The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Zach Miller, Trustee Of Cassiopeia Foundation; Cassiopeia Foundation Buys Foxfield Property

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

The I Love CVille Show headlines: Breaking News – Foxfield Property Sold Cassiopeia Foundation Buys Foxfield Property Zach Miller, Trustee Of Cassiopeia Foundation Expectations For Foxfield With New Owners What Will Change/Stay The Same At Foxfield? Zach & Sara Miller Operate Timbercreek Farm The History Behind Cassiopeia Foundation New Restaurant At Old Mel’s Cafe Location Important News From This Week’s Shows Zach Miller, Trustee of The Cassiopeia Foundation, joined Jerry Miller 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.

Good Friday afternoon, guys. My name is Jerry Miller, and thank you kindly for joining us on the I Love Seville Show. This program live wherever you get your social media or podcasting content. And we will start today's program with some fantastic breaking news. We have new owners of the Foxfield property in Alamaro County. This piece of real estate has been a part of memories for so many families and so many people, students, tourists, and locals alike, most certainly. Yours truly, first patronized Foxfield as a first year at the University of Virginia 24 years ago, and today is enjoying the Foxfield races as a husband and father of two little boys, and in each iteration

of my life, I have found my experience at Foxfield to be one of cherished memory. I want to thank some of our partners that make the program possible. Pro Renata and Crozet. Dr. John Shabe and his team are doing amazing things. They're doing real estate development for Pro Renata in downtown Stanton. They bought the Skipping Rock location

in the Shandoa Valley where they are now brewing their beer at with state-of-the-art beer-making equipment. And they've converted the Crozet location into a sports bar of tremendous proportions. Pro Renata, positive things in the Valley, in downtown Stanton, and in Albemarle County. And we also thank the folks at Mexicali Restaurant

on West Main Street for being a part of the show. Now open with parking all over the place, Mexicali Restaurant is something you've got to try. Judah Wickauer, if we could, I think we have the breaking news that we can get to today on the I Love Seville show. We have Zach Miller on the line, if you want to get his photo on screen. The trustee of the, and make sure I'm pronouncing this right, Zach, the Cassiopeia Foundation. First, thank you for joining us, Zach, on the show. How are you doing, sir? Yeah, I'm well, Jerry. That's exactly right, that pronunciation. Okay, fantastic. Well,

my friend, the show is yours. I'm going to listen to learn here. Give us the who, what, when, where, why of, I think, a breaking news story that's going to have a significant impact not only here in central Virginia, but in the mid-Atlantic and up and down the East Coast? Sure, Gary. Well, we are just really can't be more thrilled to be able to announce that after what was a long and challenging negotiation with the prior ownership of the property, we have been able to, Cassiopeia Foundation has been able to acquire the property and fold it into its endowment where it can be safeguarded for the future.

I grew up as a horse enthusiast. I'm a steeplechase jockey, amateur steeplechase jockey. My wife and I operate a business developing thoroughbred bloodstock. And all of this really is a tribute to the great passion of my great-grandfather, who 80 years ago established this fund, this foundation, with the express purpose of engaging in activities for the betterment of mankind. And by that, we mean the preservation of land, environmental conservation, and issues in social justice.

And so I'm really lucky to be able to pick up that tradition. My great-grandfather was a horseman through and through. He bred some tremendous racehorses, and that's been part of our family's tradition for many years. And to be able to head this, be in front of this capital that can be put to use to make sure that the property will be there as a legacy for generations to come. As you're probably familiar from your time in Charlottesville, the founder of Foxfield was a woman named Anita. She owned the property and established the races in the late 70s, early 80s. We were in our 45th year of running.

And she had this dream for Foxfield that it would be a property that would engage equestrian enthusiasts, that would bring the regional residents to enjoy a sport that she loved very deeply, the sport of steeplechasing. And so to be able to see that dream fulfilled for her is just a tremendous honor. I think this is fantastic news. Give us some insight into what fans and lovers of Foxfields can expect for the property moving forward. What will stay the same and what will potentially change?

Well, so the cool thing is that it's business as usual. We are serving really to just create a stable platform for the independent nonprofit, the Foxfield Racing Organization, that operates the races. That group has done an incredible job of really revolutionizing the model of how a steeplechase business is run. They've reformed the events. There are two races every year. We're coming up on one this fall in October, which will be exciting. What we're here to do is really just to give them stable footing as they continue to really maximize what they've already, the project they've already started there. So in short, nothing

changes. Again, we're just pleased to be part of the rebirth of steeplechasing in Albemarle and this absolutely historic feature of the county. Give us some insight into the foundation. This is a foundation that is near and dear to your heart. I'm looking at some information on screen here. A 501c3 established in 1944 by Mr. W. Alton Jones. I look on screen and this guy is your great-grandfather, Zach.

Give us some perspective into the Casa Pia Foundation. Sure, sure. He's a man I, unfortunately, I never got to meet. He died in a plane crash in 1961. So there's the legend and the lore, maybe even some of the parts of your life. But I did know my great-grandmother, and she was the one ultimately that brought us to Charlottesville, landed us here.

And she was the one who carried forward his passion for the foundation and the work that the foundation had engaged in prior to his passing. And then ultimately, it was responsible for the legacy and the transfer of the tradition of horse racing in our family to her daughter and my mother and myself. Why a good fit, the foundation in Foxfield? What did you guys see? Well, for us, this is a combination of our deep, deep passion for the sport of steeplechasing combined with what the foundation does and has done over its 80-year history, which is to identify and conserve critical anchorage.

And we've done this across the world internationally in areas that have sensitive ecosystems. But we brought our focus here locally because one of the things that we saw was this was a property that was in trouble. It had an uncertain future under the ownership. It had an incredible organization that was starting to reform and remake the events and make it a true community asset. But the two things were, you know, at odds with one another that it had this insecure ownership feature.

And so for us, this was a great fit. It's a land preservation, Foxfield Racing. The independent organization is dedicated to sustainable management. That's a core belief for us. And so it was everything sort of aligned just perfectly for us to be able to step in and fill this role. You have, from my count, four legacy media outlets listening and watching to you right now on the I Love Seville show. I think this is a fantastic situation for our community. How about you personally, Zach?

What you remember from Foxfield, what it means to you and the family? Oh, my gosh. I mean, where do I start? I was born and raised here in Charlottesville. I was born in a house on the corner of Owensville Road, which is not a mile from the Foxwood Racetrack. It was a feature of my early life as a fan. From that, I got an opportunity in my late teens to go off and have a brief career

as a steeplehead, as a professional jockey. And it was in that setting that that passion was born for me. I remember as about, I think I was about a 12-year-old, and I met, you know, my first steeplechase jockey as a function of going to the races. And I just was like, I just was enamored with the whole thing because I loved horses, and it seemed like something that came out of all those things. So for me, I mean, I've been living and breathing Foxfield since I was a little kid, literally. And now to be able to say that through the work of this organization that I run,

we can ensure that those memories will be around for my kids and great-grandkids and all of those kids and great-grandkids of the residents of Charles Wild mall and the surrounding area i mean that's cool right that's really cool i think i think it's i think it's more than cool man i think you've come in and um taken um memories that may have been you know in peril and and solidified them and offered them sustainability and security so our kids can enjoy the memories that we cherish ourselves. You touched on this briefly, but can you put in perspective the fragility of the property prior to the foundation getting involved? Well, I mean, I think there was, you know, at Foxwood was surrounded with some, some mystique and mystery and nobody was really sure what was happening.

But what ultimately happened was that the, uh, Marion Zahidahat did not have heirs or none that, at least none that she left, left the property to. And so the property had been managed for a long time by her attorney, Benjamin Dick. Um, he passed away, which left the management to the management in the hands of his next of kin, his brother, who is not a local resident. He's from Winchester. And so I think, you know, as you're moving further away from the founder and there's sort of a disengagement of interest as it gets diluted in terms of who's managing it. It just was hard to be sure that it would not be sold out from under the organization that's operating the races. And so that was why we felt like it was important to try to secure it once and for all and be

able to say that, you know, it is now permanently conserved. That's absolutely fantastic. This question's come in from Free Union. Can you offer more insight into the Casa Pia Foundation, other holdings the foundation may have, missions for the foundation,

and any other insight of that ilk? Sure. We are in the midst of building out an impact investment fund that is really focused and taking on the challenging issues of scaling regenerative agriculture. Jerry, as you know, that's near and dear to my heart. I'm a farmer at heart, and I first met you when we had a retail store selling the wares for Timber Creek Farm,

which is where I still raise grass-fed beef. And so we're using our expertise and this money to fund projects that are getting going and getting first-generation farmers and regenerative practitioners off and running. I remember Back 40 Restaurant, some of the best food out there, guys. This was right next to Cardinal Hole. I believe either coconuts or pineapple. Kid Ashley owns the restaurant there. Put in perspective, just the family.

You've got a family operation here, a family mission. The Timber Creek brand speaks for itself. I mean, some of the best grass-fed beef on the East Coast, how this complements the mission. Put in perspective what Sarah, your wife, and anybody else in the family had to say when this finally closed. I mean, it was really just a little bit of relief because we'd been talking about it and thinking about it. And of course, the sensitivity of it meant that it needed to be kept very quiet because we didn't want to bring, should we not have been able to successfully negotiate the purchase, we didn't want to jeopardize anything that was going on at the race course.

And so it really was just like, it was just a little relief first. And then it follows just the kind of relation of like, hey, we got that project. That was a tough project. We got it done. I'm glad that we're able to highlight this. I see a lot of folks watching the program that are excited. We'll close the interview with this. In regards to the Foxfield races, those that are asking, it's going to be business as usual. The positive of this story

is that the property and its rich history and its picturesque setting are going to stay intact. Multiple folks are asking, what's going to change? Something's got to change. But Zach, you're assuring the viewers and listeners that nothing will.

Exactly. What's going to change is that the races are getting better and better, and you're going to see better and better racing at Foxfield. We've been able to put the Foxfield Racing organization has absolutely revitalized the racetrack, which has brought a class of horse and a class of race to Foxfield that has never been here in the history of, in my experience, the history of have been made. They've held up the racing organization as a model of what they hope all of their meets can go to, both in terms of how it's interacting positively philanthropically with the community and how it is managing the core asset, which is the turf on the track. And it makes so much difference to the riders and trainers from a safety standpoint, for horses and riders, and for just overall quality of racing.

Could we see any more races, Zach? You know, look, I would love to do it, but in the end, it'll be the racing organization will grow it as, I think, as it is appropriate, and I'll defer to them to really answer whether they have vision for meeting race dates. Fair enough. Last question for you, and we're very, very, very grateful for your time, Zach, and your insight. Any other details that we have not covered that quite a few people here on the show should hear from you

on what is certainly some breaking news that's going to be impactful for our region. Sure. I just want to really appreciate the tremendous work that the Foxfield Board of Directors, Foxfield Racing Board of Directors has done under the guidance of Dr. Reynolds Coles, who's a longtime resident veterinarian, a member of the NSA Safety Committee, and also Jack Sanford, the principal at Faulkner, who has been responsible for absolutely remaking the plan around turf management in Foxfield. These two gentlemen have put in so much work, so much volunteer time, and just so much of their hearts and souls into this project that it's important to recognize that contribution in a very public way. Thank you, Zach. Thank you.

Thank you so much for the time. Thank you for spending some time with the community here on what is just a great story. And we wish you guys nothing nothing but the best of luck awesome thank you so much you have a good day you too all right zach miller um ladies and gentlemen the trustee of the casopia foundation the new um owners of a beloved property in adm County, Foxville. This is great news. There was some uncertainty with what was going to happen with the property, as Zach highlighted,

as the property went from an owner that had no heirs to an attorney that called the shot for the owner's estate, then the attorney passing, and then kind of down a totem pole of family members that perhaps did not have as true of an understanding as what Foxfield means to the Albemarle County and Central Virginia community. I've had a chance to get to know the Miller family through the Timber Creek brand and some of the offshoots of the Timber Creek farm brand and this family certainly understands what Foxfield meets the Alamaro County certainly understands what you know keeping the elements of Alamaro County

that we love sustainable and consistent and predictable. One of the things that makes Albemarle County special, I've been 24 years in this community, is it's not, you know, and some folks are going to disagree with me on this, but, you know, you know where I stand. Albemarle County, 5% of Albemarle County is allocated for development, commercial and residential. We have wonderful green space. We have wonderful rolling hills and acreage. And we have wonderful plots of land like Foxfields that are not peppered with density.

And that's what creates a county like Albemarle and keeps it beautiful and green and maintains quality of life. I want the opportunity for anyone to have the American dream of home ownership but I also choose to live in Albemarle County because of many of the reasons I just identified and I respect what Zach Miller, the trustee of this 501c3 the Kassopia Foundation what they have done with keeping a plan for Foxfield that's true and consistent to its origin. And that's for the betterment not only of you and I, but the betterment of our

children, their kids, and their kids' kids, and future generations to come. Thank you, Zach Miller, for joining us on the program. We'll weave Judah Wickauer in on a two-shot. It has been a busy week, my friend, on the I Love Seville show. I want to give Judah some props on the program for scrambling today to set up this interview. We knew around, let's see, I can tell you the exact time, about 11.15 this morning, that this news was important, that it was breaking, and we had to relay it to you, the viewer and listener. Expect it to be in the legacy news cycle in the next day or two with the folks watching the program.

Thank you kindly for your efforts in lining this up. We did it on the fly with the old tripod and the iPhone on speakerphone into a microphone. But you know what? We made it happen. A lot I want to get to. I want to get to a tidbit of news that I think we predicted would happen. We, in the Mel's location, if you want to put that lower third on screen, a new restaurant coming. It is not going to be Mel's Cafe. Very difficult to keep Mel Walker's legacy in play.

A gentleman who has passed away. The new restaurant is called... What's it? Dillicious? Dillicious. I think it's a play on words. I think it's supposed to be dill-icious, like in dill pickles. Ah, that's what it is.

That's what it is. Fried fish, right? D-I-I-L-I-S-H-U-S. So D-I-I-Dill. Maybe it doesn't have to do with pickles. Delicious. It's a bit curious. Fish and chicken coming to the Old Mel's location.

I heard this morning that the owner of this location has some positions in Louisa County. So that's a little bit of alternate additional breaking news for you the owner of dii li sh us in the institutional mel's cafe location is bringing fish and chicken to west main street and he also has some positions in louisa um and louisa county we had some elements of yesterday's show we were unable to get to. I highlighted in the beginning of yesterday's show, it's a three-prong attack. Quality shows. The first prong is do we have content, quality content to relay to you.

Every day this week we have. The second prong of the attack, can Judah and I relay that content to you in a fashion that's educational, entertaining, and enlightening? We try to do that every day, but we don't have success with that every day. And the third prong of the attack, which is frankly the most important, is the consistency of the technology and the software and the infrastructure of our network, which is four different softwares, seven cameras, five microphones microphones three computers and ISP that from time to time gives us a little bit of hiccups which you saw on yesterday's program one item of the show we didn't get to yesterday was the city of Charlottesville

losing quality jobs to Alamaro County we had data sent to us by number one in the family, Deep Throat, including bar graphs, which I think you have at your disposal. And he highlights in some of this data that he sends to us that you're seeing Charlottesville City losing jobs to the county of Almora. And some of the new jobs that are being replaced in the city of Charlottesville, some of the incremental jobs that are being added are jobs that might not – what's the phrase I'm looking for, the language I'm looking for? The jobs that are being added are seasonal jobs in the travel, tourism, hospitality, F&B category. And these are critically important jobs for the community, but these jobs also will face significant headwinds

because of their pay scale when it comes to cost of living and housing. So in some ways, we are creating an affordability issue ourselves through an economic development plan or an economic development strategy that may not be the most razor focus with creating the jobs or attracting the jobs that can afford the economic climate of the city. That's how I interpreted some of this. If you want to put any of the data up, if you want to put bar graphs up,

offer your perspective on this. You and I have had a few days to chat about this. Very curious of what your thoughts are on some of these things due to WIC hour. I mean, I think it just shows that we may be heading in the wrong direction with

a lot of our thoughts of what Charlottesville is doing in terms of growth and how we respond to that. And I think it may require some reassessment of our plans. I've said on the show before, I would love to see an economic development strategy geared around attracting employers that are encouraged to hire within the community jobs that pay in and around the family household income, according to HUD, of $124,200. And for us to do that, we're going to have to educate the community

in clearly what is becoming a data science economy, thanks to the data science school, a biotech economy, thanks to the biotech school, artificial intelligence, any kind of science, technology, engineering, math, those type of fields. Are we doing that right now? What kind of tax encouragements, tax breaks are being offered to employers to hire within the city? That's the type of conversation that needs to be had. You know, the Economic Development Authority

offered a strategy or its goals. I think it was seven of them, and what it was going to do to move the economy forward. Many of those goals were focused on the LGBTQ. I've got the first graph. The first graph is on screen. Take a look at the data. Many of those goals were focused on the LGBTQ community LGBTQ. I've got the first graph. The first graph is on screen. Take a look at the data.

Many of those goals were focused on the LGBTQ community and our minority community, and I'm all for that. Perhaps a better path would be let's take the underserved populations and help them get to speed when it comes to the sectors of business that are booming in the city and around the city data science biotech artificial intelligence semiconductors chips science technology engineering math computer coding what are we doing with that what are we doing with creating a path of attack with that? We saw a pretty significant move by Alamaro County yesterday. We talked about this on the show. Neil Williamson of the Free Enterprise Forum, he has fantastic coverage on his website about this. A $750,000 tax break for

Home Depot over a 10-year period of time. And this tax break was encouraged, was offered by Alamaro County to Home Depot, despite being a Fortune 23 company, despite having a market cap of well over $300 billion. Alamaro County said, we're going to give you a $750,000 tax break over 10 years because we understand you're going to create 100 new jobs, generate $500,000 annually in tax revenue, and help us improve transportation connectivity, specifically the Hillsdale Drive realignment. Alamaro right now is seeing the forest through the trees better than Charlottesville. Alamaro is attracting jobs. Almaro is creating an environment where the taxpayer perhaps has less of a burden

on its real estate because business revenue is incrementally growing. I think you should be very mindful of a county like Fluvanna that does not have much business tax revenue, which is extremely burdening homeowners as the primary. And by primary, I mean 90% of the taxes in Fluvanna coming from residential. Be very mindful of this, folks.

Any thoughts you want to add to this, Judah Wickery? No, I think you covered it. Don't know if I can do any more justice to it. We all should highlight this, and we should be very honest with ourselves. Is some of the job loss that's happening in the city, how much of that is tied to politics, Judah? How much of that is tied to perceived crime? I don't think crime really is an issue, but perceived crime.

How much of it is tied to the houselessness that is going on in the city of Charlottesville? Whether we, if we're being frank, I would think those elements do have an impact. Oh, definitely. I mean, everything has an impact. There's, you can't discount something just because you don't like the narrative.

And that's well said. Yeah, I don't think there's... If you go in the downtown mall, it's still fairly robust, but there is a noticeable change. And you can, you know, whether it's people camped out just outside the park,

Market Street Park, whether it's people camped in our courtyard, there's clearly something going on. And I think after an initial first draft, Friends of Seville has a very comprehensive list of ideas on how to make the downtown mall better and how to help the homeless

population. Sam Sanders just celebrated his one year anniversary on the job as the city manager. Sam Sanders just celebrated his one-year anniversary on the job as the city manager. And he said recently on the record, he says, I'm here, I'm not going anywhere. My intention is to be here. This is a quarter million dollar top executive in the city of Charlottesville, the CEO.

And he said this, when it regards to the houseless population. He wants to find a permanent solution for the unhoused community. This was his exact quote. I am not driven by any call to move the homeless people away from here. That's not a solution. So I'm not interested in going that route. End quote.

What do you make of that from the city manager of the city? I think he's got a point. I mean, you can't force someone to go somewhere else. You can't say... Supreme Court does offer the locality, the autonomy to limit the sleeping of outside. Yeah, but that, how much money do you want to spend on that? Do we want to expand our police force just so that we can have a set number of police officers who are patrolling the entire downtown just to what? Arrest people? Because you can't, what do you do?

Do you escort them off the mall? And how do you stop them from going around the block and coming back on the mall? I think we need a, I think we need solutions that involve helping these people because as we've said, if you just, if you start building facilities for them to sleep in, if they're good facilities, we'll get more homeless people coming to our area because homeless people come to areas where they can get services. And so really they need help.

And just kicking them off the mall or kicking them out of the park is not a sustainable solution. It would require paying someone to actively wash those areas and actively what kick people off the mall off the uh the lawn of the uh of the park and i i don't think that's a good look and i don't think it's what we want to do and it's just it's not a solution respect appreciate that take um comments are coming in we'll get to a few few. We appreciate Deep Throat with this content, which we helped build a portion of the show around. He says, my guess is some of the job loss here is that it's a challenging place to grow a business. The labor pool is too small and connectivity to the rest of the world is too weak,

and the politics are tough. But at the same time, the city is not emptying out. We just aren't in an economically active place. We are filling up with students and retirees. And he says, I sent you some graphs on population growth by age bracket, if you want to take a look. And those graphs highlight that we're losing prime age population and gaining the 65 plus population. That goes along with a lot of what Keith Smith has said on the program, where he has said that a lot of the folks that are looking to move to the city are boomers that have sold

houses elsewhere, that have ties to the university, undergraduate or graduate school ties, that are taking the money that they made from the sale of our home, which they lived in 20 or 30 years, and are coming to the city to purchase. He said that represents a large portion of the buyers that he's been dealing with in the city of Charlottesville. And something I'll add to that, boomers buying houses around here and moving in is less actual bodies in houses.

And boomers buying houses and moving here are also less diminished tax on infrastructure. Because you're talking not nearly as a significant tax on, for example, schools. Because they're empty nesters. So another trend to highlight. Walden Cooper highlighted statistical data suggesting that the public school population around Albemarle and Central Virginia is going to lose population. Interestingly, this fall, the Charlottesville High School has the top enrollment in its school history. Most amount of students in school history this fall at Charlottesville High School. So I'm curious to see when those data projections start materializing

and becoming a reality here in the city. If you're just tuning into the program, at the beginning of the show, we had some breaking news with some new owners of the Foxfield property. I encourage you to watch the show. I think it's going to be a show that is influential when it comes to legacy media with some additional content that's out there. Judah, any I's you want to dot or T's you want to cross on a Friday afternoon? I'm not seeing the age data. We'll see if we can find it next week. Appreciate you making the interview possible. The I Love Seville Show, ladies and gentlemen, on a Friday afternoon. Thank you kindly for watching the program. And I want to encourage you before I leave to support

and visit and patronize Mexicali Restaurant on West Main Street. If you have not been there, you are missing what is a street art museum. Oh, yeah. It's beautiful there, and the food is phenomenal. The drinks are amazing. We've seen it firsthand ourselves, Jude and I. A street art museum with the art done by one of the co-owners, River Hawkins. Yeah.

And Johnny's food and River's cocktails and a playground for kids on the patio. It is family friendly, date night friendly, happy hour friendly, late night friendly, lunchtime friendly. I was on that photo shoot yesterday and I got to try some of the food. Oh, it's to die for. There were kids playing out on the patio, on the gym equipment. There were families sitting down to eat I mean this place is definitely a must try restaurant in Charlottesville That's the Friday edition of the show Judah Wickauer, Jerry Miller

The I Love Seville Show Thank you kindly for joining us So long everybody Thank you.