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Arts Culture

Pick: Accidental Death of an Anarchist

A farce for the force: Italian playwright Dario Fo’s political satire Accidental Death of an Anarchist pokes fun at the Italian police force by imagining a fictionalized aftermath of 1969’s real-life Piazza Fontana bombing. Giuseppe Pinelli, an anarchist wrongly accused of the bombing, plummets to his death from a fourth-floor window while in a police interrogation room. In the acclaimed play, the Maniac works his way through the police station, confuddling officers with absurd disguises and witticisms until the truth is revealed. Susan E. Evans helms the production—her first directing gig as Live Arts’ artistic director.

Through 6/5. $20-25, times vary. Live Arts, 123 E. Water St. livearts.org

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News

Farewell

In the nearly 60 years that he has lived in Charlottesville, University of Virginia history professor George Gilliam has had a long career spanning multiple areas of public service and politics. Now, he is retiring after giving his final lecture last week. 

From 1972 to 1976, Gilliam served on the Charlottesville City Council, helping to pass monumental legislation. During his tenure, councilors approved the creation of the Downtown Mall and McGuffey Art Center, as well as the city’s public and school bus systems. In 1974, Gilliam also ran as the Democratic candidate for Virginia’s 7th Congressional District. 

After being active in local politics and working as a lawyer in Charlottesville for 25 years, Gilliam—who received his law degree from UVA in 1968, after graduating from Columbia University in 1965—decided in his late 50s that he wanted to return to academia, heading back to UVA to earn his master’s degree in history. He taught classes at Piedmont Virginia Community College and Washington and Lee University, before joining UVA’s history department in 1999. 

The longtime professor often tells his students how much more rewarding teaching is than practicing law. 

“The feeling that I developed of lawyering was that every single day when I would get up, I knew I was going to be angry,” says Gilliam. “I was gonna be fighting over something with somebody. I just finally got to the point where I said, ‘I just don’t find this any fun.’ And that’s when I decided to start exploring seriously what I would need to do in order to go back to school.”

While earning his Ph.D. in history from UVA, Gilliam ran the Miller Center Forum—a public affairs program inviting world-class speakers for a one-hour conversation—and worked to get the program on PBS stations, hosting 400 guests over eight years. He’s also served as the center’s senior fellow for national engagement, and assistant director for public programs.

At the age of 71, Gilliam finally received his Ph.D. in 2013—he says that it is one of the most difficult things he has ever done, but that he loved every minute of it. 

Gilliam’s own family history coincided with the major historical events he teaches in class. He was born around the time the U.S. entered into World War II. All of his grandparents were born in the 1880s in Petersburg, Virginia, while his great-grandparents fought in the Civil War. Although Gilliam stands on a different side of the Civil War from them, he grew up with a respect for history, and wanted to tell the truth about what happened in the past. 

“One of the things that I find the most interesting and challenging about history is that so much of what I learned growing up is wrong,” says Gilliam. ”Textbooks were wrong. The people who were teaching, they weren’t particularly well prepared [so] I’ve tried to spend time sort of untangling things.” 

After retiring, Gilliam will continue working on a project examining Virginia’s response to massive resistance, when white schools across the state, including Venable Elementary and Lane High schools, closed to prevent desegregation in the 1950s. He is in the process of interviewing around 60 people who were students during that turbulent era.

He also plans to travel around the country for a few years with his wife, but has no plans to move away from Charlottesville. He says he loves the city mainly for the students, some of whom he has remained in touch with over the past two decades. He also enjoys watching UVA basketball and football games—he taught all but one member of the school’s basketball team that won the national championship in 2019. 

“Charlottesville is just a wonderful place to live. The longer we’re here, the more we like it,” says Gilliam. “It would take something very, very powerful to get us to leave Charlottesville.”

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Arts Culture

Heads will roll

Set in ninth- and 10th-century Europe, Robert Eggers’ brutal revenge saga The Northman is a lavish, sweeping film, but its unrelenting gore will undoubtedly repel many viewers. 

Loosely based on the Scandinavian legend that inspired Hamlet, with elements of Macbeth thrown in, The Northman’s antihero, young prince Amleth, vows revenge after seeing his father, King Aurvandil War-Raven (Ethan Hawke), slaughtered by his uncle, Fjolnir (Claes Bang), who then steals his kingdom and marries his mother, Gudrun (Nicole Kidman). After being raised into full warriorhood by Vikings, the adult Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård) tracks his uncle down and sets his vengeance in motion, aided by one of Fjolnir’s slaves, Olga (Anya Taylor-Joy).

The Northman doesn’t sugarcoat its pagan characters’ bleak, filthy, violent lives. These are bona fide barbarians who thrive on casual slaughter and enslaving conquered peoples—their facility with mayhem means the difference between freedom, death, or lowly servitude. Beheadings, disembowelment, and general bloodletting abound—a Viking raid on a Slavic village is particularly hideous, and makes for troubling viewing, especially in light of recent world events.

For his tale of bestial savagery and revenge, Eggers drew heavily on John Milius’ Conan the Barbarian—lifting the opening narration, the overall plot structure, key scenes, ad infinitum—but The Northman lacks a critical ingredient that made Conan a more successful film in every sense: Milius’ wicked sense of humor.

The Northman’s humorlessness is arguably its weakest point, while no doubt an artistic choice by Eggers, and the film takes itself too seriously. Eggers also draws on Roman Polanski’s bleak Macbeth in many ways, from its pivotal witches to the consciousness-raising medieval drug-induced hallucinations. The Northman’s score by Robin Carolan and Sebastian Gainsborough also seems to echo the Third Ear Band’s unforgettable soundtrack for Polanski.

Although not on par with Eggers’ excellent The Witch, The Northman is a well-crafted production and a distinct improvement over his meandering The Lighthouse. The film’s cast is fine overall, particularly Kidman, Willem Dafoe as Heimir the Fool, and Bjork in a small, memorable appearance as a  witch.

Production design and costumes are high-quality, the Nordic locations are striking, and Eggers keeps his camera mercifully steady, eschewing senselessly jerky camerawork. CGI effects don’t overwhelm the movie, but the sadism and bloodshed levels are high enough to reach Valhalla.  

Bleak and grim, with glaring plot holes, The Northman is 20 minutes too long and doesn’t inspire multiple viewings. Films about truly barbaric characters are a gamble, because, as in this case, they focus on inarticulate thugs who are little better than the vermin they’re battling. Eggers succeeds at making a Viking epic, but a joyless, often repulsive one that’s easy to appreciate, but not so easily palatable.

The Northman

R, 137 minutes
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Violet Crown Cinema

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Arts Culture Food & Drink

Rooted wisdom

If Kat Maier were a plant, you could say she has released her seeds all around Charlottesville. She’s been here since 2005, teaching and practicing herbalism, so at this point she has many former students and clients in and around town. Her Belmont home, also the site of her apothecary, classroom, and garden, is a node where all these people—and many plants, from the weedy to the endangered—have gathered. The place itself, you might say, is a kind of tincture, or concentration, of our area.

On a visit in late spring, the garden is bursting with fragrant azaleas, plus the foliage of low-growing plants like goldenseal, trillium, and bloodroot. Maier is warm and welcoming, with intense blue eyes and a ready laugh. She sits in a shady backyard spot and explains that her new book, Energetic Herbalism, distills wisdom gleaned not only from her years of work in Charlottesville, but the two previous decades she spent in Rappahannock County. It’s a guide to several world traditions of herbalism and 25 of the most essential medicinal plants. She’ll give a book talk at New Dominion on May 13.

“I never went to herb school,” she says, summarizing a life history that she details more fully in the book’s introduction. “I really apprenticed to the plants. I taught myself by spending incredible amounts of time in Shenandoah National Park.”

She also trained as a physician’s assistant—a grounding in Western medicine that shows, for example, in her requirement that students bone up on anatomy, physiology, and the Latin names of the plants they use. But one senses that herbalism, for Maier, is really a matter of the spirit. “For me, the foundation is that relationship with the plant,” she says.

“I feel like she has been studying it and living it constantly for all these years,” says Katherine Herman, who completed the three-year herbalism course at Maier’s school, Sacred Plant Traditions, in 2013 and went on to found Gathered Threads, an herb farm in Nelson County. “It’s not just book knowledge. It’s just amazing the amount of wisdom that she has.”

A quick dip into Energetic Herbalism hints at the breadth of that wisdom; you might be looking for basic information on the uses of calendula, say, and find yourself reading about how the history of colonialism relates to our sense of disconnectedness from nature. Maier advocates for a lifelong practice of curiosity and humility toward plants. “Often when I lead a plant walk, people ask me whether this plant or that one is ‘good for anything,’” she writes. “Imagine if someone introduced me to you and, after greeting you, I wondered aloud whether you were good for anything, or how I could use you.”

Besides running Sacred Plant Traditions, Maier has also been deeply involved with United Plant Savers, a group that aims to protect native medicinal plants. A growing market for medicinals has threatened certain wild species, like black cohosh and ginseng. Maier’s city garden is, she says, a sanctuary for some of these plants and, she hopes, a model for others. “People are talking about how to rewild the urban areas,” she says. “We have to have many different people planting the plants. The time is now.”

She grows delicate natives—on this day, a colleague is transplanting wild yam along the side of the house—but that doesn’t mean shunning the plants that Europeans brought to North America and that usually get labeled as weeds. “Our major medicines are chickweed, dandelion, cleavers—all the plants on the Roundup label,” she says, adding that dandelion’s genus name, Taraxacum, means “remedy of all disorders.” “They were brought over as a primary food and medicine,” she says. In the age of climate change, she advocates for an inclusive view of the plants we find ourselves living with now, rather than a strict division between native and invasive.

At an earlier point in her career, she enthusiastically gathered medicinals from around the world, but she’s settled into a belief in bioregionalism—in her definition, “trying to have your food and medicine from the region where you live.” That’s why the book lists the characteristics and uses of just 25 plants. Choosing these, Maier says, was “one of the most agonizing parts of the book,” since she has knowledge of so many others. But working with a small number of plants, she says, is a mark of folk herbalists the world over. The book presents three different energetic systems—vitalism, ayurveda, and Chinese medicine—based on the idea of elements that make up the universe and the body. During her training, Herman says, this approach “gave us a well-rounded approach to the human body and how to look at herbs.”

Along with the publication of Energetic Herbalism, Maier has closed her clinical practice in order to travel and teach, as well as redesigning her clinical training. Her former students are carrying on her work in various ways—a local ecosystem of seeds she sowed, now blossoming.

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Arts Culture

Pick: Bob Log III

Enjoy the ride: Clad in a skin-tight jumpsuit and singing through a motorcycle helmet wired to a telephone handset, Bob Log III delivers a one-man show of musical mayhem like no other. The Arizona-based multi-instrumentalist stomps on a homemade cymbal with one leg, a kick drum with the other, and plays finger-picked slide guitar while singing original crowd favorites including “Boob Scotch” and “I Want Your Shit On My Leg.” The interactive show features plenty of props, shots, and maybe a little bit of crowd surfing.

Monday 5/16. $12-15, 8pm. The Southern Café & Music Hall, 103 First St. S. thesoutherncville.com

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Arts Culture

Pick: This Much I Know To Be True

True companion: Andrew Dominik’s acclaimed 2016 documentary One More Time with Feeling followed Australian musician Nick Cave on an emotional journey of creation and loss when, during the recording of a new album with his band, Cave’s son tragically passed away. Dominik has reunited with Cave and Warren Ellis, Cave’s collaborator, for the companion film, This Much I Know To Be True, an optimistic and hopeful doc that captures the creation of their last two studio albums.

Wednesday 5/11. $13-15, 7:30pm. The Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. theparamount.net

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Arts Culture

Pick: How-To Festival

Got skills?: The How-To Festival is a fun, fast-paced day of learning that helps you master a new skill in just 15-30 minutes. Local professionals and organizations take over the library to give short, interactive demonstrations and presentations on a variety of topics, including technology, food and drink, repairs, health, and more. Sessions include cello playing, houseplant care, small press printing, the benefits of essential oils, and Qigong.

Saturday 5/14. Free, 10am-1pm. Central Library, 201 E. Market St. jmrl.org

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News

Our bodies, our choice

Hours after a leaked U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion made real the likelihood that Roe v. Wade will be fully overturned by summer, reversing decades of legal protection for a woman’s right to control her own body, protesters gathered in front of the federal courthouse in downtown Charlottesville.

“This is so major, because if you read the draft…it basically says that Roe v. Wade is not legitimately based in the original decision back in 1973,” says Kobby Hoffman, founder of the Blue Ridge Abortion Fund, which provides funding to allow low-income women to access abortions. 

The immediate past president of the local chapter of the National Organization for Women, Hoffman is currently a NOW delegate representing eight states. She helped organize the courthouse protest and spoke over cars horns honking in support and her fellow protesters’ chants.

“Of course, we have no idea where it will end up,” Hoffman says of the draft opinion. “It’s very extreme. I would say, if you care about women in your household or that you know, or if you are a woman, you should definitely be on high alert and acting because your future is at stake.”

As pro-choice advocates across the country reacted with alarm to the majority opinion drafted by the George W. Bush-appointed uber-conservative Justice Samuel Alito and signed by justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, Republican elected officials who have long voiced opposition to abortion also expressed outrage, not over the content of the draft, but with the leak itself.

“I am in utter disbelief that the sacred confidentiality of the Supreme Court would be violated in this manner,” Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin said in a release the day the draft leaked, alleging it was “done in order to cause chaos and to put pressure on justices and elected officials.”

Youngkin insisted speculation on the Supreme Court’s final decision is “premature,” and wrote that he prefers to direct attention elsewhere. “While we wait for the final June decision, we will be focused on lowering taxes for Virginians, funding education and law enforcement because we need to get a budget passed,” his statement reads.

Unlike dozens of other states, Virginia has no “trigger law” that kicks into place outlawing abortion immediately if Roe is overturned, so abortion will remain legal in the commonwealth in the immediate future unless new legislation is passed.

“Virginians—please know your right to abortion is protected in state law for now,” tweeted Delegate Sally Hudson. “Holding our Senate and flipping the House is how we keep it that way.”

Students and community members gathered for a teach-in at the UVA Rotunda following a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade. Photo: Eze Amos.

At a town hall appearance on Wednesday, 7th District Representative Abigail Spanberger also weighed in, urging action at the federal legislative level.

“This leaked draft Supreme Court opinion is poised to erase a woman’s right to privacy and reproductive health care that has been settled law for nearly a half century. The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to codify Roe v. Wade. The U.S. Senate needs to follow suit and pass this bill.”

Local conservative elected officials stayed mum or stuck to comments on the ethical breach the leak represents. Delegate Rob Bell declined to comment on the draft opinion or any state legislative efforts that might follow such a final decision from the Supreme Court. State Senator Bryce Reeves did not respond to a reporter’s request for comment.

But activists who have fought to outlaw abortion in Virginia and beyond voiced hope that the draft ruling will represent the court’s final decision.

“We are not the ones that have a right to define who lives and who dies,” says Abe Nelson of the grassroots group Charlottesville Pro-Life, which is opposed to abortion in all cases, including rape and incest. Nelson hopes the leak won’t change the conservative justices’ support for the opinion, and he believes the right to access abortion should be determined by individual states. 

“It’s right to bring this back to a status where we as a people, as individuals and citizens, can speak into this issue more directly,” Nelson says. “Now, I would hope that our direction in that would be one that affirms the value of life from the moment of conception.”

UVA Media Studies Professor Siva Vaidhyanathan, co-creator of the Democracy in Danger podcast, says the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion is further evidence of the decline of U.S. democracy. A majority of the American public supports the right to choose, he says, and he points out that the basis for Alito’s opinion would also undercut other hard-won civil rights.

“Even though same-sex marriage is remarkably popular around the country, it is vulnerable because you can no longer rely on that basic principle that what consenting adults do in their homes is not the business of the government to restrict,” Vaidhyanathan says. “And so, you know, I see this as softening up the process for addressing…LGBTQ issues rather directly and maybe going beyond that, maybe looking at restricting certain forms of contraception.”

Hoffman says the looming reversal of Roe is more evidence of the need for the Equal Rights Amendment, which would enshrine women’s rights in the Constitution.

“Everyone needs to be aware that there’s something called ‘strict scrutiny,’” she says. “And that applies to race and to religion. And if we had the Equal Rights Amendment and it said that you could not discriminate on the basis of sex, then you would be able to go back on things like abortion and say, please look at this again, because you need to apply strict scrutiny, not something lesser, and maybe the outcome would be different.”

With the Supreme Court’s final decision in Dobbs v. Jackson due by the end of term this summer, activists on both sides of the issue are preparing for a post-Roe world.

Nelson says he doesn’t believe the statistics that show low-income women will be disproportionately affected by the end of legal abortion or that a forced pregnancy will have a negative impact on a woman’s life.

“If we were to pour…even a fraction of the resources that currently go into this battle that we’re engaged in over Roe versus Wade…into supporting life in a post-Roe world, we would be in a much better position supporting organizations that come alongside women and men affected by unplanned and crisis pregnancies,” he says. 

Hoffman says engaging voters in local, state, and national elections is critical. 

“It matters. It really matters,” she says. “And everything that we do, it adds up. And we can make a big wave that will make people realize how big this is, how important this is to all of our lives and to our future, for our future, for our country and its democracy and so many different aspects.” 

Courteney Stuart is the host of ­“Charlottesville Right Now” on WINA. You can hear interviews with Kobby Hoffman, Siva Vaidhyanathan, and Abe Nelson at wina.com.

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News

No relief

Since the Supreme Court ended the national eviction moratorium in August, many Virginians have been able to stay in their homes thanks to the state’s rent relief program. But on May 15, the program will stop accepting new applications due to dwindling funds, leaving struggling renters with few other assistance options. 

Once the program ends, Charlottesville and Albemarle residents facing eviction can still apply to the Pathways Fund (833-524-2904), which is prioritizing tenants who owe less than $1,000 in back rent. And across the state, residents in need of rent relief—among other types of assistance—should call 211 to see what local resources are available to them.

However, many community assistance programs have run out of funding over the past two years, explains Lydia Brunk, co-chair of Charlottesville Democratic Socialists of America’s Housing Justice Committee, which connects local residents facing eviction with resources. The state’s program has been the sole source of relief for many tenants behind on rent.

“There are definitely community organizations doing good work, but they can’t be expected to fill in the big giant hole that’s going to be left by an entire statewide-funded eviction prevention program,” says Brunk. “It’s simply not reasonable for the state to pull back this huge social funding, and then for the community to try and patch up the holes.”

With limited rent relief available, housing advocates predict a spike in evictions in the coming weeks. Over the past few months, evictions have already been on the rise—since February 28, there have been 77 eviction hearings in Charlottesville and 260 in Albemarle County, according to court data collected by Charlottesville DSA. During the week of April 11, the two localities had over 85 hearings combined.

The Legal Aid Justice Center urges anyone who receives an eviction notice to show up to their court date.

“There have been property managers and landlords telling people [not to go], and that’s the easiest way to automatically lose your case,” says Moriah Wilkins, LAJC’s Skadden Legal Fellow.

“The number-one thing you can do to advocate for yourself is just be present,” adds Victoria McCullough, co-chair of DSA’s housing justice committee. “That will give you some time between the first court date and whatever else happens next to shore up some support, and we can try to help you with that.” 

Additionally, tenants at risk of losing their homes should keep records of correspondence they’ve had with their landlord. Through June 30, all landlords are required under state law to give tenants who are behind on rent a written 14-day notice to pay what they owe, including information about the 211 assistance line and—until it ends—the Virginia Rent Relief Program, before proceeding with an eviction. Those who own four units must also offer a payment plan of up to six months for past-due rent. And before May 15, landlords are required to apply to the VRRP on the tenant’s behalf during the 14-day notice period, if the tenant has not already applied or agreed to a payment plan. 

“If there are any legal errors in the notice given to you by your landlord, you may be able to prevent or delay your eviction,” says Wilkins.

Until June 30, landlords will still be prohibited from evicting tenants who’ve applied to the VRRP, unless they are not approved to receive relief within 45 days, are found ineligible, or the program runs out of funding.

Local residents facing eviction can contact the LAJC for legal assistance, including help filling out their VRRP application. In July, Charlottesville City Council allocated $300,000 in American Rescue Plan funds to the nonprofit to create an eviction prevention pilot program. With legal representation, tenants facing eviction are far more likely to remain in their homes—yet few can afford a lawyer. Meanwhile, a majority of landlords have attorneys with them in court.

LAJC is also currently in the process of finalizing a $200,000 contract with Albemarle County for eviction prevention. Though LAJC has not received enough funding to guarantee a lawyer for every local resident facing eviction, it has been able to hire additional attorneys since last summer, enabling it to represent more tenants.

More funding from the city may be on the way. “This budget cycle we also voted to allocate $1 million to boost our rent and mortgage relief programs, [but] additional money could potentially be added to support emergency rent relief/eviction prevention when the second tranche of our American Rescue Plan Act money becomes available,” Councilor Michael Payne told C-VILLE in an email. “We haven’t yet had any formal discussions about how to fully allocate that money.”

According to Wilkins, LAJC is prioritizing local residents with unlawful detainers, especially those with housing subsidies. Even if the nonprofit’s lawyers are unable to take on a tenant’s case, they give them free advice on what to do on their court date. 

“We tell people to ask for a hearing. This is when you will have the opportunity to argue your case, and stay in your home,” says Wilkins. “And if you have applied to rent relief prior to May 15, let the judge know—that can be another protection.”

In the meantime, housing advocates encourage struggling tenants to apply to the VRRP as soon as possible—applicants often endure lengthy wait times. Households that make less than half their area’s median income, or with one or more people who have been unemployed for at least 90 days, are being prioritized until the application deadline. 

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News

In brief: Plastic bag tax, Montpelier questions, and more

Questions linger in Montpelier controversy

With less than a week before the May 16 meeting of the Montpelier Foundation board, initial interviews with 20 candidates put forth by the Montpelier Descendants Committee are underway. But MDC attorney Greg Werkheiser says there are still concerns that the dispute between the two organizations isn’t fully resolved.

“They have refused to answer other questions that would confirm they are done playing games,” Werkheiser says of the foundation.

The controversy over a power-sharing agreement between the foundation and the MDC has raged since late March, when the foundation board reversed a June 2021 decision to rewrite bylaws giving MDC the right to recommend at least half the members of the board as a way to achieve “structural parity” with descendants of enslaved workers. There appeared to be a breakthrough last week when the board announced it would vote on nine new MDC-recommended members at the May 16 meeting, and that all would assume full board membership that day. 

In an email, Werkheiser asked the foundation to confirm several points, including that the status of current foundation board members and MDC Chair James French, would not change on May 16.

Werkheiser says the foundation has not answered that question. 

In an email, foundation spokesperson Joe Slay says the foundation doesn’t plan to make any public statements in response to MDC questions.

Albemarle County approves plastic bag tax

Stock up on your reusable grocery bags, Albemarle County shoppers—last week, the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a disposable plastic tax. Starting January 1, stores will charge 5 cents per plastic bag. 

The board also approved hikes to the transient occupancy tax for hotel guests, as well as the food and beverage tax. On July 1, the occupancy tax will increase from 5 to 8 percent, while the meals tax will increase from 4 to 6 percent.

The supervisors did, however, vote to decrease the county’s personal property tax rate by 86 cents. The new rate is now $3.42 per $100 of assessed value. And in light of the increase in property values, they opted not to raise the real estate tax rate—it remains 85.4 cents per $100 of assessed value.

These tax hikes come after Charlottesville City Council approved a 1 cent real estate tax and .5 percent meals tax increase last month to help fund the costly renovation of Buford Middle School. City homeowners now pay 96 cents per $100 of the assessed value of their property, while diners pay a 6.5 percent meals tax. 

In brief

Closing the book

Last week, Jane Kulow and Sarah Lawson both resigned from the Virginia Festival of the Book. Lawson had worked as the festival’s associate director for several years, while Kulow had served as its program director since 2014, following the retirement of longtime director Nancy Damon. The pair declined to publicly comment on the reason for their unexpected departures. 

In the running

Albemarle County Board of Supervisors Chair Donna Price and local emergency department nurse Kellen Squire are running for the Democratic nomination for the newly redrawn 55th District in the Virginia House of Delegates, which includes most of Albemarle County, along with parts of Nelson, Louisa, and Fluvanna counties. The majority of the new district—approved by the Virginia Supreme Court in December—is what was once the 58th District, and has been represented by Republican Delegate Rob Bell for two decades. Squire ran unsuccessfully against Bell in 2017 for the 58th District seat. Bell has not announced if he plans to run for the new seat—however, it may not even be up for grabs yet. If a pending federal lawsuit seeking to force the state to hold House elections this fall under the redrawn maps—filed by former state Democratic Party chair Paul Goldman—is dismissed, elections won’t be held until next year.

Will Rob Bell run in the newly redrawn 55th District? Photo: Amy Jackson

Moving forward

The Charlottesville School Board unanimously voted last week to allow Superintendent Royal Gurley Jr. to begin working with the Charlottesville Education Association on a collective bargaining resolution. Board members have expressed support for collective bargaining, but claimed they need more information on how it will work in the school district. Union supporters hope the board will approve a resolution by the end of the school year.

Correction 5/17: Albemarle County’s real estate tax rate remains 85.4 cents—not 78.8 cents—per $100 of assessed value.