A UVA facilities project manager jumped into the race for City Council February 6. Brian Pinkston said to dozens at The Haven, “I’m running for City Council because I want our city to recapture this vision of the common good.” He was introduced by former vice-mayor Meredith Richards, who noted Pinkston’s ability as a project […]
Tony the self-driving shuttle Perrone Robotics cranked up the driverless vehicle heat last week with the awkwardly acronymed Tony—TO Navigate You—which will soon be autonomously tooling around Crozet. In a partnership with Albemarle County and JAUNT—Jefferson Area UNited Transportation, another awkward acronym—Perrone will test drive the shuttle near its facility in Crozet before it begins […]
Infighting implodes council The hiring of an interim city manager, an event that usually takes place behind closed doors, has become heated and public, with reports of shouting at a July 20 closed City Council session. Mayor Nikuyah Walker has gone on Facebook Live twice to express her concerns that the process is part of […]
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 [...]
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 [...]
On February 22, Jim Moore, a supporter of two-time City Council candidate Kenneth Jackson, sent out a Facebook message to a long list of recipients titled “Help Ken,” seeking payment from supporters for an overdue $2,000 loan to avoid taking Jackson to court on March 20 (after C-VILLE went to [...]
After initially refusing to confirm reports that Charlottesville police Chief Al Thomas had resigned and was packing his office on Monday and would be out of the building by 5pm, the city issued a release Monday afternoon that said Thomas would be retiring, effective immediately. The hasty [...]
When City Manager Maurice Jones introduced the man hired to investigate the events of Charlottesville’s summer of hate, he listed former U.S. attorney Tim Heaphy’s “critical eye,” his experience with law enforcement and investigations, and then he described the city as “partnering” with Heaphy. [...]
Charlottesville City Council now has a mayor on restriction. Council is made up of five elected equals, with the mayor playing a largely symbolic role, and that was a lesson Mayor Mike Signer appears to have forgotten. On August 30, his fellow councilors held a three-hour closed door meeting to [...]
Barely 30 minutes into its August 21 meeting, City Council was in chaos. Three demonstrators were reportedly arrested, city officials left the chamber and the meeting’s video and audio feeds were cut off as protesters stood on the dais holding a banner that read, “Blood on your hands.” The [...]
While a court injunction currently prevents the statue of Robert E. Lee from being moved, the city is moving full speed ahead in an effort to change the names of local parks named for Confederate heroes. After fielding suggestions from almost all committee members, the Charlottesville Historic [...]
Jason Kessler chastised reporters on his way into court today and spoke disrespectfully to the special prosecutor who requested that Kessler’s petition to remove Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy from office be dismissed because it lacked enough signatures. Kessler, who burst into the local [...]
If it seems like we just finished an election, well, we did, but in Virginia, it’s never not an election year. In Charlottesville, the two seats on City Council currently held by Kristin Szakos and Bob Fenwick are up for grabs, and Szakos says she won’t be seeking another term. “Eight years is [...]
Senior citizens who enjoy quiet but challenging hikes are only accommodated in one place in Charlottesville and all of Albemarle County, according to former mayor Kay Slaughter. And that’s Ragged Mountain Natural Area, where three out of five city councilors say mountain biking and trail [...]
The man who lay down in front of the dais and was dragged out of a City Council meeting June 20 after calling Muslims “monstrous maniacs” has filed a lawsuit against the city, claiming his constitutional rights were violated. Albemarle resident Joe Draego, 64, has been a regular at [...]
Mayor Mike Signer and City Councilor Kathy Galvin insist there is nothing personal in the city’s dispute with Mark Brown over control of the Water Street Parking Garage. In meetings with reporters July 6 after the city rejected Charlottesville Parking Center’s June [...]
In a recent C-VILLE report, a blue ribbon commissioner said he feared the public would think he and his fellow members joined Mayor Mike Signer’s committee with a predisposed idea of how to treat race, memorials and public spaces in the city. And he may be right—one man has come forward to call [...]
Gun control debate dominated the June 20 Charlottesville City Council meeting as members of opposing sides of the issue cited the Second Amendment—“the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”—and the Declaration of Independence’s inalienable rights to “life, liberty [...]
The Piedmont Group of the Sierra Club is urging the community to speak out against the usage of synthetic chemical pesticides in parks and on school grounds. Though city staff has taken steps to reduce the overall use of toxic chemicals in those areas, environmentalists hope to make 2016 the [...]
City Council unanimously approved a Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces May 2 after a Charlottesville High School student presented a petition to remove the statue of General Robert E. Lee and rename Lee Park in March. The nine-member commission will look not only at [...]
City Councilor Bob Fenwick could be in big trouble. He spoke to a C-VILLE reporter recently about his concerns with new council meeting procedures and didn’t “explicitly” state it was his individual opinion and that he was not representing council, as required by the new rules. “I really [...]