The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative 209 Monticello Rd. “Dispatches From The Outpost” features Jennifer Almanza’s Old World collections and contemporary pieces, including glass, carved wood, shells, metal, and scavenged items, which showcase evidence of the existence of rare cryptozoological and alien lifeforms. Opens October 1.
The Center at Belvedere 540 Belvedere Blvd. “A New Rhythm” highlights work from 14 artists, including Sara Gondwe, Julia Kindred, Randy Baskerville, and more. Opens October 7.
Joan Dreiser at The Center at Belvedere.
Chroma Projects Inside Vault Virginia, Third St. SE. “Pandemonium: Postcards from the Edge” invited artists from all over the world to paint, draw, or mark up postcards to illustrate what we’ve all been through since the start of the pandemic. Opens October 1.
Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd. “A Colorful Mountain Life,” acrylic and oil paintings by Lori Leist. Meet the artist at 1pm on October 9.
Crozet Arts and Crafts Festival Crozet Park. Now in its 41st year, the festival welcomes over 120 artists, whose work includes jewelry, leather, art, photography, ceramics, sculpture, glass, and more. October 9-10.
C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Music for the Eyes,” works by felt maker Janice Stegall Seibert. Opens October 1.
The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “Skyscraper Gothic” investigates the role of European Gothic architecture in 20th-century America through art.
Gallery at Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “The Route,” by Prolyfyck Run Crew member Mike Ryan, features representations of the crew’s mantras, the lines run, and the energy encountered. Opens October 1. Artist talk on October 28.
The Garage 100 E. Jefferson St. Photographer Matt Eich and poet and musician Doug Van Gundy present “Come As You Are,” a projection/poetry reading about their time together in Webster County, West Virginia. Opens October 1.
Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. “Robert Reed’s Charlottesville” features works exploring the city through the eyes of the late Robert Reed. Through December 31.
Robert Reed at Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.
Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “Boomalli Prints and Paper” showcases art by the Aboriginal Australian art cooperative Boomalli, and “Irrititja Kuwarri Tjungu” is a sampling of works from Papunya Tula artists. Outdoors, “Breathe With Me: A Wandering Sculpture Trail” is on display through October 17, and features pieces by students of sculptor Bill Bennett.
Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. Recent works from the collaborative team The Printmakers Left. Through October 10.
McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Smith Gallery, “Maker’s Show.” On the first floor, “Life Drawing,” and on the second floor, “ABSTRACTS.” Through November 21.
New City Arts 114 Third St. NE. “Situated Knowledge,” a new exhibition of sculpture by Marisa Williamson, Sandy Williams IV, and Patrick Costello, three artists who’ve spent formative years in Charlottesville. Opens October 1.
Northside Library 705 Rio Rd. In the lobby, Natalie Kohler’s paintings, which were done using sustainably harvested pigments. In the Quiet Room, landscape paintings by Nita Phillips.
PVCC Gallery 501 College Dr. In the North Gallery, “smoke or shadow,” animations by Jonah Tobias. In the South Gallery, the Annual Faculty Exhibition.
Quirk Gallery 499 W. Main St. Kristen Peyton’s painting series, “Ordinary Time.”
Kristen Peyton at Quirk Gallery.
The Ruffin Gallery 179 Culbreth Rd. “Wild Whimsey,” hand-cut and ornately layered installations by Emily Moores.
Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the Main Gallery, “how strange it is to be anything at all,” by Josh Dorman. In the Dové Gallery, Caitlin McCormack and Dance Doyle’s “Dirty Mirror.” Through November 19.
Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “A Whisper in the Night,” paper-cut and woven works by Sri Kodakalla.
Unitarian-Universalist Church 717 Rugby Rd. “Fancy and Carefree,” paintings by Sara Gondwe, on view digitally.
Sara Gondwe at Unitarian-Universalist Church.
Visible Records 1740 Broadway St. “Is This The Place?” features works by Liz Zhang and Natalie Romero. Through October 30.
WTJU 2244 Ivy Rd. “We Hope This Art Finds You Well,” a community arts time capsule that features work made during the pandemic by several artists, including Eze Amos, John D’earth, Sri Kodakalla, and Harli Saxon. Open Friday and Saturday by appointment, through mid-November.
The Fralin Museum’s visual history of skyscrapers includes Joseph Pennell’s etching “The Woolworth through the Arch.” Image courtesy of the Fralin Museum of Art.
Skyscrapers, in our modern imagination, are glitzy glass needles. It wasn’t always that way. The nation’s first towers were ornate and detailed. Intrinsically American, the designs embodied the qualities we like to associate with our national image: We’re can-do, bold, strong, technologically advanced, and audacious.
The Fralin Museum’s new show, “Skyscraper Gothic,” explores the history of these early skyscrapers. The curators, Lisa Reilly from UVA and Kevin Murphy from Vanderbilt, have brought together a wonderfully comprehensive assortment of prints, drawings, photographs, paintings, sculptures, furniture, textiles, toys, models, illustrations and decorative arts to showcase the prevalence of both the Gothic style and the skyscraper motif in contemporaneous culture.
In the early 20th century, Gothic style was seen as enduring, with the authority of time and religion backing it up. The architects most certainly saw a connection between the lofty towers of the office buildings they were designing and the soaring quality of medieval cathedrals. They also must have felt a strong connection to the medieval builders who, like them, were engaged in engineering innovations, building their structures as high as possible, minimizing load on walls with flying buttresses and, in the case of the late Gothic, reducing masonry to the barest minimum to allow for large expanses of stained glass.
At the same time, early skyscrapers were shaped by less idealistic forces, like municipal regulations: One of the signature features of the original skyscrapers is the step-like setback profile. Those setbacks were incorporated to conform to a 1916 New York City zoning ordinance requiring light and air to reach the sidewalks. This distinctive design element was absorbed into skyscraper iconography and widely replicated.
Several works in the show highlight the vital role of the construction workers who put the buildings together. The structures on which they toiled captured the public’s imagination, and so did the workers themselves. The metalworkers’ feats of strength and derring-do—balanced on girders hundreds of feet up—were the stuff of legend, embodying the distinct male energy and bravado of the skyscrapers themselves.
Louis Lozowick’s “Above the City” and Harry Sternberg’s “Riveter” both position their subjects on girders at dizzying heights. In the latter, a red girder juts dramatically out toward the viewer, enhancing the tension and force within the composition. You can feel the effort the figure is expending with his machine. It’s a theatrical image, rendered in highly-keyed yellow, scarlet, and blue. The man’s face is obscured by the riveter, and he is positioned in a monumentalized fashion against the city—an everyman worker and symbol of masculine power.
Charles Turzak’s “The Driller” captures the subject’s strength and determination. Jangled buildings in the background and a cartoonish halo of wobbly lines surrounding the figure convey the teeth-jarring vibration of the drill with droll humor.
The selection of prints, drawings, paintings, and photographs provide just the right backdrop, orienting us in the environment of these early 20th century cities. In several, artists use steam to convey the furious activity of the industry that built and sustained these great metropolises. Examples include Thomas Hart Benton’s “Construction,” Henry Reuterdahl’s “Commerce and Seapower,” Sears Gallagher’s “Manhattan Skyline,” and Samuel L. Margolies’ “Babylon.”
The first modern art movement in America, Precisionism, which celebrated man-made objects and technologies, is well represented in the exhibition as well. You can see the cool hard-edged detachment characteristic of the Precisionist School in Clare Leighton’s “Breadline, New York,” Louis Lozowick’s “Above the City,” Zama Vanessa Helder’s “34th Street Skyline,” Jon Whitcomb’s “Urban Landscape” Howard Norton Cook’s “Chrysler Building,” and Leo Rabkin’s “Untitled (Spirit of Progress, Skyscrapers and liners).”
With their velvety blacks and subtle light effects, Samuel Gottscho’s “Radiator Tower (at Night)” and Russ Marshall’s “Penobscot Noir” are gorgeous, lush photographic images that evoke a moody, brooding city. Don Walker’s “Downtown Detroit Enveloped in Fog” uses atmosphere conditions for dramatic effect, too.
Other photographs provide more visual information about the buildings and their settings. Samuel Kravitt’s “Aerial View of the Empire State Building” and Ilse Bing’s “View of Lower Manhattan” give us a sense of what New York looked like and the scale of the skyscrapers in relation to their surroundings.
The everyday objects on display reveal how skyscrapers functioned as icons. The buildings’ influence seeped into nearly every corner of American culture. Among the treasures on display are a flapper’s beaded purse with skyscraper motif, a number of children’s toys, from board games to building blocks, and a dazzling chrome weight and height scale and maple bookshelf that both ape the skyscraper form.
A great deal of thought has been put into the exhibition design. Handsome banners of the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, and the Woolworth Building hang above the stairs in the foyer to greet visitors. The banners work with the steel gray color used on the walls to set the tone for the rooms. The pedestal for “Chrysler Building Souvenir Building” is cut to resemble the building’s shape, and vintage postcards of famous skyscrapers are positioned on an outline of the United States, helping visitors visualize where the buildings are located. Even the elevator doors and interior are sheathed in an intricate Art Deco motif, which also makes an appearance on one gallery wall. All this produces an ambience that replicates, with great élan, the cool elegance of the iconic structures themselves.
Lasting laughs: Funny lady of NPR’s “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!,” Paula Poundstone earned her chops in the OG comedy clubs of ’80s L.A. before landing TV appearances on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and “The Late Show with David Letterman.” Poundstone came into her own as a trailblazing political comic in 1993 when she was the first woman to host the White House correspondents’ dinner. With a knack for banter and an improvisational flair comparable to jazz, Poundstone will leave you in stitches.
Sunday 9/26, $38-48.50, 7:30pm. The Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main Street, Downtown Mall, theparamount.net.
The proposed Stribling Avenue development project has gone back to the developer for additional review. Supplied photo.
After a public hearing last week, the Charlottesville Planning Commission sent a proposal for 170 new housing units back to the developer for updates.
Southern Development is asking the city to rezone 12 acres of land in the Fry’s Spring neighborhood to allow the construction of a new complex of townhomes and apartments. Fifteen percent of those units would have to be designated affordable housing.
“The Planning Commission told us very clearly [they] wanted to see something more dense and less suburban,” said Charlie Armstrong, vice president at Southern Development.
The development’s fate could depend on whether or not the city and the developers can scrounge up enough cash to fund sidewalk upgrades and other safety improvements around the area.
Last year, the Fry’s Spring Neighborhood Association expressed support for the development on the condition that such updates went through. Armstrong then negotiated an agreement with the Office of Economic Development, promising that Southern Development would give a $2 million loan to the city to build those improvements. The city would then pay Southern Development back over a period of years out of the increased property taxes that it’s set to receive.
At the meeting, the city and the developer clashed over the specifics of the deal: Southern Development estimates the infrastructure upgrades will cost around $1.6 million. City Engineer Jack Dawson said he’d only seen the proposal two days before the meeting, but that it could cost as much as $2.9 million in his estimation. “It isn’t just a sidewalk. It’s essentially a streetscape, because when you touch a road you need to bring it up to code,” he said.
Armstrong expressed frustration at the discrepancy between the estimates. “That’s not a number that I’ve ever seen published, or have ever heard,” Armstrong said, even though the company has “been talking with the city, and been in this review process with the city, for months and years.”
The city doesn’t have much to spare by way of capital improvement funding: Last week, council opted to transfer funding allocated for the West Main Streetscape to the $75 million reconfiguration of Buford Middle School. Budget staff said that could require as much as a 15-cent tax increase next year.
“Right now, every penny we are going to have in capital funds is going to get allocated for school reconfiguration,” said City Councilor Lloyd Snook.
The co-president of the FSNA appreciated the work that went into the agreement, but said it was not yet enough to satisfy his concerns.
“There is a potential to find a solution here, but there is a big but,” said Jason Halbert. “It’s about safety on that street and the JPA intersection.”
Halbert said the agreement had not been fully reviewed by the appropriate staff. He asked for the project to be delayed while the details of the agreement are worked out.
Planning Commissioner Hosea Mitchell said he liked the project overall but agreed it might not be ready.
“I think it could use a little more baking,” Mitchell said. “There would be value in sitting with the engineers and the economic development people and working out the details and logistics.”
Another commissioner suggested the city has to do a better job of communicating internally on matters like this, especially given that the current draft of the city’s new comprehensive plan encourages the creation of more dense housing across the city.
“It’s endlessly frustrating to me, the degree of dysfunction within the city,” said Commissioner Rory Stolzenburg, “that the economic development office is negotiating this agreement and isn’t even telling [the city engineer] about it until literally two days ago.”
Southern Development requested an infinite deferral to see if the details can be worked out.
County approves 254 units near Forest Lakes
Also last week, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors approved a development that will see 254 apartments—190 of which will be set aside as affordable housing—constructed just off Route 29. The project was approved in a 5-1 vote. The county’s comprehensive plan had highlighted the area as a good spot for potential growth.
“I personally live in an area where many apartment units have gone up,” said Ned Gallaway, chair of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors. “And they fill quickly. The question is whether the infrastructure is there to support the density.”
Throughout the approval process, the community association of the nearby Forest Lakes neighborhood argued against the project, saying it was out of scale with their existing neighborhoods.
“We talk a lot about how we are an inclusive and welcoming place to live. This is an opportunity to create a place for people to live that have not been able to live in our community,” said Supervisor Diantha McKeel.
In her support for the project, McKeel noted that VDOT has invested nearly $230 million in road improvements in Albemarle within recent years, and is currently studying how to further expand transit to the area.
UVA alum Christina Wagner says she’s drawn to tea ceremonies because of the community they create. Photo: Eze Amos.
Sitting on the back deck at the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar, Christina Wagner carefully measures out tea leaf with her fingers. “Tea is a great place to exercise intuition,” she says.
Laid out on the table before us are the elements of a Chinese gong-fu tea ceremony. There’s a metal teapot filled with hot water heated by a candle, an empty glass pitcher, and a traditional Chinese gai-wan—a tea-steeping cup with a saucer and lid. We each have a tiny tea bowl, and an offering cup sits nearby.
In Mandarin, gong-fu means “with skill.” In a tea ceremony, this refers to the effort of drawing out the best possible flavor from the leaf. To do so, a gong-fu ceremony uses more vessels than your typical teapot and mug. To begin, Wagner puts the loose leaf tea (a Chinese green called Ancient Forest) into the gai-wan and covers it with hot water. After 15 seconds, she deftly picks up the gai-wan with one hand and tilts the lid back with her finger, letting the liquid strain into the glass pitcher. This is also called the fairness pitcher, since it halts the steeping process and lets everyone taste tea that’s the same strength. Wagner holds the pitcher up to the light, admiring the “clean golden color.” The first serving goes to the offering cup, as thanks. The next pour is for us.
The first infusion is the time to notice the tea’s lighter, more floral tones. As we go through the infusion process four more times, the florals are replaced by a fuller mouthfeel and a strong taste of camphor emerges. We learn how one batch of tea morphs and evolves. “You would never brew it fewer than three times, because it’s disrespectful to the leaf,” says Wagner.
Growing up in Madison County, tea wasn’t a large part of Wagner’s life. After graduating from UVA and moving to Portland, Oregon, she took a job at a shop called Tao of Tea. “I didn’t even know that that level of tea world existed,” says Wagner. For training, she toured warehouses, tea packing facilities, and teahouses. When she wasn’t preparing tea ceremonies for others, she was trying new teas, working her way through Tao’s extensive menu. When she returned to Charlottesville in 2015, her next career move seemed obvious—the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar was started by a former Tao of Tea employee.
Wagner says she’s drawn to tea because of the community it creates. “I would rather drink mediocre tea with good people and share that,” she says, “than use that time to source excellent tea and drink it all by myself.” She loves how once tea is served, time gets stretchy. It gives space for people to relax and open up. Deep conversations flow, connections spark. She calls it steaming open the time-space continuum.
When tea gatherings became jeopardized during the pandemic, and Twisted Branch shut down for months, Wagner decided to share her ceremonies through Zoom and launched the Twisted Branch Tea Club.
Participants preorder the tea of the month, which can be picked up at Twisted Branch or shipped to your address. It’s recommended that the ceremony be held in a quiet space, where you can gather around your teaware, log onto a computer, and go through the infusions along with the rest of the club.
In each session, Wagner walks through the infusions and discusses the tea’s flavor notes and origins. When she began the tastings in February, she had no idea if it would take off, but a passionate group of customers coalesced, eager to jump in. “They’re really great about being inquisitive minds,” says Wagner. “Everyone brings a really different perspective, and the questions are all different angles on the same thing.”
It’s gone so well, in fact, that Wagner isn’t sure she’ll transition off Zoom. Some participants are tuning in from other states, and she doesn’t want to leave them behind. She will also continue to host Sunday Afternoon Tea, a drop-in, in-person event at IX Art Park on the last Sunday of the month.
Back on the deck of Twisted Branch, five infusions and almost two hours have slipped by. As I leave, I see Wagner pick up the offering cup. She gently pours the tea into the soil of a nearby plant.
Avoid infusion confusion with these FATQs
What tea should I start with? “Most people have had tea before, and have an idea of what they like or don’t like,” Wagner says. Let that be your guide. “But,” she adds, “a classic Chinese green tea can be a great place to start.” Try Dragonwell or jasmine pearls in loose leaf form.
I don’t own a gai-wan or other traditional teaware. It’s not necessary. If you’re using a mug, Wagner suggests putting loose-leaf tea into a steeping basket, so that the leaves can still move around.
Boiling water, right? Not necessarily. Boiled water is only appropriate for herbal and black teas, whereas green teas don’t need to be brewed hotter than 175 degrees. Experiment with water temperature, and while you’re at it, play around with the amount of tea leaf you use. This is a good time to tap into your intuition!
Everything’s set up, I’m about to pour my first cup…what should I pay attention to? There are five components to traditional tea tasting: Observe the shape of the leaf; smell the aroma of the dry leaf, then the wet leaf; notice the color of the infusion; and finally, taste the flavor itself.
I’m hooked! Where do I find my fellow communi-tea in Charlottesville?
< The Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar: teabazaar.com
< Christina Wagner’s website: theradiantleaf.wordpress.com/about
Navigating the corn-ers: There’s no better way to kick off the spooky season than by getting disoriented in five acres of corn. Test your navigational skills (and sanity) with a walk through the Blue Ridge Mountain Maze, and when you reach the other side, fall-themed activities await, from a pumpkin patch and petting zoo to a pumpkin-slinging competition. And if that doesn’t butter your popcorn, go for an extra pump of adrenaline in the night maze.
Through 11/7, $12, 10am-10pm. Blue Ridge Mountain Maze, 165 Old Ridge Rd., Lovingston, blueridgemountainmaze.com.
Heavy meta: Do you struggle to avoid touching the art in museums? Welcome to MetamorphIX Art Fair, a hands-on experience, where you can get down and dirty. Paint murals, sculpt, and participate in performances alongside more than 40 visual artists while enjoying live music from Swan Song, Bristol of New York, and more. Your ticket also includes a trip through The Looking Glass, Virginia’s first immersive art gallery.
Friday 9/24, $10, 5pm. IX Art Park, 522 Second St. SE., ixartpark.org.
Questions remain about the firing of former Charlottesville police chief RaShall Brackney, who spent less than three years on the job. Photo: Eze Amos.
By Brielle Entzminger and Ben Hitchcock
Three weeks ago, Charlottesville City Manager Chip Boyles announced that he had decided to fire Police Chief RaShall Brackney. The city will open a national search for the next chief of police, though community members and city councilors alike feel the reasons for Brackney’s dismissal remain murky. And for a city beset with organizational turmoil—and a police department that’s proven itself resistant to reform—the path forward is anything but clear.
Questions remain
Brackney, the first Black woman to serve as Charlottesville’s police chief, was hired in the aftermath of the Unite the Right rally and relieved of duty after less than three years in charge. Shortly before her departure, the area Police Benevolent Association released an anonymous survey of 66 police officers, in which they expressed their dislike for Brackney and a lack of faith in her leadership. After that, the city made public multiple documents detailing police officers’ bad behavior, and implying that Brackney’s unpopularity was a result of her attempts to change the department’s racist and sexist culture.
Boyles has not taken media questions about Brackney’s firing, though he has penned two press releases and a Daily Progress op-ed explaining his decision.
The survey of officers “revealed substantial concerns of trust and confidence in the leadership,” wrote Boyles in the Progress last Sunday. “While great strides were made during Chief Brackney’s time with the department in areas of racial equity and addressing officer conduct, many of these changes came about at the expense of leadership mistrust among many of the officers we depend on to protect and serve our city.”
Boyles claimed that he wished he could have involved City Council more in his decision and worked with Brackney to develop an “improvement plan,” but felt that he needed to act quickly before the department became “gripped in chaos.”
“I took decisive action to prevent key leadership positions—which were in jeopardy of becoming vacant—from erupting into deeper divides within the department,” he explained. “I did not expect to be confronted with such anger and vitriol…I felt the larger community would respect my intentions.”
Mayor Nikuyah Walker, who criticized Brackney’s firing, said it was the last straw in a decision to cancel her own November re-election campaign. At Monday night’s City Council meeting, she pressed Boyles for answers about his decision-making process.
Boyles said he spoke with half a dozen police officers, met with the Police Benevolent Association twice, and consulted other law enforcement agencies including the UVA Police Department, the Albemarle County Police Department, and the Emergency Communications Center. The city manager said he couldn’t go into more detail because he felt the officers and leaders he’d consulted had a “confidentiality right” when they spoke with him about the chief.
“You have said in the past that the reforms that were taking place were necessary,” Walker told Boyles. “I think you should be able to give us a general understanding of what the complaints were, and how you made a decision that those complaints were more important than reforming racist policing practices that have devastated the Black community in this city.”
Walker reiterated that she felt her fellow city councilors were not concerned enough about the circumstances surrounding the firing. “The rest of you just sit there and don’t say anything,” Walker said. She specifically addressed Lloyd Snook, a defense attorney: “Unless you’re motivated by getting more clients for you to provide inept defense for, you should be concerned about how police treat citizens in this community.”
“I certainly want greater clarity on motivations of the decision, and what the plan is for the future direction of the department, as well as criminal justice reform efforts that the department was involved in,” Councilor Michael Payne said to Boyles. Payne felt that the timing of the firing suggested the decision was a “direct response to the PBA.”
“Regardless of intent,” Payne said, “it sends a message that reform had gone too far.”
Brackney in hindsight
Charlottesville leaders who have followed the police department closely in recent years say the city has to learn from this saga in order to move toward its stated police reform goals.
Local activists Don Gathers and Rosia Parker appreciated Brackney’s efforts to modernize the department and address longstanding racial issues. They praised her for ending the department’s relationship with the Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement Task Force and dissolving the CPD SWAT team after reports of misconduct surfaced. Brackney also was supportive of the Obama administration’s report on 21st-century policing, which emphasized police transparency and accountability, outlined specific use-of-force policies, and detailed critical steps toward police reform.
Gathers also understands the immense pressure Brackney faced.
“Coming in on the heels of the Unite the Right rally, any chief was going to have issues,” says Gathers. “I’m not sure if she ever fully embraced the community as some would have hoped she would have, but I’m certain there was at least a popular segment of the community who never embraced her.”
Albemarle County detective and Central Virginia Police Benevolent Association president Mike Wells worked to push the survey into the public eye, and has praised the decision to fire Brackney. Wells did not respond to a request for comment.
Parker had issues with the former chief’s communication—she says that Brackney lied to the community about her actions multiple times, and spoke publicly against her and other community members. She wishes that Brackney had established a memorandum of understanding with the city’s public housing communities, too, in order to keep “out of control” officers in check.
Local civil rights attorney Jeff Fogel supported Brackney’s efforts to eradicate the department’s outdated “warrior mentality.” He thinks Brackney shouldn’t have hesitated to alert the public of the changes she made.
“I’m sorry she didn’t talk more about some of the things she had done inside of the police department that got some of these officers rattled,” says Fogel. “The community would have supported her in those endeavors, instead of being critical of her in certain other endeavors.”
Job description
To successfully implement the crucial reforms many in the community have called for, the new police chief must understand Charlottesville’s complicated history and politics, and be committed to 21st-century policing, the activists say. They should also be strong-willed and have thick skin, but be able to listen to the entire community and find common ground.
A new chief should “at least have some type of knowledge of what it is that you’re going to do when you come here to Charlottesville,” says Parker, who was a key part of the creation of Charlottesville’s Police Civilian Review Board. “You’re coming in behind so many different things that have taken place within the department. And have an understanding of what is the meaning for what Black people are going through today.”
Parker emphasizes that the chief should have a “no-nonsense” attitude, and not hesitate to hold officers accountable and discipline them when they are out of line. They should also prioritize building strong, transparent relationships with the community and the Police Civilian Review Board.
Gathers wants the new chief to be a person of color. At the same time, Charlottesville must drastically improve its treatment of Black leadership, he says. Since the Unite the Right rally in 2017, two Black police chiefs and two Black city managers have either resigned or been fired, and the Black mayor has decided not to seek re-election.
Mayor Nikuyah Walker recently called off her re-election bid, saying Brackney’s dismissal was the “final straw” after months of contemplating dropping out of the City Council race. Photo: Eze Amos.
“The person who was next in command [to Brackney] was a Black man with over 30 years of service to the community,” says Gathers, referring to Captain Tito Durrette. “Instead of giving [the position] to him, we asked Mr. Mooney to un-retire and lead the charge…that truly was a slap in the face to the Black community.”
Fogel believes the city needs to do more than hire a new chief to solve its policing issues—it needs to completely overhaul the department. The new chief must recruit new officers who are committed to progressive policing, and fire everyone who is not, he says.
“We have to start sweeping up that department from the bottom up,” says Fogel. “And if Chip Boyles expects somebody to come in and clean out that department without having some upset police officers, he’s got his head buried in the sand.”
“Overall, we’re going to have a hard time replacing [Brackney]—there aren’t that many police chiefs who have a progressive view of the role of police,” he adds.
In the meantime, Fogel remains concerned about the department’s current leadership, and fears that officers will retaliate against local residents, pointing to the survey participants who expressed disdain for the community.
“They don’t trust this community. They are making demands to trust [them], yet have not shown any reason why the community should trust them,” he says.
No matter who takes charge of the department next, activist Ang Conn of Charlottesville Beyond Policing does not expect much to change.
“We’re speaking about trying to reform an institution created by white men in order to inflict harm and even death, at will, upon Black and Indigenous people to benefit white property—structural and human beings—owners,” says Conn. “These same ideals and practices have been transformed over time to fit in with social norms.”
“There’s no reforming that,” she adds.
Now hiring
At the end of Monday’s council meeting, city leadership discussed the process for hiring a new chief. Boyles said the city will first have to hire an interim chief, and that person would ideally be someone from within Virginia who could start almost immediately. Then the city will conduct a national search for a permanent candidate. The search process will require retaining a firm and consulting with community groups.
The last time Charlottesville had to retain a search firm to select a candidate for a major position was in January, when Tarron Richardson’s resignation left the city without a city manager. That hiring firm wound up calling off their contract when the firm’s boss told Snook that he had “never seen a level of dysfunction as profound as what he was seeing here.”
Both Walker and Payne said they were concerned that the applicant pool of potential chiefs wouldn’t exactly be brimming with reform-minded progressives. Boyles agreed with the councilors that it was vital for the new chief to arrive with a desire to change the department.
Walker suggested amending the city’s charter to allow City Council to have approval on high-ranking city appointments such as police chief. Currently, the hiring power lies with the city manager.
“This may be a very difficult position to fill,” Boyles said of the vacancy he created.
Students lounged in a parking-space-turned-park on the Corner last Friday. Staff photo.
By Kristin O’Donoghue
Usually, the strip of pavement outside the Bodo’s on the Corner is reserved for parked cars. Last Friday, that space was filled with bright green turf, spiky potted ferns, students in lawn chairs, and a three-foot tall Connect Four game.
The set-up was created by UVA’s Student Planners Association to celebrate Park(ing) Day, an international day of advocacy in which environmentally minded groups convert parking spaces into mini parks, or “parklets.”
Park(ing) Day is a “global, public, participatory art project,” and serves as a day on which people across the world convert parking spaces into tiny parks and places for “art, play, and activism,” write the artists behind the project on the Park(ing) Day website. The event has been observed on the third Friday of each September for the past 16 years. What started as a guerilla art project has evolved into a global movement to reclaim urban space and engage in urban transformation.
By participating in Park(ing) Day, SPA hopes to “raise people’s awareness of how much public space has been taken over by automobiles, and offer an alternate vision for what can be done with the space,” according to Alan Simpson, workshop director of the Student Planners Association at UVA.
Simpson, an urban and environmental planning student in the university’s School of Architecture, says thinking about parking is key if Virginia hopes to become more green.
“There is too much focus on making more space for cars by expanding highways and building more parking lots,” he says. “Virginia should disinvest in auto-centric development, and instead invest in public transportation options such as commuter rail, light rail, and bus rapid transit, in addition to enhanced infrastructure for pedestrians and bicyclists.”
Activists say that consequences of auto-centric development include increased pollution, the expansion of environmentally damaging urban sprawl, and more injuries and deaths for pedestrians and bicyclists.
According to the Park(ing) Day creators, the phenomenon of parklets exploded during the COVID pandemic, and the group decided to develop a manual for those seeking to create their own installations.
“All over the country, almost overnight, parking spaces and streets have been transformed into places for people,” Parking Day co-creator John Bela wrote in The Dirt.
According to Simpson, the Park(ing) Day event was a “huge success,” as the installation got a lot of attention from passersby, and the club, which has about 30 members, added a few new recruits.
The next big item on SPA’s calendar is the 15th annual 100-Mile Thanksgiving potluck for urban and environmental planning students and faculty. All the food will feature recipes using local ingredients sourced from within 100 miles of Charlottesville. In the meantime, they’ll be parked close by.
Terry McAuliffe (left) and Glenn Youngkin. Supplied photo.
McAuliffe and Youngkin take debate stage
Gubernatorial candidates Terry McAuliffe and Glenn Youngkin butted heads in the 2021 election’s first debate last week.
McAuliffe, a longtime Democrat insider who served as governor of Virginia from 2014-2018, stood by his record, while former private equity boss Youngkin styled himself as a businessman who knows how to “get things done.”
When asked about his position on abortion, Youngkin said that he would support a “pain-threshold bill” that included exceptions in the case of incest, rape, or if the mother’s life was in jeopardy. “My opponent wants to be the abortion governor, and I want to be the jobs governor,” Youngkin said.
McAuliffe warned that if Virginia instituted a ban like Texas, high-tech companies would be driven out of the state. The former governor pledged to defend women’s right to abortion, and advocated for enshrining Roe v. Wade in the Virginia constitution.
One of the moderators pressed McAuliffe on his decision to mention Donald Trump in so many of his campaign ads, and in his rhetoric throughout the campaign. “My opponent is a Trump wannabe,” McAuliffe responded.
McAuliffe repeatedly stated that Youngkin’s economic plans would “run Virginia into a ditch.” The Republican’s plans include a $10 billion education cut that McAuliffe said would force 43,000 out of work.
When asked about climate change, Youngkin said he would not have signed the Virginia Clean Economy Act—which was passed in 2020 and aims to get Virginia electric utilities to 100 percent renewable generation by 2050—while McAuliffe said “of course” he would have signed it.
Both candidates opposed ending qualified immunity for police officers.
When candidates were given the opportunity to ask each other questions, McAuliffe asked Youngkin if he believed a nurse treating an immunocompromised patient should be required to get a vaccine. Youngkin asserted that it should be the nurse’s choice, and criticized McAuliffe for his intentions to mandate vaccines.
Youngkin has made “election integrity” a major talking point in his campaign, echoing false assertions from national Republicans that the 2020 presidential election included voter fraud. When pressed by moderators, both candidates pledged to absolutely accept the results of the election, win or lose. The next debate will take place September 28.—Kristin O’Donoghue
Early voting is now open
Early in-person voting for Virginia’s November 2 election began last Friday. Charlottesville residents can submit ballots at the City Hall Annex downtown, and Albemarle County residents can vote at the County Office Building on Fifth Street. Everyone in the state will have an opportunity to vote for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general, as well as their House of Delegates member. City residents will have to choose two of three City Council candidates, as well. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for a comprehensive election preview from C-VILLE.
“It is a cruel irony that schools have only just returned to the classroom for full-time instruction since the start of the pandemic and we are already grappling with another act of senseless gun violence.”
—Virginia Congressman Bobby Scott, after a Newport News school shooting left two students injured
In brief
Map mixers
Virginia’s new bipartisan redistricting commission continues its attempt to create a map of state House and Senate districts that both parties consider fair. The commission is comprised of eight Democrats and eight Republicans, and each cohort hired a consultant to draw up statewide map drafts. Those drafts were submitted this week, and now the commission is tasked with mashing the maps together to create something passable for everyone. The group is supposed to finalize a new map by October 10.
Bus bidding war
Photo: Skyclad Aerial.
Thanks in part to the pandemic, local school districts are facing a dire shortage of bus drivers. In an effort to address the problem, this summer Charlottesville City Schools gave its drivers a $2,400 bonus. That sparked a bit of local free market competition—Albemarle County has announced that it’s now offering a $2,500 bonus for new drivers. The Daily Progress reports that Charlottesville is 20 drivers short and Albemarle currently has 18 transportation jobs open.
More shots for all
This week, Pfizer announced that its coronavirus vaccine is safe and effective for children ages 5 to 11, based on robust trial results. The company plans to apply for emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration by the end of the month, according to the Associated Press. Also this week, the FDA is expected to approve Pfizer booster shots for high-risk adults. The Blue Ridge Health District continues to hold vaccination events regularly, including walk-in vaccination opportunities five times per week.
