The sound of gunfire and the arrival of SWAT teams are unnervingly frequent within a few Fifeville blocks. Photo by Skyclad Aerial
In the early morning hours of February 10, Julie Bargmann woke up to the sound of gunshots. She laid still.
“Unfortunately, I’ve gotten kind of used to it,” says the Fifeville resident who’s lived on Sixth Street Southwest for four years. Over the last two, there have been multiple shootings and other incidents that drew a massive police response.
Every time it happens, she says, “I hunker down low and I stay in my bed.”
Police presence in the immediate area of Sixth, 6 ½, and Dice streets, in the neighborhood across Cherry Avenue from Tonsler Park, seems to be all or nothing. While community members say they don’t usually see any cops patrolling, when law enforcement does respond to the area, it’s quite a show—multiple squad cars line the narrow, one-way roads and driveways, and at times that’s been accompanied by a heavily militarized SWAT team that has terrified residents.
Bargmann and other neighbors say they’re aware that the Charlottesville Police Department is currently understaffed, and they’re sympathetic to its officers, who are currently down 18 co-workers, according to police spokesperson Tyler Hawn. But residents say a regular patrol is necessary in a neighborhood that has seen drug dealing and gunfire—and that a steadier police presence would make those SWAT raids unnecessary.
On this particular February morning, Bargmann waited until she saw the red and blue lights reflected onto her bedroom walls, then watched as the apparently naked victim of the shooting was hauled off in an ambulance.
Back in 2017, she’d witnessed a SWAT raid at the same house. An officer in military-style gear popped out of the top of a BearCat, a tank-like armored vehicle. He scanned the area with his gun drawn as other cops climbed a ladder leading to a window above the front door, bashed it in, and hurled a flash grenade through it, she recalls.
“And then I saw Sam, my neighbor, being taken away in handcuffs,” she says. Court records show that Sam Henderson, who owns the house, was arrested November 16, 2017, for possession of a controlled substance and found guilty seven months later.
But she and other neighbors still see him come and go, and they’re wondering why police don’t shut down this known “drug abode”—or the other known drug operation in the immediate area. “You’d think it would be a pretty high priority,” she says.
At Henderson’s house on a recent Thursday morning, the front door is cracked open and there appears to be a bullet hole in a window next to the door. No one answers when this reporter knocks multiple times, nor did Henderson respond to a note left by the ashtray on his porch.
Police spokesperson Hawn didn’t respond to an inquiry about Henderson or the house, but says the department “actively patrols and engages the members of the Fifeville neighborhood on a continual basis.”
Edward Thomas, a longtime Fifeville resident with properties on Sixth and 6 ½ streets, says many residents are wary of talking to police, but he and Bargmann met with an officer in December to air their concerns after their houses were paintballed. He was left “flabbergasted” when the cop suggested they start a community watch.
“Community watch programs can be a resource multiplier and a system of support for the community and the CPD,” says Hawn.
Says Thomas, “I remember saying, half joking, ‘This week it’s paintballs, next week it’s going to be real bullets.’ Well, sure enough.”
About a week later, on December 29, Thomas woke up to the sound of gunshots on 6 ½ Street. Six days after that, around 6am, neighbor Stephanie Bottoms says Charlottesville police deployed another SWAT team to arrest the culprit.
As she watched from a window, she counted 30 officers, approximately 20 of whom carried what appeared to be automatic weapons. They broke down the front door of the house in the 300 block of 6 ½ Street. With two BearCats surrounding the home, they also busted through second-floor windows on its front and back sides, she says.
That day, Ernest Anderson was arrested and charged with shooting in a public place, a misdemeanor, and felony possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
“Thank God they got the guy that shot up the neighborhood,” says Thomas, because that isn’t always the case. After the February 10 shooting, police say a gunman in a black ski mask got away.
Matt Simon, who lives on Dice Street where it intersects Sixth, recalls hearing “a ton of gunshots” back in December 2016, when two people were injured by gunfire. Two weeks later, he pulled a record out of the bin he keeps in his living room and found it broken. He realized one of the bullets had barreled through six of his discs.
“I think we warrant a patrol car coming through every now and again,” says Simon, who says things haven’t improved.
“Nothing happens until it gets really bad, and then all of a sudden, it’s like a war zone here,” says Thomas. “It’s the scariest it’s ever been.”
He says he saw a kid shot to death several years ago, which was undoubtedly frightening, but now with the somewhat regular militarized SWAT response, “it’s like we’re scared of the police.”
This type of showing from the cops “makes the neighborhood even less desirable and scares people away from buying and potentially leasing the vacant property,” Thomas adds. Three people interviewed for this story mention neighbors who have moved or started renting their properties because they don’t feel safe.
“There is definitely an overuse of SWAT teams and military vehicles [in town],” says local attorney Jeff Fogel, who’s been known to criticize the cops. “They are incredibly intimidating, not only to the occupants of the house being attacked, but the neighborhood as well. I suspect they are used for that very purpose.”
Says Hawn, “The Charlottesville Police Department takes concerns about safety in the Fifeville neighborhood and throughout the city seriously. While we understand the presence of a SWAT or tactical team may feel overwhelming, we are committed to providing a safe response to incidents for our officers, the public, and any persons involved.”
The city’s general upkeep of the neighborhood also leaves much to be desired, Thomas notes. On any given day, neighboring lots are overgrown, and beer bottles and other trash can be found strewn across the lawn of the historic Benjamin Tonsler House, which was built in 1879 for Tonsler, a prominent African American teacher and principal in town. His friend Booker T. Washington once stayed there, according to the city’s website.
There have also been cables lying on the ground since a storm last spring, complemented by a nearly-collapsed telephone poll in front of Thomas’ house. He says some crime in his area could be attributed to the broken windows theory, which suggests visible signs of disorder and crime can lead to more of it.
“I used to worry about the gentrification destroying the character of the neighborhood,” Thomas says. “Now, I kind of want the gentrification to happen, because I’d rather have gentrification than bullets and trash everywhere.”
Updated February 28 at 3:54pm with an addition comment from CPD spokesperson Tyler Hawn.
Former vice president Al Gore said the Atlantic Coast Pipeline is a reckless, racist ripoff at a February 19 event in Buckingham County, where Dominion wants to run the pipeline and build one of three compressor stations. Photo by John Robinson
It’s long been clear that the folks of the small, predominately black Union Hill community in bucolic Buckingham County don’t want the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and its compressor station on their soil. And now two well-known voices who condemn environmental racism are joining the fight against it.
Former vice president Al Gore and Reverend William Barber, known across the country for his ministry and political activism, came to Buckingham February 19 and told a crowd of hundreds of community members and allies they oppose what they believe is a risky, expensive, and unnecessary natural gas pipeline that Dominion has intentionally chosen to run through a poor, black neighborhood.
“This is what change looks like,” Gore said to the folks who had spent the night dancing, singing and chanting, holding hands, and pumping fists in solidarity with Union Hill. He added, “I think Dominion is messing with the wrong part of Virginia.”
The former vice president, who also serves as founder and chairman of Climate Reality Project, said the Federal Energy Regulatory Commision never should have given Dominion permission to start building the ACP in the first place, and that current gas pipelines in the country have almost twice as much capacity as the amount of gas flowing through them. Demand for natural gas has decreased as people switch to renewable energy sources and use newer energy-saving technology such as LED lighting, he added.
“This proposed pipeline is a reckless, racist ripoff,” said Gore loudly and passionately into his microphone, bringing most of the crowd to its feet.
Big utility companies like Dominion don’t really make their money by selling electricity or gas, he said, but by building new capacity and adding the cost into their rate base. “If the pipeline is not needed, they have a powerful economic incentive to build it anyway,” he said, echoing what ACP opponents have contended since it was proposed half a decade ago.
The Union Hill story sparked Gore’s interest when he read about a historically significant, low-income community of color being “insulted and abused” by Dominion, which is trying to wreak havoc on a community it thought couldn’t defend itself, he said.
“We’re here to say to Union Hill, you are not standing alone,” said Gore. “We are standing with you.”
ACP spokesperson Karl Neddenien says Dominion has “profound respect” for the Union Hill community, and it plans to invest $5 million to build a community center and upgrade the county’s rescue squad.
Dominion says it chose Union Hill for one of three of the pipeline’s compressor stations because it intersects with an existing pipeline, and because the for-sale property was large enough to also allow for trees and vegetation on-site, with the nearest home a quarter-mile away. The other two, one at the beginning of the pipeline’s route in Lewis County, West Virginia, and the other near the Virginia-North Carolina State line, have also prompted pushback.
Part of Dominion’s justification was also its calculation of approximately 29.6 people per square mile in the surrounding area. Residents say that number is off by about 500 percent, and during their own door-to-door survey of the Union Hill area, they determined that approximately 85 percent of those people are African American.
A third of the county’s residents are descendants of the freedmen community that was established there by former slaves. Dominion is planning to build the compressor station atop freedmen cemeteries and unmarked slave burials, according to Yogaville resident and cultural anthropologist Lakshmi Fjord, who spoke briefly at the event.
Attendees also heard from Mary Finley-Brook, a University of Richmond professor of geography and the environment who served on Governor Ralph Northam’s Advisory Council on Environmental Justice, which recommended against the pipeline last summer. She said her council exposed disproportionate risks for minority communities if the pipeline is built.
“Historic Union Hill is the wrong place to build a compressor station,” said Finley-Brook, who pointed out that poor internet and phone access in Buckingham could mean residents won’t be properly notified of scheduled blowdowns at the station, when gas and toxic air pollutants are released to relieve pressure in the pipe. She also noted the daily safety risk of fires or explosions due to highly pressurized gas equipment and flammable contents.
Reverend Barber touched on how environmental racism is systemic, and how pipelines like the ACP don’t usually run through affluent areas, though politicians and other people of power will encourage poorer communities to accept them.
“Everybody that tells you to be alright with it coming through your community—ask them why it isn’t coming through theirs,” said Barber.
Dominion’s Neddenien says safety standards at the compressor station, if built, will be the strictest of any compressor station in the country, and emissions will be 50 to 80 percent lower than any other station in Virginia.
Barber counters if Northam truly believes that, “request it to be in your backyard.”
Barber also said the power to protest the pipeline lies in the hands of the community, and clarified that he and Gore came to Buckingham by invitation.
“We didn’t come here to lead the fight, we just came here to say, ‘Y’all fight like you never fought before.’”
Irene Ellis Leach is one of those Union Hill community members. Her family has operated a farm four miles away from the proposed site of the compressor station for 117 years, where original buildings built in 1804 are still standing. She says Dominion insists on crossing through the middle of the cattle fields she uses most.
Now she’s one of many landowners in the incineration zone, or the potential impact radius, of 1,100 feet on either side of the pipeline. If it blows, that’s how far the flames will reach.
“If something goes wrong, the resulting fire can’t be put out. It has to burn out,” she says. “We could lose everything, including our lives.”
Aerial view of the Chesapeake Bay. Photo: Robert Llewellyn
As he prepares to step down, the founder of the Southern Environmental Law Center looks back on three decades of defending the region’s natural treasures
Ambitious and naive.
That’s how Rick Middleton describes himself 33 years ago, when he founded the Southern Environmental Law Center, a small nonprofit that would protect the air, the water, and the special places of the southeastern United States. It was 1986, and he was 39 years old.
“I didn’t have enough sense to know how challenging it was going to be to start up an organization,” he says, and he didn’t have much of a plan for how he’d build it over time, either. With thegoal of hiring about five lawyers who would work regionally out of a single office on the city’s Downtown Mall, he says his “grandest dream” was that maybe a dozen attorneys would someday come on board to support his vision.
But today, with 140 employees on his staff and nine offices on the map, Middleton has built the largest environmental advocacy organization in the South. And as one of the country’s pioneers of environmental law, this is the legacy he leaves behind as he prepares to retire this spring.
So why did he do it? The Alabama-born-and-raised University of Virginia alum says the answer is quite simple: “Love of the South.”
While there’s been much talk lately about preserving Southern heritage, history, and culture, Middleton is concerned about protecting the South as a physical place, whose treasures include the Appalachian mountains (which run through each state the SELC represents) hundreds of miles of Atlantic coast, and hundreds of thousands of acres of national forest, all of which the organization’s army of attorneys has fiercely defended.
Middleton says that of the few environmental advocacy groups that were around when founded the SELC, none knew much about the historically conservative South, nor were they interested in learning.
“The South needed an environmental advocate,” he adds, but even more than that, it needed a lawyer.
Environmental law was just emerging as a distinct field in the 1960s and ’70s, as the federal government passed a wave of landmark legislation to protect our land, air, and water. After graduating from Yale Law School in 1971, Middleton went home to Alabama, where he worked at the attorney general’s office to enforce those laws against some “pretty big” polluters like the Tennessee Valley Authority and U.S. Steel.
He then practiced law with national environmental nonprofit Earthjustice in Washington, D.C., for seven years. But while that organization was scoring some big wins on the federal level, Middleton wanted to have more impact on the place he loved the best—the South. And he decided he’d do it right here from Charlottesville.
A graduate of UVA, he knew the university brought in some of the brightest people from across the Southeast. And “I felt like Charlottesville was a unique and special place that would attract like-minded people,” aka smart and capable lawyers who cared about the environment.
Middleton admits that environmental advocacy in the South hasn’t always been easy. But he grounded his approach in staying local, tapping into people’s connection with their home.
“The way we view the world is that the environment shouldn’t be a partisan issue,” he says. We all should love and care about the places [where] we live, work, and go have fun.”
In his experience, if you can bring major environmental issues out of the national, highly polarized political world and down to a local, place-based level that people can easily understand, “I would say almost always the local public is on our side.”
Southern Environmental Law Center founder Rick Middleton’s grandest dream when he founded the nonprofit 33 years ago was that he’d eventually be able to hire a dozen attorneys. Now, there are 80. Photo: Courtesy Southern Environmental Law Center
Global issues, local impact
Here’s a not-so-fun fact: If carbon dioxide emissions from the six states the SELC represents were combined, the region would be the eighth-largest contributor to global warming on Earth, Middleton says.
The Southeast can attribute rising seas, loss of beaches, wetlands, and other natural resources to global warming, “but we’re also having this devastating flooding from these monster hurricanes that are clearly because of changing weather patterns from climate change. So we’re not only producing more carbon dioxide than anywhere in the country, the Southeast is [also] suffering the consequences of this.”
In other words, the region he’s worked so hard to protect is also the epicenter of the problem.
But tackling climate change is one of the big issues the SELC is equipped to take on.
“We now have an organization that is smart enough and big enough and has enough staying power that we can do things today that we never could have dreamed about 30 years ago,” he says.
Roughly 12 years ago, the SELC created a strategic plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions across its six states. And, Middleton says, they’ve done it.
Twenty staff members are currently working on the project, which began with Environmental Defense v. Duke Energy. In this case, SELC attorneys represented the Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club, and Environment North Carolina when Duke wanted to rebuild and extend the life of a dozen of its coal-fired power plants without installing new legally required pollution controls.
They took the case all the way to the Supreme Court, and won—a unanimous victory that required power companies to always install new pollution controls on rebuilt plants, and set off the largest power plant cleanup in U.S. history. Since 2010, the SELC and its partners have reduced one-third of the Southeast’s coal plant capacity by pressuring companies into retiring their plants.
“The reduction [of emissions] has been something like 30 percent,” Middleton says. “I mean, it’s incredible.”
Going forward, the SELC is working on the South’s first carbon cap-and-trade program for power plants. If adopted, it will give utilities incentives to opt for low- or zero-carbon energy resources.
The largest fossil fuel-powered station in Virginia is in Chesterfield, where 300,000 tons of toxic coal ash are stored in unlined pits. Thanks to a law passed last week, which Southern Environmental Law Center attorneys have been a major advocate for, Dominion is now required to excavate all of the coal ash on site, and either recycle it into products like cement or concrete, or place it in modern, lined landfills. The law also affects Dominion’s three other plants in the Chesapeake Bay watershed: Chesapeake Energy Center, Possum Point Power Station, and Bremo Power Station. Photo: Ryan Kelly
Building the team
But before there was a staff of 140 people who could tackle such large-scale projects, there were just three attorneys.
The first to join Middleton’s fledgling organization was David Carr, a Princeton grad with roots in Albemarle County. Carr had graduated from UVA’s law school in 1983 before moving to Seattle, where he practiced general business litigation and did some business advising.
But what he really wanted to do was environmental law. At the time, there were few jobs available in the field, so when a friend saw an ad for the new SELC, he jumped on it. About a month later, he was back in Charlottesville.
He was 30 years old. Now he’s 63, focuses primarily on alternate energy and protecting wilderness, and is one of the first names that usually surfaces when asking about the enormous impact the law center has had on the Southeast.
“It all happened pretty quick,” says Carr, who had no idea he’d spend the rest of his career at the organization. Middleton had secured a grant and funding for only three years. “We didn’t know if we’d be in business three years down the road —at least I didn’t.”
But it wasn’t long before Kay Slaughter, whom Middleton recruited from UVA’s law school in ’86 and who would serve as Charlottesville’s mayor 10 years later while still at SELC, turned their duo into a trio.
Slaughter, who retired in 2010, says the three lawyers focused on bringing their knowledge of federal environmental laws to city and state laws in the South.
“We’re certainly a very different organization than we were when there were three of us,” says Carr, but he commends Middleton for maintaining a sense of camaraderie and collegiality as the organization grew.
Middleton built a management committee to help him lead the staff as it sprawled across six states, while still holding onto his original vision of protecting the South’s environment and the people who depend on it for their wellbeing at a local level. And he’s maintained high standards across the board for SELC’s work, whether that be its legal advocacy, fundraising, or communications, Carr says.
“That’s been the secret sauce.”
Like Middleton himself, many of the attorneys who work for him are motivated by their love for the outdoors, and Middleton has always encouraged—even insisted—that they get out and visit the places that they’re working on, Carr says.
Getting boots on the ground can give attorneys a visceral sense of the particular place, stream, mountain, or beach they’re fighting to protect.
“Plus,” says Carr, “it’s good for the attorney’s outlook and spirit to get out of the office and enjoy the places that they’re working on. …A lot of my best memories in working with Rick have been visiting some of those places together.”
He specifically recalls an SELC-sponsored retreat to the barrier islands of the Cape Lookout National Seashore, a three-mile boat ride from the coast of North Carolina’s southern Outer Banks. It was 2001, immediately following the September 11 terrorist attacks.
About 25 SELC staff watched as fishermen reeled in an “incredible catch” of croakers and spot from the sound side of the Cape. The fish would usually be destined for New York’s famous Fulton Fish Market, but because it was closed due to the tragedy unfolding in the city, the fishermen were trying to figure out where they could sell their catch of the day.
“And on the ocean side, there were surfcasters reeling in these huge flounders,” Carr remembers. “I’d never seen flounders this big.”
He also recalls early trips to Georgia’s Cumberland Island National Seashore and North Carolina’s Cedar Island, which the SELC successfully protected from development and other destruction. Staff hikes around The Priest and Three Ridges, two of Virginia’s most popular hiking circuits, are also at the top of his list.
Because of Carr and the SELC, the Nelson County spots are now congressionally designated wilderness areas, which means they’re federally managed and designated for preservation in their natural condition.
One of attorney David Carr’s (left) favorite days on the job was in April 2009, when the Southern Environmental Law Center staff hiked through Priest Wilderness in the George Washington National Forest, where his advocacy and legal work has protected thousands of acres from development and other human interference. He says the nonprofit’s founder, Rick Middleton (right), has always insisted that staff take time to enjoy the places they’ve helped preserve. Photo courtesy Southern Environmental Law Center
Protect and defend
Longtime environmental advocate Ridge Schuyler, who has worked with the SELC in a couple of different roles, says Carr’s dedication to preserving The Priest and Three Ridges is a prime example of the law center’s outstanding work.
As a chief policy advisor to Senator Chuck Robb in the ’90s, Schuyler worked closely with the nonprofit to protect national parks and other forests. Later, as director of the Nature Conservancy, he worked with the SELC on protecting the Rivanna watershed, and specifically restoring healthy river flows to the Moormans River in the early 2000s.
That presented a dual challenge: protecting the river while still providing water for the community.
“Working together,” Schuyler says, “…We took what is often seen as an intractable challenge and figured out a way to solve it.”
Though this primarily involved policy and regulatory work instead of litigation, when asked if the Nature Conservancy could have navigated the situation without the aid of the SELC, Schuyler doesn’t mince words: “No.”
SELC attorney Rick Parrish brought his expert knowledge of the Clean Water Act and state regulations to guide the Nature Conservancy in developing a plan that would meet water supply needs and the law’s requirements to protect the environment, Schulyer says.
“Rick was an excellent partner during a stressful time—both good for nature and good-natured,” Schuyler says. During the course of the conversation, he also praised a string of other SELC attorneys such as Carr, Slaughter, Morgan Butler, and Trip Pollard for their passion and reputation.
Adds Schuyler, “Their work undergirds a lot of what makes Charlottesville a wonderful place and an attractive place to live.”
Grey McLean, director of the locally based, climate-change-combatting Adiuvans Foundation, has supported the work of the SELC for years. After getting to know Middleton and the attorneys, first through their projects in Virginia and then throughout the Southeast, he joined the organization’s board of trustees a few years ago.
He’s impressed by the SELC’s “extremely high degree of professionalism,” he says. “These are really committed, talented lawyers who, quite frankly, make a significant financial sacrifice working at a nonprofit, relative to working for a for-profit law firm.”
He says the reputation of their work precedes them, “and I think that has an impact on the behavior of folks who might otherwise be ready to run roughshod over the environment.”
Adds McLean, “I often think if it were not for SELC, what would happen?”
It’s a rhetorical question, but Carr suggests some answers: For starters, likely more than a million acres of wildlands and other wilderness and national scenic areas like the George Washington and Jefferson National forests would be unprotected, vulnerable to things such as pipelines, fracking, and coal mining. The Southeast might be smothered in a film of air pollution, and the shift to solar energy and other renewables might not have taken off. (Now North Carolina is ranked second in the amount of solar systems installed nationwide, with SELC’s other five states ranked in the top 25.)
“We’d probably be lagging behind the rest of the country, whereas we’re helping lead the rest of the country in those transitions now,” says Carr.
Staying power
Though he’ll remain president emeritus of his law center, Middleton is stepping down at a particularly fraught time, as the Trump administration fights tooth and nail to tear apart the protections he has defended for 30 years. But as Middleton hands over the reins to Jeff Gleason, a 28-year veteran of the organization and an expert in clean energy and air, he says the SELC is better prepared than ever to fight back.
“It’s almost like every organizational decision we’ve made in the last 30 years has been to build an organization capable of succeeding at this challenging time,” Middleton says.
One of the policies under attack by the administration is the Clean Water Act, which was passed in 1972 to regulate pollution, and is to thank for increasingly cleaner waterways despite population growth. SELC research found that gutting it would affect the drinking water supply of 2.3 million people in Virginia alone.
The president’s goal is to reduce Environmental Protection Agency oversight of what gets released into the country’s wetlands and isolated streams, seemingly because the current law doesn’t sit well with some of his base. The Clean Water Act limits how folks such as rural landowners, real estate developers, and golf course owners can use their properties, including restricting the quantity of pesticides they may use.
“There’s nobody in that administration who’s interested in protecting the environment,” says Middleton. “It’s up to us.”
Now the SELC is the central organization defending the Clean Water Act with a team of about a dozen attorneys, and thousands of environmental allies on their side. They expect their litigation will play out in the courts over the next two years, and ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Middleton calls the administration “over the top” and “extreme” for things such as denying climate change and a refusal to act to reduce carbon pollution.
“There’s no rationale to it,” he adds. “It’s all just ignorance, hostility, and greed.”
Take offshore drilling as another example. It has never happened on the South Atlantic seaboard, because when former President Barack Obama initiated a plan to explore it, the SELC helped to convince more than 100 communities from Virginia Beach down to the Florida-Georgia line to pass anti-drilling resolutions, which further convinced the former administration to change its mind. Now more than 200 communities are on board, but not Trump. His administration and supporters are hellbent on extracting that petroleum.
With a sly smile, he does a quick and fairly tame impersonation of those pushing offshore drilling: “More oil! More gas! Drilling! Who cares about the coastal communities? Who cares about listening to people locally? I’m promoting maximum fossil fuel extraction. Let’s crank up the global temperature! We don’t believe in global warming!”
Now, Middleton’s law center has found itself back in the epicenter of the argument, “and this time it’s going to take the lawyers. We’re not going to be able to convince the Trump administration any other way,” he adds.
SELC attorneys currently have a lawsuit underway in Charleston, South Carolina, and just won an injunction to prevent things from moving forward until their suit can be heard. They’ll challenge any seismic testing permits that are issued, as well as a final drilling plan.
“We’ve never been so busy,” says Middleton. “And it’s never been so important, but we are winning.”
At the same time, he says the SELC must stay true to its roots: “people and place.” That means focusing on the preservation of specific communities’ unique culture and ecology across their six-state region.
“Don’t lose sight of that kind of heart and soul of who you are and why you’re doing what you’re doing,” says Middleton, who plans to spend time after retirement visiting many of the places he’s worked to protect and “spreading the good word” about the SELC.
Says Middleton, “It’s not just enough to win a case—you’ve got to win hearts and minds and values.”
Here’s what Middleton has his eye on in Virginia—and you should, too
Defending the Clean Water Act to keep pollutants out of Virginia’s streams and protecting its coastal communities from offshore drilling are top priorities for SELC attorneys. Here’s what else they’re working on across the commonwealth.
Opposing the Atlantic Coast Pipeline
Environmentalists have strongly opposed the 600-mile, $7 billion natural gas pipeline that will slice through Nelson County on its way from West Virginia to North Carolina since it was proposed half a decade ago. The SELC has also dug up mounting evidence that casts doubt on the need for a pipeline. And the organization has brought several lawsuits that have delayed the ACP’s construction, including convincing a federal court to throw out a U.S. Forest Service permit that would have allowed the ACP to cross two national forests and the Appalachian Trail. They also plan to challenge the pipeline’s entire approval permit.
Protecting our forests
A longtime champion of the George Washington and Jefferson National forests, the SELC helped draft the Virginia Wilderness Additions Act, which Senator Tim Kaine introduced a few weeks ago. If passed, it would permanently protect 5,600 acres in the Rich Hole and Rough Mountain Wilderness areas in Bath County.
Advancing clean energy
Accelerating a transition to renewable energy is an SELC priority, and it has several opportunities to do so in Virginia. Attorneys are currently defending the appeal of a March 2017 ruling that Dominion’s coal ash pits at a plant in Chesapeake are in violation of the Clean Water Act. The SELC also encouraged the administrations of former governor Terry McAuliffe and Governor Ralph Northam to propose the South’s first carbon cap-and-trade program for power plants, and will have an advisory role as the proposal moves forward. And lastly, the SELC is fighting for solar power access for all Virginians.
Greatesthits
In three decades, SELC’s attorneys have scored some significant victories. Here’s a sampling:
Moving the South away from coal
In April 2007, after a seven-year battle, the SELC won a U.S. Supreme Court case, Environmental Defense v. Duke Energy, which ruled
that power companies could no longer continue their practice of burning coal without installing new pollution controls on rebuilt factories. This ruling set off the largest power plant cleanup in U.S. history, in which the SELC also blocked or deferred companies’ plans to build seven new coal-burning units across their six states, and had a hand in the retiring of one-third of existing coal towers in the region. Carbon dioxide levels have now dropped 29 percent in the Southeast. That’s a lot.
Cleaning up 90 million tons of coal ash
Utilities generally store their toxic coal ash in unlined, leaking pits, but through SELC legal action and public pressure, utilities in South Carolina have agreed to safely store or recycle all coal ash, and in North Carolina, Duke Energy has agreed to clean up eight of its 14 sites. The law center’s suit challenging the Tennessee Valley Authority’s dumping of coal ash at its Gallatin Fossil Plant achieved a landmark ruling whena federal court, for the first time in the nation’s history, ordered the utility to excavate its toxic ash, finding it a violation of the Clean Water Act.
Saving special places
When traditional native fishing grounds on the Mattaponi River were threatened by what the SELC classifies as the largest proposed wet- land destruction in Virginia’s history, or when a proposed Navy jet training facility wanted to squash an Atlantic Coast tundra swan and snow geese habitat, attorneys were there to say, “not so fast.” So far, they’ve been able to protect and preserve dozens of these natural areas.
No acres lost
The law center defended more than 700,000 roadless acres of national forest in the southern Appalachians from logging, road building, and other destruction, and celebrated their permanent protection in 2013.
Less asphalt
SELC attorneys take the position that unnecessary roads induce unrestricted growth, and take away from funds that could address other transportation needs. Over a period of many years, they were able to halt the doubling of Interstate 81 across Virginia, a 210-mile outer perimeter of roadway around Atlanta, and a string of roads in the Carolinas such as the Garden Parkway, which would have been a limited access toll road. They’re now seeking new ways to advance forward-thinking land use strategies and steer funding toward public transit.
Jason Kessler claimed Phoebe Stevens assaulted him when she wrapped her arms around him to protect him from an angry mob at his August 13, 2017, press conference. Photo by Eze Amos
Phoebe Stevens is a pacifist.
She says that’s why she wrapped her arms around Jason Kessler at his August 13, 2017, press conference as a crowd of angry protesters closed in on him. But after she knocked him down in the chaos, he accused her of assault and battery—a charge she was convicted of in Charlottesville General District Court a year ago.
Stevens appealed the conviction, and was scheduled to go to trial on February 14. Before a jury was seated, however, her defense team and the prosecutor reached a special agreement: If Stevens apologized, agreed to do 100 hours of community service, and stayed on good behavior for six months, her charge would be dismissed.
That’s when her attorney, Jay Galloway, walked her over to Kessler, who was seated in the front row of the nearly empty courtroom.
“I apologize for putting my arms around you,” Stevens said, to which Kessler harshly responded, “What about [tackling] me, do you apologize for that?”
During the Unite the Right rally, Stevens could be found using her body to shield counterprotesters and white supremacists alike, and in recordings of the alleged tackle, she can also be heard saying, “We love you, Jason.”
“I apologize for making you feel like you were tackled,” she then told Kessler in the courtroom.
“That’s not a real apology,” he replied.
At that point, Galloway said Stevens was not going to engage any further. A few feet outside the courthouse, in her lawyer’s Park Street office, Stevens gave a brief interview, in which she noted it was Valentine’s Day.
“It’s not missed by me that my date today was Jason Kessler,” she said.
Over the past year and a half, Stevens said she’s heard many opinions on her choice to embrace the man who brought hundreds of white supremacists to town for an event that ended in countless injuries and three deaths.
“We’re all human,” Stevens said. “I know the crowd would not have agreed with me, and my visceral self would have battled me on that, too. [But] when we step back, there’s a human there.”
She says she has forgiven Kessler for accusing her of assaulting him and for his behavior during her apology.
“He is incredibly clouded in his understanding of the world and how to remedy this situation,” Stevens added. “He’s a deeply disturbed individual.”
Katrina Turner, a member of the Police Civilian Review Board, didn’t do anything wrong when she announced her role on the board and filmed a portion of her son’s traffic stop, according to the city’s top prosecutor. STAFF PHOTO
When Police Civilian Review Board member Katrina Turner got involved in her son’s February 1 traffic stop, a local defense attorney asked the city’s commonwealth’s attorney to determine whether she had violated the state’s conflict of interest act.
At last week’s review board meeting, attorney and regular attendee Denise Lunsford told the board she’d asked for a legal opinion and Turner’s removal, to which Turner responded, “You don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“For Denise Lunsford to literally just come straight for me with no proof, [without] even investigating it, that was totally uncalled for,” says Turner, who has served on the board since June. “I’d like to know why she continues to come after me.”
Turner has also recently filed a complaint against Charlottesville Police Chief RaShall Brackney, whom she claims verbally assaulted her.
In a February 15 letter, Commonwealth’s Attorney Joe Platania described reviewing body-cam footage from two officers involved in the traffic stop.
He observed the first officer give a “somewhat agitated” driver a warning ticket for failing to stop at a stop sign, and then tell him he’s free to go. A backup officer’s footage showed Turner approaching her son’s vehicle with a camera phone in hand, and saying, “I’m on the CRB, so I’m gonna tell you right now…” The officer interrupted her to say she couldn’t get involved while they were conducting the traffic stop.
Platania describes both people as “calm and respectful” throughout the interaction. Turner followed the officer’s command, and stepped back to record the traffic stop, he said.
In his letter, Platania said he found that Turner didn’t door say anything in violation of the Virginia State and Local Government Conflict of Interests Act, nor did she use her position on the CRB in a retaliatory or threatening manner.
Added the prosecutor, “As a cautionary note, approaching an officer engaged in a legitimate and lawful traffic stop and stating that you ‘are on the CRB’ while filming him does little to promote an organizational reputation of objectivity towards law enforcement.”
Tyler Watkins Davis. Courtesy Charlottesville Police Department
Tyler Watkins Davis entered an Alford plea February 8, and though it’s technically a guilty plea, it means the man from Middleburg, Florida, is not admitting guilt, but acknowledging that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict him of malicious wounding in the brutal parking garage assault of DeAndre Harris.
Defense attorney Matthew Engle said his 50-year-old client doesn’t challenge the fact that he bashed Harris in the head with a wooden tire thumper, which caused severe trauma and required eight stitches, but he does dispute that it was done with malicious intent.
If the case went to trial, Engle said he would have argued that Davis perceived a threat outside the Market Street Parking Garage and was acting in self defense when he clobbered Harris—and that he did not intend to maim, disfigure, or kill Harris, which is required to meet the standard of actual malice.
Judge Rick Moore has often referred to the racially-charged beating as the worst he’s ever seen, but unlike the other men who participated, Engle noted that Davis only hit Harris once, and backed off when the others piled on.
When participants Jacob Goodwin and Alex Ramos went to trial for their roles in the attack, they were sentenced to eight and six years, respectively. Daniel Borden, who pleaded guilty, was given a lesser sentence of three years and 10 months in January. Davis faces a maximum sentence of 20 years, and will be sentenced in August.
Davis wasn’t caught until months after the others—and he may have Goodwin’s lawyer to thank for his arrest. At one of Goodwin’s hearings, attorney Elmer Woodard played a video of the assault, and asked why police had not arrested Davis, the then-unknown man wearing a wide-brimmed hat, whom Woodard dubbed “Boonie Hat” as he continually referred to Davis’ role in the beating. It wasn’t long after that that Davis was in cuffs.
Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nina Antony said the two other men who can also be seen attacking Harris in the viral video have not yet been identified.
Local Goodwill stores have seen a nearly 20 percent increase in donations compared to this time last year, says District Manager Lisa Sexton, and she’s attributing it to the new Netflix show “Tidying Up With Marie Kondo.” Photo by Sanjay Suchak
Local Goodwill stores collected 13,800 donations in the month of January —an 18.5 percent increase from those gathered this time last year. And they’re attributing it to a Netflix special about a now world-famous Japanese decluttering expert named Marie Kondo.
Perhaps you’ve heard of her. Before starring in “Tidying Up With Marie Kondo,” she made a name for herself with a bestselling book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, in 2011. She has perfected what she calls the KonMari method, which encourages tidiers to only keep items that “spark joy,” after sorting through all of their possessions in five categories: clothing, books, papers, komono (miscellaneous things), and sentimental items.
“She’s clearly having an effect on donations,” says Lisa Sexton, the district manager of the five Goodwill thrift stores in the Charlottesville area, which includes Lake Monticello and Ruckersville.
On the show, Kondo teaches a unique way of folding clothing, including tucking shirts and pants into neat, tight rectangles that stand upright, and Sexton says some recent Goodwill donations have come in folded like that.
And people mostly seem to be ditching their old wardrobe and household items, she adds.
Says Sexton, “I guess a lot of clothes don’t spark joy.”
That’s the exact conclusion Sarah D’Louhy reached as she started decluttering her home. She competed in a local Facebook competition hosted by Goodwill, which encouraged folks to post a picture of their post-tidying donations for a chance to win a $25 gift card to the thrift store. Entries closed last week, and the winner will be announced February 7.
D’Louhy donated seven 13-gallon trash bags—mostly full of clothes—and says she also took two bags of nicer clothing to a consignment store.
“I never realized how much was in the closet until we took it all out,” she says. “There were things we hadn’t touched in two or three years.”
She and her husband actually forced themselves to keep some of their wardrobe. “It might not spark joy, but we’re running out of options,” says D’Louhy. “I can’t be naked!”
Lauren Jaminet, who read Kondo’s book in 2016 as she was preparing to move to Charlottesville, and who started watching the Netflix special when it debuted on New Year’s Day, describes that moment of calm after decluttering and re-organizing.
“It’s the moment I look at the new space, step back, and take a deep breath,” she says. “It feels like turning a page in my life. Like I’ve made space for new things to happen.”
She says the show inspired her to empty out items she had been avoiding, which led to redecorating her bedroom.
Over the past two years, Jaminet guesses that she’s purged at least three carloads of stuff, often donating her miscellaneous and sentimental items to a thrift shop or her local Buy Nothing Facebook group, where city and county residents share and receive free items, and where people enjoy making a connection with the recipient of their old stuff.
“I’m very happy to give items out on Buy Nothing in hopes of them finding a happy home,” she says. “You never know who has a shared experience and might treasure an item that I no longer need.”
Rebecca Coleman, who participates in Jaminet’s Buy Nothing community, actually hired a KonMari-certified consultant to help her family ditch their excess belongings.
“We have a toddler, two careers, and a house that had filled up with stuff that had no real place to live,” she says. “Our to-do list was growing and we couldn’t get it under control.”
Consultant and “stuff therapist” Jeannine Woods, whose website features a portrait of herself with Kondo, helped Coleman tidy her entire living space—including every closet and drawer—in five four-hour sessions, which Woods’ website prices around $1,400. A kickstart package that includes a consultation and one session is $350.
“I know that there is a lot of privilege in being able to declutter, and even more in being able to hire a consultant to help you do it,” Coleman says. “For us, this has been an investment in our mental health, and it is paying off.”
Coleman says it has made her family feel more competent and relaxed.
“Our counters aren’t covered with mail and preschool artwork anymore—there’s a place for those to go,” she adds. “My necklaces aren’t all tangled anymore, they have specified pockets in a hanging organizer. We even have an empty shelf in our linen closet. How is that a thing?”
She’s listed some of her items on Buy Nothing, consigned some, donated or recycled others, and threw the rest in the trash, though she says they’re not keen on the landfill effects of the KonMari method.
Goodwill’s Sexton ensures that none of their donations go to waste.
“Just about everything we can’t sell in the stores, we have a place to be able to recycle,” she says, noting varying after-markets in which clothes are sold by the pound, then sent to third-world countries. Recycled books can be made into new paper, and recycled shoes can be ground up into shingles. So don’t let it deter you from giving, she says.
Adds Sexton, “We need all donations. We are willing to take just about anything.”
Great Eastern Management Company is looking to build about 500 apartments with 40,000 square feet of commercial space at Seminole Square. And the only existing building they’d have to demolish is the former Giant grocery store. Courtesy Great Eastern Management
A new proposal could turn empty retail space at the Seminole Square shopping center into much-needed housing.
Great Eastern Management Company went before the city’s Planning Commission last week for recommendations before submitting an official application for what construction and development manager David Mitchell says could be as many as 500 one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments.
The developers, which have already built more than a dozen local apartment complexes, shopping centers, and office buildings, are hoping to construct 11 five-story buildings with about 40,000 square feet of new commercial space on the bottom of four of the proposed buildings along Hills-
dale Drive. Mitchell says they also have almost two acres of “mini parks and greenways” within their site.
“We want green space and connectivity elements, and we’re looking for walkability and mixed-use,” says Lisa Green, who currently chairs the Planning Commission. “This provided a lot of those elements.”
And though this project would knock out the shell of the former Giant grocery store, Mitchell says his group shouldn’t have to raze any of the other buildings to build the apartments, which will probably accommodate about 1,000 people.
“We’re in the business of helping our tenants survive, not kicking them out,” says Mitchell, who predicts the project will be a boom for existing businesses. Plans to move the Kroger from Hydraulic Road into the Giant space were put on hold. “This might be better than a grocery store, frankly,” says Mitchell. If another business did get displaced, he says it could move into some of the new commercial space he’s including in the project.
Great Eastern manages the shopping center that spans about a dozen acres, and the new apartment complex could take up approximately half of that space. Mitchell says building it in that area would align with the Hydraulic Small Area Plan, adopted by City Council last year, because it encourages building different housing types around the intersection of Hydraulic Road and Route 29.
“We tried really hard to match that as best we could, and I think that’s one of the reasons the Planning Commission was so supportive of it,” he adds.
Green says her email inbox is “overflowing” when people are unhappy with proposed projects, but so far those subject lines haven’t included anything about Seminole Square.
“These are not high-priced, glamorous condominiums,” she says. “If you think about workforce housing, which is something that we desperately need in this city, this is an opportunity for that person who really likes working at Whole Foods to live close. We’ve got a generation that really wants to do the urban live/walk, and that’s what we’re trying to create.”
Mitchell says he can’t yet put a number on how many of his apartments will meet the city’s definition of affordable housing, which is generally reserved for people who earn less than 80 percent of the city’s median income. And Planning Commission member Rory Stolzenberg, as reported by Charlottesville Tomorrow, warned the project could reduce the percentage of affordable units from the 15 percent goal set by City Council, if it increases the total number of apartments without setting enough aside as affordable.
But Mitchell says his project can only help, as the local demand for a place to live continues to grow. “It can’t not help the current housing crisis.”
Dana Naylor, who drove the Times Disposal garbage truck hit by an Amtrak train a year ago, was acquitted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Christopher Foley. Photo by Jack Looney
First he was hit by a train. Now his attorney is attempting to prove that he was also hit with a bogus DUI charge.
Dana Naylor, the driver of the garbage truck that was hit by an Amtrak train in Crozet last year, was in court January 22 to dispute evidence being used against him. The event made national headlines because the train was chartered by Republican congressmen en route to a retreat at The Greenbrier.
Naylor is charged with involuntary manslaughter and DUI maiming in the accident that left Christopher Foley dead, and Dennis Eddy seriously injured.
The prosecution is alleging that Naylor was under the influence of marijuana when he steered around the downed gates and attempted to drive the Times Disposal truck across the tracks before the train barreled into it.
Naylor tested positive for THC after the accident, but attorney William Tanner is arguing what many marijuana studies have already suggested—that THC levels aren’t an indication of impairment, and that the active ingredient in marijuana can stay in one’s system for a couple months after smoking it. He asked that the toxicology report be thrown out.
However, it’s Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Tracci’s position that the presence of THC in Naylor’s blood at the time of the crash, coupled with statements he made afterward about trying to beat the train, prove that he was impaired.
The defense is also requesting a special hearing, called a Frank’s hearing, where Tanner would challenge the credibility of the police officer who obtained the search warrant needed to collect blood and urine samples. According to Tanner, the officer who was with Naylor in the hospital after the crash was only able to get the warrant by saying he smelled alcohol—and that Naylor’s wife agreed.
But Naylor’s wife contends she never said the smell was alcohol and in fact suggested that it was coming from the hospital, according to the attorney. And the test detected no alcohol in the driver’s blood.
Tracci says the cop never explicitly said Naylor’s wife agreed that the odor was alcohol, and for such a hearing to be granted, the prosecutor says there must be allegations of deliberate falsehood or reckless disregard for the truth.
Judge Cheryl Higgins ruled not to throw out the toxicology report, and said she needed time to consider granting a Frank’s hearing. She’s scheduled to give her decision January 30.
Bea LaPisto Kirtley is running for the Rivanna District seat on the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors. Photo by Norm Carter
Standing on a stepstool behind a podium marked by her campaign sign, a former Bradbury, California, city councilor of 20 years was the second person to announce her run for the Rivanna District seat on the Board of Supervisors.
Bea LaPisto Kirtley said addressing the “critical lack of broadband coverage” in Albemarle will be a priority if she’s elected. That echoes the top concern of Jerrod Smith, her only known opponent, who announced last week.
At her announcement that drew a crowd of about 30 people, the Keswick resident of 12 years also emphasized protecting natural resources, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and supporting and preserving the county’s many family farms.
Two growth areas, Pantops and U.S. 29 north, are in the Rivanna District. LaPisto Kirtley said they should be “developed thoughtfully” with attention paid to regional transportation issues, because growth can overburden critical infrastructure like roads and highways. She also advocated for better public transportation, which would reduce traffic and carbon emissions.
“How do you make things happen?” she said. “By listening to what the community needs and serving the residents as a strong voice for action, being innovative, and working with others. If you can’t work together, nothing gets accomplished.”
In her career, LaPisto Kirtley served as a teacher, principal, and then a director for the Los Angeles Unified School District, where she was responsible for 24 elementary schools. Locally, she has volunteered with CASA, which provides advocates for children in foster care, for four years and fundraised for nonprofits such as Hospice of the Piedmont.
“I will be both accessible and attentive,” she said, adding that her strengths are listening, being a hard-worker, being “adept at identifying workable solutions, and getting things done.”
Supervisor Liz Palmer attended LaPisto Kirtley’s campaign announcement, but said she hasn’t endorsed any candidates yet.
Said supporter Mary Miller, “I know her to be a powerhouse, and better than that, she listens to people. I have never seen her fail to get the job done.”
