A national cannabis products manufacturer is preparing to open a new production facility in Alleghany County to help supply Virginia’s medical marijuana market.

Chicago-based Green Thumb Industries’ products include botanical cannabis — the basic flower form of cannabis — as well as cannabis-based items such as muscle rubs, tinctures and edibles. It already operates a manufacturing facility in Abingdon and RISE Dispensary medical marijuana locations in Abingdon, Bristol, Christiansburg, Danville, Lynchburg and Salem.

In Alleghany County, GTI is in the final stages of construction work at a recently purchased 300,000-square-foot building. The company declined to say how much it has invested in its new facility.

The company anticipates launching its manufacturing operation there “within the next month or so,” said Jack Page, GTI’s market leader in Virginia.

“It is a rather large building and we are technically only going to be occupying a portion of the building to start with,” Page said. “Market demand will really determine how much of the facility is actually used. This is in response to needing additional space outside of our Abingdon facility.”

The Alleghany site will be used to cultivate cannabis, with different rooms for growing, maturing and drying the plants, as well as places to store nutrients. Material will then be sent to the company’s Abingdon site to be processed into products.

The company plans to start with about 40 employees at the new site. They’ll work in a variety of jobs including “plant-touching roles” such as flower technicians, but also in custodial, maintenance and human resources roles, Page said.

Those jobs will provide attractive new opportunities for Alleghany County residents who might not have previously considered manufacturing employment, said John Hull, executive director of the Roanoke Regional Partnership, an economic development organization that helped connect GTI with resources related to workforce recruitment and training as the company considered the location.

“It’s a great career ladder type of opportunity as well,” Hull said. “For instance, young workers can take a role there, learn the manufacturing type of skills, be introduced to that type of environment and then be available for growth in that company but also other opportunities in the larger region.”

Green Thumb Industries has more than 4,000 employees across the company. The Alleghany site will be its 19th manufacturing facility, and it has more than 80 dispensaries across more than a dozen U.S. markets. It entered the Virginia market in 2021 with the purchase of Dharma Pharmaceuticals, of which Page was a co-founder.

In May, the publicly traded company reported a first-quarter net income of $9.1 million, or 4 cents per share, on $248.5 million in revenue. In an earnings news release, the company noted its revenue was up 2% year over year and said it holds a $185 million cash balance to invest in further expanding its business. It next reports quarterly earnings on Aug. 8.

While GTI has a national presence, all of the products made at the Alleghany facility will serve the Virginia market, Page said.

“Because of the way the federal government still views cannabis, nothing can cross state lines,” he said. “Anything sold in the Virginia medical program is grown and processed and fully sourced in Virginia. And nothing that is made in Virginia is going out of state to another facility.”

Despite state legislation passed in 2021 that allows adults in Virginia to possess small amounts of marijuana for personal recreational use, as well as grow up to four marijuana plants at their own homes, there currently is no licensing or regulatory framework to allow retail sales in the commonwealth.

That means medical dispensaries remain the legal way for Virginians to purchase marijuana, Page said. Qualifying medical patients need a certification from a doctor, physician assistant or nurse practitioner, plus a valid government ID, to buy cannabis at a medical dispensary.

“The RISE Dispensaries and our counterparts in other parts of the state are the safe way for Virginians to access cannabis,” Page said. “Absent the retail market, there are some dispensaries out there that are providing access to cannabis but not necessarily in a safe manner. That’s an important distinction that I think needs to be made.”

GTI is regulated by the state Board of Pharmacy and, beginning Jan. 1, the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority. The company’s facilities are inspected for compliance with procedures such as those related to inventory and record-keeping, and third-party labs check for the presence of pesticides and heavy metals in products, Page said.

GTI’s location in the Alleghany Regional Commerce Center — a business park between the city of Covington and the town of Clifton Forge, just off Interstate 64 — makes it a good location for distributing products statewide, said Alleghany County Administrator Reid Walters.

If the federal government were to legalize marijuana, GTI would also be well-positioned to ship products into the Midwest, Walters said.

“Legalization is something that’s going to create jobs in Alleghany County and put food on people’s table, and they’re well-paying jobs,” Walters said.

Page said the possibilities for business expansion — whether that’s due to higher demand in Virginia’s medical market or due to potential legalization of recreational sales — “definitely factored into the decision to purchase the Alleghany facility.”

Still, the path to increased legalization, both at the state and federal level, remains unclear. 

President Joe Biden last year pardoned all federal offenders convicted of simple marijuana possession and urged state governors to do the same. He also instructed federal officials to review how marijuana is classified under federal law. 

But the president has stopped short of formally backing federal marijuana legalization, and pot remains a Schedule I controlled substance at the federal level.

In Virginia, a member of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration said earlier this month the governor is “not interested in any further moves towards legalization of adult recreational use marijuana,” according to The (Charlottesville) Daily Progress.

Nonetheless, Green Thumb Industries is looking ahead to the debut of its Alleghany County facility, which, along with the launch of its newest RISE Dispensary in late June in Danville, will further boost the company’s ability to supply the commonwealth with medical cannabis.

Hull, of the Roanoke Regional Partnership, called the new facility a “truly exciting” opportunity for the Alleghany Highlands.

“It further diversifies their industrial base, and combine that with the career-building opportunities there for young workers in the area, we think that it truly is an impactful opportunity,” he said.

The post Cannabis manufacturer to open growing facility in Alleghany County appeared first on Cardinal News.

Wednesday afternoon, Melvin Grady got what he called a “very personal” birthday present.

July 12 is Grady’s birthday. It is also the anniversary of John Henry James’ death.

In 1898, James was lynched by an angry mob of white men because he was accused of assaulting Julia Hotopp, a young white woman from a prominent local family. After he was dead, a grand jury indicted him for the assault.

One hundred and twenty five years later, Albemarle County Circuit Court Judge Cheryl V. Higgins on Wednesday dismissed that indictment.

Higgins ruled that the grand jury not only improperly issued the indictment, it did so intentionally, making “a mockery of the judicial system.” The indictment was used “not as an instrument of justice, but as cause to lynch a man simply because he was Black,” Higgins said. “It was used corruptly, to sanction the lynching of John Henry James.”

“This is one little drop of justice,” said Grady, standing outside the Albemarle County Circuit Court minutes after the dismissal, a warm and steady breeze wicking tears from his cheeks.

Grady wore a purple t-shirt with an image of a memorial to James across his chest. Five years ago, Grady participated in a pilgrimage to collect soil from the site of James’ lynching and bring it to the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, where a glass jar of that soil is part of a memorial to victims of racial terror lynchings.

A lynching is the unlawful killing of a person, usually by hanging, by a mob. According to a report from the Equal Justice Initiative, attacks of lynching have overwhelmingly targeted Black people. Lynching was not considered a federal hate crime until last year.

The pilgrimage was emotional, Grady said. But the gravity of what that mob did to James, and what the United States justice system failed to do, hit Grady — who, like James, is Black — while he sat in the courtroom listening to the Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Hingeley present the motion to dismiss the indictment.

“Knowing and traveling, I was fine. But here, it really hit me. I’m going back to imagine a guy who didn’t do shit — pardon my language — getting lynched, no evidence whatsoever,” Grady said. “I’m telling you, it’s powerful. I cried in there, hearing the testimony, the ruling. It was powerful. I feel honored to be a part of this.”

John Henry James’ story is an important part of local history, but it wasn’t really told until a few years ago, said Jalane Schmidt, an associate professor of religion at the University of Virginia and director of the Memory Project at UVA’s Karsh Institute for Democracy.

Even now, the story isn’t widely known, though historians, lawyers, and community members think it should be. It’s a difficult story to tell, in part because it is horrific and violent, and in part because the historical record offers inconsistent, and in some cases unreliable, reports and accounts.

James was accused of assaulting 20-year-old Julia Hotopp, a young white woman from a wealthy local family. Her father, William Hotopp, was the founder and owner of Monticello Wine Company — at the time the largest winemaking company in the country.

On Monday, July 11, 1898, the Daily Progress reported Julia Hotopp’s account of the incident. “Atrocious and outrageous,” the headline read. “A young lady assaulted by a black villain.”

According to the account, the assault took place between 9 and 10 in the morning, at the gate of Pen Park, not far from the Hotopp residence. Julia Hotopp had ridden her horse into Charlottesville earlier that morning to get the horse new horseshoes. When she returned home, the gate to the park was wired shut instead of fastened by its usual latch, and since there were no farmhands around, she dismounted to open the gate herself. Before she could remount, someone struck her from behind, grabbed her by the neck and forced her to the ground, where Hotopp said she became unconscious.

The Progress reported that Hotopp’s horse arrived back at the house without its rider, which alarmed Hotopp’s brother, who ran toward the gate and met his sister along the way. When the siblings met, Hotopp “swooned again.” Once back at the house, Hotopp “described her assailant as a very black man, heavy-set, slight mustache, wore dark clothes, and his toes were sticking out of his shoes.”

Hotopp then became unconscious for a third time “and was still in that condition, attended by several physicians, at last accounts,” the Progress wrote.

News traveled around the city quickly. People starting searching for the assailant and by noon, “a negro named John Henry James was arrested in Dudley’s barroom,” the Progress reported.

James “somewhat” met Hotopp’s description of her assailant, the Progress said. He was brought to jail “to await further developments.” Though, after James was arrested, people continued searching for possible suspects. “The country is being scoured by white and black men, and if the fellow is caught, and can be identified, we fear the worst,” the report ended.

That same report said that Hotopp “resisted the fellow to the extent of scratching his neck so violently as to leave particles of flesh under her fingernails and so effective was the resistance that he failed of accomplishing his foul purpose.”

Hotopp’s resistance, and her description of her assailant, was never referenced again.

By the next issue of the Progress, 24 hours later, James was dead, lynched by a mob before he could appear in court.

On July 12, The Progress printed a detailed report of what had happened earlier that day.

According to the Progress, a large crowd followed James to the jail upon his arrest, already threatening to kill him. As a result, authorities thought it would be best to “remove the prisoner to Staunton for safety,” and did so with some secrecy, the night of July 11. When people found out about this, they were “outraged,” the Progress reported.

That night, Albemarle County Court Judge John M. White issued a summons for a grand jury to meet at 10 a.m. the next day, on the morning of July 12. White did this “realizing that prompt and efficient means would have to be resorted to to calm the excited populace,” the Progress wrote.

Two hours before the jury met, at 8 a.m., James, Charlottesville Chief of Police Frank P. Farish, and Albemarle County Sheriff Lucien Watts boarded a train in Staunton bound for Charlottesville. “He [James] didn’t seem to give the officers any trouble, and when they boarded the train this morning, for Charlottesville, it was not considered necessary to handcuff him,” according to the Progress.

Reports show it was clear to everyone — including James — what was about to happen.

“The prisoner, as seen in Staunton on his way to the train handcuffed to an officer, was a pitiable sight,” the Staunton Record reported, as relayed in the July 13 issue of the Progress. He had a “look of fear upon his face” and was “shaking like an aspen leaf.” 

“Several Staunton gentlemen who felt sure there would be a lynching got on the train and went to see it,” The Staunton Record said.

James did not make it to Charlottesville. A mob of about 150 unmasked white men waited for James’ train at Wood’s Crossing in Albemarle County, just four miles outside of the city — a usual stop for the train.

A group of about 40 Black men who’d heard about the plan ran to help James, but they were “outnumbered and forced to retreat,” according to the historical marker now standing near the Albemarle County Courthouse.

As reported in the Progress, when the train stopped, members of the mob boarded, resisting Farish and Watt’s attempts to keep them out of the car. They then restrained the lawmen (who later claimed they could not see and therefore could not identify the men who bound them from behind). The mob dragged James off the train, threw a rope around his neck, and led him to a locust tree about 40 yards away, near the blacksmith shop.

“He was asked if he wished time to pray,” the Progress reported. “Before God, I am innocent,” James reportedly said. 

Then they hung him. The account is detailed by the Progress and re-published in other papers:

“The rope was thrown over a limb about three inches in circumference and that miserable wretch was drawn up. The limb jutted out from the tree at a sharp incline, so that the rope slid downwards toward the body of the tree, and when at rest the man’s body was almost touching the body of the tree. Under the tree was a bench, and his feet were only a few inches above it. As soon as he was elevated the crowd emptied their pistols into his body, probably forty shots entering it.”

The whole thing took just a few minutes. 

James’ train had already left. Another passenger train passed the crossing as the mob lynched James, “forced witnesses of a lynching,” the Progress wrote. 

The only person mentioned by name in any of the reports, other than the law enforcement officials and James, is Carl Hotopp, Julia Hotopp’s brother. The Progress reported that he “arrived about ten minutes after the hanging and emptied his pistol into the body.” 

James’ body hung dead from the tree for a couple of hours, and in that time, hundreds of people visited the scene, “many of them gathered relics of the occasion, taking some portion of his clothing, etc,” the Progress wrote. 

“When the mob dispersed they came away in any direction that suited them, some coming on to the city, others returning to their homes, all with a perfect indifference to any future investigation,” ended the Progress’ report.

The coroner’s jury issued its report the following day, saying James died either from the hanging or being shot, and that he “came to his death by the hands of persons unknown to the jury.”

J.H. Barcus, a Black man who worked for the coroner, removed James’ body from the tree and prepared him for burial. “I found thirty bullet holes in the body,” Barcus later said in the coroner’s inquisition.

James’ body was likely still hanging from the locust tree when the grand jury indicted him for Hotopp’s assault.

The jury heard of James’ death while in session. But they stated that they had reviewed the evidence and felt they had probable cause to issue an indictment on the charge of criminal assault upon Julia Hotopp.

It’s possible James wouldn’t have appeared before the jury, even if he had made it to the courthouse. The jury was sworn in when James was still on the train from Staunton, one hour before he was due to arrive. Micajah Woods, the commonwealth’s attorney at the time, “thought it unnecessary to introduce any other witnesses than the young lady and her sister, and the jury retired to their room to make their investigation,” according to the July 12 report in the Progress. (Woods served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War.)

Some reports make it seem like the officers wanted the law to take its course, that they didn’t tell the crowd who James was, that they pleaded with the mob to stop, to let the court decide whether James was guilty of assaulting Hotopp. Other reports, like one from the Waynesboro Herald, said that the rope was around James’ neck “in less than two seconds,” suggesting that the chief of police and the sheriff didn’t fight as hard as they said they did.

The conflicting reports don’t stop there. Though the Progress said that Hotopp could, and did, identify her assailant (as James), the Staunton Record’s report, as re-printed in the Progress, said otherwise:

“The information gleaned from the officers while they were in Staunton was to the effect that the lady had not recognized the prisoner as her assailant when he was brought before her, and that there was considerable doubt that he was the man,” the Record wrote.

Yet another paper, the Staunton News, said James admitted to the assault before the mob hung him, something other papers directly contradict. The Record also said that as the mob took over the train, “Woods [the commonwealth’s attorney] had said there would be no difficulty whatsoever to convict, as the evidence was conclusive.” Woods was not there, so it’s unclear how that message would have been relayed.

“This being so, the crowd thought there was no reason for the delay and they decided to lynch the prisoner,” the Record wrote. “The fact that there is no doubt of his guilt makes the people of Charlottesville heartily approve the lynching, as in this way the innocent is spared the terrible ordeal of being a prosecuting witness.”

In the days following James’ execution, the Progress published various letters to the editor that supported that very sentiment. One, taken from the Alexandria Gazette, said, “A negro was lynched near Charlottesville yesterday for the brutal crime of which such punishment is the prescriptive penalty in the South, and will continue to be, law or no law. The white men of Virginia will not, and never will, allow the negro outragers of their mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters the chance of escaping the law’s delays and quibbles, or subject their unfortunate victims to the mortification of a public trial.”

Letters published stating that James deserved a trial and scolding citizens for taking the law into their own hands were met with letters stating that it would be worse for Hotopp and other white women like her to have to re-tell their account to a jury, than for an accused Black man to be lynched.

Some papers asked questions. In its July 21, 1898 edition, the Staunton Spectator and Vindicator questioned why James’ law enforcement escorts “took the local train instead of the fast train to Charlottesville,” and why it “was not considered a material question before the coroner.”

The Richmond Planet, a weekly African American paper, covered James’ killing extensively in its July 16 edition. On its front page, it re-printed the Progress’ July 12 account almost word-for-word, with some small but significant changes.

The Progress used the headline, “He Paid the Awful Penalty: John Henry James Hanged by a Mob Today.” The Planet’s was, “They Lynched Him. A Colored Man Dealt With — Taken From Train. Died Protesting Innocence. A Brutal Murder — Mob Makes No Effort at Disguise.”

The Planet used the word “man” or “colored man” to refer to James, whereas the Progress had used “negro” or “the wretch.” It also had completely different titles for the different parts of the story. For instance, the Progress titled the section about the grand jury at Albemarle County Courthouse “A True Bill.” The Planet called it, “The Farce at Charlottesville.”

The Planet also omitted the Progress’ description of James, that he sold ice cream, was not a resident of Charlottesville but instead a “tramp” and that he had no family in the area.

The Planet condemned the lynching and blamed the authorities for James’ death. “The story of the brutal murder is revolting. We believe that the authorities were blamable. They knew that it was risky to bring this man unprotected to Charlottesville. James died protesting his innocence to the last. We do not believe that any effort will be made to punish the murderers. They boldly perpetrated the crime and virtually defied the commonwealth. There was no effort made to conceal their identity. The guilt or the innocence of James do not enter in the question,” The Planet wrote in an article titled “Another Virginia Lynching.”

The Planet didn’t stop its critique there. It also published “A Slight Comparison,” pointing out differences in how white and Black individuals are treated by the law.

A white mob lynched James, a Black man, for allegedly assaulting a white woman. Whereas “a white man who brutally assaulted a 12-year-old colored girl near Amelia C.H., Va., was given a brief time in the Virginia penitentiary, and during last month, upon the representations of his friends was pardoned.” Another white man who was found guilty of assaulting a child was “adjudged a lunatic” and sent to an asylum.

“If we are going into the hanging business, let us do it squarely and fairly,” the paper wrote.

James’ death by lynch mob was not unique, nor was it uncommon during this time. The Equal Justice Initiative has documented more than 4,400 racial terror lynchings in the United States during the time between Reconstruction (roughly 1863) and World War II (which ended in 1945).

And it wasn’t a secret. In its July 16, 1898 issue, the Planet published an article called, “The Reign of Lawlessness: Judge Lynch’s Bloody Work.” It listed the names of some of the people who were lynched, their race (mostly “colored,” but a few white), their charge (some have “none”), across the South from Jan. 5, 1897 to July 13, 1898, about a year and a half. “Total 202,” it reads.

This period was a turning point in Virginia history, Schmidt, the UVA professor and historian, said during Wednesday’s court proceedings, in which she presented evidence from the historical record, including many of the newspaper articles mentioned in this story.

The mob that killed John Henry James, the officers that allowed (or possibly incited) the mob to kill James, and the grand jury that issued a posthumous indictment of James, all violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, said Schmidt.

The Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868 as one of the “Reconstruction Amendments” after the Civil War, grants equal legal and civil rights to African Americans, including those who had been enslaved. “Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Virginia was readmitted to the Union in 1870, after it had ratified the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and adopted a new state constitution that received support from both Black and white citizens.

But by the time James was killed in 1898, white Virginians were tired of that constitution and the rights it afforded Black citizens, and pushed for another. They succeeded when, in 1902, Virginia adopted a new state constitution and began the rule of Jim Crow law — which legalized and enforced racial segregation — until 1970.

Writing in the Richmond Planet the week that James was killed, Planet Editor John Mitchell Jr. wrote that “the lynching of John Henry James will be far more damaging to the community than it will be to the alleged criminal. His troubles are o’er; those of the community have just begun.”

“We in this courtroom are that damaged community,” Schmidt said in her testimony Wednesday. More than 100 members of that community had filled both the courtroom and the upstairs jury room, together asking for “a modicum of justice” in the dismissal of the indictment brought against James.

The indictment is “a symbol of racial injustice,” said Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney Hingeley, who brought forth the motion to dismiss it.

Hingeley was inspired to do so after visiting the National Memorial for Peace and Justice — colloquially known as the lynching museum — at the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, in April.

It’s the same memorial depicted on math teacher Melvin Grady’s t-shirt.

One of the monuments in the memorial represents Albemarle County, and John Henry James is the only name on it.

Hingeley returned home wondering what he could do. He thought of the indictment against James that remained on the record.

The indictment is “a symbol of racial injustice,” Hingeley said. In court, he argued that it was invalid because it was issued after James’ death, and knowingly so — the grand jury was aware that James was dead before it issued the document. (A dead person cannot be charged with a crime.)

Hingeley also argued that Commonwealth’s Attorney Woods did not have enough evidence to seek an indictment against James, anyway. If James had indeed matched the description Julia Hotopp gave of her assailant, if his neck had been covered in deep fingernail scratches from Hotopp’s resistance, that would have been documented in the historical record along with all of the other details present, such as the circumference of the branch (“about three inches”) from which the mob hung James’ body. 

And, with conflicting reports of whether James confessed or maintained his innocence, there was “a great conflict as to what crime may or may not have been committed,” Hingeley said. One report said Hotopp fended him off. Another quoted Woods as calling it “the horrible crime of rape.”

“The evidence is what this prosecutor did not have,” Hingeley said.

At the end of his arguments, Hingeley made a few observations. One is that the court made no effort to bring the mob to justice. An official inquiry determined the crime was committed “by persons unknown.”

“And yet none of them masked,” Hingeley said.

Another is that the justice system was complicit in the lynching, “and the work the community was then engaged in, which was the work of white supremacy.”

When Judge Higgins dismissed the indictment — in a courtroom not far from the very spot where the grand jury chose to issue it — people broke out into quiet applause. Some wept, some hugged. 

“Just one of many,” said a woman in the courtroom.

Outside, Don Gathers, a faith leader and activist, said he was having “mixed emotions.”

He was glad that James had received “some level of retribution and justice,” but was “sad that we even have to be here for this. This is just a very small pebble in a large pond. We can’t lose sight of the fact that, while we won this particular battle, the fight continues. This was a physical lynching, but the torment that is placed on Blacks, Black males, throughout history can’t be ignored.” 

DeTeasa Brown Gathers held her husband’s hand as she said “rest in peace, John Henry James. And rest in peace to all that have been systemically lynched for the past 125 years, being wrongfully accused, being treated like this.” 

They stood not far from a marker, placed outside the courthouse in 2019, commemorating James’ death, installed in partnership with the Equal Justice Initiative’s Community Memory Project.

Schmidt touched on a similar point. She said that the ruling is a reminder of the “evergreen” importance of the Fourteenth Amendment. “It’s never too late to right a wrong,” she said, and “this is a particularly egregious case from 125 years ago that’s still relevant today.”

There are still disparities in legal treatment of white people versus people of color, particularly Black people. For instance, Black people represent about 13% of the U.S. population, but account for 27% of arrests, according to a 2021 report by The Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center. “Police are also more likely to use force and excessive force against people of color during police contact,” the report stated. Additionally, Black people are incarcerated at more than five times the rate of white people, the report said. At the end of 2019, Black Americans were incarcerated at five times the rate of white Americans.

“It’s a symbol of racial injustice,” Hingeley said of the indictment, and removing it from the record “is a small step.”

“We’re never going to be able to bring to justice the people who committed the lynching, or to restore John Henry James’ life that was so terribly taken from him,” he continued. “I don’t want to exaggerate and say that we’ve made a big step. But it’s a good step, and an important step. I hope that out of that will grow a sense of commitment and dedication to continuing the work of achieving racial justice here, because we have work to do.”

The post Lynching victim John Henry James receives ‘one little drop of justice’ 125 years after his death appeared first on Charlottesville Tomorrow.

There is about to be a major shift in the makeup of Charlottesville’s School Board.

Four of the board’s seven seats are up for election this fall, and three of the incumbent members have decided they will not run again. It’s unclear if the fourth incumbent member, Jennifer McKeever, will seek reelection. McKeever did not respond to Charlottesville Tomorrow’s request for comment, and as of Thursday she had not filed the necessary paperwork with the Voter Registration Office to run, said Joshua Jenkins, chief deputy registrar. She has until Tuesday to do so.

That means it’s possible the School Board will have four new faces this fall. While it’s not often that the board welcomes so many new members at one time, even with four open seats, it does happen. The last time the School Board had four new members was in 2005. 

But there is regular turnover on the board, said Jenkins. And, members tend to hold their positions for years. McKeever and exiting board member Sherry Kraft served for more than eight years, exiting member James Bryant served for five years and LaShundra Bryson Morsberger for four years.

This is Superintendent Royal Gurley’s first election cycle. He said the four seats up for election is not something he is particularly worried about. He looks forward to having new voices to offer input.

“It’ll be four new people coming on with four new ideas,” said Superintendent Royal Gurley. “I’m sure anyone whose running is qualified.”

But who those people will be is still a mystery. So far, only two people — Chris Meyer and Amanda Burns — have completed the necessary paperwork to run. Five additional people have started the process to become candidates, but had not completed it as of Thursday, said Jenkins.

Whomever takes the new board seats will be making a lot of important decisions in the coming years.

“It is a policy-making role, not a management one,” said Kraft. “It’s hard work but it’s worth it.” 

Just in the last two years, the Charlottesville School Board secured $90 million to rebuild Buford Middle School. It also rezoned the historically redlined and still predominantly Black neighborhood of Westhaven so that the students there will attend the nearby Trailblazer (formerly Venable) Elementary School rather than be bussed across town to Burnely-Moran. It was among the first in the state to approve a collective bargaining agreement with school workers and took over full ownership of the Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center.

Kraft said the board has also worked to fix inequities within the schools’ gifted program and improve mental health services for students.

The future School Board will immediately face more issues. There remains a major school bus driver shortage that has kept thousands of students from getting a bus to school. The board must also finalize some “foundational decisions” for how it will run CATEC by next summer. Standardized testing also remains an issue, with Charlottesville schools testing below the state average in some subjects, particularly its students of color.

Both Kraft and Morsberger emphasized the need for new members to tackle equity issues within the school system. Students of color and economically disadvantaged students in Charlottesville are less likely to enroll in Advanced Placement courses or be in the school’s gifted program, according to the two members. It’s a problem the School Board has been discussing for years. 

“We still have issues with achievement with students of color, there was more learning loss among disadvantaged students. We need to continue to work on that and bringing those kids farther along,” said Kraft. 

Kraft said she hopes the new board members will be “younger.” Four of the board’s seven members are over 50, two are over 70. Kraft, the board’s oldest member, is 75. 

The four-term member hopes having a younger makeup will challenge the rest of the board and the community, which could be beneficial, she said.

That said, new members should be prepared for the dedicated time commitment, but should not be afraid to only take on what they can, said Bryson Morsberger. And it can be difficult to balance, especially for people with full time employment or other responsibilities.

Bryson Morseberger, an human resources specialist with the National Park Service, limited her commitment by not joining school committees. Still, the two-three hours a week she spent on Board business became a lot to balance with working a separate full-time job and being a mother. During the earlier stages of the pandemic, board members were at meetings multiple times a week, said Bryson Morsberger, 

On top of the monthly meetings, School Board members are assigned to committees each year. Some members can be in one to seven committees, and the time commitment for those groups can range.

Within the last year, the School Board pivoted to aiding in student discipline assessments for kids looking at out-of-school suspensions or expulsions in addition to their other obligations. The meetings would last an hour or so, but the process still left some members burnt out. 

“There were times where we would do a discipline hearing and I would just go home and pass out,” said Bryson Morsberger. “It was taxing.”

She continued, “In the beginning of my term, I felt like I could balance it all, but after the pandemic, I’m feeling burnt out.”

So, she encourages new board members to only take on what they’re able to.

“Show up the way you can, even if it doesn’t fit perfectly,” said Bryson Morsberger.  

Kraft’s only concern is new board members may lack institutional knowledge, which would make deciding on long term issues more difficult, she said.

“There could be some people who don’t know the history of how we got to this point,” said Kraft

Board members serve a two-year term, which means three or more seats are up for election every two years. Board Members Lisa Larson-Torres, Dom Morse and Emily Dooley will remain on the board during the election. 

In order to run, prospective candidates must get 125 signatures from Charlottesville citizens. 

The deadline for candidate applications is June 20. Those interested in petitioning can visit the State Board of Elections website for more information. The Charlottesville registrar can be contacted at 434-970-3250 or vote [at] charlottesville.org.

Election day is Nov. 7.

The post Four of Charlottesville School Board’s seven seats may turn over this fall, bringing in entirely new leadership for the district appeared first on Charlottesville Tomorrow.

The Bedford County School Board voted Thursday to approve a policy preventing teachers from initiating discussions with students about sexual orientation or gender identity.

The policy, which was amended from a 2021 version, is the first of its kind in the state at the school board level, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia. It’s also an example of a growing national debate about what teachers can discuss in their classrooms.

The board voted 5-1 to approve the policy update, titled “teaching about controversial issues.” The new language says that teachers may respond to questions from students about sexual orientation or gender, but can’t start those conversations outside of approved curriculum. 

One example that was frequently referenced in discussions about the proposed change had to do with questions that students might have about a teacher’s personal life after seeing a family photo in the classroom.

Under the initial language of the policy update, a teacher would not be able to engage in that conversation at all. Though the board members who wrote the policy said the update applies to curriculum discussions only, others had expressed concerns that the language was too vague and didn’t support students and faculty who identify as LGBTQ+.

The language was amended before the vote to say that the teacher can respond to student questions but should avoid being forthcoming about their life outside the classroom. 

The policy was last revised in fall 2021; prior to that it was last updated in 2012. 

The most recent version said that in teaching about “controversial topics,” instructors were expected to “provide instruction in an atmosphere that is free from bias, prejudice, or coercion,” and to keep related instruction to a level that’s appropriate for the students in question. It did not dictate how or whether teachers could discuss sexual orientation or gender.

School board members Marcus Hill and Christopher Daniels, who sit on the board’s intergovernmental affairs committee with the superintendent, proposed the updated policy for review at the board’s April meeting. 

Minutes from the March 2023 committee meeting, where a review of the policy was first discussed, are not included in monthly minutes archived in a Bedford County Public Schools Google Drive folder.

In a heated discussion about the language of the proposed policy at the board’s May meeting, Daniels stressed that parents should be the first to respond to their children’s questions about sexual orientation or gender, not teachers or counselors.

On Thursday, school board member Susan Mele cast the only vote against the policy change. In discussion before the vote, she raised concerns that the policy language may make it difficult to fairly determine whether classroom discussions are “reasonable” or “controversial.”

The ACLU sent a letter to the school board on June 6 warning against approving the policy change.

“By using incredibly broad terms to define its prohibitions, this provision invites discriminatory enforcement,” the letter says. “Anyone who discusses or acknowledges any aspect of LGBTQ+ identity will fear running afoul of the policy, while the myriad of daily explicit and implicit discussions of heterosexuality or cisgender identity will be assumed to be the default and thus permissible under this policy.” 

Hill City Pride, a nonprofit supporting the LGBTQIA+ community in the greater Lynchburg area, also issued a letter ahead of the vote. “Due to its subjective nature and a lack of clear guidelines, teachers will have no definitive way of knowing which conversations will be perceived as appropriate,” it wrote. “This will breed an environment of fear for educators, students and all who identify as LGBTQIA+, which will result in their silence and isolation.” 

School board chair Susan Kirby said she didn’t comment on the policy when it was first discussed earlier in the spring. “I do know there are a lot of homes in this county in which the teacher is the only one that a student feels safe going to talk to,” she said.

She added, “On the same token, I believe teachers should maintain professionalism and keep their personal life at home as much as possible.”

Some in the audience applauded the move after a public comment session that included mixed reactions from community members.

Amy Snead, a parent who identified herself as a member of the parental rights group Moms for Liberty, said during public comment, “If an issue arises such as gender identity or sexual orientation, the parents should always be the first conversation about this, regardless of anything else.” Critics of Moms for Liberty say it promotes conspiracy theories that children are being sexualized in school.

In his remarks following the vote, Superintendent Marc Bergin said that Bedford County Public Schools does not tolerate discrimination against staff or students “with regard to any of their personal characteristics” and that “school is and must always remain a safe space for everyone.”

The revised policy resembles a law passed in Florida last year to prohibit discussion of sexual orientation and gender in classrooms. Opponents of the legislation have termed it the “Don’t Say Gay” law; it is officially called the Parental Rights in Education law.

Pro-LGBT group Equality Virginia has called the Bedford County approval the state’s first “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” rule and has said it could lead to further limitations on classroom discussion. 

Some Virginia school systems have considered similar rule changes that reflect policies Gov. Glenn Youngkin has proposed since taking office last year. 

Youngkin, who has promoted the role of parents in education, has called for additional policies that would prevent educators from addressing students by a pronoun that doesn’t correspond with their enrollment documents and would require transgender students to use restrooms that correspond with their biological sex. The Virginia Department of Education is still reviewing public comment in response to those proposed policies.

Bedford County Public Schools has complied with a 2022 state law that mandates school systems have policies to notify parents about any curricular material that could be viewed as sexually explicit.

In Orange County, north of Charlottesville, the school board has tabled a discussion on whether to implement a policy requiring schools to notify parents if a student “self-identifies” their gender.

The post Bedford County School Board approves policy limiting discussion of sexual orientation and gender appeared first on Cardinal News.

Meteorologists expect smoke from Canadian wildfires to remain over central Virginia until this weekend.

That means air quality will remain poor in Charlottesville and surrounding counties until around Saturday, and people should try and avoid exerting themselves outside, especially those with heart and lung issues.

The National Weather Service has issued a “code red air quality alert” for this area beginning Tuesday. That means, the air quality could become so poor that it could be dangerous for even healthy people to be physically active outside.

The air quality was not quite that bad in Albemarle County as of 10 a.m. Wednesday. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality measured the amount of fine particulate matter in the air to be at a moderate level, which is most dangerous to “unusually sensitive individuals” with heart or lung disease or older adults.

“That is currently moderate, but it’s a high moderate,” said Dan Salkovitz, a VDEQ meteorologist.

And that could change at any time, he added. If the amount of fine particulate matter in Albemarle County increases just a bit, more groups of people become at risk for health issues — including children.

The issue is wind direction. Well, and wildfires.

As of Tuesday there were 240 wildfires deemed “out of control” by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. Many are directly north of this area in the Québec province, and many have been burning for days.

As those fires burn, the smoke that billows from them contains the fine particle matter that the DEQ measures to determine weather quality.

Right now, there is an area of low atmospheric pressure just over New England, and the wind surrounding that area of low pressure is rotating counterclockwise, said Kevin Rodriguez, the lead forecaster with the National Weather Service in the Baltimore/Washington office. That circulation is perfect for grabbing up smoke and fine particles from those massive wildfires raging in eastern Canada and slinging it south over the mid Atlantic and into Virginia.

“We’re going to be in this pattern for at least the next two or three days,” Rodriguez said. “And then another weather system will come in over the weekend. They might get some showers out of that Friday, but the main thing is it’s going to change the wind direction so it will come from the west. And we’ll finally get some cleaner air that’s not coming from Canada.”

When that happens, the smoke from the fires will be pushed out over the Atlantic Ocean, he added.

In the meantime, folks in central Virginia can keep track of the air quality at this link. The site will take you to a map of Virginia. Click on the box over Charlottesville. That box will show the measured air quality at Albemarle High School, the only station in this region that measures air quality.

The changing weather patterns this weekend will give this area a welcome reprieve from smoke, Salkovitz said. But it’s impossible to know how long it will last. As long as the wildfires continue burning in Canada, Virginia’s air quality will be at the mercy of the winds.

The New York Times has created a map tracking the smoke from Canada’s wildfires.

To learn more about the possible health concerns from breathing smoke, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a fact sheet that includes information about how to keep smoke and fine particles out of your home.

The post Meteorologists expect smoke from Canada to remain over central Virginia until the weekend appeared first on Charlottesville Tomorrow.

With President Joe Biden’s signature fresh on legislation that would expedite the completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, pipeline officials aim to have it up and running by year’s end, while the project’s opponents are considering their options.

The Fiscal Responsibility Act, which Biden signed Saturday, suspends the U.S. debt ceiling for nearly two years. It also includes a provision specific to the Mountain Valley Pipeline: It authorizes all remaining permits and other approvals necessary for the natural gas pipeline’s construction and operation, and it shields the project from further legal challenges by removing the jurisdiction of courts to review such approvals.

Initially planned for completion in 2018, construction on the 303-mile pipeline through Virginia and West Virginia has effectively been halted since 2021 by federal and state permitting delays and by legal battles brought by landowners, environmentalists and others who have challenged the pipeline’s acquisition of private property through eminent domain and its impact on forests, streams, wetlands and endangered species, among other legal grounds.

“The MVP project has gone through more environmental review and scrutiny than any natural gas pipeline project in U.S. history, having been issued the same state and federal authorizations two and three times, only to have those authorizations be routinely challenged and vacated in court,” Thomas Karam, chairman and CEO of Equitrans Midstream, the pipeline’s operator, said in a news release after Biden signed the bill.

The $6.6 billion, 42-inch pipeline is set to start in northwestern West Virginia and proceed into Virginia, where it will pass through Giles, Craig, Montgomery, Roanoke and Franklin counties before connecting to a compressor station in Pittsylvania County. Pipeline officials say the project is more than 90% complete, though opponents dispute that claim.

Pipeline supporters say the project is an important source of secure, domestic, lower-carbon energy that meets a demand for natural gas. U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, who was the primary driver of the pipeline provision’s inclusion in the debt-limit deal, called it a “critical energy security project” and said it “opens up markets for our natural resources, giving us untold new revenue sources and developing industries that our grandchildren and future generations will benefit from.”

Opponents say the project is unnecessary and harmful to the environment, both in terms of future greenhouse-gas emissions and the impact of its construction — and some say they aren’t ready to give up the fight.

“Even if some of these permits are issued and initially shielded from judicial review, that’s not necessarily the end of the line,” said Jason Rylander, senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, which advocates for species protection and other environmental causes. “The pipeline still has to cross some of the most difficult terrain along the route, through the Jefferson National Forest and other areas, and there will be opportunities to hold them accountable for the damage they are continuing to do.”

Beyond watching the pipeline’s progress to see what comes next, it’s unclear what specific further options might be available to pipeline opponents.

After Thursday’s Senate vote, the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights — or POWHR — coalition released a statement from Denali Nalamalapu, its communications director, saying, “Our global movement to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline is stronger than ever.

“While we are outraged and devastated in this unprecedented moment, we will never stop fighting this unfinished, unnecessary, and unwanted project. Our hearts are broken but our bonds are strong,” the statement said.

Asked about specific next steps, Nalamalapu replied in an email: “We don’t have clear answers at the moment but we likely will in the coming days/weeks.

“Right now we are focusing on mobilizing in front of the White House on June 8th to respond to this unprecedented decision and hold Biden accountable to his broken climate promises,” Nalamalapu wrote, referring to a protest, sponsored by People vs. Fossil Fuels, scheduled in front of the White House from 2 to 4 p.m. Thursday.

Tom Cormons, executive director of the grassroots environmental protection group Appalachian Voices, said in a statement that “the fight is not over.”

“Defeating this unnecessary and ill-conceived project that has already degraded water quality across two states and would contribute significantly to the climate crisis if it is completed and brought into service is a top priority,” Cormons said.

Preserve Bent Mountain, which is a local chapter of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League and part of the POWHR coalition, released a statement saying, “It is not yet clear whether the stench of the MVP/debt limit deal will surpass legal scrutiny.”

“While repulsed at this Dirty Deal, we will go forward — as we have since the inception of this destructive boondoggle, with all regulatory and legal challenges available. We will not be governed by the gas industry,” the group said in a statement sent by member Roberta Bondurant, a Roanoke County resident.

One possible path forward for opponents could be contesting the pipeline provision itself.

“Clearly the bill, or what will soon be the law, forecloses most court actions on the pipeline. But the one thing that is left is a possible challenge to the law itself, presumably on constitutional grounds,” said David Sligh, conservation director of Wild Virginia, an environmental advocacy nonprofit. 

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, suggested the same during a conference call with reporters last week ahead of the Senate’s vote on the bill. Senators also voted 30-69 to defeat an amendment brought by Kaine that would have removed the Mountain Valley Pipeline provision from the debt-limit legislation. 

“I would think that frankly the only option under this bill is not to challenge any aspect of the pipeline but to challenge, did Congress have the legal ability to do what it just did?” Kaine said. “That would be the only remaining challenge.

“Now of course at the end of the day, once the pipeline’s underway, there may be provisions where people can say, ‘Wait a minute, you didn’t do the restoration on my land right,’” Kaine said. “We haven’t eliminated that down the road, if the pipeline violates state laws, because in both West Virginia and Virginia the construction of the pipeline has violated water quality standards and state agencies have been able to challenge them. They still have to comply with state laws.”

Kaine noted that the authors of the Mountain Valley Pipeline provision appear to have anticipated a potential legal challenge against the provision itself: The bill specifies that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit “shall have original and exclusive jurisdiction over any claim alleging the invalidity of this section or that an action is beyond the scope of authority conferred by this section.”

Sligh, of Wild Virginia, said environmental advocates will continue monitoring Mountain Valley Pipeline’s work on the ground, ensuring that any citizen complaints are funneled to the appropriate governmental agencies and following up to verify that regulatory rules are enforced.

“I have looked at thousands — thousands — of the inspection reports that the state of Virginia has done … and they have done a pretty good job of being out there and documenting some of the problems, a lot of the problems. But Virginia has not done what it needs to do to stop them once it finds them,” he said.

Beyond that monitoring work, Sligh said, “I think everybody is quickly trying to assess what else is possible.”

The post With path cleared for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, opponents weigh next steps appeared first on Cardinal News.

In 2016, 336 violent crimes were reported in Danville.

That year saw 17 homicides, 76 robberies, 211 aggravated assaults. 

The city of 40,000 had the highest homicide rate per capita in the state that year. Property crimes, too, had reached a concerning level: 1,537 cases in that year alone. 

But since then, the city has seen a drastic reduction in crime across the board. 

A primary reason, according to local leaders: heightened collaboration among the city, the community and the police.

A new policing model has been implemented. Programming has been created for at-risk youth. The city has partnered with other localities and organizations to benefit from their expertise.

“Collaboration is the new currency,” said Robert David, the city’s youth and gang violence prevention coordinator. 

“A lot of the success has to do with agencies working together. City council, law enforcement, community collaboration. And if you don’t work with the individuals living in the communities, you have no influence.”

A new policing model, and an apology

By 2018, crime in Danville hadn’t improved much. But that was part of the reason Scott Booth was attracted to the city. He wanted to work somewhere that provided a challenge, he said.  

Booth became police chief that year, after a brief stint with the federal government and almost 20 years with the Richmond Police Department before that. Since coming to Danville, he has been working with city government and community members to lower the crime rate. 

“[In 2018], Danville and the police department had no community policing model,” Booth said. “There were some things that we really needed to do. One of those was build a robust community policing model, and the other was focus on crime.”

A community policing model is a set of strategies to address conditions that lead to crime through partnership and problem-solving, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Danville has seen a 52% average annual reduction in violent crime since the policing model was implemented, according to data from the police department. From 2021 to 2022 alone, violent crime decreased by 21%. 

In 2022, the city saw the lowest number of reported burglaries since data tracking began in 1985, with 76 total. It was the fourth year in a row that a new low had been set. 

Homicides also decreased — to seven in 2022, down from 17 in 2016, a number that was “astronomical,” according to David Kennedy, a professor of criminal justice at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

“That’s a higher rate than Chicago, which is not unheard of for smaller jurisdictions,” Kennedy said. “They don’t get the attention that Chicago does, but on a per-capita basis, you can find relatively small places that have shockingly high homicide rates.” 

Not only has the crime rate itself decreased in Danville, but the case clearance rate has increased. Cleared crimes are those that have been solved, or “cleared,” by arrests. 

Of the 260 burglaries in 2016, only 38 were cleared. In 2022, 56 out of 76 burglaries were cleared. 

In fact, the Danville police department has exceeded the FBI’s national clearance averages since the policing model’s implementation in 2019. 

About 71% of homicides in Danville were cleared between 2019 and 2022, which is 17 percentage points higher than the FBI’s national clearance rate of about 54%. 

This drastic reduction in crime wasn’t achieved by simply increasing police activity, Booth said. 

“I truly believe that you can’t arrest a problem away when it comes to crime,” Booth said. “I don’t believe in over-policing neighborhoods. I don’t believe in just throwing officers out into entire neighborhoods and stopping everything that moves.”

Booth called that an “old way” of policing, saying that he believes in being more strategic. 

The police department began to home in on violent offenders, Booth said, adding that a small percentage of people usually commit the majority of violent acts in any given community. 

So the department focused on chronic violent offenders who had already been identified, as well as places in the city that were producing the highest numbers of criminal instances. 

To do this, the Danville Police Department partnered with the U.S. attorney’s office in Charlottesville in 2018 to begin implementing a program called Project Safe Neighborhoods.  

The goal was to identify violent offenders using data to create a comprehensive database of the most criminally active and violent people in Danville, said Maj. David Whitley, the department’s assistant chief of services. 

The data came from criminal investigations, charges, street gang participation, violent crime convictions and other legally sourced information, he said. 

“Each element was used in an objective scoring system to identify the most violent and active individuals committing crimes of violence,” Whitley said. 

Once these people and places were identified, the police department and city government could address “systemic and societal challenges” that lead to crime in these areas, like “poverty, lack of resources, and family structure or lack thereof,” Whitley said. 

At the same time, the department made an increased effort to build rapport and trust with the community, said Matt Bell, the police department’s public relations specialist. 

Rebuilding the relationship was critical, Booth said.

Many residents harbored resentment for and distrust of the police, feelings that sometimes went back decades, to Bloody Monday, a series of attacks and arrests by Danville police in June 1963, during a civil rights protest. 

Police attacked nonviolent protesters with clubs and fire hoses, injuring 47 and arresting 60, according to a historic marker outside the Danville courthouse.  

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the U.S. Department of Justice and national media outlets condemned the actions of the police and court system in Danville. 

“That was a community trauma,” Booth said. “I’ve worked in larger cities, and I never could remember one incident really having a hold on a city like Bloody Monday did in Danville.”

While researching the event, Booth said he found that it was “a real deterrent” to rebuilding a relationship between the community and the police department. It was the reason many residents thought crime would never improve, he said. 

This is textbook, said Kennedy. 

“Homicide and gun violence are an American problem, and almost the overwhelming preponderance of that violence is felt by and occurs in historically damaged communities of color,” he said. 

And a good relationship between a community and its police department is absolutely critical in remedying this, Kennedy said.

If the relationship is solid, then “when people are contemplating violence, they should understand that their own community rejects it, that they don’t want it to happen,” he said. “Then it’s not just the police saying it shouldn’t happen, but the community itself saying it shouldn’t happen. That’s way more powerful.”

And if there is a crime, the good relationship between the community and law enforcement can address that. 

“There’s a community expectation that there will be accountability if violence occurs,” Kennedy said. 

A step toward this good relationship is acknowledgement of any historical division, he said; other police outreach efforts will seem superficial without it. 

“If you have historical division between the community and the police that goes back to police violence against community members in the civil rights struggle, and everybody knows it, and nobody’s ever acknowledged it or done anything about it, then sending police officers to talk to kids in schools or having community meetings or having barbecues or having basketball leagues or something like that, not only is that a shallow perspective, it’s insulting,” Kennedy said.

“Because it is the authority saying to the community, ‘We’re going to pretend that this never happened and we expect you to like us and work with us anyway.’”

In 2019, the Danville Police Department offered a public apology for police actions during the summer of 1963. 

“I think for the community, it did speak that we’re willing to take steps in the right direction,” Booth said. 

City programming for at-risk youth

Another effort to decrease crime was increased collaboration between the police department and the city government.

Local officials and law enforcement had a common goal of reducing crime, so working together was in everyone’s best interest, said David, the city’s youth and gang violence prevention coordinator. 

David has been doing this kind of work for the better part of four decades, he said, starting when he volunteered at an alternative school in California. In 2017, when Danville was in the throes of high crime, the city created his position. 

He runs a program called Project Imagine, which is targeted toward at-risk and gang-affiliated youth. 

When the program first started in 2018, it involved a nine-week work readiness program to provide paid work experience and mentoring. Now, it’s more focused on life skills and support. 

It takes a holistic approach, he said, and helps not only the youth but their families.

There’s a big focus on increasing stability in the lives of the young people they work with, David said, because lack of stability is often the impetus for an individual’s involvement with crime. 

“If you’re 16 years old and you have a child, and that child is hungry, and you live with a parent and don’t have your basic needs, it’s hard to go to school,” he said. “But if we can create a level of stability in a youth’s life, they can move forward. That seemingly has nothing to do with gang violence or crime, but it does.” 

Project Imagine works with local organizations and businesses to create job opportunities. But it also can help with problems at home, like getting a new refrigerator or fixing a broken air conditioner. 

“We work with every aspect of the family, the girlfriends, the baby mamas, everybody,” David said. 

Since it began, Project Imagine has graduated about 100 people.

An outreach worker continues to mentor each graduate for at least a year. And again, collaboration and partnership with the police department plays a role. 

Sometimes instead of charging a young person, David said, police will refer them to Project Imagine. 

He got emotional talking about the graduation ceremony at the end of each Project Imagine course. 

“I cry almost every graduation, no lie,” he said. “I get teary-eyed because, like I tell them, you really didn’t have to be here. And I thank them for their time, I thank their parents for allowing them to be there. We applaud them for making that decision to change their lives.”

David said the work amplifies local voices that otherwise might go unnoticed.

“There was a population of people whose voices weren’t being heard,” he said. “All I did was turn on the mic.”

Project Imagine didn’t get formal funding until 2020. Before that, David said he tapped into community resources. There was some existing money in the city for youth jobs, he said, and he also built relationships with local business owners. 

In 2020, Project Imagine got a grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, part of the U.S. Department of Justice, and David used it to hire outreach workers. 

The police department, too, has created programming to engage youth and community members. One event series in particular, called Pass the Perspective, invites kids to get an inside look at police work. 

The new police department building, which opened last year, is a good place to hold events and community meetings, Booth said. Outreach has played an important role in bolstering trust in the police department. 

“We started engaging the community with community walks, we built programs like our youth police academy and Pass the Perspective,” Booth said. “Anything that we can do to open our doors and let the community in.”

The police department also began to put community members on its interview panels for police hires and promotions, as well as on a review board for use-of-force cases, Booth said. 

Targeting gangs by empowering communities

Between 2016 and 2018, the majority of Danville’s 484 aggravated assaults and 41 homicides had direct ties to street gangs, Whitley said.

“In almost every community, gang participation is an issue due to systemic and societal challenges such as poverty, lack of resources and family structure, or lack thereof,” he said. “Danville has these challenges.”

Around 2017, Danville began implementing a comprehensive gang model, a program with some of the same strategies and goals as Project Safe Neighborhoods. 

Once criminally active individuals and places are identified through Project Safe Neighborhoods methods, a community can use its comprehensive gang model to reduce or prevent youth gang violence. 

It takes a multifaceted approach to address these issues, Whitley said. 

“Criminal street gang activity still exists, but we have become much better at addressing the issues before violence occurs and stemming further violence after an incident has occurred,” he said.

The model that Danville employed was developed by social researcher Irving Spergel and tested by the DOJ’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, which now houses the National Gang Center. 

The model has several components, said Sean Baldwin, a senior research associate at the Institute for Intergovernmental Research, which contracts with the National Gang Center.

It focuses on empowering communities that are plagued by violence and providing opportunities for their youth. It seeks to move youth away from gang violence — and to provide close supervision of at-risk kids.

And it requires organizational change, he said.

“We’ve found, with this model being developed over decades, that a lot of times it’s not enough to have a great program,” he said. “You’ve got to have a program that’s accessible and that is delivered with equity so that the people that need it most can get it.”

Collaboration and a sustained effort

In 2020 and 2021, 100% of homicides were cleared by the Danville Police Department. And between 2018 and 2022, seven previous cold cases were solved. 

Between 2016 and 2018, before Danville implemented its new policing model, the city saw 41 homicides, with an average of about 13 per year. From 2019 to 2022, after the model was launched, there were 20 homicides, or an average of about six per year. 

Baldwin has worked with both Booth and David in Danville’s implementation of the comprehensive gang model, and he said he thinks the city “has got a good hold on the problem.” 

Danville has taken a long-term approach to many initiatives, specifically economic development and revitalization. And a long-term strategy is a game-changer when it comes to crime, too, Baldwin said. 

“These types of strategies fail when they’re not sustained over time,” he said. “A community might have some early success until other priorities come up.” 

Plus, many of the problems that Danville has been working to solve are intertwined. When there’s success in one area, it can help bring about success in another. 

Education and poverty influence a city’s crime rate, for example, Baldwin said.

“Some of the risk factors for youth joining gangs include poverty, kids growing up in neighborhoods that have high rates of violence, and academic performance. Even how a child is doing in school can affect that,” he said. “So, anything that a community can do to improve economic and educational conditions for their residents … can reduce or eliminate those risk factors.” 

Baldwin said he’s been to Danville several times, and he was a police chief in a community that had similar economic hardships. 

“It is impressive, the sort of holistic approach that Danville seems to be taking to address not only the violence, but those things that may be leading, either directly or indirectly, to the risk factors,” he said. 

One overarching thing that Danville has done well is focus on collaboration, Baldwin said. The communities that see the most success with crime reduction are those that focus on partnerships, he said. 

“Regardless of how perfect or imperfect a model may be in implementation, we find that the most success comes from those partnerships,” he said. “It would be difficult for me to point out another community where the relationship between the police chief and the director of intervention and prevention is so strong.”

In 2020, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the deaths of other Black Americans at police hands, Booth and David collaborated to write a book expressing their two distinct perspectives with a central message. 

“Bigger than Black and Blue: Candid conversations about race, equity, and community collaboration” was released in December 2020 and can be found on Amazon. 

Both Booth and David have been recognized for their efforts to reduce crime. 

In February, David was named among the Top 100 Influencers in Local Government by a nonprofit called Engaging Local Government Leaders. And in April 2022, Booth received the Excellence in Virginia Award for Innovation in Government from Virginia Commonwealth University’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs.  

But both say there’s still work to be done to further decrease crime. 

“Everything that we’ve done, we’re going to keep doing,” Booth said. “We don’t let up on anything.”

The change since 2018 is something that Booth said he’s very proud of. And Baldwin said that Danville can be a model to other communities that are also looking to lower crime. 

“This really is an incredible story of success for Danville,” Baldwin said. 

The post How Danville has drastically reduced its crime rate since 2016  appeared first on Cardinal News.