The supervisors of Albemarle County, the municipality that surrounds Charlottesville, voted Wednesday to stop making Thomas Jefferson's birthday a government holiday. The move comes at a time of great scrutiny for the third president.
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Albemarle County, which Jefferson called home and where he founded the University of Virginia, called it a government holiday. But the date, April 13 -- two days before tax day-- created confusion, says County Executive Jeff Richardson.
"That's just not intuitively a day that the private sector thinks of government services being closed."
Just one person addressed the supervisors: "It'll be seen as a demotion of Jefferson."
Richardson said that wasn't the intent.
"We simply looked at this from a customer service vantage point."
Meanwhile, the City of Charlottesville -- in a clear blast at Jefferson's slave-holding -- has begun the process of replacing its identical holiday with March 3, the day in 1865 when local slaves were liberated.
In Charlottesville, Hawes Spencer for WCVE News.
