Switch hitters
Two candidates pick parties and abandon Independents
Blair Hawkins and Eric Strucko, among the most recent candidates to announce their intentions to run for office in November, have something in common: Both lost their previous runs as Independents—Strucko for the White Hall seat on the Board of County Supervisors in 1999 and Hawkins for City Council in 2000.
But on April 21, Strucko announced his second go ’round for Walter Perkins’ White Hall seat, this time as a Democrat.
“Last time, I thought running as an Independent would be the best way for me to reach across party lines,” says Strucko. “This time, I feel comfortable running as I am.” And well he might: He has a long list of public service stints to his credit, such as regional planning committee DISC and Albemarle’s housing committee. On top of which, he is as yet running unopposed.
Vice President of Business Planning and Financial Operations for local financial services firm AIMR, Strucko sees the County finances as his starting point.
“I want to make sure the County budget has prioritized spending needs with an eye to saving tax dollars,” he said during his announcement, also stressing the importance of expediting the County’s neighborhood model plan.
While Strucko’s campaign announcement on April 21 at the County Office Building was businesslike and promising, Hawkins chose to announce his intentions—and political party switch-over—straight to his opponent.
In an e-mail to Mitch Van Yahres dated March 15, Hawkins announced his intentions to seek the Republican nomination for the 57th district in the Virginia House of Delegates.
A rascally write-in candidate for City Council in 2000, Hawkins knows earning the Republican nomination is his first battle. Then he can tackle the problem of unseating the 77-year-old Van Yahres who, after 22 years in the House, is clearly comfortable right where he is.
“In my speech at the convention,” Hawkins writes, “I will paint the campaign as a historic contest between a man who voted for urban renewal and a man whose family was displaced and disempowered by those votes.
“The election will be a referendum on the Fifth Amendment.”
Van Yahres’ reply was evasive, according to Hawkins: “He said he looked forward to a stimulating campaign.”
Hawkins insists his main intention is not necessarily to win, but to at least pave the way for someone else. The 39-year-old also wants to get Van Yahres talking again.
“I want Mitch to explain Garrett renewal and threats from the City to annex the County,” says Hawkins. “Even though all I really expect back from Mitch is the usual silence.”
In Hawkins’ mind, City annexation of the County and urban renewal are the two issues that explain every aspect of current-day local government. Indeed, he wants to introduce a bill that would extend the right of self-determination to County residents. That, he says, would make it impossible for the City to profit from threats to annex the County. “Ultimately, this would improve City-County cooperation,” says Hawkins.
So far, not all Republicans are supportive of Hawkins’ announcement. While some are calling Hawkins a very recent Republican, others are concerned running such an amateur will not make the party look good.
“My election is a long shot, but my main purpose is to discredit Mitch and his ideas,” says Hawkins. “The weakening of the Democratic party strengthens the opposition.
“It’s way past time for a change.”
—Kathryn E. Goodson
This space not for rent
Council rebuffed for ignoring renter woes
As a UVA student, Jennifer Isbister held the rosy view of Charlottesville common to undergraduates and others who live removed from the City’s underbelly. After she graduated and began working here as a social worker, however, she says her feelings about the town have changed.
“Now when people ask me about Charlottesville, I tell them it’s a world class city…for the upper class,” Isbister told City Council during its regular meeting on Monday, April 21.
Seeing firsthand how low-income residents struggle with the housing market––and the City’s apparent disinterest in their plight––changed her mind, she says.
Mayor Maurice Cox invited Isbister to stay for a “reality check,” to be provided by Satyendra Huja, the City’s director of strategic planning, in his annual housing report to Council. His report described how the City is encouraging middle-class home ownership, including gentrification and financial incentives for some first-time home-buyers.
Isbister’s comments and Huja’s report illustrate the growing disconnect between officials and residents on the topic of “affordable” housing. In Isbister’s view, the big problem is that rents have climbed much faster than wages. As a result, the poorest residents must work multiple jobs and spend significant portions of their income on housing. But when the Council looks at housing, they are most interested in City Hall’s own pocketbook.
For the past 10 years, City leaders have treated low-income renters as a financial liability, because they add to municipal expenses by enrolling kids in school and applying for social services while paying less in property taxes than middle-class homeowners. The City’s strict concern for property taxes derives from the State code that makes property taxes the primary income for most cities and counties.
For 20 years, the flight of middle-class homebuyers from City neighborhoods to County suburbs has threatened Charlottesville’s economic health. Consequently, many of Council’s decisions are designed to increase the City’s appeal to middle-class homebuyers.
According to Huja’s report, 60 percent of the City’s 16,850 housing units are renter-occupied, and two-thirds of renters spend more than 25 percent of their income on housing. Between 1990 and 2000, the median rent in Charlottesville rose to $530 from $468.
Homebuyers, however, enjoy more public assistance than renters. Last year, Council spent $1.37 million from the City’s general fund and channeled another $38 million of public and private money into home-ownership initiatives.
The City’s 2003-04 budget sets aside $95,729 to be used as rent relief for the elderly and disabled. Currently, there’s a two-year wait to receive Federal Section 8 rent assistance in Charlottesville.
Cox’s “reality check” perhaps refers to the facts of the free market and City-County politics. “There’s not much we can do about affordability, other than increase supply,” says Cox.
Council’s real housing strategy seems to be calling on Albemarle. Last year, about 1,700 new homes were built in the County. The County’s real estate department couldn’t say how many of those were assessed below $100,000, but Councilor Kevin Lynch says it’s probably not very many. Speaking to the composition of the region’s real estate market overall, Lynch said, “If two-thirds of the County’s new homes were in that price range, we might be more affordable.”––John Borgmeyer
O give me a yurt
Local woman takes up “cyberbegging”
Panhandling is so 2002. Anyway, Jenevieve Piel is too sick and too shy to sit on the Downtown Mall with a tin cup. Instead, the 53-year-old massage therapist is “cyberbegging” to help her escape homelessness.
Piel runs a website called help4jen.com, on which she solicits donations to help her buy a yurt––a modern version of traditional nomadic homes in central Asia, whose simple design seems to fit Piel’s crunchy, holistic style. She plans to live on her cousin’s land in Texas, where she will write books on pain management and studying nutrition. Piel says she turned to cyberbegging, as it’s known on the web, when chronic back pain forced her to stop accepting new clients for the “connective-tissue therapy” she provides from her home.
A self-proclaimed “shopaholic” named Karyn Bosnak pioneered the trend of cyberbegging one year ago when she started www.savekaryn.com to get herself out of debt. Not only did she collect more than $20,000, she also landed a book deal after showing up in the New York Times and on the “Today Show.” Now, cyberbeg.com lists hundreds of websites requesting that surfers “help me get out of debt,” “help me pay child support,” “send me to law school” or “help me get out of the porn industry.”
“When my friends heard about Karyn,” says Piel, “they said ‘Your story’s better than hers. She got money for being stupid. You got screwed over by the government.’”
The story there begins with Piel’s claim that she was poisoned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1980, when she worked for the agency monitoring the population density of fruit flies in Southern California.
“I found the first medfly before the huge outbreak in California,” she says. “If I had known all the trouble it would cause me, I would have flushed it.”
Without her knowledge, Piel says, the USDA included the toxic pesticide Dibrom in the traps she used to catch the flies. After six weeks of working with the pesticide without protection, she began feeling disoriented and dizzy. During one spell, she says, she fell off a steep curb and ruptured a disc in her back.
The Dibrom also left her with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, which renders her allergic to almost everything––including the ink on this newspaper.
Piel had always been interested in alternative medicine, so she ignored her doctor’s advice for back surgery and treated herself by visiting chiropractors and ingesting 50 grams of Vitamin C daily. The pain improved for a while, she says, but has recently returned.
“I don’t regret not having surgery,” she says. “Nine out of 10 people I talked to said their pain was worse after surgery. I believe from personal experience that the healing ability of the body is truly awesome.”
Piel arrived in Charlottesville in 1998, coaxed by a sister who lives in Nelson County. “It was O.K. the first year, then the rents just got out of control,” she says. Currently, she struggles with a rental apartment in the City.
Because of her back condition and allergies, Piel is ineligible for health insurance, as well as many jobs. As for her own work, which she describes as “sensing through the fingertips where things aren’t sliding and gliding” to discover the source of pain in another person’s body, she has had to cut back on that, too.
So far, Piel has collected $2,743 over the web. She saves the money, she says, in a special “housing fund.” That’s a long way from the $40,000 she says she needs for her yurt and moving expenses.
“It’s very hard for me to put myself out there, but that’s what I have to do,” she says. “I don’t know if my body will let me work much longer. I’m asking people to invest in my future, and they’ll have the satisfaction of helping other people get out of pain.”––John Borgmeyer
Garden weak
Pumping the media, Kluge forgot to water the flowers
Any press is good press, so the saying goes. But not any press release is a good press release, as was proven afresh on April 22 when, succumbing to a forestful of faxes and daily phone calls, we answered the summons to view the gardens at Kluge Estate Winery & Vineyard. In honor of Garden Week, C-VILLE had been invited—no, begged (beseeched, really)—to witness the beauty and scope of owner Patricia Kluge’s “impressive oasis” south of Ash Lawn-Highland. Indeed, we were beside ourselves with the prospect of touring the gardens of the woman who is described by her hand-picked media specialist as “one of America’s most prominent women.” (Just in case you missed that episode of “America’s Most Prominent,” all you really need to know is that Kluge, a regular on all the best guest lists, is the ex-wife of Albemarle County gajillionaire John Kluge.)
But maybe something was lost in the translation. For where we had been promised visions of “succulent plants as well as drifts and puddles of the textures and jewel colors that these many varied plant species exhibit,” what we found instead could most generously be described as a trio of impressive stone obelisks punctuated with a pair of old boots serving as cacti planters.
Trying to keep hope alive, we turned our attention to the nearby herb garden, planted for the benefit of Kluge Estate executive chef Dan Shannon. For that, our expectations had been moderated, as we were promised that the rectangular raised beds would exemplify simply “an artistic arrangement of varying colors and textures.” And yes, we did encounter wooden beds, which, with their lean content, we reckoned would be picked over by Shannon in a week’s time. (Maybe Mrs. Kluge dines out a lot.)
To be fair, the four walls of the Albemarle House Conservancy contained numerous impressive tropical plants, such as a rouge plant and a banana-less banana tree. Perhaps the gardens would justify the 13 phone calls after all. Oops! Guess not. Our guide informed us shortly after we entered that the tour was over. After only 20 minutes. Perhaps, we reasoned, “estates” just aren’t what they used to be.
Certainly the dominance of the gift shop on grounds would suggest that the days of the leisure class now accommodate a little commerce, too.
Heading back into town bereft of all hope for a succulent garden experience, we were soon beckoned by a tiny white sign labeled “Garden Week.” We followed a winding driveway and evidently crossed the invisible line separating the grandeur of Mrs. Kluge’s world from the grandeur of Mr. Kluge’s world. At the end of the road, past a row of topiary horses, bears and giraffes, we discovered ourselves on the grounds of John Kluge’s Movern gardens. The oasis, at last, was unearthed. For there, we feasted on rows of trees, tulips, rose bushes and dramatic sculpture accenting the eight-acre garden. There was even a goldfish-filled wading pool, covered in floating lilies.
And neither a media specialist nor press release was anywhere in sight.
—Kathryn E. Goodson