Beginning next month, Albemarle County Public Schools will bring kindergarten through third grade students back to classrooms for in-person instruction two days a week. That’s frustrated some teachers who maintain that the safety concerns outweigh potential benefits. Meanwhile, off-site learning centers aim to assist with childcare by hosting virtual learning. As local schools began the […]
By Laura Drummond The phone has been ringing a lot at the Shelter for Help in Emergency. Since the pandemic began, SHE, which provides safe housing and other services for domestic violence victims in the Charlottesville area, has received approximately 50 percent more hotline calls than during the same time period last year. SHE has […]
For the past 24 years, the Charlottesville Free Clinic has provided no-cost physicals, prescriptions, mental health services, dental care, and more for the uninsured and underinsured from its Rose Hill Drive facility, which it has long shared with the Thomas Jefferson Health District. But in May, the Virginia Department of Health announced it was terminating […]
Defunders keep fighting “Does abolition really mean ending the police? Yes.” So said community organizer Ang Conn, as she spearheaded last Wednesday’s Zoom conversation on policing, hosted by Defund Cville Police. Over 80 community members joined in on the call. The group hopes to keep the pressure on as the summer of protests moves into […]
The trees you see around town are more than just nice to look at. On a hot day, they provide much-needed shade. When it rains, they absorb flood waters. They help filter air and absorb noise pollution, especially when planted near busy streets. And they’ve been linked to reducing stress and anxiety, among other benefits. […]
“The Charlottesville area has a wonderful diversity of trees, and a climate that allows them to grow into old age,” says Robin Hanes, who heads up the Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards’ Notable Trees Project. “We have some fine specimens just out right where everybody drives or walks.” The Tree Stewards, who plant, tend, and advocate […]
By Sydney Halleman Very little at UVA resembles normal academic life these days. Many students are taking their classes entirely online, and those who returned to Grounds wear masks outdoors and are not allowed to congregate in groups of more than five people. Recruiting events for clubs and Greek life are held via Zoom. Last […]
When Andjelika Milicic began looking at colleges, she felt like a lab rat. Her parents, originally from Serbia and Bosnia, did not go to college, and she was the oldest of her siblings, leaving her with no one to guide her through the application process. “I did not know what I was doing whatsoever,” says […]
Pipeline pushback In June, environmental activists celebrated as Dominion Energy canceled the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would have carried natural gas from West Virginia to North Carolina, passing through central Virginia. A little further west, however, the fight continues, as construction on the Mountain Valley Pipeline inches along. Last week, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission […]
Early in-person voting began in Virginia on September 18. According to the Virginia Public Access Project, more than 1.4 million Virginians have already cast their vote or requested a mail ballot. Still, there are plenty of us who haven’t voted yet. If you’re unsure what you’ll see when you stop by the registrar’s office or […]
“As early as the middle of the seventeenth century, the government of Virginia was a government of the tobacco planters, by the tobacco planters, and for the tobacco planters. Restrictions on the suffrage and distribution of representative seats secured their political dominance,” writes historian Brent Tarter in his 2019 book Gerrymanders. Four hundred years later, […]
A fond farewell Charlottesville superstar John Conover, 74, passed away over the weekend. Conover arrived in town in 1970 and started a printing press, before serving as a city councilor from 1980 to 1984. He later worked as an attorney with the Legal Aid Justice Center, served on the board of Live Arts, and helped […]
For months, a state eviction moratorium prevented tenants from being forced out of their homes for not paying rent. But at the beginning of this month, the Virginia Supreme Court declined to extend the ban before it expired September 7, pointing to a new Centers for Disease Control order prohibiting evictions until the end of […]
By Laura Drummond Kari Miller was a second-grade teacher in Charlottesville when, one day, she saw a student fall on the playground and break his arm. After the injury, it soon became apparent that the child, a refugee, had incomplete paperwork, meaning a guardian could not be contacted to give the school the green light […]
By Geremia Di Maro As the community searches for answers to the COVID pandemic, both the Commonwealth of Virginia and UVA have rolled out apps designed to suppress the spread of the virus. While state officials are excited about the state app’s ability to track the disease, UVA’s app—which cost a similar amount to develop—merely […]
By Amelia Delphos On Tuesday, UVA released a six-minute video in which President Jim Ryan once again attempted to lay down the law, unveiling a new set of COVID rules following upticks in cases in university housing. These new restrictions ban gatherings of more than five people, require wearing a mask at all times unless […]
Locked up The “Crying Nazi” faces up to 22 years in prison. You have to make a lot of bad decisions in life for the local newspaper to write that sentence about you—and that’s exactly what Chris Cantwell has done. The New Hampshire far-right radio host came to Charlottesville for the 2017 Unite the Right […]
Tossing it around Bob Good, the 5th Congressional District’s Republican candidate, released a bizarre campaign advertisement this week. In the spot, Good draws on his experience as a wrestling coach—everyone’s favorite kind of authority figure—and shows how he’ll “put liberal ideas in a headlock.” As Good grapples on the mat with his son, the candidate […]
After nearly 30 years of serving up sunflower wheat bread, curry chicken salad sandwiches, and other local favorites, BreadWorks Bakery & Deli is shutting its doors this week. Due to a huge drop off in sales, “it’s just not sustainable,” says Charles McElroy, president of nonprofit WorkSource Enterprises, which owns and operates the business. Since […]
“What’s been the hardest part of this job?” is, to outgoing Charlottesville City Manager Dr. Tarron Richardson, “a loaded question.” The city’s top executive tendered his resignation on September 11, and will finish his time at City Hall on September 30, after 16 months at the helm. (For reference, the three city managers before Richardson […]
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, […]
Since the stylish, glass-walled Transit Center first opened in spring 2007 on the east end of the Downtown Mall, the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention & Visitors Bureau has been a tenant in what was the city’s first LEED-certified building. That long-term relationship will soon end. Even before the pandemic turned the mall into a ghost town, […]
One down Johnny Reb, the bronze Confederate soldier who has stood, musket in hand, outside the Albemarle County Courthouse since 1909, has been replaced by a patch of hay. After the Unite the Right rally accelerated the national debate over Confederate monuments, Charlottesville finally took down one of our own. The Albemarle Board of Supervisors […]