The new bridge over Moores Creek plugs a gap in the Rivanna Trail. PC: Stephen Barling
Closing the loop
The Rivanna Trail has encircled Charlottesville for more than 20 years. Earlier this month, the trail became a little more complete, when a 140-foot-long pedestrian bridge was lowered into place over Moores Creek, closing one of the few remaining gaps in the trail’s 20-mile loop.
Local environmentalists expressed enthusiasm about the bridge, which was paid for by Albemarle County and the developers working on rehabbing the old woolen mill that overlooks the river.
“This is economic development that focuses on making the community a better place for all,” said Piedmont Environmental Council community organizer Peter Krebs in a press release praising the bridge. “By providing more places to walk and bike, and everyday access to nature, projects like this support residents’ health, productivity, and prosperity.”
PC: Stephen Barling
Photographs from the middle of the 20th century show that a wooden footbridge once crossed the creek near where the new bridge sits, but the woolen mill changed hands multiple times over the years, and the original bridge disappeared.
Because the pandemic has upended much of our regular forms of recreation, and made gathering indoors unsafe, the Rivanna Trail has had a significant increase in use in recent months. A trail counter from earlier in the spring noted that this year, the trail has seen around four times as much foot traffic as the same period last year.
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Quote of the week
“Nothing would be worse for the economy than UVA students coming back [and causing] a super spreader event.”
—City Councilor Michael Payne, on Charlottesville’s emergency ordinance
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In brief
Richmond arrests
Protests continue in Richmond, and police continue to arrest people willy-nilly. This week, journalists for VCU’s student paper The Commonwealth Times, as well as two activists with Charlottesville ties and large social media followings, Molly Conger and Kristopher Goad, were among those detained on dubious grounds. Conger was held overnight, and after her release, tweeted that the police “are trying to break our spirits, but they’re only proving our point.”
Travelers grounded
Charlottesville-based educational travel company WorldStrides, one of the larger employers in town, filed for bankruptcy last week. Meanwhile, some UVA students received mailers this week from the study abroad office, advertising future trips. That’s optimistic, as most nations have banned American travelers from entering.
Paul Harris PC: UVA
Tenure reversed
UVA made national news earlier in the spring when it unexpectedly denied two well-qualified Black faculty members tenure. Now, the school is eating crow: last week, Dr. Paul Harris, an assistant professor of education, announced that the decision had been overturned, and his tenure case had been approved by provost Liz Magill.
Mask mandate
As the number of coronavirus cases continue to rise, Charlottesville and Albemarle County both decided on Monday to revert to certain Phase Two guidelines. Beginning August 1, masks will be mandatory in public, indoor capacity for restaurants will be capped at 50 percent, and gatherings of more than 50, excluding spontaneous demonstrations, will be prohibited.
Mental health advocate Myra Anderson warns that the social service systems need reform too. PC: Eze Amos
Every year, C-VILLE publishes a power issue. It’s usually a rundown of local real-estate moguls and entrepreneurs, tech tycoons, arts leaders, and big donors. This year’s issue is a little different—most of the people and groups listed here aren’t the richest folks in town. They don’t own the most land, they don’t run the biggest companies. But when things got really rocky, they stepped up, and exercised the power they do have to help those around them. This isn’t a comprehensive or objective list, of course, but we hope it highlights some of the many different forms that power can take in a community like ours. —Dan Goff, Brielle Entzminger, and Ben Hitchcock
The Organizers: Black Lives Matter movement in Charlottesville
There’s a revolution brewing. Activists all over the country and the world are taking a stand against police brutality, and Charlottesville is no different. Over the last few weeks, local black activists young and old have organized events in support of the national Black Lives Matter movement and its associated goals, including a march from the Charlottesville Police Department to Washington Park and a Defund the Police Block Party that marched from the John Paul Jones Arena parking lot to hold the intersection of Barracks Road and Emmet Street. Other organizations such as Congregate Charlottesville and its Anti-Racist Organizing Fund are supporting the activists calling for defunding the police department. Little by little, change is happening—on June 11, Charlottesville City Schools announced it will remove school resource officers and reallocate those funds for a new “school safety model.”—D.G.
Eze Amos: Photo: Eze Amos
The Documenters: C’ville Porchraits
How do we preserve art and community during a pandemic? It’s been a question addressed by many creatives, perhaps none more successfully than the creators of Cville Porch Portraits. Headed by Eze Amos, the “porchrait” takers, who have photographed 950 families outside their Charlottesville-area homes, also include Tom Daly, Kristen Finn, John Robinson, and Sarah Cramer Shields—all local photographers in need of work once the city shut down. The group has donated $40,000 to Charlottesville’s Emergency Relief Fund for Artists. “This is for everyone,” says Amos of the project, which has been successfully emulated by other photogs, including Robert Radifera.—D.G.
The Musicians: The Front Porch
As most concert venues were struggling to reschedule shows and refund ticket money, The Front Porch, Charlottesville’s beloved music school and performing space, wasted no time in pivoting to COVID-friendly programming. Executive Director Emily Morrison quickly set up Save the Music, a livestreamed concert series that brings performances by local artists like David Wax Museum and Lowland Hum to the comfort and safety of your home. If you haven’t tuned in yet, there’s still plenty of time—as the city tentatively reopens, Morrison recognizes that live music will likely be one of the last things to return, so she’s extended Save the Music to late August.—D.G.
Jay Pun. Photo: John Robinson
The Innovator: Jay Pun
All restaurant owners have had to get creative to keep their businesses alive during the pandemic, but almost no one has been as creative as Jay Pun, co-owner of both Chimm and Thai Cuisine and Noodle House. Pun has gone further than just a pickup/delivery model by starting a virtual cooking series on Instagram and Facebook Live, and selling kits to be used in tandem with the lessons. He’s also donated significant amounts of food to UVA health workers, and most recently has brought other Thai restaurants into the conversation: A recent discussion with the proprietor of famed Portland institution Pok Pok focused on food, but also touched on the issue of race in America.—D.G.
The Reporter: Jordy Yager
Through his work as a Digital Humanities Fellow at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center and as a reporter for multiple local news outlets, journalist Jordy Yager addresses equity or the lack thereof in all its forms. This is showcased most notably in his Mapping Cville project, which takes on the enormous job of documenting Charlottesville’s history of racially restrictive housing deeds, but also through in-depth coverage of Home to Hope, a program dedicated to reintegrating formerly incarcerated citizens into society, and other studies on the redevelopment of Friendship Court and the day-to-day lives of refugees. Yager’s also extremely active on Twitter, retweeting the content of community organizers as well as his own work, and keeping his followers up to date on, well, almost everything.—D.G.
Kat Maybury (left) and Sherry Cook volunteering at the Haven. Photo: Zack Wajsgras
The Safe Places: The Haven and PACEM
Since the onset of the pandemic, the places that serve some of our community’s most vulnerable members have ramped up their efforts to keep guests and staff safe. Downtown day shelter The Haven has opened its doors to women who needed a place to sleep, while also continuing to provide its regular services, including daily to-go meals, with cleanliness and social distancing measures in place.
PACEM has remained open, serving more than 40 people per night, even though its volunteer staff is smaller than usual. Guests are screened for virus symptoms, and they’re given face masks, among other safety precautions, before being admitted to either the men’s or women’s shelter, where there’s at least six feet between every cot. Though it had to move its male guests out of a temporary space at Key Recreation Center on June 10, PACEM will offer shelter for women at Summit House until at least the end of the month.
Thanks to funding from the city, county, and a private donor, PACEM has also housed 30 high-risk homeless individuals in private rooms at a local hotel, in addition to providing them with daily meals and case management. Men who still need shelter after leaving Key Rec have been able to stay at the hotel for at least 30 days.—B.E.
The Sustainers: C’ville Mutual Aid Infrastructure
One of the most heartwarming nationwide responses to COVID-19, and all of the difficulties that came with it, was the widespread creation of mutual aid networks. Charlottesville joined the trend in March, creating a Facebook page for community members to request or offer “time, money, support, and resources.” Since it was launched, the page has gained hundreds of followers, and posts have ranged from pleas for a place to sleep to the donation of a
half-used Taco Bell gift card. The page’s moderators have also shared resources such as a continually updated list of when and where food-insecure community members can access pantries. Though it came about through dire circumstances, the C’ville Mutual Aid Infrastructure network is proof that our community looks after its own.—D.G.
Howie and Diane Long. Photo: Keith Sparbanie/AdMedia
The Nourishers: School lunches
Before COVID, over 6,000 students relied on our public schools for free (or reduced price) breakfast and lunch. To make sure no student has gone hungry since schools closed in March, Charlottesville City Schools and Albemarle County Public Schools have given away thousands of grab-and-go breakfasts and lunches to anyone under age 18, regardless of family income. With the help of school staff and volunteers, both districts have set up dozens of food distribution sites, as well as sent buses out on delivery routes every week. During spring break, when CCS was unable to distribute food, Pearl Island Catering and Mochiko Cville—backed by the Food Justice Network and area philanthropists Diane and Howie Long—stepped up and provided 4,000 meals to kids in neighborhoods with large numbers enrolled in free and reduced-price meal programs. Even though students are now on summer break, that hasn’t slowed down staff and volunteers, who are still hard at work—both districts plan to keep the free meal programs going until the fall.—B.E.
The Superheroes: Frontline workers
After Governor Ralph Northam issued his stay-at-home order in March, most Charlottesvillians did just that: stayed at home. But the city’s essential workers didn’t have that luxury. In the language of Northam’s executive order, these are employees of “businesses not required to close to the public.” Frontline workers’ jobs vary widely, from health care professionals to grocery store cashiers, but they all have one thing in common: The people who do them are required to put on their scrubs or their uniform and go into their physical place of employment every day, while the rest of us work from the safety of our sofa in a pair of sweatpants. Their reality is one that the majority of us haven’t experienced—and the least we can do is thank these workers for keeping our city running.—D.G.
Jim Hingeley. Photo: Elli Williams
The Reformers: Commonwealth’s attorneys/Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail
The area’s commonwealth’s attorneys are some of the most powerful people you might never have heard of. During normal times, Albemarle’s Jim Hingeley and Charlottesville’s Joe Platania have tremendous influence over sentencing decisions for those on trial in their localities. They’ve both worked toward progressive reforms since taking office, but since the pandemic took hold, they’ve accelerated their efforts.
The effect has been especially pronounced at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail. Under the guidance of the commonwealth’s attorneys and Jail Superintendent Martin Kumer, around 90 inmates have been transferred to house arrest. As prisons across the state have fought coronavirus outbreaks, the ACRJ has yet to report a single case among those incarcerated.
“It’s a shame that it took this crisis to motivate the community to get behind decarceration,” Hingeley said at a panel in May, “but it’s happened now, and when the crisis has passed, we’re going to work to continue doing this.”—B.H.
Zyahna Bryant. Photo: Eze Amos
The Voices: Charlottesville Twitter
“Twitter isn’t real life,” some say. (Most often, they say it on Twitter.) But Charlottesville’s ever-growing group of dedicated tweeters has recently used the platform to make real-life change.
The synergy between social media and protest is well-documented, and the demonstrations against police brutality that have taken place across town have been organized and publicized on Twitter, as well as on other social media platforms. Meanwhile, people like Matthew Gillikin, Rory Stolzenberg, and Sarah Burke have used Twitter to call out the police department for botching its collaboration with state forces and dragging its heels on revealing important budget details. And Molly “@socialistdogmom” Conger—perhaps Charlottesville Twitter’s most recognizable avatar—continues to digest and interpret dense city government meetings for the public, making real-life advocacy easier for everyone.
The effect is felt on UVA Grounds, as well—this month, tweeters shamed the university into changing its new athletics logo to remove a reference to the school’s historic serpentine walls, which were designed to conceal enslaved laborers. After UVA abruptly laid off its dining hall contract employees in March, outraged tweeters raised tens of thousands of dollars for those workers, while pushing the university to create an emergency contract worker assistance fund. And recently, Zyahna Bryant drew attention to UVA President Jim Ryan’s limp response to the protests that followed the death of George Floyd, when she tweeted her resignation from the school’s President’s Council on University Community Partnerships. Keep tweeting, people. It’s working.—B.H.
Updated 6/24 to clarify which organizers were responsible for recent demonstrations to support Black Lives Matter.
Bystanders at Jalane Schmidt's monuments tour on Monday night, December 9. Photo: Andy Orban.
Nearly four years after a student’s petition called for their ouster, three years after a City Council vote to remove them, two years after a deadly white supremacist rally in support of them, and months after a judge ruled generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson must stay, Confederate statues continue to roil Charlottesville.
In the latest skirmishes, vandalizations of the statues have prompted Confederate monument supporters to mount their own security measures, including the installation of a trail camera and a tripwire at the Jackson statue, and hiring private security.
Those who want the statues removed say they’ve been accosted while traveling through Market Street and Court Square parks by people impersonating police and city employees, creating a confusing and dangerous situation.
UVA prof and activist Jalane Schmidt says she was questioned December 8 by a man in civilian attire with a badge purporting to be a Charlottesville cop, who asked what she was doing in the public park, which is open until 11pm.
Schmidt, who regularly conducts tours of Confederate markers around Court Square, says the private security efforts intimidate the public in what historically was a whites-only park and “are making the police an extension of their neo-Confederate organizations.”
Following her encounter with the alleged undercover cop, Schmidt led an impromptu 9pm tour December 9 that was attended by around three dozen people—including a few monument supporters. A member of the National Lawyers Guild offered a brief tutorial on citizen rights during encounters with police in public spaces.
Activist Molly Conger says she was told to leave the park December 7 by a man wearing a green vest who claimed he worked for the city. The man identified himself as Mr. Green and said he was securing the statue. When pressed on which department he worked for, the man replied, “The statue,” says Conger.
She’s also spotted convicted tarp-ripper Brian Lambert, who was banned from the parks, wearing a city-logoed sweatshirt in hope of looking like a city employee, according to a video he posted. Lambert also was on the periphery of the tour. He did not return a phone call from C-VILLE.
A group called the Gordonsville Grays, a newly chartered Sons of Confederate Veterans chapter to which Lambert belongs, says on social media that its members have worked to protect the statues and patrol the parks. Virginia Flaggers, known for hoisting giant Confederate battle flags along interstates, will be “contracting private security to give the folks on the ground a hand,” according to its blog. Neither the Grays nor the Flaggers responded to requests for comment.
After a couple of teens were spotted in one of the parks, there was talk on neo-Confederate sites of shooting them, according to Schmidt and Conger. The Grays also have posted that Conger is on their “watch list.”
“It’s a continuance of state-sanctioned white supremacy,” says Conger. “They’re openly organizing to shoot people.”
Grays commander William Shifflett is also associated with a neo-Confederate group called Identity Dixie, according to Conger. That group, says The Southern Poverty Law Center, helped organize the Unite the Right rally. Shifflett did not respond to a Facebook message from C-VILLE.
“The Charlottesville Police Department recently received information that private citizens are walking through the parks during hours when the park is open to everyone,” says spokesman Tyler Hawn in an email. “These citizens have been seen wearing reflective safety vests, and are believed to be concerned over the recent vandalisms at both parks. The police department has not received a report of any of these citizens acting inappropriately.”
Nor, he says, have police received any reports of citizens being “accosted” in the parks. He notes that officers are either in uniform, or, if in plain clothes, “carry appropriate identification and will present it to a citizen should there be a concern as to their identity or authority.”
Anyone with information about the vandalizations is encouraged to call police, he adds, and a citizen has donated a $1,285 reward for information leading to an arrest.
Local Cynthia Neff was at the park as a legal observer for the National Lawyers Guild, and says she witnessed the private security guards. “I worry it will have a chilling effect on people wanting to assemble or access this public resource, especially if it is patrolled by people that are perceived as a direct threat to anti-racist residents and visitors.”
John Heyden, 66, a Charlottesville native who says he has been “guarding” the parks, attended Schmidt’s December 9 monument tour. He confirms he photographed Conger and says he’s given license plate numbers of people coming in and out of the parks to police. “They’ve basically ignored them,” he says.
Heyden says he’s not a neo-Confederate, nor is he a Gordonsville Gray, “I don’t know what that is.”
He’s not worried about the potential for violence in the parks—at least not from anyone he knows. “Wouldn’t you consider the damage they’re doing [to the statues] violence in the first place?” he asks.
Both statues have been repeatedly spray painted with messages like “1619,” referring to the year the first enslaved Africans were brought to Virginia, and “this is racist.” The base of the Jackson statue has suffered noticeable chisel damage, including the figures of Valor and Faith losing their noses.
Resolution may end up coming from Richmond, where a Democratic majority takes hold of both houses of the General Assembly in January. Several bills have been filed to strike the Virginia law that prohibits localities from ditching Confederate statuary.
Despite the refrain from all quarters that the defining issue of this year’s City Council election is housing, this election is a referendum on the status quo.
In what feels like hundreds of candidate forums, the five candidates in the Democratic primary for City Council have spent more energy agreeing with one another than setting themselves apart from the field. Their answers to many of the questions posed to them by community groups and neighborhood associations have started to blend together, a nearly indistinguishable blur of progressive generalizations.
All five candidates agree that we have a housing problem. They’ve all voiced support for funding local schools and closing the achievement gap. They all agree that the Lee and Jackson statues are lightning rods for hate that don’t belong in downtown Charlottesville. They all agree that improvements should be made to public transit, even down to the details of establishing a regional transit authority, making stops more frequent and regular, and erecting more bus shelters. They’re all committed to the noble, if nebulous, idea of equity.
In our small blue city, the Democratic primary is the de facto election. There are no Republican candidates. As a state with open primaries, that means our Democratic candidates can coyly court Republican voters. So it’s worth examining the candidates’ messages more closely.
Lloyd Snook is running on a platform of a return to civility. Snook says he decided to run because of the “chaos and disorder” of City Council and what he sees as “decisions not being made intelligently.” He later clarified that he was not referring solely to “what goes on on Monday nights” at City Council meetings, but when asked at a Belmont-Carlton Neighborhood Association-hosted forum, he was unwilling to articulate specifically what sort of bureaucratic and departmental reforms he envisions pursuing to “get the government to work right again.”
There is a general belief, particularly among people who do not attend them, that City Council meetings are chaotic. While there have been several meetings I would certainly characterize that way, those have been traumatic exceptions.
Outside of the meetings in the immediate wake of a terrorist attack that killed a member of our community, the only time in the past two years that a recess has been called because business could not be conducted was due to armed members of a neo-Confederate group threatening other members of the audience. The idea that City Council cannot conduct its business because of ongoing disorder is a myth that could easily be put to bed by regularly attending what are, in fact, very mundane meetings.
This myth persists because it feels true. It has a kernel of truth, and believing it facilitates the larger narrative that we need to return to how things were before, before people who traditionally did not engage with politics started showing up, before advocating for racial and economic justice became mainstream talking points, before anyone started talking about making the wealthiest among us pay their fair share to make this city livable for all its residents.
Shrouding regressive politics in the language of order and gentility is not new. And in an off-year primary for a local election, much of the electorate is not engaged enough to listen beyond what feels true. It’s easy to say, as every candidate has said throughout this campaign season, that you support finding solutions for our affordable housing crisis. But listen carefully to the solutions on offer.
Sena Magill has campaigned on reforming the regulations on and incentivizing construction of accessory dwelling units. Michael Payne is pushing for fully funding resident-led public housing redevelopment and investing in new affordable units. Bob Fenwick has focused on what he views as the misuse of special use permits, and Brian Pinkston has committed to few specifics.
Snook, while in favor of making it easier to add accessory apartments, also said, “We don’t have room for 4,000 new units in Charlottesville.” Despite being corrected during that April 30 forum by Payne, who clarified that the housing study indicates a need for 4,000 “interventions,” rather than newly constructed units (a fundamental difference), he repeated the claim at a May 13 forum, stating “We’re not going to build our way out of this problem.”
Snook’s plan for affordable housing is regional, which is another statement that, on its surface, sounds reasonable enough. What he’s shared of that plan is the belief that affordable housing should be built on less valuable land, land in the county. His commitment to better regional transit, then, seems to be for the primary purpose of busing people his housing plan would displace into the county back to the city for their low-wage jobs.
At a May 24 student-led climate strike, Payne had this message for the youth organizers: “There will be people who push back, people who tell you you don’t know how politics really works, that you’re being uncivil. I’m telling you, don’t listen to them!”
We are a small city facing big problems. General platitudes that amount to ‘Make Charlottesville Great Again’ won’t solve our housing crisis or mitigate the coming climate disaster. It’s time to face the reality that Charlottesville hasn’t been great for many of its residents throughout its history and move forward, however uncomfortable that might be.
Conger is co-chair of the Charlottesville chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, which voted May 13 to endorse Michael Payne for City Council.
Police Chief RaShall Brackney held a press conference in March to discuss producing arrest records in an attempt to prove transparency at the department.
Eze Amos
City blasts Police Civilian Review Board
A couple days after C-VILLE opinion columnist Molly Conger wrote about the importance of the still-developing but much-scrutinized Police Civilian Review Board, the board found itself the subject of another controversy.
The CRB has been working for nine months to create bylaws to establish a permanent board that will process complaints against the cops. In an April 23 story on its most recent meeting, the Daily Progress detailed a “breaking point” between the board and Police Chief RaShall Brackney, alleging that Brackney would not schedule a public meeting with CRB members.
Then the city sent out an unusual, unsignedpress release refuting those claims, and accusing a CRB member of “inaccurately characteriz[ing]” emails between Brackney and the board, specifically that the chief “refused to meet or was not available for the entire month of June.”
“I am that board member, and I said no such thing,” says Josh Bowers, who adds that he couldn’t have mischaracterized the messages at the meeting, because he was reading them verbatim.
Bowers also denies saying Brackney refusedto meet, though he did say it has been difficult to schedule meetings with her.
“No city official was at our last board meeting, so I’m not sure where the city got its information,” he says. “It is quite clear to me that those responsible for this press release failed to do their homework.”
Conger tweeted that it was a “deeply concerning development,” and it seemed “wildly inappropriate” for the city to issue such a “scathing” press release without any representatives at the CRB meeting.
The city also said in its release that the terms of the current board members would not be extended this summer, when a new board is supposed to be selected.
“This could be a death knell for the nascent civilian review board,” Conger wrote. “The only conclusion I can draw from this is that the city wants to smother the infant board in its crib.”
Linh Vinh, a member of the People’s Coalition that teamed up with the CRB to draft bylaws, says Brackney has been “superficially flexible” with her meeting schedule.
When the CRB expressed interest in creating a memorandum of understanding with the chief, which would focus on access to department data and files, she appeared interested in the collaborative process and asked Bowers to send her the draft.
“He sends it to her, and all of a sudden her availability is all booked up,” says Vinh. When Bowers asked if there were any dates outside of the suggested period that she could meet, says Vinh, “No response.”
Quote of the week
“I’m hoping a few more Democrats jump into the race for the White House. If the total hits 31, the party can open a Baskin-Robbins and name a flavor for each candidate.” —UVA Center for Politics director Larry Sabato in an April 24 tweet.
In brief
Confederates score
Two years into the Monument Fund lawsuit against the city, Judge Rick Moore ruled that the statues of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, which City Council unanimously voted to remove after August 12, are war memorials and protected by state code. Still to be decided: whether councilors have immunity and what issues the defendants can have decided in a jury trial.
Heyer memorial stomped
Over the weekend, a white supremacist in a purple T-shirt, cuffed jeans, and black boots posted a video to Instagram where he kicked over flowers at the longstanding memorial to Heather Heyer on Fourth Street. Activists have identified him as Dustin Dudley of Salem, and while police did not confirm his identity, they said the event is under investigation, and anyone with information should contact the police department.
Otherwise engaged
photo Matt Riley
UVA men’s basketball Coach Tony Bennett announced he’s received inquiries about the national champs visiting the White House, and with some of the team pursuing pro opportunities or moving on from the university, it would be “difficult if not impossible” to reunite the team. “We would have to respectfully decline an invitation.”
Rescue squad beef
The Board of Supervisors recently voted to dissolve the 45-year-old Scottsville Volunteer Rescue Squad because of a reported struggle to retain volunteers. But when the squad moved to donate its land to a nonprofit, the county wasn’t having it: On April 18, Albemarle officials filed a petition for a temporary injunction and requested an emergency order to prevent it from transferring its assets.
New job
Denise Johnson will take on the role of supervisor of equity and inclusion in Charlottesville City Schools, a job created this year. Serving as the current executive director of City of Promise and a former school counselor, Johnson is a Charlottesville native and graduate of city schools.
$2 million bill
That’s what Kim Jong Un wants the United States to pay for the hospital care of UVA student Otto Warmbier, whom North Korean officials released from their country in a coma before he died. Korean government officials say President Donald Trump pledged to pay the bill before Warmbier’s release—but Trump says he didn’t and he’s not going to.
All eyes on Biden
Joe Biden is getting some local heat for his Charlottesville-focused presidential campaign announcement.
From the moment rumors began to swirl that former vice president Joe Biden might announce his 2020 presidential run in Charlottesville, one thing became clear: Local activists did not want him here.
Biden ultimately decided to announce via video—UVA professor Siva Vaidhyanathan said “we stared him down” on Twitter—but the first word out of his mouth in that official campaign video was “Charlottesville.”
To no surprise, this prompted several local opinions, with many calling for Biden to donate to the Charlottesville Community Resilience Fund for August 12 victims, while former mayor Mike Signer joined the pro-Biden camp.
Tweeted Reverend Seth Wispelwey, “For how much #Charlottesville (and our traumatic footage) seems to be motivating and framing @JoeBiden’s candidacy, one might think we would’ve received a call or visit in the past 20 months.”
City Council candidate Michael Payne asked, “Will Biden show up for public housing in Charlottesville?…For the Black Student Union? For police accountability?”
Councilor Wes Bellamy said there’s no real way to get around the city being in the spotlight. “[I’d] much rather it be discussed and [have] national figures like the president talk about how they’re going to deal w/it.”
Last June, police arrested several community activists who were protesting the conviction of Corey Long. Photo: Eze Amos
After nearly nine months of work, the Police Civilian Review Board is finalizing its initial bylaws. The proposed model would require the city to hire up to two full-time professional staff members to assist the board in processing and independently investigating complaints against Charlottesville police officers.
There has been an understandably high degree of public interest and public scrutiny on the board throughout its brief existence so far. This is a good thing. Hard questions asked at this stage will shape this body into a genuine reflection of what the community needs it to be. Because, make no mistake, this community needs civilian oversight of our police department.
As a municipal meeting enthusiast, I’ve enjoyed watching the body take shape. I worry, though, that those unfamiliar with the nature of the city’s boards and commissions will see stumbling blocks where I see building blocks.
The Civilian Review Board is just one of over three dozen boards and commissions operating in the city, some more functional than others (with a few appearing to be entirely defunct). The Planning Commission is a well-oiled machine, packed with policy knowledge. The Human Rights Commission is pulling itself back together after a few years lost in the wilderness. The Emergency Communications Board is struggling with staffing and training issues, not least of which has been its own inability to retain a director.
I’ve still never attended a meeting of the Towing Advisory Board—it is quite elusive, with meetings not properly noticed or canceled due to lack of quorum. What I mean is, unless it’s a call for a top to bottom audit of all city boards and commissions, I’m skeptical that the criticism of the CRB, much of which takes the form of attacking the personal credibility and professionalism of the volunteer members of the board, is in good faith.
Critics have questioned the cost and the need for a civilian review board. But there is one concept that is universal across every single government body: public engagement. It is, if you take them at their word, the heart and soul of any government endeavor. Why should policing be any different?
You can redress a grievance about an unattractive awning on Avon Street with the Entrance Corridor Review Board. You can tell the Tree Commission how you feel about the saplings put in by the John Warner Parkway. You can address the Library Board on anything from 3D printers to story hour programming. You can not only make your comment and be heard, but you can meaningfully engage with the process of resolving the issue you brought to the table.
But if you have a complaint about policing, that complaint goes into a black box. There is no community involvement. There is no dialogue. You will never find out what, if any, consequences an officer faced. You have no recourse. There is no relationship, no trust. That is a failure of government.
So many conversations about the current political climate in Charlottesville divide the course of our existence into Before and After the summer of 2017. For a not-insignificant number of people, that was their first significant encounter with policing in any capacity other than a traffic stop. But the problem with policing didn’t start the day in July when now-retired Major Gary Pleasants overrode an order from then-Chief Al Thomas, saying of his decision to brutalize antiracist activists protesting the Ku Klux Klan, “you’re damn right I gassed them!” The problem with policing in Charlottesville did not start when Thomas allegedly said, of the rioting in the streets on August 12, “let them fight.”
The events of the summer of 2017 did not cause a breakdown in an otherwise operational system—they just applied enough pressure that the cracks in the façade were finally visible to those of us not already living with the realities of racially biased policing. The battle for accurate, consistent, transparent stop-and-frisk data has been raging for years, and the numbers we have are deeply troubling. The problems aren’t new. We need a new approach if this police department hopes to begin to repair its relationship with the community.
What the CRB proposes isn’t radical. While the model it’s drawn up is its own, it’s similar to boards already in operation in cities around the country. The board would be able to process and investigate complaints, with a budget pegged at 1 percent of the annual police department budget. It is an investment in the department’s own stated goal of improving the relationship between the community and its police force, creating transparency in the process, and giving residents a voice.
Like many boards, the CRB is taking some time to get off the ground. But that’s in part because its charge is so important. The people of Charlottesville should have an avenue for redressing grievances about policing that is at least as robust as the appeals process for requests to paint historic brick buildings.
City Councilor Kathy Galvin is running for David Toscano’s seat in the House of Delegates this fall. Photo: Eze Amos
Councilor Kathy Galvin won’t be sitting on the dais in City Hall much longer. Instead of running for re-election to council this year, she’s currently campaigning as a progressive candidate for the House of Delegates. The planks of her platform are “a sustainable future,” “an equitable future,” and a “just and safe world.”
At face value, it is a good and progressive platform. But looking at her history as a local politician tells a different story—Councilor Galvin is almost cartoonishly sawing through the planks of Candidate Galvin’s platform.
Galvin’s understanding of the government’s role in righting the wrongs of its past is perhaps best summarized in her own words. Before she sat on City Council, she served as a member of the Charlottesville City School Board. In 2004, the district commissioned a report by the International Curriculum Management Audit Center. The audit found a stark racial divide in our city’s schools, concluding, “No city can survive by only serving one-half its constituents well. The future of such a legacy is dire.”
In a 2005 memo to the rest of the school board, Galvin criticized the report, accusing the outside auditor of being “bent on finding evidence of institutional racism.” Instead, she blamed parents for Charlottesville’s shocking racial inequities:
“The educational system is in and of itself neutral, even passive. White parents make it work for them through persistence and volunteer involvement. Black parents on the other hand expect the schools to look after their needs and tell them what needs to be done. […] As a result white kids learn how to prepare for college life due to their parents’ advocacy and black kids are left in the lurch due to their parents’ lack of knowledge or experience with a good education […].”
She urged the rest of the board to reject the results of the audit and “unequivocally state that the racial bias [in the audit] was unnecessary and in fact harmful” and warned of “unintended consequences” of closing the racial achievement gap, particularly that the district will lose more rich white students to private school “because they perceive that academics have taken a back seat to politics.”
She asks what the implications are “if the needs and interests of one ethnic group are emphasized over all others,” but clearly fails to realize that’s the situation the report tells them they already have.
When asked about the memo by The New York Times in October of last year, she stood by her position, calling the report’s advice on correcting the city schools’ racial achievement gap “too narrow and racially biased.”
I reread this memo recently. Several times. A recent AP Style Guide update has advised journalists to do away with euphemisms like “racially charged,” but as an opinion columnist I was already free to call this what it is. It is so racist it knocked the wind out of me. Any white progressive who truly believes the system to be neutral doesn’t stand a chance of making any meaningful change. And based on what I’ve seen in council chambers, that memo was and remains representative of her views as a whole: We can address issues of equity if and when we’ve thoroughly considered how it might affect upper-middle-class white families.
Galvin’s votes as a councilor often seem motivated by a rigid adherence to existing paradigms, even when she acknowledges that the plan she’s clinging to is flawed or downright wrong. For instance, in her rationale for voting against a zoning change that would have allowed the Hogwaller Farms project to move forward, Galvin was anxious about rezoning out of sync with the comprehensive plan, saying “that’s not a holistic vision; that’s not a healthy way” to plan. In her job as an architect, this is an asset. An entire building is carefully planned on paper before ground is broken. Cities are planned, too, but life doesn’t stop while you take the plan back to the drafting table. We can’t sit on our hands for years waiting for an overhaul of zoning ordinances the head of Neighborhood Development Services has called “a wastebasket of errors.”
I’ve long believed Galvin is simply terrified of change, that she lacks the courage and creativity to imagine solutions that don’t adhere to her rigid notions of how the system works, and is unwilling to examine how that system works and for whom. Time and time again she asks marginalized communities to wait for a more convenient season, to stop agitating for radical change, to stop inconveniencing the comfortable. I do think she believes what she is doing will bring about “an equitable future,” but she holds fast to a flawed belief that this can be done without the input of those currently suffering under inequity.
It doesn’t matter if there is no malice in your heart if you repeatedly support policies that consistently harm marginalized communities. At the end of the day, intentions don’t matter. Impact does.
The city has proposed a 1 percent increase
in the meals tax in its 2020 budget. Photo: Robert Llewelyn
It’s budget season. For four months every year, council and staff hold public meetings about the coming year’s priorities. For four months, I sit through what I am absolutely certain is the exact same PowerPoint at least a dozen times. Much of it remains inscrutable to me. I am growing comfortable with the idea that I’ll never be entirely sure what it means in the real world to move money around on paper. What I do understand, though, is that the city, like most of us, can’t pay for everything it wants.
“The city has better ways of getting income,” Joan Fenton, president of the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville, said at a March 4 council meeting of the possibility of raising tax rates. Better ways than taxation? Localities too afraid to raise taxes (because of the ire of business owners like Fenton) often rely on fees and fines to increase revenue. That means raising court costs and turning the city into a speed trap to fill the holes in our budget, which would disproportionately impact the poor. It is regressive and unreliable and relies on a weaponized justice system.
While a truly progressive tax is an avenue not available to the city under the Dillon Rule, there are revenue streams that don’t literally rely on criminalizing poverty. Raising tax rates provides a reliable, steady revenue stream to tackle the problems the alternative would only exacerbate.
While much about the budget process remains opaque to me, it is bewildering to see what feels like intentional misrepresentations about what it would mean to raise meals and lodging tax rates. Business owners have appeared at public comment to make the case that increased meals and lodging taxes would hurt their business. One restaurant owner said he would have to raise prices to account for the “loss,” but failed to explain how an additional one dollar in tax on a $100 meal at his pricey establishment would drive down business to the point that he would have to raise prices to make a profit.
The restaurant experiences no loss here. The tax is paid by the consumer and only passes through the business. The hysteria is puzzling to me.
When you make your personal budget, you have to make hard decisions about what’s important to you and what things you can do without. It’s the same when a city makes a budget, except we’re deciding what our neighbors should do without. The real hurdle in balancing the budget is not a column on a spreadsheet, but in the public understanding of what the budget is. A budget is more than just a balance of revenues and expenditures—it’s a moral document, an agreement about what is important to us.
Beyond the public protestations of business owners about the meals and lodging rates, there has been a lot of uncertainty about the real estate tax rate, whose increase would fund affordable housing. At a March 16 budget forum, Councilor Kathy Galvin was vocally in favor of a 1-1-1 increase. By Wednesday night, she was expressing relief that the real estate tax would remain steady for another year. While the higher rate was advertised, it seems we won’t know the fate of the tax until the March 27 work session.
At the first reading of the final 2019 budget in Aprilof last year, the meeting went into an hour-long recess due to threats of violence from an armed neo-Confederate. A woman had just commented that the Downtown Mall was the jewel of Charlottesville. That jewel sits in a crown forged by centuries of racial inequity. The violence isn’t always as overt as an angry racist with a gun in council chambers. Sometimes, it creeps insidiously into our lives, in the form of a budget that doesn’t value the lives of our most vulnerable community members.
UVA professor Walt Heinecke offered us a positive reframing at a recent public comment period: When the national press returns to Charlottesville this summer to ask us what we’ve done to address the conditions underlying the violence of the summer of hate, let this budget be the jewel in our crown, he said. He urged council to move forward with the real estate tax increase to put money into affordable housing and to publicly frame the meals and lodging tax increases as a public good—even going as far as proposing a campaign to put signs in restaurant windows advertising the meals tax increase as a micro-investment in equity. I’m not sure this budget goes far enough to deserve to be called a crown jewel. But it has the potential to be a down payment on a crown this city never earned.
A desperate mother needed to get her 5-year-old daughter out of Sierra Leone in 2003, and asked a stranger at the airport to take her child to her grandmother in the U.S. Fifteen years later, Zee Sesay learned that the man who brought her daughter to safety was former congressman Tom Perriello, according to BuzzFeed. Perriello calls it “one of the crazier experiences” of his life.
Another renaming?
City Councilor Wes Bellamy pounced on the last few moments of the December 17 City Council meeting to suggest renaming Preston Avenue, which gets its moniker from Thomas Preston, a Confederate leader, slaveholder, and former UVA rector. Is Jefferson Street next?
Big bucks
Local philanthropist Dorothy Batten—yes, the daughter of Weather Channel co-founder and UVA grad Frank Batten—will donate $1.35 million to a Piedmont Virginia Community College program called Network2Network, which trains volunteers to match community members with open job listings.
Quote of the week: “I have never been disrespected the way I have been here in Charlottesville.”—Police Chief RaShall Brackney
Bigger bucks
Following the Dave Matthews Band’s recent announcement that it, together with Red Light Management and Matthews himself, will give $5 million to local affordable housing, came the news that another $527,995 in grants will be doled out to 75 local nonprofits through the band’s Bama Works Fund, which awards similar grants twice a year.
Remains IDed
Police arrested and charged Robert Christopher Henderson with second-degree murder December 20 in connection with the death of Angela Lax, who was reported missing in August. County detectives, who found skeletal remains in the woods along the John Warner Parkway’s trails in November, suspect that Henderson killed Lax in June and dumped her body.
Clerk’s Office closing
Hope you don’t have any important deeds to file or a marriage license to pick up during the first week of the new year, because the Charlottesville Circuit Court Clerk’s Office is moving to new temporary digs during a massive courthouse renovation and will be closed December 31 through January 4 for the holiday and for the move.
Maybe a little bit of “vitriol”
What happens when City Council has a daylong retreat, and two people live tweet the gathering? Here are some excerpts from the December 18 event with Mayor Nikuyah Walker, councilors Wes Bellamy, Kathy Galvin, Heather Hill, and Mike Signer, as narrated by Molly Conger, aka @socialistdogmom, and Daily Progress reporter Nolan Stout. Click to view their threads.
while “retreat” is often used to mean an all day work session on something like the budget, it appears this time “city council retreat” means the worst, silliest kind of waste of time — ice breakers and trust building exercises pic.twitter.com/fntn4CqUrn
