In brief: Medicaid expanded, Building Bridges crashed and more

Medicaid expansion clears House For Terry McAuliffe’s entire term as governor, Medicaid expansion for 400,000 uninsured Virginians remained out of grasp. Last week, after Republican Delegate Terry Kilgore broke rank in favor of expansion, the House voted 68 to 32 in favor, with local delegates Rob Bell, Steve Landes and Matt Fariss in the no […]

Tar Heel transplant: Jeff Richardson jumps into county exec role

When Jeff Richardson got a call and an invitation to apply for the open county executive position in Albemarle County, the Tar Heel state transplant says his only tie to the area was a three-week leadership program at the University of Virginia about 15 years ago. “Those training opportunities had a profound impact on my […]

DOA: Gun safety bills die in subcommittee

Andy Goddard has been going to the General Assembly since 2008, the year after his son was shot four times in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre. In his 11th year monitoring the legislature and how it deals with mass murders and guns, not much has changed. “It’s the same old thing,” says Goddard, who’s the […]

County budget basics: How to spend $430 million

Albemarle County Executive Jeff Richardson, who took the job November 6, went before the Board of Supervisors on February 16 to propose his first budget, which is nearly 8 percent higher than the one for the current year. He’s recommending $428,500,374 for fiscal year 2019, a $13.5 million increase. Per usual, the biggest slice of […]

Steven Meeks has left the building

The controversial president of the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society abruptly resigned February 11 after cleaning out his office in the city-owned McIntire Building. In a “hastily written note,” says Will Lyster, a historical society director, Steven G. Meeks resigned from the organization he’s headed for about a decade. The board asked Lyster to step in […]

Clean slate: Mason Pickett cleared of two assault charges

  “Wes is a jackass” became a familiar slogan to those living in Charlottesville last summer, as it was scrawled on a giant cardboard sign carried by local retiree Mason Pickett, and its derivative, “Bellamy is a jackass,” was often chalked on the Downtown Mall’s Freedom of Speech Wall as well as several sidewalks. It’s […]

High school beat: Newspaper editors share the real stories

What’s it like to be a teenager in 2018? We figured nobody’s better plugged in than newspaper editors, so we checked in with the editors at Charlottesville High and Western Albemarle, as well as a CHS junior. Here’s what we learned about the differences between city and county schools—and what they have in common. Olivia […]

In brief: Some kids lobby, some get married and some listen to Drake

Mental health focus Lucas Johnson isn’t old enough to vote yet, but the 17-year-old Monticello High senior and his peers from two other county high schools—Choetsow Tenzin at Albemarle and Alex Moreno at Western Albemarle—didn’t let that stop them from demanding the General Assembly support more school instruction on mental health. “I had a best […]

Daily grind: Construction on city’s $2 million skate park ramps up

There aren’t many places to skateboard in Charlottesville. The city closed its skate park on McIntire Road during construction of the U.S. 250 Bypass and John Warner Parkway interchange in 2012 and moved it to McIntire Park. And last month, it closed the second location, too. Nineteen-year-old Piedmont Virginia Community College student David Juers says […]