About a year ago, John Coleman noticed that the parking spaces outside his business, Central Battery Specialists on Grady Avenue, had been changed. What had previously been all-day free parking now had two-hour time limits. According to the landlord, Ivy Realty and Management, the City had made the change. So Coleman, who has been in business at that neighborhood for 15 years, made an appointment with then-mayor Blake Caravati.
“I went in there with guns drawn,” says Coleman, upset the City hadn’t consulted him about a change that could affect his business. Further, he wondered whether the City was planning a project at the convoluted intersection where Preston and Grady avenues and 10th Street meet.
The parking change, it turns out, had been made by Ivy Realty after all. According to Coleman, Caravati said any City plans to build on Preston were on “the back burner.” Now, however, it’s not so clear who’s culpable. The City is planning a one-acre mixed-use housing development right in front of the former Monticello Dairy building, where Central Battery is now located. Coleman says the City neglected to inform business owners about the plans. Furthermore, he says, City leaders don’t seem to care that nearby businesses may suffer because of the construction.
“The City doesn’t want to engage those who might have a problem with this project. That’s fundamentally wrong,” Coleman says. “It’s the hint of arrogance I find distressing.”
Despite Caravati’s assurances in 2001, Coleman began to suspect at that time that the City had plans for Preston when he saw utilities workers marking gas and water lines on the median with spray paint. Finally, in August, the City’s head of strategic planning, Satyendra Huja, held a meeting for the 30 neighborhood businesses. Huja unveiled drawings for Preston Commons, projected to contain 50,000 square feet of housing, 2,800 square feet of office space and a partially underground parking deck for 70 cars.
“Huja implied that we had missed the boat,” says Coleman. “The City acted as if it had already been decided, there’s nothing you can do. It was laid out the same way as when I tell my kids, ‘Because I said so.’”
Coleman vented his frustrations to City Council during its regular meeting on Monday, November 18. Caravati didn’t respond. Mayor Maurice Cox, however, said the project enjoyed wide support.
“It seems like we’ve lived with this for a long time,” said Cox. “Hundreds of people in the neighborhood have talked about wanting a more urban style of living. It is a radical change, and it needs to be understood and supported by the people who will benefit from it.”
Coleman says that sounds “like a spin job.”
Cox also said the City has an idea for the project, but not specific plans. Huja has put out a request for proposals to match the City’s idea for Preston Commons; interested developers must submit applications by January 6. Huja requests that the developer begin construction 120 days after winning the contract.
Preston Commons was originally envisioned by local architect Gaither Pratt in 1999. Ironically, now Pratt is circulating a petition to halt the project. He says it is the lack of public input that has produced only one design concept, even though the City said in the past that big projects should have several different designs available.
The controversy over Preston Commons likely is a harbinger of future debates. Proposed changes in City zoning codes have also caused a stir among residents who are uncomfortable with the higher density that will be allowed in some neighborhoods, including Preston-Grady.
Coleman, meanwhile, doesn’t want to be a guinea pig in the Council’s urban-design lab. Because Central Battery serves mostly drive-up customers, Coleman predicts his business will fall off during construction of Preston Commons. If so, he vows to relocate to Albemarle County. If he does move, it would mean the loss of a business that has managed to succeed in a place where many have failed.
“This is my ass on the line, and I don’t like my ass being discussed so cavalierly,” he says. “This is a signal to the business community that you’re dispensable.”––John Borgmeyer
Wage war
Two activists put the cost of living on trial
Charlottesville General District Court begins at 9am. Before that, the courtroom is closed, so the folks scheduled to appear before the judge––either by virtue of profession, arrest warrant or subpoena––wait in front of the police station on Market Street for their cue.
On Monday, November 18, lawyers huddled with their clients; defendants stood alone or with family and friends, some smoking cigarettes; police officers bustled in and out of the station; and about 15 people sat together on the curb. Two of them, Andrew Holden and Jennifer Conner, held a poster that declared “Living Wage Now.” The rest sat quietly; moving only to lift their feet off Market Street when a police officer told them not to block the right of way.
Of all the defendants waiting for court that morning, Holden and Conner were probably the only ones who made a deliberate decision to land there. Around 11am on September 9, 16 people walked into the lobby of the Courtyard by Marriott on West Main Street, loudly chanting for the hotel to raise its minimum wage. Charlottesville’s Living Wage campaign originated at UVA several years ago, and since then UVA, the City and the County have all pledged to pay employees more than the $8 per hour activists advocate as a “living wage.” Two years ago, activists took their protests to the private sector. They targeted the hotel industry because it tends to pay housekeepers low wages for dirty work, and because the housekeepers tend to be single mothers or immigrants with families. Every Friday for the past two years, protesters have focused on the Marriott, which they see as a symbol for corporate chains that use underpaid labor to support a high-end image.
When police broke up the sit-in last September, all but three protesters left. Holden, Conner and 17-year-old Ian Burke were then arrested.
The juvenile court last month found Burke guilty of trespassing. He got a six-month deferred sentence. On November 18, Conner and Holden didn’t expect to be so lucky. Despite previous arrests for protesting at the White House and at a military base in Georgia, Conner didn’t have a police record and was not concerned for herself. Holden, however, was one of four protesters who chained themselves inside the elevators at the Omni Charlottesville Hotel in July 2001. The stunt earned him and his comrades a suspended 30-day jail sentence and two years probation.
Conner and Holden served as their own defense on November 18 before Charlottesville District Court Judge Robert H. Downer, Jr. A Marriott manager testified against them, as did the arresting police officer.
“I got their attention and told them to leave,” said the officer. “Most of them left. The three that stayed said, ‘We’re not going anywhere. Do what you have to do.’ They weren’t violent or aggressive. They just got down on the floor.”
In her defense Conner said the Marriott has so far refused to meet with activists to discuss the hotel’s minimum wage. In her job at a foster care agency, Conner said she sees the effects on parents who must choose between spending time with their children or working multiple jobs to provide for them.
“Because the Marriott continues to trespass on their workers’ dignity by not paying them a living wage, despite the efforts of so many, I have felt it necessary to act beyond the bounds of what is considered acceptable,” she said in a prepared statement.
Downer, who previously sentenced the Omni activists, said he understood the protesters’ point of view. “But if you act this way, you’ll have to pay the consequences,” said the judge.
For Conner, it meant a 30-day suspended jail sentence, two years probation and five hours of community service. Holden got a similar sentence; but because his conviction violated the probation he received after the Omni incident, he was taken to the Charlottesville-Albemarle Regional Jail on Avon Street Extended to begin serving his 30-day sentence.
Immediately, activists sent e-mails to at least 100 people to plot responses to Holden’s incarceration. After discussing a jailhouse protest, it seems the consensus is to keep attention aimed at the Marriott.––John Borgmeyer
Toy story
The French invade Earlysville with tiny trucks
The two-level yellow house in Earlysville doesn’t look like it would be the American branch of an international toy company. There are half barrels of plants on either side of the entrance, two cars in the driveway and carved wooden bears greeting visitors on the porch. Only the Foosball table in the middle of the kitchen gives a clue that this isn’t your average family home.
Consider, also, that while the domestic branch of the French company has some 50 employees and the capacity to produce hundreds of small-scale cars and trucks at a moment’s notice, the American branch has…Kim.
Kim Robinson is the general manager and only full-time employee at the American branch of the Eligor Company. Founded in France in 1978 and brought to the United States in 1999, Eligor makes high-quality die-cast cars and trucks.
These aren’t your father’s toy cars, however, and they’re not Matchbox cars, either. While Eligor started as a car collectible company, producing such classic automobiles as the European Bugatti and American Ford V8 pick-ups, it was with the 1988 introduction of the truck line that things took off.
“Today the truck part of our business is 80 percent,” says Anne Marie Vullierme, co-owner of Eligor with her husband, Paul. The mini trucks are sold to companies such as Michelin, Volvo, Great Dane and Kenworth, which use them as promotional tools or schwag at company anniversary parties. “It’s almost business-to-business,” Vullierme says.
Even with such a nifty product to market, Eligor’s ascension in America has been slow. “We had to start from scratch,” says Vullierme. American cars can be quite different from European cars; that distinction holds for trucks, too. The company has spent much of the past few years designing new products, acquiring licenses to manufacture parts and introducing its cars and trucks at trade shows. And while the post-September 11 economy put a damper on business, “Now it seems it is picking up well,” says Vullierme.
For six weeks of the year, Robinson, who otherwise works alone, has Vullierme for company in Earlysville. The owner comes mostly for shows and exhibits around the country.
The Vulliermes purchased the company seven years ago, although Anne Marie says they have “always been in the toy business.”
At present, the Vulliermes’ son John is in Earlysville, too, fixing up a Web site, which, to the chagrin of the French, was constructed entirely in English.
For the occasional group they comprise, Robinson and the two Vulliermes share a nice synergy. For every fourth question they are asked they exchange glances and laugh, as if the answer has been long debated around the dinner table. “How do you like working for the family business?” for instance, receives looks and laughter. “How often do you come to the States?” gets more glances and laughter. And “What made you choose Charlottesville?” emits the most laughter of all.
As for the last query, John replies with a chuckle that “It’s the Jefferson factor,” whatever that means in regard to toy trucks.
Anne Marie Vullierme is excited at the possibility of being part of TJ’s neighborhood. She is eager to meet other small businesses in the community. Apparently, some other firms have already discovered Eligor. It recently produced old-fashioned cars for the Auto Appraisal Group, a local company.
Can die-cast scale trolleys be far behind?—Allison M. Knab