Crozet Fourth
Mark it on your calendars for Saturday, July 2: the Crozet Fourth of July parade and town celebration at Claudius Crozet Park. The parade will start at 3 p.m. at its traditional location, Crozet Elementary School, and march through downtown to the park. There will be food there, music of different styles, kiddie amusements, softball games, an expo of local businesses, and, shortly after dark, a grand fireworks show. There will be raffles and drawings to raise money to help pay for a dome over the park’s pool and make it a year-round facility. A swing dance with the Salute to Swing big band performing will be held the night before in the park’s covered pavilions. Plan to join the rest of town both days to celebrate America and the good life we have in Crozet. Together we can make it even better.
This year’s event is being organized by a coalition of Crozet civic groups and clubs, led by the Crozet Community Association, who have come forward to relieve the Crozet Volunteer Fire Department, who traditionally sponsored the festivities as a fundraiser for the department, from the burden of making all arrangements. Our volunteer firefighters are now answering about 850 calls a year or, on average, 2.5 per day. They do plenty enough and the rest of us can help to show our appreciation of them.
An event like this is complex to stage. The fireworks will cost the town nearly $7,000 and we need to raise that money in the next few months. Local businesses will certainly chip in and we can make it easier for them by making sure we patronize local merchants and services. Shop locally first. This should be a moral principle for us.
In fact, this is the goal of a new directory of western Albemarle and northern Nelson Counties that the Gazette is now preparing to guide people to our wealth of locally available goods, services and entertainments. It will be called Crozet A to Z and is designed to be useful for newcomers, long-timers and tourists visiting our area. Let’s promote and support our own community. To make sure your business, club, church, or other organization is included in the directory, visit the Crozet Gazette’s website at www.crozetgazette.com and fill out a directory listing. April 20 is the cutoff for listings, so do it today.
New Magisterial Districts
The redistricting plan for Albemarle’s Supervisors’ districts now under consideration is sound and simple. It brings into sharper focus the need for cooperation between the two districts covering western Albemarle, the White Hall District and Samuel Miller District. Samuel Miller will likely include more voters in greater Crozet, plus increase its constituency of rural voters, giving it even greater commonalities with White Hall. Our prosperity and our community goals will depend on how well we can persuade our supervisors and school board members to stand together with a shared vision.
