City Council is looking at creating a Charlottesville Commission on Human Rights, Diversity and Race Relations, Graham Moomaw wrote in yesterday’s Progress, with the power to investigate discrimination claims and penalize those discriminate unlawfully. Council would appoint seven people to three-year terms, and the group would have a staff of three. It would cost $200,000/year to operate. They’d have oversight over private employment and housing discrimination. Council is likely to consider the proposal at next Monday’s meeting.
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
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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While their aim is noble, one wonders if this is worth the cost? Could that money not be better spent to obtain actual social justice then to allow a new group with unknown agendas to monitor a very difficult to measure set of outcomes? To monitor one of the most diverse areas that it has been my good fortune to live in. There are problems to be sure but will Charlottesville citizens be best served by this expense of harder to come by tax dollars.
A more cynical observer might say this was an overreaction to the coming absence of an African American from City Council in many many years but I couldn’t possibly say so.
I find this disturbing. $200K per year on a local level? Don’t we already have the EEOC?
I hear city council complain often of unfunded and under-funded mandates from the state & the federal governments. We’re seriously going to spend $2M/decade on a redundant option?