Tag: ann mallek

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Mallek challenged: White Hall candidates gently spar at forum

Three Board of Supervisors candidates showed up for a Senior Statesman forum: incumbent Ann Mallek and Steve Harvey for White Hall, and Donna Price for the Scottsville District. (Photo: Staff Photo)

Longtime Albemarle County Supervisor Ann Mallek hasn’t had a challenger to represent the White Hall District for the past two elections. That changed with Republican Steve Harvey, whose nickname is “Super Steve.” At a September 11 Senior Statesman forum, the former Army helicopter pilot drew some clear lines about his priorities.

In his introduction, after listing his wife and three children, he announced, “I am a Christian,” a declaration of faith that doesn’t usually come up in county races.

Harvey grew up in Albemarle County and attended Meriwether Lewis Elementary while his father studied at the JAG school at UVA. After a spinal cord injury sustained while flying a Blackhawk helicopter, he returned to Albemarle and built a home on 14 acres in the Earlysville area.

Like many other tractor-riding residents who showed up at a Mallek town hall in 2018, he was upset with the county plan to enact a stormwater utility fee in the rural area. When asked if he’d support a pledge to oppose the now-tabled “rain tax,” Harvey responded, “Not just yes. I’m a heck yes.”

Mallek stressed that she’d changed her position on the stormwater fee, and that having those funds come from  general revenue was the right solution.

And Scottsville District Dem candidate Donna Price, an attorney and retired Navy captain who was there without Republican opponent Mike Hallahan, said, “I try to avoid words like ‘always’ and ‘never,’” noting the “existential threat to the environment.”

Harvey also went after Mallek for the county’s mostly uncontested 1.5-cent-per-$100 property tax rate increase this year. “When the rate goes up, it goes up forever,” he said. With the 4 percent increase in real estate assessments, he found the hikes “particularly pernicious.”

He asserted that at the same time, “We’ve lost jobs by the hundreds” because regulations “improperly” stymied economic growth.

Mallek said she looked forward to reading the study that says Albemarle has lost so many jobs, mentioning WillowTree and Perrone Robotics, both of which are expanding  in the county.

She reminded attendees that during the recession in 2010, the county zeroed out its capital budget for three years and made no infrastructure expenditures. It also lost 15 percent of its staff. “We are now crawling our way back out of that deficit,” she said.

Harvey is also ready to challenge the vexing-to-county-residents, yet ironclad revenue-sharing agreement with Charlottesville. Albemarle agreed in 1982 to hand over a portion of its property tax revenue every year (roughly $15 million in the 2019 fiscal year) in exchange for the city not annexing county land. He said the agreement should be renegotiated every 10 years, and railed against a deal that was agreed to exist in perpetuity.

“Every new supervisor who’s been elected has revisited this issue,” said Mallek. “I agree it was awful.”  She said she worked with Delegate Steve Landes to overturn it—to no avail.

Price said she’d been asked if she’d join a lawsuit. “If there was a legal basis to overturn it, someone would have overturned it. We need to change the Dillon Rule,” which mandates that a locality only has the powers bestowed upon it by the General Assembly.

The candidates ended with a debate on the more beautiful district—White Hall or Scottsville.

Price urged support of local businesses, and said that both Democrats and Republicans had wanted her to work on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “I can work across the aisle.” Harvey said the 6-0 votes by the Board of Supervisors need to change, and he vowed again to oppose the stormwater fee.

Albemarle is growing by 1,500 people a year, said Mallek. The areas with the highest populations have the highest taxes and demand for services, she said.

The election is November 5.

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In brief: Millionaire Hoos, honest haikus, candidate news, and more

Malcolm Brogdon, UVA class of '16, is currently making $1.5 million with the Milwaukee Bucks. What will the university's newest NBA recruits make? Photo by Matt Riley

Hoos blues

You know that feeling you get when you support UVA men’s basketball through the years, and then the team finally wins the NCAA championship for the first time ever, and several players decide a college degree isn’t as valuable as playing in the NBA?

While we predict they won’t be in the same paycheck league as Duke’s Zion Williamson, we can’t blame De’Andre Hunter, Ty Jerome, Kyle Guy, and Mamadi Diakite for cashing in on what could be some of the biggest paydays Virginia players have ever seen.

Here’s what other UVA players are earning since they graduated from—or jettisoned—their alma mater.

Malcolm Brogdon, Class of ‘16

  • Milwaukee Bucks
  • $1.5 million

Joe Harris, Class of ‘14

  • Brooklyn Nets
  • $8.3 million

Mike Scott, Class of ‘12

  • Philadelphia 76ers
  • $4.3 million

Justin Anderson

  • Atlanta Hawks
  • $2.5 million

And here’s how three previous NCAA hot shots cashed in.

DeAndre Ayton

  • Former Arizona Wildcat who was drafted by the Phoenix Suns
  • $8.2 million

Marvin Bagley III

  • Former Duke Blue Devil who was drafted by the Sacramento Kings
  • $7.3 million

Wendell Carter, Jr.

  • Former Duke Blue Devil who was drafted by the Chicago Bulls
  • $4.4 million

Hingeley windfall

Jim Hingeley. Staff photo

Candidate for Albemarle commonwealth’s attorney Jim Hingeley received a $50,000 donation from Sonjia Smith, the philanthropist known for writing big checks to Democrats who are running for office. As far as we can tell, this is the largest donation for a local prosecutor race, and former public defender Hingeley has raked in more than $100,000 so far. Incumbent Robert Tracci reports $21,000 as of March 31.

“Supersteve” declares

Supervisor Ann Mallek has a challenger in her White Hall District. Retired Army aviator Steve Harvey, whose email address is “supersteve,” says he wants to put his foot down on property tax increases.

Quote of the week: “This is exciting. Y’all came out for this! …You must have really had nothing else to do tonight.” —Reddit co-founder and UVA alum Alexis Ohanian at an April 17 New York Times-sponsored event on Grounds

Tuition bump booted

UVA’s Board of Visitors voted to roll back a previously announced 2.9 percent in-state tuition bump, thanks to additional General Assembly funding to public universities that opt not to up their tuition. The Charlottesville school will now receive an additional $5.52 million from the state, and the College at Wise can expect $235,000.

Riggleman stops by

Denver Riggleman. Submitted photo

Representative Denver Riggleman made a quiet visit to Charlottesville Monday for a meet-and-greet with SNP Global employees, at the invitation of the company’s political action committee. As far as we can tell, the Republican distillery owner did not take the opportunity for a more public meeting with constituents in Charlottesville, which went 85 percent for his opponent, Leslie Cockburn, in last fall’s election.

Well, that backfired

We’re not exactly sure what officials thought they’d get from an April 17 tweet posted on the city’s official Twitter account, which noted it was National Haiku Poetry Day, and called for Charlottesville-related submissions in the 5-7-5 syllable format. But we bet it wasn’t this.

 

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Mallek seeks fourth term

Supervisor Ann Mallek wants more economic development and less stream degradation. She's running for a fourth term representing the White Hall District. staff photo

Albemarle native Ann Mallek likes serving on the Board of Supervisors so much that she’s running for a fourth term.

“I enjoy all the work,” she says. “And meeting people. Especially meeting people.”

The 68-year-old farmer and educator, who represents the White Hall District, says, “My skill over the past 11 years is to listen carefully to these diverse opinions and to learn my constituents’ needs and concerns.”

At a January 16 announcement in the Albemarle County Office Building, she listed her accomplishments, including an agreement with the city to improve court infrastructure and parking that will keep county courts downtown, and an ordinance in the works that will have the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau focus on more programming and destination activities. Mallek had previously expressed concern that the county was not getting its money’s worth from the bureau and its wishes were ignored.

She cited a need for economic development after learning that 465 families in her district had both parents working and were still earning below the poverty line. She noted that for a long time, the board saw economic development as anti-environmental.

If businesses grow and provide better jobs, that also shifts the tax burden from residential property owners, who now pay over 80 percent of the tax revenue pie, she said.

When Mallek was first elected, growth was seen as the biggest threat in the county. That slowed with the recession, but as population has risen—along with the demand for services—she’s hearing some of the same concerns from 2007: “Where are all these people coming from?”

Growth means the county has to provide the capital expenditures that were postponed during the recession, such as school additions, parks, and improved fire stations, as well the services citizens demand, like sidewalks and recycling. “We can and must find these solutions together,” she said.

Mallek also revealed her own growth while on the board, and acknowledged the history she didn’t learn while a student at Albemarle High in the 1960s. She didn’t know that families were forced off their land to build the Shenandoah National Park, and she has worked on a chimney memorial to recognize those families.

“I also never learned about the lynching of John Henry James in Ivy in 1898,” she said. “We must find ways to share the history that has divided us.”

Mallek ran unopposed in 2015. And so far, no one else has indicated plans to challenge her.

 

 

 

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C’villeization: Proposed ad campaign draws complaints

The latest iteration of a rebranding campaign to draw visitors to the area was better received than an earlier one, but its use of “C’villeization” still makes some local officials squeamish. Charlottesville Albemarle Convention & Visitors Bureau

The word “civility” has become a bad word among some Charlottesvillians. Now a proposed tourism ad campaign touting “C’villeization” as a play on the C’ville nickname is also drawing fire.

Chapel Hill-based ad company Clean presented mock-ups of its “Welcome to C’villeization” rebranding campaign at a December 20 tourism board meeting. The ads feature images of attractive people eating local food, having a good time, and, in one, clinking wine glasses with the text, “C’villeization welcomes spitting. In the right context.”

Mayor Nikuyah Walker, who is not on the tourism board, is not a fan. She posted on Facebook, “This makes me so sad. This logo is unacceptable. Be Better! Do Better!” Walker did not respond to a request from C-VILLE for comment.

Supervisor Ann Mallek, a county representative on the board, says, “I’m not a tourism expert. I do know what stuck up and arrogant look like.”

And by “stuck up” and “arrogant,” she means “anybody who claims to be the center of civilization.”

At an October meeting, Clean learned that civility was not going to fly. At the December meeting, Interim City Manager Mike Murphy was wary of “C’villeization” and “C’villeized,” as well. “It’s still too close for me,” he said.

Councilor Kathy Galvin said, “C’villeization is a problem.”

And Councilor Mike Signer, the city’s alternate member, liked going with “C’ville” sans the play on civilization.

Despite those reactions, Adam Healey, the visitors bureau interim director, said the C’villeization campaign had gotten “highly positive” feedback. He proposed it for an ad campaign targeting 25- to 44-year-olds, dubbed “refined roamers,” in the Washington, D.C., and Research Triangle Park area in North Carolina. “The goal is to increase short getaways,” he said.

After Walker’s Facebook post, which Healey says he hasn’t seen, he says, “We have to understand our objective. We’re trying to draw visitors. We’re not on a social mission. We’re on an economic mission.”

Albemarle Economic Development Director Roger Johnson, who was elected chair of the reconfigured tourism executive board, says the C’villeization presentation “was definitely better received than the initial one.”

The visitors bureau board has gone through major turnover the past year, and will now include two elected officials from the city and county on its executive board.

That change was spearheaded by Mallek, who says, “For 11 years I was concerned the county was not getting the service it deserved for its million dollars.” Before, the county sent a staff member, who was one of 11 board members and was consistently in the minority when the county’s wish list was voted on, according to Mallek.

Those at the December 21 meeting approved a 14-member board, with two elected officials each from Albemarle and Charlottesville, four city and county administrators, a UVA vice president, reps from the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which owns Monticello, and the Chamber of Commerce, two tourism industry members, and one representative from the arts community.

The size of the board drew some concerns. Signer favored a “nimble” decision-making group like the seven-member Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority Board. And Johnson said, “The larger we make this group, the harder it is to make decisions.”

Both the government officials and tourism representatives wanted more people with expertise from the tourism industry on the board.

The Board of Supervisors and City Council will vote on the changes to the board in January. As for the ad campaign, that will come back to the tourism board. Says Healey, “We’re going to incorporate feedback.”

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Staying downtown: Albemarle and Charlottesville finally resolve court’s future

The Levy Opera House Building, pictured here on the corner of Park and High streets, will be renovated, and a new $30 million courthouse complex will be built beside it. staff photo

After a couple of years of contention over Albemarle County’s threat to move its courts from downtown Charlottesville, elected officials in the two jurisdictions have finally decided to jointly locate their lower courts in a downtown building both localities purchased together in 2005.

“We have reached agreement on the expansion and renovation of the Albemarle County District Court and the Charlottesville General District Court to meet our future needs right here in Court Square,” said Ann Mallek, chair of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors.

“Today’s agreement is the result of years of work by the City of Charlottesville and the County of Albemarle to co-locate their general district courts in the same facilities, and for the county courts to remain downtown,” said Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker.

The joint decision ends a nearly five-year period during which Albemarle supervisors explored the possibility of moving the county’s courts to a location outside of Court Square, which is technically the county seat. That would have required approval by voters in a referendum.

Mallek said county supervisors explored different possibilities to make certain the more than 100,000 residents of Albemarle were best served by a downtown location.

“We have studied as many as five different court locations and options over the last two years,” she said. “At the public hearing last December and in countless emails, we’ve heard strong support for the continued adjacency of city and county courts.”

The legal community fought hard against the proposal to move the courts out of downtown, with some arguing that splitting the courts would make it harder for poorer residents to access the justice system.

Palma Pustilnik with Central Virginia Legal Aid Society says, “I think it’s wonderful that we have finally managed to have an agreed upon situation that best serves all the members of the public.” She adds that the deal has the support of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Bar Association, both commonwealth’s attorney’s offices, and the legal community.

All five city councilors and six Albemarle County supervisors gathered at the corner of Park and East High streets on Monday in an impromptu joint session to announce the deal.

After the announcement, both elected bodies met to ratify the deal in public session. Supervisor Rick Randolph cast the only vote against the deal at a meeting at the county office building.

“The county had an opportunity with this court location decision to steer its own independent path towards its own strategic objectives,” Randolph said at that meeting.

Randolph said he believes the Board of Supervisors will one day vote to move the court. He also said there was a missed opportunity to use the negotiations over the courts to help change the revenue-sharing deal that has been in place for more than three decades.

One complaint from county residents advocating for courts outside of town has been the perceived difficulty of parking downtown. Part of the deal involves the creation of a new parking garage to be built by the city of Charlottesville at 701 E. Market St. That property has also been co-owned by the city and county since 2005, but the county will sell its portion to allow the city to build its third municipal parking garage.

“The city will then purchase the county’s interest in the parcel for one half of the appraised value,” Walker said.

As part of the deal, Charlottesville will provide 90 spaces in the new structure to Albemarle, as well as 15 on-street parking spaces reserved for county court patrons “in the area immediately surrounding the county court facilities,” according to Walker.

The need to update the court facilities stems from University of Virginia projections which forecast Albemarle will grow to a population of over 148,000 people in 2045, up from a 2017 population estimate of 108,000.

“Population growth has brought increased caseloads, and the existing court facilities do not meet contemporary standards for safety and security,” Mallek said.

These trends have long been anticipated. The city and county spent nearly $5.4 million in 2005 for the Levy Opera House property in Court Square, and that same transaction also included the surface lot that will become part of the future parking garage.

Charlottesville spent $2.85 million in November 2016 for the half-acre lot that now houses Lucky 7 and Guadalajara, and soon entered into a long-term lease with the businesses. At the time, the idea of housing the businesses in the retail portion of a new garage was floated, but that did not come up at the press conference.

The new $30-million general district courts will be built next to a renovated structure that dates back to 1852.

“The facility will be approximately 60,000 square feet, and the county will maintain three courts at the facility and the city will maintain one court,” Walker said. “The Levy Opera House building will also be renovated for the relocation of the Albemarle County commonwealth’s attorney office.”

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The Crozet Hum: Mysterious noise traced to Yancey Lumber

A noise that plagued Crozet residents for a couple of months was traced to Yancey Lumber Company, which will be installing a muffler on a recently refurbished boiler. staff photo

By Jonathan Haynes

After hundreds of complaints, the R.A. Yancey Lumber Corporation has confirmed that it is, in fact, the source of the mysterious humming noise that has been pestering Crozet residents since September. The family-owned company, which has operated in Crozet since 1949, had initially denied its mill was causing the noise.

Crozet resident Alice Faintich says she first heard the “very loud humming noise” in early September and has subsequently heard it in varying durations and frequencies. “Not everyone is hearing it,” Faintich says, “but the people who do are really bothered.”

Around the same time, Faintich found dozens of posts describing a similar nuisance in her area on Nextdoor, a message board for neighborhood reviews. “The noise was loudest in the areas facing Route 250,” says Faintich.

The noise was first reported by the Crozet Gazette on October 5.

As complaints continued to pile on, residents started to contact local officials and report the noise to police. Albemarle Supervisor Ann Mallek briefly addressed the noise at the end of the October 17 Crozet Community Advisory Council meeting, noting that county officials were doing everything in their power to resolve the issue.

For its part, Yancey said it hadn’t added new machinery and that its overnight kilns do not produce the level of noise described in the complaints. But when people continued to blame the saw mill, Yancey contracted Accentech, an acoustics consulting firm that specializes in noise and vibration control, to prove its wasn’t responsible.  

Bill Yoder, a sound engineer from Accentech, had Yancey turn its equipment on and off while he took measurements from the property line, nearly 100 yards from the mill. He found that the mill was generally operating at 67 decibels (technically measured as dBa), 12 decibels higher than the county maximum for property-line noise. For comparison, the roar of a vacuum cleaner from 10 feet away is 75 decibels.

On October 21, Yancey released a statement apologizing for its original denial and explaining that the exhaust stack of its newly refurbished sawdust-fired boiler — a furnace that dries wood by burning sawdust into steam and feeding it into the wood room — has been emitting the din.

“We had originally denied it was us because we had used the same boiler since 1992 without generating much sound,” says Yancey president Donnie Rose. “The noise complaints began after we installed the refurbished part.”

The following weekend, Yancey scrambled to adjust the boiler’s fan speed and other technical components to attenuate the sound. Test runs continuously failed, with one on October 22 temporarily making it worse.

Yancey successfully reduced the noise on October 23, and invited Mallek and three members of Albemarle zoning, which enforces the county’s noise ordinances, to observe a late-night test-run.

“The reading at the mill showed the change was successful,” says Mallek. “Afterwards, we went to houses in Crozet to check the monitor and we could not hear the sound on the front porches.”

Yancey has ordered a custom-built industrial silencer to reduce the boiler’s volume, and until it arrives in early November, the company will lower the boiler’s fan speed at night to meet county regulations.

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County controversy: Farmers say rain tax targets rural areas

Drivers of about 55 tractors rallied against the rain tax in White Hall before Supervisor Ann Mallek’s town hall meeting. Photo by Richard Fox

A proposed stormwater utility fee in Albemarle that has widely become known as the “rain tax” has caused quite the ruckus. But a similar one in the city continues to go off without a hitch.

County farmers say rural areas are unfairly targeted by the potential fee, because it will be calculated based on the number of impermeable surfaces—such as outbuildings, travelways and barns—included on a property. The exact fee has not yet been determined.

Photo by Richard Fox

“You don’t get rich farming,” says Richard Fox, an owner of Roslyn Farm and participant of a March 24 rally in White Hall in which farmers against the rain tax rode about 55 tractors to Supervisor Ann Mallek’s town hall meeting. “It will put some farms out of business because they won’t be able to afford the additional tax. They’re barely breaking even as it is.”

He says farmers do their work “for the love of the land,” and are naturally environmentalists. But they’d prefer if the stormwater fee was funded by the general fund, instead of by “taxing the backbone of this county.”

The initial impetus for the program was to comply with a state Department of Environmental Quality mandate to prevent runoff from reaching the Chesapeake Bay and improve local drainage systems, Mallek says.

County officials have been discussing the fee since 2014, when they agreed to put 7 cents of each dollar collected in real estate tax toward a water resources protection program. Mallek says that fund is at about $1.2 million now.

The supervisor originally supported the fee because properties with more impermeable substances would be charged more, which is not possible when drawing from the general fund, but says she’s having second thoughts after about 125 people, including Fox, showed up at the March meeting.

“If the process is so complicated that I can’t explain it to people and tell them how much it’s going to help, then I’m making a mistake by pursuing it,” Mallek says.

Jack Brown, a member of the Rivanna Conservation Alliance for 15 years and current chair of its public affairs committee, says a city stormwater utility fee has been collected twice annually since 2014.

“Albemarle has even a greater need than Charlottesville did,” he says, because, for a long time, the county has had less regulation and oversight of stormwater infrastructure.

The fee will pay for long-needed repairs, connections and improvements to the systems of culverts and pipes that carry stormwater off individual properties and into common resources, like the Rivanna River, he adds.

“Calling this a ‘rain tax’ appeals to anti-tax advocates and libertarians,” says Brown. “But policy should arise out of facts, not from appeals to fuzzy ideology.”

A new group with a website called No Rain Tax Albemarle has emerged, and its name is plastered on electronic flyers that claim the proposed fee will case a “HUGE, expensive government bureaucracy that will never go away.”

After repeated messages from C-VILLE, the group’s organizers remain unidentified—a fact that concerns some locals.

Says Dunlora resident Caroline Polk, “Unless the people running it are willing to come forward and put their names on the site and where the funding comes from, I would be very suspicious and treat this not as reasoned argument against the fee, but just knee-jerk anti-tax hysteria.”

The Board of Supervisors will meet April 11 for a work session on the proposed fee.

City fee explained

The city has collected $7.6 million in stormwater utility fees since it started billing in 2014. The fee is $1.20 per month, per billing unit, and a billing unit is equal to 500 square feet of impervious surface.

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Growing pains: Crozet roads can’t keep up with new developments

Western Ridge subdivision, while Eastern Avenue would run north-south and connect Route 240 to Route 250. 

By Mary Jane Gore

A fire along Old Three Notch’d Road caused a rush hour roadblock February 1 on one of Crozet’s main thoroughfares: Three Notch’d Road, aka Route 240. Instead of being able to drive to downtown Crozet, drivers had to make a U-turn, return to U.S. 250 and make a right, then another right onto Crozet Avenue/Route 240, only to be part of a massive backup at the light and four-way stop near the railway trestle at Crozet Square.

High-density growth area Crozet surely has the homes, but roadways have lagged behind. Will 2018 be the year several road projects begin in earnest?

“I think we’re one disaster away from being a critical need even more than it is now,” says realtor and Crozet resident Jim Duncan.

Some neighborhoods, like Parkside Village, Brookwood and Westhall, can only get in through Tabor Street, and that’s a concern for residents who “are afraid they can’t get out,” says Duncan.

“We’ve worked hard for the past 10 years, so it would be great to finally take some steps,” says Ann Mallek, chair of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors and representative of the White Hall District, which includes Crozet, where two connector road projects are in the works.

Click to enlarge

One would connect Route 240 to Route 250 through Park Ridge Drive and the Cory Farm subdivision.

The proposed Eastern Avenue Connector, which runs north-south, still has two major portions that need to be constructed, says Kevin McDermott, transportation planner for Albemarle County.

The northern piece may break ground soon. “The private developers of the Foothills-Daly development are responsible for making a connection onto Park Ridge Drive and onto Route 240,” McDermott says, and they have submitted all of the required applications.   

To the south, a bridge that is needed to cross Lickinghole Creek to complete the connector road “is the sticking point and has been for many years,” says David Stoner, a member of the Crozet Community Advisory Committee. “It’s such an expensive proposition that it hasn’t risen to the top of the county’s list of projects to be funded.”

The southern-portion work is No. 12 on the county’s priority list of road projects, McDermott explains. “Because other priorities are already under way, No. 12 will be a priority in the next year,” he says.

Once the county identifies funds to place into the capital improvement plan, design work will begin, maybe within a year, he says. The county would likely apply for a revenue-sharing grant with the state to get the southern piece of the connector started. “You’re probably looking at two to three years out for construction if everything works well,” says McDermott.

Just ahead of the Eastern Avenue connector is the Library Avenue extension at No. 11.

Developer Frank Stoner (no relation to David Stoner) owns Crozet New Town Associates and its construction arm, Milestone Partners, which will develop the former Barnes Lumber site. His business has put up about $1.9 million so the county could file for matching VDOT funds for an east-west connector road. Funds may be awarded by late spring.

If a go, Phase 1 road funds would become available in July, Stoner says. Design would start immediately, followed by construction in one to one and a half years, according to McDermott.

The roads would extend from Library Avenue to High Street and then back to Crozet Square, Stoner says. Later the connector might extend as a new Crozet “main street” that would go east to Parkside Village and possibly beyond, he says.

Mallek says that because Crozet Square is an important town entrance with historic shopping, “everybody has a great stake in making sure that traffic moves successfully and that we get the rest of the connector finished. Then traffic could move west seamlessly, and we can take out the backup that happens sometimes under the [Crozet Avenue] trestle.”

Emilia Puie in Parkside Village says that she is hoping the east-west connector to downtown will happen soon. Her family moved from nearby Myrtle Avenue to get more sidewalks. “We love walking and we love Crozet’s downtown,” she says. “When the children are older they could go there by themselves.”

On the road to completion

Kevin McDermott, transportation planner for Albemarle County, says two more road projects are pending from funds the county gave community councils at the end of 2017. Crozet earmarked its share for:

• Sidewalks, curbs, gutters and regrading and repaving the Crozet Square area. New parking will
be angled.

• Safety improvements, including a sidewalk in front of the Starr Hill Brewery.

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Upstaged: Hillsdale Drive Extension project dedication overshadowed by Garrett protesters

Congressman Tom Garrett is in this photo, but you might not be able to see him because of the crowd of angry constituents that's engulfing him. Staff photo

The official ribbon-cutting ceremony for the nearly 30-year-old Hillsdale Drive Extension project was overshadowed by protesters who came to confront a congressman who was scheduled to speak.

Fifth District representative Tom Garrett was swarmed by a crowd of about 25 angry constituents as he arrived at the January 26 ceremony where at least 11 state and local police officers were present.

As City Councilor Kathy Galvin gave her opening remarks about the new roadway, the crowd lambasted Garrett about a bevy of topics, mostly including health care and his alleged refusal to meet with his constituents.

Law enforcement stood between the congressman and the crowd as he took the podium, and warned away protesters who attempted to hold their anti-Garrett signs behind him as he spoke.

Among those signs were “One Term Wonder,” “283 Days Until Midterms” and a blown up photo of the Republican House of Representatives member posing with Jason Kessler, the homegrown white nationalist who organized the summer’s Unite the Right rally that left three dead and dozens injured.

Todd Cone says he’s gone to Congressman Tom Garrett’s office, but he’s never successfully met with him. Staff photo

“You met with him. Why not the rest of us?” said the sign.

At times, Garrett was difficult to hear over the shouts from of protesters, but he commended the cooperative effort of the city and county on the road extension that’s been on the books since the 1990s.

Construction on the two-lane, multi-modal roadway began in June 2016. It runs parallel to Route 29, with dedicated turn lanes from the county’s Rio Road to the city’s Hydraulic Road. It includes 3,600 linear feet of a shared-use path on its east side and 5,800 linear feet of sidewalk on its west side, which is south of Greenbrier Drive. New additions also include the  roundabout at Zan Road and Hillsdale Drive and a new traffic signal at Seminole Court and Hillsdale Drive.

Garrett—along with Galvin, city manager Maurice Jones, Albemarle County Board of Supervisors representatives Ann Mallek and Ned Gallaway and VDOT engineer John Lynch—used a giant pair of shears to snip the ribbon near the roundabout. But the congressman didn’t stick around for much longer after that.

The angry mob followed him to his black SUV and circled it as he tried to leave, and most were responsive when the driver laid on the horn.

But detractors weren’t the only attendees—at least five people brought pro-Garrett signs, and even more showed up in support of him.

John Miska, a local veteran who’s often spotted at political events, said Garrett was able to solve a years-long problem for him in a matter of days.

Veteran John Miska stands next to his camo truck while collecting signatures to get Culpeper resident Nick Freitas, who’s running for Senate, on the ballot. Staff photo

The veteran says he’s taken opiates to manage chronic pain for years, which have caused his teeth to rot. He’s hounded the Department of Veterans Affairs for dental care for two years.

About three weeks ago, Miska filled out some paperwork at Garrett’s office at the congressman’s request, and Miska says he was headed to a dentist to have two necrotic teeth pulled on January 30.

“Something that would have cost a couple hundred dollars to fix if they would have done it in a timely manner is now going to cost the taxpayers thousands of dollars, and Tom is a little ticked off about that,” he says.

Adds Miska, “Tom got involved and I got seen. And so these people complaining about their health care and all, they fail to realize that the whole cascade of problems with health care is because they tried to eat an elephant with one bite.”

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News

In brief: Bad prank, bad parking, bad practices and more

Staff photo

Meter’s not running

Crews are set to start ripping meters out of the ground this week after City Council voted at its January 2 meeting to indefinitely suspend the parking meter pilot that began on streets surrounding the Downtown Mall in September.

“It seemed pointless to try to convince the manufacturer to continue to loan us this equipment,” says parking manager Rick Siebert, who was initially hired to implement the program. “We obviously didn’t want to pay rent with no revenue coming in.”

With no reimplementation date in sight, Siebert says he’s disappointed that the city seems to have permanently pumped the brakes on the pilot, and he’ll continue to work toward a solution to Charlottesville’s well-documented parking problem.

“We had some issues with parking before that led to hiring Nelson\Nygaard to do the study, which led to the initiation of the meter pilot,” he says. “Those issues haven’t just evaporated.”

By the numbers

  • 28 meters
  • 13 pay stations
  • 71 days in service
  • $51,490 generated in revenue
  • $42,995 paid in rent
  • $20,000 for a 2016 parking meter pilot implementation plan by Nelson\Nygaard
  • $500,000 for startup funds allocated by City Council in 2016 for personnel and initial equipment costs, including a $73,000 salary for hiring a parking manager

“Voting is the civic sacrament of democracy.”—James Alcorn, chair of Virginia Board of Elections, before a random drawing to determine the winner of House District 94 and control of the House of Delegates

Not funny

A teen hoaxer who on social media advised Monticello High students to not go to school January 8 underneath a photo of guns was charged with a Class 5 felony for making threats to harm people on school property. The post alarmed other schools around the country with MHS initials, and at least one in Pennsylvania canceled classes.

Malpractice

Mark Hormuz Dean. Photo Albemarle County Police

Police arrested Mark Hormuz Dean, 50, a physician at the Albemarle Pain Management Associates Clinic, on January 5 for two counts of rape, two counts of object sexual penetration and one count of forcible sodomy, which he has allegedly committed on the job since 2011. Dean has worked in pain management in Charlottesville since 2003, and performed more than 10,000 interventional pain procedures, according to the clinic’s website.

 

 

It’s about time

At the January 4 Board of Supervisors meeting, Governor Terry McAuliffe signed a 99-year lease that gives Albemarle County control of the 1,200-acre Biscuit Run Park, which the state has owned since 2010 and agreed to help open to the public.

Town crier

Photo Eze Amos

Christopher Cantwell has filed a lawsuit against anti-racist activists Emily Gorcenski and Kristopher Goad, who accused the “Crying Nazi” of spraying them with a caustic substance at UVA on August 11. Cantwell’s complaint claims the activists “framed” him in the alleged attack by spraying themselves with mace.

 

 

 

 

New county leadership

File photo

While perhaps not as monumental as Charlottesville’s election of its first African-American female mayor, Albemarle County’s Board of Supervisors has also picked new leaders. Ann Mallek has been named chair for the fifth nonconsecutive year and Norman Dill will serve as vice chair.

 

 

 

Trial date set

A three-week jury trial is scheduled to begin November 26 for James Alex Fields, the man who plowed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters on August 12. Fields is charged with first-degree murder, five counts of malicious wounding, three counts of aggravated malicious wounding and failing to stop at the scene of a crash.

 

 

 

Another missing person found dead

Three days after missing woman Molly Meghan Miller was found dead in her home on January 1, police found Arthur Mills, the Fluvanna County man who was reported missing January 3, dead on the side of Oliver Creek Road. His cause of death is unknown.

 

Downtown loses some sparkle

Submitted photo

Frances Gibson Loose, longtime owner of Tuel Jewelers, died January 5 at age 86. For 65 years, she showed up for work, always professionally dressed, until about a week before she passed away.

When Loose bought the store in 1975, she was the only female business owner downtown, and according to her daughter, Mary Loose DeViney, she told another woman in a male-dominated field, “I’m going to do it my way and you will, too.”

She was a member of the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce, which named her Small Business Person of the Year in 2009.

Loose was well-known and well-liked and was often called “Mom” by her many friends, says DeViney. “She extended credit to people that others wouldn’t have—and they paid her. She just believed in people.”

People from all walks of life came to the store just to talk to Loose. “I’ve got to talk to Momma,” DeViney heard regularly. “I shared my mom with all kinds of people.”