Tag: living wage

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In brief: Neo-Nazi battle, minimum wage raise, Landes and Galvin decide, and more

Jeff Schoep, longtime head of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement, says he’s still in charge. AP Images for the Southern Poverty Law Center

Who’s head neo-Nazi?

James Hart Stern, a black activist, claims he had taken over the National Socialist Movement and filed a motion February 28 accepting liability in the August 12-related lawsuit Sines v. Kessler. But the longtime head of the neo-Nazi group, Jeff Schoep, sent C-VILLE an email March 8 saying Stern had no legal standing with the org. Meanwhile, a judge has given Schoep until March 18 to find a lawyer.

UVA raises minimum wage

The university will up its minimum wage to $15 an hour for 1,400 full-time employees January 1. That means 60 percent of the lowest-paid workers will see a boost. The rest are contract workers and the school says it’s still working on that.

Quote of the week

“As a university, we should live our values—and part of that means making sure that no one who works at UVA should live in poverty.”—UVA President Jim Ryan

Landes looks for new job

Steve Landes

Delegate Steve Landes will not seek a 13th term representing the 25th District. Instead, he’s running for Augusta County clerk of circuit court, which pays $138,000 compared to the $17,640 part-time legislators make in General Assembly. Albemarle farmer Richard Fox, Augusta Supervisor and former county Dem chair Marshall Pattie, and Bridgewater GOP member Chris Runion will face off at an April 27 firehouse primary for the Republican nomination.

 

 

Kathy Galvin

So does Galvin

As Delegate David Toscano prepares to step down from his seat in the House of Delegates, another familiar face is gearing up for a campaign to replace him in the 57th District. City councilor of eight years Kathy Galvin will challenge UVA professor Sally Hudson for the Democratic nomination.

Surprise resignation

Barry Neulen took the job as head of the Emergency Communications Center six months ago, when the team of 911 dispatchers was severely understaffed and desperate for help. He’s faced criticism for multiple decisions, including hiring former military buddies to help train new recruits—which employees applauded, and Police Chief RaShall Brackney questioned. Neulen abruptly resigned March 11, and UVA’s executive director of emergency management, Tom Berry, will serve in the interim.

Recycle this!

With a few new changes in the local recycling scene, it can be hard to keep up with where to toss your antifreeze, and where not to store your styrofoam.

In:

The Ivy Material Utilization Center—er, the dump—now has expanded recycling services, which are free to city and county residents. You may now recycle the following:

  • Compostable food waste
  • Newsprint and magazines
  • Motor oil
  • Antifreeze
  • Corrugated cardboard
  • Glass food and beverage containers
  • Mixed brown paper
  • Aluminum beverage cans and steel cans

Out:

But come July, the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority will no longer accept No. 3 through No. 7 plastics at the McIntire Recycling Center, at least until there’s a market for them again. According to a RSWA staff report, the Chinese market is closed and there’s no viable domestic one. So if you’ve recently “recycled” those plastics in town, they’ve likely been shipped to Raleigh, North Carolina—and tossed in the trash. Here’s a sampling of what won’t be accepted come summer:

  • PVC pipe
  • Sandwich and grocery bags
  • Styrofoam
  • Squeezable condiment bottles
  • Tupperware
  • Yogurt containers
  • Prescription bottles
  • Bottle caps
  • Plastic cutlery
  • Baby bottles

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In brief: Rotunda breakage, budget burdens, alleged perv and more

Living wage demonstration March 1. Eze Amos

Breaking news

On the first of the month, UVA students rallied outside of the Rotunda, where the Board of Visitors was set to discuss living wage for university employees. While it’s currently $13.79, students would like to see it set at $16, and demanded so by slapping their hands against Rotunda windows until one broke.

Gone wrong

Xavier Murphy, 24, was sentenced February 26 to 13 years and 8 months for voluntary manslaughter in the shooting of Tatiana Wells, his girlfriend and mother of his child, last June in the Days Inn. Murphy is the cousin of Alexis Murphy, who was murdered in 2013, and his mother is an advocate against domestic abuse.

Alleged molester pleads

Former Albemarle school psychologist Richard Sidebottom, 74, pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual battery of a child under 14 and indecent liberties involving girls aged 4 and 11. According to the Daily Progress, a 2009 allegation was not prosecuted, but the case was revived in 2018 with another report that included Sidebottom wearing shorts that exposed his genitals and masturbating nude in front of the windows in his home.

Where’s he going?

Ryan Jones

Rick Shannon, UVA Health System’s executive vice president of six years, announced March 4 that he’s stepping down in May. Shannon and President Jim Ryan didn’t allude to any future plans for the hospital’s head honcho, and neither did a UVA spokesperson, but Shannon did say this: “The time has come for new leadership to guide this great organization into the future.”

To the landfill

If you’ve been recycling your No. 3 through No. 7 plastics, like sandwich bags, PVC pipe, and styrofoam, you won’t be for long—and they’ve likely already ended up in a Raleigh, North Carolina dump, according to Charlottesville Tomorrow. The Rivanna Solid Waste Authority voted last week to stop accepting those materials, effective July 1, because the Chinese market for them is closed.

Quote of the week

“Kim and his evil regime are responsible for the death of our son Otto. Kim and his evil regime are responsible for unimaginable cruelty and inhumanity. No excuse or lavish praise can change that.”—Fred and Cindy Warmbier, on the president’s recent statement that he believes the North Korean dictator didn’t know about the treatment of their son, UVA student Otto Warmbier

City budget breakdown

It’s that time of the year again, when the city manager—or interim city manager in this case—proposes his budget for the next fiscal year. This time, Mike Murphy is requesting $189 million for 2020, a 5 percent increase over the current year’s adopted budget.

The increase in meals tax from 5 to 6 percent has some folks in the restaurant industry reeling, out of fear that lower- and middle-income people will be priced out
of feasting on their fare.

Murphy says a meals tax is less of a burden on local residents than a real estate tax, pointing out that a significant percentage
of restaurant meals—the city estimates 35 percent or more—are paid for by tourists.

The proposed budget keeps the city’s real estate tax rate at 95 cents per 100 dollars of assessed value, but it’s been advertised as two cents higher to give City Council some flexibility as it reviews the budget proposal before its April adoption. Though it may sound like pocket change, the additional two pennies would add up to $1.6 million, says Murphy.

Here’s a bit more of the budget breakdown:

• A lodging, or transient occupancy, tax on hotels, bed and breakfasts, and other short-term rentals, increased from 7 to 8 percent.

• Just over $10 million is proposed to go toward affordable housing, with an additional $33 million or so in the five-year capital program reserved for several initiatives, including improvements at Friendship Court.

• The budget asks for funding for three new jobs:

  • A centralized safety coordinator within the office of risk management, who would make $43,020, and serve as a staff member to guide policy and practice on things such as emergency preparedness and event planning. Says Murphy, “There are a lot of different ways that safety and security need to continue to be addressed…but we do need somebody to spearhead those efforts.”
  • A $132,729 security manager at the police department, who would make the city’s security plans, policies, and infrastructure.
  • A support services manager in Neighborhood Development Services for $56,670, because Murphy says assistant director Missy Creasy has her hands full, and a new position would help spread out her work.

• City schools will be allocated an extra $3.37 million, the largest increase in over a decade, to total $88 million. The city’s capital improvement program will also give about $6 million to schools.

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In brief: DMV’s court order, Brown’s abrupt closing, Murray’s lump of coal and more

Courtesy DMV

Driver’s license suspensions under siege

A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction December 21 and ordered Department of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Richard Holcomb to reinstate the driver’s licenses of three plaintiffs who automatically lost their licenses when they were unable to pay court costs and fines. The judge said they are likely to prevail in their arguments that such automatic suspensions are unconstitutional.

That same week, Governor Ralph Northam called for an end to the practice. And Republican state Senator Bill Stanley has filed a bill that would end the automatic suspensions.

The class-action lawsuit—Stinnie v. Holcomb—challenges the automatic loss of driving privileges regardless of a person’s ability to pay and without notice or a hearing. Brought by the Legal Aid Justice Center in Charlottesville, the case alleges that approximately 650,000 Virginians have had their licenses suspended for reasons that have nothing to do with driving violations and solely for failure to pay fines.

In his ruling, Judge Norman Moon says, “While the Court recognizes the Commonwealth’s interest in ensuring the collection of court fines and costs, these interests are not furthered by a license suspension scheme that neither considers an individual’s ability to pay nor provides him with an opportunity to be heard on the matter.”

Two of the plaintiffs—Damian Stinnie and Adrianne Johnson—are from Charlottesville, and Moon’s injunction noted how the inability to drive affected their ability to find employment and “created a cycle of debt.”

His ruling only affects the plaintiffs in the case, and the DMV is ordered to reinstate their licenses without charging its $145 reinstatement fee.

“Today’s ruling is a victory for the Constitution and for common sense. The Court stated unequivocally that Virginia’s driver’s license suspension statute likely violates procedural due process rights, says Angela Ciolfi, executive director of Legal Aid Justice Center, in a release.

Since the case was filed in 2016, the issue, which advocates call a “modern-day debtors prison,” has gained national attention. Lawsuits have been filed in six other states and a federal judge in Tennessee recently issued a similar injunction there.

Quote of the week

“We cannot ignore the role of firearms in mass school shootings, nor should we avoid our responsibility as legislators to act.”—Democratic minority report to a House of Delegates committee report on school safety that does not address gun violence

In brief

Eugenics landmark closes

The Central Virginia Training Center outside Lynchburg, where 4,000 Virginians were sterilized, often without their knowledge, will close in 2020. Charlottesvillian Carrie Buck was sent there in 1924, because she was pregnant and accused of promiscuity and “feeble-mindedness.” In Buck v. Bell, the U.S. Supreme Court famously ruled that “three generations of imbeciles are enough,” and okayed her later sterilization. The institution stopped performing sterilizations in 1952 but continued to care for the intellectually disabled.

Hung out to dry

Brown’s Cleaners abruptly shuttered its four stores Christmas Eve, leaving employees without paychecks—and customers wondering how to retrieve their dry cleaning. A sign said to check legal notices in the Daily Progress about how to pick up orders, but as of December 28, the Progress said it had received no info from the 71-year-old business, which took its website down and left phones unanswered. NBC29 reports the company declared bankruptcy.

Virginians favor pot decriminalization

A new ACLU poll shows 71 percent of registered voters favor dropping criminal penalties for small amounts of marijuana, and 63 percent say it should be legal and regulated like alcohol. The poll also shows a majority believe that race or economic status influence how one is treated in the criminal justice system, and 62 percent say fewer people should be sent to prison because it costs taxpayers too darn much.

Garrett’s swan song

Tom Garrett file photo

In his last days as 5th District representative, Tom Garrett saw President Donald Trump sign his bill renaming the Barracks Road Shopping Center post office in honor of Captain Humayun Khan, a UVA grad who died in Iraq in 2004. The Republican also delivered a bipartisan letter to Trump opposing the president’s decision to remove U.S. troops from Syria, calling it a threat to national security.

Lump o’ coal

Jim Murray contributed photo

The office of UVA Vice Rector Jim Murray got a visit from one of “Santa’s elves,” who delivered a piece of coal and said the venture capitalist had been naughty this year for opposing a living wage and calling its proponents “intellectually lazy,” according to a video circulated by Virginia Organizing.

Another Landes challenger

Ivy resident Lauren Thompson, 30, became the second Democrat to seek the nomination to run against 12-termer Republican Delegate Steve Landes, 59, whose 25th District, mainly in Augusta and Rockingham counties, includes a swipe of western Albemarle. Thompson, a Navy veteran, faces Augusta activist Jenni Kitchen, 37, for the Dem nod.

By the numbers

Housing affordability

The folks at the Virginia Public Access Project are always crunching the numbers, and last week they published how much of your take-home pay goes to housing, depending on where you live.

While Charlottesville may seem like one of the most expensive markets in the state, in Emporia City, 32.7 percent of median household income goes for housing, compared to nearly 25 percent in Charlottesville and 20.14 percent in Albemarle County. Highland County is the cheapest place to live, taking only an 11.6 percent bite out of paychecks, according to VPAP.

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In brief: Soviet-era propaganda, a landmark vote and a grisly death

The Rotunda at UVA. Photo by Ibn Batuta

Dollars and sense

A story published December 7 in UVA Today boasted that minimum wage for the school’s new hires has increased by more than 16 percent since 2011, and President Teresa Sullivan and Chief Operating Officer Patrick Hogan presented this milestone to the Board of Visitors earlier this month.

The current minimum wage for newly hired, full-time staff at the university is $12.38 per hour, which beats the federal minimum wage of $7.25 and an estimated $11.86 living wage in Charlottesville, according to the report.

“This article reads like classic Soviet-era propaganda,” writes former mayor Dave Norris on Facebook, citing what he called a gross mischaracterization of a living wage in the city.

While, sure, data collected by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows that $11.86 is the living wage in the city, Norris points out that that’s for a single adult, when “many hard-working and low-wage UVA employees have children.”

According to MIT’s living wage calculator, that number for a household with one parent and one child is $25.40 an hour and $30.06 for an adult and two little ones.

Norris says no one’s asking the university to raise its minimum wage to 30 bucks an hour, “but maybe stop patting itself on the back so vigorously when the best it chooses to do for the workers who make the university function is $12.38.”

Concludes the former mayor: “Try harder, UVA.”

Landmark vote

The Landmark Hotel. Photo: Ashley Twiggs

City councilors voted 3-2 at their December 18 meeting to not give John Dewberry a $1 million tax break over 10 years on his planned reconstruction of the Downtown Mall’s derelict Landmark Hotel. The Atlanta-based developer has promised Charlottesville he’ll turn the eyesore into the luxurious Dewberry Hotel.

Song of August 12

Southern rockers the Drive-By Truckers released “The Perilous Night” in November, with the lyric, “Dumb, white and angry with their cup half-filled, running over people down in Charlottesville.” Proceeds from the single will go to Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, according to the Roanoke Times.

What’s with West2nd?

The Planning Commission okayed higher density for the Keith Woodard project that will be the future home of the City Market December 11, but refused to approve new designs for the L-shaped building, reports Charlottesville Tomorrow. Woodard won a competition for the project in 2014, but earlier this year said that design was financially unfeasible.

Parking petition

At press time, 738 people had signed an online petition written by Jennifer Tidwell to nix the new parking meters installed around the Downtown Mall over the summer. “Plain and simple, we do not need them,” it says.

Grisly death

Police say Bethany Stephens, a 5-foot and 125-pound Goochland native, was mauled to death by her two pit bulls over the weekend as she was walking them through the woods near her home. When her father found her body, it was being guarded by the canines, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Quote of the Week:

The weight of the urn in my arms was about the same weight she was when she was born… I flashed back to the day they put her in my arms when she was born, and I sat and held her for a long time. —Susan Bro, mother of Heather Heyer, in a December 14 Daily Beast interview

Susan Bro, mother of Heather Heyer, walks into Charlottesville Circuit Court to see the man charged with killing her daughter for the first time. Photo by Eze Amos
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Fight for $15 rallies outside City Hall

Organizer Liz Schenker listens to Latasha Matthew describe what it's like to not get by making slightly above minimum wage. Staff photo

Around two dozen people chanting “We can’t survive on $7.25” gathered at City Hall today as part of a nationwide, 500-city protest. Nearly 64 million people live on less than a $15 hourly wage, say organizers, who intend to use that voting bloc in the upcoming 2016 elections.

“I can’t survive,” says Latasha Matthew, who makes slightly above minimum wage and can’t afford child care. She says it takes $13.25 an hour to live in Charlottesville.

Several Bernie Sanders supporters took part in the demonstration. In Richmond, McDonald’s workers went on strike, and workers in 270 other cities were going to walk off their jobs, says organizer Liz Schenker.