Sympathy for Phil Campbell
One correction regarding David Good-man’s “Region Ten project still churning” update. [“The Week,” March 28] The piece states that the neighborhood is concerned about Region Ten’s “policy to create diverse and integrated housing for the client.” Actually, we think that it is a really good policy. Our concern is that Region Ten seems to have abandoned their long held policy of creating diverse and integrated housing for their clients at their Mews at Little High Street project.
Regarding your reference to their former executive director, during the months that we have challenged Region Ten’s development policies on Little High Street we came to gain tremendous respect for Phil Campbell and to view him as a straight-talking reformer. Even while the Region Ten old-guard continued to defend an indefensible “Mews” project at any cost their executive director was willing to acknowledge its shortcomings. After being asked by our community to take a close look at the issues surrounding “The Mews,” he did so honestly, and then urged the Region Ten Board to give him the authority to reshape the project. They refused. This clearly did not make him popular with his senior staff or a Board of Directors who prefer to avoid acknowledging responsibility or correcting mistakes. With Phil Campbell’s departure our organization believes that the story behind the story is why Region Ten, a publicly funded agency, has so resisted badly needed reform.
Mark Haskins
President, Little High Area
Neighborhood Association
A hard line on “soft” justice
A better feature line for last week’s article following the Charlottesville City School Board meeting on March 16th [“The Softer Side of Justice,” The Week, March 21] would be “The balanced side of justice: schools hope restorative justice will address kids acting badly.” This presents a much clearer statement of the presentation. Representa-tives from Central Virginia Restorative Justice and the Restorative Community Foundation shared insights and information to the board as it takes on high suspension and expulsion rates and tries to keep youth engaged in their education.
We know that when minority youth do not complete their high school degree they will average an annual income of $16,000. This is hardly enough to support themselves, much less a family. It is part of the cycle of poverty that frustrates us all.
Is restorative justice ‘new age’ as the article suggests? Hardly, it is older than Western civilization itself. Negotiations and penalties are what governments and businesses today spend tremendous resources on in order to keep doors open and commerce strengthened.
Isn’t is a greater wisdom to work with our students to learn to take responsibility, to address a victim’s needs as expressed by the victim themselves, and work together to repair harms in such a way that we are all potentially strengthen by the process?
Here’s who also thinks so: Endorse-ments for Restorative Justice and Restora-tive Practices: Minnesota Department of Children; Families and Learning (since mid 1990’s); Indiana Youth Services Associa-tion Center for Evaluation and Education-al Policy 2004; League of Women Voters of Virginia in 2005; Virginia Governor’s Task Force of Preventing Crime in Virginia’s Minority Communities 2005; School Days at the 14th World Congress on Crimino-logy 2005, International Society of Crim-inology, University of Pennsylvania, Phila-delphia; Minnesota Department of Cor-rections, 1995; Illinois Juvenile Justice Pro-gram, Dept. of Human Services, 1998; Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Preven-tion Council, Colorado Office of Juvenile Justice, 2001; General Assembly of the State of Colorado, 1999; Vermont Department of Corrections, 2000; Hawaii State Legislature House of Representatives, 2000; Michigan Bureau of Juvenile Justice, Department of Human Resources, 1998; General Assem-bly of the State of Pennsylvania, 1995; VOMA Victim Offender Mediation Asso-ciation; Association of Conflict Resolution; U.S. Department of Justice: Office of Justice Programs; Judicial Council of California, Administrative Office of the Courts, 2004.
Christa Pierpont
Restorative Community Foundation
Charlottesville, VA
Bad kids, or kids behaving badly?
While I was excited to see your coverage on restorative justice in the March 21 issue, I was very saddened by your poor choice in using the term “bad kids” in describing CCS students. The use of that term constitutes unfortunate and callous negative labeling, as well as being antithetical to the principles of the restorative justice process. Students make “bad” choices, perhaps, although the use of that particular word in any such context is altogether too simplistic, and in my opinion, only serves to add to the misinterpretation of the underlying issues. The restorative justice framework warrants the full attention of the Charlottesville community as it grapples with possibilities for much needed, division-wide, effective methods for behavior management and discipline. Further, the restorative justice process is not only about students who may be engaging in risky and damaging behavior, but is inclusive of the scope of community members involved. In other words, the restorative justice framework is good for everyone, and deserves much better coverage than to have potential participants so inappropriately named.
Loren Intolubbe-Chmil
Charlottesville
A blast from the past
In light of all this ignorant anti-feminist talk [“Mommies’ little helper” and “What’s old is new again,” March 14], perhaps some need to read the ol’ Equal Rights Amendment again (for the first time?).
Complete text of the E.R.A. (Unabridged!)
Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.
For some radically “new” conservative dish-washing bonanza reason, this simple text has still to be ratified.
Now I’m going to go cry.
Nanci Simari, L.A.C.
Charlottesville
Bad education
What gives with professors at UVA? Two, at least, are giving the rest a bad name. First Steven Rhoads says, “Women are happiest at home, men are happiest at work.” And now we have Pat Michaels not being able to connect the asphalting of America with global warming when he says, “Changes in land use, I would argue, is having much more of an impact in Virginia than global warming.” [“7 Days,” March 28]
HELLO! Carbon dioxide emissions, deforestation and paving over the land all contribute to and are parts of global warming.
Terry K. Nance
Charlottesville
The joke’s on you
I was traveling in another country experiencing the endless joys of cultural diversity the week that Keith Knight’s cartoon, “A cruel joke to play on a black jogger” [“Mailbag,” March 14], was sadly published in the C-VILLE. Fortunately, Laura Ramirez, of the Virginia Organizing Project, contributed a letter condemning Kenneth Knight’s cartoon as being “…poorly done and could easily be misunderstood… Racially based violence is not a joke.” Underneath her letter was a reprint of the cartoon, that of a white man pointing to and yelling “Thief!” at a passing black jogger, resulting in a Rodney King style pummeling by the police. The white joker slyly and innocently walks away from the beating with a smirk of self-satisfaction on his face—much like, “Mission accomplished” or, “I dun good.”
By submitting this letter I am probably gratifying Keith Knight’s child-like need for attention, and the aggrandizement that he seeks to feed himself with via acts of passive-aggression, as exemplified by his cartoon. But I must, it’s the socially responsible thing to do! I can only assume that his cartoon is really a projection of who and what he really is on the inside and, of course, the smirking white man is really himself in the starring role of his ”B” cartoon.
I feel sorry for someone like K(K). Knight, and hopefully he will one day realize that his flatulence of ink is an insult to and assault on all people. Until then, he will not be viewed as a creative artist, but most likely as someone with racist views posing as a cartoonist.
Nathan Young
Palmyra
The editor responds: Mr. Young may be correct that Keith Knight is casting himself as the character of the “smirking white man” in his cartoon, but in the interest of accuracy, I will point out that Knight is African-American.
Goode is great
Those of us who have supported “Virgil” Goode over the years regardless of whether he ran as a Democrat, an Independent or a Republican read the recent C-VILLE Weekly feature article on him [“Bad times for Virgil Goode?,” March 7] with great interest.
Your reporter attempted to write a balanced representation of him but unfortunately at times gave in to some suggestive thoughts that questioned his ethics. We understand that the media tends to do this these days in order to attract attention to their articles. Regardless of his party affiliation Virgil Goode would never have been as successful over the years in being re-elected time and time again if he had not been honest and straightforward in his personal efforts representing his constituents. In recent months he has been criticized for using his influence to persuade a defense company to locate one of its branches in Martinsville. This community had been hard hit along with many other areas in Southside Virginia with the downturn in the furniture, textile and tobacco farming businesses. He was supported in his efforts by then-Gov. Warner as well as by Sen. John Warner. While he did not solicit campaign contributions from the management of the company that opened a branch in Martinsville, Goode was criticized by his political opponents because a contribution was done in an illegal manner. When Goode was informed of this, he immediately returned the money.
Such action was in keeping with Goode’s character long recognized by his constituents who keep returning him to office over the years. If he had helped the local economy by using his influence to bring employment into our market, he would have won great praise. Let’s put the facts into perspective and credit Virgil Goode for acting responsively to the needs of his constituents and appropriately when he learns of the nature of the contribution to his campaign.
Wm. Poindexter Moore Jr.
Charlottesville
The editor replies: As noted in the story, Goode did not “immediately return” the MZM campaign donations, though he offered to reimburse any of the company’s employees who had contributed to his campaign. Two accepted.
CORRECTION:
In our March 14 issue we quoted a statement from the UVA Living Wage campaign that John Casteen’s new kitchen cost $600,000. [“New UVA raises not good enough”] UVA spokeswoman Carol Wood says the kitchen cost “half” that. To clarify, the money for Casteen’s kitchen did not come from State tax money.