January 26 and January 27 news links

• Time for another post of recent news stories from the past week that I saw in the Daily Progress and created a big tweet thread for, for the sake of posterity.
• First, @TylerHammelVA wrote about two local businesses cutting back retail hours to focus on wholesale efforts. They are Snowing in Space and Red Rocker Candy. (bit.ly/38HWn9L)
• During their discussion of the year-end surplus, Charlottesville City Council discussed a compensation study for city employees. @nstoutDP captures the nuance well in this article from the 1/22/20 @DailyProgress (bit.ly/37xX1X2)
• Last week, @rideJAUNT unveiled their first all-electric vehicle, a ten passenger van. @craftypanda has this preview from the kickoff event (bit.ly/37Aw9Gc)
• Charlottesville has five new areas for parkland and on March 12 the parks and rec advisory board will consider potential new names. Story in the 1/23 @DailyProgress (bit.ly/2RreiM6)
• Charlottesville Area Transit will be able to purchase an "automated passenger county system" now that a local transportation planning board has signed off on the idea. I'm quoted in this @DailyProgress story from (bit.ly/2TQEiSx)
• The Albemarle school system's funding request for FY2021 is 7 percent higher than the current year, an increase intended to hire more people to contend with a growing population. @Knott_Katherine has this story (bit.ly/2RSf1Vx)
• Charlottesville City Council got a preview of the FY21 budget and thankfully there were reporters there to give the public information. @nstoutDP has this account (bit.ly/2TVq7Md)
  
  One thing to editorialize on this one tweet.
  
  This meeting was not recorded or televised, and I think that was a mistake. None of the materials for that meeting available online yet.
  
  Exhibit A - (bit.ly/2Gi9faA)
  Exhibit B - (bit.ly/2tVt1Wu)
• Both @PiedmontHousing and @cvillehabitat received Virginia loans for affordable housing projects. I learned new things from this @DailyProgress article (bit.ly/2Gnh9zi)
• I read the paper to make sure I know things that have happened. I don't read it every day but just learned three American firefighters were killed in a plane crash in Australia. From Thursday's paper: (bit.ly/37wNnEb)
• Roanoke's bus system is operated by an Ohio company. According to this @roanoketimes article, there's a bit of a troubled history. (bit.ly/2GsVLJ2)
• The woman at the center of a landmark student free speech case spoke at @UVALaw last week (bit.ly/38JkGUQ)
• The Charlottesville School Board met on Saturday to discuss the upcoming year's budget. @Knott_Katherine has the story in yesterday's @DailyProgress (bit.ly/2uEY2OM)
• The Rector of the University of Virginia, Jim Murray, describes in this commentary how putting Morven under conservation easement helps achieve environmental goals. (bit.ly/2O2zZ2K)
• UVA astronomer and librarian Ricky Patterson told a crowd at a Sierra Club meeting yesterday how changes in lighting technology have made light pollution worse. @craftypanda has the story in today's @DailyProgress I am quoted in this one town. (bit.ly/3aKLpSE)