Elizabeth Sines – C-VILLE Weekly

Richardson sues city

Former Charlottesville city manager Tarron Richardson is suing a handful of top Charlottesville officials, alleging misbehavior around his departure in September 2020. The entire City Council, as well as individuals Mayor Nikuyah Walker, Councilor Heather Hill, City Attorney Lisa Robertson and former city attorney and Interim City Manager John Blair are listed as defendants.

Richardson says he was terminated unjustly in advance of a mutually agreed upon resignation date, that councilors disparaged him in public after his departure, and that the city attorney hampered his free speech by threatening a lawsuit over an op-ed he wanted to write in January 2021. He seeks a trial by jury and “significant money damages.”

A key element of the case is a C-VILLE interview with Richardson from the week of his departure. When asked about his relationship with City Council, Richardson named all the councilors he worked well with—everyone except Hill and Walker. (The lawsuit says Walker and Hill’s “chicanery and obstruction” encroached on Richardson’s professional responsibilities.) The story was published on September 23, 2020, and though Richardson was supposed to leave on September 30, the lawsuit says that after publication, Blair called Richardson in and relieved him of his duties, effective immediately. Richardson’s $205,000 severance pay was not affected by the early dismissal.

Richardson’s lawsuit also argues that Walker and Councilor Lloyd Snook disparaged him on Facebook after his departure. Walker wrote that she “never supported” Richardson; Snook wrote that “bringing back Dr. Richardson would mean that we were going to keep fighting battles of the past year rather than moving forward.” The lawsuit argues that these statements harmed Richardson’s reputation.

In January 2021, Richardson decided to write an op-ed that would “address the conduct and leadership failures of the City Council and Mayor Walker by name,” as well as describe what he felt was racist treatment during his tenure. Richardson notified Robertson that he planned to write the op-ed. She responded that the proposal would violate the non-disparagement clause he had signed, and that the city could sue for the return of his severance package if he moved forward with publication. Richardson says this was an unconstitutional breach of his free speech.

Richardson’s filing is the latest twist in a messy stretch for city government. Last month, former police chief RaShall Brackney filed a formal complaint against the city, threatening to sue for wrongful termination.—Ben Hitchcock

Oatmeal??

In a breathtaking rejection of convention, the citizens of Charlottesville voted to give this year’s Grand Illumination holiday tree a truly nonsensical moniker: The tree will be named Oatmeal.

Proposed names were submitted by the community, and thousands voted in an online poll to choose from among the finalists. Oatmeal took 35.6 percent of the 3,359 votes cast. This year’s runners-up included Chicken Tree, Treeyoncé Noels, Timotree Chalamet, and Snoop Logg.

The last three years, the trees have been named Spruce Bader Ginsburg, Spruce Springsteen, and Spruce Willis, respectively.

Some users on the Charlottesville Reddit forum have theorized that Oatmeal is a reference to the 1969 “Frosty the Snowman” holiday special—when the children are deciding what to name Frosty, one suggests Oatmeal. We can’t confirm the original intention of the suggestion, however, and have not ruled out the possibility that the name was put forward by a lover of hearty, wholesome breakfast grains.

The Grand Illumination event will take place outside the Ting Pavilion on Friday, December 3, from 5-8pm.

In brief

Did they even go here?

UVAToday, the university’s in-house media outlet, published a story congratulating law school alum Elizabeth Sines for her victory in Sines v. Kessler (more on p. 12). Sines was among the plaintiffs who successfully sued the white nationalists who organized the Unite the Right rally. What UVAToday conveniently forgot to mention, however, is that some of those organizers graduated from the school, too. Infamous white nationalists Richard Spencer and Jason Kessler were both Wahoos, as much as the school might wish they weren’t.

No Christmas tree, no Christmas tree

Pining for a lush tree in your living room this holiday season? Get cracking, because farms across the commonwealth are reporting Christmas tree shortages, thanks to a combination of pandemic-related supply chain issues and labor shortages. The situation has gotten intense: Little River Farm tells CBS19 that multiple people have broken in at night to steal trees. That will certainly land you on the naughty list.

For the first time in decades, Christmas trees will not be sold in downtown Earlysville. Staff photo

Local churches win statewide service award

Two area churches shared Governor Ralph Northam’s 2021 Volunteerism and Community Service Award, the governor’s office announced last week. Mt. Zion First African Baptist Church and Church of the Incarnation were recognized for hosting regular COVID testing events over the last year. More than 8,000 individual tests have been conducted at the two sites.

Federal judge to rule on motions to dismiss in August 12 victims’ case

In a lawsuit filed on behalf of 10 alleged victims of last summer’s deadly August weekend in which hundreds of white supremacists and neo-Nazis descended upon Charlottesville, a federal judge is now considering whether to grant several of the defendants’ motions to dismiss the case.

Attorneys Roberta Kaplan and Karen Dunn claim that 25 individuals and groups named as defendants in the suit premeditatedly conspired to commit violence at the August 12 Unite the Right rally.

Plaintiffs include victims of the Fourth Street car attack, other white supremacist violence and extreme emotional distress, including Elizabeth Sines, Marcus Martin, Marissa Blair, the Reverend Seth Wispelwey and Tyler Magill, who suffered a stroke after being beaten on August 11.

“There is one thing about this case that should be made crystal clear at the outset—the violence in Charlottesville was no accident,” the lawsuit states. “Defendants spent months carefully coordinating their efforts, on the internet and in person.”

The document quotes Unite the Right promotions that stated, “If you want to defend the South and Western civilization from the Jew and his dark-skinned allies, be at Charlottesville on 12 August,” and “Next stop: Charlottesville, VA. Final stop: Auschwitz.”

The suit further quotes one rally organizer Elliott Kline (aka Eli Mosley), who allegedly declared, “We are going to Charlottesville. Our birthright will be ashes and they’ll have to pry it from our cold hands if they want it. They will not replace us without a fight.”

Ohio-based defense attorney Jim Kolenich, who represents Kline and nearly a dozen other high-profile Unite the Righters, including Jason Kessler and “Crying Nazi” Chris Cantwell, argued in United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia today that Kaplan and Dunn failed to prove that his clients conspired to be violent at the rally.

“There is no specific allegation in those paragraphs,” he said, adding that the only conspiracy was one “to come to Charlottesville and be provocative with their political speech.”

“Yes, they are provocative people,” Kolenich said, and noted that defendant Jeff Schoep, the neo-Nazi at the helm of the National Socialist Movement, has said if he could meet Adolf Hitler today, he’d thank him, as also referenced in the complaint.

Northern Virginia-based John DiNucci, who as of yesterday is representing Richard Spencer in the suit, made the same claim that no specific evidence pointed to Spencer’s premeditated conspiracy for violence. As did Brian Jones, a local lawyer who’s representing Michael Hill, Michael Tubbs and the League of the South.

Mike “Enoch” Peinovich, the New Yorker who founded The Right Stuff, a right-wing media hub, and podcast The Daily Shoah, is the only defendant representing himself in the case.

“I have many opinions that people may find shocking,” he told Judge Norman Moon, but he also said there’s no evidence that he was planning to be violent at Unite the Right, and though the lawsuit points out that he announced the rally on his podcast and his name appeared on rally fliers, Peinovich said that’s “just First Amendment stuff.”

To combat the claims that the suit’s defendants weren’t the ones who conspired to do harm, Kaplan told the judge, “We carefully chose the 25 defendants we did. …We went after the leaders.”

She said her team is still gathering evidence from sites that alt-right leaders used to plan for the rally, such as Discord, where they often use screen names to conceal their identities.

When she gave the real-life screen name example of “Chef Goyardee,” Peinovich shook with laughter. She also referred to internet conversation about running counterprotesters over with vehicles, which she said the alt-right has since denounced as an “edgy joke.”

“We believe that what we have here is just the tip of the iceberg,” she said.

Kolenich, who admitted during the hearing that he doesn’t know which Confederate general’s statue is causing such a ruckus in Charlottesville, said outside the courthouse that the judge should have a ruling within 30 days.

Beside him, his co-counsel gave a rare interview with Washington Post reporter Ian Shapira.

Said Elmer Woodard, the Blairs, Virginia, attorney who’s recently spent quite a bit of time in Charlottesville defending white supremacists at the state level, “I represent murderers, drug dealers and perverts, but I’m not one of them.”