Tuesday, January 18
Kilgore to step down
One week after Democratic foe Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine got a $5 million valentine from the national party in his gubernatorial run, Attorney General Jerry Kilgore announced today that he will leave his post at month’s end to campaign full-time for Richmond’s top job. Signaling the “aw, shucks” tone to come, Kilgore said in remarks to staff that when he starts criss-crossing the Commonwealth he will “miss having a Wendy’s within walking distance” of his office. The late Dave Thomas was unavailable for comment.
Wednesday, January 19
Emergency at CHO
The Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport announced today that passengers increased by nearly 13 percent in 2004, for a total of 366,092 travelers last year. But the mere existence of the airport, never mind its record-setting utility, was good news tonight for the 20 shaken US Airways passengers on their way to Pittsburgh who stumbled into the CHO terminal after an emergency landing. Forced to divert to Charlottesville with just one engine, the plane reportedly skidded off the runway into the grass as it landed. On December 16 another US Airways flight made an emergency landing here after a disgruntled customer made a bomb threat.
Thursday, January 20
Growth is good, dam it!
Neil Williamson, director of the staunchly pro-business Free Enterprise Forum, and City Republican leader Bob Hodous were among those who showed up at Monticello High School tonight to hear the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority describe the pros and cons of raising the dam at Ragged Mountain Reservoir. The hearing was the fourth held by the RWSA to discuss options for expanding the water supply to meet projected demand for 2055. Williamson says some people want the RWSA to do nothing as a means to slow sprawl in Albemarle. Pro-growth types should raise their voices, too, he says: “There’s an undercurrent at these meetings where a portion of the public doesn’t want to provide the water we need for growth.”
Friday, January 21
They think his tractor’s sexy
This morning Kenny Chesney fans flocked to Starr Hill’s website for tickets to a January 27 tsunami fundraiser by the popular country musician. The show, announced only one day before, sold out within 15 minutes. “That element of surprise is what he was going for,” said Starr Hill promotions head Robert Tucker.
Cell-wielding teens left on hold?
Today Virginia drivers under 18 can start counting the days before they have to hang up on Buffy if she calls while they’re driving Mom’s Explorer. Yesterday the General Assembly’s Senate Transportation Committee unanimously endorsed a bill— sponsored by some NoVa Senators— that would prohibit drivers under 18 from using the phone while driving. If passed, the law would kick in July 1. In targeting young drivers, the legislators reason that teens, while good at multitasking, have trouble prioritizing. Northern Virginia and other D.C. suburban areas suffered a rash of teen car deaths at the end of last year.
Saturday, January 22
’Hoos erase their Zero
With temperatures hovering in the 20s all day, Charlottesville froze over thanks to the year’s first significant snowfall and so apparently did Hell as Pete Gillen’s Cavaliers pulled out an ACC win—their first in six league contests. Facing those other ACC weaklings, Clemson, who were 1-4 going into tonight’s game, the UVA men’s team squeaked out an 81-79 victory at U-Hall. Next up for the ’Hoos as they take the Save-Gillen’s-Job Tour on the road: A matchup against Virginia Tech in Blacksburg on Thursday.
Sunday, January 23
Keep the plows running
Though the need for snow removal might be foremost on people’s minds after 2.5 inches fell yesterday, the City of Charlottesville’s online budget forum remains quiet today on the question of which City services should be reduced for FY 2005-06. Writing one week ago, one poster answered comprehensively: “Redevelopment Authority, Office of Economic Development, Science and Technology, Industrial Development Authority, Art In Place, Neighborhood Development Services, City Link.” City Council seeks online feedback to new budget proposals at www.charlottesville.org before passing a final budget on April 12. Ninety-six forum users were registered as of today.
Monday, January 24
County real estate tops $11B
After Albemarle County sent reassessment notices to property owners last week, the Real Estate Division of its Finance Department can expect the phones to start ringing off the hook this morning with appeals. New assessments, which are conducted every two years, reflect an annual average increase of 13.6 percent. The biggest increases were in the Rivanna and White Hall districts, each exceeding 14 percent annually. The County suggests that “the best initial step in appealing a reassessment is to talk directly to the assessor who created the valuation”—lucky fellow! Call 296-5851 to complain.
Written by Cathy Harding from news sources and staff reports.
Whine and fees
Council gets earful on rising real estate taxes and spending
As City Council prepares its annual budget, and as Charlottesville homeowners brace for another year of double-digit assessment leaps, critics are pressing Council about exactly where all that money is going.
“Has a three-fold increase in Neighborhood Development led to improvements in your neighborhood?” asked John Pfaltz, who came to Tuesday’s City Council meeting armed with charts and graphs on City spending from 1995 to 2003.
“Has the 50 percent increase in social services made significant inroads in the problems affecting our less affluent citizens?” said Pfaltz on January 18. “How have the 42 additions to Public Works, even as it has outsourced weekly trash collection, made our lives better?”
The ire of Pfaltz and others has been sparked by a recent report from the conservative-funded Free Enterprise Forum, showing that Charlottesville’s operating expenditures increased at an average rate of 3.2 percent since 1988, despite decreases in population and school enrollment since then.
Between 1990 and 1997, City spending increases were closely tied to cost of living increases; beginning in 1998, however, City budgets started radically outpacing CPI, according to the Free Enterprise Forum. Pfaltz showed that since 1995,
the City has added 152 new employees, with the biggest increases coming in Neighborhood Development (18 people), Social Services (33 people) and Public Works (42 people).
Pfaltz argues that Council should tie City budget increases to the consumer price index. Councilors say it’s not that simple. They say that State budget cuts to local jails, schools and social services have forced the City to make up that money locally.
Dude, where’s my parking spot?
While Council isn’t likely to radically change the way it spends money, Downtown business owner Joan Fenton says there are a few simple things the City can do to help Mall entrepreneurs.
Shoppers who find the Market Street parking garage full have no idea how to get to the Water Street garage, says Fenton. “There needs to be a Mall opening or signs to show people how to get to parking,” says Fenton, outgoing chair of the Board of Architectural Review.
Fenton also suggested that since the Charlottesville-Albemarle Visitors Center has moved from Second Street SE to Fifth Street NE, the City might consider taking down the Visitors Center signs that are still hanging outside the old address.
Glad it’s not our job
Also on Tuesday, Council met Paul A. Chedda, who took over as executive director of the Charlottesville Housing and Redevelopment Authority in August. Chedda, a former attorney, steps into one of the toughest jobs in City government.
The colorful cast of Chedda’s predecessors includes:
A.E. “Gene” Arrington, the City’s first housing director. He often spent his mornings parked surreptitiously at public housing sites, trying to catch boyfriends who were illegally shacking up.
Earl Pullen. Under his watch, the CHRA ranked 25th out of 27 public housing sites in Virginia. Residents owed the CHRA nearly $45,000 in back rent. Pullen lost his job after being charged with driving under the influence and allegedly brandishing a loaded gun at a teenager. The charges were ultimately dropped.
Del Harvey. Resigned in May 2003, after a 2001 survey of public housing residents and staff claimed that her overbearing management style contributed to significant staff turnover.
Assistant City Manager Rochelle Small-Toney had filled in as CHRA director since Harvey resigned. “There have been big troubles at the Authority,” Councilor Kendra Hamilton said on Monday. “The building maintenance services seemed to cease functioning at some point.”
Chedda’s first big job will be figuring out where to get the $10 million needed to fix up the dilapidated Westhaven public housing site. “There needs to be partnerships, not just with the City, but with private companies,” Chedda told Council.
CDF: “Dead but not buried”
You didn’t think the Charlottesville Downtown Foundation would just vanish quietly, did you?
Now it seems some CDF members wonder whether the nonprofit’s board violated its own bylaws when it voted to go out of business in November.
“I don’t want to imply that anything was done incorrectly,” says Bob Stroh, president of Charlottesville Parking Center and CDF member. “I just want to know.
“As a member [of CDF] from Day One, I’d like to find out how it happened and who voted,” says Stroh. “I don’t have any of that information. I haven’t seen the articles and bylaws.”
Stroh says he’s trying to get the bylaws.
“He hasn’t been trying hard enough, because he hasn’t come to me,” says Tony LaBua, owner of Chap’s Ice Cream, longtime CDF board member and keeper of the CDF bylaws. “[Stroh] has never asked me for the bylaws.”
LaBua says the CDF board has not violated its bylaws, but he declined to provide a copy of them to C-VILLE.
“We’re trying to resolve some other issues. We’re trying to work with other organizations,” LaBua says.
LaBua says that although CDF did indeed vote to relinquish the “Fridays After 5” concert series to Charlottesville Pavilion—Coran Capshaw’s company that will run the new Downtown amphitheater—he clarifies that the CDF board is not dissolving its 501(c)3 nonprofit status.
“Fridays After 5 is a branded product,” LaBua says. “We’re looking to sell or lease that name, to continue to raise money for other nonprofit groups.”
So is CDF out of business or not? CDF is definitely no longer involved with Friday afternoon concerts, but it seems as though at least some members of the group hope to evolve and live on. “Even though we’re dead, we’re not buried,” LaBua says.
Stay tuned.—John Borgmeyer
Conversion problems
Evangelism part of local tsunami relief effort
When the tsunami killed more than 150,000 people and destroyed parts of Southeast Asia on December 26, Advancing Native Missions sprang into action. Like countless other groups, the Crozet-based organization began raising funds and sending supplies to devastated survivors. As of last week they had collected more than $100,000 for relief efforts. But a January 13 article in The Washington Post detailed the activities of the local group and several of its faith-based brethren from around the state. In addition to sending food and supplies to the people of Indonesia, Sri Lanka and southern India, many religious groups—including ANM, according to the Post—are also trying to convert the mostly Muslim and Buddhist natives to Christianity.
According to its own website, ANM is an evangelical organization: “Advancing Native Missions has been called to seek out, evaluate and support native missions groups who have a clear and defined evangelical statement of faith…who are working among unreached people groups” to “advance…God’s Kingdom.”
The group was founded in 1992 by Charlottesville residents Carl Gordon, C.V. Johns and Benjamin Barredo. Staff currently numbers 30 full- and part-time employees who work with approximately 240 indigenous Christian groups totaling more than 3,500 native missionaries in 80 countries. It reported revenue of $5.2 million in 2003.
ANM’s heft might be what grabbed the attention of Post reporter Alan Cooperman, who in the article reported that ANM workers regularly hand out Bibles along with food, water and cooking utensils. And he quotes ANM spokesman Oliver Asher as saying, “It’s easy to be an atheist when you have no crisis in your life. But have a 50-foot tidal wave sweep your family and village away, it makes you ponder the big questions in life.”
Asher takes umbrage with the Post’s selection of quotes. “What I’ve learned is that when you’re talking to the media, you can tell them the story and they’lll use one sentence,” he says. “We definitely are not happy that [the tsunami] happened. We’re very saddened; we’ve cried tears with everybody else, shed tears with everyone else.”
But Asher doesn’t deny that the missionaries who work through ANM—all of whom are natives to the countries, he says—try to spread “the love of Jesus Christ.”
“I hate to say we’re taking advantage of the opportunity but we are certainly taking this opportunity, yes, to show the love of Jesus Christ,” he says. “But we don’t make any stipulations. Anything we give, we give freely. I know there’s been some talk about missionary organizations exploiting the tsunami victims, but that’s not the business we’re in.”
The conversion aspect doesn’t sit well with David Vandeveer, a local performance artist who founded the secular Mission Tsunami last month to help the victims. So far he’s raised $10,000 through one local fundraiser (two more are scheduled this week) that he plans to personally deliver to southern India next month to buy supplies.
He’s happy that anyone’s helping out and “[evangelical groups] do wonderful things a lot of the time,” he says. However, “people go and in the name of Jesus they’re helping a person, but to go to someone who’s been a Buddhist for 40 years and is so deeply involved in their religion and then to try to convert them…that just seems silly to me.”—Eric Rezsnyak
|
HOW TO: Learn English as a second language You’ve certainly landed in the right place if you’re interested in mastering the mother tongue—Southern accent optional. Charlottesville and Albemarle County are home to at least five organizations with full schedules of day and evening classes in English for speakers of other languages (ESOL). At the Charlottesville Adult Learning Center, new students are required to participate in a two-hour English ability assessment, which is held weekly at the Virginia Employment Commission, 400 Preston Ave. The cost for CALC’s 14-week language courses is $75-85. Albemarle County Adult Education also administers ESOL classes, and the County’s Regional Migrant Education Program offers several programs, including ESOL Family Literacy, a home-based eight-week class that matches a teacher with a family to plan needs-specific plan curriculum. Through Literacy Volunteers of America—Charlottesville/Albemarle, non-English speakers can participate in free, one-on-one tutoring sessions, which are scheduled to accommodate students’ schedules. For more information, class schedules and fees, contact these organizations: Albemarle County Adult Education, 907 Henry Ave., 296-3872; Blue Ridge ESL Council, 214 Rugby Rd., 977-7988; Charlottesville Adult Education, 1000 Preston Ave., Suite D, 245-2817; Literacy Volunteers of America—Charlottesville/ Albemarle, 418 7th St. NE, 977-3838; Piedmont Virginia Community College, 501 College Dr., 961-5380. |
Signs of intelligent life
Online publisher InteLex allows scholars to search the Western canon in five seconds flat
“Hey, Justin do you have a favorite letter?” Brad Lamb yells across the small office.
From his spot at his computer, Justin Cober-Lake mumbles something about searching for Eliot under Yeats. Moments later, in his second-floor office overlooking the Downtown Mall, Lamb receives an
e-mail from Cober-Lake, subject heading, “Yeats on Eliot.”
Lamb clicks on the link and a letter written in the late summer of 1886 by famed Irish poet William Butler Yeats appears on the computer screen.
“My dear Gregg,” the letter opens. “I have only read four books of George Eliot’s… I don’t mean to read a fifth.” Yeats then proceeds to enumerate his reasons for scorning the great novelist, a woman who wrote under a male pen name, concluding with an eloquent, words-to-live-by zinger.
“Seventhly. She is too reasonable. I hate reasonable people. The activity of their brains sucks up all the blood out of their hearts. I was once afraid of turning out reasonable myself. The only buisness [sic] of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart. Yours sincerely, W B Yeats.” Damn.
Lamb is president of InteLex, a small online publishing company that, as part of their Past Masters series, publishes the largest collection of full-text electronic editions in philosophy in the world. Working in conjunction with academic presses like Oxford University Press and Pickering & Chatto, InteLex takes the best critical editions of scholarly works from the Western canon, digitizes them, and then puts them into a collection with a search engine, which then can be burned onto CD-ROMs. That means scholars can search an author’s entire oeuvre word by word—or can find, in five seconds, that one letter where Yeats bemoans Eliot.
Each CD holds a half-million pages of text, or 2,000 250-page books. Want the works of Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza all rolled up onto a single CD-ROM? No problem, InteLex’s “Continental Rationalists” title has that covered, along with 117 other titles that include letters, reviews, plays, diaries, etcetera by everyone from Aristotle to Wordsworth. Individuals can pick and choose à la carte from the catalogue when creating their CD-ROM libraries and universities have the option of buying into InteLex’s server so that entire student bodies can have access to titles.
Now situated above Blue Light Grill, the company began in founder Tucker Rooks’ home in 1989. Rooks earned his Ph.D. in philosophy before working in a computer lab where he realized that the marriage between his two areas of expertise represented an unexplored niche market. Lamb joined Rooks and InteLex in 1991 to take charge of sales and the company took off, moving into the current space in 1996.
Grad students, university faculty and research libraries worldwide, are that special niche market that InteLex is freeing up to “spend a lot less time trying to find what they’re looking for and more time thinking about what they want to write about,” says Lamb. And InteLex must be doing something right—they have now sold “millions” of dollars worth of titles to a bunch of people who hardly, one can assume, have millions of dollars to spare.—Nell Boeschenstein
As Told To: Conversations with Old-School Business Owners
Mincer’s UVA Imprinted Sportwear’s Mark Mincer
Interview by Barbara Rich
For nearly 60 years, Mincer’s, a Corner stalwart on University Avenue, has serviced the UVA community with logo sweatshirts, decals, beer cozies—and a heck of a lot of school spirit. Students bring their parents by Mark Mincer’s place for the essential tour of campus life, but few can match him for his consistent support of the Cavalier tradition. No kidding—next time you stop in, just look at his feet.
My grandfather, Robert W. Mincer, started this business on July 19, 1948, and my father, Bobby Mincer, took it over in 1972, when his father retired. My father retired in 2000, and I took over then, but I’ve worked here since 1980— part-time when I was in high school.
My grandfather got the idea for the store when he was the foreman of a pipe factory on Long Island, New York. When the factory closed down, he wanted to open a pipe shop in a college town because he thought that college kids could afford to smoke a pipe.
He thought about opening a store in Dartmouth, but then decided that place would be too cold. So it became a choice between Charlottesville and Lexington, and he decided to come here.
It opened as Mincer’s Humidor in 1948. What was here before? I know it was a drug store—can’t remember the name.
We get the most parents coming in on Parents Weekend, which is usually, but not always, in October. More parents in the fall than on graduation, and when the dorms open up in August. There’s such a lot going on then—like buying books—and parents don’t have too much time for shopping.
How have the kids changed over the years? A lot! First of all, UVA is now co-ed. No, it’s hard to tell how they feel politically, but one of the changes is the use of cell phones and e-mail. Kids today don’t write many letters. And we used to deal with bank accounts, but they don’t write a lot of checks now either. Now it’s debit and credit cards and the ATM. One of our changes is that Mincer’s now has a website. As for our biggest seller, it’s sweatshirts.
Well, being around kids kept me young more 10 years ago than it does now. I’m 42 now, married, with four children. Yes, my dad does drop by occasionally. He misses the store—misses seeing people from all over the country. He always enjoyed that a lot, seeing and talking to the different people coming in, and so do I.
I would have to say that the best thing about Mincer’s is its location. We are very fortunate to have this location. Also, all the choices in merchandise we have. Sometimes I think we have too many choices! But I think that this is also one of our strengths. That, and experience. I have learned so much from both my grandfather and my father.
About carrying on with someone in the family after I retire: I have a son and three daughters. My son, who is 8 years old, says now that he would like to take over the business. When I ask him, he says, “Yes!” But he’s only 8.
My dad paid me 25 cents an hour, when I was 10 years old, to refill the soda machine. We used to have a soda machine in the store.
I know my grandfather didn’t envision that the business would last this long. I think he would be very proud to know that it has.
My orange socks? I wear orange socks every day. Must have about 40 pairs of them. Well, at least 30.