Sue Friedman – C-VILLE Weekly

Beto shows up—again

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke made a second visit to Charlottesville August 31. O’Rourke, who is trailing in the crowded Dem field, hit Champion Brewing to support former School Board chair Amy Laufer, who is running to unseat state Senator Bryce Reeves. He visited the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center and said Charlottesville has “an incredibly powerful story to tell” about racism after August 12, 2017—an event former vice president Joe Biden used to launch his campaign. O’Rourke, who attended the boarding school Woodberry Forest in Madison County, concluded his visit with a fundraiser held by some high school buddies.

O’Rourke shows up for Amy Laufer at Champion Brewing. Eze Amos

“I am a part of a stereotype, but I also do things people would never expect me to do.”—Corey in the documentary A Different Side, which presents a new perspective of young black men, and was made by interns in this summer’s Community Attention Youth Internship Program

In brief

Credit limits

City Manager Tarron Richardson proposes lower limits on credit card spending by city officials, and tighter oversight on purchases in the wake of the Paige Rice Apple Watch-buying scandal and Progress reporter Nolan Stout’s stories about city spending. In the first half of 2019, city officials put more than $480,000 on credit cards.

We’ll drink to that

UVA will start selling alcohol at home football games in booze gardens at the east and west ends of Scott Stadium. Beer, wine, and hard cider must be consumed in the outdoor bars, and fans may buy no more than four drinks during the first three quarters of a game, after which sales end.

‘Landslide Michie’ dies

Former city school board member Tom Michie, who served during integration and earned his nickname when he won a House of Delegates seat by one vote, died August 27 at age 88, of complications related to Alzheimer’s. Michie carried legislation that led to Charlottesville and Albemarle’s revenue-sharing agreement. He lost re-election to a fourth term in the state Senate, which he attributed to NRA retaliation for his support of a bill to ban assault weapon sales in Virginia.

Banned again

Albemarle County schools have forbidden independent City Council candidate John Hall from entering county school property following a disruption at CATEC. Hall, who has said he’s been diagnosed as bipolar, has been banned from City Hall and UVA in the past, and has been convicted of trespassing several times, most recently August 2 at the Haven, the DP reports.

R.I.P. former C-VILLE columnist

Katherine Troyer, who penned a science column during this paper’s early days as C-Ville Review, died August 27 at 64 from cancer.

Early bid

Kellen Squire, an E.R. nurse in Charlottesville and former Democratic candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates, announced last week that he intends to run for lieutenant governor in the 2021 election. Squire is the first candidate to announce his campaign for the seat currently occupied by Justin Fairfax.

Change of venue denied

On September 29, an Albemarle County judge denied Common Ground Executive Director Elliott Brown’s request for a change of venue to Charlottesville in the defamation suit against her, filed by Jefferson School Foundation Executive Director Sue Friedman. Friedman is suing Brown for $1 million, plus $350K in damages for comments Brown made at a tenant meeting and in emails.

Breaking the bank

State regulators released a report last week that said Dominion Energy reeled in $277 million in “excessive profits” last year—but that doesn’t mean customers’ prices will be going down anytime soon. The company helped write state legislation in 2018 that protects it from being forced to lower rates even if profits are considered too high.

Gaming connections

State Dem party chair Susan Swecker, who represents Queen of Virginia, called state Senator Creigh Deeds, Delegate David Toscano, and City Councilor Mike Signer to ask what was up with Commonwealth’s Attorney Joe Platania saying the game violates state law, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.

The executive director of the Jefferson School Foundation is suing one of the building’s resident nonprofit partners for defamation, after the tenant accused her of conducting “unethical fundraising” in a previous job.

Sue Friedman, a former Albemarle School Board chair, was hired in January to handle day-to-day operations of the historical Jefferson School City Center, as well as coordinate fundraising efforts for the nonprofit foundation. The center houses 11 nonprofit partners, including the African American Heritage Center.

But at an April 12 meeting of the resident partners, Common Ground Healing Arts Executive Director Elliott Brown expressed concerns over how Friedman was hired, and questioned why the board of directors “would hire someone who was fired from her last job for exhibiting unethical behavior in fundraising,” according to a complaint filed by Friedman in Albemarle Circuit Court.

In an email sent to Friedman and others two weeks later, which was attached to the court filing, Brown said she should have used the word “left” instead of “fired,” but maintained her claim that Friedman exhibited unethical behavior as president and CEO of the Alzheimer’s Association, a nonprofit that Friedman led for 12 years.

Brown also said in the email she believed a white person must be “overwhelmingly justified” to run the former African American school—a standard she said Friedman didn’t meet.

In response to the criticism, Friedman filed suit, charging that Brown’s statements were defamatory. In the suit, she denies conducting any unethical fundraising practices while at the Alzheimer’s Association, and she wants $1 million, as well as $350,000 for punitive damages (the maximum allowable amount) and the costs of attorneys’ fees.

“Sue Friedman was with the Alzheimer’s Association Central and Western Virginia chapter for 12 years,” a spokesman for the Alzheimer’s Association said in a statement. “She chose to leave the organization in December, 2018 to pursue a new opportunity.”

According to sources close to the Jefferson School who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the resident partners asked board chair Martin Burks III to attend their April meeting to discuss Friedman’s hiring process. They say the tenants were put off by Friedman’s demeanor and decisions related to her position, and felt excluded from the decision to bring her aboard.

The board hired Friedman in December after narrowing the search down to six candidates. Sources say some resident partners asked to be part of the hiring process and were told they could be, but the board conducted several interviews without them.

One of the board members at the time was Frank Friedman, Sue Friedman’s husband and the president of Piedmont Virginia Community College. PVCC is a resident partner of City Center, where it hosts culinary arts and community self-sufficiency programs. Frank recused himself from the interview process and resigned from his position on the board at its first meeting of the year, which occurred in February.

Sue Friedman alleges in the suit that Brown’s comments damaged her reputation among both Charlottesville community members and the resident partners, compromising her “ability to raise funds and serve as the public face” of the Jefferson School.

She also calls Brown’s questions of her ability to serve in her role as a white person “offensive and racist,” and her attorney has demanded a trial by jury.

Neither Friedman responded to C-VILLE’s requests for comment.

“This is the first time in all the years the tenants have been at the Jefferson School that I’ve seen a drastic shift in the momentum of our working together,” one source says. “A lawsuit in the mix has created a pall over the place.”

At the meeting, Brown pushed with direct questions about Friedman, and read from a prepared statement—making the comments that later prompted the lawsuit. Friedman was “shocked, humiliated, and outraged” about Brown’s claims, according to court documents; she then left the meeting and didn’t return.

Brown’s follow-up email two weeks later, now attached to the complaint, was addressed to Friedman, the board, resident partners, and other employees of Common Ground. The message was in response to Friedman’s April meeting notes, also filed with the complaint, of which Brown wrote that “many things [were] off or missing.”

She said in the email that some resident partners were turned away from interviews with prospective candidates for Friedman’s job. In addition, Brown said she initially felt that voicing her concerns in front of Friedman was “inappropriate,” but decided that “if the tables were turned, I would want the respect of being in the room during a discussion like this about me.”

Neither Brown nor Burks responded to requests for comment on this story.

Tom Albro, the lawyer representing Friedman, is also representing Edward Dickinson Tayloe II (a plaintiff in the lawsuit fighting City Council’s vote to remove Confederate statues) in a defamation suit against C-VILLE, news editor Lisa Provence, and UVA assistant professor Jalane Schmidt for this feature story. A copy of that complaint can be found here.