Charlottesville Podcasting Network
Lectures, radio shows and more available on-demand
To start our first series, we took some time to talk to Matt Utz, our Madison store manager. With an extensive background in home construction and nearly 20 years working with both contractors and homeowners at Cardinal Home Center, Matt has certainly seen it all. This episode dives into some of the most common questions we see from homeowners preparing to build custom homes in the Charlottesville area.
Access this episode:
This website was started in 2005 as an experiment in podcasting. Eighteen years later, that’s what it still very much is. Since Town Crier Productions took the site back over in 2022, there’s not been much printed here. Most of the activity is over on the Charlottesville Community Engagement feed on Substack or on Information Charlottesville.
But there are a lot of podcasts out there and it’s time again to experiment with the concept of this being a network. So, here is a link to an area podcast. I got this from Emmet Aylor of the Cardinal Home Center.
“This podcast, produced by Cardinal Home Center (cardinalhomecenter.com), interviews experts at our stores to get insight on how to tackle your home renovation challenges. We hope to help guide listeners through some projects they’ve been looking to do and introduce our team!”
In the first episode, host Maggie Glass spoke with Michael Freeman, a Benjamin Moore paint salesman at the Crozet location. They talked about some considerations for how to start picking a color, how you can keep your budget down when painting, and how to prepare before you come in to one of our stores.
I can’t provide a play button here, but I can link directly to that episode on the following services.
Since reacquiring management of the Charlottesville Podcasting Network, I have resisted posting material here. When I created this site, it was just to experiment with the technology. Thousands of podcasts later, there is a lot here I want to keep as an archive of a certain time.
But I also want to add things, even if those things may just be repurposed content from my other work at Town Crier Productions. That’s the company I created in 2020 to help me figure out how to make a living covering the world around me as a journalist.
So, I think what I may do for a time is continue to post these and to add a little commentary about the stories where I can. I’m not doing that for this one, nor am I going to repost all of the text. You can read that on Information Charlottesville.
Anyway, here are the first two paragraphs of the story to whet your appetite.
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The current administration of the City of Charlottesville has inherited a city government that has struggled to turn ideas for road and multimodal improvement into completed projects. For instance, the Commonwealth Transportation Board awarded three Smart Scale grants to the city in 2016, but none of them has yet gone to construction. The city saved up millions for a West Main Streetscape project that was canceled last year with the money reprioritized for the renovation of Buford Middle School.
The task of reforming the city’s transportation process has fallen to Deputy City Manager Sam Sanders. Last year, he worked with the Virginia Department of Transportation on a plan to fix the city’s broken process, including the cancellation of a couple other projects. Last year, the city did not submit any applications through the Smart Scale process. That was one concession to VDOT officials who have become impatient with the city’s inability to deliver.
Michael Kochis will be the next police chief for the City of Charlottesville. He was the final selection of interim City Manager Michael C. Rogers and approved by City Council on December 5, 2022. He will start work on January 16, 2023.
On December 6, Rogers held a virtual press conference to allow members of the media to ask questions of the new chief, who comes to the position after being the chief for the Town of Warrenton in Fauquier County. 
On October 18, 2022, the Center for Politics held a seminar in the Rotunda at the University of Virginia called “Hacking Our Elections.” Charlottesville Community Engagement recorded the event and produced this six minute podcast summary.
To read this story, please visit Information Charlottesville.
The falling of the leaves is the sign of many things, but the onslaught of autumn also marks the coming of the next Virginia Film Festival. Here’s a very brief preview of the 35th annual event, which will take place November 2 through November 6.
This piece was originally part of the October 12, 2022 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. You can read the item here.
Will there be more podcasts from the Virginia Film Festival? Stay tuned!
On May 19, 2022, a crowd assembled at the intersection of East Market Street and 3rd Street NW in downtown Charlottesville to watch the unveiling of a historic marker to commemorate an important moment in the desegregation of education in Virginia. In 1950, Gregory Swanson applied to attend the University of Virginia School of Law, but he was denied a space because he was Black. He sued in federal court citing 14th Amendment rights to equal protection, and a three-panel judge heard arguments on September 5 that year. Our recording begins with David Plunkett, the director of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library.
Timeline for podcast:
The Reverend Alex Joyner is the pastor of Charlottesville First United Methodist Church, and he wants to ask questions about what it takes to make a place more whole. One thread in his questioning is the future of Market Street Park in downtown Charlottesville.
In late February of 2022, Reverend Joyner spoke with Elizabeth Catte about her new book Pure America: Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia.
You can also watch this interview on YouTube.
Welcome to the all new CPN! We’ve modernized our site to use the very latest technology to continue to deliver high quality audio as we have done for the last 17 years.
And, as always, thanks for listening. We’re glad you’re here.
Sunday Morning Wake-up Call host Rick Moore talks with Dr. Pam Moran, Executive Director of The Virginia School Consortium for Learning and Gena Keller, Executive Director of The Commonwealth Learning Partnership, about current trends in public education. Ms. Moran and Ms. Keller are former superintendents of the Albemarle and Fluvanna public school systems respectively. Topics include: the original intent of the public school system and some of the challenges faced by public educators today.
This is the final show for this series. We’d like to send a thank you to the many guests who took time out of their busy schedules to appear on our show and to our many faithful listeners some of who have stayed with us for over 20 years.
We’d also like to give special thanks to the good people at 97.9 WREN for providing a space for us for the last two years and to the Charlottesville Podcasting Network which has been our online home since 2005.
Sunday Morning Wake-up Call host Rick Moore talks with University of Virginia President Jim Ryan and Piedmont Community College President Frank Friedman about the current state of college education in Virginia. Topics include: COVID and its effect on the mental health of college students and balancing life, work and school.
The Sunday Morning Wake-up Call is heard on Real Oldies 97.9 The WREN, Sundays from 11 a.m. to noon.
Sunday Morning Wake-up Call host Rick Moore talks with Jim Duncan from Nest Realty and Matt Hodges from Presidential Bank Mortgage about the real estate market in Charlottesville and Albemarle County. Topics include: A seller’s market and buyer love letters.
The Sunday Morning Wake-up Call is heard on Real Oldies 97.9 The WREN, Sundays from 11 a.m. to noon.