Early birthday plans, Insurrectionist sorry, and Moon wants more

Mall turns 50…in four years

Who knew there was a Committee for the Preservation, Maintenance and Security of the Downtown Mall?

From the August 2022 City Manager's report:

"The Committee for the Preservation, Maintenance and Security of the Downtown Mall convened last week to begin evaluating some of the long-standing issues on the Mall as shared by many of the business owners and residents. The committee will access some immediate changes and hold discussions with business owners as we seek to plan for the 50th Anniversary of the Mall. We will present an update on actions to be taken in the next several months which is being conducted by Rafftelis. Both presentations were very useful and will be used as the city moves forward with our cyber security plan and development of the new Strategic plan."

The 50th Anniversary of the Mall is still four years away.

Insurrectionist on City payroll: I’m really sorry

“He is very sorrowful of his activities,” said Interim City Manager Michael Rogers, as reported in a recent story in the Washington Post about the City continuing to employ someone who participated in the January 6 insurrection. “He has experienced a great deal of personal loss. Considering the totality of circumstances including that it’s been a year-and-a-half without any action, I conclude that no further action or review is warranted in this case.”

According to New York Times Reporter Alan Feuer, who has been tracking and reporting on hundreds of criminal cases against Jan. 6 defendants, these sob stories are not uncommon.

"You also see defendants say things to the judge like, I’ve lost everything because of what I did on Jan. 6. My job has been taken from me. My neighbors no longer talk to me. My church has essentially excommunicated me. Please don’t send me to prison as well," said Feuer in a recent interview.

Feuer said he was also "struck by how trauma rests at the center of so many of the Jan. 6 defendants’ lives, whether it’s poverty, addiction or deep family dysfunction," and added that people "from all 50 states have been prosecuted. Most are white men from middle- or working-class backgrounds, but there are also women, Hispanic people, Black people. A lot have military backgrounds. There are also professional people, which is unusual for an event involving far-right extremism: doctors, a State Department aide, business owners, people who flew there on a private jet."

Feuer says he has a database of 850 cases he is tracking, but as he mentioned -- and the WP points out - the "government is still arresting people, and prosecutors estimate around 2,000 could ultimately face charges."

The City had hoped to downplay its decision to allow Allen Groat, the IT professional and sorry Insurrectionists, to remain employed, but in addition to this Washington Post story, a feature also appeared in HuffPost. Groat might not be out of the woods just yet.

Why aren’t we doing what Petersburg did?

Former football player developer buys an abandoned hotel and does nothing with it for years. Sound familiar? That is what happened with an old Ramada Inn in Petersburg, Virginia that closed in 2012. Former NFL player turned developer Chris Harrison bought the place and promised to rebuild it but never started the project. But unlike in Charlottesville, where city leaders have passively allowed former Georgia Tech QB turned developer John Dewberry to do nothing with the "Landmark Hotel" since he bought it at auction in 2012 (it has been over 14 years since the original developers broke ground on the project), the City of Petersburg buckled up and filed a lawsuit against Harrison and applied for and received state funds to demolish and redevelop the building.

Special thanks to Bob Beard, a DTM Sponsor since 2020!

Cav Daily on the eugenicists who came to town

I don't know what's worse here - that there were still people who believed in eugenics in 1975, that Shockley was allowed to speak at UVA (Harvard, Yale, Princeton refused him), that it took place during Black History Month, that it was advertised in the @cavalierdaily, that 390 tickets were sold to it, or that Ellis, who helped organize it, is now on the BOV.

A fight for more transparency

Federal Judge Norman K. Judge Moon denied the city’s motion to dismiss our lawsuit ( I am a plaintiff in the FIOA lawsuit mentioned here) over the secretive way cases for claims of misconduct by police, public officials, and city employees are settled, Cville Weekly reported. A good sign!

“The whole purpose of FOIA is so clear,” said Moon. “I don’t understand why the city makes these arguments that people can’t get this information. What governmental purpose could it serve to have a government not have to do this? It’s inconceivable.”

The "third party called VRSA" mentioned by Cville is the Virginia Risk Sharing Association, which is basically a powerful insurance company that serves local governments, providing a variety of coverages, including liability insurance for claims of misconduct by police, public officials, and employees. VRSA attorneys have the authority to settle cases.

Confidential settlement negotiations are good in one sense because they allow the parties to speak freely about their grievances and concerns without being held liable, which makes it easier to avoid court and come to a settlement. However, confidential settlements prevent either party from discussing the settlement. And when it comes to misconduct by police, public officials, and city employees, that means the public never finds out what happened, who was liable, and what the settlement arrangement and/or payment was. Since the payout comes from the insurance company, and no City funds are paid out, the whole complaint basically disappears.

"It is almost impossible to penetrate a confidential settlement agreement," says Charlottesville criminal defense attorney David Heilberg, "...if there was a confidential settlement in a side agreement, it is supposed to remain this way."

That presents a problem for holding police, public officials, and city employees accountable for their actions.

For instance, back in March, the Daily Progress reported that former Charlottesville City Manager Tarron Richardson had "voluntarily dropped his lawsuit against City" and suggested it was because he had failed to serve individual defendants in the lawsuit with papers in time. The impression was that Richardson gave up and just dropped the case. But heavily redacted emails that appeared among documents obtained by attorney Jeffery Fogel through a FOIA request -- in his ongoing effort to make the settlement of claims of police misconduct public -- showed lawyers, city officials, and representatives of VRSA going back and forth on an email thread with the subject line: City Council of the City of Charlottesville adv. Richardson 3:21-cv-45 Charlottesville FRE 408 SETTLEMENT NEGOTIATIONS.

"Looking at this now. Any updates regarding settlement?" writes Richardson's Texas-based attorney, Keith French, in an email to Richard Milnor, the City's attorney.

Ironically, Richardson's lawsuit challenged the scope of non-disparagement agreements under the First Amendment. However, even when there isn't such an employment agreement in place, a settlement for silence is often reached. For example, former Charlottesville Police Chief Al Thomas, who was in charge during the tragic events of August 2017, didn’t have such a clause in his employment contract, but the city negotiated for his silence by offering severance pay even though he voluntarily retired, and other terms that remained confidential. As a result, Thomas has never spoken publicly in any detail about what occurred within city government during the lead-up to August 12, 2017.