Charlottesville Community Engagement

At long last, another sonic edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. It’s summertime and the podcasting isn’t as easy due to a combination of travel, heat, and other factors but this edition will tide you over until the next version which may be in two weeks. Or perhaps on time? I’m Sean Tubbs, and if you’ve never heard one of these before, take a listen! In this edition: * Charlottesville...

What is the purpose of journalism? What is the purpose of the government? What makes up society? How did we get here? All the questions David Byrne asked in Once in a Lifetime? This is the audio edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement , a podcast that features audio versions of stories that have gone out in the written version. To add to the confusion, there’s also Information Charlottesvi...

There are now 364 days to go until the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a historic document that remains relevant as we approach the semiquincentennial. Eight days have passed since the executive branch of the federal government demanded the resignation of University of Virginia President Jim Ryan. There’s a lot happening, and Charlottesville Community Engagement is intended t...

In this edition: * There’s a new vote-counting system in Charlottesville City Council but this past week, Council had to take a series of voice votes because it wasn’t quite ready. * City Council briefed on Neighborhood Development Services work plan, forthcoming zoning changes ( learn more ) * City Council gets briefing on Human Rights work in Charlottesville ( learn more ) (2.75) * Charlottesvil...

The podcast edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement marks the end of the workweek for the devoted staff at Town Crier Productions and the beginning of the next one. The mission is to write as much as possible and to always strive to capture more. The podcast edition reaches about a tenth of the audience for the written version. From a production standpoint, they’re the same thing - stories...

The end of the week at Town Crier Productions means it is time for another audio edition produced in the form of a podcast! Newer readers may not know that for many years, all of these versions went out in sonic form. Will that ever happen again? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps all effort in the future will go toward a version not unlike Bazooka Joe comics? In any case, I’m Sean Tubbs and it may be...

Regularity is important in a publication, but there’s a certain uncertainty that comes with material created by Town Crier Productions . The goal is for the podcast editions to come out on Fridays, but there are times when that will shift. The reasons for these occasional deviations are not to be written out, but if you listen to the recording perhaps I will explain more. I’m Sean Tubbs and this i...

Congratulations! You’re about to listen to the latest edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement ! All you have to do is hit the play button and you’ll be able to hear several stories about what’s happening in local and regional government. Many of the stories that go out in this newsletter are produced in a manner that allows people to listen, using the voices of people who are in the storie...

Brace yourselves now for another sonic edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement with audio versions of stories that have already gone out in this feed. These podcasts also appear in radio form on WTJU on Saturday morning at 6 a.m. but you can decide when you to listen the podcast. I’m Sean Tubbs, and I could decide to wait to produce it, but then everything would go stale. In this edition:...

If you have never heard the podcast edition of the newsletter before, how will you be able to tell if the words I am writing here are actually the words I’m saying to the hundreds of listeners? Don’t you want to hear the way people in these stories sound? Wouldn’t you like to see if the editors left in the many curse words that are uttered during production? Either way, there are both written and...

Would anyone notice if the podcast version of Charlottesville Community Engagement were to be produced from Antarctica? What about Zaire? It is conceivable that this weekly audio edition of the newsletter could be put together just about anywhere as long as all of the equipment can be packed into a suitable bag. That’s the case this time around. I’m Sean Tubbs, and I’m not sure where I am, either....

Time again now to return to the imaginary airwaves with a podcast edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. Should these sonic versions also contain a historic fact in order to signify something that is otherwise irrelevant to the information you are about to receive? Do you need to know that on this day eighty years ago, the founding negotiations began for the United Nations at a conferenc...

CCE-850A Last week I asked listeners of the podcast to let me know if they were tuning in, and sure enough, several of you did reach out! So, perhaps this Friday edition of the newsletter going out as a podcast will continue. Today’s edition doesn’t have any new information but instead is an audio summary of some of what has been going on with voices from some of the decision-makers. I’m Sean Tubb...

The regular cycle for Charlottesville Community Engagement begins and ends with a sonic version that collects stories from the past week and presents them in audible form. The information gathering for this newsletter mostly takes place by recording audio of government meetings in the Thomas Jefferson Planning District. As I write each story, I clip out the audio the way I might have done if I had...

If you read yesterday’s edition of the Charlottesville Community Engagement newsletter and really liked it, why not take a listen to today’s? For some reason, Fridays are for audio production for both a podcast version and a version that will air on WTJU tomorrow at 6 a.m. I’m Sean Tubbs and what you’re about to hear are several stories that all come from the April 2 meeting of the Albemarle Board...

In the early days of Charlottesville Community Engagement, each edition was a newsletter as well as a podcast. In early 2024, this tradition was severed so I could make sure I could get a radio version on WTJU for Saturday morning 6 a.m. That’s the case with this March 28, 2025 edition which is being produced in an odd week with slightly less productivity due to seasonal allergies. I’m Sean Tubbs...

A main purpose of this newsletter is to write about what’s happening with local government. Everyone in the United States of America lives within some sort of locality, either a city or a county. This newsletter is sometimes a podcast as is this case with this edition which provides potential listeners with stories about the budget formation in Albemarle County and Charlottesville. Your budget. Yo...

Perhaps there is something irrational about one person attempting to write as many stories as possible about a meeting of a public institution’s governing body. But that is the basic frame of this Pi Day edition of the Charlottesville Community Engagement podcast. I’m Sean Tubbs, and this week I’ve put a premium on going through several hours of the University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors meeti...

The river of time is not always predictable and neither is the frequency of podcast versions of Charlottesville Community Engagement. The last one was on a Friday. Before that they were on Saturdays. For a brief time, Mondays. This is Thursday, a day of lament for Arthur Dent, but one in which Sean Tubbs feels it is important to get this out while some of the information is still fresh. Who is tha...

Why not end the month with an audio collection of recent stories that have so far appeared in written form in the digital pages of Charlottesville Community Engagement? At least, that’s what you’ll do if you decide to hit the play button! And when you do, you can find out for certain if the words uttered by the narrator match the one in this written introduction! I am Sean Tubbs, and I am that nar...

When written in numbers, today’s full date has four twos, a zero, and a five. Put them all together in the right way and it’s February 22, 2025, and I will not play a similar puzzle with the name of the show which begins with two C-words and an E. I’m Sean Tubbs, the producer of Charlottesville Community Engagement which is made up of the audio versions of stories about local and regional governme...

With the writing of this sentence, I advance my desire to be more familiar with Democracy in America. In the fourth decade of the 19th century, a French national named Alexis de Tocqueville wrote two volumes of an examination of the system of government in the relatively new United States of America. I have vague memories of reading it over thirty years ago in a political science class at Virginia...

We have all arrived at February 1, 2025 and this is the time to conduct whatever rituals you have to welcome the new month. Perhaps that includes listening to this edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement, an audio version of a newsletter about local and regional government. I’m Sean Tubbs and the next 30 minutes will feature some recent stories: In this edition: * Charlottesville City Coun...

In an alternate universe, the print edition and the podcast edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement would not have been separated. It is also possible that this is the alternative universe and we’ll all just have to get used to it. Either way, the next print edition is listed as being the 800th installment whereas this latest compilation of audio stories is classified in the Town Crier Pro...

At some point I said I would be getting podcasts out on Mondays, but last week’s came out on a Tuesday. I could have easily followed suit and posted this one tomorrow, but that would take away from the time it will take to write the stories for the January 21, 2025 regular edition of the Charlottesville Community Engagement . This particular podcast includes several stories that aired last Saturda...