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In brief: City complaint app, UVA sexits, bus fires and more

Got a complaint? The city has an app for that.

MyCville. Ever heard of it? We hadn’t, either, until the city encouraged residents to digitally report their delinquent neighbors who hadn’t shoveled sidewalks following the recent dumping of about a foot of snow on Charlottesville.

There’s nothing like a (mostly) unexpected snowstorm to put the town into a tizzy. Last week, city residents entered 47 snow-related requests on the app, according to city spokesperson Brian Wheeler.

MyCville is an online and smartphone program that allows users to request services, “identify quality of life and environmental issues,” and report them, according to the city’s website.

Nearly 1,000 requests have been entered since MyCville launched in April, and 96 percent of all requests made since November 30 are complete, according to Wheeler. They were submitted by 231 users, who were able to track the status of their requests from the app.

The majority of requests, or 183 of them, have been for overgrown landscapes, according to Wheeler. Trailing closely behind at 136? Dead animals. And litter comes in third with 119.


Quote of the week

“We trust the United States Forest Service to ‘speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.’” —The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals quoted the Lorax in a ruling that blocks the Atlantic Coast Pipeline from crossing the Appalachian Trail and two national forests.


In brief

John Casey. Cramer Photo

Casey quits

National Book Award winner and longtime UVA English professor John Casey resigned after a disciplinary review panel found evidence that he inappropriately touched undergrad student Lisa Schievelbein in 2001, called his behavior “reprehensible,” and recommended he be fired. The panel did not find evidence that the pair’s repeated sexual liaisons were without her consent, as Schievelbein claimed. Casey, 79, insisted the affair was consensual, but “regrettable,” the Washington Post reports.

Darden settles

Research associate Carla Manno claims she was asked about her sex life and marriage history in a 2016 job interview with an adjunct professor at the Darden School of Business, and that the school retaliated against her when she filed a Title IX complaint. The school settled with her for $26,000, and she’s leaving her position December 31.

Exit Chinn

Mike Chinn. S&P

S&P wunderkind Mike Chinn, president of S&P Global Market Intelligence, says he’s out effective January 2. Chinn started at SNL when he was fresh out of UVA, in 1994, and was CEO when S&P acquired the company in 2015. According to S&P, Chinn, who pulled down nearly $3 million last year, has no immediate plans. More than 400 people work for S&P in Charlottesville.

Bus on fire

A Blue Ridge School bus went up in flames December 16 on Seminole Trail. The driver was taking more than 30 students to do some Christmas shopping when he noticed smoke coming out of the vents. All students were safely evacuated, as they were in other recent bus fires: A Fluvanna school bus caught fire August 9, and the bus carrying the Monticello High swim team ignited on I-64 in January 2017.

Bird is the word

About 200 rentable Lime bikes and electric scooters have just found their way onto Charlottesville sidewalks, and now the city has approved another 100 to join them in January. The new dockless mobility devices will be owned by a company called Bird.

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In brief: A city of lawyers, the point of no return and a quote that still stings

Case study

Cities are always involved in one sort of minor litigation or another, typically for unpaid taxes, but over the past two years, Charlottesville has been embroiled in a lot of high-profile cases, mostly as a defendant. Having a hard time keeping up? We are, too. Let’s review.

Militias

  • The city, downtown businesses and neighborhood associations sue armed militias and Unite the Right participants for militaristic violence August 12.

Charlottesville Parking Center

  • Mark Brown’s suit over Water Street Parking Garage rates filed in 2016.
  • Charlottesville filed a counterclaim.
  • Current status: In mediation

Fred Payne, Monument Fund et. al.

  • Suit to prevent removal of Confederate statues, motion to remove tarps.
  • Current status: Next hearing is December 6

Albemarle County

  • Objects to city overriding county law at Ragged Mountain Natural Area to allow biking.
  • Charlottesville has filed a counterclaim.
  • Current status: Motions hearing is December 6

Joy Johnson et. al. [filed by Jeff Fogel]

  • Demands that the city fire Hunton & Williams, claims City Manager Maurice Jones had no authority to hire Tim Heaphy’s law firm to do a review of city actions August 12.

Natalie Jacobsen and Jackson Landers

  • FOIA suit to force city to produce August 12 safety plans.
  • Current status: The reporter plaintiffs had to amend the complaint naming the city rather than the police department, and no new hearing date has been set.

Granted bond

Chris Cantwell. Staff photo

“Crying Nazi” Chris Cantwell—whose name comes from a tearful video he posted to the web before turning himself in to police for allegedly using pepper spray at the August 11 tiki-torch march at UVA—literally cried when he was granted a $25,000 bond December 4. He won’t be released from jail until he can find a place to stay, according to the judge.

More sick animals

On the heels of Peaceable Farm owner Anne Shumate Williams being convicted of 25 counts of animal cruelty in Orange County, the Louisa County Sheriff’s Office is hoping to save about 500 animals in what appears to be a similar case. This time, goats, emus, sheep and a peacock are among the neglected critters. Charges are pending for the 77-year-old and her two adult sons who run the farm.

Quote of the Week

Nikuyah Walker. Photo by Eze Amos

“Systemic racism does not fall on the backs of two black men.” —Councilor-elect Nikuyah Walker at the December 4 City Council meeting

Point of no return

John Casey. Courtesy Cramer Photo

Former University of Virginia professor and award-winning author John Casey will not return to teaching creative writing at the school this spring. UVA is currently investigating at least three Title IX complaints from former students who claim he sexually harassed them.

Better than a 9-5

Airbnb announced last week that homestay hosts in Charlottesville and Blacksburg have earned $2.3 million during the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech football seasons since 2016.

Rights waived

Daniel Borden, charged with malicious wounding for his part in the August 12 Market Street Parking Garage beatdown of Deandre Harris, waived his right to a preliminary hearing in Charlottesville General District Court December 4. He’ll go before the grand jury in December.

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In brief: August 11 bombshells, sexual harassment and more

What UVA knew

Through a public records request, the Chronicle of Higher Education obtained nearly 3,000 documents from the University of Virginia before, during and after the notorious August 11 tiki-torch march through Grounds. “Together, the emails shed light on the mentality of a university administration and a campus police force that were caught off guard by a throng of white supremacists who used one of the nation’s premier public institutions as the staging ground for a demonstration reminiscent of Nazi Germany and the worst days of the Ku Klux Klan,” writes reporter Jack Stripling in his November 20 article.

The biggest bombshells

They might come as tourists. “Of course we anticipate that some of them will be interested merely in seeing Mr. Jefferson’s architecture and Lawn,” President Teresa Sullivan wrote the Board of Visitors in an email on August 9, two days before the Friday night march.

The Cassandra figure. Captain Donald McGee with university police warned his supervisors August 8 that there could be a repeat of the tiki-torch march held in May and the Rotunda and Lawn might be targeted because white nationalist Richard Spencer is a UVA alum.

If charcoal grills are allowed… McGee noted that the torches were a fire hazard, but university police were unaware they could enforce UVA’s open flame policy.

Blame the victims. Sullivan was famously videoed chastising a student for not telling the administration what the Unite the Righters’ plans were. “Don’t expect us to be reading the alt-right websites,” said the president. But student and faculty warnings appeared unheeded.

Call the first lady. Religious studies prof Jalane Schmidt heard chatter about a march Friday afternoon, but fearing she wouldn’t be taken seriously because she’s an activist, she notified Mayor Mike Signer’s wife, Emily Blout, an assistant media studies professor, who said UVA knew since 3pm and that she “went to the top.”

We’ve got this covered. University Police Chief Mike Gibson expressed confidence that the upcoming situation was under control when offered assistance from the city and county police, which kept officers nearby on standby. When the march started, one lone UVA officer was spotted on the Lawn.

Eli Mosley lied? The Unite the Right security guy, Identity Evropa’s Mosley, told UVA police the group assembling at Nameless Field was smaller than he expected, would march up University Avenue and not through Grounds—and would pick up its trash.

“In my 47 years of association with the University, this was the worst thing I have seen unfold on the Lawn and at the Rotunda. Nothing else even comes close.” —Professor and Lawn resident Larry Sabato in an email to Sullivan August 11 after the neo-Nazi march through Grounds.

 

 

 


In brief

And so it begins…

Cramer Photos

National Book Award winner and UVA creative writing professor John Casey is the focus of a Title IX complaint filed by former MFA student Emma Eisenberg, who alleges he touched her “inappropriately” at social functions, didn’t call on her in class and referred to women using the c-word. Casey is preparing a response, according to NBC29.

White power playbook

The apparently bogus UVA White Student Union posted a screed on Facebook that’s almost exactly the same as one posted for hoax organizations in 2015 at more than 30 schools, including UC Berkeley, Penn State and NYU. UVA says the owner of the page is likely not a UVA community member, and the White Student Union is not an official school organization, the Cav Daily reports.


“I felt like [August 12] was so volatile and it changed the mood of the whole country. My thought was: If these men aren’t held accountable, it will convey the message nationally that you can beat the life out of someone and just get away with it.”—Shaun King on why he dedicated himself to identifying violent alt-righters from the rally, as reported by the Daily Progress


Citizen oversight

City Council gave the go-ahead November 20 for a civilian review board to look at complaints against the Charlottesville Police Department or its officers.

City and county oversight

The Albemarle Board of Supervisors and City Council seek seats on the board of the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau, to which they contribute more than $1.7 million in tax dollars. The current bureau hired Clean, a Raleigh, North Carolina, advertising agency, according to the Progress. Previously, the now-defunct Payne Ross handled advertising.

Tired of vigils

Martyn Kyle

Five years ago, just before Thanksgiving, Sage Smith headed to West Main to meet Erik McFadden and was never seen again. Earlier this year, Charlottesville police declared the case a homicide and named McFadden a person of interest. Smith’s grandmother, Cookie Smith, told the Daily Progress she’s tired of candlelight vigils and was organizing a sock drive for the homeless.