Tag: denver riggleman

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In brief: Riggleman’s on committee, VA goes for gold

Former 5th District representative Denver Riggleman is a senior staff member on the Dem-led January 6 committee. Supplied photo.

Riggleman appointed to dig in to January 6 

The House of Representatives committee tasked with investigating the January 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection has hired former Virginia 5th District representative Denver Riggleman as a senior staff member. The Democrats in charge of the committee have been searching for conservatives willing to turn a critical eye to the Capitol siege, in hopes that including conservatives in the process will make Republican officials more willing to accept the committee’s eventual findings. Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are
already part of the team.

Riggleman voted straight along the party line during his two years in office, and enthusiastically accepted Trump’s endorsement in his re-election campaign. Since losing a primary to ultra-conservative Bob Good, however, the local distillery owner has rebranded as a Republican willing to criticize Trump and his acolytes still in the party.

“We can’t worry about the color of the jerseys anymore, or whether we have an R or a D next to our name,” Riggleman said in a video on Twitter last week. “It’s time for us to look in a fact-based way at what happened on January 6, but to see if we can prevent this from ever happening again in the future.”

Gold mining study gets underway

The National Academy of Sciences has agreed to conduct a comprehensive study of gold mining in Virginia. Environmental activists and legislators called for the study earlier this year, after international gold mining companies started to sniff around Virginia’s gold belt, which runs through the center of the state. In this year’s legislative session, the General Assembly passed a law banning gold mining—a dangerous and invasive process—until the study was complete. 

“It is without doubt that metals mining negatively impacts communities and their water supplies,” says Stacy Lovelace of Virginia Pipeline Resisters in a press release. “Metals mining is the next major industrial threat to the Commonwealth alongside the buildout of pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure. Evaluating these impacts is a critical first step in acting to stop this industry from harming Virginia communities.”

“I’m teaching at U of Virginia for the upcoming academic year. I’ll be moving to Charlottesville for the duration. I should warn homeowners that property values will drop for as long as I’m there.” 

—Writer Rabih Alameddine, on Twitter, sharing that he’ll be a fellow in the creative writing department this year 

In brief

Like taking (pot) candy from a baby

Virginia has seen a steep rise in little kids accidentally eating marijuana-infused candy,  according to the Virginia Poison Center. You can’t blame them—many marijuana candies come in colorful packaging and look just like any other sweet treat at first glance. The Poison Center says that in 2019, just 13 people called to report adverse reactions. Seven months into 2021, that number is 78. Marijuana edibles haven’t led to any reported deaths in the region. Word to the wise: Keep your pot gummy worms on a high shelf.

Bad boss?

Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin’s former colleagues at high-end investing firm The Carlyle Group don’t have good things to say about him, according to a new Bloomberg exposé. Youngkin has touted his experience in the private sector during his political run, but Bloomberg reports that he “was responsible for troubled forays into hedge funds and energy investments,” “flamed out” when he was given a shot to run the business in 2018, and ultimately “retired after a power struggle that left him in charge of more modest businesses.”

Glenn Youngkin. Supplied photo.

Vlogger arrested for incest

Internet personality and Greene County resident Christine Chandler, known online as Chris Chan, was arrested in Henrico this week for “sex crimes against a family member,” according to the Greene County Sheriff’s office. Chandler initially rose to fame for creating a webcomic and has since become a vlogger with a large following. Chandler is being held without bond at the Central Virginia Regional Jail.

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True believer: We read Denver Riggleman’s Bigfoot book so you don’t have to

Denver Riggleman's new book, "Bigfoot... It's Complicated," is full of sex and light on insight

Congressman Denver Riggleman’s new book, Bigfoot…It’s Complicated, begins with a chapter called “A Discussion on Simian Genitalia.” In other words, Riggleman, who was accused of enjoying “Bigfoot erotica” during his 2018 congressional campaign, is leaning in.

Riggleman defeated Democrat Leslie Cockburn in 2018 despite the Bigfoot story, but will leave Washington having served just one term in Congress. This summer, he lost a COVID-altered drive-through Republican nominating convention to Bob Good, a bible-thumping challenger from the right who jumped in the race because Riggleman officiated a gay wedding between two staffers.

Since his loss, Riggleman has been on an impressive press tour, branding himself as a free-thinking critic of the current Republican Party. He’s one of a handful of Republicans to publicly acknowledge that Joe Biden won the election, and he’s toyed with running for governor as an independent. The Washington Post recently ran a profile of the soon-to-be-former lawmaker, emphasizing Riggleman’s libertarian bent as he sipped bourbon at his distillery in Afton.

Riggleman has also found time to publish Bigfoot…It’s Complicated, a 150-page narrative describing two Bigfoot finding expeditions he took in the 2000s. Led by an unscrupulous expedition leader and accompanied by a handful of true believers, Riggleman forked over a few grand for the privilege of camping out in the woods of Washington and West Virginia to search for the monster.

Riggleman’s new book is available now on Amazon.

In the prologue, Riggleman says he’ll deliver “a book about those who believe and what those beliefs encompass;” the book’s subtitle promises an examination of “the politics of true believers—Bigfoot and otherwise.” This is a legitimately intriguing premise. In an era when conspiracy theories are so prominent and so dangerous, it seems possible that real lessons could be gleaned from those devoted to one of America’s most well-known fables.

Before we dive in to whether or not Riggleman manages to teach us anything, I have to note that this book is absolutely jam-packed with Bigfoot sex. I mean it is just so, so horny. Riggleman says he’s not a fan of Bigfoot erotica—“I do not dabble in monster porn, although my wife does call me her silverback,” he writes, a line that might give pause to patrons of the couple’s Silverback Distillery—but throughout the story he misses no opportunity to get lascivious.

“How could someone kink-shame those gentle souls who take delight in the soulful, passionate moan of Sasquatch?” he wonders, half-joking. Once he’s out in the wilderness, searching for the monsters alongside a handful of Bigfoot devotees, he regularly points out his compatriots’ interest in Bigfoot’s “massive pecker.” When a Bigfoot believer tells Riggleman that human singing lures the creatures—yes, creatures, plural—Riggleman speculates that, should the lead singer of Journey appear and deliver a solo, “we’d have to fight off scores of salivating Bigfoot Mamas peeking from behind trees ready to mate, probably rubbing their grotesquely ridged nipples against tree bark.” Thank you for that image, Congressman.

Though he clearly finds Bigfoot, shall we say, compelling, Riggleman isn’t interested in laying out a case for the creature’s existence. He writes that “it would be cool if Bigfoot existed,” but he spends most of the story positioning himself above the fray. The group of Bigfoot devotees who make up the rest of the expedition party are foolish and hopeless, Riggleman believes—he calls them “excellent fodder for my upcoming book” and says he “couldn’t care less about their opinions or suggestions.”

For a man who claims to find the unknown so captivating, Riggleman is remarkably incurious when it comes to his companions. What made these people first believe in Bigfoot? Can they ever shake that belief? These questions largely go unasked, and unanswered.

Instead, he lionizes his friend and fellow expedition-goer Spinner, a state trooper, for his “brutal and often spot-on observations about Bigfoot sightings, falsification of evidence, and financial shenanigans,” which “infuriated believers and organizers alike” on the trip. (Conspiracy theories are, of course, famously susceptible to clear logic and spot-on observations.)

To be sure, the Bigfoot believers Riggleman encounters are off their rockers—some say Bigfoot is a benevolent extraterrestrial, others think scores of prehistoric Bigfoot roam the earth, most agree Bigfoot smells like fish. But the congressman, even out there in the woods with nothing else to do, doesn’t push any further. Maybe these Bigfoot believers are really nuts, but maybe they know something we don’t about how beliefs come to be—either way, Riggleman isn’t interested in finding out.

The most galling part of the story, though, is that Riggleman doesn’t see the irony at its center.

This man, who spends most of the book punching down at conspiracy believers, spent two years working for Trump’s Republican Party, a misinformation machine that has managed to convince a large chunk of America that the last presidential election was fraudulent, global warming is no big deal, and coronavirus is nothing to worry about.

In October, Riggleman co-sponsored a House resolution condemning QAnon, an unfounded conspiracy theory that claims a group of deep-state pedophiles is organizing a coup against Trump. The theory has been endorsed by a handful of newly elected Republican representatives.

But though he’s criticized Republicans in recent weeks, Riggleman was no maverick during his time in Washington. Yes, he officiated a gay wedding, but he also voted with Trump 93 percent of the time, per FiveThirtyEight; about a third of Republicans disagreed with the president more often than Riggleman did. Riggleman voted against offshore drilling regulations, against raising the minimum wage, against creating a path to citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants, and against impeachment. During his re-election campaign, he gladly accepted Trump’s endorsement. He doesn’t date from a saner, pre-Trump era—he threw his hat in the ring in 2018, after Trump had been the party’s standard-bearer for two years. Don’t get me wrong: It is important for Republicans to loudly disavow misinformation like QAnon. But it’s also wrong to pretend that Trump acolytes like Riggleman weren’t complicit in its rise.

So why do people believe in Bigfoot, or QAnon, or election fraud, or the idea that COVID isn’t real? “I think people fool themselves into thinking they see things just to fit in with others,” Riggleman concludes near the end of the tale. A member of the expedition party who claims to have seen the creature “might be lying,” Riggleman says, “But I think she wants to be included in the Bigfoot inner circle.”

There’s some truth in that analysis, but plenty of people managed to get that far without having to squat in the woods with night vision goggles on. And it’s pretty rich to hear that message coming from this messenger.

Over the weekend, Riggleman’s replacement, Bob Good, appeared at a Trump rally in northern Virginia. “It’s so good to see your faces,” Good said to the maskless crowd in front of him. “This looks like a group of people that gets that this is a phony pandemic.”

It is not, of course, a phony pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of people and counting have died. More are dying each day. Why do people swallow this misinformation? What can we do to change their minds? How can we stop the next Bob Good?

These are among the defining questions of our political moment, and perhaps Bigfoot could’ve helped us answer them. But when Denver Riggleman went looking, the monster slipped into the forest yet again.

 

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Webb wanes: Democratic candidate comes up short in red district

In Virginia's 5th Congressional District, Dr. Cameron Webb fell to Bob Good in a highly contested race. PC: Eze Amos

President-elect Joe Biden swept to an easy victory in Virginia last week, carrying the state with 53.9 percent of the vote to Donald Trump’s 44.2 percent, according to data from the Virginia Department of Elections.

In the 5th Congressional District, Democrats weren’t so successful. Dr. Cameron Webb, UVA’s Director of Health Policy and Equity, fell to Bob Good, a Liberty University athletics administrator and Campbell County Supervisor. Observers around the country noted that Webb ran a sharp campaign while Good fumbled through multiple comical scandals, including a committing a potential campaign finance violation by auctioning off an AR-15 rifle at a rally. Heading into election night, FiveThirtyEight called the district a tossup.

Ultimately, however, Good earned 210,986 votes (52.4 percent) to Webb’s 190,313 (47.3 percent).

The huge, largely rural 5th District has voted for a Republican by a comfortable margin ever since it was drawn into its current form in the last round of redistricting. Four different Republican candidates have run in the 5th since 2012, carrying between 52.4 and 60.9 percent of the vote each time.

The map above shows the margin of victory for Cameron Webb and Bob Good in each of the 5th District’s localities.

Though Webb lost to Good by 5.1 percent, there’s evidence to suggest Webb’s campaign did swing some voters into his camp. Webb outperformed Biden, earning around 7,000 more votes than the president-elect in the 5th District.

Still, that wasn’t enough to overcome the challenges presented by the gerrymandered district.

Two years ago, Democrat Leslie Cockburn lost to Republican Denver Riggleman by 6.6 percent in the 5th. In 2020, Webb managed to flip two of the district’s 23 localities, turning Nelson County and Fluvanna County from one-point losses into one-point wins. Webb also expanded on Cockburn’s 2018 performance in Albemarle, the district’s largest locality, winning 68.2 percent of the vote, compared to Cockburn’s 64.6.

Overall, Webb improved on Cockburn’s 2018 vote share in 15 of 23 localities—but he didn’t improve by more than 3.6 percent in a single locality, and he lost ground in some places.

Webb wasn’t able to make serious inroads into the district’s most populous red localities. In Pittsylvania and Fauquier counties, the district’s two largest localities outside of Charlottesville-Albemarle, Webb won 32.2 percent and 42.1 percent of the vote, respectively. For comparison, in 2018 Cockburn won 30.8 percent in Pittsylvania and 42.4 percent in Fauquier.

“It has truly been an honor to run to represent this district in Congress,” Webb wrote in a statement conceding the race on Tuesday. “This campaign has been a battle of ideas about how to best serve the people of our district and I cannot give enough thanks to everyone who made it possible.”

“Tonight is a victory for the conservative values that founded and sustain this nation, for biblical principles, the sanctity of life, religious liberty, free market capitalism and the importance of faith and family,” Good wrote after his victory.

Democrat Mark Warner also ran ahead of Biden, winning re-election to the U.S. Senate with 55.9 percent of the vote. Two Virginia Dems who flipped red seats in 2018 hung on to their districts this time around. In the 2nd, Elaine Luria beat Republican Scott Taylor for the second time in two years, widening her margin of victory to 5.4 percent, and in the 7th, Abigail Spanberger beat Delegate Nick Freitas by about 8,000 votes.

Virginia Republicans have now lost four straight presidential elections, four straight senate races, and two straight governor’s races. (Not that we’re counting.) Last time Republicans won statewide office was in 2009, when Bob McDonnell was elected governor, and he wound up being charged with a felony and narrowly avoiding prison. This year, the party ran Freitas—last spotted losing to far-right Confederate enthusiast Corey Stewart in the 2018 senate primary—in a winnable congressional race. Republicans don’t have much time on their hands if they want to right the ship before the next governor’s race next November.

Further down the ballot, Virginians overwhelmingly voted to pass an amendment to the Virginia constitution that will reform the way the state draws U.S. congressional and state legislative districts. The amendment places the responsibility for drawing district lines with a bipartisan commission comprised of citizens and legislators of both parties, rather than allowing the majority party to draw lines however they prefer. Some House of Delegates Democrats opposed the measure, claiming that it wasn’t a strong enough reform, but the proposal passed with the support of 65.8 percent of voters.

In a perfect world, new lines will be drawn in time for the 2021 House of Delegates elections. It’s possible, though, that a census delayed by coronavirus could mean new data isn’t available until the 2022 congressional races.

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In brief: Bridging forward, testing troubles, and more

Belmont Bridge PC: Jack Looney

Building bridges

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.

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In brief: Protestors push on, police donors exposed, victims speak out, and more

Activists stand outside the police station during a protest this weekend. PC: Eze Amos

Tenure trouble

UVA’s “Great and Good” strategic plan lists “recruiting and retaining excellent and diverse faculty” as a central goal. But this year, two black scholars who have been denied tenure claim the decision process was significantly flawed, possibly due to racial bias.

Paul Harris PC: Virginia.edu

Paul Harris has worked at UVA’s Curry School of Education since 2011, studying identity development in black male student-athletes and underrepresented students’ college readiness. For the past six years, Harris’ annual reviews indicated that he was meeting or exceeding expectations. So he was shocked to learn in January that an all-white, college-wide promotion and tenure committee had recommended against giving him tenure. Instead, he was offered a promotion—for a non-tenure-track position.

Harris says the committee claimed his research in the Journal of African American Males in Education in 2016 was “self-published.” (In fact, the peer-reviewed journal has a 23 percent acceptance rate.) The committee also got his citation counts wrong—they’re five times higher than the committee claimed.

Tolu Odumosu PC: Virginia.edu

Sociologist Tolu Odumosu has been on the tenure track at UVA’s School of Engineering and Applied Science since 2013. He’s co-written and co-edited two books, and helped write a $3 million National Science Foundation grant. After his third-year review suggested he expand his editing experience, he also became an associate editor of two journals.

But the engineering school’s tenure committee did not grant him tenure this year. It claimed that Odumosu hadn’t written enough work by himself, and was not the principal investigator named on the NSF grant. Like Harris, Odumosu had not been warned that his work was not up to par.

Both men appealed the decisions to UVA’s provost, but the appeals were rejected. The scholars are now appealing to the Faculty Senate’s grievance committee—their last option.

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Quote of the week

“This is a moment to step boldly into our future…We have to work together to decide what kind of Virginia we’re going to be. I’m ready for the challenge.”

—State Senator Jennifer McClellan, announcing her campaign for Virginia governor

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In brief

Still on the march

Charlottesville activists continue to mobilize the community to protest police brutality. Large marches and demonstrations have taken place in town at least once a week since the death of George Floyd in late May. Last weekend, protesters marching downtown also directed some of their energy toward patrons of the mall’s outdoor restaurants: The demonstrators chanted “Shame” at diners who were sipping beer and chewing on burgers.

Convention contagion?

Denver Riggleman’s campaign claims that several delegates who participated in the recent drive-thru Republican convention have contracted coronavirus, reports CBS19. The local Republican Party denies the accusation. Riggleman continues to criticize the drive-thru convention format that saw him lose the congressional nomination to challenger Bob Good. “Voter fraud has been a hallmark of this process,” Riggleman tweeted on election night.

Donor debate

Community members have noticed that the Charlottesville Police Foundation—dedicated to fundraising for the “advanced training, new technologies and equipment, [and] housing assistance” that isn’t covered by the department’s $18 million budget—posted a list of donors on its website. The list featured several local restaurants and other businesses, as well as individuals, including City Council members Lloyd Snook and Heather Hill.

Heather Hill PC: Eze Amos

Exposing abuse

Tweets about allegations of sexual assault and harassment directed at dozens of UVA students and staff appeared on an anonymous Twitter account last week. The alleged incidents once again drew attention to students’ calls for reform—in April, student advocacy group UVA Survivors created a list of demands for institutional change in sexual assault policy, reports The Cavalier Daily. The list has garnered around 1,700 new signatures in the past week.

Lloyd Snook PC: Supplied

 

Immigration action

UVA will now allow students to enroll and graduate “regardless of citizenship or immigration status,” the university announced last week. Previously, only DACA recipients—not other “undocu+” students—had not been allowed to matriculate. The decision represents a long-sought victory for activists around the school community.

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Denver’s done: Far-right challenger Bob Good wins 5th District GOP nomination

Bob Good (right) defeated Denver Riggleman in the VA-5 Republican primary last week.

 

In his two years in the House of Representatives, Denver Riggleman sided with Donald Trump on 94.5 percent of votes, according to FiveThirtyEight. But that wasn’t conservative enough for central Virginia’s Republican loyalists, who ended Riggleman’s run in Congress after just one term.

At a June 13 drive-thru party convention, Riggleman lost the nomination to Bob Good, a far-right Republican who has been a county supervisor and Liberty University athletics administrator. Good decided to run because he felt betrayed by Riggleman’s decision to officiate a gay wedding last year.

The election itself was unorthodox. The party held a nominating convention, rather than a primary. That’s not too uncommon for Congressional races—Democrats in the 5th District selected their 2018 nominee through a convention—but this time, due to coronavirus, the 2,500 delegates cast their votes without ever getting out of their cars. The election was held in Campbell County, Good’s home court, and the challenger took home 58 percent of the vote.

Riggleman has protested just about every step of this unusual nominating process, and at midnight on the day of the convention, he tweeted “ballot stuffing has been reported in multiple counties in the #VA05. Voter fraud has been a hallmark of this nomination process.”

Good opposes abortion in all cases, supports “securing America’s borders” against immigration, and wants to make English the national language.

Despite winning the nomination, Good might not literally be on the ballot in November. Just before the convention, it was announced that his campaign failed to turn in the required paperwork to appear on the ballot in the general election. The Virginia Republican Party has asked for an extension, but if it isn’t granted Good will have to run a write-in campaign. (Another Republican running for congress also failed to turn his paperwork in on time—Nick Freitas. You may remember him because he did the same thing last year, and had to run a write-in campaign for the House of Delegates.)

Good’s election is part of a pattern of Republicans turning rightwards in key races around the state. In  2018, they chose conservative firebrand Corey Stewart, who made his name defending Confederate monuments, as their standard-bearer against U.S. Senator Tim Kaine. The only Republican who has so far declared for the 2021 governor’s nomination is state Senator Amanda Chase—earlier this month, Chase said that taking down the Lee statue was “erasing the history of white people,” inspiring a selection of her more established GOP colleagues in the state Senate to compose a joint statement calling her comments “idiotic, inappropriate, and inflammatory.”

These conservative choices come at the end of a decade in which the party has been repeatedly pummeled at the polls. The Virginia GOP has not won a statewide election since 2009, lost three of its seven Congressional seats in 2018, and lost the state House and Senate in 2019, even though the election took place on maps that Republicans had gerrymandered in their favor.

Virginia’s 5th District is also gerrymandered in Republicans’ favor, but in 2018 the election here was as close as it has ever been. The concurrent presidential election will mean high turnout for this year’s Congressional contest, which usually favors Democrats. Virginia Democrats will hold their primary to select Good’s challenger on June 23.

 

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In brief: UVA hospital makes amends, a yak on the run, and more

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?

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Where’s Denver?: Riggleman refutes claims he hasn’t been accessible

Denver Riggleman hasn’t hosted an in-person town hall since taking office, but says he’s made himself accessible in other ways. (Photo courtesy of Denver Riggleman)

Amid complaints from local residents that he hasn’t made himself available to constituents, Congressman Denver Riggleman has scheduled his first in-person town hall meeting for August 28—in Danville.

The Republican representative of Virginia’s 5th District in the U.S. House of Representatives took office in January, when he published a pledge that said he would “conduct town halls throughout the district” once he was settled in. Seven months into his term, Riggleman has only held one town hall, by phone, but says he’s met with constituents in other ways.

“I don’t know if you want to call them town halls, but we certainly have been doing listening tours with every type of constituency we have, so I think the town halls, listening tours, roundtables, all those are pretty much the same thing,” Riggleman says. He says he plans to hold a town hall in Charlottesville “in the next four to five months.”

Craig DuBose is a Charlottesville resident who grew disgruntled with Riggleman’s lack of town hall meetings. The carpenter, who similarly pursued Riggleman’s predecessor, Tom Garrett, decided to organize a “constituent day” with other voters on August 26 at Riggleman’s office.

The event was promoted by Indivisible Charlottesville—an anti-Trump group that advocates for holding public officials accountable—with the idea that residents could visit Riggleman’s local office to voice their concerns about what’s going on in the district. The congressman says he wasn’t aware of the constituent day prior to it happening.

“How many times do we have to show and ask you to respond to this before you either respond to it or tell us you’re not going to?” DuBose says. He started making regular visits to the office in July with a group of fellow residents to try and speak with Riggleman, with no success.

Fourteen people marked on Facebook that they stopped by the office Monday, and 37 said they were interested. A Riggleman staffer confirmed multiple people had visited that morning but wouldn’t disclose a number.

As it turns out, the congressman was in fact in Charlottesville on Monday, meeting with local farmers and lawmakers at Roslyn Farm. He also attended a roundtable at the crop processing company Nutrien Ag Solutions in South Hill. Richard Fox, the owner of Roslyn Farm, says local farmers feel like their voices are heard by Riggleman, who co-owns a distillery with his wife Christine in Afton.

“Over the last couple years, building those relationships with local farmers has definitely helped him just hit the ground running,” Fox says. “At the end of the day, you can talk with Denver and he actually knows what you’re saying. He can talk some farm stuff and he gets it just because he’s at least had to be on the other end of the commodity industry.”

In his weekly newsletter sent to subscribers July 26, Riggleman wrote that he was “excited to visit with constituents” during Congress’ yearly August recess. He spent a majority of the first two weeks of the month visiting facilities at the U.S.-Mexico border and taking a congressional delegation trip to Israel before making a business tour across the district.

“It’s just not true, I mean that’s ridiculous,” Riggleman says of those claiming their voices aren’t being heard. “Instead of screaming all the time, just maybe look at what I’m doing…I think most of the people complaining are just specifically in Charlottesville with a certain group of people, and that’s fine. But don’t be disingenuous. That’s just absurd.”

Paul Bostrom is a Charlottesville resident who visited Riggleman’s office as part of the constituent day. He hoped to ask Riggleman about his stance on some of President Trump’s recent comments. Although he can’t attend Riggleman’s town hall in Danville on Wednesday, because it’s two hours away, Bostrom wants to hear from Riggleman directly about Trump and some of the issues pertinent to the district.

“I want to hear more from his mouth about what’s going on in the district and what’s going on in Congress,” he says.

With no firm date set for a town hall in Charlottesville, Riggleman invites city residents to follow him on social media and subscribe to his newsletter in order to stay informed on what he’s doing in Congress. DuBose, who is an active commenter on Riggleman’s Facebook page, claims some of his comments have disappeared from the congressman’s official Facebook page, an allegation Riggleman denies. He stresses that constituents can schedule meetings with him at his local offices, but that representing such a large district pulls him in many different directions.

“I think what people need to understand is we have a district that’s 10,000 square miles, 21 counties, and Charlottesville specifically is 1/1,000th of the district geographically,” Riggleman says. “So it’s great that they’re planning a constituent day, but I’m meeting with constituents in multiple counties every month. It’s a challenge with a district bigger than New Jersey [and] hopefully people understand that.”

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In brief: Surviving the anniversary, unfinished A12 legal business, another contender, and more

First Baptist Church was the scene for August 12 reflection and moving forward—as it was two years ago. Amy Jackson

Forward together

It was a full house at First Baptist Church on West Main Street on August 12, as a diverse crowd gathered for an interfaith service. “It fills my heart to see the pews filled like this,” said deacon Don Gathers. “We’ve come together not because of what happened, but in spite of it.”

A promised appearance by several presidential candidates fell through, after Cory Booker returned to New Jersey to deal with a water crisis, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who had asked to speak at the service but been denied, canceled at the last minute.

The service, which echoed similar gatherings held at the church after the violence in 2017 and on the first anniversary last year, was full of music, prayers, and reflection. It also featured testimony from August 12, 2017, survivors and faith leaders.

Activist Tanesha Hudson, a Charlottesville native, said activists of color had sometimes been left behind, and urged everyone to put action behind their conversations. “The world is watching Charlottesville, so how we recover is going to lay down the blueprint for how the world recovers.”

Marisa Blair and Courtney Commander, who were with their friend Heather Heyer when she died, said the anniversary had been harder than expected, but Blair said she wanted to talk about love. “Be kind. Be gentle. You don’t know what anyone else is facing.”

Presbyterian leader Jill Duffield spoke about living in Charleston, South Carolina, when a white supremacist gunman murdered nine people at the Emanuel AME church, but said it had taken the events in Charlottesville to make her understand the prevalence of white supremacist violence.

And Rabbi Tom Gutherz, of Congregation Beth Israel, addressed the long history of anti-Semitism, calling it “the glue that holds white supremacy together.” The son of a Holocaust survivor, he acknowledged that Jewish people in America have also been privileged. “I may have been surprised,” he said of the violence in Charlottesville, “but African Americans have always known it.”

He exhorted the audience to “be a resister, and not a bystander,” and said, “I believe that we will find a way forward together.” 

Clockwise from top left: Don Gathers, Sarah Kelley and Michael Cheuk, Tanesha Hudson, Tom Gutherz, Marissa Blair and Courtney Commander, and Jill Duffield were among those who spoke at First Baptist Church August 12. Amy Jackson

Quote of the week

“You literally have to love the hell out of people.”—Marissa Blair, survivor of the August 12, 2017, car attack

In brief

Kessler refiles

Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler took to the federal courts—again—on the second anniversary of the deadly rally in Charlottesville to sue the city and its officials for allegedly violating his First Amendment rights in August 2017. Kessler and co-plaintiff David Parrott claim police allowed a heckler’s veto to suppress their exercise of free speech by not stopping the fights that led to an unlawful assembly.

Hudson sues, too

Another civil suit was filed August 12, this one by local activist Tanesha Hudson. The lawsuit claims Hudson was denied her First, Fifth, and 14th Amendment rights when she joined Jehovah’s Witnesses counterprotesting at the Unite the Right rally. She’s seeking $400,000 in damages.

Fourth Street petition

City resident Aileen Bartels wants the mall crossing at Fourth Street closed and is circulating a petition to do so, a move unpopular with many downtown businesses, NBC29 reports. Bartels, whose petition had 325 signatures at press time, contends the crossing is a “serious safety hazard” for pedestrians on the mall, and notes the notoriety of the place where James Fields drove his car into a crowd, killing Heather Heyer and injuring dozens.

Another challenger

A UVA doctor will run against Denver Riggleman for the 5th District congressional seat. Cameron Webb, who practices and teaches at UVA, lives in Albemarle. He says he’s going to focus on improving access to affordable health care. He joins R.D. Huffstetler and Fauquier lawyer Kim Daugherty in seeking the Dem nomination.

Screwdriver killing

A jury found Gerald Francis Jackson, 61, guilty August 7 of voluntary manslaughter in the slaying of his neighbor, Richard Wayne Edwards, 55, in his Cherry Street apartment. A jury recommended a sentence of 10 years in prison.

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In brief: Not the Daughters of Confederacy tour, City Council is back, no confidence in Cumberland, and more

Map of the downtown Confederate monument tour. Courtesy WTJU

Tour de force

For the past couple of years, Jalane Schmidt, UVA professor and activist, and Andrea Douglas, Jefferson School African American Heritage Center director, have been conducting tours of our downtown monuments, providing new context for the Confederate statues that have long dominated Court Square and Market Street parks.

Now, those who haven’t seen the tour in person can experience it online, thanks to WTJU. The local radio station recorded the tour and will be airing short excerpts over the next two weeks, along with putting a web version on its site.

The tour offers history from a perspective that challenges the Lost Cause narrative most Southerners were taught.

“Virginia has the largest number of Confederate monuments in the country,” says Douglas. “Seventy-five exist in front of courthouses.”

Noting that founding fathers Thomas Jefferson and James Madison frequented Court Square, Schmidt says “It does beg the question why the people who tried to overthrow the U.S. Constitution are here on this ground.” Schmidt notes that the Johnny Reb statue in front of the Albemarle Circuit Court was installed after Reconstruction in 1909, when the Confederates who had been barred from office slipped back into government “to re-establish white supremacy—and they use those words,” she says. “They were not embarrassed by it.”

Jalane Schmidt and Andrea Douglas lead a tour that challenges the Lost Cause narrative of Confederate monuments. Photos Eze Amos

Quote of the week

“Like everyone else—sick to the stomach, very angry about our elected officials doing nothing to change anything. We are so long past ‘thoughts and prayers’ and we are so overdue gun reform.” Priya Mahadevan, leader of Moms Demand Action in Charlottesville, responding to the latest mass shootings.

In brief

Riggleman rebuked

Denver Wriggleman. file photo

On July 27, the 5th District Congressional Committee tried, and failed, to muster a censure of U.S. Representative Denver Riggleman for marrying two men who had volunteered for his campaign. The determined anti-gay marriage chair of the Cumberland County Republican Committee, Diana Shores, then tried another tack: On July 29, she pushed through a unanimous vote of no confidence for Riggleman for failing to represent her values, the Washington Post reports.

Filmmaker dies

Courtesy Paladin Media Group

Paladin Media Group founder Kent Williamson, 52, was on the way to the movies when an alleged drunk driver crashed into the car in which he was a passenger August 2 in Berrien County, Michigan, the Progress reports. The father of six was with three extended family members, who also died in the crash.

Fiancée killer

Cardian Omar Eubanks was sentenced August 5 to life plus eight years for the murder of his estranged fiancée, Amanda Bates, 34, whom he shot while she was seated in her car in her driveway March 24, 2018. At the time, her two sons were inside the house on Richmond Road. Bates’ family has spoken out about the tragedy to raise awareness of domestic violence.

Crozet commuter

JAUNT launched its Crozet Connect August 5, with two routes from east and west Crozet, each with three morning departures to UVA and downtown Charlottesville. The rides are free for UVA faculty, staff, and students, and free for other riders until October 1, after which the commute will cost $2 each way.

Nydia Lee. Photo Charlottesville police

Mother indicted

Nydia Lee, 26, was arrested August 5 for second-degree murder in the January 10 death of her 20-month-old child, according to Charlottesville police. A multi-jurisdictional grand jury returned the indictment and Lee is being held without bond. 

Garden director

The McIntire Botanical Garden, in the works since 2013, announced the hiring of its first executive director. Landscape architect Jill Trischman-Marks, who has served on the botanical garden’s board of directors and multiple committees, was selected through a competitive process, according to a release, and starts September 1.

Topping the agenda

It was a packed house Monday night at City Hall, where Char- lottesville City Council returned from its summer hiatus to vote
on several issues that had been at the forefront of discussion over the past few months.

The rezoning proposal for the Hinton Avenue United Methodist Church was passed unanimously, paving the way for the church to construct 15 apartments with at least four affordable housing units for the intellectually disabled. The type of rezoning received pushback from Belmont neighbors worried about increased traffic on the road and fewer parking spots.

Charlottesville City Schools Superintendent Rosa Atkins laid out a new model for Quest, the city’s gifted program that’s seeing
changes in how students are selected and will no longer be separating kids from the rest of their classmates. The plan, which was approved in a 5-0 vote, includes $468,000 in funding for city elementary schools to hire eight new instructors to help implement the revamped program for the 2019-20 school year.

After a year of research, the Police Civilian Review Board outlined proposed bylaws for a permanent CRB (to include two full-time employees). Council will hold private discussions with staff, including Police Chief RaShall Brackney, before drafting a final proposal in October.

And Unity Days organizer Tanesha Hudson asked for an additional $35,000 to bring D.C. rapper Wale to the Made in Charlottesville Concert at Tonsler Park on August 18, but the motion, supported only by Councilor Wes Bellamy, never made it to a vote.