Sally Duncan

It's kind of a big day for housing in Albemarle County, at least at the Board of Supervisors meeting - approving $3.6m in projects through the affordable housing fund, zoning modernization work session....and, of course, Da Budget. I plan to be there for the budget public comment this evening.

I personally don’t think we should count the rollover money 💀 I think we should spend to zero every year

Correct

Ok, I spent the afternoon reading and emailing and doing math 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 and I think I was wrong. There is also a 3.7 million transfer to AHIF in this year’s budget, and the total we get from the .4 tax is 1.3. And then there’s 1.3 leftover from last year’s AHIF.

so rn, there would be 6.4 in it

Tomorrow night, 6:00 - it’s the public hearing on the budget. Come give us your thoughts!!! You can also email them!

Picture Me As I Am Mirror and Memory in the Age of Black Resistance

The second one is this really great Story Maps put together by the Jefferson School - I just taught on this last week and we took 2 days to do it because the kids were so into it.

storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/096a...

Holsinger-Visions-of-Progress-catalog-accessible.pdf | Powered by Box

Oh! I forgot two more cool things - 1 is the Visions of Progress exhibit about the Holsinger photos curated by @johnedwinmason.bsky.social

virginia.app.box.com/s/xve79fgmge...

In 2020 we sat down with Mayor Nikuyah Walker to talk about where Liberation & Freedom Day came from and why it was important:

The numbers are staggering:

Rent is now unaffordable for a record *half* of U.S. renters.

Some 30 million jobs pay less than $15 an hour. The average wage needed to afford a one-bedroom apartment has climbed to $28.17 — nearly four times the federal minimum wage, which hasn't gone up in 16 years.

This day is a good corrective to traditional history, and is also a handy reminder that the loudest voices are not always the correct ones 😉

It is also not lost on me that so much of the post-bellum Black history is located in the Jouett district, which was also where the first urbanization of the county occurred. There’s a reason we have the oldest neighborhoods and housing stock in the urban ring. 🤨

Hidden History: African American Cemeteries in Central Virginia (2014) In Hidden History, the author travels through the forgotten African American cemeteries of central Virginia to recover information crucial to the stories of the black families who lived a…

Another great book to pair this with is Hidden History. Lots of stories about investigating cemeteries in the county.

lynnrainville.org/publications...

This history is important in its own, but it is also a reminder that when people today say they don’t want anything in the rural areas to change - it has always been changing!

Freedom Has a Face <div><p>In his examination of a wide array of court papers from Albemarle County, a rural Virginia slaveholding community, Kirt von Daacke argues agai

Happy Freedom and Liberation Day!

There is a fantastic book about Black history in Albemarle, Freedom Has A Face.

www.upress.virginia.edu/title/3533/

Get people to come make public comment 🤷🏼‍♀️. I’m frustrated and am reading it trying to see where money could be found.

The only increase that’s recommended is 93k from the tax raise last year.

I’m halfway through reading our budget, while watching the city’s budget presentation 😵‍💫 and I think everyone who is unhappy about the county tax rate should take a look at what our neighbors are paying 😬. (it would be even more without our check to them 🫡)

((but they do fund wayyy more on housing))

“America is supposed to be a place where you can better yourself, your family, and your community. But this is only possible if you have a stable home.”

A decade after Evicted, 7.6M renters still face eviction each year—2.9M of them children. Some cities have made progress, but most of the country has a long way to go. Explore the data at evictionlab.org

What Emergency Managers Say They Need More Than Ever We heard from more than 40 current and former emergency managers in 11 states about what they need to prepare for the next disaster — and what they aren’t getting.

“This crisis-management system in the United States is itself in crisis." What Emergency Managers Say They Need More Than Ever, by @cgaribay.bsky.social

Scrolling with Sally Vol. 1. No. 4 In a world of constant content, the amount of information can be overwhelming. And yet. We still want to be informed. We want to be connected. One of the best parts of social media is that it is socia...

It’s Newsletter time! - the big thing is the public hearing on the budget Wed at 6 - come give us your thoughts!

And then don’t forget to come to the Active Mobility Summit this weekend!

sallyforsupervisor.ghost.io/scrolling-wi...

TOWN HALL MID-SESSION LEGISLATIVE UPDATE with Senator Deeds, Delegate Laufer & Delegate Callsen Sunday, March 1, 2026 2 - 3:30 pm 2 Virtual RSVP: bit.ly/2026-Midsession- Legislative-Update

TODAY, Sunday, March 1.

In recent years, Bilbao has quietly built a cycling network shaped by lessons from the Netherlands: calmed where it can be, protected where it must be, and always comfortable and connected.

The result? You can now pedal across the city on infrastructure made for everyone—not just the fit and brave.

I also took my 15 seconds with @ltgovhashmi.bsky.social to tell her I loved her housing plan and am so hopeful that Virginia can make progress on housing 🙏🏻

Me and Lt. Gov. Hashmi

Me, Lt Gov Hashmi and School Board member Ellen Osborne

info on what an iftar is

tonight I was able to go to a community Iftar and it was such a great experience. Happy a constituent invited me, so thrilled that Lt. Gov Hashmi was there, but it was really special getting to participate in a different tradition and meet people and celebrate the diversity in our community.

The NFL combine is on in the background and I thought I heard Rich Eisen say “school board” but it is not budget season for him, so I’m guessing he actually said scoreboard 😆

some grumble about “luxury apartments” but they provide an option to higher-income renters who still can’t get into a house—and thus aren’t competing with lower-income renters for apartments

"One way we as a nation have managed to 'reduce homelessness' is by defining entire segments of the homeless population out of existence."

I spoke with the Miami Herald about There Is No Place for Us — and about the staggering number of homeless families and individuals who literally don't count.

If your housing policy isn’t speaking specifically to renters, you’re missing the audience.