Crozet's community blog
From/for a reader:
Howdy,
We are looking for someone 18 yrs old or older with common sense, love and respect for self and others, love children, swimming, and knows how to Play!
2 children. 1 six year old with multiple disabilities and endless loving soul, 1 four year old. Both very active. (big smile). Going to the pool w/ me + children , plus help at home.
We can talk about hours and $. Probably 10-15 hours a week. Email me: [email protected]
Thanks,
Ursula
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The Mudhouse, coming soon to The Square in Crozet, aims to become Crozet’s “meeting place.” Many are familiar with the Mudhouse – the original location on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall and their “branch” locations in the Markets around town.
We are about to join the ranks of areas around Charlottesville boasting our own Mudhouse. Humbly boasting heart pine floors which were reclaimed from an old mill in Rome, Georgia that warm up the space, eventually there will be live music in this great historic building with “great bones” and a “great flow.”
From Malcom Gladwell’s book Outliers, The Story of Success,
What Wolf began to realize was that the secret of Roseto wasn’t diet or exercise or genes or location. It had to be Roseto itself. As Bruhn and Wolf walked around the town, they figured out why. They looked at how the Rosetans visited one another, stopping to chat in Italian on the street, say, or cooking for one another in their backyards. They learned about the extended family clans that underlay the town’s social structure. …
Living a long life, the conventional wisdom at the time said, depended to a great extent on who we were — that is, our genes. it depended on the decisions we made — on what we chose to eat, and how much we chose to exercise, and how effectively we were treated by the medical system. No one was used to thinking about health in terms of community.
That’s not a bad goal for a local coffee shop to have.
It will be a place to see neighbors and to experience “fluid social interaction, meet family, friends, colleagues” … and to enjoy a good cup of coffee. Or a snack. Or some live music.
The Daily Progress noted the coming coffee boom … and it’s about to start.
Every place needs spaces to help define what they are and John wants this Mudhouse space to be this place – the community place for Crozet. Personally, I am really looking forward to it.
Update 28 May 2009: A reader asked via email whether the Mudhouse would be smoke-free. John affirms that they have always been and always will be smoke free.
Part II of the Crozet coffee boom coming Tuesday.
Transcription:
Hi this is Jim Duncan and we’re here in the Mudhouse in Crozet. When I pulled up this morning on my bike I noticed you had the Outliers pages from Malcolm Gladwell’s book all on the outside of the Mudhouse and I’ll take a shot of that in just a minute. But I’m curious John, why did you put that out there?
John Lawrence: We put it out there because when I was first reading it, the point of the chapter is that the community that the people live in directly relates to the health, the physical, psychological, and emotional well-being of the people there and the connections that they make with each other. So that’s how we see Crozet and it just seemed like the perfect thing. That’s our hope for this coffee house and what it can mean to Crozet.
Jim Duncan: Cool! Thanks very much!
John Lawrence: Sure.
At Albemarle.org. (Update 15 November 2016 – the link to Albemarle’s site is dead) Once again, this is a remarkable opportunity to contribute your opinion to the future of Crozet. If you’re pro-growth, anti-growth, indifferent-to-growth, please take the time to express yourself.
From the survey’s introduction:
Your neighbors on the Crozet Community Advisory Council, in collaboration with Albemarle County staff, are starting the process of revising the 2004 Crozet Master Plan. Your input and participation are essential. The Crozet Master Plan is part of the County’s Comprehensive Plan and establishes a blueprint for the County’s future decisions on land use and development, transportation systems, public facilities and utilities, resource protection, housing, human services and public services. Part of that plan’s original 2004 adoption includes a requirement to review the Plan after five years.
This questionnaire has been created to gather public input about Crozet and the Crozet Master Plan. It is not intended to be a scientific or statistically valid survey, but rather as a way to get feedback from as many people as possible. The results of this questionnaire cannot be used to draw any specific conclusions or assumptions about the general community’s perspective, but will be used in providing ideas and understanding the perspectives of those who complete the questionnaire.
This survey is one of several opportunities for your active participation in the decisions affecting our community in the next five years or so. This is an opportunity for all of us to take a careful look at Crozet’s development and consider new actions and solutions to problems that may emerge.
We urge you and anyone else in your household to each fill out and return the following survey so that your ideas and concerns will be heard. We hope everyone in your family will complete a survey.
It should only take you about 10 to 12 minutes to complete this survey. There are no right or wrong answers; what’s important is your opinion. All of your responses are anonymous and will be kept confidential.
Thank you in advance for your time and thoughtful input.
“I wanted to let you know that I have been organizing a large book sale at Olivet Presbyterian Church for the last several years. This year, we have struck gold and have had a 7,000 book donation by the Gravity Lounge in Charlottesville which used to be a quasi book store as well as a jazz club. So if you have any interest in buying BRAND NEW books at one dollar (with a face value of $35 and up) across every genre you can think of, come along! It’s Saturday, May 30 from 9 till 2 with early bird browse and buy Thursday, May 28 and Friday, May 29 from 4 till 7. If you can’t come along but are looking for something in particular, please let me know and I’ll see if I have it! You can also call me for more details on 987 6230.”
CROZET MASTER PLAN REVISION KICKOFF MEETING TOMORROW NIGHT (MAY 27)
Citizen Questionnaire available on line beginning May 27
Crozet residents are invited to a public meeting on Wednesday, May 27, at 7:00 pm at the Crozet United Methodist Church to kick off the five year revision of the Crozet Master Plan, which was adopted by the Board of Supervisors in December, 2004.
The meeting will focus on two objectives – to provide a community refresher on the current Crozet Master Plan and also to introduce and distribute a questionnaire sponsored by the Crozet Community Advisory Council to gather information from the Crozet community. The Crozet Community Questionnaire will be available online from May 27-June 12 at www.albemarle.org/crozet and at the Master Plan Refresher session as well as other locations around Crozet.
The master plan update is an opportunity to assess Crozet’s progress in achieving the goals set in the Master Plan adopted in 2004. As a Development Area in the county’s land use plan, Crozet is expected to continue to provide a place for growth to occur outside of the designated Rural Areas as part of the County’s overall growth management policy. Now at the five-year mark, it is time to determine what may or may not have developed as envisioned in the plan, given the experience of four plus years of the plan in action. The update is an opportunity to revisit and revise issues of concern from all perspectives.
Focus areas for the revision will be determined this summer based on public feedback, input from the Crozet Community Advisory Council and staff analysis and will be presented to the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors for their review and comment this fall.
Lee P. Catlin
Community Relations Director
Albemarle County
401 McIntire Road
Charlottesville, VA 22901
(434) 296-5841 (office)
(434) 531-8092 (mobile)
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I got Swiss Chard, Lettuce, Onions and Mint. What do you like or love about the Crozet Farmer’s Market?
Update 23 May 2009: Make sure you take a look at this set of photos from the Crozet Farmer’s Market taken this morning.
Get your pool passes now! Even better, they will be using a new saline-based chlorination system.
This year, the pool committee has already been busy making other improvements for their patrons. First and foremost, the pool’s water sanitation process has been completely converted. Rather than continuing to use a granulated chlorine injection process for water treatment, the pool has converted over to a new, improved, safer water treatment system called ChlorKing®. This system makes it no longer necessary to have staff handle hazardous and expensive chemicals. It reduces the amount of room needed to store sometimes large, heavy quantities of chlorine that are necessary to keep the water levels safe. It creates a natural antiseptic environment that prevents bacteria and algae from forming. Furthermore, there is the potential that the ChlorKing saline chlorination system could reduce our system running costs by up to 80% annually.
As an added perk, while chlorine exposure to humans is often harsh, this system will be so much kinder and gentler to our natural bodies. Potentially gone are the days of red, irritated eyes or itchy, dry skin, green hair for our fair haired swimmers or even bleached bathing suits and the water will feel soft, silky and more all natural than ever before. There will be no more of that chlorine taste or smell; however, you will find a slightly salty taste to the water from now on, which is normal with this system.
Unfortunately, the garbage distributed throughout Crozet last night is not unique to Crozet – it was dropped off in Charlottesville a few years ago.
(did you know that the County Police have online crime reporting? I didn’t either)
This, from a concerned Crozet reader:
Good morning, all. I didn’t actually notice this trash in my driveway until another parent at the bus stop just mentioned it, but the white supremacist group, the Aryan Nation, tossed copies of their newsletter, the Aryan Alternative, in many of our driveways last night. Without evening opening it you can see the racist propaganda they’re trying to spread. Not something I want my children to find in the driveway! Not something I want to read, either.
While freedom of speech protects their right to distribute this filth, it does not protect them from littering! I called the county police, and they said that yes, because they tossed it in our driveways, we can report them for littering! Every single newspaper tossed in our driveways is a count of littering that can result in a fine. Since they distributed dozens of them, we can hit them where it hurts!!!
You can report them online in just a few minutes at
http://www.albemarle.org/policeonlinereporting/
I took a picture of the paper being in my driveway and for the time being am not going to throw it out in case the police wants it as evidence. I would encourage you to do the same if you can, because with proof, a fine will absolutely stick. Even if you already did throw it out, please report it.
Now unfortunately, if they want to do this again, they legally can put the paper in our newspaper slots or even tape them to our front doors (although I would argue this is trespassing), but if enough of us file a report, hopefully they’d discover that Crozet will not be friendly toward their presence here and will get the message to stay away.
