The City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County have one of the strongest city-county bonds in the state of Virginia, and it is growing even stronger, said Charles Martin, chairman of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors.
But it has not always been that way. Charlottesville and Albemarle recently have been reestablishing their relationship after the city officially ended its campaign for reversion to a town in December, Martin said.
Reversion would allow Charlottesville to be absorbed by the county and be included within its jurisdiction and services.
A group of citizens in Charlottesville brought forth a lawsuit five years ago that supported reversion. The city helped pay for an appeal to a ruling that threw the case out on a technicality, but it did not officially take a side, Charlottesville Mayor Virginia Daugherty said.
The county, however, was disappointed by the city's lack of an official stance on reversion, Martin said.
"Had the City Council taken a stance on the issue of reversion, we would have supported them," he said. "We didn't want to have a court force reversion down our throats."
Now that the city has ceased all support for the reversion lawsuit, the bond between county and city is getting stronger, Daugherty said.
The county and city will collaborate to implement two main programs - a Committee on Cooperative Planning and a joint meeting on transportation, she said.
This type of collaboration already has been effective, she added.
"A developer wanted to have a Super Wal-Mart put in the county. The city was invited to participate in a discussion dealing with the developer's plan," Daugherty said.
The city and county agreed not to build the Wal-Mart and instead decided to jointly support a "mix-use development" plan which will include both residential and commercial zones in the area where the Wal-Mart would have been built, she said.
She added that she wants the city's meetings with the county to become more formal. A Committee on Cooperative Planning would provide an appropriate setting for these meetings, Daugherty said.
Martin said he agrees that the stronger relationship of the county and city benefits everyone. "The cooperation should help to increase efficiency and lower duplication of services," Martin said.
Lindsay Dorrier, a member of the County Board of Supervisors, said he agrees that the community will benefit from collaboration.
"We can strengthen such things as trash pick-up, fire squads, airports, police protection and other governmental services" for citizens in both the city and the county, Dorrier said.
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