The Shenandoah Valley’s  Lively Cultural Life

By Ken Wilson – There is peace in the valley if that’s what you want—and plenty to keep you occupied when you don’t. Just “over the mountain” from Albemarle County is the storied Shenandoah Valley with all that lush countryside, and all those country places. Once so richly farmed it was dubbed “the breadbasket of […]

In brief: Bigfoot erotica, council infighting (again), white supremacist infighting and more

Bigfoot erotica Fifth District Democratic candidate Leslie Cockburn called opponent Denver Riggleman a devotee of “Bigfoot erotica” because of images of Bigfoot with a black bar over its genitals on Riggleman’s Instagram account. Riggleman, who co-authored a book on the legendary ape-like creature, said the images are a joke from his friends, and returned fire […]

Builder fined in elevator shaft fatality

Early July 25, Albemarle police responded to an industrial accident at Yancey Lumber in Crozet, where employee Floriberta Macedo-Diaz, 46, of Waynesboro, died of her injuries. Macedo-Diaz isn’t the only workplace fatality in the region. In June, the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry finished its investigation into a job-related death last fall, and fined […]

Philanthropic windfall: Library gets $1 million bequest 

By Jonathan Haynes The Jefferson-Madison Regional Library was the unexpected beneficiary of a nearly $1 million bequest from one of its Friends of the Library Endowment Fund patrons earlier this year. The donation came from the estate of Nancy Swygert. Despite the large sum, Swygert and her husband lived a frugal life, never having children […]

Fenced out: Neighbors complain about closed shortcut

In the North Downtown neighborhood, a new fence is causing a fuss. Where some Second Street NE residents have long walked down their dead-end lane to an unlocked gate that led to the backyard of the Park Street First Baptist Church, they’ve recently been faced with an obstruction to the beaten path. It’s a fence—a […]

Mike Murphy named interim city manager

After more than a week of heated exchanges between city councilors and Mayor Nikuyah Walker over the hiring of an interim city manager,  there was 10 minutes of public notice before a 3-0 vote in closed session at 1:15pm resulted in Assistant City Manager Mike Murphy taking the job effective 5pm today, just hours before […]

Leaky-gate, part 2: RWSA responds to cover-up accusations

It was late June when a whistleblower, who recently resigned from the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority to protest an $80-million water pipeline it wants to build between two reservoirs, went before its board of directors to denounce it. Rich Gullick, the authority’s former director of operations, handed over several pages of in-depth analysis on […]

Find The Right House For Your Pets

By Marilyn Pribus – Formally known as “companion animals,” the more popular term has long been simply “pets” and lots of folks have them. Recent figures from Statista—a website with thousands of statistics—show that millions of Americans share their homes with creatures. The most numerous household pets are actually fish, but since aquariums don’t much […]