Tuesday, December 7
Driver cited for hit-and-run
Acting, they said, on a couple of Crimestoppers tips, Albemarle County Police today charged a Free Union man with felony hit-and-run. Nineteen-year-old Liza Jones was struck on Earlysville Road late on November 29 as she crawled from her wrecked car. She had been proceeding north on the winding road that is often traveled at relatively high speeds and has recently been the scene of several non-fatal mishaps. She hit an embankment and her car flipped. She was killed after a pickup truck—police allege it was Robert Steven Newell’s—struck her and kept going. Newell, 57, was released today on $15,000 bond.
Wednesday, December 8
UVA under federal civil rights investigation
The Chronicle of Higher Education today reports that the Education Department’s civil rights office is investigating a complaint against UVA. In the complaint, filed on behalf of a white man who was denied undergraduate admission to the University, UVA is said to have passed over the student “in the name of diversity,” Peter Schmidt reports. Previously UVA was under pressure from anti-affirmative action groups that claim the university gives preferential treatment to minorities.
Thursday, December 9
Gay basher gets time
Today in Charlottesville General District Court, local businessman Sanjiv Bhatia was convicted of assault and battery/misdemeanor in an incident involving Byron Harris. The Commonwealth presented as evidence Harris’ testimony that on the evening of October 29, while walking on the Downtown Mall, he was assaulted by the defendant who, Harris says, called him a “faggot,” made lewd references to sodomy, physically jostled Harris and, at one point, even unzipped his own pants. Two eyewitnesses corroborated Harris’ testimony. By contrast, Bhatia characterized the encounter simply as a “political discussion.” Judge Robert Downer didn’t buy it and found Bhatia guilty, sentencing him to pay a $500 fine as well as serve 90 days in jail with 80 days suspended.
Friday, December 10
Longstanding local insurance company sells
Culpeper-based Bankers Insurance announced today that it would acquire Cabell Insurance Associates, a longtime Charlottesville mainstay. Terms of theprivate deal were not disclosed. Cabellfirst opened its doors in 1951, and Chairman Bruce Cabell joined the firm 19 years later. Commenting to C-VILLE on the deal, expected to close before year’s end, Cabell said, “We’d been looking at options for a while asto how to secure the future of the agency and give our employees long-term security. We decided that an acquisition was the most attractive way to go.” Cabell added that there would be no foreseeable management changes, saying “It’s an important arrangement, but not a condition” of the deal.
Saturday, December 11
250 accident leaves one critically injured
Eleven days after a median-crossing accident on the 250 Bypass left three young men dead, a teenage driver crossed lanes on the bypass near Barracks Road in the early morning hours, landing herself and her passenger in the hospital. According to The Daily Progress, neither Shana Latrice Myers, 19, who was driving, nor Martin Luther Arid, 28, was wearing a seat belt. Both were ejected from the car and Myers was reported in critical condition. In a classic example of crummy timing, Jorge Arturo-Deras, who was driving the SUV that Myers hit in the opposite lane, walked away from the collision unhurt but was charged with DUI. “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” City Police Lt. Gary Pleasants told the DP.
Sunday, December 12
Golden headed to South Bend?
The Boston Globe reports today that New England Patriots offensive coordinator Charlie Weis, tapped to become the next head football coach at Notre Dame, is eyeing Cavaliers defensive coordinator Al Golden for a major recruiting position with the Fighting Irish. The report is attributed only to “sources close to Weis.” The 35-year-old Golden lettered three times as a tight end for Penn State, where later he worked on Joe Paterno’s recruiting staff and as the linebackers coach. According to UVA, one of Golden’s glory moments as a college player came in 1990, when his late touchdown reception tied the score in a game against No. 1-ranked Notre Dame that Penn State eventually won.
Monday, December 13
Ramped-up food drive in final week
Holiday shoppers may have 11 shopping days left until Christmas, but they have only six days left to donate nonperishable food to the Thomas Jefferson Area Food Bank in its food drive at Barracks Road Shopping Center. The regional food bank serves Albemarle, Charlottesville, Fluvanna, Greene, Nelson, Culpeper, Madison, Orange and Rappahannock. In 2004, the food bank has collected more than 787,000 pounds of food. In the month of September alone, it served 36,000 hungry area residents.
Written by Cathy Harding from news sources and staff reports.
I need some money
Council considers tax options, salary hikes
What do those people in City Hall do all day? Why does it cost so much damn money? How are we going to pay for it all?
Those are the hot topics as the City begins to prepare its 2005/06 budget, which will be completed in April and implemented July 1. In the next few weeks, these questions will prompt some painful conversations around Charlottesville—all City departments, as well as all local agencies that receive City funding, must be prepared to cut next year’s budgets by up to 10 percent.
City Council will decide in the coming months by exactly how much each department and agency will be cut, but it’s already clear that this year’s budget session will be unkind, as the City aims to lower property taxes while facing a projected $3.2 million revenue shortfall.
Homeowners can look forward to an estimated 11 percent average increase in real estate assessments this year said City Manager Gary O’Connell last week. During its regular meeting on Monday, December 6, Council agreed it would like to cut the City’s real estate tax rate by two cents this year, to $1.07 from $1.09 per $100 of assessed value.
Even with such a cut, Councilors said homeowners could expect their real estate taxes to rise about 7 percent.
Councilor Kevin Lynch suggested raising local taxes on personal property to drive in extra money; for most people, that means a tax on cars, which Lynch said are “undertaxed” by the City. Councilor Blake Caravati said he would oppose such a hike, however, because it would hurt small business owners. (A general contractor, Caravati fits that description, as does Lynch, who is a computer consultant.)
Caravati said later that he would support an extra tax on vehicles that weigh more than 4,500 pounds. “They cause so much damage to our streets, and they’re a luxury, so people should have to pay for them,” he said.
Show him the money
One guy who won’t be grumbling this budget season is City Manager Gary O’Connell.
On Monday, Council approved a new employment agreement for O’Connell, which will net him a 3.5 percent pay raise starting July 1. That will mean an extra $4,907 for O’Connell, who, with an annual salary of $140,213 is the City’s highest-paid employee.
Councilor Rob Schilling voted against the pay hike. “In times of tight budgets I think it’s time for the CEO of the City to step forward and help out,” said Schilling.
O’Connell’s counterpart in Albemarle, County Executive Robert Tucker, pockets $143,615 per year.
School buses to be less stinky
City kids may not like the sight of school buses, but soon the smell might be a little better.
Also on Monday, Council accepted a $181,000 grant from the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy that will, according to City documents, be used to buy up to four school buses that run on compressed natural gas, which according to the DMME, discharge fewer emission and carbon dioxide than petroleum vehicles.
Why not run UVA, too?
During the public comment period of Monday’s meeting, some speakers asked Council to oppose UVA’s bid for charter status.
Hey, why not? Council has already passed resolutions condemning the U.S. invasion of Iraq and anti-gay legislation passed by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Surely UVA, too, would welcome Council’s advice.—John Borgmeyer
Is there a draft in here?
Local counselor coaches the nervous on military conditions
Fresh leaks emerge in The New York Times about a late-November cable from the CIA’s outgoing Baghdad station chief describing a continuing deterioration of the security outlook in Iraq. The same day, in The Washington Post, the top commander of troops in the region outlines steps toward drawing down the American presence that could begin as early as next year, even as the Pentagon boosts the force in Iraq to 150,000 in advance of the January elections. Then, in a town-hall-style meeting in Kuwait, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is challenged directly by soldiers straining to equip vehicles with armor scrounged from scrap yards and forced to serve beyond original enlistment commitments by stop-loss orders.
As to whether he thinks a draft is likely to be reinstated, Bob Hoffman, a longtime peace activist and draft counselor volunteering with the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice, says, “No one should listen to anyone’s prognostication. They shouldn’t rely on what I say or anyone else. But you must prepare.”
Last Tuesday evening, December 7, delivering a draft information workshop at Better Than Television, Hoffman described a mobilization timeline that would allow potential inductees little reasonable opportunity to seek deferments and exemptions once called up, if they hadn’t thought about it beforehand. Those exemptions might include conscientious objection, medical reasons, undue hardship and others. Better Than Television, by the way, is an arts collective and activist center located in the old Pudhouse space in Belmont. Other events that have taken place there recently include a drum circle, along with regularly scheduled “Ninja” yoga classes.
Under the Selective Service System, which requires the registration of all males between the age of 18 and 26, registrants cannot attempt to seek deferments and exemptions until their number has come up in a draft lottery (the lottery first focuses on 20-year-olds) and they have been notified that they have been classified as “available for military service.” And then registrants only have 10 days to do so before they are required to report for induction.
Ten days is not much time to assemble the necessary documentation to establish medical conditions that may disqualify registrants from military service—Hoffman noted mild forms of asthma or treatment for depression, for instance. Likewise, for registrants who do not belong to widely recognized pacifist religions, it would likely be difficult to compile evidence of a personal belief system that may qualify someone as a conscientious objector.
Moreover, 10 days is not long to begin reconciling personal beliefs with complicated judicial constructions of what it means to be a conscientious objector, which, Hoffman noted, do not include political opposition to an individual war. For this often difficult process of self-exploration, Hoffman recommends seeking individual guidance from a draft counselor.
Hoffman, an avuncular gentleman with bushy eyebrows and a strong New York accent, began his career as a draft counselor during the Vietnam War. He was trainedby and volunteered for the Long Island Draft Information and Counseling Center. Conscientious objector advocacy groups like the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Conscience and War and the Philadelphia-based Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors have continued to be active since the end of the draft in the early 1970s, and Hoffman donned his counselor’s hat once more during the first Gulf War as a volunteer with CCPJ as public interest in the possibility of a new draft intensified. After the resumption of major U.S. warfare operations with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, Hoffman met with officials from local city, county and private schools and arranged to conduct a series of draft information classes with senior high school students. Hoffman has no more workshops scheduled currently but says he is always available upon invitation.—Harry Terris
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The bloom is off
Venerable rock club Tokyo Rose to close its doors
Sad, but true. Tokyo Rose, the sushi restaurant and crimson-colored basement club that Charlottesville’s rock hipsters called home for eight years, will soon close.
Last week, Rose owner Atsushi Miura confirmed the rumors, saying a deal with a buyer was in the works, but he declined to comment further until the sale was final.
“Isn’t it sad?” said Max Katz, as she disassembled her guitar effects after her band, Red Wizard, played its first Tokyo Rose show—and, apparently, its last—on Tuesday, December 7.
In the early ’90s, raves and rock shows found a home in the Tokyo Rose basement. When Miura, himself a guitarist and songwriter, took over the club in 1997 he delivered the delightful incongruence of gourmet sushi and blistering live music that made the venue famous among touring indie rock bands.
Former Charlottesvillian Darius Van Arman, who now runs the successful Jagjaguwar record label, was the first person to book shows. Van Arman set the tone for how the venue would be run by booking strange art-rock bands and treating the visiting performers well.
“A lot of people heard of Tokyo Rose, because you could get cheap sushi, free beer and the people there wouldn’t screw you over,” says Tyler Magill, who booked shows at Tokyo Rose in the late ’90s.
“It’s a testimony to how good a human being Atsushi is that he opened the club and stood by it even when there were problems, even when most good people would have faced facts and closed it,” Magill says.
Miura’s willingness to book obscure, occasionally awful, sometimes brilliant acts was never lucrative, but it made him a hero to fans of punk, goth and indie music who found it otherwise hard to hear bands they liked in a local scene dominated by jam bands and bluegrass.
“Tokyo Rose is awesome,” says Allison Smith, who discovered the club when she came to UVA in 1998. “I remember seeing Engine Down and thinking that they were so cool…you know, the way you are when you’re 18. It brings music you can’t hear anywhere else, except maybe at somebody’s house.”
The Rose also served as one of the only places a local band could get its first show.
“Even though we played some pretty horrendous shows in our time, [Tokyo Rose] always invited us back,” says Stuart Watson of the local band Graboids. “They’re the only ones who have ever really given a shit about underground music in the Charlottesville area.”
The favor, however, wasn’t always returned.
Miura was forced to ban hip hop parties after someone pulled a gun outside the restaurant in 2001. In January of this year, he finally banned punk and goth shows when some fans vandalized neighboring businesses, despite repeated pleas from Miura for better behavior.
While signs on the club’s door—“Do Not Loiter Outside Ever!”—reflect some of the Rose’s recent problems, Miura’s decision to sell the restaurant and club stemmed more from personal reasons, about which he won’t go on record.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do now,” says Magill, echoing the thoughts of many local musicians and fans. The Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar has hosted some rock shows recently, but it doesn’t yet qualify as a rock club. The Outback Lodge books local bands and regional hard rock, but so far hasn’t displayed the eclecticism that made the Rose a treasure.
Last Tuesday, December 7, for example, the night’s lineup was a typical Rose value: five bucks, three bands—a rock trio fronted by girls in sexy miniskirts and go-go boots; a heavily bearded, arty noise duo from Providence, Rhode Island that literally shook the building’s foundations; and Gone Dead Train, an alt-country band from Staunton.
“We’ll be back sometime, if there’s somewhere to play,” said GDT’s singer. “Let’s hear it for the Tokyo Rose.”—John Borgmeyer
Liberal tank rolls through town
Ted Kennedy to spill it to the Miller Center
After 42 years in the Senate, Ted Kennedy has lots to talk about. And in a few years Charlottesville residents will be able to read every word of it. On Monday, December 6, Kennedy announced his deal with the UVA-based Miller Center of Public Affairs to become one of the first non-presidential participants in the center’s growing oral history collection.
The Senator from Massachusetts—a Wahoo himself who earned a degree from UVA Law in 1959—will join the ranks of presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, who previously sat down with the Miller Center to discuss their lives and times as public officials. Kennedy’s estimated $3.2 million project will begin in 2005, and will likely take six years to complete.
Given that the liberal Senator’s career spans four decades and nine presidents, “the Kennedy oral history is kind of a complement to the presidents we’ve done,” explains Stephen Knott, team leader on the Kennedy project for the Miller Center. He isn’t the first non-leader-of-the-free-world to open up to the Miller Center—Washington lawyer Lloyd Cutler (who was White House counsel to two presidents) was interviewed in 2003—and Knott says the center’s long-term plan includes “increasing the breadth of our interviews to include public leaders inside and outside the executive branch.”
No subject matter is off-limits, which leaves open the opportunity to explore Kennedy’s many scandals (his expulsion from Harvard for cheating and the death of Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick spring immediately to mind), but Knott says they’ll focus on his experiences in the Senate and public policy work.
“He’s been on the forefront of health care issues, civil rights issues, led the charge against a number of conservative Supreme Court nominees—there’s a lot to cover,” Knott says.
Kennedy also won’t be the sole subject. As with the presidential projects, the Miller Center will interview his family, friends, colleagues—and enemies. “We’d be derelict not to interview [Republican Senator and frequent political sparring partner] Orrin Hatch from Utah, who has become something of a friend,” Knott says.
Once the project is wrapped up, Knott says that the transcripts will be housed at the Miller Center, and will be open to public consumption. “Ultimately, we want to put them online.”
As for why he chose the Charlottesville connection, Kennedy said in a December 6 press conference that “over the years, the Miller Center has been pre-eminent in developing and implementing [the oral history project] as a resource for historians, and I’m honored and humbled that they’re taking on this project.”—Eric Rezsnyak
Name that tune
For Capshaw, with Grammy nods and a Phish in the water, it’s called “more success”
The days may be getting shorter, but the sun is shining steadily these days in the musical kingdom that Coran Capshaw rules. His Charlottesville-based management company, Red Light, is on the cusp of signing Trey Anastasio, guitarist and lead singer for now disbanded jam superstars Phish. And ATO Records, the label Capshaw formed four years ago with Chris Tetzeli, Michael McDonald and a little Red Light client called Dave Matthews, just got another nod from the Grammys.
Patty Griffin, whose distinctive voice and lucid lyrics have earned her a loyal following across the country, was nominated in the Best Contemporary Folk Album category for this year’s Impossible Dream. It’s her third record for ATO. Additionally, Sasha, an internationally renowned DJ and new Red Light client, was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Remixed Recording category for his remix of Felix Da Housecat’s “Watching Cars Go By,” which is on Sasha’s Involver album.
And if all that weren’t bright enough, Jem, the ATO lovely now moving up the charts with Suddenly Woken will earn one of the nation’s highest marks of achievement next week: She’ll be a guest on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” on Wednesday, December 15.
Time to bust out the sunglasses.
“We’re pretty proud that Patty’s in there and we try to capitalize on it,” says ATO co-founder and partner Tetzeli. Also nominated in her category are Ani DiFranco, Steve Earle, Eliza Gilkyson and The Carter Family. Between now and awards night, February 13, Grammy nominees enjoy a new wealth of retail and promotional opportunities, he says. “It’s a nice boost for us as a record company.”
To date, Griffin has sold 108,000 copies of Impossible Dream. Her earlier studio album for ATO, 1000 Kisses, has sold about 160,000 copies since its 2002 release, Tetzeli says, and he’s pleased with those numbers—even if they’re way south of Norah Jones territory. “We’re fortunate with our artists, we feel they make amazing records and have a large lifespan that’s not dependent on having it on the radio,” he says.
Indeed, ATO’s stated mission is to be artist-oriented, and its lineup, including David Gray, Gov’t Mule and North Mississippi All-Stars—all previously nominated for Grammys themselves—reflects that.
Not that ATO would turn away the chance to move merchandise. Jem’s music, for one, has already proven to be promo-friendly. Songs from Suddenly Woken have made it into the trailer for the new Jude Law-Julia Roberts flick, Closer, as well as the trailer for MILF soap opera “Desperate Housewives.” And now, there’s the “Ellen” moment. “We have nice exposure through some licensing opportunities,” Tetzeli says. “It can be effective and our only goal is to drive people to the records.”
In another area of Capshaw’s business, namely Trey Anastasio, the fans certainly won’t need the coaxing. The legendary guitarist, who like a certain big-shot Red Light artist has inspired the flavor-namers at Ben & Jerry’s, is rivaled by perhaps only Matthews for fan devotion. And Capshaw, apparently, has been among the loyalists for many years—dating back, insiders say, to his days as the manager of the now defunct music club, Trax. Billboard reported two weeks ago the rumor that Anastasio would move into the Red Light stable imminently. At press time, Red Light could not confirm the deal.—Cathy Harding
As Told To
Conversations with Old-School Business Owners
Back then, I worked in the kitchen after school, and I got my work permit when I was 16. That’s when I really began to work with the customers. I was just a kid.
Yeah, it’s a storybook name, Jak ‘n Jil. Historical. It’s always been here, at this same location, ever since it opened back in 1948. Then, it was an ice cream store.
We sell more than the hot dogs—we have everything, and the best homemade chili goes on the hot dogs. I like hot dogs. They’re only $2.25, with onions and chili. Yeah, our prices are low, but when you sell some things low, you can make it up with something else.
It’s not good that Mom-and-Pop restaurants are being replaced with fast food places. People like home cooking; that’s what we have here—good home cooking.
Charlottesville used to have only seven or eight restaurants back in 1968. I remember when I was just out of Lane High School, and the Caravan was up on 29. There were only two highways then: 29 and 250. We had a small-town feel in Charlottesville then.
I was born in Mullins, West Virginia—yeah, I know, no one’s ever heard of it. It’s near Grundy. Sure, Charlottesville and I have changed over the years. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life when I was a kid, and then I found this place. Before that, I had no idea…
Charlottesville now has a Mall instead of Main Street. And we have lots of restaurants. But our place will go down in history.
People come here from all over. From Louisa and Richmond. We get all kinds of people eating here: Doctors from Martha Jefferson Hospital come here to eat. Lawyers. Lots of real estate people. Yeah, blue-collar workers, too. Most of them are regulars. As I said, once you eat here, you keep coming back.
No, I wouldn’t want to do anything else. I’m my own boss. This is no franchise, and no one tells me what to do. As long as I keep my health, I won’t retire. My son is 22 now, and he hasn’t shown any interest in taking the place over when I retire. But he might. Now he works as a detailer at the car wash up on 29.
The name, the way it’s spelled? It’s always been that way. It’s historical, like I said. The spelling is original, I didn’t think it up.
About the name being historical, we used to have a Humpty Dumpty here. That’s a storybook name too. Our biggest seller is the foot long, with the chili. But you can get it without the chili if you want, but most people like it with.
No, Marilyn Monroe never ate here.