Author: Catie Ratliff

After a tense community meeting this July, Stony Point Development Group President Chris Henry has temporarily paused plans to meet with the Charlottesville Planning Commission about phase 3 of the Dairy Market expansion. The proposed project would encroach on the location of several local businesses, bring in new high-rise apartments, and triple the size of Dairy Market’s footprint.  

With more eyes on the development proposal than ever before, community members are highlighting the project’s potentially harmful impact on their neighborhood by organizing groups like Respect the Neighbors.

Vizena Howard, president of the 10th and Page Neighborhood Association, has lived in Charlottesville for most of her life. Following a string of broken promises during phase 1 of the project, Howard is critical of Dairy Market’s impact on her neighborhood, and hesitant to believe promises from developers.

“I would like to see it not being as large as they say it’s going to be because we already have a problem with parking … adding more apartments is gonna be worse,” says Howard. “My concern is … if they’re doing this project, they take away the laundromat … what are [we] gonna get? Are they putting anything back? Are you just taking over the whole area the way you want?”

“I think we’re gonna have some meetings and get everybody’s ideas and put it together and fight for our rights,” she says. “That’s what we can do. I mean, we all know what the outcome will be, but I think we’re gonna have enough voices to go ahead.”

Howard’s granddaughter, activist Zyahna Bryant, has been heavily involved in the organizing effort. “I think they have no one reminding them of these things on the inside,” she says. “The expectation is that the neighborhood association, my grandmother, other neighbors will come to [Henry] and spoon-feed him, these things that your DEI or your professional development would tell you on the inside. … Their business model is not built around engaging in the community at its very core. And so since they don’t have that perspective, it’s just an afterthought every single time.”

The feeling of dismissal by developers contributed to the creation of Respect the Neighbors. Since the initial required community meeting held by developers in July, the group has been meeting and leading efforts to increase community engagement at meetings, including Planning Commission and City Council meetings.

While no part of the development is yet in front of City Council, Mayor Lloyd Snook says city leadership, including new City Manager Sam Sanders, is stepping up to help moderate the conversation between residents and developers.

“Matters of the community are important matters to me,” said Sanders at the August 7 City Council meeting ahead of the public comment window. “As I watched the [SPDG community] meeting I became alarmed … there were a number of things that did not sit well with me as well.”

Sanders also mentioned that he has met with Henry and “stressed to him that I do believe it is important for a community benefits agreement to be considered.”

Concerned community members showed up in force to the City Council meeting, with several people using the opportunity to explain their concerns. “I see the future of this city going in a direction that prioritizes incoming new residents that are wealthy white professional workers instead of marginalized community members who have been living in this town for decades,” said Anna Malo. “Stony Point has shown they are … not equipped to listen or fulfill the needs of community members in Charlottesville.”

Despite a strong neighborhood organizing effort, many residents are still skeptical that their actions won’t have an impact on the development. “I have no confidence in City Council,” says Ralph Brown, reverend at CH Brown Christian Center. “They’re gonna be there and do what’s best for them, and then they move on.”

While Brown is not confident in city leadership, he sees other routes for developers to engage the community, including hiring local Black builders and putting promises to the community in writing.

“A very real document has to be put to paper,” says Brown. “You’ve got to make a commitment as a developer, to either identify someone in the African American community to operate a store or get a memorandum of understanding of somebody that you’re putting in there that they will keep prices or have prices as what we call affordable for the poor people that are living nearby.”

“Whenever you have people feeling like they don’t matter, you have a problem. And they consider it an insult,” says Brown. “When you start to affect the lives of people, it’s a throwback to Vinegar Hill.”

At press time, SPDG has not rescheduled its meeting with the Planning Commission.

Don Polonis has opinions. Some may consider them divisive. So on June 2, Polonis did what anyone with a controversial opinion might do: He posted his thoughts on the internet.

“Imagine that!” Polonis wrote in a public Facebook group. “Satan fuc*ed up when he stole Noah’s covenant to create LGBTQ+ pride flag.”

Alongside his thoughts, he shared an image with a rainbow background that read, “DID YOU KNOW? The official rainbow—the Lord’s creation—has 7 colors while the official LGBT flag only uses 6? In the scriptures, 7 represents, completion and perfection, while 6 represents falling short, imitation, and Satan. The LGBT flag skips indigo (blue color). Indigo is a color of royalty, and of spiritual knowledge and wisdom, often connecting heaven and earth. The LGBT ultimately do not want to be connected to God.”

“God Creates,” the post said. “Satan Imitates.”

Polonis’ post soon spread beyond Facebook, and was circulated among residents of Lake Monticello, a vacation-turned-bedroom community 30 minutes southeast of Charlottesville in Fluvanna County. Jennifer Richardson was one of many residents who were appalled at what they’d read—Polonis, after all, is an elected member of Lake Monticello’s Owners Association Board of Directors.

“A mutual friend who lives in the Lake … sent an email to everybody with the screenshot of [him] sharing that meme about how the LGBTQIA+ community stole the rainbow from God and they’re Satanic and everything,” says Richardson. “Some of us decided to write the entire board and say, ‘Hey, this is offensive, this is unacceptable.’ … I was not one of them, [but] my really good friend Kelsey was.”

Kelsey Cowger issued a complaint to the board over the post. In response, Polonis posted a screenshot of her email to a public, right-wing social media group with the caption, “The hatred that goes with pride knows no bounds. Satan at work!!!”

The post also contained Cowger’s name, address, and contact information.

“I have a pretty thick skin about these things. I think of myself as decently unshockable, but we also have a 2-year-old,” says Cowger. “We were nervous … that our house would be vandalized. We had to go away for a couple days, we were worried about that. We were worried that we would get mail or that people would drive by and say threatening things. I’m very grateful to say that none of that happened.”

Despite his public claims otherwise, Cowger says Polonis has not apologized to her for doxxing her, and refused to remove the post. “We initially asked him to take it down, he refused. The board asked him to take it down, he refused again,” she says. “The community where he posted it went from being a public group to a private group, and the moderators of that group have said that they went in and proactively took it down … although there’s no way for me to verify it because it’s a private group.”

For his part, Polonis continues to assert that he has apologized for posting Cowger’s information. “When I posted that letter unedited I was merely citing an example of how Satan works to intimidate those who oppose his activity. I apologized for listing the authors,” he says. “I didn’t know people these days are allowed to write secret letters calling for the resignation of an elected representative. I grew up with the words of President John F. Kennedy who in 1961 said ‘The very word ‘secrecy’ is repugnant in a free and open society.’”

But Polonis’ doxxing of Cowger was the final straw for the Lake Monticello Owners Association board and many in the community. The board censured Polonis, while residents began kick-starting attempts to remove him as a director. According to the censure, Polonis has repeatedly violated the board’s social media policy and previously received numerous warnings for conduct.

Ousting Polonis won’t be easy. While the LMOA policy states that a director can be removed by a board vote, Polonis is protected by Virginia corporate law, which classifies homeowner associations as non-stock corporations. As a result, more than 50 percent of all Lake Monticello homeowners—2,301 people—must vote to remove Polonis through a special election.

Since its founding in the 1960s, Lake Monticello has rapidly expanded. As of 2020, more than 10,000 people live in the traditionally conservative gated community. While there has historically been a large number of retirees, the demographics of the neighborhood have shifted significantly in recent years.

Lake Monticello has never had 2,000 people vote in an LMOA election, let alone 2,301. But that daunting figure hasn’t stopped Cowger from leading a campaign to recall Polonis.

From yard signs to postcards to fliers, Cowger and her group, Polonis Must Go!, are taking the Lake Monticello community by storm. “It’s been a really big group effort,” she says. “Lots of people who don’t get involved in politics and kind of moved out here to golf and to just be retired were just like, ‘Well I don’t normally do this, but I’d love to put fliers in cubbies.’”

Both Jennifer Richardson and her husband Jonathan have been involved in the recall campaign.

“There are so many people, like more people than I imagined lived at the lake, that are coming out and stuffing cubbies and writing postcards and wanting to participate in this,” says Jennifer. For his part, Jonathan is coordinating the yard sign distribution.

Beyond volunteering, there has been a tremendous amount of fundraising for the recall effort, with almost $7,000 raised in two weeks.

“We had a pool party fundraiser about a week after this all happened just to raise money for signs and things, and we had close to 200 people come on very little notice,” says Cowger. “It can be extremely motivating for people when it’s something that really feels sort of close to their backyard, it feels like they’ve got very specific stakes in.”

Despite calls for his resignation and the ongoing recall effort, Polonis continues to stand by his statements. “The newspapers and social media are abuzz these days because I, a Christian, expressed the opinion that the Pride movement has been influenced by Satan. I believe that this is true. My comments referred to the Pride Flag, a symbol not an individual,” he says.

Beyond defending the post that originally got him in hot water, the director views the movement to remove him as demonic. “I believe Satan was responsible for the vitriolic response letter to that initial post,” says Polonis. “The action by the LMOA Board to initiate a separate expensive recall election based on a petition that most likely includes many non-members is a further infringement on my Constitutional First Amendment rights.”

While the recall election is impacting operations for the LMOA, the cost is not burdensome, according to Communications Director Marieke Henry. “There’s a lot involved in holding a special election. … It does affect us, it affects our schedules, and it affects us financially, but not significantly,” she says. “It is very clear that it is important to our members that it’s held.”

With voting starting on August 7 and running until September 5 (results will be announced September 12), Cowger remains cautiously optimistic about the outcome. “There’s a lot of people who don’t have a problem, necessarily, with the kind of stuff that Director Polonis was initially posting,” she says. “But, they worry about their property values, and they worry about the privacy aspects, they worry about the idea that you could have a director acting in a basically unregulated way, without any mechanism to remove them. So we’ve got a weird coalition.”

If Polonis is successfully removed, “board members will [likely] appoint someone to take his place until the official elections occur next year in June,” says Henry. However, if the recall is unsuccessful the LMOA Board of Directors will need to find a way to function with Polonis on the board for the remainder of his term.

Regardless of the outcome, Cowger and her coalition are hopeful about the future of Lake Monticello. “Even if we don’t successfully remove him from the board, we now have a rather large organized group of people who aren’t going to suddenly disappear after the vote,” says Jonathon Richardson.

For Jennifer Richardson, the recall effort has reinvigorated her love of her neighborhood. “Up until this point, we were considering trying to move back to Charlottesville and move back to Albemarle, because Fluvanna as a whole can be kind of right leaning and dismissive of people of color and the LGBTQIA+ community and just not accommodating anyway,” she says. “But after this experience, and meeting so many more people than I thought existed in this community that are just accepting. I really want to stay now. … Even if Polonis does stay another three years, there’s three more seats on the board that open up next year, and younger and more progressive people are going to take those seats. And it’s just going to continue in that direction. Whether he likes it or not.”

After months of financial turmoil, Siren restaurant has closed its doors.

Since taking sole ownership of the business in December of 2022, restaurateur Laura Fonner has been fighting to keep Siren solvent.

“I had a big investor meeting with new people [recently], and there was potential to get money to save us,” says Fonner. “But at the same time, I was completely transparent and honest, saying that I wasn’t sure if this was the end of what was coming, if there was going to be another financial, tax thing that would happen. And so I left the meeting with the plan of closing for a week-long summer break. … But I talked with my GM, and we made a deal that if anything else happened, then we would have to make a decision.”

“I opened the mail that came that day, and it was like $9,000 unpaid unemployment taxes from 2021 and 2022—since we opened—and so it was like the final nail in the coffin,” says Fonner. “That upped the amount of money that I would need from an investor with no guarantee or promise of it ending.”

While Fonner has been involved in the restaurant since its conception, Champion Hospitality Group was previously responsible for Siren’s accounting and bookkeeping. Although she has had access to Siren’s financial information since December, Fonner claims that CHG didn’t provide full disclosure of the restaurant’s financial situation, including unpaid taxes and outstanding balances with vendors.

When she announced the restaurant’s closing on Instagram, Fonner shared an image of herself flipping off the camera with a sign reading “DUE TO UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES, (HUNTER SMITH) SIREN RESTAURANT IS CLOSED PERMANENTLY.”

As the owner of CHG, Smith has come under heavy scrutiny after the closure of several CHG-connected local restaurants and breweries, including: Champion Brewing Company, Brasserie Saison, Passiflora, Champion Grill, Champion Outpost, and Reason Beer. While she had not previously named Smith directly, Fonner made a scathing March Facebook post directed at the businessman, addressing him as “you, sir.”

“I am stuck now, more than likely filing for bankruptcy, Business Bankruptcy. I don’t even know about personal yet, I have meetings with my lawyer today to discuss all that,” says Fonner. “I’m not sorry about my sign. … I don’t necessarily expect everyone to understand or agree with my choices, but it’s not their choices, they’re not the ones cleaning this mess.”

As Fonner continues to attribute Siren’s closure to Smith, the businessman argues that CHG supported the restaurant during their partnership, but there were significant accounting issues. “I will say that it wouldn’t have been long into Siren’s existence that we had major accounting changes at Champion. But I absolutely refute there is an unwillingness to share anything,” says Smith. “There were plenty of unclear, and, I would say, inadequately run and prepared financials—so much so that it was hard for anyone, myself included, to have any faith in them. And that was the result of poor work and poor supervision on my part. But the conflation of poor management and poor accounting work with anything nefarious or any sort of wrongdoing is total hogwash. That doesn’t do anything to take away from the fact that I feel personally like we let Laura and Siren down.”

While Fonner says Smith has not reached out to her following the restaurant’s closure, Smith says he regrets the dissolution of their relationship. “I don’t know why it has become such a personal issue for Laura other than I know … owner/operators and chefs like Laura are extremely passionate,” says Smith. “If the business is looked at as a failure, it is taken personally. I understand she thinks it was not a fair shake on her part because Champion was running the business side of things, but if there were delusions that it was a very successful restaurant, that’s just not true.”

“I am not naming names, but we have always had folks in charge of the hospitality division of the business, and there was no shortage of pushback from Siren when it came to wanting to be managed,” says Smith. “When I hear that in hindsight that we weren’t very helpful, well help wasn’t wanted. This was Laura’s restaurant and her baby, and Hunter or anyone else wasn’t getting in the way. To me, it was clear that my role was just the guy running the company.”

As she works through the logistics of closing Siren and filing for bankruptcy, Fonner is trying to figure out what’s next for her and the restaurant. “I never imagined when we opened that this would be where it was in two years. I don’t know if this place can be saved, I’m not sure,” she says. “Even if it is, obviously it’ll be Sirens or something else, a whole brand new version of it. I don’t have another plan. I planned on this.”

“There’s different versions of bankruptcy, there’s restructuring, there’s complete bankruptcy where the business just shuts down fully,” Fonner continues. “I’m going to have to figure out whether it’s worth restructuring. Unfortunately, there’s a bad taste in my mouth right now with this place, and it has nothing to do with the community or with my staff, or what we were providing here.”

“I know that I will be given an opportunity somehow or another, but I’ve got pretty bad trust issues,” says Fonner. “I don’t know what the next step will be, but this is definitely not the end. This doesn’t put a bad enough taste in my mouth for me to ever stop what I do.”—with additional reporting by Shea Gibbs

In brief

More mental health services

On July 24, The Women’s Initiative announced that it had received $50,000 from Sentara Health “to assist with providing culturally responsive mental health counseling and treatment.” In a press release, the WI said the funds will be used for its Bienestar, Sister Circle, and LGBTQ+ programs. Speaking about the contribution, Executive Director Elizabeth Irvin said, “through our programs and their support, we are working to address health disparity, so that all members of our community have an opportunity to heal and thrive.”

UVA gets gold   

In an outstanding week for the Cavaliers, University of Virginia athletes medaled at the World Aquatics Championships and the 2023 World Rowing Under-23 Championships. At the WAC in Fukuoka, Japan, UVA alum Kate Douglass took home gold in the women’s 200-meter IM, with fourth-year Alex Walsh close behind in second place. Swimmers Gretchen Walsh and Maxine Parker led Team USA to a silver medal in the 4×100-meter freestyle relay. In Europe, graduate student Eva Frohnhofer rowed her way to bronze as part of Team USA in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

Death of a mogul

The memorial service for local business and property owner Phil Dulaney was held on July 23 at the Coffman Funeral Home Chapel in Staunton, Virginia. As the owner and president of Charlottesville Realty Corporation, Dulaney owned several properties, including a ramshackle hotel on Afton Mountain. Dulaney died on July 15 of complications from diabetes and heart disease.

On July 19 and 20, the University of Virginia hosted the Virginia Cybersecurity Education Conference, which brought cybersecurity educators together from across the state.  

“It’s just good to connect these educators together to share resources and lots of interesting talks,” says David Raymond, director of U.S. Cyber Range, the event’s creator and organizer. “They get new ideas for things to use in the classroom. … It’s a fun opportunity to run into a whole bunch of people over and over.”

Funded by the state, Virginia Cyber Range provides cybersecurity education resources to Virginia’s public high schools, colleges, and universities at no cost. While the program is based out of Virginia Tech, students and educators across the commonwealth benefit from the company’s free, cloud-based programs.

Since the first conference in 2018, Cyber Range has increasingly incorporated cybersecurity educators into planning the VCEC, including on its executive committee. The committee is composed of 19 educators from Virginia community colleges and universities, including UVA professors Angela Orebaugh and Yuan Tian.

“I attended the very first conference at James Madison and learned about Cyber Range,” says Orebaugh. Over the past six years, Orebaugh has steadily incorporated resources from the conference into her teaching, and become more involved in the conference’s planning process.

“Since we didn’t have anything like Cyber Range, in order to do fun and interesting hands-on activities I actually had to put everything on a CD-ROM, and give each student a CD-ROM, and they booted it up on their computers in the classroom and worked through a series of exercises that way,” she says. Now, the computer science professor is able to create her own labs for her courses and draw on pre-existing courseware on the company’s resource cloud. “It’s a really great free resource for Virginia educators. … Other states don’t have this resource, sometimes their students have to pay.”

Attending the conference and serving on the executive committee has also allowed Orebaugh to connect with other educators in her field. “Depending on where it’s offered, I get to meet a few new people as well,” she says. With UVA hosting this year, Orebaugh took the opportunity to show some of her colleagues around town. “I get to tell them a little bit about the local area, see if I can get them to tour Grounds, see if I can get them to support our local businesses while they’re here as well.”

Beyond networking, Orebaugh also presented results from the inaugural Virginia Cyber Navigator Internship Program at this year’s conference. Funded by the NSA, VA-CNIP is run by six Virginia schools—UVA, VT, George Mason, Virginia Commonwealth University, Norfolk State University, and Old Dominion University—and teaches students about cybersecurity in elections before sending them on 10-week internships to local registrar offices.

“We are teaching students specifically what to think about in terms of cybersecurity, to secure election offices, the voting machines themselves that you and I go in and vote on, but also just think about the election offices,” says Orebaugh. “They’ve got laptops, they’ve got desktops, they’ve got printers all running in these election offices. What do we have to think about with securing them and securing the humans that are running those? That’s usually the most important piece.”

Between presentations, educators were introduced to innovative uses of Cyber Range resources through events like capture the flag or Catching a Cyber Criminal—A Digital Crime Scene Activity. For many instructors, these interactivities are not only fun, but serve as a source for classroom inspiration.

For organizers, inspiring instructors is a key part of VCEC. “We want to be able to help somebody teach some concept in a way that they hadn’t thought of before, or do some new interesting thing in the classroom that they haven’t done before that’ll help their students,” says Raymond.

“Every time I attend, I always bring something home with me to be able to incorporate into my classrooms. And that’s actually my goal for coming,” says Orebaugh. “Just solving the challenges that are being presented here today, I’ve already captured a bunch of ideas to incorporate it into my capture the flag final exam, or just into my labs or just classroom instruction.”

The VCEC will be held in Blacksburg next year, but Orebaugh says cybersecurity education and opportunities are available in Charlottesville. “A lot of times people don’t think about it, a lot of our students graduate from UVA and they move up to northern Virginia, New York, some of the other bigger cities,” she says. “There’s a lot of cybersecurity opportunity here in Charlottesville.”

New Charlottesville City Manager Sam Sanders was sworn in at the July 17 City Council meeting. Sanders, whose first day on the job is August 1, has served as the deputy city manager of operations since July 2021, and succeeds interim city manager Michael Rogers. 

“When we launched the search for our next city manager, we had some characteristics that we all agreed on,” Mayor Lloyd Snook said at the July 12 press conference announcing Sanders’ selection. “We wanted someone with experience, with solid judgment, an innovative and problem solving spirit, a strong commitment to making government help people who need help, a servant’s heart, a sense of humor, and the ability to walk on water was seen as a plus.”

Addressing the crowd at the press conference, Sanders shared his vision for the city and his optimism about Charlottesville’s future. “Charlottesville has a rich and complicated history, and I acknowledge that,” Sanders said. “Our little city is on the world map, and I am encouraged that it is not simply because of the events of 2017. What I want to see is us achieve an evolution from that series of events, to reclaim our narrative, and one that will inspire us and other communities will desire.”

As city manager, Sanders will oversee the Office of Budget and Performance Management, the Office of Communications, the Office of Economic Development, the Office of Housing and Redevelopment, and the Office of Human Rights for Charlottesville. One of his first tasks will be to fill his previous role as deputy city manager of operations. Sanders will work closely with Rogers during a two-week transition period to ensure the change goes as smoothly as possible.

Beyond appointing his replacement, Sanders plans to address major issues including housing, gun violence, and the income divide. While he believes that Charlottesville is “punching above its weight class” on many things, Sanders acknowledged that there is still work to be done. “We absolutely do have two life experiences here in Charlottesville, and we can do what we need to do to bridge that divide.”

Following Sanders’ remarks at the press conference, all five city counselors expressed enthusiasm about the new city manager. “I can stand here and honestly say I have never felt more optimistic about the future of city government,” said Michael Payne.

On July 17, Sanders told C-VILLE that “Council is working on its Strategic Plan, so we have some work to do in support of concluding that progress and transitioning into an implementation phase. Also, we have our ongoing work with implementing the Compensation and Class Study. There is a new compensation policy and pay structure that we will be presenting to staff and council over the next few weeks. This will be a multi-step process, so we hope to produce a timeline on this project as well. Lastly, we have begun collective bargaining negotiations, so the work with the three bargaining units is also a priority at this time.”

As he settles into his new role, Sanders will work with City Council and staff to organize his long to-do list.

“Traditional local government focuses on service delivery, financial operations, and business climate,” says Sanders, addressing the different needs of Charlottesville residents. “All of that is important, critically important. But it is imperative that we concern ourselves with the conditions of people’s lives. If they cannot make ends meet, we can close those gaps.”

Sanders says the city has begun working on several key initiatives. “​​We are already doing things like housing production, tax relief, and climate action. We have a solid list of things that have moved from ideas to action, so we have to continue to keep those things moving forward and evaluating the results achieved.”

Regarding future areas of focus, Sanders’ work “will also include closing gaps, such as impacting the unhoused, assisting more families on the edge of financial devastation, and engaging residents in matters of justice around policing, climate, and culture.”

For those interested in meeting Sanders, the city will host a town hall on Thursday, July 20, from 5 to 7pm at Carver Recreation Center. It will also be available as a livestream. To submit a question for the town hall, email clerk@charlottesville.gov.

After being closed for several years, the lane near the Brooks Family YMCA is scheduled to reopen late this fall. 

While many Charlottesville residents link the lane closure with the YMCA, the project is actually associated with the Virginia Department of Transportation and the Charlottesville Department of Parks & Recreation, due to its ties to McIntire Park. The construction runs alongside the 250 bypass interchange at the transition of Rugby Avenue and McIntire Park Drive, so the lane closure significantly narrows the road in an area of high traffic.

Originally closed during the construction of a railroad bridge, the lane has remained closed because of construction on the bridge supporting the 250 bypass. While the infrastructure update to the bridge was completed two months ago, the road has remained closed for additional project considerations, according to park planner Chris Gensic.

As a result, the lane continues to be blocked despite a lack of current construction.

During the construction of the railroad bridge in 2017, VDOT granted funds to ensure safe pedestrian and bicycle routes through the interchange area. To accomplish this, the city will build a “shared use paved trail from Westwood Drive to the new railroad bridge,” says Gensic. With the support of city engineering and traffic staff, Gensic is serving as both the grant and project manager for the trail.

“The original project was to just convert the sidewalk to a 10-foot trail into the park from the neighborhood,” says Gensic. “When the lane closure was done for the bridge project, the city was asked to explore an option where all vehicle traffic could remain on the one side and the trail might be widened and include more green space and trees.”

While the city considered closing the lane permanently, the plan to widen the trail using the lane was scrapped due to utility issues and public preference for the original traffic pattern. “The trail project is going to bid for construction next month and should be complete by Thanksgiving,” says Gensic. “Once it’s complete the barriers will be removed and [the] traffic pattern restored.”

However, more construction on the road may come in the future.

“The neighborhood also asked to add some intersection improvements, including a four-way stop to help control traffic speed and the road curves in the interchange area as cars pass,” says Gensic. With no design plan or funding allocated yet, the timeline for this construction is still unknown.

On top of the potential road change, the city hopes “to extend [the] trail over to the YMCA and then west to Meadowbrook Heights to join the 250 bypass trail to Route 29,” according to Gensic.

For now, Gensic says the road will return to its original traffic pattern, with the barriers blocking the lane to be removed this fall or winter. 

On July 18, former Charlottesville reporter Nora Neus will release her first solo book, 24 Hours in Charlottesville: An Oral History of the Stand Against White Supremacy. While countless accounts of the Unite the Right rally have been published since 2017, Neus’ book stands out for its assemblage of survivor and witness-led accounts of the events. 

After graduating from the University of Virginia in 2016, Neus worked at local station NBC29 for a year and a half before leaving to report for CNN. Shortly after starting at CNN, Neus returned to Charlottesville to cover the Unite the Right rally for Anderson Cooper.

“I had my first idea of an oral history of August 12, 2017, on about August 18, 2017,” says Neus. “I pitched a story to CNN to do an oral history. … I had just left my job, and there was this incredible backstory of the day, behind the scenes of how the local journalists were covering it in a way that I thought would be really interesting as an oral history. The pitch didn’t get accepted, I never wrote that piece, but I always had that in the back of my head.”

Despite an abundance of coverage of Charlottesville’s summer of hate, widespread misinformation and misconceptions persist, according to Neus. “Six years after the events of August 12 and that weekend and the whole summer of hate, there still is such a misconception about what actually happened,” she says. “It got really frustrating to have to try to explain over and over again that this was not something that came out of nowhere. … There was a very serious, concerted effort to try to warn policymakers and leaders at all levels of government and public life that this was going to happen. There was going to be a white nationalist riot, and it would be violent, and they would try to kill people.”

While Neus had considered collecting an oral history of the build up to and events of the Unite the Right rally for years, it was the Sines v. Kessler lawsuit that prompted the journalist to start writing her book. “I was still at CNN at the time, and just felt like there needed to be an account of what happened,” she says. “And when I went to go look for one that was very thorough, I didn’t feel like there was one thorough account yet.”

Neus collected accounts from numerous people in and around Charlottesville on August 11 and 12, 2017. While she felt the project was important, recounting the experience was still hard for Neus and the survivors and witnesses. “I thought it was going to be really emotionally taxing and difficult to write, so I prepared myself for that, and then it was way worse than I thought it would be. I mean, just on a very personal level, my nightmares about August 11th and 12th came back,” says Neus. “There’s a big responsibility I feel in honoring those stories.”

She says she also has regrets about what she didn’t do that weekend. “I said that to someone I was interviewing, that I really regretted not doing more. I don’t know even what that would have looked like, but just that I wish I had done more. And [they were] like, ‘We don’t need your regret, we need you to work moving forward.’ And I hope this book is part of that work.”

To ensure that her book supports the community, Neus compensated activists and community members for their responses, and a portion of the book’s profits will go to survivors.

While 24 Hours in Charlottesville can be emotionally taxing to read, Neus stresses that the accounts shared remain painfully relevant today. “I think the main reason that people should read the book, even though it is a hard read … is that this is not over. This fight is very much just beginning. There is already a rise in fascist activity in the U.S., and it is going to be groups of citizens that have the best shot of combating that hate,” she says.