After announcing last week that it will not renew the city manager’s employment contract (which ends in December), the Charlottesville City Council on Tuesday decided to delay hiring for an assistant city manager position that was added in the current-year city budget. City officials last week said they were ...

Mayor Nikuyah Walker announced this afternoon that the city will not renew City Manager Maurice Jones’ contract, which ends December 7. She said an earlier separation date could be mutually agreed on.

A week after describing a disconnect between the City Council and City Manager Maurice Jones, Mayor Nikuyah Walker, alongside her council colleagues, announced that Jones’ contract, which ends Dec. 7, will not be extended or renewed. Friday’s announcement was made after a closed council meeting held just four days ...

On Monday night, City Council considered whether to establish a land bank corporation, a nonprofit entity that could buy and sell land to increase the number of affordable housing units in Charlottesville. After 40 minutes of presentation and discussion, City Council deferred the decision on the land bank corporation to ...

The Charlottesville City Council will work with City Manager Maurice Jones on a search for the next leader of the city’s legal team. “We don’t have a whole heck of lot of positions that we directly hire,” Councilor Kathy Galvin said at a meeting last week, adding that ...

Kudos to Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker for her stance in managing the most recent disruption at the City Council meeting. She made some cogent points about due process, fair treatment, and effective means of protest. Provocation for the uproar was powerful. The final speaker on the agenda at a public ...

During yet another out-of-control City Council meeting on April 2, Mayor Nikuyah Walker cleared the chamber and councilors reconvened after a closed session to seek legal advice on how to maintain order. Nearly two hours into the meeting, councilors began to address the city’s business, and by 10pm approved ...

All but one Charlottesville city councilor — the mayor — voted Monday to approve a special-use permit for a major downtown development project nearly derailed earlier this year when three councilors voted against it. The approval allows West2nd developer Keith O. Woodard to proceed with the Water Street project featuring residential, retail ...

The minimum wage for employees of the city of Charlottesville could inch closer to $15 an hour later this year if the City Council agrees to add $115,000 to the nearly $180 million budget the city manager has proposed for fiscal year 2019. After voting to increase the city ...

The Charlottesville City Council’s review of the proposed $179.3 million budget for fiscal year 2019 continued last week with a work session on the capital improvement program.  The meeting is the second of several events planned on the city’s spending plan before adoption on April 10. The ...

The Charlottesville Office of Human Rights should get a revenue boost in the next city budget, but activists say it needs even more money and an increased ability to investigate discrimination complaints. The citizen requests and the proposed $38,000 funding increase to bump a part-time position to full time ...

Charlottesville City Council has begun a six-week process through which they will shape City Manager Maurice Jones’ recommended $179.3 million budget into their own. Jones formally presented his budget to Council on Monday. “This is the official beginning of our budget season,” Jones said. Mayor Nikuyah Walker said she ...

Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker is talking sense. Before granting money to outside organizations, the city ought to have a clear picture of its own needs and its priorities, and how the private organizations fulfill those priorities. Otherwise, public money may be apportioned haphazardly, simply because a request represents a good ...

The Charlottesville City Council on Monday approved a $75,000 grant to the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville, but stipulated that the association must match the grant with $30,000 in cash and in-kind support. Mayor Nikuyah Walker was the only councilor to vote against the grant, which passed on ...

The Charlottesville City Council on Monday voted, 3-1, to award a one-time grant of $75,000 to support marketing efforts by the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville. Mayor Nikuyah Walker voted against the resolution, while Councilor Wes Bellamy was absent.   City Councilor Kathy Galvin said the grant would help stores ...

Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker dished a dose of reality ahead of a formal presentation Monday night on the city’s proposed $179.3 million budget for fiscal year 2019. After hearing from several public speakers who commented on the proposed budget and other funding requests, Walker said she is concerned ...

The Charlottesville City Council has requested more details about the financial value of streets that will be conveyed to the University of Virginia to assist with a redevelopment project. “I’m thinking about some of the work that we need to do in town,” Mayor Nikuyah Walker said at Tuesday ...

Some say politeness insignificant compared with need for change Since the deadly Unite the Right rally Aug. 12, locals have come before Charlottesville’s City Council to demand answers about the summer, air their grievances and press for change from their government. Over the past six months, meetings have been ...

The first person to be elected as Charlottesville’s first independent City Councilor since 1948 has also become the city’s first female African-American mayor. “The journey getting here for me personally was pretty intense,” said Nikuyah Walker, who received 7,926 votes in the November election.  “Luckily I had ...

Following Charlottesville Councilor-elect Nikuyah Walker’s victory in Tuesday’s election, Mayor Mike Signer said he’s prepared to work with her next year despite a contentious relationship between the two.   Walker is the first independent candidate elected to the City Council since 1948. Initially encouraged by some of her ...

Nikuyah Walker has become the first independent candidate since 1948 to win election to the Charlottesville City Council and will join Democrat Heather Hill as that body’s newest members in January. “I have said the entire campaign season that I have the best volunteers,” Walker said in comments made ...

For the first time in almost 70 years, the Charlottesville City Council will have an independent councilor on the dais. Also come January, it will be the first time that two African-Americans served on the council simultaneously.   In an upset for the Charlottesville Democratic Party and city School Board member ...

In advance of Election Day Nov. 7, Charlottesville Tomorrow has produced in-depth nonpartisan voter guides, featuring exclusive one-on-one interviews with all the candidates for the Charlottesville City Council and Charlottesville School Board.  In advance of the election, we will also feature their responses to important questions about their qualifications, priorities ...

In advance of Election Day Nov. 7, Charlottesville Tomorrow has produced in-depth nonpartisan voter guides, featuring exclusive one-on-one interviews with all the candidates for the Charlottesville City Council and Charlottesville School Board.  In advance of the election, we will also feature their responses to important questions about their qualifications, priorities ...

As campaigning winds down ahead of the Nov. 7 election, an independent candidate for Charlottesville’s City Council could see just as much television airtime as her two Democratic opponents.   According to campaign finance reports that were due Monday, Nikuyah Walker spent about $7,030 on TV ads — an amount ...