In a democracy, local governments play a vital role in providing services to the people who live there and the budget process is a glimpse into the priorities of a locality. There are many complexities for decision-makers to consider, knowing their time in office only continues if they have support of the electorate. This podcast edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement is a snapshot of the budgets in Albemarle County and Charlottesville just before the equinox.

Here are links to stories as they appear on Information Charlottesville.

In this edition:

* No major comments at Charlottesville City Council’s first public hearing on two-cent tax rate increase for FY2027 budget (read the story)

* Albemarle County Supervisors make adjustments to their proposed budget for FY27 and opt to advertise an increase in the personal property tax rate to dedicate additional revenue to an affordable housing fund (read the story)

Comments on CCE-1019A

It is entirely there may not be a regular newsletter today. I need to write a story for C-Ville Weekly and I know what it will be so I may go find a place to get a bite to eat and work on that as opposed to working at home. I’ve not been doing that as much because money is getting tighter even as more revenues come in to Town Crier Productions.

There is a loose energy in the interstitial moments of the podcast. I began work on this at 5 a.m. because I wanted to get it done so I could move on to the next set of stories. I have so many from this week to get to and I’m looking forward to doing what I can.

A reason I don’t work outside the home a lot is that my productivity drops to near zero if I’m in a place where I am likely to see people. In any case, I’m going to repeat the social media info from the other day.

* 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 437 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. That website is the archive for stories that go out first in this newsletter. There is almost no engagement because that websites’ algorithms prioritize conflict and I’m not trying to manipulate anyone’s emotions.

* There are slightly more followers on Instagram, but not many as posts are not quite optimized. I spent time trying to make some fancy images on Sunday but I got the formatting wrong. I’m going to keep trying to experiment because there’s a business owner in Waynesboro who one day I hope to actually impress.

* There is Substack notes which I post status updates about newsletters. I don’t really know how people find these. I deleted the Substack app ages ago.

* 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.

So that’s that. Please do follow some of the above and help me share some of the content when you see it. That will help me grow the audience which in turn will hopefully allow me to bring in more revenue. Paid subscriptions are nice, as are charitable contributions!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe