The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - UVA Men's Basketball Season Is Over; What Next?; Special Work Session On Wed For Low Barrier Shelter

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

The I Love CVille Show headlines: The UVA Men’s Basketball Season Is Over; What’s Next? Special Work Session On Wed For Low Barrier Shelter Vision CVille May Shrink Short-Term Rentals From 180 To 90 Days Will AlbCo Personal Property Tax Punish Poor Residents? Gas Now At $4 Per Gallon; When Will They Come Down? AlbCo Schools $21K Annual Cost Per Student 2025-26 Black College Applicants See Larger Drop In Admission Rates Need CVille Office & Commercial Space, Contact Jerry Read Viewer & Listener Comments Live On-Air 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.

Welcome to the I Love Seville Show, guys. My name is Jerry Miller. Thank you kindly for joining us on a Monday afternoon in downtown Charlottesville. Take a look at the screen for today's headlines. A lot we're going to cover, excuse me, as I just fought a sneeze for 60 seconds on today's show. Virginia Mets basketball has been bounced from the NCAA tournament. We'll talk about that today. A storybook season ends a chapter or too short.

a lot of emotions on a Monday afternoon with a loss still very fresh where Virginia did not play well. And it caught up to them against a Tennessee team that's got talent on its roster, including a freshman small forward, power forward that's a lottery pick in the NBA draft. That's earning comparisons to Kevin Duran. We'll talk about the season that just finished. And we'll ask the question, what's next? when it's all said and done, 30 wins, ladies and gentlemen. You've got to salute Ryan Odom for what he did here in Charlestville

in his first year on the job, and now it's up to Coach Odom to duplicate that. What's it mean for Virginia fans? What's it mean for the university? What's it mean for the economy locally? It's no secret when Virginia football and basketball do well, the economy in Charlestville, Almaro County, Central Virginia, and the economy that caters to Virginia alumni also does well. I had one restaurant owner tell me before the start of the NCAA tournament

that the Virginia football season and its historic 11-win campaign was the momentum to keeping a number of businesses and the restaurant sector alive that otherwise should have closed. a lot of folks in the bar business, the restaurant business, we're hoping for a deep, turny run for Virginia basketball. We'll talk about that on the show today. We'll also, of course, talk about it on the Jerry and Jerry show tomorrow at 10.15 a.m. A show we do on Tuesdays at 1015 with Virginia Sports Hall of Famer, Jerry Hootie Rackleaf.

His website, Jerry Rackleaf.com. We encourage you to subscribe to jerryrackliff.com. It's a subscriber-based website that's got the best content possible if you're a UVA sports fan. He's putting out two articles a day, and it's just literally the best content possible for Virginia fans at jerry rackliff.com. I want to talk on today's show for the city of Charlottesville, again making the world more challenging for small business owners. Now City Hall and its governance think it's a good idea to shrink short-term rentals from 180 days to 90 days. The Planning Commission this week will be deliberating whether 90 days is the appropriate window that someone could rent out a home for Airbnb use, for example, STR, short-term rental. look we all have heard the horror stories of the bachelor party or the bachelorette party at the

neighbor's house or or a couple of cottages down the road on the same street that you live on and how they've had an all-night rager until four in the morning funneling natural light and bush light through tubes and funnels like judah does on a Monday afternoon or ripping chalkers on the front porch all day long as they wait for their Uber to pick them up to take them to the downtown mall. We've all heard the horror stories. The question I have for you is, is this the right time to add that storyline

to a perceived melting pot of headwinds for small business in the city? The contemplation right now with planning commission before it gets to city councilists, should we cut the window of Airbnb or short-term rental usage or rental availability from 185 days a year, 180, 180 days a year to 90.

That story on today's show. We'll also talk on today's program a work session with city council for the low barrier shelter on holiday drive. Council is going to get together in a professional, and legitimate capacity to brainstorm what needs to happen to bring a official low barrier shelter to the office building that we see from the bypass, a shelter that's probably going to need another

$10 million of our money and will not open for 36 to 48 more months and we'll have the bed count cut from more than 200 down to roughly 80. That work session happens this week and goodness gracious just to be a fly on the wall with city staff and city council and what they are deliberating on how to solve the houseless epidemic or pandemic in Charlottesville, Virginia. We'll talk about that on today's show. We're also going to talk about personal property taxes. Almaro County got a fantastic email from Donna Price

over the weekend. I may actually reach out to the former chairwoman of the Almar County Board of Supervisors. She was the Scottsville District Representative for a term before Mike Pruitt. She sent me an email. She copied the Almar County Supervisors on the email as well. And she basically said, look, you do this advertised 15 cent personal property tax increase? And all you're doing is going to tax the poor people and keep them even more poor.

We've been talking about this on the show viewers and listeners. Donna Price put it so eloquently in writing. She's a fantastic word smith. I hope she hears this. And her words were like, everyone needs a car in Almore County. It's either the sixth or seventh largest county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It's humongous. Taxing vehicles is a tax that will disproportionately impact the poor and make them more poor. What are you doing here? We'll unpack that topic on today's show. I had a viewer and listener of the show DM me and ask me about the personal property tax rate increase that's being considered. He's a retiree.

And he said, what's the new personal property tax rate via Facebook DMs to me? I said, as of March 26, the MR. County Board of Supervisors says advertised a 15-set increase in the personal property tax rate on vehicles, boats, automobiles, trucks, heavy machinery, you name it. And that's for fiscal year 2027. That would bring the proposed rate to $4.43 per $100 of assessed value. He responded, goodness gracious, great balls of fire. Florida and a move to the Sunshine State is looking like the right choice for me and my family. Talk about that on today's show. I want to talk Almaro County spending. How about this?

astronomical number. Almaro County Public Schools is spending $21,000 per pupil in year 2025, 2026. Educating students at Almarl County Public Schools, 21,000 a student. That number does not include CAP-ACs, basically money-allocated taxpayer to new construction of building, and infrastructure. We're talking curriculum and education. 21 grand a student. Amarro is spending a private school's tuition to educate its students.

We'll talk about that on the show. And the University of Virginia may be getting even less diverse. And frankly, it wasn't that diverse to begin with. The Trump administration kiboshed affirmative action with public universities and private institutions across the Commonwealth, across the country, excuse me. The Trump administration leveraged federal funding and said,

hey, you want money from the feds? You want money from me? You're going to get rid of affirmative action. The University of Virginia said, hey, we're getting a boatload of money from you, Donald Trump. About 10 or 12% of our yearly operating budget comes from the feds. We want to make you happy. This was a deal that was inked by interim president Paul Mahoney before Scott Beardsley got into office in Cars Hill.

And as a result of that, Trump, some would call overreach, some would say that Trump was doing exactly what he was supposed to do, basically depends on the side of the political aisle that you sit upon. The University of Virginia has reduced admissions to perspective. These are offers, these are admissions offers. These are not acceptances, but roughly half, less black students. 50% drop and black student admissions are offered to the University of Virginia. We'll talk about that on today's show.

The Cavalier Daily, excellent reporting on this. A lot we're going to cover on the program. I do want to highlight Charlottesville Sanitary Supply, Charlottesville Swimming Pool Company. Charlottesville Sanitary Supply is online at Charlottesville Sanitary Supply.com where they offer free in-market delivery. Free in-market delivery. have a fantastic online store.

Anything cleaning, sanitary, vacuum, vacuum repair, swimming pool, water testing, pool cover, Bona wood floor finishing or staining, anything Charlottesville Sanitary Supply has. And they'll deliver to you the same day, most likely, at a price point that's lower than the big box brands. You're supporting a business that's been in operation for 62 years. their sister company, Charlottesville swimming pool company, is who you contact first for anything swimming pool related. We certainly do at the Miller family swimming pool, whether it's the in-ground pool, the above-ground pool,

constructing an in-ground pool or an above-ground pool, water testing, pool covers, pool shades, pool robots, you name it. A lot Charlottesville swimming pool company has to offer. Judah Wickhauer, studio camera. Judah Wickhauer, two shots. as comments are coming in from Conan Owen and William McChasney and John Blair already. As we have an Almore County supervisor watching the program, a couple of brewery owners watching the show.

We love you. John Shave at Pro Renata. Rob Neal watching the program. Andre Xavier watching the program. Stephanie Wells Roads, Betsy Nugent, Realtors, financiers, hedge fund magnets, landlords, developers, Commonwealth's attorneys, judges, elected officials, stay-at-home moms, all watching the show, all walks of life. That's what we want, the water cooler of content and conversation.

The show is yours, J-Dubs. I ask you the same question every time. I tried to do that intentionally. So you're prep for it. Which headline most intrigues you today and why? Well, I'm interested in the special work session for the low-barrier shelter vision. And I don't know a whole lot about all the groups, but our church has recently been participating in the Pacham efforts to house homeless people during the winter and obviously early spring. And so I hope that they bring a good perspective to the meeting.

What consists of housing the homeless with your church? Is it at the church or with church members? It's at the church. We provide a space. We provide cots. We provide food. In fact, it's been a really wonderful experience, especially this year,

with several neighborhood families on Riverside coming in to help cook and provide food for the men spending the night at the church. Overall, it's a time to help out. We've got people that sign up to either just kind of be there as caretakers in case people need something through the night. There are people that sign up to help serve the food. and obviously make the food, serve the food to the men. And we've had several of the men come into the church for our services.

This is interesting to me. Is it predominantly, I don't have this answer, and you may not have the exact answer, but you can utilize the eye test. It seems predominantly the houseless population in and around Charlottesville is man. male? There, I don't know the exact details either, but there is a, a women's version of this. They obviously just, they separate them so that you're not dealing with men and women in the same sleeping areas, whichever group is taking the men for a particular period. I believe it's usually

roughly two weeks that church will sign up for. So, So the men will be at one place for the two weeks. Women will be at another place. I think it just simplifies things. Is it predominantly male the houseless population? I can't answer that. Viewers and listeners? I can look up numbers.

Well, the numbers I think that you would look up would probably be national statistics. I'm curious if any of the viewers and listeners that are watching the program, is the homeless population locally predominantly male and is it overwhelmingly male? I'm curious about that. I'm also curious about this.

This is something that's come up with viewers and listeners. Judah's made this point that I'm about to make. The shelter that they're doing on low barrier drive, and this is tied to the second headline that's on screen. You can put the second headline on screen here. They're having a work session, city council. And I'm going to give you a couple of talking points here that are concerning, and then I'm going to offer some commentary.

They don't have an operator yet for this shelter. Right. There is neither a non-profit nor a for-profit entity that is agreed to be the day-to-day operator of this low-barrier shelter. And low barrier is important. The low-barrier shelter has looser regulations and restrictions than other types of shelter like the Salvation Army. High barrier.

High barrier, thank you. Much looser. Yeah, the sex offenders, folks that are dealing in the moment with drug and alcohol addiction, including usage. Yeah, I think you have to prove you're not on drugs to be in a high barrier shelter. Allowed into a high barrier shelter. Right, right. Because of the other people that are in there. So the low barrier shelter is folks that are not only marginalized the most, but dealing with mental health,

addiction and are also on the brink in the past or recent of criminality. And that's me not stigmatizing folks. That's just what the nature of a low barrier shelter is. So there's no operator for the shelter yet. That's extremely important because the last thing we want is the city of Charlottesville and taxpayers to foot the bill for Charlottesville to operate itself with hired city staff that's backed by unionized and collective bargaining wages and the pompant circumstance that go with it, that would get really costly. Next point that I constantly try to make on the show, we're years away from this.

It's currently an office building, former Lakeland Tours location. We are at the earliest 30 months away, realistically, 36 to 48 months away from this turning. to anything. Another point that you should understand. They paid $6.2 million for this office building. They're going to need probably an additional $8 to $10 million to bring this online. $10 million to bring this online. Most concerning point, initially this was billed or presented or sold to us. The branding and marketing for why we should cover this bill as taxpayers was 225 beds. That estimate is now as low as 80 beds. So it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, been cut by two-thirds, the shelter on, on holiday drive. The point Judah makes, and it's a

really, really good one, what happens if the predominantly male population that's houseless says, sure you've built us the Waldorf Astoria of homeless shelters on the Rivana Trail. Yes, you've constructed us the Ritz Carlton of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, escapes, but we don't want to live there. We would prefer to live in vestibules on the downtown mall, or we would prefer to bathe and live on the banks of the Rivana River under Freebridge. If there's not the accompanying policy from City Hall that you can't shelter or camp in public places anymore, nor can you store your belongings, then this $12 to $16 million

shelter is going to be fruitless. Judas made that point. It may, you know, it may be suitable for some people, but we're still going to have the same problem that we have now. Some people are not going to want to use it. And if that is your only tool in your toolbox, I'm sorry, but you need more strategy than just, hey, this is what we do, and it hopefully will work. And we have city counselors watching the program.

They have a work session this week. So I hope the city councilors that are watching the show understand that it's the total package that must be executed. It's not just the Ritz-Carlton of shelters that will solve what's happening here. It's the policy that follows that will reinforce or drive engagement into the low-barrier shelter that's important for the community. And it's a perfect segue into short-term rentals if you can put that photo on screen, that headline on screen. Planning Commission on March 24th, Sean Tobbs' great reporting on this per usual, which is tomorrow. In a work session, the Charlottesville Planning Commission is considering someone called this red tape, some would call this headwinds, someone called this more limitations for short-term rentals

in the city of Charlottesville. In 2025, short-term rentals provided $1,581,321,320. $22 in taxes, tax revenue. Motels and hotels, 8,482,585. So for the sake of a talk show, in 2025, Airbnbs or short-term rentals, call it $1.6 million in tax revenue, where hotels and motels,

8.5 million in tax revenue in 2025. They're not compared... Is it roughly one-fifth? What's that? Is it roughly one-fifth? You do the math. So 1.6 million versus 8.5 million in 2025. The Planning Commission right now is considering limiting the upside or the usage of

short-term rentals. And look, I'm torn on this. I'm torn on short-term rentals locally. Part of me is torn on short-term rentals because I can imagine being next to an Airbnb in the city where you're raising your family. My wife and I, we have a three-year-old and a seven-year-old. And if right next to your house where your three-year-old is going to sleep at 6.30 p.m. at night, and it's been a long day for us on a weekend. And we are just praying that he goes to sleep and stays asleep so we can enjoy 45 minutes or an hour of peace together as a couple, and hoping our 7-year-old also goes to bed. And next door, there could be an all-night rager where folks are... What's that? This wouldn't change that.

I haven't made my point yet. Okay. Yeah, yeah. the point I'm trying to make is I understand what folks are doing here that if they're upset that a short-term rental is happening next to them. I also am a free market capitalist

who invest in real estate and has rental properties and I would be hesitant or resentful if someone told me what to do with them. So I'm trying to empathize with both sides here of what's happening locally. There's a lot of people, in Charlottesville City that are saying there's a boatload of short-term rentals that are operating illegally. And currently, you have to live in the short-term rental half of a calendar year.

You have to live in the short-term rental. What is that? 182 days a year. Right? You live there, the owner of the house, 182 days a year. The other 182 in change, you can short-term rental. They're discussing right now, reducing the number of nights a homestay or short-term rental can be rented out to 90 days a year, cutting it in half. They're also talking about a larger upfront permitting fee, $500 for three years as opposed to $100 for one year with you renewing every year. Clearly what they're trying to do they're considering is limiting the short-term rental upside. here. Some would say that by limiting the short-term rental upside here, they're doing it from a governance standpoint of creating more housing stock because they don't want wealthy investors or a portfolio of, you know, some kind of real estate portfolio, scooping up, you know, three-bedroom, two

baths all over the city and turning them into Airbnbs, which would shorten the stock or limit the stock of housing for people to purchase. I get that as well. My concern with this, Here's my concern with this, okay? My concern is A, the city is again showing itself as being less business friendly at a time where the city already has a reputation of being less business friendly. The city has a reputation with its houseless population, with its sales tax and meals tax revenue dropping, with just the closing of businesses lately. Have we not seen how many businesses have been closing lately?

the turnover of stuff happening here, I understand governance, I also understand perception management. And doing something like this at a time where the city is seeming to be less business friendly already leaves me scratching my head. And cutting a short-term rental from 180 days to 90 days, and then enforcing the short-term rental with new software that it's purchased to enforce short-term rentals and their accurate or correct usage is going to leave a lot of people potentially in a lurch that are in this business. Like if you have 182 days by the letter of the law that you can, you know, Airbnb your house, that means at most one person can have how many short-term rentals? Two.

They can say they live in House A half the time and House B half the time. and when they're not living in one of the house, they can Airbnb. Right? We know of people locally. We all know of them that have more than two short-term rentals. Those folks, if this letter of the law are enforced, will either convert their Airbnb into a long-term rental that's defined by 30 days or more,

or sell the house, which could put more stock out there. My concern is the city very much getting a reputation of being not business-friendly. Judah Wickhauer. Yeah, that's fair. I wonder if they think this is what they want it to do. Wouldn't it be better to create rules to prevent people from owning five rental properties?

How do you go about doing that? I have more than five rental properties. You don't have, these aren't short-term rental properties. No. Are you saying putting rules in place where they can have not five short-term rental properties or rental properties in totality? Short-term rental properties. Well, they have that, don't they?

With the 180-day, they just have to enforce it. Well, that's the thing. If they're not enforcing it, is there an easier way to write these rules so that, I mean, yeah, I can imagine it would be tough to enforce. How long is somebody staying in one house? How long is, you know, how much? It's actually not hard to enforce that. Well, then why don't they? That's the question.

And deep throats talked about this in previous shows. I learned about this first from him, then I learned about this from Neil Williamson, who's covered this topic at the Free Enterprise Forum. There's software that the city currently pays for with taxpayer resources that allows the city to police Airbnb's or short-term rentals on the Airbnb websites, like the VRBO or Airbnb. All the short-term rentals, the large majority of short-term rentals have one thing in common. You know what that is? They have to be marketed by third-party sites to secure business. a lot of these short-term rentals are not securing tenants for long weekends like graduation weekend without being positioned on Airbnb or VRBO.

So the software that they're paying for crawls, studies, searches, polices these third-party sites, and then uses an algorithm basic. This is very basic of saying this is how many times it's been listed for rent. This is how many times it's been rented. And that data helps them police the city, if it wanted to, short-term rentals. I will say this. The folks that are very much lobbying for this are the hotel owners, the hotel years. As if the hotel owners are able to cut in half the availability of short-term rentals locally,

then they can jack up their rates for individual, you know, rent my hotel room at the Omni or rent my hotel room at the Doyle. And that's a concern. I'm curious if the city is like considers how deep the city's thinking goes. If the city has, and there's an exact number on this, I wonder if Sean reported this. I mean, shouldn't the discussion we're having be about why they're not using that software? I mean, why would you start trying to change the rules if you're not doing anything to enforce the rules?

you know, it's like if, is one rule better than another if you're not doing anything to enforce them? Because the city, I don't think the city has the staffing to do this. I mean, the city, I don't think the city has the, the nuance

or the, the, that's fair. The accountability execution to do this. They were, according to the software that the city's paying for, this is great reporting from Sean Tubbs. There's 529,

short-term rentals in the city. 529. 83% of them. 83% are single-family detached homes. So 529 times 0.83. That's 439 homes are short-term rentals.

Those 439 homes, the 529 altogether, I should say, generated about 1.6 million in revenue. Is the city nuanced enough to know that if it makes a move against these 529 short-term rentals, that the hotel rates in Charlottesville and in Almore County will escalate considerably? So if you have a wedding or you have out-of-town guests or if you have friends visiting in any capacity, the nightly hotel stay is going to go up because there's going to be less options for people to rent. Less competition.

Less competition. Does the city consider that? Does the city consider, does the city consider the headlines of being less business friendly? Is the city here just, is it cowtailing? Cowtow. Caltowing to housing activists who are pushing this?

You know, all things we try to consider on the show. Comments are coming in. This from Deep Throat. On short-term rentals, this debate goes to show the hitting costs that a total inability to enforce quality of life offenses imposes. If when you called up the city to report noise violations, something were to be done, then people would be more relaxed about short-term rentals. If a short-term rental or any residence is a nuisance, it would be dealt with. Great. but if you have a city that is totally incapable of enforcing these sorts of norms,

then you get a movement to ban STRs or seriously curtail them. By the way, the city had no idea how many short-term rentals there are. I pointed out that there are services that can manage this for cities, sent them the names and contact details. Now only what, four years later, they seem to have engaged a service provider, and there are almost 600. The exact number is, according to Shotub's reporting, is 529. 529.

But I do remember four years ago that Deep Throat did send the information to the city about software providers that could police short-term rentals. Follow this closely. He also adds this. It would seem a lot more sensible to say being loud and obnoxious is illegal and we will stop it than to say 10% of short-term rental guests are loud and amnoxious. So let's create another layer of regulatory nonsense around STRs, which will reduce the number of STR nights. of course 90% of these were harmless and 10% of what remains will still be obnoxious. Oh well, the city is stupid.

I'll put that into perspective here with the building we're in, the Macklin building. I'm on the board and I have been on the board for this building. It's a condode building. It's a very unique animal in that it's a commercial residential condoed building. The first two floors of this three-floor building are commercial.

The building is overwhelmingly commercial, but on the third floor are seven penhouses. These penhouses are half a million dollars all the way to a million three. We have this dichotomy of commercial owners overwhelmingly in this building versus the residential owners who live in this building. One of the residential owners was an investor. This was about 10 years ago. He, as an investor, took his penthouse on the third floor of this building,

which is on the corner of Market and 4th Street, right next to downtown Charlottesville, very fantastic location for a short-term rental. And he leased his penthouse as an Airbnb. It was a disaster. It's a three-bedroom two-bath penthouse. Bachelor parties were renting this three-bedroom two-bath and stumbling to and from the bars.

On one particular circumstance, a commercial owner came in on a Sunday morning during tax season. She's in the tax-prearing business. as she got on the elevator to ride up to her office on the second floor, there was a passed out 25-year-old in the elevator surrounded by Budweiser and beer cans in the elevator as this 65-year-old woman got on the elevator to go to her office during tax season. On a different occasion, the Bachelor Party locked their keys out of the room,

lost their keys, and they tried to scale the front facade of the building. That was when we had awnings out of the room. at the time and we had canopies on the awning. They got up to the awning, pulling the canopy down, going up to the facade, hoping that they could get in through the third floor balcony glass door that was left open. They unfortunately, fortunately, thank God,

because they didn't die, could not make it all the way up. But they did get to the second floor, a drunk 30-year-old man trying to climb up the front of the Mackle building. As a result of that, our board, I was the president at the time, And this is all part of the bylaws now, so I'm not speaking out of turn. We banned short-term rentals in this building as defined by any rental that is 30 days or less because of that collateral damage or fallout.

Now, to this day, there's third floor owners that say, you're diminishing the value of what I own here in this building by not allowing me to Airbnb at a handful of weekends a year. And they've promised us as a board that they would maintain. safety and security and pick the right guess, but still the overwhelming commercial owners in this building said, we're not going through that disaster again, and those seven penthouses on the third floor can never be short-term rented 30 days or less as long as probably the commercial owners own in this building, and they own two of the three floors. So curious to see what the city does.

They're having a work session for short-term rentals. They're having a work session for the homeless shelter city council. The short-term rentals is planning commission. City Council is the homeless shelter this week. I will say this. The city is gaining a reputation as not being very business-friendly. And these stories do consider, do continue to push that storyline forward. And there's certainly the hotel years that are chopping at the bit,

hoping that 182 days of short-term rental is cut to 90. Only time will tell. All right, let's get to the next headline. Judah Wickcaro. What is the next headline on our DACA? Let's see. Do you want to go back to basketball? In regards to basketball, I'll say this. The Virginia men's basketball team finished with 30 wins this year.

If we had said that Virginia would have 30 wins at the start of the season, we would have all taken it. The loss to Tennessee was not a good showing for Virginia. They missed nearly 20 layups last night against the volunteers. They just could not finish around the rim. Untimely turnovers from Dalen Hall, some terribly missed jump shots. from Jakari White. And really the basketball team, Sam Lewis, another technical foul that hurt the team.

And Virginia had its chances. Tennessee was trying to give the game to Virginia at the end of the contest. They couldn't execute. Virginia did not play well. The emotions today are, God, this is how the season ends. But I think once we have a little bit of perspective, we're going to be like, we had 30 victories

under our first year head coach, who's got the program clearly had. in the right direction. I will take it. And let's not forget the Virginia Women's Basketball team that's playing against Iowa today in Iowa City at 2 p.m. in the NCAA tournament. Coach Mox has got a pretty talented team and that team is still alive. Jerry Rackcliffe and I will talk about this tomorrow at 10.15 a.m. and you should certainly subscribe to his website. It's $8 a month. It's the best Virginia sports content possible. I do want to give some attention to 919 Druitt Avenue. 919 Druid Avenue, Judah is for sale in the city of Charlottesville.

$699,000 asking price. It's got a basement apartment ready to go if you want to rent it. If not, it's a fantastic in-law suite or a granny cottage, if you may. Four bedrooms, three to half baths, 2,197 square feet, walking distance to everything. Completely remodeled 919, Druid Avenue. Beautiful house, beautiful listing. significant upside. Ladies and gentlemen, next headline,

Judah Wickham. Next up, we've got personal property taxes. Donna Price sent me this email, and I'm going to get to John Blair's comment on this. I may reach out to Donna Price, former supervisor, Almore County, to join us on the show.

Straight up the gist of her email. She copied me on it, copied the Board of Supervisors on it, was the personal property tax is basically a tax on poor people the most. have more county massive county you need a car to get around

because the public transportation is so bad I if you're going to tax the personal property tax increase the personal property tax rate 15 cents that's going to impact the poor of the most because we all need cars

and now she did say something that I disagree with if there was a tax that should have been done it should have been on people's houses I don't see how you possibly could raise the real estate tax rate after doing it four cents last year. After the assessments went up more than 6% on average in Amar County this year, and after they've spiked 40% plus since COVID. Instead of looking for incremental tax revenue streams of current citizens,

perhaps the idea should be trimmed from the budget. And that would be a perfect segue into the Amar County schools that are spending $21,000 per student. I want to get to John Blair's comment first. Judah, if you want to jump in with the comment, please do. John Blair says, supervisor, Donna Price, is 100% correct. I think the following is true. Sometimes taxes do need to rise. I know that's unpopular, but sometimes it's true.

However, the problem with the Almaral proposed personal property tax increase is that it has a state purpose for the tax increase, which is affordable housing, has a stated purpose. That's a serious problem. You don't raise a regressive tax to ostensibly help those less fortunate. I am never opposed to every single tax increase. Sometimes things change and there is a need for a certain type of tax increase. But this is just bad policy in my opinion.

I mean, and I completely agree. It's like the same perception management with the short-term rentals. Why do short-term rental red tape resistance headwinds new policy at a time when Charlesville clearly is not being business friendly? Almore County, same thing, perception management. Let's tax the poor, let's tax the middle class, let's tax the upper class and the name of funding housing affordability. This is a regressive tax that impacts the poor the most.

And they're doing it to help the poor. Just make it make sense. Yeah. Anything you want to add on that? No, I mean, you've pretty much said it. cut something. I mean, I think that's a problem across

governments, both local and a broader sense. Once you've started spending money on something, it's almost impossible to claw it back. Next headline, what do you got you? We have gas now.

I don't even want to say it. It's $4 a gallon. Now, we had some positive rhetoric from Trump this morning on CNBC about a peace treaty with Iran. Good talk. Talks are going well. Good talks. And immediately, stock market responded favorably,

and oil prices started responding in a positive capacity, meaning more affordable. I drove in as my visual barometer down Ivy Road and the family Ford Explorer today and saw the Tiger Fuel. at Bel Air and gas is four bucks a gallon. Four weeks ago

before the start of this Iranian war it's $2.79. It's up a dollar and 20 in a month. A dollar 20 in one month. Yeah. You fill up a 15-gallon vehicle, what, once a week?

Let's just do not exaggerated. We'll go very conservative. In fact, I think this is below what it actually is. $1.20 times $15, $18 additional. For every week that it's $1.20 up on gas from before the start of the war, it's an additional $18 for American families

and American people times that by four weeks in a month. You're talking $72 minimum, and that's a low number that Americans have a less in their household budget. $72 per week. $72 per month. $18 a week, four weeks in a month is $72 a month. As long as,

and here's the thing, everyone knows this, you know this, I know this, this is not anything, no, you, they go up quickly. It takes them a long time to come down. So when Almore County is considering a 15 cent increase on personal property, at the same time gases up a buck 20

as the same time assessments are up 6% on average. At the same time, the tax rate for real estate was increased 4 cents last year. At the same time, small businesses are closing aggressively. James Watson sent me a sizzle reel. I should rent some of this stuff down. James Watson's a smart guy via social media, a direct message. And in this direct message he sent me was the number of big box restaurants. I'm talking chain and sit-down restaurants of the national.

variety that are closing locations. It is a shocking amount of big box restaurants, chain and sit down, fast casual, and sit down restaurants of the national variety that are closing. I've said it on this show. There's eight more restaurants locally that will announce their closing in 2026 with police renewals not being pursued. We know that South Street was on that list. That was 10.

We initially had 10. We knew that the rape bus on Fifth Street Station was on that list. Or down to eight. One of them was listed in a local newspaper about some hardship. I'm not going to say it's not my business to get it out there, but it was put out there. Once that gets out there, then it's down to seven. But there's eight reputable restaurants still locally that are about to close in 2026. It's a shame.

Next headline, what do you got? Next, we've got Alamar County Schools. 21,000 a student, Judah? Cost per student. Neil Williamson is watching the program. He shares a link in the comment section of my Facebook page from the Free Enterprise Forum.

I read Neil's stuff awesome, often. Yeah, Neil's great. Oh, it's a new post. I haven't read this one. This is from today, Neil. I haven't read this one. Irony. Almorough, Board of Supervisor. funds affordable housing projects and seeks to increase cost of housing.

Neil, in the past election cycle, I sat on this show, and he's more diplomatic than me. He's a man of tremendous integrity. He's more measured with his words than I am. I speak very freely, and I think that's why people like the show. I said in this past election cycle that Mike Pruitt, Sally Duncan, and Ned Galloway would form a voting menageret on everything tax increase related, and that B. Lepistow Curtley and Anne Malick would form the traditional partnership with voting,

and that Fred Missel would either Menajatois with Lipisto-Curtly and Anne Malick, or he would slide over for something wild of the foursome variety with Galloway, Duncan, and Pruitt when it comes to taxes and voting. And you saw him the past Board of Supervisor, meeting, Pruitt said, I want to raise the property tax rate $0.29 and increase the real estate tax rate one cent. The Scottsville District Supervisor literally said $0.29 on personal property, one cent on real estate. You got no interest in that and said, all right, I'm going to go all the way down the

line until it got to $0.15. And at $0.15, ladies and gentlemen, he got Fred Missal to join his, his his foursome, and that's where we're the advertised 15 cent rate on personal property. It's bananas. What's happening here? We should get you on the program, too, Neil. I'm going to reach out to Donna Price here and respond to her email, Neil. I think you would appreciate that email, that interview. $21,000 for the Almore County Schools, $21,000.

You're darn near close to St. Ann's Belfield, and you're darn near close to the Covenant School tuition, and you're starting to knock on the door of St. Anne's Belfield Academy tuition. And that's the point of this. You're flirting with Covenants tuition. I'll say soup to nuts. Soup to nuts for second grade. Soup to nuts is 25K.

And by soup to nuts, I'm including the uniforms, I'm including the after-school activities, the during-school activities, the teacher gifts, soup to nuts, the school, the sports stuff, soup to nuts, 25 for second grade. I know first hand because our kids there. St. Anne's is more than that.

ACPS is at 21K, not including CAPX. Your point, Judah. The point, a lot of people talk about public schools just had more money. They could do a better job, but as we see, and this obviously is not the case, there are some private schools that are far more expensive

than the average public school. But by and large, the average private school is charging less per student than the public schools are getting from our tax money. And yet we're not seeing the same outcomes. What we're seeing is people saying, well, if we just had more money.

Well, how about this one from Deep Throat? He says, regard, he said the city of Charlottesville is much higher than that. He goes, that's a steal from a city standpoint, because the city is much higher. He says 21K would be a bargain for Charlottesville City. The current budget proposals calls for almost 29,000 per pupil in the city. He says, again, excluding capital costs and certain pension costs, that's stab tuition, but not stab results. And why the cities is higher than Almore County is collective bargaining and unionization started first in the city. We are now getting to that point with Almaro County. So Almaro County,

when teachers with collective bargaining, and I'm all four teachers getting paid, please don't distort my words, Jesus, I'm all four teachers getting paid. But when Charlottesville City's teachers unionized and they use collective bargaining to get everybody, janitor, cafeteria worker, bus driver, aid, teacher, principal, vice principal, everyone more money. They were the first to do it. That drove up the cost per pupil. City? Amar County? That's what's coming.

It's some foreshadowing for you there. He's talking at some stab tuition levels there. And he says like you, without the stab results. Yeah. Follow the dollars, viewers and listeners. We try to do that on the show. I love to give some attention, Judah, to Stanley Martin Holmes. Stanley Martin Holmes builds an honest home, ladies and gentlemen.

Stanley Martin Holmes, whether town homes, single-family detached homes, condominiums. They design and construct homes with innovative techniques that ensure exceptional efficiency and aesthetic appeal. Design features and technology to enhance your living experience. Stanley Barton homes

are building homes, not just for today, but for years to come. Next headline, Judah Wickhauer, what do you got? Next, we have the change in application and admission rates and offers at universities.

I'm going to get to the admissions offered, the offer rate for black students at the University of Virginia here. Hank Martin has this handsome Hank Martin. The ACPS debacle at its core is simply about accountability. You should not be allowed to spend $21,000 per child and then be allowed to dodge the basic questions about outcomes. At some point, this stops being investment and starts becoming unchecked spending with diminishing returns.

If this were any private institution, families would walk. Sadly, presently, taxpayers are not allowed that option. So again, plain and simple, where's the return on investment and how, by any measure of either ethics or logic, can you keep asking for increased revenue in this economic climate? Hank Martin, cheers to you. Not to mention the growth in, what would you call it, the administration class of school administration?

The blowed of the C-suite and Hoss's lieutenants. Yeah. The bloat at the top of the employment hierarchy is insulting. Yeah, how much of that per student number is just administration that, I mean, they wouldn't be, I hope they wouldn't be hiring them if they didn't think they don't But are they really necessary? How do we ask that question? And how do you ask the question?

Like we're asking these questions and not have it being like exploited against you or manipulated against you that you're literally just asking from the sake of wanting what's best for the county and asking as someone who has skid invested as a taxpayer without not coming across as putting down the schools? Because that's not what we're doing. And when did asking questions become become offensive to people. Well said. That's the hardest part for me to understand. If we're asking honest questions, can we not expect honest answers?

Excellent. Excellent point. Jude Wittown. Excellent point. Because we're paying for the... Whether we have students or not. You are. Whether you have students in school or not.

Yeah. Here's a perfect example. He has no children. And I'm paying for it. And I'm paying for it. have children that in at least one case are going to a private school and I'm paying twice and you're

still paying for it yeah perfect example right there we'll talk about the next topic um at length because it's a topic that needs to be discussed in greater detail UVA admissions its offer rates for black students have dropped

significantly to the tune of a 50% drop no no 14 almost 15% down but the 50% number is that the changes have disproportionately affected black applicants. And the drop is roughly twice as large for them as it is for white and Asian applicants.

Very good. Thank you for correcting me on that. And did we adjust that headline? It just says black college applicants see larger drop in admission rates. Okay, fantastic. So you crafted it correctly. Thank you. The university saw a 14.5 percent decrease in black student offers when comparing the 2016, 2022 admission cycle to the 2023, 2025 admission cycle. Yeah. That's substantial.

And the University of Virginia this past year, a Cavalier Daily great reporting, admissions to 10,287 students for the class of 2030. UVA is in the midst of an application surge right now. now. People want to go to the University of Virginia more than ever before. And so, it hardly needs to be said that overall admissions are becoming more selective. I would say... If you've got more and more people applying, then of course they have to make decisions about who to, they can't just admit them all.

The most challenging time maybe to get into the University of Virginia right now? Yeah. We'll talk about that on tomorrow show. Barring a hundred years ago when women weren't allowed and so on and so forth. Yeah. In the modern era. We'll talk about that on the show. Judah Wikar was on point.

My name is Jerry Miller. This is the water cooler content and conversation. Thank you for joining us.