Posted on 08/14/2017 5:33:33 PM PDT by Mariner
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA. A Virginia police chief said Monday that he "absolutely has regrets" about violence that erupted over the weekend when dozens of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members clashed with counterprotesters.
As the world watched pandemonium in Charlottesville unfold live on television Saturday, officers seemed to stand on the sidelines as fists flew, bats swung and objects soared through the air.
"We were hoping for a peaceful demonstration," Chief Al Thomas said at a news conference. "Gradually the crowd size increased along with aggressiveness and hostility of the attendees towards one another."
After police ordered everyone out of a small park where the rally was being held, protesters took to the streets. A man plowed his car into a group of counterprotesters, killing a woman and injuring 19 others.
On Monday, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said he directed his administration to conduct an "extensive review" of how police prepare and respond to rallies. The city's former police chief and law enforcement experts were critical of the way police responded, saying the ostensibly hands-off approach seemed to allow the violent fracas to grow.
Thomas said his officers were spread thin and had to make quick adjustments to their strategies when white nationalists began swarming the park and violence erupted.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
> Chief Al Thomas said his officers were spread thin and had to make quick adjustments to their strategies when white nationalists began swarming the park and violence erupted.
Why were they “spread thin” when the park was “swarmed”? The park was the permitted location.
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Aug 7, 2017 - Citing concerns for security and safety, Charlottesville officials on Monday said they will approve a demonstration permit for Saturday’s Unite the Right rally organized by pro-white activists if the rally is moved to McIntire Park.
But Jason Kessler, who is organizing the rally, says he won’t accept the condition because McIntire Park lacks the symbolism provided by the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that has stood in Emancipation Park, recently renamed from Lee Park, since the 1920s.
“The whole thing is in support of the Lee monument,” Kessler said after the city’s news conference announcing the decision to change the location.
//
Aug 11, 2017 - A judge heard arguments Friday from attorneys requesting an emergency injunction stemming from a case against the city of Charlottesville and its decision to move the rally to McIntire Park, rather than at the planned Emancipation Park location.
Statement from Mayor Mike Signer:
City Statement on 8/12 Court Ruling
“While the City is disappointed by tonight’s ruling we will abide by the judge’s decision. The goal in moving the Unite the Right Rally from Emancipation Park to a larger, more accommodating space like McIntire Park had nothing to do with the content of the demonstrators’ speech. The decision was made based on the projected number of demonstrators expected in our one acre park in downtown and the public safety needs of our community.
Chief Thomas, his team and the hundreds of law enforcement officials in our City will now turn their full attention to protecting the Downtown area during tomorrow’s events.”
//
An electorate that puts in office an idiot mayor probably isn’t going to do any better electing a police chief.
“Chief Thomas, his team and the hundreds of law enforcement officials in our City will now turn their full attention to protecting the Downtown area during tomorrow’s events.”
There were likely as many cops within 5 miles as there were protesters of every stripe. And they disappeared as soon as things lit off.
This does smell like a set piece. The park was recently renamed from Lee Park to Emancipation Park. A protest against the renaming is organized by Kessler who allegedly is associated with Occupy Wall Street - odd switch - and with CNN.
June 5, 2017 - Charlottesville City Councilors have decided on new names for both parks. Monday night, they voted 5-0 to rename Jackson Park, Justice Park, and rename Lee Park, Emancipation Park.
Speakers started off under control, discussing the Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson statues.
“They are symbols of white supremacy and terror,” Rick Turner said.
But the meeting soon devolved into chaos.
“Wes Bellamy and Kristina [sic] Szakos are single handedly responsible for all the racial unrest that has torn this town apart,” John Hayden said.
“No they aren’t,” a woman replied.
Twice Mayor Mike Signer threatened to suspend the meeting, and had to ask police officers to escort protesters out.
Police watched the crowd as right-wing blogger Jason Kessler spoke, after a comment from the mayor about freedom of speech.
“You talk about black people, you talk about gay people, you don’t give a damn about white people. And white people have a right to organize and advocate for our rights as well,” Kessler said.
As he finished his public comment, Kessler advertised a just-announced rally of his political group Unity and Security for America. That’s set for Aug. 12 in Lee Park.
The Traditionalist Workers Party, a political organization that identifies with white nationalism, then encouraged people to attend on its Facebook page.
“We will find a way to answer this hate in our community. I just hope we do it in time to prevent something not good happening,” councilor Bob Fenwick said in reply.
Monday, NBC29 learned the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan also applied for a permit to hold a rally in Charlottesville, which is set for July 8 at the Charlottesville Circuit Courthouse.
“We have to again stand together and be vigilant as a community, we know what our values are, and do not engage in any violent behavior,” councilor Kathy Galvin said.
After the vote, City Council directed staff to deal with the signage and go back through all city code and change every reference to Lee Park and Jackson Park.
http://www.nbc29.com/story/35595559/charlottesville-city-council-votes-to-rename-lee-jackson-parks
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Rick Turner -
M. Rick Turner, who for nearly three decades has challenged the racial status quo in Charlottesville and Central Virginia, has resigned his post as president of the Albemarle-Charlottesville NAACP just five weeks after winning re-election.
Turner joined the University of Virginia staff in 1988 as dean of African-American affairs and has served as NAACP president for much of the 21st century.
Janette B. Martin, NAACP first vice president, is next in line to assume leadership duties.
//
Wes Bellamy -
Charlottesville residents argue over the resignation of Vice Mayor of Charlottesville, Wes Bellamy, after a series of tweets were revealed from his past.
Video interview includes the tweets. “Vice Mayor of Charlottesville, Wes Bellamy has a long history of twitter posts that were blatantly misogynistic, homophobic, and anti-white. Bellamy quickly apologized saying he has changed. And while most of City Council and residents have accepted that, the controversy still has some questioning their trust for him.”
http://wuvanews.com/2017/05/10/news-archives/wes-bellamy-tweets/
—
Kristin Szakos, Charlottesville City Council
Kristin Szakos is a writer and freelance editor and has co-written two books on community organizing. She chairs the Charlottesville Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization and serves on the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail Authority Board and the Steering Committee of the City of Promise, as well as several boards and commissions. She is immediate past chair of the National Council for Children, Education and Families, and chair of Virginia First Cities.
Ms. Szakos has lived in Charlottesville since 1994. She served as president of the Burnley-Moran PTO and was a member of the Charlottesville City Schools Special Education Advisory Committee. She was local Volunteer Coordinator for the 2008 Obama campaign and Virginia statewide coordinator for the 2009 National Day of Service. She previously served on the Board of Directors of the Charlottesville NAACP and worked as a grant writer and administrator for several local nonprofits. She is a member of Trinity Episcopal Church and sings with several local vocal groups.
After graduating from Grinnell College in 1981 and earning a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University, she worked for a short time for the Associated Press, but quickly discovered that her heart lay in local communities. She left the AP to become a reporter at the Appalachian News-Express, a small town newspaper in Pikeville, Kentucky, and later edited a journal of local community organizing, The Appalachian Reader. She moved with her family to Hungary in 1993 and to Charlottesville the following year. She spent a year writing in Lyon, France, in 2004-05, and in 2011 was accepted into the Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s “Women and Power” program.
Her husband, Joe Szakos, is Executive Director of Virginia Organizing. They have two daughters and have had four foster children.
www.charlottesville.org/?navid=99
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Re: your post #47: thanks!
Jun 7, 2017 - CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — A city council in Virginia has voted on the new names of two parks formerly named after Confederate generals.
News outlets report Charlottesville’s Lee Park becomes Emancipation Park and Jackson Park becomes Justice Park per Monday’s decision. The renaming of the parks fulfills a recommendation from the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces convened last year to study if Charlottesville should move statues of Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.
http://wavy.com/2017/06/07/2-virginia-parks-shed-confederate-general-names
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At their regular meeting on May 6, 2016, the Charlottesville City Council passed a resolution forming the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces. To read the resolution in full, please click here.
On June 6, City Council appointed the following members to the Blue Ribbon Commission:
Gordon Fields, Human Rights Commission representative
Rachel Lloyd, PLACE representative
Margaret O’Bryant, Historic Resources Committee representative
Andrea Douglas
Frank Dukes
Don Gathers
Melvin Burruss
Jane Smith
John Mason
//
Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces - Report to City Council - December 19, 2016
The commission wishes to acknowledge and assert the following as fundamental to our work contained in this report:
• that far too often African American history has been ignored, silenced or suppressed;
• that far too often our public spaces and histories have also ignored, silenced or suppressed the story of white supremacy and the unimaginable harms done under that cause;
• that the narratives that supported white supremacy that began as long ago as 1619 in Virginia, although challenged by many, continue in various forms today;
• that the impacts of those narratives today are evidenced around us in the loss of African American population and in racial disparities involving health, employment, family wealth, public safety, education, and more;
• that to tell a more complete racial history and to transform these narratives in order to be come the community we want to become, it is necessary for us use our public spaces to
promote understanding of all of our history, good and bad.
http://www.charlottesville.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=48999
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about your original push to have the Robert E. Lee statue taken down and what you ultimately got, that isn’t talked about as much, which is some kind of—
WES BELLAMY: Equity package, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —some kind of funds for reparations?
WES BELLAMY: Yeah, so, this all started nearly a year and a half ago, in March of last year. I received several different phone calls, emails. There was a petition from a local student here in the area about an effort and a push to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee. People in Charlottesville have been talking about this for some years, but just last year there was a nuance in a bill that was vetoed at the state House by our governor that essentially said that if you want to move these kind of statues and things of that nature, it’s a local issue, so you have the right to be able to do so. My colleague and I, Ms. Kristin Szakos, we both decided to push really hard.
[ ]
And in the midst of all of this, we also got an equity package passed, which I presented in January, before we had our first vote—and it was unanimously passed—which gave us $950,000 to our African American Heritage Center, $250,000 to build onto one of the parks in the local African-American community. We got $2.5 million to public housing redevelopment, $50,000 annually for anyone who lives in public housing to get free GED training, another $50,000 to anyone who lives 80 percent below the AMI, which is the annual median income, as well as public housing, to have scholarships of sorts to go to our local community college. We got a position for black male achievement, which we’re calling a youth opportunity coordinator. So, I mean, in all, in all, it was about $4 million, basically, from funding, put specifically into marginalized communities to help bridge the gap and create equity.
All of this is about equity. We need equity, and not equality. Those are two different things. Equity is giving everyone what they need in order to have the same playing field. Equality is just giving everyone the same thing. I don’t want equality. I want us to have equity. And we’re going to push for equity in every space, whether that’s public parks, whether that’s in our city budget, no matter where it is, as long as I’m on council. And I’m going to push for it until the day I die.
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/7/charlottesville_va_backs_reparations_fund_for
Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer declared the city a “capital of resistance” to the administration of President Donald Trump on Tuesday afternoon.
Signer hosted a news conference in front of City Hall, calling on attendees to help fight Trump’s orders on immigration and the refugee program, including the 90-day travel ban on citizens of seven countries considered a high risk for terrorism by administration officials.
Signer [] teaches political theory courses at the University of Virginia
Joe Szakos has been the executive director of Virginia Organizing since 1994.
Joe has a Masters degree from the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration and is co-author, with his wife, Kristin Layng Szakos, of We Make Change: Community Organizers Talk About What They Do—and Why, published by Vanderbilt University Press in 2007. Joe and Kristin also edited Lessons From the Field: Organizing in Rural Communities, published by the American Institute for Social Justice/Social Policy Magazine in 2008.
Address
703 Concord Ave
Charlottesville, VA 22903
https://www.virginia-organizing.org/joe-szakos/
//
The Issues
Economic Justice
We believe that every person in the Commonwealth is entitled to a living wage and benefit package that is sufficient to provide the basic necessities of life, including adequate housing, a nutritious diet, proper child care, sound mental and physical health care, a secure retirement and an equal educational opportunity.
We believe in eliminating the extremes of wealth and poverty. We strive towards a common sense, responsible, progressive tax system based on the ability to pay.
Anti Discrimination
We believe that we should enhance and celebrate diversity in our community and in our state.
Health Care
Virginia Organizing strongly supports the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA)
etc etc etc
https://www.virginia-organizing.org/the-issues/
Their two books are used by ACORN as reference books
UVA Living Wage Now for All Workers!
Dear President Sullivan and University of Virginia Board of Visitors:
We, the undersigned, write to you today to express our commitment to economic justice and to call on you to act.
We are individuals and organizations who have great concern for the well being of the people who live and work in our community, particularly in Charlottesville and Albemarle County. We share a commitment to economic justice and to equity in our communities. Collectively, the organizations we represent have thousands of members.
As the area's largest employer, the University of Virginia has a responsibility -- indeed, an obligation -- to improve our community. We believe that the University has neglected this obligation and continues to do so. We call on you to take action by finally resolving the issue of living wages at the University in a fair, satisfying, and comprehensive way. We call on you to take this action now.
As you surely recognize, the University affects the cost of living in Charlottesville in major ways, particularly with respect to housing costs. We believe that the University could offset the negative impacts of its increasing these costs for some of our community's most vulnerable members by paying its employees enough to meet the cost of living.
We remind you that in 2000 the University committed to a base pay increase for direct employees, and that we commended you for doing so. That increase, however, did not include cost of living adjustments, nor did it include contracted employees. We had hoped that these issues would be addressed in a timely manner -- certainly by now, a dozen years later.
During that period, the Living Wage Campaign, currently configured as Workers And Students United, repeatedly presented its scrupulous research and stated its case with deep respect for administrative process. Concurrently, we in the community have stood with workers, students, and faculty. We have called on you to listen to their concerns, rallied, written letters, and requested meetings. In good faith, all of us have asked for commitments from you. The arguments have now been presented, the necessity and practicality of action proven.
Overall, it must be said, we have not been satisfied with the University's response. Frankly, at times we have even been disappointed by the dismissive tone of University communications. Such feelings, however, are fleeting compared with the enduring nature of the issues at stake. And like those issues, the Living Wage Campaign will not go away -- that is, until those issues are resolved in a fair, satisfying, and comprehensive manner.
The time for straight answers and firm commitments is here. The University of Virginia needs to pay a living wage to all of its employees. We believe that the University has the potential to be a powerful force for positive change in our community. To further this end, we call for:
- a living wage of no less than $13.00 per hour as the base pay for all direct employees;
- cost of living adjustments that are automatic and annual;
- all contracts with University service providers to include a living wage and cost of living adjustments
We stand with Workers And Students United and fully support their demands as presented on February 8, 2012 and will stand with them on February 17, 2012 and beyond if a commitment is not made to ensure a living wage, safe working conditions, and job security for all workers by that date.
As always, workers, students, faculty, and community are standing united in our call for a living wage. We are present, we are showing up, and we are taking the steps necessary to gain equity and economic justice in our community through the establishment of a living wage for all workers at the University of Virginia.
Respectfully,
Albemarle-Charlottesville NAACP
Virginia Organizing
Legal Aid Justice Center
Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice
Public Housing Association of Residents
Campus Workers United
Wayside Center for Popular Education
Cville Workers Action Network
Socialist Party of Central Virginia
Richmond General Organizing Branch Industrial Workers of the World
Joyful Dissent
Kristin Szakos- Vice-Mayor City of Charlottesville
David Swanson- founder WarIsACrime.org, author, blogger
Jeffery Fogel- Civil Rights Attorney
M. Rick Turner- president Albemarle-Charlottesville NAACP
Brenda Lambert- Community Activist
Jim Shea- Community Activist
Exactly once the blame is placed on the right people this thing is going to get down and dirty.It’s all political nothing else.
Exactly and the mayor of Charlottesville, Michael Signer, is described in a wiki bio as “a democrat activist.” He’s obviously that and much more.He’s willing to let the chips fall where they may no matter who gets beat up, maced, or killed.
Good post!
That's where the rubber will meet the road.
Once the effected citizens begin taking legal action against the mayor, police chief, and the governor this thing might get exposed.
Even then don't expect the drivebys to cover anything political fairly. It's not who they are. Fair and balanced coverage will be here in the New Media,we are the reporters of today and tomorrow.
As you can see conservative circles have a budding new rock star in MIllie Weaver. She's a gal that has it all.Beauty brains and guts.(she is gorgeous)She goes where a lot of guys wouldn't dare,too risky.
She's sort of like a Meghan Kelly "without the bitch factor" or the liberal bias.She's as good as reporters get.
The creators of this riot,McAuliffe(the punk),the mayor Michael Signer and implemented by the chief of police--Al S.Thomas Jr. had to have a bigger place to accomodate all the antifa and BLM goons they knew were on the way since they planned the entire op.
From the minute the mayor suggested that the Robert E. Lee statue be removed they could almost predict what would happen. The hard left was ready, willing and able to pull it off with paid goons by George Soros. So when the white supremacists applied for a permit that never should have been approved yet was, the entire op went into full mode.We see the results.
Problem is history is and should always be blind.
Either it happened or it didn't.
Either the civil war happened or it didn't.
A Robert E. Lee statue is as valid as would be a statue of Lincoln or Grant. History is about what happened not your favorite player in the game. It just doesn't work that way.
Yep - something that many are tripping all over themselves to ignore. The cops actually pushed the legal group into the clutches of the folks who came to do violence...then try to say that not doing their jobs by protecting the legal ones and not bashing the skulls of the violent ones means that "the cops didn't hurt nobody"....
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