The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Interview Conan Owen, Owner, Sir Speedy; Inside Charlottesville & Albemarle Co News Cycle

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

The I Love CVille Show headlines: Interview Conan Owen, Owner, Sir Speedy Of Central VA Inside Charlottesville & Albemarle Co News Cycle Juan Wade Mayor X2; Scott Beardsley Day 2 On Job Business Development: Great, Good, Bad & Ugly Billionaire Saves Lee Enterprises & Daily Progress How Do You Characterize CVille Area Economy Now? Predictions For 2026 For Charlottesville & AlbCo If You Need CVille Office Space, Contact Jerry Miller Read Viewer & Listener Comments Live On-Air Conan Owen, Owner of Sir Speedy of Central VA, joined me live on The I Love CVille Show! The I Love CVille Show airs live Monday – Friday from 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The I Love CVille Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible, Rumble and iLoveCVille.com.

Thank you for the retweet, Ginny Who. Welcome to the I Love Sevo Show, guys. My name is Jerry Miller, and thank you kindly for joining us on a Wednesday afternoon in downtown Charlottesville. We have looked forward to this interview for some time. As front of the program, Conan Owen is in the house. He is as connected with this local economy, this regional economy, as anyone I know. He is literally on the front lines in a face-to-face capacity. shaking, speaking, strategizing with business owners across Charlottesville City, Almaro County,

and across central Virginia. Oftentimes, conversation points that we analyze or commentate about on this show are fed to us from this man. And that's a very factual and sincere statement. It's a testament to him just one-on-one with probably more business owners than anyone in this community, you know, probably put them in the same category as me. It's hard for me to say that. I sincerely mean that. Comments, we want you, the viewer and listener, to join us in the discussion. Judea Wickhauer is behind the camera, but he'll be front and center on the show. 15 Facebook pages all over social media, the water cooler of content and conversation. Judah Wickhauer, I want you go to the studio camera first, and then two shot Conan Owen, and then

we'll eventually weave you in with a three shot. I'll start with an open-ended tie. I'll start with an At first, I've got to say good afternoon. Good afternoon to you, sir. Nice to see you. Good to see you again. Happy New Year. Same to you. My understanding is your business is crushing it.

January is somebody lit a rocket. And we're way ahead of last January with a lot of direct mail, which is unusual for this time of year. But doing a lot of targeted mailings, one for a school, one for a home contractor, you know, being able to go in and get the demographics and, you know, pinpoint households with kids between the ages of four and nine. kind of thing so a lot of really data driven direct mail programs uh congratulations on your success sir speedy locally owned and operated by this gentleman he's a darting graduate if you have a logo and you need an application for it he's who you should contact our firm utilizes it for our real estate portfolio our consulting firm and and our many clients i've seen it first hand folks about a scatter shooting we start i throw this to jerry rackliff anywhere you want to go any topic you

want to pontificate upon and then I'll adapt to you and then we'll get to my friend the the new cycle okay um well honestly it's i'm really up you know people are saying a lot about you know the economy not being great and i'm just not seeing that um yeah i just had my my former landlord came in today um telling me that the two spaces that i let go you know she's had she had multiple offers to fill them when i move that's a good location yeah um and Every space, you know, they're full everywhere, commercial space. And people are saying, you know, the prices are surprisingly reasonable compared to other parts of Charlottesville. So, you know, and the number of new businesses popping up, I just look at that and then the orders that we're getting from all different segments of the economy.

You know, maybe a little less from UVA in the past six months with all the uncertainty there. But there's been plenty in the commercial space and the nonprofit space to fill that gap. and exceed it and really moving and like I said in a lot of new directions we're doing a lot more exterior signage for new businesses that are coming in which I look forward to talking about a little later on but like I said the direct mail we've branched out to do a lot of new services to meet the Charlottesville economy we just got a small batch label printer so we can do customized labels for wine so if you have you know if you want your wedding picture on a case of wine for your wedding we can do that um we just started doing a in-house pocket folder brochures um you know we've

got a new conference center opening up on uva pretty soon these are very popular items we can do small batches on those you know under a hundred and we can do them in a day or two um and for a reasonable reasonable price um and we also got in uh with large format blueprinting um with all the construction going on in charlesville all of the building um all of the changes um you know up until Now there's only been one place to get blueprints and drawings made in Charlottesville. So, you know, Monopoly invites competition. So we invested in that direction and are ready, ready to roll. You mentioned something that immediately jumped out to me, new businesses that are launching and opening their doors.

Let's start there. Sure. Let's take it the easy, the way I can keep it in my head geographically. You start up at Holly Mead, just opened a new firehouse subs last week. The Fox Den Sports Bar is supposed to. to be opening this weekend. Biggest viewing screen in town, 15 feet by 10 feet. They're already planning World Cup events

and getting special use permits to set up tents in the parking lot with TVs. So fans of different countries can watch different games. That's going to be just a huge explosion out there. You've got just in general, I see a lot of fitness businesses coming in. Planet Fitness just opened up. In Rio Hills, there's a new Blue Ridge barbells opening up over on Rose Hill Drive,

and then a client that's a concept I'm really excited about. I think it's going to do really well in Charlottesville. It's opening in Pantops this spring is a fitness for teenagers. It's for serious high school athletes who are looking to go to the next level. So that's going to be a really interesting draw. But then you've also got at Stonefield, you've got the men store, S&H Franklin is opening, supposed to be. February 1st, if all goes well, they're going to be a competitor to Quattro TZ, have a lot of the same brands that they carry.

The chicken salad chick opened up not too long ago, and they're doing very well, very tasty food. So you're going to be seeing a lot of movement upcoming in Barracks Road. A couple of big announcements there in the next couple of months, major spaces getting converted and filled. You, a lot of the openings you've highlighted are in Albaro County. Yes. Almaro County versus City of Charlottesville, economic climate, fragility, and strength. Compare and contrast. The county is so much, so much better.

I mean, you've got two major open spaces on the downtown mall. The old Alicazam and 10,000 villages are sitting there with brown paper in their windows. You know, the sky bar, the old sky bar and whatever else it's been called is, still boarded up. The beer place across the street still has a tap room. Draft tap room. Bonnie and Reed is still papered over. Wells Fargo Bank. Wells Fargo Bank. The bank hall. The bank side is empty. And even down by the code building, that fancy new retail space has never been leased. So there are a lot of, there's a lot of vacancy. Of course, there's some, there is some movement. You've got, you know, Popitos opened over in the old Mono loco space and their pizzas are delicious.

The nice thing is also here they're doing by the slice. up at Rio Hills is primarily full pies, but here you can just pop in for lunch and grab a slice. Three or four different varieties. They have Sicilian and the regular oven. And then I don't know what the grandma slices is, but they've got that too. I stopped in and had some last week, very, very tasty.

And then the Great Harvest Baking Company, we're looking forward to their opening on the downtown mall. But generally speaking, it's either in the county or the near city limits. there's a new coffee shop going in across from Barracks Road in Arlington there's a what we know about the ice cream place out at

across from Birdwood I don't know what that development is called on Ivy Ivy whatever across from a salvage brewery you've got that going on but you know I mean there is some stuff going on downtown the someone is moving in I haven't figured I haven't gotten the details yet but there's someone moving

in next to the Starbucks in the old Kung Fu tea location on West Main Street. Sugar bear ice. Sugar bear is going out on Ivy Road, yeah. But there's something else going in next to the old Pizza Hut and in the Kung Fu Tea space there on West Main Street. On the next corner, what used to be, I think it was the Habitat for Humanity offices once upon a time. They're getting the leasing office for that new apartment building down on JPA.

I can't remember the one, the name of that one. The verve. Is that the verve? I can't remember if that's the verve or the one on Ivy Road is the verve. The verve is the one by Scott Stadium. Okay, yeah. So they're getting a leasing office. They're taking the corner space as a leasing office.

The upstairs have been renovated for office space. And then there's also an ice cream shop going in next door to, what is it, wine and grain or that little convenience and booze shop. And then you've got Cake Bloom is moving around the corner. so there's going to be a vacancy on West Main Street while they move down next to Camellias and Wahiros. A little tidbit from our notebook here. There's going to be a coffee shop coming to Ivy Road. I won't break the news on which one.

It's not my news to break. It will be the proprietors used to break. It will be next to the ice cream shop, sugar bear, right next to Bel Air Market, right next to salvage brewery. There is a coffee shop coming right there. front and center to capture that uh that demand because really there's i guess there's a shannonoa jose but that's further down ivy road um we will talk uh uh speaking of great harvest we've talked about this on previous shows our clients chris and tracy crowley actually both our clients

his clients are and my firm's clients as well are opening up a great harvest bread company spoke their primary bakery is in uh what is it woodard plaza yeah allied plaza down Allied Plaza. They're opening up a spoke on the downtown mall in the old Wells Fargo ATM space. We help broker that deal. Comments are coming in for you already. This is from John Blair on LinkedIn. He says it's interesting to hear that Conan Owen does not see a weak economy. If he's willing, would he comment on whether this is part of Charlottesville-Almoral being part of the upside of the K economy, or does he just see a broad-based economic upswing? Both. Both. I mean, there are just so much development going on here in Charlottesville. There's so many new businesses that are growing. You look at some of these tech startups like Luanoa and Icarus, folks like that. And what was it, the American Skin Association is relocating here. There's a strong demand for commercial space, and it's really hard to find mixed use or flex space in this area. In fact, I was just speaking. with someone that I believe there's a plot up north past the airport that is going to be

converted into its zone for heavy commercial so there'll be some opportunities there for somebody to branch out but I think also I mean just nationwide if you look at the the economic growth numbers and it is definitely impacting Charlottesville you're also looking at you know lowering interest lower interest rates are headed our way and they keep coming down the thing The thing that's going to be really interesting coming up here in the first quarter, and it's amazing how many people are not aware of this, but the no tax on tips and the no tax on overtime is going to have a huge impact in the Charlottesville community. For instance, let's say you're a wait staff at one of the nicer restaurants here in town,

you're going to get a, what was it, a $20,000, it was a $12,000 credit, towards your tips, which basically works out to a $5,000 tax refund coming in March. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. For someone who makes $50 or $60,000 a year, getting a $5,000 tax refund is huge. That's absolutely huge. And how many, you know, look at the number of fine dining restaurants there are in Charlottesville where people easily make $200 a night on a shift.

Sure. So there are a lot of people, you know, the no tax on overtime. It's a lesser credit, but that's going to hit. And a lot of people don't realize this, you know, because it was baked into the tax reform bill last summer. And there was all than, you know, anything about the current administration is just negative. No one wants to say anything good about it, but people are going to see it in their paychecks. And I think that's going to translate into a lot of consumer spending in the Charlottesville market. So you're, I respect this.

You're bullish across the board here. Are you bearish in anything? Um, just the increasing tax base and the difficulty that both the county and the city governments, the roadblocks they throw up to business formation and growth, um, I think is just abysmal. Um, they could unleash so much more if they, if they allowed more building of, you know, residential properties. I know you and I disagree on this. Um, one of the few things. Well, they're probably more. But, you know, we need more commercial space, especially light commercial. where you can have, you know, where you could have a place like Icarus who does 3D printing that has heavy power demands. Like your place. Or even like my place. Yeah. I mean, I was telling my former landlord today, it was like I had my choice of four places in town. And that was it. Yeah. That was it. And you have what, 7,000 square feet? Yeah, right around 7,000. I took, he, he very graciously offered

me a tour of his behind the scenes at his shop and it's pretty impressive. He's got some heavy duty equipment in there. I'm talking massive, what do you call it? Well, technically we are custom manufacturing. Right. Because there's not, you can't walk in and say, I want a thousand of this. We have to make it every time. Yeah. You know, whether it's a different paper or a different color or a different design, you know, we have no off-the-shelf products that you can just come pick up. So it is, it is custom manufacturing. And that, it actually took a bit of convincing with the city to get them to understand that because there's a different tax rate for manufacturers than there is for resellers.

Ah, what are they, so what was the difference? Zero for yours? Manufacturer pays zero business license tax in the city of Charlotte's. That's very nice. Which it should be. Yeah, well, yeah, of course. Yeah, but then we have to pay, you know, personal property tax on all those. On your equipment.

Yeah, and your equipment ain't cheap. No, it's not. No, it's not. Let's, let's throw this to you. You said you had four spots that you could pick. What were the four in the city? At the time, there was the Sarasant Tile building. Okay.

That's on Sarasanty and Tile building. It's on Harris. I know. It was Harris. It was further down the street from where I was, right overlooking Seville coffee, essentially. So that was one. There was a building being renovated over on Albemarle Street across Preston, but it wasn't accessible from Preston. You had to kind of go. It was really hard to get to. And then there was the building across from Rudy's rug cleaning on Camille Lane. There was a warehouse space there, and then the one I ended up in with Woodard properties down in the crayon box development at the bottom of Market Street. On Market Street, which I think you made the right call.

Oh, without a doubt. Sarasand would have been nice, but that just wasn't going to happen with the way they wanted the deal to go. What did you make of the Juan Diego way mayor for a second time news? Don't hold back, Conan. Because this fan's got a lot of things to say. It's more of the same. Yeah, that's why. Well, I mean, the problem is the council is more or less more of the same because they only had one seat change and then one person, you know, one chair changed.

So, I mean, I actually was kind of hoping that there might be a surprise move and Jen Fleischer might get it just because I think she brings a fresh perspective to things. We worked with her on her campaign signs and a few other promotional items. and she was just, just had a different energy to me. And, you know, I really didn't get into what she supported or believed in or any of that because they are all more or less interchangeable. But I just liked her energy and her perspective. And I thought that would have been refreshing to, at the very least, get her in it as the vice mayor. But, you know, so it goes.

But yeah, it's just more of the same, unfortunately. Jen Flesher, program coordinator for the Blue Ridge Health District. Diego Wade, the mayor for a second go round. Natalie Oshran, the vice mayor. Michael Payne receives no support with his self-nomination for mayor. Crickets on the dais. That surprised me a little bit. I thought he had a shot. Well, I think when it ends up being a self-nomination, you're pretty much have the writing on the wall. The writing is on the wall there. Yeah. Goals for you as a business owner for government, Charlottesville, and City Hall, and the city specifically. The city specifically is clean up the downtown mall, and I don't mean just deal with the homeless problem,

which is a major part of it. But it's also the vacant storefronts. And they're, you know, butcher paper is not pretty. And we've got the 50th anniversary coming up. I'm working with Greer and her team. In fact, we're meeting next week to walk the mall and look at things. You know, we even came up with ideas like, you know, let's put, you know, let's do a wrap on the trash cans or on the planners. And the city just like looked at us like we had, you know, we're talking about molesting children or something. They're just like, oh, God, you can't do that. I was like, why not?

You go to New York City, and every trash can has a rap on it. Yeah, right. They have entire buildings. I don't know if you saw the Louis Vuitton building there on Fifth Avenue, but the entire building, it's a six floors of rap. It looks beautiful. And we've got all this blank space and empty, just, it's a mess. But a lot of that comes back to, you know,

what are you going to allow, what are you going to promote, and how are you going to go about promoting it? Yeah. You know, is there any kind of a new business tax credit? Is there any kind of an employment tax credit that they can offer to hire city residents? Is there, I mean, I know there is, but I'm just saying is that they need to get these programs out there. But more importantly, they need to also work with the landlords to figure out, you know, what's going to be sustainable here? You know, because you open another kid store, and as long as you've got the homeless problem, people aren't going to bring their kids down down.

It's crazy. I was walking on the downtown mall. by the Wells Fargo building today, and there was an unpermitted, unpermitted, not permitted, pop-up, like, table, and they were selling, you know, tie-dye cannabis shirts.

Yeah. Literally right next to this building where there was some showings happening. Right. And I'm like, what is God's name is happening right here? Well, but this is a perfect example of a city that's very fond of regulation lets all kinds of crap happen

on the, pardon my French, you know, because it's like, okay, great, it's like great, this is your downtown, if you want to be a vendor on the downtown mall, great, here's a city approved tent. Yeah. You know, here's a city approved table throw. Here, you know, and that's part of your permit

is you pay 500 bucks or however month and you get X number of days of lease. You get a peddler's license. You get a peddler's license, and you get, you rent basically a space on the downtown mall to make sure it all looks nice and it doesn't look like this hodgepodge. This was like definition of hodgepodge.

Yeah. It was, and dude, I'm, and you're, the same way. I am all for someone making a buck, doing a business, you know, working hard and make some money. Whatever it is. But not at the cost of making other businesses suffer because they scare away people either by your presence or your appearance or your lack of professionalism.

Yeah, that's what it was. And does the city want someone selling cannabis t-shirts in a place where a bunch of kids are walking around? Yeah, to put this in perspective, there was a handful of months ago, and I've mentioned this on the show. I think I told you this. I'm pretty sure I mentioned this on the show. I had a third showing of office space. With the bum fight. Yeah. And it was a non-profit. I'm not going to say which one, but it was tied to anti-domestic violence. And as we're coming out of the third showing, two

homeless guys are throwing punches at each other on the mall. And one of the board members that was there, who was upper and age, it was a woman. She must have been horrified. She was absolutely appalled. Yeah. It was absolutely appell. And it's not that I'm against cannabis T-shirts, but the downtown mall is a public space. If you want to buy a, can't have t-shirt, walk into scuma. But it shouldn't be, you know, the city should have some say, because they have all kinds of regulations about the kind of a-frame sign you can put up on the downtown mall and the kind of bracket that your sign can hang on and how much vinyl you can put in your windows

and you can't, but it's just like, but then they let anybody with, either with or without a peddler's license show up and look and do whatever they want. And it's like, no, I'm sorry, you know, that is a regulated public area. and it should be treated as such. Let me answer you this question. James Watson, I'm going to get to your comment here in a matter of moments. Put this on the back burner for now. He's going to ask you what area or neighborhood in the city would Conan propose for light industrial.

I'll get to that. I'm going to get to Deep Throats comments for Conan here in a matter of moments. I have one first for me, and we have print, radio, and television watching the program every day on the show. I'm going to call him out. I gave him props when he was crushing it. Stefan Freeman. now I need to hold him accountable a little bit here and he does not like that his name

has been mentioned on the show a handful of times but I have to be straightforward here he's Bonnie and Reed the lease with Bonnie and Reed he's the owner of Old Metropolitan Hall which he purchased in a seller finance deal from Travis Wilburn and he's draft Taproom and the old Commonwealth Skybar right he's not Commonwealth Skybar he's not Commonwealth Skybar

but he's also Little Johns right so Stefan Freeman now he owns Ace Biscuit and Barbecue that's in operation. That's doing very well and very tasty. And Vite Spirits he owns. But he has four storefronts, arguably the most visible

four vacant storefronts in a 10.2 square mile city. Can a city or a jurisdiction, policy, should they do anything? Well, you know. Because we're property rights guys. We're capitalists. We are, but again, it also comes with, there's a certain responsibility

I think to the community. Um, you know, one of the things that I talked about with, with Greer for the upcoming anniversary was, you know, is there some way we can put a window cling in these empty storefronts to, you know, illustrate the history of Charlottesville or that's a good idea. Yeah. Well, who's going to pay for it? Yeah. You know, and that, that could be, you know, and you can't make it a requirement that if your building's vacant for more than 30 days, you have to put a pretty picture in the window so you don't, you know, so the place doesn't look horrible. At least that would have

some kind of, you know, like if you look on the side of the CVS building, they have that beautiful picture of some meadow out in the country. You know, there are all kinds of beautiful imagery of Charlottesville that you could, that's a good idea. You know, maybe it's something that the economic

development department and the landlord split the cost on and I'll give them a nice discount on it. But, you know, there's an opportunity to make things look not horrible and not run down and not vacant. even though they are. They can still be vacant. Yeah. Yeah, well, they try to do something similar to that with the Dewberry Hotel.

When Friends of Seville drove the campaign for folks to donate, Dewberry even contributed some himself to wrap the skeleton. Yeah, which is now 10 years old and is falling apart. Yeah, which I would have mentioned is a tear down. This shows you the Dewberry. Conan and I are 30 minutes into the show, and we talk vacancies on the downtown mall, and we didn't even mention Dewberry, which just showed. you that it's

yeah it's kind of a it's like we're just accustomed to it being there and not even talking about it yeah and and that's that's apathy I mean here's I can't ever I don't understand the math behind any of these things you know all of those vacant who's the really old rich guy who holds all those

vacant gas stations around town that are when turned into a wall wall and one and there's the one on Delaney yeah and there's the one on Ivy Road he passed away yeah okay but but still it's just like what what What is the math that allows you to hang on to these properties or in the case of Dewberry to spend $10 million to buy this property and then do nothing with it?

I just don't understand the math on that. That was not a class they talked to in Darden, which is how to throw money away or to sit on it for 20 years and hope it pays off somehow because I don't see how you ever recover that. Well, what's interesting with Dewberry is Michael Payne, who received no votes of support, actually kiboshed the Mike Signer broker deal with John Dewberry to actually

open that hotel and build it through some tax incentivization and through some parking in the Water Street Garage. Mike Signer, when he was on council at the time, brokered a deal with John Dewberry and said, we will offer you tax breaks and parking spaces for your boutique hotel in the Water Street garage

and then Michael Payne, when he was running for his first term, needed some notoriety and he crapped on that deal. And when he did, that deal fell all apart in the bottom of the ninth inning and then Dewberry said screw Charlottesville and he's basically given us the proverbial middle finger here and and you know in his case he may have and maybe that's what his business model is is you know it's not that much money for me and I can afford to give you the middle finger yeah kind of leads me to the topic you brought up

earlier with somebody buying the daily progress yeah and we're going to get to let's get the comments here we'll get to a billionaire rescuing the daily progress and it's not just daily progress it's Lee enterprises I believe it was a 50 or 55 million dollar cash infusion. This is the guy who owns the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League at a number of other businesses across the country. Literally a billionaire. We'll get to that topic. Let's get to

Deep Throat. You guys were talking about Juan Diego Wade, Deep Throat's photo on screen number one in the family. Welcome back Deep Throat. You make the program better. Enjoy chatting with you yesterday as well. He says, you guys were talking about Juan Diego Wade's term, which has not been as catastrophic as Nakaya Walker's

obviously, but he has hardly covered himself in glory. and in as much as the main function of the mayor, I use the word advisedly because he is really just a presiding officer of counsel, not an executive in chair meetings. That seems like a weak spot for Wade. It's weird to me that he would be chosen for another term.

It was really weird for me as well. I think what it says, and I think he's in agreement, the perception, the optics are that things are running smoothly, that it's business as usual. And, dude, he watches the show, and he's a nice guy here. I have no beef with Juan personally.

Well, but here's the thing is that I, you know, maybe it is just he's the chair of the council, but I look at someone to mayor to be a leader. I mean, who was it that came with the idea of holiday drive for the homeless shelter? I don't think it was him. And no, actually, I can, I, I broke this news on the show. It was really the guy who outbroker that deal was Hunter Craig. Yeah. So, you know, it's just like, I would expect the mayor to be coming to counsel with solutions

and coming to the city manager, let's look into this and let's look into that and rallying support for these ideas as opposed to just reacting to what's going on around them. James Watson on LinkedIn, he says, what area or neighborhoods in Charlottesville does Conan propose putting light industrial? You mentioned light industrial earlier in the interview.

There are plenty of spots. You go keep going down East Market Street. You go back there on Broadway. I mean, there's already some, but they nixed a deal to put in more, back there. I think there are some things that you can do. I think there's a lot of redevelopment opportunity.

My old neighborhood, Harris Street, has a lot of industrial, but it's all low-rise. It's like you could go in there, expand a facility, and put the corporate offices on a second and third floor. I think there's a Rio Road, has that old bright speed, is it the bright speed building out there that actually is currently being redeveloped. But they've got a giant parking lot. I don't know what they're going to do with all that space. If they're going to put up another warehouse or what they can do out that way.

There's plenty of opportunity out by the airport also. You've also got, you know, let's face it, these shopping malls. You know, you could build an awful lot of something in the old JC Penny. You know, so I, and then you look at the bottom of pantops. It's like, why does, why does industrial have to be? You know, industrial isn't the smokestack industry that they used to be. A lot of it is, you know, things like 3D printing and assembly that can be done. You know, you just need a big open space to keep the assembly line flowing.

Hutch Carpenter giving you some props. Christopher Baldwin giving you some props. For the print reporters, we're going to talk print here in a matter of moments. Text message comes in from Philip Reese, who's a business owner. his family owns the escape room he says do you think Amarro County voters would approve a 1% sales tax referendum

in 2026 for school capital costs I think they would but I don't think they should that's loaded statement right there unpack that sure two things one is whatever happened to bond referendums you know when I was growing up in Fairfax County it was always bond referendums for everything they have their own issues but

But, you know, I think that also comes back to it's up to the county to meet the bond payments and, you know, and if voters don't approve of a tax increase, then they need to find savings. And I think that's a bigger issue is if they had, if you look at the increase in the Almar County school budget over the past 20 years and how much of that went to administration as opposed to facilities and teachers, you could have easily put away money for the first 10 or 12 years and put in a pretty good dent on the cost of a high school or even built one 10 or 15 years ago when you really should have seen it coming. You know, what's interesting about these storylines, the Board of Supervisors approved

a significant raise. They're still, it's still, you know, very meager money, but a significant raise for the, excuse me, the school board for themselves. The city counselors are going to go in the middle of this year, 2026, from 18,000 to 34K. the mayor from 20K to 36K. That happens this year. So at 2Xs, I would have liked to see those increases be gradual

like everybody else in America, as opposed to 2X basically overnight. The optics just stink. I don't like the optics of Mayor Wade and nice guy getting a second term when it seems like the city in my 25 years of living here is as underperforming as I've ever seen. It's 25 years.

The city is without a doubt, despite that, because it's such a great place to live and so many people want to be here, that's what, you know, it's, it's sort of like New York City. It's like New York City is great because people want to be there, but you look at it structurally and, you know, economically, and it's a mess, and it's only getting worse. And I think there's a certain amount of that is that Charlottesville is succeeding in spite of itself. Yeah. Well, I think Charlottesville, and comments are coming in quickly, I think Charlottesville is being sustained in spite of itself because of the economic development in Al Morrow County and because of what the University of Virginia is doing. That's what I think. Al Morrow County and UVA, the Charlottesville City are riding the coattails of Almore County and UVA. Yeah, without a doubt. That's what's happening. And no one talks about that. People are afraid to talk about that. but that's what i that's what i are you seeing that well very much so i mean you look at all the development you know all the construction happening in the city is uva related there's very little

new build of anything else um and you know other than some public housing projects which are desperately needed for updating and expansion um but and you're really starting to turn it into a very bifurcated society 100% and and that's also kind of explain what that means to the viewers and listeners i agree 100% with you you know there's a lot of complaint in Charlottesville about, you know, things aren't affordable. It's like, okay, well, when you've got two-thirds of the population as a bachelor's degree or above, which is double the national average, and everyone has told us for our entire lifetime that the key to economic success is having in higher education, you now have two-thirds of the population make a lot more money than the other

third. So your median, and what was it, that study came out as to the household. The median family household income is $126,000 according to HUD, median family household income. And that number is going to come out again. It'll be even higher. Yeah. So, you know, that is much higher the national average, I think, is like 60. It's fairly high. And the, the, the, the locate, and compared to the Commonwealth, it's number two. Yeah. So, yeah, to Northern Virginia. To Northern Virginia. So, so you've got a lot of, you've got a lot of the halves, and the halves are driven by the education and the businesses that require that kind of degree, all, you know, the Afton, science. And, and quantitative investments and folks like that, whereas things like what used to be a state form claims processing center has gone away, you know, the big postal facility up by the airport has gone away. There isn't that traditional kind of, you know, skilled labor or semi-skilled labor component that is driving a part of the economy. And Charlottesville's never really had it, but it's almost minuscule now. And that's something that, you know, the county,

still has a decent amount of, but could use even more of, because we can't all be in the realm of ideas. Somebody actually has to do and make things. Carol Thorpe's photo on screen. Judah Wickhauer is nodding his head in approval over here. Carol Thorpe is the Queen of Jack Jewett. She says the city is on absolute cruise control right now. She says that Juan Diego Wade runs those meetings, period. And she also highlights that tax increases are absolutely the lazy form of government. completely um vanessa parkhill the queen of earlysville watching then you jump in here she says can you imagine if charlesville city was not getting the money from the revenue share agreement right now

the state that charlesville city would be in right now that's Vanessa parkill's point yeah a couple of things on that um so one is my brother my brothers still both live up in fairfax county i read that fairfax county implemented them the meals tax for the first time i didn't realize that they didn't have one I just thought it was always there. I haven't lived there forever. It's 4%. Ours is 10? Your bill, when you consider all taxes with your bill, it's about 12.5%.

Okay. So, hello, Fairfax. What do you think is going to be coming your way in a few years? They're going to keep inching that up just like Charlottesville did because I'm sure Charlottesville didn't start at a 10% tax when they implemented it. No, no. And that's just been a way for them to really kind of backfill and get, you know, and make up for a last, lost tax revenue.

And local government likes to say that the food and beverage tax, the meals tax is a tax on tourism and tourists. And I say, no way, Jose, that's the gentrification of dining out for families that live in Charlestville. Yeah. I mean, when I go out to dinner, I see lots of people I know. It's,

I don't see a whole lot of, you know, other than, unless they're wearing, you know, the, you know, the little tag from the film festival, then I'm guessing they're not, a visitor.

The other thing that's interesting, and they did this again last night, and I remember when this happened last year, I had the same headshake. They had some kind of an economic city fair over at the Carver Center where they set up little booths for different interest groups

or different areas like, you know, the environment and transportation and housing, and people were going around with monopoly money, giving out the money to the places where they thought the city should set it, spending priorities. There wasn't a table anywhere for give the money back to the citizens. There was nothing about reducing property taxes.

There was nothing about reducing business taxes. It was all spend, spend, spend. There was never, not even a thought. You know, leave the table there and make it look like Siberia and, you know, let the people say, no, I don't want money going back. But the fact that the government who organized this didn't even put that out there as a possibility because it's just not in their frame of reference that if you have it, have a lot of tax revenue, if you have a good year, give it back to the people, which is one

thing I will say, you know, Governor Yonkin has been very good about is topped off the rainy day fund. It was at $400 tax refunds last year. We got extra money. We're giving it back to the people who gave it to us because it was our money to begin with. Hunter, Craig, watching the show. He says it's Sugar Bear. I appreciate that, Hunter. Chris Fairchild, Flavanna County Supervisor watching the program. Stephanie Fick watching the show. I owe you a response to the direct message, Stephanie, and we'll do that. Lonnie Murray, thank you for watching the program. Albert Graves, Betsy Nugent watching the show.

John Shabe, the owner of Pro Renata, on the program right now. Barbara Becker-Tilly says she sees downtown like 1978 New York City. Not quite that bad, but you're... I have to push back on that. I understand what you're saying, and she's saying it's basically it's seen better times. we are optimist you have to be if you're a business owner 50 year

anniversaries this year my hope is and I still believe that we're at a turning point Janice Boyce Trevillian asked about the clean team and whether or not they've started yet

the outfit out of Louisville $1.2 million for two years to serve as ambassadors on them all they have not started yet I do think it's going to turn around I do think it's going to turn around yeah I think it's going to take a lot, a lot of kicking and screaming, both from the merchants on the downtown mall, from the

local residents who don't feel like it's a place for them anymore. And it's going to take a lot of dealing with the kicking and screaming of the advocates who don't want things to change. You know what I think is going to turn it around? I think Natalie Oshran, the vice mayor now, has openly said on the record that Charlottesville City Council, has extremely ambitious plans for projects in Charlottesville over the next 12 to 24 months. Her words, her words. Ambitious plans require money. Yeah, well, then there's that.

And I think what's going to turn this around is when taxpayers in Charlottesville City get their assessments that come out and the city may choose to raise real estate taxes, the rate again. Almaro County just raised the rate in 2025, $0.25.4. that happens in Charlottesville City, you're going to start getting some friction and some resistance from locals who say, look, you need to start driving tax revenue from other sources here and not just our rooftops and personal property. That's when it starts swinging around. I also think this, I sincerely mean this, Chris Engel, who listens and watches to this show, okay? Chris Engle needs to be, will be a larger part of the conversation on this program, the director of economic development in Charlottesville. Because we need some economic development direction in this city. Oh, without a doubt. Since 2019 to 26, there's been, it's not gone in the right direction. You agree? Oh, completely.

Completely. And it's a combination of regulation. It's a combination of attitude. It's a combination of tax policy. It's also a matter of, you know, workforce issues. It's a matter of housing for the workers. it's it's tough without a doubt and you know we'll keep getting back to this but you got to build the only way you're going to bring prices down is when supply exceeds demand it's the only way

it's the only way it ever happens yeah this is one of the i mean he says we disagree in other spots but from what i've known i've known this man fairly well this is the number one thing we disagree over the last 18 months i've known him got to know this is the number one thing we disagree he's he's a build build build guy. And I'm not opposed to building. I always caveat this as long as we prioritize infrastructure first, then the bill. That ship

sailed when they canceled the Western Bypass and when they gave all those conservation easements on Ivy Road and other places. He's going to throw some shade to my neck of the woods. I think in a comment on social media, you said, what did you call them, the land gentry? The land of gentry, yeah. I mean, all these people with their houses up on the hill and acres

and acres of flowing pasture land that would either make a couple extra lanes for Ivy Roads that you know we're not putting everybody on a two lane road or shoving them all over to 64 because when there's an accident it's brutal it's the end of the world for that part but the other thing is true is you look at south of town you try and take uh fifth street down and once you get past uh southwood you know it's it's it's it's a thing that's a dangerous road yeah you know but yeah and same with scottesville you know could scottesville you know people are Someone asked earlier, where would you do light, you know,

where would you do industrial around here? Scottsville, Palmyra. Yeah. You know, Zion's crossroads. There are plenty. Down towards Scottsville towards 20, you saw Grope and move their headquarters that way. Yeah, but they're still, I mean,

they're still within, you know, they're in stumbling distance of a winery, so they're not quite in Scottsville. That's fair. Yeah. That's fair. I mean, there's that nice, uh,

Craig Builders is putting a development back right near there. I'm talking, you know, another five miles down the road. When you get past the turnoff for the wineries down there, what's that turnoff? That takes you back towards Trump and Dave Matthews Place. And what's the big one out there? Junta. What is it? Out by where you make the turn to go to Mount Ida.

So if you go down, yeah, you go over the little creek bridge that's being replaced. Out by Turkey Run. Yeah, past Red Hill Road. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, there's plenty of opportunity out there. You look at the road out. you look at 250 out towards Keswick. You know, there's some remnants of some old industrial kind of operations out there,

but there's plenty of land out there. Janice Boisselvillian highlights that Zion's Crossroads and Louisa has Amazon coming to that side of the central Virginia, $11, $12 billion of investment from Amazon for data centers, and be careful what you wish for with those data centers, Louisiana County. Well, but the other thing to keep in mind, look what Louisiana County did yesterday. What was that? I missed that.

open to wing in their middle school. Ah. You do any signage with the schools? Not yet. We do some printing for the Louise, especially the middle school. But, you know, they're growing their school because why? They see it. You know, they've got, what's the other drug company that's coming in down there?

Eli Lilly. Eli Lilly's coming in the neighborhood. You got Amazon coming in the neighborhood. They see, you know, they see all the kids, and I'm sure the high school is not far behind. Yeah, yeah. I don't know that they're going to build a second campus, but they're probably going to have to put an addition, even though that's a brand new, beautiful facility. Eli, Eli Lilly, even more money invested into Goochland than the $4.5 billion

Astrozenica is doing into northern Namar County. I think the Eli Lilly project, when it comes online, is going to have dramatic impacts on gated community Spring Creek that has roughly 5 to 600 lots still available for development. Dice Hammer, who I believe still owns Massanutton, is the man who controls many of those five to 600 lots in Spring Creek. Carol Thorpe, economic development and tourism boards feel almost non-existent in Charlottesville. She says it seems like the city has zero juice right now. This from John, here's the question for Conan.

Has he heard of a coconut jelly restaurant coming to the area? He was just in Silicon Valley over the break, and that's all the rage. He suspects a coconut jelly restaurant to come to the area soon. Have you heard anything about that? I haven't heard anything about that, but if I did, it sounds like it would be a franchise, which would probably end up in one of the shopping malls. Daily progress saved by a billionaire.

A man that owns the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League. Where do you want to go on that? Well, you can start at the general theme is if you look at what's been going on in media in the past five years, Boston Globe was bought by a billionaire who owns the Red Sox, the Washington Post was bought by Jeff Bezos. you know, now the daily progress. It's essentially a hobby. I mean, Bezos did it as a vanity play

because he wanted to be invited to all the Georgetown cocktail parties. But they aren't journalists, which is fine. You know, I was former journalist myself, but... Me too. I don't... We have that in common. You're just like...

You're photojournalists, right? But what it tells me is that journalism, as it's currently configured, isn't sustainable. So when people say, oh, you know, some billionaire camera... Well, what do you want? them to do. Just close up shop. What's the alternative? What should he do? You're a businessman and a former journalist. What should the, what should the billionaire do with, just call it the daily, I think

we're in agreement with this. John Blair and I talk about this all the time. Is it take the Daily Progress, the Waynesboro paper, the Roanoke paper, the Green County paper, basically close the newspapers, make them bureaus for the Richmond Times dispatch that becomes the paper of the Commonwealth? More or less. The other thing, number one thing is go all digital. There have been several papers. I remember the New Orleans Times Picayune was one of the first to go completely digital, shut down their printing plant, sold off the presses, sold off the real estate, and they survived.

You know, if you think about the business bottle that a newspaper is based on, is cutting down a tree, turning it into paper, shipping it across the country, printing on it, cutting it, and giving it to a bunch of 12-year-old. olds to deliver before five in the morning, that just doesn't make any sense. So, first of all, newspapers should be 100% digital, and that would allow the local resources to focus on content. So if they're not worried about editing the stories, you know, editing can be done anywhere. And quite honestly, I know they're not going to like to say this because I was a former copy

editor also, AI can do a lot of it. Dude, 100%. You know, and it's not like the old, you know, fine. and replace that they had back when I was in the newspaper business and they talked about businesses being in the... AI can write the story for you. Yeah, well, yeah, they can, you know, but the funny thing was once upon a time the Philadelphia Inquirer did a business story about a company that finally turned it around and was back in the African American because spell check wouldn't let them write black. But AI doesn't do that anymore. But yeah, you can move a lot of the editing function and what you need is somebody to say, okay, what's the news?

you can have a Bureau Chief that's deciding what's the news in Charlottesville that my team needs to cover and they can go out and cover a couple of stories a day and you're no longer constrained by how many page, you know, how many column inches do I have because advertising only sold this amount of space

and then you write your stories. So you got the Daily Progress Editor it's Reynolds Hutchins and if you haven't seen Reynolds Hutchins I actually did a real state tour with him. This guy is jacked. I mean, he is a diesel, he's like a brick house.

Reynolds Hutchins, the editor, is basically the bureau chief of Charlottesville, the Charlottesville metro area. And he has, probably at that point, they're going to be freelancers or stringers, two to three freelancers or stringers under him. And he says, these are the stories of the day to the two to three freelancers or stringers. I started my career in paper as a freelancer making $30 a story. This was in 2003, 22 years ago. So he sends his two to three stringers out to cover either a city council meeting, a border supervisors meeting, or the big high school football game on that Friday night. And that's the content for the Charlottesville Bureau, the Charlottesville section of the Richmond Times Dispatch.

I disagree. I think the editor sets the agenda for the day, and then he picks up his pad and paper and walks out the door and covers three stories himself because he actually doesn't have anything to edit. he's making editorial judgment on setting the priorities for what needs to be covered because he is the local knowledge base for Charlottesville. I don't want someone in Richmond deciding what is really doing. Yeah, yeah, no, I agree with that. But it's like once you make your priorities for the day, guess what? Your day is done in terms of your job as editor.

You're not overlooking somebody's writing style. You know, that you figured out in the interview, and that's something for the folks in Richmond to worry about. No, no, they should be staff. I think they should be staff. It gets expensive. You know, the Charlottesville Daily Progress is basically union. It's a guild.

Well, it doesn't have to be any more, change of ownership. As part of the... But also, you know, it's like, what are they actually leveraging there off of a company that's bankrupt? It's like you're not going to be getting $100,000 salaries. No, I think you need to go, for something like this, you really need to go with employees who are invested in the community, invested in the company, and invested in the success of the venture. I don't think they should be out there doing selling ads while writing a story because then you get into another mess,

but you can have local sales people reporting to a regional sales manager back in Richmond, making sure they're hitting their goals, making sure they're selling correctly. Because, you know, the interesting thing is, and we were both taken aback by this, but not actually really surprised, but almost flabbergasted. They don't even have a local sales person. Yeah. Think about that.

That's crazy. But there's nothing to sell. But then you're depending on subscriptions, which never should have been more than 50% of your, in the old days, wasn't ever more than 50% of your revenue model. And once classified ads went away and all of that, it's just turned into an absolute mess. But now if you've got a digital edition, you know, you can have people do some video with that as well so that their video pieces accompanying the story. So it looks more like if you look at the local TV news where they've got the video and then the text below, low. But you can have expanded text with just a little video clip or a picture.

You're one of the few people I know that still watches the broadcast news, local news. But you're doing it for business data. I'm doing it for business ideas in the weather. Yeah, right, right. You're doing it for the business data. Yeah, and for a little bit of comic relief, too. What you're saying? The typos in the Chiron are just, it's just, yeah. My favorite typo was the one that I think you shared on Reddit. And dude, you go into that, you go into, I'm going to catch E for this, you go into the Reddit cesspool.

And you comment, but one of my favorite ones that you shared was, I think it was NBC29, did a holiday story at UVA Hospital. Yeah. And then they showed Santa Claus. And there was a typo on his name tag. And his badge, Santa was misspelled. And you're like, why would they docks the hospital in Santa? Satan, yeah. Yeah, they spelled in Satan.

Yeah, it's like, yeah, I get it. It's entry level and all that stuff. Yeah, but there still has to be attention to detail, and come on, there isn't spell check. Well, I guess Satan would get through spell check, so that's... Satan on the bench for Santa Claus. It was pretty bad. It was going door to door or bed to bed. Bed to bed.

Hey, kids, here comes Satan Claus. Okay. What's next? That's so funny. I think we beat that one to death. Let me throw this to you. What is the impact? Because I haven't asked you about this yet, the AstraZeneca impact.

um four and a half billion dollars well i mean let's let's start with construction and contracting i mean just the building and the infrastructure and everything it's going to take years to get that facility up and running yeah so it's you know the contractor's full employment act is what charlottesville seems to be these days um so that's a big part of it the other thing is going to be is the skyrocketing of housing in green because albemarle doesn't want to build up there i mean granted You've still got some stuff going on up there by Polo Grounds Road that still needs to be fleshed out. But by the time AstraZeneca's built, that stuff's all going to be full. So I think you're going to see a lot of what's happened in Charlottesville happening in green.

So I can't remember the name of the development, but if you go on 33 towards Gordonsville, there's a couple of nice developments on the left-hand side of the road that have multi-acre lots. I think the values of those houses are going to go up as people, as the executives come in and start to snap them up. that means they're going to need to be building housing to basically for the displaced price point before they end up in the same mess that Charlottesville's gotten itself into by not building. And I'd like to think, I know Green County has had a big change in their leadership over the past few years, but I'd like to think they aren't quite, they aren't going to make the same mistakes, Charlottesville, even though they tend to be of the same mindset.

Ginny Who's photo on screen, she says we absolutely should not pay more taxes for school funds. We've thrown more money at them for decades without education improving. Exactly. And in many cases, actually becoming worse. I already pay for a system I do not use, and I'm not throwing more money away at a system that's failing our kids. Yeah. I mean, when you look at the amount of money that has gone into, you know, it's always, oh, we need more money, we need more money. So we keep getting more money and we keep getting the same bad result, which gets back to the definition of insanity.

So, but part of the problem is where is that money going? because it's not going to instruction. Well, we know where it's going. It's going to infrastructure. It's going to the... It's going to Haas and his lieutenants. And it's going to the climate czar for the schools. Yeah.

And it's going to electric buses when you can get by fine with diesel. Yeah. It's going to things that don't change the educational environment for the kids or address their needs or address the faculty's needs. Although, based on the outcomes we've had, I'm not sure all the faculty should still be there. Yeah. And that's, that's one of those things that people say, oh, you know, you got to care about the kids. Well, if you cared about the kids, you'd want performance-based teacher evaluations. And you wouldn't have, you know, caved into the whole COVID thing that just absolutely has destroyed a generation of learners.

Thank God, I don't have kids. But you also look, they just came out and said, what was it, homeschooling is up 15%. And Ginny, who is a homeschooler? Yeah. She homeschools for all our kids. Yeah. Jefferson Council, we'll talk about this in detail. They sent to us via email, which I would imagine they're also going to publish on their website,

the fine folks of the Jefferson Council, a Freedom of Information Act request. They have 239 pages they send to us. That basically is the skeletons, the warts for the Dr. Craig Kent, Melinda Kibby scandal, the white-collar racketeering, overcharging patients. backroom dealing and bullying, leveraging promotions or demotions to maintain power and control. So we're going to break that down in detail on tomorrow's show. I'm corresponding with some of the anonymous 128 right now about what's going on. But I'd love for you to offer an opinion on anything UVA.

Goodness gracious, it's the gift that keeps giving. Well, it's going to be, UVA is going to be both sides of the sword in this town. forever yeah um but it's not normally like this no it's it's not it's not quite this bloody um and and i mean that on both you know it when it cuts both ways um because on one hand you've got you know got successful athletic teams again but then you have this whole transfer portal disaster and what's his name sitting out the game yeah yeah jimari taylor basically refusing to go to work the running back yeah i'm sorry if you get paid to play a game and he got paid you got paid yeah just like you don't see professional athletes going in and

saying, well, I don't want to play this game because I might get hurt. If you're physically able to perform, you perform. That's what you're paid for, and you take the chances. And if you don't like taking the chance to take out an insurance policy or go get a different path in life. But that's the risk you take. You could get, how many times do you have non-contact injuries in football? You know, the quarterback from Minnesota blew out his ankle.

No, yeah. It's all the time. So I'm sorry. If you bail on playing in the, in the, game that you worked all season to get to, you sit out the next year. Scott Beardsley. Scott Beardsley. Great pick. He's qualified. He's a darting guy. You're a

darting guy. Yeah, he is. Well, he's a, he's a Harvard guy, but that's okay. And he's a McKinsey guy. Dean at Darton. Yeah, Dean at Darton, did a great job at Darden. One of my best friends at Dardy. You got beef with the McKinsey? Oh, yeah. What's the beef with the McKinsey? They dinged me in my second round interview. I went to work for BCG.

Ah, got it. It's like going to work for Hertz instead of Avis, or the other way around. One of my best friends at Darden was his fraternity brother undergrad. And my friend is basically Rob Reiner. It has the same political views at Rob Reiner. And he thinks Scott's an amazing guy. There's no way he would be supporting Scott to be president of UVA if Scott was

some right-wing tool, like lots of the conspiracy theorists think. So he knows what he's doing. He's been around UVA for what, 10 years. He got reappointed by Ryan. And he's taken the UVA to the top ranking, or Darden to the top ranking, something UVA's never quite a cheap. A phenomenal fundraiser. A great fundraiser.

So what's not to like? Oh, he got appointed by someone I disagree with. Well, but he's qualified. Period. End of sentence. And the faculty and the students, it's like, I'm sorry, you don't get to pick your boss. It's not the way it works. I'm 100% in agreement with what you said.

Why is there so much uproar? Because they don't like the process or the perception of the process. Because the process took months. It took more than half a year, right? It did. And what was it? They said that he was selected by the same, he was identified by the same search firm that identified Ryan.

He's the same search for him that brought him to UVA in the first place. So he's jumped through all of the UVA hoops for, you know, he passed the smell test. test with flying colors. And it's all about, well, this board that Yonkin did and they're an illegitimate board and all this other stuff. It's like, you're asking for trouble. Yeah.

Because here's the thing. So let's say, okay, so let's say somebody goes and sues and says there weren't enough Virginia residents on the board at the time because we blocked Yonkin's appointments and his appointment is illegitimate. So now we have to go back. Which technically there are not. Okay. Well, but is that grounds for violating any of their just because we're going to find out.

Well, here's going to go. Okay, so let's say they come back and say, you didn't have a properly constituted board. Therefore, the board of visitors can't make any decisions, not just the president. That very well could happen. Okay, so then what happens is four years from now when the Republicans win or eight years from now? Well, I don't know. You look at how this country reacts to overreach. Well, look at how the Democrats are redistricting the Commonwealth.

Well, yeah, well, we'll see if that holds as well. But here's the thing is that there's always the chance that the Senate's going to go back to the Republicans. And if the Republicans end up blocking a Democrat governor's appointments, UVA or any other school will never have a properly constituted board of visitors. And guess what? They can't make any decisions. So what happens to a university that can't make any decisions at the board of visitors level? You're just asking for problems. Look what happened to Chuck Schumer.

He said, oh, we need to pass all these judicial nominations. We need to get all this through. So we're going to get rid of the 60 vote rule. We got a 51, simple majority to get judges approved. And then they lost. And then Trump went and appointed a bunch of. judges and now they're complaining about the process well it's a process you created and you have to you know there's a reason why those rules were put in place in order to protect against

the the whims of the day um and i just don't you know if it was smart enough for the founding fathers i'm pretty sure the current group of knuckleheads running our country should be paying attention does faculty strike no go ahead strike please what are you going to strike about you don't like your boss? Oh, come on. Judah would strike every day. Yeah, exactly. And so with my whole staff, you know, it's just like on any given day.

You're not supposed to technically like your boss all the time, folks. And you don't get to choose him. That's what you took the job. You didn't. Yeah, no, sorry. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah.

And what exactly is the president going to tell you that you don't like? You can't teach this class anymore because Donald Trump is scaring me? I don't think so. Does Rachel Sheridan quit before she's fired by Spamberger? Don't know, don't care. Porter Wilkinson, don't know, don't care? I don't think they, I don't think they, I think they should, I think they should stand their ground because they were duly appointed. Okay.

They did what they thought was in the best interest of the university. Or they did what Yonkin told them to do. What's the, it's a fine line. Do you really believe that? Do you really believe that that Yonkin called them up and said, get rid of Ryan and hire Beardsley? no I think I think Yonkin was extremely influential behind the scenes of getting rid of Ryan I don't think Yonkin behind the scenes said higher Beardsley so how is that going to be any different than Spanberger getting in behind the scenes and saying get rid of the rector and the vice director I think that very well could happen I very well could happen but then you're getting back into the whole the governor is the puppeteer yeah for a UVA and you don't want that no you don't want that the governor should govern the state let the universities run themselves and he has this power to appoint his friends to be on the board I already told political in 2020? Yeah, but I already told you

how to fix the Board of Visitors to get the politics out of it. Yeah. But they're not going to do that because it means giving up power and the one thing that people in politics want is power. They don't necessarily want money,

money comes from power. Exactly. But they pursue the power. Yeah. And it's the power. The power's the hardest piece to get. The money you can get. And it's something they'll never give up once they've got it.

Exactly. That's why they change the rules in order to stay in power. And that's why incumbents keep getting reelected because the redistricting. Exactly. Exactly. They're changing the rules. But we have to change the rules

to save democracy because the Republicans are changing the rules in other state. Yeah, exactly. It's all a joke. And they can't even see their own hypocrisy. And that goes for both sides. Well, no. It's not even that they can't even see their own hypocrisy. It's like, they actually don't even believe it's hypocrisy.

Well, because they're doing it. When they do it, it's pure. When the other side does it, it's evil. It's a savior complex. Yeah. And that's true for both parties. 100%. And it's just annoying. It's Like, we deserve better. The savior complex is so rooted in, like, narcissism. And it's true for both sides.

Yeah. But we deserve better, but we're not going to get better because who the hell wants to do that job? Exactly. That's why you end up with unemployed people living in their parents' house on the city council. Oh, it's not just me that's singing them. Michael Payne right there. It was not just me that zingle, that's a Conan Lowe and Zig right there. If I had known that, it's just like, are you kidding me?

Is that the best Charlottesville can do? I said it all the time on the show. Is that the best we have in leadership and, and executive thinking. And that's why I say it on the show. Right there, Judah. He makes the point. That's why.

An unemployed guy, part-time guy that was living at home with his parents at his 30s is one of five people allocating a $264 million yearly budget. Yeah, and he may have a broad constituency that reflects him. Does he? He might.

I mean, that's the stereotype. Yeah, well, that's the other thing. I mean, but that's the stereotype. But just because you have a broad constituency doesn't mean you bring the bright ideas that the city needs so that you don't end up in your 30s on a part-time job living with your parents. When did it be cool to be in your 30s living at home

with your parents part-time working? When you can blame the system for it. It's not his fault. Jesus. You know, it's just like, do you know how many open jobs there are in this country? Oh my gosh, I know. There's 7 million open jobs. Our clients at Great Harvest in this location on the downtown mall.

They need employees. Yeah. well I don't want to work for $20 an hour okay well then stay in home into your parents basement he's working for less he's working for less than $10 an hour Michael Payne you know it

18K in year you know but then you look at a place like Starbucks the CEO started as a barista yeah right you know well look at the like the Papa Johns and the Domino's franchise owners they start as drivers yeah like the pizza flippers yeah props to that well a fun story for you Wawa owned by the Pond family. My roommate when I was with BCG down in Mexico, his roommate at Stanford Business School was there to Pond. And when he graduated, his listing in the alumni directory was store manager, Wawa, number 74, because he spent four years running one of his family stores before he even stepped foot in the corporate offices. And he was the son. I mean, he, he's the kind of person that, you know, why isn't he running? Because he has to learn the business.

Yeah. So get out there, get a job, learn the business, get the next step on the ring, the next run on the ladder, and you'll get there. You know, we don't all, you know, start at the top. And that's part of the problem is the expectation of, well, I've got student ones. Well, why did you take them out? Why didn't you go to PVCC for two years? Why did you major?

Exactly. Why did you major an underwater basket week? Right. And clay, clay molding. Yeah. The PVC thing, I was just talking about that with my wife, two years at PVC, live at home with your parents is it a 3-0 or and above

and you're automatically into any state school any state school I mean why is this not being done and half the time PVC is free right right it just makes it just makes economic sense or get a trade my wife was telling me yesterday

she had a plumber come over fix two things in her bathrooms of $400 and was he there for like 90 minutes something like that yeah you know and she's got to She's got a nephew who's trying to decide whether to go to some Division III school to play football or go into the Army. It's like, no, go get a trade school. You'll make more money than any college graduate coming out of school.

Ashley Pillar giving you props. Lauren Elena Turchos. One of my Honduran cousins. It's given you props. Philip Reese, I would. Escape room. You got to call me back about that direct mailing. Unlocked history escape room.

Philip Reese says, kudos to Conan Owen. Owen, he's a great guess. I always learned something new when he's on this show. I think there's a client relationship budding here with Unlocked. I've sent him a proposal for direct mail. Come on, Phil. Let's make that happen. You crushed it, dude.

Well, thanks. It's fun with you. Well, I tell you, it's fun. I love my job. I love being out in the community. I love seeing all these new businesses. Do you like doing the show? I do.

It's 75 minutes. You brought your egg game today. You got the right topics going. There's a lot to talk about in this town. There's so much happening in this town. And it's amazing because you, you know, even though I do watch the local news to get something because I don't know all of it, but they're missing so much. So much.

There are so many great stories out there. And you know what? I don't even think that it's their fault. It's partially their fault that they're missing it. there's only so much a 22 or 22 or 23 year old reporter can do that's fresh out of college they have 30 seconds per segment yeah 22 minutes of content and a 30 minute show because the commercial breaks and the the paper's just so severely understaffed I well but but it's also there's a certain amount you know they do have you know there is a news editor and the you know there's also a responsibility I remember when I was a journalist they always tell me what you need to go out and and have sources in these four or five different fields, people you can turn to to get opinions on stuff. And, you know,

we think back to what happened this weekend with the anti-Venezuela protests here in town. It was like nobody thought to go talk to the people at our repists. Let's close with that. Close with that. It's like, here's a Venezuelan refugee family. You know, they fled Venezuela. How about getting the others?

I mean, no one at those protests had ever been to Venezuela. They've never lived in Venezuela. They probably don't know any Venezuelans. All they are is mad about what has. happened. But, you know, my brother was in the embassy in Venezuela. He was in Caracas for several years. Every time he went state-side, and this was 15 years ago when Chavez was still there, he had to come home with a suitcase full of toilet paper and powdered milk for his kids because you couldn't get it in Venezuela. You know, these folks, you know, they know,

they have family members who have, you know, fall into the regime, they escaped, they've come here, they've built a great restaurant. They started over on Cherry Avenue. They got their food truck. We did their decal for their food truck when they got to, they got selected to be at Scott Stadium two seasons ago. They now moved to this great steakhouse over on Fifth Street that's in their, they've already crashed their first year anniversary to going into their second year. Here you've got Venezuelan entrepreneurs who can tell you a little something about what life is like in Venezuela and it just never occurred to anyone to go talk to them. What'd you think of their statement? I want to keep going with you. What did you think of the statement? I thought it was,

I thought it was very well done. Because, you know, they didn't mention Trump. It took a lot of balls It did. And that's unfortunate. That's unfortunate to be scared to come out in your community and say, here's what I feel about a situation that affects me personally. And one that I've lived. And the reason I'm in your community now is because of this horrible situation in my country, which is now over.

And I'm so happy for that. And the fact that people would be angry that they're happy is just mind. mind-boggling and you know it's this it's this visceral reaction to anything you disagree with anything associated with it has to be well and that's why you know we do it all the time you do it in some ways too when you jump in that those threads oh yeah yeah and part of it is because you know people say well you're no it's like no what i'm defending is a business owner's right to exist and to ply their trade without stupidity affecting their success yeah you're a capitalist Yeah, it's just like, you know, do they have good products?

Great, go. If they don't, don't go. Yeah. But I'm not choosing who I'm going to, I don't sit there and calculate every little thing that goes through my head. And I saw one, and the other problem is that the amount of misinformation out there is just staggering. Someone posted a picture from a Great Harvest Bread Company in Northern Virginia that had a

thing supporting Turning Point USA. And they were just like, oh, we might want to think twice about going to great. And I'm like, good God, people, these are franchises. Yeah. They have nothing to do with the other one. Right. And then somebody said, oh, well, I applied to them. They actually got the city wrong in the thread.

Yeah. It was the wrong location. Yeah. And the OP's original post. And then everybody's piling on saying, oh, my God, we got to be careful about Great Harvest. And someone said, oh, well, I applied for a job with them and they offered me minimum wage. And I was like, when was that?

Two years ago, I was like, they're new owners now. Oh. We sold, helped them buy this business. It's like people are spouting off these hurtful opinions without doing any research or having any knowledge or giving any context and it really is and it's it's just a shame that people look at that and say you know this is how i'm judging people based on this crazy i mean they're still saying shenandoah joes is owned by a madame fabara yeah no it's not yeah it's owned by a black guy who's a darn grader a trinidadian immigrant yeah right you know it's just like can you at least get your

facts right no because facts don't matter what matters is my indignation and i'm just you know in charlottesville it's like it's supposed to be a welcoming community well welcome everybody you know it's just like I've got people coming in I had a guy come into my store a couple of days ago I think he's Afghanistani I couldn't ask him because he couldn't speak English he had to translate through his phone to me to places his order for his car repair business but he was the nicest guy it's like great I don't ask him are you a refugee were you there I was like no it's like welcome to Charlottesville how can I help you get your business off the ground welcome to Charlottesville how can I help you?

Do you have the money to pay for the services? If you do, we will work hard for you. We'll knock ourselves out for you. Because we want reoccurring business. And Dash thought he was great. Dash jumped up on his shoulder and hung out. Yeah, Dash, Dash greeted him.

The office manager, Shud is loving this back here. But it's just like, that's what, to me, that's what any community should be. Right. You know, I have. It used to be that way. You know, and I have, you know, I have Latins come in and, you know, and we talk Spanish, and I helped them with their, you know, the cleaning company came in. They're adding two cars to their fleet.

You know, we're doing their decals for them and talking to them about their business. And, you know, and I don't ask them, are you here illegally? No, I don't care. Right. That's somebody else's job to figure out. 100%. You know, I'm here, I'm here to help you make money so that you can be a productive part of society. You know, and that was something we had a synapse meeting yesterday where they highlight a different nonprofit at every meeting.

Synapse is a club. Yeah, it's a networking group here in town. And, you know, you join and they have weekly meetings. more than weekly meetings because there are several different ones around town. And then they bring in a nonprofit to highlight. And I talked to the board, the executive director of Seim Barreras, where I'm on the board. And he came to the one yesterday. And one of the things we talked about was, you know,

Seenbararis doesn't mean without borders. It means without barriers. So we're helping remove the barriers so that people can succeed in Charlottesville. It's not about opening the border and saying, hey, everybody, come on up to Charlottesville and get free stuff. No, you're here, great. how can we help you learn English, how can we help you in the workplace, how can we help you navigate this culture and society that you may not be familiar with? And it goes both ways. We also work with nonprofits giving them Spanish lessons so that their staff can deal with Spanish speakers

and whatever it is that they're doing, whether it's the food bank or, you know, domestic violence, whatever it happens to be or even going to adopt a dog at the SPCA. But to me, that's what inclusion is. It's like, I don't care what you're probably. I did yard signs for Zionne Bryant. And the only thing I asked her was, so what would you say to people who say, you don't have kids?

What are you doing on the school board? And she gave me a very articulate, well, I called her out for that. Yeah, and she said, well, you know, I was in the school system. She went through the school system. I lived it.

You know, the parents out here didn't live the Charlottesville school system. That's a great response. And I told her, said, you can use that response. Yeah, it's like you convinced me of that. She's extremely smart. Oh, yeah, she's great, and she was a good customer.

I don't agree with what she has done, but she's extremely intelligent. I will not throw shade on her intelligence. And it's like, it doesn't matter. I did the best yard signs I could do for you, the best price I could do. Her money is green. Her money is green, and so was Jen Fleischer's, and so was Dave Norris when he ran. Right. And so is Sally Hudson's and everybody else.

Not Tom Perrier is because he's going to send it to a union shot. That's another story. Yeah, exactly. The check clears or the credit card doesn't bounce. I'm fine. I'm happy. I'll do whatever I can to help you. succeed. Yeah. You know, that's my job. Hat tip in the

comment section, hat tip to Carol Thorpe, who mentions Chick-fil-A, the same activists with the indignation on someone's politics as a business owner, and if they're a Trump supporter, a Republican or a conservative, then after they protest, go get chicken nuggets and waffle fries at Chick-fil-A. Well, but Chick-fil-A's own locally. It's a local franchisee. Right. Well, my point is Chick-fil-A's their politics closed on Sunday. But is it?

Yeah. I mean, that's one of the franchise rules. The franchisee may not believe it, but he looks at Chick-fil-A and says, delicious food, great service culture, fanatical followers. It's a moneymaker. It crushes it. Right? It's just like it doesn't have anything to do with, and not the local one, especially.

I support businesses and owners. Period. Yeah. Is the service you're giving me up to the standard of the money that's in my pocket? And if it is, I come back. I'll have you go. Oh, one thing I did want to circle back on, the tax on tips things. It's going to be interesting to see what happens in some places in Charlottesville that have the automatic service fee because that is not counted towards tax.

That is not considered a tip. That's a service fee paid to the establishment, which the establishment then redistributes. So if you worked at a place all year and only got paid what was on that service fee line, you do not get the credit on tax on tips. Well, most of them are that way now. Are they, though? A lot of them are. No, it's different when it says, do you want to add. add a tip.

Oh. No, this is when it says you've got 18% added. So that may be why some of them are taking it off now. For example, Selvage Brewery has taken that all. I love Selvage Brewery. And it used to be an auto 20%. Yeah, the auto 20% is gone because that doesn't qualify for the tax on tips.

Yeah. Actually, it was an auto 15% at salvage. So they took it off the last time we were there. Yep. So that's probably in reaction to the tax policy. Dude, you should do a post on social media. It should be out there or at least send us a write-up. like a detailed write-up, we will give you credit

on tomorrow's show. I'm not a tax. Do not take tax advice from this man. How many of the folks even know about this? Oh, none. My employees who worked some overtime, in July when the bill passed, I said, do you realize you're going to be getting something?

And they were like, that's what I'm saying. How many of the food and beverage places? Well, the good news is, is that when you file your taxes, it will do it for you because on your W-2, it says qualified tips. Yeah.

And that gets plugged into QuickBooks or your tax layer or whatever program you use. and it will qualify. They may not understand why they're all of a sudden getting this big fat check, but they're going to get one. And they're going to spend it. Yeah.

You crushed it, dude. Conan Owen guy, Sir Speedy, locally owned and operated by this man, a Darden graduate. If you have a logo and you need an application for it, this is who you contact. He's done the signage on the storefront, our studio,

this banner that's behind us, the signage in the lobby of the Macklin building, signage on the second floor, and signage for a number of our clients. Locally owned and operated. Absolutely fantastic interview today. Wow, Conan, 90 minutes on the road. It was fun.

I got to get back to work. I know you do. I know you do. Judah would carry behind the camera, the I Love Seville Show. Thank you kindly for joining us. On tomorrow's program, we break down what will be breaking news, and certainly I hope to got in the news cycle,

the Jefferson Council's FOIA of the health system soap opera, white-collar racketeering, backroom dealing, leverage, blackmail, and more. Tomorrow's show, don't miss it. So long. Dude, I'm gonna forward you right now what they sent us coming. I can't imagine.

Thank you. Thank you.