For decades, local governments were prohibited from allowing their employees to unionize in Virginia. Since the General Assembly lifted this ban last year, Charlottesville’s firefighters, bus drivers, and teachers have urged City Council to pass an ordinance allowing collective bargaining for city employees. Though the councilors adopted a resolution last summer allowing former city manager […]
For decades, local governments were prohibited from allowing their employees to unionize in Virginia. Since the General Assembly lifted this ban last year, Charlottesville’s firefighters, bus drivers, and teachers have urged City Council to pass an ordinance allowing collective bargaining for city employees. Though the councilors adopted a resolution last summer allowing former city manager […]
Virginia’s Republican-controlled House has killed a bill that would have allowed marijuana sales to begin ahead of schedule. The Democrat-controlled Senate passed the bill last month, but some advocates criticized elements of the legislation. Virginia legalized marijuana in 2021, but the laws surrounding the drug are hazy. While everyone 21 and over can legally possess […]
Charlottesville’s gargantuan downtown eyesore, the half-finished and abandoned Dewberry Hotel, got a face-lift last week—the front and back of the building have been sheathed in a colorful nine-story vinyl wrap showing an abstract pattern of musical instruments. The art installation was funded by Friends of Cville Downtown, a new nonprofit working on “an array of […]
Running for repair On March 3, 1865, Union army troops arrived in Charlottesville, liberating over 14,000 enslaved people—more than half of the city and Albemarle County’s population. In celebration of Liberation and Freedom Day, the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center is hosting its second annual Reparations Fun Run/Walk from March 1 through 6. The […]
After being released from prison, Hines Washington started a moving business—Hines’s Family Movers. As his business grew, Washington needed office space, but he couldn’t afford it. And, as a recently incarcerated individual, he found it difficult to secure a loan. Washington turned to the Fountain Fund, a local nonprofit dedicated to giving low-interest consumer, vehicle, […]
Charlottesville is getting more expensive, and fast. In the fourth quarter of 2017, the median sales price for a home in the Charlottesville area was $286,000. In the fourth quarter of 2021, the median sales price for the region was $369,000—a 29 percent increase in just four years. Those rising prices affect everyone in the […]
Squared up Charlottesville’s Historic Resource Committee continues to work toward replacing the Court Square slave auction block marker, which was thrown into a river by a local resident in 2020. During a February 11 meeting, University of Virginia graduate students Jake Calhoun and MaDeja Leverett presented their research on Court Square to the committee. Over […]
In January, the highly contagious omicron variant brought coronavirus cases to an all-time high in the Charlottesville area. The Blue Ridge Health District reported over 11,000 new cases and nearly 200 hospitalizations—the largest surge since the pandemic started in February 2020. Over the past few weeks, cases and hospitalizations have significantly declined. On February 13, […]
Less than a year after a new Freedom of Information Act law expanded public access to police investigative files in Virginia, Delegate Rob Bell has sponsored a bill that would reverse the reform, citing concern for victims’ privacy. “There were immediate efforts to access what I would call very private information,” Bell says. He […]
By Finn Lynch I see a dead body at least once a week. The decedent in front of me today is an old man who died in hospice care. We have him dressed for viewing in a dark suit and his favorite striped tie. His clothes are a little too big for him now. We […]