By Will Goldsmith, Cathy Harding and Meg McEvoy
Objects of his affection
Lawsuits breathing down his neck, scandals tailing him from South Africa and the U.K., Jeremy Harvey did what only Jeremy Harvey could do: The 62-year-old local investment banker tied the knot for the second time with 81-year-old newspaper heiress Betty Scripps in Las Vegas on February 16 this year.
Harvey and Scripps had been married before, in 1998, and lived together in Albemarle County until divorcing in 2004. At which point, Harvey picked up a local girlfriend and downgraded to a smaller home on Barracks Road with her three kids.
But he didn’t satisfy his girlfriend’s mother, who hired a private investigator and then e-mailed some clippings of Harvey’s con-artist schemes to all the employees at his company, Quadrant Capital Group. Pretty soon, some of the company higher-ups filed multimillion dollar lawsuits against him for fraud and failure to deliver $15 million.
Thus the remarriage—and redivorce. Three months after the Vegas wedding, Harvey left Scripps and now receives $500,000 a year for the rest of his life in alimony, according to the Palm Beach Daily News. Last we heard, Harvey returned to Charlottesville to live with the girlfriend he spurned for Scripps and had settled at least one of the lawsuits out of court.
Some guys can just get away with everything.
Early “retirement”
Dean of African-American Affairs M. Rick Turner had no problem verbally backhanding folks about race issues in his role at the UVA Office of African-American Affairs and as president of the local NAACP. The Ph.D. didn’t mince words when it came to what was wrong with diversity at UVA. On community matters, he famously stood up for City school Superintendent Scottie Griffin, calling her political demise a “modern-day lynching.”
But, after July, Turner had to find another podium for such hyperbole when federal investigators said they had enough evidence to prove Turner lied to federal prosecutors in testimony he gave about his knowledge of activities of a drug dealer. Turner agreed to help investigators to avoid prosecution and was placed on leave from UVA. Twelve days later, he “retired” unceremoniously.
Turner’s agreement with the feds and subsequent resignation from the University seemed to render him uncharacteristically mum.
I paid $13 and all I got is this lousy view?
So as trustees of Monticello, you want to keep the Brown’s Mountain plebes from looking down on Mr. Jefferson’s august dwelling. You want to preserve the “viewshed” for the well-walleted tourists visiting the pulley-and-lever infested landmark.
All well and good.
So you try to scrape together $15 million, buy the damn mountain and rechristen it Montalto (as T.J. once called it), tearing down the existing apartments.
All well and good, still.
But then you charge $13 to go visit what used to be a grad student ghetto? Only one buck less than you charge for Jefferson’s house and grounds? To learn how Jefferson “planned” to use that “high mountain”?
Thomas Jefferson Foundation: You have got to be kidding us.
Stick a bow on that red tape
Seems like only yesterday a controversy brewed over what do to with the dormant Jefferson School, the crumbling Fourth Street icon for segregated schooling and Vinegar Hill pride.
Or was it nine years ago? In 1997, the School Board stopped investing in upkeep. Controversy was already very much alive in 2002, when then City Councilor Maurice Cox told us, “Jefferson School is the most significant building in Charlottesville, at this point.” Yet the Jefferson School remains unrepaired.
But certainly not unloved. Elderly Jefferson School alumni have been pushing hard to get the restoration started and have worked closely with Assistant City Manager Rochelle Small-Toney to rebuild the school, along with the Carver Recreation Center, into a history museum centered on Charlottesville’s African Americans.
Some baby steps were made this year, such as getting national historic designation, worth $8 million in tax credits. But in order for those tax credits to be used, the City has to decide on a private organization to take ownership (you follow this? We do, but just barely). Which, of course, hasn’t yet happened.
“This process seems to be an endless movement of delays and little or no action on the part of the City Council,” said Jeff School alum Ida Lewis in November.
Hear hear, Ida.
