Charlottesville Community Engagement

Today marks the 79th anniversary of the first ever detonation of a nuclear bomb with the Trinity test in New Mexico as part of the Manhattan Project. Just a few weeks later, the United States would use one of these in combat to end the Second World War. The devices kept getting tested, though, and over 200,000 American soldiers took part in those that happened aboveground. Their participation was...

Time passes by quickly between sonic editions of the program for reasons that are still in flux, but here we are again with Charlottesville Community Engagement for July 12, 2024. This week marks the fourth anniversary of the first edition and since then I’ve written and produced thousands of stories.  I’m Sean Tubbs, and my best time is when I get to sit down and devote time to putting one of the...

What’s in a number? Other numbers, usually. Seven hundred is seven times a hundred, or a hundred and forty fives, thirty-five twenties, twenty-eight twenty-fives, and many other rational combinations. This particular 700 is the one for Charlottesville Community Engagement, a newsletter that seeks to be rational in its approach to presenting information that may sometimes be irrational.  In this ed...

Perhaps too much time passes between podcast versions of Charlottesville Community Engagement but imagine if you will a hypothetical listener at some point in the future listening to all of the episodes one after the other. That doesn’t really matter because you are the one experiencing the audio right now, and I have no idea when you are. I’m Sean Tubbs, and I do have the idea it is time to begin...

There are words written down, and then there are words spoken out loud and arranged into an order that allows someone listening to learn a few things about what’s happening in geographical area in which they are interested. For those reading these words now, this is a complicated way of saying this is Charlottesville Community Engagement that has been produced for June 22, 2024. I’m Sean Tubbs, an...

The opening sentences of every single edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement are intended to be a script that opens up a podcast that contains several stories about items happening in order to engage the community of Charlottesville. In recent months, the podcast and the written newsletter are out of production sync but efforts are being made to restore this functionality. I’m Sean Tubbs,...

An introspective introduction For most of the history of this newsletter, the print version has served as the script for the audio version. Both went out at the same time. In the past few months, the two products have diverged but it is my hope to return back to more frequent audio. This particular edition is almost the exact same as the June 11, 2024 newsletter . That’s the one that went out late...

Some time has passed since there was an audio edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement, a period of time that could be quantified in many ways. Yet, to those who listen at a point way past the one in which these words are written, mere seconds may have passed. This assumes that anyone is listening at all, and we all know what happens then.  In this edition: * Charlottesville’s Board of Arch...

Some time has passed since there was a sonic version of Charlottesville Community Engagement, a newsletter that is now only sometimes a podcast, the podcast you are now listening to. That time could be anytime after May 25, 2024 when this edition was updated away from the WTJU Radio Version to something for Substack subscribers who want to hear these stories! I’m Sean Tubbs, and I do, too.  In thi...

Saturday is alright for podcasting. Or at least, that’s how I deliberately misremember a song in order to have an opening paragraph for this latest audio version of Charlottesville Community Engagement . For much of this publication’s history, the sonic and print versions were unified. It may take an epic quest for that to be restored. I’m Sean Tubbs, and I seem to have misplaced the map.  In this...

There is an existential theory that there is no such thing as time and what we experience is nothing more than an elaborate illusion, a construct whose mechanisms we mere mortals cannot understand. For much of the history of Charlottesville Community Engagement, an extra hour or so was taken to turn the written word into something audible. This edition is evidence that something that seems like ti...

Welcome to Charlottesville Community Engagement for May 4, 2024, a program that unfortunately has nothing to do with the fictional Star Wars universe and is less about a long time ago far far away and more about what’s going on right now in the area in and around Charlottesville, Virginia. I’m Sean Tubbs, a local journalist who operates a fledgling information outlet called Town Crier Productions...

The introductory paragraph of every edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement is intended to be a script for a podcast but recently there was a disturbance in the workflow. Efforts are being made to build a new framework and the arrival of steel beams this week to the construction site for Buford Middle School has prompted me to take the next step. I’m Sean Tubbs, and I miss the podcast, too...

I will state clearly at the outset that this newsletter and podcast comes from Virginia, and not from either Indiana or North Carolina . The celebration of the beginning of the second quarter of the year often comes with merriment and mirth, but this April 1, 2024 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement comes at a time when there’s information to get out. I’m Sean Tubbs, because who else w...

For the past six weeks, a version of the podcast has aired on WTJU 91.1 FM at 6 a.m. For most of this week, I’ve only posted print editions because I need to more time now to make sure the audio is produced correctly. I spent a good chunk of Friday getting this ready for the airwaves and this Saturday morning all of my energy wants to turn to the next set of stories rather than create a new editio...

One of these things is not like the other, which is to say that these words are written as a script for a podcast edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement that’s made up of stories from recent editions of the newsletter. I’m Sean Tubbs, and this is an experimental time for Town Crier Productions . Why? There are many reasons I could state but for now, perhaps it’s just better to get on with...

Since I first began this newsletter in July 2020, I’ve published almost all of the regular newsletters concurrently with the podcast version. The Charlottesville Quarantine Report was something I started on March 15, 2020 as an experiment on a day when I wasn’t a journalist as the world was about to change. In 1995, my first professional work was as an intern at WVTF Public Radio. I’ve always work...

It is Monday, March 18, 2024 and this is Charlottesville Community Engagement . This program began four years ago as a podcast I started to cover the local response to the pandemic . I took a leap of faith in the summer of 2020 to become an independent journalist and we’re now up to 648 editions of a newsletter and podcast that seeks to cover as much as possible about municipal government in the t...

For many years, the Comprehensive Plans of both Albemarle and Charlottesville have called for additional density to be located in walkable communities where public transit is a viable option for getting around without a car. But how well are the various systems working to meet that goal? A direct answer may not be available In today’s edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement, but this one d...

There are an even 300 days until the end of 2024 now that it is March 6. A lot of things have happened on this day in history, There are likely a lot of newly created holidays for this day, but Charlottesville Community Engagement is currently not using either frame to create these opening paragraphs, paragraphs whose function has never been beta-tested or shown to a test audience. I’m Sean Tubbs,...

There are only a few days left before most Americans will adjust their clocks to continue a practice that readjusts time away from the regular sequence, shifting patterns that will disrupt some but may not be noticed by others. Will the 106th transition to daylight savings time affect the production of Charlottesville Community Engagement? I’m Sean Tubbs, and I won’t know the answer for another 13...

Recent editions of this newsletter and podcast have demonstrated my thrill at the existence of Leap Day, and that is followed up by my absolute love of March 4th, a position on the calendar that is also a triumphant command! This is the Charlottesville Community Engagement edition for the 64th day of 2024. I’m Sean Tubbs, a lover of calendars.  In this edition: A lecturer at the University of Virg...

Now we march into the third month of the year, having leapt to our heart’s content in the previous 24 hour period. This is the March 1, 2024 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement, a newsletter and podcast that now can also be heard on the radio every Saturday morning at 6 a.m. on WTJU 91.1 FM in Charlottesville. I’m Sean Tubbs, glad to be able to do this.  On today’s show: * There’s anot...

It’s the final day of February - usually. Instead the word penultimate can be used to describe this 24-hour period in relation to its placement in the month. There is something about Leap Day that thrills me, but otherwise this has nothing to do with what’s in this particular installment of Charlottesville Community Engagement . I’m Sean Tubbs, a person of simple pleasures. . On today’s show: * Th...

Saturday editions of Charlottesville Community Engagement are rare, but then again the existence of February 29 is also rare and we have one of those going on this week as well. This newsletter and podcast exists to bring you and thousands of others some but not even close to all information about decisions made that affect what’s known as the built environment. I’m Sean Tubbs, hopeful that this w...