Earlier this year, Charlottesville City Manager Chip Boyles was brought in to stabilize a shaky local government, but after eight months on the job, he resigned last week. Following a closed session with City Council, Boyles said he believes he shored up city leadership and boosted employee morale during his tenure, but that his process […]
As Charlottesville continues to grapple with its long history of slavery and white supremacy, the city’s Historic Resources Committee is putting descendants of enslaved people at the forefront of the conversation. Since last year, the committee has met with around three dozen descendants, seeking their thoughts on how to best memorialize the thousands of people […]
Last month, the Charlottesville Police Department says it responded to several shots-fired incidents, including at Boylan Heights and the Westhaven public housing complex. At least 250 shots-fired incidents have occurred this year, reports the department. To reduce gun violence in the city’s predominantly Black communities, The B.U.C.K.—Brothers United to Cease the Killing—Squad began intervening in […]
More than a month after the firing of Charlottesville Police Chief RaShall Brackney, city leadership continues to argue over the decision-making process that led to her dismissal. At Monday’s council meeting, after grilling from city councilors, City Manager Chip Boyles once again offered an explanation for his decision that left some councilors unsatisfied. Though Boyles […]
Last summer, hundreds of people took to the streets of downtown Charlottesville, demanding justice for Black people murdered by police across the country. Many protesters urged the city to drastically reduce the Charlottesville Police Department’s $18 million budget, and reallocate those funds toward community services, including mental health treatment. Thanks to new legislation, a mental […]
Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker has called off her re-election campaign. She had planned to compete this November for a second four-year term on City Council, but pulled her name off the ballot last week in the immediate wake of the firing of Police Chief RaShall Brackney. Walker, the city’s first Black woman mayor, was elected […]
Last month, Charlottesville and Albemarle County schools opened their doors for full-time, in-person learning for the first time since March 2020. Both school divisions require employees to show proof of vaccination—or submit a negative COVID test every week—and have implemented universal mask mandates, among other strict mitigation measures. Still, the divisions have seen a rise […]
Dr. Royal A. Gurley will be the next superintendent of Charlottesville City Schools, the district announced last week. Dr. Rosa Atkins, the former longtime superintendent, resigned in March to take a job with the Virginia Department of Education in Richmond. Gurley has been the assistant superintendent for academic services for Dinwiddie County Public Schools since […]
Since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan a few weeks ago, more than 100,000 Afghans have fled the country, fearing for their lives. Many are currently going through strict immigration and security screening in other countries, like Qatar and Bahrain, but thousands who are further along in their applications for Special Immigrant Visas—which allow interpreters, […]
Environmental activists celebrated last summer when Dominion Energy announced it was canceling the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would have brought natural gas 600 miles from West Virginia to North Carolina, crossing right through central Virginia and disrupting a historically Black community in rural Buckingham County. Activists have since turned their focus to the many other […]