Tuesday, February 8
Dems PAC ’em in
Cynicism and idealism went hand in hand today as The Democratic Road Back PAC presented “Time to Pass the Torch…and the beer,” a two-hour beer tasting and fundraiser in the Starr Hill Music Hall. The event was aimed at recruiting “young voters,” loosely defined as those in their 20s to early 40s. About 140 people attended, said organizer Holly Hatcher, including local star Dems Kendra Hamilton, Al Weed, David Toscano and Meredith Richards. Amid chatter and munching on mini-quiches, Hamilton, a first-term City Councilor and president of the Rose Hill Neighborhood Association, encouraged fellow Dems to “get involved, show up at local hearings, join board meetings…”
Goode: RoboCongressman
Fifth District Congressman Virgil Goode got a peek today at the inner workings of Tommy, a robotic vehicle under construction at the not-so-secret White Hall lair of not-so-evil genius Paul Peronne. The UVA grad is building Tommy for the “Grand Challenge,” a Pentagon-sponsored race from Los Angeles to Las Vegas for unmanned, self-controlled robotic vehicles. The winner gets $2 million, and the Army gets ideas for new weapons. Peronne told Goode that the military has been using Tommy in promotions for the October 5 race, perhaps an omen that Tommy will make it through the preliminaries and compete in the desert showdown.
Wednesday, February 9
Festival of the Book lineup
This morning, organizers of the Virginia Festival of the Book officially announced the highlights of next month’s event taking place March 16-20. Headliners include New Yorker staff writer Malcolm Gladwell, currently living it up on the bestseller lists with Blink, a book about the power of snap decisions; Alexander McCall Smith of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency fame; and poet Robert Creeley. The Charlottesville Chamber Music Foundation will kick off the festival with a concert featuring world-renowned cellist Steven Isserlis, author of the children’s book, Why Beethoven Threw the Stew.
Thursday, February 10
Cosmetic surgery has to wait at MJH
The transformer at Martha Jefferson Hospital went out at about 5am today. Luckily, the generator immediately kicked in with backup power, according to hospital public relations representative Lorry Crawford-Houser. Inpatient and emergency services were not affected by the outage, but 19 elective surgeries scheduled for the day were postponed. “We plan for these types of things to happen,” says Crawford-Houser. “…And everything went off perfectly well.” Dominion Power had replaced the malfunctioning transformer by 2pm.
Arena road project to start
In a press conference today Richard Laurance, UVA’s project director for the John Paul Jones Arena, announced that construction would begin soon on the three-lane, $4.1 million North Grounds Connector. The road will connect Massie Road at UVA’s Darden School of Business to the 29/250 Bypass, near St. Anne’s- Belfield. A portion of Massie will be closed May 22 through August 22 to finish the road.
Friday, February 11
No slice to Dice
The Daily Progress today reports that Papa John’s and Domino’s won’t deliver pizza to Hardy Drive, Dice Street, 10th and Page and some other economically depressed neighborhoods. The story surfaced after AIDS/HIV Services Group director Kathy Baker discovered that both chains refused to drop pizzas at a testing event on Hardy Drive, which she told reporter Claudia Pinto essentially equals discrimination. Zak Flagle, shift manager at the Ivy Road Papa John’s, confirmed the restrictions to C-VILLE, adding that the police recommended to Papa John’s corporate management which areas to avoid when the franchise first opened here more than seven years ago. Domino’s could not be reached for comment.
Saturday, February 12
Cavs rise from cellar
The Cavalier men improved to 4-7 in the ACC after winning at home this afternoon against Virginia Tech 65-60 for the Hoos’ second basketball victory this week.
Sunday, February 13
Senate gets behind fashion victims
Comedy writers across the nation face the new week at least one punch line short after the “droopy drawers” bill was laid to rest in Richmond on Thursday. Drafted by Freshman Delegate Algie T. Howell, the bill, which had passed the Assembly 64-30 on Tuesday, would impose a $50 fine on anyone exposing his underwear in a “lewd or indecent manner.” Fearing action from the Plumbers Union International, not to mention members of the Britney fan club, the Senate Courts of Justice Committee unanimously killed the measure.
Monday, February 14
Bully bill ready for Guv
Governor Mark Warner can count among passed bills that he’s likely to sign in the next couple of weeks Albemarle Delegate Rob Bell’s “bullying bill.” On Friday the Virginia Senate unanimously passed 39-0 H.B. 2266, instructing school boards to set policies on bullying. The measure also requires teachers and principals to report violence and stalking to the victim’s parents, as well as law enforcement agencies.
The O’Ratings Factor
WINA dumped consumer advice guru Clark Howard and hooked up with conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly. Starting today “The O’Reilly Factor” airs weekdays, 1-3pm. Jay James, program manager for the local AM station, says Howard did not perform to WINA’s expectations, but he thinks Fox News’ favorite sexual harasser will improve in the ratings.
Written by Cathy Harding from news media and staff reports.
Free Enterprise Forum keeps a close eye on Council
But it’s all just business
When the Free Enterprise Forum is in the house, you know something big is going down.
On Monday, February 7, a sharply dressed young man sat in City Council chambers, writing in a notebook clearly marked “Free Enterprise Forum.” The Forum is a local business advocacy group run by Neil Williamson, a former vineyard manager and advertising agent, who casts a pro-business eye on the affairs of Central Virginia’s municipal governments. When the Forum is taking notes, the stakes must be high.
Big money is indeed on the line. Last week Council considered two important questions: the Meadowcreek Parkway and a proposed water pipeline from the James River to Charlottesville. Both the road and the pipeline could uncork new housing subdivisions in rural Albemarle at a time when the City and County each want to channel growth into urban areas.
For the Forum and its supporters, the rumble of bulldozers is the sweet sound of money in the bank. As the head cheerleader for rapid growth in any form—as well as for the local homebuilding and real estate industries that profit from growth—Williamson and the Forum are keeping a close eye on how Council treats the Meadowcreek Parkway and the water supply questions.
On the road… again
On Monday, Council proceeded with plans to design an interchange for the Meadowcreek Parkway at its future intersection with McIntire Road and the 250 Bypass—much to the Forum’s dismay.
“We believe the Meadowcreek Parkway, with or without an interchange, will be a boon to Downtown Charlottesville,” says Williamson. (While the Parkway is often advertised as a way to get more shoppers Downtown, critics say it will mostly benefit county drivers looking to cut through the city.)
Too bad for Williamson, because it looks like Council won’t proceed with the Parkway unless it includes an interchange. Without an interchange, the Parkway would cause traffic congestion on the Bypass similar to the Hydraulic Road/29N intersection.
Here’s the rub that has the Forum shaking its fist: VDOT has no money for the interchange, which has been estimated to cost between $25 million and $50 million. City Neighborhood Services Director Jim Tolbert says it could take VDOT 20 years to accumulate that much money. “It’s possible,” Tolbert says, that the Federal Highway Administration could pony up the dough.
VDOT requires localities to go through a specific process of design and approval before building major structures, and VDOT has kicked the City $1.5 million to engineer the interchange. That the City is proceeding with interchange design reflects the fact that a majority of Council will support the Parkway only if it includes an interchange. Unless the Feds come up with the money, though, it means the Parkway could still be a long way off.
Water, water everywhere?
Also on Monday, Council heard a report from Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority Director Thomas Frederick on water supply expansion—another issue of interest to the Free Enterprise Forum.
The RWSA is considering a project that would build a water pipeline from the James River at Scottsville to Charlottesville. The pipeline could be tapped to extend water and sewer capabilities to rural areas in Albemarle and Fluvanna, which could fuel an explosion of suburban development.
That’s why Advocates for a Sustainable Albemarle Population (ASAP)—the antithesis of the Free Enterprise Forum if there ever was one—opposes the James River pipeline. “It’s a lousy option,” says ASAP president Jack Marshall. “This is going to open the spigot, literally, for more growth.”
Free Enterprise’s Williamson has been rallying pro-growth advocates to follow the RWSA’s deliberations. “We are concerned that the community water supply is met,” Williamson says. “We must choose the most environmentally friendly option.”
The Forum’s insistence on “the most environmentally friendly option” is a clue they favor the James River pipeline. According to the RWSA’s consultants, the pipeline would only disturb .23 acres of wetlands, while other options would disturb more wetlands. Raising the level in the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir, for example, would disturb about 30 acres of wetlands.
On Monday, City Councilor Kevin Lynch felt as if the process were being “steered” towards the James River option, he said. He pointed out that raising levels at existing reservoirs would also create new wetlands, and it would be much cheaper than building a pipeline to the James.—John Borgmeyer
Time to change the guard
Mayor criticizes School Board chair
Since at least September some concerned parents and city leaders have urged the Charlottesville City School Board to get its communication act together. Spurred by charges that shifts in standardized testing, reading programs and personnel were abrupt and poorly explained, as well as by rumored “gag orders” affecting school teachers and administrators, they cautioned the board about pending troubles if the public didn’t get a clearer sense of goals and processes. But by the time January rolled around and new Superintendent Scottie Griffin presented her $58 million budget—a top-heavy vision of local education with an unprecedented concentration of spending in Central Office—calls for improved communication turned to shouts. Following the first public forum to discuss the budget, parent Kathy Galvin, for instance, described the process as “perfunctory.” Ultimately, she later told the board, it “weakened my trust in local school governance.”
Now City officials are going a step further. Speaking publicly on the matter for the first time, Mayor David Brown puts the blame for the current crisis at the feet of School Board Chair Dede Smith. While crediting her commitment to the schools and calling her an “intelligent, caring person,” Brown all but tells C-VILLE that Smith should quit: “I don’t believe that the current School Board Chair has brought the leadership skills that the School Board needs this year in terms of being able to provide an open environment with full communication.” He adds that Smith is not effective to “lead the School Board in this difficult time.”
At the time he made these comments to C-VILLE, Brown said he had not conveyed them to Smith “directly.”
City Councilor Blake Caravati voices similar criticisms. “In September when there was a much lower level of controversy going on, it was clear to me and others that there were two big problems. There was a total lack of collaboration and communication on the part of the School Board…. Second, where’s the strategic plan for the budget?
“Neither of those have been satisfied,” Caravati says. “That falls directly on the leadership of the School Board.”
Councilor Kevin Lynch says that, in retrospect, he regrets that Council “didn’t insist” that the School Board draft a strategic plan ahead of budget season.
City Council appoints the seven-member board. Smith was first appointed in 2000. She was reappointed in 2003 and became chair on July 1, the same day Griffin started her job.
Smith says she can remain effective as chair because “I do in fact represent a solid group in the community.” Specifically, she says, “I’ve been a long-time supporter of children who struggle.”
But on the subject of managing communication across the school division, Smith offers no specifics on how she will involve the public in the next phase of change—drafting a strategic plan. “That will involve a lot of community input, and, you know, it’s a long process,” she says. “I’m hoping that will be a very positive step for a lot of people, because they will not only be able to see a vision but be part of it.”
Superintendent Griffin will present a revised version of her controversial budget to the School Board on Tuesday, February 15.
To the extent that they appointed Smith, Caravati says, Council is “culpable” in the current situation, too. “I don’t feel that bad about it,” he adds. “We ask questions, we’re very public about our selection process. It’s vetted to the public in general and the public in general didn’t respond, either.”
But public interest in the composition of the School Board could shift thanks to the current communication breakdown. Jeffrey Rossman, for one, hopes it will. The UVA history professor is spearheading a move to put a referendum on the November 8 ballot that could lead to school board elections in May 2006.
“It would be messy and you wouldn’t always get perfect School Board members,” he says, “but I think there would be a level of responsiveness, transparency and engagement that would overcome the flaws we’ve seen in the current appointed school board model.”
By law a petition for a referendum signed by 2,145 registered city voters must be filed by August 8 to get a referendum on the November ballot.
Until then, there’s another election of more pressing interest to Mayor Brown, namely a ballot among School Board members. “Ultimately, the School Board elects their leadership,” he says about the prospect of unseating Smith, “and it’s their role, not mine.”—Cathy Harding
Split decision
Proposed school redistricting tweaks parents
Albemarle’s growing pains continue. The most recent convulsion is protest over the County’s semi-annual tradition of redistricting schools based on new development forecasts.
On Tuesday, February 8, county parents responded to a proposed redistricting plan that would, among other changes, shuffle students who live in Western Albemarle from Murray Elementary School to the new Southern Elementary scheduled to open in fall 2007. Those students would proceed to Burley Middle School and Monticello High School, instead of their current route through Henley Middle School to Western Albemarle High School.
According to minutes from the redistricting committee (they are available, along with more information on redistricting, at www.k12albemarle.org), one of the committee’s goals had been to avoid “split feeder” patterns that send classmates to different schools as they graduate.
Still, the proposed redistricting plan includes two split feeders. Forty percent of Stony Point Elementary students would go on to Sutherland Middle School, while 60 percent would go on to Burley Middle School; 32 percent of Burley students would go to Albemarle High School and 68 percent would go to Monticello High.
On Tuesday evening, however, it was mostly parents from Western Albemarle neighborhoods (such as Farmington, Flordon, Ednam, Bellair and Buckingham Circle) who stepped up to the microphone in the Albemarle High School Auditorium on Tuesday to address the redistricting committee.
“There are many reasons not to proceed with the current proposal,” said Robyn Sealey, who lives in the Flordon neighborhood. She has a first grader at Murray and a rising kindergartner.
Flordon residents will face greater travel times under the new redistricting plan. Sealey said it takes her “six or seven minutes” to get to Murray, “ten to 12 minutes” to get Western and Henley, but “20 to 25
minutes” to get to Monticello. By bus, Sealey said, travel time is “three times longer than it is by car.”
Not only would this stress the family’s morning routine, but travel times would also cause problems with extra-curricular activities, projects and play dates, said Sealey.
Parent after parent after parent echoed the complaints.
“My wife and I work full time,” said Leonard Winslow. “Travel times and proximity are paramount to us.”
Bo Izard, whose wife, Anne, sits on the redistricting committee, said redistricting would disrupt his children’s social lives. “When they ask if friends can come over after school,” said Izard, “we’re able to say ‘yes’ because their friends don’t live on the other side of the county.”
At the conclusion of every three-minute speech, the assembly applauded loudly and waved pieces of blue and gold construction paper, corresponding to Western Albemarle’s school colors. Perhaps the irked parents can take heart that in another year or two, the school board likely will rejigger Albemarle’s school system once again, and the kids could be headed for someplace else. The redistricting committee will meet again on Tuesday, February 15, to edit the plan based on public comment. After that, County School Superintendent Kevin Castner will review the plan and deliver it to the School Board for a vote on March 10.— John Borgmeyer
1-800-Im-Drunk
The good, the bad and the ugly of drunk dialing
It’s 3am on a Saturday. After Blue Light, Zocalo and Atomic Burrito, you’re a sheet or three to the wind. You’re stumbling home. Your high heels keep getting caught between the bricks on the Mall. Then, Ding!, a light bulb goes off somewhere over your head and you plunge your hand into your coat pocket.
No, not the keys, not the wallet. And then (cue ominous music), you dredge out the cell phone and you…yes, you start dialing.
Fast forward 12 hours: You’re in bed, feeling crusty. You roll over and, oops, there’s your small, Nokia friend. What’s that doing here? You take a gander at those incriminating Outgoing Calls. Shit.
Drunk dialing, or “to make an embarrassing phone call while inebriated,” according to Wordspy.com, is a relatively new addition to our cultural lexicon. Wordspy, an online dictionary that catalogues new words, cites a 1997 Chicago Tribune article for first putting the term into print.
Since then, thanks in large part to the worldwide cell phone explosion (there are 170 million cell phone subscribers in the United States alone), the concept has caught on quickly. For many drunks the equation is simple: Where there’s a phone, there’s a phone call.
“Fred,” a 37-year-old local C&O frequenter, remembers one drunken conversation in which a friend’s girlfriend tried to get him to spill the beans about the friend’s extracurricular activities. Face to face, Fred refused. However, once home, drunk, with nothing better to do, he dialed the girlfriend and told all.
“[The friend] never spoke to me again,” says Fred. “And they stayed together… until later when she caught him with blonde in hand.”
It’s cases like these that, in early December 2004, prompted Australian Virgin Mobile to offer subscribers a feature allowing them to plug in at the beginning of an evening those phone numbers they don’t want to risk dialing drunk later on. The phone blocks these numbers until 6 o’clock the next morning. Blackout safety ensured.
According to Joseph Farren, Director
of Public Affairs for the D.C.-based Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association—The Wireless Association, America is left high and (not so) dry in the dialing protection department. Currently, he says, there are neither local nor U.S. companies that offer anything comparable. He didn’t know of any such plans in the works, either.
Of course, it’s not all bad.
UVA undergraduate Meghan Tighe just celebrated her seven-month anniversary with the friend she drunk dialed after “one too many Long Island Ice Teas.” The dialing went on for six months before the relationship began.
“I guess,” says Tighe, “drunk dials can really lead to something special.” For a lucky few, anyway.—Nell Boeschenstein