Charlottesville is expediting and consolidating the construction timeline for the Downtown Mall renovations in hopes of avoiding a prolonged overhaul that disrupts businesses and inconveniences shoppers.

Charlottesville has proposed raising a slew of fees related to development.

“I don’t know what would happen if it came to me,” Governor Kaine said in an interview with The Daily Progress. “Part of me would say, it’s a historic time and it’s a huge election and there’s some fundamental forks in the road that we’re going to be taking. I signed on to help Barack win. If he wants me to help him in that way, it’d be hard to say no.”

Governor Kaine met with members of the Daily Progress staff to discuss his thoughts on roads, the economy, and the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary.

Even as the price of food and gasoline continues to climb, Albemarle County residents will also shell out more money for their water and sewer bills in the next fiscal year, the Albemarle County Service Authority decided Thursday.

The “war of statistics” over the community’s 50-year water supply that has raged for months on Internet forums, in newspaper articles and at community meetings moved to a new battlefield Monday night: City Hall.

Construction will begin this summer on a new, $15.6 million complex for the Charlottesville Transit Service just south of the city.

Albemarle County supervisors unanimously decided Wednesday to take a step they say would “re-validate” a program that allows rural area landowners to defer a hefty portion of their real-estate tax bill in exchange for keeping their land undeveloped.

In stark contrast to a hearing a year ago, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors heard plenty of praise Wednesday for a Soccer Organization of Charlottesville-Albemarle project that would allow it to expand soccer facilities and be a boon for area sport enthusiasts.

Charlottesville city councilors are poised to pass a resolution prohibiting Charlottesville from investing in companies that do business with the Sudanese government.

Reid Ewing believes that a fundamental shift in real estate development is necessary to save the planet from climate change.

Charlottesville’s consumer electronics mogul — and lifelong Republican — Bill Crutchfield is backing former Gov. Mark R. Warner’s bid for the U.S. Senate because he says the Democrat has a record of success in government, understands business and technology, and is willing to work across the aisle.

Building a new interchange on Interstate 64 at Sunset Avenue would be prohibitively expensive and local officials have given up on the idea.

Albemarle County officials are taking away residents’ property rights and money without regard for their constituents’ concerns, attendees at a packed meeting said Thursday night.

The Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority will pay a consulting firm up to $12,000 to answer questions from residents and come up with a presentation for the City Council on May 6.

More than a month after his expected appointment, Madison County lawyer Jack Berry has been elected as a circuit court judge in the 16th Circuit.

Albemarle County supervisors were faced with a difficult dilemma as they sat in the midst of a tax-rate stalemate earlier this month, waiting on one another to budge.

Although Charlottesville city councilors unanimously approved a $141 million fiscal 2009 budget Tuesday afternoon, their work on the budget is far from over.

Potential GOP candidates for attorney general are dropping out in pairs.

Del. Rob Bell, R-Albemarle County, said Monday that he will not seek the statewide post of attorney general next year.

Del. Rob Bell, R-Albemarle County, said today that he will not be seeking the statewide office of attorney general next year.

Silence. It’s a rarity at an Albemarle County Board of Supervisors meeting, but with supervisors at a more than three-hour impasse over the county’s fiscal 2009 real-estate tax rate Wednesday, it seemed all points and rebuttals had been made.

By The numbers
Proposed budget: $331.4 million
Increase over fiscal 2008 budget: $26 million
Advertised real-estate tax rate for fiscal 2009: 71 cents per $100 assessed value
Current real-estate tax rate: 68 cents per $100 assessed value

Veteran Daily Progress journalist Bob Gibson has been named executive director of the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia.
The move punctuates a newspaper career that has spanned more than three decades and will bring years of experience and contacts from the front lines of Virginia politics to the Sorensen Institute.

Tom Perriello, an Albemarle County native active in the progressive religious movement, has claimed the Democratic Party nomination to run against 5th District Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., R-Rocky Mount, in the Nov. 4 election for Congress.

3:20 p.m. Tom Perriello has claimed the Democratic Party nomination to run against 5th District Rep. Virgil H. Goode.

Half an hour after three networks called Virginia in his column, Barack Obama placed a telephone call at about 7:30 p.m. to Charlottesville resident Betty Van Yahres to express his condolences over the death Friday of her husband, former Del. Mitchell Van Yahres.  “I almost fell over,“ Van Yahres said an hour after she took Obama’s call. “He made my day. I’ve been sad.“

ARLINGTON - Anti-war libertarian Republican Ron Paul won Saturday’s informal straw poll among Virginia Republicans at the state party’s annual Advance, defeating runner-up Fred Thompson by 70 votes.

Virginians go to the polls today to choose local government officials and to fill all 140 seats in the General Assembly, although most legislative elections are uncontested.

The challenger for Albemarle County’s top prosecutorial position said Thursday that there are systemic problems in the office of Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos, who in turn disputed the allegation and praised the professionalism of his staff.