Month: April 2005

Tuesday, April 5
Filmmaker tells “untold story” of AIDS

Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Sharon Sopher screened her latest work, HIV Goddesses, to a full house tonight at the UVA Medical Center. The film documents Sopher’s life as she struggles to come to terms with the disease, which she contracted while working in Africa. In the post-film discussion Sopher said she considers the story of American women with AIDS “the greatest untold story of AIDS,” adding that AIDS is the No. 4 killer of American women between the ages of 23 and 44, and the No. 1 killer for African-American women ages 25 to 44.

 

Wednesday, April 6
Now if they could just build a team…

Today VMDO architect Joseph Celentano led a tour of UVA’s half-finished John Paul Jones Arena. Workers have recently added the last of five 400,000-pound truss rods onto the horseshoe-shaped roof. Construction of the $130 million arena is on schedule for completion in summer 2006, he says. Celentano says that the 8,457-seat University Hall (the site of Cavalier hoops tragedies) would fit inside the new 15,000-seat stadium, and that nearly all of the arena’s seats are closer to the court than those at U-Hall, which will eventually be torn down.

Too cool for school

Today Charlottesville was named the top “Really Cool Small Southern Market” by Southern Business and Development Magazine. The article included this line: “It’s a beautiful place with great K-12 schools and residents who act as if they are the happiest in the entire South. We think they are.”

   Ha! Guess the writer didn’t go to any recent city School Board meetings…

 

PVCC boosts $10M campaign

This afternoon, Piedmont Virginia Commu-nity College celebrated the official announcement of its $10 million fundraising campaign at an outdoor wine tasting and reception. Dubbed “The Campaign for Opportunity and Excellence,” it was prompted by the State’s continued cuts to college funding. Thus, two years ago the school launched the initiative to fund scholarships, improvements to existing facilities and a new science building. To date $9.3 million has been raised, and fund campaign co-chairs Jay and Barbara Kessler hope to net the remainder by the end of
the year.

 

Thursday, April 7
Students take it back

About 100 people showed up in Lee Park this evening to rally for Take Back the Night, an event to speak out about violence against women. The group then marched toward UVA Grounds for an 8pm candlelight vigil. There, 300 people listened as speakers anonymously shared their stories of sexual violence with the audience. “We are all stronger for working together,” said fourth-year UVA student and member of the Sexual Abuse Peer Advisor program, Annie Hylton. “I wish the administrators would come and pay attention.”

 

Arrest made in Belmont sexual assault

Antron Marcus Poindexter was arrested at approximately 6pm this evening on Angus Road on charges of felonious assault, robbery and attempted forcible sodomy. On April 1, the 24-year-old Gordonsville resident allegedly arrived at his ex-girlfriend’s house in the Linden Road area of Belmont and demanded sex, said Lt. Gary Pleasants. When the woman refused, she was beaten and sexually assaulted. According to Pleasants, the incident is unrelated to the case of the serial rapist.

 

Friday, April 8
Corrupt cop case busts open

Today Daily Progress reporter Reed Williams broke the story that two Charlottesville police officers have been indicted as the result of a two-plus-year federal investigation into local cop corruption. Details of the case emerged over the weekend, including that Charles Saunders, 46, and Roy Fitzgerald, 45, allegedly ignored illegal activities at the now-defunct Max nightclub and provided information about police prostitution investigations to its former manager, Charles M. Phillips, in exchange for money and sexual favors. Both officers have been suspended; both deny the charges.

 

Saturday, April 9
Dude, where’s my historic building?

Spectators who apparently didn’t have much to do today cheered as workers moved Varsity Hall, the 147-year-old UVA building believed to be the nation’s first college infirmary, to make room for new commerce school buildings behind Rouss Hall. House-moving experts loaded the structure onto flatbed trailers equipped with hydraulics to keep it level during its eight-hour, 185-foot journey. The operation—which cost $2.5 million—was denounced as foolishness by at least one person who in recent weeks posted signs around the project calling it a “waste” of taxpayer money.

Belmont gets day of beauty

The balmy morning weather made for an apt setting to “Beautify Belmont,” a community spring-cleaning event organized by the Belmont Carlton Neighborhood Association. Resident volunteers began at about 9am, picking up litter, sweeping up loose gravel from roadsides and clearing overgrowth from vacant plots. Surveying a couple truckloads of piled branches, leaves and grass clippings as the day’s activities were wrapping up, BCNA president Chris Gensic estimated that about 30 people had participated in the main Monticello Road portion and collected about 50 bags of trash.

 

Sunday, April 10
UVA strikes out to N.C. State

The Cavs drew season-high attendance to Davenport Field this weekend, only to see the home team lose both days to North Carolina State’s Wolfpack. UVA got spanked 6-0 on Saturday and came up short 1-0 on Sunday afternoon. The team’s overall season record stands at 21-11, with its ACC record a much more disappointing 5-8. The boys return to bat Tuesday against Norfolk State in a non-ACC home game.

 

Monday, April 11
Back to school

Local schoolkids likely grumbled as they trudged to the bus stop this morning, the first day of school after spring break. But take heart, kids (and beware, parents): Albemarle County’s approximately 12,300 students have just 10 more weeks of classes, while the city of Charlottesville’s 4,227 kids have only nine until summer recess.

 

—Compiled by Eric Rezsnyak from news sources and staff reports

 

 

Rob Bell’s serious keg stand
New law makes bar time equal jail time for underage drinkers

A new State law closes a loophole big enough to drive a tank through—or, at least big enough to get a kid tanked. House Bill 2255, sponsored by Albemarle Delegate Rob Bell and signed into law last week, makes consuming alcohol under the age of 21 or providing alcohol to the underage crowd a class I misdemeanor as of July 1. Most people consider those activities illegal already. But Bell worried that the current law actually says “possessing” underage and “purchasing” for someone underage were illegal, not “consuming” and “providing.”

   The bill’s not winning kudos from UVA’s cohort of underage drinkers, but it’s hard to find politicos to argue for under-21 boozers. Like Bell’s bullying bill, the law allows the delegate to take a strong stand on an issue without any political opposition—both Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the alcohol industry (through the lobbying group Washington Regional Alcohol Program (WRAP)) pushed the bill.

   “It is unlawful if someone is under 21 to possess, but the courts have never been clear if that includes possession in your stomach or blood. In some places it was worse to have beer in your hand than in your stomach,” Bell explains.

   Sen. John Edwards of Roanoke was one of five senators who voted against the bill, calling it “silly” and suggesting it was frivolous.

   Liz Murtagh agrees. The senior assistant public defender for Charlottesville/ Albemarle says she’s tried to exploit the technical distinction between “possessing” and “consuming” to get clients off an underage-drinking rap, but it doesn’t fly in juvenile court. “I use it all the time and lose all the time. If you have a blood test that it is in your system…that is enough to get you convicted.”

   Underage drinking is a prominent issue in Virginia, where 76 percent of high school seniors and 66 percent of 10th graders said in a 2001 survey that they drank. WRAP’s Kurt Erickson emphasizes the importance of the bill by pointing to 2004 studies that showed “65 percent of people under 21 get their alcohol illegally not from retail establishments, but from individuals.”

   High-profile cases of underage drinking include a pair of county parents providing alcohol for a 16-year-old’s birthday party in August 2002, and an underage UVA student falling to her death after drinking the “fourth-year fifth” in 1997.

   “Alcohol dramatically changes people’s judgment. It is a danger,” Bell says. “If we can, we are trying to make sure you get to 21 before you make those choices and undertake dangerous behavior.”

   The new law isn’t going down easy on UVA Grounds. Most students are unaware that they could face a year in jail for drinking underage.

   “That does seem harsh. I think it’s ridiculous,” says Alex Blanchard, 19. “People get slapped on the wrist for marijuana. A year for underage drinking when it occurs on college campuses hourly? If you can send people to a foreign country to die, which is happening right now, then how can you deny them a responsible drink of an alcoholic beverage?”

   Blanchard offers that he drinks, but he’s “never been caught because I’m too crafty.” He then worried that “this is probably going to hurt my future political career.”

   Not necessarily. Bell recalls that he drank while underage at UVA. It hasn’t hurt his career, and another successful bill in his name can only help the wholesome young politician who, despite his expertise, still confuses a beer bong with a keg stand.—Lacey Phillabaum

 

Housing project
High-density developers hope Wahoos dig big-city living

An experiment is underway at UVA, and the laboratory is the Corner. Beginning this spring, local developers will start putting up a slew of high-density student apartment buildings near UVA [see table for details]. Most of the projects will start construction when students leave this summer, and are scheduled for completion by fall 2006.

   The developers are taking advantage of a recent rewrite of the City’s zoning codes, which now allow a maximum density of 87 units per acre with a special use permit. Also, the new zoning laws allow developers to include less than one parking space per bedroom.

   The hypothesis is that UVA students will be willing to abandon their cars—or at least park them in faraway lots such as those around University Hall—and use alternative transportation instead.

   “It’s a test, but it’s the right kind of test,” says William Lucy, a UVA architecture professor who sits on the City’s planning commission. “It’s a matter of getting people in positions where they can walk, or use mass transit.”

   The City claims that packing students into high-density apartments around UVA has a number of benefits. Planners say it will reduce the number of single-family homes sold to landlords for student rentals, and also reduce traffic congestion and beef up Charlottesville’s property tax revenue.

   “We feel it’s a mixed blessing” says Bobbie Bruner, president of the Venable Neighborhood Association. “There’s a concern about the number of cars going in and out of the neighborhood, but there are positives. When developers put that much money into a project, they keep them well maintained.

   “We’re mostly ready to accept the changes,” says Bruner. “I think people are fairly calm about it.”

   Developers, however, acknowledge that there is an inherent risk in the hope that young people raised with cars in the garage will be willing to ride the bus to the grocery store.

   “We all hope there’s a market out there for people who really want to rely on their vehicles a lot less,” says Rick Jones, president of Management Services Corporation. “The biggest inconvenience is that you have to get on the bus to go to the store, but that’s what people in cities do.”

   As one might expect, student reaction is mixed. Joey Vide, a junior foreign affairs major, says he wouldn’t want to live without his car nearby. “I’m just not active enough,” he says.

   Meanwhile, Dewey Aldinger, a graduate student in health and physical education, says he already enjoys getting around campus by walking or rollerblading. He lives in student housing near the Medical Center, and parks his car at University Hall. “It doesn’t bother me,” Aldinger says.

   Developers hope the new apartments will do better than some of the student apartments that have recently gone up in Albemarle County, such as Eagle’s Landing, off Route 20S, and Sterling Place, off Fifth Street. Those units have not rented well, developers say, because they’re too far from campus. Also, developers say there’s currently a glut of student apartments in Charlottesville.

   “It’s a risk. It’s new,” says Jones. “But I applaud the City for letting developers take that risk.”—John Borgmeyer

 

Rape in Charlottesville
Sexual assault by the numbers

An early April sexual assault in Belmont, rumors of a late March rape near the Downtown Mall and the ongoing serial rapist investigation keep wary locals—especially women—looking over their shoulders and down dark alleyways.

   Such knee-jerk apprehension is a natural response when faced with such disturbing news in our back yard. But after the initial alarm, the question is raised as to whether rape and sexual assault are more of a clear and present danger here in Charlottesville than they are in other cities of comparable size.

   To get an idea of how our burg compares to its counterparts nationwide, C-VILLE looked at the numbers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 2003 report
on “Crime in the United States” (www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm). Each year, the report tallies the numbers and types of reported crimes in metropolitan statistical areas. For 2003, Charlottesville (and the surrounding counties of Albemarle, Greene and Nelson) reported a forcible rape rate of 39.2 victims per 100,000 residents.

   That compares to a rate of 18.5 percent for Bloomington, Indiana, and 34.6 percent for Athens, Georgia—both college towns with populations similar to Charlottesville. However, Santa Fe, New Mexico—to which Charlottesville is often compared on those ever-popular “Best Places to Live” lists—has a smaller metropolitan population, but a rate of forcible rape of 58.8 victims per 100,000 residents.

   When it comes to rape stats, it seems Charlottesville is just about average.

   That doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be an acute awareness of the existence of rape and sexual assault in our community. Jessica McGrane, an outreach advocate with the Sexual
Assault Resource Agency, worries that once the serial rapist is caught “that people will breathe a sigh of relief and kind of forget…that this is an issue that is always present.”

   For further information on rape statistics in the Charlottesville area, the table provides the numbers gathered from both the
City and County police departments of incidents of forcible rape in both jurisdictions for the past five years.—Nell Boeschenstein

 

 

Sifting through the fallout
Comments pour in on Louisa’s proposed new nukes

People around here have strong opinions about nuclear power, as evidenced by the debate raging in C-VILLE’s Mailbag section. Since our February 22 story “30 miles to meltdown?” described plans to build two new nuclear reactors on Lake Anna in Louisa County, letters have poured in citing the potential pros and cons of more nukes in Central Virginia.

   The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the federal agency that oversees America’s nuclear reactors, has also been inundated with comments—the vast majority of them opposing any new reactors.

   Just because people don’t want them, though, doesn’t mean they won’t get built. However, the NRC has also heard from two important government agencies—the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality—and their concerns will not be so easy to ignore.

   As previously reported in C-VILLE, the Bush Administration wants to revive America’s nuclear program, starting in Louisa County. In December, Richmond-based Dominion Energy Resources, Inc. (which provides Charlottesville’s power) became the first company to receive a regulatory recommendation for a new reactor site permit.

   The NRC has drafted an environmental impact statement (EIS) that declares Lake Anna suitable for two more reactors. In February, about 200 nuclear protestors and supporters packed the Louisa County Middle School auditorium to comment on the draft EIS; the NRC has also accepted written comments. The NRC will consider those comments as it prepares the final version of the EIS, due in mid-August, and the NRC will either grant or deny Dominion a site permit sometime in 2006.

   You can see the comments for yourself at the NRC’s website (www.nrc.org). The vast majority seem to come from form letters or e-mail alerts circulated by anti-nuke groups like Public Citizen, Envirocitizen and the local People’s Alliance for Clean Energy.

   “All the public comments are reviewed,” says Scott Burnell, a spokesman for the NRC. “Where individuals raise technical or factual issues, the staff compares them against its own information to see if any modifications need to be made.”

   Both the EPA and the DEQ insist modifications to the draft EIS are, in fact, necessary.

   The EPA’s four-page comment lists eight concerns the agency has about the draft EIS. The document “does not include an assessment of the energy needs…nor does it assess other energy alternatives,” the EPA says. The organization also takes issue with the draft EIS taking much of its information from Dominion’s own environmental report without independent review.

   The EPA further criticizes the draft for a lack of information about air and radiological issues, consideration of unforeseen population growth in the Louisa region and information about how new reactors might impact wetlands—and how those effects would be mitigated.

   While the EPA apparently has no authority over the EIS, EPA engineer Kevin Magerr says more information “would clearly be needed” before the EPA would grant Dominion the permits needed to start construction.

   The DEQ’s 46-page response says Lake Anna may not be an adequate source of cooling water for another reactor, and insists that more research should be done regarding the effects of a new reactor on hydrology and biology. Also, the DEQ’s Division of Water Resources declares that it would be better to build a new reactor at Dominion’s Surry Power Station, near Jamestown.

   While the NRC’s Burnell says his agency will take the EPA and DEQ comments “seriously,” the EPA’s Magerr says it’s not clear exactly how the process will unfold.

   “I don’t think there’s been any new nuclear construction for at least a couple decades,” Magerr says. “All this is fairly new.”—John Borgmeyer

 

Power station
Despite new competition, WVIR stays atop television ratings heap—and branches out

The last two decades have been tumultuous ones for network television, which has seen its share of national audiences fall to 43 percent so far this year from 66 percent in the 1984-85 TV season. Meanwhile, cable networks have surged to a 54 percent share from barely a sliver.

   Things have changed locally, too, from the rise of cable to the recent appearance of new network affiliates alongside the region’s longtime sole commercial broadcaster, NBC affiliate WVIR. And last week, WVIR made public its plans to partner with a local newspaper to collaborate on coverage of the region.

   But the more things change, the more they stay the same. WVIR, which first signed on the air in 1973, remains firmly in command of the area ratings contest, according to the most recent Nielsen ratings. WVIR had a 28 percent share of weekly early morning to late-night audiences, beating its competitors by a wide margin.

   Nielsen collects local ratings information using paper diary surveys distributed to households during four “sweep” months a year—November, February, May and July. In the Charlottesville market, which comprises 69,930 households in Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene and Madison counties, WVIR’s 28 percent share of audiences between 6am and 2am, Sunday to Saturday, in the February survey compares with 5 percent for Richmond CBS affiliate WTVR, 4 percent for Washington, D.C., FOX affiliate WTTG and 3 percent each for Richmond ABC affiliate WRIC and the FOX cable news channel.

   Recent market entrant WCAV, a full-power Charlottesville CBS affiliate owned by Gray Television Inc., garnered a 2 percent share. Gray’s low-power ABC affiliate, WVAW, failed to notch even a 1 percent share.

   Why has WVIR continued to dominate in a radically changing business landscape? General sales manager Jim Fernald, a three-decade veteran of the station, chalks it up to “a real 7/24 commitment to localism.

   “The reason we’re able to achieve these strong numbers…is localism: local news, local weather, local sports, trying to hire more people, trying to put more equipment in the field,” Fernald says.

   In the February period, WVIR averaged about 7,000 adult viewers in the Charlottesville market during any given quarter-hour segment between 6am and midnight. Its newscasts—totaling four and a half hours of programming on weekdays—generally led the average, peaking at about 22,000 viewers for the 6pm news show.

   Roger Burchett, general manager of WCAV and WVAV, which began broadcasting in August and launched news programs in November and last February, respectively, says his stations are currently “in the building block phase, building a rela-tionship with the peo-ple that live in Charlottesville.”

   “We didn’t expect it to be a success, ratings-wise, overnight,” says Gray president Bob Prather. “You’ve got a long-time station there—and [it] has obviously done a good job over the years. We’ve got to prove to the marketplace that we can be a good community citizen and can put on a good newscast.”

   Fernald says that it took WVIR a year or two to unseat the Richmond NBC affiliate—a benchmark WCAV and WVAW have yet to achieve with respect to their Richmond competitors.

   If Gray has helped to alter the profile of media in Charlottesville, WVIR is shifting too through its recently announced merging of its Shenandoah Valley bureau into a shared facility with the News Virginian, Waynesboro’s Media General-owned newspaper. According to the Staunton News Leader, a Gannett Co. newspaper, WVIR General Manager Harold Wright said he expects the station eventually to also develop a formal relationship with the Charlottesville Daily Progress, another Media General newspaper.

   That kind of consolidation worries public advocates concerned about independent voices in the news. But of the newly formed rivalry for community viewers between Gray and WVIR, Fernald says, “Competition is good for the viewing public.”—Harry Terris

Tuesday, March 29
Deeds in, runs as a regular guy

Local Democratic activists turned out at Bashir’s Taverna during a perfect Mall afternoon to hear Sen. Creigh Deeds make it official: he wants to be your next State Attorney General. Joined by his wife and their four children, he spoke as a friend of “everyday families.” Peter Kleeman, among the 75 in the crowd, said he came out to support Deeds because “I’m scared of the radical Right, particularly as Attorney General. [Republican maybe Robert] McDonald from Virginia Beach would outlaw birth control. We need a grownup.”

 

Wednesday, March 30
Enjoy your lunch!

In a recent study by the Environmental Work Group, Jason Pearson said on Grounds today, doctors discovered an average of 91 industrial compounds, pollutants and chemicals in the bodies of nine people. None of them worked or lived near chemical plants. “That’s a pretty unpleasant bit of information,” Pearson said, speaking to a campus group called Green Grounds. Pearson is director of GreenBlue, a company co-founded by local enviro-architecture superstar William McDonough. Pearson talked about redesigning industry to mimic nature and eliminate waste. “Our bodies are indicators of failures in the industrial system,” he said, as students sipped soda from plastic cups.

 

Thursday, March 31
Board gets majority to stem Griffin’s control

Taking clear steps to reign in the spending authority of Dr. Scottie Griffin, the Charlottesville City School Board passed a measure late in the regularly scheduled session to scrutinize the expenditures of the school division’s top administrator. With one abstention and one absent board member, the board carried 3-2 new financial controls that prevent Superintendent Griffin from authorizing any unplanned expenditure over $5,000. The measure further forces board approval of any expenditure from Griffin’s discretionary fund. Griffin, who through the budgeting process openly disagreed with some board members, is frequently rumored to be on her way out. She started as superintendent in July and the board took the unusual step then of granting her a $200,000 discretionary fund. It was Griffin’s second day of public questioning about expenditures. Yesterday she, the full board, and the City Council convened their monthly lunch. Other topics at that meeting: The ninth-grade dropout rate; staff diversity training; and everybody’s favorite, leadership qualities.

 

Friday, April 1
What part of “No” don’t you understand?

Weekend movie renters find this evening they have a friend in fill-in Virginia Attorney General Judith Williams Jagdmann who joined A.G.s from 47 other states in an agreement with Blockbuster. The arrangement allows the rental monolith to clarify its “No Late Fees” promotion, which has been in place since December. Seems Blockbuster forgot the fine print when advertising its newest campaign, the part about charging customers for the cost of the DVD or video if it’s more than seven days late. In compliance with the plea, by as early as Tuesday afternoon the store on Hydraulic Road had already posted a “corrective sign,” hand-lettered in all caps: “The end of late fees, the start of more.”

 

Saturday, April 2
1,400 ducks seen on the road

The difference between man and the animals was made clear this morning: Animals would never run 10 miles in the soaking rain. But 1,400 racers hit the city streets this morning despite the conditions, raising money for the Free Clinic and crowning two new winners for the 30th annual Charlottesville Ten-Miler. Alec Lorenzoni was the overall winner and top man, finishing the course in 56:24. The first woman to cross the finish line, Nadia Baadj, timed it at 63:41.

 

Sunday, April 3
Film Festival gets another Hollywood nod

The Virginia Film Festival got a boost tonight when star-struck Wahoos packed Newcomb Hall to get an early look at Luke Wilson’s newest movie and a glimpse of the multi-hyphenate himself. The screening of The Wendell Baker Story was billed as an appearance by three Wilson brothers, but co-star Owen bailed. (Brother Andrew, who co-directed the comedy, was said to be on Grounds, but he didn’t get to Newcomb.) After the movie, VFF director Richard Herskowitz, arguably a big hand in making Charlottesville a movie town, led a Q&A session with the producer. Mark Johnson, a UVA grad, explained why he brings his movies to Charlottesville: “All of you really appreciate movies and like movies, not just the commercial ones. You’re up for anything, you don’t settle for the conventional.”

 

Monday, April 4
Now it’s a race

David Toscano gets on the primary ballot this morning when he delivers his petitions to the registrar. Over the weekend, the look of the June Democratic race for Mitch Van Yahres’ seat in the Assembly got clearer as Jeffrey Rossman declared he wouldn’t run and Rich Collins declared he would. Rossman, who has been active at UVA on the charter issue, will focus on the top of the statewide ticket, he said, giving support to Tim Kaine and Creigh Deeds. Collins, who is active in anti-growth initiatives, is Toscano’s sole challenger.

 

Written by Cathy Harding from news sources and staff reports.

 

 

The chosen one
Playing king of the hill with David Toscano

David Toscano is sitting atop the Democratic heap in this one-party town. When the former Mayor declared his candidacy for Charlottesville’s 57th District seat in the General Assembly—held for more than 20 years by another former mayor, Mitch Van Yahres—local power brokers lined up behind Toscano while potential challengers dropped like flies. So far, Toscano’s raked in about $40,000 of the $100,000 he says he’d like to have for the November election.

   Last week, Toscano told C-VILLE about working in his father’s haberdashery (“I guess you could say I’m good at sizing people up”), gaining momentum as a state candidate, playing pranks on Albemarle Rebulican Rob Bell and about how the progressive Dem might navigate a state House of Delegates that just gets screwier each year. An edited transcript of the interview follows.—John Borgmeyer

 

C-VILLE: Nearly every city and county Democrat has jumped on the Toscano love train. Did you have this many friends when you were mayor?

David Toscano: It’s true we’ve been very fortunate to get a lot of people to come out and say they’d like to see me in the G.A. That’s been very gratifying.

   People make decisions about voting for any number of reasons. Maybe they’re your neighbor, you go to the same church, they like your position on issues. Those endorsements make a difference for people who might not know me all that well.

 

One of Mitch’s strengths as a legislator was the balance he struck between his private religious beliefs and his public activity. How will you do that?

Values make a difference. Any elected official who doesn’t have a strong sense of right and wrong will ultimately fail, because they aren’t centered enough to weather the storms of public reaction to what they do.

   Fairness and opportunity is a value I developed a long time ago when I was young. The notion that people ought to have a chance to succeed in life and we ought to reward people for working hard stems from growing up in a household where my father worked six or seven
days a week, and I worked with him. I learned how to run a business, and how important it was to be honest and treat people fairly. That has to spill over in your public life.

 

People say the Democrats have lost their way. In Virginia Lt. Governor Tim Kaine seems to be hedging rightward, and in the General Assembly a Democrat introduced a bill banning baggy trousers. What do you think ought to be the role of Virginia Democrats?

First, I happen to like some of the things Tim Kaine is advancing. His idea for tax relief moves the decision down to the local level. If you look at Jerry Kilgore’s plan, he would remove a lot of local control over decision making.

   Overall, I think Democrats need to speak to the values we think are important—economic justice, opportunity, fairness and compassion. I’m willing to work with business and UVA to create jobs that pay a living wage. I don’t think the public sector alone is going to be able to create those kinds of jobs.

   I think people believe that the government’s proper role isn’t to solve every problem, nor is it leaving people to fend for themselves, but to empower people with the tools they can use to solve their own problems.

 

Such as?

For example, parents ought to be able to get release time from work to go to parent-teacher conferences. It’s a little thing, but it can make a huge difference in the life of
a child.

   Another thing I’d like to work on is a permanent source of funding for land conservation. Localities would like to pay owners to put land in easement, but there’s not money to do that. It’s something that cuts across ideological lines—it preserves the idea of private property, and it speaks to the preservation ethos that I think is pretty powerful.

 

So Albemarle’s Republican delegate, Rob Bell, is moving into the office above yours on High Street. Surely you have some ideas for pranks to pull?

I thought about putting in a trap door. But then I thought that if he’s upstairs, I can see who’s going to talk to him, but he can’t see who’s coming to talk to me. He laughed about it.

 

The developer who wasn’t
Thomas Sullivan backpedals, offers rural lots

When is a developer not a developer? When the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors believes otherwise, that’s when. The Supervisors trusted millionaire Thomas Sullivan last year when he said he was paying to pave a public road for the safety of his children, not to facilitate new development. Wall Street Journal ads for the subdivided lots now seem to put paid to that yarn.

   Homeowners on Blenheim Road near Scottsville were shocked in 2003 when trees were razed and a cemetery desecrated in order to pave the last unpaved section of their road. What had been an idyllic meander on a gravel road through the woods suddenly looked like the “New Jersey turnpike,” neighbor Peter Mellen now says.

   When they discovered their new neighbor, Sullivan, was behind the paving, they worried that residential development was soon to follow. Their petition to the County and Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) to stop the paving fell on nearly deaf ears, and the Supervisors voted 5-1 on March 3, 2004 to allow Sullivan to proceed, with Supervisor Sally Thomas dissenting.

   Sullivan insisted at the Board of Supervisors meetings in February and March of that year that his first concern was safety. In February he told the Board, “It was his intention to make the area safer for his children, the 30 people who work on the farm and the five families who live there… It is not his intention to develop the land,” according to the meeting minutes.

   VDOT’s then resident engineer didn’t object. “When a private entity says they will pay for the road, VDOT’s feeling is why not accept that offer,” Jim Bryan said.

   Transportation consultant Peter Kleeman offered more than a few reasons VDOT should have reconsidered. The road grade was too steep, runoff was a problem and there was insufficient right-of-way. “VDOT did not contest any of the design or developments that Sullivan wanted to do,” Kleeman says now, “and some of the developments appeared to be outside of VDOT’s own guidelines.”

   That part of Albemarle is outside the county’s urban growth area as well. The County comprehensive plan attempts to preserve its rural and historic nature. “Without providing good roadways to those sites, the development potential is very small,” Kleeman says. By allowing the paving to continue the Board of Supervisors “turned the key to allow subdivision in what was rural property.”

   Ads for portions of Sullivan’s property recently promised the “perfect location to build a manor home.” Real estate agents McLean Faulconer have listed parcels for prices ranging from $199,000 to $1.5 million.

   County records, while somewhat unclear, seem to show that Sullivan started subdividing his property, owned by his Murcielago company, even while the Board of Supervisors was still deliberating. (Murcielago is also the name of a model of Lamborghini.) Lot divisions were filed in September 2003 and March 2004. After the County stood down, the subdividing sped up, with three site plans affecting or creating seven different lots between June and December 2004.

   McLean Faulconer has already offered one 24.9-acre parcel for $249,000. If all lots sold at that $10,000-per-acre rate, Sullivan would stand to pull in almost $4 million dollars. Neighbors think that’s a much more likely motive for fronting a million bucks to pave the road.

   Neighborhood tension heightened further when Sullivan’s employees put up a new hog pen near the home of a neighbor who objected to the paving, as reported in The Hook. Another vocal opponent, JoAnn McGrath, was shocked to see Sullivan advertising his parcels as The Farms at Lower Sherwood. Her farm has been called Lower Sherwood for the past 30 years. “He is riding roughshod first over the Board of Supervisors and now the people who have lived here for a long time,” says one neighbor, who is too worried about retaliation to use her name.

   Some neighbors were even more perturbed to see that Sullivan is now advertising his own Mt. Pleasant home on Blenheim Road for rent. (It goes for $3,000 a week; see www.murcielagofarms.com.) “It’s amazing that after all his claims about the safety of his children, he is now just renting out the property,” marvels Peter Mellen.

   Thomas Sullivan and his agent Kim Atkins did not return phone calls requesting comment.

   Supervisor Sally Thomas worries about the precedent that is set and the new pressure to develop on landowners in the neighborhood. “The people who live along that road placed their faith, their home and their investments on the belief that it was an unpaved road… It could be seen as breaking a trust and certainly an expectation that people had about what kind of place Albemarle County is.”—Lacey Phillabaum

 

The meter trade
Hey, don’t blame the meter maid, he’s just doing his job

Crawling along E. Jefferson Street towards High Street in his department-assigned Jeep, meter maid …er…meter guy…er…Traffic Community Service Officer (CSO) Greg Wade, wields a long metal pole with blue chalk attached to the end. With it, he methodically reaches out his right-hand window and chalks the rear tires of the approximately 150
cars parked in the plum two-hour spaces. It’s 10:30am. Chalk, roll forward, stop. Chalk, roll forward, stop. Chalk, roll forward, stop.

   A sedan is missing its 2005 city decal and the monotony breaks momentarily: Chalk, ticket, roll forward, stop.

   For the average, law-abiding citizen, Wade is the face of the law we all fantasize about punching: Blond, blue-eyed, lanky and…19. He has only gotten one parking ticket in his life—it was the day he got his license and he had parked, by accident, in a loading zone on Water Street. As for the job, it’s just Wade’s first stop on his way up the law enforcement ladder. When he turns 21, he hopes to become a full-fledged officer.

   His uniform is starched and the interior of his Jeep is an efficient mini-office. Everything is within arm’s reach. His ticketing computer rests between the seats to his left on top of his file folders that contain a phone book, maps, City ordinances, zoning codes. His radio rests next to the stick shift and a “hit list” of license plates with five or more unpaid tickets is pinned to the visor.

   Done chalking, Wade drives down Locust and into to the residential areas around Downtown to kill time before returning to tally up the cars that have overstayed their welcome on E. Jefferson. Today’s Downtown parking beat means he’ll drive up and down the same 20 streets for eight hours. Chalking, cruising and ticketing. Chalking, cruising and ticketing.

   “When I got [my ticket] I just wanted to pay it, get it over with and get it done,” he says driving down Calhoun Street. “But I guess some people really like to fight about it.” Wade only gets hassled about once a week though, he says.

   I’ve been driving around with Wade for an hour and a half praying for an irate citizen encounter to fulfill my fantasies of what happens when an angry citizen confronts the meter maid, or whatever. Too bad. Today, everyone who catches him writing out a personal ticket has either shrugged and accepted their fate, or promptly moved their car. Accordingly, City treasurer Jennifer Brown says that of the 27,691 parking tickets given out in the past fiscal year (which raked in $595,895 for the City), surprisingly few were contested—just under 9 percent.

   As Wade explains that people who pitch a fit over a parking ticket “usually have something else going on,” he passes a car parked left side to the curb. He swings a U-ey and pulls alongside. Within seconds a barefooted woman comes flying out.

   “I’m stopping by here for two seconds,” she screams as a man rushes out, keys in hand. “Can I move it?”

   Wade nods. “Have a nice day,” he says, replacing his ticketing computer on top of the file folders. “That’s usually how it goes,” in the residential areas.

   It’s been two hours since he chalked and it’s time to return to East Jefferson. While he’s found six parking violations in the residential areas, the overtime parking on E. Jefferson is the gold mine. In 25 minutes he writes up 16 violations—doesn’t drive a single block without writing up a ticket. Ticket, roll forward, stop. Ticket, roll forward, stop. Ticket, roll forward, stop. By 1pm Wade’s total is 22 tickets. In pure economics, that’s $425 or, in my dreams, a night at the Four Seasons.—Nell Boeschenstein

 

Candid camera
Why we just can’t get enough of Brad and Jen

“Good evening and welcome to ‘Entertainment Tonight!’ In the next hour, an exclusive interview with the man who gave Terri Schiavo a sponge bath! A re-enactment of the Michael Jackson trial, and Jane Fonda’s shocking sex confessions. Also, Joan and Melissa Rivers interview top experts to deconstruct American’s fascination with the famous. From starlet to star to superstar, what’s behind the rising allure of these icons? That’s all coming up right after this word from our sponsor.”

   Actually, since Mary Hart from “ET!” hasn’t bought into the concept yet, it falls to America’s leading intellectuals to explain our obsession with celebrity stargazing. During the presidential election last year, scholars at UVA’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture noticed that Americans prefer everything, including their news and politics, served with a dash of celebrity. Stardom has expanded from the fields of acting and sports until now we have celebrity business tycoons, celebrity home-making mavens and even celebrity “real” people. People are famous for being famous, famous for being strange and famous for being normal. Stranger still, celebrity worship has started to pervade the way Americans think about every important issue, from Third World debt relief to living wills.

   On Tuesday, April 12, UVA will bring together cultural critics Wendy Kaminer, Joseph Epstein and Loren Glass on the ever-popular subject, “Celebrity Culture” (see www.virginia.edu/iasc). They’ll dissect the two faces of pop: our simultaneous love and loathing for every detail about the lives of the famous, from Kirstie Alley’s waistline to the facial hair of the newly single Orlando Bloom.

   Together Kaminer, Glass and Epstein can name as many reasons celebrities are bad for us as there are channels on basic cable. “The way that intellectuals have looked at mass culture is like how Marx looked at religion: as the opiate of the people,” says Glass, author of Authors Inc. and a professor at the University of Iowa.

   Wendy Kaminer, shooting sharper, talks about celebrity culture in terms like debased, stupefied, pathology, and “deadening, so intellectually deadening.

   “You can’t understand politics in this country without understanding pop culture,” she says. Celebrities are the new religion for Kaminer, with sexpots Angelina Jolie and Colin Farrell standing in for Athena and Zeus (or maybe Mary and Joseph?). And talk about ironies: Kaminer’s book about skepticism, Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials, rocketed her to fame by taking Americans to task for their religious irrationalism.

   The love affair with celebrity starts with the myth that “life is grander among the famous,” as Loren Glass puts it. Celebrities offer us the great pleasure of knowing all about something without us actually living it—the vicarious life. Celebrities are also fodder for the gossip mill. “Why do I care that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston broke up,” wonders Jennifer Geddes from UVA’s Institute. “What is the allure there in something that shouldn’t interest me so much?”

   Gossip is a primal instinct, and as Americans move away from communities grounded in common interests or a common place, celebrities become the people “we have in common, not the people we live with,” says Geddes. “One of the easiest ways to start a conversation is movies you’ve seen or shows you’ve watched.” People are more likely to know that Aniston filed divorce papers a couple of weeks ago, for example, than to offer a sympathetic ear to a co-worker going through a divorce.

   Besides, “Who wouldn’t rather watch ‘Idol’ than the serious news?” Kaminer asks. “When I think about the state of the country, I would rather read People magazine.” With 100,000 civilian deaths in Iraq, it’s easier for Americans to ponder the stars than grapple with deep fears about terrorism or serious moral questions like complicity.

   And when we do think about other realms of life, the rich-and-famous mentality structures the way people look at that. “Think about the pieces of legislation that have someone’s name attached to them,” Kaminer directs. What with Megan’s Law, Amber Alerts and It Girl Terri Schiavo, a “celebrity ghoul,” says Kaminer, you have to wonder, “Are we capable of dealing with these important issues except through the lens of an individual melodrama, the celebrity victim?”

   Über-author Joseph Epstein is slightly more forgiving of the American proclivity for distraction, “the sizzle, not the steak, as they say.” His witticisms have filled 16 books since 1975. His speech on Tuesday, April 12, will bring heavyweights like Marcel Proust to bear on questions of “Access Hollywood” and “Entertainment Tonight.” He insists that the critique of celebrity is more than academe looking down its nose at pop culture. He has a little fun with the phenomena, too, by alternately blasting pop culture as “passively acquired,” and noting that he’s had his own People magazine photo spread. “Voyeurism is not without its pleasures,” he says.

   As a specialist in cultural studies, Loren Glass gets paid to watch trash TV. Speaking in lofty terms, he’s keenly aware that the celebrity critique can be seen as cultural snobbery. “Because cultural studies in its academic home is a middle class and elite phenomena,” he says, “it can’t avoid having the twin emotional pulls toward popular material. Those pulls are either envy or loathing.”

   Which also explains why it can feel so good and yet so bad to waste a day in front of “Sex and the City” re-runs or by pouring over The New York Times Sunday Style section. Luckily, the Celebrity Culture conference starts at 2pm on Tuesday so the heavy thinkers can tsk tsk together and still get home in time to catch “American Idol.”—Lacey Phillabaum

 

End of the Quest?
Successful for five years, a county college prep course comes up empty

While city schools struggle to close the achievement gap, Albemarle County schools are about to lose a program that goes a long way toward meeting the goal. College Quest, or CQuest, is a college access program at Monticello High School that helps high achieving, low-income students get the best possible college placement.

   CQuest targets the clever kid who thinks he’ll go into stereo installation or the brainy one who just wants to get into ODU. CQuest encourages them to aim higher and at least apply to college, or to apply for better schools than they might otherwise.

   Private college counselors can cost more than $100 an hour. School counselors can oversee 300 students, mostly focusing on the ones in trouble. CQuest fills the gap, offering an SAT prep course at no cost, admissions counseling, help crafting college essays and the opportunity to visit 15 college campuses.

   Since it started as an after-school program and has grown into a regular course with 30 students, CQuest has flourished. “After five years it is absolutely obvious that working with these kids in small groups pays off in big dividends,” says founder Rebecca Lamb. For kids whose parents didn’t graduate from college, the application process is a mystery. Just being surrounded by peers who are college-bound raises the bar.

   Both graduates and current students enthusiastically laud CQuest. LaToya Brackett is a junior at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, whose family “didn’t know what Ivy League meant” before she went into CQuest. “Sometimes you need the extra push from someone to tell you that you really can do it, and I am really glad I had that,” she says.

   Monticello High School senior Telma Sheppard is waiting to hear from Cornell, James Madison University and UVA. She credits CQuest with pushing her to aim higher. “You’re in a positive environment surrounded by people who only want to help you,” she says. If the program is cut, “a lot of people would be out of an opportunity to get help with the future.”

   “At this point, it is closing in May,” Lamb says. In the past the Ron Brown Scholar Program, West Wind Foundation and Boys & Girls Club have helped fund the approximately $30,000 annual budget. Lamb tried to fund the program privately this year, and it hasn’t panned out.

   Monticello High School principal Billy Haun endorses both Lamb and the program. “One young man in particular, his SAT scores went up 100 points. The SAT prep is a good part of the program, and getting these students aware of colleges and getting them the hands-on, this is what it takes. She is the push behind these kids,” he says.

   Current students heard from colleges before April 1. This year Lamb remains waiting for word too, hoping that a funding source comes forward to give other students the same opportunity.—Lacey Phillabaum

 

College Access by the numbers

77    Percent of students from high-income families who went to college in 2003

48    Percent of students from low-income families who went to college that same year

22   Percent of federal student aid that was need-based grants in 2004

61   Percent that was need-based 30 years ago

25   Percent of income a poor family was required to pay for one year of college in 2001

5   Percent of income well-off spend on one year of college in 2001

2.9    Percent of people with a bachelor’s degree who were unemployed in January 2004

4.9   Percent of people with a high school diploma who were unemployed then

8.8   Percent of people with less than a high school diploma

100   Percent of Monticello High School’s College Quest students who have been accepted to a college

Source: USA Funds and CQuest