Tuesday, May 3
We’ll miss you. Not.
Classes ended today at UVA, which could only mean that the area’s supply of NoDoz was rapidly depleted as studying for finals gets underway immediately. For 5,100 seniors and graduate students, the next big date is Sunday, May 22, graduation day. Following that auspicious occasion, look out for real-life tales of the 50-hour workweek and the incredible shrinking 401K.
Wednesday, May 4
City’s second 2005 murder announced
This afternoon police released details of Charlottesville’s second homicide of the year. On May 1, Gregory Eugene Johnson died of head wounds he suffered while attempting to break up a fight in the Westhaven apartment complex on Hardy Drive. The police have arrested 31-year-old Sean Orlando Scott of Charlottesville and charged him with voluntary manslaughter. The fight broke out on the night of April 27 when one of Johnson’s nephews confronted Scott following the funeral of Johnson’s mother. Upon seeing the two fighting, Johnson attempted to intervene and suffered a critical head wound, from which he never regained consciousness.
Thursday, May 5
Local race projects earn VFH funding
Announcing today statewide grants that total nearly a quarter-million dollars, the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities has awarded $2,500 to Web lit site Archipelago for an audio documentary about last year’s DNA dragnet that earned the Charlottesville police boatloads of negative press when they randomly swabbed African-American males as they searched for the serial rapist (who is still at large). Additionally, Presence Center for Applied Theatre Arts got $3,000 for a project tied to local African-American history. Also among local winners: UVA ($9,850) to support a digital archive on the history of the American circus. No kidding.
Friday, May 6
Music lovers trek south, no robberies reported!
Local bands Fletcher Bridge and Indecision kicked off the 2005 Fridays After 5 season tonight at the event’s temporary location on Garrett Street. Despite chilly weather, loyal fans donned their fleeces, set up their lawn chairs, got themselves some pizza and beer, and sat back to lap up the free rock ’n’ roll. Proceeds from nonalcoholic concessions were donated to the Music Resource Center, a favorite charity of Fridays promoter Coran Capshaw.
Saturday, May 7
UVA sympathizes with devil, books Rolling Stones
Local bands hoping for an opener slot (yeah, right!) are readying their audition tapes after The Daily Progress yesterday reported the all-but-confirmed rumor that Mick, Keith and the boys will play Scott Stadium in October. Official word on which major band will play the gig in the 61,500-seat stadium is not scheduled until Tuesday, which means nothing to legions of instant fans who just hope rock’s reigning pterodactyls will play their favorite Britney tune, “Satisfaction.” Meanwhile, fans of the more accessible rock-ecstasy experience are looking ahead a few short weeks to the performance of alt-darling chanteuse Aimee Mann at the Paramount on Tuesday, June 14—another show that hasn’t been “officially” officially announced yet.
Sunday, May 8
Supe search: The plot thickens
What’s a City School Board member to do when the daily rag can’t get the story straight? Post a response to the website of Democratic city archivist George Loper, that’s what (loper.org/~george). Writing today ostensibly to clear up the icky impression left by an article in the Progress that the School Board might put the search for a new superintendent back into the hands of the firm that brought us Loser-of-the-Year Scottie Griffin, Peggy Van Yahres writes: “The Daily Progress was incorrect in its article on Saturday, May 7, 2005, when it inferred that Dede Smith pushed for the Board to hire Ray and Associates again. She was laying out options for the search process. VSBA (Virginia School Board Association) suggested we move quickly to take advantage of available candidates, who may not be available in January 2006 when, by State law, we must have a superintendent. Dede explained two ways to accomplish this objective—use VSBA or rehire Ray and Associates, who are obligated by their contact to conduct a search without charging a fee, a fact the public should know. The consensus of the Board was not to use them.”
Monday, May 9
Tinsley’s making a racquet
What’s Boyd Tinsley’s other favorite stringed instrument? The tennis racquet, of course, as qualifying matches continue today for the Boyd Tinsley $50,000 USTA Women’s Pro Tennis Championship. The violinist, known these 14 years for his six-pack abs and his central role in Dave Matthews Band, has sponsored the event at Boar’s Head for the past couple of years, even treating enthusiasts to the de-lovely sight of Anna Kournikova in tennis whites. According to a news release, the championship lets players move up in the world rankings by earning the same ranking points as they would at bigger events like the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. Main draw matches begin tomorrow, with the semis and finals set for the weekend.
If they can do it in Kabul, you can do it here
Those still not registered to vote in the June primaries have one week from today to get their act together at the City or County Registrars’ offices. Democracy: the shortest distance between two points of view.
—Written by Cathy Harding from staff reports and news sources.
Mock and awe
Democrats roast Mitch Van Yahres after 37 years in politics
Of the many lost causes Mitch Van Yahres championed during his 24 years as Charlottesville’s State Delegate, nothing was farther out of the ballpark than his plan to rescue southern Virginia’s devastated tobacco industry with hemp.
“Some of these causes are so lost, you wonder how Mitch ever found them in the first place,” said former Delegate James Murray, an Earlysville resident and one of nine roasters who broke out their best zingers to honor Van Yahres’ retirement.
About 220 members of the Charlottesville Democrats gathered at the Boar’s Head Inn to yuck it up at the expense of the 78-year-old Van Yahres, who earlier this year finished his last session in the 57th seat of the House of Delegates. Local Dems plunked down $100 apiece to mingle with the anyone-who’s-anyone-in-City-politics crowd, eat a fish dinner, and toast the man of the evening.
The roast was also a fundraiser for “The Road Back,” a political action committee trying to bolster local Dems. The program for the roast included the names of dozens of local donors who had given between $250 and $1,000 to The Road Back, a list that was of interest to those who would replace Van Yahres in Richmond. Former Mayor David Toscano, former water authority chair Richard Collins and homebuilder Kim Tingley are each vying for the spot, and before the dinner they pressed the flesh with well-heeled Dems mingling around the bar. “That’s what I’m supposed to do, walk around and shake everybody’s hand,” said Tingley.
It remains to be seen whether Van Yahres’ successor will also be a voice in the Republican wilderness, or if he can choreograph a Dem comeback. Once the roast began, however, the well-lubricated crowd was ready to laugh.
One of the biggest jokes—besides Van Yahres obstinately casual wardrobe—was his habit of fighting tenaciously for good ideas that didn’t stand the slightest chance in the right-wing General Assembly.
“It was great fun to see these guys champion things that went straight down the toilet,” said G.C. Morse, a former Van Yahres aide who later became a newspaper reporter.
Van Yahres seems so beloved by City Dems because he is so archetypically Charlottesville. A Catholic tree surgeon originally from New York, Van Yahres entered City Council in 1968 as an outspoken liberal surrounded by four Republicans. “It got him ready for his later years in Richmond,” said Jack Horn, who helped Van Yahres run for Council.
Van Yahres eventually became Mayor, helping Democrats cement their domination of City Council in the 1970s. While others echoed Van Yahres’ liberal sentiment, few did so with the same humble demeanor.
“Look at those plaid shirts, droopy chinos and scuffed shoes. Don’t you just love him?” said longtime party activist Mary Anne Elwood. “Mitch has two rules for fashion. One is to never wear colors named for food,” she said. “Pink yes, salmon no. Red yes, cranberry no. The other is to never wear suspenders with a belt… unless you’re a clown.”
When Van Yahres went to Richmond in 1980, he became a popular figure in what state politicians now refer to as “the good old days.” This was a time when Republicans and Democrats could be friends outside the Capitol building; Friday’s roasters included former Republican delegate Pete Giesen, who recounted taking vacations with his liberal buddy.
“Mitch got off the plane carrying a briefcase,” said Giesen. “I said ‘Do you need help with your luggage?’ Mitch said, ‘This is my luggage.’”
The days of friendship among colleagues across party lines are history. Van Yahres won respect at home for going on his “poverty diets” to illustrate the difficulty of eating on food stamps, but such sincerity made him seem like a throwback among the ambitious young climbers who now dominate Richmond.
Whoever takes his place, Van Yahres said, “will have to put up with much of what made me decide to leave, of having to constantly vote ‘no’ to the radical right-wing’s attempts to control our personal lives.”
Van Yahres said he never regretted his protest votes and long-shot ideas, because he felt they reflected the conscience of Charlottesville. “It wasn’t just my values, it was my constituency,” he said.
Before things got too sentimental, however, Van Yahres couldn’t resist lobbing a partisan potshot at his roasters. “It’s obvious that you are nothing more than
a bunch of wanna-be Laura Bushes.”—John Borgmeyer
Dr. Hurt’s Barracks dig
He says it’s private development, but the County smells a subdivision
Out Barracks Road, across from the Colthurst subdivision, the speed limit changes and the city gives way to rolling countryside. Barracks Road commuters could soon see some of the green fields torn up. Look carefully, and there’s already a new road.
Last week, C.W. Hurt meets an early morning trespasser while still wearing his sweats. He wants to know why someone is taking pictures of his dirt pile.
Maybe Hurt hasn’t had time to put up “No Trespassing” signs on his new access from Barracks Road. He says he cut the road to reach his private residence and 156 acres of countryside. But, the Albemarle County Planning Commission looked at the road and a subdivision plan for the property and worried that in reality Hurt would be constructing residential housing in a rural area zone.
“This dirt is to go into that holler,” Hurt says, pointing, and explaining to the trespasser. The 25-foot-high, 100-foot-long pile of “fill” for the road is the symbolic molehill that’s turning into a mountain. Hurt says he’s subdividing simply to protect his children’s inheritance. “My wife loves this property and she doesn’t want neighbors,” he insists.
Ensconced in his office two hours later, Dr. Hurt has a gold silk pocket square shaped into an elaborate plume and is ready to answer questions in his conference room, all fine art and old wood. The name alone of his Virginia Land Company seems to belie the developer’s insistence that he’s not subdividing in order to build. “Probably 5 percent to 10 percent of all the people in this county live on land I’ve developed,” he says modestly. According to legend, Dr. Hurt owns half of Albemarle County.
“Someone is trying to stir up some trouble,” he theorizes about the Planning Commission balking at his subdivision plan last month. A Hurt spokesperson says, “If you overturn a stone in that part of the county you will get lots of enquiries,” but, he notes, “no neighbors have gone on the record.”
On March 9, the County received a complaint about the roadwork. On March 15, inspectors found zoning violations for two debris piles and more than 50 tractor-trailers warehoused on the property.
CW Hurt Contractors had a VDOT permit for the road entrance, but did not seek the requisite County permit for erosion and sediment control. The permit isn’t required if Dr. Hurt were simply building a farm road, but a subdivision plan submitted on February 28 shows the parcel divided for residential development. The 11 parcels would require a subdivision road that exactly matches Dr. Hurt’s new driveway.
An intermittent stream on the property flows into Ivy Creek. Community Development director Mark Graham says an erosion plan is required in order to protect such streams. Activity disturbing an area larger than 10,000 square feet requires a plan. A stop work order issued March 7 estimates the disturbed area is greater than 29,000 square feet. Hurt has since filed the appropriate plan.
Hurt’s Haffner Farm subdivision, as it’s called, is allowed by right. But Planning Commission Chairman Bill Edgerton asked for a review by the full Commission. “Yet again, a lot of earth moving has occurred without any approval of the proposed subdivision, and I have been besieged with questions from many of the adjoining property owners,” Edgerton wrote to County staff.
At the April 26 meeting, Commissioners were incredulous when told by their attorney that they had no authority to deny the subdivision based on the several zoning violations.
They eventually voted 4-1 to allow the preliminary plat to proceed. Commissioner Marcia Joseph said later that she voted against it because she believes the road will be used for development.
Hurt has one year to record the final plat. His spokesperson insists no construction is planned in that time. For now, the size and shape of development to come along Barracks Road remains unclear, but the potential profit does not. Nearby houses have been selling for as much as $1.3 million.—Lacey Phillabaum
Pigskin to sheepskin
Most Cav athletes don’t go pro, but at least they (mostly) graduate
This year, the National Football League drafted seven Cavaliers—the most in UVA history. Still, after graduation next weekend most Wahoo athletes will earn a living with their brains, not their hands and feet.
The chart below shows that UVA athletes graduate at a higher rate than other Division I athletes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), where the average graduation rate for all athletes in the 1997-98 freshman class was 62 percent. Athletes can take six years to graduate, so the most recent statistics refer to students who entered college in the 1997-98 school year. The chart also gives the average graduation rates over the past four years, from students who entered college in the 1993-94 school year to those who entered in 1997-98.
In recent years, student-athlete graduation rates have been rising as the NCAA has instituted stricter academic standards, says Welch Suggs, who reports on college sports for The Chronicle of Higher Education. The 1997-98 class entered school after Proposition 16 stiffened the NCAA’s academic standards, requiring high school athletes to complete 13 core courses and to exceed minimum grade point averages and test scores on standardized exams before they can play sports in college. In 2003-04 the rules got even more strict—now athletes must complete 14 core high school courses, for instance.
Once they’re in college, athletes get extra tutoring to help them through their studies. In order to compete as juniors, athletes must have completed 60 percent of their degree requirements, 80 percent by the time they are seniors and 100 percent as fifth-year players.
Athletes in the “revenue” sports like basketball and football typically graduate at a lower rate than other athletes, Suggs says. “There’s a lot more mobility,” he says. “A lot of them get run off of teams for various reasons, they leave early, they transfer to other institutions.”
The chart below shows that the graduation rate for UVA basketball players has improved significantly, to a 67 percent rate for the 1997-98 class from a 46 percent average rate over the past four years. That might be the only trend in UVA hoops that new head coach Dave Leitao will try to preserve.—John Borgmeyer
Imitation nation
Fake designer bags hit the streets of Charlottesville
“We were sitting outside Rapture and this girl comes up. She’s normal, average looking, didn’t look like she would be into designer bags, but she was wearing a Galliano bag!”
Real or fake? Nineteen-year-old fashion addict and aspiring designer Tré Knight, couldn’t tell, but the question mark in his head was all that mattered.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, someone has a Galliano bag in Charlottesville?!”
Handbags are an obsession akin to “label whoring,” yet classier. However, Louis Vuitton luggage ($1,500) or an Hermès Birkin bag ($6,000-$8,000) can set a working girl back a meal or two. Hence, the explosion of the fake bag business: When the real thing is out of the question, a fake or close approximation isn’t hard to find on the street, in a store or on the Internet for a tenth or less of the price.
Even here in Charlottesville, the ladies who lunch with a supposed designer handbag dangling from their forearms might just be guilty of pulling a fast one on their blue-blooded friends.
“I’ve seen a lot of fakes come through [Eloise]” on the arms of shoppers, says Amy Kolbrener, owner of the upscale women’s boutique on Water Street.
While it’s not illegal to buy a fake bag, it’s illegal to sell counterfeits that aren’t at least 20 percent different from their designer inspirations. So, while fake bag buyers might not be committing a crime by buying, they could be supporting criminals.
Kolbrener formerly worked as director for purchasing and production at Kate Spade in New York. As such, she was in charge of buying all the hardware, fabric, handles and zippers for the bags.
According to Kolbrener, the telling signs of a fake are found in such minutiae: The hardware is usually shinier and “less sophisticated,” the fabric is cheaper, the label placement slightly different and the fabric on the handle might buckle. Outing a fake takes a trained eye. She estimates that “about half” of the Kate Spades she sees around town are fakes.
Knight agrees. Louis Vuitton knock-offs, he says, are simultaneously the most popular fakes and the easiest to spot. For example, on a real Louis the LVs and flower-like symbols are never cut off at the seams, and the LVs alternate between right-side up and upside down—instead of all being right-side up as they often are on fakes.
To test Kolbrener and Knight’s theories, I took a trip to Fashion Square (one of several places around town where crappy fake bags are sold) and bought myself a very fake Louis Vuitton clutch for $23.
Fake Louis in hand, I drove to the Corner. It didn’t take long for me to zero in on a young woman toting what looked like a very real Louis. Turns out hers is authentic and that the 20-year-old UVA student, Whitney Walker, has quite the handbag collection: Prada, Gucci, Burberry, Fendi, Jimmy Choo and Dior. All real, she says.
I pull out my mall investment and ask, “Real or fake?”
Walker smiles, “Fake.”
Busted.
She points to the length of the strap (“too long”) and the complete absence of the LV symbol, along with the basic style of the bag itself.
While a fake handbag might not be totally kosher—morally, legally or otherwise—the fake bag beat isn’t exactly high on Charlottesville Police Department’s priority list. In fact, says Sergeant L.A. Durrette, their policy as far as that goes is “Buyer beware.”
So if it’s a fake you’re looking for, then help yourselves, ladies, because there’s plenty to go around.—Nell Boeschenstein
How does North Garden grow?
By $10 a share thanks to Old Dominion State Bank
It’s a familiar pattern nationally, and one that’s in stark evidence in the Charlottesville region’s rapidly evolving banking landscape. Framed by a healthy traffic in bank mergers and acquisitions, a mobile community of bank executives and a robust network of investors start new banks to target niches overlooked by larger institutions, with a built-in exit strategy of a possible sale some years down the road.
The organizers of Old Dominion State Bank, with an office proposed for the Crossroads Corner Shops complex in North Garden, about 11 miles south of Charlottesville on Route 29, are the area’s latest contenders and are approaching completion of an initial capitalization phase.
Under an offering launched last October, the company is seeking to raise between $7 million and $15 million through the sale of stock at $10 a share. According to CEO Charles Darnell, Old Dominion is 75 percent to 80 percent of the way to the $7 million mark, the threshold at which it intends to apply to begin operations with state regulators and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Old Dominion currently hopes to open its doors for business in October.
There is currently only one bank branch within a 15-mile radius of North Garden, according to the prospectus, and Old Dominion’s anticipated primary market is small- and medium-sized businesses and individuals within a 25-mile radius. Darnell said that more than 1 million customers annually have been estimated at the Crossroads Corner Shops. The bank expects to have between 15 and 18 employees initially and will be subject to a statutory single-borrower limit of 15 percent of equity capital.
The company’s directors have so far made a $960,000 investment, according to Darnell, which he ex-pects to rise to $1.3 million. No institutional investors have bought shares in the company and Old Dominion is being established on a broad base of community members.
“We will have somewhere in the neighborhood of 500-plus stockholders,” Darnell says. “It does literally range from 100 shares—or $1,000 —to $200,000 plus.” Old Dominion does not expect a trading market to develop for its shares in the near future and any trades will have to be arranged by the company itself.
At a low-key dinner meeting at the down-home Lovingston Café last month to introduce the company to a handful of potential investors, Darnell emphasized his community banking approach. “I’m interested in everyone who comes through the doors,” Darnell said.
“I would hate to speculate, but over the next five years, I could envision this being a $75 million to $80 million bank” in total assets, Darnell said later. “That’s not a fast track; that’s take your time and build good relationships.”
Like the team behind the new Charlottes-ville-based Sonabank, which opened in mid- April with about $35 million in capital and whose executives included senior alumni from Southern Financial Bancorp Inc. and Guaranty Financial Corp. (which sold to Provident Bankshares Corp. and Union Bankshares Corp., respectively, early last year), Darnell is a Charlottesville banking veteran. He started with Albemarle First Bank as it was being organized in 1998 and left as its chief operating officer in March 2003. Darnell also previously participated in the organization of two North Carolina banks.
Albemarle First, which was hit by a check-kiting scheme in March 2003 that wound up costing the bank $1.8 million and sent it back to investors to raise another $2.4 million, has itself been the subject of merger talk recently. Last December, the company received proposals from two shareholders to seek a sale, and CEO Thomas Boyd subsequently told SNL Financial, a financial news and research firm, that it would consider attractive opportunities.
Besides the merger activity, the Char-lottesville region has also recently been the site of branch expansion efforts by other small banks from elsewhere in the state—Patriot Bank NA of Fredericksburg, Community First Financial Corp. of Lynchburg, and Pioneer Bankshares Inc. of Stanley.
At the meeting in Lovingston, Darnell told investors that Old Dominion had not received any direct reactions from existing institutions in the area. Old Dominion’s aim is to fill an underserved niche, and Darnell said he anticipated that relationships with the region’s other banks might amount to potential future partnerships.—Harry Terris