Donald J. Trump and son Eric Trump at the Grand Opening Celebration of the Albemarle Estate at Trump Winery.
Photo: Amanda Maglione
With Trump Winery and the Albemarle Estate situated on a massive 1,300-acre plot south of Charlottesville, some Central Virginians may have more ties to the Trump family than they’d like. Others take advantage of it.
Robert Harllee, owner of the Market Street Wineshops, tells the story of a liberal couple who visited his store in search of a bottle of Trump Winery’s award-winning sparkling wine. Their mission after checking out? To give it to their liberal South Carolinian friends as a joke.
“Yes, there are liberals in South Carolina,” Harllee says and laughs, adding that Trump is brilliant at making himself the topic of conversation and doesn’t mind bad publicity. As for stocking his shop, Harllee doesn’t let his personal feelings against a certain presidential hopeful get in the way of doing business.
“Personally, I might tell Mr. Trump he’s fired,” he says, but he knows the people who make Trump wine and says “they make a great product.”
Kerry Woolard, Trump Winery’s general manager, says in-house sales are up about 300 percent, with online sales even higher. She doesn’t necessarily attribute this to The Donald, but to how good the wines are.
“I look at this as a great opportunity for us and Virginia wine as a whole,” she says. “It’s clear that more people know about Virginia wine today than ever before.” As for the number of people staying at Albemarle Estate, she says its July ribbon-cutting coincided with the beginning of Trump’s campaign, and the estate has been featured with five-star reviews in national publications, so it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what’s driving the visitation.
When people step into the tasting room of Trump Winery, they speak kindly of Trump, if at all, she says. After all, they’re there to drink what Trump Winery President Eric Trump calls “the finest wines in the world,” not to talk politics.
Employees, Woolard says, are fans of the family that owns the winery, and she calls Eric an amazing boss, leader and mentor.
“All the staff appreciates what he has done saving the property from its state of total disrepair,” she says. “Prior to [Donald] Trump purchasing the property, many of the staff had been laid off and were looking for work.”
C-VILLE Weekly asked its Twitter followers about their opinions on Trump wine. We received two responses.
Benjamin Randolph says, “I refuse to drink Trump wine. I don’t want him to profit in any way from my actions,” and Johnny Frankenberger tweets he “would never consider” drinking it.
Trump Winery President Eric Trump calls his company’s wines “the finest in the world.”
A Riverheads High School world geography teacher in Staunton is being accused of attempting to convert her students to Islam.
On the subject of major world religions, Cheryl LaPorte assigned a worksheet on Islam that included an exercise about the difficulty of writing calligraphy. Students were asked to imitate the Shahada, or the Islamic statement of faith, as best as they could in the advanced style of handwriting.
The Shahada translates to, “There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is the messenger of Allah.”
Parents confirmed that female students in the class were also invited to wear Muslim apparel and were photographed by LaPorte, according to Rob Schilling, who broke the story on “The Schilling Show.” The teacher had previously sent a copy of the Koran around the classroom.
Some parents took these acts as a sign that their children were in the process of being indoctrinated to the Islamic faith.
After receiving a significant number of phone calls and e-mails from angry or concerned parents, representatives of the county school system said “a different, non-religious sample of Arabic calligraphy will be used in the future,” according to a report by CNN.
“Neither of these lessons, nor any other lessons in the world geography course, are an attempt at indoctrination to Islam or any other religion or a request for students to renounce their own faith or profess any belief,” Augusta County Schools Superintendent Eric Bond said in a statement.
Though officials said there were no threats of harm to students, based on concerns regarding the tone and content of those communications, Sheriff Randy Fisher and Bond decided to close all Augusta County schools today.
“We regret having to take this action, but we are doing so based on the recommendations of law enforcement and the Augusta County School Board out of an abundance of caution,” the statement says.
After-school activities were also canceled Thursday.
“If a group of Muslims instead of Christians emailed the school board enough to intimidate them into shutting down schools, we would label it terrorism,” Shenandoah Valley resident Chase Dunn wrote on Facebook. “This is terrorism.”
Max Patek, a programmer for the Charlottesville High School zero robotics team, says working through math and physics equations can be tough. Photo by
Mina Pirasteh
A group of Charlottesville High School students are on an espionage mission from NASA to capture photographs of a competitor satellite while managing a limited store of energy and avoiding having their own satellite’s photo snatched by the competitor.
BACON, or the Best All-around Club of Nerds, has been doing a pretty good job at it, too. Placing fourth in the world after three rounds of competition, the team has qualified for the Olympics of high school robotics in a contest, Zero Robotics, sponsored by organizations such as NASA, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the European Space Agency.
This competition requires teams to write computer code to control their pre-programmed virtual robot, which goes up against another team’s bot in the challenge. The finals take place at MIT, where the 180 teams get to see their codes run on satellites aboard the International Space Station.
“It’s kind of mind-blowing that this opportunity exists and that you can do this as a high schooler,” says BACON president and senior Nathan Shuster. Under his guidance, the team placed second in the international competition last year.
Of the 13 boys and girls on the CHS zero robotics team, not everyone’s job is programming or writing code. Holding such a high title in competition takes plenty of plotting and planning, so some team members act as strategizers—solely studying other teams’ coding methods in order to write strategies that compare with their own and to simulate potential enemies.
“We look at a lot of games of opponents playing,” sophomore Jonah Weissman says. “We see stuff that works and stuff that doesn’t and see what would be the ideal strategy.”
Programming the robot requires knowledge of a mathematical concept called vectors, he explains. While Weissman learned about vectors in school last year, he says he’s learning about force this year, which has also helped prepare him for this competition season.
The team’s mentor and faculty adviser, Matt Shields, is an award-winning CHS physics and engineering teacher. He says his role is limited, though.
“I would love to take some credit, but I’ve literally had nothing to do with this,” he says. “There they are, right back there, and I’m sure they’re doing something smart.”
Shields, who received a 2014 MIT Inspirational Teacher Award, commends the students for being “self-motivated, clever, smart and hard-working.”
He says the team is well-known in the realm of high school zero robotics, and when they show up at the competition this year, they’ll be rolling in like a bunch of “nerd celebrities.”
“I couldn’t be more proud of these guys,” he says. “They’re such rock stars.”
Shuster, while still applying to several colleges—namely the Ivys, UVA and engineering schools such as MIT—reflects on his three-year stint in zero robotics and the legacy he’ll leave.
“When people think about the best names in ZR,” says Shuster, “one of the names that will come to mind is BACON.” As for the hammy name? Shields attests that “everything cool about this club was some kid’s crazy idea.”
BACON will compete in a three-part international alliance with teams from California and Greece at the final competition in January.
Of the UVA students studying abroad in Paris this past semester, one says a significant number elected to finish their school work electronically from domestic soil after the November 13 terrorist attacks in which 130 people were killed.
Former C-VILLE intern Kathleen Smith, receiving credit in Paris through the Institute for International Education of Students, was among the UVA students who eventually got a plane ticket home. During the attacks, she says she was on fall break and vacationing in Prague. Smith was having dinner with a group of friends in her IES program when she received a CNN update on her phone that said a shooting had just taken place at Le Petit Cambodge.
“I was particularly concerned since it was a restaurant where I had eaten before and actually recommended to friends visiting Paris that weekend,” she wrote in an e-mail.
Smith says it didn’t take long to realize the gravity of the situation—within the hour news outlets began reporting the bombings at Stade de France and the shootings at Le Bataclan and other restaurants.
“Luckily, most of my friends were out of Paris,” she says, “but it was an extremely surreal and scary experience trying to locate those who weren’t.”
It was impossible to sleep on the night of the attacks, Smith says, adding that her “thumb was sore from refreshing news websites so frequently.”
The week following the events, she says that while Parisians were grief-stricken, they were adamant about maintaining their “joie de vivre”—or exuberant enjoyment of life—by eating out on terraces, making themselves present in the city and paying their respects at the sites of the attacks. On Wednesday following the incidents, Smith says French police staged a raid near Saint-Denis, right outside Paris, and found plans for a future attack. Two suspected terrorists were killed and eight were taken into custody.
“Following the raids, the tide definitely changed in terms of my experience in Paris,” she says. Wednesday classes were canceled, and a significant number of students in the IES program started making plans to go back to America. She estimates that six people in the program were from UVA.
Initially, going home seemed drastic, Smith says. But after receiving several e-mails from the U.S. Embassy advising students to avoid restaurants, shopping malls, theaters, airports, public transportation and other venues, leaving started to make sense. Immediately following the initial attacks, she says UVA contacted IES administration to determine if it was possible for students to complete the program from home.
“I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared when I left the comfort of my apartment in the residential 14th arrondissement,” she says. “The thing that was most jarring is that the attack sites were all places people my age would go.” Soccer stadiums, trendy restaurants and concert halls were among the mix. Everywhere she went, Smith says she was plagued with thoughts such as, “Is this a dangerous spot?” or “Could this be a target?”
Smith left Paris at the end of November and is finishing her semester at home in Louisville, Kentucky.
Chief Timothy Longo recently announced his retirement after 34 years of police work. The last 15 of them have been at the Charlottesville Police Department during a time of many high-profile investigations, such as the disappearance and murder of Hannah Graham and the indictment of her alleged killer, Jesse Matthew.
“I’ve got nothing left to give,” he says, but the legacy he’ll leave behind is one of relational policing—a rebranding of community policing he created to focus on building relationships with the people his department serves. In late October, he presented his big idea to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., as a model that other departments could look to, but it’s something he implemented on his first day in office.
With a fleet of 114 sworn officers covering eight districts citywide, Longo, 52, has spent his reign leading his uniformed men and women in reaching out to residents in an effort to collaborate with the community. Speaking to what’s happened in America over the past 18 months (namely riotous protests in Ferguson, Missouri), he says while it has challenged law enforcement, it has also created an opportunity for police departments to rethink how they do their work.
For example, Lieutenant Steve Upman says patrol officers recently took the time to knock on doors of every residence on Hardy Drive, South First Street and Sixth Street SE to ask about any concerns of people in the area. For those who weren’t home, officers left door hangers that prompted residents to reach out to them with their input.
While the Constitution of the United States guides the work of the CPD and every law enforcement office in the nation, Longo says so often officers look at this guide as the ceiling “when it’s really just the floor.” He adds, “There are so many things that we’re able to do that are constitutionally permissible, but that may not be consistent with the expectations of the community.”
And how do they learn those expectations that community members have for policing strategies? They ask. They hold open forums, they have one-on-one conversations with concerned citizens, and, when all else fails, they knock on doors.
“The results, I suppose, are largely qualitative not necessarily quantitative,” he says. “Do I believe we’ve done an increasingly better job at building relationships, opening lines of communication, and rebuilding and sustaining trust? Yes.” But the initiative isn’t perfect.
“It will always be a work in progress,” he says, adding that he hopes it continues to be a part of the department’s operating plan as he retires his badge and the organization moves forward. But while looking at the work the department does, how it affects communities and whether its work is in line with community expectations, even when department leaders find that it’s not, he says he hopes they will always “be courageous enough to say, ‘Maybe we need to rethink our strategy.’”
But one thing will remain the same: “The business is about people. It always has been and it always will be.”
To experience relational policing firsthand, C-VILLE went for a ridealong with two city officers.
Officer Randy Wu
A Charlottesville police officer of three and a half years, Randy Wu graduated from the University of Virginia in 2012. He works the evening shift from 3pm-1am and patrols District 2, which covers the Belmont area. He says it’s probably the busiest district—meaning it’s home to the largest amount of violent and domestic crime.
Wu says he makes himself accessible to the community by making his presence known in the neighborhoods he patrols. Though he can’t know everyone in the city, knowing everyone in the neighborhood is more realistic, Wu says. He recognizes most of the people he sees on the streets.
During a November 19 ridealong, Wu, or CP84 as he calls himself on the dispatch radio, was asked to define relational policing. While he jokingly asked, “What did the chief say it is?”, in his case, an age-old saying rings true: Actions speak louder than words.
4:10pm
Officer Wu makes several rounds of District 2, which he has patrolled for about two years.
4:16pm
A small girl with a big toothy grin waves to Wu excitedly. He smiles, waves back and says, “Hey.”
4:26pm
Wu slows to a stop and motions for a waiting dog walker to cross the street. The dog walker turns and heads in the opposite direction and the police officer laughs.
4:29pm
Photo: Martyn Kyle
A Belmont resident with a cigarette in hand runs in front of Wu’s car to flag him down. He says she’s a regular and steps out to chat. After their initial fist bump, the woman playfully complains that Wu let her nephew out of jail, and he explains that, though he takes people to jail, letting them out isn’t his responsibility. She fills Wu in on the latest neighborhood gossip, says she wants to move to get away from police, threatens to kill her nephew in his sleep, asks for a ride and kicks the police car. Wu, with arms crossed and rocking back and forth, is engaged, but not alarmed. He says his goodbyes, tells her to stay out of trouble, gets back into the car and goes about his shift.
4:34pm
One of the first calls of the night comes over his radio about a 10-year-old riding a four wheeler in circles in a field off Cedar Hill Road. “Man, everything’s happening on the other side of town,” he says. “I don’t like to not do stuff.”
5:04pm
A call comes over his radio about a man clapping his hands loudly near The Whiskey Jar on the Downtown Mall. Wu prepares to confront “The Clapper,” whom he says people complain about almost every day.
5:14pm
Photo: Martyn Kyle
When he approaches The Clapper, a guy in baggy sweatpants and long dreadlocks, Wu says he’s been called because the loud clapping is disturbing those having dinner in the mall’s outdoor seating areas. The Clapper, who says he’s worshiping God by clapping his hands and is protected by the First Amendment, explains that he “ain’t got time to mess with the devil.” Wu says the people on the mall “also have the right to not practice religion.”
The Clapper says officers in the past have said he’s allowed to continue clapping, so long as he stays mobile, rather than fixed in one spot. Wu says he respects that right, encourages The Clapper to keep moving and stops by The Whiskey Jar to follow up.
5:31pm
Wu sanitizes his hands when he gets back to his patrol car.
5:52pm
In his downtime, Wu prepares to serve four warrants with the help of Officer Grant Davis, adding that he prefers to serve warrants in pairs for safety reasons. In his stack of warrants, he knows three of the four people and decides ahead of time who he believes will open the door to him.
5:53pm
He stops to serve his first warrant and inspects a C-VILLE photographer’s car, thinking the vehicle looks suspicious compared with others in the area. He then realizes it’s the photog’s car and chuckles. Heading to the address provided on the warrant, he knocks on the door and is told the person he’s looking for does not live there. He has little success with other warrants, but does learn from one stop that the girl he’s looking for is at her fast-food job nearby.
Asked if he believes the tip, he says, “I just assume everybody is lying to me.”
6:31pm
He approaches a tow truck that’s blocking a lane of traffic while trying to pull a tractor out of the mud. He flashes his lights to alert drivers of the obstruction and hops out to help the tow truck driver.
7:33pm
Wu pulls over a silver Nissan on Elliott Avenue at Avon Street for running a red light. Admitting that he was too far away to make the best judgment call, Wu gives the driver a warning.
7:48pm
He calls the fast-food restaurant and asks to speak with the wanted employee. He tells the employee, whom he previously arrested for shoplifting, that she’s wanted for missing a court date and that he has to arrest her. And so he does, with the help of Davis, and after he puts her in the back of the car he explains everything that’s happening, asks if she’s comfortable or has any questions. He also inquires about her pet dog. “Does she still like to hide under the bed?”
8:42pm
Wu arrives at the jail and files the required paperwork. The magistrate sets the woman’s bond at $7,500. Wu says tonight, so far, has been less eventful than most.
At the end of the day, Wu says his job is about letting people know “we’re for them.”
Officer Annmarie Hamill
Photo: Rammelkamp Foto
As a former New Yorker of 30 years, stay-at-home mother of three boys and a Fluvanna County Public Schools instructional aide, Officer Annmarie Hamill, who’s worked for the CPD for three years, has learned from experience that “a smile goes a long way.” She’s not the cop you’ve seen slinging a student across a classroom or firing rounds at innocent bystanders.
“We’re not just here to arrest people, we’re here to help,” she says. “If we know what the concerns are for our community, then it makes our job easier because we can address those before crime happens.”
Calling Charlottesville a melting pot, much like the city in which she used to dwell, she spends every shift building trust with the people who call this place home. And though she may go by CP51 on her dispatch radio, Hamill is known as the mom of the police department and says everyone on the day shift is like a family to her. She even has a “work husband.”
“I feel at home here,” she says while patrolling District 3, which covers the east side of the city from East Market Street all the way to Pen Park Road, making it one of the largest districts citywide. With her blond hair pulled back in a tight knot, rectangular glasses and two hands on the wheel, she tells of stopping her patrol car to referee a basketball game in mid-November. A slew of people shooting hoops at a court near Riverside Park had oh-no-who-is-she-going-to-arrest? written all over their faces when she pulled up in one of the CPD’s black-and-white Crown Vics. When Hamill told them she was there to play ball with them but didn’t know the rules of the game, the players laughed and made her ref. She says she had arrested one of them before.
Hamill says she truly believes in relational policing: interacting with community members in a positive way.
Photo: Rammelkamp Foto
Over the summer, she was instrumental in organizing a series of events called Ice Cream with a Cop, in which CPD officers gathered at local parks to chat with residents over free chocolate and vanilla cones. Furthermore, when Hamill’s not handing out stickers to kids playing at Riverside, she’s having lunch with them at McGuffey Park.
“They’re like bees to honey,” she says, adding that it’s important to start building relationships with people when they’re young to “[let] them know they can trust us.”
Hamill also mentions the importance of interacting with Charlottesville’s homeless population. Her goal is to get to know them on their best days, so when they’re having a bad day, she can approach them with a premade foundation of trust. Relational policing, she says, is all about trust.
C-VILLE rode with Hamill during her November 23 day shift. As a daylight officer, she works from 7:30am-5:30pm.
9:24am
Officer Hamill inspects her car, which she shares with another officer, and begins her patrol shift.
9:54am
She pulls over to text an officer whom no one has been able to contact. She says she doesn’t want him to get in trouble.
Photo: Rammelkamp Foto
10:10am
Hamill joins Officers William Johnston and Zachary Rolfe as they confront a man wrapped in a blanket in a neighborhood near Emmet Street. It’s chilly outside, and a concerned citizen has called the police to check on the man, whom they’d never seen before. The officers offer the man a ride home, but he refuses it and heads up the street on foot.
11:10am
She gets a call to move a large piece of metal out of the road on the 250 bypass’ Locust Avenue ramp.
11:20am
A driver heads directly toward the patrol car on Park Street and slams on the breaks when he realizes his mistake. He rolls down his window and, embarrassed, apologizes. Hamill says it was an honest mistake and waves him on.
11:36am
She puts gas in the patrol car at City Yard.
11:44am
Photo: Rammelkamp Foto
To ease the burden of her colleagues, Hamill volunteers to pick a woman up at the police department and take her to the jail. The woman had received a letter asking her to report to the CPD and she was not aware that she would be taken into custody.
The woman, surprised and upset when her name was called, explains to Hamill her situation: She had contacted the police after witnessing a domestic dispute and was prompted to be a witness in court. After intense and overwhelming nerves, she missed that court date. The woman says she feels like she’s being taken to jail for helping someone and says, “I’ll never do it again.”
Hamill explains that missing a court date is illegal and that she has to take the woman to jail, but that the magistrate would likely let her go. Hamill says she’ll give the woman a ride back to the police department after court. She pats the woman down and leaves some of her belongings behind the CPD office counter because she knows they’ll throw them away at the jail. Hamill lets the woman walk out of the building uncuffed and through the back, to avoid any attention from an unrelated camera crew outside. She eventually cuffs the woman from the front, rather than the back, for comfort.
“I try to treat everybody like I want to be treated,” she says, “and that’s very important in this job.”
The Flats required a 101-foot special use permit. Staff photo
Locals voiced concerns about a potential zoning amendment in the plans for West Main Street at a public forum in front of the City Planning Commission and City Council December 8.
Amendments to the current zoning laws could include dividing West Main into east and west sections with the bridge by the Amtrak station being the dividing line, rather than the current division of north and south sides of the street. Building height west of the bridge would be limited to 75 feet, and on the east side, where most historic buildings still exist, the limit would be 52 feet. No special use permits permitting additional height would be allowed for either side.
For some, preserving the historic aesthetic of West Main is a family matter.
Scott Peyton, a lifelong Charlottesville and Albemarle County resident and partial owner of West Main’s Hampton Inn & Suites, says he’s okay with new developments popping up on the street, “but only to the extent that [they do] not compromise the integrity of the context” in which they are built and, for him, that context goes a long way back.
Born in 1848, Peyton’s great-grandfather, Francis Bradley Peyton, was the station master for the city of Charlottesville for several decades. He worked for Southern Railway from about 1874 to 1929 and lived on three acres of land across from the current Amtrak station. Though Peyton never knew his great-grandfather, the land and mid-19th century home were passed down for generations. Peyton remembers many Sundays after church spent visiting family in that home.
His father, Francis Peyton III, operated Peyton Pontiac Cadillac, an automobile business on West Main for 40 years. Sitting now in its place is The Flats @ West Village, a 101-foot-tall apartment complex that required a special use permit and became the center of much controversy once it was built and locals saw how tall 101 feet actually is. The Flats had trouble leasing its 622 bedrooms before it opened in summer 2014, according to a previous report by C-VILLE, which said the complex had leased about 9 percent of its space, or 56 bedrooms, in January. Flats manager Gina Sacco says 99 percent of the rooms are currently leased.
“I realize that times change,” Peyton says, and “I certainly appreciate and respect the right that people have to develop their property according to what they’re entitled to do,” but he remains in favor of proposed zoning changes, especially height restrictions, that would preserve the character of everything West Main used to be.
However, a number of others hope the zoning on West Main will stay the way it is. Earlier this fall, the Planning Commission recommended the amendment for approval, but City Council deferred the decision for further discussion of the zone in which Midway Manor would fit.
Midway Manor, an affordable housing community for seniors, is located on Ridge Street and has been zoned with downtown properties since the mid-’70s to have 101-foot use. Speaking on behalf of Midway Manor Associates, Valerie Long, the chair of Williams Mullen’s land use practice, says the complex is currently 48 feet tall, and if it were to be zoned with West Main East, which only allows for a 52-foot height, “not even a single story could be added,” which would throw a wrench in any plans for expansion.
Planning commissioners voted 4-2 to have the property included in zoning plans for West Main East.
Keith Woodard, a prominent figure in Charlottesville’s sustainability community and owner of Woodard Properties, says the current proposal for rezoning could disallow the growing trend of rooftop gardens, which are heavily desired by urban dwellers. Greg Powe of Powe Studio Architects in Charlottesville agrees, adding “Roofs should not be viewed as only a functional cap to the building.” He encourages developers to use rooftops and valuable real estate for the good of the community.
Part of the amendment requires bicycle parking at new developments, and the front wall of all buildings would have to be at least 10 feet from the front of the property line to provide more room for plants and trees. It would also close the loophole that currently allows penthouses to be built above maximum height limits.
The Planning Commission has recommended that City Council approve the rezoning, and council will take the final vote December 21.
Bronco Mendenhall, former BYU head football coach, will take the reins at UVA. Photo by Matt Riley
Just days after former University of Virginia football coach Mike London resigned, Brigham Young University’s Bronco Mendenhall snagged the title December 4, becoming UVA’s 40th head football coach.
At BYU, Mendenhall coached the Cougars for 11 seasons with an overall record of 99-42 and ranked 12th in total wins among all Football Bowl Subdivision teams during that time. He also ranks 13th in winning percentage among all active coaches with at least five years of FBS experience, and 10th among those with at least 10 years of experience, according to a press release by Virginia Sports.
The Cougars are one of 11 teams to advance to a bowl game each season over the last 11 years, with Florida State being the only team to win more bowl games—seven—than BYU’s six.
Mendenhall played football for Utah’s Snow College for two years and finished his career as a starter at Oregon State, where he played both linebacker and safety. He began coaching as a graduate assistant at Oregon State, coached at Snow College and Northern Arizona, and returned to Oregon State as defensive coordinator. He also coached at Louisiana Tech and New Mexico before beginning his stint at BYU as defensive coordinator in 2003. He was promoted to head coach in 2005.
Mendenhall’s compensation for the next five years is $3.25 million annually, which does not include additional performance or longevity bonuses that he may earn.
He and his wife, Holly, have three sons—Raeder, Breaker and Cutter.
Wastewater will be discharged from the Bremo Power Plant in Fluvanna County. Photo by Robert Llewellyn
Environmental groups and concerned citizens worry that Dominion’s intentions to dump millions of gallons of wastewater per day into the James River won’t go swimmingly.
Alleging that the wastewater potentially being discharged from a Fluvanna County power station will contain coal ash and toxic metals, some are worried about the environmental impacts on the river in which many swim, fish and boat.
The Department of Environmental Quality has issued the permit, but is allowing comments from the public until December 14.
“I will certainly not swim in those waters,” Pat Calvert, a riverkeeper with the James River Association and longtime boater says, if the DEQ permanently allows Dominion’s proposed permit. It’s his job to keep the river clean, and he says it’s his intention to protect water quality and river integrity.
Calvert says millions of Virginians rely on the river for drinking water, recreation and economic value. Various levels of danger are associated with each chemical present in the coal ash wastewater—lead, arsenic, mercury, selenium, boron and thallium—that could be dumped and, though the DEQ will require the chemicals to be diluted and present below certain levels, he says most of the contaminants are heavy metals with varying levels of toxicity, radioactivity and potential for damage to water quality and human and aquatic health.
“Those who may ingest or be exposed to discharged wastewater could be affected by these substances, particularly while they are less diluted and in higher concentrations,” he says. “Fishing could be affected through the effect on the game fish and the forage.”
The wastewater in question will be discharged from the Bremo Power Station in Fluvanna. Last April, Dominion announced it would close its coal ash ponds at four sites, including one at Bremo, but critics say the power company basically closed the ponds by covering them up and allowing the pollution to continue indefinitely. Now the water needs to be removed.
A DEQ employee says he’s aware of the concerns, but says some people don’t understand exactly what his organization aims to permit.
“We’re not authorizing Dominion to dump coal ash into the James River,” says Brandon Kiracofe, the water permits and compliance manager for the DEQ’s Valley Regional Office. He says controlled discharged wastewater flowing from an outfall pipe will be diluted at high enough levels that none of the chemicals present in the water will be dangerous. The DEQ will monitor the water before it’s discharged, he says, to make sure levels of chemicals in the water don’t surpass the limits that are set.
Dominion spokesperson Dan Genest says as soon as the permit is issued, the company will start building two treatment facilities on the property, and all wastewater will be treated before it’s discharged.
“We commend them for caring about the James River,” he says about the activists trying to shut the project down. “But we all share the same goal—to make sure the discharges do not have any effect on the James River.”
Public comments can be e-mailed to Beverley Carver at beverley.carver@deq.virginia.gov.
Updated November 9: The original story misstated the e-mail address to which comments should be sent.
Gene Everett Washington. Photo: Charlottesville Police Department
The man charged with brutally beating a mother and daughter to death before setting their Rugby Avenue home on fire one year ago appeared in Charlottesville Circuit Court December 7 for a motions hearing.
Gene Washington faces capital murder charges for the death of special education teacher Robin Aldridge and her daughter, Mani.
Judge Rick Moore denied a request by Washington’s defense attorneys—Katherine Jensen and Lloyd Snook—that called for the commonwealth’s attorney to not be present while the defense views evidence, instead asking for supervision by an evidence technician or police officer.
“We shouldn’t have someone looking over our shoulder,” Jensen said. “We’re just asking for the playing field to be even.”
According to Jensen, prosecutors gauge the defense’s reactions to each piece of evidence and take note of how long they spend looking at specific pieces. The defense is not allowed in the room while the prosecuting attorney views evidence.
“I don’t think I can take that right away from [the prosecutors],” Judge Moore said, denying the motion. Two other motions, which were granted, were procedural.
Some of the evidence in Washington’s trial includes a bent knife, rubber gloves, blood-stained sneakers potentially belonging to him and bloody towels or sheets he allegedly used to wrap the Aldridges’ bodies after he beat them and before he set their home on fire.
Washington’s trial is in May. His next motions hearing is set for February.
Rachel Rasnake, a special education teacher at Walker Upper Elementary School, says concerns voiced by her students’ parents have helped her remodel some of her practices. Rammelkamp Foto
The parent of an eighth-grader who receives special education at Buford Middle School says her daughter doesn’t appear like she’s disabled.
Lisa Torres’ daughter is moderately to severely dyslexic and has some difficulty with speech articulation, but she’s enrolled in advanced classes and also in the band.
“I’m a parent who’s at a different end of the spectrum,” she says, adding that when people think of a disabled student, they often think of a child in a wheelchair or with autism. “My daughter’s is more silent,” she says, but “a disability is a disability.”
Torres is a member of the Charlottesville Special Education Advisory Committee, which aims to give people involved in special education a voice, along with dealing with unmet needs and developing plans for improving the performance of disabled students.
Torres describes her daughter as “a child who wants to be looked at as normal and a teenager,” who is “struggling with acceptance of the fact that she needs these accommodations and, yet, doesn’t want to have to raise her hand and say, ‘Hey, wait a minute, I didn’t get that.’”
The committee gives Torres a platform to make her concerns known. For example, she believes it would be helpful if students could stay with the same case manager, instead of being introduced to a new one each year, like her daughter has.
SEACs have been mandated for every school district in Virginia since January 2012, according to Emily Dreyfus, chair of the local SEAC for most of the past decade, and a member from 1998 to 2013. She says 571 disabled students are currently enrolled in Charlottesville public schools.
Daphne Ingene, co-chair of the Charlottesville SEAC, says students in special education receive little attention from the general public and their needs can go unnoticed and unaddressed.
Parents, guardians and family members of students with disabilities, people with disabilities, related community service providers and other community members make up the 25-person committee, which formally meets four times each school year and informally every second Thursday of the month. Though members must apply to be on the committee and are appointed by the Charlottesville City School Board, all meetings are open to the public.
Ingene, along with co-chair Tina Dumheller, hosted a teacher/administrator and parent dialogue dinner November 16, after one of the major concerns brought up to the committee was that these two groups lacked sufficient communication.
“I feel like a lot of our parents are overwhelmed and not active participants,” says Rachel Rasnake, a fifth-grade special education teacher at Walker Upper Elementary and a SEAC member. “I didn’t realize that our parents were intimidated…and that was something that I could address immediately by making sure my [students’] parents knew that my door was open and that they were as much a part of the team as everyone else.”
Rasnake is currently working toward improving communication with Charlottesville parents by making sure everyone in Walker’s community is informed of school events and that they’re accessible to everybody—“not just physically, but making sure everybody feels included.”
“As a parent,” adds Dreyfus, “it was always very gratifying when my [disabled] son’s teachers heard our ideas and ran with them.” When she wanted her son to gain employment skills, special educators at Charlottesville High School started a program that helped more than 15 students with disabilities gain hands-on experience in community organizations.
