Outspoken UVa charter critic Dena Bowers has been abruptly fired from her position as a recruiter in their HR department. She says she was fired on Tuesday after sending a private e-mail containing an NAACP analysis of the charter’s effect on medical center employees. The e-mail was forwarded around by others, leading to it being mistakenly sent to the all classified staff at within the College of Arts & Sciences. UVa does not, as a matter of policy, publicly address personnel matters. As a seventeen-year employee of UVa, Bowers is surprised and angered by her firing, and believes that it is retaliation for her opposition to the charter. Liesel Nowak has the story in today’s Daily Progress.
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Monthly Archive for November, 2005
Page 3 of 6
This Sunday’s Washington Post will feature an article about the Charlottesville music scene. Author Ben Brazil visited and reviewed the music communities of Athens, Chapel Hill, and Our Fair City. He spent time at Twisted Branch, Bang!, Starr Hill Gravity Lounge, writing specifically about Bella Morte, Lauren Hoffman, This Means You, and John D’earth. The author also turns to Mike Friend and Jeff Reynolds, of WNRN, for advice on good local music.
All in all, it amounts to some great exposure for some of the town’s best musicians and venues.
Two square miles of undeveloped land just south of town, Biscuit Run, have been bought by Hunter Craig for an astounding $46.2M. The land will be turned into yet another development with a name apparently generated by computer for maximum irony value, “Fox Ridge.” It will include somewhere between 900 and 5,000 residences, which would bring about a significant increase in the Albemarle County population. The Breeden family, who has lived at Biscuit Run for many years now, have kept a chunk of land for themselves to continue to live on. David Hendrick has the story in today’s Progress.
In other news, my old buddy Eric Breeden is now my bestest friend in the whole wide world.
There were fireworks at last night’s City Council meeting on the matter of whether the elected school board should be based on wards or at large. Republican Rob Schilling claimed that only a ward-based system would provide racial diversity, which led to a strong rebuttal from Democrat Kendra Hamilton, the only member of council that is neither white nor male. John Yellig described the exchange in the Progress:
“I have allowed members of the public and a certain member of council to distort and misrepresent all sorts of things – the history of desegregation, my politics, my actions, my words,” she said. “But enough is enough. It’s time to set the record straight.”
Referencing an e-mail Schilling sent to some voters Monday, Hamilton ridiculed his assertion that he’s “the only councilor who cares about the African-American community.”
“I never thought that I, as a black woman, would be reduced to explaining to a bunch of white people…that I know what I’m talking about,” she said.
Schilling angrily responded to Hamilton’s comments, saying, “I’m not going to let that stand,” and, over calls for order from Mayor David Brown, added, “I’m going to stand by every word I wrote in the e-mail today.”
So…who’s gonna provide a copy of that e-mail?
Anyhow, Council voted not to petition the General Assembly to permit the city to have ward-based elections, so at least the first elections, this May, will be at large.
7:15pm Update: God bless Sean Tubbs. He’s posted the relevant portion of the audio from last night’s Council meeting. You can hear Schilling for the first 13:50, and then Hamilton for the rest of the clip.
8:55pm Update: Somebody has posted what is said to be Schilling’s e-mail.
Twenty-year-old UVa student Michelle Elizabeth Collier was found dead in her apartment on Friday afternoon, but, beyond that, nothing is particularly clear. Her cause of death is unknown, the results of an autopsy won’t be released for weeks, and the inspection is apparently being conducted by officials other than local police. WCAV reporter Venton Blandin spotted “unknown officials” removing bags of items from Collier’s apartment and loading them into an SUV registered in New York.
The last high-profile death of a UVa student was the April 2001 murder of Alison Meloy.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
foursix and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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