dems sweep City council election

The white board at the front of the room announced the outcomes from the individual precincts: Democratic candidate for City Council Dave Norris won seven of Charlottesville’s eight precincts and took home 3,835 votes; his running mate, former fire chief Julian Taliaferro, won 3,637. Republican incumbent Rob Schilling came in dead last with 2,389. Given that the Dems’ campaign made the election all about Schilling, the Dems’ victory party at the Charlottesville Ice Park was predictably raucous: booze flowed, Beyoncé blared, Norris even spilled his beer on an unsuspecting reveler.

Schilling ousted

“It doesn’t look good,” said Rob Bell, frowning at news coming from a radio in Lord Hardwicke’s restaurant. Local Republicans gathered around the bar on Tuesday, May 2, hoping to celebrate a second term for Republican City Councilor Rob Schilling. Yet Bell noted that early results showed Schilling far behind in Venable and Walker

Voter turnout up

Last week, 5,993 of y’all turned out to vote for two City Council seats and three School Board seats—that’s 26 percent of all registered voters. About 600 more city residents voted this year than in May 2004, due in part to massive voter registration efforts in the November 2004 presidential election, which added about 2,000 […]

Local immigrants join in national day of demonstrations

Waving American flags, singing hymns in Spanish and English, and holding signs that declared “We struggle for what is right with dignity” and “I am an immigrant, not a delinquent,” about 350 local Hispanics and community members gathered outside the County Office Building on McIntire Road at 6:30pm on May 1 to tell Charlottesville loud and clear: “We\’re here, and we matter.”

County moves toward new park

Mountain bikers bummed over the recent closing of the public trails at Panorama Farms got some good news last week. On Wednesday, May 3, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to move forward with plans to turn the 571-acre Preddy Creek property in Northern Albemarle into a park.

Mum’s the word on Possible SNL sale

Last month the London Telegraph reported that SNL Financial is up for sale, but so far local confirmation is hard to come by. Sources inside the company report that Chairman Reid Nagle announced that SNL was on the market, but President Mike Chinn had “no comment” on the matter.