By Brielle Entzminger and Ben Hitchcock Three weeks ago, Charlottesville City Manager Chip Boyles announced that he had decided to fire Police Chief RaShall Brackney. The city will open a national search for the next chief of police, though community members and city councilors alike feel the reasons for Brackney’s dismissal remain murky. And for […]
By Brielle Entzminger and Ben Hitchcock Three weeks ago, Charlottesville City Manager Chip Boyles announced that he had decided to fire Police Chief RaShall Brackney. The city will open a national search for the next chief of police, though community members and city councilors alike feel the reasons for Brackney’s dismissal remain murky. And for […]
After a public hearing last week, the Charlottesville Planning Commission sent a proposal for 170 new housing units back to the developer for updates. Southern Development is asking the city to rezone 12 acres of land in the Fry’s Spring neighborhood to allow the construction of a new complex of townhomes and apartments. Fifteen percent […]
By Kristin O’Donoghue Usually, the strip of pavement outside the Bodo’s on the Corner is reserved for parked cars. Last Friday, that space was filled with bright green turf, spiky potted ferns, students in lawn chairs, and a three-foot tall Connect Four game. The set-up was created by UVA’s Student Planners Association to celebrate Park(ing) […]
Richmond Lee statue goes down Workers removed Richmond’s gigantic statue of Robert E. Lee last week, following years of advocacy from activists, politicians, and lawyers. The 21-foot-tall, five-ton casting, the largest Confederate statue in the U.S., was cut in two and sent to an undisclosed location. Its stone plinth still stands, covered in graffiti from […]
This year, Virginia’s Democrat-led legislature authorized a historic expansion of the Virginia Court of Appeals. The move pushed the number of judges from 11 to 17, and diversified the court significantly: The new crop of judges includes four Black people, four women, two public defenders, and a legal aid attorney. One of those public defenders, […]
Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker has called off her re-election campaign. She had planned to compete this November for a second four-year term on City Council, but pulled her name off the ballot last week in the immediate wake of the firing of Police Chief RaShall Brackney. Walker, the city’s first Black woman mayor, was elected […]
Last month, Charlottesville and Albemarle County schools opened their doors for full-time, in-person learning for the first time since March 2020. Both school divisions require employees to show proof of vaccination—or submit a negative COVID test every week—and have implemented universal mask mandates, among other strict mitigation measures. Still, the divisions have seen a rise […]
Some of our states are up to no good. Texas just passed a comprehensive and dangerous abortion ban. Florida has banned mask mandates in schools, even as the delta variant sweeps across the nation. At press time, California voters are standing in line for a bizarre recall election that could see a candidate currently polling […]
Richmond Lee statue will fall At press time, the statue of Robert E. Lee in downtown Richmond still stands—but that won’t be the case for long, as the statue is slated to come down on Wednesday, September 8. Last summer, Governor Ralph Northam ordered the statue’s removal, and a recent Virginia Supreme Court ruling confirmed […]
Dr. Royal A. Gurley will be the next superintendent of Charlottesville City Schools, the district announced last week. Dr. Rosa Atkins, the former longtime superintendent, resigned in March to take a job with the Virginia Department of Education in Richmond. Gurley has been the assistant superintendent for academic services for Dinwiddie County Public Schools since […]