‘Martial law’: Officials say 1,000 cops necessary, searches ‘consensual’
The August 12 weekend passed with no loss of life or serious injury, but many Charlottesville residents were not reassured by the show of police force and the restrictions on pedestrian access to the Downtown Mall that were announced a couple of days before they went into effect. The Virginia State Police provided 700 officers, […]
Anniversary weekend ends peacefully, with sad remembrances
A year after white supremacists and neo-Nazis marched with torches through UVA and violent clashes in the streets left one woman dead and dozens injured, it was with some trepidation that locals commemorated August 11 and 12. The weekend ended without serious injury and with a handful of arrests on misdemeanor charges. By late Sunday […]
Gun-carrying vet arrested for scraper blades
John Miska frequently shops on the Downtown Mall, especially when CVS has two-for-one sales on cases of Arizona iced tea. Today, he ran afoul of the city’s list of prohibited items after he made his purchases, and was arrested for possessing the single edge blades he bought for his ice scraper. Miska, 64, says he […]
Attorneys slam downtown mall pedestrian restrictions
At the August 6 City Council meeting, public safety officials outlined precautions for the upcoming August 12 anniversary, including street closures and the shutdown of public pools. It wasn’t until two days later that the city announced pedestrian access to the eight-block or so Downtown Mall would be limited to two entry points. Civil rights […]
Pilgrims’ report: What they brought back from civil rights pilgrimage
A month ago, around 100 locals set off on two buses to Montgomery, Alabama, carrying soil from the site where John Henry James was lynched in 1898 in Albemarle County. On August 5, nearly 200 people gathered at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center to hear the pilgrims’ report back to the community about […]
No. 9: New UVA president ready to question and listen
Jim Ryan, the University of Virginia’s ninth president, took office August 1 and immediately began to re-introduce himself to the university where he was both a graduate of the School of Law and served on the law school’s faculty. Ryan, 51, became a YouTube sensation when a commencement speech he gave at Harvard School […]
Builder fined in elevator shaft fatality
Early July 25, Albemarle police responded to an industrial accident at Yancey Lumber in Crozet, where employee Floriberta Macedo-Diaz, 46, of Waynesboro, died of her injuries. Macedo-Diaz isn’t the only workplace fatality in the region. In June, the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry finished its investigation into a job-related death last fall, and fined […]
Mike Murphy named interim city manager
After more than a week of heated exchanges between city councilors and Mayor Nikuyah Walker over the hiring of an interim city manager, there was 10 minutes of public notice before a 3-0 vote in closed session at 1:15pm resulted in Assistant City Manager Mike Murphy taking the job effective 5pm today, just hours before […]
Truce: City and Mark Brown settle parking garage dispute
Two years ago, before Nazis came to Charlottesville in 2017, the big story was the contretemps between Mark Brown, co-owner of the Water Street Parking Garage, and then-mayor Mike Signer and the city. The escalating parking wars led to suits and countersuits, panicked meetings of downtown business owners, threats of closing the garage and of […]
Bugs on the bus go ’round and ’round
Former Albemarle School Board member Gary Grant had an appointment at UVA WorkMed Clinic last month and he struck up a conversation with a Charlottesville Area Transit bus driver. As a former school bus driver himself, Grant asked the driver if he was in for a random drug test. It was even worse. The driver […]
Permit-less: Kessler withdraws motion for August 11-12 rallies
After plaintiff Jason Kessler showed up 45 minutes late to federal court for his own motion to order Charlottesville to grant him a permit to hold an event the weekend of August 12, it took the judge about two seconds to grant Kessler’s attorney’s request to withdraw the motion. “He’s not going to hold a […]
And stay out: Cantwell pleads guilty, banned from Virginia for five years
Chris Cantwell, aka the Crying Nazi, came to Charlottesville a year ago to chant “Jews will not replace us” while marching through UVA Grounds. As the self-proclaimed racist shock jock was booted from Virginia July 20, he hurled a final invective at local media outside the Albemarle Circuit Court when he refused to comment to […]
Etched in memory: Pilgrimage to Montgomery honors local lynching victim
A pilgrimage is a spiritual journey that, with its elements of symbolism, ritual and enlightenment, seems almost medieval in the 21st century. The symbolic reason approximately 100 Charlottesvillians boarded buses July 8 for a six-day civil rights pilgrimage was to commemorate the 1898 lynching of John Henry James, which was virtually unknown until about two years […]
Maurice Jones takes job as Chapel Hill town manager
City Council announced today that City Manager Maurice Jones has taken a job as town manager for Chapel Hill, North Carolina, ahead of that city making the announcement. Jones will end his tenure here July 31, before his December 7 contract expires. Council decided not to renew Jones’ contract May 25, and wished him well […]
‘Clear violation:’ Little High residents sue City Council
Seventeen residents of the Little High Street neighborhood filed a suit against City Council July 5, and one of the plaintiffs includes former city councilor Bob Fenwick. The residents object to how City Council approved a special use permit for Jefferson Place apartments at 1011 E. Jefferson St., and call it a “clear violation” of […]
Day 5 #CvillePilgrimage: Say his name
Next to nothing is known about John Henry James—not his age, his family nor his occupation. All that is certain is that he died on July 12, 1898, at the hands of a Charlottesville lynch mob. And that murder is what led to around 100 people from Charlottesville to travel four days to Montgomery, Alabama, […]
Journey begins: #cvillepilgrimage commemorates, reclaims local lynching
About 50 people gathered in the woods beside the train tracks running west of Charlottesville early July 7. The morning was cool and birds could be heard chirping in the quiet—a scene nothing like the one 120 years ago, when a mob yanked John Henry James off a train there at Wood’s Crossing and strung […]
‘Inexhaustible curiosity:’ Lawyer, banker, civic leader Lloyd Smith dies at 85
Lloyd Smith, a founding partner of Tremblay and Smith law firm, Virginia Broadcasting Corporation, the parent company of what is now NBC29, and Guaranty Bank, as well as the North Downtown Residents Association and Park Lane Swim Club, died June 25 at age 85. “He had a good life and died quietly with his […]
Stressed test: Life with the highest health insurance premiums in country
A year ago, Jane Neldon thought she was doing well enough as a massage therapist to start working on her own. Then she saw her health insurance premium spike from $280 a month to more than $700. “My health insurance costs more than the rent for my office,” she says. “In a year that I […]
‘Bittersweet’ bills: Governor signs legislation that could save the next girl
The parents of two young women who were murdered here were among those in the dignitary-filled room June 21 at Charlottesville’s Central Library, where Governor Ralph Northam signed legislation expanding the collection of DNA for misdemeanor crimes that, had it previously been in effect, could have saved UVA student Hannah Graham and Virginia Tech student […]
Napoleon v. Bellamy at City Council
Kerfuffles certainly aren’t new at City Council meetings anymore, but the one June 18 between Pat Napoleon and Wes Bellamy jolted awake anyone who may have been dozing during public comments. Napoleon is the founder of Rise Charlottesville, and has been collecting signatures to remove those on council last year who voted to remove Confederate […]
Blast zone: Belmont residents perturbed about subdivision rock clearing
Quarry Road runs along Belmont’s southern border by Quarry Park, across from where Belmont Point will be built. Monikers of nearby Rockland and Stonehenge avenues also suggest there’s a lot of rocky ground in the vicinity. And when some of the neighbors got notices from a survey company that blasting would take place to excavate […]
State budget benefits Robert Davis
The General Assembly’s passage May 30 of a budget that expands Medicaid makes nearly 400,000 Virginians now eligible for health insurance. The previously stalled budget also helps a local man who spent almost 13 years in prison. Robert Davis turned 34 years old May 22, and one thing he didn’t get for his birthday was […]
‘Big deal’: Nearly 5,000 locals eligible for coverage with Medicaid expansion
Mary Linn Bergstrom was in Boston over Memorial Day when she got a really bad, eyes-swollen-shut case of poison ivy. “I had to wait to go to the doctor until I had enough money in the bank,” says the 38-year-old Nia instructor. Bergstrom is one of almost 5,000 people in Charlottesville and Albemarle who will […]
Free swim—pool scholarships get kids in water
Darnell Lamont Walker was surprised when he went to Washington Park Pool in 2013 and it cost $6 to get in. “I remember when it was 50 cents,” he says. Since then, Walker, who now lives in New York and is a writer for “Sesame Street,” has been raising money to send kids to Charlottesville’s […]
Pipeline parallels? Eminent domain: the movie
One of the least popular Supreme Court decisions this century would have to be Kelo v. New London, a case that resulted in 45 states, including Virginia, passing laws or, in the Old Dominion’s case, constitutional amendments to prevent the seizing of private property to benefit other private owners under the guise of economic development. […]
Warrant required: Supreme Court ruling in Albemarle case bolsters Fourth Amendment
Ryan Collins already was on the radar of Albemarle police in 2013 after he eluded officers on two separate occasions on a flashy orange and black motorcycle. Five years later on May 29, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld his argument 8-1 that police needed a warrant to search for the bike outside his girlfriend’s house […]