Tag: gary grant

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Getting their blood up: Red Cross stumbles in transition

Gary Grant has been frustrated in his attempts to donate blood since the Red Cross took over Virginia Blood Services in November. Photo by Eze Amos

By Shrey Dua

Although long-time blood donor Gary Grant arrived 15 minutes early for his March 7 appointment at the Red Cross, he and other would-be donors were sent home. The facility, a chapter office on Rose Hill Drive, did not have enough equipment.

“We got no notice, I drove 10 miles, and they told us our appointments were canceled and that the drive wouldn’t start for another hour,” he says. “This has been my experience the last two or three times I’ve been through the Red Cross.”

Grant, who has donated blood with various chapters around Virginia and spent a year volunteering at the Rose Hill Drive location, has also complained to the Red Cross about the lack of heating and the overcrowded, “messy” room where blood drives are held on Rose Hill.

Some donors believe this drop in quality to be a direct result of a transition the branch has been going through since Red Cross acquired the previous primary local blood collector, Virginia Blood Services, this past November.

Grant says he did everything the organization asked: Sign up online, complete his Rapid Pass to facilitate the process, and get there early. “But as soon as we got there, the phlebotomists told us, ‘We can’t take your appointments because the Red Cross didn’t send us enough equipment,’” Grant says.

Jim McVay, former president of the Central Virginia Chapter Red Cross and a regular blood donor since 1972, also has experienced problems at his appointments. “I’ve donated twice since Red Cross acquired VBS. In both cases there were a number of delays,” he says.

However, McVay feels donors should continue to support the Charlottesville chapter. “Just because Red Cross is going through a transition doesn’t mean we should give up on them,” he says. “Keep donating.”

Grant has contacted the national organization multiple times and continues to get apologies from customer-care coordinators.

Red Cross spokesperson Bernadette Jay says equipment was not functioning at the March 7 drive. “Unfortunately that did contribute to negative experiences for some of the donors.”

She says the Red Cross is working through the transition, and she urges community support, noting that she gets to see “the full circle” of people who get the blood they need. And she says the Red Cross makes sure hospitals are supplied.

Meanwhile, Grant has started donating at mobile drives held at various locations around Charlottesville, which he claims usually offer a better experience than what he’s had at the Rose Hill location—even though many of the mobile drives are also run by the Red Cross.

“For right now, I think donors have to be very careful of where they go to donate to make sure you won’t get deferred or get turned away,” he says. “I feel more confident that the blood drive will be more successful at places like hotels, ballrooms, and other off-site locations.”

That was before an April 1 drive at UVA, where he says walk-ins were turned away and he left because he didn’t feel safe after a phlebotomist botched his needle insertion and that of the donor before him.

Jay says she’s not sure about the details of that drive because it was still going on when she spoke to C-VILLE.

Says Grant, “I don’t know what the Red Cross is going through, but personally…I want them to be better.”

Correction April 4: The facility on Rose Hill Drive is a chapter office, not a blood services branch, and Rapid Passes are free, not purchased.

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Airport escape: Teen on the lam raises questions about alerts

The 17-year-old boy who escaped his private security guards at the Charlottesville Albemarle Airport on November 30 was “scared,” “cold,” and “hungry” by the time he reached several homes six miles from CHO, according to one of those residents.

An Earlysville woman who spoke with him in Spanish, and who talked to C-VILLE on the condition her name not be used, said he told her he’d been in a group home that he didn’t like and where he’d gotten in trouble, and he wanted to go to his cousin, who lived in the Midwest.

The teen was being transported from Texas to a detention center in Shenandoah, and knocked on at least three residents’ doors asking for help in broken English, says Earlysville resident Gary Grant. Grant appeared before the Albemarle Board of Supervisors December 5 and 12 to ask officials “why we weren’t notified about it in real time as this emergency was occurring.”

Among the details Grant is trying to confirm are allegations that local law enforcement was asked not to alert the community, that CHO didn’t know the juvenile was coming through, that the teen did not have any handcuffs or tracking devices, that he was spotted from the CHO tower fleeing around airport security fencing, and that the guards with him “were not in good enough physical shape to pursue him and recapture him,” Grant told the board.

According to Albemarle spokesperson Madeline Curott, Albemarle police were helping the Texas Department of Corrections and the Charlottesville Albemarle Airport Police. “There was a limited area alert sent to citizens to help the ACPD locate the juvenile,” she said in an email.

As for Grant’s other allegations, she cites Virginia Code and says Albemarle police “will not be able to provide confirmation or denial.”

Earlysville resident Gary Grant wants to know why people weren’t told that a juvenile en route to a detention center escaped from the airport. Courtesy Gary Grant

On December 13, Grant spoke with Captain Darrell Byers, who told him that a reverse 911 alert was sent to residents on Bleak House Road and Montei Drive. Grant, who lives on Bleak House, said he didn’t get an alert, nor did several of his neighbors.

And in a December 17 email to Grant, Amanda Farley in the county attorney’s office writes that the limited area alert was prepared, but never sent.

Byers says a community-wide alert was not issued because police checked with the county attorney and determined there was no danger to the community—and to protect the identity of the boy.

As for whether the teen was even under arrest or what his immigration status was, Byers says, “I can’t get into those details.”

Grad student Maggie Thornton arrived at the airport that day around 3pm, and says she saw on Twitter that a person was spotted dashing across the runway. Someone who works at the airport restaurant told her that when a juvenile got off the plane, “he took off.”

Passengers in the airport were told there was a “federal ground stop,” but were given no details. “I thought it was a problem they didn’t tell us what was happening,” she says. And she worried about what happened to the child.

The Earlysville resident echoed that concern, saying the teen, who was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, offered to work in exchange for food and shelter. “He was not dangerous,” she says. “I think the police were right in not alerting people.”

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Bugs on the bus go ’round and ’round

You could catch more than the CAT when you ride city buses. File photo

Former Albemarle School Board member Gary Grant had an appointment at UVA WorkMed Clinic last month and he struck up a conversation with a Charlottesville Area Transit bus driver. As a former school bus driver himself, Grant asked the driver if he was in for a random drug test.

It was even worse.

The driver was there for bugs irritating his skin, and he said it happens to a lot of CAT drivers, says Grant. “The CAT buses are full of bugs,” he recounts from his conversation with the driver, who said some who are sensitive to the bugs end up with rashes and nasty itching.

CAT has received two to three complaints from its drivers saying they believe they have received bug bites on buses this year, according to city spokesperson Brian Wheeler.

“At this time, drivers have been unable to see the bugs or know how they were bitten,” says Wheeler in an email. “Some drivers have been seen in a medical facility, but they report that medical personnel cannot identify the nature of the bite or the cause of the rash or irritation.”

And in case we were wondering, “Charlottesville Area Transit cleans its buses every day,” says Wheeler.

The Virginia Department of Health has nothing on the mysterious itch-causing insects. “I do not have any information to provide you about the bugs at this time,” says Kathryn Goodman, spokesperson for the Thomas Jefferson Health District.

Grant says it was his perception that it was more than two or three drivers getting bitten. “It was serious enough,” he says. “He wasn’t being funny.”

And he wonders about all the passengers who suffer from hitchhiking bugs from other passengers, and then going home and not being able to figure out why they have skin problems.

“A lot of people ride buses,” observes Grant.

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Old news: $2 million for Senior Center in question

Construction on the Center at Belvedere is scheduled to start next year. Courtesy of Peter Thompson

The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors has set aside $2 million in its capital improvement budget for the Center at Belvedere, a new senior center that is set for construction in the Belvedere neighborhood next year. And one county resident isn’t happy about the partnership.

“I think it is wrong for government officials to spend public tax dollars on private organizations,” says Gary Grant, who lives in the Rio District. “It’s so damn frustrating that I don’t think they really take constituents—taxpayers—as serious when we have serious concerns about certain topics.”

In email correspondence with a county resident that Grant was included on, Supervisor Rick Randolph said he opposes allocating taxpayer money to support the construction of the Center at Belvedere because he sees no evidence that the needs of at-risk and low-income seniors in the Scottsville, Esmont, Crozet and Cismont areas will be addressed by the new facility. Randolph has not made a motion to pull those funds out of the budget, and according to Grant, has said he will not because he doesn’t think another board member will second his motion.

Randolph declined to comment.

Grant also challenged Supervisor Ann Mallek at one of her district’s recent town hall meetings, proposing that she and her board use some of that budgeted money for the public’s benefit, by hiring more police or increasing teacher salaries—all things the board members have supported. They will officially adopt the budget on April 18.

Albemarle County is one of the few counties or cities in the commonwealth that doesn’t have a department for aging, and while the Parks and Recreation Department is able to help publicize programs at the Senior Center, currently located on Pepsi Place, it isn’t able to hire a staff to run them, according to Mallek.

This is why a public-private partnership mutually benefits the county and the organization for the elderly, she says. For that same reason, the Board of Supervisors contributed $2 million to the Brooks Family YMCA, which is scheduled to open in McIntire Park this summer. In that case, Mallek says the city donated the land in an agreement it would gain ownership if the facility were to ever change its operation.

Mallek says she will propose that the Center at Belvedere become a county office building if it ever folds.

In the grand scheme, she says, contributing $500,000 annually for four years is a small investment in the $20 million building, which will be 60,000 square feet. “If it were a private club that did not do things for the general public and have 80 percent of its programs open and available and free, then I would not be doing this.”

Some of those programs, according to executive director Peter Thompson, are concerts, dances and classes on the topics of cyber theft, avoiding fraud, health insurance counseling and current events. The Senior Center also partners with several nonprofits such as Hospice of the Piedmont and Alcoholics Anonymous. Most programs are open to the public for free or a nominal fee.

The current Senior Center encompasses 20,000 square feet and serves about 8,000 unique users a year and 100,000 repeat users, according to Thompson. In its 57 years of existence, the center has never sought public funding, “and that’s the way it will be,” he says. The county’s $2 million will be designated specifically for construction of the new center; the current Senior Center building will be sold.

Senior citizens make up 14 percent of the local population, according to information from Weldon Cooper Center. By 2020, the number is expected to more than double, from 27,000 to 56,000.

After five years of planning to accommodate the rising population of elderly people, Thompson says the fact that they are on track to break ground next year means local leadership understands that an aging community is an issue worth investing in.

“It’s not just nice to have a quality senior center. It’s as vital as having great healthcare, great schools and great transportation,” he says. “You don’t become an age-friendly community just by osmosis.”

Says Grant, “I like these people. I don’t like what they’re doing.”

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Can county officials remain unbiased for referendum vote?

The biggest chunk of the bond referendum—$15.2 million—will pay for a second-story addition and modernization of Woodbrook Elementary School. Staff photo

The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors voted 4-2 July 6 to hold a $35 million bond referendum for school improvements in November, and some locals think county officials will not be able to educate the public about the new ballot item without advocating for it.

Virginia Code allows local governments to clarify a referendum, but insists they must remain neutral in their explanation. Former school board member Gary Grant says county officials may have already slipped up.

“A couple supervisors, in my opinion, have been advocating,” Grant says. “When, in my opinion, they shouldn’t be.”

He notes that Diantha McKeel, the supe who doubles as vice-chair of the board, said at the June 1 BOS meeting that it’s going to fall onto “the school system and the school board to get out to the community and really fight for [the referendum] and explain these projects.” She added, “What I’m hearing is the details can still be explained very clearly at the polling sites.”

Details McKeel referred to would denote specifically what the $35 million bond referendum will go toward—if it passes.

The biggest chunk—$15.2 million—will pay for a two-story addition and modernization of Woodbrook Elementary School, with $10.9 million proposed for learning space modernization across all schools, $6 million slated for a Western Albemarle High School addition and $2.9 million for school security improvements.

At the June 1 meeting, BOS chair Liz Palmer wanted to hang “great big things that you can read from a distance”—posters—inside the polling places to break down the $35 million for voters.

According to Grant, a former reporter at WINA and The Observer who talked with local Virginia Electoral Board member Clara Belle Wheeler, the Electoral Board will publish the wording of the referendum exactly as it appears on the ballot on posters and explanatory materials distributed inside the voting precinct. In her e-mail to Grant, Wheeler says, “No further explanation of any referendum is permitted.” Wheeler did not respond to an interview request.

Jake Washburne, with the county’s registrar of voters, says the code does allow additional explanatory information, however.

“They can’t say, ‘Rah rah rah, vote for this,’” Washburne says, but the governing body may provide
a neutral explanation of each referendum question in 500 words or less.

In his blog, Whatever Albemarle, Grant questions if, to be fair, supervisors will instruct staff to also hang “equally large ‘educational’ charts showing what the tax increase will be if a $35 million referendum passes” inside polling places. Not that he’s against the capital improvement projects, he says, as long as Virginia law is adhered to.

County attorney Greg Kamptner, who will write the question that appears on the ballot, did not respond to an interview request. He has, however, provided to county officials written legal guidance, which says the BOS may pass a resolution in support of or opposition to the referendum. Advocacy prohibitions also do not apply to county officials acting in their individual capacities, he says, or when they’re “off the clock,” Lee Catlin, assistant county executive for community relations, told Charlottesville Tomorrow.

Says Grant, “It’s going to be hard to police that.”

Corrected July 14 at 10:23 to reflect that the proposed addition onto Woodbrook Elementary School will be two stories.