This week in brief: Snuffing out tiki torches, ‘really dank bud’ and too cute puppies

Candles in, tiki torches out Just ahead of Jason Kessler’s March 6 lawsuit against the city complaining that City Manager Maurice Jones unconstitutionally denied his permit for a two-day August 12 anniversary rally—Jones also denied five other applicants’ permit requests for the weekend—City Council updated its event permit regulations February 20. 45-day notice if street […]

Local students take a stand against gun violence

By: Samantha Baars and Erin O’Hare It was exactly a month ago that a gunman shot 17 people to death at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Today, local students and their peers across the nation said they won’t stand for that—so they walked. March 14 marks the first National School Walkout, where […]

Van der Linde dumps its recycling program

By Natalie Jacobsen On February 19, the area’s main transfer station for trash and recycling haulers, Van der Linde Recycling, abruptly shuttered its household waste processing facility. The sudden halt jolted Charlottesville and the counties that have relied on Van der Linde as the focal transfer station for processing recycled materials placed into customers’ all-in-one-bins. […]

Wrongful delay: Virginia continues to victimize Robert Davis

It wasn’t enough that a wrongful conviction took nearly 13 years of Robert Davis’ life. Now, two years after he was released from prison and more than a year after then-Governor Terry McAuliffe granted him a full pardon, the General Assembly is stalled in a budget war that threatens to hose Davis’ state-mandated compensation. Delegate […]

Blakney’s August 12 charge moves forward

Charlottesville man Donald Blakney, who is accused of maliciously wounding an Arkansas resident on August 12, had his charge certified to the grand jury in Charlottesville General District Court on March 8. Eric Mattson, who testified he’s a member of a Constitutionalist group called the Highwaymen, said he traveled 16 hours to the Unite the […]

He said, she said: Ex-cop acquitted of sexual assault

  It was his word versus hers, and in a two-day trial, a jury believed him. In the case where ex-Charlottesville Police Department officer Christopher Seymore was charged with forcibly sodomizing Ronna Gary—twice—in her Shamrock Road home, a jury deliberated four-and-a-half hours and found him not guilty on both counts. Gary claimed that two November […]

Goodwin motions denied in DeAndre Harris attacks

An Arkansas man whose own attorney admits he kicked DeAndre Harris in the Market Street Garage August 12 filed two motions to exclude evidence of the brutal beating because he claimed the serious injuries to Harris happened before the kicks. Jacob Goodwin, 23, of Ward, Arkansas, was arrested in November and charged with malicious wounding, […]

Vertical horizon: Apex helps Charlottesville ‘grow up’

Members of a local upscale fitness club will soon be looking for a place to park. Apex Clean Energy—a company devoted to developing, constructing and operating wind and solar power facilities—announced plans March 1 to build a new headquarters on Garrett Street to house its 170 local employees who are currently spread out among three […]