Tag: City Council

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News

Takeout equity: Meals tax impact on low-income diners

Mel Walker says a meals tax increase won’t affect his business at Mel’s Cafe, but it will hurt poor people. Eze Amos

Affordable housing is a priority for Charlottesville, and to pay for that in its $188 million budget, the city proposes raising the meals tax, an idea restaurant owners traditionally hate.

The 1 percent increase on the current 5 percent meals tax adds 10 cents to a $10 meal and would raise $2.4 million, according to the city. The proposed budget also ups the lodging tax to 8 percent.

In a March 12 Facebook post, Mayor Nikuyah Walker suggests that those who don’t support the increase don’t support equity. “The restaurant and hotel industry are selfishly making arguments about their failed revenue projection,” she writes. “A few small business owners who have not turned their hobbies into successful enterprises are blaming our potential tax increase as the foundation for their demise.

“A few restaurant owners want you to believe that they’re catering to low- to middle-income families and that the extra 10, 20, or 50 cents will prevent you from eating out.”

But some owners who actually do cater to low-income customers also see a problem with the tax.

Mel Walker owns Mel’s Cafe, which is known for its fried chicken, as well as its affordable home-style food, where the most expensive thing on his menu—the 12-piece chicken wing ding— is under $9.

“I don’t think it will affect me that much,” he says of the proposed increase. “It’ll hurt the poor people. It’s local people who eat here.”

He already has to explain to customers why their bill is more expensive than his posted prices when he rings them up and adds the 5 percent meals tax and 5 percent sales tax to the bill.

“I don’t think it’s necessary to raise it,” he says.

Mike Brown, also famous for his fried chicken at Brown’s, says increasing the tax is a good idea— “if you want to punish your people.” He says his customers are mostly locals from all walks of life.

Increasing the tax “affects locals more than those who come in once in a blue moon,” he says.

Brown also is not happy about the city’s 55-cent cigarette tax when people “can ride down the road and buy cigarettes in the county.”

He estimates he collects between $1,700 and $2,000 a month in meals taxes already. “I don’t pay it,” he says. “The customer does.” And a lot of his customers are “people struggling paycheck to paycheck.”

The city last raised the meals tax in 2015, and C-VILLE reported then that some argue it’s not a regressive tax because eating out is, as one councilor said, discretionary and a “luxury.”

Rapture owner Mike Rodi says, “No one who studies economics says that a sales tax isn’t regressive.”

Even an extra dime “is a more significant chunk out of someone’s income who makes $20,000 than it is for someone who makes $250,000, says Rodi. Housing, food, and clothing all “disproportionately impact people with lower incomes.”

His concern is that when there’s a budget shortfall, the “autopilot response” is, “Let’s just raise the meals tax.”

Says Rodi, “I just want to make sure other options are considered before raising taxes.” He notes the commissioner of the revenue office says tax collection is outpacing expectations and there could be surpluses. He also says the city’s reserve has been untouched for years and could be tapped into. “Or how about a smaller increase on meals, housing and lodging so it’s not always the meals tax?”

Like Mel Walker and Mike Brown, Rodi says, “There’s a misperception [the meals tax] is paid for by visitors and rich people. Look at the lines at Bodo’s and McDonald’s.”

Rodi acknowledges that even with an increase, “I will be in a better position than the people we’re trying to help. I recognize my privilege.” At the same time, “this isn’t a yacht tax” that affects only luxuries afforded by the rich.

Mayor Walker took aim in her Facebook post at restaurant owners. “Low- to middle-income families would like to not have to take out a small loan to take their families out to eat at your establishment,” she says. “Don’t use low- to middle-income people as scapegoats. I would like for you to figure out a way to pay your staff a living wage and allow them to accept 100 percent of their tips and give them quarterly bonuses.”

“You can’t have it both ways,” says Rodi. “I can’t pay someone $25 an hour and buy local, sustainable food and charge you Burger King prices.”

Working in a restaurant is one of the last industries where upward mobility can happen, he says.

Nancy Carpenter, homeless prevention coordinator at the Haven, doesn’t think an extra 10 cents is going to stop someone who’s homeless from buying a cheeseburger. She says they’re also eating at soup kitchens and having breakfast at the Haven.

“The lack of affordable housing options—that’s more important than whether my McDonald’s is going to cost $1.10 or $1.25,” she says. “I don’t foresee this as onerous. It’s onerous when you don’t have a key to a place to live.”

Currently, Walker and Wes Bellamy support the meals tax increase, and Kathy Galvin suggests a half-cent increase because the $35 million capital improvement expenditure is a one-time expense.

City Council has a public hearing on the budget tonight at 6:30, and work sessions scheduled for March 19 and tentatively for March 27.

 

 

 

 

Categories
Opinion

For the record: How a ‘strange hobby’ became a public service

Tensions ran high at Charlottesville City Council meetings in the aftermath of August 12, 2017. Photo: Eze Amos

I had lived in Charlottesville for 10 years almost to the day before I saw the inside of City Council chambers. I’d paid my gas bill in person once or twice. I think I bought a trash sticker in 2012. But I’d never even been upstairs at City Hall before. If you’d asked me at any point between August 2007 and August 2017, I would not have been able to tell you the mayor’s name.

I’m not sure what I was looking for when I squeezed into the packed chambers that night in August. I didn’t understand how Unite the Right had been allowed to happen to us. I didn’t know how our local government worked, but I needed to know what had gone wrong because surely something had. Things were out of control—cops were dragging people from the room, white supremacists were showing up at public comment. Even without any understanding of municipal government, this was noteworthy content, and like any millennial, I took to social media to tell my friends. And, unexpectedly, people seemed to enjoy reading what amounted to meeting minutes. I have tweeted out a blow-by-blow, real-time account of every City Council meeting since December 2017.

I started attending city government meetings for myself, because I had questions I couldn’t answer. What I found was not a simple explanation. Slowly, the meetings became about the mundane business of governing a city again, and it was clear the violence of the summer of 2017 was a symptom of a disease we have had for a long time—a nasty flare-up of a chronic illness. There is white supremacy deeply entrenched in the most boring parts of our government. We think of that violence as the Nazis who marched in our streets, but that was just the ugly cold sore caused by the virus that reproduces quietly in decisions about school district boundaries and funding allocations and building permits.

As the meetings became less about the spectacle, I was fascinated by the process of government. Decisions made in council chambers are based on decisions made in still more meetings—boards and commissions and work sessions. I was between jobs with time to kill, so I went to another meeting, then another. I realized the real work of governing was happening in open meetings that were open in name only—they were sparsely attended and lightly reported on.

The reporter is, typically, not part of the story. The news should be dispassionate. But we have no dearth of sterile, detached coverage of the events affecting our daily lives. What I’ve found is that we need more than that. Entirely accidentally, I discovered there is a real desire for news with an audience surrogate. For as intimately as it affects our lives, government can be opaque and inaccessible. We want the facts, but the lack of any emotional context makes them hard to grasp. In my coverage of city meetings, I am not just accountable to this community, I am a part of it. I don’t hide my frustration, my sadness, or even my boredom during long hearings on easements or alleyways.

Charlottesville as a community is uniquely civically engaged, but civic engagement is time consuming. Some board meetings are held in the middle of the day, some are held inside the jail, and City Council meetings can last until one in the morning. I never intended for my strange hobby to become a public service, but the combination of having the time and tenacity to sit through dozens of hours of meetings per week and no editorial board asking me to tone down the emotional intensity of my coverage has created a unique public record that I am still shocked to find so many people rely on for their city government news. With this column, my hope is to bring you not just a bi-monthly update about what happened in some dry public meeting you missed, but to make the business of these meetings more relatable, more accessible to you, my neighbors.

My personal style of intensely emotional, tonally conversational coverage cannot and should not replace traditional reporting from our local mainstream press. Those reporters provide an invaluable service. While my coverage may be less comprehensive, I see these forms of media as complementary. Providing people with bite-sized, digestible, relatable coverage makes broader engagement possible. I’ll sit through a full day city budget work session, a six-hour City Council meeting, and days of motions on that statue lawsuit so you don’t have to–although I’d be happy to save you a seat.

Follow Molly Conger’s real-time coverage of city meetings on Twitter @socialistdogmom

Categories
Opinion The Editor's Desk

This Week: 3/13

A few years ago, Molly Conger was just your average Charlottesville resident who, to be honest, didn’t pay much attention to politics. Now she’s got more than 20,000 Twitter followers hanging on her moment-by-moment reports on local government meetings, which she’s been live-tweeting since December 2017. In this issue, Conger, in the first of what will be a bi-monthly column on city politics for C–VILLE, explains how she accidentally discovered an unmet need—for a spirited, opinionated, and very real voice explaining local government.

Conger realized that forces shaping our city manifest in decisions made at sparsely attended meetings and work sessions. The bureaucracy of these meetings isn’t designed to engage the public, but what happens there affects us all.

This week’s cover story examines how we ended up with a large, under-utilized, city-owned parking lot in what is nearly the geographic center of the city, even as planners struggle to find land for affordable housing. It’s not a simple story, and it didn’t come from one big decision, but a series of smaller ones. In the end, Westhaven and the 10th and Page neighborhood were isolated from downtown, Vinegar Hill became home to parking lots and fast food chains, and potentially valuable real estate was preserved for storing dump trucks.

It’s not clear if that land, the City Yard, will prove inhabitable (City Council has proposed funds to get the site tested), but the New Hill Development Corporation is already looking at how to redevelop the entire area. They’ve promised to work closely with residents, though reactions so far have been mixed. As with the new land use map, the city has an opportunity to correct its past mistakes, and make the right decisions this time around. We’d better be paying attention.

Categories
News

Unauthorized commission: Council candidate says city will pay for portrait

John Hall. Photo by Eze Amos

John Hall has run for City Council before. He’s also been banned from City Hall back in the early aughts because of behavior that caused then-city manager Gary O’Connell concern, such as showing up at City Council wrapped in foil, according to former councilor Rob Schilling.

Hall plans to launch another run for council February 1, but he’s run into a problem with the city again after asking an artist to paint a portrait of Heather Heyer and Susan Bro to hang in council chambers—and telling her the city would pay for the painting, he said in an email he shared with C-VILLE Weekly.

Interim City Manager Mike Murphy said it was “highly inappropriate” for Hall to imply to artist Kelly Oakes that he had the authority to commission a painting and Murphy asked him to cease doing so in an email to Hall. “If you continue to portray yourself in person or in writing as an agent of the City Council authorized to expend city funds, I will refer your actions to the commonwealth’s attorney for possible prosecution pursuant to the Virginia Governmental Frauds Act,” says Murphy.

Oakes, who now lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, says that when Hall sent her the request, “I kind of knew it wasn’t true.” She says she painted Hall for a show she did about a year ago when she was doing portraits of people who were clients of the Haven. “A lot of people are ignored because they’re mentally ill,” she says. “I knew he had no right to do that, but I knew his heart was in the right place.”

C-VILLE was not able to immediately reach Hall. In 2017, he told this reporter he’d been diagnosed as bipolar.

And in another development, Hall planned to announce his run for council February 1 with a rally and ringing of a Liberty Bell replica at the Ridge Street fire station, followed by a post-rally reception at the Omni, according to an email he sent to local media.

Scott Morgan, associate director of sales at the Omni, replies that “under no circumstances” did he agree to host a reception at the Omni, and writes in bold, “Again, the Omni is not a location for any rally or post reception on February 1st.”

At Hall’s rally at the fire station, he addressed the situation, and said he would not be having his follow-up event at the Omni. “Some things are said verbally, and then when the pressure’s put on, they back down,” he said.

He also addressed the portrait of Heyer and Bro that he wants to commission, and said if he is elected, and he is able to commission it, taxpayers will pay for it.

And he shared some other plans for if he’s elected. He wants to encourage local students to study trades at CATEC, improve infrastructure, and replace a “dangerous gas line” near The Corner. In an earlier interview with C-VILLE, he said he’d like to replace the trees on the Downtown Mall with dogwoods, which wouldn’t hold as much ice and snow, because if someone were to walk under the existing trees as ice was falling, they “could be killed,” Hall said.

At his rally, which he said promoted “peace, togetherness, and union,” he rang the Liberty Bell replica once in honor of the First Amendment. And he ended his speech with a quote he attributed to Jimi Hendrix: “When the power of love overcomes the power of hate, the world will know peace.”

The Charlottesville Fire Department referred a call asking if its station was hosting Hall’s rally to city spokesman Brian Wheeler, who provides a January 25 letter from Murphy to Hall, in which Murphy denied Hall’s request to hold a rally there because the fire station property is not available for use by the general public. Wheeler notes that there is a public sidewalk in the area.

Updated 10:43am with the Omni response.

Updated 11:40am with the city’s response about using the fire station for campaign rallies.

Updated 1:30pm February 1 with information from Hall’s campaign announcement.

Categories
News

Snook announces run for council

Attorney Lloyd Snook wants to help Charlottesville get its "ship righted." staff photo

Around 100 of Charlottesville’s Democratic establishment packed Bashir’s January 15 for defense attorney Lloyd Snook’s launch into the race for City Council.

Snook cited “dysfunction at the top” of city government as the impetus for joining the race. “There are things that are going on in the city that I want to be a part of helping to fix,” he said.

He listed a morale problem in city hall, and said, “The police department got me really concerned. Snook, a criminal defense lawyer for 39 years, said police are not getting support.

Snook served on the Planning Commission in the 1980s, and said, “For many years, we thought we were a 20th-century town, when we’re a 21st-century city with 21st-century problems,” such as affordable housing, gentrification and transportation planning. “I want to prepare the city for the 21st century.”

The third plank of his platform is the “prison pipeline,” which is often called the school-to-prison pipeline, but Snook said he thinks that’s unfair to schools when they only have children six hours a day. He wants to looks at other factors, like housing and food, that affect children and families.

After the August 12 white supremacist invasion, he said the city’s response has not been very constructive. Snook seemed unfazed by unruly City Council meetings and quoted Martin Luther King Jr.: “Riot is the language of the unheard.”

Snook’s mother, Helen Snook, worked toward integration in the 1960s, and her son said part of the city’s dysfunction is in how it’s dealt with racial issues. “That needs to change, frankly more from the white side than the black side,” he said. “There’s a level of well-placed deserved anger that we as white folks tend not to acknowledge.”

Attending the launch were councilors Heather Hill and Kathy Galvin. Galvin, whose term will end this year, has not announced whether she will seek a third go on council. Nor have fellow councilors Wes Bellamy and Mike Signer announced whether they’re going to run again for the three open seats.

Delegate David Toscano drove over from the General Assembly in Richmond to be at Bashir’s. He said he ran for City Council in 1990 with Kay Slaughter and Snook, who came up short in votes. “[Snook] came up and said, ‘David, I’m writing you your first check,’” and handed Toscano a check. “I’m returning it,” said the delegate.

Delegate David Toscano had a favor to repay to council candidate Lloyd Snook. staff photo

Snook joins Dem candidates Michael Payne and Sena Magill in the likely June 11 Democratic primary. Independents Paul Long and John Hall have also announced runs.

 

Categories
News

In brief: Irruptive species, councilor liability, hazing incredulity and more

Clockwise from left: Siskin (Darren Swim). grosbeak (Dave Menke), red-breasted nuthatch (Wolfgang Wander) purple finch (dfaulder) from Wikimedia

New birds on the block

A red-breasted nuthatch in central Virginia? You gotta be kidding!

Turns out that an unusually large number of irruptive bird species—or species that normally breed in northern boreal forests and sometimes migrate south when their food supply runs out—are wintering in our neck of the woods this year, according to the Center for Urban Habitats. And you’d be doing yourself a favor by checking them out.

Ezra Staengl, a 15-year-old natural history writer and photographer at the organization who’s been watching closely, says there’s a pretty good chance you’ll see some of the boreal finches, such as purple finches and pine siskins, as well as red-breasted nuthatches.

And if you’d like to encourage a sighting, all three species will come to feeders with black-oil sunflower seeds—although the siskins have more of a taste for nyjer seeds, says Staengl. And the nuthatches can be found in almost any stand of pines.

Staengl has his sights set on spotting an evening grosbeak, which is possible, but would be even rarer because they’re much less common.

The same goes for other irruptive finches such as hoary redpolls, red- and white-winged crossbills, and pine grosbeaks—many of which moved south this winter, but not as far and in fewer numbers than the other species, he says.

The non-native finches will be visible until April, and maybe into May.

“Searching for irruptive finches is a great way to get outdoors and more in touch with the nature around you, as well as a way to learn more about how food fluctuations affect bird distribution,” adds Staengl, who is homeschooled in Nelson County, and has been birding for about six years. “Besides, no one can deny the adorableness of a red-breasted nuthatch or the beauty of an evening grosbeak.”

Quote of the week

“In 2017, 1,028 Virginians died of gun-related causes. That’s more deaths due to gun violence than the 956 Virginians who died due to vehicle accidents.”—Governor Ralph Northam in his State of the Commonwealth address January 9

In brief

Councilors liable

Judge Rick Moore ruled that the city councilors who voted to remove Confederate statues in 2017—Wes Bellamy, Bob Fenwick, Kathy Galvin, Mike Signer, and Kristin Szakos—are not protected by sovereign immunity and are individually liable for damages should the plaintiffs prevail in the lawsuit against the city, which contends that City Council violated state code when it voted to get rid of General Robert E. Lee.

Too studious

A judge rejected UVA’s motion to dismiss a suit filed by Sigma Lambda Upsilon January 8. The Latina sorority alleged its constitutional rights were violated when UVA suspended it for hazing in March 2018 because the student group requires pledges to study 25 hours a week. The suit names the Board of Visitors, including Rector Rusty Conner, and top administrative officials, including VP and Chief Student Affairs Officer Pat Lampkin.

Flamethrower fail

Corey Long, the man who was found guilty of disorderly conduct for pointing a makeshift flamethrower at a white supremacist on August 12, 2017, and who planned to challenge the conviction, has withdrawn his appeal. He’ll spend 10 weekend days in jail.

Corey Long (in red) outside court following his June 8 conviction. Eze Amos

Biggest bullies

A study by UVA’s Dewey Cornell and the University of Missouri finds higher rates of middle school bullying in areas that favored Donald Trump in the 2016 election. In spring 2017, students in pro-Trump regions reported 18 percent more bullying than those in areas Hillary Clinton carried, and 9 percent more teasing because of racial or ethnic background.

Once is enough

Norman Dill staff photo

Albemarle Supervisor Norman Dill, who was elected in 2015, will not seek another term on the board. At the supes’ first meeting of the year, they elected Ned Gallaway chair and Rick Randolph vice-chair.

Shutdown promo

Montpelier is offering free tours from January 14 to February 28 to federal employees and their families out of work because of the government shutdown. Bring your federal employee ID.

Homicide victim

Gerald Francis Jackson, 60, has been charged with second-degree murder in the January 10 slaying of 55-year-old Richard Wayne Edwards, who was found dead in his Cherry Street home.

Categories
News

Slight snag: City Council candidates, new PAC launch campaigns

The signs were already printed for Michael Payne and Don Gathers when Gathers learned he could not immediately join the ticket because of health concerns. Photo by Eze Amos

It wasn’t your typical launch party. Supporters of local activists Don Gathers and Michael Payne gathered at Kardinal Hall January 8 for the official tossing of the hats into this year’s City Council races. But Gathers made a different kind of announcement: A doctor’s visit three hours earlier had convinced him to postpone his campaign start.

Gathers still has recurring issues stemming from an October 14 heart attack, and said that because of those, he needs to delay the announcement of his campaign, to focus on taking care of “the temple the Lord blessed me with.”

The health advisory threw a bit of a wrench not only into the already printed “Payne Gathers” signs, but also into the unveiling of a new PAC, Progressives for Cville, led by Jalane Schmidt, a UVA professor and Black Lives Matter organizer .

“My concern was for Don,” says Schmidt, citing Gathers’ contributions to the community through his church, the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces, and the Police Citizen Review Board—from which he resigned following the launch. “I want him to thrive and be healthy.”

The political action committee came about because “there’s a lot of money that flows into a lot of races for entities that have business before City Council, like developers,” says Schmidt. “We can trace a line between donors and their businesses getting favorable hearings,” both on a local and state level, she says.

Progressives for Cville is looking for small donors to support candidates who align with progressive policies and goals, specifically racial inequity and affordable housing, says Schmidt. She’s not sure how much it’s raised so far, but on the ActBlue page set up last week, there was one $500 donor.

And the PAC is looking at candidates by platform rather than party, says Schmidt. Both Payne and Gathers are running as Democrats. And although Mayor Nikuyah Walker won in 2017 as the first independent to get a seat on council since 1948, Democrats “are the biggest platform in town,” says Schmidt.

There have been other offshoots from the main Democratic party trunk. Kevin Lynch and Maurice Cox were elected to council In 2000 as members of Democrats for Change. “It was frustration with the status quo” that had made the party the establishment, recalls Lynch. Dems for Change had a lot of living wage supporters, environmentalists and architects like Cox, who thought the city’s growth plan was “antiquated.”

And in 2017, a group of Dems that included two former city councilors launched Equity and Progress in Charlottesville, which supported Walker’s independent run.

Payne, 26, grew up in Albemarle and graduated from Albemarle High. He’s is a frequent commenter at City Council meetings—he recently asked the city to divest from fossil fuel holdings—and says the affordable housing crisis spurred him to run. Payne works for Habitat for Humanity Virginia.

And while he refrains from saying who he’d like to see replaced on a council where Wes Bellamy, Kathy Galvin, and Mike Signer are all at the end of their terms, he says, “Given the events of the past three years, new leadership is needed.”

Gathers, 59, points out that a “high level of toxicity” existed in the city well before 2017, when white supremacists targeted Charlottesville with the KKK and Unite the Right rallies.

“That poisonous tree of racism just branches out into so many areas,” he says.

Gathers says he hopes to get his health concerns worked out before the March 11 deadline for filing signatures with the party for the June 11 primary.

Another candidate came forward the next day. Sena Magill may be best known as the wife of Tyler Magill, the UVA librarian and WTJU radio host whose confrontation with Jason Kessler became a meme, and who suffered a stroke after being assaulted that weekend. She announced her run January 9 at City Space, at an event attended by Councilor Heather Hill, former councilor Dede Smith (who denies rumors that she’s running), and yet-to-announce candidate Lloyd Snook.

Sena Magill says her experience working at Region Ten will help her work anywhere, even City Council. Photo by Eze Amos

Magill, 46, grew up here and spent 16 years working with Region Ten and PACEM. She says she’s running because “I’m tired of seeing my home in the news for all these negative reasons.”

She listed climate change first on her platform, and wants to tackle it on the local level with solar panels on government buildings, electric buses, and better bike paths to make the city “carbon negative,” which drew applause from attendees.

Schools and affordable housing are also on Magill’s platform. She cites Maslow’s hierarchy of needs that puts food and shelter foremost before any other issues can be addressed.

The question many have asked her is, who in their right mind would want to sit on City Council given the current tenor of the meetings where those standing before—or on—council can be jeered by attendees and sometimes by those on the dais.

Magill compares the meetings to a pressure cooker where steam needs to be released and says she won’t take it personally. “I expect to cry if I lose the election and I expect to cry more if I win,” she jokes.

So far, none of the council incumbents have revealed their plans for reelection, but the race seems destined for a Democratic primary June 11, when councilors traditionally secure their seats—unless there’s a wild-card independent like Walker.

Categories
News

In brief: Perriello saves the day, lots of $$$, and council retreat chaos

Tom Perriello. Photo by Scott Elmquist

Perriello’s Sierra Leone rescue

A desperate mother needed to get her 5-year-old daughter out of Sierra Leone in 2003, and asked a stranger at the airport to take her child to her grandmother in the U.S. Fifteen years later, Zee Sesay learned that the man who brought her daughter to safety was former congressman Tom Perriello, according to BuzzFeed. Perriello calls it “one of the crazier experiences” of his life.

Another renaming?

City Councilor Wes Bellamy pounced on the last few moments of the December 17 City Council meeting to suggest renaming Preston Avenue, which gets its moniker from Thomas Preston, a Confederate leader, slaveholder, and former UVA rector. Is Jefferson Street next?

Big bucks

Local philanthropist Dorothy Batten—yes, the daughter of Weather Channel co-founder and UVA grad Frank Batten—will donate $1.35 million to a Piedmont Virginia Community College program called Network2Network, which trains volunteers to match community members with open job listings. 

Quote of the week: “I have never been disrespected the way I have been here in Charlottesville.”—Police Chief RaShall Brackney

Bigger bucks

Following the Dave Matthews Band’s recent announcement that it, together with Red Light Management and Matthews himself, will give $5 million to local affordable housing, came the news that another $527,995 in grants will be doled out to 75 local nonprofits through the band’s Bama Works Fund, which awards similar grants twice a year.

Remains IDed

Police arrested and charged Robert Christopher Henderson with second-degree murder December 20 in connection with the death of Angela Lax, who was reported missing in August. County detectives, who found skeletal remains in the woods along the John Warner Parkway’s trails in November, suspect that Henderson killed Lax in June and dumped her body.

Clerk’s Office closing

Hope you don’t have any important deeds to file or a marriage license to pick up during the first week of the new year, because the Charlottesville Circuit Court Clerk’s Office is moving to new temporary digs during a massive courthouse renovation and will be closed December 31 through January 4 for the holiday and for the move.

Maybe a little bit of “vitriol”

What happens when City Council has a daylong retreat, and two people live tweet the gathering? Here are some excerpts from the December 18 event with Mayor Nikuyah Walker, councilors Wes Bellamy, Kathy Galvin, Heather Hill, and Mike Signer, as narrated by Molly Conger, aka @socialistdogmom, and Daily Progress reporter Nolan Stout. Click to view their threads.

 

Categories
News

Divestment: Charlottesville considers dumping fossil-fuel holdings

Michael Payne is urging the city to get rid of fossil-fuel investments. Photo by Eze Amos

In the wake of recent U.N. and U.S. government reports on the catastrophic environmental damage already attributable to climate change, the City of Charlottesville has been challenged to divest from investments in the fossil fuels industry.

Local activist Michael Payne proposed several steps the city could take to address climate change, including divestment from holdings in oil, natural gas, and coal at City Council’s October 15 meeting. And at the monthly meeting of the city’s Retirement Commission on November 28, he urged its members to consider divestment for both moral and financial reasons—claiming that, long term, the fossil fuels industry is not a sustainable financial investment.

There is precedent: City Council divested from companies doing business in South Africa in 1984 and 1988 and in Sudan in 2008.

Climate change divestment would put the city among a growing number of individual and institutional investors getting out of fossil fuels. Three years ago, divestment by small cities and colleges and universities accounted for about $50 billion in investment funds, according to the New Yorker. That figure has grown to about $60 billion, and divesting governments now include New York City and Ireland.

In 2016, a student group pressed the University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors to divest, but the BOV declined.

Charlottesville has a significant amount of money under investment. Its operating fund ranges from $60 million to $100 million. And the city’s retirement fund holds around $150 million and is overseen by the Retirement Commission.

In making investment decisions, City Council, the Retirement Commission, and city treasurer Jason Vandever share a legal and fiduciary responsibility to the fund’s beneficiaries—the citizens of Charlottesville and retirees from city employment. Their primary charge is to protect the principal, but the second priority is to generate as much of a return as feasible within legal guidelines and professional financial management standards.

That means they can’t make investment decisions that would result in less money for the beneficiaries, even for a good cause. Socially responsible investment trends, however, have generated a wealth of investment options which use environmental/social/governance—ESG—criteria and still make money.

How much money are we talking about divesting? As of November 2018, Vandever estimates the operating fund held about $1.4 million in energy company bonds.

Calculations for the retirement fund are more difficult, as its holdings include index funds or mutual funds that might have large energy companies in their portfolios, but his rough estimate based on portfolio holdings in various energy sectors was well over $1.6 million.

A total of $3 million may seem like small potatoes next to the $5 billion that New York City has pledged to withdraw from energy holdings by 2023, but proponents of divestment say the moral leadership shown is just as important as the financial pressure.

“Divesting sends a signal,” says Payne. “What I’m trying to do is start a long-term conversation about how we as a city respond to climate change.”

Conservation is a start, he says, but efforts shouldn’t stop there. (Charlottesville has a goal of 10 percent reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2035 from 2000 levels, according to climate protection program manager Susan Elliott.)

Payne’s remarks at the council meeting got a positive response from Councilor Kathy Galvin, who cited the city’s sustainability programs, including a switch to hydrogen buses. But so far, the Council has taken no action to consider divestment.

The Retirement Commission, which is in the process of hiring a new investment consultant, agreed the issue merited further discussion, and Vandever confirmed the group “will be including questions in the request for proposal around divestment strategies and the consultant’s experience in working with plans who want to pursue ESG strategies in their investment approach.”

The other part, about $40 million, currently is managed by a vendor, PFM Asset Management LLC, chosen by Vandever, who oversees and approves its activities. Virginia Code sets guidelines for city investments—for example, the fund cannot own stocks in individual companies, although it can hold company bonds—as well as a fund balance policy. Because the city counts on the operating fund to pay its bills, Vandever explains, “We manage the fund on a short-term strategy.”

The retirement fund is far larger—roughly $150 million. About 75 percent of eligible city employees participate in the city pension plan, and its fund is overseen by the Retirement Commission. Five of the commission’s nine members are elected officials, including the treasurer. The other four represent retirees, employees, and citizens and are appointed by City Council.

While this fund does have to pay out current benefits, it is managed for a much longer term, and so can accommodate more volatility—and hopefully earn higher returns. Inflation, increases in city employment, and much longer payout spans as retirees live longer means the fund needs to generate a large enough return to stay solvent.

Charlottesville’s holdings

The city has two major funds under investment.

The operating fund, which holds the income from city taxes, licenses, fees, etc., ranges from $60 million to $100 million depending on the time of year. Part of this fund is managed by Jason Vandever, the elected city treasurer under guidelines set by City Council, and held in local banks or through a state-run investment pool.

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News

In brief: Councilors’ credit cards, ACA sign-up perils, abusive language verdict and more…

JABA counselor Laurel Olson, center, helps Amy and Susan Hastings find the right health insurance. David McNair

Using ACA insurance? Read this first

Yes, the Affordable Care Marketplace is still here, and sign-up ends December 15. Counselors at the Jefferson Area Board for Aging have seen a few surprises in the process, and want residents to be aware they could face some unpleasant results if they simply auto-enroll this year.

One big difference: Optima was the only insurance carrier in the marketplace in 2018. This year Anthem is back, which provides more options, but also can affect the amount of the subsidy for those who qualify.

Joe Bernheim at JABA explains: With two carriers, the benchmark plan—that’s the second-lowest-cost silver plan—will be less than what consumers saw last year. That means that government subsidy will be lower, and those whose income allows them to qualify for the subsidy will see higher premiums.

What you need to know

  • Don’t auto-enroll. You may be able to get a better plan or lower premium.
  • Some people have received letters with estimates from the current carrier that are inaccurate and much lower than what the premium will actually be.
  • Consumers are being offered “direct” and “select” plans. The select plans exclude most of the doctors at UVA, while direct plans offer a broad network of local providers. If you auto-enroll, you could be put in a select plan.
  • People who aren’t eligible for the subsidy will see lower premiums and a broader network of providers.
  • If you’re signing up for newly available Medicaid, there’s no deadline, but JABA advises going to the Marketplace website (healthcare.gov) to cancel ACA insurance or you may be charged.
  • Can we say it again? Don’t auto-enroll, and do sign up before the December 15 deadline.

Quote of the week

“I feel like court’s going to be watching my daughter die again, over and over and over.”—Susan Bro, Heather Heyer’s mother, on NPR.

In brief

Tinsley sexual misconduct suit

Trumpeter James Frost-Winn’s $9-million sexual harassment lawsuit against former Dave Matthews Band violinist Boyd Tinsley is scheduled for trial September 9, 2019, in Seattle. Tinsley announced he would not be touring with the band in February, the same day he got a demand letter from Frost-Winn’s attorney.

Another pipeline delay?

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has suspended a permit necessary for the 600-mile, $6 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline to cross the 1,500 streams along its path from West Virginia to North Carolina, for concerns of harm to aquatic life. This is one of several setbacks Dominion has faced since it began building the pipeline this year, but a spokesperson says it’s still scheduled for completion by the end of 2019.

Censorship suit

Local attorney Jeff Fogel has filed yet another lawsuit regarding prison censorship. He’s now representing Uhuru Baraka Rowe, an inmate at Greensville Correctional Center, who claims his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated when prison officials at the Sussex II State Prison censored essays he wrote about conditions in the facility.

Win for Miska

 

Anna Malinowski at a 2017 protest. Staff photo

Local anti-racists like to scream at John Miska, a veterans’ rights and Confederate statue supporter. Recently, in Albemarle General District Court, a judge found Anna Malinowski guilty of abusive language for accosting him outside a school board meeting. At an earlier hearing in the city, a judge let Donna Gasapo off the hook for similar behavior.

Councilors’ credit line

In a much-discussed story that appeared in the November 25 issue of the Daily Progress, reporter Nolan Stout examined the $26,784 in charges (and taxpayer money) that city councilors have racked up on their city credit cards over the past year and a half. All five councilors have one, and four of them have a limit of $20,000—except for Mike Signer, who as mayor inherited the council’s original card, with a credit limit of $2,500.

Vice-Mayor Heather Hill hasn’t used her card, and Councilor Wes Bellamy, who has traveled extensively for various conferences, has spent the most, charging more than $15,000 from September 6, 2017, to October 29 of this year. Local activist group Solidarity Cville has called the article a racist “hit piece” on Bellamy, and said it wouldn’t have been written if white Councilor Kathy Galvin were the highest spender. All councilors were within budget and mostly used their cards for out-of-town meals, hotels, and travel, but here’s what some of the specific charges looked like:

Charged up

  • $1,418 spent by Bellamy at a Le Meridien hotel for a National League of Cities conference in Charlotte
  • $15.52 spent by Bellamy at Kiki’s Chicken and Waffles
  • $41.17 spent by Bellamy at Hooters
  • $1,000 spent by Signer on a hotel to speak on a panel called “Local Leadership in the Wake of Terror” at the SXSW Cities Conference in Austin, Texas
  • $307.19 spent by Signer, mostly for meals and Lyfts in Austin, “many of which were at midnight or later,” notes the reporter
  • $101.09 spent by Mayor Nikuyah Walker at Ragged Mountain Running Shop ahead of her event called “Get Healthy with the Mayor”
  • $132.22 spent by Walker at Beer Run
  • $706 spent by Galvin on a Hyatt hotel for a two-day forum in Washington, D.C.
  • $4.99 spent by former City Council chief of staff Paige Rice on an iTunes bill