February 4, 2025: Charlottesville City Council briefed on effort to stop young people from committing violent crime
Plus: The Virginia House of Delegates narrowly adopts several bills related to firearms
Humanity has a tendency to be in conflict and throughout history there are examples of war. There are also examples of peace and the tapestry of anthropology we’ve weaved together contains patches of both. We’ve now arrived on February 4, 2025, a time of great uncertainty in the United States of America. What will this now look like in the future?
Today is also the 236th anniversary of George Washington being elected as President of the United States by the Electoral College. This is also the 224th anniversary of John Marshall being sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States. What can we learn about that part of the tapestry, and would it make a difference? This is Charlottesville Community Engagement and I’m Sean Tubbs.
In today’s installment:
Charlottesville City Council is briefed on how Project Safe Neighborhoods intends to decrease violent crime
Bankruptcies are on the rise in the United States
Dominion Energy announces a nearly $1 billion cost increase for its Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project
A look at several bills in the House of Delegates that were “engrossed” as of Tuesday morning
First-shout: Rivanna River Restoration Project underway at Riverview Park
In today’s first Patreon-fueled public service announcement: The Rivanna Conservation Alliance is leading a public-private partnership to help restore the health of the Rivanna River at Charlottesville’s Riverview Park.
This comprehensive initiative aims to restore critical sections of riverbank, enhance water quality and native habitat, repair a severely eroding stormwater outfall, and provide more opportunities for the community to safely access the river in one of the Charlottesville area’s most cherished natural recreational areas. The work is being done in conjunction with the City of Charlottesville and local design firms Ecosystem Services and Wolf Josey Landscape Architects.
To follow the progress of the project, visit the RCA’s website at rivannariver.org.
Charlottesville City Council briefed on Project Safe Neighborhoods
The Charlottesville Police Department has not yet released its annual report for 2024, but Police Chief Michael Kochis told City Council on February 3 that violent crime was down last year after increases in 2021 and 2022.
“Last year, we had a 10 percent decrease in part one crime, which are the most serious crimes,” Kochis said. “Homicides are down 76 percent last year. And so the numbers are good, right, but they're not zero. We just had a young man killed the other night.”
Kochis was on hand to tell Council about Project Safe Neighborhoods, a federal initiative that comes out of the University of Virginia President’s Council on Community Partnerships. There was a recent press conference and focus group on the progress of the project and Kochis told Council the initiative brings both a framework and resources.
“It gives us resources at the federal level that we don't have at the state level,” Kochis said. “I'm hoping we don't have to use any of those resources.”
One of the specific mechanisms in Project Safe Neighborhoods is to offer “call-in” meetings where people who may otherwise end up committing violent crime are brought-in to discuss what community support they may need. None have happened yet.
“It's taken a while to make sure that we had the capacity,” Kochis said. “Thing we didn't want to do is call someone in and they say, hey, what do you need? And they say hey, I need job training, I need this, I need that. Oh, and we don't have it, you know, so we wanted to make sure that we had the capacity to actually do what we say we were going to do.”
Councilor Lloyd Snook said Council has been dealing with this issue for a number of years and had had many presentations. He said that included discussions on youth violence.
“It was particularly distressing back then that there seemed to be a lot of young people who every time they had some sort of a beef, they wound up going and finding a gun and shooting wildly all over the place, and occasionally they actually hit somebody,” Snook said.
Snook said that lead to funding of groups like the BUCK Squad, who now go by the name Central Virginia Violence Interrupters, to try to stop violence.
Chief Kochis said many of those disputes are settled with gunfire because firearms are plentiful. He said the issue is complicated because it derives from poverty.
“From where I stand as the police chief, my concern is these young individuals, their access to firearms and using them to just settle what would just be a petty beef that now linger online for a very long time,” Kochis said. “And that's what we continue to see. We have not seen many shootings or violent crime associated with the drug distribution.”
You may recall that Charlottesville High School was briefly closed in November 2023 because of violence. If not, go back and read this story. When Snook asked Kochis if he had any information on whether that was still an issue, the chief said he did not have that data on hand.
“I could probably get some of that, but I think we're in a better place today than we were this time last year when it comes to schools. I feel safe saying that.
Misty Graves, Charlottesville’s Human Services Director, said there have been new initiatives.
“We have a couple new initiatives going into the schools to work on pro social skills, confidence building, self esteem, conflict resolution, identity,” Graves said. “These are gender based groups so there's a girls’ circle and a boys’ council. And so youth that are in Walker and Buford be able to engage in that.”
Councilor Natalie Oschrin wanted to know more about about how the call-in meetings work. Chief Kochis said that individuals who might be asked to call-in are scored on a matrix that factors in criminal history and other activities
“If you were involved in a gun violence incident or were caught with a firearm, you know, stuff like that,” Chief Kochis said. “And then once that score comes up, we developed a list and say we're going to take the top.”
Graves said the number of individuals is around 20 at the moment. The idea will be to work with community partners and parole officers to facilitate meetings to ask what they need for support. Two facilitators have been selected but so far there have been no meetings.
Mayor Juandiego Wade asked if there was any possibility federal involvement would be curtailed given the Trump administration’s campaign to take control of all federal funding.
“The folks who we work with at the U.S. attorney's office we've been working with for years through multiple administrations,” said Chief Kochis. “It's the same line level career prosecutors that know this community who live in this community who you all know and so I don't suspect any of that's going to change and I'll do everything in my power to make sure it doesn't.”
When the city is ready to post its annual report, you’ll be able to get that in this newsletter or on Information Charlottesville. Here are similar reports:
UVA Public Safety report published, October 6, 2022
Charlottesville Police Department releases annual report for 2023, May 22, 2024
Albemarle Police report: Homicides increases in 2023, but property crime slightly down, March 29, 2024
Dominion announces cost increase for offshore wind project
One of the Commonwealth’s largest energy providers has announced several changes to a project to generate 2.6 gigawatts of energy through wind turbines installed in the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast.
“Estimated total project costs, inclusive of contingency and excluding financing costs, have increased [around] nine percent, from $9.8 billion to $10.7 billion,” reads an information release sent out on February 3 by Dominion Energy.
The release also states the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project is fifty percent complete and is expected to be completed at the end of 2026. In all there will be 176 wind turbines and three 4,300-ton off shore substations. Each turbine can generate 14.7 megawatts, which a FAQ states can general power for up to 660,000 homes.
The turbines will be located in an area that that begins about 27 miles off shore.
The first of those substations has been delivered alongside other fabricated components such as monopiles, undersea cables, and transition pieces. A wind turbine installation vessel called the Charybdis is undergoing sea trials in Brownsville, Texas.
The release explains one reason for the increase is due to the need to upgrade the network that regional electric grid operator PJM to accept the energy.
“Higher network upgrade cost estimates by PJM reflect the significant increase in demand growth that require incremental generation and transmission resources across the system,” the release continues.
These upgrades are not expected to impact the project timeline. To learn more about the project visit the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind website.
Bankruptcies up sharply in the United States in 2024
The number of business and personal bankruptcies in the United States of America increased by 14.2 percent in 2024 according to data presented by the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts.
There were 23,107 business bankruptcies in 2024 compared to 18,926 in 2023. The number of non-business bankruptcies increased from 434,064 in 2023 to 494,201 in 2024. When you add them together, there is a total of 517,308 bankruptcies in 2024, up from 452,990 in 2023.
“For more than a decade, total filings fell steadily, from a high of nearly 1.6 million in September 2010 to a low of 380,634 in June 2022,” reads an information release sent out this morning. “Total filings have increased each quarter since then, but they remain far lower than historical highs.”
Each of these filings listed in the announcement are in one of four categories.
According to U.S. Courts, Chapter 7 allows for a debtor’s property to be sold to be liquidated to pay back creditors
Chapter 11 allows for a reorganization of a corporation or partnership to allow a business to stay alive so creditors can be paid back over time
Chapter 12 is for family farms or a “family fisherman” as defined in the Bankruptcy Code
Chapter 13 is to allow for the adjustment of debts by an individual with regular income
In the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission, there were a total of 302 bankruptcies in 2024 with 173 of them Chapter 7 and 127 of them Chapter 13.
Second-shout out: ACHS discussion with Tim Heaphy
On January 16, 2025, the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society held its annual meeting and invited an area resident to deliver an important talk. That’s not available for you to view, as you can see below:
Tim Heaphy was the lead investigator into both the violence in Charlottesville in 2017 and at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. In his new book, Harbingers, Heaphy shares what he saw and came to understand about what those events say about the state of American democracy.
Harbingers examines how and why they took place with the hope that understanding the contexts of these tragedies will be a crucial and helpful step toward avoiding similar episodes in the years ahead. Ian Solomon, Dean of the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, interview Heaphy about what he learned from these two historic investigations.
Crossover Day has arrived at the Virginia General Assembly
February 4, 2025 marks Crossover Day in the Virginia General Assembly. In order to continue to be considered, legislation must have passed in one chamber before moving on to the other. That will mean a lot of action today.
This particular segment will take a look at bills that are “engrossed” which has an entry in the Legislative Information System’s glossary.
“A stage in the legislative process when a bill passes the second reading in the house of origin. If amended, the engrossed version of the legislation is printed incorporating all amendments that are agreed to. If not amended, the introduced version of the legislation becomes the engrossed bill, and if an amendment in the nature of a substitute is agreed to, the substitute becomes the engrossed bill.”
I finished basic research on this at 11 a.m. and posted the article to Information Charlottesville. Newsletter readers get updates
Firearms and public safety:
HB1583 from Delegate Jason Ballard (R-42) would make it a Class 5 felony to threaten of violence against infrastructure or buildings. This one also made it through committee on a unanimous vote. Passed House (99-Y 0-N 0-A)
HB1597 from Delegate Feggans would make it a Class 4 misdemeanor for someone to daily to securely store a firearm to keep it away from minors or someone prohibited by law from owning one. This made it out of the Public Safety Committee on a 12 to 9 vote. Read third time and passed House (50-Y 48-N 0-A)
Another firearms related bill is HB1607 from Delegate Dan Helmer (D-10) which would make it a class 1 misdemeanor to sell, manufacture, or import assault firearms, as well as the sale of “large capacity ammunition feeding devices.” This also was reported out on a 12 to 9 vote. Passed House (50-Y 48-N 0-A)
HB1660 from Delegate Michael Jones (D-77) would a “trigger activator” as “a conversion kit, tool, accessory, or device designed to alter the rate of fire of a semi-automatic firearm to mimic automatic weapon fire or used to increase the rate of fire to a rate faster than that possible for a person to fire such semi-automatic firearm unassisted.” This also made it out of the House Public Safety Committee on a 12 to 9 vote. Read third time and passed House (51-Y 48-N 0-A)
HB1586 from Delegate R. Lee Ware (R-72) would provide compensation for a specific individual who was wrongfully included on the sex offender registry. This made it out of the Appropriations Committee on a 20-1 vote. Read third time and passed House (97-Y 0-N 0-A)
HB1589 from Delegate Wren Williams (R-47) would increase the number of people on the Parole Board from five to ten members. This was reported out of the House Committee on Public Safety on a 14 to 8 vote. Read third time and passed House (61-Y 38-N 0-A)
HB1549 from Delegate Chad Green (R-69) would clarify language about the illegality of knowingly allowing a minor to operate a motor vehicle on public roads. This was reported out of committee with a unanimous vote though two Delegates did not vote. Read third time and passed House (95-Y 4-N 0-A)
HB1595 from Delegate Michael Feggans (D-97) would make changes to the eligibility criteria for the Virginia National Guard State Tuition Assistance Program. This also made it out of the House Appropriations committee on a unanimous vote. Passed House (99-Y 0-N 0-A)
HB1712 from Delegate Vivian Watts (D-14) is related to emergency custody orders and temporary detention orders. Among other things, the bill would require the Department of Criminal Justice Services and the Office of the Attorney General to provide training to all law-enforcement officers on the law regarding arrest of individuals who are under such orders. This was reported out of the House Appropriations Committee on a 14 to 8 vote. Passed House (99-Y 0-N 0-A)
HB1715 from Watts would make it a Class 6 felony for anyone who steals mail. This was reported out of the Courts of Justice Committee on a unanimous vote. Passed House (99-Y 0-N 0-A)
HB1736 from Delegate Marcia Price (D-85) would create the Virginia Center for Firearm Violence Intervention and Preventions in the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services. This was reported out of the House Appropriations Committee on 13 to 8 vote. Read third time and passed House (54-Y 45-N 0-A)
Voting:
HB1657 from Delegate Rozia Henson (D-19) would require the Department of Elections to have a 90 day “quiet period” before state elections where voter rolls are not to be adjusted in a systemic way, while allowing names to be removed if there is an individual case. Current law only applies to federal elections. Last year, the Youngkin administration instituted a systemic program that was declared unlawful by two lower courts until the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the program to continue. This bill made it out of the Appropriations Committee on a 13 to 9 vote. Read third time and passed House (53-Y 45-N 0-A)
HB1761 from Delegate Marcus Simon (D-13) would allow localities to create a system of public campaign financing for local offices. This made it out of the Privileges and Elections Committee on a 12 to 9 vote. Read third time and passed House (52-Y 45-N 0-A)
Education:
HB1824 from Delegate David Reid (D-28) would require the Board of Education to permit students to substitute African American history courses or Advanced Placement African American Studies course for Virginia and United States history courses, provided the former classes are offered. This was reported on the House Education Committee on a 12 to 9 vote. Read third time and passed House (51-Y 48-N 0-A)
HB1829 from Delegate Shelly Simonds (D-70) would create the Office of Mathematics Improvement to increase outcomes. This was reported out of the House Appropriations Committee on a 19 to 3 vote. Read third time and passed House (68-Y 30-N 0-A)
Housing, Health, and Finance
HB1766 from Delegate Marty Martinez (D-29) would increase the financial amount a person could receive under unemployment compensation. This was reported out of the House Appropriations Committee on a 12 to 10 vote. Read third time and passed House (51-Y 47-N 0-A)
HB1767 from Delegate Martinez would set the maximum duration for unemployment benefits to 26 weeks. This was reported from the House Appropriations Committee on a 12 to 9 vote. Read third time and passed House (52-Y 47-N 0-A)
HB1872 from Delegate Phil Hernandez (D-94) would amend the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act to prohibit landlords from taking adverse actions against prospective tenants. This was reported out of the House General Laws Committee on a 12 to 9 vote. Read third time and passed House (51-Y 47-N 0-A)
HB1701 from Delegate David Bulova would extend the housing opportunity tax credit program to 2030 and would increase the aggregate credit gap. I don’t entirely know what that means but I would like to understand. This was reported out of the House Appropriations Committee unanimously. Read third time and passed House (94-Y 3-N 0-A)
HB1598 from Delegate Joshua Cole (D-65) would create an individual tax credit of up to $10,000 for first-time homebuyers. This was reported from the Appropriations Committee on a 12 to 10 vote. Read third time and passed House (52-Y 47-N 0-A)
HB1610 from Delegate Cole would establish a seven year statute of limitations on the collection of debt by state agencies. This was reported out of the General Laws Committee on a 12 to 9 vote. Read third time and passed House (55-Y 44-N 0-A)
HB1611 from Delegate Cole would require the Department of Human Resource Management to develop a policy to guide the removal of postsecondary graduate degrees for state jobs. This was reported from General Laws on a unanimous vote. Passed House (99-Y 0-N 0-A)
HB1635 from Delegate Cole would permit licensed certified midwives to enter into independent practice if certain requirements are met. This was reported from the Health and Human Services Committee on a 21 to 0 vote. Passed House (99-Y 0-N 0-A)
HB1616 from Delegate Feggans would establish the Offshore Wind Industry Workforce Program to bolster workforce development. This was reported from the House Appropriations Committee on a 14 to 7 vote. Read third time and passed House (57-Y 41-N 0-A)
HB1698 from Delegate Alex Askew (D-95) would extend a sales and use tax exemption on medications prescribed by a veterinarian. This was reported out of the House Finance Committee on a 22 to 0 vote. Passed House (99-Y 0-N 0-A)
HB1723 from Delegate Marcia Price (D-85) would require the Department of Social Services to create a Task Force on Improving Access to Food Assistance. This was reported out of the House Appropriations Committee unanimously. Read third time and passed House (80-Y 16-N 0-A)
HB1760 from Delegate Debra Gardner (D-76) would direct the Department of Health and the Department of Behavioral Health and Development Services and the Department of Education to establish several programs aimed for people under the age of 5. This made it out of the House Appropriations Committee on a unanimous vote. Read third time and passed House (72-Y 24-N 0-A)
HB1844 from Delegate Michelle Lopes Maldonado (D-20) would prohibit the sale of baby food that exceeds the toxic heavy metal limits established by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This was reported out of the House Appropriations Committee on a unanimous vote. Passed House (99-Y 0-N 0-A)
HB1791 from Delegate Rip Sullivan (D-6) would create the Electric Vehicle Rural Infrastructure Program and Fund to assist with creation of electric charging stations in certain localities. This was reported out of the House Appropriations Committee on a 15 to 7 vote. Read third time and passed House (56-Y 41-N 0-A)
It’s on to the Senate now for those bills. I’ll have more in the next newsletter!
If time could be stopped, I would have had stories on each of these. Democracies cannot function if people do not have access to what’s happening as well as an understanding of how the system is supposed to work. I’ve lived and worked during a time when so many news publications turned away from this approach. I am grateful subscribers are paying for me to explore a different way. Please spread the word. Do not accept it when people tell you this stuff is boring. That’s how they get you to stop paying attention
Reading material for #806
Department of Transportation Issues Sweeping Changes to Policies and Programs, Holland & Knight, February 3, 2025
Agency employees told to no longer block any funding from Trump's EOs, Eric Katz, Government Executive, February 3, 2025
Protestors against Trump’s immigration policies line Route 29, Maggie Glass, 29NBC WVIR, February 3, 2025
There are 806 lights!
My dad wore a gas mask at night as an infant in Liverpool when Germans bombed the city in the early 40’s. When I visited as a little boy in the early 80’s, there were still parts that had not been repaired. When I learned about World War II, one story was about my dad not meeting his father until the war was over. When I studied that history, it all felt present and relevant to my life. In Coventry, they let the rubble of a destroyed church sit next to the new one built in peacetime.
My style as a journalist is to present information in a way that allows people to think their way through arguments. I try to write in a way that doesn’t enrage or sensationalize. There are plenty of places that will do that, but that’s not what I want to do.
I left a job in 2018 because a new boss wanted the organization to tell people which arguments were better. There’s nothing wrong with groups that want to influence, but over the years many information outlets began to present themselves as “the best authority” and my firm belief is that people should be skeptical of everything.
I am interested in writing about what happened in my lifetime with journalism and reporting, but in the meantime I’m more interested in waking up every day and seeing what happened and bringing you what I learn. I want you to ask questions. I want you to be curious. I want you to be skeptical. I want you to have hope. To the extent you have anger, I want you to be able to put it to work in productive ways. My life has been ruined on more than one occasion due to mine.
Anyway, that’s the end of the newsletter and yes the above headline is an attempt at a reference to a famous Star Trek sequence about tyranny and lies. And Star Trek isn’t boring, either!
