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"At a sunny reception at its headquarters atop Pantops Mountain, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression announced Thursday that it has raised a large chunk of the money needed to begin designing its free speech chalkboard. Josh Wheeler, the center's associate director, told a crowd sprinkled with smartly dressed local personalities that a group of Central Virginia organizations and residents has pledged $12,500--exactly half the money needed to draw up precise designs and architectural site plans. Details are not yet final, but the monument's concept calls for a speaker's podium and a 60-foot-long by 7-foot-high slate chalkboard on the Downtown Mall facing City Hall. Wheeler estimated Thursday that it will cost between $200,000 and $300,000 to design and. build, though those numbers could change as design work progresses. Though debate has been quiet in recent months, the chalkboard has stirred controversy. Supporters say it will foster public creativity and discussion, but detractors fear that it will be a magnet for offensive or hateful language. Charlottesville architect Pete O'Shea said Thursday that he and partner Robert Winstead first dreamed up the chalkboard within three hours the night before a deadline to apply for a Jefferson Center design competition. More than two years later, in March, the City Council approved the idea by a 3-1 vote. "It's been exciting. It's been this sort of long, drawn-out couple of years because of the obvious apprehension," O'Shea said. "Now the exciting thing is, if they start to raise funds, Robert and I can actually start to design it." Wheeler said the center hopes to raise most of the design money from local community members and seek larger gifts from foundations and corporations in subsequent stages. He unfurled a scroll bearing a partial text of the First Amendment. The center plans to fill in the missing words as it raises more money, symbolizing the chalkboard's progress.
Robert M. O'Neil, the center's director, said things are going better than expected. "I would not, six months ago, have expected that by late June we would be as far along as we are, " O'Neil said. But he added: "We assured the City Council each time. We said we will raise the money, whatever is needed. ...We have continued to provide that reassurance in good faith and with every expectation that it would realize." The $12,500 grant announced Thursday is a "challenge grant," intended to kick in when the other half of the design money is raised. Donors included VMDO Architects, Silverchair Science & Communications, SNL Securities, Les Yeux du Monde Art Gallery, The Revisionist Art Company and The FUNd of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Community Foundation, as well as local residents Richard and Cindy Hewitt, Ivy landfill plaintiff Gertrude Weber, publisher Bill Chapman and musician Shannon Worrell. Wheeler announced additional gifts during his speech from, among others, Del. Mitchell Van Yahres, D-Charlottesville, and local Democratic Party activist George Loper.
Thane Kerner, Silverchair president and chief executive officer, said he supports the controversial monument because he believes "liberty trumps comfort." "My company is a publishing company, and the First Amendment is important to me philisophically as a concept and as a practical matter, so it makes perfect sense," Kerner said. As 6-year-old Morgan McKee drew on a sample chalkboard--"I'm just drawing," he said. I don't really know what I'm drawing."--his mother, project fund-raiser Susan Ketron, said Thursday's grant is encouraging. I think it shows the community's behind it, so this is wonderful," she said. "This will be great for all of us." Most of the assembled crowd, which included Mayor Blake Caravati, City Councilor Meredith Richards and Albemarle Board Of Supervisors candidate Dennis Rooker, was similarly supportive. But Washington-based documentary filmmakers Robert Ryan and Chris O'Leary, who roamed the center's headquarters with a camera and microphone, said they hid spent the day getting both sides of the story. Among others, they spoke with chalkboard opponents Kevin Cox and Barbara Merriwether for what could turn into a full-length documentary. News of the chalkboard has resonated around the world since the center presented it to the City Council in November. Ryan said he first read about it in an English newspaper while living in London" (Jake Mooney, Charlottesville Daily Progress, June 28, 2001).
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