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 […]
The taxman cometh—and wants list of stored vehicles
Personal property taxes are due June 5, and the city has stepped up its efforts to locate vehicles that reside in Charlottesville, even if their owners don’t. Woolen Mills Storage received a request from Commissioner of the Revenue Todd Divers to provide a list of vehicles stored there. “If a vehicle is parked here on […]
Confronting a shameful past: Search for 1898 lynching site narrows
As big a role as history plays in Charlottesville’s identity, some events, like an 1898 lynching, were pretty much buried or forgotten until Jane Smith was doing historical research and going through old issues of the Daily Progress in 2013. She happened upon this July 12, 1898, headline: “He paid the awful penalty: John Henry […]
Tinsley ouster: DMB claims it didn’t know about alleged predatory behavior
In a move that has Charlottesville and the music world reeling, the Dave Matthews Band parted ways with longtime violinist Boyd Tinsley, 54, late May 17 following an explosive story that detailed a lawsuit against Tinsley for alleged sexual assault, harassment and long-term grooming. Tinsley has denied the allegations in an online music news site […]
UPDATED: Tinsley denies sexual harassment allegations that led to DMB firing
Original headline Tinsley fired: DMB claims it didn’t know about alleged predatory behavior In a move that has Charlottesville and the music world reeling, the Dave Matthews Band fired longtime violinist Boyd Tinsley, 54, late last night following an explosive story in online music news site Consequence of Sound that detailed a lawsuit against Tinsley […]
‘Complicit’: Pilgrimage acknowledges Charlottesville’s legacy of lynching
The lynching of John Henry James in Albemarle in 1898 for allegedly assaulting a white woman was both horrific—and all too common in the era of Jim Crow. More than 4,400 black men and women were the victims of domestic racial terrorism between 1877 and 1950, according to the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, […]
Top choice: Charlottesville hires first female police chief
Two years ago, City Manager Maurice Jones announced the hiring of Al Thomas, Charlottesville’s first African-American police chief, who abruptly resigned 20 months later on December 18 following a scathing independent review of the handling of the violent events of August 11-12. Today, Jones introduced his latest police chief pick: former George Washington University chief […]
Bird watch: Intoxicated cedar waxwings slam into CHS
You can tell it’s spring when the birds return—and start crashing into the windows at Charlottesville High while drunk on Japanese pagoda tree berries. Avid birder Walker Catlett, 17, a junior at CHS, saw cedar waxwings flying into windows, and so far has documented at least eight dead and others stunned from soaring into the […]
Preston’s plea: Imperial wizard says no contest to firing gun
Baltimore’s imperial wizard of the Confederate White Knights of the KKK did not appear in court wearing his shiny Klan robes. He didn’t wear the prison stripes from previous appearances, nor did he wear the bandana and tactical vest he sported August 12 when he was videoed firing a Ruger SR9 toward flamethrower-brandishing Corey Long. […]
Pantops gets new rescue station—finally
Growth area Pantops, with its increased density and worsening traffic, has long needed a fire and rescue station, and one has been on the books maybe dating back to Thomas Jefferson, joked Albemarle Fire Rescue Chief Dan Eggleston at the official opening May 7 of Pantops Public Safety Station No. 16. Certainly the station has […]
Guilty again: Ramos second person convicted in garage assault
In the second trial of the week for the brutal August 12 attack on DeAndre Harris, a jury deliberated 35 minutes before entering a second guilty verdict May 3 for an out-of-towner here for the Unite the Right rally. Georgia resident Alex Michael Ramos, 34, sat expressionless through most of the two-day trial […]
Can Leslie Cockburn beat Tom Garrett in the red 5th District?
She frequently wears a green quilted vest—and her campaign has high production values, perhaps fitting for a former “60 Minutes” producer. Two weeks before the 5th District Democratic convention May 5 in Farmville, and after 23 caucuses, Leslie Cockburn amassed the most delegates in a field of four candidates to be the presumptive nominee. The […]