By Melissa Moody This is a story about numbers. The number of families currently served by public housing and rental assistance vouchers: 826. The number of people on the waitlist for public housing or assistance: 1,866. The number of units Charlottesville needs to serve low-income residents: 3,975—or 20 percent of the city’s housing supply—in a […]
By Melissa Moody This is a story about numbers. The number of families currently served by public housing and rental assistance vouchers: 826. The number of people on the waitlist for public housing or assistance: 1,866. The number of units Charlottesville needs to serve low-income residents: 3,975—or 20 percent of the city’s housing supply—in a […]
Florence and the rain machine Charlottesville was relatively unscathed from last year’s big hurricanes: Harvey and Category 5s Irma and Maria. But as stock brokers often warn, past performance is not indicative of future results. And the warnings for Hurricane Florence, currently a Category 4 and still days away at press time, are catastrophic. Governor […]
The usually staid UVA institution devoted to the study of the U.S. presidency has recently found itself mired in controversy, first with the hiring of Trump administrator Marc Short, and then with the August 31 resignation of Miller Center board member Fred Scott—and the revelation of resignations of two other unnamed board members because of […]
A Forest Lakes woman who pleaded guilty to child cruelty in May for neglecting more than a dozen kids at an unlicensed daycare will serve two years in jail. “I would like to publicly apologize to all the parents,” said a tearful Kathy Yowell-Rohm, before a judge pronounced her sentence September 7 in Albemarle Circuit […]
County boots Trump chicken Albemarle County said the state of emergency declared for the August 11-12 weekend was still in effect after Indivisible Charlottesville brought an inflatable chicken with a Trump-like coif to its August 28 Flip the 5th demonstration in front of the County Office Building. Police declared the lawn off limits and parking […]
In an August 30 motions hearing in Charlottesville Circuit Court, a judge heard arguments for why a three-week first-degree murder trial for the man charged with driving a Dodge Challenger into a crowd on Fourth Street last summer should be moved out of the city. Defendant James Fields, who wore a black-and-white-striped jail jumpsuit and […]
Public meetings held by elected officials in Charlottesville no longer go uninterrupted. But last night’s Albemarle County School Board meeting in which six people were arrested and one was hospitalized was a meeting of a different breed. For about a year, the Hate-Free Schools Coalition of Albemarle County has pressured the school board to reexamine […]
Developer Keith Woodard has abandoned his plan to build a $50 million castle of downtown luxury condos and retail space on a city-owned Water Street parking lot. “The project was a tremendous undertaking, and over time, the process of obtaining the necessary approvals became very difficult and at times adversarial, causing continual delays and uncertainty,” […]
It’s about crime The Albemarle County Police Department released its annual crime report for 2017 in June, and while we already published some of the most striking statistics, here’s what else caught our eye. Between the years of 2016 and 2017, crimes rates increased in all but one category. The largest increases were in homicide […]
In an August 21 hearing in Charlottesville Circuit Court, Commonwealth’s Attorney Joe Platania took an unusual seat—in the defendant’s chair—with his files resting on a table on the left side of the room, while another man took Platania’s usual seat on the right. William Evans, a Fairfax attorney representing himself, is suing the commonwealth’s attorney […]