Mayor Mike Signer, center, falls on the sword surrounded by fellow councilors Bob Fenwick, Kristin Szakos, Kathy Galvin and Wes Bellamy, who could have voted to remove him from office.
Staff photo
Charlottesville City Council now has a mayor on restriction. Council is made up of five elected equals, with the mayor playing a largely symbolic role, and that was a lesson Mayor Mike Signer appears to have forgotten. On August 30, his fellow councilors held a three-hour closed door meeting to discuss the “performance and discipline of an elected official.”
Afterward, Councilor Kathy Galvin said the elected officials had accepted Signer’s apology and were not requesting his resignation, a signal of the gravity of the confrontation.
It was a humbled Signer who read an apology to reporters and citizens gathered in council chambers. “In the deeply troubling and traumatizing recent weeks, I have taken several actions as mayor, and made several communications, that have been inconsistent with the collaboration required by our system of governance and that overstepped the bounds of my role as mayor, for which I apologize to my colleagues and the people of Charlottesville.”
Jones was called into a closed session with councilors on August 24, and the next day, a copy of a nine-page Signer-written memo demanding explanations from Jones was leaked—a breach that some suspect Signer of, but which he has adamantly denied.
Even the night before facing the jury of his peers, Signer emailed a reporter to denounce Jones for releasing “confidential closed session material in a blame game.”
Jones publicly responded August 26 to the allegations in the leaked memo, and he noted that in the middle of the violent white nationalist crisis, Signer was clamoring to get into the command center and twice threatened to fire Jones and Thomas when his entrance was denied.
The remainder of Signer’s tenure as mayor comes with conditions, which he listed in his apology, flanked by somber fellow councilors. Those include meeting with senior staff only with another councilor present, except for regular check-ins with Jones; being more mindful of the time of the council clerk; allowing fellow councilors to make announcements and comments at council meetings, and not making pronouncements as mayor without working with his colleagues—and having one present if he did so.
“My comment to two former mayors was, ‘Wow,’” says former mayor Blake Caravati. “Unfortunately it’s necessary. It’s also mortifying to me. Not so much the apology, but the four to five will-dos. That’s mortifying.”
Adds Caravati, who supported Signer in his 2015 run for council, “It seems unfortunate to me they had to put a code of conduct in writing.”
Caravati says all of the 13 mayors he knows have said the wrong thing at times. “We all do,” he says. “Unfortunately Mike did that numerous times over the past few weeks.”
Former mayor Virginia Daugherty says there was a feeling Signer had stepped out in front of council when he’s supposed to represent fellow councilors. “I think they were right to do it,” she says of the figurative spanking.
Following the August 12 Unite the Right rally, Signer called for a special session of the General Assembly to allow localities to repeal monuments, which did not come up on the council agenda. Nor did his capital-of-the-resistance rally, for which he had council clerk Paige Rice send out a notice.
On August 17, less than a week after the hate rally that resulted in the deaths of three people and dozens of others injured, Signer posted a photo of himself leaping in front of the Love statue erected in Central Place on the Downtown Mall, with the message, “After a hard week, Cville is back on our feet, and we’ll be stronger than ever. Love conquers hate! @virginiaisforlovers!”
“I was a bit disappointed in that public relations thing,” says Caravati. “It’s not all good. We’re struggling and we’ll get out of it, but it’s not all good.”
For some, like longtime resident Mary Carey, council calling Signer to the principal’s office did not go far enough. “It was a slap on the wrist,” she says. And she’s concerned about Signer’s political aspirations, and says he’s publicly said he was going to become governor and president.
“Mike Signer’s political career is over,” opined activist Jalane Schmidt while waiting for the results of the closed session.
However, Signer is not the only councilor who has eyed higher office, says Caravati, who admits he would have too, had the timing been right.
“In the short term, he’s debilitated,” Caravati says. “He can rehabilitate himself. Right now, it might be difficult, but he’s a stalwart guy.”
The councilors did not announce who called for the closed session, but it was Galvin who read the group’s response that the officials accepted Signer’s apology, and she reiterated council’s “shared responsibility for good governance.”
“That’s a hard thing to do,” observes Caravati, “to call your peers out.”
Signer’s term as mayor ends in January, and the likelihood of him being elected to another term, says Caravati, “at this time doesn’t seem probable.”
Christopher Cantwell posted a tearful video online before turning himself into police. Cantwell video
Christopher Cantwell, who has been dubbed the “Crying Nazi” by critics of his teary Youtube video made after the August 12 alt-right rally and before he turned himself into police August 24, was denied bond today by a judge who cited a widely seen Vice interview that she said showed Cantwell’s approval of the violence that left local woman Heather Heyer dead.
Wearing a black-and-white jail jumpsuit, with his formerly shaved head sprouting patches of brown hair, Cantwell this morning secured a $25,000 bond for two felony counts of illegal use of tear gas and one felony count of malicious bodily injury by means of a caustic substance stemming from the August 11 tiki-torch rally of hundreds of white nationalists through UVA Grounds.
“A guilty man does not come back and turn himself in,” said his attorney, Elmer Woodard, of Pittsylvania County. “If he was a flight risk, he would have already flighted.”
But Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Tracci, who appealed the decision today in Albemarle Circuit Court before Cantwell’s scheduled release at 4pm, said the alt-right radio show host is a threat to public safety.
He also cited Cantwell’s August 13 interview with Vice News, in which he said Heyer’s murder during the Unite the Right rally was more than justified.
Cantwell also interviewed with Vice News in McIntire Park August 11, the day of the tiki-torch rally. Staff photo
“We’ll fucking kill these people if we have to,” he told reporter Elle Reeve in that interview. When she asked about the next alt-right rally, he said, “It’s going to be really tough to top, but we’re up to the challenge. …I think a lot more people are going to die before we’re done, frankly.”
In circuit court, Cantwell’s mutton-chopped attorney Woodard described his client as a “shock jock,” who made statements about murdering people to the 1,000 or so people who listened to his Radical Agenda podcast without actually intending to kill anyone.
Cantwell said the shock on his show was “race related,” but that he “never advocated that people kill Jews or blacks.”
“Did you shoot, kill or maim anyone before you got out of Charlottesville?” asked Woodard of his client, who listed the four guns he brought with him to Virginia.
Ultimately it wasn’t Cantwell’s weaponry that made Judge Cheryl Higgins decide to deny bond. She said she considered the “characteristics of the person,” and the words he used that “show a certain level of approval of the violence” of the August 11-12 weekend.
She also noted his lack of community ties, despite an offer to live with a local person that Cantwell said he only knew through the Unite the Right rally.
Cantwell’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for November 9.
Also in court this morning was Richard Preston, the Baltimore man charged with firing his gun during the Unite the Right rally. He appeared via video call in Charlottesville General District Court, where he said his family is working to find an attorney to represent him, and he has no other ties to the city.
Also this morning, about 20 people charged with obstructing justice or obstructing free passage during the July 8 Ku Klux Klan rally in Justice Park were scheduled to appear in the same courtroom. All but one case was continued.
Thomas Freeman, a 52 year old Twin Oaks resident, pleaded guilty for locking arms with other protesters in front of the entrance to Justice Park.
“We wanted to make it known that we, citizens of the city, did not want the KKK in the park,” he tearfully told the judge, who imposed a $100 fine, or offered a punishment of 10 days of community service instead.
“We applaud and admire a citizen who stands by his or her principles in a manner such as exhibited today,” Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman said in a statement. His office will continue to offer defendants of the free passage cases, “in which the citizen willingly submitted to his or her arrest and cooperated with the arrest process,” the opportunity to complete 10 days of community service and have their cases dismissed.
Outside the courthouse, Freeman said he grew up in the ‘70s and remembered his parents driving him over the James River Bridge from Hampton to Smithfield, so he wouldn’t have to swim with kids with different skin tones.
“I feel guilty,” he said. “I am ashamed. …As a white man, I think it’s my job to stand up and say no, you’re not going to do that anymore.”
Freeman had a message to those who look different than him. “We’re with you. We have your back. We’re not going to allow people who look like me to beat on you.”
—With additional reporting by Lisa Provence
Updated at 8:06pm with the results of Cantwell’s bond hearing.
Updated September 1 at 10am with comments from Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman.
Smoked trout dip will be a new menu item when Commonwealth Restaurant & Skybar relaunches with a new menu from Harrison Keevil and Will Richey Monday, September 4. Photo by Sara Miller
The result is what Richey calls “modern Virginia cuisine,” food grounded in Virginia’s culinary traditions but also drawing on cultures that have shaped what Virginia is today. A devout pork lover, Keevil is particularly excited about the pork rinds with pork dip and the smoked trout dip. The new Commonwealth launches Monday, September 4.
Rachel Zaslow, left, started Sisters Keeper Collective two years ago, after seeing a need for doulas of color to help Latina and African-American women. Crystal Johnson, right, serves as the doula coordinator for the group, and Doreen Bonnet, middle, is a doula-in-training. Photo by Natalie Jacobsen.
Crystal Johnson chose to have her youngest child, Olivia, at home. Johnson lost a baby between the births of her fourth and fifth children, and she says her doctor at UVA kept telling her not to worry about her high blood pressure during the pregnancy. When she was at a doctor’s visit while pregnant with her fifth child, Elias, the doctor asked lots of questions, trying to figure out why she had lost the baby, whom she named Sadie. The staff kept asking Johnson if she was sure it had been her husband’s child. As Johnson and her husband, Roger Richardson, left the room, Johnson heard the doctor say, “It probably wasn’t his baby.”
Because her pregnancy with Elias was considered high risk and she had to get an ultrasound every other week, Johnson asked if her insurance would cover them. The doctor said she was certain Medicaid would cover the tests—Johnson says the doctor assumed that because she was black, and had multiple children, she was on Medicaid.
But Olivia’s birth was a completely different experience for Johnson. Rachel Zaslow and Debbie Wong served as her midwives, and Johnson called them at 3am last December 17 to let them know she was in labor. Olivia, her sixth child, came into the world at 7:21am. The midwives cleaned everything up while the rest of the kids got ready for school.
“I feel like women—especially black women in the community—have poor birth experiences over and over again,” says Johnson, who now serves as the doula coordinator for Sisters Keeper Collective, an organization of about 45 African-American and Latina doulas who serve as advocates for women of color before, during and after the birthing process. “And they don’t know what they have to do to get a better experience.”
Zaslow runs Mother Health International, a nonprofit that is dedicated to improving neonatal mortality rates in areas of the world where they are the highest. The organization has a birth center in Uganda where it trains midwives (health professionals who can deliver babies at birthing centers, homes or hospitals), and they have done work in countries such as Senegal and Haiti. Zaslow spends up to six months of the year outside of the U.S. working with the group.
Zaslow, who moved to Charlottesville from New York a couple of years ago with her family, says high neonatal mortality rates and high mortality rates for mothers during childbirth aren’t exclusive to other countries. She points to New York City, where black women are 10 times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. According to the Midwives Alliance of North America, more than 16 percent of African-American babies born in 2013 were born preterm (less than 37 weeks), compared with 10 percent of white babies. MANA says that African-American women are four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women.
The Greater Charlottesville Improving Pregnancy Outcomes Workgroup, run by the Thomas Jefferson Health District, works to reduce adverse pregnancy outcomes in Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa and Nelson counties. The group, which includes a variety of stakeholders in the health care field, meets monthly.
In 2014, 2,638 babies were born in the Thomas Jefferson Health District: 2,003 white, 360 black and 275 other races. The department of health calculates five-year rolling averages for infant mortality, and says the total number of infant deaths is small each year (Charlottesville, for example, experienced no black infant deaths in 2013 and 2014). Nevertheless, a disparity among the races is evident, Zaslow says. The infant death rate in Charlottesville (per 1,000 births) from 2009-2013 was 12.7 for black babies and 4.8 for white babies. In Albemarle, it was 5.9 for black babies and 3.0 for white babies.
There are many layers to the root cause of this disparity, Zaslow says, but a key component is that this difference exists across class lines. An African-American woman who eats healthy and sees the best doctors still has a much higher chance of dying in childbirth than a white woman, which points to racism and oppression as the underlying causes, she says.
When Zaslow asked local members of the African-American community about their birth experiences, she heard the same phrases over and over again: “We don’t get treated fairly in Charlottesville. We don’t get taken seriously.”
“Especially when you’re pregnant, it’s a very vulnerable time and if your doctor says your baby is going to die unless you do this, there’s a lot of room for medical power,” Zaslow says. “And in the medical profession, if you don’t think your patient is going to understand what you say, it’s easier to just give a blanket statement…instead of explaining ‘here are the benefits and here are the risks’ and now you have a choice.”
In an attempt to make the process less traumatic, a Sisters Keeper doula will meet with the parents a couple of times before the birth to discuss what to expect, talk about what choices the couple has and help train the mom to ask her health care team questions to better understand her options—and know she is allowed to say no.
“Trauma is intergenerational,” Zaslow says. “If a mom has a negative birth experience and feels shame or hurt or not listened to, that impacts how she mothers; it impacts her ability to bond with her baby; it impacts her ability to make medical choices for the baby. That leads to all kind of ripple effects, in the child and the community’s life.”
Doreen Bonnet helped Eunice Waituika through the delivery of Haniel, now 3 months old. Waituika’s husband is in the Air Force and had to leave two weeks before his second child was born.
Family ties
When Zaslow, who is a trained midwife as well as doula, started talking with other doulas and midwives in Charlottesville, she noticed a trend: Everyone was white. The people she talked to expressed frustration with wanting to help women of color, but didn’t know how to reach them.
“I started looking at these issues of trust that are apparent within the health care system itself,” Zaslow says. “For women to have trusted community-based birth partners who look like them, who can understand their experiences firsthand and who believe them and trust them [is key].”
Sisters Keeper Collective, which falls under the umbrella organization of Mother Health International, held its first training of 15 African-American and Latina doulas in April 2015, after Zaslow got the word out and visited different community spaces. But they quickly discovered one of the barriers to reaching their intended community was the word “doula,” which was unfamiliar to most people of color. They decided to call themselves birth sisters, to evoke the idea of a family member. Doulas not only provide information to families but act as emotional support, including helping to coordinate child care for siblings while the mother goes into labor, guiding her through breathing and visualization exercises during the birth and making sure she has the right resources after the baby is born, such as breastfeeding information.
Another barrier was the cost of the service, not just for clients but for the birth sisters themselves, who had to be on call and take time off work or find child care for their own kids when mothers went into labor. A five-year $500,000 grant, the organization’s largest, has come from the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation. The money pays the birth sisters a stipend for each birth they attend, and the doula services are free for African-American women who are Medicaid eligible. Other community foundation grants cover all women of color, and the collective also allows women to pay on a sliding scale.
Elizabeth Moore trained as a doula when she was 22. She’d always loved the sacredness of birth and supporting women through the process. When the Charlottesville native moved back to town in 2013, she started gathering a list of doulas who might be interested in offering their services pro bono to members of the refugee community (Moore works with the International Rescue Committee’s New Roots gardening program). Moore coordinated the volunteer doulas, informally called the Charlottesville Volunteer Doula Network. A couple of years ago she and Zaslow began talking about ways to combine forces. When Moore receives a referral from area organizations such as Jefferson Area CHIP, IRC and UVA, she’ll either send them to Sisters Keeper or connect a mother-to-be with a doula within her network; sometimes a doula from each group is assigned so they can both be on call.
Moore says they help with about 10 births a year, and that many of the refugee moms are having their first babies, which means heightened anxiety. A lot of the time a doula will do a pre-birth hospital tour for the women, so they can see the rooms and ask questions about paperwork for birth certificates, for instance. Often, because the family is new to the country and doesn’t have a support system and the father must care for other children, the doula role becomes even more important.
“Every birth is so, so special,” Moore says. “I remember the last one I was at was with one of the Sisters Keeper doulas, so we were both there and the father was with the kids. Afterward, he was very emotional and said, ‘Because you two were here, [it was like] her mother and sister and aunt and everyone was here to support her.’”
Latoria White was part of the initial birth sister training for the Sisters Keeper Collective two years ago. She had informally served as a doula during the birth of her niece and nephew, and realized how important that advocate role was as she helped her sister voice her decision to deliver vaginally even though she’d had an emergency cesarean section with her first baby.
“Recently I had asked my mom about her experience birthing me. My father was an absent father and she said she was in the birthing room alone,” says White. “So that was kind of full circle for me, now wanting to be there because no one should have to go through that experience alone.”
One of the biggest obstacles for White, who has a master’s in psychology and worked as a rural services adult outreach advocate at Sexual Assault Resource Agency and was a casework counselor at Shelter for Help in Emergency, has been helping families from historically marginalized populations learn more about their rights. She wants to help women take charge and make choices for themselves.
“I want moms to feel comfortable asking questions and let them know this is a reciprocal relationship,” White says. “I want them to know I’m learning from them as much as they’re learning from me. Each birthing experience I learn something about women, birth work and also something about myself.”
White loves the relationships and rapport she builds with the families she assists (she’s been a part of seven to eight births total), and she recently helped guide Mustafa and Salma Subhan, who are from Afghanistan, in navigating the American birthing process. In Afghanistan, fathers are not allowed in the rooms when a baby is born, and Mustafa says being present for the birth of his daughter, Kawsar, was such a special moment. He says he is grateful for the outstanding health care services he and his family received at UVA, as well as the care and respect from hospital staff for his wife and daughter.
And Latoria is “more than a doula,” Mustafa says. She not only helped the couple with advice before the birth and with birthing techniques, but she stayed with Salma at the hospital while Mustafa cared for their other children. She has also met with the family several times since the birth.
“Latoria is now a very close friend,” Mustafa says. “I respect her very much and am thankful for what she did for my family.”
Mustafa and Salma Subhan say their doula, Latoria White, became a close friend after the birth of their daughter, Kawsar, on June 27.
Lasting impression
“Do you want to see a photo of him?” Doreen Bonnet asks. She holds up her phone and scrolls through a couple of photos of a newborn baby—her first as a doula-in-training.
Bonnet is sitting in the living room of Eunice Waituika’s home, where she’s been visiting with the family and softly rocking 2-month-old Haniel. Haniel, which means “God’s grace,” is a good baby who hardly ever cries, according to his mother.
Bonnet, who works as a business analyst for a company that makes clay tennis courts, never thought she’d be doing this kind of work (each doula is partnered with another doula/midwife for three births before she can do one on her own), and she says her first birth experience was amazing. She met with Waituika (who immigrated from Kenya with her husband and young daughter in 2016) three times before the birth, for which birth sister/midwife Wong was also present. In these sessions they got to know one another, and Waituika talked about how nervous she was to give birth in an unfamiliar country. And Waituika’s first birth had not been a great experience—she was alone in a Kenyan hospital.
Waituika called her birth sisters at about 9am on May 19, and Haniel was born at 9:01 that evening. During labor, Waituika and Bonnet walked up and down the hospital hallway together, talking about Waituika’s home country and how she met her husband.
“That’s something beautiful, to witness the transition of a mother,” Bonnet says. “To see her that morning and see what a mother goes through, that transition that happens to give birth is amazing. I had to fight tears the whole time…people say it’s a miracle and it really is.”
Waituika says she couldn’t have done it without her birth sisters, because her husband had to leave for Air Force training two weeks before she gave birth.
“I just kept saying thank you to them because I don’t know that I would have made it without them. They really helped me—I was almost giving up,” Waituika says. “They were breathing with me and it made it easy. I wouldn’t feel as much alone in this when we would breathe in together. They carried the pain that I had. It was really nice.”
Future outcomes
Diane Sampson, a prenatal education coordinator with UVA’s Women’s Health Services and member of the Improving Pregnancy Outcomes group, refers patients who come to her clinics to the collective if she thinks they can benefit from their services.
“I think all women need to be emotionally supported in labor, but particularly with hospitals, labor and delivery can be a really scary place,” she says, “even if you feel empowered and connected. It’s really nice to have someone there who loves birth, who understands what women are going through and who acts like a sister or an aunt or grandmother through it. And I think there’s a particular need for women of color.”
“My vision for Sisters Keeper Collective is that when a black person in Charlottesville gets pregnant, the first thing they think and know is that they have a birth sister.” Rachel Zaslow
Sampson says nurses and physicians love working with doulas, because it strengthens the whole health care team for a patient. UVA added a midwifery primary care center in October 2015.
“Both models—the home visiting that CHIP does and the work the doulas do supporting families—both of these models have good evidence that they work and lead to healthier births and better relationships, better parenting in the long run,” says Jefferson Area CHIP Executive Director Jon Nafziger.
White says she hopes the collective continues to train as many doulas and that it attracts midwives who are part of marginalized communities. And Moore says although doulas have become more common in the last 10 years, there’s still work to be done, with “a huge desire to make that accessible to everyone, not just the wealthier middle class.”
On a larger scale, Zaslow says she hopes that a sense of trust and feeling safe within the African-American community will emerge over time and that needed resources, such as black moms meet-ups and pregnancy support groups, will help African-American women throughout their entire journeys as mothers.
“My vision for Sisters Keeper Collective is that when a black person in Charlottesville gets pregnant, the first thing they think and know is that they have a birth sister,” Zaslow says.
“A Wall,” the opening track on Cost of Living, winds up like it could be a punk Springsteen cover—then vocalist Victoria Ruiz bursts through with the righteous, insistent bellow of Dog Faced Hermans’ Marion Coutts or holy Poly Styrene. Downtown Boys calls itself a “serious band from Providence,” and it’s no joke—Ruiz scorches the earth and brings the radical noise on every track, backed by no-frills, howling, sax-abetted punk. (Boys guitarist Joey DeFrancesco also plays with raucous brass band What Cheer? Brigade, which played Charlottesville in June.) Downtown Boys will be at DC9 on September 4.
On its cover of “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” The Blow makes me wistful for the Eagles, an emotion I thought impossible. It’s the first song on Brand New Abyss, though it feels weird calling it a song, because Melissa Dyne’s singing is stoutly amelodic—and she only tries slightly harder on the other ill-advised cover, “The Greatest Love of All.” But the backing tracks of spacey bubble synths are likable enough, as is Dyne’s vibe, and thankfully her classic Sprechstimme returns on “Dark Cold Magic” and for much of Brand New Abyss. On a bed of minimal, gently floating textures, Dyne manages to sound nonchalant as hell while she spills her guts—it’s smart and interesting, and if there’s nothing in it that touches “Hey Boy” (2007), well, not much does. Coming to DC9 on November 8.
Frankie Rose
Cage Tropical (Slumberland)
Truth in packaging: The ’80s-looking palm tree/sunset album cover sets the musical tone, as Frankie Rose continues to edge out the guitars in favor of layered “Miami Vice”-ish synths and mechanical drum tracks. And Cage gets the mood; Rose’s vocals are smudged and detached throughout, and the phrases that emerge are mostly doleful. The band gets a motorik jam up and running on “Trouble,” but most of Cage Tropical pensively jogs along the boardwalk, shimmering alluringly, but tough to see as it reflects the sun. And I really didn’t mean to do this, but Rose is at DC9 on September 12.
Husband-and-wife duo Eric Olsen and Amanda Gustafson front Burlington, Vermont’s Swale, singing lead and writing clever and wry about the growing pains you still have even when your own kids are having them. There’s No One Here is a sprawling hour united by sophisticated musicality as the band’s guitar-bass-keys-drums foundation gets adorned with strings, horns and pedal steel. The album runs through moods from borderline Up-with-People anthems to wistful twangy folk to brash rock—my fave stuff is the sunshine pop of “Loser” and “All Down Tonight,” along with the tasty instrumentals. Ambitious and admirable, Swale makes family rock sound like a good thing.
One of my favorite records of 2016 was Dusk by Ultimate Painting, the London duo of James Hoare and Jack Cooper. Earlier this year, Hoare released a solid album with his other band, Proper Ornaments; now Cooper (also late of Mazes) has released his first solo record, and, lo and behold, it’s great. Sandgrown is an atmosphere album evoking comfort and contentment under overcast skies. It’s also a guitar album, Cooper’s clean, patient, chiming arpeggiations punctuated with efficiently glorious solos and an occasional, strangely apt nod to Jerry Garcia. Cooper’s relaxed, affable voice and easy melodies seal the deal—Sandgrown could be the sleeper of the year.
Nearly 50,000 people live in Charlottesville, and the fun starts when they get hungry. There is no “bored mouth” syndrome here in “C-ville”—not with taquerias and smokehouses, bistros and sushi bars, inns and noodle counters, high-end pizza and burger joints to choose from. Not with Chinese, French, Italian, Indian, Irish, Japanese, Korean, Mediterranean, Thai and Vietnamese cuisine. . .have we left any out? No doubt. From organic markets to diners, from food trucks to pop-up restaurants, Charlottesville is an exciting city for environmentally responsible, health conscious and adventurous eaters, and the creative and conscientious professionals that make it so.
“Charlottesville is on a very short list of best places to live if you want to make food an important part of your life,” says Matt Rohdie, whose company, whimsically named Carpe Donut, has been delighting kids and adults for ten years now. “It’s one of the hubs of the country for exploring the idea of artisanal ingredients, exploring the components of organic and local sourcing. It’s striking—not just the sheer number, but the range of foods that are available.”
Charlottesville City Market On Saturday mornings from April through December, the Charlottesville City Market is Foodie Central. The brothers George, Jack and Bill Cason established the Market in 1973 on Vinegar Hill, selling peaches and apples. Nowadays, on Water Street, over 100 vendors offer fruit, produce, cheese, honey, coffee, meats, jams and relishes—pretty much every food item that can be lovingly hand grown or handmade, including organic coffee and bagels,Mexican tacos, and Filipino, Hawaiian and Caribbean cuisine. Other vendors sell soap, candles, jewelry, and other arts and crafts.
A University of Virginia study estimated that over 5,500 people (not including babes in arms) come browse, buy and socialize each week. “The Market is an amazing community event,” says city Business Division Manager William Bassett. “How great is it to be able to talk to the actual person who planted the seeds and grew the plants until finally the plants produced the crop?” WTJU radio comes to the Market every fourth Saturday of the month, and local musicians play sometimes as well. From May through September many local farmers also offer their produce on Wednesdays from 3:00 to 7:00 p.m. at the Farmers in the Park market on the corner of Chesapeake Street and Meade Avenue.
Timbercreek Market Another market putting food on local tables is Zach and Sara Miller’s Timbercreek Market, in the historic 1939 Coca-Cola building on Preston Avenue. Talk about local: all the meat the Millers sell—pastured pork, chicken, and duck, and grass-fed beef and lamb—comes directly from their own farm, only seven miles away, or farms they lease. All their produce is locally grown in the Albemarle County area.
“Timbercreek Farm was based on taking a family farm and putting it back to use,” Sara Miller says. “Zach and I have been so fortunate to have been given access to a large plot of land close to town, so we really thought long and hard about how we could use it to better our community. The farm had been in his family since the 70s and it was his grandmother’s biggest love, so really it’s in honor of her as well.”
While the Millers adhere to humane and sustainable farming methods, they keep their prices down and their standards up by controlling as much of their operation as they can. “Of course we’re not going to be able to be competitive with the Food Lion or conventional products,” Miller says, “because we don’t raise our animals in conventional ways. But direct marketing ended up being very important to us, as well as continuing to vertically integrate our system: having full control of our products, as many steps of the process as possible. In a lot of cases we spend years raising the products—the beef sometimes 24 to 30 months, and to get the exact steaks out of it that you want can take looking at the carcass as a whole and figuring out what is the best use of every piece of that meat. For us it’s really about a nose to tail, whole animal butcher shop.” It’s a concept that’s found wide appeal. “I’m very proud to say that at any given time you could walk into my shop and you could find a woman in her 60s, a college kid, and a person from our neighborhood.”
Some of those customers come for the pot pies, shepherd’s pies, cottage pies and lasagnas, all made in house and sold frozen. But only ten percent of Timbercreek’s business is direct sales to consumers; the other ninety percent is wholesale marketing to restaurants, including such local favorites as Citizen Burger, The Whiskey Jar, and Revolutionary Soup on the Mall, Brasserie Saisson on East Main Street, and Michael’s Bistro on the Corner.
The Spice Diva While Timbercreek has local roots, Phyllis Hunter came to Charlottesville six years ago by way of West Texas, New York and Virginia Beach. “I wanted to do something with food when we moved here,” Hunter says. “I had decided that.” It was on a visit to her son in California that she decided exactly what. “He took us to the city market in Napa and there was a spice shop there,” Hunter remembers, “and we bought several things and the next day we went back and bought several more. And I said, ‘That’s what I’m doing when I move to Charlottesville.’”
Today Hunter owns The Spice Diva in Main Street Market on West Main, where herbs and spices sit on the shelves next to chilies, curries, rubs, salts, extracts, teas, and dried fruits and flowers. After a recent expansion, the shop stocks oils and vinegar, beans and rice, chocolates and gelato as well. So what does a spice diva sell the most of? Well what’s the perennially top-selling ice cream? (Vanilla, not rum raisin or salted caramel.) “Definitely black peppercorn,” Hunter says. “We have several kinds of those.” Shoppers come for the pepper, and the Saigon cinnamon and Honey Rub, Hunter’s other top seller, but the names—French Grey Sea Salt, Asian Smoked Tea Rub—colors and aromas of the hundreds of other items are hard to resist.
The Spice Diva offers cooking classes once or twice a week, September through December and January through May, usually by one of the area’s talented young chefs. Tomas Rahal of Mas, Melissa Close-Hart of Palladio at Barboursville Vineyards, Adam Spaar of Orzo have all taught there.
La Flor Michoacana Sometimes you want something exquisite and exotic, and sometimes you just want a popsicle, but in this town you can have both at once. Jimmy Polania hails from Colombia, but his culinary contribution to Charlottesville, at La Flor Michoacana on Cherry Avenue, is a Mexican dessert specialty called the paleta. Polania grew up eating paletas—popsicles with fresh fruit and milk or water—“but not this type,” he says, only “the classic ones: vanilla, chocolate, with some fruits like passion fruit.” You can find passion fruit on Cherry Avenue, but you can also find pumpkin, papaya, cashew, soursop, tamarind, guava milkand a couple of dozen more, many with intriguing names like mamey and Jamaican Flower. Avocado, lime, cheesecake, and blackberry are some of the most popular flavors, along with chamoy mango—fresh cut mango with a tangy, chili-based sauce.
“Paleterias in Mexico are like McDonald’s here,” Polania says. “You can find one on every corner. This artisanal type with the fruit is from Michoacán, Mexico, it’s number one in Mexico.”
Polania moved to Charlottesville almost 20 years ago, but didn’t open La Flor Michoacana till July of 2014. In the summer he sells a thousand paletas a week. “I’m working to let people know this is the place you can find tropical fruits from Central and South America,” he says. “Eighty percent are natural; we don’t use artificial flavors, everything is homemade.”
Little Manila Fernando Dizon was born in Pangasinan, a Philippine province “about five hours bus ride from Manila,” but it was after his family moved to Charlottesville at age 12 that he started cooking. “I learned by watching my parents and my uncle,” he remembers. Dizon lives on a dead-end street in the Fry Springs neighborhood renamed Manila Street, because, he says, “every single person that lives in the street is my relative.”Seven years ago he began manning a booth at the Charlottesville City Market, selling what is still the only Filipino food in the area. Since 2013 he’s also been bringing his Little Manila food truck around town three or four days a week.
Dizon sells Filipino barbeque—chicken, pork, and pork belly marinated for at least 24 hours, then grilled and served with rice, and pancit (noodles). But egg rolls are his most popular offering. “We go through a thousand of them every week,” he says. Lumpia, they’re called, and they’re about the size of a finger, and filled with ground pork and vegetables—mostly ground pork. It’s that higher meat to veggie ratio that distinguishes Filipino from Chinese egg rolls, he explains.
“I worked in banking for seven years,” Dizon says, “but I would never go back to any other job. It’s ten times the work the bank is, but it’s definitely worth it. Working at the City Market islike a family thing; everyone knows everyone. You give them food, barter. It’s a lot of fun. I wake up at four o’clock in the morning to work at the market, and it doesn’t bother me because it’s so enjoyable.”
Lucky Us Ambitious farmers, sleep-deprived but contented purveyors of unusual treats—the folks who make Charlottesville such a fun place to eat, Hunter avers, are also among its most outstanding citizens. “These very impressive and talented people are also big-hearted and generous and have a real community,” she says. “It’s not just a bunch of carny-like people who travel around; these are people who have a stake in the community and they are here for the long run.” When a young chef recently suffered a terrible accident, Hunter marvels, “this community raised in excess of $200,000 for that couple in about six weeks.”
But though Charlottesville’s a cornucopia for the, shall we say, lay eater, how about for these seasoned professional chefs? “Oh my gosh, definitely, yes,” Dizon says. “Restaurant after restaurant is popping up here. if you’re a foodie, it’s definitely a place to go and check out.” Culinary standards here “are very high,” Hunter agrees, and the scene is constantly changing. “There is always some new and exciting concept coming in. I have really seen that the people who don’t have great food don’t last very long.”
With so much happening so quickly, what might we expect next? “The next trend I see is about zero food waste,” Miller says, citing the WastED (waste education) movement championed by New York chef Dan Barber. “I think a lot of the chefs who are very focused on high quality food are also very focused on food waste and how to utilize every part of everything that they get, whether it’s every piece of the vegetable or every piece of a chicken. People in bigger cities are interested in it and I think that is quickly coming to Charlottesville.” And if it is, then lucky us.
Yes, we know it’s still pretty warm around here these days, but Mother Nature is dusting off her ski parka. Time to beat her to the punch by preparing your property for cold weather.
“For most people, the family home is one of their most valuable assets,” declares REALTOR® Kelly Ceppa with Charlottesville’s Nest Realty. “It makes good sense to maintain it regularly as you would any other asset you want to serve you well for a long time.”
Here are some reminders to get your home ready for winter.
Outdoors Walk around the outside of your property, inspecting for cracks or loose shingles on the siding or roof. After dark, look around doors and windows for light shining from inside and mark these air leaks for caulking.
Search for spots where critters looking for a cozy, warm winter den might sneak in. (Amazingly, a mouse can slip through an opening the size of a nickel.)
Check for ailing trees that could fall on your roof, power lines, or driveway.
Forestall ice dams that can cause roof leaks or lead to gutters breaking off from the eaves by removing leaves from the gutters and downspouts. There are adapters to connect to a hose to wash out debris and many leaf blowers have attachments that can blow the gutter clear.
Indoors Shinny up into the attic to check for moisture or visible leaks in your roof and repair if needed.If you have some sort of trap door for attic access, cover it with insulation.
Replace tired weather-stripping on your doors. For air leaks under seldom-used doors, buy (or make) a “door snake.” This old-timey device, usually made of fabric with a fairly heavy stuffing such as rice or beans, acts as a draft blocker. There are easy directions online.
Have your heat pump or furnace professionally serviced right now because that first cold spell finds many heating repair companies overwhelmed. If your system is more than 15 years old, you might be surprised how much more efficient replacement equipment could be. Except in the very coldest weather, heat pumps are effective in Central Virginia.
Change the direction of any ceiling fans to blow upwards and circulate warmed air around the room.
Ensure your heating registers haven’t become blocked by rugs, toys, or other items.
Replace your air filters, whether disposable or washable. Consider a filter’s MERV (minimum efficiency reporting value). Disposables generally have a significantly higher MERV and can filter out pollen, dust mites, textile and carpet fibers, mold spores, animal dander, and smoke from tobacco or wood fires.Disposable filters can be vacuumed once to extend their use, but then discard and install a new one. Some people employpermanent washable filters which means you’re never caught without a filter and, after the initial expense, can save you money.
Safety first Clean dust and cobwebs from smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Install new batteries even if the old batteries still have some juice. For safety’s sake, redeploy them in less important devices.
Cold weather can overload electrical systems and create fire hazards. Never use extension cords for space heaters and don’t overload circuits with several heating devices. Keep flammables far from the fireplace. Candles are cheerful, but can be dangerous if you don’t pay attention to them. Check for lint buildup in dryer vents.
Have your fireplace or woodstove checked, especially the chimney to ensure there is no blockage or creosote buildup, which could cause a dangerous chimney fire. If you use your fireplace or stove for emergency heat, be sure you have seasoned wood available in a protected place that keeps it dry. And keep an eye out for our upcoming September feature all about heating with wood.
Check the expiration date on your fire extinguishers.Have a family fire drill with a rehearsal about how to actually use a fire extinguisher—without discharging it, of course. Remind your whole family of fire safety plans including various exit strategies such as testing a door for heat before opening it, and especially about a meeting place at a safe distance from the house.
Power outages can be especially frustrating if you are dependent on a well pump or medical device. Without power you can’t use the garage door opener, the invisible fence won’t keep the dog at home, and you won’t be able to recharge cell phones and laptops. (If you have the correct cord, you can recharge a cell in your car.)
Electric backup comes in a variety of prices for different applications. Some people opt for a whole-house generator that switches on automatically when the power fails. Others choose one they start themselves to serve essential circuits, but not the entire property.
Prepare for outages with a camp lantern, a flashlight for everyone in the household, and plenty of fresh batteries. “Juice packs” which store power for electronic devices often have a built in flashlight. Chemical “snap” lights—also called glowsticks—last up to 12 hours. These are effective to provide emergency lighting in a hallway or bathroom and are far safer than candles.
“Deferred maintenance will damage the value of your home as well as its function,” concludes REALTOR® Ceppa. “If you change the oil and repair your car regularly, shouldn’t you do the same (or more!) for an asset that is worth many times more than your car?”
Marilyn Pribus and her husband live near Charlottesville. He has replaced weather stripping on the front door and they’ve laid in a supply of fresh flashlight batteries plus a couple of glow-sticks.
At last week’s tumultuous City Council meeting, many citizens asked questions that suggest Charlottesville’s form of government is not well understood. Here are a few basics.
City Council: Five elected members choose a mayor and vice-mayor. The mayor is one among equals who represents the city at ribbon cuttings and who sets the agenda for City Council meetings.
Council-manager form of government: City Council hires a city manager to be CEO and run the city, and almost all of city staff, including the police chief, report to him. Council acts like a board of trustees, setting policy, passing a budget prepared by the city manager, and addressing citizen concerns. City Council can fire the city manager; a single councilor or the mayor cannot.
Why couldn’t City Council refuse to grant the Unite the Right permit?
The First Amendment protects speech, even if it’s a hateful affront to the values of this city. The city’s attempt to move the rally to McIntire Park was blocked by a federal judge as unconstitutional.
Mayor Mike Signer has called for the Constitution to be amended to address “intentionalmayhem,” such as the violence planned by alt-right attendees.
Why is the statue of General Robert E. Lee still here months after City Council voted to remove it, while other states took down statues immediately after August 12?
Virginia is a Dillon Rule state. That means that unless the General Assembly says it’s okay to do something,
city and county governments can’t do it.
And in fact, state law specifically prohibits the removal of war memorials, which to many includes the Lee and Jackson statues. Odds of the General Assembly changing that law to allow localities to do with monuments as they see fit: murky.
A lawsuit has been filed against Charlottesville for City Council’s vote to dispatch the Lee statue. The issue could be decided in court, but it seems unlikely it will happen at the local circuit court level, where a hearing is scheduled September 1.
Who’s in charge?
In Virginia, it’s pretty much the GeneralAssembly, which grants limited power to localities.
City Council: has the power to hire and fire city manager; acts like a board of trustees; addresses citizen concerns.
Mike Signer, Kristin Szakos, Wes Bellamy, Kathy Galvin, Bob Fenwick
City manager: is the top administrator and runs city operations; prepares annual budget. Reports to City Council.
Chief Al Thomas. Photo Eze Amos
Police chief: runs the day-to-day operations of the police department. Reports to city manager.
“Please provide an explanation.”—Used 16 times in a leaked memo written by Mayor Mike Signer to City Manager Maurice Jones before an August 24 closed-door meeting with City Council
Retroactive retribution
ACLU video
Richard Wilson Preston, 52, was arrested August 26 for allegedly firing a gun on West Market Street during the August 12 Unite the Right rally and is being held in Towson, Maryland. Daniel Patrick Borden, 18, was arrested August 25 for malicious wounding related to a beating in the Market Street Parking Garage of Deandre Harris, and he’s in custody in Cincinnati. Alex Michael Ramos, 33, has been charged with malicious wounding for the same assault. Police are still looking for Ramos.
Marching season
First, Dreamers set foot from UVA to Richmond August 25 to fight for protection from deportation, and to stand up against the repeal of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Three days later, a group of about 100 people, including several clergy members, began their March to Confront White Supremacy from Emancipation Park to D.C.
Sisters sue white supremacists
In a lawsuit seeking $3 million in damages, Tradint and Micah Washington say they were physically and emotionally injured when James Alex Fields Jr. plowed into their Toyota Camry during the August 12 rally, in an act that killed one person and injured many. They have named 28 alt-right defendants, including Jason Kessler and David Duke, in their suit.
MTV gets involved
The popular music television network’s Video Music Awards turned political August 27 when Susan Bro took the stage to present the award for Best Fight Against the System and to announce the creation of a nonprofit for her daughter. The Heather Heyer Foundation will provide scholarships for students interested in social justice. Pastor Robert Lee IV, a direct descendant of General Robert E. Lee, introduced Bro.
By the numbers
Stop and frisks
Civil rights attorney Jeff Fogel released information obtained from a Freedom
of Information Act request with Charlottesville police, which indicates the continuing trend that the majority of those detained by police are black. In the first half of 2017, 72 people out of 102 detainees were African-American.
Annie Gould Gallery 121 S. Main St., Gordonsville. An exhibition of work from 12-plus regional and out-of-state artists.
FF The Bridge PAI 2019 Monticello Rd. “Domestic Alchemy,” in which artists Amanda Wagstaff, Chicho Lorenzo and Will Mullany find creative potential in familiar household objects. 5:30-7:30pm.
FF Chroma Projects 418 E. Main St. “Landmarks,” an exploration of early vocabulary that described nature. 5:30-7:30pm.
City Clay 700 Harris St. Ste. 104. New work by the Terra Floyd potters. Opens September 8, 5:30-7pm.
FF CitySpace Art Gallery 100 Fifth St. NE. A photo exhibit honoring the military members on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. 5:30-7:30pm.
FFC’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St. “The Sun, Moon and Stars,” featuring the glass art and jewelry of Diana Branscome. 6-8pm.
Andy Warhol at Graves International Art.
Graves International Art 306 E. Jefferson St. “Roy Lichtenstein & Company: Postwar and Contemporary Art,” featuring handmade, limited-edition prints and exhibition posters by artists such as Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, David Hockney, Keith Haring, Ellsworth Kelly, Josef Albers and others.
Hot Cakes Barracks Road Shopping Center “Virginia Landscapes,” oil paintings by Julia Kindred.
FF Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Russ Warren: Paintings and Sculpture,” a mixed-media exhibition inspired by Picasso. 1-5pm.
FF McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Sarah B. Smith Gallery, “Flora, Fauna, Flesh and Blood,” in which Lauren Doran explores the all-encompassing task of raising children. In the Upper and Lower Hall galleries, the Central Virginia Watercolor Guild presents its 26th annual exhibition. 5:30-7:30pm.
Theresa Shepherd at McGuffey Art Center.
McIntire School of Commerce 125 Ruppel Dr. “Touchstones of Charlottesville,” paintings by John Trippel. Opens September 7, 4:30-7pm.
FF Mudhouse Coffee 213 W. Main St. Valerie Sargent’s abstract paintings derived from studies in the Akashic field.
FF Music Resource Center 105 Ridge St. “UNTITLED,” photographic portraits of people in the Charlottesville community. 5-7pm.
FF Neal Guma Fine Art 105 Third St. NE. An exhibition featuring Elger Esser, Chris McCaw, Sally Mann and William Wylie. 5-7pm.
FF New Dominion Bookshop 404 E. Main St. A multimedia exhibition from BozART Fine Art Collective. 5:30-7:30pm.
Piedmont Virginia Community College V. Earl Dickinson Building 501 College Dr. In the North Gallery, “Fish Out of Water,” paintings by Lisa Parker Hyatt. In the South Gallery, “Metadata,” a mixed-media exhibition by James Yates. Opens Friday, September 22, 5-7pm.
Randy Baskerville at the Senior Center.
FF Senior Center 1180 Pepsi Place. “Tuscany Treasures,” gouache and oil landscape paintings by Randy Baskerville. 1-4:30pm.
Shenandoah Valley Art Center 26 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. “Germination,” a mixed- media exhibition honoring the school’s 25th anniversary. Opens September 2, 6-8pm.
FF Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St. “Nearest and Dearest,” oil on canvas by John Hetzel. 6-8pm.
FF Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Festy Love,” a mixed-media exhibit by photographers Milo Farineau and Jody Carbone showcasing The Festy lifestyle and performances. 5-7pm.
Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church 717 Rugby Rd. “Up Close and Personal,” featuring paintings of humans and nature by Sarah Jones. Opens September 3, noon.
FF VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. A mixed-media exhibition by the “Community Collective,” featuring Thomas Kovach, Mike Hugy, Ben Arnold, Emma O’Brien, Kate Brown, Carmen Smith, Katie Jackson, Moriah McCollum, Christina Dean, Kellianne Shaver, Benjamin Davis and Rachel Oliff. 5:30pm-7:30pm.
FF Welcome Gallery 114 Third St. NE. “Selves and Selfies,” prints and paintings by Sara Ho and Eileen French. 5-7:30pm.
FF First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions.
Fifth Street Station is serving up another helping of restaurants, which includes a second location for a Corner favorite, and a Manassas-based traditional Thai restaurant.
Jersey Mike’s Subs: Grab a submarine sandwich from the New Jersey-bred chain at one of the newest additions to its 1,500-store résumé. The approachable menu assigns numbers to each sandwich, and they all come “Mike’s Way,” with onions, tomatoes, lettuce, spices, red wine vinegar and olive oil. Customizable toppings are available too. Open now.
Red Mango: The frozen yogurt franchise that began filling cups with all-natural creamy treats in 2007 has expanded into Charlottesville. A menu full of refreshing options includes the signature sweet and tart frozen yogurt, smoothies, parfaits, sorbettos and fresh juices. Open now.
Krispy Kreme: The international donut chain with the iconic Hot Now red neon sign that lets passersby know when the offerings are fresh, has found a home at 5th Street Station. With a visual donut menu in the form of a glass display case, choose one (or two, or three, or four…) from rows of traditional flavors such as chocolate glazed, or more eclectic ones like Reese’s peanut butter. Opening in October.
Basil Mediterranean Bistro & Wine Bar: The Corner restaurant that serves Mediterranean fare from Greece, Lebanon, Italy, Spain, France and Turkey is opening a second location on the south end of town. Its extensive menu includes a variety of region-specific dishes. Try one of the laffa options: a Lebanese-style pita roll-up with meats, produce and sauces inside. Opening in December.
Extreme Pizza: Pizza isn’t limited to average flavors at Extreme Pizza. International ingredients like Portuguese linguica, a smoke-cured pork sausage, take center stage, along with reimagined classics, such mandarin oranges on a Hawaiian pizza. This pie place chain will be part of The Yard food hall. Opening early 2018.
Zabb Thai Restaurant: The Manassas-based restaurant will open a second location in The Yard food hall, where it will offer up its authentic Thai fare, including noodle and rice dishes alongside signature entrées. Opening early 2018.
Fresh face
If you’ve visited Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards recently, you might have seen someone new. Ian Rynecki has taken over as executive chef from Bill Scatena (no word yet on what’s next for Scatena), and Rynecki says he’s looking forward to taking advantage of a lush garden and local produce and meat to create new dishes to pair with the vineyard’s vino.
With no culinary school training, Rynecki honed his chops while working in catering in several cities across the United States, including Philadelphia, Big Sky, Montana, San Francisco and New York City.
Virginia, however, is the land of new opportunity for Rynecki.
“The dairy and the meats that I can get here are some of the best in the country,” he says. “And the good thing is that I can visit all of these farms.”
Rynecki is working on a few new additions to the menu, with the help of Pippin Hill’s horticulturist, Diane Burns. His favorite is a duck dish using local meat, and an Andalusian-style gazpacho made from the tomatoes grown in the vineyard’s garden. The tomato dish is on the menu now; look for the duck option and a full-of-fall-flavor toffee carrot cake in September. Rynecki will add new dishes to the menu every month.
“We’re a winery that has to have really good food,” he says.
