Owner of experiential forest preschool launches Kickstarter campaign
After a long day cooped up inside, Ruth Haske’s 4-year-old daughter was ecstatic to get outdoors when the thunder subsided last week. She bounded down the steps to help her dad take a bag of garbage to the compost pit, and stopped to check the status of her beet seedlings in the family’s garden before [...]
Conservation group says Trump golf course violates easement policy
Donald and Eric Trump already own 14 golf courses worldwide, with locations across the United States and in Scotland and Puerto Rico, but they don’t have one in Albemarle County, yet. Three years after paying $6.2 million for the Kluge Estate Winery and Vineyard, the Trumps bought the 217-acre lawn in front of Patricia Kluge’s [...]
Black progress: As enrollment drops, African-American faculty and students try to preserve culture
UVA accepted its first African-American student in 1950. Black enrollment increased gradually over the following 40 years, but since hitting 10 percent in 1990, the enrollment of African-American students has dropped steadily. According to 2012-2013 numbers, African-American students make up less than 7 percent of UVA’s undergraduate student body. Students, faculty, and alumni agree that [...]
Thomas Jefferson Foundation receives annual tourism award
A crowd of about 100 gathered at Trump Winery yesterday evening to wine and dine, enjoy the view of the vineyard, and watch the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau (CACVB) present the annual Tourism Achievement Award. Executive Director Kurt Burkhart presented the top honor to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation (TJF), for its Presidents Passport [...]
Jack Jouett named AVID demonstration school
It’s 11am on a Tuesday, and class at Jack Jouett Middle School is in full swing. Seventh graders in Christine Jacobs’ class are sitting in a circle, discussing a legal article they read and analyzed for homework the night before. Everybody’s either engaged in the conversation or actively taking notes, nobody is doodling in a [...]
Full circle: City seeks to improve bike access in Charlottesville
Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator Amanda Poncy was shocked when she received double the amount she requested for her budget this year. The money will allow her to collaborate with Park and Trail Planner Chris Gensic to connect trails and urban passageways to create a city-wide corridor that’s easy and safe to access. “We really just [...]
New library heralds era of growth in Western Albemarle
After years of discussion, planning, and vigorous fundraising, construction of the new Crozet Library, a big step in the effort to expand the town’s downtown area, is nearing completion. The two-story building on Crozet Avenue still smells like sawdust, but the power tools and paint cans will soon be replaced by 70,000 books and more [...]
UVA hosts panel on genetically modified organisms
We’ve been eating genetically modified foods for more than 20 years, but they’re still controversial, and continue to spark national debate about food safety and ethics. On Tuesday, April 23, the UVA Food Collaborative and Department of Environmental Sciences will host a panel discussion on the topic, featuring scientists and activists on all sides of [...]
Eighth graders collaborate with UVA to establish stream buffers
Kathryn Durkee’s eighth graders at the Community Public Charter School got out of the classroom last Wednesday, and spent the morning splashing around the Rivanna River. The students were wrapping up a nine-week-long project, during which they collaborated with Youth-Nex, UVA’s Center to Promote Effective Youth Development, the Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center, and other [...]
Volunteer firefighters turn pro, cause tension
A long-debated issue resurfaced at a recent Albemarle County Board of Supervisors’ meeting when lifetime firefighters expressed concern that professionals in the county fire department cannot also serve as volunteers. County officials say they need to keep the camps separate to comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. But some fire department members think [...]
Cyclists prepare for National Bike Week
Local cycling enthusiasts are gearing up for both warmer weather and National Bike Month in May, when communities across the U.S. will encourage and celebrate bicycling for both recreation and transportation. Organizations like Community Bikes and Bike Charlottesville are hosting several events to get people of all ages excited about hopping onto two wheels. Charlottesville Community [...]
Tom Tom to feature two innovation contests
“It takes persistence, not necessarily any particular genius, to be an entrepreneur,” said University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce adjunct professor Brendan Richardson. A UVA graduate and startup investor himself, Richardson has spent more than 20 years working with new ideas and the people behind them. The next Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates might [...]
PVCC student from Kyrgyzstan named top Virginia community college scholar
When 26-year-old Anastasiya Hvaleva was growing up in Kyrgyzstan, she and her friends used to set up pretend businesses for their dolls and toys, complete with managers, employees, and customers. But the game became very real when, in grade school, Hvaleva watched both her parents lose their jobs after the breakup of the Soviet Union, [...]
Charlottesville’s locavores will soon flock to the area’s farmers’ markets
Now that “spring” has finally arrived, farmers’ markets will soon be up and running throughout the city and county. This market season brings some new vendors to the ever-popular City Market, along with some familiar faces from Virginia Cooperative Extension’s Master Gardeners. City Market, which is run by the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation [...]
Legal battle over Stonefield stormwater raises questions about how to deal with runoff
The developers of The Shops at Stonefield are again ensnared in a dispute over stormwater, and this time, the county and city are also under fire in a case that could highlight changes in the ways municipalities are expected to deal with runoff. Great Eastern Management Company, which owns Seminole Square Shopping Center on the [...]
Touchdown teacher: Brandon Isaiah takes leadership from the field to the classroom
Most of Brandon Isaiah’s students have no idea he was a professional football player. Teaching started out for him as an avenue to coaching high school football, but it quickly became a way to give back to the local community he’s loved for 12 years. Now the 30-year-old athlete is an advocate for getting black [...]
Businesses respond to Terry McAuliffe’s campaign visit
When Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe visited Charlottesville last Wednesday, he meandered up and down the Downtown Mall with Delegate David Toscano, discussing the economy and promising to prioritize small businesses if elected. McAuliffe said he’s running on a platform of job creation and economic development, and wants to appeal to the entire political spectrum [...]
New suit filed against Stonefield developer
Only days after The Shops at Stonefield developer and Charlottesville City Council came to an agreement that ended a long legal dispute over stormwater management, a new lawsuit has been filed in the Albemarle County Circuit Court that may halt construction of the shopping center’s second phase. According to a press release from Monday, March [...]
Green happenings: Charlottesville environmental news and events
Each week, C-VILLE’s Green Scene page takes a look at local environmental news. The section’s bulletin board has information on local green events and keeps you up to date on statewide happenings. Got an event or a tip you’d like to see here and in the paper? Write us at news@c-ville.com. Hoophouse hopes: City Schoolyard Garden, [...]
Open and honest: County campaign encourages frank discussions about alcohol
Albemarle County Project Director Alex London-Gross is leading a county-wide campaign to reduce drinking and driving, and is encouraging parents to talk to their kids. “Talk to them about everything: what’s going on, who their friends are, what they’re doing after school,” she said. “One of the best preventative factors is knowing you can have [...]
You are beautiful: The Eleanor Project promotes a healthy self-image—for all women
When social media site upworthy.com created a video with “pictures of women that make you feel better about yourself instead of worse,” local mothers Jennifer McDonald and Terry Beigie were inspired. Fed up with the media-supported charade of the ideal woman being 5’10″ with “perfect teeth, huge Barbie bosoms, and beautiful long blonde hair,” McDonald [...]
Native plant symposium encourages nurseries to go local
Native plants are hard to find, so gardeners don’t buy them. Nobody buys them, so suppliers don’t stock them. Nobody sells them, so farmers have no reason to grow them. It’s a vicious circle that Albemarle County staff is trying to remedy. Four months after the county published its native plants online database, Water Resources [...]
Ragged Mountain Dam construction halfway complete, opponents still unhappy
This time last year, opponents of the new earthen dam at the Ragged Mountain Reservoir were hoping that a pending lawsuit would stall the long-debated project. Now, after thousands of hardwood trees were wiped out and the water level was lowered for construction, the barren, canyon-like dam site is bustling with engineers and machinery, and [...]
Rent hikes force local businesses out of Barracks Road Shopping Center
Local merchants at Barracks Road Shopping Center are trying to stay optimistic about their future. But mom-and-pop shops are dropping like flies at the city’s oldest shopping mall. Lloyd’s Hallmark, after more than 40 years at Barracks Road, closed in January to make way for PeachMac, an Apple resale store. Peace Frogs, Shenanigans, and Lynne [...]
iPad app created by eighth grade French students has already gone global
The use of tablets and laptops in middle and high schools has created controversy in Charlottesville city schools, but St. Anne’s-Belfield School French teacher Karine Boulle has reason to rave about iPads. After 17 sessions of intense writing, translating, and coding, Boulle’s class of eighth graders completed 2Lingua Kids, a bilingual iPad app that teaches [...]
Transition Charlottesville helps gardeners get a jump on spring with seedling workshop
“I think the best part of gardening is knowing what it really means to eat broccoli,” said Melissa Wender, a Bronx native turned rural green thumb. Wender picked up a gardening book 15 years ago on a whim, and has since learned by trial and error, keeping detailed journals on the weather and her plants’ [...]
Longo says trails are safe, but police need to do better in wake of alleged assault on Rivanna Trail
The attack of a woman on the Rivanna Trail on Tuesday, February 5 didn’t draw much public attention. Days later, runners who frequent the trail said they were unaware any violence had occurred in the area, and agreed that, for the most part, the city’s recreational space is safe and quiet. But city police say [...]