Tag: gavin grimm

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News

In brief: White deer mourned, Draego dropped and more

Courtesy Virginia Rieley

Deerly beloved

Deer memorial
Photo Erin O’Hare

One of two cherished white deer often spotted in the Fry’s Spring neighborhood was struck and killed by a car on Jefferson Park Avenue Extended around 3pm October 23. Deer-lovers, who have christened the creature names such as “Enchanted” and “Half & Half” on Facebook, created a sidewalk memorial to their friend in the 2400 block of JPA. A note reads, “RIP unicorn. Thank you for the magic.”

While more than 200 Facebook users have expressed their sentiments, Janice Kaltenbach may have said it best: “My heart is breaking!! She was so beautiful! And a reminder to us all that ‘different’ can be a good thing and valued.”

Locals sue to extend voter registration

October 17 was the last day to register to vote in Virginia—and the system crashed. Charlottesville residents Kathy and Michael Kern tried to register multiple times October 16 and 17, and on October 18 became plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit. A judge extended registration to October 21.

Free speech case flounders

Jeff Fogel, who was representing Joe Draego in his suit against Charlottesville after he was dragged out of a City Council meeting, filed a motion October 18 to be removed as Draego’s attorney because their relationship “has deteriorated to the point I can no longer effectively communicate with him,” Fogel said.

Charlottesville PoliceHomicide arrest

Pierre Gerard Augustine, 26, was arrested October 18 and charged in the November 21, 2015, slaying of Floyd Randolph Alston Jr., 31, during a home invasion and attempted robbery on South First Street.

Another hazing lawsuit

Aidan Howard, a former UVA first-year football player, filed suit October 14 against UVA President Teresa Sullivan, athletics director Craig Littlepage, coaches Marques Hagans and Famika Anae, and players Doni Dowling and David Eldridge, the Daily Progress reports. Howard was barely on the team a month before alleged bullying and a locker room fight resulted in an injury and his abrupt departure from the team.

gavin_grimm_june_11_ACLUInfluential teen

Gavin Grimm makes Time magazine’s 2016 list for his battle to use the boy’s bathroom at his Gloucester high school. Grimm’s case will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Friendship Court shooting

Ty Quane Pertell Gregory was arrested and charged with malicious wounding and two felony gun offenses in connection with an October 5 shooting of a man in the 400 block of Garrett Street.

Courts await final ruling

Court2 The renovation and expansion of the Albemarle County court system has been on the table for years, and just as a final decision was within reach, the Board of Supervisors called for revisiting the proposal—and adding four more.

Proposals

1. Downtown/Levy Opera House expansion: $39.7 million

The original proposal calls for renovating the opera house, demolishing existing structures and building a new three-story general district court with room for the county and city.

2. Relocate county and city general district courts to County Office Building: $37.7 million

Construct a three-story addition to the McIntire Road building. A partial relocation of government operations would be required. Minimal parking reconfiguration.

3. Relocate the county’s general district court to the County Office Building: $27 million

A three-story addition with little disruption to existing operations and no relocation of government staff.

4. Relocate county general district and circuit courts to County Office Building: $32.8 million

Requires parking expansion and partial displacement of existing operations.

5. Relocate county general district and circuit courts to new county site: $30.9 million

Construct a new 85,000-square-foot complex in the county with 350 parking spaces. Requires voter referendum to move county courts and seat.

Source: Albemarle County

Quote of the week

“Whoever is taking the [Clinton/Kaine] signs is leaving the Jane Dittmar signs.”
—Fluvanna resident Mark Crockett, whose Clinton sign lasted one day before it was swiped.

Categories
Opinion

Drop the mic: The legislative season comes to a welcome end

Gavin Grimm ACLU

We would like to dedicate this edition of our humble column to a brave and tenacious young man: the awesomely named Gavin Grimm, who has (thus far) triumphed in the face of unrelenting adversity and intolerance to champion a basic human right: to pee in peace and comfort. A junior at Gloucester High School, Gavin has long identified as male, and was allowed to use the boys room at his high school for almost two months after he went public with his innate dudeness. But then some local parents got their hate on, and a small-minded district court judge named Robert Doumar ruled that Gavin could not, in fact, use the bathroom that matched his identity.

Luckily, a federal appeals court has now reversed that decision and, for the first time, said that transgender students are covered by Title IX, which bars discrimination on the basis of gender. Even better, this fourth circuit court ruling also covers North Carolina, which recently passed a bill that basically forces everyone in the state to carry around a birth certificate in order to prove they’re in the “correct” bathroom.

The reason we are saluting Gavin at this particular moment (other than the fact that he is awesome) is because, with the final gavel falling on the General Assembly’s veto override session, we have now officially exited Virginia’s annual legislative onslaught without any horrible transphobic legislation becoming the law of the land. This is no mean feat, people! Both Senate Bill 41, which protected gay-marriage-refusing officiants, and House Bill 781, which sought to levy a fine on the Gavin Grimms of this world for simply using the bathroom, could easily have become law.

But they did not, and for that we are profoundly grateful. We are also grateful that not one of Governor Terry McAuliffe’s well-considered vetoes was overridden during the one-day exercise in futility the General Assembly recently endured. Without the Macker’s veto pen, we would now be living in a commonwealth that not only allowed blatant discrimination against same-sex couples, but also propped up the coal industry with taxpayer dollars, cut funding to Planned Parenthood, expanded access to guns, protected all Confederate monuments from being removed from public lands and allowed parents to bar their children from reading any books in school that contained “sexually explicit material” (the bye-bye, Judy Blume bill, as we like to call it).

Of course, Governor McAuliffe also helped draft a bill that would allow the state to obtain drugs for executions under a veil of secrecy, so that nobody would know which compounding pharmacy is blatantly violating the Hippocratic Oath.

But all in all, considering what a horror show the recent legislative session could have been, it feels like we dodged a bullet (in the case of that vetoed gun legislation, quite literally). Then again, with the Republicans firmly in control of the assembly for the foreseeable future, there’s always next year. And the year after that. And the year after that…

Odd Dominion is an unabashedly liberal, twice-monthly op-ed column covering Virginia politics.

Categories
News

In brief: 200K felons head to the polls, new theater and more

Historic week, part 1

Governor Terry McAuliffe restores voting rights to 206,000 felons April 22 in an election year in which his friend Hillary Clinton is running for president, and in a state where an estimated one in four African-Americans can’t vote because of felony convictions, according to the Washington Post.

Gavin Grimm ACLU
Gavin Grimm. Photo ACLU

Historic week, part 2

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit rules April 19 in favor of Gloucester High transgender teen Gavin Grimm, who wants to use the boys bathroom at his school. The ruling could also affect bathroom-legislating North Carolina, which is in the same circuit.

Will they all be showing the same movies?

Another deluxe movieplex out of Austin joins Violet Crown. Alamo Drafthouse Cinema says it will open a 33,000-square-foot, 30-craft-beer-serving facility in summer 2017 at 5th Street Station, aka the Wegmans complex.

Our favorite newsletter of the week

Mike’s First 100 Days details the accomplishments of Mayor Mike Signer and his colleagues on City Council, including a balanced budget, a condemnation of the Landmark Hotel and new council meeting procedures. Officially, the position of mayor is honorary and one among equals on council.

$25K a month in alimony

That’s what Peaceable Farms owner Anne Shumate Williams, aka Golan, gets—and spends—according to testimony in Orange County Circuit Court at an April 21 bond hearing. She was charged with 27 counts of animal cruelty in November, and 13 counts of embezzlement in March. Williams was released on $100,000 bond.

anne williams
Anne Williams Photo Orange County Sheriff’s Office

WhatAboutJefferson

 

Trees

Quote of the week

“Murder victims don’t get to sit on juries but now the man that killed them will. A murder victim won’t get to vote, but the man that killed them will.”—Delegate Rob Bell to the Washington Post after Governor Terry McAuliffe restores voting rights to more than 200,000 felons.