City Council has voted unanimously to fund an $80,000 program to establish “Downtown Mall ambassadors,” Graham Moomaw writes for the Daily Progress. That’ll pay for four seasonal employees to provide directions to tourists, perform light maintenance, and other small tasks…but the real impetus is to try to deal with the ongoing problem of aggressive, apparently coordinated panhandlers. City police were trying to get the funding to increase police presence in response to panhandlers, but council balked at the price tag. Not being police, it’s not clear that these new folks will have the power to do anything at all. Council regards this as an experiment, one that they’ll evaluate the success of next summer.
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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Underpaid bouncers for the homeless, some of whom are mentally ill.
I cant see this going wrong in any way.
If it included diplomatic immunity then I’m applying
And so, for a mere eighty grand,
The Council can keep heads in sand.
The tourists will gush,
As bums get the rush;
The stimulus flows through the land.
Council must be getting tired of the homeless guys sleeping in front of City Hall.
Might be a good way to get someone representing the city there after hours. But was the Cville PD not doing a good enough job already?
Another waste of tax dollars. Maintenance? Are the Public Works employees not able to handle it? Or they could let some of those jail inmates you see downtown help out.An we have a visitors center for tourists.
And it does not sound like a good idea at all to let non-LE people be dealing with possible crininal behavior.
The City allowed the panhandling problem to develop with its tolerant policies toward it,now they want a quick fix.
After that short-lived downtown newsstand folded (remember the copper kiosk) around 1995, the kiosk just sat for a couple of years. One summer, my brother and I (both high school aged) just took it over for a few weeks. We opened it up for hours every day, keeping a phone book, some maps, and a few other reference materials in there, and just dispensed information to anybody who came up looking for it. By and large, as I recall, the questions were from tourists, looking for directions, hours, advice, etc. Sure, there was a visitors bureau, but it wasn’t smack in the middle of the Downtown Mall. To this day, whenever I see people looking at one of the signs on the Mall that provide a map and a list of businesses, I stop and ask them if they need directions. 75% of the time they do, and they’re grateful that somebody stopped to help.
That said, I think the tourist thing is a red herring. This is about panhandlers.
This is the wrong solution to what should be a very straight forward problem. When they are drunk in public, arrest them for public intoxication and press charges and push for jail time. When they get into fights, arrest them for assault and for creating a disturbance.
Just arrest them, press charges, don’t agree to reduce charges to a slap on the wrist. They are breaking the law so put them in prison where the rest of society won’t have to deal with their crap. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT PRISON IS FOR. We don’t need more police officers. We don’t need an ambassador program. We just need to use the cops and DA and jail that we already paid for.
Mixed feelings about this, but I love Belmont Yo’s reacion. My first thought was, could they send them down W. Main St. a few blocks to the crowd that is always hanging around near the ABC store? Why does it always have to be about the Downtown Mall?
From the article: “In many cities, the ambassadors… help direct the homeless to appropriate service providers… This is what we hope to accomplish with our pilot program.”
And if the unruly people aren’t homeless, or refuse to move on to the “appropriate service providers” what then? If the unruly people are actually breaking the law, then, as Jack says, it’s a police matter. If they’re simply being annoying–and it is annoying to have to walk a gauntlet of panhandlers even if they don’t target you–there’s really nothing anybody can do. The last time I checked, it’s not illegal to be unkempt in public.
Nor should it be illegal to be unkempt in public!
Sure there are many who are sweaty and grubby from hard manual labor who pop into CVS to pick up a prescription or something, to name one example.
Its behavior, not looks, that it is the problem, whether it be a group of foulmouthed thugs who act as if they’d soon kill you as look at you,or a group of obnoxious panhandlers with their stupid cardboard signs obstructing the walkway.
Have to wonder how much,if any, the ordinances regulating things like panhandling and drinking in public are enforced.
in This initiative like the Dialogue on Race, they throw money away with no evidence for effectiveness, then demand data on effectiveness for other proposed initiatives that are not their pet projects. When the DT business community has a problem they throw money at it symbolically, when the minority community has issues, they become fiscal conservatives.
What is up with this Council?
If the “ambassadors” are people who are already active, involved, knowledgeable and approachable members of the community, I could maybe see this working. But I strongly doubt that that will be the case.
Ambassador (plural ambassadors), Noun.
1. A minister of the highest rank sent to a foreign court to represent there his sovereign or country.
2.An official messenger and representative.
From the Council:
Goofy, goofy, goofy.
please let us give the mall ambassadors the benefit of the doubt an dlet them try to work on cleaning up the city.when the business owners complain about the loud cursing an dobnoxious behavior on the mall i am almost inclined to agree with them.something has to be done as soon as possible as things have gotten way out of control.
… as things have gotten way out of control.
I know someone who hasn’t been to Berkeley, CA, or any number of other metropolitan areas.
There isn’t anything in this whole town – noise, homeless, traffic, taxes, gangs, *anything* – that has ever been anywhere even close to being “out of control”.
When I am elected to city council after I finally get around to running, one plank in my platform will be that every citizen will have to leave Charlottesville for a week every year. Doesn’t matter where, just out. This will help the community gain a wider perspective, and help prevent the deleterious cocooning effect this town seems to have.
Good point. Even though there are problems similar to other larger urban areas, to say Charlottesville is on the same level as much larger cities, for examp[le Richmond or Washington DC, is an exaggeration.Although I have to say the city government does have its head in the sand many times when it comes to very real problems. Not to mention being fiscally feckless. Quarter of a million dollars to relocate a skateboard park?
Cville also didn’t want to pay $30,000 (if I recall correctly) to run the popular McIntire Park wading pool for another season, but had no problem spending $50,000 for a study on race relations that had no benefit that I could discern.
And then there is the way they are throwing Mcintire Golf Course users under the bus.
No, it may not be a great course, but there are those who depend on it, and love it
Not to mention that relocating the skate park to the opposite side of the bypass means that many kids won’t be able to get to it–my son and his friends walk there. Unless they’re building some sort of pedestrian bridge, of which there was no mention in the NBC 29 story. But I am driving us off-topic, sorry.
> skate park
> walk there
Doing it wrong.
“Unless they’re building some sort of pedestrian bridge”
I have it on good authority that it will be an elaborate series of pneumatic tubes, which will shuttle your offspring safely by day, and by night will be used to “relocate” the homeless.
That was silly of me. Of course they skate there.