Paved with good intentions
The MCP debate is a give and take on what’s best for the Mall
Downtown Charlottesville is one of the few places where you can hire a lawyer, mail a letter, drink a freshly brewed ale, look at leafy trees, smell gutterpunks, watch a play, hear banjo music and purchase a dog-shaped clock with a pendulum tongue, all within a four-block radius. Ensuring— and, indeed, expanding—this kind of urban vitality is one of City Council’s top priorities, so it’s perhaps not surprising that the Mall has become the touchstone for ideological posturing of all stripes.
“We need to make sure people can get Downtown,” said Tim Hulbert to City Council on Monday, January 5. Like other proponents of the Meadowcreek Parkway, Hulbert, outgoing president of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Chamber of Commerce, argues that the road will link County shoppers with Downtown shops.
As a business advocacy group, the Chamber’s point of view seems to be that whatever is good for the business owner is good for everyone. The Charlottesville Republican party, driven by the related idea that wealthy landowners rather than public servants should manage growth, tends to march in step with Chamber leaders.
For all his pro-Downtown rhetoric, however, Hulbert failed to remind Council on January 5 that the Chamber also advocates on behalf of Albemarle businesses. Nor did he mention that the Parkway would be a boon for County commerce, especially the homebuilding industry.
Parkway foes like Democratic Mayor Maurice Cox have implied that City businesses would suffer because of the Parkway. In other words, the path to continued Downtown success lies with an unbuilt road and increased emphasis on alternative transit. One argument against the road holds that County drivers will use the Parkway to cut through the City, adding to traffic snarls.
Keep in mind that for some local Democrats, there’s no such thing as a good road, period. The only transportation projects they support involve bicycle, bus and pedestrian amenities.
City Councilor and Parkway foe Kevin Lynch, and even Cox, have claimed they’re willing to compromise on the road, but Councilor Meredith Richards doesn’t buy it. She doesn’t trust that Lynch or Cox will vote for the Parkway even if their demands are met, and this mistrust is behind the current parkland-easement scheme that’s dividing Council.
Just as Downtown is now much more than a pedestrian passageway, after more than 30 years of debate, the Meadowcreek Parkway is no longer just a road. It has evolved into a symbol of the ways and means of Charlottesville and Albemarle’s future growth, which is why politicians are able to send a message to voters simply by saying they are “for” or “against” the Parkway without getting into the complex (and potentially boring) details of growth-management policy.
With the Parkway thus endowed with symbolic value, both sides seem to see any compromise as selling out their ideas. Indeed, a vote on whether to request a legal opinion on an easement from Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore passed by a 3-2 margin.
Despite the conflict, later in the meeting Council banded together to engage in its favorite activity—forming a task force to discuss the possibility of making a decision.
Council voted to form a committee that will study changing Council elections to November from May, to coincide with State and national elections. The switch isn’t official yet, but there was no major dissent (except from Councilor Rob Schilling, who said the committee should also consider whether Charlottesville’s Council should adopt a ward system, have a directly elected Mayor and expand to seven members).
According to a report presented by City Manager Gary O’Connell, the Council has been discouraged by low voter turnout during May elections, which generally hovers at around 20 percent of Charlottesville’s eligible voters. The idea behind the proposed change is that when people turn out to vote for the Virginia General Assembly and the U.S. Congress, they will also vote for City Council.
The notion had been considered before, in 2001, but the debate died in the face of unresolved concerns. Publicity is the main worry: Will the press coverage of local issues be drowned out by bigger races? O’Connell observed to Council that in Albemarle last November, candidates for the Board of Supervisors and the School Board weren’t obscured by State and national candidates. In that election, County voter turnout topped 32 percent.
The first step in changing the election occurred last year, when Charlottesville Delegate Mitch Van Yahres successfully introduced a bill that gave localities the ability to hold elections in odd-numbered years. This will prevent Council campaigns from competing with presidential election hype.
Council hopes this year to pass an ordinance effectuating the switch to November elections. That means whoever wins election in the May 2004 race will have six months shaved off the end of his or her term. So far, there are no announced candidates for what could be the final spring Council race.—John Borgmeyer
Mock and awe
Mini Hummer earns plenty of notice
While sitting alone in a Charlottesville parking lot, John Stock’s imitation Hummer looks remarkably like the off-road vehicles that can be found rumbling through the streets of Baghdad and the cul-de-sacs of suburbia. But up close, Stock’s Hummer comes into focus as a Lilliputian imposter, with a desert-tan colored cabin that is barely shoulder high.
The original civilian H1 Hummer is virtually identical to the military’s Humvee, which, in official Army-speak, is called the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle. Stock’s mini-me version of the H1 was built with a kit of made-to-order parts and a 1973 Volkswagen Bug chassis. Dubbed the Hummbug, its name stands out on the vehicle with gleaming, blockish letters reminiscent of the Hummer brand. For a further ironic twist, Stock affixed a Christmas wreath to the diminutive but authentic-looking Hummer.
Stock, a 35-year-old Albemarle resident, says the Hummbug’s assembly was simple, and that he built the car in the parking lot of his apartment complex during his free time.
“It only took about a year to put together,” says Stock, who works as a histology technician at the UVA Medical Center. “I am not a mechanic. I learned a bit working on this. I can change oil and that’s about it.”
Stock says many people think his car is a Hummer upon first glance, but remark that it doesn’t quite look right. The rather obvious difference people are seeing is that a Hummer is about 4′ longer, 3′ wider and 2′ taller than the Hummbug. And what people don’t see is that the featherweight Hummbug, which tips the scale at 1,800 pounds, is more than four tons lighter than an H1. All of which suggests the girly-man Hummbug won’t be joining California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Hummer collection anytime soon.
Despite the fact that the little Hummbug is a humorous commentary on what many see as the wanton waste and embarrassing macho posturing of Hummer ownership, Stock insists that the car is not a swipe at Hummer drivers.
“I did it more for the project itself,” Stock says of the Hummbug. He says he’s in the early stages of a new replica car, this time creating a faux Lamborghini Diablo (the one with spacecraft-style doors that open vertically) on the chassis of a Pontiac Fiero. Stock says his knock-off Hummer has elicited an overwhelmingly positive response, though it was once derided as a “dumb-bug.”
Stock may not be seeking to offend with his car, but the Hummbug kit’s producer, the Wombat Car Company, managed to raise the dander of General Motors. GM, the world’s largest automaker, purchased the marketing rights to the Hummer brand from its manufacturer, AM General, in 1999. Shortly thereafter, GM put the heat on the Hummbug, and the Wombat Car Company was forced to change the replica’s name and design.
“I think they changed it about six months after I’d bought the kit,” Stock says.
Stock finished building the car three years ago, at a total cost of about $15,000. Though not cheap, the Hummbug’s cost pales in comparison to that of the 2003 Hummer H1, which starts at about $105,000, according to Edmunds.com. And price isn’t the only category in which the mini version tops the real deal, as Stock says the Hummbug could easily beat the 13 miles-per-gallon the Hummer gets in city driving. Besides, “it looks cute,” Stock says.—Paul Fain
What’s the frequency, Kenneth?
Charlottesville tunes in to satellite radio
Extraterrestrial hunters and NASA scientists are no longer the only people listening to radio frequencies from space. A rapidly increasing number of subscribers are now tuning into satellite radio, with the two leading services, XM Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio, sporting a combined total of more than 1.2 million listeners nationwide.
Marketing themselves as alternatives to the commercial-heavy, preprogrammed generic play lists of FM radio, both satellite radio providers tout 24-hour programming and CD-quality sounds on 100 specialized music, talk and sports radio channels. “Once you hear XM, there’s no tuning back,” claims the website for XM Radio.
“Satellite radio is one of the fastest growing technologies ever,” says Todd Cabell, the Car A/V editor for Charlottesville-based CrutchfieldAdvisor.com, a consumer electronics information site associated with the mega-electronics retailer. Cabell, who has XM Radio at home, says with satellite radio “you almost don’t need a CD player anymore.”
Most satellite radio receivers can be connected to either car or home stereos, but some of the more recent models work on both systems and can be carried between different stereos. By using a receiver and a small antenna, which must be positioned in view of the sky, satellite radio subscribers get a crisp signal on all of each company’s 100 channels, which can be heard anywhere in the lower 48 states.
Both companies launched their own satellites into orbit to bring their services online. XM Radio, which is headquartered in an old printing loft in Washington, D.C., beams its signals from two satellites that are positioned in fixed orbits over the East and West coasts. New York City-based Sirius controls three satellites, which orbit in figure eights over the United States.
“They’re both totally state of the art,” Cabell says of the two companies’ control centers, both of which he has toured.
Though similar, the two satellite radio companies come with somewhat different programming and prices. Sirius offers slightly more sports and talk channels, and plays no commercials on its 60 music channels. The service costs $13 per month, or $500 for a lifetime subscription. XM Radio is cheaper at $10 per month, but offers no lifetime deal. It has a more music-heavy lineup, with 70 music channels, but plays some commercials on some of the music frequencies. The receivers for both satellite radio services run anywhere from $25 to $200.
Cabell says both services have just annnounced an upgrade, and will soon be offering real-time weather and traffic information in select markets. Additionally, XM Radio will cease running any commercials on its music channels.
Car manufacturers and electronics companies each offer products with satellite-radio capability, but have had to choose sides in the XM-Sirius rivalry. For example, Sirius landed the Ford, BMW and Kenwood deals, while XM Radio is affiliated with General Motors, Lexus and Pioneer.
Pearl, a clothing store located on the Downtown Mall, subscribes to XM Radio. The black antenna, which looks like an electronic stapler, sits on a windowsill. A small receiver with a blue-glowing display panel controls the tunes from behind the counter.
Hope Leopold, the store manager at Pearl, says she subscribes to XM Radio because she spends 40 to 50 hours per week in the store, and “you can only listen to so many CDs over and over again.
“The mixes are so good,” she says of the programming on XM’s channels. But, she says, the reception requires exposure to the southern sky. As a result, neighboring store Cha Cha’s, which also subscribes to XM radio, had to drill a hole in Pearl’s wall to run its antenna to a south-facing window. Cha Cha’s owner, Marly Cantor, says she enjoys the programming on XM Radio, but complains the sound is not quite CD quality. “It’s not as full sounding,” she says.—Paul Fain