software (which city budget officials said was going to renew expensive licensing agreements for certain programs) would pay for several teachers. "Six teachers, or software? Seems reasonable to me," Ellis said in defending his question. One thing that didn't come up was the fact that this was the appropriation of fund balance, not recurring revenue that will be there year after year to pay teachers. Tomzak seemed a little caught off-guard when Ellis asked the question, and said of the school board, "We've never really questioned line items from the schools. ... They are essentially unopposed, and there's never any discussion during the elections--and thank God we have the talent that we do there."
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Tags:
City Council,
1200 Prince Edward,
Brad Ellis,
Kerry Devine,
Tom Tomzak,
Matt Kelly,
George Solley,
schools,
budget,
Idlewild
Making plans for Jan. 20?
Nov. 11, 2008 3:03 pm
If so, let me know. We're working on a package for the weekend papers about the inauguration. Among many other things, we'll be talking about how to get tickets--or how hard it will be to get tickets when the Congressional offices authorized to distribute them finally get them in January. Sen. Jim Webb's office released this statement yesterday: “As of this morning, we have received in excess of 15,000 requests for the Inaugural Swearing-In ceremony in January. If this year is consistent with years past, our office will likely receive about 500 tickets. Space is limited and we have an extensive waiting list, but we will do our best to accommodate as many Virginians as possible.”
If you live in Fredericksburg, your congressman has a Web site set up for inaugural ticket requests. You can find it here. (Filling out this form does not guarantee you a ticket, though.) If you know of anyone local who hopes to attend the inauguration, any groups making plans to try to be in Washington for it, or anything else of local interest that's tied to the event (High school groups performing? Creative inauguration-themed parties?) please let me know at ebattle@freelancestar.com. [We'll be back to city stuff soon. Although City Hall is closed today, there is a meeting tonight. Stop by if you want to hear more about 1200 Prince Edward St., the Idlewild mansion or Eileen's Bakery's plans to move to the old Unitarian Universalist church on Caroline Street.]
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Today, it's all about elections...
Nov. 4, 2008 8:36 am
...so I, along with all the rest of our reporters, will be posting to our live elections blog, at Fredericksburg.com. We've got folks at polling places all over the area, and tonight I'm headed up to Tyson's corner to cover Mark Warner's return-watching event. If you see anything we should know about, e-mail me at ebattle@freelancestar.com or head to our FredTalk forum here. If you want to re-live the excitement of voting without the lines or the restrictions on what your T-shirt says, go participate in our online "exit poll" here.
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About Emily Battle:
Emily Battle covers Fredericksburg government for The Free Lance-Star.
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About this blog:
City Beat is a companion to the Fredericksburg government coverage that appears in The Free Lance-Star. Look here for background, extra information, documents and tidbits that didn’t make it into the print edition. And please, feel free to leave your comments.
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