After nearly two decades of municipal hiccups and mishaps, the city’s plan to replace the Belmont Bridge is finally coming to fruition.
On Monday evening, City Council conducted a first reading on an allocation for the project: The state will pay $12.1 million, the federal government will pay $3.2 million, and the city will kick in $13 million. Council will hold a final vote on the decision August 17.
The city has completed right-of-way acquisition of necessary land and is now finalizing plans with the Federal Highway Administration and Virginia Department of Transportation, explained Jeanette Janiczek, Charlottesville’s Urban Construction Initiative program manager.
Last year, the Board of Architectural Review approved a certificate of appropriateness for the project. However, Janiczek said the certificate is currently being updated.
The city has been working to replace the nearly 60-year-old bridge since 2003, but has run into numerous issues. Initial designs were shot down by the public, and the consultants first hired for the project, MMM Design Group, shut their doors in 2014.
Kimley-Horn took charge of the project in 2017, and council approved a final design the following year.
The new bridge will include pedestrian lighting, benches, and bike racks, as well as a seven-foot-wide bicycle lane and a 10-foot-wide sidewalk, which will be separated from the road by a median. Ramps and stairs on the north end will connect the sidewalks to the Downtown Mall and Water Street.
Construction will begin next year, and is expected to be finished by 2023.
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Quote of the week
“Don’t create these boards and these commissions as bandaids to shut people up.”
—Police Civilian Review Board member Dorenda Johnson, speaking as a resident on City Council’s actions toward the board
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In brief
Riggleman running?
After losing the Republican primary to Bob Good, lame-duck Congressman Denver Riggleman told a Bloomberg podcast that he was “seriously considering” an independent run for governor. Riggleman said he lost his seat because he “refused to commit to supporting anything even close to racism or bigotry.” During his two-year term, Riggleman voted in line with Donald Trump 94 percent of the time.
Testing turmoil
UVA’s hopes for a hybrid semester rely on testing students at a high volume. That plan got off to a rocky start this week. The school sent an email to all students directing them to order COVID tests from the university website, but the website immediately crashed, multiple students report. Once the site came back online, other glitches emerged: The drop-down menu where students were supposed to input their home addresses omitted Rhode Island and New Jersey.
COVID outbreak
Cedars Healthcare Center, a skilled nursing facility in Charlottesville, has been devastated by a coronavirus outbreak, reports NBC29. As of July 31, 96 of the center’s 112 residents, and 44 of the 140 staff, have tested positive for the virus. Seventeen residents have passed away.
Name game
Since the resurgence of protests against police violence around the country, multiple local residents have submitted applications to the city asking for a street downtown to be named in honor of the Black Lives Matter movement. But City Council decided to hold off on voting on the name on Monday, waiting to have more “community involvement” in the matter. Council will now accept related honorary street name requests until August 31, and will consider all of the applications together before taking action.
New Year’s is a time for resolutions, but this year, we decided to focus our attention on city improvements, not self-improvement. So we asked a bunch of community leaders about their hopes for Charlottesville (and added a few of our own). Here’s to a new year, a new decade, and new visions for a community that’s bigger and better than ever.
Kari Miller, executive director and founder, International Neighbors
1. That employee income increases as fast—or faster (imagine that!)—as housing costs rise.
2. That each resourced resident (most of us) connect with one neighbor in need (many of us) in order to make Charlottesville/Albemarle the best place for all of us.
3. That special immigrant visa holders, or SIVs, receive the official status of U.S. veterans of war for their service and sacrifice for the U.S. military during conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many SIVs live in Charlottesville—they are our neighbors—and deserve our respect and support. The presence of these people of unparalleled patriotism makes Charlottesville/Albemarle a stronger community, and yet they struggle to survive, despite having put themselves at great risk to protect our common values.
Deborah McLeod, Photo Amy and Jackson Smith
Deborah McLeod, Chroma Gallery
1. A pedestrian bridge across the Rivanna joining River View with the Darden trail on the Albemarle side.
2. A better designed bus system that responds to the needs of the users (present AND potential) that is hub based rather than the current over long circuits that make commuting take so absurdly long—and add more buses.
3. Create a charming enterprise business zone at the Friendship Court stretch along Second Street leading toward IX.
Michael Payne, City Council member
I love Charlottesville, but I canhardly afford to live here! Three improvements:
1. A more robust public transit system with more frequent stops.
2. Achieving carbon neutrality and local climate resilience.
3. Expanding affordable housing opportunities, including public housing and community land trusts.
Sean Tubbs, resident and public transit advocate
1. The creation of a Charlottesville Karaoke League.
2. The establishment or promotion of an all-ages social gathering space to break down generational silos.
3. More reporting from more sources on more issues. There are so many stories that need to be told.
Stephen Hitchcock, executive director of The Haven
1. More affordable housing.
2. More affordable housing.
3. More affordable housing.
Peter Krebs, community outreach coordinator at Piedmont Environmental Council
1. A Connected Community: I would love to see safe and comprehensive bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure that links homes to jobs, schools, shopping, and recreation, and that supports area-wide transit. Progress to date has been much too slow and I would like to see it accelerated.
2. A Thriving Community: I would like to see everyone, regardless of age, ability, or any other factor be able to move about and pursue their dreams in a vibrant urban area that is healthy, sustainable, rich in opportunity, and surrounded predominantly by intact forests, farms, and ecosystems.
3. A Community that Works Together: I would like to see Albemarle, Charlottesville, and UVA working together systematically and methodically on transportation, housing, economic development, and environmental protection and conservation. The existing memoranda of understanding are a great start but I’d love to see a much more ambitious level of cooperation.
More than a parking lot
The City Yard, a 9.4-acre municipal works lot in the heart of Charlottesville is, as we wrote last year, “large, central, under-used and under government control”—so why hasn’t it been developed?
The yard, home to black and mixed-race residents more than a century ago, was also the site of the city’s gas works. For decades, concerns about possible contamination kept its use limited to public works vehicles and maintenance facilities.
But faced with a growing population and an increasingly urgent affordable housing crisis, the city is taking a second look.
“I think with City Yard and a few other places near downtown, you could afford to do some unconventional experimentation,” former mayor Maurice Cox told us this spring. “I think it’s too valuable to stay fallow, but it’s too big and difficult to use a conventional set of tools.”
In November 2018, City Council awarded $500,000 to New Hill Development Corporation, an African American-led nonprofit group, to study redevelopment in the Starr Hill area, which includes the City Yard. This fall, they presented their plan, proposing to develop the City Yard into a mixed-use area with 85 to 255 majority affordable housing units and flexible business/commercial spaces focused on workforce development.
It’s part of a larger push to revitalize the area and, with the proposal’s emphasis on open, pedestrian-friendly streets and the transformation of the Jefferson School into a “public square,” it feels like a way to right some of the city’s historic wrongs. After the razing of Vinegar Hill and the walling off of 10th and Page, a redevelopment of the area would reconnect one of the city’s last remaining African American neighborhoods with its increasingly vital downtown. So while many big hurdles remain—most notably whether the site needs environmental cleanup, and if so how much it will cost—it’s a vision worth pursuing. –Laura Longhine
Hunter Smith, founder and CEO, Champion Brewing Company
1. Elimination of food insecurity in the greater Charlottesville-Albemarle area. We have way too many restaurants per capita and disposable income in this community to have hungry neighbors. In 2020, I’d like to challenge myself and fellow restaurateurs to find a way to fight food waste and instability together.
2. More public/private initiatives. As long as the Dillon Rule stands, there are many things the city can’t do that residents expect it to do when it comes to affordable housing and other community priorities. With more projects like New Hill Development, the city can leverage its resources and staff to support not-for-profits that are capable of doing the work the city often cannot.
3. Dewberry Hotel (formerly the Landmark). Good lord, what an eyesore. It’s kind of amazing that the Downtown Mall is still such a destination with that hulk looming
around. There’s a lot of opportunity for a decade-old, derelict structure to be put to better use.
Alan Goffinski, executive director of The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative
My wish for the city is that Charlottesville might institute an Office of Getting Sh*t Done within city government that supports individuals and nonprofits with good ideas by identifying resources, connecting like-minded folks, streamlining procedures and application processes, and navigating the intimidating aspects of government bureaucracy.
Heather Hill. Photo: Eze Amos
Heather Hill, City Council member
1. Public meeting spaces that are welcoming and respectful of different perspectives, inviting collaboration versus division.
2. A community commitment to investing public and private resources in our schools’ infrastructure.
3. A more regional approach to taking tangible steps that address priorities, including connectivity and housing.
Walt Heinecke, associate professor of Educational Research, Statistics, & Evaluation at UVA
1. I would like to see the new City Council replace the watered-down bylaws and ordinance for the Police Civilian Review Board recently passed by council in Novemberwith the original bylaws and ordinance submitted by the initial CRB in August. The latter bylaws and ordinance provided the strongest model for community oversight and complaint review allowed by state law.
2. I would like to see all racist statues in Charlottesville, including the George Rogers Clark statue at UVA, removed.
3. I would like to see UVA establish a Center for the Study of Race and Social Justice and acknowledge that the university exists on stolen Monacan land; establish a formal and respectful relationship with the Monacan Nation; establish a fully funded indigenous studies center with adequate faculty hires, a substantive effort to increase Indigenous student enrollment, and a physical building for the center.
Jeff Dreyfus. Photo: Martyn Kyle
Jeff Dreyfus and partners, Bushman Dreyfus Architects
1. City Council devises a proactive, achievable plan for increasing affordable housing in the city.
2. The city and county begin incentivizing the production of solar energy.
3. City and county governments merge services and programs that overlap or are redundant to better utilize the limited resources we have.
Devin Floyd, founder, director, principal investigator at the Center for Urban Habitats
1. Environmental education: I would like to see schools not only put a greater emphasis on the arts and sciences, but also afford our youth opportunities to leave the classroom and learn more about local natural history. The more they get the chance to explore the plants, animals, and ecosystems that they share the land with, the more informed and compassionate they will be as stewards of the natural world. Children must be allowed the chance to get close enough to a salamander to see their own reflection in its eyes.
2. Daylighting streams: Natural springs, creeks, and rivers are the heart of our region’s biodiversity. I want the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County to ban the practice of burying streams for development. Furthermore, I call for action toward creating a strategic plan for daylighting all springs and creeks that have been buried, and restoring a portion of the wetlands, grasslands, and forests they should be associated with. This will have the effect of creating a network of urban and suburban wild spaces, with associated parks and trails.
3. The new all-American lawn: I want to see our city and county governments take more responsibility for supporting sustainable landscaping practices. To this end, I dream of a new type of lawn, one that is beautiful, handles its own storm water (slowing it and cleaning it before it reaches local streams), requires but one trimming a year, supports wildlife, keeps its fallen leaves, and inspires young and old to explore. In this vision lawns become extensions of nature, and urban areas become bastions for biodiversity. I want people to have hope again. All is not lost; not even in an urban landscape. Nature is resilient, and powerful. We can each have a positive impact on the environment, even in a tiny lawn.
Patsy Chadwick. File photo
Patsy Chadwick, outgoing president, current board member, Piedmont Master Gardeners
1. Eliminate invasive species throughout Albemarle County. As I drive around the area, I am mortified by the vast numbers of invasive species along our roads, including ailanthus trees, Russian olive shrubs, English ivy, and kudzu, among others. It would be a herculean effort to eradicate these plants and replace them with more environmentally beneficial plantings, but we could begin to address the problem with a cooperative effort of state, county, and city government, private homeowners, and groups such as Piedmont Master Gardeners, Master Naturalists, PRISM, local garden clubs, and others.
2. Greater emphasis in our communities on planting trees—particularly, native species—to absorb carbon from the atmosphere and provide more shade during heat waves. I don’t think people realize just what an impact trees can make in helping to offset the effects of climate change.
3. Wiser management of water resources, including: 1) capturing rainwater in barrels and cisterns; 2) planting drought- and heat-tolerant plants that can survive with less water; 3) using drip-irrigation systems to put water where it is most needed; 4) not wasting water on lawns that have gone dormant.
Sunshine Mathon, CEO, Piedmont Housing Alliance
This next year could have remarkable impact if we come together with common purpose. Yet this work cannot be accomplished in a single effort or a single year. The strata of power, the scaffolding that frames our systems and institutions, took us 400 years to construct. With layer upon layer of root, flesh, and stone, we have laid beaten paths of opportunity and exclusion. And yet, though we may be overwhelmed by the scale of what must be undone, or what authority we must emancipate, this work is made imaginable when we laugh and breathe together, when we sweat hand in hand as we yoke ourselves to the labor, and when we cast our gaze to what we can accomplish in this single year.
1. Redevelopment begins: For years-decades-generations, community members from historically excluded neighborhoods have called for investment in their communities…but on their terms and in their interest. Within this next year, all the activism, the tears, and the planning will culminate in a remarkable, near-simultaneous achievement—the ground-breaking of redevelopment for three communities: Friendship Court, public housing, and Southwood. By this time next year, their foundational aspirations will become manifest in the bones of buildings, the homes they themselves designed.
2. A Strategic Housing Plan: Over the coming year, Charlottesville will develop a new strategic housing plan, a community-based process that can and will dig deep into our history, preparing us for future interventions. This housing plan will inform and guide the completion of the city’s comprehensive plan and a land use zoning code revision, culminating in a plan of action. Some aspects of the implementation will require strong political will, and a willingness to look inward to fulfill our collective responsibility, reprioritize resources, and redress past trespasses. These actions cannot be incremental. The accrued legacy is too deep and pervasive. Only bold action will enable our convictions.
3. A Common Analysis: Centuries of policies, incentives, and race-based decision-making have calcified the strata of power and advantage across the nation with people of color accruing the least of it. In the coming year, if our community is to accomplish some authentic progress, we must engage the work with a common analysis—specifically, an analysis of the institutional racism that permeates our systems, by intention and by neglect. By this time next year, our community could achieve a critical threshold. Research suggests that only 3.5 percent of a population must become actively engaged on a singular goal to reach a cultural tipping point. Through shared trainings, deliberate conversations, and active partnership, just 5,000 of us could lead our community to the fulcrum of change.
The Landmark/Dewberry/Laramore. Just call it an eyesore. Photo: Skyclad Aerial
The biggest joke in town
I’ve read a lot about John Dewberry recently and, man, he is a funny guy. Not funny “ha-ha,” but funny, like, “Dude, really?” For the uninitiated, Dewberry is the do-nothing developer who owns the largest urinal in town. It’s eight stories tall and holds down the corner of Second and West Main on the Downtown Mall.
The vision for a boutique hotel on the site reportedly originated with developer Lee Danielson, all the way back in 2004. Construction ceased in 2009, and Dewberry swooped to the rescue, or so we thought, in 2012. But so far, all he’s done is change the concept from luxury hotel to luxury apartments (just what we need) and the name from The Landmark to The Dewberry and, recently, The Laramore—an insult to the late local architect Jack Laramore, who designed the black granite street-level façade.
I wasted about 25 phone calls and six emails trying to contact Dewberry so he could tell me his plans for the vacant property in 2020. A spokesperson replied on behalf of the busy boss: “Hello, Joe. No updates at this time, but thank you so much for reaching out.”
Brian Wheeler, our fair city’s director of communications, indicated that Charlottesville has given up on trying to rectify the blighted blunder. Citing Dewberry’s “personal property rights,” Wheeler said, “He can own that structure [and] as long as it’s not a harm to others, he can keep it in that condition for as long as he likes.”
Whether Dewberry will ever do anything with the downtown carcass is unknown. But history isn’t comforting: Bloomberg Businessweek chose the headline “Atlanta’s Emperor of Empty Lots” for a 2017 profile of Dewberry, who has sat on valuable vacant land on that city’s Peachtree Street for 20 years. In Charleston, South Carolina, he bought a vacant government building and waited eight years to transform it into the luxury hotel that bears his name.
It’s funny, because the Bloomberg story quotes Charles Rea, who was once Dewberry’s director of operations, as saying: “He’s not going to put his name on anything that’s not superior, in his point of view.” Another former colleague said that Dewberry “…used to talk about Dupont Circle, Rockefeller Center. He wants his projects to stack up against the best.” You see? John Dewberry really is funny. –Joe Bargmann
Wilson Richey, partner and founder, Ten Course Hospitality
1. Double down on support of local businesses: Charlottesville’s small, independently owned businesses—shops opened and operated with great passion, meaning, and thought—are collectively one of the city’s most defining and important assets. As a local small business owner, I am worried that our current leadership has not been able to grasp this as they struggle to handle the many challenges of guiding a city that is growing so quickly. I believe our elected officials must show greater support for existing small businesses, and incentivize startups, so that these entities can make our city a stronger, more wonderful place than it already is.
2. Ditto, support for local artists: I grew up in a sleepy suburb of Washington, D.C. When I arrived in Charlottesville, I quickly realized the importance of the local artists and musicians. They lift our spirits, strengthen our cultural fabric, and make our city a happier, livelier, and more colorful place. In 2020, I’d like to see more support for the arts, both by Charlottesville’s leaders and each and every one of us.
3. Double-ditto, support for local agriculture. This is such an important issue, culturally and environmentally. It is a global issue in which Charlottesville has historically been a regional leader. But I believe we need to renew and increase our commitment to supporting sustainable, local agricultural efforts. We would all be healthier and happier for having done so!
Matthew McLendon, director ofThe Fralin Museum of Art
Matthew McLendon. Photo: Amy and Jackson Smith
1. I’d love to see an expanded, more robust, efficient, and reliable public transport system in Charlottesville that ties the surrounding counties to the city and makes getting around Charlottesville easier. Reliable and efficient public transport is the thing I miss most from my experience living in major cities. If done right, it is an important tool for greater equity, accessibility, and inclusion.
2. Following on with this theme (holiday traffic is on my mind, I guess), I wish that there would be a wide-scale overhaul on the timing of the traffic lights. I never feel that they are synced in the most efficient manner.
3. Finally, I am continuing to work with my colleagues on the vision and realization of a new center for the arts at UVA that would include greatly expanded university art museums, co-locating The Fralin and the Kluge-Ruhe to better serve not only UVA but also Charlottesville and central Virginia. With the intellectual and creative resources of UVA and the wider communities invested in our work, we have the ability to lead in creating the dynamic museum of the 21st century—a convening space for all who are curious and want to be engaged in the discussions art and artists can help to ignite.
Jody Kielbasa, Vice Provost for the Arts at UVA, director of the Virginia Film Festival
1. I would like to see the city and the county make a greater investment in the arts so that our arts organizations and artists can continue to enrich and bring us together as a community while serving as a catalyst to drive tourism and economic development.
2. I would like to see our public schools fully embrace the acronym S.T.E.A.M. over S.T.E.M. to recognize, foster, and celebrate the arts impact on our children’s well-being, learning, and self- expression. The arts make the world a better place.
3. I look forward to the development of a creative nexus on the Emmet/Ivy corridor as part of UVA’s 2030 strategic plan that would welcome the Charlottesville community to better engage with the arts at UVA.
Beryl Solla, gallery director, Piedmont Virginia Community College
My big issue is climate change. I would love to see the city make young trees available for people to plant in their yards. I know the city is working on this for public spaces, but we need to use every space available to help turn climate change around.
I would love to see all city buildings outfitted with solar roof panels and/or green roofs.
I would love to see our city make decisions based on a better, healthier quality of life for all of our citizens, with an emphasis on inclusion and sustainability.
If allowed another big wish, I would move the questionable sculptures in town out of public parks/public spaces and replace them with beautifully made, figurative sculptures that tell everyone’s story. The agenda would be historical accuracy, racial inclusion, and fair payment for the artists.
Brian Wimer. Photo: Eze Amos
Brian Wimer, Amoeba Films
Before we start changing anything, it might help for us to understand who we are. A cohesive vision for the future would certainly be beneficial, if not just pragmatic. But not the future of five days from now. That’s parking lots and like buying stock in Blockbuster. How do we want to live 50 years from now? A hundred years? Can we use our collective imaginations and make the bold, innovative choices that bring our community closer? Sure, I can name three things we could work on: multi-modal transportation, multi-cultural programming, and a new Charlottesville identity (can we please drop the “World Class City” nonsense and try to be a world class village?).
Part of that identity is pride. Ever arrived at the Amtrak station and wondered if you were home—greeted by a concrete tunnel and a chain link fence? Not much pride there. Do I hear someone say “mural?” Something that shouts welcome.
But regardless of what projects and programs we initiate, they won’t be effective if we don’t start at the basic foundation of what makes community: trust and gratitude. I think we have a long way to go there. Some folks don’t even want to discuss such esoteric and sticky principles. But without trust and gratitude you might as well shut down this whole social experiment—Netflix and Trader Joe’s will likely not provide what our souls are searching for. Nor will more parking lots or business incubators or beer festivals. We have an opportunity to promote a new paradigm based on unifying principles. Failure to do so would demonstrate not only bureaucratic sloth and a wasted potential—but also a lack of collective imagination. If we want a better city, we need to ask “What if?”
Editors’ note: Since publication, some readers have rightly called out the fact that none of the respondents in this piece are people of color, and that there are far more men than women represented. While we reached out to a diverse range of sources, many did not respond to our repeated requests (or said they would get back to us, but didn’t). And in a shortened production week due to the holidays, I didn’t notice how skewed the group we ended up with was until it was too late.
While this was meant to be a fairly casual survey (unlike, for instance, our 8/12 anniversary feature), we regret that the responses don’t reflect our entire community. As editor, I’m particularly sorry to have made such a careless mistake, which is not typical of our sourcing or our work in general, as I would hope any regular readers would recognize. We try hard to elevate marginalized voices and stories, and we will continue to do so.
On January 1, three new Charlottesville City Council members will officially begin their terms. Michael Payne, Sena Magill, and Lloyd Snook will join current councilors Heather Hill and Mayor Nikuyah Walker as Wes Bellamy, Mike Signer, and Kathy Galvin ride off into the sunset.
Magill and Payne say their priorities continue to be the issues that they built their campaigns around—housing reform and environmental policy.
“Something that I really want to get to work on immediately is climate change,” Payne says. “The city set a greenhouse gas emissions reduction target—carbon neutrality by 2050—but how do we create specific plans within each emission sector, and reach out to nonprofits in the community, to develop specific plans that can actually help accomplish that goal?”
“We need to look at how we are going to be incorporating protecting our environment and continuing our work in affordable housing,” Magill says.
That’s easier said than done, of course. “Housing is a combination of federal, state, and some local. We don’t have the control over it that people think we do,” Magill says.
Snook did not respond to resquests to be interviewed for this article.
Incumbent councilor Hill emphasizes that the first challenge facing council is getting everyone on the same page.
“I’m looking at some very foundational things that need to happen for both this council and this administration to be successful,” Hill says. “Alignment among our council is just so critical to any path forward on any other priorities that any of us individually want to pursue.”
“I think that right now, the way we’ve historically operated, nothing gets done,” Hill says. “Truly, some things are never getting done, and a lot of money and resources are being spent on them.”
Hill’s comments come on the heels of a council session that strained interpersonal relations between members. Those disagreements were put on display at a team-building retreat in December 2018, when The Daily Progress reported that the councilors “aired their grievances with each other, the media and the community members who address them at meetings.”
“No one has to be friends with each other, but we have to be committed to working with each other and hearing each others’ perspectives,” Hill says.
Magill says that all her fellow council members are “in it for the same reason.”
“There is no thought that anyone is using this as a stepping stone to something else. We’re all in this because we live in this community and want to do right by this community,” she says.
The stakes are high. Payne points out that mistrust between councilors exacerbates long-standing issues of trust between city residents and local government. “If we’re consumed by infighting, that only makes it harder for us to take action on affordable housing, climate change, all these issues,” Payne says.
For Magill, rebuilding the city’s trust in government comes down to openness and honesty. “Try not to make promises you can’t keep. Try to be clear and open with your abilities and what you can and cannot do,” she says.
One of the first tasks council members will face will be electing a mayor and vice-mayor. Walker (who did not respond to a request for comment) has just completed her first two-year term as mayor, but is eligible for another. Before her, Mike Signer served one term, but the three mayors before him each served two. The council members declined to speculate on the 2020 selection process.
“It’s historically been a pretty opaque process, a lot of behind-the-scenes discussions and negotiations and jockeying,” says former mayor Dave Norris, though Walker’s election two years ago was a notable exception. Of the new councilors, Magill received the most votes in the general election.
“I think that’s going to be very telling, who the new mayor is,” Norris says. Norris describes Payne and Walker as being “of the progressive, change kind of camp,” and Hill and Snook as “a little bit more moderate.”
“And then you have one Sena Magill,” he adds. “It’ll be interesting to see what kind of councilor she’s going to be. The vote on the mayor will be one sign of that.”
The beginning of the new session means that all five councilors who were on the board during the summer of 2017 will have concluded their time on council.
“We lose a lot of the experience of those councilors, who did sit on the dais during a very difficult time in our community, and I hope they continue to be resources to all of us,” Hill says of the outgoing group.
The fresh faces in government might help the city move forward, however. “Hopefully, without the baggage, it’s easier to trust that the decisions we’re making are in what we feel is the best interest of the community,” Magill says.
“I don’t think it’s a turning point that changes everything,” Payne says. “It’s important that we don’t fall into a mindset of, ‘Let’s go back to how things were five years ago’…There’s a lot of work to be done. It’s not something that’s going to happen overnight.”
A community group called The People’s Coalition held a rally and press conference outside City Hall to protest City Council’s proposed changes to the CRB bylaws. Photo Credit: Staff Photo
Nearly two years after appointing the initial Police Civilian Review Board, Charlottesville City Council inched closer to making a permanent oversight board a reality at their October 21 meeting, with a first reading of the CRB’s ordinance and bylaws.
But members of the initial CRB were not pleased, saying councilors had severely weakened the proposal they’d spent a year crafting. In a press conference held outside City Hall and during public comment, they and supporters criticized council’s changes, including limiting the board’s authority and removing transparency in the selection process.
“For us to give them the proper bylaws and ordinance but for them to water it down, after so much work…I’m very disappointed,” says board member Rosia Parker.
After the CRB presented its proposal on August 5, City Council members met in small groups with the city attorney and published their own version on October 16. At the October 21 meeting, Mayor Walker noted that it was the first time all the councilors had met together and reviewed the complete proposal.
“It’s a little bit frustrating,” CRB member Guillermo Ubilla told council at the meeting. “All of the questions and things you talked about tonight we spent a year tackling. And we have ideas and suggestions for all of them, and they’re in the packet that we sent you, so I really really hope you guys take a second look at that, maybe a third look, just to kind of see what’s in there.”
Local attorney and longtime CRB supporter Jeff Fogel says the board had created its proposal to accommodate anticipated concerns from the city, as well as state law. “I don’t think the city understands that that document already represents somewhat of a compromise,” he says. “[The council] is now looking for a compromise when it’s built into this proposal.”
City Council created the initial CRB with a resolution on December 18, 2017, in the wake of the Unite the Right rally, in an effort to improve trust between the Charlottesville Police Department and the community.
CRB members met for a year to create bylaws and an ordinance establishing the permanent board’s composition, staff members, and authority. “We did our homework,” says CRB member Gloria Beard, noting the board researched other civilian review boards to inform their work. Its proposal included two staff positions (a police auditor and an executive director), as well as a budget of no less than 1 percent of the police department’s budget. The board would have seven members, four coming from historically disadvantaged communities or public housing.
The initial proposal also allowed the CRB to review any complaint against the Charlottesville Police Department, review the internal investigation into the complaint, and (in certain circumstances) conduct an independent investigation, having access to personnel files, internal investigation files, and other department data.
The board would send any disciplinary recommendations to the police chief and city manager.
City Council’s version differed from the CRB’s initial proposal in multiple ways.
“There was an expectation that we were going to basically take exactly what was given to us,” says Councilor Heather Hill. But she says councilors, who met in small groups “for the sake of efficiency,” had some concerns.
In the new proposal, board members would be appointed by the council in a closed session, rather than the originally proposed public process. Hill says councilors feared a public interview process would deter candidates.
Instead of hiring an auditor right away, the council proposed requiring the board’s executive director to present a report about whether the city should hire a full-time (or part-time) auditor, or contract with an auditing firm instead. And the council’s proposal did not include a budget for the CRB.
Hill says the council understands the auditing role must be filled and a budget created, but that these steps can come later.
“Right now we have to agree on an ordinance and bylaws. That’s going to help them determine our budget,” Hill says.
The council’s ordinance also changed the board’s membership requirements, proposing that it has three members from disadvantaged communities and one from a racial or social justice organization, and eliminating the initial proposal’s requirement that a councilor serve as an additional nonvoting member. And it specifies that the board would only be able to review internal affairs investigations that are ruled as unfounded, exonerated, or not resolved (not those that are sustained). It would also be able to review an investigation if a request is filed with the executive director, and initiate its own review of internal affairs investigations.
The councilors will take into account all of the comments made during the meeting, says Hill. They plan to make revisions to their proposal before next month’s meeting.
“We hope and pray they are going to change their minds,” says Beard. “We need transparency between the police force and the community…to create relationships with the people, so they can have real trust again.”
From top left, clockwise: Sena Magill, Michael Payne, Lloyd Snook, Paul Long, John Hall, and Bellamy Brown.
Three seats are up for grabs on Charlottesville City Council because Mike Signer, Kathy Galvin, and Wes Bellamy are not running for re-election. (Photo: Eze Amos)
There are three open spots on Charlottesville City Council this year and three candidates who’ve won the Democratic nomination, usually a virtual guarantee of being elected. But three independents are still in the race, and as Nikuyah Walker proved with her victory in 2017, they can’t be discounted.
We asked each of the candidates the following questions: What steps need to be taken to achieve carbon neutrality in Charlottesville by 2050?; What avenues do you believe the city should take to combat the affordable housing crisis?; How far along do you see the city in the healing process following the white supremacist riots in August 2017?; and What would you want to be able to point to at the end of your term as something City Council accomplished? Here’s what they had to say:
Sena Magill (D)
Owner of Hatpindolly Vintage
Age: 47
Born: Birmingham, Alabama
Local resident: 40 years
“I’m doing this because it’s my home.”
On carbon neutrality:
We need to be looking at power-purchase agreements so that we can put solar [panels] affordably on all municipal buildings and schools. [We organize] a collective of homes that can buy into this so that they can get solar on their roofs as a power-purchase agreement. And what that is, is a company that owns the panels, and [the residents] are buying the electricity from that company…supporting the solar economy, and reducing the coal usage and carbon footprint.
On affordable housing:
We have to figure out how it is we’re going to keep our working class here—our city workers, our firefighters, our nurses, our care workers…and we’ve got to make sure it’s also quality housing. [One of my proposals is] a land strike fund, where you put like $2 million aside…for when a property comes available, the city can purchase it and hold it until a nonprofit can get its [finances] together to then purchase that from the city and keep it in affordable housing.
On the city’s healing process:
There’s still work to be done…The majority of our city suffered PTSD, different levels of it…This isn’t going to get healed until the city proves to people that it listened and is following through on its promises. Trust is given usually at the onset but once trust is broken, it takes a lot of time to re-heal.
On what she hopes to accomplish:
Really getting in place a transit system that works with Albemarle County, UVA, [and] surrounding counties…We’ve [also] adopted this great climate change goal in the city, but we need to then put into place a policy to enforce that goal…[And I want] the people in our city to believe council is going to listen to them.
Michael Payne (D)
Affordable housing activist
Age: 27
Born: Washington, D.C.
Local resident: 26 years
“I want to take a community-organizing approach to City Council.”
On carbon neutrality:
Residential, business, [and] transportation are some of the biggest areas to create specific action plans around…creating a regional transit authority is key…the Charlottesville Climate Collaborative has an initiative they’re working on to reduce emissions in homes…there’s [also] a Better Business Challenge in the city that City Council can promote and be a part of.
On affordable housing:
There’s no silver bullet, it’s a series of policies that are needed. I think the fundamental problem is the fact that, as a city, we’re landlocked in about 10 and a half square miles. We don’t have land to grow into and we’re experiencing both population growth [and] this cycle where rising land prices lead to speculative investment…So in terms of what the city can do…investing in redevelopment of public housing…finishing its affordable housing strategy [and] zoning reform.
On the city’s healing process:
There’s many community members still dealing with unpaid medical debts [and] injuries both physical and mental. The national media attention of this event has waned, but for many community members, they’re still struggling…I do think as a community we’ve been healing and we’ve been getting to a better place, but…we have to take seriously looking at creating real structural transformational change here locally [that] changes outcomes.
On what he hopes to accomplish:
No. 1, that we’ve made the commitment to begin the redevelopment of public housing process in order to provide decent conditions and wealth-building opportunities to our public housing residents. No. 2, that the city has finished its affordable housing strategy and begun to implement it and has a clear approach for how they prioritize and strategically make investments to create affordable housing. And No. 3, that we have created plans for how to achieve our emissions target reduction goal.
Lloyd Snook (D)
Trial lawyer
Age: 66
Born: Plainfield, New Jersey
Local resident: 58 years
“I’ve got experience with every major issue that’s important to Charlottesville right now.”
On carbon neutrality:
There is no one answer, there are about 50 answers and they all need to get progress on, [but] there is much more carbon being used in homes and business than by government…Ultimately, what we need most to do to accomplish that goal is to be able to influence the home and industrial uses.
On affordable housing:
I am the only candidate who has tried to put any numbers on specific things that might be done…We need to build where we can [and] more building will happen, but we’re not going to build our way out of this problem…It’s been estimated that if we could just speed up the process [at Neighborhood Development Services], we could make the process for getting accessory dwelling units approved faster, cheaper, easier all the way around and then promote it.
On the city’s healing process:
The analogy that I use is to say that August 12 was basically the ringing of a bell, and bells continue to ring for a long time, and the vibrations and reverberations persist. We’re still seeing some of that…A lot of the realizations that have taken place since that time were news to folks, particularly white people, largely because they had never been forced to confront some of the history, [and] I don’t think we’ve got a consensus yet on what our response should be.
On what he hopes to accomplish:
We have moved forward on the buildable portions of the affordable housing…That we have gone through this backlog of reports that we haven’t been able to do anything about; that we’ve finished the revision to the city code [and] the zoning code; that we have finished the comprehensive plan and we’ve got a meaningful plan for affordable housing at all levels…Simply: We’ve finally caught up to what we were supposed to have been doing all along.
Bellamy Brown (I)
Student at UVA’s Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership
Age: 40
Born: Charlottesville
Local resident: 15 years (left at age 14; moved back in 2018)
“I’m a service-oriented leader.”
On carbon neutrality:
The low-hanging fruit are LED lights around the city; the electric buses that are out there; [and], as they’re building and developing the infrastructure, obviously doing that in a way that takes into consideration the carbon footprint…For me, there’s no real plan and I think that’s been with a lot of policies throughout. I want action-oriented stuff and those are the low-hanging fruit I think we can take to get there.
On affordable housing:
When you get down and talk to the neighborhoods, each of them has their own fabric…To say that someone is going to put up R-6 or what have you over at Belmont or anywhere else, that’s B.S. because you need to have two other people to sign onto that. So my thing is that we have a bucket of tools [and] we work with public, private, nonprofit, and the community together to come to some viable solutions.
On the city’s healing process:
This is the first year where we didn’t have anything happen on the anniversary, so I think people got to a point where they could have a breath…[There] are scars that are going to be there for some time and people heal in different stages. So I think we have to have leadership that steps up and sets the tone for how we’re going about that.
On what he hopes to accomplish:
I would want to be further down the road in terms of our role in affordable housing, infrastructure for me is a big one…filling this gap in the low-income communities…rebranding our community as a whole, getting away from every time someone hears Charlottesville they have this negative reaction, and ideally having a more collaborative council across the board where you don’t have to agree on everything but we can do it in a mature manner.
John Hall (I)
Inventor and design engineer
Age: 68
Born: Winchester, Virginia
Local resident: 25 years
“I want to provide direction for the city.”
On carbon neutrality:
I’ve known other inventors and other people from physics at UVA, and one had what he called a ‘recuperator engine’ to recycle the exhaust and keep burning it until all you have delivered into the environment is warm air…I would also like to line the combustion chamber of an engine with ceramic material…any ceramic material could burn very, very hot so that the fuels could be burned very hot and clean.
On affordable housing:
I felt like I had a really good idea to acquire the old Landmark hotel, which is now a shell…but I think it can be refurbished and rebuilt starting with what we already have there…Just pay for the land value and maybe a little bit extra, so that Mr. John Dewberry and his Deerfield associates will be well provided for and be happy to say Okay, we’re going to help Charlottesville, we’re going to release it, no lawsuit, no questions asked.
On the city’s healing process:
I think the events of 2017 in August are reflective of what we were still debating and a polarization of people—because of the statues…Recently, people have gone across the line and defaced those statues, [but] before this all happened, I said let’s take down the orange fences, promote unity of mind among our people, so that we can go forward and put that in the past and heal.
On what he hopes to accomplish:
I think some of my ideas would be accomplished in the future. It might not be that I get credit for it but…I see it’s inevitable that the Charlottesville Area Transit buses will go to the airport. I was first to propose that. I think it will also happen that in terms of transportation…we can have fold-out stop signs on all public transportation buses, they don’t have to be school buses…what we do to protect our children…is good for our adults as well in public transportation.
Paul Long (I)
Retired
Age: 70
Born: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Local resident: 21 years
“I have a lot of patience and am a good listener.”
On carbon neutrality:
I believe Charlottesville needs its public transportation system to be revamped…that would be a great improvement to decrease carbon dioxide. I also think in terms of watching what’s going on in the Amazon River basin in Brazil, the city should make an effort to plant 15,000 trees, [and] we should be using solar panels as much as possible.
On affordable housing:
I think UVA is the major contributor and one of the issues that [Jim] Ryan said they’ll be doing somewhere down the line is mandating that second-year students live on Grounds and I think that would help. It would open up maybe 1,500 apartments…But having said that, a lot of the apartments’ [rent] is still too high…I don’t think the affordable housing crisis is going to be solved until the federal government takes an active role in the issue.
On the city’s healing process:
Obviously there’s a lot of racial feelings here in Charlottesville, but most of the people who came here in August of 2017 were [from] out of the city…and I think there needs to be healing in terms of the racial injustices in the city that existed way before the August disruptions that happened two years ago.
On what he hopes to accomplish:
That I was instrumental in improving the public transportation system, that I was instrumental in having a change in viewpoints towards how drug addicts are treated, [that] City Council [was] an instrument in appealing to the state legislature to change a lot of the rules that are in the books…and also that I was instrumental in increasing the services to homeless people.
Amy Laufer (left) and Bryce Reeves are running opposite each other for the 17th District seat in the Virginia Senate. (Photos courtesy of subjects)
Follow the money
Breaking down campaign finance reports
With election day less than two weeks away, candidates will submit their final campaign fundraising reports on October 28. Using data provided by the Virginia Public Access Project, here are how things stand in two races with significant local ties, as of the last reports submitted September 30.
Charlottesville City Council
The three Democratic candidates raised (and spent) most of their money before the June primary, with Lloyd Snook leading the way in both fundraising and spending among the six candidates still on the ballot. He’s received $60,486 in donations overall, including $5,000 contributions from author John Grisham, VinoTours owner Richard Hewitt, and Virginia Realtors. VPAP reports that Snook has spent $45,289, with a significant chunk going toward TV ads.
Behind Snook are Sena Magill ($35,603 raised) and Michael Payne ($24,055), followed by independent candidates Bellamy Brown ($17,071), Paul Long ($801), and John Hall ($756). Magill received the largest individual donation—$10,000 from longtime Democratic donor Sonjia Smith back in 2018—while Payne leads in small donations with 228 contributions of less than $100.
Brown, however, has led all candidates since the primary, with $5,194 raised between July and August. His top donors include Ludwig Kuttner, owner of IX Art Park, who contributed $1,000. Magill ranks second over that span with $1,715, followed by Snook at $550, and Payne at $185.
State Senate – District 17
Former Charlottesville School Board member Amy Laufer (D) is challenging incumbent Senator Bryce Reeves (R), who’s represented the 17th District since 2012. While Reeves has outraised Laufer roughly $1.3 million to $880,000, he’s lost ground to her in Albemarle County. Laufer, a county resident and UVA alum, received $228,758 in Albemarle donations, dwarfing Reeves’ $14,450 figure.
The 17th District encompasses parts of Albemarle, Louisa, Orange, Culpeper, and Spotsylvania counties, as well as Fredericksburg City.
Stay in the fight
The World Series has arrived, and the Washington Nationals are facing off against the Houston Astros in D.C.’s first appearance in the best-of-seven series since 1933. Looking for somewhere to watch the games—and cheer for former UVA standouts Ryan Zimmerman and Sean Doolittle? Check out these places:
Twenty percent off for wearing Nats gear: Draft Taproom (Downtown Mall)
Best wings in town: Asado Wing & Taco Company (1327 W. Main St.)
Watch outdoors: Boylan Heights (102 14th St. NW)
Play pool between innings: Firefly (1304 E. Market St.)
Big screen, sound on: Buffalo Wild Wings (431 Gander Dr.)
Open late for weekend games: Beer Run (156 Carlton Rd., Suite 203)
Feeling an Irish pub?: Tin Whistle (609 E. Market St.)
Eat chicken and waffles while you watch: Holly’s Diner (1221 E. Market St.)
Quote of the week
“The world is looking to Charlottesville to set a precedent.” —Rosia Parker, a member of the initial Police Civilian Review Board and The People’s Coalition, on City Council’s CRB proposal
In brief
Civilians weigh in on CRB
Members of the city’s initial Police Civilian Review Board, which spent a year formulating a proposal for how the board should be run, protested what they called a “watered down” version of the bylaws put forward by City Council at its October 21 meeting. In a press conference outside City Hall and in public comment, members and others criticized council’s version for eliminating the auditor role, not allocating a budget for the CRB, and removing its authority to comprehensively review police policies.
The People’s Coalition held a rally outside City Hall on October 21.
Acknowledging history
On October 23, city schools will unveil a historic marker at Johnson Elementary School to recognize the first black students to enroll in the then-all-white school in 1962. There are also markers outside Venable Elementary and the Albemarle County Office building, formerly Lane High School.
Moneyline mistake
A University of Alabama student from Crozet has pleaded not guilty to calling in a bomb threat to the Louisiana State University football stadium during a game against Florida earlier this month. Baton Rouge police say that Connor Bruce Croll, 19, confirmed he made the threat in an attempt to disrupt the game to prevent his friend from losing a large bet.
Another downtown mural
A new mural has been unveiled on Second Street. Jake Van Yahres—a local artist and Charlottesville native—designed “Together We Grow,” and muralist Christy Baker and Charlottesville High School students have been working to finish it over the past two weeks. The piece is a gift from the Van Yahres Tree Company to celebrate the company’s 100 years in Charlottesville.
Albemarle County staff is recommending the Board of Supervisors consider adopting an ambitious climate goal: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050, aligning themselves with the same goals as the city.
Last month, county staff gave the Board of Supervisors a second update on the first phase of their Climate Action Plan. The current phase focuses on higher-level, community-wide initiatives and immediately actionable efforts to locally address climate change. The second phase will iterate detailed strategies within different sectors to minimize the county’s carbon footprint.
The input process for the Phase 1 action plan began in February. Narissa Turner, climate program coordinator for the county, predicts the finalized plan will reach the supervisor’s desk for a vote by the end of 2019.
“There hasn’t been a lot of refining, or any digging into the details, cost analysis, anything like that,” Turner said. “We’re not ready to call it a draft plan.”
In the past, the county has had a checkered relationship with climate initiatives.
The board voted in 2011 to end its membership with the Cool Counties initiative—a non-binding commitment to reducing carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. The same year, the board left the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, an organization dedicated to local sustainable development.
The county recommitted itself to supporting local climate action in 2017, later adopting the “We Are Still In” declaration—a commitment to upholding the 2015 Paris Agreement—in 2015.
According to Turner, the Climate Action Plan is the first of its kind in the county.
“The plan moving forward is to refine and do a gap analysis [and see if] are there any major strategies missing in the list of recommendations we currently have.” Turner explained. “Really turning this list into something that actually looks like a climate action plan.”
Equity emphasis
Charlottesville City Council is considering the creation of a department of equity and inclusion to coordinate city- wide equity efforts.At council’s meeting on October 7, Deputy City Manager Mike Murphy presented a report on the costs of creating the department.
The City Manager’s Advisory Committee on Organizational Equity studied data on city employees by race, job category, and salary, and reviewed equity measures in other communities. It found that black employees make on average 17 percent less per hour than white employees, considering wages overall—not the pay of people with the same job.
The committee made two recommendations for the city: prepare its staff by providing organizational context for a culture change, and create an Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, costing an estimated $42,080 and $155,101, respectively. The total $197,181 would come from the Council Strategic Initiatives account, which has $444,560. Of that amount, $159,860.97 is unallocated funding and $284,700 is funding previously dedicated but not spent on equity package items.
Quote of the week
“If you eat anything that eats hay then there’s a problem.” —Elaine Lidholm with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, who spoke with WVTF about the drought that saw several rural counties experience their driest September on record
In brief
Back in the ring
A little less than a month after a judge issued a permanent injunction forbidding the city from removing its Confederate statues, Charlottesville City Council voted October 7 to appeal the circuit court decision. Judge Richard Moore ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, but has yet to determine how much the city must pay for its opponents’ legal fees. The next hearing in the original case is scheduled for October 15.
Development decisions
City Council also voted on several zoning and development plans at its meeting October 7. It approved the Hillsdale Place project, signing off on the redevelopment of the Kmart site at the intersection of Hydraulic Road and U.S. 29 that a rendering suggests could include a Target. In a 4-1 decision, City Council also approved a special use permit for luxury apartment building Six Hundred West Main that will allow it to expand into the former site of University Tire next door.
Under fire
A petition is calling for the resignation of Charlottesville Police Chief RaShall Brackney after she testified to Congress that “any weapon that can be used to hunt individuals should be banned.” Brackney spoke September 25 on behalf of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, adding, “what stops a bad person with a gun is keeping a gun out of their hands to start with.” As of press time, the Change.org petition had over 1,400 signatures.
600-mile controversy
The U.S. Supreme Court decided October 4 that it would hear arguments on the decision of a Richmond appeals court that ruled the U.S. Forest Service acted outside its authority when it approved a $7.5 billion pipeline project led by Dominion Energy that would run underneath the Appalachian Trail between Augusta and Nelson counties. SCOTUS is expected to hear the case in 2020, with The Daily Progress reporting that a decision could come as early as June.
Slap on the wrist
Frequent downtown sign holder and protestor Mason Pickett was found guilty of a misdemeanor assault and battery charge October 4, resulting in a $100 fine. The longtime Wes Bellamy critic, known for scrawling obscenities on the Free Speech Wall, engaged in an altercation with a man protesting the Robert E. Lee statue on August 12 of this year, but the exact details haven’t been released. Pickett was also handed two assault charges for two incidents in 2017, but was eventually found not guilty.
Independent City Council candidate Bellamy Brown (left) saw a surge of campaign donations this past summer, and drew the support of Democratic councilor Mike Signer.
When Mayor Nikuyah Walker was elected to City Council in November 2017, she became the first independent candidate to claim a seat since 1948. A few weeks ahead of the 2019 election, another independent is making headway among prospective voters—and current councilors.
Bellamy Brown raised more than double the amount of money between July and August as any other candidate who will be on the ballot next to him in November, according to election data reported by The Daily Progress. That includes $250 from outgoing Democratic Councilor Mike Signer, donated through his New Dominion Project political action committee.
Signer has been under fire for the donation from the Charlottesville Democratic Committee, which abides by state party bylaws that prohibit members from publicly supporting opponents of Democratic candidates in local elections. In a September 21 meeting, Signer was threatened with expulsion. He says he didn’t know he was acting in violation of the bylaws and that he hadn’t heard from the committee “in two years.”
“These party rules are kind of baked in the cake and they’re so antiquated…They come from this different era, which is before what we’re looking at now when an independent candidate can win 8,000 votes,” Signer says.
Brown is running against Democrats Sena Magill, Michael Payne, and Lloyd Snook, as well as fellow independents John Hall and Paul Long. Councilor Heather Hill’s husband, Jonathan, also donated $500 to Brown’s campaign, but that’s not a violation of the party bylaws. Hill donated $225 to Magill and says she’s most concerned with identifying candidates whom she could work well with.
“The Democratic slate of candidates is strong, but there are strong candidates beyond the Democratic slate and I welcome the opportunity to work with whoever is successful in the election,” Hill says. “Each candidate brings something unique to the table that’s beneficial.”
Both Hill and Signer have expressed frustration with public outbursts at City Council meetings, and Signer has criticized Walker for not enforcing rules. Brown has called City Council conduct “shameful,” and said governance cannot succeed among disorder.
Typically, members who wish to support an independent candidate must resign from the Democratic committee in order to do so. They have the option of reapplying to the committee after the election, but can no longer retain ex-officio status granted to former officials. Former mayor Dave Norris was among the members who stepped down when Walker ran.
“I was never involved in committee matters,” Norris says. “I can’t remember the last time I attended a Democratic Party event or a committee meeting, it’s been years. So it was really kind of a moot point for me, and even when I was in office I publicly endorsed, for instance, [Chip Harding], a Republican for sheriff of Albemarle County. I’ve always voted for the person over the party.”
None of the Democratic nominees running against Brown say they were offended by Signer’s decision to support someone from outside the party, but Magill believes elected Dems have a “responsibility” to the party that helped them get elected. And Snook said he expected Signer to have the party’s back “because that’s what the rule says.” Payne declined to comment on the councilor’s decision.
When asked about their views on Brown’s platform, both Magill and Snook said they didn’t really know what it was because he’s been “vague” about specific policy ideas.
“I know that the other candidates will say that I’m vague, but to me that’s because they don’t have anything else to say,” Brown says. “They try to define me in different ways and they haven’t been successful at doing so.”
Brown, like the other candidates, considers affordable housing to be one of the most defining issues of the upcoming election, but has yet to lay out a specific plan for fixing the local crisis. He promotes “fiscal responsibility,” and has said he wants to reduce taxes and create more jobs in the area rather than rely on public funding.
“When you have to work across the board and get at least two other votes [to pass a City Council decision], you can’t go in and say, ‘Oh, I’m going to go and get a $50 million bond for public housing,’ because you need two other people to do that,” Brown says. “You can be specific all you want, but if you can’t implement it, it doesn’t matter.
If another independent joins Walker on City Council, the local Democratic party will have its weakest majority hold on the local governing body in decades. Regardless, Signer hopes the committee will reconsider its role in the community, taking a more active approach by advocating for its elected members’ policies and reexamining its bylaws.
“The party isn’t proactively serving in a resource capacity to current Democratic office holders,” Signer says. “We have had real political and policy fights where it would be helpful to have back up and resources…It would be nice to know the party had our back and was there doing what parties traditionally do, which is support their office holders. And that hasn’t happened at all.”
UVA Hospital System revamped its debt collection system just four days after the Washington Post wrote a story about it. (Photo: Skyclad Aerial)
Kinder, gentler health care
UVA Health System says it will revamp its financial aid guidelines and sue fewer patients after facing a massive backlash from a Washington Post story about the university’s proclivity to go after nonpaying patients.
A Kaiser Health News report revealed that from 2013 to June 2018, the state-owned health system sued former patients more than 36,000 times for over $106 million, seizing wages and bank accounts, putting liens on property and homes, and forcing families into bankruptcy. C-VILLE wrote in 2014 about those practices dating back to 2010.
The new policy prohibits litigation unless patients owe the hospital more than $1,000 and their household makes more than 400 percent of the federal poverty line.
Starting on January 1, UVA will also implement a new sliding scale for financial assistance for patients treated in July 2017 or later who have less than $50,000 in assets. Patients at or below the federal poverty level, as well as those up to 200 percent of the federal poverty line, will have their bills written off entirely.
The health system plans to ask the General Assembly to change the Virginia Debt Collection Act, which requires state agencies to aggressively collect unpaid bills. UVA officials used this act to defend the health system’s practices, claiming that they are legally required.
Though university lawyers dropped 14 medical debt lawsuits September 12, almost 300 cases remain on the Albemarle General District Court docket for this month.
According to spokesperson Eric Swenson, the health system will “review all the pending lawsuits” using the new financial assistance policy.
Quote of the week
“I have more than I need. I’m blessed beyond what I deserve.” —VA men’s basketball coach Tony Bennett, who turned down a raise after leading his team to its first NCAA championship ever in April, and asked that the increase go to his staff and athletic programs instead
In brief
Former Hoo drops suit
A former UVA student who alleged he was denied his degree because of a pending Title IX sexual misconduct investigation dropped his federal lawsuit against university officials September 11, according to court records. The male student, identified as “John Doe,” has since received his degree, and the Title IX investigation has concluded.
Protest regulation
A special events ordinance that inspired uproar at an August City Council meeting passed Monday. The ordinance was amended several times ahead of the 4-1 vote, eliminating a provision that banned the possession of glass bottles during demonstrations and the requirement of a $1 million liability insurance policy unless the event closes a street.
Another Riggleman rebuke
This time it’s the Rappahannock GOP, which censured 5th District Congressman Denver Riggleman for “failure to curb runaway spending and his support for importing foreign workers through the immigration system,” according to a release.
Courtesy of Laura Cooper
Yak on the lam
Meteor was en route to the butcher when he bolted in Lovingston September 10. The yak has been sighted multiple times since, but has eluded capture. A Nelson resident has offered sanctuary, should the animal be recovered.
Meteor was spotted outside the Nelson County Farm Bureau on September 11.
Artist diversity
The Fralin Museum of Art announced September 12 that it will commit to featuring underrepresented artists in at least half its shows. “Underrepresented” is defined as those with diverse racial, ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, indigenous, disabled, socioeconomic, geographic, religious and/or age identities.
Airbnb revenue
Hosts renting their homes made $3.7 million in income on 25,000 guests in Charlottesville, according to Airbnb. The question Todd Divers, the commissioner of revenue, will ask: Did they pay the city’s transient occupancy tax?
City Council has voted to remove the statue of Lewis, Clark, and Sacagawea from West Main St.
More than two hundred years after she departed North Dakota as a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Sacagawea of the Shoshone tribe is at the center of controversy in Charlottesville—again.
At issue is her depiction in a statue on West Main, where she crouches at the feet of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. The statue, gifted to the city by local benefactor Paul Goodloe McIntire (who also commissioned the Robert E. Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson statues), has been a target of protests for years.
“It still is probably the worst statue of Sacagawea in the country,” Anthony Guy Lopez, a UVA alumnus (’09) and member of the Crow Creek Sioux tribe, said at a June 17 City Council meeting. “If you do the research, you won’t find another one as demeaning.”
It was renowned sculptor Charles Keck’s idea to add Sacagawea to a statue that was originally intended to depict only Lewis and Clark. Her inclusion may have been considered ahead of its time back in 1919, but more recently, critics have objected to her subservient posture in relation to the explorers (others say she’s tracking or foraging for food).
The issue was back in conversation because of the West Main Street improvement plan, a $31 million project which requires that the statue be moved 20 feet. Some suggested the city take the opportunity to relocate the statue altogether. But, as often is the case in Charlottesville, councilors say more feedback is needed.
After initially approving $75,000 to form a committee to decide the statue’s fate, City Council decided instead to seek the input of Native Americans in a work session, using some of those approved funds to cover the invitees’ travel expenses. Councilors hope to include descendants of Sacagawea and Councilor Kathy Galvin also proposed inviting the recently appointed U.S. poet laureate, Joy Harjo, who’s a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation.
“I see this as a great opportunity to gain more insight and wisdom about the Native American community’s perceptions of this statue and then we as duly elected representatives of this community have to take in all that information and make a decision on whether the statue stays or goes or whether we add context,” Galvin says.
One potential landing spot for the statue is the Lewis & Clark Exploratory Center in Darden Towe Park. Executive Director Alexandria Searls has invited City Council to consider moving the statue to the facility’s front lawn, where it can be viewed more easily and contextualized to explain how Sacagawea’s crouched position recognizes her skills as a tracker and forager.
“It used to be [in] a big park called Midway Park, where you could really get close to the statue and see the details on the side,” Searls says. “As that park land became what it is today, which is basically next to nothing, it’s changed the way we encounter that work of art.”
Searls insists she isn’t lobbying for City Council to move the statue in front of the center, but rather providing it as an option for the councilors to consider. The center, a nonprofit, doesn’t have the resources to fund the statue’s upkeep, so the city would still have to pay for its removal and maintenance, says Searls. However, Searls says donating it would align with the city’s desire for the center to be a tourist destination, as the statue figures to be a significant draw for visitors.
It’s impossible to tell the story of Lewis and Clark’s trek across the continent without talking about their navigator, translator, forager, and tracker.
Even though she was only a teenager, Sacagawea played an integral role on that historic journey. Her knowledge of the Hidatsa and Shoshone languages was pivotal, and she proved invaluable with her ability to collect food and medicinal herbs.
But this isn’t the first time residents have raised issues with the statue. In 2007, local performance artist Jennifer Hoyt Tidwell organized a demonstration on Columbus Day. She collected 500 signatures protesting Sacagawea’s portrayal, prompting the addition of a plaque commemorating her contributions that was installed two years later. Mayor Nikuyah Walker pitched the idea of moving the statue last November.
For now, City Council has already voted to go ahead with moving the statue 20 feet as part of the West Main Street improvement plan. That project, which has been in development since 2013, aims to ease traffic congestion, expand surrounding sidewalks, plant more trees, remove overhead wires, and replace underground gas lines. According to Galvin, construction is expected to begin in “about a year.”
A timeline hasn’t been established for the work session or an eventual decision on the future of the statue. To prevent anyone from feeling alienated by the decision, Galvin says “it has to take as long as it has to take” for all parties to have the chance to give their input.
“The removal and the relocation of the statue is not the most important thing,” Lopez says. “The most important thing is that … a good, healthy relationship can be established between the city and Indian country.”
Correction (6/27/2019, 9:00 a.m.): A previous version of this story stated Sacagawea departed from St. Louis for the expedition. Lewis and Clark did begin their journey in Missouri, but didn’t encounter Sacagawea until they arrived in North Dakota.
