Former Charlottesville Mayor Francis Fife passed away last Friday at the age of 95.
Fife served as mayor from 1972 to 1974, and spent a total of eight years on the Charlottesville City Council. During his time as mayor, City Council approved the creation of the Downtown Mall. Fife, however, did not vote due to the conflict of interest with his position as vice president of a local bank on the mall.
Fife became mayor at a critical point in Charlottesville history, Charlottesville Attorney Lloyd Snook said. Snook became acquainted with Fife through political and non-profit organizations.
“Francis was a mayor at the time in the early 70s when Charlottesville was beginning to come out of sleepy southern town into a more modern kind of place with city planners and professional city managers,” Snook said.
Despite being unable to vote on the Downtown Mall creation, Fife was heavily involved with the planning efforts and vitalization of downtown Charlottesville.
During his time on City Council, Fife also furthered initiatives for more affordable housing, including scattered site housing, in which poorer families would be spread out around downtown, rather than living in crowded housing, Snook said.
Fife later founded the Charlottesville Housing Foundation, which gave way to the Piedmont Housing Alliance, of which Fife was a board member until last year. The housing alliance supports housing projects such as the Charlottesville chapter of Habitat for Humanity. There is a street commemorating Fife called Francis Fife Way, which sits in the middle of one of Habitat’s projects.
Fife was also a staunch environmentalist and conservationist, said Vice Mayor Dede Smith, who worked closely with Fife.
In addition to being an avid birder, Fife was one of the founders for the Ivy Creek Foundation in 1970s, which managed the Ivy Creek Natural Area. He later went on to found the Rivanna Trails Foundation, which manages footpaths and trails.
“Fife had been a very calm but influential presence in the Charlottesville community for most of his 95 years, acting as a staunch conservationist, and keeper of the significance of our local history,” Smith said.
However, despite all the contributions Fife made to Charlottesville, both Snook and Smith said one of the most memorable aspects about Fife was how he interacted with the people he worked with.
“In a time when we associate politicians with ego, Francis was the exact opposite. He was a genuinely nice and decent person,” Snook said. “He was humble, he was gentle, but very persistent in the things he wanted to get done. It was important that the solution would be a community solution, not a top down solution imposed by city council.”
The former mayor has a street named for him and a brass plaque bearing his name on the Drewary Brown Bridge.
“Francis is just one of the people who made Charlottesville such a delightful place to live today, including contributions in government and non-profit,” Snook said, “and will be remembered for his calm attitude, friendliness and [the] decency he brought to everything he did.”
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