In brief

City Council forum Five Democratic candidates for Charlottesville City Council convened for two forums ahead of the upcoming primary election. While the general election for City Council is not until November, the winners of the June 20 primary are all but guaranteed seats due to the lack of Republican challengers. The Democratic candidates vying for […]

Power shift

In the fall of 2010, Alexis Zeigler and Debbie Piesen set out to see if they could live independent of fossil fuels. On land just north of Louisa, they started building Living Energy Farm, their vision of a self-sufficient, off-grid community with zero carbon footprint. Last March, the off-grid systems and technology they developed won […]

Change of pace

Come May, there is an annual exodus from Charlottesville of the 23,721 undergrad and grad students who are enrolled at UVA. Some stragglers remain, but summer in the city, especially on the Corner, is quiet in comparison to the fall, winter, and early spring. The emptiness of University Avenue highlights the complex relationship between the […]

Generational investment?

Should Albemarle County supervisors pay a single landowner $58 million for 462 acres of land to help preserve the future of the area’s growing intelligence community? That’s the question for a June 21 public hearing.   “We know this project is a generational investment in our community’s vibrancy,” says J.T. Newberry, Albemarle’s interim director of […]

In brief

Honors of honor Throughout last weekend’s Final Exercises, the University of Virginia honored the victims of November’s fatal shooting. In his opening remarks, President Jim Ryan spoke about how the loss of Devin Chandler, D’Sean Perry, and Lavel Davis Jr. has impacted the university community. However, one of the most powerful tributes was paid by […]

PCOB plans

As the Executive Director of the Police Civilian Oversight Board, Inez M. Gonzalez is working to improve policing and police-civilian relations in Charlottesville.  Since its conception following the deadly 2017 Unite the Right Rally, the PCOB—formerly known as the Police Civilian Review Board—has been a source of contention. While many believe in the board’s goal […]

Pipeline politics

The United States Forest Service has approved passage of the Mountain Valley Pipeline through Jefferson National Forest.  First proposed in 2014, the 304-mile pipeline spans from West Virginia into Virginia, with a possible 75-mile Southgate Extension into North Carolina. While proponents of the MVP argue that the natural gas pipeline is a “critical infrastructure project,” […]

Questioning the zoning

Voting in this year’s Democratic primary has already begun, but the five candidates seeking three nominations for Charlottesville City Council will continue to answer questions at forums between now and primary day, June 20.   That was the case at a May 17 forum put on by the Greenbrier Neighborhood Association, which featured many questions […]

Why did the bobcat cross the road?

Albemarle County is in the midst of a two-year process to update its Comprehensive Plan, a guidance document to set goals and priorities for the county for the next 20 years. The plan covers programs for growth and development, education, transportation planning, housing and land use, and protection of natural resources. However, the last Comprehensive […]

Down the foxhole

Meet two of the Rockfish Wildlife Sanctuary’s newest, and cutest, patients. These fluffy red fox kits were rescued and brought to the sanctuary after their mother was shot by a property owner. They’ve joined one of the largest cohorts of orphaned fox kits in RWS’s history—19 kits! RWS is one of the few wildlife rehabilitation […]