Author: Matt Weyrich

Matt joined C-VILLE Weekly as a news reporter in June 2019. He's a graduate of James Madison University, where he served as the editor-in-chief of The Breeze for two years. Matt's full portfolio can be found at mattweyrich.com or on his LinkedIn page. You can contact him at news@c-ville.com.

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Scattered history: The city’s 74 historic properties piece together our past

The Woolen Mills chapel dates back to 1887. Photo: Skyclad Aerial

The city of Charlottesville wasn’t incorporated until 1888, but people are recorded as living in the region as far back as 1612, when English explorer John Smith encountered a Monacan village and documented it on the very first map of Virginia.

The Native Americans gradually left as European immigrants moved in, relying on the Three Notch’d Road trade route that stretched from the Appalachian Mountains to Richmond. From there, Charlottesville grew from a small collection of settlers into the city it is today.

In addition to the local landmarks identified by the National Park Service as historical places, Charlottesville recognizes 74 individually protected properties that each contain a history that tells a chapter of our town’s story.

While the full list can be found online at the city’s website, here are 11 places that played important roles in shaping Charlottesville into the city it is today.

Woolen Mills Chapel

(1819 E. Market St.)

Dating back to the very beginnings of Charlottesville, Woolen Mills was one of the first communities to develop into a neighborhood. Several wool mills operated there as far back as 1795, but the most prominent one was situated on the east side of town; built in the 1840s, it was the workplace of most of the surrounding residents.

The mill was burned down by Union troops in 1864, but owner Henry Clay Marchant rebuilt it in a year. The wool industry became one of Albemarle County’s most successful, further expanding the surrounding neighborhood. This mill in particular specialized in making cloth for uniforms.

In 1886, a religious movement made its way through Charlottesville, prompting the mill workers to build a non-denominational chapel for their community. It was finished just in time for Christmas in 1887, before being formally consecrated on May 13, 1888. An addition was built to accommodate Sunday school classes in 1908, but the building hasn’t received any other alterations since.

The chapel represents a classic 19th-century church design, featuring tall, arching gothic doors and carved-wood pews on either side of the main aisle. Its most prominent feature is a 50-foot bell tower shaped like an octagon with green shingles.

The church remained non-denominational until 1956, when it was taken over by the Pentecostal Holiness Congregation. The Christian parish held onto it through 1964 before handing it over to the Calvary Baptist Church, which still uses it today. It was also around that time when the original woolen mill closed for good, but by that point the neighborhood had developed into much more than a community of mill workers. It will start its latest chapter next year, when local tech company WillowTree opens a new headquarters in the former mill, which will also house an events space, coffee and wine shop, and brewery.

Photo: Skyclad Aerial

C&O Coal Tower

(133-155 Carlton Rd.)

As with many Southern cities, it’s impossible to talk about the growth of Charlottesville without discussing the impact of the railroad. On June 27, 1850, the city was changed forever when the first coal train arrived, quickly making Charlottesville one of the biggest transportation hubs in Virginia.

The train station was burned down by Union troops during the Civil War, but rebuilt in 1870, opening its doors for the Chesapeake & Ohio line with the coal industry booming like never before.

By 1905, the original wooden structure was replaced by a brick station with prominent white columns out front. The coal tower next to it—also made of wood—was used until 1942, when a 91-foot concrete tower with a coal capacity of 300 tons was installed.

But as diesel trains began to replace steam engines in the mid-20th century, use of the station began to decline. Amtrak ditched the station altogether in 1979, opting to run its trains through Union Station across town instead. Commercial trains took a similar route three years later. In 1986, the coal tower closed its doors.

The station has since been demolished, but the tower is considered a significant local landmark—although it has developed a checkered history. The tower witnessed both a double homicide and an apparent suicide during the early 2000s, and has often been a gathering place for drug users.

C&O Row, an expensive townhome development, has since taken over the surrounding land, and in 2018 the Charlottesville Board of Architectural Review approved plans to create a pocket park around the tower,  complete with a covered patio and bocce court. But construction on that project—and the rehabilitation of the tower in general—has yet to begin. Meanwhile, the coal tower remains, reminding local residents of both the high and low points that took place there over the past 150 years.

Staff photo.

Jefferson School

(233 Fourth St. NW)

Opened in 1926, Jefferson High was the first high school for African Americans in Charlottesville—and only the 10th in Virginia.

The original Jefferson School, established in 1869 to educate former slaves, was a single room in the Delevan Hotel on West Main Street. It eventually expanded to grades K-8, and the Jefferson Colored Graded School was constructed at Fourth and Commerce streets (the site is now part of the parking lot of the current Jefferson School). In 1924, parents and community leaders petitioned the school board to add a high school for black students.   

Jefferson High School underwent significant renovations from 1938-39. A library and courtyard were added, part of an expansion project paid for with Public Works Administration funds.

When Jackson P. Burley High School opened in 1951 to serve African American students in both the city and the county, Jefferson High became an elementary school (the neighboring Jefferson Graded School building was demolished in 1959). As schools across the state began to integrate, attendance at the Jefferson School—despite undergoing further expansion in the late 1950s and switching to a junior high school in the ’60s—began to wane.

From 1975-1982, the Jefferson School functioned as a “swing school,” providing classrooms and facilities for other local schools in the area while they underwent renovations. In 2004, a city-appointed commission recommended that the site be used to honor Charlottesville’s African American history, leading to a nine-year process that resulted in the opening of the Jefferson School City Center.

Today the school is home to the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center as well as Carver Recreation Center and nine other nonprofit organizations.

The Elijah Thomas House. Staff photo.

Tyree Thomas
and Elijah Thomas Houses

(406/410 Dice St.)

In one of the first early land purchases by an African American in Charlottesville, Tyree Thomas bought a three-quarter-acre lot in 1871—eight years after the Emancipation Proclamation. He built a house on the land three years later and sold part of it to his brother, Elijah. The structures on each of their properties laid the foundation for what is now the Fifeville and Tonsler Neighborhoods Historic District.

Both Tyree and Elijah were listed as “servants” in the 1880 census while Tyree’s wife, Lavinia, was described as “keeping house.” Although there are no official records of Tyree’s death or burial, Charlottesville’s Neighborhood Development Services estimates he died around 1898. Lavinia occupied the house with her children until the 1910s. The 1920 census places her in Philadelphia, where she lived until she died in 1932.

The Tyree Thomas House has since been used as both a private residence and rental property. It’s now in the hands of local residents Victoria Fort and Dylan McKenzie, who in 2018 submitted a Certificate of Appropriateness application for exterior renovation of nine different aspects of the house. The Board of Architectural Review unanimously approved the motion and the project, which is considered to be a long-term endeavor.

Staff photo.

Benjamin Tonsler House

(327 Sixth St. SW)

Benjamin Tonsler was born into slavery on April 2, 1854, in Albemarle County, and became a prominent educator and community leader. After attending Hampton University, Tonsler returned to Charlottesville and taught at the Jefferson Graded School, where he served as principal for nearly 30 years. Tonsler also surreptitiously tutored older students after hours, helping prepare them for college at a time when there were no local public high schools for African American students.

In the late 1870s, Tonsler purchased land on Sixth Street and built a home there, just a few years after Tyree Thomas built his. He spent 38 years there before leaving it to his family upon his death in 1917. The Tonsler family owned the land until 1983, when it was sold to Curtis Morton Jr.

Morton “put a lot of time and energy into the house,” according to a C-VILLE Weekly story from June 2019. But when it ended up in the hands of current owners Ryan Rooney and Kevin Badke, in 2016, Rooney said “the inside was extremely distressed, and we felt at risk of actually collapsing.”

The renovation progressed slowly, and the house appeared neglected for several years. Following the publication of the C-VILLE story, however, it received more attention. The front porch has now been refurbished and overgrown landscaping trimmed back.

City Preservation Manager Jeff Werner says “people seem to be pleased” about the state of the house now that it’s been cleaned up.

Staff photo.

Coca-Cola Bottling Works

(722 Preston Ave.)

One of the most recognizable landmarks in Charlottesville, the Coca-Cola bottling plant was built in 1939. The two-story red brick building was situated next to several houses, one of which was purchased in 1944 and used for 33 years as a home for employees.

Coca-Cola opened its original Charlottesville production plant in 1926, on 10th Street, in a building that was recently redeveloped into the Tenth Street Warehouses. As the economy picked up after the Great Depression, the soda maker needed a larger plant to accommodate demand and moved to Preston Avenue.

In 1941, its first year at the new plant, Coca-Cola produced 258,683 cases of its signature beverage. The facility’s distribution territory at the time included parts of Albemarle, Greene, Fluvanna, Louisa, Orange, and Madison counties, with a projected customer base of almost 100,000 people.

Coca-Cola used the property for production until 1973, when it was converted into a distribution center for a new Staunton bottling plant that is still used today. The building’s windows were bricked in during the early 1980s, but the facility was fully operational until 2010. That’s when the company, which only employed 42 people in Charlottesville by that point, decided to relocate to an area outside Richmond.

The building still has the iconic Coca-Cola logo emblazoned across the side, but it now houses Kardinal Hall, along with the UVA Licensing & Ventures Group, Blue Ridge Cyclery, and an energy development firm. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.

Skyclad Aerial

Monticello Dairy Building

(946 Grady Ave.)

The Dairy Central project that lawmakers have touted since it was first announced in 2017 is in full swing, eyeing a completion date in 2020 that will give the property that once housed a milk processing plant new life and an increased role in the city’s development.

The history behind the prominent building at the intersection of 10th Street and Grady Avenue began in 1912, when the Monticello Ice Cream Company sold its first scoop. The business didn’t have a set location, instead serving as the region’s first unofficial ice cream “truck,” delivering the frozen dessert around the area via horse and buggy.

When the Monticello Ice Cream Company expanded its business in the 1930s, it rebranded itself as Monticello Dairy and commissioned local architect Elmer Burruss to construct a production plant. The project was finished in 1937 and cemented the dairy company as one of the largest employers in town.

Burruss’ lasting legacy, however, was the large ice cream parlor and event room on the property, which developed into a popular gathering place for local residents. Several additions were made to the building in the 1940s and ’50s, creating space that was eventually leased out to other businesses.

The building and surrounding 4.3-acre property were sold in 2017 for almost $12 million, paving the way for the $80 million Dairy Central project that’s currently underway. While the building itself is being maintained and the original brick and tile refurbished, the rest of the property is undergoing a complete facelift, which owners hope will re-establish it as a community hub.

The development will include a food hall, Dairy Market, that’s expected to house 18 vendors including Angelic’s Kitchen and Eleva Coffee, along with a new home for Starr Hill Brewery. It will also have 180 apartments (15 of which will be affordable units) and office space.

Staff photo.

Barringer Mansion

(1404 Jefferson Park Ave.)

Perhaps the most exquisite property on the entire list of IPPs is Barringer Mansion, former home of Dr. Paul Barringer. A UVA professor experienced as a scientist, physician, and publisher, Barringer purchased the land in 1895 for five-and-a-half shares of stock valued at $1,375. The mansion was built a year later, proving to be one of the most impressive sights in Charlottesville.

Constructed in Queen Anne style, the house stood out with its pointed tower, white columns, and numerous chimneys. Barringer, who eventually rose to be the chairman of faculty—the equivalent to university president—at UVA, often instructed students there outside of class, and welcomed several high-profile guests including Theodore Roosevelt and William Jennings Bryan.

No one played a bigger role in establishing the hospital at UVA than Barringer, who had a wing named after him. But recently, questions have been raised over Barringer’s promotion of white supremacy, and last year UVA Health System said it would seek Board of Visitors approval to remove his name from the wing.

In an essay titled, “The American Negro: His Past and Future,” which he read at a 1900 medical convention in South Carolina, Barringer called the recently emancipated African American community “savage,” and insisted black people were helped by being enslaved.

The mansion was converted into an apartment complex after Barringer’s death in 1941, but the impressive exterior remained intact. UVA purchased the building in 1985, and it’s now home to the French House, which is the university’s center for French cultural life.

Staff photo

Patterson Wing of Martha Jefferson Hospital

(459 Locust Ave.)

Until 1904, most medical visits and procedures in and around Charlottesville were held in patients’ homes. That’s when seven local doctors, one of whom was a great-great-great grandson of Thomas Jefferson, founded the nonprofit Martha Jefferson Hospital on East High Street. The facility had 25 beds and cost a little more than $8,000.

The hospital remained there until local benefactor James Addison Patterson and his wife Georgianna donated $100,000 for it to expand and relocate to Locust Avenue. Although it opened with just 50 beds, the hospital went on to serve the Charlottesville community in that location for 82 years. It expanded to a 116-bed capacity in 1954 with a new maternity ward and X-ray department, and experienced steady growth into the 1990s.

In 2001, the nonprofit hospital, seeking to expand, purchased 84 acres at Peter Jefferson Place in Pantops—although it didn’t officially move out for another 10 years. The main hospital building and surrounding campus were sold to the Charlottesville-based development company Octagon Partners for $6.5 million in 2010 ahead of the relocation.

The property was rebuilt and leased out as office space, but the Patterson Wing, named after the hospital’s early patrons, still exists. It’s now home to the CFA Institute, an investment company. Corporate officials told The Daily Progress in 2014 that the building’s original hardwood and terrazzo floors were preserved, as were its signature arched hallways and nine-foot ceilings.

Staff photo

Monticello Wine Company House

(212 Wine St.)

The event that kickstarted Charlottesville’s journey to becoming a renowned wine location occurred in 1873, when the Monticello Wine Company was established to provide local vineyards with a buyer for their grapes and produce what the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society calls “pure and healthful, low-alcohol table wines of medium grade.”

Led by German wine cellar supervisor Adolph Russow, those expectations were quickly surpassed. The four-story facility’s most popular product was called “Extra Virginia Claret,” a red wine globally recognized after receiving awards at the 1876 Vienna Exposition and the 1878 Paris World’s Fair.

Despite being a farming cooperative rather than a privately owned business, the Monticello Wine Company grew into the largest winery in the South by 1890; the winery had a 200,000 gallon production capacity thanks in part to the 3,000 acres of vineyards in the surrounding area.

It wasn’t long before the Charlottesville region began calling itself the “capital of the wine belt in Virginia.” According to the historical marker placed at the site, its wine was even used to christen the Navy battleship USS Virginia in 1904.

But signs of trouble began in 1887, when local grape production was slowed by the spread of black rot across Charlottesville-area vineyards. The Monticello Wine Company was forced to import its grapes from other states, and increased competition from California wineries only slowed business further.

Virginia’s statewide prohibition law in 1916 forced the company to cease production altogether. The building remained a storage facility even after the alcohol ban was lifted in 1933, eventually burning down in a fire in 1937. Russow’s home, which sits next to the site, still stands today.

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In their words: Where Charlottesville City Council candidates stand on key issues

From top left, clockwise: Sena Magill, Michael Payne, Lloyd Snook, Paul Long, John Hall, and Bellamy Brown.
Three seats are up for grabs on Charlottesville City Council because Mike Signer, Kathy Galvin, and Wes Bellamy are not running for re-election. (Photo: Eze Amos)

There are three open spots on Charlottesville City Council this year and three candidates who’ve won the Democratic nomination, usually a virtual guarantee of being elected. But three independents are still in the race, and as Nikuyah Walker proved with her victory in 2017, they can’t be discounted.

We asked each of the candidates the following questions: What steps need to be taken to achieve carbon neutrality in Charlottesville by 2050?; What avenues do you believe the city should take to combat the affordable housing crisis?; How far along do you see the city in the healing process following the white supremacist riots in August 2017?; and What would you want to be able to point to at the end of your term as something City Council accomplished? Here’s what they had to say:

Sena Magill (D)

Owner of Hatpindolly Vintage

Age: 47

Born: Birmingham, Alabama

Local resident: 40 years

“I’m doing this because it’s my home.”

On carbon neutrality:

We need to be looking at power-purchase agreements so that we can put solar [panels] affordably on all municipal buildings and schools. [We organize] a collective of homes that can buy into this so that they can get solar on their roofs as a power-purchase agreement. And what that is, is a company that owns the panels, and [the residents] are buying the electricity from that company…supporting the solar economy, and reducing the coal usage and carbon footprint.

On affordable housing:

We have to figure out how it is we’re going to keep our working class here—our city workers, our firefighters, our nurses, our care workers…and we’ve got to make sure it’s also quality housing. [One of my proposals is] a land strike fund, where you put like $2 million aside…for when a property comes available, the city can purchase it and hold it until a nonprofit can get its [finances] together to then purchase that from the city and keep it in affordable housing.

On the city’s healing process:

There’s still work to be done…The majority of our city suffered PTSD, different levels of it…This isn’t going to get healed until the city proves to people that it listened and is following through on its promises. Trust is given usually at the onset but once trust is broken, it takes a lot of time to re-heal.

On what she hopes to accomplish:

Really getting in place a transit system that works with Albemarle County, UVA, [and] surrounding counties…We’ve [also] adopted this great climate change goal in the city, but we need to then put into place a policy to enforce that goal…[And I want] the people in our city to believe council is going to listen to them.

Michael Payne (D)

Affordable housing activist

Age: 27

Born: Washington, D.C.

Local resident: 26 years

“I want to take a community-organizing approach to City Council.”

On carbon neutrality:

Residential, business, [and] transportation are some of the biggest areas to create specific action plans around…creating a regional transit authority is key…the Charlottesville Climate Collaborative has an initiative they’re working on to reduce emissions in homes…there’s [also] a Better Business Challenge in the city that City Council can promote and be a part of.

On affordable housing:

There’s no silver bullet, it’s a series of policies that are needed. I think the fundamental problem is the fact that, as a city, we’re landlocked in about 10 and a half square miles. We don’t have land to grow into and we’re experiencing both population growth [and] this cycle where rising land prices lead to speculative investment…So in terms of what the city can do…investing in redevelopment of public housing…finishing its affordable housing strategy [and] zoning reform.

On the city’s healing process:

There’s many community members still dealing with unpaid medical debts [and] injuries both physical and mental. The national media attention of this event has waned, but for many community members, they’re still struggling…I do think as a community we’ve been healing and we’ve been getting to a better place, but…we have to take seriously looking at creating real structural transformational change here locally [that] changes outcomes.

On what he hopes to accomplish:

No. 1, that we’ve made the commitment to begin the redevelopment of public housing process in order to provide decent conditions and wealth-building opportunities to our public housing residents. No. 2, that the city has finished its affordable housing strategy and begun to implement it and has a clear approach for how they prioritize and strategically make investments to create affordable housing. And No. 3, that we have created plans for how to achieve our emissions target reduction goal.

Lloyd Snook (D)

Trial lawyer

Age: 66

Born: Plainfield, New Jersey

Local resident: 58 years

“I’ve got experience with every major issue that’s important to Charlottesville right now.”

On carbon neutrality:

There is no one answer, there are about 50 answers and they all need to get progress on, [but] there is much more carbon being used in homes and business than by government…Ultimately, what we need most to do to accomplish that goal is to be able to influence the home and industrial uses.

On affordable housing:

I am the only candidate who has tried to put any numbers on specific things that might be done…We need to build where we can [and] more building will happen, but we’re not going to build our way out of this problem…It’s been estimated that if we could just speed up the process [at Neighborhood Development Services], we could make the process for getting accessory dwelling units approved faster, cheaper, easier all the way around and then promote it.

On the city’s healing process:

The analogy that I use is to say that August 12 was basically the ringing of a bell, and bells continue to ring for a long time, and the vibrations and reverberations persist. We’re still seeing some of that…A lot of the realizations that have taken place since that time were news to folks, particularly white people, largely because they had never been forced to confront some of the history, [and] I don’t think we’ve got a consensus yet on what our response should be.

On what he hopes to accomplish:

We have moved forward on the buildable portions of the affordable housing…That we have gone through this backlog of reports that we haven’t been able to do anything about; that we’ve finished the revision to the city code [and] the zoning code; that we have finished the comprehensive plan and we’ve got a meaningful plan for affordable housing at all levels…Simply: We’ve finally caught up to what we were supposed to have been doing all along.

Bellamy Brown (I)

Student at UVA’s Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership

Age: 40

Born: Charlottesville

Local resident: 15 years (left at age 14; moved back in 2018)

“I’m a service-oriented leader.”

On carbon neutrality:

The low-hanging fruit are LED lights around the city; the electric buses that are out there; [and], as they’re building and developing the infrastructure, obviously doing that in a way that takes into consideration the carbon footprint…For me, there’s no real plan and I think that’s been with a lot of policies throughout. I want action-oriented stuff and those are the low-hanging fruit I think we can take to get there.

On affordable housing:

When you get down and talk to the neighborhoods, each of them has their own fabric…To say that someone is going to put up R-6 or what have you over at Belmont or anywhere else, that’s B.S. because you need to have two other people to sign onto that. So my thing is that we have a bucket of tools [and] we work with public, private, nonprofit, and the community together to come to some viable solutions.

On the city’s healing process:

This is the first year where we didn’t have anything happen on the anniversary, so I think people got to a point where they could have a breath…[There] are scars that are going to be there for some time and people heal in different stages. So I think we have to have leadership that steps up and sets the tone for how we’re going about that.

On what he hopes to accomplish:

I would want to be further down the road in terms of our role in affordable housing, infrastructure for me is a big one…filling this gap in the low-income communities…rebranding our community as a whole, getting away from every time someone hears Charlottesville they have this negative reaction, and ideally having a more collaborative council across the board where you don’t have to agree on everything but we can do it in a mature manner.

John Hall (I)

Inventor and design engineer

Age: 68

Born: Winchester, Virginia

Local resident: 25 years

“I want to provide direction for the city.”

On carbon neutrality:

I’ve known other inventors and other people from physics at UVA, and one had what he called a ‘recuperator engine’ to recycle the exhaust and keep burning it until all you have delivered into the environment is warm air…I would also like to line the combustion chamber of an engine with ceramic material…any ceramic material could burn very, very hot so that the fuels could be burned very hot and clean.

On affordable housing:

I felt like I had a really good idea to acquire the old Landmark hotel, which is now a shell…but I think it can be refurbished and rebuilt starting with what we already have there…Just pay for the land value and maybe a little bit extra, so that Mr. John Dewberry and his Deerfield associates will be well provided for and be happy to say Okay, we’re going to help Charlottesville, we’re going to release it, no lawsuit, no questions asked.

On the city’s healing process:

I think the events of 2017 in August are reflective of what we were still debating and a polarization of people—because of the statues…Recently, people have gone across the line and defaced those statues, [but] before this all happened, I said let’s take down the orange fences, promote unity of mind among our people, so that we can go forward and put that in the past and heal.

On what he hopes to accomplish:

I think some of my ideas would be accomplished in the future. It might not be that I get credit for it but…I see it’s inevitable that the Charlottesville Area Transit buses will go to the airport. I was first to propose that. I think it will also happen that in terms of transportation…we can have fold-out stop signs on all public transportation buses, they don’t have to be school buses…what we do to protect our children…is good for our adults as well in public transportation.

Paul Long (I)

Retired

Age: 70

Born: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Local resident: 21 years

“I have a lot of patience and am a good listener.”

On carbon neutrality:

I believe Charlottesville needs its public transportation system to be revamped…that would be a great improvement to decrease carbon dioxide. I also think in terms of watching what’s going on in the Amazon River basin in Brazil, the city should make an effort to plant 15,000 trees, [and] we should be using solar panels as much as possible.

On affordable housing:

I think UVA is the major contributor and one of the issues that [Jim] Ryan said they’ll be doing somewhere down the line is mandating that second-year students live on Grounds and I think that would help. It would open up maybe 1,500 apartments…But having said that, a lot of the apartments’ [rent] is still too high…I don’t think the affordable housing crisis is going to be solved until the federal government takes an active role in the issue.

On the city’s healing process:

Obviously there’s a lot of racial feelings here in Charlottesville, but most of the people who came here in August of 2017 were [from] out of the city…and I think there needs to be healing in terms of the racial injustices in the city that existed way before the August disruptions that happened two years ago.

On what he hopes to accomplish:

That I was instrumental in improving the public transportation system, that I was instrumental in having a change in viewpoints towards how drug addicts are treated, [that] City Council [was] an instrument in appealing to the state legislature to change a lot of the rules that are in the books…and also that I was instrumental in increasing the services to homeless people.

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Reversing the trend: Nelson County’s top opioid prescriber has actively changed course

Lois Alderfer, who has been a family nurse practitioner in Virginia for 28 years, is the medical director at BRMC. (Photo: Zachary Wajsgras)

The bombshell dropped on July 16.

A report in The Washington Post, based on newly available data from the Drug Enforcement Agency, revealed every manufacturer, distributor, and pharmacy involved in the opioid crisis, and tracked the role each one played in the process that placed highly addictive prescription painkillers in the hands of patients.

In Arrington, employees at the Blue Ridge Medical Center were taken aback to see that their employer was the leading recipient of opioid painkillers in Nelson County by a wide margin. From 2006 to 2012 (the period covered by the database), BRMC received more than 1.1 million opioid pills, enough to prescribe each of the 2,263 people who live within 10 miles of the facility 74 pills a year, according to the Post.

“The results came out and the Blue Ridge Medical Center prescribed more opiates than [nearly] the rest of the pharmacies put together in Nelson County,” says Dr. Andrew Hodson, a board member at BRMC. “So if you wanted to point a finger at someone, it was the Blue Ridge Medical Center.”

Starting in the 1990s, an increase in the prescription of opioid painkillers led to an escalating addiction crisis that continues to this day. Nationwide, more than 130 people die every day from opioid overdose (including heroin and fentanyl, as well as prescription painkillers).

Hodson acknowledges that the high volume of opioid prescriptions continued well past the range of the DEA database; BRMC reports that it dispensed over 300,000 opioid painkillers per year from 2012 to 2016—a period during which the Virginia Department of Health says three people died in Nelson County due to opioid overdose.

After a few of the “old-school” physicians who, according to Hodson, prescribed “virtually anything anyone asked them to prescribe” retired in 2017, the medical specialists at BRMC realized they were enabling a culture of dependency among their patients.

“When we had providers leave, we decided we had to address this,” says Lois Alderfer, a nurse practitioner and the medical director at BRMC. She doesn’t blame the doctors who left, but says the facility “looked at what was recommended, came up with a policy and procedure, and that’s what we’ve been following—and our numbers have gone down significantly.”

After never falling below the 300,000-pill threshold, BRMC cut that figure in half in two years, reporting just over 120,000 prescribed painkillers in 2018. Stricter restrictions were put in place that limited physicians from signing off on more than 30 morphine equivalents for a patient—roughly equal to 200 mg of codeine—unless recommended by a pain specialist.

If patients are prescribed painkillers, Alderfer says they must make regular check-in visits to BRMC, sign an “annual pain contract,” and submit to a drug screening. Nurse practitioners have been tasked with encouraging alternative forms of pain management like acupuncture, massage therapy, chiropractic work, yoga, swimming, and strength training.

Thanks to a federal grant BRMC received in May, the facility has also been able to cover up to $1,000 in expenses for qualified patients to participate in these alternative services. In most cases, that means patients don’t need to get their insurance companies involved.

“We use the global pain scale to try to judge what was their pain at the beginning and how did it change over the course of the time,” says Mary Schimm, a BRMC counselor who works with the program. “We have found that the pain scales demonstrate people are reducing their pain during the therapies…and then we try to help them develop a plan for how they’re going to maintain staying in more of a pain-free state.”

Nelson is far from the worst county in Virginia when it comes to enabling opioid addictions—the DEA database points to the southwest region of the commonwealth as the most heavily impacted area, and Nelson trailed Charlottesville in opioid prescriptions during that time frame.

But as the leading prescriber of painkillers in its community, BRMC hopes to send a message to other pharmacies around the country that the medical community needs to take responsibility for its role in the opioid crisis and address new approaches to pain management head on. BRMC is still working on determining its next step after the grant runs out (Schimm believes they’re on track to do so in December), but it aims to continue promoting these alternative approaches to pain management over opioid prescriptions.

“It’s very simple: You’re taking care of people,” Hodson says. “Medicine today doesn’t take care of people. You get a billing code, you pay your money, but you’re not actually being cared for.” He wants patients to ask themselves, “Does your medical care give you medical care?”

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Renters beware: Local property owners caught in the middle of Craigslist scams

Janice Kavanagh rents out this cottage to tenants through Airbnb, but has been forced to turn away several scam victims who tried to book the place via Craigslist. Courtesy of Janice Kavanagh

Prospective renters using Craigslist to find temporary housing in Charlottesville have recently been the victims of scammers, paying thousands of dollars in rent up front before showing up on the doorstep of bewildered homeowners who already rented out their space.

Janice Kavanagh is a Charlottesville real estate agent who rents out the front half of her house, as well as her mother’s cottage next door, through Airbnb. But over the past year, scammers have grabbed photos of her property from Airbnb and posted them on Craigslist, advertising her property as available for rent. Since the start of June, she’s had five different people pull up to check out the house, some expecting to move in that day.

“I feel like I [can only] bang my head against the wall because no one really cares,” Kavanagh says. “Craigslist is too big to care, and the police have probably bigger fish to fry. And quite honestly, I am not a victim of anything, but the people are who are…trying to rent out my properties.”

When these scammers are contacted about a listing, they send the interested renter a photo of a driver’s license in order to “prove” their identity. They tell the victim they can’t go inside the house because other renters are currently staying there, then negotiate a monthly rate and ask for a certain amount to be paid up front by depositing it directly into a bank account.

As a real estate agent, Kavanagh has seen homes she’s listed for sale pop up on Craigslist as available for rent for years. Those houses always had “For Sale” signs out front, so interested renters who stopped by would call her asking whether or not the property was actually available to renters. While she was able to help those people avoid being scammed, Kavanagh has no idea how many victims never called.

Kavanagh has posted a warning on Craigslist with pictures of her cottage to inform prospective renters. But it’s not just her home that’s been exploited. One of her friends who also rents out her home had an older couple show up at her door who needed to stay in Charlottesville until December for chemotherapy treatments at the UVA Medical Center. They’d already paid several thousand dollars for the three months’ rent.

In an email to a woman from Virginia Beach who tried to rent Kavanagh’s property, one scammer impersonating a property manager at Perfect Home Letting—which doesn’t exist—wrote, “You’re getting things wrong. You can walk through or drive by the apartment to see the neighborhood and surroundings. There was an agreement between me and the current tenants that there won’t be any form of disturbance while they are in the apartment. This is legitimate. Not one of those scams on craigslist. Attached is a copy of my drivers license.”

The scammer also grew frustrated at the woman’s request to speak on the phone about the cottage. Sensing something was off about the property manager, she decided to stop by the property anyway. It was there she met Kavanagh, who has since gone to the Charlottesville Police Department to report the series of incidents.

“CPD has been made aware of this incident and it is under investigation,” Public Information Officer Tyler Hawn wrote in a statement. “CPD recommends Craigslist customers review advertisements thoroughly and take steps to contact the advertiser and verify the name of the company to ensure the listing is real.”

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Party favors: Dems question Mike Signer’s support of independent Bellamy Brown

Independent City Council candidate Bellamy Brown (left) saw a surge of campaign donations this past summer, and drew the support of Democratic councilor Mike Signer.

When Mayor Nikuyah Walker was elected to City Council in November 2017, she became the first independent candidate to claim a seat since 1948. A few weeks ahead of the 2019 election, another independent is making headway among prospective voters—and current councilors.

Bellamy Brown raised more than double the amount of money between July and August as any other candidate who will be on the ballot next to him in November, according to election data reported by The Daily Progress. That includes $250 from outgoing Democratic Councilor Mike Signer, donated through his New Dominion Project political action committee.

Signer has been under fire for the donation from the Charlottesville Democratic Committee, which abides by state party bylaws that prohibit members from publicly supporting opponents of Democratic candidates in local elections. In a September 21 meeting, Signer was threatened with expulsion. He says he didn’t know he was acting in violation of the bylaws and that he hadn’t heard from the committee “in two years.”

“These party rules are kind of baked in the cake and they’re so antiquated…They come from this different era, which is before what we’re looking at now when an independent candidate can win 8,000 votes,” Signer says.

Brown is running against Democrats Sena Magill, Michael Payne, and Lloyd Snook, as well as fellow independents John Hall and Paul Long. Councilor Heather Hill’s husband, Jonathan, also donated $500 to Brown’s campaign, but that’s not a violation of the party bylaws. Hill donated $225 to Magill and says she’s most concerned with identifying candidates whom she could work well with.

“The Democratic slate of candidates is strong, but there are strong candidates beyond the Democratic slate and I welcome the opportunity to work with whoever is successful in the election,” Hill says. “Each candidate brings something unique to the table that’s beneficial.”

Both Hill and Signer have expressed frustration with public outbursts at City Council meetings, and Signer has criticized Walker for not enforcing rules. Brown has called City Council conduct “shameful,” and said governance cannot succeed among disorder.

Typically, members who wish to support an independent candidate must resign from the Democratic committee in order to do so. They have the option of reapplying to the committee after the election, but can no longer retain ex-officio status granted to former officials. Former mayor Dave Norris was among the members who stepped down when Walker ran.

“I was never involved in committee matters,” Norris says. “I can’t remember the last time I attended a Democratic Party event or a committee meeting, it’s been years. So it was really kind of a moot point for me, and even when I was in office I publicly endorsed, for instance, [Chip Harding], a Republican for sheriff of Albemarle County. I’ve always voted for the person over the party.”

None of the Democratic nominees running against Brown say they were offended by Signer’s decision to support someone from outside the party, but Magill believes elected Dems have a “responsibility” to the party that helped them get elected. And Snook said he expected Signer to have the party’s back “because that’s what the rule says.” Payne declined to comment on the councilor’s decision.

When asked about their views on Brown’s platform, both Magill and Snook said they didn’t really know what it was because he’s been “vague” about specific policy ideas.

“I know that the other candidates will say that I’m vague, but to me that’s because they don’t have anything else to say,” Brown says. “They try to define me in different ways and they haven’t been successful at doing so.”

Brown, like the other candidates, considers affordable housing to be one of the most defining issues of the upcoming election, but has yet to lay out a specific plan for fixing the local crisis. He promotes “fiscal responsibility,” and has said he wants to reduce taxes and create more jobs in the area rather than rely on public funding.

“When you have to work across the board and get at least two other votes [to pass a City Council decision], you can’t go in and say, ‘Oh, I’m going to go and get a $50 million bond for public housing,’ because you need two other people to do that,” Brown says. “You can be specific all you want, but if you can’t implement it, it doesn’t matter.

If another independent joins Walker on City Council, the local Democratic party will have its weakest majority hold on the local governing body in decades. Regardless, Signer hopes the committee will reconsider its role in the community, taking a more active approach by advocating for its elected members’ policies and reexamining its bylaws.

“The party isn’t proactively serving in a resource capacity to current Democratic office holders,” Signer says. “We have had real political and policy fights where it would be helpful to have back up and resources…It would be nice to know the party had our back and was there doing what parties traditionally do, which is support their office holders. And that hasn’t happened at all.”

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Slow going: Water Street coal tower restoration project at a standstill

The stairs that led to the top of the coal tower have been removed, but the base and surrounding dirt area are easily accessible. (Photo: Matt Weyrich)

Charlottesville’s C&O train station closed its doors in 1986, but that hasn’t kept the building and its adjacent coal tower out of headlines in the three decades since.

The site of both a double homicide and an apparent suicide, the abandoned tower became a popular hangout spot for drug users and the homeless in the early 2000s. Despite the structure’s checkered history, the land surrounding it on East Water Street was bought out and developed into C&O Row, a string of pricey townhomes that some residents have already moved into while construction for the rest of the buildings is underway.

While the luxury residences are being sold around $1 million apiece, conditions at the coal tower itself have deteriorated; graffiti and overgrown vines line the exterior walls of the base, and a hole on the side of the tower opens up to a crawl space littered with dirt, garbage, and chunks of concrete. A small construction fence separates the tower from the sidewalk, but it’s only a few feet tall and doesn’t wrap around the entire structure.

 

A proposal to turn the area underneath and around the tower into a pocket park complete with a covered patio, bocce court, and dog park was approved by the Charlottesville Board of Architectural Review on August 21, 2018, but construction on that project—and the rehabilitation of the tower in general—has yet to begin, and no one seems to know why.

“The maintenance, improvements at the structure, they could’ve been doing those whenever,” says Jeff Werner, a city planner with Neighborhood Development Services. “As far as the [park], I don’t think you need a building permit for a bocce court.”

There was a holdup on the project in July 2018, when the BAR postponed the proposal over some original 1940s metal the developers wanted to remove. They came up with a resolution a month later, meaning the only thing standing in the way of property owner Choco-Cruz LLC, a Richmond-based company operated by local developer Alan Taylor, moving forward with the project is an application for building permits.

“The other elements like the vent stacks, the pulley on one side, those things that date from the original coal tower will be retained,” says Joseph “Jody” Lahendro, a historic preservation architect on the BAR.

Taylor, the president of Riverbend Development in Charlottesville, didn’t respond to requests for comment, and Riverbend’s Vice President Ashley Davies admits she isn’t up to speed on the project. She says it’s being overseen by project manager Joe Simpson, who Davies says recently celebrated the birth of his child (Simpson also didn’t respond to a request for comment).

Over at City Hall, urban designer Carrie Rainey says Choco-Cruz still needs approval for a light fixture design and historical landmark sign, but Werner insists that shouldn’t be holding up any progress on the rehabilitation of the coal tower. There were questions surrounding the design for a retaining wall and stormwater drainage as well, but those have since been resolved.

Werner has reached out to city building inspectors and asked that they examine the structure’s conditions to determine whether there are any safety hazards. He says there’s confusion among C&O Row residents over who’s responsible for the coal tower’s upkeep, and one has already contacted him to complain about the state of the structure.

For now, there’s no indication as to what the timeline will be for both the rehabilitation and park projects, but the Certificate of Appropriateness that allows for Choco-Cruz to apply for the building permits required for construction expires by March 2020. The company could request an extension if needed, but would have to appear before the BAR again in order to do so.

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Legal wrangling: City argues against $604K fees for Confederate statue attorneys 

A few Confederate supporters and protestors met outside the courthouse on Wednesday. Staff photo.

Extensive and lengthy cross-examinations were heard in Charlottesville Circuit Court on Thursday as  lawyers representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the city to prevent it from removing statues of two Confederate generals broke down why they believe the city owes over $604,000 in attorney fees and litigation costs. 

The lawsuit was filed by the Monument Fund, Sons of Confederate Veterans, and 11 individual plaintiffs two-and-a-half years ago, after City Council in 2017 voted to remove statues of Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.

A day after ruling against the city’s interpretation of the equal protection clause in the Fourteenth Amendment and issuing a permanent injunction that stipulates Charlottesville cannot remove the Confederate statues, Judge Richard Moore heard the testimony of two witnesses for the plaintiffs about attorney fees.

Jock Yellott is the executive director of the Monument Fund and has performed the roles of both a plaintiff and paralegal in this case. He submitted to the court a detailed packet that outlined all the legal costs accrued by the plaintiffs and explained how they settled on $604,000. 

The Monument Fund and Sons of Confederate Veterans have already paid a combined $87,500 to their attorneys, so they’re seeking reimbursement of those payments, with the remaining $516,500 going directly to the lawyers.

Yellott was cross-examined by Chief Deputy City Attorney Lisa Robertson, who spent several hours going over the bill line by line and asking Yellott to verify specific tasks he fulfilled, ranging from case research to collating papers. 

Moore stopped Robertson midway through her questioning to inquire about the significance of her thorough review of the information. She insisted that it was her right to do so and the information she was focused on would be referred to in her closing arguments.

After Yellott finally stepped down from the stand and court took a break for lunch, Moore heard the testimony of Charles Lollar, a Norfolk attorney who was presented as an expert witness on legal fees. Lollar told the court he found the rates charged by the plaintiffs’ attorneys to be “necessary and appropriate” for the amount of work required for this case. For his testimony, Lollar billed the plaintiffs $12,000—a figure included in their request for the $604,000.

“Without these services…those monuments wouldn’t be there,” Lollard said.

Some of the other contributors to that total include the bills of Braxton Puryear and Ralph Main, the attorneys representing the plaintiffs, who charged $300 and $310 per hour, respectively, for their services. University of Richmond law professor Kevin Walsh, who specializes in constitutional law and assisted earlier in the case, charged $700 an hour. Yellott also requested $160 an hour for the work he did as a paralegal.

The 10 individual plaintiffs—one died last year—are also seeking $500 each in compensatory damages. Eight of them testified Wednesday about the emotional distress caused by their inability to see the statues for the 188-day period they were covered in tarps at the direction of the city.

 Moore is expected to hear final arguments Friday before making a decision on the amount owed in damages and attorney fees.

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Permanent injunction: Judge says Confederate statues are here to stay

Chris Wayne and Brian Lambert, the two men previously arrested for attempting to remove tarps from the Confederate stautes, showed up outside the courthouse on Wednesday in support of the monuments.

A judge has ruled that Charlottesville can’t remove the two Confederate statues that stand downtown, saying Wednesday that doing so would be in violation of a Virginia historical preservation law.

On the first day of a three-day trial, Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Richard Moore issued a permanent injunction that essentially demolished the defendants’ last argument and decided the outcome of the two-and-a-half-year case that followed City Council’s 2017 votes to remove the Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson statues.

Moore sided with the interpretation of the plaintiffs— the Monument Fund, Sons of Confederate Veterans, and 11 individuals—about the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, arguing that it wouldn’t be legally sound to say the Virginia law that protects war monuments was created with racial prejudice—even if there’s “reasonable suspicion” that it was. He also cited the fact that the law was amended multiple times, explaining that the way it’s applied today doesn’t fall in line with racially discriminatory views.

“Statues do speak, if at all, about history…even history we don’t like,” Moore said.

Meanwhile, a shouting match erupted outside the courthouse between two men holding a Confederate flag and a man and a woman who arrived after with a flag bearing the antifa logo.

Charlottesville and Albemarle County police officers stood by watching as the individuals shouted profanity-laced insults across Park Street and cars drove by honking their support for either side. The two men holding the Confederate flag were Chris Wayne and Brian Lambert, who were  convicted of  trespassing and destruction of property after they attempted to remove the tarps from the Lee and Jackson statues multiple times before the judge ordered the covering removed in February 2018.

Over the next two days, Moore will hear arguments on the amount of damages to award to the plaintiffs, who say they were emotionally impacted by the statues being covered with black tarps for 188 days after the Unite the Right rally. City Council had voted to shroud the statues in response to the violence and the murder of Heather Heyer and death of two state police officers. 

Eight of the plaintiffs testified, detailing their distress in instances when they passed by the covered monuments but were unable to see them. Jock Yellott, executive director of the Monument Fund, teared up when talking about how Lee’s memory has been “slandered” by City Council.

Each plaintiff is seeking $500 in damages, but most have signed documents say they’ll donate any money received to either the Monument Fund or the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The plaintiffs’ legal counsel is seeking $600,000 in attorneys’ fees as well.

Although the case won’t officially be decided until Friday, the plaintiffs are celebrating a victory as Charlottesville will not be moving the statues anytime in the foreseeable future.

“We have prevailed in the action against the city,” says Charles “Buddy” Weber, one of the plaintiffs. “I’m proud of our efforts here.”

His advice to those who want the monuments removed: Go to Richmond and lobby the General Assembly to change the state law that prohibits localities from removing Civil War memorials.

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Legal action: Belmont residents file petition against church rezoning plan

Reverend Robert Lewis of the Hinton Avenue United Methodist Church appeared before City Council on August 5 to express his support for the apartment project. (Photo: Eze Amos)

A dispute over the rezoning of a Methodist church that wants to add affordable housing units reached Charlottesville Circuit Court on September 5, when a group of city residents filed a petition for the plan to be thrown out.

Thirty-one people, including Belmont/Carlton Neighborhood Association president Kimber Hawkey and Quality Pie owner Tomas Rahal, are requesting that a judge overturn City Council’s August 5 decision to unanimously approve the project, citing a lack of sufficient notice for public discussion and violations of the city’s Comprehensive Plan. But at least one of them, local filmmaker Brian Wimer, says he never signed the petition.

“It was a misunderstanding,” Wimer said in an email. “My wife was involved in the petition. I really know very little about the petition and the project.”

Petition organizer Mark Kavit submitted an amended version of the document Monday, adding eight new names to the list and removing five, including Wimer. Kavit says names were originally listed on the petition based on responses to an email distributed by Hawkey. Some of the individuals who asked to be removed, he says, did so because of public “shaming by people that don’t understand what this is about” on social media.

Hinton Avenue United Methodist Church is hoping to build a 15-unit apartment complex, with several rented out at 80 percent of the area’s median income, along with four to six units reserved for intellectually disabled occupants. The project is named Rachel’s Haven after pastor Robert Lewis’ wife, who died in 2016 from breast cancer.

“The…neighborhood is not against the concepts that Hinton Church wants to provide,” Kavit said in an email. “[Their] concern is with the commercial zoning place on the property instead of residential. Zoning stays with the property. The neighborhood wishes success to the church for what they would like to accomplish.”

Originally scheduled to be heard by the Charlottesville Planning Commission on May 14, the rezoning proposal was at first put on hold for the church to address neighborhood concerns by  including restrictions of all nonresidential uses of the property outside of its daycare facilities and educational efforts. While it’s still seeking a neighborhood commercial zoning designation–the only zoning available that would allow for apartments to be built–the church’s proposal is written with the intention of preventing potential future owners of the property from using it as such.

But the proposal still received pushback after the amendments were made. Twenty-eight Belmont residents co-signed a letter requesting that commissioners Rory Stolzenberg and Gary Heaton recuse themselves from voting on the proposal when it was presented June 11. Neither commissioner did, and the plan was approved unanimously—albeit without the presence of commission chair Lisa Green.

“It was a unanimous vote with everyone acknowledging it was a less-perfect proposal, but it was one of those situations where perfect is the enemy of good,” says Heaton, who’s the minister at First United Methodist Church on East Jefferson Street. As for the petition, “I don’t think we have to get volatile…I think it’s [part of] the process we have, and the process is good.”

Kavit notes that there’s a nationwide trend of churches closing down, and says he still fears another business assuming the property and ignoring its proffers. Violations of proffers aren’t monitored by the city and, for the most part, aren’t addressed unless local residents submit a complaint.

He points to other Belmont businesses like Southern Crescent Galley & Bar, which met with Neighborhood Development Services in June to discuss proffer violations—playing amplified music and installing two cabanas without a permit—but received what he says was “a slap on the wrist.” NDS prohibited Southern Crescent from playing amplified music moving forward and assessed “a penalty fee for the [cabana] violation which could require double payment of the permit fee,” according to meeting notes compiled by NDS Director Alex Ikefuna.

The court has yet to establish a date for the hearing. Although the plaintiffs aren’t seeking any compensation other than the plan being overturned, all five members of City Council, as well as the council itself, are listed as defendants.

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Fighting for a second chance: Reentry services work to provide opportunities for ex-offenders

Martez Tolbert grew up boxing, often getting into fights with other kids on the street. His aggressive nature has since subsided, but his love for the gym remains. Tolbert now works out in his basement, sparring with close friends who also put an emphasis on staying physically fit. Photo: Eze Amos

Martez Tolbert grew up hustling. “Even as a 3-year-old, I was selling drugs for my uncle and didn’t even know it,” he says. “He was just giving me little backpacks to go up the street.”

When he was 11, Tolbert moved with his family from Detroit to Charlottesville, landing in Westhaven. He was raised by his mother and aunt, both of whom struggled with substance abuse, and Tolbert got caught up in using and selling drugs.

“I loved the game,” he says. “Loved hustling, loved the streets, loved people in the streets, loved everything about the whole street network because that’s all I was raised on. That’s all I saw.”

He managed to graduate from high school, but continued selling drugs and decided he needed a handgun to protect himself.

When he was 19, Tolbert was charged with illegal possession of a firearm while handling narcotics. He fled from the police officers who found the drugs, running into a ravine before stumbling and being tackled to the ground. A struggle ensued, resulting in an officer injuring his ankle and Tolbert being knocked unconscious. He later woke up in a hospital bed, handcuffed to the support bars.

A judge handed Tolbert six years, citing the cop’s injury as justification for a harsh sentence. But the time in prison did nothing to help Tolbert change his life. When he got out, he went “wild” and ended up back on the streets.

He served two more stints in prison, for a total of nine and a half years behind bars. But during his third sentence, Tolbert trained with the staff at Powhatan Correctional Center to become a motivational speaker, facilitating workshops with fellow inmates, earning as many certifications as he could, and becoming “almost part of the staff.”

By the time he got out for the third time, in 2013, he was 32 years old and determined to have a different outcome. But the road to redefining his life was a daunting one.

Easing the reentry burden

More than 650,000 people are released from prison each year, and roughly two-thirds end up back in prison within three years, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Ex-offenders often struggle with the debt incurred from court costs, lawyer fees and fines, and the challenge of finding a job while carrying a criminal record.

Finding housing can be another obstacle, especially since Section 8 and other housing assistance is off limits for those with certain felony convictions, and landlords can be reluctant to rent to ex-offenders. On top of the practical concerns, people who have been incarcerated may be alienated from their families or feel detached from society, or still struggle with whatever issues got them in trouble in the first place.

The longer you spend behind bars, the more likely you are to return. Locally, 1 in 3 inmates booked at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail between 2012 and 2016 returned to custody within those four years. But among those incarcerated for more than 30 days, the recidivism rate shot up to more than 75 percent. In an effort to reduce those numbers, a range of local organizations are working to help ex-offenders transition back into the community.

The Albemarle Charlottesville Community Reentry Council, which includes organizations like the ACRJ, Charlottesville Department of Social Services, Offender Aid and Restoration, Piedmont Virginia Community College, and several nonprofits, meets quarterly to discuss strategies for easing the burden of reentry.

For Tolbert, the first problem was getting a driver’s license. Buried in debt from court fines and costs, he wasn’t able to obtain a license—a basic requirement for landing a job—due to a Virginia law that was only overturned in July. It wasn’t until 2017, when The Fountain Fund, a local nonprofit started by former U.S. attorney Tim Heaphy, stepped in, that Tolbert was able to pay those debts.

“Governors, Congress, everyone’s starting to get it now, what’s going on in our country,” Tolbert says. “A little too late [for me], but it’s not, because there are still people coming up who need it. But I was one of the ones who had to go through it.”

The Fountain Fund paid off Tolbert’s court costs and set him up on a low-interest payment plan that’s allowed him to reset his bearings. His new goal? To help others in prison get their priorities in line before they cost themselves additional years of their life.

Tolbert is a candidate for the Home to Hope mentoring program organized by the City of Charlottesville and sponsored by Mayor Nikuyah Walker. He’s currently in training for a peer support specialist role where, if selected, he’d have a full-time job with the city visiting local inmates and helping them craft a successful future.

“I’ve been branding myself the last five years, and [it’s led me to] this,” Tolbert says. “It’s been an ongoing process, but last summer when it first got initiated, it opened my eyes to what I really want to do.”

Programs like The Fountain Fund and Home to Help are designed to not only show current or former inmates the things they need to do in order to successfully reenter society, but help walk them through those steps as well.

Daniel Herrlein’s biggest passion has always been cooking. The Fountain Fund is helping him work toward opening his own restaurant, featuring American-style food “with a twist.” Photo: Eze Amos

Reducing recidivism

In Charlottesville and Albemarle County, that process begins when they first arrive at the ACRJ. All inmates take a 160-question risk assessment that determines what factors led to them being arrested: substance abuse, lack of education, social groups, unemployment, etc. That allows the jail to understand what it needs to address in order to put the medium- and high-risk inmates in a position that’ll help prevent them from coming back.

According to Martin Kumer, superintendent of the ACRJ, the average person only spends 35 days in jail, so it’s important for the jail to take advantage of the time it has to meet with inmates who are considered at risk of recidivism.

“Once we ask all those questions, we have a good idea of who you are, where you are, and why,” Kumer says. “We are not the end-all-be-all. We rely heavily on our community partners…to pick up the slack that we can’t fulfill when they leave. So we try to introduce them to the processes before they’re released to try and keep that ball rolling.”

Those who are leaving state prison (there are 18 within a two-hour drive of Charlottesville, in addition to two federal facilities) get help from a state-funded program that works with nine different service providers, both public and nonprofit, to assist with reentry.

For inmates who spend an extended amount of time at the ACRJ, there are many certification courses and programs they can enroll in to help gain skills like money management, cooking, and parenting that help them after they get out. Those without a high school diploma are enrolled in GED prep, while PVCC offers several college courses and identifies employers that are willing to hire formerly incarcerated people.

“We’re usually looking for employers that have almost a family orientation towards their employees where they’re willing to bring them in and coach them and pay attention to them,” says Valerie Palamountain, dean of workforce services at PVCC. “If they’re late for work, they’re not going to fire them the first time. They’ll talk to them and make sure it gets corrected.

“One thing that we found is a lot of the employers prefer this population because they want to stay local. It’s not like the UVA grad who graduates and leaves, these are the people who are going to become the base of the community.”

Project ID is helping Stacey Shifflett get a new ID, since someone who has been a “negative influence” on her life has her old one. Shifflett, who’s in jail on a credit card fraud charge, is hoping for a fresh start when she is released, and plans to move to Harrisonburg to be closer to her parents. Photo: Sanjay Suchak

Adopting a new mindset

Nonprofit organizations on the reentry council also play a huge role in providing services for incarcerated people. Spread the Vote has a program called Project ID, which coordinates with the DMV to help inmates get their paperwork squared away and order an ID so they have one fewer hoop to jump through once they’re released. In fact, the DMV Connect program, launched in 2012, sends representatives to jails with camera equipment and a DMV database computer so that they can take their photo right there and verify information in person.

About 30 days before inmates are scheduled to be released from the jail, OAR staff pays them a visit and talks to them about their risk assessment and transition plan. Although not every offender takes advantage of these reentry services (many turn them down but reach out weeks or months later after struggling to adjust), OAR offers assistance with emergency needs like clothing and shelter as well as constructing a long-term employment plan.

To help make former inmates more attractive to employers, OAR works in conjunction with the city to run the Coming Home to Work program. Companies that participate have a portion of the offender’s salary supplemented by the city for the first six months, making the idea of hiring someone with a troubled background more attractive.

Charlottesville native Phillip Sparrow spent 20 months in jail for a malicious wounding charge he picked up in his early 30s. He waited too long to enroll in any programs while incarcerated but saw signs around the jail about reentry programs. Sparrow planned to take advantage of them, but three days before he was supposed to be released, his best friend, Jamie Mays, died in a car crash.

Mays’ death sent Sparrow into a downward spiral, and he decided to move to Harrisonburg to get a fresh start. By the time he got there and settled in, it’d been six months—but he decided to reach out anyway. Despite coming out of jail with nothing but a $100 bill to his name, Sparrow was able to utilize these services to find a job and, thanks to The Fountain Fund, get a loan that’s helped him achieve a lifelong dream of opening up an auto shop.

“[Other inmates] think that there’s no such thing as going out and getting a good job because you’re a felon and all that,” Sparrow says. “Doesn’t matter. What it is, I had to teach people to get out of that mindstate that you can’t do it…you can do it. Take that idea and make something of it.”

Phillip Sparrow has always wanted to open up an auto shop, and after moving to Harrisonburg he was finally able to do it. At Foreign Car Auto, Sparrow works on everything from cars and motorcycles to ATVs. It hasn’t become his day job yet, but he has no problem spending late hours working under the hood. Photo: Tristan Lorei

Benefiting the community

Dedicating resources toward reentry programs makes financial sense, too. According to OAR, it costs $93.82 a day for the jail to house an inmate. The cost to incarcerate the 469 people targeted for reentry services in 2018 was more than $5.6 million. Even though some costs are fixed (mortgage and utility payments are factored into the per-day rate, for example) keeping those ex-offenders from returning to jail would result in significant savings. And the council says its work benefits the entire community as well. If ex-inmates are successfully reintegrated into society, it reduces crime rates, boosts the local economy, increases the number of taxpayers, and helps make it possible for people with troubled pasts to have a positive impact on others.

Daniel Herrlein is another client-partner of The Fountain Fund. He’s been in and out of jail four times, spending a total of two years and two months behind bars for failing to pay child support and violating probation.

As someone who’s dealt with bipolar disorder and anxiety and twice attempted suicide, Herrlein has struggled in the past to maintain a positive outlook on both life and himself. But he’s since received the help of mentors who’ve assisted him in adjusting his perspective and not getting overwhelmed by the amount of work he needed to do to get his life in order.

Herrlein has worked closely with Carl Brown, the program manager at The Fountain Fund. Brown has emphasized two keys to happiness that Herrlein has adopted: patience and process. Even though Herrlein has sat down with mental health professionals before, Brown—who’s a former juvenile probation officer—has been particularly helpful to him for staying grounded and maintaining a positive attitude.

Herrlein now spends more time with his kids and has worked full-time at a local sandwich shop for the last six months. He hopes to soon open his own restaurant, which The Fountain Fund is working to help him do.

As Tolbert, Sparrow, and Herrlein show, every case is different, and the nearly 50 members of the reentry council all play different roles in assisting with the reentry process. “All of us are intertwined, but these risk factors are intertwined,” local OAR Director Ross Carew says. “You can’t put somebody in the [cooking program] that’s in full-blown substance abuse addiction right now. A lot of these things you’ve got to address simultaneously.”

They know there’s still work to be done. OAR Criminal Justice Planner Neal Goodloe points out, for instance, that while crime rates have fallen nationwide, the number of incarcerated people has remained stable.

Although that’s a problem for lawmakers to tackle, the reentry council is focused on expanding reentry services and using programs like Home to Hope to ensure convicted offenders in Charlottesville and Albemarle County have the opportunity to better themselves and contribute to society once they’re released. It’s a mission based on the idea that people deserve second chances.

“We all have bad days,” Herrlein says, “but…next day you open your eyes and slate’s clean. You take another step forward.”