Pet-sitting problem

In 2019, Albemarle County rolled out restrictions on homestays, limiting which properties are eligible to be listed on sites like Airbnb. Home child care centers also merit their own county code section. Now, the owner of a dog who disappeared after being left with an Albemarle-based pet-sitter says the county should regulate in-home animal care […]

Lost dogs

Last spring, Michael Juers and his wife Pamela dropped their two Chihuahuas off at the home of Adrienne Skaggs, a Ruckersville resident who’d listed her Sweet Dogs Grooming dog-sitting service on Rover.com. The Juers were traveling from the Charlottesville area to Florida ahead of a permanent move there, and hoped the dogs would have their […]

Board of Visitors heat

Six months after UVA Student Council’s executive board called for the immediate resignation of Bert Ellis, one of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s first four appointees to the UVA Board of Visitors, the controversy has reached the Virginia General Assembly. On January 31, a resolution brought forth by state Sen. Creigh Deeds to remove Ellis’ name from […]

‘No evidence’

In June, former Charlottesville police chief RaShall Brackney held a fiery press conference outside the federal courthouse in downtown Charlottesville announcing a gender and race discrimination lawsuit against the City of Charlottesville and 10 individual defendants over her September 2021 termination. Seven months later, a federal judge dismissed all of her claims. “The plaintiff must […]

A daughter’s search

On a sunny afternoon in July, hundreds of people looked on as a 737 touched down at the Spokane International airport. Sitting in a shuttle bus on the tarmac, surrounded by family and friends, Linda Chauvin watched the scene unfold with a mix of grief and exhilaration. “The excitement was actually so palpable. We see […]

Fuming over FLUM

Ask anyone about Charlottesville’s most pressing problems, and chances are affordable housing will top their list. The city’s new Future Land Use Map, adopted last November as part of the comprehensive plan, has been touted as a solution. It aims to increase housing supply by allowing greater density in every city neighborhood from three units […]

Bus-ted

Expanded walk zones. Double bus routes. Delayed student arrivals. The bus driver shortage in Albemarle and Charlottesville is creating challenges for schools, drivers, kids, and parents.  “It’s an inconvenience,” says Teresa Green, a mother of two students at Charlottesville High School. Green and her family live in the Fry’s Spring neighborhood, and both her kids […]

Saving Lives

When a 6-year-old boy with autism was found dead after he wandered away from his Buckingham County home last month, officials there urged the media to publicize Project Lifesaver, a program that outfits people at risk for wandering with a tracking device that can be used to locate them. A $6,000 grant from the Alzheimer’s […]

‘Arbitrary’

In June, when the Virginia General Assembly approved Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s budget amendment reducing the number of people eligible for early release from Virginia prisons through a new expanded earned sentence credit law, prison reform advocates cried foul. About 500 people, who’d been expecting to go home immediately after the law went into effect on […]

‘The Story of Us’

Photojournalist Eze Amos took thousands of pictures as he navigated the violence and mayhem in downtown Charlottesville on August 12, 2017. Many of his most dramatic images were published in media outlets around the world, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at most of them for years. But “I realized that I’ve been traumatized […]