Firefly owner Melissa Meece, a former environmental consultant, earned her business a certification from the Green Restaurant Association by investing in making the eatery more sustainable. / Photo: Eze Amos
More and more local businesses and nonprofits are looking for ways to operate sustainably. While not everyone is familiar with the “triple bottom line” approach (gauging success by three rubrics: economic, environmental, and societal), most do see efforts to go green as beneficial beyond saving money or reducing waste. And their number includes more than the usual suspects.
“People might not necessarily think of us as among green companies,” says Tiger Fuel Company president Gordon Sutton. “But my brother and I [who took over the family-owned business when their father retired in 2017] are passionate outdoorsmen. We’re looking to the future, and we want to do the right thing.”
Sutton’s brother Taylor, who is COO, was an environmental sciences major; Gordon himself interned at a biodiesel company and always had an interest in renewable energy. Their company, which distributes home heating fuels and petroleum products and owns The Markets convenience stores, began by installing solar panels on two of its stores, the Exxon stations on Preston Avenue in Charlottesville’s Rose Hill neighborhood and in Ruckersville. Sutton saw this step as both a sound financial move–“Our stores and car washes are significant energy users”–and a way to raise awareness and contribute to the community.
He says both customers and employees have been enthusiastic and supportive. The company’s delivery fleet is diesel-powered; “we’ve looked into propane motors, but weren’t thrilled with the results,” Sutton notes. Tiger Fuel is now in the process of assessing its carbon footprint and developing a plan to set significant reduction targets.
While traditional car dealers might also seem to be on the wrong side of climate issues, Carter Myers Automotive’s vice president Peter Borches calls CMA’s Colonial Nissan the company’s “incubator test site” for ways to reduce environmental impact at its 13 dealerships in central Virginia.
Because lighting is a huge energy cost at auto dealerships, Colonial Nissan switched to LEDs and installed a 480-panel solar array designed to produce 93 percent of the facility’s electricity needs. While Borches notes the many incentives for greening the business–cost savings, tax incentives, positive public relations, and marketing benefits–his motives are personal: “My wife and I are worried about [the world] when our children are 50 years old. We need to raise this issue above the political fray, and get as many people as possible in the tent and working together.” An added benefit, in his view, is “our associates have really run with this,” contributing ideas like providing car shoppers with cup- and water-bottle filling stations instead of single-use bottled water, and recycling everything from paper to outdated computers.
Ravi Respeto, president of the United Way Thomas Jefferson Area, says that as a nonprofit, “we’re always looking to reduce costs, but there’s a community leadership aspect as well as an awareness factor” in taking action to lessen environmental impact. United Way began by replacing its building’s old HVAC units with a high-efficiency system that includes programmable thermostats.
Next year, after upgraded windows are installed, the agency is expecting a 10-15 percent savings on its electric bill–and it’s considering solar options down the line. “Climate change affects our lower-income constituencies the most,” says Respeto. Since investing in energy-savings technologies costs money up front, she notes, “there’s an equity aspect to this issue, and we are in the business of equity.”
Firefly Restaurant, as a tenant, can’t make these kinds of capital investments–but it has invested in qualifying as the city’s first Green Restaurant Association-certified eatery. Owner and general manager Melissa Meece, a former environmental consultant, has installed UV film on the restaurant’s huge windows (cutting energy usage for air conditioning by 43 percent); invested in LED bulbs (“expensive up front, but saves energy and staff time, because they never need changing”); and committed to non-toxic cleaning supplies and customer toiletries.
Meece also looks for used or rehabbed Energy Star-rated restaurant equipment: “I’m a big fan of second-hand [she’s also the owner of consignment shop Rethreads], and it saves the energy used in manufacturing.”
It might seem hard for a hospital to go green, but when Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital decided to create a new campus on Pantops, in 2007, they tried to build sustainability in from the start. The facility (LEED®-certified by the U. S. Green Building Council) uses a range of technological tools to save resources: low-water-usage toilets, automatic controls for temperature and lighting, re-use of condensation water from AC units, and irrigation water supplied from the site’s retention pond.
Focusing on a more sustainable building enabled the hospital to double its square footage (from it’s previous location) without increasing either energy or water consumption. As both a large community institution and a major employer, executive director of support services Catherine Hughes says Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital sees the need to set a visible example, from recycling in the kitchen (including composting food and reclaiming fryer oil) to encouraging staff to bike to work and even cutting out bottled water and photocopied materials at meetings.
For help in their efforts to reduce their environmental impact, several of these organizations–and others–have looked to the Charlottesville Climate Collaborative, a nonprofit founded in 2017 to coordinate government, business, nonprofit, and community resources to address climate issues. One example: C3 is assisting on Tiger Fuel’s environmental impact assessment.
C3 also runs the annual Better Business Challenge, founded in 2010 by environmental website Better World Betty and the community-based Local Energy Alliance Program. This year (2018-2109) more than 90 businesses and nonprofits participated, taking steps that collectively will save more than $675,000 a year in energy costs and cut 4,331 tons of CO2 emissions. Teri Kent, the original Better World Betty and now C3’s director of communications and programs, says, “There’s great momentum now as businesses are stepping up to this issue. Looking just at the money side of sustainability is too siloed–we all share the same air and water.”
Business sustainability by the numbers: a hyper-local case study
New York City is requiring all large buildings to slash carbon emissions to meet a collective goal of a 40 percent reduction by 2030. In Seattle and Washington, D.C., plastic straws are officially banned at all businesses to reduce plastic waste.
So how is the C’ville business community stepping up on sustainability? From Kardinal Hall to WorldStrides, many area businesses and organizations are pledging to reduce their carbon footprint with the help of the Charlottesville Climate Collaborative’s Better Business Challenge, a friendly, year-long competition that encourages energy savings actions and spurs sustainability initiatives on the local level. What kind of tangible impact can they—and did they—make?
The 2018-19 Challenge tracked participant actions, and the energy-savings metrics are in.
In retail, 25 years is more than a lifetime–and Amy Gardner, owner and founder of Scarpa, knows this as well as anyone. The women’s shoe shop she opened in North Barracks Road in 1994 has evolved into one of the area’s premier women’s apparel stores.
Gardner’s adventure in retail was spurred by her passion for shoes (“I spent my first babysitting dollars on a pair of gray Esprit driving loafers”), and–oddly enough–the problem-solving skills she honed as an architecture major at UVA in the early ‘90s. “Architecture is basically three-dimensional problem-solving,” she says. “You have to learn to collaborate, to present your thinking, to keep the end-user in mind–a lot like business thinking.”
Gardner saw a problem–Charlottesville had no shop dedicated to fine women’s shoes–and the solution was clear: open her own. “I thought, ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ I could fail at age 24–but wasn’t that better than getting to my 40s knowing that I had never tried?” She added accessories in 1997, and clothing in 2004. Then the 2009 recession almost forced Scarpa under. “I had been doing a fine job at watching the top line, but not so well at keeping an eye on the basics–profit margin, expenses,” Gardner says. “I learned a lot about being a better business person.” In 2012, as the market was recovering, she hired a consultant who became a mentor and “reignited that spark I needed to keep going.”
Customer service and loyalty are the heart of Gardner’s business approach. Scarpa’s offerings reflect both the expertise of Gardner and her staff, and their intimate knowledge of their clientele. And this isn’t third-hand market research–it’s personal. Gardner has customers who have been shopping at Scarpa since it opened.
Scarpa’s customers are still largely local, but now include out-of-towners as well. As Charlottesville has become a destination, shoppers often make the store their first stop on a weekend visit. And UVA has brought students’ parents and a large and loyal alumni community who return for reunions and events–and revisit their favorite shoe store.
What spurs this kind of loyalty? Beautifully crafted shoes, jewelry, apparel, and accessories–but above all, Gardner’s commitment to customer service. Need a pair of shoes adjusted? They’ll send them out to their expert cobbler. Need accessories to update your favorite outfit? Bring it in, and they’ll help you figure out a new look. Need a dress for a special event, but can’t get in during business hours? They’ll open early or stay late.
These days, Gardner’s role is managing the business overall, and ensuring that her customers always know Scarpa is their store. “I’m self-made,” she says, “but no one is truly self-made.”
Small biz staying power
What has Amy Gardner learned about small business longevity? Here, she offers her top tips:
1. Figure out what you don’t know, and learn it. Ask for feedback and advice from everyone whose opinion you value, she says–whether for their expertise in business, finance, products, people management, or life balance.
2. Show the customer you are investing in your business. Gardner got this advice early on from Donna Doll, whose restaurant Brasa was part of Charlottesville’s dining boom in the 1990s. Fresh decor and comfortable spaces tells customers you are willing to spend money on their experience. For Gardner, this is one aspect of “playing the long game”–thinking beyond this month’s inventory or this year’s profit.
3. Keep personal relationships in the forefront. Every type of business is about people, Gardner believes: “The trick in business is to read your customer.” Likewise, when hiring staff, she looks for empathy as well as expertise. Asked to name one of her biggest accomplishments, she cites developing and inspiring her employees.
"People have grown tired of the single-use mindset," says Corry Blanc, founder of Blanc Creatives. "And they are buying our story." / Photo: Tristan Williams
Photo: Andrea Hubbell
While some locals lament the passing of small-town Charlottesville, tucked away in the Belmont neighborhood is a blacksmith shop called Blanc Creatives, where local artisans forge hand-crafted culinary tools they call “modern heirlooms made for daily use.”
Corry Blanc–blacksmith, designer, and founder of Blanc Creatives–is a north Georgia native who learned pottery in high school, metal-working from his uncle, and cooking from his grandparents. In 2007, Blanc began working for Stokes of England Blacksmithing Company in Keswick, making ornamental ironwork like railings, gates, and lighting (“I knew how to cut and weld,” notes Blanc, “so now I wanted to learn how to heat and bend.”). But his interest in design inspired him to strike out on his own. Shopping at farmers’ markets started him thinking about small items he could design, make, and sell there–like frying pans. Chef friends like Tomas Rahal of Mas (now at Quality Pie) were willing to kitchen-test his evolving designs.
In 2015, Blanc rolled the dice. He submitted his frying pans to Garden & Gun magazine’s Made in the South awards, and won the grand prize in home products. “November 15, 2015, the announcement goes live on the internet,” he remembers. “By December, we had a nine-month waiting list for product orders.” The next year, Blanc Creatives was featured in The New York Times’ gift guide, and the business took off.
The idea began with function. Carbon steel is the workhorse of restaurant chefs, says Blanc; it cooks on all heat sources and builds up a seasoning like cast iron, but is lighter, smoother, and more malleable, so it can be shaped with a sloping side for more versatility.
And shape is what makes Blanc Creatives’ products unique. Each piece is crafted by hand in the blacksmith shop and, as the product line has expanded, the woodworking shop next door. Blanc now spends his time designing products and streamlining the production process, with 17 full- and part-time blacksmiths and wood artisans; “these are really their pans now,” says Blanc.
Blanc Creatives products come with a lifetime guarantee, and they aren’t cheap (pans start at $210 for the 9-inch skillet). Buyers can be dedicated home cooks (some purchase an entire set) or professional chefs like Rahal and Harrison Keevil at Keevil & Keevil. But Blanc also knows customers who save up to buy just one pan–an everyday tool that fuses function and beauty.
What’s driving the appeal? “People have grown tired of the single-use mindset,” says Blanc. “And they are buying our story.” With each piece, customers get a thank-you postcard with a duotone photo of the Blanc Creatives crew gathered around the anvils: sweaty, grimy, and proud of it.
Carpenter Anne Lassere working on a project last year for the
Building Goodness Foundation.
Photo: Eze Amos
Anne Lassere is the very model of a young woman whose career is about to take off. Competent, confident, poised and well-educated, the daughter of a doctor and a lawyer, she’s studied sculpture and anthropology and has lived in France, where she worked as a translator. She’s recently left her job to launch her own firm, at age 32.
The business? Construction.
Lassere is a skilled carpenter with a brand-new contractor’s license, and on the first project for her new company—renovating a house near downtown Charlottesville—she’s handling everything from replacing the flooring to moving the staircase to updating the bathrooms, with a little help from her friends:plumber Kristi Williams and electrician Chelsea Short.
An all-female construction crew is pretty unusual—women still represent only 3.4 percent of the construction trades workforce, says the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Yet the skilled construction trades offer covetable jobs: wages are from 3 percent to 22 percent higher than the median in Virginia, according to the Associated General Contractors of America, and most don’t require a college degree. Through apprenticeship programs, tradespeople can even get paid as they learn the job. The gender pay gap is also lower: Women in the construction industry earn 95.7 percent of what men do, compared to the overall national wage gap of about 80 percent. So, at a time when women have become well-established in traditionally male professions ranging from medicine to finance to law, why aren’t we seeing more women plumbers, roofers and masons?
It’s not for lack of jobs: the industry is begging for skilled workers. Construction in Virginia has rebounded, and 92 percent of construction firms report difficulty finding both salaried and hourly craft employees, according to AGC. It’s projected that Virginia’s demand for trade workers, including in construction, will create almost 218,000 jobs between now and September 2020. And many current workers are soon-to-retire boomers.
In response to the shortage, federal, state, and local programs have proliferated to encourage more women to join the field, and they may be making inroads. But the barriers are high.
Why women don’t take the trade route
A CATEC student works on a class project, a modular house that will be auctioned off as a fundraiser. Photo: Amy and Jackson Smith.
The first hurdle: a huge bias towards a college education. Pam Haney, general superintendent and safety director for Charlottesville construction firm Martin Horn, sees this attitude in her work with the Central Virginia Apprenticeship Council: “All these kids hear is ‘college, college, college,’” she says. “College isn’t for everyone. We have to change this mindset.”
In Charlottesville, one of the biggest players working to promote the trades is the Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center. Operated by the Albemarle County and Charlottesville public school districts, CATEC serves nearly a dozen high schools in the region, and works in partnership with local community colleges and employers to offer workforce education programs for both high school students and adults. Shannon Tomlin, CATEC’s career coordinator for high schools, says, “Some people think our kids aren’t going to go to college. But many do continue their education, and they can use their skills to earn their way.” Many students choose to go on to apprentice programs; others use CATEC courses to earn college credits in the skilled trades program at Piedmont Virgnia Community College, or as elective credits in a degree program. Whatever their choices, all CATEC students graduate with a marketable skill that can start them earning money right after high school.
For the construction trades specifically, girls may count themselves out because they think the jobs require massive muscle power. But nowadays, the trades are as technological as they are manual—and that includes the attention to detail and planning skills in which females, especially in high school, often outpace their male peers, notes Debbie Gannon, CATEC’s apprenticeship and adult programs coordinator. Besides that, Gannon says, “Sometimes the girls feel they have more to prove—and that makes them work harder and smarter.” Other stereotypes, however, still exist: Tomlin says one female student applied for a skilled trade position, and the interviewer started talking to her about a job as an administrative assistant.
Another, even more basic barrier: many girls don’t get exposed to working with tools from a young age the way boys do. Gannon notes that many schools are now trying to put more emphasis on ‘making’ as a way to give children, of any gender, the chance to create with their hands. Lassere says her first exposure to tools was working for a luthier (a person who makes stringed musical instruments) after high school. “I found out that I really liked the ability to make things.” A few years later, an internship in California working with cob (clay, sand, and straw), adobe, wattle-and-daub, and other natural building materials set her course toward construction.
Earlysville native Williams had tried a range of jobs, from working on a horse farm to day care to housekeeping. She happened to be helping a friend on a plumbing project when she found herself thinking, “This is something I could do every day.” (Most girls, she notes, “turn up their noses at plumbing— they think it’s only about poop.”)
Daisy Dejesus Maine, a historic masonry specialist at UVA, can recall the specific day in 7th grade when she found herself staring at a brick wall and wondering how it was constructed. The following week, her class had a tour at CATEC. She remembers being intimidated at first, but she worked up her nerve to talk with the girl who was taking the masonry class and thought, “Yeah, I can do this.”
Getting more girls to think trades
The women who are involved in the skilled trades—as educators, as workers, as employers—are committed to getting the word out to others. Tomlin says CATEC’s efforts to get kids thinking about trades as a career starts in the local elementary schools, with outreach promoting training programs in skills from computer programming and auto mechanics to carpentry, electricity, and firefighting. And they make an effort to include females in the mix, either bringing tradeswomen from local employers along on CATEC’s school visits, or having girls already enrolled in the skilled trades classes present on CATEC tours so that students can see female role models. Even when a girl is attracted to skilled trades work, Tomlin says, attitudes can be hard to change; she knows at least one student who was interested in masonry training and had to convince her parents to let her pursue it.
National organizations like Build Your Future and SkillsUSA offer resources and support for anyone interested in a skilled trades career, and while they don’t have recruiting programs specifically geared to girls, they do try to highlight female participation. Lisa Witt, assistant project manager at Canterbury Enterprises LLC in Chester, runs the carpentry competition for SkillsUSA’s Virginia chapter; in the last five years, she says, it’s become more common to see females involved in the construction trades programs.
The National Association of Women in Construction represents “everyone from women on the site to women who own the company,” says Wendy McQuiggan, president of the Richmond chapter (who herself manages and owns a construction contracting firm.) NAWIC works both sides of the equation, with outreach programs to colleges, trade schools and public education starting as early as 4th grade promoting “the idea of building something, and what goes into that.” NAWIC also educates and encourages employers to actively recruit and train women for the trades jobs they need filled. “A lot of companies offer apprenticeship programs as a good way to both teach skills and mold the kind of workforce they’re seeking,” she says.
Still, women account for less than 10 percent of those participating in apprenticeship programs nationwide, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. To support efforts to recruit more women for such programs, last year the department began offering grants to community organizations that get women into apprenticeships or nontraditional skills training programs and provide support groups to improve retention.
Here in Charlottesville, at the city’s largest employer, UVA Facilities Management actively recruits women for its four-year apprenticeship, which covers the cost of training for state certifications (often through courses at CATEC) while providing a paycheck and full employee benefits; this year they had 16 women out of 200 applicants, an increase over previous years. To encourage women to think about the trades, UVA FM has begun sponsoring “Empowering You” Toolbox Workshops, in which a volunteer group of female employees teach women age 16 and older how to DIY. At the March session, the skills demonstrated included upgrading a thermostat, building shelves, and patching drywall. (The next toolbox workshop will be held at the Building Goodness Foundation this Saturday, June 22.) And for the last four years, UVA FM has held a Girls Day for girls ages 10-16, to give them a taste of what tradeswomen can do.
Hands on learning
This year’s Girls Day, held last week, was the largest yet: 90 girls in matching turquoise T-shirts being bussed around campus to go “behind the scenes” at the UVA FM cabinet and sign shop, the University Hospital expansion, and the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers—fully fitted out with hard hats, safety goggles, and fluorescent vests at each site. Crowd favorites: Seeing how the elevator being installed in the hospital expansion really works, exploring the emergency helipad, and checking out the cool tools in the sign shop. After lunch (another crowd favorite) in the restaurant at Darden came the vendor fair, with representatives from local companies as well as all aspects of UVA FM’s operations: carpenters, electricians, plumbers, masons, police, environmental specialists, sustainability experts—and, just for fun, some of the UVA women’s basketball team players and coaches.
While some girls were following diagrams to complete an electrical circuit, others were trying their hand at brick-laying, nail-pounding, fire-extinguishing, and model-building. Hands-on activities were, of course, stressed—from building structures out of Dots candies and toothpicks to taking the “get your safety gear on in three minutes” challenge, or putting together PVC plumbing pipes in a way that would stand up to the hose test.
At UVA’s fourth annual Girls Day on June 13, historic preservation project manager Sarita Herman gave girls a tour of the Memorial for Enslaved Laborers project site. Photo: Jane Centofante/UVA Facilities Management
Molly Shifflett, a UVA FM employee, said her daughter Haley “has been to Girls Day three out of the four times we’ve held it—she would come even if I didn’t work here.” Haley, 15, is interested in architecture and interior design, so learning how things work and what skills are used in construction fits her interests. Other girls said they came because it was interesting to learn about how things work, or because a friend had come the year before and said it was “cool” and “fun.”
Girls Day, an idea suggested by one of the women apprentices, has grown in popularity each year. In addition, the female construction workers at UVA FM have started an informal group called UVA Tradeswomen that puts on the “Empowering You” workshops and other community projects to provide role models of women working in the construction trades. There’s been discussion about starting a local chapter of NAWIC, as an additional way to spur interest and organize the women already in the field.
The skills of a tradeswoman
What does it take to succeed in this industry? The women who’ve done it mention several key qualities:
A strong personality:Whether you’re working on a job site or in the construction office, a tough skin is job requirement number one. Construction crews often become a tight-knit group, like a team, and new members of any gender get tested. Lassere described work sites as “definitely a macho culture—but once I show them that I can do the work and that I will work hard, then they are fiercely loyal as a crew.”Williams admitted it often took time to win over her male co-workers: “with some of them, it took months.” Even at the management level, says Haney, “there’s this old-boys’ club—when I first started dealing [as superintendent] with contractors and subcontractors, they’d say, ‘Who are you?’ But with more women coming into construction, that is changing.” Both discrimination and actual sexual harassment can be an issue, but that can be the case in almost any field.
A taste for hard work:No question the work is physically demanding—outdoors rain or shine, winter and summer—and there’s definitely a learning curve.When Maine goes to workshops for young girls, she says “I tell them it’s awesome, and they shouldn’t be discouraged by what other people say. But I also tell them you’re not going to be perfect from the start, these are skills that you have to work to learn.” Jalisa Stinnie, who was working as a Charlottesville City Schools janitor when she saw the poster for UVA FM’s apprenticeship and is now a first-year electrician’s apprentice, says it straight: “You have to be a team player. If you’re lazy, this is not the place for you.”
Confidence: Females who want to learn a construction trade have to believe in themselves, say these successful tradeswomen. Electrician’s apprentice Stinnie says: “There was nothing in my background at all—I could change a light bulb, that’s about it. You need to be self-driven. You have to ask the questions, and not be afraid to ask.” On the flip side, mastering a skill builds self-confidence and self-respect; Haney, who comes “from a construction family” and does her own projects at home, says there’s nothing like “the accomplishment you feel when you build something.”
Lassere, right, works with plumber Kristi Williams on a renovation managed by Lassere’s new company, Artio Contracting LLC. Photo: Eze Amos.
So what do these women tell girls considering entering a trade? Many of them cite the real-world benefits. Electrician Short, now a licensed journeyman, says, “School was not my forte—I wanted to get out of high school and start life. My apprenticeship paid for my education, and paid me while I was doing it.” Maine, who had started her own business when a teacher from her CATEC classes called her about apprenticing at UVA FM, says, “I’m the only one of my high school friends that didn’t go to college. And they all say now, ‘You’re so smart,’ because I don’t have any debt.” Williams (who has taken full advantage of UVA’s employee benefits to take courses in engineering and construction management) likes the sense of self-reliance: “I don’t have to fork out the money to get things fixed,” she says, “and I don’t have much of a ‘honey do’ list.”
Lassere, who’s already looking ahead to hiring her first employee (a carpenter’s assistant—female, of course), can’t imagine any other way to go. “I tell [young women] this will be the most rewarding thing they have ever done,” she says. “It’s a skill you’ll always have. And, you know, I can build anything, I can fix anything, and I love it.”
Slow Money CVA co-founder Michael Reilly says the organization gives supporters a way to invest in the local food movement. Photo: Eze Amos
Most small farmers could use a little green. That’s the idea behind Slow Money Central Virginia, a micro-finance nonprofit that helps local small farmers grow.
The venture is affiliated with the Slow Money Institute based in Boulder, Colorado. Named in tribute to the slow food movement, the Institute provides what it calls “nurture capital” to help build sustainable local-food economies.
Slow Money CVA co-founders Hunter Hopcroft and Michael Reilly met through the local food advocacy community. After a few years in finance, Hopcroftlaunched a specialty grocery store in Richmond; he’s now special projects manager at Ellwood Thompson’s Local Market there and a partner in JM Stock, an organic whole-animal butchery in Charlottesville. C’ville resident Reilly had worked in banking/finance and corporate broadcasting, but always had an interest in food sustainability. In May 2018, they launched Slow Food CVA.
“Government agricultural support and our financial system exclude small-scale farmers,” says Reilly. “They don’t get access to [the support] other kinds of small-scale businesses do.” The niche Slow Money CVA serves is organic producers that could grow with a relatively small infusion of capital. Its initial offering: S.O.I.L. loans (for Slow Opportunities for Investing Locally) in the $5-8,000 range for 3-5 years at 0 percent interest.
Yes, 0 percent – that’s where the Slow Money model is different. “Our supporters are both investors and philanthropists,” says Reilly. “With their charitable contributions, they are investing in the future of the local community. If you’re really interested in supporting the local food movement, now you can actually provide funding for local producers.”
One of their first beneficiaries is nearby Free Union Grass Farm, which produces pastured proteins (beef, pork, and poultry). Partners Erica Hellen and Joel Slezak knew Reilly from his work in food advocacy; when they had the chance to make some farm improvements, Reilly saw a S.O.I.L. opportunity.
Most of the loan went to buying equipment and animals from a nearby farm that was closing. “We could have put the expenses on our line of credit,” Hellen says, “but no interest was attractive—otherwise we might have put off the purchase.” Now the farm has additional fencing equipment, a cattle head gate, and rollout nesting boxes (which means cleaner, fresher eggs, less breakage, and far fewer hours spent collecting and washing them).
Slow Money CVA has held meet-and-greets to explain the concept and let local farmers talk about their challenges. Long-range plans? An offering called Peer-to-Peer Lending, where donors can deal directly with farmers and work out affordable loans for minimal interest (2-4 percent)—or maybe free organic farm products?
Farm facts: Albemarle County and Virginia
Agriculture is the largest private industry in Virginia, according to the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, with a total economic impact of $70 billion annually. Meanwhile, “[less] than 16 cents of every consumer dollar spent on food actually goes to the farmer,” per the VDACS. (Data is from 2017.)
Virginia overview
▸ Total number of farms in Virginia: 43,225
▸ Average Virginia farm size in acres: 180
▸ Total land in farms in Virginia in acres: 7.79 million (equal to 31 percent
of Virginia’s total land area of 25.3 million acres)
▸ Market value of Virginia agricultural products sold: $3.96 billion
Albemarle County overview
▸ Total number of farms in Albemarle County: 913
▸ Average Albemarle County farm size in acres: 200
▸ Total land in farms in Albemarle County in acres: 182,781 (equal to 39.6 percent of the total acreage in the county)
▸Market value of Albemarle County agricultural products sold: $29.6 million
Sources: Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (vdacs.virginia.gov/pdf/agfacts.pdf) and United States Department of Agriculture (www.nass.usda.gov)
HackCville director Chip Ransler (center) helps students develop the skills to spark innovation and future startups. Photo: Eze Amos
Are entrepreneurs born or made? Doesn’t matter to Chip Ransler, executive director of HackCville—he’ll take someone who has an idea, or wants to make a difference, and fan that spark to flame.
Although HackCville may sound like a cyber threat, Ransler says “to us, ‘hacking’ is a positive—finding quick, efficient, low-cost ways to solve problems.” HackCville’s participants (mostly UVA students, although local residents are welcome too) learn or hone technology skills and apply them to social, economic, environmental, or health-related challenges.
Out of its community “clubhouse” on Elliewood Avenue, HackCville runs six programs: Skills (courses in software development, photography, data science, web design, videography, or graphic design); Hustle (four two- or three-week group projects in idea generation); The Pioneer (online storytelling and video production); Launch (summer internships focused on software engineering, marketing, or data science); Start-up Trips (weekend site visits); and the Elliewood Fellowship, which supports top HackCville graduates in launching their own business ventures.
While not a UVA program, HackCville does have multiple support lines from UVA—founding sponsors are the Galant Center for Entrepreneurship at the Mcintire School of Commerce, UVA’s Data Science Institute, and the Quantitative Foundation; partners include the i.Lab in Darden’s Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Ransler, a UVA and Darden grad who has co-founded several start-ups, says “the way we learn here is very different,” but complements the traditional university classroom.
“There are myths about entrepreneurship,” says Ransler. “You CAN teach the skills if you put people through experiences that expose them to uncertainty and help them work through it. We create a sandbox where people can try things out and risk very little—low-cost, low-key, no grades.”
So is HackCville a tech gig or entrepreneurs’ boot camp? Both, says Ransler, and a recruiting tool as well: “We teach skills that make people technically competent, and then we put these smart people into start-up companies that can actually use their help.”
Over the last two years, Ransler says, HackCville has placed 154 participants in internships at 81 companies—and that’s just in Charlottesville. Its website reports 50 percent of those interns keep on working with their companies after the internship ends, and many are hired full-time.
HackCville has grown 10-fold in the last two and a half years, both in revenues and in number of participants, Ransler says. “We’re so invested in creating that next generation of people—both people who were students in our program and are now teaching in it (including HackCville’s Chief Operating Officer Daniel Willson, UVA ’16), as well as those who stay in the Charlottesville area and help build our start-up economy.”
SARA’s Rebecca Weybright says calls about sexual assault have surged since #MeToo. Photo by Eze Amos
Since 2017, when the #MeToo movement galvanized women across the country to speak out about sexual abuse and assault, local support agencies have seen a dramatic increase in requests for help.
Calls to the Sexual Assault Resource Agency to accompany victims to the emergency room increased by 42 percent from fiscal year 2017 to 2018, and the agency saw an 18 percent increase in the number of sexual violence survivors it served. But Rebecca Weybright, SARA’s executive director, sees #MeToo having the greatest impact on those victimized in the past: “We have people coming in saying, ‘This happened to me years ago, and because of what’s in the news, I realized it is still an issue for me.’”
Weybright and others in the field say media coverage of #MeToo—and more recent events, from the Kavanaugh hearings to the R. Kelly docuseries—can stir up traumatic reactions in survivors. But it can also help in healing. “Seeing people talking publicly about their experiences has made it safer and more accepted to talk about what happened,” says Elizabeth Irvin, executive director of the Women’s Initiative. And it counteracts the shaming and devaluation of victims that advocates say is part of the power dynamic of sexual violence. The Women’s Initiative, which provides mental health services for women (many of whom are survivors of sexual trauma) regardless of ability to pay, saw a 50 percent increase in clients at its free walk-in clinic in 2018.
Over at UVA, Abby Palko, director of the Maxine Platzer Lynn Women’s Center, says the center has seen “a steady, perhaps growing need for support” from students who have experienced sexual violence; staffing grew from two to four full-time counselors in 2016, and they’ve just added another two. Palko, who also teaches courses that explore women’s and gender issues, says over the last decade she’s seen “a growing internalized knowledge about issues of consent and sexual violence” in her students. Events like the debunked Rolling Stone article “A Rape on Campus,” the abduction and murder of Hannah Graham, and the killing of student Yeardley Love by her boyfriend “meant we were talking more about these issues at UVA when the #MeToo movement took off.”
So far, the rise in awareness and requests for support hasn’t translated into a significant increase in reporting these crimes to the police. Both the Charlottesville and Albemarle County police departments offer victim/witness assistance programs, but filing a police report is voluntary and always the individual’s choice. (Under Virginia law, however, teachers, law enforcement, medical personnel, and counselors or social workers are required to report sexual violence if the victim is a minor, or if there is an immediate threat to the victim or the public.) Worth noting: in Virginia, there is no statute of limitations on felony sexual assault.
Charlottesville Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Areshini Pather, who works on many sexual assault cases, says #MeToo has torn open our society’s past reluctance to talk about sexual violence. “Perpetrators would tell victims, ‘If you tell anyone about this, no one will believe you.’But now people are talking about sexual violence, which enables survivors to see that what happened to them has happened to others, and won’t be tolerated. We’re bringing this out into the light.”
How to help victims of sexual violence
Those who counsel sexual assault victims and survivors say the most critical factor in healing is the response of the first person they turn to—often a friend or family member. If you are that person, the most important thing you can do is to believe them, and remind them they are not to blame for what happened.
From there, take your cues from them on how to help:
Listen non-judgmentally. Don’t try to put a label on their experience. Let them know that all of their reactions are understandable and ‘normal.’
Seek permission before holding or touching them.
Ask them what they would like you to do.
Encourage them to seek medical help, and offer to accompany them.
Be available and present, but don’t pressure them to talk. Understand that they may be distant temporarily.
Give them time to decide how they want to proceed, legally or otherwise. It’s important to help survivors regain a sense of control.
If you are a sexual partner, give them time to decide when they are ready for sexual contact.
Suggest getting help from a sexual assault crisis center. Encourage, but do not push them to seek support.
Let them know you will be available throughout the process of recovery. Give them time to heal.
Recognize and address your own reactions, which may include: anger (sometimes towards the victim as well as the perpetrator), sleep disturbances, guilt or shame, fearfulness, denial, frustration, depression, or a combination of these. Seek support for yourself so you can continue to help them.
—Based on information from the Sexual Assault Resource Agency.
Charlene Green, a multicultural educator who directed the city’s first Dialogue on Race, says she tries to “connect the dots” between Charlottesville’s black history and the issues the city faces today.
Photo: Eze Amos
In 2010, Charlene Green, now head of Charlottesville’s Office of Human Rights, was directing the city’s first Dialogue on Race, an initiative to engage residents in an ongoing discussion of race, racism, and diversity.
“As I was having discussions with people around the community on these issues, I began to wonder: ‘Who knows all this stuff?’” Green recalls. “Not just school desegregation and the Martin Luther King era, but the anecdotes—the individuals’ stories.”
In response, Green created a PowerPoint on Charlottesville’s African American history, which she currently presents about twice a month (she even has a bus tour version). It highlights people like John West, who was born a slave but became a successful real estate entrepreneur and one of the city’s “first 400,” as the wealthiest African Americans in town were known in the late 19th century. And it adds context to stories that are only half-known.
For instance, “A lot of folks don’t know what all was involved in destroying Vinegar Hill,” she says, referring to the African American neighborhood that was infamously razed in the 1960s. “Like the fact that the Voting Rights Act wasn’t in place when the referendum occurred to keep Vinegar Hill or have the city take it.” Many residents couldn’t vote on the fate of their neighborhood because of a poll tax.
Talking about the city’s African American past, Green says, “got me into talking about history as a part of race and ethnicity.” Why did events that African Americans remembered very well disappear from the city’s narrative? How are the racist attitudes and laws of 100 years ago still affecting residents today?
“When I tell the story of Charlottesville’s history, I try to connect those dots,” she says. “You may think that what happened only affects someone else, but it affects you. If you don’t understand that, you don’t learn the lesson.”
The white supremacist rallies of 2017 cast a sudden and glaring spotlight on Charlottesville’s troubled racial history. From the national media perspective, #Charlottesville was a statue debate and one horrific weekend. But these events were part of a much larger story. Beginning well before the Lee statue became a lightning rod for controversy, a wide range of people have been working to recover Charlottesville’s African American history, and to help the city tell the full story of its past.
In this 19th-century engraving, an enslaved woman holds the child of a white professor on one of UVA’s pavilion balconies. Albert & Shirley Small Special Collections Library
Honoring African American culture
The hub of efforts to support and celebrate Charlottesville’s black history is the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center. The school itself was built in 1926, as the first high school for African American students in Jim Crow-era Charlottesville. (Before that, the only school black students were allowed to attend ended at eighth grade. Families who wanted their children to earn a high school diploma had to send them away from home, at their own expense.) The building’s 2006 listing on the National Register of Historic Places helped spur the city to redevelop it as a community center, anchored by Carver Recreation Center and the African American Heritage Center. The building reopened as the Jefferson School City Center in 2013.
During the Heritage Center’s development, says Executive Director Andrea Douglas, market research showed Charlottesville’s white population was satisfied with the city’s cultural offerings—but the black population wasn’t. African Americans were willing to travel as far as North Carolina to see their experience reflected on stage or in visual arts. That insight helped shape the center’s mission as both a cultural institution and community rallying place.
The center’s programming focuses on black history and culture from 1965 on. It holds four annual events; Douglas calls them “touchstones for the black community”—Juneteenth (which commemorates the end of slavery), Kwanzaa, Veteran’s Day, and the Greens Cook-off—as well as exhibitions and live performances. And it also houses a local history center that includes access to more than 60 oral histories from students who attended the Jefferson School.
The Heritage Center acts as convener and leader for initiatives ranging from last year’s pilgrimage to include Charlottesville lynching victim John Henry James in the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, to helping revive the historically black Charlottesville Players Guild and stage all the plays of two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner August Wilson.
“Our mission says we celebrate the cultural history of African Americans, and that’s not just for black people,” says Douglas.
“There’s a broad range of social and cultural disparity here, and a lot of history that people who live here or come here don’t see,” she adds. The Center’s ongoing programs are a significant step toward filling that void.
What story do we tell?
One of the biggest ways the city tells the story of its history is through its public memorials and monuments. For decades, these were defined by the now-infamous Confederate statues along Market Street, as well as the statues of white explorers Lewis and Clark and George Rodgers Clark, all of which (except for the Johnny Reb statue outside the courthouse) were commissioned by Paul Goodloe McIntire.
But in recent years, new ideas about who we should memorialize have emerged.
After the initial calls to consider moving the city’s Confederate statues, City Council formed the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials, and Public Spaces to address the issue. In its December 2016 report, the commission recommended either “transforming” the Lee and Jackson statues by providing new context, or relocating them to McIntire Park. (City Council voted 3-2 to move the Lee statue, and was promptly sued.) But the report also called for city support to preserve and interpret African American historical sites.
The recommendations included creating a more appropriate and visible marker for the former slave auction block in Court Square, as well as a memorial at or near the site. It asked the city to support the rehabilitation and preservation of the Daughters of Zion Cemetery, established in 1873 and the resting place of some of the most prominent members of Charlottesville’s African American community. And it recommended that council provide funds to complete the proposed Vinegar Hill Park, a commemorative area in the walkway between the Omni hotel and the ice rink at the west end of the Downtown Mall, next to the site of the original neighborhood.
By early 2017, the city’s Historic Resources Committee had finalized plans to revise all the markers in Court Square. But after the rallies that summer, according to Jeff Werner, the city’s historic preservation and design planner, the committee decided to revisit the plan, and it’s still under discussion. Vinegar Hill Park is also stalled while the ice rink is being converted into Jaffray Woodriff’s Center of Developing Entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, the Jefferson School is leading an effort to erect a monument to Vinegar Hill on its grounds, with a statue by noted black sculptor Melvin Edwards. The city contributed money to the design phase, but the project is waiting on more private investment.
Despite these delays, the city’s second Dialogue on Race, held in fall 2017, revealed a renewed sense of urgency. “The concerns from the first Dialogue process had been education, employment, social needs,” Green recalls. “This time, the number one action item was for the city to support the telling of all its history.”
Anne Evans, coordinator of world studies for Charlottesville City Schools, says the state’s revision of its social studies standards offered educators an opportunity to include more perspectives on local history. Photo: Eze Amos
Educating the next generation
Schools teach the “official” version of history, and in Virginia, as in most of the South, that version was one that embraced the Lost Cause myth, which presented the Civil War as a battle over states’ rights rather than slavery, and glorified Confederate war heroes while minimizing the contributions of African Americans, Native Americans, and women.
That narrative began to change in the 1990s, when Virginia implemented statewide Standards of Learning (SOLs). In the most recent review of social studies SOLs, in 2015, state educators made a conscious effort to expand the curriculum’s Eurocentric focus to include other groups’ histories, says Anne Evans, coordinator of world studies for Charlottesville City Schools. As a veteran classroom teacher used to incorporating local history, Evans says she saw this as “an opportunity to change our local curriculum.”
Evans convened a group of her colleagues to restructure the curriculum, starting in kindergarten, to include a broader range of perspectives. The group pulled in expertise from throughout the community, includingUVA, the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society, and local historical sites.
“Our students’ parents who grew up in the city and county schools had a very different curriculum,” she says. Now, not only have state textbooks become more inclusive, but teachers can use the textbooks as just one of many resources. Evans’ group is creating a collection of digital resources—oral histories, photos, maps, and original documents like letters and newspaper stories—that teachers can use to tell a fuller story.
They’ve also helped facilitate community connections. That includes bringing in “witnesses to history” like Charles Alexander, one of the Charlottesville 12 who integrated the city’s schools almost 50 years ago. He speaks with students about the experience of being one of the first black children in all-white Venable Elementary school.
In December, CCS partnered with the Jefferson School for a program with Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U Give, a bestselling YA novel about a black girl from a poor family who attends a wealthy, mostly white prep school. “We’re pulling these strands through in other areas, from English classes to the libraries’ speakers’ program,” says Evans.
CCS is also one of six school systems statewide involved in Changing the Narrative, a Virginia Humanities initiative funded by a Kellogg Foundation grant. This two-year effort tackles racism from a range of angles, from bringing resources that explore black history and culture into schoolrooms to encouraging young people of color to explore and highlight their heritage. It also taps Virginia Humanities’ digital resources (like its history podcasts “Backstory” and “With Good Reason,” and web-based Encyclopedia Virginia) to enable students to research events and sites around the state and produce their own history stories.
The Memorial to Enslaved Laborers broke ground in December, helped in part by $2.5 million in matching funds from UVA. Rendering: Howeler + Yoon Architecture
The world of the university
UVA has been a huge part of Charlottesville’s identity since the school’s founding in 1819. So what has the University been doing to acknowledge its own history?
In 2007, taking a lead from the Virginia General Assembly’s resolution expressing “profound regret” for the state’s role in slavery, UVA adopted its own resolution and installed its version of a slavery memorial—a floor marker in the Rotunda’s underground passage honoring the workers who “realized Thomas Jefferson’s design.” UVA students, faculty, alumni, and staff made it clear that the plaque was inadequate at best, and in 2010 a student-led group began lobbying for a real memorial. Soon, other student groups were creating a brochure and campus map about slave history, conducting black history campus tours, and recovering an African American burial site on campus.
The groundswell of activity —student projects, the UVA IDEA Fund (an alumni group supporting diversity and inclusion), and the University and Community Action for Racial Equality—led to the 2013 formation of the President’s Commission on Slavery at the University. The Commission was co-chaired by Dr. Marcus L. Martin, University vice president and head of the Office of Diversity and Equity, and Kirt von Daacke, assistant dean and professor of history. Martin describes the commission’s work as restorative justice. “We haveto tell the full story of the past, so we can move ahead and become more inclusive,” he says.
The commission released its final recommendations in July 2018; in the meantime, however, the push for UVA to reckon with its past has accelerated. Von Daacke says the Slavery and its Legacies course he co-teaches is full every semester. The Cornerstone Summer Institute, launched in 2016, enables students interested in history, archeology, and community engagement to examine UVA’s past and the modern legacies of slavery. And the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers broke ground in December, helped in part by $2.5 million in matching funds from UVA.
Last spring, the President’s Commission on the University in the Age of Segregation was formed to examine UVA’s role during racial segregation in the 19th and 20th centuries. It’s headed by von Daacke and the Heritage Center’s Douglas, and some wonder if dealing with Jim Crow, white supremacy, and segregation’s legacy will be harder than looking at slavery. “What we know about healing is that we have to acknowledge and atone…to achieve repair,” says von Daacke. “We’ve examined our past; what comes after that is the hard part.”
UVA associate professor Jalane Schmidt, who leads walking tours of downtown monuments, sees her public history work as “amplifying the footnotes”—sharing stories that the majority white city narrative has left out. Photo: Eze Amos
So where are we?
In these ongoing efforts, some concerns came up repeatedly: How do we make sure all this history stays visible and accessible to the entire community? How do we make sure this history is not just acknowledged, but incorporated into a new narrative?And how do we as a community face and work through the legacy of years of deliberate forgetting?
Jalane Schmidt, an activist and UVA professor of religious studies, sees her avocation as a public historian to be “amplifying the footnotes”—the people and incidents the majority white city narrative has omitted. One way she does that is through the downtown walking tours she began conducting last year, often co-led with Douglas, which give context to the Confederate monuments in the Court Square area. She points out, for instance, that the Jackson statue was erected in the same year the local KKK was founded, on the site of a largely black neighborhood that was demolished to make way for the statue and a whites-only park.
Schmidt has also called attention to inaccuracies in the way the city presents its Civil War history. On March 3, 1865, Union soldiers “occupied” Charlottesville in the final weeks of the Civil War in Virginia. But at that time, the majority (52 percent) of the residents of Charlottesville and Albemarle County were African Americans, almost all of them enslaved. To the majority, then, the Union troops weren’t invaders riding roughshod over the Lost Cause—they were allies bringing freedom and self-determination.
Schmidt says, “People say history is written by the winner, but in this case it wasn’t: The only monument [to this liberation] is the little plaque downtown.” She and other activists wore 52 Percent T-shirts to the Blue Ribbon Commission meetings, to force that historical fact into the deliberations about who and what the city should memorialize. As a result, the Commission recommended that City Council begin marking Liberation and Freedom Day on March 3, citing the persuasive case made by Schmidt and historical researcher and Commission member Jane Smith (who was instrumental in finding the likely site of John Henry James’ 1898 lynching). The city’s first Liberation Day event was held in 2017 at the UVA Chapel—on the site where Union soldiers first met with city leaders 152 years earlier.
Schmidt and others involved in recovering these stories agreed that the 2017 summer of hate has sparked greater interest in Charlottesville’s African American history, more discussion, and more community self-examination. She says the commemoration held at James’ lynching site, and the subsequent pilgrimage to Montgomery, drew more people than could be accommodated. Attendance on her black history walking tours is rising steadily—68 people participated in the last one. Discrimination-related issues like zoning, affordable housing, policing tactics, and incarceration are more visible.
And more organizations want to be part of the city’s third celebration of Liberation and Freedom Day. This year’s events will roll out over three days, which is how long the Union troops were actually here. Participants have expanded from City Council, the Heritage Center, and UVA’s Office of Diversity and Equity to include Virginia Humanities, Monticello, Charlottesville City Schools, and the Jefferson Theater.
Schmidt (and others) hope this momentum will continue, and will mean support not only for uncovering the past, but also for facing its legacy. As Charlene Green says: “Making invisible history visible is just a start. If there is sincerity about creating an equitable society, our policies and the way we do business has to change—or we’re just putting lipstick on a pig.”
Charlene Green, a multicultural educator who directed the city’s first Dialogue on Race, says she tries to “connect the dots” between Charlottesville’s black history and the issues the city faces today.
Recovering black history
Efforts to uncover and promote our African American history have picked up steam in recent years. Here are some of the steps the city, schools, and university have taken since 2007.
2007
Virginia General Assembly passes a resolution expressing regret for slavery.
UVA passes a similar resolution.
Montpelier’s descendants community challenges the site to recover and interpret the Madisons’ South Yard slave quarters.
2009
City launches first Dialogue on Race.
2010
UVA students begin effort to fund and build a Memorial to Enslaved Laborers
on Grounds.
2012
At a Virginia Festival of the Book event, Councilor Kristin Szakos raises the question of whether the city’s Confederate monuments should be removed, causing an uproar.
First Dialogue on Race releases report.
2013
Jefferson School City Center opens.
UVA launches President’s Commission on Slavery and the University.
2016
CCS rolls out revised K-3 social studies curriculum.
Press conference calling for removal of statues.
City convenes Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials, and Public Spaces, which releases its report in December asking City Council to either recontextualize or relocate the Lee and Jackson statues.
Highland begins formation of a Monroe slave descendant community.
2017
City Council votes to relocate Lee statue and redesign Lee and Jackson parks.
City’s Historic Resources Committee drafts plan to revise signage in Court Square.
White supremacists (led by UVA alum Richard Spencer) hold torch-lit rally at Lee Park.
Montpelier opens “The Mere Distinction of Colour” exhibit on slavery.
City Council renames Lee and Jackson Parks.
UVA Board of Visitors approves Memorial to Enslaved Laborers.
KKK holds rally in then-Jackson Park.
White supremacists march through UVA and hold Unite the Right rally.
City holds second Dialogue on Race and releases report.
2018
CCS unveils new Virginia Studies curriculum.
UVA forms President’s Commission on the University in the Age of Segregation.
Monticello opens exhibit on Sally Hemings.
UVA Commission on Slavery releases final report.
UVA breaks ground on the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers.
Yes, Virginia, there are rats on the Downtown Mall.
Many Charlottesvillians spent the last few weeks enjoying a festive holiday season on the Downtown Mall. But have we been strolling, shopping, and dining in the company of species Rattus?
No question the mall has rats—the place is packed with restaurants, which means food waste, which means rat heaven. And just so you know, the term for a group of rats is a “mischief.”
Are mall rodents on the rise?
“We receive on average less than one report a year to the city manager’s office regarding rats,” says city spokesperson Brian Wheeler. A very unscientific survey of mall vendors, restaurants, and others garnered responses ranging from “no” to “not really” to “not anymore” to “OMG yes” and “cat-sized.” Commonly mentioned problem areas include restaurant patios, tree grates, and garbage pick-up sites along Water and Market streets.
Kim Malone, a manager at Chaps, was emphatic: “I see rats outside in the morning when I come in. They’re all along the alley behind the store, next to the Paramount. And they’re in the outdoor cafés—it’s worse in the summertime.”
According to Malone, last year the mall merchants complained, and the city’s parks and recreation department, which handles animal control, responded. “They poured something down into the tree grates. The smell was horrible—people wouldn’t eat out there.” She shares an exterminator with Sal’s Caffe Italia next door.
A mall shop manager, who asked not to be identified, saw signs of rats in her store about a year ago. “We sell some food products, and they had chewed into the bags—and into one of our blankets to make a little nest,” she says. “We have a basement, and we’re in between two restaurants. And people just pile trash in the alley behind the stores.” She bought plastic bins to store her food products, and hired an exterminator to plug every possible hole.
Realistically, no city is vermin-free. Wheeler says a third-party contractor manages bait traps at “numerous locations on and around the Downtown Mall.”
But can those bait traps make a difference, given great hiding places, humans who litter and drop food, and garbage buffets? And then there’s the biggest rodent bonanza of all—the Landmark Hotel, aka the Dewberry. Most people view the derelict eyesore as a veritable Rats-Carlton.
David McNair, a journalist and publicist, says late at night a few months ago he was walking along Water Street behind the Landmark, “and I saw rats pouring out of the hotel, swarming the garbage cans there…it looked like the bins were covered with flies.”
Heather, who works at a mall restaurant and didn’t want to give her last name, says she was headed home one night past that same spot. She saw what she first thought, in the dark, was “a herd of rabbits, because they were leaping around. Then one of them brushed against my leg—it was a rat, a large one, with a roll in its mouth. The rats were so busy feasting they were literally bouncing up and down.”
Joan Fenton, chairman of the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville and owner of Quilts Unlimited, minces no words. “The Landmark Hotel is a problem, and the city should address that. They have a responsibility to finish that deal.” But she says all restaurants face this problem and downtown business owners have been responsible in addressing it.
Brandon Butler has perhaps the worst story. He and his family were on the mall one recent Saturday morning for a Christmas parade. Afterwards, his 8-year-old daughter and her fellow Girl Scouts were hanging around near the Jefferson, when they started giggling and crowding around a large gray plastic garbage bin. Then “my wife screams, and I hear this high-pitched squealing coming out of the bin. I walked over and looked in, and there were two or three huge rats, live ones.”
“The size of cats,” his wife contributes.
Seth Wispelwey, who lives about two blocks from the mall’s Market Street side, has put traps inside his closed outdoor shed and checks them daily. He’s now up to 20 rats. He recalls walking to Live Arts one night last January. “There were two massive rats right there on the sidewalk, rather boldly walking along.” He told his spouse and friends—but he didn’t contact the city. Neither did any of the other rat-sighters we talked to.
Store owners and managers know they can call the city with rat complaints, but mall workers and residents who have seen rats seem clueless. Wheeler says Charlottesville Parks & Rec got fewer mall rat complaints in 2018 than in 2017. And without complaints, there’s no reason to step up efforts to “eraticate.”
“In total, in our MyCville database for 2018, there are six reports related to rats this year,” Wheeler says. MyCville, an online and smartphone application to request services and report issues, was just launched this year. No one interviewed for this story knew about it.
Proposed New Year’s Resolution: Get the city’s rat stats in line with actual rat sightings. In the meantime, when it comes to rats on the mall—or anywhere else—if you see something, say something.
Michael Payne is urging the city to get rid of fossil-fuel investments. Photo by Eze Amos
In the wake of recent U.N. and U.S. government reports on the catastrophic environmental damage already attributable to climate change, the City of Charlottesville has been challenged to divest from investments in the fossil fuels industry.
Local activist Michael Payne proposed several steps the city could take to address climate change, including divestment from holdings in oil, natural gas, and coal at City Council’s October 15 meeting. And at the monthly meeting of the city’s Retirement Commission on November 28, he urged its members to consider divestment for both moral and financial reasons—claiming that, long term, the fossil fuels industry is not a sustainable financial investment.
There is precedent: City Council divested from companies doing business in South Africa in 1984 and 1988 and in Sudan in 2008.
Climate change divestment would put the city among a growing number of individual and institutional investors getting out of fossil fuels. Three years ago, divestment by small cities and colleges and universities accounted for about $50 billion in investment funds, according to the New Yorker. That figure has grown to about $60 billion, and divesting governments now include New York City and Ireland.
In 2016, a student group pressed the University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors to divest, but the BOV declined.
Charlottesville has a significant amount of money under investment. Its operating fund ranges from $60 million to $100 million. And the city’s retirement fund holds around $150 million and is overseen by the Retirement Commission.
In making investment decisions, City Council, the Retirement Commission, and city treasurer Jason Vandever share a legal and fiduciary responsibility to the fund’s beneficiaries—the citizens of Charlottesville and retirees from city employment. Their primary charge is to protect the principal, but the second priority is to generate as much of a return as feasible within legal guidelines and professional financial management standards.
That means they can’t make investment decisions that would result in less money for the beneficiaries, even for a good cause. Socially responsible investment trends, however, have generated a wealth of investment options which use environmental/social/governance—ESG—criteria and still make money.
How much money are we talking about divesting? As of November 2018, Vandever estimates the operating fund held about $1.4 million in energy company bonds.
Calculations for the retirement fund are more difficult, as its holdings include index funds or mutual funds that might have large energy companies in their portfolios, but his rough estimate based on portfolio holdings in various energy sectors was well over $1.6 million.
A total of $3 million may seem like small potatoes next to the $5 billion that New York City has pledged to withdraw from energy holdings by 2023, but proponents of divestment say the moral leadership shown is just as important as the financial pressure.
“Divesting sends a signal,” says Payne. “What I’m trying to do is start a long-term conversation about how we as a city respond to climate change.”
Conservation is a start, he says, but efforts shouldn’t stop there. (Charlottesville has a goal of 10 percent reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2035 from 2000 levels, according to climate protection program manager Susan Elliott.)
Payne’s remarks at the council meeting got a positive response from Councilor Kathy Galvin, who cited the city’s sustainability programs, including a switch to hydrogen buses. But so far, the Council has taken no action to consider divestment.
The Retirement Commission, which is in the process of hiring a new investment consultant, agreed the issue merited further discussion, and Vandever confirmed the group “will be including questions in the request for proposal around divestment strategies and the consultant’s experience in working with plans who want to pursue ESG strategies in their investment approach.”
The other part, about $40 million, currently is managed by a vendor, PFM Asset Management LLC, chosen by Vandever, who oversees and approves its activities. Virginia Code sets guidelines for city investments—for example, the fund cannot own stocks in individual companies, although it can hold company bonds—as well as a fund balance policy. Because the city counts on the operating fund to pay its bills, Vandever explains, “We manage the fund on a short-term strategy.”
The retirement fund is far larger—roughly $150 million. About 75 percent of eligible city employees participate in the city pension plan, and its fund is overseen by the Retirement Commission. Five of the commission’s nine members are elected officials, including the treasurer. The other four represent retirees, employees, and citizens and are appointed by City Council.
While this fund does have to pay out current benefits, it is managed for a much longer term, and so can accommodate more volatility—and hopefully earn higher returns. Inflation, increases in city employment, and much longer payout spans as retirees live longer means the fund needs to generate a large enough return to stay solvent.
Charlottesville’s holdings
The city has two major funds under investment.
The operating fund, which holds the income from city taxes, licenses, fees, etc., ranges from $60 million to $100 million depending on the time of year. Part of this fund is managed by Jason Vandever, the elected city treasurer under guidelines set by City Council, and held in local banks or through a state-run investment pool.
