Budget bummer: Albemarle boosts tax rate while treading water

“We can’t tax our way out of this,” said Albemarle County Executive Tom Foley—while proposing a 2.5-cent property tax hike in the fiscal year 2017 budget he submitted to the Board of Supervisors February 19. Even worse, he says, that increase barely maintains existing services, and he predicts another will be needed next year. The […]

Penney ante: The General Assembly session gets weird

First off, here’s a newsflash for you: Neither Jim Gilmore nor Jim Webb is going to be president of the United States. With Gilmore finally dropping his embarrassing (and largely invisible) quest for the Republican nomination, and Webb recently announcing that he will not mount an independent presidential bid, our dreams of an all-Virginian Jim/Jim […]

Make UVA Law great again

The presidential primaries aren’t the only races going on. At UVA School of Law, Erich Reimer found inspiration in The Donald for his run for Student Bar Association vice president and Student Council representative, and promises to build a wall between the law school and main Grounds—and make undergrad Student Council pay for it. “We […]

Make the General Assembly great again

February 16 marked crossover, when each house in the General Assembly sends its bills to the other body. From the House of Delegates floor last week, House Minority Leader David Toscano chastised legislators who continue to try to curtail gay and transgender rights, saying such moves are bad for business, according to radio station WINA. […]

‘Unreasonable searches’: Albemarle cop sued for targeting blacks

Local attorney Jeff Fogel filed three lawsuits February 11, accusing Albemarle County Police officer Andrew Holmes of unlawfully targeting African-American males in stops and intrusive searches. One plaintiff, Rodney Hubbard, details a September 11, 2015, interaction with Holmes in which he was stopped in his black Denali driving north on Route 29 from Lynchburg. Officer […]

Will the 9mm match? Bryan Silva goes to grand jury

  In a preliminary hearing for Bryan Silva, the 25-year-old social media celebrity who starred in an hours-long police standoff January 3, was denied bond—again. This time, his mother, Robin, was present to testify that she had no firearms at her Orange County home and Silva could come live with her if he were allowed […]

Spycam settlement: Fired city employee gets lawyer’s fees

A fired Charlottesville Fire Department mechanic, who found a bottle of booze allegedly planted in his desk and a city-installed spycam to catch him with the contraband, was reinstated to his job a year ago. It took a bit longer for the city to agree to pay the $16,000 in legal fees he racked up fighting his […]

Quick trial resumes

Brothers have testified against each other and an ex-girlfriend has been pitted against her former boyfriend in a retrial for the suspects in the murder of Waynesboro Police Reserve Captain Kevin Quick after a May mistrial. Quick, a 45-year-old father, was reported missing January 31, 2014, and his body was found in Goochland County a […]