Brown Automotive Group sold to Memphis-based Umansky Automotive Group September 11. Photo by Martyn Kyle
A Memphis-based car dealership chain bought Charlottesville’s Brown Automotive Group, an institution in the community for nearly 40 years, on September 19.
Umansky Automotive Group, a family-operated company, has 850 employees across 16 dealerships, says owner Dan Umansky. The five local Brown dealerships will be his first locations in Virginia, with the others in Tennessee, Mississippi and Wisconsin.
Brown Automotive Group owner Kenny Brown, who first purchased his Route 29 location in 1981 and now employs more than 350 people in Charlottesville and Albemarle County, says he’s ready to turn over the keys.
“It’s been a great honor to have served so many customers here in our community for the past three decades,” Brown says. “It was truly the hardest decision I have ever had to make, but both myself and my family will forever be committed to the longevity and prosperity of our community.”
Though the company is switching hands, he says customers at all locations will still see the same familiar faces—and brands. Umansky says he’ll still be selling and servicing makes such as Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler, Subaru, Toyota, Honda and Dodge Jeep RAM.
“All of our research and all the information we got about Charlottesville was outstanding,” Umansky says. “We went to visit and it was more than we thought it would be.”
Portrait Of Couple Running Coffee Shop Behind Counter
By Marilyn Pribus
“Charlottesville is a unique place,” declares Payam Pourtaheri, a co-founder of AgroSpheres, one of the many new businesses born right here where he says the entrepreneurial spirit is very strong. “There’s the feeling we’re all in this together. Everyone is supportive—you reach for help and it’s there. There are so many successful entrepreneurs.”
Pourtaheri is absolutely right. In fact, just last summer Entrepreneur magazine placed Charlottesville at #4 on its list of 50 top cities for entrepreneurs. Included in the calculations were cost of living, business tax rates, percentage of college grads in the community, the growth of well-paying jobs, and other factors such as the number of venture capital deals over the past decade.
Start-up Money The availability of start-up money is a biggie, of course, and the National Venture Capital Association recently ranked Charlottesville as the nation’s fastest-growing venture capital community with start-up funding for local companies leaping from $250,000 to more than $27 million in just five years between 2010 and 2015.Start-up companies benefit from some of the programs offering substantial financial recognition such as UVA’s Entrepreneurship Cup and Galant Challenge.
Last April, for example, the AgroSpheres team received more than $20,000 in the Entrepreneurship Cup competition. The team has won other awards and grants as well, garnering enough seed money to grow their company here in central Virginia. Beginning as “a few science geeks working on a cool summer research project,” AgroSpheres seeks to revolutionize the agriculture industry by developing non-toxic, environmentally friendly sprays that can degrade insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides. This has clear benefits for the environment as well as people working with agricultural products and is now being tested in local vineyards and orchards.
UVA Is a Major Influence UVA is another major factor in this entrepreneurial equation. Various companies have worked directly with the university to bring its research to the commercial market, especially through the Darden School of Business. (The Financial Times, an international financial publication, named Darden as the #3 MBA program for entrepreneurship in the world.)
“The university is so important,” emphasizes Pourtaheri, himself a recent graduate with a BS in Nanomedicine. He cites various UVA schools including Commerce, Engineering, and Medicine as contributing to successful entrepreneurs.
“There’s a summer incubator program,” he says, “and WIP [Work in Progress] that’s through the engineering school.”UVA also offers a specific undergraduate program in entrepreneurship and sponsors i.Lab, a University-wide entrepreneurship initiative with cross-collaboration among eleven UVA schools.
Pourtaheri gives particular credit to interaction with UVA faculty member Dr. Mark Kester whose own research focusses on nanotechnologies. “He’s an AgroSpheres co-founder and our Chief Scientific Officer and a main reason we got going,” Pourtaheri explains. “He pushed us to look outside of the lab and see the potential impact we could have on the world.”
And there’s more. Student-powered programs such as Hack Cville—a sort of incubator providing space and resources for UVA students involved in innovation and entrepreneurship—also add to the climate of support for new firms.
Individual Entrepreneurs What about individuals who aren’t connected with UVA, yet seek to create their own small businesses?Just ask Charlottesville native Andrea Copeland-Whitsett who is active with the Charlottesville Chamber of Commerce as well as many other local associations including the Community Investment Collaborative (CIC).
Positive Community Support “Charlottesville is a culturally progressive community that supports businesses who seek to create a positive social impact,” says Cynthia Adams, CEO of Pearl Home Certification. Adams was the past Executive Director of the Charlottesville-based nonprofit Local Energy Alliance Program (LEAP), and her experience running that company gave rise to Pearl, an organization that verifies the value of environmental upgrades such as solar panels and energy efficient components.
“Our main investors live right in the area,” says Adams, “and several local REALTORS® were involved during our pilot phases as services were developed. The certification of upgrades ensures they are included in appraisals so homeowners can recoup the value of their ‘green’ improvements for refi [refinancing] or resale.”
Charlottesville’s entrepreneurial spirit clearly attracts ambitious and motivated people to our community to work and live. For example, we asked whether AgroSpheres will stay in Charlottesville. “Definitely,” says Pourtaheri. “We’ve had the chance to move elsewhere, but it wouldn’t be right to leave. We love the support we have here. We’re excited to wake up each day.”
Marilyn Pribus and her husband live near Charlottesville.
Eric Trump's Albemarle vineyard uses foreign workers to prune the vines.
Photo Amanda Maglione
President-elect Donald Trump made stopping illegal immigration a cornerstone of his campaign. Legal immigration, however, is another matter, and son Eric Trump’s winery has filed a request with the U.S. Department of Labor to hire six foreign workers to prune grapevines.
While Eric Trump declined to comment, the winery’s general manager, Kerry Woolard, says in an e-mail, “Over 2,000 farms across the country use the program, which is specifically designed for temporary agricultural labor that cannot be filled with domestic workers.”
She notes that the employers must advertise the jobs domestically. In Virginia in 2016, 3,347 positions were certified for the visas, according to the Department of Labor, including, says Woolard, “the majority of Charlottesville farms/wineries.”
Well, not exactly the majority, according to the labor department registry, but local businesses that have active visa requests are Horton Vineyards, seeking nine workers, Jean Case and AOL founder Steve Case’s Early Mountain Vineyards wants 12 laborers, Barboursville Vineyards needs 16, and Saunders Brothers wants 109 temporary workers, although on its website, it only lists two full-time job openings. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
Sharon Horton has been employing a lot of the same people from Mexico for the past 20 years, and says the H-2A program “is a good way to get legal workers.” Horton applies for 18 visas a season. “I wouldn’t be able to find 18 reliable vineyard workers” to do all the labor intensive work like trellising at the vineyard, she says.
The H-2A program “is quite costly,” says Horton, and employers have to pay roundtrip transportation, provide housing, vehicles and weekly trips to Walmart. Workers are paid $10.72 an hour.
At Early Mountain Vineyards, 85 percent of its employees are from Virginia, and 15 percent are seasonal H-2A workers, “most of whom have been with us for multiple growing seasons,” says general manager Dave Kostelnik.
All the local farms seeking foreign labor use Mas Labor in Lovingston, the largest H-2A employment agency in the country, says founder Libby Whitley, bringing in close to 15,000 laborers a year nationally.
It’s “very difficult” to find vineyard laborers for jobs such as pruning, she says. “It’s hard, arduous work,” and requires being outdoors during the winter, working six days a week and putting in longer hours during harvest.
“It’s not that Americans won’t do it,” she says. “It’s just that there’s not enough who will.”
The large farms that use the H-2A program are “not trying to deprive U.S. workers of jobs,” she says. “No one wants to work in tobacco or harvest apples. These jobs are not considered desirable employment opportunities.”
In an industry in which more than 50 percent of the farm labor workforce is undocumented, the 10-month visa program is valuable to “employers with a commitment to a legal workforce,” says Whitley.
“The notion that this is cheap foreign labor is notoriously misleading,” she says, and the program has been “unnecessarily maligned.”
Although four area wineries import laborers, the majority are able to find domestic employees. Family-owned Cardinal Point has never used H-2A workers, says operations manager Sarah Gorman. Nor has King Family Vineyards.
“We’re a family business,” says its wine club manager, Matthew Brown. “A lot of the work gets taken care of by them.”
Update 12:51pm to note Jean Case also owns Early Mountain Vineyards.
The Downtown Mall will be Bank of America-less, but will have another steakhouse.
Staff photo
When Bank of America closes its branch doors downtown in February, it leaves a grand 1916 building in its wake that will house a steakhouse, according to building owner Hunter Craig.
And while he declined to identify the grilled meat purveyor, he did say it would be locally owned, not a national chain.
Also inhabiting 300 E. Main St., which began as Peoples Bank and during its 100-year history has morphed into Virginia National Bank, Sovran Bank and NationsBank before Bank of America, will be… another bank.
“Not Virginia National Bank,” specified Craig, who sits on the VNB board of directors.
Other as-yet-undisclosed tenants will lease office space in the building.
Are the orange stripes too much? Governor Terry McAuliffe checks out polos at Mincer's.
Staff photo
Governor Terry McAuliffe popped into Mincer’s on the Corner this afternoon because he likes to visit small businesses—and he needed a new polo shirt. “Extra large,” says McAuliffe. “I’m pumped.”
He was in Charlottesville to speak to UVA scholars at the Center for Politics and he’d had lunch “with Larry and Terry—” Professor Larry Sabato and UVA President Teresa Sullivan.
At Mincer’s, the governor was faced with some tough choices—which striped shirt to buy. He ended up with a couple and some shorts as well.
Staff photo
He quizzed Mark Mincer on his bestsellers—UVA-emblem jackets and chapstick—as well as Mincer’s biggest sales weekend, in between chatting with customers and posing for photos.
Outside, he spoke to young women dining at the Virginian. “Be sure to vote this year,” he advised.
And he weighed in on the 5th District congressional race, in which Dem Jane Dittmar faces off against Republican state Senator Tom Garrett. Not surprisingly, he endorsed Dittmar. “We need people who can get things done,” he said. “I’m tired of partisanship. We need someone who can work with the new president—Hillary.”
Governor Terry McAuliffe on the Corner. Staff photo
Next stop: Democratic campaign headquarters on the Downtown Mall.
Mark Brown says he’s not angry the city rebuffed scenarios to settle the Water Street Garage litigation, but he is selling the Main Street Arena and looking for more hospitable municipalities.
Photo Jackson Smith
In the ongoing melodrama between the city and Charlottesville Parking Center owner Mark Brown, a letter from City Manager Maurice Jones says there’s no way the city will sell its Water Street Parking Garage shares to or even work with Brown, who, perhaps not coincidentally, announced plans to sell the Main Street Arena and take at least part of his investments elsewhere.
The latest barrage was in response to an August 8 letter from CPC general manager Dave Norris outlining three scenarios in which CPC would sell its parking spaces in the garage to the city or vice versa, complete with an optimistic plan that CPC would build a parking garage on a Market Street lot jointly owned by the city and county to appease the county, which has threatened to take its general district court out of the city because of the dismal parking situation.
Jones writes that former mayor Norris’ statements that the scenarios represent an opportunity to end the dispute “quickly” and “in the city’s favor” represent a “fundamental misunderstanding” of the city’s position.
He scoffs at the idea that the city would buy Brown’s interest in the Water Street Garage, which includes 390 spaces, the land underneath and commercial spaces, for $8,995,400, the amount CPC contends the city would have to pay if it goes through with its eminent domain threat. Brown bought CPC, including a surface lot across from the garage, for $13.8 million in 2013.
A major sticking point for the city is that while Brown offers to sell his spaces for $18,232 each, his offer to buy the city’s 629 spaces was at a much lower $7,822 each. “That huge discrepancy suggests that CPC either has no interest in seriously negotiating the sale” of its garage spaces or that it “continues to mistakenly believe” the fair market value of its spaces is far greater than the city’s because it owns the land upon which the Water Street Garage sits.
That, says Jones, is like the city arguing its spaces are more valuable because they’re exempt from real estate taxes. Neither “advantage” would be passed on to a purchaser, he says.
And in case there’s any doubt about the city’s position, using both bold text and underlining, Jones says, “City Council has no interest in selling its spaces in the WSPG to CPC.”
As for working together to build a garage on Seventh and Market streets after Brown’s attempts to force the city to sell its Water Street shares, says Jones, “I can unequivocally respond that no one on City Council can imagine any scenario where this type of partnership would be of interest to the city.”
On page three of the four-page letter, Jones lists Brown’s, er, CPC’s misdeeds, including suing the city, secretly negotiating with Albemarle to build a garage on Market Street, allowing downtown businesses to believe he was contemplating closing the garage because the association that runs it had not approved a budget and filing a second lawsuit seeking the emergency appointment of a receiver.
Norris declined to comment on the city’s letter, but Brown had something to say about it: “It seemed like the ramblings of a lunatic. Maurice Jones didn’t write a word of that.” Brown says he believes Mayor Mike Signer and the city’s Richmond attorney, Tom Wolf, wrote the letter.
“Not true,” says Wolf. He also downplays the tone of the letter. “I think it’s just responding to their letter. I don’t think it’s a go-to-hell letter.”
In a September 14 statement, Wolf says, “I would think that after a while people would get tired of Mark Brown’s constant whining and his relentless efforts to twist everything to benefit himself at the expense of others.”
Jones’ letter says, “This dispute is not, however, about parking rates and never has been,” and alleges that Brown’s scheme all along has been to force the city to sell its interest in the garage to him.
“That was an outright lie,” declares Brown. He contends the only time CPC ever made an offer was when the city requested one in writing.
As for an amicable settlement of the increasingly hostile dispute, says legal expert Dave Heilberg, “As of today it doesn’t look like it. It’s hard to tell how much [of the city’s letter] is posturing.”
Heilberg calls such communications in civil litigation “nastygrams.” And if the parties really want to settle, he says, “They’ll come in with offers a lot closer.”
City Attorney Craig Brown says, “Yes, there is a possibility for the case to settle. …CPC just needs to offer to sell its spaces in the Water Street Parking Garage for their fair market value.”
While Mark Brown, who also owns Yellow Cab, has listed the Main Street Arena for sale before as what he calls a “teaser,” this time he says he’s serious and has ordered a for sale sign. The arena is listed at $6.5 million.
“I don’t have any confidence in [city leadership’s] ability to function in a rational way,” he says, as Charlottesville transforms from a town to a small city. He sees “signs of dysfunction” in how the city is run. “You can’t put out patio chairs in the wrong color but they let the Landmark sit for eight years,” he says, referring to the hotel skeleton on the Downtown Mall.
“I’m not angry,” he says, while expressing concerns about the Belmont Bridge (“How long has that dragged on?”), the Strategic Investment Area and the West Main streetscape. “I don’t see any leadership from City Hall,” he says.
Brown believes money invested in municipalities that have “real leadership” will result in a higher return.
As for the fate of the only ice rink in the area, says Brown, “That’s going to be up to the owners of the building. I’m going to be investing elsewhere.”
Todd Howard awaits a decision from the ABC about whether he’ll face more penalties for selling too many drinks.
RAMMELKAMP FOTO
Earlier this year, the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control suspended popular watering hole Escafé’s license to sell mixed drinks for the seemingly oxymoronic problem of selling too much booze. In Virginia, where bars are prohibited by Prohibition-era regulations, licensees have to have 45 percent of their sales in food, and if customers prefer drinking over dining, well, that’s just too bad and restaurants face prohibitive fines.
Ask Escafé owner Todd Howard, who couldn’t sell mixed drinks for 15 days in February and had to pony up a $1,000 fine as well, reduced from what was originally a 30-day suspension and $2,500 fine. That was for 2014-2015, and when he filed his receipts for 2015-2016 in March, he found himself in the same boat.
“It’s difficult to be in this business in this town with the ratio the way it is,” he says.
A bill that would lower the food ratio to 25 percent of sales was introduced in the General Assembly this year by Virginia Beach Republican Delegate Scott Taylor, but it was carried over to 2017.
Restaurateurs have long complained about the state’s ABC regulations that seem written by Carrie Nation, with moral disapproval of drinking in general and bars in particular.
Howard had an administrative hearing with the ABC August 22, and he’s awaiting the ruling.
“The only thing that keeps me holding on is hope they change the ratio,” he says. “It would be a shame to have a law-abiding and code-abiding licensee to go by the wayside if the code changes.”
Three young men were arrested for the spate of recent muggings around UVA. Pendarvis Marquette Carrington, 18, was charged with two counts of robbery, two for use of a firearm in the commission of a felony and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Two 17-year-olds were also charged.
Courtesy Fluvanna Sheriff’s Office
Wife killer gets 40 years
Franklin Burruss was sentenced September 12 for the second-degree murder of Tayler Lindsey Harsch Burruss, who was stabbed 22 times before she drowned in the hot tub in their Lake Monticello home September 5, 2015.
Bad news for book-lovers
Oakley’s Gently Used Books will close its doors September 18 after more than 20 years. Owner Chris Oakley is retiring to do volunteer work, but she will continue to sell books at sci-fi conventions and online. The store, located in York Place on the Downtown Mall, is having a 50 percent off sale until it closes.
Irish exit
McGrady’s Irish Pub will also close this month. On its last day, September 25, restaurant decor and furniture will be auctioned off to benefit Red Shoe Cville. After a decade on Preston Avenue, general manager Tracy Tuttle says a new eatery, which will be announced this fall, will take the pub’s place. And it’ll have plenty of TVs so sports watchers can still catch a game.
We’re No. 2
UVA moves up in the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings of public universities from last year’s No. 3, and comes in behind No. 1 UC Berkeley and ties for the second spot with UCLA.
The other Founding Father
Here in the heart of all things Thomas Jefferson, it’s pretty easy to forget that he’s not the only area revolutionary figure who designed our democracy. James Madison lived up the road in Orange, and had the not-insignificant role of framer of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. And maybe, like some of us, you haven’t been to Montpelier since the duPont exterior was removed in 2008. With Constitution Day on September 17, we thought it would be a good idea to check in on the fourth president’s home and say, here’s to you, Jemmy and Dolley Madison.
Constitution Day: Free admission from 9:30am-4pm Saturday, September 17, and Mr. Madison will greet guests.
“We the People” hike starts at 9am on the new 3.5-mile Montpelier Trail Loop. The estate has more than eight miles of trails, which are open to the public every day during business hours.
Photo courtesy Montpelier
Gilmore Cabin: Built by former slave George Gilmore on Route 20 across from Montpelier, it’s the first freedman’s preserved and interpreted home in the U.S.
Public digs:Archaeologists are excavating the South Yard, where slaves lived, and working now on the site of a kitchen, as well as reconstructing two two-family slave quarters. Don’t take the artifacts.
Nelly’s best room. Courtesy Montpelier
Furnishings: Thanks to Dolley’s profligate son leaving her impoverished, most of Montpelier’s furniture is long gone. Gradually replenished, Madison’s mom’s rooms—Nelly’s sitting and dining rooms—were furnished this year.
Barbecue: The Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein has bestowed a bundle on Montpelier, and in the visitor center that bears his name is The Exchange Cafe, which features Gordonsville barbecue-meister Craig Hartman’s pulled pork and griddled ham on a cheddar-chive biscuit.
By the numbers
The cost of off-campus living
Zillow releases an analysis of monthly median rents to go with the latest U.S. News & World Report college rankings.
$1,526
UVA, Charlottesville
$6,139
Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, is the priciest
$723
Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, is the cheapest
Quote of the week
“My mother sexually abused me for eight years.”—Elizabeth Haysom, interviewed by the Richmond Times-Dispatch September 8 at the Fluvanna Women’s Correctional Center. She also insists Jens Soering, who filed a petition for absolute pardon last month, was the one who killed her parents in 1985.
Barefoot wine and Barefoot Bucha: Gallo didn't want to risk consumer confusion, so the kombucha is looking for a new name.
Photo Tom McGovern
For most of us, wine and kombucha tea are totally different products and only an idiot would confuse them. Not for Gallo, the $4 billion corporation with a history of trademark bullying. In April it sued local mom-and-pop Barefoot Bucha purveyors Kate and Ethan Zuckerman on the grounds that their kombucha name and logo infringed on its Barefoot Wine trademark.
The Zuckermans, like many businesses that have dared to use “barefoot” or “Gallo” in their product name, no matter how unrelated to wine that product might be, will change Barefoot Bucha’s name in a settlement with the wine goliath and will crowdsource a new name for the popular probiotic drink.
“It’s very common in litigation,” says intellectual property expert David Pratt at M-Cam. He estimates 80 percent or more of small companies faced with trademark bullying will change their company’s name because of the cost to litigate against deep pockets.
“Once you get into multi-billion-dollar publicly traded companies, they say, ‘We’d better have our hard-nosed lawyers go to the board and tell them we did everything to protect our trademark,’” he says.
“I don’t think Jefferson envisioned this,” says Pratt. James Madison convinced Thomas Jefferson to include intellectual property protection in the Constitution, he says, and he thinks that today, Jefferson would “be an open-source guy.”
The Zuckermans’ Conscious Cultures LLC settled without admitting any wrongdoing.“We are pleased that Conscious Cultures and E. & J. Gallo Winery have reached a mutually agreeable resolution,” says a Gallo spokesperson.
“We have amicably settled our differences out of court,” says Kate Zuckerman. “We are relieved to put this behind us so that we can continue to focus on bringing kombucha drinkers in our area a delicious and healthful beverage using a low-waste model.”
The winner of the “name that bucha” contest will receive a year’s worth of kombucha. Details are available on the Barefoot Bucha website and the deadline for submissions is September 12.
Crowdsourcing the name is an increasingly common tactic for up-and-coming companies and it appeals to millennials, says Pratt.
In choosing a new name, he advises the Zuckermans to check both the name and the classification code on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office website, which means a car and a computer drive can have the same name because they’re different products. Although, in the case of Barefoot Bucha, “They probably didn’t think they’d run the confusion line with Barefoot Wine,” he says, so it’s also a good idea to note if an extremely litigious company owns similar trademarks.
Tom Gallo and Susan Devitt in Asheville, North Carolina, had to change the name of their company, GalloLea Pizza Kits, when E. & J. Gallo Winery came after them in 2012.
“In our case, it basically put us out of business,” says Gallo, citing the cost of changing the brand, its packaging, website and marketing.
Like the Zuckermans, Gallo and his wife had been in business for about five years, and decided to trademark their brand. He checked the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office database, and the trademark for Gallolea was available. “It didn’t cross my mind it could be confused with Gallo wine,” he says. “In our case, not only was the name different, it was a different class.”
Gallo says he’s “kind of sad” the Zuckermans agreed to change their name. And his advice for anyone in a similar situation? “Tell everybody not to buy Gallo products.”—Lisa Provence
Ousted chair George Benford watches the drama play out that results in his new job as co-chair on the DBAC with the woman who wanted him gone.
Staff photo
George Benford wasn’t chair at that point early in an August 17 DBAC board meeting, but within 45 minutes, he was elected co-chair, and Joan Fenton, who had prompted his August 8 resignation when she told him his election in March may not have been legal, survived a vote to remove her from the board because her opponents couldn’t muster a two-thirds majority.
The feud between the city and Charlottesville Parking Center owner Mark Brown over the Water Street Garage seeped into the DBAC, with factions forming and accusations from Fenton that Benford and other DBAC board members were in Brown’s pocket.
After last week’s public airing of DBAC grievances, Fenton took charge of Wednesday’s board meeting and explained her discovery that a decision to amend the bylaws and move the membership year to begin January 1 had never been made official, and therefore Benford’s election after former chair and former CPC general manager Bob Stroh resigned was invalid.
“I didn’t do this easily,” said Fenton. She said she’d consulted Tuel Jewelers’ Mary Loose DeViney, who in fact is a professional registered parliamentarian. DeViney agreed the elections held at the March meeting were not in accordance with the bylaws. Fenton waited to break the news until after an August 5 meeting of the bylaws committee, she said, because “I didn’t want it to look like I was doing anything improper.”
An angry board challenged Fenton when she passed out the bylaws and an e-mail with DeViney’s opinion. “Why are we just receiving this?” asked Will Van der Linde, manager of the Main Street Arena, which is owned by Brown.
Attorney David Pettit, who represents Violet Crown Cinema, which has lobbied the DBAC to tell the city it wants the Water Street Garage to be a public utility, said he came to the August 17 because Fenton asked him to weigh in on the bylaws situation, not on behalf of Violet Crown, which is also a DBAC member.
The calendar year could be changed in the bylaws by a two-thirds vote of the board, he said, but he found no evidence that occurred in the minutes. And if the board doesn’t follow its bylaws, the result is “chaos,” he said.
Fenton wanted to have an election in September at the annual members meeting, 90 days after the June 30 end of the membership year under the old bylaws. It didn’t work out like that.
Van der Linde proposed a motion to change the membership year to January 1 and make it retroactively effective January 1, 2016.
“I will question the validity of that motion because we do not know who our board was,” said Fenton.
That brought up another issue. Some of the board’s 17 members had been elected, like Benford, under the unofficial new bylaws. In a vote of only those who had been on the board before the contested election, a 9-1 decision was made to change the membership year in the bylaws, with Fenton the sole “no” vote.
Van der Linde made another motion: “I move to fill the vacancy of [co-chair] Bob Stroh with George Benford.” That passed 8-2, with Fenton and Spring Street owner Cynthia Schroeder, who had been in the ax-Benford faction and who has plans to start a new business association, voting no.
Van der Linde had yet another motion, the most dramatic yet. “I make a motion to remove Joan Fenton from the board,” he said. That 6-2 vote, with two abstaining and two absent, failed to get the two-thirds necessary to oust Fenton.
“I think I really upset a lot of people by publicly stating my issues and by refusing to have an emergency meeting,” said Fenton, who remains co-chair, after the meeting. “I think there was a lot of anger at me and I hope we can move past that and work together.”
In a final motion, Van der Linde moved to reinstate the nine people who had been elected to the board earlier in the year.
George Benford and Joan Fenton kiss and makeup after last week’s ugly business. Staff photo
Several members seemed shaken by the events of the past week. David Posner, an investor with Davenport & Company and a board member whose election was questioned, said everyone had been “very happy” with how things were going at the DBAC, and that he found it alarming “all of a sudden to see this coup go down.”
“What we’re trying to do is bring this ship back to port,” said Amy Wicks-Horn, whose membership and allegiances Fenton had questioned. Although COO for the Piedmont Family YMCA, Wicks-Horn says she’s not a DBAC member in her work capacity. Fenton had pointed out that neither Wicks-Horn nor Benford owned businesses on the Downtown Mall.
“In the past week, our reputation has suffered,” when it was “only one or two individuals” leading the charge to oust Benford, said Wicks-Horn.
“It’s been very disturbing,” said Roy Van Doorn, a partner at City Select. “It’s been very personal. When motives get questioned in a public way, it’s really out of place. I ask the leaders of DBAC to temper their comments. It’s been very disturbing to the board. It’s been very disturbing to the members. [The DBAC] has to be focused on its members and its issues.”
And with that, Van der Linde moved on to talk about DBAC plans to put lighting in trees for the mall’s 40th anniversary.
Afterward, Fenton said, “Sometimes the best thing is to have an open and honest discussion. When you clear the air, you can move past that and work together.”
The issues that had been “festering” were not discussed at the meeting, she said, but people did get to express their displeasure.
She added, “I do sincerely think [Benford] and I can work together.”
