Month: March 2013

Categories
News

Charlottesville and Albemarle snow closures and conditions

A snowy Monte Vista in Charlottesville the morning of Wednesday, March 6. Photo by Graelyn Brashear.

Snow living up to its hype in Charlottesville and Albemarle? Color us surprised.

Locals are waking up to between 4 and 6 inches as of 7am, with more heavy, wet snow falling rapidly. According to the National Weather Service, we can expect another 4 to 8 inches during the day today. Road conditions and visibility are poor, and Dominion Power is reporting more than 21,000 outages in the county and 14,300 in the city. Venturing out would officially be a terrible idea, but if you have to, check Virginia 511 for road and traffic information before you do.

In addition to the closings listed below (to sum up: pretty much everything your taxes pay for is shuttered, plus plenty of other things), take note: JAUNT is running on a limited basis in Charlottesville.

Tell us in the comments what conditions look like near you (and where that is), and let us know if you hear of any other closures.

Closures as of 7am Wednesday:

  • Albemarle County Public Schools
  • CATEC
  • CFA Institute
  • Charlottesville Catholic School
  • Charlottesville City Schools
  • Charlottesville Day School
  • Covenant School
  • Fluvanna County Schools
  • Free Union Country School
  • Greene County Public Schools
  • James Madison University
  • Jefferson Madison Regional Library
  • Louisa County Schools
  • Louisa General District Court
  • Madison County Schools
  • Martha Jefferson Hospital Health and Wellness Services
  • Montessori School of Albemarle
  • Montessori School of Charlottesville
  • Mountaintop Montessori School
  • Nelson County Public Schools
  • Northridge Preschool
  • Piedmont Virginia Community College
  • Tandem Friends School
  • U.S. District Court 29
  • University Montessori School
  • University of Virginia
  • YMCA Childcare Center
Categories
News

Native plant symposium encourages nurseries to go local

County staff are pushing for more native plants, which attract more diversity in pollinators and are surprisingly easy to grow, to be sold in the area.

Native plants are hard to find, so gardeners don’t buy them. Nobody buys them, so suppliers don’t stock them. Nobody sells them, so farmers have no reason to grow them. It’s a vicious circle that Albemarle County staff is trying to remedy.

Four months after the county published its native plants online database, Water Resources Specialist Repp Glaettli hosted a native plant symposium last Wednesday, a two-hour seminar aimed at showing small business owners, farmers, and landscapers how to market indigenous flowers, shrubs, and trees to consumers.

When I asked why the county is pushing native plants, Glaettli laughed and said “How many reasons do you want?” They’ve had thousands of years to adjust to the area’s soil, climate, and pests; they increase diversity of the bird population; they create a “sense of place”; and, contrary to popular to belief, they’re much easier to grow than non-native species.

The county has taken on a regional leadership role, encouraging the use of indigenous plants, Glaettli said, by adopting a standard operating procedure to use 80 percent natives when landscaping on Albemarle property. He said the county cannot require anyone else to do the same, but he certainly hopes garden centers and landowners will catch on and follow suit.

At Wednesday’s presentation, Eastern Shore Region Steward Dot Field spoke about her experience working with Plant ES Natives, a movement that began in 2009, encouraging Eastern Shore businesses to carry and market native plants to local gardeners. Now nearly four years old, the campaign, funded by a Department of Environmental Quality grant, has a logo that is recognizable across the region and Field said garden center owners are more educated and willing to stock native plants.

Albemarle County staff want to emulate the Eastern Shore’s success here in Central Virginia. Field said collaboration across the board is essential to a successful campaign, so getting everybody from gardeners and farmers to store owners and landscapers together in one room was a good place to start.

“Partnership, partnership, partnership,” she said. “That’s the only way it works.”

Gardeners are hesitant to buy natives to plant in their yards, Field said, because most people simply think they’re not pretty enough.

“They think all native plants are scraggly and ugly,” she said, so an important step is encouraging garden centers to display blooming native flowers in the front of the store where customers are likely to see them.

Other barriers include the assumption that they’re difficult to grow and propagate, they usurp other plants, and they’re almost impossible find. The latter, she said, is unfortunately true. But plants native to Virginia include wildflowers, ferns, vines, shrubs of all sizes, and even large trees—many of which she said blossom beautifully, and are easier to grow because they’re already accustomed to their surroundings.

Other local organizations are already coming together with the county to make Charlottesville-Albemarle a native plant haven. The Thomas Jefferson Soil & Water Conservation District is initiating conservation assistance programs like “Turf to Natives,” which offers financial incentives for converting yards into areas of native wildgrasses. The Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards is offering $25 tree vouchers for homeowners in certain neighborhoods, with a focus on native trees like redbuds, dogwoods, and fringe trees.

To get started on your own native plant project, check out albemarle.org/nativeplants.

Categories
Arts

ARTS Pick: Pilobolus

The dynamic modern dance company Pilobolus has been stretching the limitations of the human form for more than 40 years. Photo: Grant Halverson

O.K. let’s go
Pilobolus is a dance company named after a fungus, and since its inception in the early ’70s, its mission has always been to live up to its namesake by pursuing a unique and organic approach to movement performance. To kick off a UVA residency featuring a series of student workshops, the touring wing of the troupe presents a public performance highlighting some of its most memorable and influential works, including “The Transformation,” a fable told in shadow figures, and “All is Not Lost,” a collaboration with the equally quirky alternative rockers OK Go.

Wednesday 3/6 $10, 8pm. Culbreth Theater, 109 Culbreth Rd. 924-3376.

Categories
Arts

Comedy writer repurposes a vintage sci-fi script for live performance in “Radio Raygun”

Using the old-time radio serial as inspiration, Jones' "Radio Raygun" series is camping out at Black Market Moto Saloon for two weekends of live sketch comedy.

Growing up in Charlottesville in the ’80s and early ’90s his name was Ben Jones. In the years since, he’s lived in many cities, and has been a cartoonist, a musician, a stand-up comedian, a member of an improv troupe, a professional illustrator, a small gallery owner, a radio show host, puppeteer, and owner of a comic book store. After finding a well-established artist with the same name in each city he moved to, Jones has returned to Charlottesville where uses his last name only, and is currently handling social media and executive assistant duties at Live Arts.

His latest creative project is “Raygun Radio.” Inspired by the popular radio serials of the 1930s and ’40s, the audio comedy “Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet,” is a screwball homage to the naïve sci-fi adventures of the mid-20th century, as well as a chance for Jones to write harebrained characters and let the personalities bounce off each other with sidesplitting results. Douglas Adam’s original “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” radio serial is a significant inspiration, though Jones’ sensibility owes a lot to Abbott & Costello routines and the zany vaudeville-inspired antics of the original “Muppet Show.”

“Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet” is a loose rewrite of a vintage sci-fi film, which already has a storied history of re-interpretation. Originally a 1962 Soviet flick by the name Planeta Bur (Planet of the Storms), it was re-adapted for the American market by legendary low-budget producer Roger Corman, who kept the original’s charming sub-Harryhousen effects but shot new scenes to go between them.

The remake starred a slumming, late career Basil Rathbone, and was shot by Curtis Harrington, an avant-garde filmmaker trying to break into Hollywood. It was soon forgotten, but Corman tried again three years later, once more retaining the Soviet effects, and this time hiring a young Peter Bogdanovich to shoot new framing scenes. The second attempt was graced with the more saleable title Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women. Neither Harrington nor Bogdanovich wanted any director’s credit under their real names, and today both films are in the public domain.

“Originally it was the idea of taking an old science fiction premise that wasn’t very good, and using it as a basis for sketch comedy,” Jones said. “But then I found this movie, that had everything I wanted. I didn’t even know the history—I have one of those boxes of 50 old sci-fi movies that are all in the public domain. I flagged all of the ones that sounded promising, and had evocative titles. There were a couple I started watching, and I shut them off—‘This is too good,’ or ‘this is too visual.’ I wanted something that would translate to radio well.” Ultimately, Voyage won out because of the sheer number of classic sci-fi icons—rocket ships, robots, and rayguns, but also lizard men, dinosaurs, and an underwater hovercraft.

This rewrite is partly a spoof, but also a loving homage to now dated sci-fi tropes used as a framing device for his character-based comedy. The cast includes Richard Craig as a handsome, egotistical spaceship captain, and Dan Sterlace as his cheerfully boneheaded son. Alli Villines plays a lovelorn lady astronaut, and Josephine Stewart adds a much-needed dose of sanity and reason to the madcap idiocy surrounding her character. Jones himself plays the role of the narrator, and assorted minor parts. “I also gave myself the role of the robot,” he said, “because I wrote it to be performed a particular way, and it was easier to do it myself than to tell anyone else how to do it.”

Jones held an impromptu run through during his 38th birthday party in September, and was pleased enough with the results that he is performing the show publicly. “If people are digging it, we’ll see about recording it, maybe taking it to a radio station, or podcasting it. Or we might just say, ‘O.K., that was fun,’ and stop there,” he said. “We haven’t even had a rehearsal yet. Everyone involved is really busy. [All the players are from Live Arts.] The whole concept is to get together and do something fun that will scratch the itch of performance without taking up too much of our time.”

“That’s part of why this came together,” he said. “I have a big list on my door [of potential creative projects], and it’s a way of forcing myself to get things done. On pain of punishment, if I don’t do at least 15 minutes of something artistic every day, I have to give away a DVD from my collection. And writing doesn’t count—I have a separate rule for that one—if I don’t write, I can’t drink. It’s a way of incentivizing myself to be a responsible adult, by giving in to my childish desires. I have to be a grown-up every day, or I have to give up one of my toys.”

“Radio Raygun” is co-produced by Live Arts, and the live performances will take place at the Black Market Moto Saloon, on two consecutive weekends.

“For a few years, we’ve talked about trying to do more stuff off-site, and this seemed like a good opportunity to try that,” Jones said. “I always wanted it to be a cabaret-seating thing, with tables and chairs and food. It was easier to go somewhere where that was already set up than to try to create that at Live Arts.” Episodes one through three of “Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet” will be performed on Saturday, March 9 with episodes four and five on Saturday, March 16. The shows begin at 8pm, and Jones notes “the suggested donation is $3 to $5, but we also accept drinks.”

Categories
The Editor's Desk

Editor’s Note: Pay your teachers

Target fixation is a term I learned riding a motorcycle, but it’s become a useful teaching metaphor. The lesson is basically to look where you want to go, not where you’re afraid of going. I learned my lesson when I almost hit a curb and catapulted into the Delaware River after trying to avoid a tractor trailer on a narrow bridge, but I apply it to all manner of things.

Since President George W. Bush signed No Child Left Behind over a decade ago, assessing the performance of our public schools has become a national obsession. NCLB was designed to tie federal Title I spending, the government’s flagship aid program for disadvantaged students, to yearly standardized tests. It was a response to Clinton-era spending increases, and it was supposed to bring market forces to bear on urban education at a time when costs were spiraling out of control without affecting performance.

As someone who worked in a school funded nearly entirely by Title I money, I’ll admit that reform was necessary. You can’t just throw money at bad schools in poor neighborhoods to make them better. But apart from instigating an important conversation, NCLB didn’t work. Today we have a system that’s obsessed with its own failings, desperately afraid of taking its eyes off of where it does not want to go, particularly with regard to its disadvantaged students. We still haven’t brought costs under control, and the achievement gap is as wide or wider than it was when the conversation started.

Lest you think this is a thinly-veiled partisan rant, allow me to submit that Bill Clinton initiated the charter school movement and the notion of empowerment zones, high-profile money pits in major media markets. Arne Duncan, President Obama’s secretary of education, was Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s charter-pushing, union-busting superintendent who came to his job with practically no experience in schools and learned to play the neighborhood power game very quickly. The focus on bundling assessments and federal money has politicized, nationalized, and privatized the conversation around education policy. It needs to become more local and more specific, lest we forget the real money still comes from our property taxes.

Anyone who has ever worked at a school or sent their kids to one knows they are cultural institutions. To improve them, you have to improve their cultures. Accountability is one way to do that, particularly if leaders on the ground buy into the criteria, but raising pay to increase the caliber of personnel is more effective. Want to cut costs? The upward cost trend in education is the result of retirement funds and health insurance (financial services and insurance companies), growth in administrative oversight (paper pushers), lawsuits (insurance companies and lawyers), and bussing students around (gasoline). Finding the money there will take reforming more than Title I spending. We have a whole new generation of motivated, idealistic, and well-trained teachers who like the job for its intrinsic draw, the vacation, and the kids. Let’s figure out how to pay them to stay there.

Categories
News

Grading education: How good are Charlottesville and Albemarle schools?

“Children don’t need to be reminded that they’re poor,” said Atkins. “They live it every day.” Photo: Cramer Photo

Virginia schools are about to get their grades.

The state legislature passed a new measure at the end of its 2013 session last month instituting an A-through-F assessment system for public schools. Supporters of the new guidelines—particularly Governor Bob McDonnell, who was largely responsible for pushing it through both houses—say it will bring clarity and transparency to the process of evaluating school performance. But 12 years after No Child Left Behind began a struggle between policy makers and educators, local leaders and experts are still wary. The last thing Charlottesville and Albemarle public schools need, they say, is another rubric to measure the effects of generational poverty and politics on education, and judging districts with vastly different demographics side-by-side is like comparing apples and oranges.

Print
Charlottesville High School’s graduation rate lags behind the state average—and the rate of the three county high schools.

“I don’t know that anyone who has supported this bill has been able to say how this would impact what’s going on in the classroom,” said Charlottesville City Schools Superintendent Rosa Atkins. “To say that giving a letter grade is going to help our community understand the performance of our schools indicates to me that the people who are making those statements don’t understand how our schools perform.”

But comparisons and evaluations are inevitable—just ask any parent of school-age kids. Now more than ever, real estate values are tied to the perceived quality of school districts, which in turn are dependent on real estate values for their budgets. Some question whether a new assessment stacked on top of existing measures will help parents make informed choices, however.

Charlottesville School Board member Ned Michie said that when his city school-raised daughter hit middle school, they shopped around for other school options by talking to other families. “You hear from people anecdotally what these schools are like,” he said. And when they settled on staying in the city, it wasn’t because of test scores. It was love of something unmeasured on the Virginia Standards of Learning: diversity.

“Education is such a complex animal,” Michie said. “I just worry that an ABC system is going to end up being too simplistic, and more of a detriment.”

State-level administrators say schools need to be accountable, but a succession of reforms in recent decades has done little to change the system, leaving people on all sides of the debate frustrated and puzzling over what’s become a central question at the nexus of politics and education: How should we use data to measure school success?

Different data, different picture
Virginia schools already get report cards every year—20-plus page breakdowns of test performance, graduation indicators, percent passing data, teacher education, discipline incidents, and more. Interpreting the results can be mind-numbing, with silos of data organized by age cohort, socioeconomic background, and race.

At first glance, recent reports point to a performance gap between suburban and rural Albemarle County’s three public high schools and urban Charlottesville’s one, despite the fact that the city spends nearly 40 percent more per pupil. Unlike the Albemarle schools, Charlottesville High School is on a federally mandated improvement plan due to low test scores in certain areas. Graduation rates lag 10 to 20 percentage points behind in Charlottesville, and the rate of disorderly conduct incidents is dramatically higher.

PrintBut that’s not the whole story. Dig a little deeper, and the picture gets more complicated—and you start to see where that extra $4,500 per city student goes.

CHS may have lower test scores across the board than its county counterparts, but the most recent school report card data shows it’s doing a demonstrably better job at raising those scores among its lowest-performing student subgroups than the county schools are with theirs. In educator speak, that means Charlottesville is closing the achievement gap. It also led the pack on another key measure: exceeding the federal benchmark in English among disadvantaged students by 10 percent. At the bottom of that barrel—the school exceeding the same standard by the lowest percent of the four schools—was the otherwise relatively high-performing Western Albemarle High School, which barely cleared the minimum.

In addition, Charlottesville has about as high or higher a percentage of students enrolled in advanced placement courses as county schools, and maintained slightly smaller class sizes than Albemarle.

And while the city-county dichotomy gets a lot of attention, the three Albemarle schools don’t always measure up to one another. Monticello High School’s math scores were the lowest of all four schools, and it also reported the greatest percent of teachers with provisional licenses—though it beat out all local schools on AP enrollment.

Categories
News

Ragged Mountain Dam construction halfway complete, opponents still unhappy

Construction of the long-debated Ragged Mountain Dam is underway, and RWSA officials say it is on track to be complete by March 2014. Photo: Courtesy Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority

This time last year, opponents of the new earthen dam at the Ragged Mountain Reservoir were hoping that a pending lawsuit would stall the long-debated project. Now, after thousands of hardwood trees were wiped out and the water level was lowered for construction, the barren, canyon-like dam site is bustling with engineers and machinery, and officials say the dam is on track to be completed by March 2014.

City Councilor Dede Smith has been publicly opposed to the project from the beginning, and said she’s heartbroken by the environmental damage. After a visit to the site, Smith said listening to a bird in her yard recently took her mind immediately to the acres of woodland habitat that were destroyed for the project.

“As a vocal opponent, I think it was beneficial for me to see it,” she said. “If I didn’t, I could only imagine the horror.”

Controversy over the project began years ago, when the city and county began discussing a cost-sharing agreement and water supply plan. The original plan that City Council unanimously adopted in 2010 involved a phased construction of the lower Ragged Mountain Dam and maintenance dredging of the South Fork Reservoir. But shortly before construction, the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority (RWSA) came back with plans to raise the reservoir by 30′, construct a new 135′ dam, and install a 9.5-mile pipeline to fill the reservoir. Opponents were furious that the more environmentally friendly option of dredging was off the table, and said the RWSA’s new plan was unnecessary.

Smith formed Citizens for a Sustainable Water Plan in 2007, a group that promoted an alternative plan for the dam, and has been quiet since last year’s failed lawsuit. The organization claims that the RWSA’s plan is oversized due to a drop in water use, is overpriced and will result in skyrocketing water bills, is unsustainable, and destroys an alarming amount of forestland and wildlife.

The Piedmont Group of the Sierra Club have publicly opposed construction of a new dam, but its views were trumped by those of The Piedmont Environmental Council, Southern Environmental Law Center, Rivanna Conservation Society, and the Nature Conservancy, all of whom supported the RWSA’s plan.*

Now that the project is underway, Smith said a lot of her original concerns remain, and she’s not convinced that it was a worthwhile investment. She said the thousands of trees sold for lumber, for example, were not only an environmental loss, but a financial one.

“The city owned those trees, but didn’t get any of the revenue,” she said.

But according to RWSA officials, the lumber’s revenue was lumped into the contractor’s cost, lowering the bid and saving the city money on the project.

RWSA Executive Director Tom Frederick said the project’s environmental mitigations, a task completed by the contractor, are almost finished.

“We see this project having a significant environmental benefit in many ways,” Frederick said. “The mitigation is actually greater than the impact, so the net is a positive benefit to the environment.”

The mitigations include 75,000 linear feet of stream conservation and “extensive tree planting” along Buck Mountain Creek and its tributaries, and a new wetland preservation off South Franklin Street. The project will also enhance and relieve stream flows from existing dams, he said, and continue to maintain adequate water for the community.

The RWSA received permits from the Department of Environmental Quality and the Army Corps of Engineers under the federal Clean Water Act to expand the reservoir, and the two agencies oversee the environmental impact of the project.

The old Ragged Mountain Dam, tucked away off Fontaine Avenue Extended next to Camp Holiday Trails, will be underwater by the time the project is finished, as the water level will be 30′ higher than the current maximum of 641′. The graded, earthen dam will utilize roughly 595,000 cubic yards of soil, and will be constructed of compact dirt and red clay taken from on-site borrow areas. The borrow areas have been cleared of their forestation, and will be underwater when the new pool level of 671′ is obtained.

RWSA Project Manager Doug March said using on-site clay not only clears the land needed to expand the size of the reservoir, but keeps material costs low and prevents excess traffic on the narrow, windy dirt road to the construction site. Rock dug from the earth will also be used for other parts of the project, including making concrete.

“We try to bring in only what we have to,” March said.

Right now, the site of the dam is essentially a giant hole in the ground surrounded by mounds of red clay. The project began late last April, and March said con-
struction of the dam won’t actually start until this summer. Workers will soon remove the 100-year-old pipes running through the cross section of the worksite, and insert new pipes underground going around the dam to improve its structural integrity and longevity. March said the current pipes are still usable, but they try to avoid building dams on top of other materials, so the new pipeline system will be safer.

Already built is the new intake river tower, a concrete structure on the west side of the dam that will control reservoir pool levels and convey normal flows during rainstorms. March said the currently gray, unmanned tower will be stained brown to give it character and an old-timey feel, which is part of an attempt to make the entire area more aesthetically pleasing.

The natural area surrounding the construction site is known for the seven-mile trail system that’s been available for hiking and biking since 1999. The recreation space is closed to the public until construction is complete next year, and March said roughly 25 percent of the trails will be underwater by the time the reservoir is at capacity. In the meantime, the city’s Parks and Recreation Department will partner with the Ivy Creek Foundation and groups of local volunteers to blaze new sections of the trails above the 671′ pool elevation.

Until the 9.5-mile pipeline is installed —sometime between now and 2030, Frederick said—the reservoir will be fed by a pipeline from Sugar Hollow, and the amount of time it takes to fill will depend on weather conditions over the next couple years.

Frederick has heard from opponents of the project since the RWSA began discussing alternatives nearly 10 years ago, but he said with population growth and water use forecasts, it’s in everybody’s best interest.

“We believe this project has great potential to be a long-term solution to this community, providing for the needs of humans, and protection of the environment,” he said.

* Correction: The original version of this story, and the one that ran in print on March 5, incorrectly stated that the Rivanna River Basin Commission spoke up in favor of the dam. In fact, the RRBC took no public position on the issue. 

Categories
News

Under fire: Democrats distance themselves from Dumler as Supe digs in

Chris Dumler. Photo: John Robinson

Albemarle County Supervisor Chris Dumler heads to jail Friday, the first stint in the weekends-only 30-day sentence he accepted when he pleaded guilty to sexual battery in late January. In the weeks since the plea deal, the calls for his resignation have grown louder, and now, in the wake of a string of interviews in which the embattled Scottsville rep dug in his heels and said he wouldn’t step down, the leaders of his own party are pushing him to quit.

Dumler issued a statement last Wednesday saying he wanted to “clear the air.” In a 1,000-word press release and then in a marathon day of interviews with every major Charlottesville media outlet, he apologized to the woman whose accusations of unwanted anal sex led to his arrest for forcible sodomy in October.

“Obviously, my actions—as evidenced by her reaction—left her upset and distressed, and I certainly never meant for that to happen; I am sincerely sorry,” he wrote. But he also maintained his innocence.

“I remain confident that had this gone to trial, I would not have been found guilty,” he said in an interview, claiming he couldn’t afford another $45,000 in legal fees on top of the tens of thousands he’s already on the hook for.

But he conceded he faced an uphill battle when it came to winning back the support of the public.

“There’s a certain amount of public trust in this job, and clearly, that’s been breached, he said. “I need to work to mend those fences, rebuild those bridges, and work even harder than I was already working.”

It’s unclear whether he’ll be able to. The day before he went to the press, Ann Mallek and Dennis Rooker—the two supervisors who refused to vote in favor of a February 6 resolution calling for his resignation—publicly said they wanted him to step down.

The county can’t make Dumler resign, said Rooker, an independent who usually votes with the Board’s Democrats. But he’s hoping Dumler will anyway. “I do think this will make it very hard for him to perform his job, and I also think the impact on his life is greater the longer he stays in office,” he said.

Dumler’s apology tour may only have made things worse. After an interview with radio host Coy Barefoot, listeners called in to blast him, including a woman named Meredith who claimed to be the victim who brought the suit and called Dumler’s statements “emotionless and insincere.”

The next day, more former allies started falling in with his detractors. Delegate David Toscano joined the chorus of calls for his resignation, saying he was “increasingly concerned that Mr. Dumler’s continued service on the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors has become a distraction.”

And late this past weekend, two bodies that had remained silent spoke up. His own political organization, the Albemarle County Democratic Party, dumped him from its steering committee and called on him to quit the county Board, saying “the behavior for which Mr. Dumler has accepted responsibility does not reflect Democratic values and standards, nor the standard to which we hold our elected officials.”

The statement was coordinated with one from the city Democrats, who also urged Dumler to quit.

County Democratic Party chair Valerie L’Herrou said many in the party didn’t know what to think in the wake of his plea deal. Her committee had held off on a public announcement because members had hoped Dumler would “do the right thing” on his own.

“But since he released that statement last week, it was clear he wasn’t going to do that,” L’Herrou said.

Toscano echoed that sentiment. “There have been a lot of discussions, both within the party and outside the party, about whether somebody could take his place that would reflect the views of the voters of Scottsville,” he said. “He’d been thinking about those options, and I’d been encouraging him to do that,” so his very public announcement of his intent to stay took everyone by surprise.

Charlottesville party co-chair Linda Seaman said some city Democrats were reluctant to push for the resignation of an official who wasn’t one of their own. Worries over who would fill the void should Dumler give up his seat didn’t help. From the budget to stormwater funding, there are a lot of issues facing the county Board that Democrats—even those watching from the city—don’t want to risk losing on.

“I can honestly say that we are concerned about the potential concerns in replacing him,” Seaman said. “But it comes down to values trumping politics,” she said.

“I think the Democrats do feel concerned that there are some important votes coming up, and they would want to know there was somebody who represented their interests” taking over Dumler’s seat, L’Herrou said.

But the fact that some of the loudest calls for the Scottsville supervisor’s resignation have come from his political opponents—and the fact that Republican Board member Ken Boyd publicly said he was opposed to working on a deal to encourage Dumler to step down—suggests a truce isn’t likely.

And if Dumler sticks to his guns, he won’t be listening to the wishes of party leadership anyway.

“I swore my oath of office to the people who elected me, not to the Democratic Party, and not to the other five members of the Board,” Dumler said. “And my responsibility is to my constituents. Yes, I’ve heard from some people. But I’ve heard a lot of other people saying, ‘I disagree with what you did and what you may have done in your personal life, but at the end of the day I still believe in the ideals and the beliefs you espoused on the campaign trail, and nothing has changed my opinion on any issues. Please stay out your term, and become a better representative for it.’”

And for now, he said, it’s those voices he’s heeding.

Categories
Living

A bright Future, area “buzz,” and a good way to swine local: This week’s restaurant news

File photo.

You’ve heard of eat local, but what about give local? Young, ambitious fundraisers aim for the future—Future Fund, that is—Wednesday, March 13 when Clifton Inn hosts the second annual Future Fund-raising dinner. All food, service, and alcohol will be donated by the Clifton and the community to award grants towards education in Albemarle County and Charlottesville. Guests will dine on a lavish three-course dinner, with wine reception beginning at 6pm. Tickets are $113 per person for non-Future Fund members, and $90 for members. All proceeds benefit the organization, and seating is limited to 100 guests. E-mail ffclifton@cacfonline.org for more information.

Local coffeeshop darling Mudhouse is preparing to compete in New York City for Coffee Fest’s “Best Coffeehouse in America” title. Local owners John and Lynelle Lawrence are sending their rockstar team of Dan Pabst, Eric Mason, and Amy Guzzardi to the competition on Saturday, March 9, with the first challenge starting at 2:35pm. No stranger to accolades, Mudhouse has garnered a Best of C-VILLE “Best Coffee” win for the last 16 years. Watch this week’s competition streaming live at the Downtown Mall or Crozet Mudhouse locations, or see it online at coffeefest.com. The top three teams will then in the finals on Sunday, March 10. Fingers crossed!

Swine ‘n Dine with chefs Ben Thompson of The Rock Barn and Angelo Vangelopoulous of the Ivy Inn (where dinner will be served) on March 16. Guests will enjoy a six-course pig-centric tasting menu highlighting pork from Thompson’s own farm, where he raises pigs and transforms their meat into delicacies such as tasso, bacon, and sausage. Courses will include themes such as “two heads are better than one,” and the “belly roll,” which is carved tableside. Each course will be paired with artisan wines from the West Coast—Montinore Estate, Owen Roe, and Cochon among them—presented by Robert Crum of Roanoke Valley Wine Company. At $75 per person, this all-inclusive dinner is not to be missed, especially if you’re planning to run the Charlottesville 10-miler in the morning. You’ll have earned that pork fat! Call 977-1222 for reservations.

In wine news, Virginia wine sales reached an all-time record high in 2012, with more than 5.8 million bottles sold, according to figures from the Department of Alcohol Beverage Control. Governor Bob McDonnell said in a statement, “As Virginia’s wine industry grows in standing and collects accolades from around the world, it means more tourism and more jobs here in the Commonwealth.” We’ll cheers to that.

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UPDATE: Charlottesville, Albemarle Democratic orgs call on Dumler to resign

Chris Dumler
Albemarle County Supervisor Chris Dumler as he entered the Albemarle County Circuit Courthouse to accept a plea deal in January. Photo by Graelyn Brashear.

The Albemarle County Democratic Party has released a statement calling on Scottsville representative Chris Dumler to step down from the county Board of Supervisors in light of his guilty plea to a charge of sexual battery in January.

The statement was released Sunday evening following a party meeting, and reads as follows:

“In light of Scottsville District Supervisor Christopher Dumler’s recent plea of guilty to a charge of sexual battery, the Committee has decided to remove him from the Albemarle County Democratic Committee and call for his resignation from the Board of Supervisors.

Mr. Dumler has accomplished much good work on behalf of the citizens of Scottsville District and of Albemarle County. However, the behavior for which Mr. Dumler has accepted responsibility does not reflect Democratic values and standards, nor the standard to which we hold our elected officials. We cannot support his continued service.”

The city’s party officials issued their own more forcefully worded statement later the same night:

“As Democrats of Charlottesville, we stand for the fair treatment of all, abhor all forms of sexual exploitation and strongly support the Violence Against Women Act. We find it inappropriate for someone who has pleaded guilty to a charge of sexual battery to hold the office of supervisor in our neighboring county. The citizens of Charlottesville and other neighboring communities have a need for Albemarle’s government to function effectively in this closely-knit region. As fellow Democrats we urge Mr. Dumler to heed the counsel of elected officials and community leaders and resign.”

Dumler was arrested in October for forcible sodomy after a woman he said was his lover accused him of forcing anal sex on her. He plead guilty to the lesser charge—a misdemeanor—January 31, allowing him to avoid the chance of a felony conviction and continue serving on the Board. Calls for his resignation have become louder in the weeks that followed. Last week, Dumler released a statement of apology, but also said he plans to continue to serve.

The statements from his fellow local Democrats mark the first time either party organization has officially spoken up on Dumler’s continued presence on the Board since the plea.

Visit c-ville.com Monday for more from party officials.