The British government subsidized the publication of North America’s first continuously published newspaper which was produced for the first time ever on April 24, 1704. All issues of The Boston Newsletter had to be approved by the Royal Governor. Aside from one very brief ad buy that was discontinued, Charlottesville Community Engagement receives no contribution from the government and relies on readers and listeners to maintain its independence. I’m Sean Tubbs, and I’m glad to get to report on the details of local and state government as best as I can.

The links below go to Information Charlottesville, the companion website to this newsletter.

In this edition:

* Albemarle County Supervisors adopt a budget for FY2027 that includes $7 million for affordable housing and $386,000 for the Dogwood Vietnam Memorial Foundation (read the story)

* Albemarle Supervisors thank staff for turning meeting minutes around faster (read the story)

* Council briefed on use of just under $4.5 million in surplus funds including $1.1 million for Angus Road crosswalk improvements (read the story)

* City Council poised to reallocate $1.8M to cover cost overruns for Meadow Creek Trail, Pollocks Branch bridge (read the story)

* Charlottesville City Manager Sanders provides update on work plan (read the story)

* Charlottesville seeks applicants for boards and commissions (learn more)

New here? Sign up via email to get all of the various items. Next up: The Week Ahead on Sunday!

First shout-out: Piedmont Master Gardeners’ Spring Plant Sale

Spring is well underway but there’s still time to get your home and garden the way you want. Get ready for the Piedmont Master Gardeners’ Spring Plant Sale coming up on Saturday, May 2 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Albemarle Square Shopping Center, U.S. 29 North at Rio Road, Charlottesville.

The Piedmont Master Gardeners’ Spring Plant Sale will offer thousands of annuals, perennials, vegetables, fruit-bearing plants, herbs and houseplants, including a wide selection of native plants. Bags of locally produced compost also will be available.

In addition, shoppers can purchase gently used tools, yard ornaments and outdoor furniture at The Green Elephant, a garden-themed thrift store. Cash and credit cards will be accepted. Master Gardeners will be on hand to help customers with their plant selections and will staff a Help Desk for answering gardening questions. An array of displays and information tables will cover such topics as conservation landscaping, soil health, composting, pest management, and controlling invasive plants.

All proceeds support the many free and low-cost programs the Piedmont Master Gardeners offer to the community. Learn more at their website!

Second shout-out is a PSA for ways to pay for this newsletter

The above shout-out is something someone has paid for at an introductory rate that enables me to continue experimenting with using this space to bring in a little extra revenue in order to keep my living afloat. I’m not ready to publish the media kit, but the hope is to have a low-cost way for businesses to get their work out and for me to have a little more of a cushion.

Running Town Crier Productions is a seven day a week job, something I’m very glad to do because I believe this work is important. About 90 percent of my time goes into the reporting and other production related tasks. The other ten percent? Murky. Mysterious. Crucially important.

We’re close to 5,000 subscribers on Substack, and just under a fifth of the audience is a paid subscriber or makes a charitable contribution. . These days there’s very little premium content and there likely won’t be for a while. There could be in the future, but I do this work because I want as many people as possible to know what’s happening in local and regional government. I want to double the number of stories.

Want to help? There are many ways to do so and let me once again put all the social media links.

* I created a BlueSky account because I missed Twitter but I don’t do much except post links to Information Charlottesville stories. I’m not interested in live-posting anything, but I do miss interaction sometimes. I may experiment.

* There are 442 followers of the Town Crier Productions Facebook page which is currently solely used to let people know when a story has been posted to Information Charlottesville. I may begin using this to do live video of podcast recording. Interested?

* There are slightly more followers on Instagram, but I have paused posting here because I want to make the images look better and so far that’s not been worth investing the time.

* I post a version of the Week Ahead on Reddit each Sunday which is a little shorter. This is intended to attract people to the newsletter and many of you got here from there. But there is no official page and you have to know my username. Maybe I’ll change that in the future?

* There is no TikTok page nor anything else with video because I do not know how to do that very well. One day I’d like to experiment, but I also don’t like being seen.

* There is no new content on the Charlottesville Podcasting Network but it predates this newsletter by 15 years. I had a good idea and all I wanted to do was use to to tell stories about the community. Here I am still, hoping to get more people involved.

Now on to the next set of stories but I think I may take the afternoon off now that this is posted. Thanks for reading or listening!

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