Delegate-elect Sally Hudson will be part of the first Democratic majority in the General Assembly in a generation.
Photo by Eze Amos
Governor Ralph Northam declared Virginia “officially blue” following Tuesday’s election that gave Democrats control of both houses in the General Assembly for the first time in 26 years. And Dems swept Albemarle County, taking the Board of Supervisors, commonwealth’s attorney, and sheriff races.
Yet the local House of Delegates races resulted in no upsets and no surprises. Eleven House districts were redrawn after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that they were racially gerrymandered, but that didn’t affect those around Charlottesville, “which aren’t really drawn to be that competitive,” says Kyle Kondik, managing editor for Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball.
Republican incumbents Rob Bell and Matt Fariss easily held onto their seats by hefty margins. Steve Landes did not seek reelection and opted for the Augusta clerk of court job instead. His successor, Chris Runion, who vowed to get to Richmond to fight the “liberal left” and protect the unborn, kept the 25th District red, while Democrat Sally Hudson sailed into office unopposed.
Democrats ended Election Day with a 21-19 majority in the Senate, and a 55-45 hold in the House of Delegates.
Kondik is not surprised at the two Democratic flips in the General Assembly. “The Trumpian White House was the driving force,” he says, and the prognosticators are moving Virginia from “leans Democratic” to “likely Democratic.”
So what will a blue legislature mean for the state?
“A Democratic General Assembly can pass the Equal Rights Amendment and be the 38th state to do so,” says Democrat state Senator Creigh Deeds, who easily held onto his seat with 67 percent of the vote over independent challenger Elliott Harding. He also anticipates a $15-an-hour minimum wage and an LGBTQ anti-discrimination bill “to protect all Virginians” to pass in the upcoming session.
Gun safety is another hot-button issue for Democrats after the Virginia Beach shootings and Republicans’ refusal to consider any legislation at a special session in July. Background checks and red flag laws are measures Deeds is “confident” can pass in the next session.
The one local General Assembly race that was surprisingly close was former Charlottesville school board chair Amy Laufer’s challenge to incumbent state Senator Bryce Reeves in the 17th District. Democrat Laufer garnered 48 percent of the vote to Reeves’ 52 percent.
It was also the race that was TV ad-heavy, with Laufer calling out Reeves’ insurance industry connections and Reeves firing back with “lying, liberal Lauper.”
The district was competitive when Reeves was elected in 2011, but Kondik says he would have been surprised if Laufer had won because its rural sections have become more sharply red.
In his victory speech, Reeves sounded like the underdog when he told supporters, “Against all odds, against all the stones, you held the line.” He promised to hold Democrats accountable in Richmond and to fend off “infanticide.”
For David Toscano, outgoing House minority leader, the only surprise in the Dem insurgency was that they took 55 seats rather than the 54 he expected.
He noticed some Republicans using abortion to energize their bases. In most races, “It didn’t pan out for them,” says Toscano. “People were more concerned about guns than reproductive rights. That worked for us.” Immigration was another GOP issue that failed to resonate, he says.
One of the indicators Toscano eyed on Election Day was turnout. “The last off-off-election year, turnout was under 30 percent statewide,” he says. This year, “turnout was off the charts.”
In Albemarle County, turnout was 50 percent compared to 31 percent in 2015. “For an off-off-year election, this is a pretty big jump,” says Albemarle registrar Jake Washburne.
Money was another factor in the 2019 county races, with progressive donor Sonjia Smith putting an eye-popping $114,000 into Democrat Jim Hingeley’s commonwealth’s attorney bid. Hingeley raised $200,000 to oust incumbent Robert Tracci, who raised $119,000, 56 percent to 44 percent.
Smith also pumped $60,000 into Laufer’s race, and gave Hudson nearly $103,000 for the 57th District before Toscano had announced he wouldn’t seek another term.
“I don’t really like how significant money is becoming and candidates relying on one person to get elected,” says Toscano. Huge donations make candidates “too beholden,” he says, and he’d like to see the General Assembly enact some campaign finance restrictions.
A big issue for Charlottesville is the state law that prohibits the removal of Confederate statues. Toscano’s bills the past two years to give localities the power to chart their own statue destiny haven’t gotten out of subcommittee.He’s certain another bill to do so will be introduced, but doesn’t think its passage is a sure thing. “Some Democrats are a little leery of that bill,” he says. However, Governor Northam says he supports letting localities decide.
Toscano’s prediction for future races: “As long as Trump is in the White House, Democrats are going to do well.”
Political operative Paul Wright, a former Republican who became a Democrat in 2016, was Chan Bryant’s campaign manager. He spent November 5 at Ivy polls. “Turnout was a pleasant surprise,” he says. “The enthusiasm at the polls was clearly with the Democrats.”
He was confident about Bryant’s 8,000-door-knocking campaign, but didn’t expect her to win with 60 percent against former Charlottesville Police spokesman Ronnie Roberts.
He attributes the statewide Dem swell to demographic changes that are making the state bluer, the amount of money Dems had to get their message out, and “compelling candidates.”
He says, “A lot of people were vocal about wanting to send Trump a message.” In contrast, he didn’t see that same intensity from Republicans at the polls.
Democrats took control of the legislature with Republican-drawn lines, says Wright, and he anticipates more competitive races in Albemarle in two years when the lines have been redrawn.
One issue he can’t figure out: “As of today, I have trouble coming up with a pathway for Republicans in Albemarle County.”
Sally Hudson, left, and Kathy Galvin, right, will face off in the primary June 11. Photo: Amy and Jackson Smith
The reliably Democratic 57th District rarely makes for an exciting horse race. Once a delegate, always a delegate, as David Toscano and Mitch Van Yahres before him proved, each easily holding on to the seat representing Charlottesville and the Albemarle urban ring as long as he chose.
Not this year.
Newcomer Sally Hudson upended the tradition of politely waiting until the incumbent decides not to seek reelection, and jumped into the race before House Minority Leader Toscano announced in February he was retiring after this term.
And she brought a $100,000 donation from philanthropist Sonjia Smith into the race with her.
City Councilor Kathy Galvin, after serving two terms on council, decided she’d make a run for Richmond as well.
For the first time in the district, two women want to take the reins on a state level.
Center for Politics pundit Larry Sabato lives in the 57th District, but says he hasn’t followed the race because “Donald Trump and his tweets and bizarre presidency absorb my days.” He does offer this:
“In an era when someone like Donald Trump, with zero governmental and military experience, could get elected president, the old traditions don’t even exist anymore.”
In 2017, Virginia held the first state election after Trump was elected, and saw a surge of women running for office. Democrats took 15 seats in the House of Delegates and Republicans watched their 66-34 majority in the House whittled down to an almost even split. (The GOP narrowly held on to its majority after a Republican’s name was drawn out of a bowl in the tied 94th District race, to make it 51-49.)
This election pits Hudson, 30, an economist who moved here from Boston three years ago, against Galvin, 63, an architect who has lived in Charlottesville 35 years.
Hudson teaches at UVA’s Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and advises public and nonprofit agencies statewide. Galvin is an adjunct professor at UVA and served on the school board before her election to City Council.
“I think it’s going to be very close,” says former mayor Dave Norris. “You’ve got two strong female candidates.” Galvin is running on her government experience, and Hudson on her policy experience and passion for structural change, he says.
“It comes down to whether voters want to stay with one they know or go with a fresh face,” says Norris. “The question is whether people want to move in a new direction.”
Former councilor Dede Smith served with Galvin, but supports Hudson, whom she sees as part of a new wave of female leaders emerging across the country. As a baby boomer, Smith says it’s time for her generation to move aside and let millennials handle what’s going to be their future. “We’re seeing this incredibly capable group of people stepping forward,” she says.
Former mayor Bitsy Waters is a Galvin supporter. “I’m supporting Kathy because of her number of years of local service and her familiarity with local issues,” she says. “A lot of political jobs are not entry level. They come with a lot of responsibility, and experience has great value.”
Hudson’s announcement “was a political surprise,” says Waters, who thought Toscano would be delegate for another term. She sees Hudson’s run as part of a national trend of “young people stepping forward and thinking it’s their time.”
The $100,000 donation Hudson received is large for the 57th District, and “has the potential to change the dynamic,” says Waters. “I’m a campaign reform person. I don’t like the idea people can buy elections.”
Dede Smith puts the Sonjia Smith contribution in another light. “I know it was shocking. But David Toscano has a war chest of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Sonjia Smith is not a corporation. She doesn’t ask for stuff.”
Sonjia Smith has a history of supporting progressive candidates. Her husband, Michael Bills, started Clean Virginia, a PAC that contributes to candidates who eschew Dominion donations, which both Hudson and Galvin have done.
Observes Norris, “That was a pretty powerful signal people involved in clean energy are tired of the status quo.” Dominion has the capacity to invest in campaigns, he says. “I think [Smith and Bills] were pretty displeased with Delegate Toscano and wanted to shake up Dominion’s political influence.
The flip side, he says, “Does it raise questions about a candidate when she has so much cash from one source?”
No Republicans have announced a run for the seat, so whoever wins the June 11 primary is pretty much headed to Richmond.
On May 16, Toscano came out for Galvin, citing her experience and long local ties to the community. But he added, “I will give my wholehearted support to whoever wins the Democratic primary.”
The outcome depends on who shows up at the polls, and primaries traditionally have lower turnout—although that’s changed some since the 2016 election.
“Longer-term residents tend to vote in the election,” says Norris. “That could favor Kathy.”
Adds Norris, “A lot of people are still upset about what happened in 2017. That could hurt her. There hasn’t been acknowledgment of mistakes made by City Council.”
“Millennials are finally waking up to the fact they need to vote,” says Smith, which she thinks will be a factor in turnout for Hudson.
Galvin-supporter Waters would like to believe name recognition and experience will benefit her candidate, but says, “I’ve felt a lot of what I knew about politics thrown up in the air the past couple of years.”
The newcomer
Sally Hudson, an assistant professor of economics at UVA’s Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, admits, “I was not plugged into politics three years ago. Then 2016 happened.”
She knocked on doors for Tom Perriello, another beneficiary of Sonjia Smith’s largess, during his 2017 primary run for governor, and then continued to help get Ralph Northam elected. “I kind of fell into this sideways,” she says.
If elected, the first issue she’d tackle would be comprehensive election reform, including automatic registration, ranked choice voting, and independent redistricting. In 2015, every incumbent in the General Assembly kept their seats, she says. “That’s a real threat to democracy.”
Her opponent has called for a $10,000 cap on donations, and said she won’t accept money from Dominion. How does limiting donations square with Hudson’s $100,000 cash bonanza from Smith?
“It’s something I struggled with initially,” concedes Hudson. “I didn’t get into the race because of that. No one knows how they’ll act until someone opens that door.”
She describes Smith as a mentor and as someone who invests in leaders. “I know her,” says Hudson. “There’s no way in a million years she’d come knocking on my door and ask for something.”
Hudson has used her war chest to invest in a heavy field operation. “If what we were doing was buying attack ads, that would be different,” she says. “That donation brought a lot of noise. It was like dropping a rock in a pond.”
She also addresses stepping on Toscano’s seniority when she announced her candidacy for his seat. “It wasn’t any disrespect for David’s service,” she says. “It wasn’t about him. It was about now.”
A common thread she’s seen among many of the progressive candidates is what is the right thing for right now, she says. Her race is about the “moment we’re in now.”
The daughter of a minister, Hudson originally came from Iowa, and lived in Arizona, Nebraska, and Connecticut growing up, then in Palo Alto when she studied at Stanford, and in Boston while at MIT. “Charlottesville is a great hybrid of a lot of places I’ve lived before,” she says, with its small community feel and urban walkability.
She considers moving around a lot growing up an asset when trying to solve problems, bringing a new perspective on how other states have done things.
While Galvin and Hudson will both say they’re on the same side on a number of issues, the biggest difference between them, Hudson says, is “where and how we focus.”
“Kathy has a long history of serving local government,” she says. “I am the candidate more focused on state government. I’m an economist and most of the work I do is advising state agencies.”
At forums, Hudson notes that she’s spent more time in Richmond, and she stresses her econ background and her love of getting into the weeds of government and economic inequity.
Hudson has gotten endorsements from four current members of the House of Delegates who’ve worked with her.
And she believes it’s really important to send a strong progressive from a safe Dem district to push issues that others, in more competitive districts,“don’t have as much latitude to stick their necks out” on.
Hudson’s also gotten endorsements from city councilors who have served with Galvin: Smith, Heather Hill, Kristin Szakos, and Mayor Nikuyah Walker.
“I think it’s telling most of [Galvin’s] endorsers have served quite some time ago,” she says. “I’m incredibly grateful for the support, particularly from female mayors like Nancy O’Brien and Kay Slaughter.”
Hudson thinks it’s time for a generational change in elected office, and she points out that millennials aren’t kids anymore and that designation means an adult under 40.
She describes herself as the Columbine generation, one whose first major media moment was that school shooting when she was 10 years old. Twenty years later, she and her peers are still waiting for change—while school shootings have become a regular part of the American landscape.
“I think our generation has watched the current leadership fail to make progress on the really acute crises that we’ve been facing,” she says. “When people say, be patient and wait your turn, we think, we have been waiting.”
Sally Hudson has stopped waiting.
Photo: Eze Amos
The veteran
When Kathy Galvin first ran for City Council in 2011, the big issue was the construction of the Ragged Mountain Reservoir megadam and the still-unbuilt nine-mile pipeline from South Fork Rivanna. The issue so roiled the community that Galvin called a press conference to decry “the tone of our local political debate.”
Flash forward to the post-August 2017 era. The water controversy seems benign after what Galvin describes as the “watershed moment” of August 2017, but “interestingly enough, the water supply has been a wonderful investment,” she says.
Galvin has been in the thick of the past several contentious years on City Council, starting with the call to remove Confederate statues in 2016. She declined to vote in favor of getting rid of the statue of General Robert E. Lee until after August 12, when she and fellow councilor Mike Signer joined the others and said aye to removing both Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
In early 2018, Galvin lost a bid for mayor when her councilor colleagues voted 4-1 for Nikuyah Walker, with Galvin the sole no vote.
And in April, C-VILLE opinion columnist Molly Conger targeted Galvin with a piece called “Working the system: Galvin has a history of supporting the status quo.” Conger recalled a memo Galvin wrote in 2005, in which Galvin criticized a 2004 outside audit of the school system as “bent on finding evidence of institutional racism” and wrote, “Black parents…expect the schools to look after their needs and tell them what needs to be done.”
Galvin declines an opportunity to respond to the column. “I don’t want to pretend to know anyone’s motivation,” she says. “It doesn’t warrant my response. My record stands on its own.”
The Unite the Right rally and the growing white nationalist movement that’s “a matter of domestic terrorism,” along with the shooting down of post-rally legislation to allow Charlottesville to control its own monuments are part of her reasons for wanting to go to Richmond, “to give local governments authority to deal with their own issues,” she says.
During her 35 years in Charlottesville, Galvin has learned about the gaps between state and local government in Dillon Rule Virginia, where localities only have the authority that’s been granted them by the General Assembly.
“Instead of being a local elected official where you’re having to ask permission,” says Galvin, “I want to be able to be that ready partner in Richmond to unleash the talent that’s here locally so city and county governments can solve their own problems for the people they serve.”
The Massachusetts native graduated from Boston University with a B.A. in geography and economics, and says she didn’t become an architect until after she’d worked managing public housing and met “citizen architects driven by community issues.”
She acknowledges that in terms of positions—clean energy, affordable housing, education, and gun safety—she and Hudson are not very different. “In terms of our understanding of the area and our experience in the area, we’re very different.” Galvin went to grad school here, raised a family, served on the PTO, and as a working mother, saw her paycheck go to pay for childcare.
“I’ve seen firsthand the stark racial and class divides between our neighborhoods, and that’s why our school compositions are so different,” she says. “That led me to work on the school board.”She thinks it’s that experience in the community and in elected office that sets her apart from Hudson.
When asked about Hudson’s large cash infusion, Galvin says, “Putting a cap on contributions allows more people to have an equal voice.” She adds, “Not addressing the influence of big money on political campaigns is not seeing the elephant in the room.”
Galvin has learned the difference between running for City Council and running for the House of Delegates: “The amount of money I have to raise, given the imbalance we’ve seen, is staggering.”
As of March 31, Galvin had reported raising just under $28,000 compared to Hudson’s $155,000.
At her campaign launch, Councilor Wes Bellamy was on hand, and Galvin said he’d given her a lot of insight on inequity and racism. She also thanked her colleagues on City Council for alerting her to bias in the criminal justice system with the automatic suspension of driver’s licenses for nonpayment of fines, regardless of one’s ability to pay, and mass incarceration.
Galvin has made criminal justice reform one of her campaign issues, and says it’s time to legalize pot. But in 2012, she voted against a resolution that came before council to ask the General Assembly to revisit marijuana laws and consider decriminalization. She defends that vote now, as well as her opposition to the part of the resolution that would have instructed police to make reefer possession arrests a low priority.
“It wasn’t allowed by state law,” she says. “I’m [now] in the position of facing a million-dollar lawsuit because we voted against something that wasn’t allowed by state law,” she says, referring to council’s vote to remove the Confederate statues.
As a legislator, she says she’d be in a better position to legalize, and she also notes that with at least 10 other states working to legalize pot, there are more examples to learn from.Legal marijuana would be a cash crop for Virginia farmers.
Galvin touts her ability to work with Albemarle County over the years on regional issues, and to get people together in a conversation. “The lessons I’ve learned are a reason to run,” she says.
And she’s enjoyed knocking on doors in the county, and getting to meet “people who don’t come to City Council.”
It’s been pretty rough for anyone sitting on council the past couple of years, where councilors are publicly berated on a regular basis by the citizenry.
She says, “Clearly it has not deterred me from running for the House of Delegates.”
Supporters of Confederate statues line up to speak at a House of Delegates subcommittee January 30.
Staff photo
Ultimately, no one was surprised that a House of Delegates subcommittee, made up of eight white men, killed a bill that would let Virginia localities decide what to do with Confederate monuments–not even the bill’s sponsor, Delegate David Toscano.
“They knew when we walked in what they would do with that bill,” said Toscano following the January 30 meeting. The subcommittee has five Republican and three Democrats, and one of the Dems joined in the 6-2 vote against the bill.
About a dozen Charlottesville supporters of the bill, including two elected officials, came for the 7:30am meeting of Counties, Cities and Towns Subcommittee #1. Some held signs during the proceeding: “Local authority for war memorials,” “Truthful history heals,” and “Lose the Lost Cause.”
And five opponents of the bill, none of whom were from Charlottesville, spoke against local control of Confederate monuments in public places.
Following the August 12, 2017, Unite the Right rally that brought hundreds of white supremacists to Charlottesville, ostensibly to protest City Council’s vote to remove the statue of General Robert E. Lee in what’s now called Market Street Park, Toscano carried a bill to give localities control over their own war monuments. Current state law makes it illegal for anyone to remove a memorial commemorating any war. That bill died a quick death in subcommittee in 2018, and this year’s version specified Confederate monuments only.
“It’s about local control,” Toscano told the subcommittee. “We give localities control of the cutting of weeds, but we haven’t yet given them control of monuments that might have a detrimental effect on the atmosphere and feelings of this community.”
The 1902 statute protecting war memorials “popped up just at the time of Jim Crow,” said Toscano, at the “height of the so-called Lost Cause celebration of the Confederate contribution to the Civil War.”
Subcommittee chair Charles Poindexter asked about the monuments, “Weren’t they also concurrent with the dying out of Confederate veterans?”
Toscano rejected the notion that Virginia was involved in a “heroic battle” during the Civil War. “This was an effort to destroy the Union.”
Justin Greenlee, who studies art and architectural history at UVA, told the subcommittee Confederate statues are “a monument to white supremacy,” and portray a “false story of history. They continue to intimidate.”
Lisa Draine, whose daughter was injured when self-proclaimed neo-Nazi James Fields accelerated into a crowd, killing Heather Heyer, said, “I couldn’t imagine that the statues brought this to our town.”
And Don Gathers, who served on the city’s Blue Ridge Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces, implored the subcommittee: “Please recognize the hatred these statues brought to descend upon our city.”
Ned Gallaway, Albemarle Board of Supervisors chair, and City Councilor Kathy Galvin both stressed the importance of local control over Confederate monuments.
Richmond native Ed Willis said a bill to allow localities to remove Civil War monuments discriminated against his “Confederate national origin.” staff photo
Among the bill’s opponents was Chesterfield resident Ed Willis, who said the bill was unconstitutional. “It’s painfully clear that discrimination based on national origin—on Confederate national origin—is the purpose of this bill.” He also said the legislature couldn’t do anything that would affect the ongoing lawsuit against the city and City Council for its vote to remove both the Lee and General Stonewall Jackson monuments.
Virginia Beach resident Frank Earnest, who is a plaintiff in the lawsuit and “heritage defense coordinator” for Virginia’s Sons of Confederate Veterans, warned that like “other socialist takeovers, it’ll be Confederate statues today, but don’t think they won’t be back next year to expand it to another war, another time in history.”
He said it was the “improper actions of the city government of Charlottesville” that caused the events of August 12, and that he resented anyone saying Confederates were there. “They were not.” He presented the officials with what he said were 2,000 signatures of Virginians opposed to removing Confederate monuments.
One of the three Democrats on the subcommittee made a motion to move the bill forward, to no avail.
Toscano called the vote “disappointing but not surprising.” He said the “discrimination” objection was “unbelievable,” and joked about whether people would be checking a Confederate national origin box on their census forms.
A bill that would allow localities like Charlottesville to relocate Confederate statues failed in a House of Delegates subcommittee January 30. staff photo
UVA professor Frank Dukes, who also served on the Blue Ribbon Commission, said he was surprised the vote “wasn’t even close. I think it’s so hypocritical from people who constantly talk about local control.”
Nor was Gathers surprised, except for the one Democrat—Portsmouth Delegate Stephen Heretick—joining in with Republicans to vote against the measure.
UVA prof and activist Jalane Schmidt pointed out that it took 10 years to get the “Johnny Reb” statue erected in front of the Albemarle courthouse, and that it could take 10 years to remove Confederate monuments.
“It’s about changing hearts and minds,” she said. “It’s about changing representation.”
The General Assembly is held by a slim Republican majority in both houses, and all legislators are up for reelection this year.
For the moment, however, Confederate supporters had a victory they could savor. As they headed to the elevators, one expressed his thoughts: “Those people in Charlottesville are crazy.”
With so much going on in the executive branch, it's easy to neglect what's happening in the General Assemblyl as the session hits its . midpoint. File photo.
Medicaid expansion clears House
For Terry McAuliffe’s entire term as governor, Medicaid expansion for 400,000 uninsured Virginians remained out of grasp. Last week, after Republican Delegate Terry Kilgore broke rank in favor of expansion, the House voted 68 to 32 in favor, with local delegates Rob Bell, Steve Landes and Matt Fariss in the no column. The measure still has to clear the Senate, which did not approve expansion in its budget.
“For too long, we’ve allowed the Virginia way to be shouted down by a charlatan whose record doesn’t match his rhetoric, and right now, I’m done with fake politicians.”—Delegate Glenn Davis slams wannabe GOP U.S. Senate candidate Corey Stewart February 23 to a standing ovation in the House.
UVA event disrupted
Pro-Palestinian, megaphone-carrying protesters disrupted a Brody Jewish Center and Hoos for Israel event February 22 and may have violated UVA policies, says Dean of Students Allen Groves. The demonstrators were invited to join the Building Bridges panel, but chose to shout at participants instead, the Cav Daily reports.
DP escapes ax—this time
The Daily Progress is not affected by BH Media’s latest layoffs that cut 148 employees and leave 101 vacant jobs, according to DP publisher Rob Jiranek. Last April, the Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary canned 181 employees, including three at the Progress and 33 at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Statue stripper arrested again
Christopher James Wayne, the 34-year-old Richmond man charged with removing tarps from the city’s Confederate statues, picked up his third trespassing charge February 23. Police say he was between the orange barricade and the Stonewall Jackson statue in Justice Park. Wayne is barred from both Justice and Emancipation parks.
Park déjà vu
City Council will look at renaming Emancipation and Justice parks—again—after Mary Carey objected to the name Emancipation and collected approximately 500 signatures on a petition.
Crisis management
CHS students get four lockdown drills during the school year.
They hope it won’t happen here, but if it does, they want to be prepared.
On the heels of a Valentine’s Day massacre—the fourth most deadly school shooting in American history at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida—local schools are discussing their own crisis plans.
Students in city schools participate in four lockdown drills each year. Through an agreement with the Charlottesville Police Department, three armed resource officers and several unarmed community service officers rove the school district, primarily at Charlottesville High School, Buford Middle School and Walker Upper Elementary, according to Kim Powell, an assistant superintendent.
Among other security features, city schools have buzz-in systems at their front doors and interior doors that route visitors through the school’s main office. A crisis plan for each school, which is not available to the public, is reviewed and updated annually.
This spring, city schools will install new locks on classroom doors to ensure they all lock from the inside, something that’s already been implemented at all county schools.
Phil Giaramita, a spokesperson for Albemarle County Public Schools, adds that all school entrances are numbered, so first responders know exactly where to enter in the event of an emergency. Classroom door windows in county schools have also been coated with a protective material that’s harder to break.
About 14 Monticello High students walked out of their lunch period for 15 minutes on February 21 to protest gun violence, according to Giaramita. Both county and city schools are discussing preparations for upcoming national walkout events and marches, including the National School Walkout on March 14.
Charlottesville High is among the city schools that are patrolled throughout the day by three armed resource officers and several
community service members.
Delegate Matt Fariss, R-Rustburg, represents southern Albemarle and sits on the Militia, Police and Public Safety subcommittee that regularly kills gun safety measures. File photo
Andy Goddard has been going to the General Assembly since 2008, the year after his son was shot four times in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre. In his 11th year monitoring the legislature and how it deals with mass murders and guns, not much has changed.
“It’s the same old thing,” says Goddard, who’s the legislative director for the Virginia Center for Public Safety. “The one subcommittee in the House that kills all the gun bills used to be 4-1 Republican majority.” Now, with last fall’s Democratic insurgency in the House that brought it to a 49-51 minority, the Militia, Police and Public Safety subcommittee that handily dispatches anything that could restrict gun ownership added another Dem and is now 5-2. “Ludicrous,” says Goddard.
House Democratic Leader David Toscano agrees and says the subcommittee makeup is “unproportional” to the nearly even split of the House.
Subcommittee No. 1 includes southern Albemarle’s delegate, Matt Fariss, a Republican from Rustburg. Fariss did not return phone calls from C-VILLE Weekly to explain why measures such as requiring family day care centers to lock up guns after a 4-year-old boy killed himself in Orange last spring or banning bump stocks—the device used in Las Vegas to slaughter 58 people and wound hundreds—failed.
“Every year we see this,” says Gay Einstein, who heads the Charlottesville Coalitionfor Gun Violence Prevention. “Bump stocks—really?”
Her group started after the December 14, 2012, Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre of 20 first-graders in Newtown, Connecticut. The inability to nudge Virginia legislators to support gun safety measures is depressing, says Einstein, despite increased interest in preventing mass murders. The group took a bus of 32 people down to Richmond in January to lobby.
Goddard says 113 firearms-related bills were introduced in the General Assembly this session, and his organization supported 83 of them. Of those, “81 have gone down,” says Goddard.
One of the two survivors is a bill state Senator Creigh Deeds carried that would put restrictions on gun possession on minors who were involuntarily ordered to undergo mental health treatment.
The other? A “stop gun violence” license plate. “The gun boys got really upset and threw everything at that one,” says Goddard, who wonders how gun violence can be stopped when legislators “can’t even abide the words on a license plate.”
Despite the steadfast defeat of firearms restrictions in Richmond, in the wake of the Parkland, Florida, high school slayings and the national student-led outrage, Toscano is calling upon fellow legislators to reopen the conversation. “There are three items worthy of discussion,” he says.
First, banning bump stocks. Second, banning the sale of assault weapons to people under 21. “If we could have prevented the sale of an AR-15, the Florida shootings would not have occurred,” he says. And third, a “gun prevention protective order,” which would allow a court to remove guns from someone deemed mentally ill and dangerous “like the guy in Florida,” a measure that has support in conservative and liberal camps, says Toscano.
He knows he needs help from across the aisle to get anything done as this year’s session winds down, and on February 27, he says, “I’m going to challenge Republicans to join us.”
Despite the steadfast defeat of firearms restrictions in Richmond, in the wake of the Parkland, Florida, high school slayings and the national student-led outrage, House Democratic Leader David Toscano is calling upon fellow legislators to reopen the conversation.
Delegate Matt Fariss was found not guilty of his breaching the peace charge.
Publicity photo
Albemarle’s favorite delegate with a rap sheet, Rustburg resident Matt Fariss, R-59th, pleaded guilty to a hit-and-run charge March 25 in Campbell County, and claims the incident that sent his Dodge Ram pickup airborne happened when he dropped a bottle of Mountain Dew and attempted to retrieve it. At the same hearing, Fariss was found not guilty of breaching the peace, a misdemeanor charge stemming from a separate incident.
Fariss veered off Red House Road July 29 and was not charged until December 10. His 2014 Dodge Ram plowed into several landscaped shrubs, a mailbox, a highway sign and approximately 60 feet of fence, according to the Virginia State Police.
The News & Advance in Lynchburg reports Fariss struck a tree, went in and out of a ditch, and then went airborne. He left the scene and said he intended to fix the fence himself, but his tires were leaking. When he left a note the next day, the fence already was fixed. He was ordered to pay a $250 fine, and said he’d already paid for the fence damage.
Gladys resident Ralph Ramsey, who also lives on Red House Road, filed the breach of peace complaint against Fariss January 5 after a dispute about Fariss’ sons blocking Ramsey’s driveway, which is an easement through land upon which property owner Sam Dawson allows people to hunt. Fariss filed his own complaint January 8.
Both men said the other was being confrontational, and the judge said he could find neither guilty, according to the News & Advance.
Fariss, who represents southern Albemarle County, was first elected to office in 2011, amid media reports of three hunting charges, a 1997 DUI and a 2002 emergency protective order filed by a woman who said Fariss crashed through her back door when she told him to leave.
He won 53 percent of the vote, and ran unopposed in 2013 and 2015.
Diana Mead is one of Fariss’ constituents in North Garden, and she finds it “a little embarrassing that my Virginia state delegate has such a long rap sheet.”
Her more immediate concern is that Fariss has been invited to the annual League of Women Voters’ Legislative Luncheon since he was first elected, and has been a no-show every year. This year’s luncheon is April 7.
“This is the perfect opportunity for him to meet some of his constituents, who eagerly await the chance to make his acquaintance,” writes Mead in an e-mail. “As far as I know, he has still never ventured north of Lovingston, so he is missing out on getting to know an important part of his district.”
She offers to drive to Rustburg and pick him up if that would help get him to the Boar’s Head Inn event. “It’s time to represent!” she says.
Fariss did not return a phone call from C-VILLE. In a call to the Republican Party of Virginia, when asked about the hit-and-running delegate, Executive Director John Findlay said, “Oh gosh.” He then referred a reporter to spokesperson David Donofrio, who did not return a call. Nor did Fariss’ attorney, Mark Peake, who said in court Fariss accepted “full responsibility” for the fence-smashing incident.
Delegate David Toscano will stick around as House minority leader for at least one more session. Submitted photo
Delegate David Toscano made two surprise announcements within two days. On November 12, he sent an e-mail to the Democratic caucus in the House of Delegates saying he was stepping down as minority leader. One day later, he says he changed his mind “when my cell phone blew up with caucus members and federal and state officials” urging him to stay on.
In the first announcement, Toscano, 65, a family law attorney who was elected minority leader in 2011, said he “no longer has the time and energy to commit to the job in a way necessary to perform it. My family and my work have often been forced to take a backseat over the last four years…”
Former mayor Kay Slaughter, who served with Toscano on City Council, says before the election, she and Toscano were “decrying how hard it is for a Democrat to win a seat because the districts are so gerrymandered. He said, ‘Maybe I should resign,’ and I said, ‘No, no, no, you do such a good job.’”
When Toscano said he was stepping aside, says Slaughter, “I was surprised. I didn’t think he was serious.”
One day later, Toscano changed his mind “after considerable discussion” with his family, he says. “I was unprepared for the extent to which people wanted me to stay on.” His family, too, “was stunned like I was by the degree of support,” he says.
A big factor was caucus members stepping up and saying, “We’ll help so you don’t have to take so much time from your family and work,” says Toscano. “I’ve been leader for four years. That’s when the time commitment ratcheted up. Now I don’t have to drive up to Northern Virginia or Hampton Roads. I’m energized I have all this support and people willing to work.”
He was elected minority leader at the November 14 Democratic caucus. Dems are vastly outnumbered by Republicans in the House, although they did gain two seats in November, which are enough to keep the Republicans from a veto-proof majority, and eight new members with “new energy,” says Toscano.
“I think he’s the right person in the leadership role,” says Slaughter. “I’m glad he’s staying in place.”
