Caption: Chip Boyles’ first day as Charlottesville’s new city manager is February 15. PC: City of Charlottesville
City gets a new manager
After more than 15 hours of emergency closed meetings, Charlottesville City Council announced last Thursday that it had selected a new city manager: Chip Boyles, executive director of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission.
John Blair, who has served as interim city manager for nearly three months, is leaving Charlottesville to become Staunton’s city attorney. His last day as acting city manager is February 12.
Before moving to Charlottesville in 2014, Boyles served as assistant city manager and city manager in three cities, including Clemson, South Carolina.
During a virtual press conference, the councilors emphasized that Boyles, who’s headed the planning district for seven years, would bring much-needed stability to a city government left in the lurch after a string of high-profile departures.
“Chip has been in the community for a number of years, but he hasn’t been in any organization and will provide us an opportunity to look at any issues…through a neutral lens,” said Mayor Nikuyah Walker. “Being able to bring a new and fresh perspective to the organization will allow us to heal and actually be able to get some of the work that we have all promised to do done.”
The councilors also acknowledged their own role in fueling the city’s instability, and the need to rebuild trust and communication with each other, as well as with city staff and the community.
Earlier this month, the recruitment firm hired to find a new manager cut ties with Charlottesville, and the firm’s principal claimed he had “never seen a level of dysfunction as profound as what he was seeing here.”
After learning about Blair’s impending departure, the councilors decided to expedite the search process, and choose a qualified manager on their own. However, they stressed that they were not trying to set a “precedent” of making decisions behind closed doors, and would begin a public city manager search, likely in 2022.
“We are looking at one and a half to two years,” said Councilor Sena Magill. “It’s that balance of making sure [Boyles] has enough time to get the stabilization in place, as well as making sure it doesn’t go too long without public input.”
Boyles said his top priority is to fill all the vacant city leadership positions, including a Neighborhood Development Services director, three deputy city managers, and executive director for the Police Civilian Review Board.
While Boyles’ appointment has received praise, it’s also drawn criticism from community activists and members who petitioned for the city to bring back former city manager Dr. Tarron Richardson, who resigned in September.
_________________
Quote of the week
“For the past 18 months, I’ve been inspired to seek greater service—motivated by the challenges facing my community.“
—Dr. Cameron Webb on being selected for the White House COVID-19 Response Team
__________________
In brief
Xzavier Hill
On January 9, 18-year-old Xzavier Hill of Charlottesville was killed by Virginia State Police on I-64 in Goochland County. Police claim Hill, who is Black, led them on a high-speed chase and pulled out a gun when they approached his car, but his family says the dash-cam footage proves that there was no chase, and he was unarmed. The family is now petitioning VSP to release the footage to the public.
Locals arrested in D.C.
An area man was arrested this week for bringing a gun and 37 rounds of unregistered ammunition near the U.S. Capitol complex on Sunday, reports the Washington Post. Guy Berry, a 22-year-old Gordonsville resident and truck driver who attended Monticello High School, is “one of those open-carry people,” says his aunt in the Post piece. Berry is not the first Virginian to be arrested at the Capitol since January 6—last week, a Front Royal man was caught trying to make it through the secure perimeter with fake identification and huge amounts of ammunition.
No more death penalty?
The death penalty is one step closer to being abolished in Virginia. With a 10-4 vote, the state Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill on Monday that would eliminate the practice. Those in support of the bill—including Governor Ralph Northam—argue that death penalty sentences are disproportionately given to Black people, while others who oppose the repeal believe the penalty should still be reserved for people who murder law enforcement. In last year’s session, a death penalty abolition bill was voted down in subcommittee, so this week’s vote represents a key step forward.
Caption: Senator Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax) is the chief patron of the death penalty bill that’s moving through the General Assembly.PC: File photo
Thousands of rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6. PC: Starmax/Newscom Via ZUMAPress
Two weeks ago, the far-right riot at the U.S. Capitol—fueled by President Donald Trump’s false claims that he won the election—shocked people across the world. But for many, it was a familiar scene. As the country looks ahead to a new administration and beyond, Charlottesville’s leaders and activists have hard-won advice for President Joe Biden.
“[The January 6 siege] is the same horrific play we’ve seen over and over again in this country,” says community activist Don Gathers, who was at the infamous 2017 Unite the Right rally. “So much of the opening act of that play looked just like Charlottesville, where the police stood by and did nothing.”
For weeks, watchdog groups and activists repeatedly warned law enforcement that Trump supporters’ plans to violently storm the Capitol—and assault, kidnap, and even kill members of Congress—were posted across social media.
Despite these warnings, the Capitol Police anticipated a crowd in only the “low thousands,” and prepared for “small, disparate violent events,” according to Representative Jason Crow.
So, like in Charlottesville, police on the scene were massively unprepared for the thousands of people who showed up to Trump’s rally. Insurgents later overpowered the police and stormed the building, resulting in dozens of injuries and five deaths.
“It’s not like they were secretive…It was all over the internet,” says community activist Ang Conn, who was also at the Unite the Right rally.
Before August 11 and 12, 2017, members of the far-right also openly discussed their plans to incite violence and threatened local residents online, as well as held a few smaller “test” rallies in Charlottesville, says Conn. Local activists continuously alerted law enforcement and urged the city to stop the event from happening, but were not taken seriously.
“The people who were supposed to be keeping the peace had all of this information given to them and they ignored it,” says Tyler Magill, who was hit on the neck with a tiki torch during the Unite the Right rally, later causing him to have a stroke.
Video evidence also shows several Capitol officers moving barricades to allow rioters to get closer to the building, as well as one taking a selfie with a member of the far-right mob. Some rioters were members of law enforcement themselves, including two off-duty Virginia police officers.
The scene at the Capitol serves as a stark contrast to the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests last year, during which police deployed tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and other types of force against thousands of people, and made over 10,000 arrests.
“If Black and brown folks were to do that exact same thing [at the Capitol], we would be dead,” says Conn.
Now, those who were present for the Unite the Right rally say a key to moving forward is to hold the perpetrators accountable.
Since January 6, federal authorities have arrested around 100 people, and say they could arrest hundreds more.
“This cannot be seen as anything other than armed insurrection,” says City Councilor Sena Magill, speaking solely for herself. “It needs to be very clear that people who participated in this need to be prosecuted, and not lightly. …Representatives who instigated this also need to be held accountable.”
Tyler Magill says it’s crucial to expand our definition of white supremacy. “We as a society just don’t take far right extremists seriously,” he says. “We think of it as rednecks [and] trailer park people when it’s not—it’s everybody. The people at the Capitol riot tended to be middle class and above, and the same happened in Charlottesville.”
Other activists have warned that arrests or the threat of arrests will not be enough to deter far-right extremism on—and after—Inauguration Day, pointing to white supremacist calls for violence online.
“We know that they’re not finished,” says Gathers. “I’m fearful for what may happen on the 20th of January, not only in D.C. but really all across the county.”
And though Biden’s inauguration, and the end of Trump’s term, will be a cathartic moment for many, Conn emphasizes that it won’t solve our problems overnight. After the inauguration, she anticipates more white supremacist violence across the country, and says she doesn’t expect President Biden to handle the situation in the best possible manner. Instead, she fears the new administration will ramp up its counterterrorism programs, which are “typically anti-Muslim and anti-Black,” she says.
“The change of the administration doesn’t change the fact that the system of white supremacy is embedded in the fabric of what we call America,” she explains. “We cannot expect [anything from] an administration that condemns uprisings stemming from state violence against Black and brown folks but calls for unity without resolve.”
Gathers also does not agree with the calls for unity made after the riot. “You can’t and shouldn’t negotiate with terrorists, and that’s who we seem to be dealing with,” he says.
However, both activists hope that now more people will not only see white supremacy as a serious threat, but actively work to dismantle it.
“We’ve got to figure out how to change not only laws, but hearts and minds,” says Gathers. “If what we saw [at the Capitol]…and in Charlottesville in 2017 wasn’t enough to turn people around, I’m not sure what it’s going to take.”
City Council (pictured here last year) has held numerous closed sessions in recent weeks after a firm retained to find a new city manager declared the government dysfunctional. Photo: Eze Amos
One of the keys to stabilizing a floundering city government is to hire a strong and competent chief executive. But in order to attract a high-quality city manager, you need a government that isn’t floundering.
That’s the paradox facing the Charlottesville municipal government at this moment. In September, City Manager Tarron Richardson resigned after less than a year and a half on the job. Earlier this month, the hiring firm retained to find his replacement fled the scene as well, with the firm’s principal telling the city he had “never seen a level of dysfunction as profound as what he was seeing here,” according to a January 4 Facebook post from Councilor Lloyd Snook.
“The plan to stabilize the organization and begin to rebuild was to have John Blair as the interim for a few months, begin a recruitment process to hire a city manager, and go from there,” says Councilor Michael Payne.
But the recruitment firm couldn’t handle the situation in Charlottesville. “They were very candid in saying that the amount of instability made it impossible for them to feel like they could be effective in recruiting a high-quality city manager candidate,” Payne continues.
The situation got so bad that Snook wrote, “In my opinion, we will not be able to hire a permanent City Manager until after the next election, in November, 2021, and we should not try.” (The next council will take office in January 2022. Mayor Nikuyah Walker and Councilor Heather Hill’s terms end in December, though both could run for reelection.)
In the last two weeks, City Council has held three closed meetings to discuss topics including “one or more prospective candidates for employment or appointment to the position of city manager,” and, ominously, “the performance of one or more city councilors.”
(When Richardson resigned in September, the announcement came at the end of a series of long closed meetings to discuss “the performance of the city manager.”)
In an interview on Monday afternoon, at the end of a five-hour session, Vice-Mayor Sena Magill was cagey about council’s plans. “We all recognize that there is a lot of fear, and tension, and unease throughout both the city government and the city as a whole right now,” she says. “We’re working very diligently to look at as many opportunities as we can to solve that.”
Some of the turnover in city government over the last few years can be attributed to the fallout of 2017’s Unite the Right rally—the city manager, police chief, and communications director all departed in the months following August 2017.
Magill thinks the problems go deeper than that, however. “This is something that’s been growing. This isn’t a single issue. We’re not looking at issues that started in 2017,” says the vice-mayor. “We’re looking at growing and changing, and growing and changing is difficult and painful.”
Certainly, relationships between some council members seem strained.
In his January 4 Facebook post, Snook wrote that an email from Walker suggested to him that “the Mayor was going to not fully engage on the most important decision that we have as a Council—the selection of the City Manager,” and that the firm’s decision to bow out was “directly attributable to the dysfunction on Council, starting with the Mayor and her e-mail of December 10.”
Snook and Walker did not respond to a request for comment on this story, and Hill declined to comment, but Walker did post on Facebook the day after Snook’s initial post.
“I am tired of my white colleagues placing the blame for everything that goes wrong at my feet and using their fragility to excuse their cunning behavior and the cunning behavior of some staff and community members,” Walker wrote. “The title of the piece that I need to write – Charlottesville: The Mountaintop of White Supremacy.”
“The problem with the written word is there is no tone of voice,” says Magill when asked if she agrees with Snook’s assertion the currently seated council won’t be able to find a city manager. “We automatically hear tone of voice based on our experience with a person, or what state of mind we’re in when we read something. And that leads to misunderstanding.”
Some citizens have begun circulating a petition asking the council to bring Richardson back as city manager. In October, when he resigned, Richardson told C-VILLE “I’ve done my best, I’ve made a significant number of changes, and it’s time for me to move on.”
For now, Magill says more closed session discussions are on the horizon, and that the group of elected officials will continue working together to the best of their ability.
Payne doesn’t think the solution lies in waiting for another election, as Snook suggests, though admits turning things around won’t be easy. “Council has been having very candid, honest conversations about substantial things that need to change going forward,” he says. “I do think the situation has gotten bad enough where it’s going to take some time to get city government back to where it’s been in the past.”
Area activists wonder why Joe Biden, who’s made Charlottesville a central part of his campaign, hasn’t visited the city.
PC: Gage Skidmore
When Joe Biden announced last year that he was running for president, the first words he uttered were “Charlottesville, Virginia.” The campaign video that followed featured footage of the Unite the Right rally overlaid with a voiceover from Biden, responding to President Trump’s infamous comment: “[You] had people that were very fine people, on both sides.”
Throughout his campaign, Biden has continued to bring up the events of August 11 and 12, 2017, most notably during his first debate with President Trump—yet he has not visited Charlottesville, or reached out to city residents since announcing his presidential bid. Those who were closest to the violence have noticed.
“Don’t use us as a prop,” says activist and deacon Don Gathers. “[The rally] is a very sore spot for many of us. It’s painful reliving that weekend.”
After neo-Nazi James Fields rammed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, “I stood there on the corner and watched the [EMTs] feverishly working on Heather…I literally saw life leave her body,” he says. “You just can’t get that sort of thing out of your head.”
Though Gathers will be voting for Biden, he believes the former VP still owes Charlottesville a visit, even if it’s after Election Day.
“He needs to have a public forum with some of the activists here,” Gathers says. “He needs to hear how we feel…We have got to make people [know] that we are more than a hashtag, more than just a blip on the troubled racial history of this country. We deserve better than that.”
UVA library employee Tyler Magill was also frustrated with Biden for using the rally as a talking point, but now tries to not let it bother him too much.
“When he first mentioned Charlottesville, I was originally very angry…but it’s going to happen,” says Magill. “The powerful will use my trauma…It is another thing that is taken from me, that is taken from us.”
Magill attended the August 11 torch-lit rally on the UVA Lawn just to observe. But after seeing the crowd of white supremacists and neo-Nazis surround and attack a group of student counterprotesters, he stepped in to support them. Magill was threatened, doused in gasoline, and hit on the neck with a torch, which damaged his carotid artery. A few days later he suffered a stroke.
Though Magill has largely recovered from his injuries, he still has a small blind spot, and a “difficult time having new memories stick,” explains his wife, Charlottesville Vice Mayor Sena Magill. “We’re still dealing with PTSD. He gets triggered all of the time.”
“I wouldn’t not do what I did,” says Tyler Magill, “but there are days I feel it has ruined my life.”
Like Gathers, Tyler Magill will be voting for Biden, but wishes the former VP had reached out to rally victims, as well as Black Charlottesville activists and residents.
“It would be nice if people would come to us,” he says. “Don’t say you fucking care…if you’re not asking people.”
While Sena Magill does not like seeing Charlottesville continuously brought up as a symbol of hate, she believes it’s important to note why Biden talks about Unite the Right so much. The rally is a crystal-clear example of Trump’s repeated failure to condemn white supremacy.
“The fact that hundreds of people thought…that they could have a Klan rally in 2017, and the president of the United States did not 100 percent disavow and say how horrendous that was…We have to use that to change,” says Sena Magill.
If not for the death of his son Beau and the pandemic, Magill believes Biden would have paid a visit to Charlottesville before the election. “We need to give the man a little more grace for that, for not coming here in 2017 and 2018,” says the city councilor.
UVA alumna Alexis Gravely doesn’t think there is a reason for any political candidates to use Charlottesville as a part of their campaign, unless they personally experienced it. As a reporter for The Cavalier Daily, Gravely trailed the neo-Nazis and white supremacists during the torch-lit rally on the Lawn, and witnessed their violent clashes with counterprotesters on the Downtown Mall.
“There were very few public figures, if any, who came to Charlottesville, and offered support to those who’ve been affected and the community,” says Gravely, speaking solely for herself. “So for me, anytime Charlottesville comes up in politics, it’s very disingenuous…They had nothing to do with that day, [or] picking up the pieces in the months and years afterwards.”
“Three years later, August 11 and 12, that whole week is a very difficult week for me,” she says. “To have to constantly relive it, just because I am tuned into politics, it’s not that great of a feeling.”
“Regardless of your party, Charlottesville isn’t a talking point,” she adds. “It’s a real event that happened.”
Beginning October 1, guns will be prohibited at government buildings like City Hall, as well as in parks and recreation and community centers, and near permitted events. PC: Skyclad Aerial
In June, the Virginia General Assembly passed a slew of gun control bills, including one that allows cities and counties to prohibit guns on public property. Localities across the state, like Newport News and Alexandria, have since enacted such a ban—and last week, Charlottesville followed suit.
Beginning October 1, guns will be prohibited in parks, buildings, and recreational or community centers owned by the city. They’ll also be banned on public streets or rights-of-way used for—or adjacent to—a permitted event, according to an ordinance unanimously passed by City Council on September 8.
What might have seemed like a straightforward progressive reform has, in fact, stirred controversy.
Anti-racist activist Brad Slocum fears the ordinance will be selectively enforced, pointing to the infamous Unite the Right rally, during which Charlottesville and state police officers stood by as white supremacists attacked counterprotesters.
“There’s ample recent and historical evidence that these kinds of ordinances…are not usually enforced against groups or individuals that are perceived as friendly to the police or the state, [like] militias, white supremacists, and similar types,” says Slocum, who supports defunding the police. “Whereas they do seem historically to be enforced against Black, left-wing, or otherwise non- or anti-establishment groups and individuals, sometimes severely.”
City resident Sean Reid also believes the law will disproportionately impact Black people, citing CPD’s long history of racism and overpolicing. According to Charlottesville Open Data, about 54 percent of people arrested by CPD since 2015 have been Black, even though the city is only about 18 percent Black.
Police officers are also not going to be posted at every city property, leaving many without a way to defend themselves or a sense of safety, says UVA grad student Ben (who asked that we not use his last name).
Though he views gun violence as a “non-issue” in the places where the city has now banned guns, Ben, who is a gun owner, also questions whether the law will be an effective way to prevent it, pointing to shootings that have occurred in places where guns were banned.
(Due to the varying definitions of “mass shooting” and “gun-free zone,” research remains unclear on whether shootings occur at increased rates in gun-free zones.)
Speaking only for herself, City Councilor Sena Magill says she too worries about the “unintended consequences” the ordinance could have, but feels that it is “the right way forward,” specifically because of the violence and trauma surrounding Unite the Right.
“If this ordinance had been in place on August 12, 2017, hundreds of people would not have been able to legally gather on park property and intimidate and threaten my friends and family,” she says. “I [also] don’t want someone to be able to walk into City Hall with a gun on their hip…and be able to intimidate the City Hall staff.”
“We’ve seen extremists exploit lax gun laws to terrorize the public,” adds Mike Fox, legislative lead for the Crozet chapter of gun control advocacy group Moms Demand Action. “We saw it with Unite the Right in Charlottesville, earlier this year when armed demonstrators descended upon Richmond, [and] we’ve seen it across the state, where you have armed citizens showing up at government meetings, intimidating lawmakers [and] voters.”
According to spokesman Tyler Hawn, CPD is creating an educational and awareness campaign on the ordinance “to ensure understanding and compliance.” It will alert the public of where they can and cannot legally carry a gun, and the consequences that can come with violating the ordinance, a Class 1 misdemeanor: up to a year in jail, and a fine of up to $2,500.
Updated 9/16 to clarify the racial disparity in arrests made by CPD
Fifteen percent of the housing in the new Flint Hill housing development will be affordable units PC: Roudabush, Gale & Associates, Inc.
Second chance
City Council approves Flint Hill development
After nearly an hour of discussion, and midway through a meeting that lasted until 2:30am, City Council voted July 20 to move forward with the Flint Hill housing development, a set of new homes to be constructed in Fry’s Spring.
Last year, council rejected an initial proposal for the project, but Southern Development has since made substantial changes to its plan. It now wants to build 37 single-family homes and two eight-unit condominium buildings, dumping its original plan for 50 townhouses.
The developers have also boosted the number of affordable units, from 10 percent to at least 15 percent. The units will be affordable for 30 years, and priced to house residents from 25 to 60 percent of area median income.
With a density of six units per acre, there will be some room left for homeowners to add accessory dwelling units, such as a basement apartment or guest house. And there will be almost five acres of green space along Moores Creek, including trails and places to gather.
Last month, the Charlottesville Planning Commission unanimously endorsed the revamped plans.
Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville has partnered with Southern Development, and will build 30 percent of the units. Because the average area median income for Habitat families is 32 percent, Habitat’s president, Dan Rosensweig, said that Flint Hill would be “really good” for them, and for the city.
“It’s the kind of neighborhood our families have told us they’d like to live in,” he added. “This isn’t an answer to all affordable housing issues…[but] we’re really excited to be part of this project.”
Multiple people voiced their support for the development during public comment, including a current Habitat homeowner.
While Mayor Nikuyah Walker had several concerns, including when families would be able to move into the affordable units, she admitted the project was “better than anything” she’s seen regarding affordable housing since she’s been on council.
Two ordinances and a resolution for the development will be put on the consent agenda for council’s next meeting on August 3, and the project will move forward from there.
__________________
Quote of the week
“As you consider defunding the police, my message to you is to fund diversity in crisis responders…[The public mental health system] has just as much systemic bias issues as law enforcement.”
—Black mental health advocate Myra Anderson, speaking to City Council.
__________________
In brief
Military grade
On Monday, City Council voted to ban the Charlottesville Police Department from obtaining weapons from the military and participating in military training. But ahead of the meeting, Planning Commission member Rory Stolzenberg pointed out a variety of loopholes in the resolution—military equipment could still be purchased from private sellers, and the resolution doesn’t address the military-style equipment already in CPD’s arsenal. Stolzenberg, along with other public speakers, urged council to pull the policy from the consent agenda and strengthen it, but council passed the resolution anyway. “Just because it’s not pulled tonight, doesn’t mean we’re not going to work on this,” said Vice-Mayor Sena Magill.
Beer and spirits
Three Notch’d Brewing Company is the latest local business to strip Confederate imagery from its brand. For years, the Charlottesville-based brewers have been selling The Ghost APA, which is named for John S. Mosby, a Charlottesville native and Confederate officer nicknamed the Gray Ghost. The beer will now be called Ghost of the James, a reference to the reserve fleet of U.S. military boats currently stored on the river. The packaging has shifted from gray to blue.
Nick Frietas PC: Gage Skidmore
Freitas tries again
Last week, Nick Freitas won the Republican primary to challenge freshman U.S. Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger for Virginia’s competitive 10th District seat. Freitas lost to far-right statue defender Corey Stewart in the 2018 Republican U.S. Senate primary, and won his current seat in the House of Delegates through a write-in campaign, after failing to file paperwork to get himself on the ballot. He nearly made the same mistake this year, but the Virginia Board of Elections extended the deadline for filing, a move the Democratic Party has contested.
Nearly a thousand protesters took to the streets of downtown Charlottesville May 30, demanding an end to police brutality and justice for the murders of black people across the country. PC: Eze Amos
Nearly a thousand protesters took to the streets of downtown Charlottesville May 30, demanding an end to police brutality and justice for the murders of black people acrossthe country, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Tony McDade.
In solidarity with the dozens of other Black Lives Matter demonstrations around the nation, people of all races and ages carried homemade signs and chanted statements like “Cops and Klan go hand in hand,” “White silence is violence,” and “No justice, no peace.” Others joined in by car, blowing their horns and waving signs as they drove along Market Street.
“I was extremely pleased both with the turnout and the resiliency of the participants to remain peaceful…I am certain we got our message across,” says community activist and former Blue Ribbon Commission member Don Gathers, who spoke at the march.
But he believes there should have been “tens of hundreds more” at the event. “Anyone with a pulse and a moral compass should have been out there protesting the disgusting murder and ongoing brutalization of blacks across this country,” he says.
Don Gathers PC: Eze Amos
The march was initiated by local resident Ang Conn, who, after seeing the murder of Floyd on video, felt “just completely distraught with what to actually do.” Floyd died after white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into the black man’s neck for nearly nine minutes, despite Floyd’s pleas that he could not breathe. (Three other police officers on the scene, who failed to intervene, were fired along with Chauvin, but only Chavin has been arrested.)
Conn reached out to multiple racial justice groups and put a local team together to plan the Charlottesville protest, and get the word out.
The event started at 3pm in front of the city’s police department, where activists, including Zyahna Bryant and Rosia Parker, led chants, gave speeches, and invited the crowd to take a knee. Demonstrators later marched down the mall to City Hall, then through Market Street Park, along Preston Avenue, and into Washington Park, chanting and listening to speeches from area activists and residents. Nearly all wore masks, bandanas, and other facial coverings.
While police in other cities have responded violently to protesters (including in Richmond, where peaceful demonstrators were tear-gassed Monday evening), cops did not confront the crowd in Charlottesville, and the event remained nonviolent. CPD, which has been criticized in the past for heavy-handed treatment of protesters, chose to have “officers remain at a respectful distance, so that people attending could engage in civil discourse peacefully,” says spokesman Tyler Hawn.
City Councilor Sena Magill was thankful that CPD took a hands-off approach to the protest, instead of “trying to stop it.” She says she’s also “proud of our community in general for coming out and saying enough is enough, and doing it in a way that was peaceful.”
As for Conn, she says she hasn’t thought much about how it was peaceful, or how many supporters came out. “We’re protesting black people getting murdered. That’s not fun. It wasn’t a party [or] a get together. We’re in the middle of a pandemic and there are millions of black and brown people locked up in jail cells…which was also what this protest was about.”
On Sunday, the Albemarle High School Black Student Union hosted a demonstration in front of the Albemarle County Office Building. Joined by community members, students of all races stood on the sidewalk in masks, chanting and holding signs with phrases like “Justice for George.”
“We wanted to continue the momentum. It’s important for us to keep protesting peacefully and raising awareness,” says BSU president Faith Holmes. “We’re actually really happy with the way it turned out…we weren’t expecting the numbers that we had. It was fulfilling to see people from [the community] come out and support Black Lives Matter.”
Moving forward, Gathers says he and other local activists will “continue to monitor the situation across the country,” and “should there be a situation that comes to light, God-forbid, here in Charlottesville, we certainly will be at the ready and quick to respond.”
Charlottesville residents of all ages and races attended Saturday’s protest. PC: Eze Amos
Charlottesville has its own fraught relationship with the police. Following community anger over the tear-gassing of counterprotesters during the July 2017 KKK rally, and CPD’s failure to protect residents during the violent Unite the Right rally later that summer, City Council created the Police Civilian Review Board to enhance transparency and trust. After years of controversy and disagreement over the board’s bylaws, City Council appointed seven members to the board in February, but the board has not yet met—an eighth, non-voting member, who was required to have prior law-enforcement experience, was appointed at Monday’s City Council meeting. Councilor Lloyd Snook, however, announced during the city’s Cville360 broadcast on Tuesday that the board could begin virtual meetings.
Before Saturday’s protest, organizers also released a list of demands for the city, county, and state, which Conn read to the crowd on Saturday. It included an end to pretrial detention and home monitoring fees; the demilitarization and defunding of CPD; and the release of more people from jail and prison, especially given the current high risk of death from COVID-19.
Several Charlottesville officials offered statements condemning Floyd’s death and police violence against the black community. And while Magill did not comment on the specific demands, she says the recent incidents of police brutality around the country “have been weighing heavy on all of council” and, from what she’s seen, council is “committed to true change.”
“So many things are hard to get moving quickly, but we all know that we have to do something real,” she adds. “The time for thoughts and prayers is done—it’s been done.”
Updated 6/3 to reflect the recent appointment of a new CRB member and the board’s ability to have virtual meetings
HRC Chair Shantell Bingham says the commission and office need more staffing and resources from the city.
PC: Eze Amos
Charlottesville’s Office of Human Rights and Human Rights Commission have an intimidatingly broad mission: to reduce discrimination in the city.
So perhaps it’s not surprising that the office and its volunteer commission, which are tasked with both investigating individual complaints of discrimination and reviewing city polices for systemic discrimination, have received their fair share of criticism since their creation in 2013. During a 2017 Dialogue on Race meeting, former mayor Dave Norris accused them of not doing enough to uphold the city’s Human Rights Ordinance. At the same meeting, UVA professor Walt Heinecke said the organizations had been largely ineffective, a claim he reiterated in a 2018 Daily Progress op-ed.
Today, similar feelings persist not just among community members—but among commissioners themselves. At last week’s City Council meeting, HRC Chair Shantell Bingham said that although there was “an uptick” in the commission’s ability to fulfill its role in 2019, “we really want to do more.”
Earlier this month, Charlene Green, who has led the OHR for five years, stepped down to join the Piedmont Housing Alliance. Bingham, who became commission chair last year, says both the commission and the office have faced numerous obstacles over the years.
“The Office of Human Rights hasn’t been properly staffed for a very long time,” she says. Though the office hired Todd Niemeier as an outreach specialist in 2018, “before it was just [Green] in the office with interns. And now that she’s leaving, it’s going back to there being one staff person…which is just ridiculous.” The city is currently looking for Green’s replacement.
Since Tarron Richardson became city manager, the office and commission hasn’t had a direct line of contact in the city either, says commissioner Ann Smith.
Smith notes that former city manager Maurice Jones was “very involved” with the HRC, but says, “We haven’t had a chance to meet the new city manager.”
To improve the commission and office’s communication with the city, Bingham says there needs to be a city official who the HRC can directly report to. She also recommends that City Council receive and review reports from OHR on a monthly basis, rather than annually.
Commissioner Sue Lewis suggests council also reexamine the city’s human rights ordinance, particularly the limited authority it gives to the OHR and HRC. They are currently only able to investigate complaints of discrimination in companies with five to 14 employees. Complaints from larger companies are referred to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission office in Richmond.
If the city gives the OHR more money for staffing, it could turn it into a Fair Employment Practice Agency, which would give the office greater authority and better equip it to handle the thousands of discrimination complaints it receives each year, according to Smith.
City Councilor Sena Magill says the council takes the challenges OHR and HRC have faced seriously, and that equity will be a “huge part” of the city’s strategic plan, with the HRC being “a part of that equity work.”
And, according to Richardson, the city’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year “will include continued support for the Office of Human Rights, the new Office of Equity and Inclusion, and the new Police Civilian Review Board.”
On January 1, three new Charlottesville City Council members will officially begin their terms. Michael Payne, Sena Magill, and Lloyd Snook will join current councilors Heather Hill and Mayor Nikuyah Walker as Wes Bellamy, Mike Signer, and Kathy Galvin ride off into the sunset.
Magill and Payne say their priorities continue to be the issues that they built their campaigns around—housing reform and environmental policy.
“Something that I really want to get to work on immediately is climate change,” Payne says. “The city set a greenhouse gas emissions reduction target—carbon neutrality by 2050—but how do we create specific plans within each emission sector, and reach out to nonprofits in the community, to develop specific plans that can actually help accomplish that goal?”
“We need to look at how we are going to be incorporating protecting our environment and continuing our work in affordable housing,” Magill says.
That’s easier said than done, of course. “Housing is a combination of federal, state, and some local. We don’t have the control over it that people think we do,” Magill says.
Snook did not respond to resquests to be interviewed for this article.
Incumbent councilor Hill emphasizes that the first challenge facing council is getting everyone on the same page.
“I’m looking at some very foundational things that need to happen for both this council and this administration to be successful,” Hill says. “Alignment among our council is just so critical to any path forward on any other priorities that any of us individually want to pursue.”
“I think that right now, the way we’ve historically operated, nothing gets done,” Hill says. “Truly, some things are never getting done, and a lot of money and resources are being spent on them.”
Hill’s comments come on the heels of a council session that strained interpersonal relations between members. Those disagreements were put on display at a team-building retreat in December 2018, when The Daily Progress reported that the councilors “aired their grievances with each other, the media and the community members who address them at meetings.”
“No one has to be friends with each other, but we have to be committed to working with each other and hearing each others’ perspectives,” Hill says.
Magill says that all her fellow council members are “in it for the same reason.”
“There is no thought that anyone is using this as a stepping stone to something else. We’re all in this because we live in this community and want to do right by this community,” she says.
The stakes are high. Payne points out that mistrust between councilors exacerbates long-standing issues of trust between city residents and local government. “If we’re consumed by infighting, that only makes it harder for us to take action on affordable housing, climate change, all these issues,” Payne says.
For Magill, rebuilding the city’s trust in government comes down to openness and honesty. “Try not to make promises you can’t keep. Try to be clear and open with your abilities and what you can and cannot do,” she says.
One of the first tasks council members will face will be electing a mayor and vice-mayor. Walker (who did not respond to a request for comment) has just completed her first two-year term as mayor, but is eligible for another. Before her, Mike Signer served one term, but the three mayors before him each served two. The council members declined to speculate on the 2020 selection process.
“It’s historically been a pretty opaque process, a lot of behind-the-scenes discussions and negotiations and jockeying,” says former mayor Dave Norris, though Walker’s election two years ago was a notable exception. Of the new councilors, Magill received the most votes in the general election.
“I think that’s going to be very telling, who the new mayor is,” Norris says. Norris describes Payne and Walker as being “of the progressive, change kind of camp,” and Hill and Snook as “a little bit more moderate.”
“And then you have one Sena Magill,” he adds. “It’ll be interesting to see what kind of councilor she’s going to be. The vote on the mayor will be one sign of that.”
The beginning of the new session means that all five councilors who were on the board during the summer of 2017 will have concluded their time on council.
“We lose a lot of the experience of those councilors, who did sit on the dais during a very difficult time in our community, and I hope they continue to be resources to all of us,” Hill says of the outgoing group.
The fresh faces in government might help the city move forward, however. “Hopefully, without the baggage, it’s easier to trust that the decisions we’re making are in what we feel is the best interest of the community,” Magill says.
“I don’t think it’s a turning point that changes everything,” Payne says. “It’s important that we don’t fall into a mindset of, ‘Let’s go back to how things were five years ago’…There’s a lot of work to be done. It’s not something that’s going to happen overnight.”
From top left, clockwise: Sena Magill, Michael Payne, Lloyd Snook, Paul Long, John Hall, and Bellamy Brown.
Three seats are up for grabs on Charlottesville City Council because Mike Signer, Kathy Galvin, and Wes Bellamy are not running for re-election. (Photo: Eze Amos)
There are three open spots on Charlottesville City Council this year and three candidates who’ve won the Democratic nomination, usually a virtual guarantee of being elected. But three independents are still in the race, and as Nikuyah Walker proved with her victory in 2017, they can’t be discounted.
We asked each of the candidates the following questions: What steps need to be taken to achieve carbon neutrality in Charlottesville by 2050?; What avenues do you believe the city should take to combat the affordable housing crisis?; How far along do you see the city in the healing process following the white supremacist riots in August 2017?; and What would you want to be able to point to at the end of your term as something City Council accomplished? Here’s what they had to say:
Sena Magill (D)
Owner of Hatpindolly Vintage
Age: 47
Born: Birmingham, Alabama
Local resident: 40 years
“I’m doing this because it’s my home.”
On carbon neutrality:
We need to be looking at power-purchase agreements so that we can put solar [panels] affordably on all municipal buildings and schools. [We organize] a collective of homes that can buy into this so that they can get solar on their roofs as a power-purchase agreement. And what that is, is a company that owns the panels, and [the residents] are buying the electricity from that company…supporting the solar economy, and reducing the coal usage and carbon footprint.
On affordable housing:
We have to figure out how it is we’re going to keep our working class here—our city workers, our firefighters, our nurses, our care workers…and we’ve got to make sure it’s also quality housing. [One of my proposals is] a land strike fund, where you put like $2 million aside…for when a property comes available, the city can purchase it and hold it until a nonprofit can get its [finances] together to then purchase that from the city and keep it in affordable housing.
On the city’s healing process:
There’s still work to be done…The majority of our city suffered PTSD, different levels of it…This isn’t going to get healed until the city proves to people that it listened and is following through on its promises. Trust is given usually at the onset but once trust is broken, it takes a lot of time to re-heal.
On what she hopes to accomplish:
Really getting in place a transit system that works with Albemarle County, UVA, [and] surrounding counties…We’ve [also] adopted this great climate change goal in the city, but we need to then put into place a policy to enforce that goal…[And I want] the people in our city to believe council is going to listen to them.
Michael Payne (D)
Affordable housing activist
Age: 27
Born: Washington, D.C.
Local resident: 26 years
“I want to take a community-organizing approach to City Council.”
On carbon neutrality:
Residential, business, [and] transportation are some of the biggest areas to create specific action plans around…creating a regional transit authority is key…the Charlottesville Climate Collaborative has an initiative they’re working on to reduce emissions in homes…there’s [also] a Better Business Challenge in the city that City Council can promote and be a part of.
On affordable housing:
There’s no silver bullet, it’s a series of policies that are needed. I think the fundamental problem is the fact that, as a city, we’re landlocked in about 10 and a half square miles. We don’t have land to grow into and we’re experiencing both population growth [and] this cycle where rising land prices lead to speculative investment…So in terms of what the city can do…investing in redevelopment of public housing…finishing its affordable housing strategy [and] zoning reform.
On the city’s healing process:
There’s many community members still dealing with unpaid medical debts [and] injuries both physical and mental. The national media attention of this event has waned, but for many community members, they’re still struggling…I do think as a community we’ve been healing and we’ve been getting to a better place, but…we have to take seriously looking at creating real structural transformational change here locally [that] changes outcomes.
On what he hopes to accomplish:
No. 1, that we’ve made the commitment to begin the redevelopment of public housing process in order to provide decent conditions and wealth-building opportunities to our public housing residents. No. 2, that the city has finished its affordable housing strategy and begun to implement it and has a clear approach for how they prioritize and strategically make investments to create affordable housing. And No. 3, that we have created plans for how to achieve our emissions target reduction goal.
Lloyd Snook (D)
Trial lawyer
Age: 66
Born: Plainfield, New Jersey
Local resident: 58 years
“I’ve got experience with every major issue that’s important to Charlottesville right now.”
On carbon neutrality:
There is no one answer, there are about 50 answers and they all need to get progress on, [but] there is much more carbon being used in homes and business than by government…Ultimately, what we need most to do to accomplish that goal is to be able to influence the home and industrial uses.
On affordable housing:
I am the only candidate who has tried to put any numbers on specific things that might be done…We need to build where we can [and] more building will happen, but we’re not going to build our way out of this problem…It’s been estimated that if we could just speed up the process [at Neighborhood Development Services], we could make the process for getting accessory dwelling units approved faster, cheaper, easier all the way around and then promote it.
On the city’s healing process:
The analogy that I use is to say that August 12 was basically the ringing of a bell, and bells continue to ring for a long time, and the vibrations and reverberations persist. We’re still seeing some of that…A lot of the realizations that have taken place since that time were news to folks, particularly white people, largely because they had never been forced to confront some of the history, [and] I don’t think we’ve got a consensus yet on what our response should be.
On what he hopes to accomplish:
We have moved forward on the buildable portions of the affordable housing…That we have gone through this backlog of reports that we haven’t been able to do anything about; that we’ve finished the revision to the city code [and] the zoning code; that we have finished the comprehensive plan and we’ve got a meaningful plan for affordable housing at all levels…Simply: We’ve finally caught up to what we were supposed to have been doing all along.
Bellamy Brown (I)
Student at UVA’s Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership
Age: 40
Born: Charlottesville
Local resident: 15 years (left at age 14; moved back in 2018)
“I’m a service-oriented leader.”
On carbon neutrality:
The low-hanging fruit are LED lights around the city; the electric buses that are out there; [and], as they’re building and developing the infrastructure, obviously doing that in a way that takes into consideration the carbon footprint…For me, there’s no real plan and I think that’s been with a lot of policies throughout. I want action-oriented stuff and those are the low-hanging fruit I think we can take to get there.
On affordable housing:
When you get down and talk to the neighborhoods, each of them has their own fabric…To say that someone is going to put up R-6 or what have you over at Belmont or anywhere else, that’s B.S. because you need to have two other people to sign onto that. So my thing is that we have a bucket of tools [and] we work with public, private, nonprofit, and the community together to come to some viable solutions.
On the city’s healing process:
This is the first year where we didn’t have anything happen on the anniversary, so I think people got to a point where they could have a breath…[There] are scars that are going to be there for some time and people heal in different stages. So I think we have to have leadership that steps up and sets the tone for how we’re going about that.
On what he hopes to accomplish:
I would want to be further down the road in terms of our role in affordable housing, infrastructure for me is a big one…filling this gap in the low-income communities…rebranding our community as a whole, getting away from every time someone hears Charlottesville they have this negative reaction, and ideally having a more collaborative council across the board where you don’t have to agree on everything but we can do it in a mature manner.
John Hall (I)
Inventor and design engineer
Age: 68
Born: Winchester, Virginia
Local resident: 25 years
“I want to provide direction for the city.”
On carbon neutrality:
I’ve known other inventors and other people from physics at UVA, and one had what he called a ‘recuperator engine’ to recycle the exhaust and keep burning it until all you have delivered into the environment is warm air…I would also like to line the combustion chamber of an engine with ceramic material…any ceramic material could burn very, very hot so that the fuels could be burned very hot and clean.
On affordable housing:
I felt like I had a really good idea to acquire the old Landmark hotel, which is now a shell…but I think it can be refurbished and rebuilt starting with what we already have there…Just pay for the land value and maybe a little bit extra, so that Mr. John Dewberry and his Deerfield associates will be well provided for and be happy to say Okay, we’re going to help Charlottesville, we’re going to release it, no lawsuit, no questions asked.
On the city’s healing process:
I think the events of 2017 in August are reflective of what we were still debating and a polarization of people—because of the statues…Recently, people have gone across the line and defaced those statues, [but] before this all happened, I said let’s take down the orange fences, promote unity of mind among our people, so that we can go forward and put that in the past and heal.
On what he hopes to accomplish:
I think some of my ideas would be accomplished in the future. It might not be that I get credit for it but…I see it’s inevitable that the Charlottesville Area Transit buses will go to the airport. I was first to propose that. I think it will also happen that in terms of transportation…we can have fold-out stop signs on all public transportation buses, they don’t have to be school buses…what we do to protect our children…is good for our adults as well in public transportation.
Paul Long (I)
Retired
Age: 70
Born: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Local resident: 21 years
“I have a lot of patience and am a good listener.”
On carbon neutrality:
I believe Charlottesville needs its public transportation system to be revamped…that would be a great improvement to decrease carbon dioxide. I also think in terms of watching what’s going on in the Amazon River basin in Brazil, the city should make an effort to plant 15,000 trees, [and] we should be using solar panels as much as possible.
On affordable housing:
I think UVA is the major contributor and one of the issues that [Jim] Ryan said they’ll be doing somewhere down the line is mandating that second-year students live on Grounds and I think that would help. It would open up maybe 1,500 apartments…But having said that, a lot of the apartments’ [rent] is still too high…I don’t think the affordable housing crisis is going to be solved until the federal government takes an active role in the issue.
On the city’s healing process:
Obviously there’s a lot of racial feelings here in Charlottesville, but most of the people who came here in August of 2017 were [from] out of the city…and I think there needs to be healing in terms of the racial injustices in the city that existed way before the August disruptions that happened two years ago.
On what he hopes to accomplish:
That I was instrumental in improving the public transportation system, that I was instrumental in having a change in viewpoints towards how drug addicts are treated, [that] City Council [was] an instrument in appealing to the state legislature to change a lot of the rules that are in the books…and also that I was instrumental in increasing the services to homeless people.
