Switch hitters Two candidates pick parties and abandon Independents Blair Hawkins and Eric Strucko, among the most recent candidates to announce their intentions to run for office in November, have something in common: Both lost their previous runs as Independents—Strucko for the White Hall seat on the Board of County Supervisors in 1999 and Hawkins […]
Charging elephants Republicans stand up for John Q. Public Tax day makes everybody cranky and on Tuesday, April 15, Charlottesville Republicans were no exception: Prominent elephants got down- right snippy about the Democratic establishment. In separate instances, Councilor Rob Schilling and GOP stalwart Jon Bright declared that City Council couldn’t care less about the little […]
Mean streets City Council vs. cussing, racism—and taxes This summer, the City will flex more police muscle to keep the Downtown Mall a pleasant place to spend money. During City Council’s regular meeting on Monday, April 7, Park Street resident Stan Tatum described eating dinner outside on the Mall recently. He said a group of […]
Last month’s news of a $2.4 million check-kiting scheme, perpetrated by John C. Reid and allegedly other executives of Ivy Industries against Albemarle First Bank, cast the story in sharp terms: A local bank would have to recover from a sizable fraud. A study of recent SEC filings by Albemarle First, however, indicates an institution […]
Liberals like to think, conservatives like to have their opinions thrown back at them,” said cartoonist and writer Ted Rall during his speech to a packed auditorium in the Albemarle County Office Building on Wednesday, March 26. The wild cheering that followed this proclamation, however, seemed to contradict Rall’s claim. The Charlottesville Center for Peace […]
What is it good for? Protesters answer: War is good for civil action March 20, 2003, was another date, like September 11, 2001, destined for infamy. So believe those who took to Charlottesville streets on March 20, despite the downpour, as bombs rained down on Baghdad. Drenched, they marched from Downtown to UVA and back […]
As area residents trickle through the open door of Charlottesville’s Mt. Zion Baptist Church, the words “Peace Be Within Thy Walls, Prosperity Within Thy Palaces” hang in a stately arc over the podium. The March 10 meeting, organized by the church’s pastor, Reverend Alvin Edwards, is just one in a string of reactions to the […]
On February 3, Albemarle County School Board member Ken Boyd announced his plans to challenge incumbent Charles Martin for the Rivanna District seat on the Board of County Supervisors. Urged by his constituents to run for a seat among the Supes, Boyd says he feels he could be of greater use to the County in […]
Roberta Culbertson is not the first or only person in Charlottesville to discover, with the help of Eastern philosophy, that, as she says, “everyday stuff is spiritual. Every moment is a spiritual moment.” Indeed, the mystical and airy influence of a one-world approach to living has taken firm hold here. Just look at the meditation […]
On February 26, UVA sophomore and Student Council presidential candidate Daisy Lundy was assaulted in what police described as a possibly racially motivated attack. By that evening, a cluster of emails and outpourings about the widely reported incident had been dispatched campus-wide, including this confronting question by undergraduate Tiffany Chatman: “Still think racism doesn’t exist […]