Ann Cheeks in the Vault Virginia Great Hall. Image courtesy of the gallery.
Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library 2450 Old Ivy Rd. “Their World As Big As They Made It: Looking Back at the Harlem Renaissance,” plus other permanent exhibitions.
Chroma Projects Inside Vault Virginia, Third St. SE. In the Micro Gallery, “Topography: Travis Childers with Ashe Laughlin.” In Vault Virginia’s Great Hall Galleries, “David Copson: Events from the Ultima Thule,” and “Ann Cheeks: Body and Spirit: Moving Through Infinity.” Crozet Library 2020 Library Ave., Crozet. Staff art show.
C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Beauty Meets Function,” featuring sculpture and furniture by Alex Pettigrew.
Elmaleh Gallery Campbell Hall, UVA Grounds. “Almost Useful: The Michael Owen Jones Exhibition” explores objects at the edge of utility, curated by Glenn Adamson. JT Bachman’s “Waste Not, Want Not” transforms discarded materials into long-lasting objects and building material prototypes. “Inclusive Narratives: Exploring Equity On The Manifesta Bookshelf,” an interactive exhibit.
The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “Structures,” a selection of 20th- and 21st-century artworks from the museum’s permanent collection, and the Charlottesville Indigenous Art Takeover.
Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of UVA 400 Worrell Dr. The Charlottesville Indigenous Art Takeover.
Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. The Charlottesville Indigenous Art Takeover.
McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Smith Gallery, “Turn Up the Color!” by abstract artist Sara Gondwe. In the First Floor Galleries, “Counting the Days,” by Rosamond Casey. In the Second Floor Galleries, “(m)other,” a group show examining motherhood. Through April 28. First Fridays reception at 5:30pm.
Northside Library 705 Rio Rd. W. “Color in Motion,” paintings by Randy Baskerville.
New City Arts 114 Third St. NE. In the Welcome Gallery, “Voroboros,” featuring new work by Adrian Wood. Through April 20.
Phaeton Gallery 114 Old Preston Ave. Group show featuring painters Karen Blair, Laura Wooten, and Priscilla Whitlock.
The Rotunda UVA Grounds. In the Upper West Oval Room, the Charlottesville Indigenous Art Takeover. Through July 7.
Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the Main Gallery, “Jac Lahav: Foster Paintings.” In the Dové Gallery, “Leisure Suit” by Lou Haney.
Studio Ix 969 Second St. SE. “Visions,” by April Branham from the Monacan Indian Nation.
The pandemic-themed collaborative novel Fourteen Days features characters written by a list of accomplished authors including John Grisham (above), Celeste Ng, Tommy Orange, Mary Pope Osborne, R.L. Stine, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Monique Truong, Scott Turow, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Meg Wolitzer. Photo by Carol Harrison.
Drawing inspiration from The Decameron and One Thousand and One Nights, Fourteen Days is a “collaborative novel,” which brings to mind thoughts of exquisite corpses and shared Google Docs with a slew of anonymous animals. However, it is effectively a collection of short stories by 36 American and Canadian authors, edited by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston, and connected through a framing narrative by Preston.
Taking place between March 31, 2020, and April 13, 2020, Fourteen Days is set in an apartment building, the Fernsby Arms, on the lower east side of New York City. Here, a diverse collection of residents gradually come together to build community and support each other during nightly meetups on the building’s roof, where they drown their sorrows in cocktails, bang pots and pans for essential workers, and share stories from life before COVID-19. The building superintendent, Yessie—a Romanian-American lesbian with asthma whose father is in a nursing home when lockdown begins—frames the story as its narrator and supposed archivist, recording and transcribing the rooftop storytelling sessions of the building’s tenants as a way to pass the time and distract herself from the raging pandemic.
Though the residents were strangers before these rooftop sessions, they quickly develop a rapport and routine, even painting a mural together to honor their shared experience, their shared trauma. They are a multigenerational group, described as “the left-behinds.” Yessie reflects, “Naturally, anyone who could had already left New York. The wealthy and professional classes fled the city like rats from a sinking ship, skittering and squeaking out to the Hamptons, Connecticut, the Berkshires, Cape Cod, Maine—anywhere by New Covid City.” Still, there’s little desperation or struggle for day-to-day survival described among the neighbors, and they appear to be faring well with the Fernsby Arms to protect them from the circling sounds of sirens outside, the refrigerator trucks for the dead, and the tent hospital in Central Park, all of which Yessie notes only in passing.
Fourteen Days is annoyingly rose-colored at times, as the real-life stresses and trauma of lockdown only lightly impact the residents, who appear to be mostly protected from the world even as they acknowledge protests in the streets and nursing home outbreaks. Everyone pretty much agrees to mask up, making masks out of scrap fabric or Hermès scarves. Instacart and toilet paper jokes are made, but no one ever has to make do without. The cancellation of Eurovision 2020 appears to be as traumatizing as the pandemic itself for at least one character. Tensions rise enough for minor verbal sparring every now and then, but ultimately everyone forgives and forgets, positioned as being stronger for it in the end. Indeed, the only real tension in the book might come from a reader’s own memories of those two weeks of lived experience, mapped onto the characters and premise of this fictional version.
Of course, within the framing narrative, the reason for these simplifications is eventually explained, but the twist ending falls a bit flat and does little to alleviate the cognitive dissonance around this pandemic privilege. In a year when The Washington Post and other news outlets report that COVID-19 is once again surging in the U.S., this book feels, at times, like an attempt to forget or at least to remember something far better than what was.
As characters, the Fernsby Arms residents often seem flat, largely identified through referential nicknames and other shorthand nods at personality in lieu of character development. Many characters feel as though they were plucked out of a COVID lockdown stereotypes bucket, with little attention given to emotional motivations or history, though others have some depth and nuance. Similarly, the stories shared on the rooftop—including tales related to the Vietnam War, 9/11, the Iraq War, polio outbreaks, Trump’s presidency, ghost stories, and curses—feel like an exercise in checking off lists of trauma and coping.
Some of the individual stories contributed by the collaborating authors offer moments of inspiration and healing: De’Shawn Charles Winslow’s story of the love and pain experienced by a father and daughter; Tommy Orange’s about a man who seeks revenge after a hit-and-run, only to find himself forever changed by the realization of his own capacity for violence; Celeste Ng’s about a family matriarch full of superstitions and the ability to curse someone with nothing more than a piece of paper and an ice cube; Joseph Cassara’s story of rabbits and trauma bonding experiences. All of these examples startle the reader out of a stupor, wrestling with real questions of human existence in unpredictable and challenging ways. Unfortunately, these are in the minority, despite the excellent credentials of the contributing authors.
In the end, Fourteen Days succeeds as an escapist beach read that just happens to be set during two traumatic weeks in recent history. Despite the potential in the premise, it is a mostly forgettable collection of stories that feels off-key in a world still attempting to address the same public health issues as the book’s characters, despite the intervening four years. With little dramatic tension and stories that are inconsistent in their vast but often surface-level breadth, Fourteen Days is more of a novel-by-committee than a collaborative one.
The Southern Environmental Law Center’s Senior Attorney Nate Benforado is leading the nonprofit’s campaign to return Virginia to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Photo by Tristan Williams.
By Laura Vogel
The Southern Environmental Law Center has fought—and won—some mighty environmental battles in its 35 years of existence. Right now, though, it’s in the midst of one of its biggest legal challenges: Pulling Virginia away from the brink of leaving the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative for good, after Governor Glenn Youngkin encouraged the state Air Pollution Control Board to repeal the regulation.
RGGI (sometimes pronounced “Reggie”) is a 2009 Northern creation that was making great headway in the South. The first group of states to join the greenhouse-gas-fighting, regional intergovernmental market included Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
As a program, RGGI works by mandating a cap on CO2 emissions from fossil fuel-powered stations within each states’ borders by making facilities buy allowances equal to the pollution they produce. The funds collected by RGGI then go toward investments in their communities: Residents get help with home improvements like weatherization, bill assistance for lower-income households, and other clean-energy benefits.
A study by the Clean Air Task Force on public-health benefits of the program found that the transition to cleaner energy in RGGI-member states saves hundreds of lives, prevents thousands of asthma attacks, and lowers citizens’ medical expenses by billions of dollars. As well, more than $6 billion has been raised in RGGI states from sales of CO2 allowances.
But Virginia’s Air Pollution Control Board removed the commonwealth from RGGI in June 2023. That August, the SELC filed a petition on behalf of four clients challenging the action. In a November 3 ruling, the Fairfax Circuit Court dismissed three of those clients—Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions, Appalachian Voices, and Virginia Interfaith Power & Light—and transferred the case to Floyd County, where the SELC’s fourth client, the Association of Energy Conservation Professionals, is headquartered. Now, the pending state budget proposal includes a provision that would require Virginia to rejoin RGGI. At press time, Youngkin had not made a decision on the budget.
For the SELC, these are promising steps forward. Senior attorney Nate Benforado, who is the leader of the nonprofit’s initiative to get Virginia back into RGGI, says, “We are pleased with [the court’s] decision, which allows this case to move forward and will ensure the administration’s decision to leave RGGI—which we have repeatedly alleged is unlawful—will be reviewed by a court. We look forward to the next steps in this action and will work as expeditiously as possible to get Virginia back in RGGI.”
Some may wonder why the Youngkin administration is against what seems to be an overwhelmingly positive environmental program. When asked by C-VILLE for a statement, the governor’s press office replied with a quote from Secretary of Natural and Historic Resources Travis Voyles, who says, “RGGI functions as a regressive tax that does not do anything to incentivize the reduction of emissions in Virginia. Our state Air Pollution Control Board has concluded that Virginia is not required to be in RGGI and that the citizens of Virginia should not be forced to pay higher energy bills to support the previous administration’s failed programs. The Office of the Attorney General confirmed the state Air Pollution Control Board has the legal authority to take action on the regulatory proposal using the full regulatory process—and the board voted to do just that—furthering Virginians’ access to a reliable, affordable, clean, and growing supply of power. Virginians will see a lower energy bill in due time because we are withdrawing from RGGI through a regulatory process.”
Cale Jaffe, the director of the University of Virginia’s Environmental Law and Community Engagement Clinic, filed an amicus brief for Virginia Clinicians for Climate Action and the Virginia Energy Efficiency Council in support of RGGI in Virginia in the Fairfax hearings. When questioned about the Youngkin administration’s repeal of RGGI, he says, “It’s impossible for me to conjecture what their motives are.” When asked if he believes SELC and other stakeholders will reinstate RGGI, Jaffe says, “There’s a really strong argument in the law that participation in RGGI is in the Virginia code, which makes it more than just an easy-to-repeal legislation. It was codified in statute, a legislation that had passed both houses and was signed by the governor, not just a simple law that a past governor [Democrat Ralph Northam] approved and the next one can repeal.”
Cale Jaffe, director of UVA’s Environmental Law and Community Engagement Clinic, filed an amicus brief in support of RGGI. Photo by University of Virginia Law School.
The positive effects of RGGI are quantifiable. “The science and the policy are clear: We need to reduce carbon pollution, and generating power is the largest source of this pollution in our atmosphere,” Benforado explains. “RGGI gives flexibility to power-plant owners. It’s not micromanaging, it’s giving a market-based solution to reigning in greenhouse gas. In RGGI’s first two years in Virginia—we joined in 2020—carbon emissions from power plants dropped a whopping 22 percent.”
The state of Virginia gives about half the proceeds of RGGI fees to communities along coasts and rivers that face the threat of flooding. The remaining 50 percent goes to new energy-efficient, affordable housing, reducing pollution and lowering utility bills for families—most of whom are lower-income.
“Most of our effort is aimed at monopoly utility companies, like Dominion and Appalachian Power,” says Benforado, “as they produce 70 percent of carbon emissions. RGGI is focused on pollution going down, steadily reducing emissions over time. Since we’re in active legislation, I can’t really go into the defense; the Youngkin administration says it’s not working. It obviously is. This is a very successful policy tool, bringing down emissions, bringing in cleaner energy.”
When asked how RGGI is benefiting the Charlottesville area, Benforado excitedly talks about the energy-efficient redevelopment of Kindlewood (formerly Friendship Court), the downtown low-income housing complex. “One of the really cool things that RGGI money has done for our town is helped fund the complete renewal of this community-owned property,” he says. “The Piedmont Housing Alliance was able to use RGGI proceeds to make new units with super-efficient HVAC systems as well as weatherizing and updating the systems in older housing. So, instead of, say, $100 a month in utilities, a tenant may now pay as little as $10.”
Set just a few blocks southeast of the SELC headquarters, Kindlewood was initially a Section-8 complex. First built as a 12-acre master block after the previous African American neighborhood fabric was erased during “urban renewal,” the community has largely remained economically and physically isolated from the rest of the city, but the Piedmont Housing Alliance is working to change that. The 150-unit structure has recently undergone new-unit construction and energy-efficiency upgrades funded by RGGI capital.
Sunshine Mathon, executive director of the Piedmont Housing Alliance, is the leader of the Kindlewood renovation and new construction. “We are driven to promote deep energy efficiency and affordable housing benefiting lower-income Charlottesville residents,” he says. “For about 20 years, we have worked diligently to highlight the good stories and impact of RGGI funds.”
Sunshine Mathon, executive director of the Piedmont Housing Alliance, says RGGI proceeds have helped to build Kindlewood. Photo by Eze Amos.
“Each state has its own control over its RGGI funds—here, 50 percent goes into HIEE [Housing Innovations in Energy Efficiency], so a lot goes into weatherization for low-income houses,” Mathon continues. “One of the beautiful things about RGGI is that it pairs HIEE program funding parallel with other sources. Rental projects that would be out of our reach are made possible by RGGI money. It’s a game-changer. Before Virginia officially joined RGGI we were learning about deep energy efficiency, and now we are able to put that knowledge to use for people that need it most.”
When asked about the Youngkin administration’s repeal of RGGI, Mathon says, “It doesn’t make sense. I don’t know why he did it.”
The cool office that’s cooling the planet
Started in Charlottesville in 1988 by environmental lawyer Rick Middleton, a native of Birmingham, Alabama, the SELC has always been at the forefront of environmental law in the United States. Many organizations had given up on fighting environmental injustice in the South due to its conservative politics, but SELC flourished, and grew from a small office in downtown Charlottesville to also encompass centers in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, with over 200 employees in total. The Charlottesville office remains its headquarters, with a sprawling new modern space, and a team of over 50, just south of downtown on Garrett Street.
Apex Plaza at 120 Garrett Street is the largest mass-timber building on the East Coast. Encompassing the entire fourth floor of the building, the SELC offices are LEED Gold–certified.
The building is made of structural wood harvested from fast-growth timber, and the building is actively helping the environment: Much like a healthy tree stores carbon dioxide, one square meter of cross-laminated timber can remove approximately one ton of the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. Additionally, the building’s 875 solar panels produce approximately 364,000 kWh per year of electricity, the equivalent of 88 tons of recycling being saved from landfills.
The SELC offices at Apex Plaza are LEED Gold-certified. Photo by Hourigan Group.
The SELC headquarters was awarded Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Gold certification in August 2022, and features progressive amenities such as bike parking, a shower and changing room, and EV charging stations. Apex Plaza was constructed on an underutilized lot in Charlottesville, just a five-minute walk from downtown’s existing amenities, helping to reduce sprawl and promote dense, multi-use neighborhoods.
During construction, emphasis was put on reducing waste and repurposing materials. To that end, more than 60 percent of the furnishings, by cost, were reused or salvaged and contractors diverted more than 70 percent of their waste from the landfill. Recycling stations for paper, cardboard, plastics, aluminum cans and metals, batteries, and e-waste are distributed throughout the space to continue minimizing what is sent to landfills.
Other more subtle design choices with a green impact include window placement to maximize natural light, and toilets, faucets, and dishwashers all chosen for their efficient use of water.
Additional features contributing to the office’s LEED status are hydration stations to avoid single-use water bottles, sensors that turn lights out when a room isn’t being used, compost collection, and power sourced from solar panels.
Charlottesville residents called on city councilors to pass the ceasefire resolution ahead of the vote. Image by City of Charlottesville.
Peace talks
Charlottesville City Council passed a resolution on April 1 that calls for an immediate ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
The resolution was first introduced at the March 18 council meeting and failed, with three councilors voting no. Though he originally voted against the resolution, Councilor Brian Pinkston joined Councilors Michael Payne and Natalie Oschrin in support of the measure.
“I believe it’s important to change your mind and to revisit a decision if upon new information or further reflection you believe you made a mistake,” said Pinkston ahead of Monday’s vote. The councilor emphasized the importance of the resolution, given Charlottesville’s large refugee population and the national defense industry’s role in the local economy.
“I realize that there are also concerns about unintended consequences, especially in a place like Charlottesville,” said Pinkston. “I can only say that I’ve thought about that, and I still believe that this is the right and courageous thing to do.”
The packed City Council chamber erupted with applause after Pinkston’s remarks.
Echoing their colleague’s statement, Payne and Oschrin also emphasized the importance of the resolution.
“We lend our voice to many, so alone we might not be effective … we join all of your voices individually to become one of many, and that’s where we have power,” said Oschrin. Payne referred to his previous statements on the measure, but added, “I do think we have a very small voice, but still a voice to weigh in.”
In addition to a ceasefire, the resolution also calls for the immediate and safe release of all hostages and the entry and provision of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Council passed the measure 3-1, with Councilor Lloyd Snook abstaining and Mayor Juandiego Wade voting no.
Payment pains
University of Virginia President Jim Ryan will meet with graduate workers April 4 to discuss payment concerns.
The meeting comes after months of organizing by the UVA chapter of United Campus Workers of Virginia, and was prompted by the group’s presence at a March 1 Board of Visitors meeting. Organizers report continued problems with late stipend payments, despite previous promises from university officials.
In a December 4 statement to C-VILLE, UVA Deputy Spokesperson Bethanie Glover said “the university is unaware of any systemic delays associated with graduate student stipends and funding. When isolated issues have occurred, schools and departments have acted quickly to resolve them.” This sentiment was echoed in March by Provost Ian Baucom, who acknowledged the protester’s presence and told the BOV that issues had previously been addressed, and more recent payment issues were limited in scope.
BBQ break in
Ace Biscuit & Barbecue will be closed for the next few weeks as the restaurant recovers from an apparent break in. On March 30, Ace posted photos on its Facebook page of smashed windows, bashed-in register screens, broken bottles, sinks, and toilets, and back rooms in disarray, writing that the incident happened overnight. According to CBS19, the damages totaled $50,000. In an April 1 Facebook post, Ace said, “We’re deeply moved by the overwhelming support from our community. Though our doors may be shut, our spirits remain unbroken.”
No smoke
Gov. Glenn Youngkin shot down a bill that would have legalized marijuana retail sales in Virginia, after previously stating, “Anybody who thinks I’m going to sign that legislation must have been smoking something.” The bill would have paved the way for retail markets to open in May 2025. Youngkin’s veto comes after his administration’s big push to open a new sports arena in Alexandria fell through. As a result, Virginians now live with uneven marijuana laws—it is legal to both possess and grow weed at home, but only medical marijuana is legal to purchase.
Station to station
Charlottesville Fire Department’s Station One, located along the 250 Bypass, will be rebuilt and reopened in spring 2025, with construction slated to be complete by that March and move-in by May. “The original Station One building has served this city well, and now the time has come for a much needed upgrade,” says Michael Thomas, CFD fire chief. “Station One will be built from the ground up to accommodate the 21st-century needs of the fire service and our growing city.” Concept drawings for the new station are available at charlottesville.gov.
Albemarle County Department of Fire Rescue trainees learn how to fight fires during classes that mimic conditions at both commercial and residential structures. Photo by Justin Ide.
Earlier this month, area wildfires were in the headlines, but fire season is year-round in Albemarle County. “There are seasonal factors—more brush fires in summer, more chimney fires in winter,” says Matt Ascoli, battalion chief for the Albemarle County Department of Fire Rescue. “But we can be called out any time.”
That’s why on a recent rainy Wednesday, Ascoli and his latest crop of trainees were out at the county’s “burn house,” on a lot next to the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail, setting fires and learning to fight them.
The burn house was built in the mid-1980s to give firefighters a place to practice. It’s a large concrete block building, designed to mimic fire conditions for both commercial and residential environments. Its walls are marked with the smoke stains of innumerable fires, its windows covered with plywood panels. Its external stairway is much wider and sturdier than the usual fire escape, since firefighters in full gear run up and down these stairs for periodic three-day recruit trainings, as well as the annual refresher all firefighters go through.
The day I’m observing, there are two groups of trainees—four recruits who have fire rescue experience (either paid or in a volunteer company), and 14 with no firefighting background. The less-experienced recruits gear up first and head into the burn house to learn how fires start and spread, and the proper techniques to apply at each of the four stages (incipient, growth, fully developed, and decay). In this case, the fire is three wooden pallets and a bale of straw, carefully set and monitored by a professional firefighter.
In the next session, the experienced recruits will be assessed on their skills in fire attack and search while the less-experienced team observes. Part of this exercise is seeing how quickly the team gains entry into the building, something that’s important in instances of locked garage doors, secure buildings, or illegally blocked fire doors. This time, the team is up against a large free-standing metal fire door labeled THE CHALLENGER. One firefighter starts in on it with a crowbar, but it will take three guys with fire axes to get through and into the burn house.
“These scenarios give our personnel experience with actual fires, and opportunities to practice real-time decision-making skills,” ACFR Public Information Officer Logan Bogert tells me. Over the next two days, the newbies will work through fire attack, search, and ladder placement in residential fires, and a technique called vent-enter-isolate-search, looking for a known victim in a known location, often using an entry point other than the main doors.
This class is ACFR’s largest to date, thanks to a $7 million Federal Emergency Management Agency SAFER (Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response) grant that enabled the agency to hire, train, and deploy 30 full-time firefighters. ACFR has received three of these grants since 2020.
An extra, unintended benefit: SAFER funding has enabled ACFR to develop its own recruit training program, so it can accept trainees with no previous firefighting experience, thus widening its recruitment pool. In today’s training, I see several women and minority recruits, and I’m told a recent class included a grandmother in her 40s. Recruits have to go through medical screening and physical agility testing before they start learning how to work while wearing 40 to 50 pounds of personal protective equipment.
Which brings up the question of who wants to be a firefighter. Ascoli says many of the new recruits have parents or relatives who are in the field, but most of them, career or volunteer, are seeking a way to give back to their community. “We got a lot of recruits after COVID,” he says. “They want to have a way to serve.”
Senlin Means and Ellie Picard opened The Beautiful Idea, a trans-owned, anti-facist bookstore and queer market on the Downtown Mall in September 2023. Photo by Tristan Williams.
Dozens of Charlottesville residents braved the rain on March 31 to attend the first-ever trans Q&A at The Beautiful Idea. While the weather outside was gloomy, the atmosphere inside the trans-owned, anti-fascist bookstore was cozy, with chairs set up under string lights, and pride flags draped across the ceiling.
The event was the brainchild of store co-owner Senlin Means, a local trans woman and C-VILLE contributor.
“The inspiration was something that happens all the time here in our shop … this woman came in … and very nervously asked us if she could talk to us about something,” said Means ahead of the event. “We get a lot of people in here who have questions to ask, and they’re often nervous about it, or think they’re gonna get in trouble, or something like that. And it made me think, ‘Hey, why don’t we offer people a way to ask these questions?’”
After months of consideration, Means decided to host the panel on International Trans Day of Visibility—held annually on March 31. Attendees were encouraged to bring questions and an open mind, with a reminder that “You don’t have to be an ally, just don’t be an asshole!”
“Normally, you shouldn’t do this. I’m not trying to say, ‘Hey, it’s okay to ask trans people random questions all the time,’” said Means. “I’m hoping this comes across more as, ‘Look, you might have these questions, and you might rightfully not feel like it’s appropriate to ask them. This is a time when you can.’”
Joining Means on the panel were Professor Veró Dávila Ellis and student Marco Seaberg, both from James Madison University.
Kicking off the Q&A, Means emphasized that “trans people are not a monolith” and panelists’ answers should not be interpreted as wholly representative of the entire community, before moving on to audience questions.
Event attendees were initially hesitant, but soon asked about the experience of being transgender, the process of transitioning, pronouns, allyship, and how to talk to and support trans family and friends. One topic that came up repeatedly was how to talk to trans and questioning youth.
“Gender has nothing to do with sexuality or with sex. And our body parts aren’t inherently sexual or sexualized. That is something that society has put on us,” said Dávila Ellis. “Allowing a child to transition in whatever way, or allowing a child to know what are the options as they grow up for becoming the person or the gender they want to be has nothing to do with sex, and does not sexualize someone.”
Seaberg, who started transitioning as a teenager, shared his personal experience and the realities of the transitioning process—breaking it into social, medical, and legal categories.
While medical and legal steps, like taking hormones or changing the gender marker on a driver’s license, are most frequently in the news, Seaberg emphasized that most trans people start transitioning socially first. “It can be a haircut, it can be what you’re wearing—it’s how people are referring to you,” he said. “When youth are transitioning, or when anyone’s transitioning, social [transition] is usually the first thing they do or explore.”
“I was too old for puberty blockers, but I did hormones later in life. And that was something that I had to go through gender therapy for, and have many medical professionals sign off that I was ‘trans enough’ or that I was of mental state to be deciding that as a minor,” said Seaberg. “Young children who do have a strong sense of identity [are] not getting irreversible surgery at 12 in almost every case.”
Panelists also spoke about pronouns. Originally from the Caribbean, Dávila Ellis shared their unique experience of being trans nonbinary and Latinx. Following one audience member’s question about using traditionally plural they/them pronouns to refer to one person, Dávila Ellis said the discussion was specific to English, and did not necessarily apply to other languages.
Reflecting on the Q&A, Means said “that it gave me some idea of the kinds of questions that people are going to have, the kind of things we need to focus on: parenting questions, we certainly need to talk to people of color—BIPOC folks, explore nonbinary-ness more.”
Several audience members stayed after the Q&A to talk to participants, find resources, and ask more personal questions.
“I came here with my parents because I feel like it’s just something that a lot of people just don’t know about,” said Adeline Sokolowski. “It’s really nice to hear in person from people who have their own personal experiences.”
For Chad Sokolowski, the panel was “just another day” as the parent of a nonbinary teenager. “I thought it was a wonderful icebreaker,” he said. “I learned so much here tonight, you can easily write a thesis on all the information that was here. … I’m really looking forward to learning more and meeting some really great people.”
“There’s this vulnerability that all the people talking had,” said parent and event attendee Helgi Townsend. “The questions being asked were so helpful … we’re all having questions and we’re all trying to figure out being human.”
Albemarle County seeks to rezone over a third of the land recently purchased to serve as a buffer for the defense intelligence agencies based at Rivanna Station. Image by Albemarle County.
Ten months ago, Albemarle County Supervisors authorized County Executive Jeffrey Richardson to proceed with the purchase of 462 acres around the Rivanna Station military base.
In late March, Richardson filed for a rezoning with the county’s Community Development Department to rezone just over a third of that land for economic development purposes.
“A key element of Rivanna Futures is the establishment of an Intelligence and National Security Innovation Acceleration Campus, a place for public sector organizations, private sector businesses, and academic institutions to work together to co-create solutions to the biggest challenges facing our nation and the world,” reads the executive summary for the request to convert the land to light industrial.
The county hired Line and Grade to make its case to staff and the Board of Supervisors, and the rezoning application builds off a previous study the firm conducted before the deal with developer Wendell Wood closed.
Albemarle paid $58 million for the land to serve as a buffer for the National Ground Intelligence Center, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and other related government agencies. Albemarle wants to improve the site’s marketability.
According to the Weldon Cooper Center at the University of Virginia, the defense sector is now the second-largest industry in the region, with an annual impact measured in 2023 at $1.2 billion. Albemarle sees development of a portion of the land as an investment in the future.
“Initial estimates suggest that when fully developed, Rivanna Futures could provide nearly 873 new jobs with median incomes of $81,000 a year,” the summary continues.
At this time, the county does not anticipate residential units on the land, according to an impact statement. Just under two acres of the land is outside of the county’s development area.
David Swanson is a Charlottesville-based peace activist who is troubled by Albemarle’s investment in the property. If the military wants protected land, he says, it should pay for it themselves.
“If anybody else wanted to buy land, for a hospital or affordable housing or a park or a nature preserve or a gas station, they’d have to pay for it themselves,” Swanson says. “Why should the county pay for the wealthiest institution there is?”
Albemarle already receives revenue as a result of the purchase. On Wednesday, April 3, county supervisors will appropriate $65,000 in rent from parking lots it purchased that had been owned by Wood.
Next steps for the rezoning application include a community meeting with the Places29-North Community Advisory Committee, before a public hearing with the Planning Commission.
