Month: November 2021

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News

Payback time

Plaintiffs' attorneys Karen Dunn and Roberta Kaplan speak in front of the courthouse after the verdict. Photo: Eze Amos

By Courteney Stuart and Lisa Provence

After nearly three days of deliberations, the jury in Sines v. Kessler found that the white nationalists accused of conspiring to commit racially motivated violence at the Unite the Right rally are liable for $26 million in damages. 

Despite the high-dollar award, the plaintiffs were deprived of complete victory after the jury deadlocked on the first two claims in the suit, both of which alleged conspiracy to commit racially motivated violence in violation of a federal law known as the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. The jury did find the defendants liable for conspiracy under Virginia law.

Following the verdict, attorneys for both sides claimed victory.

“Our goal was to come here and to prove a conspiracy to do racially motivated violence, as to each and every defendant, and to get damages awarded, compensatory and punitive, and we did all those things,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Karen Dunn, who delivered the bulk of the plaintiffs’ closing argument  November 19. 

Dunn emphasized that the jury ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor on the third claim in the case, conspiracy to commit racially motivated violence in violation of Virginia state law. For that claim, the jury awarded $11 million in punitive damages. Each of the 12 individual defendants are on the hook for $500,000, and each of the five white nationalist groups named in the suit owe $1 million.

“Those numbers were eye opening,” plaintiffs’ lead counsel Roberta Kaplan added. 

James Fields, who drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters on August 12, 2017, was found liable for $12.5 million in punitive damages—$6 million each for claims of assault and battery and for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The nine plaintiffs were awarded a total of $1.5 million in compensatory damages. Those ranged from over $622,000 to Natalie Romero, who was injured in James Fields’ car attack on August 12, to zero for the Reverend Seth Wispelwey. 

Attorney Josh Smith, the self-described “pro-white advocate” representing defendants Matthew Parrott, Matthew Heimbach, and the Traditionalist Worker Party, spun the partial verdict as a loss for the plaintiffs.

“I think they expected to waltz through and get everything they wanted and more, and that they were going to humiliate their political opponents. I think it actually worked quite the opposite,” said Smith, who was interrupted at times by protesters calling him out as a Holocaust denier and demanding he leave Charlottesville. 

“I think that at the end, they lost to a few pro se defendants, some solo practitioners,” said Smith. “I think they underestimated their opponents big time.” 

Kaplan denied any loss.

“They weren’t able to reach a verdict on the claim before the Thanksgiving holiday,” she said of the jury, promising that the plaintiffs plan to pursue a verdict on the two deadlocked claims.

Attorney James Kolenich, who represented defendants Jason Kessler, Nathan Damigo, and Identity Evropa, showed less bluster in his post-trial statements than Smith.

“We’re disappointed in the verdict,” Kolenich said. “We think that some of our arguments weren’t considered entirely…however the jury did put in hard work. We respect the verdict and there’s hard work to be done.”

The defendants had argued that their speech was protected by the First Amendment and that they had acted in self-defense. 

Kolenich and Smith both said they will file motions to reduce the damages awarded and suggested plaintiffs will have a hard time collecting any money at all.

“The defendants in the case are destitute,” said Smith. That might mean the plaintiffs won’t see any  award money.

The trial forced traumatized victims to relive their suffering and endure direct questioning from pro se defendants Christopher Cantwell and Richard Spencer. 

Plaintiff Natalie Romero, a UVA student in 2017, was at both the Thomas Jefferson statue after the tiki-torch march through UVA Grounds and on Fourth Street when Fields drove through a crowd of counterprotesters, fracturing her skull and scarring her face. 

Her friend and fellow UVA student Devin Willis thought he was going to be burned alive at the Jefferson statue on August 11.

“I hear it in my nightmares,” Romero said during the trial. “I literally hear the same cadence to the ‘You will not replace us.’ That one was just so terrifying.” 

Romero and Willis were each awarded $250,000 in compensatory damages for racial intimidation at the August 11 tiki torch march. Romero was also awarded over $370,000 for assault and battery and emotional distress.

Plaintiffs Marcus Martin and then-fiancée Marissa Blair joined a celebratory group of counterprotesters with Blair’s friend Heather Heyer. Martin was struck by Fields’ car, and testified that the attack left lasting physical injuries—and cost him his marriage to Blair.

Martin was awarded nearly $260,000 in compensatory damages, and Blair was awarded $102,000. Fields also struck Baker and Chelsea Alvarado, leaving them with ongoing physical and psychological scars. 

Plaintiffs Elizabeth Sines and April Muniz were each awarded $50,000 for intentional infliction of emotional distress; Muniz was awarded an additional $108,000 in compensatory damages for assault and battery.

Twelve individual defendants were found liable for a minimum of $500,000 in punitive damages: organizer Kessler, former alt-right leader Spencer, Cantwell, Heimbach, and Parrott, League of the South leaders Michael Hill and Michael Tubbs, former National Socialist Movement leader Jeff Schoep, Identity Evropa’s Damigo and Elliott Kline, Daily Stormer’s Robert “Azzmador” Ray, and car attack driver Fields. Five organizations were found liable for $1 million each: Vanguard America, Traditionalist Worker Party, LOS, Identity Evropa, and National Socialist Party.

Fields was represented by an attorney for his insurance company. He’s serving multiple life sentences for driving his Dodge Challenger into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing  Heyer and injuring dozens. Four of the plaintiffs in Sines v. Kessler were struck by his car.

The lengthy trial pitted a prestigious pro bono legal team led by Dunn and Kaplan, who represented Edie Windsor in the landmark case that struck down laws against gay marriage, against a patchwork of lower-profile attorneys and pro se defendants. Nonprofit Integrity First for America supported the plaintiffs’ precedent-setting suit, and has said it wants to bankrupt the defendants and show that hate doesn’t pay.

Defendants Spencer and Cantwell represented themselves in court. Spencer called the suit “financially crippling.” Cantwell’s former attorneys asked to be released from representing him after he threatened Kaplan. Cantwell is currently serving 41 months in prison for unrelated threats and extortion charges, and he pleaded guilty to two counts of assault at the Thomas Jefferson statue after the tiki-torch march through UVA.

The “Radical Agenda” podcaster made his pro se representation into a performance that seemed more geared to his followers than to convincing the jury he didn’t conspire to commit violent acts. He used the n-word at least three times in front of the jury, and clips of his show were laden with racist, profanity-laden calls to violence.

In a Vice documentary of the Unite the Right weekend, where Cantwell earned the “crying Nazi” moniker after he learned an arrest warrant had been issued, he showed off the arsenal of firearms he brought to Charlottesville.

In stark contrast to his previous loud behavior and remarks during proceedings, Cantwell remained quiet as he was escorted out of the courtroom in handcuffs to go back to jail.

The complaint was filed in October 2017, and originally was scheduled for trial in 2019, but has been delayed because some defendants flouted orders to produce evidence. A judge has granted default judgments against seven defendants, including Andrew Anglin, the neo-Nazi founder of The Daily Stormer. An arrest warrant has been issued for his colleague Ray, who has blown off every court order and didn’t show up for the trial.

Also earning default judgments are the Nationalist Front; the East Coast Knights of the Ku Klux Klan; the Fraternal Order of the Alt-Knights; the military arm of the Proud Boys; FOAK leader Augustus Invictus; and the Loyal White Knights of the KKK, who protested in Charlottesville in July 2017.

Before dismissing the jury from the trial that lasted over four weeks, federal Judge Norman Moon thanked them for their service and said, “There aren’t any jurors in the Western District of Virginia who have endured a case as long as you have.”

Categories
Arts Culture

Pick: It’s a Wonderful Life

Four County Players return to the stage this holiday season. Supplied photo

Holiday FM: Four County Players return to performing in front of an audience for the first time in two years with It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play. This twist on the classic, adapted by Joe Landry, reimagines the family favorite as a live 1940s radio broadcast. An ensemble cast tells the tale of struggling George Bailey, who meets his guardian angel Clarence while contemplating suicide. Live Foley artists enhance the sounds of the play with vivid realism, creating an immersive experience.

Through 12/19. $10-18, times vary. Barboursville Community Center, 5256 Governor Barbour St., Barboursville. fourcp.org

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Culture Food & Drink

A toast to the front line

Blenheim Vineyards continues to help frontline workers with its On the Line wine. Photo: Flicker user eflon

Blenheim Vineyards is encouraging everyone to raise a glass to our first responders…literally.

In a collaboration between the vineyard and renowned chef José Andrés’ international nonprofit World Central Kitchen, Blenheim’s On the Line wines are helping raise money to provide healthy meals for those still fighting the pandemic.

Dave Matthews, musician, philanthropist, and owner of Blenheim Vineyards, connected with Andrés last year, when World Central Kitchen was helping gear up a Charlottesville chapter of Frontline Foods. The effort was designed to support local restaurants and food producers by purchasing meals to distribute to health care workers and other first responders in the area.

Blenheim had the wines, WCK had the boots on the ground, and Matthews had the idea: produce and market wines aimed at raising money and support for those on the COVID front lines.

Blenheim’s winemakers created a red blend and a white blend; Matthews designed the label; and the wine was sold either direct to consumers at the vineyard or on the Blenheim website, with a portion of the proceeds funding World Central Kitchen and Frontline Foods. Blenheim was able to re-open its tasting room in July 2020, which helped spur sales.

“Response has been great,” according to Sales, Marketing, and Events Manager Tracey Love. She says the 2019 vintage—347 cases of white and 329 cases of red—sold out completely; for the 2020 vintage, the vineyard has bottled more than 500 cases of each blend. With additional distribution through retailers and restaurants in Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and New York City, so far On the Line has raised close to $75,000, helping World Central Kitchen provide meals for first responders and others in need. (Frontline Foods was merged into World Central Kitchen in August 2020.)

The On the Line blends were created specifically for this fundraising effort, and designed to be “a refreshing, easy-drinking wine,” says Love—and affordable, at $20 a bottle. The red is 63 percent cabernet franc blended with merlot, cabernet sauvignon, and petit verdot (“with notes of crushed raspberry, tobacco, and baked plum,” according to the website). The white—64 percent sauvignon blanc with rkatsiteli, chardonnay, petit manseng, and viognier—is fermented and aged in stainless steel.

Buy a bottle (or a quartet, or a case) and toast the masked health care worker on the label. Heck, you can even get the T-shirt—it’s for a good cause.

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Arts Culture

Pick: Winter Wander

Winter Wander at Boar's Head Resort. Supplied photo

Starry night: Festive cheer fills the air and twinkling lights blanket the landscape at Winter Wander, an illuminated stroll around Heritage Lake. Walk through a 35-foot holiday tree to begin your journey, and be transported to a world of wonder at Big Boar Ridge, where a massive mama boar is looking for her babies, Sun Kissed Meadow, Firefly Grove, and more. A market awaits you after the walk with merry gifts, warm drinks, and a variety of food. The nearly half-mile trail has an “easy” rating and takes approximately 30-45 minutes to walk.

Through 1/30. $10-20, times vary. Boar’s Head Resort, 200 Ednam Dr. boarsheadresort.com/wander

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News

Filling the spaces

Photo: Eze Amos.

Charlottesville finally removed its statues of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson in July. Since then, the spaces where the racist monuments once stood have been empty, as the city decides what should go there.

During a virtual forum hosted by the UVA Democracy Initiative’s Memory Project last week, Black activists Bree Newsome Bass and Emil Little shared their experiences confronting Confederate monuments, and discussed how public spaces like the ones in Charlottesville should be treated after the Confederate iconography is removed. Atlantic columnist and poet Clint Smith moderated the event.

After 21-year-old white supremacist Dylann Roof shot and killed nine Black people at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, the state lowered its American flag atop the capitol to half-staff to honor the victims—but kept its Confederate flag flying high. Due to state law, the rebel flag could only be lowered after a two-thirds approval by the state legislature.

Instead of waiting for legislators to “essentially decide that our lives matter,” Newsome Bass felt she needed to take action and show defiance against white terrorism. Ten days after the horrific shooting, she scaled the flagpole outside the state capitol, and tore down the Confederate flag. She was immediately arrested.

“So much of the national focus of discussion was on the display of the flag, not the circumstances that led to a white man in his 20s being so errantly racist that he decides to go into a church and murder people,” said Newsome Bass. “It highlighted the disregard for our lives as Black people.”

The next month, South Carolina finally removed the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds—something Black activists had called for for decades.

Following the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017, students at the University of North Carolina held their own protest against the university’s Silent Sam statue, which commemorated a Confederate soldier. For months, white supremacists had been visiting the racist monument, causing many Black students to feel unsafe, explained Little.

“I’m thinking the school’s going to have our back on this,” said Little, who was a doctoral student at the university. “But I’m watching police shove students, laughing at them, mocking them, hitting them.”

Over the next year, Little participated in sit-ins in front of Silent Sam, and passed out materials about the racist history of the monument. Fed up with the university’s refusal to take action, Little smeared red ink—mixed with their own blood—onto the statue during a protest in 2018. Little was arrested and later found guilty of vandalism.

“If you’re so proud to have this armed solider still standing for this cause, why not depict what he stood for, which was the murder of Black people and their enslavement,” said Little.

Little was inspired to smear real blood on the statue by a protest they witnessed while studying in China, during which migrant workers threw blood on a police station.

“The next day, even though there was no blood, people were like, ‘This has been tainted.’ They wanted to avoid it,” said Little. “I knew that doing [my protest] during the day meant that people would see the red ink and blood…and we believe that when something is bloodied it’s tainted.”

Four months later, hundreds of student protesters toppled Silent Sam. A tree has since been planted at the former site of the statue.

When recontextualizing the spaces where Confederate monuments once stood, Newsome Bass said it’s important to go “a step beyond” replacing them with a statue of a Black historical figure, like Harriet Tubman.

“It has often been about idealizing particular figures, which goes to the way that society itself is organized around capitalistic ideas of individualism, white patriarchy, the idea that we have supreme white men that are elevated above the rest of humanity,” said Newsome Bass.

“How do we transform public space in a way that honors and celebrates the ideals of humanity or the inclusion of everyone?” she asked.

Little wishes the Silent Sam monument had been left, toppled, on the ground. “UNC getting rid of it was convenient,” Little said. “Not only did the monument disappear, but the history of contention around the monument disappeared when it was taken away.”

For people like the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Confederate spaces are sacred because of their family lineage and belief in the Lost Cause myth, Smith pointed out. “How are you thinking about what it means to…make clear that these things that are rendered holy are manifestations of harm?”

Newsome Bass said she classifies white supremacy as a religion, upheld by centuries of colonization and state-sponsored violence.

“One of the main ways we desacralize something is to name it and classify it as a thing,” she said. “When we are talking about taking down a monument, it’s never just about the monument—it’s about the deconstruction of this ideology of whiteness.”

Both activists encouraged the audience to educate themselves on white supremacy, and support activists and organizers fighting for Black liberation.

“You cannot enter into this kind of a thing without taking a side,” Little said. “To be an observer in a struggle for life and death for Black people to me means you’re already against me.”

Categories
Arts Culture

Sights and sounds

Photographer Rich Tarbell will sign copies of his latest book, Regarding Charlottesville Music II, at Champion Brewing Company the afternoon of November 26, and at Durty Nelly’s that night. New Dominion Bookshop will have it on shelves. Photo: Sanjay Suchak

Charlottesville music scene photographer Rich Tarbell’s new book of portraiture is a no-filters cross section of local singers, songwriters, and industry supporters, and it’s a should-have for any Charlottesville audiophile.

But let’s get to the part you’ve heard before: The project, like so many other artistic endeavors, was inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic.

We all know the pandemic devastated the arts in general and live music specifically. Fortunately, all the downtime and new perspectives among creatives also ignited fresh sounds. It was a silver lining for music lovers who knew where to look. And if anyone knows where to look, it’s Tarbell.

Set for a November 26 release, Regarding Charlottesville Music II was inspired by both Tarbell’s own pandemic experience and conversations he had with musicians about theirs. Coincidentally, he happened upon a 50-year-old Hasselblad 500C camera early last year. He used it to take outdoor pics of Chamomile & Whiskey’s Koda Kerl and Marie Borgman on March 30, 2020. A few days later, he made portraits of Eli Cook. He thought he might be onto something.

“The photographs had an unintentionally morose feel to them that seemed to anticipate the uncertain times we were entering,” Tarbell says.

Inspired, Tarbell bought darkroom equipment and taught himself to develop photos in his basement. By the end of September, he’d captured and developed hundreds of analog images, and 87 of them appear in Regarding Charlottesville Music II.

So to review the timeline: Tarbell bought an unfamiliar camera in early 2020, started taking pics with it that March, learned to develop film in the next few months, and compiled a book of the images in about a year and a half. It was a crash course, and Tarbell is the first to admit every one of the images isn’t technically perfect. But the process was in keeping with the photog’s backstage-access M.O. as a music industry scenester.

“I’m not saying I’m the world’s greatest photographer,” Tarbell says. “It’s about luck, timing, and access—and friendship and trust. Those are the five things. Once you are in, you are in.”

Tarbell moved to Charlottesville in 1987 to attend UVA. He was an aspiring musician but knew he had limitations. He aged, settled down, and essentially gave it up. He was still around musicians, though, and picked up “a crappy old digital camera.” He taught himself to point and shoot, then improved. According to Tarbell, if you can take pictures in concert conditions, you can do it anywhere—“it’s like learning to drive stick in the mountains,” he says.

Still, it was never technical excellence that gave Tarbell’s work weight. It was being backstage and around talent, being to Charlottesville musicians what Jay Blakesberg was to the Grateful Dead, Ricky Powell was to the Beastie Boys, or Danny Clinch was to the Boss.

For Tarbell, befriending local music talent led to access to regional talent and eventually national talent. In the case of the Dave Matthews Band, Tarbell’s access grew from local to national on its own.

That means Tarbell’s new book features exclusive images of Matthews, Tim Reynolds, and Carter Beauford alongside local standouts like Terri Allard, Harli Saxon, and Charlie Pastorfield. Then there are the behind-the-scenes folks: Danny Shea, Terry Martin, Kirby Hutto, and Patrick Jordan, among others.

Interspersed throughout Regarding Charlottesville Music II are concert fliers, some of which Tarbell helped produce, and essays from select musicians. Tarbell says he began talking to people about the pandemic thinking he would approach the new book’s narrative much like he did in Regarding Charlottesville Music. In that work, he interviewed local musicians over eight months and crafted a conversational oral history. This time around, Tarbell found the interviews repetitive.

“This book is four years after the first, so there’s not a whole lot to revisit,” Tarbell says. “And I realized when talking about the pandemic, everybody’s experience was about the same. So I decided not to bother everyone with that. I didn’t want it to be super depressing.”

The resulting essays feature a few stories about the pandemic’s devastation, but also plenty about its inspirations, thoughts from those pushing through like nothing changed, hope for the future, and touching tales from C’ville’s musical past. The Beetnix’s Damani Harrison tells the story of how Johnny Gilmore and Wonderband kept him in Charlottesville. “They played Thursdays and I went every Thursday for like two months by myself,” Harrison writes in Regarding Charlottesville Music II. “I thought, if this is here, I’ll stay. Rest in peace Johnny.”

Tarbell says he never planned to do a follow up to Regarding Charlottesville Music, and he doesn’t plan to do another book in the future. But the pandemic created the right conditions to change his plans.

“The first book was musicians in their comfortable space, their studio, their basement, what have you,” Tarbell says. “For this one, I started with friends, the few people I would see outdoors. I started pursuing it when the seriously fearful part of the pandemic was over and we could at least not be terrified to go out.”

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News

At last

PC: File photo

Hattie Billmeier was a little nervous, but excited. She rolled up her sleeve, and in a “split second” it was all over—she got her first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

“It felt good,” says Billmeier, a second grader at Venable Elementary School. “It just gives you a little pinch.”

Afterwards, Billmeier and her cousins, who also got the shot, celebrated the long-awaited occasion with free snow cones at their pediatrician’s office.

“We were proud of her. I’ve never seen a kid so excited to get stuck with a needle before,” says Hattie’s father Zak Billmeier. “It’s been two years of pretty constant fear around this…so she felt relieved that finally she could have the shot now.”

Since November 6, nearly 5,600 kids ages 5 through 11 in the Blue Ridge Health District have gotten their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, which was approved for pediatric use by the CDC on November 2.

The vaccine offers the same protection as the one for older children and adults, but contains one-third the dosage, says Jen Fleisher, BRHD COVID communications lead. Because of the lower dosage, kids typically experience mild side effects, like fatigue, joint pain, and arm soreness. (Billmeier says she experienced no side effects.)

“What we’ve mainly heard from parents is that ‘my kid was just really tired,’” says Fleisher.

Hattie Billmeier PC: courtesy of subject

Over 100 vaccine appointments are now available every day for children at the BRHD community vaccination center at Seminole Square, located inside the former Big Lots next to Marshalls.

The health district is also hosting weekly drive-through clinics at city elementary schools. Many local pediatricians are offering vaccines, too.

Though young children are much less likely to become severely ill and die of COVID-19, the vaccine can prevent them from transmitting the virus to people who are high-risk, especially those who live with them.

“If your whole family is fully vaccinated, you’re reducing that risk of hospitalization for the entire household,” explains Fleisher. “You’re also reducing that risk of complications for teachers, and increasing your chance of having a normal school day.”

“There are kids who are very high-risk and they want to see their friends,” she adds. “I personally know families who have been quarantined for two years.”

Fleisher encourages parents who are hesitant to get their child vaccinated to voice their concerns. At the health district’s vaccine sites, local families and medical professionals who participated in the clinical trials are available to answer any questions parents—or kids—may have.

“The main concern I hear is [that] it’s so new,” says Fleisher. However, “everything is happening at a rapid pace because for the first time there are all these situations that make it more viable to have clinical trials…It’s not because they are rushing it.”

For his family, it’s been nice to finally be “a part of the solution,” says Zak Billmeier.

“It’s about keeping everybody safe, all of us together as a community,” he says. “It’s the best thing we can do for each other.”

Categories
News

In brief: Newspapers threatened, anti-vaxers out

aerial photo of UVA hospital
UVA Hospital PC: Skyclad Aerial

Vultures circle Virginia newspapers

A feature story in The Atlantic last month dubbed Alden Global Capital “the hedge fund killing newspapers.” On Monday, Alden announced that it’s hoping to acquire Lee Enterprises, which owns 13 newspapers in Virginia, including The Daily Progress, Richmond Times-Dispatch, and The Roanoke Times.

The acquisition should set off alarm bells for anyone who cares about local news. In a letter announcing the offer, Alden wrote, “our interest in Lee is a reaffirmation of our substantial commitment to the newspaper industry and our desire to support newspapers over the long term.” The firm’s actions over the last decade suggest the exact opposite is true.

Alden owns more than 200 newspapers. After acquiring a paper, it follows a standard model: “Gut the staff, sell the real estate, jack up subscription prices, and wring out as much cash as possible,” McKay Coppins writes in The Atlantic. That plan turns a quick profit for Alden, and has turned venerable institutions like The Baltimore Sun and Chicago Tribune into hollow husks of their former selves.

In recent years, Progress staff have unionized, in an effort to maintain some autonomy as the newspaper industry further consolidates. “Lee Enterprises is pretty terrible,” tweeted Nolan Stout, a former Progress reporter, “but this would be even worse.”

Atlanta’s Dewberry rots, too

The pile of steel on our Downtown Mall isn’t the only half-finished building owned by John Dewberry that’s rotting on prime real estate. In Atlanta’s desirable Midtown neighborhood, a 21-story office tower called the Campanile has been falling into disrepair for the last two years. “The neglect is starting to show,” reported The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week. “Weeds grow through a chain link fence. Sheets of protective plastic wrap are peeling off the building’s exterior.” Sound familiar?

PC: Ashley Twiggs

Dewberry says construction on the project will resume by Christmas. But Atlantans are skeptical: Dewberry has developed a reputation there for leaving desirable properties unfinished, earning himself a 2017 Bloomberg profile dubbing him “Atlanta’s Emperor of Empty Lots.” Meanwhile, here in Charlottesville, the peeling advertisement on the front of the downtown building still says “Coming spring 2009.”

In brief

Anti-vaxers out at hospital

UVA Health lost 121 of its more than 7,000 employees because they refused to get a COVID-19 vaccine, which was required by November 1. Thirty-nine employees resigned, 64 were fired, and 18 were suspended without pay for refusing to comply. In total, the system has lost 38 nurses and two doctors, reports Charlottesville Tomorrow. UVA Health’s spokesperson says the system anticipated some degree of noncompliance and has been able to manage the losses.

Dominion pays up

The State Corporation Commission and Dominion Energy have agreed on a settlement in which Dominion will dish out $330 million in refunds to customers. The average Dominion Energy user is in line for a $67 refund (in the form of bill credits), and will see their monthly bill decline by 90 cents in the coming years. The settlement averts what could have been a contentious case between the corporation and the state attorney general’s office, which alleged that the energy company had been taking in excess profits over the last three years.

Students protest Rittenhouse verdict

About 200 UVA students and members of the Charlottesville community chanted “no justice, no peace, no racist police” as they marched from the UPD station on the Corner to Carr’s Hill on Saturday afternoon, in protest of the verdict in Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial. Rittenhouse was acquitted Friday on all five counts brought against him after he shot and killed two men and injured a third during a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020. Saturday’s demonstration was organized by student groups such as the Black Student Alliance and the Young Democratic Socialists of America at UVA, and included a series of speakers.

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News

Bug off

The spotted lanternfly. Photo: Lawrence Barringer, Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, bugwood.org

The spotted lanternfly is pretty and festive-looking, with its polka-dot outer wings, red-and-black hind wings, and yellow-and-black-striped abdomen. But appearances, as they say, can be deceptive.

“This is the next bug we are all going to learn to hate,” says Rod Walker, founder and president of Blue Ridge PRISM, a nonprofit set up to help counter the flood of invasive plants and animals threatening central Virginia’s ecosystem. And the spotted lanternfly is the latest threat.

This nefarious bug was discovered in eastern Pennsylvania in 2014. Its eggs had likely hitched a ride in a pallet of rocks imported from Asia, according to Carrie Swanson, unit coordinator/extension agent with the Albemarle/Charlottesville office of the Virginia Cooperative Extension. The pest spread rapidly around Pennsylvania and into nearby Delaware and New York, wreaking havoc on forests, orchards, vineyards, and gardens. A migrant population found in Frederick County, Virginia, in January 2018 spurred Virginia’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Department of Transportation, and Cooperative Extension mobilized to set up quarantines and eradication efforts.

This past July, an alert hiker reported a lanternfly sighting along the Rivanna Trail, says Kim Biasiolli, natural resources manager for Albemarle County. VDACS found a population of between 250 and 500 insects; it treated the area in coordination with Albemarle County Parks & Recreation, and has been monitoring to make sure the infestation was cleaned up. Another sighting was reported in the Belmont area of Charlottes­ville, but no population was found. In the meantime, the Virginia Cooperative Extension and the Albemarle County Natural Heritage Committee have launched educational and training efforts—distributing brochures, putting out news alerts and posting on social media—to alert residents and encourage them to report any lanternfly sightings.

One part of the threat is that the spotted lanternfly is not picky—it will happily munch on any of more than 70 common plant species, damaging timber and fruit trees, and ornamental shrubs, alike. The lanternfly also likes grapevines and hops, making its appearance especially worrisome for the many wineries and breweries in the area.

The second punch is what it leaves behind: as it eats, it excretes a sticky substance biologists call “honeydew.” This substance attracts other pests, and fosters explosive growth of a common blight called black sooty mold (which looks exactly like its name). Besides being unsightly, black sooty mold weakens and can kill plants by coating the undersides of their leaves and interfering with their ability to photosynthesize.

While beautiful, the spotted lanternfly is an ugly threat to more than 70 local plant species, as well as ornamental shrubs, grapevines, and hops. If you see one, kill it, and then report the sighting to the Virginia Cooperative Extension.
Photo: Richard Gardner, bugwood.org

One of the spotted lanternfly’s favorite plants is the ailanthus (often called tree of heaven), another Asian species that was deliberately imported into this country in the 18th century and is highly invasive. Could the new arrival rid us of this long-established pest tree? “Unfortunately, spotted lanternflies don’t do enough damage to [kill off] ailanthus, which are really hardy and tough,” says Swanson.

Researchers are looking into biological controls, such as predators from the spotted lanternfly’s native habitat, which might work here without causing additional ecological problems. Or it may be that native species will acquire a taste for this new bug. In the meantime, says Swanson, “we can’t eradicate the spotted lanternfly, so we are trying to delay its spread.”

One of the most effective proactive measures: getting rid of ailanthus trees. Research in Pennsylvania showed that controlling ailanthus reduced spotted lanternfly egg masses by as much as 75 percent, according to Biasiolli. But killing ailanthus is no easy task—simply cutting down the tree will likely result in a wealth of sprouts off its root system. Unless the plant is small enough to by pulled up with roots intact, landowners have to use herbicides in a controlled method called “hack and squirt,” in which chemicals are squirted directly into gashes in the tree trunk.

If you want to help in this effort—either by getting trained to monitor for spotted lanternflies, or by identifying and eliminating ailanthus—you can contact the Virginia Cooperative Extension. People who own property near train tracks, interstate highways, or lots where large vehicles are stored should be especially alert, says Swanson; spotted lanternflies have been spreading by catching a ride on these modes of transportation—and disturbed soils, like those along a rail line, are places where ailanthus are likely to flourish.

As for monitoring efforts, spotting the lanternfly this time of year is a challenge. Lanternflies lay eggs in the fall and winter and then die off, leaving egg masses behind. The eggs are difficult to see on trees or rocks. But the cooperative extension has been training volunteers to set traps around stands of ailanthus, and monitor the sites as the lanternflies hatch. Nymphs will start appearing in late April to May, and go through several stages before the adult insects appear in July and August. The adults will lay eggs throughout the fall until cold weather begins.

If you do catch sight of the bug, kill it, and then tell the local cooperative extension about the sighting online or by calling (434) 872-4580. The experts say we have to be diligent, and a bit ruthless, as we practice the spotted lanternfly mantra: “See it, kill it, report it.”

Categories
Arts Culture

Pick: Mark Nizer

Mark Nizer. Supplied photo


Lasers, comedy, action!: Entertaining family the day after Thanksgiving can be hard, so let Mark Nizer do it for you at a live show like no other. The immersive one-man performance is a sensory extravaganza of world-class juggling (anything from bowling balls to a burning propane tank), lasers, movement, and music. Nizer delivers original comedy while expertly drawing audience members into a new dimension with the help of unique 4D glasses. Make sure to bring your smartphone so you can get in on the action when Nizer takes over audience members’ phones and uses them in his light show.

Friday 11/26. $19.75-29.75, 7pm. The Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. theparamount.net