This little light of mine/I’m gonna let it shine.“ The rehearsal hadn’t officially started yet, but the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Mass Choir was already singing. On a frigid Monday night, January 6, a jumble of people filled the black box theater at Charlottesville High School. Tight clumps of fidgety teenagers waited in line to collect folders of sheet music. Church ladies in brimmed hats put on reading glasses to make out the notes. Out of the chaos of piano chords and excited chatter, Jonathan Spivey, choir director, launched into a spontaneous rendition of a gospel song everyone seemed to know, complete with improvised lyrics: “When I have to sing a high note/I’m gonna let it shine.”
People still in line for music started clapping and stomping, and the room filled with more than 80 voices.
Spivey, who teaches at CHS and frequently travels as a guest conductor, says the MLK choir is one of the highlights of his year. “There’s something about this group that just energizes me,” he says.
Having assembled the annual choir for the past 15 years, Spivey enthuses about the way it keeps growing. Originally a joint effort of several area black churches, including Mount Zion First African Baptist Church (where Spivey is choir director), the MLK choir expanded by word of mouth and soon began to look like a cross-section of the community. Anyone who wanted to participate was—and still is—welcome.
“The Unitarians joined in, the Episcopalians, the Jewish temple, the Quaker meeting house…” Spivey remembers. “High school and middle school kids started coming, and last year I added a children’s choir” organized through Cale Elementary School. Altogether, Spivey hopes for 150 members to participate in this year’s performance at the Charlottesville Performing Arts Center on Sunday, January 19 at 6pm.
The racially mixed choir also draws singers from surrounding counties. “What I was most impressed about is that people come from all ends of the community, and it really represents what Martin Luther King was all about,” Spivey says. “It’s not a black choir, it’s not a white choir.”
Spivey has assembled a musically diverse program to reflect the diverse group of singers. “I try to pick something for everybody,” he says. “There’s such a hodge-podge of music there.” The choir has only a few short weeks between the new year and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day to prepare—no easy task—but Spivey and his musicians seem up to the challenge. The performance will be part of a program featuring Rev. L. Tyrone Crider, a Chicago-based pastor and activist, as the keynote speaker.
As befits academia, the annual King Celebration at UVA on Monday, January 27 at 7pm at the Newcomb Hall Ballroom, will take a somewhat more critical approach. Diane Nash, a civil rights activist and a founding member nearly 40 years ago of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, will give the keynote speech, “Beyond Charisma.” Nash questions whether charismatic leadership is the answer to African-Americans’ struggles.
Still, the event will include celebratory elements, too: a performance by the Mahogany Dance Troupe, poetry readings, and a presentation by the South Asian Leadership Society about the influence of Gandhi on King.—Erika Howsare
Journey to Ben & Jerry-land
No rocky road between here and Burlington
City Council has seen the future of Charlottesville, and it is…Burlington, Vermont.
In October, a delegation of City and County leaders traveled to Burlington for a “journey of learning,” and last week they delivered a report on their trip to City Council. The trip seemed to reinforce for the delegation a great deal of what they already knew.
Burlington and Charlottesville have much in common. Each has similar populations in the city and surrounding county. Each city is home to a large university and a pedestrian shopping district. The cities even have complementary hometown heroes on the national jam band circuit––Phish, from Burlington, and our own Dave Matthews Band.
The two cities have similar ideas emanating from their executive branches, too. Charlottesville Planning Director Satyendra Huja lauded Burlington for its spending on public art, bike trails and traffic calming, not to mention Burlington’s tax on downtown merchants, which goes toward the cost of colorful signs directing tourists to the shopping district. Sound familiar? According to the slide show the delegation delivered at Council’s regular meeting on Monday, January 6, there was no shortage of mutual congratulation and admiration among leaders in the two cities.
Burlington and Charlottesville share problems, too, and the local delegates took special interest in how the New England city provides affordable housing and how it cooperates with the University of Vermont. On this point, however, the delegates returned with the lesson that Vermont is friendlier to progressive ideas than Virginia.
For example, Burlington’s municipal government can review and approve––or disapprove––construction plans at the University of Vermont. Using this power, the city council was able to persuade the school to build more student housing by refusing to approve other projects unless UV cooperated. Here in the Commonwealth, however, State universities are not required to abide by local zoning rules, and the result is controversial projects like UVA’s Emmet Street parking garage.
Vermont also gives city governments more power over land use. For example, a Burlington ordinance requires developers there to incorporate a percentage of “affordable” units into new projects. Such a law would not stand up in a Virginia courtroom. Upon hearing that, Councilors did not miss the opportunity to slam Richmond.
“There are tools available in Vermont that are not available in Virginia,” said Meredith Richards. “Virginia gives our cities very little leverage in dealing with universities, developers and property owners.”
Here, City Council hopes to emulate Burlington in dealing with Charlottesville’s housing crisis. Andy Montroll, president of the Burlington city council, says his city is suffering a major housing crisis at all income levels. “It’s hard to say for sure,” he says, “but without a lot of the city’s efforts, it would be far worse.”
It seems, however, that Burlington’s most effective strategies will never fly in the Commonwealth, so it’s unclear what direction Charlottesville’s housing strategy will take. Even with somewhat more freedom than Charlottesville to control development within its limits, Burlington’s housing costs are still heading into the stratosphere while strip malls and McMansions continue springing up in the surrounding county, Montroll says.
It seems the two cities do have a lot in common.––John Borgmeyer
Holding pattern
Supes hear the case against helicopters and rear entry
Another meeting of the Albemarle Board of County Supervisors, another round of delayed approvals, parking battles and residents’ ever-present resistance to change. From the County’s proposed neighborhood model to a landowner’s request to build a heliport, the Supes heard many complaints about unwanted change when they met on Wednesday, January 8.
More than a dozen locals (practically a convention by Supes’ standards) protested against the off-street parking and loading requirements the County has put in place in conjunction with the neighborhood model it hopes to approve before the turn of the decade. The ordinance, as it stands, states that parking for developed or redeveloped sites must be located on the side or rear of the building. Business owners pronounced the ordinance as the death of retail, and residents expressed fears for their safety.
“I certainly don’t want to walk behind the store I just came out of in the dark,” one woman said.
Although Supervisor Sally Thomas reiterated the point of the new neighborhood model—to encourage pedestrian-friendly retail development—she did not speak for the entire board.
“The point of a convenience store to me,” said Supervisor Charles Martin, “is that I can pull up in front of the building, and run in.”
Using the new neighborhood model, County Supervisors plan to coerce, cajole and command developers into building smaller-scale residential and commercial communities. Tree-lined streets and sidewalks with a town center feel, they are hoping, will replace the strip-mall debacle called 29N.
But while the Supes professed agreement that parking should not be deemed unsafe for residents and shoppers, they seemed to be in a sharp disagreement about the true definition of “convenience.”
Ultimately, time constraints forced the Supes to abandon the topic. Perhaps they were tuckered out by the other spirited discussion that had ensued during the afternoon—a public debate about choppers. Not motorcycles, mind you, but helicopters.
Seemingly all of White Hall was on hand to oppose construction of a heliport by John Griffin, a part-time Albemarle resident. Griffin, who also lives in New York, appeared surprised at the neighborly turn-out concerning his 1,330-acre property.
“I am, in every way, against all types of pollution,” said Griffin, “including noise pollution. I just think it’s a little much for all these people to come down here over 72 minutes a year.”
The hour and 12 minutes in question is the amount of time that Griffin calculates his heliport would be in use annually, with six trips to and from White Hall. While that comes to nearly the running time of a Guns ‘n Roses double CD, neighbors made no such comparison. It was the precedent that had them bothered.
“There is really no necessity for your own heliport,” said one resident of Millington Road, where Griffin’s property is located. “This just says to all the wealthy in Albemarle ‘Why drive?’”
One Free Union resident said with the noise of chain saws, SUVs, hunters and airplanes, the peacefulness of her property has been destroyed. Enough would have to be enough. “I believe people who move to and buy land in Free Union,” she said, “do it for the peace and quiet.”
One brave Millington Road neighbor came out in support of Griffin, whose request had been denied by the County Planning Commission three months ago. “Pegasus flies overhead all the time,” she said, “but we would deny this man a few modern conveniences due to the precedent it’s setting?”
The Planning Commission, in a staff recommendation to the Supervisors, suggested a few stipulations for Griffin and his heliport. Griffin may not have helicopter maintenance, other than emergency maintenance, on the property. No other airborne vehicle may use the property and absolutely no lighting for the helicopter landing site will be permitted.
“I could easily not approve this,” said Martin, striking an ambivalent pose as it came time to vote on Griffin’s case, “but since it’s in Walter’s district, I’ll go with his decision.” Supervisors Walter Perkins and Dennis Rooker supported the heliport, but with a few restrictions.
“If you could agree not to subdivide your acreage,” said Rooker, “and control conditions on the flight plan, I think we could approve this.”
Griffin agreed.
What the County Planning Commission rejected, the Board of County Supervisors approved 5-1. Thomas was alone in rejecting Griffin’s request.—Kathryn E. Goodson