Podcast for July 25, 2026: Charlottesville City Council hears both support and opposition for upcoming removal of Free Bridge encampment

On July 25, 1788, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart completed his Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, a fact we know because the composer kept intricate records. I can tell you that so far there have only been two other July 25 editions of Charlottesville Community Engagement and they were in 2023 and 2024. What were you doing on any of those three days? In this week’s stories:* Charlottesville City Council will not take another vote on design review of The Mark (read the story)* Charlottesville speakers provide multiple perspectives on how to help those without a home (learn more)* City of Charlottesville develops brochure in advance of encampment “transition” (read the story)* Albemarle County Supervisors learn about human services needs in the community (story posting Monday!)* Albemarle Supervisors get update on transportation projects (learn more)A sponsored message: Panorama Natural BurialAt Panorama Natural Burial, we believe caring for the deceased can be simple, meaningful, and deeply connected to the natural world. As a natural burial ground just outside Charlottesville, we offer families an alternative to traditional burial that honors both the people we love and the land that will carry them forward.Whether you are planning ahead, navigating a recent loss, or are just curious about natural burial, we welcome the conversation. We host regular tours and community events throughout the year. At Panorama we are building new ways of understanding death, land, ecology, ritual, memory, and community. We believe that building community around death care helps us all to live fuller lives. We are open to the public daily 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Come visit!A house shout-out for Town Crier Productions at the end of 1096-AThe posting of the podcast marks the end of one week and the beginning of another. These days it takes me a lot longer to do the very simple task of restripping the WTJU version with fresh audio. Fridays are usually very intense production days and it is my true hope to eventually have someone to assist with putting it all together.All of this work is the result of one person with a vision for how to put it all together. When I look back in my archives, I see that this is what I wanted to do with the Charlottesville Podcasting Network back in 2005 but all of the tools were not in place yet to make it work.We’re now six years into the experiment of Town Crier Productions which has allowed me to document a lot of events and decisions and details in this newsletter. This week we crossed the threshold of 5,000 subscribers in Substack, with about 820 of them paying into this newsletter. I’m going to write more notes to those paying because I need help thinking through some of the next steps of the business plan.An issue with being on Substack is that most people who find this newsletter through the algorithm don’t have a connection to the area so they disappear fairly quickly. Aside from a few Facebook boosts, I’ve never done any targeted marketing to attract new people since the beginning when I emailed as many people as possible an update of what I was doing.So this shout-out concludes with me once again giving you the opportunity to sign-up through various social media platforms.* I post stories over at BlueSky but don’t really do much else than that at this point. Here’s the account for Information Charlottesville.* You can also subscribe to get Information Charlottesville postings via email Wordpress. This is where I confess I don’t entirely know the link for this. Might be a pop-up?* Town Crier Productions has a Facebook page but I’m really not sure if it’s worth keeping as the site doesn’t really seem to like Substack material. Or Wordpress material. In six years of doing this, I’ve never had a post “go viral” and I think it’s all throttled. I don’t pay them any money anymore* And then there’s Instagram which gets a couple of likes. I’d like to have better images but that is another skill set I don’t have.Okay. I have procrastinated a lot by writing this.Charlottesville Community Engagement is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe