Author: c-ville-weekly-writers

The Landlords
Charlottesville sits on the tippy top of the South in fertile rolling country in the Chesapeake Bay watershed that’s been making landowners wealthy for 400 years. Through the ’80s, the real estate game consisted primarily of the buying and selling of horse farms and trying to sell property to UVA for twice its value. The city rode the wave of the real estate boom through the ’90s like a sleepy surfer on a storm swell and then the buying and selling got ferocious as the stakes rose right up until 2007, when the spectacular collapse of Hunter Craig’s Biscuit Run development played taps on a dizzying decade of growth. Donald Trump and Steve Case have their wineries and Sissy Spacek and John Grisham their farms, but a few key players continue to push the Monopoly pieces around the board.

Coran Capshaw (Photo by Ashley Twiggs)

1. Coran Capshaw
Founder, Red Light Management; CEO, Musictoday
Here are the vital stats on Coran Capshaw: He’s the founder of Red Light Management, co-founder of ATO Records, CEO of Musictoday LLC, and the creator of Starr Hill Presents, a live event promotion company that promotes notable music festivals like Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Mile High Music Festival, Dave Matthews Band Caravan, and Outside Lands. Capshaw, ranked No. 2 on the Billboard Power 100 of 2012, personally manages Dave Matthews Band, Tim McGraw, Phish, Alicia Keys, and others. That’s him in the music game.

He’s also the money behind several Charlottesville restaurants—including Blue Light Grill, Positively 4th Street, Mono Loco, Ten, and Five Guys (if you’re counting national chains)—in addition to music venues like The Jefferson Theater.

A self-made man who got to the very top from very near the bottom, some people around town still remember when he sold firewood to homeowners at Wintergreen. Famous for his love of privacy and for holding all the strings in a business empire that stretches to every corner of the country, Capshaw touches all aspects of our town.

The proud subject of a well-populated Wikipedia page could have shown up on at least three of our power lists in this issue, but we chose to put him in the real estate section, as he’s the man behind a huge residential condominium complex, City Walk, which is poised to rise just down the railroad tracks from the nTelos Wireless Pavilion, which he developed in partnership with the city.

From the way people whisper his name, you’d think Capshaw was a cross between Darth Vader and Clint Eastwood, but the guy is also famous for taking misguided young people under his wing, and has raised close to $5 million for local charities through the Bama Works Fund.

2. Michael Strine
Chief Operating Officer at UVA
As Executive Vice President and COO of UVA, Michael Strine is responsible for administering UVA’s $2.6 billion budget. The ninth-highest paid public employee in the state with a state salary of $297,000 and a total take of $450,000, Strine controls several major operational and administrative areas for the University, among them the hundreds of buildings the school had spawned over the years. Strine inherited his role from Leonard Sandridge. (Talk about big shoes to fill—that guy has a street named after him!) Sandridge was confident that the University would be able to accommodate its growth within its existing footprint for the next 25 years. Strine might have different ideas.

Strine’s job responsibilities include collaborating with R. Edward Howell, the VP and CEO of the UVA Medical Center. He’s also certainly at the table when David J. Neuman, the Stanford-bred “UVA Architect” responsible for master planning, and Tim Rose, CEO of the private foundation that typically acquires land for the school, move their chess pieces.
If you got Capshaw, Strine, and Silverman (see below) into the same room, Charlottesville’s West Main Street problem could be solved in less than, say, 12 hours.

Gabe Silverman (Photo courtesy subject)

3. Gabe Silverman and Allan Cadgene
Development partners
If you see a big building on West Main Street, chances are Gabe Silverman owns it or rebuilt it. No one outside of Coran Capshaw and Colonel Thomas Walker can claim to have influenced the landscape of Downtown Charlottesville the way Silverman has. With the backing of his business partner Allan Cadgene, the 71-year-old Silverman has made his mark by redeveloping iconic spaces, from the Amtrak Station and Main Street Market to the Ix Project and the A&N building.

A Charlottesville resident since the ’80s, Silverman is the local face of his partnership with Cadgene. The latter, a 65-year-old Stanford and Yale Law graduate and resident of San Francisco, is a more mysterious figure. He played the role of condescending owner in a 2006 spat, via mail correspondence, with local author John Grisham concerning the towing of Grisham’s Porsche from a Silverman and Cadgene-owned parking lot.

Silverman is Charlottesville’s answer to Keith Richards, a crass, chain-smoking developer with big ideas, a deeply tanned face, and a black T-shirt. He’s made plenty of friends and enemies over the years, but he’s been recognized widely for his contributions to the arts community and no one has ever called him boring.

4. Jim Justice
Owner of Wintergreen Resort
Jim Justice lives in Lewisburg, West Virginia, but his fingerprints are all over Charlottesville. In 2010, Justice bought 4,500 acres in Albemarle County for nearly $24 million. He owns the Greenbrier Resort (purchased in 2009 for $20.1 million), a popular vacation spot for some Charlottesvillians, and he recently acquired Wintergreen Resort for about $16.5 million, saying the property held sentimental value as one of the last places he golfed with his father.

Justice made his money in coal and agriculture. He launched Bluestone Farms, a commercial grain farming operation, and in 1993 succeeded his father as president and CEO of Bluestone Industries (now Justice Companies). Justice has suggested plans to continue purchasing and developing resorts across the Virginias with the idea of creating a line of upscale haunts that would connect the coast, the Piedmont, and the mountains. Forbes estimates his net worth at $1.2 billion.

A close friend of Jerry West’s and a highly visible member of his community in West Virginia, Justice finds time to coach high school basketball. In 2011, he was ranked No. 37 on philanthropy.com’s list of the “50 Most Generous Donors” for giving a combined $35 million to the Boy Scouts of America and Cleveland Clinic Innovations.

John Dewberry (Photo courtesy subject)

5. John Dewberry
Owner of the Landmark Hotel
If John Dewberry’s name doesn’t ring a bell, that’s probably because he’s only just arrived on the scene. The founder and CEO of Georgia development firm Dewberry Capital recently placed a winning $6.25 million bid on the shell of the long-stalled Landmark Hotel.

Dewberry, 48, was a starting quarterback for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in the ’80s. He played professionally in the Canadian Football League before ditching the jersey and turning to business in 1989, using his $5,000 signing bonus to finance his first real estate investment.

Since then, Dewberry Capital has amassed more than $400 million in assets in the Southeast. In recent years, the company has snapped up a large chunk of Atlanta’s Peachtree Street in the commercial heart of the city.

Dewberry may not be a household name in Charlottesville yet, but he does have long-standing connections to the area. Born in Lynchburg, he maintains a nonresident membership at Farmington Country Club, where he was kept up to speed on the Landmark saga over rounds of golf with close friend and local realtor Steve McLean.

So what does a Georgia millionaire want with a deteriorating hunk of Downtown Mall steel? Minutes after he made the buy, Dewberry said he sees the property becoming the second in a chain of elegant boutique hotels in upscale markets around the country (the first is already underway in Charleston).

Time will tell if his investment is more successful than Halsey Minor’s, but for now, Dewberry appears poised to become an important player.

---

IF I HAD THE POWER…

Brandon Collins (File photo)

Brandon Collins
Secretary of the Socialist Party of Central Virginia; former candidate for City Council, age 39
“Rather than being a real estate developer with a blank slate to do whatever I want, which is essentially how things happen now, I would suggest that all development be people-driven and I would seek to build on standards set by the community with attention to the needs of individual tenants.

Developers want money—they see profits and opportunity. They do not care that most of the people in Charlottesville pay too much for housing. Opening the political process so we can set better standards for development is a step in the right direction. Those standards should be focused on affordable housing and employment, however, nothing short of complete transformation of the social relationship between workers and owners will fundamentally ‘solve’ our affordable housing crisis.

That said, the current set aside of 15 percent affordable units for certain developments is not enough! We need the number to be at least 51 percent to have any effect on market rentals. UVA, our largest employer, and the biggest impact on housing costs, has a responsibility to pay a living wage, and to limit new development. With the billions in its capital fund, UVA can afford to create student housing that doesn’t increase rents or accentuate the speed of gentrification in nearby neighborhoods.

The Landmark, the Marriott being planned for West Main, and any other business development should bring living wage jobs, in great numbers, for low skilled workers. Developers and CRHA should create communities collectively owned and operated by tenants. Redevelopment of public housing should be an interest to developers in terms of community building, not profit seeking. No incentives or public monies should be offered for anything short of what the community desires.”

President Sullivan addressed hundreds of supporters on the Lawn Tuesday after UVA’s Board of Visitors unanimously voted for her reinstatement. Photo by Graelyn Brashear.

After more than two weeks of protests, speculation, and angst in the UVA community, the University’s Board of Visitors unanimously voted Tuesday afternoon to reinstate Teresa Sullivan as president.

A week and a day after the Board spent nearly 12 hours in deliberations over the naming of an interim president, it gathered again in the same Rotunda meeting room to address a resolution rescinding that appointment and reaffirming Sullivan’s status as top administrator.

The first signal that the Board was initiating a do-over at the emergency meeting came when Sullivan and Rector Helen Dragas—the embattled Board leader who orchestrated the behind-the-scenes ouster announced just over two weeks ago—walked in a back-door entrance to the building side by side and smiling.

UVA President Teresa Sullivan and Rector Helen Dragas eneter the Rotunda side by side before Tuesday’s meeting. Photo by Laura Ingles.

Heywood Fralin, the only Board member who voted against installing an interim president last week, introduced the Board’s resolution reinstating Sullivan, and before the room voted, Dragas made it clear she had changed her mind.

It had been a difficult two weeks for the University, she said, reiterating her apology for the secretiveness surrounding Sullivan’s forced resignation and acknowledging that the process should have taken place in the open. But good things have come of the turmoil on Grounds, she said.

"I believe real progress is more possible than ever now, because there’s absolutely no denying that all of the wonderful people who make up this community are as awake and egaged as ever," she said. "It is unfortunate that we had to have a near-death experience to get here, but the University should not waste the enormous opportunity at hand."

But not all the discussion had been constructive, she said. The Board members "have been the target of at times vitriolic and dishonorable communication based on a mob mentality that has been created by rumor and too little accountability from anonymous sources of information," she said. "This is plainly not the UVA way."

The role call around the table saw each Board member falling into step behind Dragas. Along with the affirmative votes, several offered brief statements of support. “With high honor and great pleasure, yes,” said Hunter Craig, one of the three members who requested the emergency meeting to reinstate the president.

Many in the crowd of several hundred Sullivan supporters gathered outside were following reporters’ tweets, and began cheering immediately after the unanimous vote, and over their muffled shouts, Sullivan herself addressed the Board. 

“I do not ask that we sweep any differences under the rug,” she said. “All of us want only one thing: what’s best for the University. I believe that we can continue in this task. We know now that we are joined by thousands of others who care passionately about this institution."

Outside, with the Board and many UVA deans surrounding her, Sullivan directed her words to a crowd that welcomed back its president with loud cheers and supportive signs.

“My family and I could not have imagined the events of recent weeks when we moved here 22 months ago,” she said. “I am not good enough, I am not wise enough, and I am not strong enough to do everything that needs doing at UVA on my own. But you have shown me beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am not alone.”

Suzie McCarthy, a PhD student studying politics has been driving back and forth from her home in northern Virginia for the last two weeks, attending protests and vigils and moderating the “Students, family and friends to reinstate President Sullivan” Facebook group. She said she thought the UVA community had surpirsed itself in its ability to come together.

“If I know our community, we’ll stand strong together, and we’ll look to our president," she said. "She has already given us an idea of how we should act.” 

Ricardo Padron, associate professor of Spanish, and a UVA alumnus, commended Dragas and the Board for "finding a dignified and honorable" way out of a crisis.

But UVA needs to learn from the last two weeks, he said

“One of the things we’ve learned from this is the necessity of diversifying the Board by having representatives from other constituencies," said Padron. "Had we had those representatives on this Board, this never would have happened, because the people in charge would have had a better sense of what the consequences of their actions were going to be.”—Graelyn Brashear and Laura Ingles

 

The Youth Movement
We’re not totally unaware that we’ve just created a long series of lists that trumpet the power of America’s least sympathetic set of operators: rich, white men. But hey, let’s be honest about how our preppy town with a hippie heart works. The only thing more insulting than portraying the world as a male-dominated money game is pretending not to do that by peppering these kinds of assessments with token representatives of groups we wish had more say-so. Here’s the good news: Things are getting better. Take a look at this list of young movers and shakers who, if they’re not exactly a multi-ethnic rainbow, are plying their trades in different fields that are likely to make a lasting mark on our community.

Tony Bennett (Photo by Matt Riley)

1. Tony Bennett
UVA Men’s Basketball Coach, age 43
At 43, Tony Bennett is a bit older than the rest of the people on this list, but he bears a different weight of responsibility than his peers in the form of the $1.7 million a year he gets from UVA to revitalize its hoops program. Don’t hate him because he’s rich. Bennett is at the front of a new wave of college basketball coaches who do things the right way. What does that mean? It means, among other things, that he lives and breathes basketball without letting it break down his moral fiber on the recruiting trail. Bennett is still the NCAA’s all-time leader in three point field goal percentage and he spent three years in the NBA with the Charlotte Hornets, so his players can’t challenge his authority on those grounds. And it’s a safe bet he could still trash half of his guards in one-on-one.

He prioritizes teaching, discipline, and defense, and so far his teams have overachieved. The jury is still out on Bennett’s recruiting ability, and in his results-based world, he won’t have too much time to make his case. Have some patience.

UVA takes its hoops seriously and has seen its fair share of high-profile coaches, but with the exception of the Ralph Sampson years, the record book tells the story of a program firmly rooted in the ACC’s second tier. Bennett set school records for wins at Washington State (26) in back-to-back seasons before coming to Charlottesville, and our West Coast sources tell us we still don’t know what we got.

2. Collean Laney
General Manager at The Jefferson Theater, age 32
The acts that hit the stage of the Jefferson aren’t the only reason the historic theater has become the top draw in our community. Since 2011, Collean Laney has been the guiding force behind making sure that playing and attending shows there are a memorable experience. “It really does take a village,” said Laney, who currently leads 40-plus part-time and two full-time staffers.

Laney said hard work is the key to getting ahead in the dog-eat-dog world of the music industry. Sometimes the work involves less glamorous tasks, like changing toilet paper rolls or ousting unruly patrons, but the rewards comes in indelible moments, like bringing a cup of tea to Wanda Jackson and ending up talking about sweaters.

Laney “caught the bug” for the entertainment business after an internship with the New York Times Arts & Leisure event series, then moved up the ranks at LiveNation’s Broadway touring division, and upon her return to Charlottesville, rose quickly to an upper management position at Starr Hill Presents/Redlight Management. She is one of only a handful of female managers at the music company. The typical challenges of the entertainment business feel seamless to Laney, who presents an unassuming figure in her trademark concert tee and “granny” sweater. “This doesn’t feel like a job to me,” she stated with aplomb. “I came here to book weddings and stayed focused on my goals.”

Michael Allenby (Photo by Tom Daly)

3. Michael Allenby
Co-founder of The Artist Farm, age 36
Charlottesville is fast becoming a music industry town. The presence of Coran Capshaw and Redlight Management has meant that musicians will come here to play in the hopes of getting discovered at venues that wouldn’t exist without his influence. But the music industry abhors stasis, and it’s only a matter of time before the apprentice steps up to challenge the master. That ageless premise is playing out in many music business subplots in town, but few as remarkable as the rise of Michael Allenby and The Artist Farm. Having cut his teeth at Red Light at the bottom of the totem pole, Allenby has learned his lessons well and struck out on his own course, establishing himself and his company as a diversified music management firm with a story to tell.

If you’ve ever enjoyed the music of the Infamous Stringdusters, or folked-out hard at The Festy Experience, you’ve gotten yourself a taste of what Allenby has in store for our little big town. Guided by an aesthetic he calls “high country living,” Allenby is out to mix the no-nonsense professionalism he learned at Redlight with the motivational modus operandi he used to lure the Stringdusters from Nashville on his way to becoming a pied piper to a whole generation of people who don’t want to see the lines separating folk, Americana, bluegrass and jam band music.

Wes Bellamy (Photo by Nick Strocchia)

4. Wes Bellamy
Teacher at Albemarle High School, age 25
Wes Bellamy is a relative newcomer to Charlottesville, but in his few short years in town, he’s made his presence felt. Originally from a hard knocks neighborhood in Atlanta, Bellamy, a South Carolina State University graduate, came to the city in 2009 to participate in the African-American Teaching Fellows program, a local nonprofit that offers scholarship money to students in the field of education.

Bellamy arrived thinking he’d teach for a few years, go to law school and get into politics, but he quickly abandoned the goal of becoming a state senator for his new calling—teaching. After spending time working with local teens from low-income families through the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, he turned down admission to four different law schools to become a substitute teacher at Monticello High. Last year he took a full time teaching position at Albemarle High School and now he has plans to become a high school principal.

But his professional role doesn’t capture Bellamy’s impact. As a member of the 100 Black Men of Central Virginia, he has used his business acumen and street smarts to raise money to start a nonprofit after-school program called Helping Young People Evolve (H.Y.P.E.), which provides boxing instruction and mentoring to boys. The venture has been so successful that Bellamy is looking to expand its services, offering a tennis program to local girls. More importantly, Bellamy is an unapologetically ambitious black male role model in a city that often loses its best African-American talent.

5. Hebah Fisher
Program Director at Community Investment Collaborative, age 22
Hebah Fisher didn’t envision putting down roots here when she came to Charlottesville from the Middle East, where she’d lived since she was 12, to study at UVA. She graduated with a degree in Global Development Studies in 2011, but instead of heading off for distant horizons, she found her focus locally.

As the president of Student Entrepreneurs for Economic Development, she provided free consulting services to small businesses and NGOs, which launched her into a community-wide discussion about fostering startups in Charlottesville. She’s now the primary staff member at the Community Investment Collaborative, a new nonprofit that is training its first class of local entrepreneurs.

Fisher works with CIC’s startup clients on a weekly basis, facilitating discussions with established business owners who offer insights on various aspects of business management. And that’s just the beginning: CIC will soon offer small loans to help entrepreneurs make their business plans reality.

---

IF I HAD THE POWER…

Grace Paine (Photo by John Robinson)

Grace Paine
Charlottesville High School senior and co-editor-in-chief of the Knight Time Review, age 16
“Although I’m tempted to rattle off a laundry list of acts that would immediately bring about global peace and security (provide every person with access to food, drinking water, and medical care, for example), I want to address this question as realistically as possible. So, taking a look at my own community, I would focus on one issue that every leader must grapple with: education.

Educationalist Ken Robinson once compared our school system to the fast food industry. We have adopted a model of standardization and conformity, he said, rather than customization to individual circumstances. This model does not serve individuals or society well.

If I had the power to change the system, I would focus on transforming our educational system so it both accepts and takes advantage of the diverse spectrum of human talent available to us. Our current system presumes that only one path brings happiness and success—do well in school, get into a ‘good’ college, get a high-paying job. Yet, I know far too many adults who have paid attention to those rules, secured a ‘respectable job,’ and still feel unsatisfied with their professional lives.

The relentless emphasis on standardized testing and standardized learning teaches students that only one type of intelligence is valuable in today’s world. Not only is this untrue, but it leaves many students disillusioned and unable to recognize their own strengths. Human development is not as linear as the system dictates, and our education system should not and cannot be one-size-fits-all.

If I had the power, I would liberate our school system from the pressure to turn out ‘high achieving’ students as defined by the College Board or SOLs. I would give teachers more room to creatively engage their students, and students more freedom to pursue their passions.”

The Pols
The political game always heats up in a presidential election year, but it’s fixin’ to boil over this time around. Virginia is being touted as an important battleground state in the Obama/Romney duel, but we’ve also got a crucial U.S. Senate race underway. The Commonwealth’s seats of political power may be in Richmond, Norfolk, and NoVa, but some of its deepest pockets—on both sides of the aisle—reside in this part of the state and these days you can’t even get in the election game at any level without a fistful of dollars. Local political leaders double as important fundraisers for statewide and national candidates, and don’t think they won’t be joining the fray with the stakes as high as they are right now.

 

David Toscano (Photo by John Robinson)

1. David Toscano
State Representative, 57th District; Virginia House of Delegates Minority Leader
Up until last year, David Toscano was an extremely popular local politician with a successful law practice, and a major force in Charlottesville’s Democratic power structure. But when he accepted the position of House Minority Leader in the fall of 2011, he took on the role of ideological leader for the state’s blue power movement on the eve of a crucial election year. Historically, Toscano has brought a litigator’s mind to the Assembly floor and pushed hard for stuff that his constituents wanted. With a statewide audience, he’s had to become a more outspoken foil to Governor Bob McDonnell’s political steamroller on social issues like reproductive rights and health care. It’s also worth mentioning that Llezelle Dugger, a political protégé who got her start in his law office, became the Charlottesville Clerk of Court. Might not sound like a big deal, but politics is all about growing an organization and that’s just what Toscano has done for the past 22 years.

2. Richard Baxter Gilliam
GOP donor
As we mentioned before, candidates need money to win elections, and when GOP candidates need money in our part of the world, they knock on Richard Baxter Gilliam’s door. Between 2010 and 2012, the Keswick resident gave a whopping $437,500 to state Republicans, including $10,000 to Ken Boyd for his reelection run last year and $125,000 to Governor McDonnell’s Opportunity Virginia PAC. In 2010, he gave at least $250,000 to Republican strategist Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, a nonprofit organization “dedicated to renewing America’s commitment to individual liberty.”

Gilliam lives in a lavish residence, enjoys buying properties with links to Civil War history, and owes his considerable wealth to King Coal. He founded Cumberland Resources Corp., one of the largest privately held coal producers in the United States, in Abingdon, and later sold his company to Massey Energy for $960 million.

3. Ken Boyd
Albemarle County Supervisor (Rivanna District)
Ken Boyd is the unapologetic voice for business and development in Albemarle County. And while the battle over the 29 Bypass isn’t over yet, his ability to wrangle with the McDonnell administration to revive the deal and the subsequent scramble to line up the swing vote he needed to get it passed are a testament to his powers of persuasion.

Boyd, who started his career in politics as a concerned parent in 1999, understands how to apply Tip O’Neill’s famous “politics is local” mantra to a tee, and the Rivanna District he represents will be a major destination for campaign fundraisers this year. Boyd withstood a fierce and expensive re-election campaign against challenger Cynthia Neff last year, so he’ll be around for a while longer to see his development plan for the 29N corridor take shape. The only thing in his way? Chris Dumler beat Lindsay Dorrier and Boyd doesn’t have the votes to push an agenda.

4. Sonjia Smith
Democratic donor
Sonjia Smith has been a major donor to local and Congressional candidates in Virginia, and unlike Richard Baxter Gilliam, Smith bleeds blue. According to the Virginia Public Access Project, she’s steered $69,200 of her and her hedge fund manager husband’s money directly to Virginia Democrats in the past two years. Those who have benefitted from her largesse include Tom Perriello, Eric Cantor’s 2010 challenger Rick Waugh, David Toscano, and Ken Boyd-challenger Cynthia Neff.

Smith’s local influence doesn’t stop at political donations, either. As a past or current member of the boards of the Center for Nonprofit Excellence, the Legal Aid Justice Center, and UVA’s College of Arts and Sciences, she’s put her stamp on Charlottesville’s nonprofit scene. Favored causes include women’s rights and teen education, and she’s poured a lot of time and funding into Planned Parenthood and the Child Health Advocacy Program.

A Wahoo through and through, Smith received both her bachelor’s and law degrees from UVA (she practiced law for six years before retiring when her first son was born). Her husband, Michael D. Bills, is the founder and president of Bluestem Asset Management, LLC. and the chairman of the board and director of local news nonprofit Charlottesville Tomorrow.

Chris Dumler (Photo by John Robinson)

5. Chris Dumler
Albemarle County Supervisor
Democrat Chris Dumler became the youngest Albemarle County Supervisor ever elected when he took 54 percent of the vote in the Scottsville District last year. Now 27, the Atlanta native is quietly making a name for himself in local politics.

Dumler graduated from Georgia Tech in 2006 with a chemical and biomolecular engineering degree, and received his JD from UVA’s School of Law in 2009. He’s also an Army JAG officer and part-owner of a new Scottsville brewery.

He got his start in politics running campaigns for local Democrats, and ultimately decided to run for office himself when his predecessor, longtime Supe Lindsay Dorrier, announced he wouldn’t run again in 2011. Dumler won his seat the old-fashioned way, knocking on nearly every door in his district, and he’s since gone from tireless candidate to shrewd politician. He’s put an emphasis on land preservation and appears ready to breathe life into the fight against the all-but-inevitable Western Bypass.

That puts him squarely at odds with No. 3 above—and we’re looking forward to seeing how the battle plays out.

---

IF I HAD THE POWER…

Sarad Davenport (Photo by John Robinson)

Sarad Davenport
Director of City of Promise, age 32
“If I had the power, I would make service the standard by which people’s lives were judged. I would make self-sacrificial love an expected norm in all interpersonal relations. Hatred would be frowned upon and mutual respect would be commonplace. We as a human community would operate in the renowned ideal that ‘All men [people] are created equal.’

It is this framework that, I believe, would allow us to see the inherent value in all humanity. It would be visible in the workplace, the marketplace, and the classroom, and in our daily interactions with those who are different. Our approach would be to seek to understand rather than to fundamentally change—to authentically listen, and then to speak.

I have to admit that this assignment left me quite perplexed for some time. My faith tradition reminds me that I have the power to move mountains, but what I speak of can be done only through a power much greater. Though I acknowledge this is somewhat of a Utopian ideal that may be considered unrealistic to many, it does not prevent me from operating in it and living it—however flawed the attempt —on a daily basis.

In essence, my attitude towards political power boils down to the Golden Rule or ethic of reciprocity: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ This maxim could be applied to education reform, human rights, and geopolitics. If I had the power to change the paradigm, which I do, self-sacrificial service and love would be model human attributes and the recognition of our equality would be evidenced in how we speak to and treat one another.”

JUMP TO:  The U The Pols The Landlords The Investors The Entrepreneurs The Arts The Youth Movement

Late last year, Forbes ranked Charlottesville the 13th richest metropolitan area in the country. Earlier this month, Richard Florida, a senior editor at The Atlantic, published his list of the “brainiest” cities in the U.S. Using data collected by scientists from Lumos Labs, who measured the cognitive performance of over a million people and mapped them with IP geolocation software. The Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto crossed the cognitive data with conventional performance indicators like educational attainment and ranked the top metro areas. Guess who was at the top of the list? That’s right. Rich and smart. Good looking. Modest, too. At C-VILLE, we might not get as excited about rankings as say, Forbes, but we’re just as obsessed with the power dynamics at play in a town with an upside everyone else seems so intent on quantifying. We’ve come up with a set of lists that ranks the power players in seven separate spheres of local influence, but if you want to get your head around who’s moving agendas, start thinking about how the lists are connected.

DISCLAIMER: We hereby acknowledge that a “power” ranking is a bullshit construct, but so is presidential polling data, right? We don’t claim to be able to quantify power, or even, really, to know what it is, but it appears to have something to do with serving on nonprofit boards. To account for the fact that we’re likely providing a stilted view of the world we OCCUPY, we’ve also assembled essays written by people in the community who have something to say about how power works and the way it should be used. So consider this our 2012 Speak Truth to Power issue, with an emphasis on the power part.

The U
Charlottesville is a company town and UVA is the company. The relatively small size of the city, its longstanding relationship with the University, and the fact that UVA runs its biggest hospital, real estate business, and media team, in addition to accounting for 12,500 jobs and a budget footprint of $2.6 billion, means it’s not hard to figure out where the seat of power is. Right now the captain’s chair is empty. The Board of Visitors (some of them anyway) flexed its muscle in deposing President Teresa Sullivan, citing the need for an executive leader with a nous for confronting structurally fiscal challenges with immediate actions, not an “incrementalist.” The way the deed went down has created a massive backlash, in large part because of the secrecy with which a small group of people changed course on behalf of the state’s flagship university. To repair the breach with faculty and deans, the Board needs to find a president who’s a skilled negotiator with academic credibility; to settle down alumni whose feathers have been ruffled by the debacle, it needs a charismatic communicator with a track record of raising big money; and then to make the whole affair pay out, it’s got to find someone with the skills Rector Helen Dragas believes Sullivan didn’t have. Oh, and the person has to be willing to walk into a mess. Sound like anyone you know?

Teresa Sullivan (Photo by Dan Addison/UVA Public Affairs)

1. Teresa Sullivan?
UVA President
Some big names are being bandied about as Teresa Sullivan’s successor, including Teresa Sullivan’s. By the time this paper comes out, the Board will have met to settle the details of her terms of employment, which means she’ll either have been reinstated or she’ll have been cashiered. In the first scenario, the question of who’s steering the ship will be answered. In the second, it will be wide open.

Recently named interim president Carl Zeithaml (see No. 5) bowed out under pressure from his peers, adding fuel to a fire that’s burning hot on Grounds. Sullivan built up major credibility with the faculty by decentralizing control over department budgets, doing some serious listening, and creating a game plan for faculty recruitment and retention that involved making UVA a great place to be a teacher. She opened Pandora’s box purposefully in the belief that building a consensus-driven management system that empowers faculty and creates competition between departments could make up for the fact that UVA can’t pay as much as its competitors.

Dragas expressed her belief that solving the faculty recruitment problem was going to come down to dollars and cents. Kind of an interesting question for academia emerging here. Whether the Board will reinstate Sullivan, opt for star power (Bill Clinton anyone?), or choose somebody familiar but imbued with a finance mindset, like Ted Snyder, the former Darden dean now holding forth at Yale’s School of Management, is anybody’s best guess.

Helen Dragas (Photo by Cole Geddy/UVA Public Affairs)

2. Helen Dragas
Rector of the UVA Board of Visitors
Say what you want about Helen Dragas, but the Virginia Beach realtor won’t back down. A Tim Kaine appointment to the Board of Visitors and a Darden grad, Dragas unapologetically wielded the sword in Sullivan’s very sudden and private execution, even told her to get out of Carr’s Hill before her contract expired. Her term on the Board expires in July, and Governor Bob McDonnell hasn’t indicated one way or another whether she’ll stay or go. Let’s take a guess and say he’ll wait to see what happens Tuesday, when all the eyes in the commonwealth will be trained on the Rotunda.

Early last week, Vice Rector Mark Kington, who according to an e-mail strand recently made public, helped Dragas engineer Sullivan’s removal with a cool, and calculated hand, resigned with little explanation. It was the first sign that Dragas’ hold on the Board was crumbling. Then three Board members—A. Macdonald Caputo, Timothy Robertson, and Hunter Craig—called for a vote on Sullivan’s reinstatement. Hmmm. A day later Zeithaml abdicated his role, citing the groundswell of support for Sullivan and saying, “Trust, one of our core institutional values, has been compromised.”

We don’t remember trust being one of the core values in Game of Thrones. Oh wait, this is Mr. Jefferson’s University.

The Washington Post claims to have an inside source who says that Dragas’ opponents on the Board have the eight votes they need to bring Sullivan back. We’ve counted six. But if you saw Dragas on the way out of the 12-hour marathon meeting that resulted in Zeithaml’s temporary appointment, you’d realize she doesn’t intend to fold her cards without seeing what her opponents are holding. “Don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers,” she said. Dragas’ power at the University will dissipate very quickly if she loses this battle and doesn’t get reappointed next month, but the lasting effect of Dragas-gate will be felt for years to come.

3. George Cohen
UVA Faculty Senate Chair
We know, we know, the faculty never has any power. But don’t tell that to George Cohen, the UVA Law professor who has led the Faculty Senate’s opposition to Sullivan’s removal. As a key faculty spokesperson in the unfolding saga, Cohen and his colleagues took up a strong initial position by endorsing a document requesting that Dragas and Kington resign from the Board and demanding Sullivan’s reinstatement. When they managed to convince Carl Zeithaml to come back across the picket line, the Faculty Senate sent a serious message that it will be a force to be reckoned with as the process unfolds. Academia is famous for its divisive department politics, but the UVA faculty on Grounds last week showed remarkable solidarity and Cohen fulfilled the fantasies of thousands of disempowered professors across the land when he wrote to Governor Bob McDonnell and said, “We call upon Rector Helen Dragas to follow the Vice Rector’s lead and resign immediately.”
What makes Cohen’s position even more interesting is that Sullivan’s husband, Douglas Laycock, is a colleague at the UVA Law School. That human connection could have played a role in preventing this internal fight from playing out between the University’s well-endowed and highly prestigious graduate schools and its embattled undergraduate college.

R. Edward Howell (Photo Dan Addison/UVA Public Affairs)

4. R. Edward Howell
UVA Medical Center Vice President and CEO
With all of the focus on the way Darden grads (Dragas, Kington, Kiernan) engineered Sullivan’s removal, don’t forget about the power of the UVA Medical Center, which accounts for nearly half of the University’s budget footprint and employs 5,500 people. The hospital is the intersection between well-funded relatively autonomous private graduate schools, the operating budget controlled by the president’s office, and the declining stream of state and federal research money. Dragas used a whole bullet point to make it clear that dealing with the issues facing the hospital are a financial necessity, and Sullivan’s strategic plan notably lacked any mention of its operation.

R. Edward Howell, a quiet disciple of former UVA COO Leonard Sandridge, has been working hard to make the case that the hospital needs to remain a funding priority. Meanwhile, the hospital industry is continuing its rapid consolidation under regional health care provider models, placing added pressure on the cost structures of teaching hospitals. Howell recently oversaw the construction of the $74 million Emily Couric Clinical Cancer Center and the $141 million Barry & Bill Battle Building, a major overhaul of the UVA Children’s Hospital. To capitalize on the expansion, Howell needs to cover another $100 million in expenses each year to cover the new operating costs. The furor on campus right now is about honor, public process, and respect, but the decision to remove Sullivan was based on solving problems of a “structural and long-term nature.” You can bet Howell will want the next president, even if it is Sullivan, to follow through on the investment in the UVA Medical Center by steering money his way.

Carl Zeithaml (Photo by Cole Geddy/UVA Public Affairs)

5. Carl Zeithaml
Former Interim President
“Some people disagree with my decision to serve in this role, and I understand their reasons. After profound deliberation, however, I felt that I had no choice. I am sorry if you disagree with my decision, but please join me in my efforts to move the University forward.” His opening e-mail to fellow administrators painted a pretty picture of Carl Zeithaml’s predicament as interim leader of UVA, and so it may not have been a total surprise to his colleagues when he reversed course a few days later, broke contact with the Board, and stood with the Faculty Senate in condemning the process used to oust Sullivan.

There is broad conjecture that most of the 12 hours the Board spent behind closed doors last Monday went into convincing someone to take a job that no one really wanted. Zeithaml has been dean of the McIntire School of Commerce for four terms and overseen its rise to the top of the list of undergraduate business schools. Since the 2006 introduction of the Bloomberg Businessweek ranking of undergraduate business programs, the School’s B.S. in Commerce Program is the only program in the nation to be ranked either first or second each year. Zeithaml also specializes in the field of strategic management, with an emphasis on global and competitive strategy, exactly what Dragas wanted from a leader. Zeithaml sent two powerful messages when he turned his back on her. First, that the Darden cabal didn’t include McIntire. And second, that faculty solidarity is important to upper management too.

---

IF I HAD THE POWER…

Bonnie Gordon (Photo by John Robinson)

Bonnie Gordon

Professor at UVA McIntire Department of Music, age 43
“If I ran this university, I’d do much of what Terry Sullivan did: speak the truth that, while UVA may be great, it’s not as great as it thinks it is, and its greatness is precarious. I would put Mr. Jefferson to sleep once and for all; we need to stop using him to prove anything we want. Sure, he founded UVA, but he built it on the labor of enslaved blacks, didn’t let women come to his school, and had a nasty vindictive streak.

I would make sure the University’s administrators stopped acting like the Vatican, circa 1600, handing down secret decisions from on high. But first I’d canonize LEO (Library Express On-Grounds)—the service that delivers books from the library directly to faculty offices. After all, we still need books to teach our students.

I’d make race relations a top priority. I’d remind the state legislature that teaching and scholarship matter most. I’d remind everyone that without the undergraduates, we are all sunk. I’d make sure those precious gems do the following: 1) touch a book printed before 1800; 2) experiment and play with numbers; 3) create something; 4) vote; 5) learn something that can only be learned outdoors; 6) learn about and contribute to the Charlottesville community; 7) rebel.

I’d make its relationship with the community a priority of the University; our neighbors are not there solely as objects for study and photography, and our staff needs to make a living wage. I’d fire the people who come up with stupid and time-consuming online surveys. I’d abolish online sexual and racial harassment classes and quizzes; those who harass, assault, and rape are smart enough to pass them. I’d make sure we take ourselves less seriously; much of what we do as academics is somewhat ludicrous and universities are about playing with ideas, not drowning in them. I’d build a bar and spa just for women (all of them, not just faculty), financed with fines paid by the above-mentioned harassers.”

Walt Heinecke(Photo by John Robinson)

Walt Heinecke
Professor at UVA Curry School of Education, age 53
“I would ask all to adopt a creed established by Cicero: ‘Freedom means participation in power.’ I’d ask leaders to treat the public as allies, not as enemies or a problem to be managed. I’d demand that our leaders seek public input in substantive ways, not merely symbolic ones, and that they act in the public interest, not in the interests of wealthy individuals or corporations with venal agendas.

Dear leaders, some advice:

Be transparent to a fault.

Model your public organizations on the idea of democracy, not corporations, and give your employees a say in the operations. Reject the philosophy that says market forces and private self interests determine, define, or equate to the public good. Acknowledge that unbridled capitalism has corrupted our democracy and that public institutions have been compromised and that you will not tolerate it further.

Replace reading of management and leadership books penned by corporate CEOs and financiers and, instead, read Gandhi, King Jr., Dewey, Sinclair Lewis.

Create mechanisms for citizen/stakeholder input in ways that do not promote predetermined outcomes. Don’t stack your appointments to advisory bodies, let them be representative of the population (class, race, gender, etc.), not merely the wealthy. Encourage and facilitate, do not control, manipulate, or manage public input, discussion, and discourse. Democracy is slow and messy and not always efficient—allow for that.

And to my fellows:

‘Sic Semper Tyrannis’ means you will question your boards’ motives and provide them with feedback as to whether or not they are serving the public interest. Lead them to serve the public not private interests and protest if they fail to do so.

Demand that the Board of Supervisors, the City Council, the Board of Visitors, and the school boards provide full public funding of public services. Insist that they push back against those interests that have choked support for public institutions. Be political actors in this sense: Question the constitution of governing boards should they be dominated by and promote corporate/wealthy interests.

To all:

Question authority, even your own.”