Charging elephants
Republicans stand up for John Q. Public
Tax day makes everybody cranky and on Tuesday, April 15, Charlottesville Republicans were no exception: Prominent elephants got down- right snippy about the Democratic establishment. In separate instances, Councilor Rob Schilling and GOP stalwart Jon Bright declared that City Council couldn’t care less about the little guy.
The uprising began shortly before noon, when Council was scheduled to approve the City’s 2003-‘04 budget, including a series of fee hikes. Schilling phoned local reporters to convene a press conference following the vote.
City officials had worked for months on the budget, and the four Democratic Councilors arrived at chambers dressed casually for what would be a five-minute meeting. Schilling, however, took his seat dressed in dark lavender suit and cowboy boots.
Schilling voted along with his fellow Councilors to lower the City’s real estate tax per $100 of assessed value to $1.09 from $1.11. But he voted against raising the meals tax and other fees. He agreed that funding was needed for capital improvements, new police officers and waste disposal, he said, but he didn’t support “the means.”
After the vote, Schilling retired to the steps of City Hall to read from a prepared statement. Mayor Maurice Cox and Councilor Kevin Lynch followed.
“As a Council,” Schilling began, “we could have worked harder for the people in this community.” The City should have reduced spending on architects and social service funding, among other things, and dipped into the City’s rainy day fund instead of raising fees and putting undue burden on Charlottesville’s working class, he said.
“From Belmont to Greenbrier, from 10th and Page to Alumni Hall, I hear you loud and clear,” he said. “Enough is enough.”
Lynch, in response, was quick to allege grandstanding.
“If Rob spent as much time getting his ideas across to Council as he does getting in front of the camera, he might make some progress,” said Lynch, further alleging that Schilling, a three-year City resident, has spent less time than his peers incorporating his vision into the budget.
Cox, also vexed, said in more measured tones that budgets always require compromises between raising fees and cutting services: “We have a social safety net here. Maybe Mr. Schilling doesn’t realize that’s what makes this a humane place to live.”
Meanwhile, a few blocks west on the Mall, Bright, who owns the Spectacle Shop, assailed the leadership of a steering committee on which he sits as one of 15 members. Assembled by City Council to guide a Federally funded, $6 million bus transfer station at the east end of the Downtown Mall, the committee earned his enthusiasm when he began to serve one year ago. Now, he says, it’s clear Council is using the group to rubber stamp its plans.
“The project hasn’t changed one iota from when we heard about it the first time,” says Bright. “I feel the City has wasted our time as committee members.”
During the course of at least three public meetings, Bright says, people have questioned the building’s location, size and style, along with the availability of parking. Steering committee members have suggested the center will need more lavatories or a permanent concession stand. Many business owners say the area needs more parking.
Dan Pribus, who runs the Blue Ridge Country Store on the east end of the Mall and now feels similarly let down, says he joined the committee because “when the architects talk about the geo-sociopolitical significance, I ask where they’re going to put the trash.”
Former Mayor David Toscano heads the steering committee and has spent the past year selling the transfer center to the Mall’s notoriously conservative business community. He says the City has listened to the public by, for instance, responding to citizen opposition to opening a new traffic crossing on the Mall.
Mike Stoneking, an architect who also sits on the steering committee, says, “you can’t make a building by committee. It gets out of control. You have to make a decision.”
Deadlines have also put pressure on the process, says Toscano. The City spent more than a year negotiating with developer Gabe Silverman to build the bus transfer center on West Main. When that deal collapsed, the City opted for the Mall location because it already owns the property. Now, the Federal grant is about to expire.
“Either we build this project, or we give the money back,” says Toscano.
But Bright, who has been active in City politics for nearly 20 years, complains that the City’s public hearings are merely theater.
“If you already have a plan, why involve citizens,” he says, “if you’re not going to listen to them?” ––John Borgmeyer
Cracking the case
“No coke,” says local man, suing WVIR for $10 million
A Greene County man can soon expect his day in court after two years of what he describes as the tooth-breaking anguish he has suffered at the hands of Virginia’s self-described “most powerful” TV station. Jesse Sheckler has filed a defamation suit for $10 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages against the Virginia Broadcasting Corporation, the parent company of local NBC affiliate station WVIR-TV 29. In the suit, filed on March 21, 2002 in Charlottesville Circuit Court, plaintiff Sheckler cites news reports on April 6 and 7, 2001, and again on October 29 and 30 of that year, that falsely claimed he possessed cocaine. WVIR reported, “DEA and JADE forces had confiscated 50 grams of crack cocaine and 500 grams of powder cocaine in a March 2001 raid on the home and business of Jesse Sheckler.”
Sheckler was arrested in March 2001 after a Federal grand jury indicted him on one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
Novice WVIR reporter Melinda Semadeni covered news of the indictment on April 6. According to court filings from plaintiff’s counsel, Semadeni spoke to Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Pagel whom she claims supplied her with news of the confiscation. Pagel denies the allegation and asserts that Semadeni never requested a copy of the original indictment. Semadeni kept no notes or record of her interview with Pagel.
According to court documents, the 11pm newscast on April 6 displayed a photo captioned “Drug Bust,” which showed two armed officers handcuffing a white male in front of a house. In court documents, plaintiff’s counsel notes that Sheckler’s arrest occurred in a public space in Greene County and contends the image was neither of Sheckler nor his home. Sheckler’s attorney at the time, Denise Lunsford, left voice-mail messages at the WVIR newsroom that were not returned.
Although the drug weights were included in the indictment, U.S. Attorney Pagel tells C-VILLE that such data “does not mean that that amount was seized and it doesn’t mean that it was seized from a particular defendant. It doesn’t mean that it was seized at all.”
Covering Sheckler’s trial on October 29, 2001, reporter Pedro Echevarria included the cocaine confiscation in his report, after consulting archived material from Semadeni’s story. Sheckler was acquitted on November 1.
Matthew Murray, Sheckler’s current attorney, said news of the confiscation “was absolutely false. He was never charged with any possession. They [WVIR] were asked to retract it, and they did not.”
Discussing his damages in court filings, Sheckler claims the incident left him with stress, acid discharge, teeth breaking and a root canal, among other problems. Sheckler also claims “I cry in my heart,” when thinking about WVIR’s assertion.
“For a private plaintiff to win punitive damages,” according to Tom Spahn, author of the book The Law of Defamation in Virginia and a partner in the Tyson’s Corner office of law firm Woods McGuire, “a person has to prove actual malice,” defined as the defendant’s knowing falsity and reckless disregard for truth. “To win compensatory damages, he must prove negligence,” defined as deviating from a common standard of practice.
Thomas Albro, attorney for the Virginia Broadcasting Corporation, would not comment.––Aaron Carico
Across the great divide
Community group wants to heal the black-white rift
Ara mi le, oh ya ya,” Darrell Rose shouted from the auditorium stage at Buford Middle School, beating the Nigerian rhythm on the djembe he clutched between his knees. In Yoruba, the phrase means, “My whole self is well, oh yes.” Rose and his drum kicked off a community forum on race relations on Saturday, April 12, at the school. He intended the chant as a meditation, preparing the more than 150 attendees to confront Charlottesville’s racial sickness. Skeptics, however, wondered whether the “Many Races, One Community” forum was real medicine or just another sugar pill.
The event was organized by Citizens for a United Community, a 14-member group comprising City officials, former mayors, church leaders and prominent citizens. The CUC group has received $1,000 from the City as well as donations from the Charlottesville-Albemarle Community Foundation, UVA, the local NAACP, several churches and more than three dozen citizens.
The CUC formed last year when 10 black students from Charlottesville High School were arrested for beating up UVA students. Since then, the group collected donations and held fundraisers for the victims and the attackers’ legal fees. Not that the do-gooding has been universally lauded. Public housing advocate Joy Johnson, for one, says the group only seems interested in racial problems affecting Charlottesville’s middle class.
“My peers were not represented in this group,” says Johnson. “We rally around a certain group of kids. But every day we see kids getting into trouble in the low-income community, making mistakes, and they’re not doing anything about it. Where’s the balance?”
Another demographic largely absent was people under 30. About 10 students from UVA and City schools said racial tensions are not high among the City’s diverse student body––especially at CHS, where interracial dating is fairly common, according to one student––but black and white students simply don’t hang out with each other. In general, black students are over-represented in “special education” classes and under-represented in advanced classes throughout the system.
As the participants dined on fried chicken, a few CUC members consolidated the small-group notes into one presentation that former Mayor Nancy O’Brien said would identify problems and propose “concrete” solutions. For instance, affordable housing was identified as a problem for which the solution could be “working for better wages.” There was no mention of racial profiling or gentrification. While everyone seemed to agree racism is a real problem, no one offered a definition of racism or instructions on how to spot it.
Charlottesville’s ugly racist history is still very much alive. Slaves are gone, but many of their descendents still perform service jobs for poverty wages. Black residents still live in segregation, receive extra scrutiny in stores and get stopped by police simply because of skin color. Groups like the Virginia Organizing Project are already working on race and class issues, but the CUC meeting did not distribute literature about other extant organizations.
Most participants agreed no meeting can “cure” racism, but Anjana Mebane-Cruz says she felt the forum was successful because it marks a year-long interest in race relations. “That shows responsibility,” she says.
There was no shortage of warm fuzzies––as the group joined hands and sang the freedom anthem “We Shall Not Be Moved,” Johnson wondered if the CUC was really intending to compare its agenda to the civil rights movement. But the four-hour meeting succeeded in bringing blacks and whites together for both serious discussion and lighthearted socializing, which participants agreed happens all too infrequently in Charlottesville.
“It was a good effort,” said Karen Waters, director of the City’s Quality Community Council. “Any effort is better than nothing. But if everyone at that meeting would invite a black person over for dinner, it would do more for racial harmony than any amount of meetings.”––John Borgmeyer
Horse cents
ABC collects fine from Foxfield—as big race looms
The April 16 headline in The Daily Progress may have stated “ABC reaches agreement with Foxfield,” but the president of the semi-annual equestrian event couldn’t disagree more.
“We didn’t by any means reach an agreement,” says Benjamin Dick. “we were given an order. I couldn’t believe that headline.”
On April 15, after months of deliberations, decisions and re-made decisions, the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board moved to allow the racing association to keep its Equine Sporting Event license so long as it employs one security officer for every 200 ticket-holders, with at least 50 of the officers empowered to make arrests of underage drinkers. ABC had filed in January a disorderly conduct and intoxicated loitering complaint after the fall races. In the ABC’s “order,” Foxfield will also have to cough up an $8,000 fine.
“This whole ordeal is really hurting the race,” says Dick, who spends most of his time these days placating the fears of Foxfield’s biggest supporters—the horsemen and owners.
“This is also hurting us financially here—just in order to meet the ABC order, we’ll have to spend an extra $20,000 to $40,000 on security,” he says. On top of that, the ABC is sending more than 40 of its top-notch enforcers to scout the scene for the April 26 race.
“This is the first time ever that we haven’t sold out all the rail parking spaces,” says Dick.
But some sponsors of this year’s Foxfield season aren’t scared off by ABC allegations.
“It’s my understanding that they’ve had these problems for years,” says Donald Marks, owner of Readings by Catherine, a main sponsor of this year’s events. “But truth is, Foxfield itself never sold an alcoholic beverage there. They’re an asset and I really disagree with the ABC here.”—Kathryn E. Goodson
Landfill refuses fuel tanks following fatal explosion
Following an explosion earlier this month that killed an employee, the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority has temporarily stopped accepting old fuel storage tanks at the Ivy Landfill. Director Larry Tropea says he will wait to see the results of State and local investigations before making any permanent policy changes.
On Tuesday, April 10, Landfill manager Wayne Stephens, 46, died in an explosion while apparently cutting into a tank with torch. “There were no witnesses, so it will be hard to pinpoint a cause,” says Tropea. “Stephens had been there an awfully long time. He was the senior person at the site.”
The Landfill has always accepted a wide assortment of garbage, including empty fuel tanks. Tropea says the tanks are supposed to be inspected by two people, then stored between two and six months to allow volatile chemicals to break down or air out. After that, holes are cut into the tanks and they are taken to a scrap metal yard.
The Virginia Department of Labor and Industry will conduct a six-month investigation; the County fire marshal and the RSWA authority will also investigate the accident.
“We need to assess all of our procedures to determine whether we’ll continue accepting old storage tanks in the long run,” Tropea says.––John Borgmeyer