Local news needs fresh ideas. 

Across the nation, the loss of trust in mass media and the decline in paid subscriptions have left major gaps in local visibility for businesses and nonprofits. Outlets reach fewer readers while charging higher rates. Audiences have migrated to online and to nonprofit news platforms. 

In this new reality, Charlottesville Tomorrow has attracted national recognition for our innovative approach to local news, from prioritizing community impact over clicks to publishing in-depth, high-impact reporting.

Another way we innovate that is central to our work is by building new revenue streams. To run an impactful newsroom, including reporting staff, operations, technology and our investments in engaging with the communities we serve, we need resources. In addition to contributed revenue from philanthropic sources, building up earned revenue — our local sponsorships and public notices — is crucial for long-term sustainability.

As a community-driven newsroom, we are building revenue models that are beneficial to our region and align with our organizational values of trust, community and equity.

That’s why we’re excited to announce our new Community Growth & Visibility sponsorship program, which will offer five grant-funded sponsorship packages to small businesses and nonprofits in Charlottesville, with support from the City of Charlottesville’s Vibrant Community Fund.

With this public investment, sponsorships will support organizations to promote their programs, services and events on Charlottesville Tomorrow’s platforms. The program resonates with our newsroom’s commitment to community and inclusivity and will help organizations often cannot access commercial marketing.

Charlottesville Tomorrow offers free, accessible and community-centered journalism that reaches an average of 56,000 engaged readers per month. We have nearly 9,000 newsletter subscribers, and 10% of our subscribers are donors. We have an average email open rate of more than 50% — higher than the industry standard.

“High-cost, low-return or paywalled advertising options, along with over-saturation on digital platforms, have made meaningful reach hard to come by,” said Revenue and Partnerships Lead Sakeena Alkateeb. “As a community-based nonprofit newsroom with an engaged audience, we can offer a solution through our sponsorship program.”

We designed the Community Growth & Visibility program to help organizations gain visibility, attract new supporters and sustain their operations.

In alignment with the City of Charlottesville’s strategic plan framework and commitment to Justice, Equity, Inclusion, Diversity, and Racial Equity, sponsorship packages will be awarded to Charlottesville-based small businesses and nonprofits that have a stated commitment to equity and community benefit. See the City’s definitions here and here.

Business owners from historically underrepresented groups (race, ethnicity, LGBTQIA+ identity, religion, incarceration history, and more) and fewer than 20 full-time employees, as well as nonprofits with budgets under $1 million that serve historically underrepresented communities, are eligible to apply.

Charlottesville Tomorrow is proud to be among just a few of the newsrooms that are piloting innovative earned revenue models. We appreciate the guidance from the Henrico Citizen newsroom, which shared valuable insight and recommendations with us as we structured our new sponsorship program that combined small business marketing with community benefit.

“We aim to level the playing field and help build a more vibrant, interconnected community,” said Alkateeb.

The post We’re launching a program to boost small businesses and nonprofits — and strengthen independent, local journalism appeared first on Charlottesville Tomorrow.

Recent large-scale immigration enforcement operations in Ruckersville, Greene County have left many central Virginia residents with questions about how federal immigration policies work, who is most affected and what ongoing changes could mean for local communities. 

A free public presentation in Ruckersville on Friday, July 10 aims to provide some answers. Immigration expert Alyson Ball — a Charlottesville resident and independent immigration researcher for over 10 years — will offer a nonpartisan overview of the U.S. immigration system, explain recent policy changes and discuss which community members are currently most vulnerable. Her presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session.

The presentation, titled “U.S. Immigration: An Overview,” will take place at 6:30 p.m. at Westover United Methodist Church, located at 2801 Fredericksburg Rd. in Ruckersville, VA.

While we can’t cover every story that’s important to you, we do our best to be responsive to your needs. We use tips from readers to choose which stories to cover, to incorporate information into broader reports or to help us decide how to grow Charlottesville Tomorrow. Here’s where you can tell us what you think we should be covering.

The post Have questions about U.S. immigration policies? Attend a July 10 event in Ruckersville appeared first on Charlottesville Tomorrow.

As Virginia was about to pull its local law enforcement from participating in federal immigration operations, Greene County Sheriff’s deputies were lining roads around Ruckersville alongside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

On June 23, the Greene County Sheriff’s Office joined ICE in their largest joint immigration enforcement operation to date, stopping dozens of vehicles and arresting 49 individuals, according to a statement provided days after the event by an ICE spokesperson.

Seven days later, on July 1, a new state law went into effect that bans exactly that kind of local cooperation with ICE, attorneys who spoke with Charlottesville Tomorrow said.

The law, House Bill 1441, sharply limits the role local police and sheriff’s offices can play in ICE operations. In almost all cases, local officers are now barred from assisting the agency unless federal agents present a warrant signed by a judge or magistrate for a specific individual. 

“Virginia law enforcement cannot provide a lot of informal assistance to ICE’s civil immigration enforcement unless they have a judicial warrant,” said Rohma Javed, the director of the Immigrant Justice Program at the Legal Aid Justice Center, and one of several immigration lawyers who worked with legislators to write the new law. “A judicial warrant requires them to go before a federal judge, present facts, and get that signed and approved by a judge. They would need that before they are able to collaborate in many ways with local law enforcement.”

The law also limits when local law enforcement agencies can enter into formal partnerships with ICE.

These new restrictions could dramatically change the way Greene County works with the agency.

Over the past year, Greene County has embraced one of the closest working relationships with ICE of any local law enforcement agency in Virginia. Since signing a formal contract with ICE, called a 287(g) agreement, in May 2025, the Sheriff’s Office has repeatedly assisted federal immigration enforcement efforts, including large-scale operations that seemed to rely on local deputies to help identify and detain people suspected of being in the country illegally.

But the new law doesn’t mean Greene County’s cooperation with ICE will immediately end. Laws similar to this one passed in other states have faced a multitude of court challenges. And the Greene County Sheriff himself has been vague when asked whether he will continue cooperating with ICE.

“I’m a Constitutional officer,” Sheriff Steven Smith told Charlottesville Tomorrow in February, after a reporter asked if Smith intended to end his cooperation once the new law took effect.

“I was elected by the citizens to keep the county safe, and that’s what I’m doing. I’m arresting people that have warrants. They can’t stop me from doing that.”

What’s more, on the day of the joint operation in June, a man who identified himself as Sheriff Smith was captured in a video taken by Charlottesville-based attorney Andrew Wilder Young saying: “I don’t care what the governor says.”

According to Young, Smith made the comment after Young had said that “this isn’t allowed in the state of Virginia, to be cooperating with ICE.”

Smith did not immediately respond to Charlottesville Tomorrow’s follow-up questions about what he meant by those remarks, how the Sheriff’s Office plans to comply with the new law or whether the office intends to continue its 287(g) agreement with ICE.

Greene County Sheriff says partnerships with ICE and other agencies are essential to safety

During the June 23 operation, Sheriff’s deputies joined ICE in an hours’ long effort to stop motorists. The operation began by 6:30 a.m., witnesses told Charlottesville Tomorrow. Around two dozen marked Sheriff’s office patrol vehicles and unmarked SUVs moved through streets and highways in and around Ruckersville, mainly stopping what witnesses described as “work trucks” and arresting individuals inside.

The operation came at the beginning of a sharp increase in immigration arrests around the country, the New York Times reported. Between June 26 and June 30, ICE arrested more than 10,000 people.

The way the arrests were carried out in Greene County also reflected broader national trends. Data from the Deportation Data Project, a group of academics and lawyers who obtain federal records through Freedom of Information Act requests and litigation, shows arrests are increasingly taking place in communities instead of during ICE check-ins or at jails and prisons. The group also found that the number of noncitizens arrested without criminal convictions increased nearly ninefold compared with the last six months of 2024.

ICE has not released the names of the individuals arrested in Greene County, nor has the agency answered Charlottesville Tomorrow’s questions about whether any of them had warrants, criminal convictions or charges.

How you can help

In the days following the operation, Greene County’s cooperation with ICE drew criticism from community members and advocacy groups.

Around 20 people gathered the following day for a protest in the county, holding signs condemning the ICE action and the county’s involvement, according to a report from 29News. The ACLU of Virginia released a statement accusing the Greene County Sheriff’s Office of “directly coordinating with ICE to terrorize and racially profile our communities.”

In response, Sheriff Smith made a post to the Greene County Sheriff’s Facebook page on June 26 that seemed to defend the operation.

“I understand that some people may not agree with every law we are tasked with enforcing. However, our responsibility is not to decide which laws to enforce — it is to enforce the laws and serve our community professionally and fairly,” Smith wrote. “To accomplish our mission, we work closely with our law enforcement partners, including ICE, the FBI, the DEA, ATF, neighboring sheriff’s offices, and local police departments. These partnerships are essential to protecting our citizens and maintaining safe communities.”

Officials provided no information about the 49 people arrested. Nationally the number of people arrested for immigration violations with no criminal convictions has gone up

Smith has long spoken positively about his office’s partnership with ICE.

In February, he described the federal agents his deputies work with as “some of the most compassionate people that I’ve been around.”

“They are really good at what they do,” he told Charlottesville Tomorrow. “They know how to talk to people. They’re very calming, and just a great bunch of guys.”

At the time, ICE was also facing scrutiny elsewhere in the country. Smith spoke with Charlottesville Tomorrow about a month after ICE agents shot and killed two U.S. citizen protestors, and shot and injured an immigrant in January’s Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota. In those cases, the state is suing the federal government to cooperate in investigating the violence, according to ProPublica.

Smith, however, described a very different kind of experience with the agents he worked alongside in Greene County. He said that during one stop, ICE agents let someone go when they noticed he was accompanied by a child. 

“They caught the guy,” Smith said. “He needed to go back, to be deported. He had a kid with him. The ICE agent said, ‘No, leave him alone, he’s got a kid. Let him go.’ That’s the kind of compassion that they have.”

Smith shared that story before Greene County’s two large-scale joint operations, including the June 23 operation and an earlier one on May 14. During that time, local advocacy groups say ICE and the Greene County Sheriff’s Office were conducting regular smaller immigration enforcement actions all in the same area, by U.S. Route 29.

“We’re not going after law-abiding citizens. It’s not like in the media, where we go and bust people’s doors down,” Smith told Charlottesville Tomorrow in February. “We’re going after criminals and people that came over here, and a lot of people got licensed to drive trucks with no knowledge, no experience, can’t even speak English, can’t read our signs.”

An ICE spokesperson also defended the partnerships in response to Charlottesville Tomorrow’s questions about the June 23 operation. The spokesperson sent a prepared statement confirming that ICE arrested 49 people in a joint operation “in conjunction with their 287(g) partners” in the Ruckersville area.

“Partnerships with law enforcement are critical to having the resources we need to arrest illegal aliens across the country,” the spokesperson said in an email. “When politicians bar local law enforcement from working with DHS, our law enforcement officers have to have a more visible presence so that we can find and apprehend the criminals let out of jails and back into communities.”

The statement did not answer many of Charlottesville Tomorrow’s questions, including how many vehicles were stopped or how many people were questioned. They did not explain how law enforcement identified the people who were arrested, how many had outstanding warrants or whether any had previous criminal convictions.

Javier Raudales, the director of Charlottesville-based nonprofit immigrant support organization Sin Barreras, disagreed with the characterization that the Sheriff’s Office and ICE are targeting criminals.

Raudales told Charlottesville Tomorrow that the group had received around 10 phone calls in the first couple of days following the June 23 raid from individuals whose loved ones were caught up in the raid. 

“We’re hearing the stories of the people who are getting arrested, and it’s members of our community, it’s neighbors who really are just trying to live life and take care of their family,” Raudales told Charlottesville Tomorrow. “And we’re also concerned about how it affects those that are getting left behind here. They’re still trying to pick up the pieces.”

Other Greene County residents agree with Raudales. Several criticized the Sheriff’s cooperation with ICE during a Jun. 9 Board of Supervisors meeting following the May 14 joint operation. In that meeting, an ICE spokesperson confirmed that the agency conducted “administrative arrests” of 26 people.

An administrative warrant, issued by a government agency, is typically used for civil enforcement of immigration, in cases where the agency believes an individual overstayed their visa, violated the terms of their immigration, or committed a crime. However, this kind of warrant does not require probable cause the way a judicial warrant does. Judicial warrants are issued by a judge or magistrate independent of the government agency, and have a higher legal bar to allow agents to search or seize people or property.

That distinction has become more important as immigration enforcement has changed. More people are being arrested in what the Deportation Data Project is classifying as “collateral” arrests, according to an April report from Stateline that analyzes a little more than six months of ICE arrests. The report describes cases in which agents arrested people “based on appearance or proximity to someone wanted on a warrant.” About 70% of these arrests were people who had no criminal conviction.

“If deputies are conducting traffic stops that lead to immigration enforcement, what criteria are being used? How are these individuals being identified?” Kelly Marquez asked Board members during the public comment section of the June meeting. “Are they being targeted because they are a suspect of serious criminal activity or because they are believed to be undocumented or because they look [like] Latinos?”

Melanie Johnson of Barboursville shared that her neighbor and his elderly father were arrested by Sheriff’s deputies after a traffic stop, turned over to ICE and taken to Virginia’s ICA Farmville detention center. Her neighbor had lived in the country for 16 years, owned a home and a successful business and has two children who are U.S. citizens, Johsnon added.

“He has no warrant, no conviction, poses no threat, but he was targeted for the color of his skin and the type of vehicle he was driving,” Johnson said. “A 15-year-old girl cries herself to sleep every night terrified that she will never see her father again. A 21-year-old son is trying to hold his family together while knowing his father may be deported because they can’t afford the $10,000 needed for an immigration attorney.”

Johnson said that the Sheriff’s cooperation with ICE creates a “climate of fear in Greene County — fear that keeps hardworking neighbors from driving to and from work, from reporting crimes, from taking their kids to school, from supporting local businesses and from living their daily lives without worrying that one wrong turn could destroy everything they’ve worked so hard to build.”

Virginia put guardrails on local law enforcement’s work with ICE

That sentiment is partly what drove lawmakers to pass House Bill 1441.

“It’s about relieving the fear that exists in some new American and immigrant communities, amongst undocumented — as well as documented and naturalized and U.S.-born American citizen population,” Del. Alfonso Lopez (D-Arlington), who introduced the bill, told VPM news in March.

“Far too often, we’re seeing federal immigration enforcement continue to act recklessly as they target not only immigrants who have committed no criminal act, but also naturalized and U.S. American born citizens.”

The new law is sprawling, touching nearly every aspect of how local law enforcement agencies work with ICE.

Besides requiring a judicial warrant before any local cooperation can occur, House Bill 1441 fundamentally rewrites the agreements that allow local law enforcement agencies to partner with ICE.

The law does not outright ban those partnerships, called 287(g) agreements. Instead, it allows them to continue only if ICE agrees to a series of conditions written into state law.

One of the new law’s terms requires ICE agents to wear proper identification on their uniforms and vehicles while operating in Virginia. ICE must also provide local law enforcement agencies with the names and ranks of all agents who will participate in an immigration enforcement operation at least seven days before it begins.

ICE must also agree to cease conducting “any immigration enforcement activity on the property of any school, faith based organization, or courthouse within the commonwealth.”

If ICE declines to follow these and a few other rules, Virginia agencies are prohibited from entering into or maintaining the partnership.

The law gives any local law enforcement agency with an existing agreement until Sept. 1 to sign a new agreement that follows these restrictions, or the partnership will be void.

“The new law reflects the General Assembly’s decision to establish those very clear limits on when local officers might participate in civil ICE enforcement,” said Javed, the Legal Aid Justice Center program director who helped lawmakers write the bill.

The DOJ is suing to block the new Virginia law. The agency has lost similar cases in other states

House Bill 1441 has already faced court challenges. 

The U.S. Department of Justice sued Virginia on June 11, arguing that House Bill 1441 is unconstitutional because it attempts to regulate how federal immigration agents operate and interferes with agreements between ICE and local law enforcement agencies. The lawsuit also challenges a separate new law that restricts federal officers from wearing masks while conducting their duties.

A judge has yet to rule on whether House Bill 1441 violates the Constitution.

Alex Kornya, litigation director at the Legal Aid Justice Center, told Charlottesville Tomorrow the lawsuit is overall “very similar” to Justice Department lawsuits in other states challenging laws that limit or regulate cooperation between state and local law enforcement agencies and federal immigration authorities. Some of those cases have already been dismissed.

For example, in December 2025, a federal district court dismissed the Justice Department’s challenge to an Illinois law limiting cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities. As with other similar cases, the Justice Department has appealed that decision.

“So other courts so far have rejected the very arguments that the DOJ is making now to strike down the 287(g) ban,” Kornya said. “The lawsuit doesn’t raise any legitimate or new arguments that haven’t been addressed by other courts and rejected by other courts.

“I think,” he added, “that when it comes to the question of, can a state control its own law enforcement and restrain the powers and authority of its own law enforcement, I would say the legal equities are on the side of the state here.”

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Hollymead Elementary Principal Joseph McCauley, who was placed on administrative leave after the school’s social emotional learning coach was one of two ACPS staffers arrested on charges of sexual crimes involving children, will not return to school in the fall, interim Albemarle County Public Schools Superintendent Chandra Hayes told parents on July 2.

Hayes stepped into the interim superintendent role after the Albemarle County School Board asked former superintendent Matthew Haas to resign during the June 11 school board meeting Soon after Haas’ resignation, McCauley was placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation. 

“I’m sorry that we dropped the ball as a division,” Hayes said to the handful of parents who attended a meeting at Hollymead Elementary on Thursday. “I’m sorry that your last experience in this space may not have felt yours or been inviting and positive, but what I’m here to do is hopefully help us move forward. I don’t take lightly the responsibility that the school board has placed upon me.”

Hayes repeatedly apologized to those few parents and teachers who were able to make it to the meeting. She also informed them that ACPS administration is working to make changes, asking them to fill out a survey that was sent to parents and teachers. 

“I fully acknowledge that the last few weeks have been extremely difficult for this community and for the Albemarle community in general,” said Hayes. “I want to make sure what I do is right, and what we do as a district is right for you as well. We don’t have unlimited staff or unlimited resources, but there are things that we can do, and that’s listen and take from what you share with us and put into play.”

Hayes added that the social emotional learning coach (SEL), an unlicensed position, will be eliminated at Hollymead effective immediately, and will be phased out in the rest of ACPS schools. 

“We felt it best that this school did not receive another SEL coach or mental health support specialist,” said Hayes, adding that they will hire a full-time counselor. 

All mental health specialists will require a certification, said Hayes. 

“If you don’t have a license, there’s plenty of things that you could do,” she said. “Counseling, mental health support is not that, and so they’re going to work to clearly identify what those roles can do, what they should be doing, so that when they’re in buildings, principal staff know exactly what to expect.”

ACPS is hoping to have an interim principal for Hollymead by June 13, Hayes said.

While we can’t cover every story that’s important to you, we do our best to be responsive to your needs. We use tips from readers to choose which stories to cover, to incorporate information into broader reports or to help us decide how to grow Charlottesville Tomorrow. Here’s where you can tell us what you think we should be covering.

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Fifeville residents packed the auditorium of the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center auditorium June 24. It was the first time the neighborhood had the opportunity to meet face-to-face with representatives from Landmark Properties, a developer who, for the past year, has planned to build a seven-story luxury student housing complex in the heart of their neighborhood, one of the city’s last remaining majority-Black areas.

Charlottesville City Council has already approved the project, despite the city’s Board of Architectural Review saying no, and despite Fifeville residents showing up to official meetings and community forums over the past year to oppose it. 

And while the residents plan to continue to push back, they also continue to hit barriers that prevent them from turning their concerns into change. Currently, they don’t have a way to compel City Council to reconsider its decision, and they must work within a zoning ordinance that they say gives them little agency in the future of their neighborhood.

“I was not feeling optimistic,” John Mason, a retired University of Virginia professor who has lived in Fifeville for 14 years, told Charlottesville Tomorrow a few days after the meeting. 

During the meeting, residents demanded that City Council reverse its recent decision to approve a Certificate of Appropriateness for the building, called The Mark. In order to do so, they said, one of the councilors who voted ‘yes’ — Vice Mayor Natalie Oschrin, Councilor Lloyd Snook or Mayor Juandiego Wade — would have to want to change their vote and call for a re-vote. Residents talked about getting together to pressure them.

The most recent version of City Council’s rules and procedures, adopted in March 2024 and posted on the city’s website, states that a City Councilor can make a motion to reconsider, “subject to the restrictions set forth within City Code Sections 2-73 and 2-74.” The Code states that a motion to reconsider can be made, but only during the same meeting at which the original vote was taken.

The rules and procedures document also says that a motion to reconsider “may not be used in a land use decision involving a rezoning or a special use permit,” and The Mark decision did not involve either. 

But there will be no re-vote, Charlottesville City Attorney John Maddux told Charlottesville Tomorrow in an email on Tuesday. 

“The Development Code does not contain a procedure by which City Council may re-vote on, rescind, or otherwise undo its decision once it authorizes a Certificate of Appropriateness,” Maddux said, citing Section 5.2.7 of the city’s Development Code and Section 15.2-2306 of the Virginia Code.

That section of the Development Code has to do with Major Historic Review, which the Board of Architectural Review must undertake when a project involves any property located in an Architectural Design Control District or Historic Conservation District, and for any Individually Protected Property.

There are two Individually Protected Properties on the land where Landmark intends to build The Mark, which is why it needed a Certificate of Appropriateness from the BAR. The BAR did not issue the certificate, but Landmark appealed that decision to City Council, and Council voted to overturn the BAR’s decision and issue the certificate.

Even if they could re-vote on the decision, Snook and Oschrin both said that they wouldn’t change their vote in favor of the Certificate of Appropriateness for The Mark. 

“I am sorry that our decision on this matter has upset so many people in the neighborhood,” Snook told Charlottesville Tomorrow. “I still think it was the right decision.”

“Ultimately, there is no way to reach affordability without building more units to meet or exceed demand,” Oschrin said in her email. “It’s like musical chairs, if there aren’t enough, no matter how much subsidy is available, someone will be left out.”

With a re-vote out of the question, residents are figuring out their next steps.

“I’m realistic about how difficult it will be to prevent The Mark from being built,” Mason said. “I also don’t think we’ve reached the end of the road.”

‘What you’re doing is not right. I hope you hear us.’

The neighborhood has been fighting The Mark for more than a year. Landmark Properties, a Georgia-based real estate company with more than $15 billion in assets, filed preliminary plans for The Mark in mid-June 2025. Since then, Fifeville residents have attended every City Council meeting and many Board of Architectural Review meetings to voice their opposition to The Mark and to the zoning ordinance that is allowing it to happen.

They have been joined at all of these meetings by allies from other neighborhoods, most notably 10th and Page, another of the city’s historically Black areas. Residents of 10th and Page are watching a similar story unfold in their neighborhood, as LV Collective, a Texas-based real estate company with more than $6 billion in assets, plans to build an eight-story luxury student housing complex on West Main Street, right behind the Westhaven community.

As people arrived at the June 24 meeting, some Fifeville residents talked amongst themselves about what they envisioned for their neighborhood. Housing for seniors on a fixed income, one said. Housing for people who are struggling to stay in the neighborhood as housing costs rise. Townhomes. Affordable housing for low-income students would be nice, another person said. None mentioned luxury student housing.

As Landmark project lead Hamilton Reynolds and attorney Valerie Long started a presentation full of information about the project, four community members held up two large bold-lettered banners on either side of the stage.

“Listen to Fifeville,” one said. “Fifeville Residents Over $$!” said the other.

Reynolds and Long talked about The Mark’s size, location, zoning, and the number of car and bicycle parking spaces, among other things. They also talked about the $4.5 million the project will contribute to the city’s affordable housing fund.

“Oh, my God,” someone whispered when Long and Reynolds got to a slide with an architectural rendering of the building as it would look among the small one- and two-story homes along 7th Street SW. 

A few slides in, community members had seen enough. 

“I don’t see the church,” Gloria Beard said, referring to First Baptist Church, the oldest continuously operated Black church in the city, and one of the oldest in the state.

“You can see the church in the distance,” Long said, gesturing to the projection screen, where a sliver of the church peeked out from behind The Mark.

People in the crowd burst into laughter, and when Long tried to quiet them and continue the presentation, the laughter turned into a torrent of admonishing comments, with multiple community members shouting at Long and Reynolds at once.

“We’re not interested in the presentation,” an older Black woman called out. After many months of city meetings, residents knew the ins and outs of the project. They didn’t need a slideshow to tell them what they already knew. Instead, they had questions to ask and comments to make. 

Residents didn’t hold back when they repeated the litany of reasons why they don’t want The Mark in their neighborhood. They’re worried about increased traffic on already-narrow streets, about their property values and therefore their tax bills going up. They’re worried about being pushed out of homes they can no longer afford, and about transient UVA students taking over the neighborhood Black residents built. They’re worried about that because it’s been happening in their neighborhood for years.

Kelly, a Black man who did not give his last name when he spoke, is a member of a family who has lived on 6th Street SW in the Fifeville neighborhood for more than 60 years. 

“I’ve seen that neighborhood change to the point where my neighbors are no longer my neighbors, to the point where I look like a foreigner,” he said. “We’re probably one of the very few Black families in that neighborhood.” 

He asked the developer to have “an ounce of compassion” for the residents before them. “What you’re doing is not right. I hope you hear us.” 

Rosia Parker asked why Landmark chose this particular spot. 

Three reasons, Reynolds replied: proximity to the university, the zoning ordinance and the property was for sale.

Some people sucked their teeth at that. Others groaned. A few laughed.

Zoning code gives residents little power to influence development

Throughout the meeting, residents accused Landmark of holding the meeting as a box-checking exercise.

The city’s Development Review Procedures Manual advises, but does not require, developers to meet with the neighborhood they’re hoping to build in at the start of the development process.

The Mark is being built “by right,” meaning that it fulfills all of the requirements laid out in the zoning ordinance and doesn’t need special approval. The only thing it did need approval for was the exterior design and its plan for two historically protected structures on the property. Per the ordinance, that decision was up to the Board of Architectural Review. 

Because the BAR is looking at design and historic preservation only, it could not legally take residents’ comments into consideration. The BAR ended up denying the certificate, on the grounds that they believed the building wasn’t appropriate for the neighborhood, in December 2025. 

The developer immediately appealed it to City Council, and in a 3-2 vote, City Council overturned the BAR’s decision in May 2026. That gave Landmark the Certificate of Appropriateness it needed in order to proceed to working with city staff on next steps, including a development review and plan approval.

Throughout the entire process, residents learned again and again that they have relatively little power within the zoning ordinance to control the future of their neighborhood. 

“It removes a lot of leverage and potential to actually make their concerns heard and translate into changes,” City Councilor Michael Payne said of the zoning ordinance in a phone call with Charlottesville Tomorrow a couple of days after the June 24 meeting.

“The new development code requires a community meeting, as we saw on Wednesday, that meeting is almost meaningless,” Payne said. 

Residents wanted to know why Landmark only decided to meet with the neighborhood after The Mark had approval from the city, and not at the beginning of the process. No one on the development team answered that question.

Dozens of people spoke up during the meeting, some giving impassioned speeches about their own experiences, others asking questions that they hoped would further reveal the developer’s intentions and attitudes toward the neighborhood.

Fifeville resident Frank Bechter asked Landmark why, after hearing all of residents’ concerns, the company doesn’t abandon the project.

“It’s complicated,” Reynolds said. “We’ve spent a significant amount of money already towards this. We have a fiduciary responsibility to complete this.” 

For many in the room, that response confirmed what they said they’ve known all along, that money, not people, is the concern.

Residents discuss other options to push back

Throughout the meeting, residents repeatedly talked about showing their power as a neighborhood. 

“It’s time for us to rise up as a people,” Zyahna Bryant, speaking as a community member and not in her capacity as a Charlottesville School Board member, said. “We don’t want to see Vinegar Hill happen again. We need to see that the people have the power.”

Residents’ takeover of the meeting was a reminder of that, Mason said afterwards.

“I was really happy with the way the citizens of Charlottesville took over the meeting,” Mason said. “It was no longer the developer’s meeting. They had to listen to the anger of the people of the community, the sorry and sadness of the people in the community at the disappearance of Black Charlottesville, of Black neighborhoods, of the sharply declining African American population in the city. They had to listen to both anger and heartbreak.”

So, what power do residents have in this situation now that pressuring City Council to re-vote isn’t an option? It depends on who you ask.

Some residents want City Council to change the zoning ordinance.

Oschrin and Snook, who were put on the spot by residents during the June 24 meeting, are interested in amending the ordinance, but in ways that don’t necessarily line up with what the community wants.

“What I would be in favor of is revisiting the question of how the zoning ordinance will treat neighborhoods like Fifeville going forward,” Snook told Charlottesville Tomorrow in an email on Monday. However, Snook believes that because so few parcels in Fifeville have the high-density zoning that The Mark properties have, “this project isn’t likely to spread in Fifeville.” Still, he’s open to reviewing the ones that do.

Oschrin has different ideas. She wants to see the zoning code amended to allow for more mixed-use commercial areas, something that makes neighborhoods like downtown and Belmont, as well as Fifeville and 10th and Page, attractive. That way, “development pressures can spread out,” she said. 

She’s also open to reducing limitations on Jefferson Park Avenue, where a lot of off-campus student housing is currently located. The idea is that encouraging greater density along that corridor would draw more student-oriented housing in that direction, she said.

City Councilor Payne, who voted against The Mark and who has repeatedly amplified residents’ concerns, has an entirely different idea of how, and when, the ordinance should be amended.

Payne wants to expand the “Core Neighborhood Overlay,” which in the zoning ordinance covers parts of the city’s neighborhoods that were deemed most vulnerable to gentrification pressures. He is also interested in either banning student housing altogether in the expanded Core Neighborhood areas, or making student housing allowable not by right, as it largely is now, but by special exemption permit only. In the previous ordinance, buildings of a certain size needed approval from City Council.

That could give Council leverage to require developers to collaborate with the neighborhood on what is known as a “Community Benefits Agreement” (CBA). It’s a type of contract between community-based organizations and the developer of a proposed project. In these agreements, the community commits to support the development of the project in exchange for the developer’s commitment to things that would benefit the neighborhood.

So far, only one development in Charlottesville has a CBA. That’s the 501 Cherry Ave. project, also in Fifeville. And the CBA exists because residents asked for it, City Council supported that request and the developer, Woodard Properties, agreed.

Previously, city officials have said that the 501 Cherry Ave. project and its CBA should be a model for how development should happen throughout the city. But that’s not what’s happening under the current zoning ordinance. 

It is unclear whether Landmark Properties is willing to work with the neighborhood on a CBA. As of publication, Reynolds had not responded to Charlottesville Tomorrow’s questions on the matter.

Oschrin said she hopes that the neighborhood and the developer can come up with a CBA, despite the limitations of the agreements, including their enforceability under the current zoning ordinance and development code.

“Even if a CBA is not currently legally enforceable, it can still be the difference between nothing and something,” she told Charlottesville Tomorrow.

Another thing City Council could do, quickly, is change the definition of “student housing” in the zoning ordinance, Payne said. Currently, it is defined as housing that is rented by the bedroom and that is within one-half mile of the edge of UVA Central Grounds or UVA North Grounds as determined by the city’s zoning administrator. 

And, when a project is defined as “student housing,” it is not required to include affordable units, and it pays 60% less into the city’s Affordable Housing Fund than non-student housing projects, Payne pointed out. (In The Mark’s case, the non-student housing rate would mean putting about $10 million, instead of $4.5 million, into the Affordable Housing Fund.)

If Council decides to go in that direction, they could also let residents of the neighborhoods decide what to do with that money, Payne said.

During a community meeting in the basement of First Baptist Church on June 22, community members discussed the options before them, including a CBA. They seemed wary, wondering how it would be enforced if it’s not required under the zoning ordinance.

Other options on the table include asking Landmark to contribute money (on top of its contribution to the Affordable Housing Fund) to a community land trust, which could help ensure affordable housing in the neighborhood, or having the area designated as a historic conservation district, which could limit future development.

Both have their pros and cons, said resident Deanna McDonald. McDonald is part of the Charlottesville Food Co-Op, a community group trying to open a grocery store in the 501 Cherry Ave. development.

“It is important that people understand what they are signing up for and signing off on when they decide to do or not to do these things,” McDonald said. She urged everyone to make the effort to understand the upsides and downsides of each option.

The best way to do that, she said, is to show up to meetings. 

Some community members are debating taking yet another action: petitioning to remove from office the three councilmembers who voted to overturn the BAR’s decision and allow The Mark.

Virginia law lays out possible reasons for removal, including “neglect of a clear, ministerial duty of the office,” “incompetence in the performance of the duties of the office” and the conviction of certain crimes. In order to bring such a petition before the Circuit Court, the petition must detail the reasons for removal and be signed by a number of registered voters who reside within the jurisdiction of the officer equal to 10% of the total number of votes cast in the last election for the office that the officer holds.

Charlottesville City Councilor seats are at-large positions, meaning that they represent the entire city. According to the Virginia Department of Elections, 25,619 votes were cast in the most recent City Council elections, when Wade was last elected. Based on those numbers, a petition to remove Wade would need the signatures of 2,562 registered voters.

Both Oschrin and Snook were last elected in the 2023 City Council election, when 27,036 votes were cast, according to the Virginia Department of Elections. A petition to remove either of them would require 2,704 signatures.

If a petition for recall gets enough signatures, it would go to the Circuit Court for a trial.

It’s up to the Fifeville community and their allies what they’ll do next, and the Fifeville Neighborhood Association is ready to listen and facilitate further conversations, FNA president Carmelita Wood told Charlottesville Tomorrow on Wednesday.

“Why adopt our residents’ vision into the Comprehensive Plan, if the City is not going to follow it?” Wood continued. “Our neighbors feel abandoned. We will continue to listen to Fifeville residents and try to find a path forward.”

That’s what Wood and others have done for years, and they’re not stopping now. 

“One thing about this neighborhood is that its people will not go down without a fight,” Mason said. “The alternative is giving up, and we are not a giving up set of people.”

The post For Fifeville residents, the fight over a seven-story luxury student housing complex isn’t over yet appeared first on Charlottesville Tomorrow.

It’s hot out there, y’all.

With temperatures soaring and staying in the triple digits through at least Saturday, the remainder of the week is shaping up to be more than a boggy, sweaty mess — it’s also a recipe for heat-related illness.

The National Weather Service (NWS) has issued extreme heat warnings for Thursday, Friday and Saturday, July 2-4, with heat index values as high as 112 degrees fahrenheit. Severe thunderstorms are also possible throughout central Virginia and the surrounding region Friday through Sunday, according to NWS.

The combination of unusually high temperatures and high humidity limits the body’s ability to cool down efficiently as sweat evaporates, putting people at increased risk of heat cramps, exhaustion and heatstroke, according to the Mayo Clinic.

In a July 1 media release, Gov. Abigail Spanberger urged Virginians to exercise caution throughout the holiday weekend, especially during the anticipated hottest days Thursday through Saturday.

Spanberger also encouraged community members to follow Virginia Department of Health safety recommendations during hot and humid weather, including: drinking water and limiting dehydrating beverages such as alcohol and caffeine; wearing lightweight clothing and sunscreen; limiting physical activity, especially in the middle of the day; not leaving kids or pets in cars; and checking in on vulnerable neighbors such as the elderly. You can read more about VDH’s heat safety tips here.

Here are some places throughout central Virginia you can go if you need to get out of the heat:

City of Charlottesville

• Herman Key Jr. Recreation Center
  • 800 E. Market St., Charlottesville, VA
  • Monday to Friday from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday from noon to 4 p.m.; Sunday from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.
• Jefferson Madison Regional Library Central Branch
  • 201 E. Market St., Charlottesville, VA
  • Monday to Thursday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Tonsler Recreation Center 
  • 500 Cherry Ave., Charlottesville, VA
  • Monday to Friday from noon to 9 p.m.; Saturday from noon to 4 p.m.
• The Haven
  • 112 W. Market St., Charlottesville, VA
  • Monday to Friday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday from 7 a.m. to noon

Albemarle County

Abbey Stumpf, Albemarle County Director of Communications and Public Engagement, said that while the county wasn’t planning on opening any standalone cooling centers as of Wednesday, July 1, community members are encouraged to seek shelter in public buildings during regular business hours.

In Albemarle County, some of those public buildings include:

• Albemarle County Office Buildings
  • 401 McEntire Rd., Charlottesville, VA
    • Regular business hours: Monday to Thursday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (closed Friday, July 3 for the holiday)
  • 1600 5th St., Charlottesville, VA
    • Regular business hours: Monday to Thursday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (closed Friday, July 3 for the holiday)
• Crozet Library
  • 2020 Library Ave., Crozet, VA
  • Regular business hours: Monday and Tuesday from 1 p.m to 9 p.m.; Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Thursday and Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (closed Saturday, July 4 due to the holiday)

Albemarle County has also waived fees to use the following swimming beaches Thursday, July 2 to Saturday, July 4 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.:

• Chris Greene Lake Park
  • 4748 Chris Greene Lake Road, Charlottesville, VA
• Mint Springs Valley Park
  • 6659 Mint Springs Park, Crozet, VA
• Walnut Creek Park
  • 4250 Walnut Creek Park ,North Garden, VA

Buckingham County

• Buckingham County Library
  • 16266 N. James Madison Highway, Dillwyn, VA
  • Regular business hours: Monday to Thursday 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (closed Saturday, July, 4 for the holiday)

Culpeper County

• Culpeper Human Services Office (lobby)
  • 1835 Industry Drive, Culpeper, VA
  • Thursday, July 2 during regular business hours 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
  • Bottled water and light snacks available
• Culpeper Career Resource Center (lobby)
  • 219 E. Davis St., Culpeper, VA
  • Thursday, July 2 during regular business hours 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
  • Bottled water and light snacks available
• Culpeper County Fieldhouse
  • 16388 Competition Drive, Culpeper, VA
  • Friday, July 3 from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
  • Water fountain available
• New Beginnings Outreach Center
  • 1002 S. Main St., Culpeper, VA
  • Thursday, July 2 from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Friday, July 3 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, July 4-5 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
  • Water and light snacks available

Cumberland County

• Cumberland Library
  • 1539 Anderson Highway, Cumberland, VA
  • Regular business hours: Monday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Tuesday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (closed Saturday, July 4 for the holiday)

Fluvanna County

• Fluvanna County Public Library
  • 214 Commons Blvd., Palmyra, VA
  • Wednesday and Thursday, July 1-2 from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Friday, July 3 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturday, July 4 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

While we can’t cover every story that’s important to you, we do our best to be responsive to your needs. We use tips from readers to choose which stories to cover, to incorporate information into broader reports or to help us decide how to grow Charlottesville Tomorrow. Here’s where you can tell us what you think we should be covering.

The post Where to go to stay cool in central Virginia during this week’s extreme heat appeared first on Charlottesville Tomorrow.

With 141 measles cases statewide as of June 30, Virginia is now among the top five states with the highest number of measles cases this year, along with South Carolina, Utah, Texas and Florida.

Out of these 141 cases, 118 are from an outbreak in Buckingham County that was first announced by health officials in May and has since spread to Cumberland County.

In 2000, the World Health Organization declared measles eradicated in the U.S., as the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine is 95% effective against the illness, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

So how did the U.S. go from about 100 cases a year in the 2000s to 2,124 confirmed cases this year nationwide, according to CDC data updated on June 25? And how did Virginia, one of the states with a high vaccination rate according to the CDC, end up with a large measles outbreak?

Charlottesville Tomorrow spoke with Jennifer Reich, a sociologist at the University of Colorado Denver who has been studying the phenomenon of vaccine rejection for years. For her research, she spoke with healthcare providers and families to understand the reasoning behind vaccine resistance and the conditions under which parents are willing to reconsider. She even wrote a book on it, titled “Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines” and gave a TEDx talk about it.

Reich spoke about what has changed since 2000, why some people choose not to vaccinate, why the conversation around vaccines is so contentious and how to navigate it.

“It is not helpful to think about being unvaccinated as like a personal failure of the people,” said Reich. “Everyone’s doing the best they can, everybody wants healthy children and healthy communities. So the broader questions are, what are the factors that lead us to have high numbers of unvaccinated people?”

Public health messaging focused on personal responsibility instead of communal responsibility

In her research, Reich found that opting out of vaccines is, in many ways, a very logical response to the cultural shift towards individualism which had spread on the matters of health and parenting in the U.S. 

For decades, a lot of public health messaging centered around the importance of taking personal responsibility in managing personal and individual health — don’t smoke, eat healthy, exercise, wear seat belts in your car — instead of focusing on systemic solutions, like taking “forever chemicals” out of the environment. For parents, this might mean questioning medical recommendations and wanting to research a vaccine thoroughly before consenting for their child.

“It’s unsurprising that people have taken that message to heart and really moved it forward ‘on their own terms,'” said Reich.

This logic of personal responsibility, however, clashes with how infectious disease management works, as it requires the whole society to act together in order to be most effective. 

The COVID-19 pandemic showed that it’s impossible to predict how severe the outcome of an infectious disease can be on an individual, no matter how responsible one has been about staying healthy otherwise. The same is true for measles. Reich said it’s something doctors hear all the time — that the family didn’t realize how bad measles can get. 

With COVID-19 pandemic, vaccines became politicized

When Reich began studying vaccine decision-making 20 years ago, it wasn’t a partisan question. She heard nearly identical reasoning from parents on both sides of the political spectrum: They felt personal responsibility for their children and thought that they could manage their children’s health without vaccines. The COVID-19 pandemic changed it dramatically, as vaccines became partisan: Republicans became less likely to vaccinate, according to Reich and other researchers.

Some politicians weaponized vaccines and vaccine mandates and the anger and confusion around them. Now, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a longtime vaccine skeptic under whom the messaging about the vaccines has been changing.

“It’s really hard for families right now to look for clear guidance of what is safe and what is necessary,” said Reich. “There’s a lot of confusion and a lot of chaos at the federal level, and that’s really changing how families are trying to make the best decision they can with the information available, and that becomes harder and harder as there’s conflicting information.”

So, when a family is uncertain about what’s the right choice, waiting feels like the safest option. But with infectious diseases like measles, which is one of the most infectious viruses known, delays increase risk: The vaccine is most effective and produces the fewest side effects in young children.

When it comes to vaccines, people look to their neighbors

Not many people are outright against all vaccination for ideological reasons, said Reich. A much larger group questions whether specific vaccines are necessary for their particular child, or whether it’s the best time to get it. Some remain unvaccinated purely because of the lack of accessibility: Not all doctors offer measles vaccines, and parents might face challenges finding transportation and childcare to go further to get the vaccines.

While Virginia’s overall vaccination rate is high, vaccine hesitancy tends to come in clusters. People tend to look to other community members for cues on what others are doing, and parents are no exception. They frequently ask other parents for advice, on anything ranging from their kids’ diet, which summer camp to choose or which teacher to request. Vaccination choices are a part of it as well. Reich’s research has found that when parents who are not critical of vaccines are placed in an environment with a large number of parents critical of vaccines, they are more likely to conform because that’s the norm of the community.

When talking about vaccines, start with curiosity

Most conversations about vaccines seem to be framed in terms of individual risk and miss the role vaccines play in community protection and something we do to help others, Reich said. Babies under 1 year old are too young to be vaccinated and yet they are vulnerable to measles. Some children are going through chemotherapy and they rely on their classmates to be vaccinated to protect them when they come to school. Rubella, one of the illnesses covered in the MMR vaccine, is generally mild but it’s very serious for pregnant women, and while it might not affect many people personally, it’s essential to get vaccinated to protect those who need that protection.

“We have some obligation to other people in our community. It’s why we stop at stoplights. It’s why we yield to pedestrians,” said Reich. “That’s not in our self-interest, but it’s part of living in a community and working together. And vaccines are part of that story also, and we don’t always acknowledge that.”

There are also overlooked personal benefits to making sure we live in a healthy community — the more people are vaccinated, the less hospitals are overwhelmed, the lower health insurance costs are, the longer people with chronic conditions remain in society. 

For anyone who wants to talk to other families who are hesitant or opposed to vaccines, Reich recommends starting with genuine curiosity rather than a desire to teach and correct. Did they have a bad experience that caused distrust of the healthcare system? Are they afraid of a reaction to vaccines, or are they uncertain about the timing for the vaccine? Reich’s research found that many families opposed to vaccinations say they are willing to reconsider their decision in particular contexts like international travel or pregnancy, which could be an entry point for a conversation, she said.

And if you have never had a conversation with a community before, an outbreak might not be the best place to start: Being a good neighbor and helping people feel supported takes time, Reich said.

The post Virginia has high vaccination rates. Why do we have a large measles outbreak? appeared first on Charlottesville Tomorrow.

Jefferson-Madison Regional Library (JMRL) is doing away with overdue fees for most items.

The new policy begins July 1, and in addition to eliminating most late fees, the library will also remove outstanding fines from borrowers’ accounts. That means anyone whose library card has been frozen due to unpaid fines will be able to use their cards again. Currently, fines are 25 cents per day for most items with maximum fines ranging from $10 to $30 per item.

Overdue fees will remain in place for some high-demand items, though, like bestsellers, toys and kits, according to a “frequently asked questions” page about the upcoming change. Patrons will also still be responsible for replacing lost or damaged materials. If an item isn’t returned within a month of its due date, the borrower will receive a bill to replace it, but if the item is brought back, their account will be cleared.

The move to a (mostly) fine-free system is itself a little overdue, according to David Plunkett, director of the JMRL system.

“JMRL has been looking at this for a long time,” he said. That’s because for the past decade or so, it’s become standard practice for most libraries throughout the country. 

Between 2017 and 2022, the percentage of U.S. public libraries charging patrons overdue fines dropped dramatically, from 92% to 36%, according to Library Journal, a trade publication for the library profession that conducts a fines and fees survey every few years. 

During that time, the American Library Association (ALA), the largest library membership organization in the world, encouraged all libraries to get rid of overdue fines. In 2019, the organization adopted a resolution calling fines “a form of social inequity.” The resolution encouraged the removal of all barriers to library and information services, especially overdue charges.

The ALA’s resolution reflected a growing body of research showing that overdue fees keep people away from libraries and therefore the resources libraries offer their communities — something that defeats the purpose of a public library, Plunkett said. 

This is especially true for families with lower incomes, according to a 2015 report from the Colorado State Library. CSL drew on its own patron surveys and focus groups, as well as case studies throughout the country from the 1980s onward when studying the issue. 

Anecdotal stories from one of those focus groups with low-income parents and caregivers showed that “both fines for late items and fees for lost or damaged books make parents reluctant to check out books and to have their children enjoy library books at all.” 

A few JMRL Central Branch patrons who spoke with Charlottesville Tomorrow this week were surprised to hear about the library becoming mostly fine-free. 

“Wow!” said Sherida, who uses the library occasionally and asked to be identified by her first name only for privacy. “That’s a lot less stress if, down the road, you find a book you thought you’d brought back.”

Mike, who was carrying a tote bag full of about two dozen children’s books as he left the library Wednesday afternoon, was a little disappointed to hear the news — but only because he’d just paid $18 in overdue fines. Mike also asked to be identified by his first name only, for privacy reasons.

“I hope they’ll be able to fund themselves,” Mike said of JMRL’s choice to go fine-free. “But otherwise, I think it will be a good and equitable thing for families.” 

Some library systems have relied on overdue fees to encourage borrowers to return items on time, NPR reported in November 2019, after the ALA adopted its resolution. But that doesn’t always work, nor is it always needed, including at JMRL.

About 90% of borrowed materials are returned to JMRL on time, Plunkett said, and he doesn’t think that will change much when the new policy goes into effect, though the library plans to track the data. 

And on top of that, revenue from overdue fines has been shrinking for a while.

During the current 2026 fiscal year, JMRL will take in about $50,000 in overdue fines, Plunkett said. That’s about 0.5% of its $9.68 million budget for that year. The previous fiscal year, the system took in $78,000. A decade ago, the figure was around $150,000. 

“The truth is that moving forward, this will not be as reliable a source of revenue for JMRL that it has been in the past,” Plunkett said.

The reason? Digital circulation. Currently, about 30% of all JMRL circulation is digital, and the digital collection does not accumulate overdue fines.

“The use of JMRL’s digital collection has grown steadily year over year, with no signs of slowing down,” Plunkett said. “The Library Board was always going to have to find a way to replace this funding,” late fees or not.

JMRL is looking at ways to replace that money in its operating budget, especially as federal funding for libraries has been on rocky territory recently. In March 2025, President Trump issued an executive order to effectively dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), an independent federal agency that provides grants to libraries and museums throughout the United States. 

In November 2025, attorneys general in 21 states asked a judge in the federal District Court for the District of Rhode Island to issue an order stopping the federal government from dismantling the IMLS. A judge ruled in favor of the attorneys general and banned the Trump administration from taking any further steps to dismantle the IMLS. The judge ordered the re-hiring of all fired staff, as well as the reinstatement of all grants. The U.S. Department of Justice appealed the decision, but in April 2026 dropped its appeal.

Also in April, a few organizations who had sued the federal government over the attempted dismantling of the IMLS, including the ALA, reached a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to preserve the IMLS.

In the past, JMRL has received grants from the IMLS via the state library, the Library of Virginia. 

For decades, JMRL put the money it collected from overdue fees toward buying equipment for its eight libraries and its bookmobile. Plunkett doesn’t plan to ask any of the localities that fund the library — the City of Charlottesville and the counties of Albemarle, Greene, Louisa and Nelson — to help absorb the cost. 

He hopes that between state and federal grants and local philanthropy, it won’t be a challenge to make up the money lost in the shift to a fee-free system. For instance, a spring 2026 book sale run by the local nonprofit Friends of JMRL raised $187,641, the most in the organization’s history, for JMRL programs and projects. 

Plus, JMRL has successfully managed changes to its overdue fine system before.

JRML stopped charging overdue fines for juvenile cards during its 2016 fiscal year. Ever since that change, kids have made up an increasingly higher percentage of borrowers checking out physical items.

During the year before the change, fiscal year 2015, 89% of physical items were checked out on adult cards and 11% on juvenile cards. Just one year after the change, it was 81% and 19%, respectively. 

By fiscal year 2024, the scales tipped even more toward young borrowers, Plunkett said. That fiscal year, 63% of physical material checkouts were from adult cards and 37% from juvenile cards.

Last year, during fiscal year 2025, JMRL implemented an auto-renew program, which automatically renews a checked out item (as long as someone else doesn’t have it on hold), twice. Previously, if an item was renewed overdue, the borrower was charged a daily fine, Plunkett said. 

“A whole category of fine revenue disappeared” after that program began, Plunkett said.

But tearing down those barriers to access might be contributing to more frequent use of JMRL’s resources, just as the studies have shown. Library patrons checked out more than 1.8 million items during fiscal year 2025, “the highest amount regionally in over 20 years,” according to JMRL’s fiscal year 2026 budget. 

To Plunkett, eliminating most fines to get more people to the library is a worthy trade.

“I hope that we will increase card holdership and decrease the number of cards that are blocked, that cannot use the library right now,” Plunkett said. 

“If overdue fines are keeping them from walking through the door, we want to remove that barrier,” he added. “That’s the whole point.”

The post Farewell, fines — Jefferson-Madison Regional Library to drop overdue fees for most items starting July 1 appeared first on Charlottesville Tomorrow.

The dozens of empty vehicles on the roads after the most recent ICE raid in Greene County told one story. 

Local advocates say another is unfolding behind closed doors: In Charlottesville and Central Virginia, immigrant families are afraid to go to work, the grocery store or to take their children to school. Many have lost loved ones, social support networks and the income of family breadwinners to detentions and deportations. Some are going hungry.

“Food insecurity is clearly increasing in the local Latino community, but our clients are hesitant to reach out to organizations for aid,” Javier Raudales, executive director of Sin Barreras, said in a news release for the event. “I hope the broader Charlottesville community will join us for this forum, to hear how my community is suffering from this federal pressure and to help us get through it.”

A free virtual community forum on Monday, June 29 aims to shed light on those challenges.

The community forum will begin at 8 p.m. on Zoom (register on Eventbrite to attend) and is expected to last about an hour. Organizers say the forum will feature local service providers who work directly with immigrant families, including representatives from local non-profit immigrant support network Sin Barreras, Loaves & Fishes Food Pantry, Fuerza Latina Virginia and a local English as a Second Language teacher.

The event is organized by the Grocery Card Campaign, a coalition of local nonprofits and community groups raising money to provide grocery gift cards to immigrant families facing hunger and financial hardship. 

Presenters will share the stories of local families affected by immigration enforcement as well as factors contributing to increased food insecurity among immigrant families, followed by a question-and-answer session. 

The forum comes as demand for food assistance continues to rise across the region. According to organizers, the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank reported that demand increased by more than 16% in 2025 compared with 2024, after increasing by more than 15% the previous year.

“As a teacher of English Learners, I see what a profound impact food insecurity has on my students and their families,” local ESL teacher Tina Vasquez said in a news release. “Grocery cards are discreet and allow some of our most vulnerable families to be cost effective and purchase exactly what they need most to get through difficult times.”

The Grocery Card Campaign is run by the The Legal Aid Justice Center, Sin Barreras, the Central Virginia Community Support Fund, Keep Going Together and Indivisible Charlottesville. 

While we can’t cover every story that’s important to you, we do our best to be responsive to your needs. We use tips from readers to choose which stories to cover, to incorporate information into broader reports or to help us decide how to grow Charlottesville Tomorrow. Here’s where you can tell us what you think we should be covering.

The post Free community forum will spotlight rising food insecurity among local immigrant families appeared first on Charlottesville Tomorrow.

Saturday is the last day of the Orange County Fair, where delicious fair food meets demolition derby — we’d love to see (and hear from) you there!

Do you have burning questions about what’s going on in your community? Stop by our table, and let’s chat! Our 2026 Central Virginia Voter Guide team will be at the Orange County Fair this Saturday, June 27, 2026 to talk about what you’d like to hear from your local candidates and learn how to use the guide. 

Bring your little ones along to join in on learning about the democratic process! We will be holding a fun election for “Mayor of the Fair.” This weekend’s ballot includes Cathy the Cow, Harry the Horse, Rachel the Rabbit, and Sam the Sheep. 

Swing on by!

Let’s meet!

We’re touring central Virginia to find out what matters to you — and help get everyone engaged in our local democracy! Come see us when we’re in your neighborhood!

The post Meet our Central Virginia Voter Guide team at the Orange County Fair appeared first on Charlottesville Tomorrow.