June 25, 2024: U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear John Dewberry's appeal in $43 million trademark violation case; All of Virginia now under drought watch or advisory
Plus: The Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority will learn details about why the Rivanna Pump Station flooded in early January
We are now six months away from Christmas Day as the calendar is written. There are 183 days between June 25 and December 25. That translates to 26.142 weeks, a metric which I suspect may make a few people’s brains a little uncomfortable. This is Charlottesville Community Engagement, a newsletter and occasional podcast. How many editions until the end of 2024? I’m Sean Tubbs, and eventually I’ll have an answer.
In today’s installment:
The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality has placed all of Virginia under a drought advisory with warnings in the northernmost counties
The Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority meets today and will get a post-mortem on a January 9, 2024 incident where nearly three and a half inches of rain inundated a sewage pump station
Planning is underway for the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority to purchase track from Norfolk Southern including setting up provisions for a third Northeast Regional train to Roanoke
The U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear a case about whether developer John Dewberry’s company should pay $43 million in trademark violation over the use of a shared name
First-shout: Piedmont Master Gardeners have a newsletter
In today’s first subscriber-supported shout-out, the Piedmont Master Gardeners have already filled a July 20 class they have planned. But you can still learn a few things from their monthly newsletter called The Garden Shed.
Volume 10, Number 6 for June 2024 is currently out and has articles with titles such as Spiders in the Garden, Mulch for the Home Landscape, Managing Slugs in Home Gardens, and columns on edible and ornamental items that might have sprung up in gardens this June.
Take a look at the issue and another one will be along soon for July. And be on the lookout for classes as they fill up fast! There’s a lot more information at piedmontmastergardener.org.
All of Virginia now under drought watch or drought advisory
The state agency charged with monitoring groundwater and public water supplies in Virginia has placed the entire Commonwealth under some form of advisory about potential drought.
On Monday, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality placed 12 counties under a drought warning and 95 cities and counties under drought watch.
“Precipitation deficits in combination with increased temperatures have resulted in rapid intensification of drought throughout the majority of the Commonwealth with substantial below-normal observations noted within the Northern Virginia and Shenandoah drought evaluation regions,” reads a press release sent out Monday.
The advisories are issued in part to tell people to begin to conserve water. These are the recommendations of the Virginia Drought Monitoring Task Force, a group that last met on June 20 and will meet again on July 1.
A “warning” means that drought is imminent and the northern stretch of counties in this designation includes Augusta County and other Shenandoah Valley localities heading north.
The rest of Virginia is on “drought watch” which is intended to tell people to conserve water to prolong supplies as long as possible in case conditions worsen. At the moment, conditions merit the entire state being put on notice.
“Stream flows throughout the Commonwealth are currently at or below the 25th percentile of normal values for all 13 drought evaluation regions,” the release continues. “Groundwater levels for monitoring wells in the Climate Response Network have shown continued declines within the northern, central, and eastern portions of the state.”
In addition to conserving water, this is also a time when the DEQ recommends property owners inspect pipes for leaks and make repairs to prevent waste.
The release states that public water supplies across the state are within normal range.
The Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority reports this morning that the South Rivanna and Totier Creek reservoirs are full and the pools at Ragged Mountain, Sugar Hollow, and Beaver Creek are all above 97 percent full.
Tonight, the Greene County Board of Supervisors will get an update on conditions for their public water supply. (view the presentation)
RWSA to get report on major problem at sewer pump station
The drought watch advisory extends to Albemarle and Charlottesville where maintaining the public drinking water supply is the responsibility of the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority. The Board of Directors meets today at 2:15 p.m. (meeting info) (agenda)
The item on the consent agenda about drought monitoring is now out of date with the DEQ’s new information, but data shows the trend toward drier conditions. Precipitation in Charlottesville is down .43 inches than normal as measured by the National Weather Service.
Another item on the agenda today is a report on the January 9, 2024 malfunction that flooded the Rivanna Pump Station with untreated wastewater. (details here)
“The submergence of the pumps and motors caused catastrophic failure of the station,” reads the staff report seeking approval of an amendment to add $22 million to the capital plan to pay for repairs.
A temporary bypass was put in place while the Rivanna Pump Station was cleaned. A third-party inspection team was commissioned to find out what happened and their report has been sent to RWSA’s insurance carrier to potentially recoup some of the costs.
Another item on the agenda is a review of a January 17, 2024 incident when a “crest grate” atop the Sugar Hollow Dam malfunctioned leading to around 69 million gallons of water to be released within an hour. (details here)
VPRA considering purchase of Norfolk Southern line
From the early 1970’s to the fall of 2009, there was no daily passenger rail service from Charlottesville to points northeast and southwest.
As fiscal year 2024 draws to a close, there are two Northeast Regional trains traveling through Union Station a day due to increased support from the Commonwealth of Virginia and now the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority.
Now there are plans for the Commonwealth to own more track and related infrastructure to expand service to Christiansburg, which could include a potential third daily Northeast Regional train.
“The Virginia Passenger Rail Authority (VPRA) announced [on June 4] that it is in preliminary discussions with Norfolk Southern Corporation to purchase the Manassas Line and to pursue an option to extend passenger rail service to the New River Valley (NRV) on the Norfolk Southern main line (N-Line),” reads a VPRA press release from three weeks ago.
If the deal goes through, the immediate beneficiary would be Virginia Rail Express which would be given additional windows of operation through state ownership of the track.
Service in Christiansburg would be at Norfolk Southern’s Cambria Yard which hasn’t been a passenger rail stop since 1979.
On June 6, VPRA filed a request with the National Surface Transportation Board that a potential purchase would not require their approval. Under the terms of an agreement, Norfolk Southern would retain the right to use the 33.5 half miles of track subject to the transaction.
Further paperwork in a second filing appears to clear the way for an agreement for a third Northeast Regional train once certain conditions are met. This includes a study to be conducted by March 31, 2026 which will inform whether sufficient improvements have been made to allow freight and passenger to share the lines.
Second shout-out: League of Women Voters seek entries for poster contest
In today’s second Patreon-fueled shout-out: Every election is important and every vote matters. To get out the word and increase voter registrations, the League of Women Voters of Virginia is holding a poster contest for middle and high school students on one of four themes;
Voting is Important in Our Democracy
Voting Requires Following Specific Laws
Voting and a Vote Should Depend on True Not False Information
Every Vote will be Handled Legally, Carefully and Counted Correctly
The deadline is June 30, 2024.
Entries must be non-partisan and support no campaigns or political parties. Entries must also look visible when blown up to 22 by 28 inches. For more detailed information on the themes and how to submit, visit the League of Women Voters website at lwv.org.
U.S. Supreme Court agrees to review John Dewberry’s appeal of $43 million in trademark violations
The case has a slight connection to the unfinished hotel
The owner of the unfinished and abandoned structure on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall will get his day in the nation’s highest court to appeal a trademark violation that came with millions in damages.
Partially at issue is whether the failure of the entity formerly known as Dewberry Capital to complete the unfinished Landmark Hotel created enough of a negative image that it hurt the reputation of an engineering firm with the same name.
On Monday, the United States Supreme Court agreed to take up Dewberry Group Inc. v. Dewberry Engineers when the next term begins in the fall.
The Dewberry Group is a name that Atlanta-based John Dewberry now uses to describe his real estate companies across the eastern United States. This succeeds an earlier attempt to rebrand under multiple labels that fell afoul of a previous agreement with Dewberry Engineers, a Fairfax-based company formed in 1956 that operates in the same geographic space.
After previous disputes about who could use the name and where, the two parties entered into a confidential settlement in 2007 that broke down in the late 2010’s as Dewberry Capital sought to reband into multiple entities representing different sectors.
Dewberry Engineers sued the development group for breach of the settlement agreement because each branch carried their shared name in a way the Fairfax company did not approve. By this time, there had been substantial media reports that tied the name Dewberry to an unfinished structure on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall
A federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia sided with the engineers and ordered the Atlanta-based development company to pay $43 million in something called a “profit disgorgement award.”
The Fourth Circuit of Appeals upheld the case last August in a divided opinion that offers a history lesson of the relationship of the two companies.
“After the successful launch of The Dewberry® hotel in Charleston, South Carolina, John Dewberry decided to change the suffix ‘Capital’ to ‘Group,’ which would better align with the company’s expansion into providing services for hospitality properties,” reads page six of the opinion. (read the opinion)
Charlottesville connection
One of those properties is the unfinished Landmark Hotel at 201 E. Water Street on the Downtown Mall. Developer Dewberry bought the property at auction in August 2012 for $6.25 million under the entity Deerfield Square Associates II, LLC. The address listed in the city’s geographical information system database is the same Atlanta location where the Dewberry Capital Group is headquartered.
Even though construction stopped in late 2009, the property is still assessed at $8.9 million including $6.6 million for the concrete skeleton. There are no current building permits associated with the property which was wrapped with an artistic covering by the Friends of Downtown Charlottesville in February 2022.
The concept for the Landmark as a 100-room nine-story luxury hotel belongs to Halsey Minor, an entrepreneur who bought the property from developer Lee Danielson in August 2007 for $4.5 million. The two wound up in a legal battle over the project and Minor would eventually declare bankruptcy and put the project up to help raise funds to pay his settlements.
After Deerfield Square Associates took control of the property, the project continued to remain dormant until after Dewberry’s similar project in Charleston, South Carolina was completed in June 2016.
In March 2017, Council agreed to provide some assistance to the project. By the end of the year, Council voted 3-2 against a plan to provide tax rebates as long as the project was completed by September 2020. The Daily Progress reported in 2019 that the project would become luxury housing instead, citing links on a website that has since been deleted.
Around the same time, the United States Patent and Trademark Office prevented the developer from reserving the phrase “Dewberry Living.” The Fourth Circuit opinion makes note that the controversy over the hotel raised concerns.
“Dewberry Engineers also warned that Dewberry Group’s marks had already ‘caused confusion in both the Charlottesville[, Virginia] area and the Northern Virginia area.’” reads page nine of the opinion.
At issue in the Dewberry Group’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is how the “profit disgorgement award” was calculated. According to the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School, “disgorgement is a remedy requiring a party who profits from illegal or wrongful acts to give up any profits they made as a result of that illegal or wrongful conduct.”
The use of trademarks is governed by the Lanham Act, which the Legal Information Institute tells us was adopted in 1946 to establish their use and governs what happens when they are violated.
The request for the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case (a writ of certiorari) asks whether “distinct profits of legally separated non-party corporate affiliates” can be included in calculating the damages.
This article will be updated and expanded on Information Charlottesville with more details about the case.
Resources for further research into the case:
Dewberry Group’s petition to the U.S. Supreme Court (February 16, 2024)
Dewberry Engineers’ response (May 8, 2024)
Dewberry Group’s reply (May 28, 2024)
Third-shout out: Tune in to VPM PBS tonight for ReLeaf Cville
Tonight, the public television station that goes by the name VPM will air a local story that involves one of the organizations that provides shout-outs for this newsletter. At 8 p.m., the program Virginia HomeGrown will visit Charlottesville’s 10th & Page community with Peggy Van Yahres, Chair of Releaf, and Michelle Gibson, neighborhood home owner, to learn about ReLeaf Cville’s work to plant free trees in order to provide shade, reduce energy bills and improve health outcomes. There’s also a live interview with Jake Van Yahres of the Van Yahres Tree Company about the benefits of woodchips.
Reading material:
Rep. Bob Good refuses to accept results in 5th District Primary, Brian Carlton, Farmville Herald, June 24, 2024
Virginia offshore wind project underway as environmental studies continue, Lauren Hines-Acosta, Bay Journal, June 24, 2024
Now time for the doppler effect on #695
I have to be somewhere soon so this is going out earlier than I wanted. I want to get more details in about all of these stories, and that’s where Information Charlottesville comes in. Increasingly this newsletter serves as a first draft and that archive website becomes the places where I add additional context, make corrections, and try to understand things better.
Yesterday this newsletter crossed 3,000 total subscribers. Growth since the first edition on July 13, 2020 has been slow but steady. Many of you are relatively new here, and I welcome you. It’s just me doing the work, but I’m slowly adding capacity to pay people to help out here and there.
The goal is simple: To continue the journalism career I started in the mid-1990’s by writing stories that I think are of interest to people. I’m not doing this work as an advocate. I do this work because I believe in a democracy people should know what’s happening, and have access to primary sources.
If you are one of the dozens of new subscribers in the past week, I do hope you’ll continue to read and please ask questions. If you decide to convert to a paid subscription, please know that internet provider Ting will match your initial subscription. This helps me continue to plan to keep doing this well into the future.
It is quite generous of them to do so, and I appreciate their investment in this style of community journalism.
Ting can help you with your high speed Internet needs. If service is available in your area and you sign up for service, enter the promo code COMMUNITY and you will get:
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A $75 gift card to the Downtown Mall
