Good afternoon,

Summer is flying by.  Let me be the first to wish you Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas because it will be here before you know it.

Norfolk City Council heard an interesting presentation in July on water meter reading.  The water meters at our homes are read on a monthly basis by a company who has employees who walk house to house to read the meters. The is almost unimaginable in this day and time.  Well, starting in 2026, Norfolk will embark on deploying technology that will remotely read and monitor our water meters. This advanced meter infrastructure will include sensors placed on the water meter that will transmit data.  This will eliminate the cost of paying contractors for manual meter reading, lead to more accurate reads, detect water usage that is high due to a leak, and, be read on a regular schedule to allow for regular billing amounts.  I have heard over the years that sometimes the contractors haven’t been able to read on a regular cadence. That can result in some months where, for example,  homeowners are paying for 35 days of water use vs 28 days in a prior month, which can lead to wildly varied water bills. You can imagine that with about 70,000 water meters needing to be touched, this will take some time…about 4 years. This project will be funded as a capital improvement project costing about $37.7M.

Good news for the Peter G. Decker, Jr. Half Moone Cruise and Celebration Center was announced last week. Starting in April 2027, the Norwegian Cruise Line will make Norfolk at port of call for the ship, Norwegian Pearl, for 20 weeks.  The Norwegian Pearl is a 2400 passenger ship. This is a great for Norfolk and the region.

Along with friends we took the Tide light rail to see the Norfolk Tides baseball game last weekend.  We walked from our house to the Eastern Virginia Medical Campus station and rode to the stadium.  It was a beautiful night — one of the cooler evenings we have had of late. Even better…the Tides won against the Memphis Redbirds.  The Tide is free on Tides home games.

Have a great August.

Cheers!

Courtney

 

Highland Park Civic League

 

Beautiful Elizabeth River Project on Knitting Mill Creek

 

Rode the Tide to see the Norfolk Tides

 

Grady guarding the backyard but really hoping something falls off the grill