Tag: in brief

Buy in

Two first-time homebuyers in Crozet celebrated with Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville on March 16.

Katrena Cooper and Tanjah Wheeler are still closing on their homes, but they enjoyed meeting their new neighbors and soaking in the sunny weather during the afternoon celebration.

“It means a lot to me to be closer to one of my dreams of being a homeowner,” said Wheeler. “I’m looking forward to meeting new people, good people. And I’m also looking forward to just letting my son come outside and play.”

Achieving homeownership has been a long process for Cooper and Wheeler, who thanked their support systems, families, and Habitat for helping them through the process.

“I would like to give a special shoutout to my kids for sticking by me,” said Cooper. “I just want to thank God. I can’t wait to get in and get settled, and get to know my new neighbors.”

Rising home prices in Crozet have made affordable housing more and more scarce in that part of Albemarle County.

“Crozet has changed a lot … as it’s changed it has become less accessible to people, to working-class folks in the community, and so we’re really grateful to be part of the solution to making sure that Crozet continues to be a place where people from all walks of life can move,” said Habitat President and CEO Dan Rosensweig. “We need to keep pushing, and we need to make sure that when there are new homes built in Crozet there are also opportunities for Habitat families and other folks of more limited means.”

Longshot

March Madness is officially here, with three Virginia teams headed to the big dance.

On Friday, March 22, 12-seed James Madison and 16-seed Longwood will vye for upset victories over Wisconsin and Houston, respectively. While the Bleacher Report predicts the Dukes will beat the Badgers, few are optimistic that the Lancers will pull off a win against the No. 1-seed Cougars.

Though considered a contender for the NCAA tournament by many, Virginia Commonwealth University missed out on Selection Sunday after losing to Duquesne in the March 17 Atlantic 10 tournament.

The University of Virginia has to play its way into March Madness in a First Four matchup against Colorado State after a devastating March 15 overtime loss to surprise ACC tournament-winner North Carolina State.

At press time, the Hoos hadn’t hit the court for their 9:10pm tipoff on March 19, but several sports analysts predict UVA will drop the ball.

Ed. note: UVA lost to Colorado State in their March 19 game.

In with the new
A longstanding Corner business is changing faces: Ellie’s Country Club opens this week, on Thursday, March 21, at the former location of The Biltmore. UVA graduate and Virginian Restaurant Company manager Ashley Major purchased The Biltmore earlier this year, and told The Daily Progress she plans to revive the Corner mainstay’s live music. The Biltmore, which closed in December, was a popular student spot for more than 30 years.

Ceasefire vote
Charlottesville City Council voted down a resolution on March 18 that would have required council to formally call for an immediate ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and Palestine. The resolution, drafted by the Charlottesville Jewish Organizing Collective with support from other faith-based and community organizations, was supported by a petition with more than 1,300 signatures. Most of the public commenters at the City Council meeting were in favor of council formally calling for a ceasefire, but council members were split 2-3 in their vote, with Natalie Oschrin and Michael Payne voting yes.

20 years later
A jury found 39-year-old Albemarle County resident Kevin Moore guilty of murdering Jesse Hicks, a crime that had gone unsolved for 20 years. Hicks, a trucker, went missing in 2004, and his remains were found a decade later on property owned by Moore’s family. According to The Daily Progress, jurors took just two hours to convict Moore and recommend a sentence of 28 years. Moore’s father, Glenn Spradlin, was painted by both the prosecution and defense as the instigator of the murder. While Spradlin was also arrested and charged, he died of cancer a year before the trial.

Ed. note: An earlier version of this story misrepresented the amount of City Council meeting attendees in favor of a proposed resolution calling for a ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and Palestine. C-VILLE regrets the error.

Promise broken

The Montpelier Foundation board has revoked its promise to share governance of the historic property with descendants of the over 300 enslaved laborers who lived and worked there. 

The foundation voted in June 2021 to change its bylaws and fill half the board of James Madison’s former home with members of the Montpelier Descendants Committee. Only three of the 16 current board members were committee-nominated; the board’s new vote denies the committee the ability to name any future members to the board, leaving it up to the board’s discretion.

“They really want a narrative that’s restricted to nothing that’s negative about James Madison,” said Matt Reeves, Montpelier’s director of archaeology, in a March 25 Washington Post story detailing the tension between the board and the committee.

Gene Hickok, chairman of the Montpelier Foundation board, told the Post that the board has faced challenges working with the committee, and seeks to select members from a larger pool of candidates. 

“This is an effort to reset the process,” Hickok said. “It certainly doesn’t have the board backing away from parity. We are very committed to parity. The challenge has been organizationally getting there.”

A majority of the full-time staff at Montpelier issued a statement requesting the Montpelier Foundation board honor its promise of structural parity and also calling for an end to “the intimidation of staff,” which involved “implied or threatened retaliation” if staff failed to disclose communication with members of the descendants committee. 

Paul Edmondson, chief executive of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which owns Montpelier, wrote a letter to Hickok imploring him to not reverse the bylaws. 

“We believe this change would undermine decades of important work that led to the formation of the committee in the first place, and in turn would set back Montpelier’s efforts to continue the necessary work of uplifting descendants’ voices, and repairing the relationship between the broader African American community and Montpelier, the former site of generations of enslavement,” he wrote. 

In a press release from an attorney representing the committee, Dr. Bettye Kearse, one of the few members nominated to the board by the committee, emphasized the Montpelier Descendants Committee’s continued commitment to the Montpelier Foundation, researching the history of the estate, and coming up with projects. 

“Montpelier is not the board, but the board must be receptive to substantive change for Montpelier to survive and thrive,” she said.—Maryann Xue 

Praising KBJ

UVA School of Law Dean Risa Goluboff testified last Thursday at a hearing on the U.S. Supreme Court nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, whom she has known both personally and professionally for more than 20 years. 

Goluboff remarked that “the Supreme Court and the nation will benefit enormously from the keen intelligence, impeccable integrity, broad experience, and intellectual open-mindedness of a Justice Jackson.”

If appointed, Jackson would be the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court. Goluboff noted that while it is a “happy coincidence” that Jackson shares a birthday with her role model Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman to serve as a federal judge, it is far more “causal” that Jackson shares Motley’s status as a trailblazer, citing Motley’s work in paving the way.

Referring to the more than 500 cases over which Jackson has presided, Goluboff emphasized Jackson’s consistent commitment to precedent, procedural consistency, and doing justice under the rule of law, regardless of the positions or political affiliations of the parties. 

“These traits place Judge Jackson in the heartland and in the mainstream of the American judicial tradition,” Goluboff said. 

Goluboff also spoke of Jackson’s similarities to retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, for whom both women clerked, comparing their deeply held patriotism and dedication to public service as well as their interest in hearing the views of others.

“If you confirm Judge Jackson, as I urge you to do, those virtues, both personal and judicial, will indeed remain with the court, much to the benefit of us all,” Goluboff said.—Maryann Xue

Skill games, now unregulated, return to Charlottesville 

Skill games—the flashing, whirring, casino-adjacent electronic consoles—are making a comeback in the convenience stores and gas stations of Charlottesville. 

The machines’ legal status in Virginia has gone through a series of swings: The once-banned games were granted a temporary reprieve until July of 2021, with their tax revenue used to pad the coronavirus relief fund. The ban was then reengaged, until they became legal again last December when a judge blocked the commonwealth from enforcing the ban. The state no longer collects data on where these games are located and how much revenue they generate, and the state doesn’t tax them.

Virginia ABC’s April 2021 report says, at that time, there were 380 skill game machines in Virginia’s region 9, which includes the City of Charlottesville and 10 surrounding central Virginia counties. In just the month of February 2021, region 9 spent $7,889,460 on these machines.

When C-VILLE stopped by the 7-day on Maury Avenue last Tuesday afternoon, there was already a line to use its two machines. The Exxon on Cherry Grove has a couple of machines, and the Lucky 7 on Market Street also has a large bank. 

Currently, the commonwealth allocates just 2.5 percent of revenue generated from sports betting toward its Problem Gambling Treatment and Support Fund. Governor Glenn Youngkin has shown no interest in trying to ban or regulate skill game machines, although he did join Virginia Council on Problem Gambling in proclaiming March as Problem Gamblers Awareness Month. 

A handwritten sign hangs above the machines at Lucky 7, reading “Please do not bring your children here to babysit while you gamble.” Legislators and regulators have debated whether or not the machines constitute gambling—we consider Lucky 7’s input decisive.­—Eshaan Sarup

In brief

IV bar opens downtown

A visit to the newest bar in downtown Charlottesville won’t leave you with a hangover. In fact, it might help cure one! The DripBar on Water Street now offers intravenous vitamin therapy that proponents say can help with weight loss, anxiety, and headache relief, among other benefits. DripBar is the second IV business to open in town, joining Well Room. The DripBar’s IV options include The Soother, for physical and mental tension, and The Time Machine, an allegedly anti-aging concoction. 

Alex Jones settles Unite the Right suit

Conspiracy theorist and Infowars.com host Alex Jones has agreed to pay $50,000 to settle a lawsuit brought against him by Brennan Gilmore, a former U.S. Foreign Service officer who witnessed and recorded the car attack that killed Heather Heyer and injured dozens of others. In a draft order, Jones admits he defamed Gilmore and retracts statements implicating Gilmore in the crime.

Masks off at UVA

Two years since the pandemic began, and UVA students and faculty can now attend classes both in person and mask-free. The change in the university’s mask policy went into effect on Monday, March 28. In addition to making masks optional in classes and in non-clinical UVA Health settings, the school is making masks optional at indoor and outdoor graduation events in May. An email to the university community from UVA Provost Ian Baucom and UVA COO J.J. Davis urges everyone to be considerate. “UVA community members are encouraged to carry a mask in case they are asked to wear one,” they write. 

Back-to-backstroke

UVA’s women’s swim and dive team won its second consecutive national championship over the weekend—and set five American records in the process. Junior Kate Douglass put on an absolutely dominant show, breaking national records in the 50-yard freestyle, 100-yard butterfly, and 200-yard breaststroke on three consecutive days. Alex Walsh and Gretchen Walsh also won individual titles for the team, which finished with 551 total points, 145 points ahead of second-placed Texas.

The entire squad—plus head coach Todd DeSorbo and athletic director Carla Williams—took a celebratory jump into the pool after the victory was confirmed, reports NBC29. It’s the 30th national championship that UVA has won across all sports. 

It shouldn’t be a surprise that UVA dominated, given the team’s recent NCAA success and considerable Olympic pedigree: Four Wahoos, including Douglass and Alex Walsh, won medals at the Tokyo games last summer. 

“They just blew my mind. It’s a great group of athletes, a great group of people,” said DeSorbo after the win. “They deserve it.”

“I knew early on, even recruiting her, that she was capable of something pretty special,” he said of Douglass. “I didn’t know if she could do it all at once, in one meet. It’s wild… It’s phenomenal to see her do something like that.”

Taxing talks: City manager suggests 2-cent real estate tax hike 

Charlottesville City Council allowed the public to sound off on multiple key financial decisions at Monday night’s meeting. As council works to craft the budget for fiscal year 2023, it will be forced to make difficult decisions about which projects to prioritize and how to create new revenue—among the key initiatives is a school reconfiguration project estimated to cost $75 million.

Interim City Manager Michael Rogers said his office recommends raising the real estate tax by 2 cents going in to next year—currently, real estate is taxed at 95 cents per $100 of assessed value. Earlier this year, council had considered raising real estate taxes by as much as 10 cents, but it backed off from that number, in part due to the significant rise in real estate taxes around the city, thanks to the tight real estate market. 

During the public hearing, multiple residents expressed support for the reconfiguration project, and hoped council would find a way to make it happen.

Rogers noted that the city is also juggling improving transit, hiring firefighters, potentially collective bargaining with employees, and pushing forward on climate goals, among other things in its budget. 

Rogers essentially recommended slowing down the reconfiguration project to give the city more time to find funding for it. “The proposed school reconfiguration has not been integrated into the city’s capital improvements program in a manner that will allow City Council to make a coordinated funding plan,” said Rogers. The revenue from the 2-cent real estate tax increase should be “earmarked as the beginning of an annual funding program to generate funds for school reconfiguration” to give city staff time “to work on a five- to 10-year funding plan.”

City budget discussions will continue through March and into April.—C-VILLE Staff

Nothing to see here 

Almost exactly two years after COVID first arrived in the Charlottesville region, local case counts are as low as they’ve been in months. The Blue Ridge Health District reports a seven-day moving average of 12 new cases per day, down from 445 at the peak in January. Remember those strange first few days in March 2020? The last two years have been hard on everyone, and there could be more coming, but for the moment our region is keeping the disease at bay.

In brief

Meet the new boss 

Amaka Agugua-Hamilton will take over as head coach of the UVA women’s basketball team, the school announced on Monday. Agugua-Hamilton went 74-15 in three seasons as the Missouri State coach. The NoVa native played college basketball at Hofstra before beginning her coaching career. She’ll have her work cut out for her here in Charlottesville—the Cavaliers have posted a 30-63 record over their last four seasons. Agugua-Hamilton will try to return the program to its glory days of the early 1990s, when the team reached three consecutive Final Fours. 

UVA acceptance rate hits record low

Just 19 percent of the 50,000 applicants to the UVA class of 2026 was admitted, a record low, according to The Cavalier Daily. The in-state acceptance rate was 28 percent, and the out-of-state rate was 15 percent. (Low, but not quite Ivy-esque—Dartmouth, the least selective Ivy, accepted just 6 percent of applicants in last year’s cycle.) UVA’s accepted cohort is 52 percent students of color, 41 percent Virginians, 15 percent first-generation students, and 10 percent legacy brats. 

Looking sharp

It will soon be legal to carry a switchblade in Virginia—Governor Glenn Youngkin signed a bill that passed the General Assembly with bipartisan support. The knives were outlawed in the ’50s, but aren’t actually connected to crime statistics in any meaningful way, reports the Virginia Mercury.