Look Back 2025 #4: Some of the effects of the Trump administration on local and regional government

The second presidency of Donald Trump has ushered in a radical new approach to federalism with the current occupants of the executive branch claiming powers never asserted before. That has affected all levels of government and will continue to do so. I’ve tried to capture what I can as 2025 steamrolled along.

This is the fourth in a series of special editions of the newsletter with clips from some of the 800 or so stories that have gone out in Charlottesville Community Engagement this year. This is my way of closing out the old year so I can begin to focus on the new one.

This work is all done under the company of Town Crier Productions which sounds fancy for a one-person information operation. This work is covered mostly by paid subscribers either through Substack, Patreon, check, or other means of sending payment. In 2026 I am hoping to have a tax-deductible option and should have new information about that soon. Learn more about how you can support in the epilogue at the end of this edition!

The death of the Federal Executive Institute and the debut of Sycamore Hill

The University of Virginia ended the year as the beneficiary of one of President Donald Trump’s early orders. In February, Trump ordered the closing of the Federal Executive Institute, an agency created for the advancement of people employed as civil servants.

“Bureaucratic leadership over the past half-century has enlarged and entrenched Washington, D.C.’s managerial class, a bloated system far removed from the needs of American families,” reads the fact sheet for the order.

That put the 14.5 acre campus up for grabs as surplus property. Both Charlottesville and UVA indicated interest in receiving the land and buildings for free from the U.S. Department of Transportation. Charlottesville’s application to use the site as a pre-K center was initially accepted, but quickly overturned in favor of UVA’s.

In a statement, officials with the University of Virginia expressed surprise at the withdrawal of contingent approval for Charlottesville City Schools.

“Upon receiving the notice late Friday afternoon, we reached out to the U.S. Department of Education seeking to clarify the reasons for the unexpected change and to better understand the process to date and the process moving forward,” reads the statement.

UVA had made a separate application which did not provide much detail on how the space would be used. Deputy Spokeperson Bethanie Glover said UVA would use the property to expand the UVA School of Continuing and Professional Studies as well as the ROTC program.

The deed transferred to UVA in early August. In September, the Board of Visitors learned the name for the area would be Sycamore Hill, at least initially.

J.J. Davis, UVA’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, said there will be an opportunity for a donor to name the property in the future. The site is being prepped to serve as the new headquarters for the School of Continuing and Professional Studies.

“We are doing some minor repairs, upgrading some of the safety, security, and IT assets,” Davis said. “As you know, it will be home for SCPs and starting with the criminal justice program as well as our ROTC program in spring semester.”

In September, the Board of Visitors agreed to hand over another property to the city. UVA purchased the 5.2 acre Oak Lawn property in Fifeville in October 2023 for $3.5 million.

“As you know, they were highly disappointed in not being able to acquire the FEI property,” said J.J. Davis, executive vice president and chief operating officer. “So you tasked us all with the challenge of is there an approach here for a win win?”

UVA purchased the land with the idea of using it for a child care facility and a planning study was conducted.

“The planning study at the UVA side sort of suggested this was much more complicated and further down on the priority list,” Davis said.

Many threats to federal funding

In March, Albemarle Supervisors learned that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had rescinded a grant that was being used to cover some of the costs of climate action planning under the Resilient Together initiative.

Albemarle County had been awarded funding through the Environmental Justice Government-to-Government grant for a project called the Climate Resilience Cohort. The Resilient Together site hosted by Albemarle County has not been updated since April 2025.

Almost all sectors of government lost funding that had been approved by Virginia’s two Senators when Congress failed to pass a budget on time over the summer.

“Congressionally directed spending (CDS) is capped at one percent of all discretionary spending, and there is a ban on congressionally directed spending items to for-profit entities,” reads a page on Senator Tim Kaine’s website.

For instance, the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority did not receive $880,000 to help cover the cost of replacing equipment at the South Rivanna Water Plant. A story at the time has details on other projects that lost out.

In April, the RWSA Board of Directors learned that the agency was still on track to receive about $9 million from a total of $10 million in anticipated federal grants.

What other examples should go here? Let me know in the comments.

Policing language

An early impact of the second Trump administration was the renaming of a federal grant program. The program began in the late 2000’s as the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program before being renamed to BUILD in the first Trump administration. That stands for Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development.

The Biden administration changed that to the Rebuilding Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE). In May 2022, Albemarle County was awarded $2 million from RAISE to study alternatives for a shared-use path to connect the Blue Ridge Tunnel with Charlottesville. That project has moved forward.

In January, Albemarle County announced the hiring of the firm Vanesse Hangen Brustlin (VHB) to oversee a master plan process for the Three Notched Trail. In March, members of the Charlottesville Planning Commission wanted specific references to the trail in the city’s new master plan for parks.

In February, the members of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization’s Policy Board were briefed on the work plan for transportation staff at the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. Much of their work is guided by federal regulations and some members had concerns the second Trump administration

TJPDC Executive Director Christine Jacobs said she received a correspondence from U.S. Department of Transportation asking for clarification on recent directives.

“In every transition of leadership there is going to be a review of documentation,” Jacobs said. “They have specifically noted that there is no pause in our funding right now but there is a comprehensive review of all documentation.”

In May, the TJPDC Board of Commissioners learned about a letter sent by U.S Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stating that any funding spent on “diversity, equity, and inclusion” would be in violation of federal law, and that anyone receiving federal money must cooperate with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“There has not been any direct requests for us to do anything different, but we will be really diligent in reviewing the language of our agreements and the language of our plans to make sure that we are complying with federal law,” Jacobs said.

City Manager Sam Sanders made one suggested change to a strategic plan framework that governs the management of city government.

One of the headings in the original plan had the title “Commitment to Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion” but a suggestion was made to change that to “Commitment to Opportunity and Access.”

“While we are concerned about the actions of the federal government, we are not stopping the work that we need to do that has been identified and prioritized by this Council,” Sanders said during an update on his two-year anniversary on the job. “Until you tell me otherwise, that is what we will continue to do. But language is what is being used right now as a target. It is also being used to try to separate localities from their values.”

The notes for Sanders’ presentation notes that an action item titled “Operationalize JEDI” has been paused due to federal threats against diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

Public opposition

The public comment periods for local government often provide a venue for speakers to express thoughts on national affairs. Several people appeared before City Council on July 7 to protest a series of 6-3 rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of the Trump administration’s interpretation of presidential power.

The six Justices appointed by Republicans ruled in Trump v. CASA that federal courts cannot place nationwide injunctions while the three appointed by Democrats dissented. While the case itself pertained to the issue of birthright citizenship, the ruling has removed a judicial check on executive power for all manner of topics.

Alicia Lenahan, an Albemarle County resident, said injunctions imposed by lower federal courts kept other branches of government within the law. She paraphrased the dissenting opinion from Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

“Today it is birthright citizenship,” Lenahan said. “Tomorrow an executive order may do away with our right to free speech, freedom of assembly. Perhaps the administration will target the 10th Amendment in order to limit the powers vested in state, local and local governments and the people who live here. No right is safe in the new legal regime created by the Supreme Court.”

Another county resident, Tom Dale, referred to a July 5 article in the New York Times that noted Virginia under Governor Glenn Youngkin has become a willing partner in the push to deport more people.

“The pace of immigration arrests has shot up across the country under the second Trump term, but few places have seen a spike quite as sharp as Virginia,” Dale said. “Arrests in the state by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are up more than 350 percent since 2024, one of the steepest increases in the country. Nearly 3,000 people were arrested by ICE in Virginia in the first five months of 2025, on par with numbers in a much larger state like New York.”

The stage is set for a potential redistricting in Virginia

One of the questions in 2026 will be whether a General Assembly led by Democrats will follow through with a plan to redistrict Virginia’s 11 Congressional districts if other states do so. President Trump has been pushing Republican-led states to alter their boundaries to protect a narrow majority in the House of Representatives.

The General Assembly met just before Election Day to take up the matter. The Virginia Constitution would need to be amended which requires passage in two consecutive sessions.

Delegate Lee Ware (R-72) said the move across the United States to redraw districts mid-Census to gain partisan advantage was a bad idea no matter what party was proposing it.

“Just because a bad idea was proposed and even taken up by a few of our sister states such as North Carolina or California, is not a reason for Virginia to follow suit,” Ware said. “ For nearly two and a half centuries, the states have redistricted following the decennial census, responding to the population shifts both in our country and in the states.”

Senator Scott Surovell (D-34) said the amendment is intended to step in when other branches of government are not exercising their Constitutional authority to provide checks and balances. He echoed Locke’s comment that the redistricting commission would continue to exist.

“There’s no maps that have been drawn,” Surovell said. “There’s no repeal of the constitutional amendment. The only thing that’s on the table or will be on the table later this week is giving the General assembly the option to take further action in January to then give Virginia voters the option of protecting our country.”

On October 29, 2025, the Virginia House of Delegates voted 51 to 42 to move forward the amendment.

“HJ 6007 creates a narrow temporary exception allowing the Virginia General assembly to modify one or more congressional districts between the regular tenure or decennial reapportionments,” said Delegate Rodney Willett (D-58) “If another US State redraws its congressional districts mid decade for reasons other than completing the decennial redistricting or to comply with a court order.”

The Virginia Senate adopted the first reference on a 21 to 16 vote on October 31.

A few days later, Democrats picked up 13 seats in the House of Delegates.

Other impacts:

• Virginia Humanities lost $1.7 million in federal funding previously allocated in its role as the state’s humanities council. To save costs, they laid off 25 percent of their staff and moved out of their offices at Dairy Market.
• Former Delegate Todd Gilbert lasted around a month as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia before suddenly resigning. He’s been replaced by former Albemarle Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Tracci. (read the story)
• The federal shutdown threatened distribution of benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Governor Youngkin declared a state of emergency to be able to use Virginia funds to make up the difference.

Before you go: Paid subscribers cover the cost of conducting research for all articles on this website. This edition was originally published on January 3, 2026 on Charlottesville Community Engagement.  You can either subscribe through Substack, make a monthly contribution through Patreon, or consider becoming a sponsor. The goal of Town Crier Productions is to increase awareness about what is  happening at the local, regional, state, and federal government levels. Please share the work with others if you want people to know things.