"If I've learned anything from the past six months of near-religious attendance of Charlottesville City Council, it's this: pre-caffeinate. O.K., that's not true. While a cup or five or pre-meeting coffee is essential, the greatest lesson I've gleaned from watching City Council has to do with how the political process works and why a sash, prom dress and tiara are your best tools to get things done.

You can stand in front of Council every other Monday night in your sensible shoes and a business suit the color of dirty tar, arguing week after week for lower taxes or more lap lanes all you want. See where that gets you.

But if you want to goose the local political machine (and really, who doesn't?), I've learned one hard, cold power-politics maxim: A little old-school glam goes a long way.

When Jennifer Tidwell got up to talk in front of Council at its October 1 meeting, she wasn't just your ordinary citizen clutching her prepared statements, unaware of the three-minute time limit or just how to make use of the microphone. Oh no. Tidwell was sporting a blueish prom dress, a tiara nestled atop dyed pink hair and a Miss America-type sash with the moniker that she used to speak at the meeting: "Miss Representation." (Say it out loud.)

Councilors sat up, most of them a little bemused at Tidwell's getup. Then she began, very eloquently, to make her point, and her point was this: The Lewis & Clark statue at the corner of W. Main and Ridge/McIntire streets, the one that depicts Sacagawea kneeling, crouching and/or cowering behind the two men, is at best a misrepresentation of history and at worst an offensive image.

Tidwell argued that the statue needed signs contextualizing the image to explain the role of Sacagawea in the represented foray into the West—not to mention the destruction of the vast majority of Indians that the journey, in essence, precipitated.

The statue in question is the work of Charles Keck, and it was presented to the city in 1919, when suffrage was more of a women's issue than corporate ceilings. Keck set out to depict the moment when the party commissioned by TJ himself got its first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean, something that no one had ever seen before except for tens of thousands of people.

And sure, the faces of Lewis and Clark hold a kind of "My, what a big ocean you have, mind if we set up camp?" look, but what about Sacagawea behind them, seeming to huddle near their boots?

When Tidwell, in all her ironic prom queen glory, got up in front of Council, she was continuing an old debate about whether she is tracking or cowering. According to a draft nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, "Sacagawea, the Indian guide, crouches at their left."

Keck, who also sculpted the Booker T. Washington Monument at the Tuskeegee Institute and the Lincoln Monument in Indiana, was paid $20,000 by Paul McIntire to create the statue. McIntire, a local do-gooder who made a fortune in the stock market, originally commissioned a statue of just the two men but was happily surprised when Keck insisted on including Sacagawea.

"The contract called for two figures," wrote McIntire. "The sculptor threw in the Indian, and she is the best of the lot."

Tidwell, too, cut such a striking figure in her formalwear that heads turned in attendance as she made her way up to the podium and applause erupted after her to-the-point speech. The fact that she gave her name on the sign-up sheet as "Miss Representation" didn't hurt her cause either; that's how she was called up from her seat to speak.

Of course, it's impossible to quantify how much impact her appearance had on City Council's decision to have the Historical Resources Committee create some signage to address the problems of the statue's "contextualization." A few days after the Council meeting, as she was holding a sign that read "Happy Genocide Day" at a protest in front of the statue, Tidwell said, "It helps to have character and humor when you're protesting."

This can't be more true. Tidwell was exceedingly polite and downright happy as she delivered her message to council. She blamed no one, and moreover, she made not only the audience but also the councilors feel like they were on the right side, not the wrong side, of the problem. She made people laugh not only at her appearance, but also at the absurdity of the issue she argued.

How much can a sense of humor help when petitioning City Council? Who knows? But I do know this: Brilliant albeit not-so-flashy people like Peter Kleeman and Rich Collins have been trying to kill the Meadowcreek Parkway for the past 800 or so years. My advice? Some top hat-wearing gent may just want to get to work on a "Mr. Ection" sash." (Scott Weaver, C-Ville Weekly, January 1, 2008)