Leading the lending fight

More features: Caught! How Thomasine Wilson got trapped in the payday lending cycle Advance America’s pocketbookThe numbers on America’s biggest payday lender Know the scoreCredit reports 101 Q: Why go to a payday lender?A: Because there aren’t better options You call this reform?Legislation moves interest rates from bad to worse Much of the credit for […]

Land designation altered against owner’s wishes

For the third time in a year, Clara Belle Wheeler has been caught unawares by the county, and she is livid. On Monday, March 17, the Board of Supervisors voted to move Wheeler’s 77 acres from the designated “growth” area to the “rural area,” as part of the Pantops Master Plan, despite her wishes that […]

State approves Fifeville historic district

Despite an outcry by several residents, Virginia’s Department of Historic Resources has designated the Charlottesville neighborhood Fifeville a state historic district by a unanimous vote of the State Review Board. “I’m disappointed,” said Antoinette Roades after the hearing in Richmond. She has been one of the most vocal critics of the Fifeville historic district [PDF], […]

Your tax dollars, at work

Worked for the county for: 11 yearsResides in: Palmyra Job title: Probate clerk. Kirshnick qualifies guardianships and conservatorships for incapacitated adults. She handles the inventory and accounts for all deceased people in the county. “I have to have a certain demeanor when working with people because they are still grieving.”Best of times: “One person I […]

In The Blood

“Suffering is an enormous turn-on,” Reverend D intones in a voice that is dark and desperate, but it’s difficult to picture: How Hester La Negrita—homeless, hungry and hunkered down under a bridge beneath graffiti she can’t read—could have seduced a young man, a junk merchant, a doctor, a welfare worker and a Reverend. And yet […]

Klarman adds to topic of the week [March 23]

Since Barack Obama’s speech last week, even C-VILLE’s editor is talking about race. So it should come as no surprise that the New York Times is quoting UVA law Professor Michael Klarman today on the subject. “Nixon talks about ‘law and order,’ which is a code term for the urban race riots and rising crime […]

Time-sensitive material [March 24]

A letter to the editor of the Boston Globe, written by one Nancy Kaplan and published today, draws a surprising comparison between the recently controversial rhetoric of Barack Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright…