UPDATED Akins revisited: New reward in county’s coldest case

  Nearly 54 years ago, Charlottesville was rocked with the bizarre death of high school football star Pat Akins, 19, whose body was found under a red Triumph TR3 after purportedly having been dragged 12 miles from Crozet. Today his Rock Hill Academy classmate Jimmy Dettor is offering $20,000 for information leading to resolution of […]

Unaffordable housing: Developers pay to not build affordable units

Sharonda Poindexter-Rose is a 24-year-old single mother who works as a server at a local restaurant. She lives in a one-bedroom home, and as she’s looked for a two-bedroom place over the last several months, she’s discovered a harsh reality. “It is so expensive out here, it’s ridiculous,” says Poindexter-Rose. In the last six years, […]

Freelance tax: County expects to rake in $11 million

Since C-VILLE wrote about Albemarle County now retroactively demanding $50 business licenses—for the past five years—from freelancers who didn’t know they were businesses, surprised writers chief among them, we’ve learned that the county expects to bring in over $11.3 million in revenue, which will more than cover the $123,000 cost to hire two auditors. However, […]

Kessler petitions to remove Bellamy from City Council

Jason Kessler, the previously unknown writer who last month exposed Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy’s racist and vulgar tweets from before he was elected, is now collecting signatures to remove him from office. He’s also made a video that elucidates some of his concerns about issues affecting white Americans. “I’m closing in on a hundred,” says Kessler […]

County needs professional help moving courts

“We don’t have the capacity to do any of this without some help,” County Executive Tom Foley said at a December 14 Board of Supervisors work session in which he recommended Albemarle County staff hire an adviser for development, financial analysis, valuation and other aspects of moving the circuit and general district courts out of […]

Innocent man: Governor grants full pardon for Robert Davis

  Robert Davis faced the camera on Facebook live at 7pm December 16. Two hours earlier, at 4:48pm, Governor Terry McAuliffe signed an absolute pardon that proclaimed Davis’ innocence for the two murders that kept him in prison for 13 years. “I’m a free man,” said Davis on camera. “I’m trying not to cry, y’all […]

ABC and one agent nixed from Martese Johnson’s suit

A federal judge ruled that a former UVA student was not falsely arrested during a controversial incident occurring on St. Patrick’s Day last year, and dropped the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control and one of its agents from his $3 million lawsuit December 13. Videos of Martese Johnson’s bloody arrest went viral after he was denied […]

Who’s a racist? Wes Bellamy and Jason Kessler speak out at City Council

An overflow crowd packed City Council chambers December 5 for Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy’s first appearance since the racist, misogynist and homophobic tweets he made before taking office were released on Thanksgiving. And the man who created the firestorm, Jason Kessler, showed up with a petition calling for Bellamy’s ouster. The majority of attendees were Bellamy […]

UPDATED: City cop charged with sodomy denied bond

Christopher Seymore, an ex-officer with the Charlottesville Police Department, appeared in the city’s general district court via webcam December 2. Charged the previous day with two counts of forcible sodomy, he was denied bond until he can meet with his court-appointed attorney. Seymore, 35, was employed with the CPD for 18 months and terminated December […]

UPDATE: Bellamy takes leave from teaching position

Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy, a teacher at Albemarle High School, has agreed to take an administrative leave of absence while the school division investigates “vulgar” tweets he made before being elected to Charlottesville City Council, according to a statement today from the Albemarle School Board. “Many of these postings contain extremely vulgar and offensive language that […]