I read with great interest the efforts of former Mayor Dave Norris to establish a new non-profit initiative to help solve many of the greater Charlottesville problems (The Daily Progress, Jan. 18).
Mr. Norris wants “to ask these really smart people at [the University of Virginia] to help us solve problems in the Charlottesville area.”
I readily admit that there are many smart people at UVa, both in terms of the talented teaching staff and among its students.
However, I have some serious problems with this concept from Councilor Norris.
First, it reinforces the concept that the city of Charlottesville is an appendix of the university.
All the “smart people” are associated with UVa. I guess everybody else must be ignorant jackasses.
Charlottesville should not be defined merely by the University of Virginia.
George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Harry Truman, Thomas Edison, James Baldwin, Malcolm X and Benjamin Franklin all have one thing in common. They never attended college; they did not earn prestigious university degrees; yet they were all brilliant men and leaders.
Leadership comes from many backgrounds, and in many forms. There is brilliant leadership throughout the greater Charlottesville area.
Councilor Norris should be devoting more of his time and energy to his duties as a member of City Council. City Council is the legal governing body of Charlottesville. Mr. Norris and City Council, in recent years, have become obsessed with the Ragged Mountain Dam and the Meadow Creek Parkway.
It is time that Mr. Norris and City Council take the task of governance to heart: improving and expanding public transportation, encouraging business and industry to move into the city, providing shelter for the homeless, reducing poverty in the city and expanding the job base.
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