Commuters into downtown Charlottesville found streets backed up and parking even more difficult than usual Friday morning, thanks to the Market Street Garage being closed for maintenance, and the Water Street Garage selling 150 parking vouchers for TEDx attendees. Streets around the Water Street Garage were particularly clogged. Bob Stroh, parking center general manager, had on […]
Around two dozen people chanting “We can’t survive on $7.25” gathered at City Hall today as part of a nationwide, 500-city protest. Nearly 64 million people live on less than a $15 hourly wage, say organizers, who intend to use that voting bloc in the upcoming 2016 elections. “I can’t survive,” says Latasha Matthew, who […]
Unlike Charlottesville, where it was a given that Democratic candidates for City Council would win, Albemarle had several contested races, including two for board of supervisors and four candidates vying for clerk of court. But the race everyone was watching: Whether Commonwealth’s Attorney Denise Lunsford could hold onto her seat for a third term against […]
When Manuel Lerdau heard from his seventh-grader a couple of weeks ago that a Christian youth organization was recruiting at Buford Middle School under the guise of a party, he became concerned. “Representatives from WyldLife were at Buford during lunch recruiting students to attend WyldLife events, and doing it in a way that was not […]
Incumbent Albemarle Commonwealth’s Attorney Denise Lunsford lost to Republican challenger Robert Tracci by 515 votes in a closely watched race, while other county Democratic candidates sailed to victory. Lunsford received nearly 49 percent of the vote to Tracci’s 51 percent. Another constitutional officer, incumbent Clerk of Court Debbie Shipp, running as an independent, lost by an even bigger margin. Shipp took 26 percent of […]
The week before the election, the Albemarle County commonwealth’s attorney race exploded with lawsuits, threats of suits and last-minute retorts in ads between the campaigns of incumbent Denise Lunsford and challenger Robert Tracci. “The good news is that we have some excitement in local races,” says Richmond Sunlight creator and longtime local political observer […]
Sandra Marks, aka Psychic Catherine and Catherine Marks, had a bond hearing October 22 in U.S. District Court and Judge Glen Conrad said he would consider it if she and her attorney can come up with an acceptable plan for her release. Marks, 41, has been in jail since her July 23 arrest in New York […]
City Council candidate Mike Signer stood before the skeletal Landmark Hotel, an unwelcome landmark on the Downtown Mall since 2009, and quoted the graffiti scrawled on its boarded up side: “We’re fed up.” And he promised to explore all legal actions for resolving the situation, including eminent domain. Flanked by fellow Dem candidates Kathy Galvin […]
Lawyers for fourth-year UVA student Martese Johnson, whose bloody arrest splashed across national media in March, filed suit for $3 million against the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, an agency that’s no stranger to being sued by UVA students in high-profile cases. Named in the suit along with the agency are the three agents […]
Frank Birckhead, 61, a former member of the University of Virginia Board of Visitors, founder of MoneyWise Payroll Solutions and Birckhead Consulting, ardent UVA basketball fan and community volunteer, died unexpectedly at home October 18. Birckhead was a lifelong resident of Charlottesville, graduating from Albemarle High in 1972 and UVA in 1976. Except for a […]