Suspended licenses: Lawsuit back in federal court

It’s not just bad driving that has caused nearly 1 million Virginians’ licenses to be suspended. Failure to pay court costs—often unrelated to being behind the wheel at all—has put indigent citizens in a downward spiral of debt, unemployment, and incarceration, according to a civil suit filed by the Legal Aid Justice Center two years […]

In brief: A booze trail, one new declaration, two new job openings, and more…

‘United by beer’ City boosters and brewmasters have come together to blaze the Charlottesville Ale Trail, a two-mile stretch they’re calling the premier urban and pedestrian beer trail in Virginia. The six stops along the way are Random Row Brewing Co., Brasserie Saison, South Street Brewery, Champion Brewing Company, Three Notch’d Craft Kitchen & Brewery, […]

Overflow meeting: ICE calls continue

After months of thousands of community members urging the authority board at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail to stop voluntarily reporting the release dates of undocumented immigrants to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the board held a special meeting September 13 to take a revote on that policy. At the local jail, and every jail in […]

Few Florence floods: But local area hit with power outages

Grocery store shelves in Charlottesville and Albemarle County were picked clean last week by people preparing for Hurricane Florence’s worst. But come this week, those cases of water, boxes of batteries, and jars of peanut butter had gone largely unneeded. While a tornado left one person dead in Richmond, and significant flooding threatened folks in […]

Hurricane expert: Jerry Stenger’s Florence predictions

When there’s a weather disaster in the forecast, Jerry Stenger is on everyone’s speed dial. We didn’t catch up with the director of the State Climatology Office at UVA until yesterday afternoon, and even though Hurricane Florence has shifted south, here are his predictions for the storm—and tips on what to eat. “For us, the […]

Snail mail: Irregular postal deliveries tell a familiar tale

By Jonathan Haynes Charlottesville residents are again losing their patience with irregular deliveries from the United States Postal Service. Conan Owen, owner of Relax and Rejuvenate on Arlington Boulevard, says he has repeatedly experienced gaps in service over the past year. “They’re skipping the building entirely,” he says. Owen says the delays have disrupted his […]

Budget busters: Finding the funding for affordable housing, schools

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 […]

In brief: Category 4, $1 penalty, Foxfield continued and more

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 […]

Shoegate: Miller Center of controversy

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 […]