Ahead of urban trends
UVA professor William Lucy, 77, who predicted the young and the empty nesters would flock to cities, and who found that the suburbs could be more deadly than inner cities, died April 7. Among his many civic contributions locally, he served on the Charlottesville Planning Commission and once led a committee to revert from city to town status.
Not feeling your pain
A disturbing UVA study of white med students and residents finds that African-American patients are undertreated for pain because of bias from false beliefs about biological differences between the races or fears black patients will abuse the medication. UVA psychology Ph.D. candidate Kelly Hoffman led the study.
Guv nixes Beloved bill
Terry McAuliffe vetoed a bill carried by Delegate Steve Landes that would require schools to warn parents if students were reading books with sexually explicit content after a Fairfax parent was angered that her high school senior was reading Beloved, Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Local delegates Rob Bell, Matt Faris and David Toscano supported the bill.
Only in the works since the ’80s
Charlottesville advertised for bids for the long-awaited Hillsdale Drive Extension that connects Hydraulic Road with Greenbrier Drive, parallel to U.S. 29. The road plows through Seminole Square and features bike lanes and a roundabout. Completion is expected in October 2017.
Our new state rock rocks
Nelsonite, named after Nelson, the county, will become Virginia’s state rock July 1. Michelle Stanislaus, a 54-year-old PVCC student, proposed the idea and Senator Creigh Deeds carried the bill that was passed by the General Assembly.
