Author: chiara-canzi

City Council’s decision to put off the creation of a human rights commission, and tension within the Dialogue on Race leadership has spurred five members to resign. According to a letter obtained by C-VILLE, the members of the Dialogue’s steering committee resigned last week because they felt their commitment “would no longer be a prudent use of our time.” While they “remain committed” to the mission of the initiative, the former members point to “interpersonal squabbles” among the leadership as one of the most evident reasons for the committee’s ineffectiveness. Additionally, the Government Policy Action Team responsible for the proposal of the Charlottesville Commission on Human Rights, Diversity, and Race Relations dissolved itself.

Walter Heinecke, a vocal supporter of a human righs commission, resigned from the Dialogue on Race Steering Committee after City Council voted to study the “level of need” for the commission. The five resignations, he said, are an “indication that the Dialogue on Race has run its course.” (Photo by John Robinson)

“For me personally, it was a little frustrating to see really, really good ideas and see them not necessarily translated into progress or action,” said Dean L’hospital, local attorney and one of the five members who resigned. “Group dynamics make things like that hard, agreeing on a principle and then getting lost going forward.” L’hospital said as soon as he realized the steering committee was unsuccessful at implementing those ideas, he looked elsewhere “to see where I could help more.”

Bob Gross, the committee’s co-chair along with Gertrude Ivory, called the members’ resignations “unfortunate.”

“I think that in any group of passionate, committed people there is going to be disagreement and different ways of seeing things,” he said. “I think we all have, and we continue to have, including the people who have resigned, a common purpose and that is to make some positive, long-lasting, systemic change in our city, and I think that’s still true.”

Walter Heinecke, vocal human rights commission supporter and one of the steering committee members who resigned, said that his and his fellow members’ resignations are a reflection of the need for the Dialogue on Race to evolve and that the commission was a logical progression.

“We felt that when we proposed the commission, that we proposed an organic evolution of the Dialogue on Race into a permanent, effective entity and I think that the problem with the resignations is that they are an indication that the Dialogue on Race has run its course,” he said.

According to the letter, the Dialogue’s steering committee voted to “endorse” the proposal for the human rights commission, but because of “objections by a few in the leadership team,” the commission was never actively supported.

City Council voted to create a 11-member task force that will spend the next 10 months studying data and preparing an interim report after the five-month mark. The proposal called for City Council to approve an initial investment of $300,000 and an annual $200,000 allocation for the commission’s executive director, an investigator and administrative help.
Charlene Green, program coordinator for the Dialogue on Race, said the committee supported the proposal “in its spirit.”

“Folks were in agreement that we need something in place to address discrimination,” she said. However, as the discussion that ensued among City Councilors demonstrated, Green believes the immediate creation of the commission based on a 25-page report with the request for funding “was not in the best interest of the citizens of Charlottesville.”

“Discrimination happens, we know it happens, but if you are going to create a commission to deal with the discrimination, you want to have a really solid process in place,” said Green.
For Gross, hard data is fundamental.

“We need real data. It’s tempting, but we cannot rely on anecdotal information and we have to gather real, hard information,” he said.

Data obtained by Heinecke from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission shows that in the past year 49 charges were filed against respondents in Charlottesville, up from 42 in 2010.

In the two years since the steering committee has been active, there have been 10 resignations, said Green.

Cindy Stratton, an activist and former co-chair of the committee who resigned last year, said the dialogue was productive at first, but “got bogged down” by bureaucracy.

“This was not the first time this type of organization has been proposed and at some point, there has to be a demonstrative commitment on the part of the city to see a change within the social and economic fabric of this community,” she said.

In the meantime, the City of Charlottesville has begun the task of recruiting members for the task force to study the feasibility of a human rights commission. Residents have until March 1 to submit an application for consideration.

For Green, this is an opportunity for residents to come together and actively participate in civic discourse and start doing things around the issue of discrimination. “It’s about creating a town where we are considered one of the best places to live and we want that to be for everyone, not just certain segments,” she said.

After three public meetings, four concept diagrams, and an initial public vote, critical questions on the appropriate land uses for the east side of McIntire Park are forcing city staff to hold an additional public meeting at the end of February to try to reach public agreement before City Council makes a final decision.

“Those critical questions are going to be ‘Do you want to share uses of the park?’ and ‘Is the park a tourist attraction or a local park?’” said Chris Gensic, the city’s trail and park planner, in an interview. “Most of the pieces there seem to be general consensus on, [but] there isn’t consensus on either a botanical garden or golf course and that still needs to be worked out.”

Chris Gensic, pictured here in McIntire Park, said there is some confusion among supporters of a botanical garden. “They want a park to be open for public use, where you can walk a dog, toss a Frisbee, sit out in the grass and enjoy the beauty of the natural world,” he said.

At the most recent meeting, city staff presented three concepts that featured a combination of a golf course, a botanical garden, a skate park and mixed use areas all sharing the park’s 61 acres. The president of the McIntire Botanical Garden, Helen Flamini, added a fourth rendition depicting the entire area as a botanical garden that included the skate park.

Although Flamini’s option garnered the most votes, residents’ ideas of what constitutes a botanical garden have varied greatly.
“We now hear that not everybody in that group necessarily wants a full-fledged, high-end botanical garden,” said Gensic. “They want a park to be open for public use, where you can walk a dog, toss a Frisbee, sit out in the grass and enjoy the beauty of the natural world.”

The idea of an arboretum is one that could be possible and relatively cheap.
“I think that if you look at Schenk’s Greenway, that’s kind of what the park department is intending,” continued Gensic. “It’s nice, the trees are there, it’s well-maintained, there are some flower beds, it’s open to the public all the time, bring your dog and your Frisbee.”

The decision could be dictated by how much of an investment the city will have to make. Speaking to City Council, city resident William Page reminded Councilors to consider these implications before the public process goes too far.
“I feel in all decisions, your responsibility should be to carefully weigh the financial impact, the benefit to all our citizenry and the worthiness of the program, and these subjects have not even been touched upon in the process,” he said.

Councilor Dave Norris asked staff what it would take to safeguard golf programs if the golf course, currently used by city and county residents and by the Charlottesville First Tee, ends up being “misplaced.”
“Is there a win-win solution possible where we can create space for First Tee in particular, which is what we have been hearing a lot of about, somewhere else in the system and allow First Tee to continue to thrive while dedicating the east side of the park to passive garden uses?” he said.

Although the answer to that question is complex and has yet to be determined, Gensic points to a drastic, expensive first measure.
“If the whole thing were to become a non-golf course area, you have to pay to rebuild the golf course somewhere else, that’s before you do anything,” he said.

Even the decision of what kind of garden the east side of McIntire Park will become could hinge on the cost of infrastructure.
“Are we looking to make a Forest Hills park, which is one cost, or are we looking to make [Richmond’s] Maymont, which is an entirely different cost that possibly could require a different funding source?”

The last public meeting is set for 6:30pm, February 28 at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Performing Arts Center at Charlottesville High School.

Over the years it could be said that Charlottesville city councils have used process to side-step tough decisions. Think about the successive McIntire Park master plans, the past year of Belmont Bridge charettes, and the endless discussions that led up to the refurbishment of the Downtown Mall. Prudent or pokey?

Last week’s 4-1 vote to postpone the creation of the Charlottesville Commission on Human Rights, Diversity, and Race Relations and instead assign a task force to study the “level of need” is another point of process in a long line of discussions generated by the city’s Dialogue on Race. The 11-member task force will spend the next 10 months studying the situation, preparing an interim report after the five-month mark. For the members of the Dialogue on Race action team that generated the plan for the commission, the decision felt like a dismissal.

“There are two words that come to mind after last night for me: nullification and interposition,” said Walter Heinecke, member of the policy action team of the Dialogue on Race. “I feel like the work has been nullified by city politics and it’s just wasting time and energy and certainly we don’t need a 10-month study. I could have seen a five-month public input session and then move on. I think that’s the more logical and reasonable thing if they were really serious about doing it.”

As for the interposition part, Heinecke said there was an “undercurrent” desire to “cool off” the commission’s momentum.
“This call for further study is a typical political organizational tactic,” he said.
Councilor Dave Norris, who was the sole vote against the City Manager’s recommendation, said he believes in the value of the commission and would support its immediate creation.

However, he added that the proponents of the commission “have made something of a strategic error in focusing almost exclusively on the aspects of the commission that have to do with enforcement and investigation of allegations of discrimination.”

Instead, Norris said he would like to have seen a proposal that included an educational and social outreach component.
“I think that this commission would actually do more good through the work it would have the authority to do looking at disparity in our community, coming up with recommendations for addressing those disparities and continuing that community engagement work of the Dialogue on Race,” he said.

As it was proposed, the commission would be designed to investigate and report claims of discrimination in housing and private employment. In deciding whether to create the new department, City Council was asked to consider allocating $300,000 as an initial investment and $200,000 per year after that. Ultimately, the commission’s goal was to become a local branch of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and facilitate the investigation of complaints, which its supporters say are in the hundreds each year.

The task force, which won’t have enforcement and investigative authority, will be comprised of the city’s Assistant City Manager, the Director of Human Services, and the Coordinator of the Dialogue on Race, Charlene Green. According to a staff report, “This approach will give the City Council a better understanding of the size of the problem in our community.”

Joe Szakos, executive director of Virginia Organizing and husband of Councilor Kristin Szakos, told council that it would take an enforcement body to accurately measure how many people are still subjects of discrimination in work and housing situations.
“There is no doubt that discrimination exists in Charlottesville,” he said. “We have facilitated many, many dismantling racism workshops here and have heard report after report about incidents that have taken place in Charlottesville. We can give you lots of stories, but we still don’t know the real extent of the problem.”

Local attorney David Pettit disagreed, saying the commission would be expensive in a difficult budget season, but more importantly, it would have “substantial” authority that “has the ability to do injustice as well as justice, to do wrong, as well as right, to be divisive as well as unifying.”

Pleased with the council’s vote, Pettit told C-VILLE that all he was asking for was a thorough process with community involvement. As for the need of a commission, Pettit was unclear.
“I don’t know. I think that’s part of what needs to be determined,” he said.

Although the task force is expected to bring its own set of recommendations to City Council before the end of the calendar year, the future of the commission is uncertain.
Heinecke, unlike some of his fellow supporters, is not optimistic.

“We have been here before, 30 years of initiative after the report, an initiative that called for another study,” said Heinecke. “Thirty years of constant cycle and we get to a point that the city promises things and then they don’t deliver.”

Have your say. Drop a line to mail bag@c-ville.com, send a letter to 308 E. Main St., or post a comment at c-ville.com.

To combat a crippling and volatile economy, since 2009 city schools have cut 25 positions and services that equal 2.14 percent of the general fund. This year, the school division is faced with an estimated deficit of about $4.3 million. Among some of the proposed reductions is the elimination of two assistant principal positions at the middle school level and an increase in tuition for students who reside outside the city.

A look at the numbers Total city schools deficit: $4.3 million If Rob Bell bill passes: Add $2.5 million to deficit Proposed city funding request: $3.37 million   *One-time funds: $1.5 million   *Additional funding requested     to city: $1.1 million

In order to avoid eliminating additional personnel or closing a school, as was previously considered, the school division is set to ask City Council for $3.37 million in funding for next year. Some of that money includes $1.5 million in one-time funds and an additional funding request of $1.1 million. If the city funds the majority of the request, closing a school would not be necessary. Last year, city schools received an additional $1 million from the city.
While some board members believe that using the one-time money could give them time to make better decisions, others said postponing the inevitable would not solve the problem.

“I really worry about the one-time money and that we are essentially just kicking the can down the road because I don’t see things improving next year,” School Board Chair Ned Michie said at the board’s meeting last Thursday. “As soon as we pass this budget, because of the one-time money we are going to be using, I think we need to start talking about the budget for the following year and working through more painful cuts.”

New school board member Jennifer McKeever is concerned about putting the burden on the city.
“I am also uncomfortable asking for $2.6 million given that the city is in a pretty significant deficit themselves,” she said.

The one-time funds were originally dedicated to renovations associated with the reconfiguration of Walker Upper Elementary and Buford Middle schools. The $1.5 million could be transferred to the general fund and help close the gap.
“I would like to see us commit to Buford and to the renovations at Buford,” said McKeever.

Yet, the volatile financial environment and a piece of legislation could change the ultimate outcome. Because the city is facing a $1 million shortfall of its own, the funding request is not certain. Additionally, if Delegate Rob Bell’s bill to amend the state’s funding formula passes, it could add another $2.5 million to the shortfall.

Assistant principals on the chopping block
In addition to about $1 million in reductions presented by School Superintendent Rosa Atkins earlier in the budget process, which include the elimination of two Instructional Assistants at Walker, on Thursday night the board considered $328,000 in additional cuts that included cutting two assistant principal positions from Walker and Buford for a total saving of $190,000.

Dot Walton, a special education resource teacher at Walker, told C-VILLE that losing an assistant principal at her school would be detrimental.
“We are getting pre-adolescence kids, they are coming in with issues as well. It’s a struggle for us to have to lose one of those people, because their work is vital and we depend on them,” she said.

Board member Colette Blount believes that the most difficult part of the budget process is maintaining staff morale, and for some teachers, the negative financial outlook and the actions of the General Assembly have already taken an emotional toll.
“It’s kind of demoralizing to be a teacher nowadays because you have the General Assembly that won’t fund education, they’ll take money from the General Fund to pay for transportation,” said Walton. “We’ve been cut and now teachers are asked to do more in the classroom, we are being evaluated on student performance. There are just a lot of things that are, I think, bringing down most of the teachers and people who work in the school system.”

Although hopeful, Blount acknowledges the burden additional cuts will have on families.
“I think we’ll come through this, but I know on the human side of it, we are talking about the potential for people’s income to be severely impacted and that’s never an easy task,” she said in an interview. “It is unfair.” The reduction would leave Walker and Buford with two assistant principals each.

Other possible reductions include reducing custodial overtime for a savings of $50,000; cutting two elementary school assistant principals’ time from 12 months to 10.5 months for a savings of about $30,000; and increasing tuition for non-residents by $100 for an additional $19,000 in revenue.

The school board will meet on February 23 for a budget work session and is slated to present the adopted budget to City Council on March 5.

 

It’s not the first time that the future of McIntire Park has divided residents of Charlottesville. First, there was the Meadow Creek Parkway. Then came the YMCA. Now, it’s golf versus botanical garden in the master planning process for the eastern side of the city’s biggest park.

The area under discussion is currently home to a nine-hole golf course and a skate park. The question for residents is whether the 61 acres should be devoted to any other use or activity.

“In order to open up the park fully, there cannot be golfing activities as well, because golfing and walking around with children on strollers don’t complement each other. It’s a safety issue,” said Helen Flamini, president of the nonprofit McIntire Botanical Garden.

Wayne Hall, chair of the Charlottesville First Tee Advisory Board, disagrees.

“A botanical garden doesn’t have to be 65 acres. You can have a 5-acre botanical garden, a 25-acre botanical garden. It’s a matter of scale,” he said in an interview. “You can have a short, par-3 golf course, which is very functional, very usable for the community. It serves a niche purpose. The botanical garden serves a niche purpose.”

At a recent public meeting, city staff presented three concept diagrams that hint at what the park could look like once the master plan is adopted. All include a botanical garden, a golf course, a skate park and a mixed-use area adjacent to the planned pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks.

However, Flamini added a fourth, all-botanical garden option, which won the most votes, followed closely by the option to divide the park into a 26-acre golf course located in the center of the park, with an 11-acre botanical garden to the north.

The addition has prompted city staff to consider another meeting to discuss the fourth option and to revisit what a botanical garden really is.
“One of the big issues that we need to consider and continue the community conversation on is, is it the desire for a full-blown botanical garden or is it a desire for a passive park?

These are two very different things,” said Chris Gensic, the city’s parks and trails planner. “Is it a tourist attraction or is it the local central park?”

Flamini is clear with her answer: “Our vision is to create this open space in the heart of the city to become like a Central Park atmosphere,” she said. “Our plan isn’t to have buildings on the park area, but to keep it open and enhance it with pathways so people can actually walk.”

For Hall, however, the debate has lost its original focus and has become centered on Charlottesville First Tee, which uses the park sparingly, he said.

“The question is not is it the First Tee versus the botanical garden, or the First Tee versus the rectangular field, or the First Tee versus the swimming pool,” he said. “It should be, ‘What should the land use be for the best use of the community?’ Golf is part of that.”

The First Tee and the city also have a 15-year contract; to honor it, the park needs at least a 9-hole course.

Gensic said if city staff agrees an additional meeting is needed, it will happen in the next six weeks.

 

 

Jeffrey Fogel, attorney for the five homeless men who filed a lawsuit that challenged the constitutionality of the City of Charlottesville’s panhandling ordinance, was not surprised about the suit’s dismissal. Rather, Fogel was surprised about how District Court Judge Norman K. Moon dismissed it.

“The normal course is that the defendant files an answer and you proceed to a period of the case called ‘discovery,’ in which each side is allowed to get information from the other side in writing, documents, depositions in order to establish the proof necessary in a trial,” said Fogel. “By granting the motion to dismiss this case, he precluded us from gathering any evidence and demonstrating to him what we alleged in the complaint.”

According to Fogel, in a lawsuit one side has the burden to prove its argument and “it cannot solve it in a motion to dismiss,” he said. “How does the city satisfy the burden?”
However, City Attorney Craig Brown doesn’t believe the outcome would have been different had the case moved to the discovery stage.

“The stage in which the case was dismissed was on a motion to dismiss, which means that the judge assumes the truth of everything they have alleged. And even doing that, he found that they have not alleged a constitutional violation,” he told C-VILLE.

Shortly after the suit was filed last June, the city responded with a motion to dismiss, arguing that the plaintiffs lacked standing because “they failed to allege a plausible claim of ‘injury in fact.’” Although Judge Moon disagreed with the City and argued the five men had standing, he granted the motion to dismiss “for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.”

“The ordinance actually leaves intact the right to solicit on most of the [Downtown] Mall, and it does not impose an outright ban on begging or panhandling on the mall,” wrote Judge Moon.

The suit claimed that the soliciting (formerly “panhandling”) ordinance approved by City Council in August of last year violated the plantiffs’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Officially, the city’s ordinance restricts soliciting within 15′ of an entrance or exit of a bank or ATM machine during business hours; within 50′ in any direction of the two vehicular crossings on the Mall, at Second and Fourth streets; and “from or to” anyone seated at an outdoor café or “from or to” anyone doing business at a vendor table or cart during the hours of operation. The ordinance also prohibits aggressive panhandling, an element Fogel and his clients are not challenging.

“We are pleased,” said Brown, referring to the dismissal. “I think City Council tried very hard to strike the appropriate balance between those who wish to solicit funds on the Downtown Mall and those who would be the objects of that solicitation.”

As for the next step, Fogel is tight-lipped. “I don’t know yet. We are definitely going to do something,” he said.

Brown, meanwhile, is ready for any action. “If they appeal, we’ll defend it,” he said. “The judge’s opinion is very defensible on appeal.”

 

“For many years now, I have been working in the area of how microorganisms, bacteria and parasites in particular, cause trouble in our gastrointestinal track, and you could say that I am nothing but a diarrhea doc.” Dr. Richard Guerrant’s accolades, however, tell a very different story.

Most recently, Governor Bob McDonnell named the 68-year-old Virginia native and Founder and Director of the Center for Global Health at the UVA School of Medicine one of the state’s top scientists.

Dr. Richard Guerrant has been working to end infectious childhood diarrhea in developing countries. A Virginia native and graduate of UVA’s School of Medicine, Guerrant was recognized as one of Virginia’s 2012 Outstanding Scientists by Governor Bob McDonnell.  (Photo courtesy of UVA)

For more than 30 years, Guerrant’s research has taken him around the world and focused on northeast Brazil, where he has studied the causes and consequences of infectious childhood diarrhea.
“When you realize that a third of all the children in developing countries, actually one in every five children on the planet, is moderately to severely stunted, this is arguably one of the world’s biggest health problems and it’s just the lack of adequate water and sanitation,” he said.

According to the research, more than 1 million children worldwide die every year from infectious diarrhea, or, as Guerrant put it, 3,000 every day.
“But the more we worked in Northeast Brazil, the more we realized that the impact on the children who don’t die may be even more horrific,” said Guerrant, a graduate of UVA’s School of Medicine.

Children who suffer repeated bouts of diarrhea in the first two years of their life show stunted cognitive growth. The infections, said Guerrant, “could probably knock 10 IQ points off of a child’s development.”
Interestingly, Guerrant found that the specific cognitive deficit observed in his study relates to the children’s higher executive functions, much like the higher level of thinking that is lost in Alzheimer’s patients.
“When the hit is a third of the world’s poorest children, it’s just unimaginably huge and we need to find a way for our science and our humanity to address this, because we are all in it together,” he said.

Thanks to a $30 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Guerrant and UVA colleague William Petri Jr., are leading a five-year study that looks into the infections in the first two and three years of life, and how they can alter growth and development.
“One of the hard parts is that one of the best tests of IQ is six or seven years down the road, but nobody wants to fund anything that is beyond the immediate,” said Guerrant.

Although Guerrant acknowledged that science plays a big role in defeating the problem, he argued that investing in safer water infrastructure was just as critical.
“In the meanwhile, we have some really interesting data, potential vaccine options and potential interventions to repair the damage, but these are stopgap measures and we need them both, the stopgap measures and the long term commitment,” he said.

Along with Guerrant, Governor McDonnell recognized Dr. Kenneth Kendler of Virginia Commonwealth University and John Milliman of the College of William & Mary.
“Their creativity, contributions and dedication will make a better Virginia and a better America for all of us,” McDonnell said in a news release.

“It’s kind of great for a Virginia kid who actually can do something, some of the times thanks to, most importantly, an amazing group of colleagues and friends who I am privileged to work with,” said Guerrant.

Anyone anxiously waiting for one last epic showdown between pro-dredging advocates and new dam supporters got their wish last Monday when, with a 3-2 vote, City Council ultimately approved the 50-year community water supply plan, which included a much-debated cost sharing agreement.

City Council approved the controversial community water supply plan despite push back from residents and Councilors Dede Smith and Dave Norris. Under the plan, construction of a new earthen dam at Ragged Mountain could begin soon.

The vote was predictable. Everyone knew going in where members of the Council stood, but the ferocity of the last debate was notable, as Councilors Dede Smith and Dave Norris, supported by more than a dozen members of the public, made their last push to change the vote.
“I did not come here today to actually argue the plan. I am wearing a different hat,” Smith told Council. “I am here to defend the city’s interests and our financial position in this plan. This is my social justice hat.”

Perhaps the most visible opponent of the water plan, Smith used Monday’s meeting to illustrate the many ways she thought it would endanger the city’s financial future, flat-out calling the cost share agreement “anything but fair.”

According to the agreement, the city will pay 15 percent of the cost of the Ragged Mountain Dam, or $8.8 million of the estimated $59 million price tag, and the Albemarle County Service Authority (ACSA) will pick up the remaining 85 percent, or $51.1 million. The cost share for the pipeline that will deliver the water was set to 20 percent for the city and 80 percent for ACSA.
“The cost share agreement was really about the financial impact of these decisions and the decision to walk away from our most valuable water resource is worth $100 million,” Smith told C-VILLE in an interview. “It’s a $100 million decision. I made that very clear.”

But Councilor Kathy Galvin, along with Mayor Satyendra Huja and Kristin Szakos, disagreed.
“The cost allocating agreement is giving us a good deal,” Galvin said and emphasized that the city was “not getting gypped, we are getting a heck of a deal.”
Norris, who alongside Smith unsuccessfully moved to amend the plan more than a dozen times, suggested to Council that a plan that was previously approved already existed.

“We had a plan that this Council approved unanimously that provided water for 50-plus years for this region that would have cost this region many, many millions of dollars less than the plan we are about to adopt,” Norris said, referring to a plan that was adopted in September 2010, which included a phased construction of the Lower Ragged Mountain Dam and maintenance dredging of the South Fork reservoir. “It was a solid plan and tonight we are about to officially drive a stake through its heart.”

Huja, Szakos and Galvin ultimately crushed the hopes of many vocal supporters who attended the meeting, when they approved an amendment to increase the height of the earthen dam at Ragged to 42′, (an increase from the previously approved 30′).

Huja, who was focused on making sure the meeting went smoothly, made his position crystal clear: “We have an excellent water plan."