Tuesday, June 14
Major grant for AIDS service
Today Charlottesville’s AIDS/HIV Services Group (ASG) announced that they re-ceived a $180,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The money will provide housing assistance to six of ASG’s 90-some clients, says Meredith Richards, president of ASG’s board. Richards—a former City Councilor who has chaired the ASG board since January—says many new AIDS/HIV patients in Central Virginia are young, straight and poor, and that one of ASG’s missions is helping them bear the cost of treatment. “The war against HIV will not be won by pills alone,” says Richards.
Three men in custody stemming from attempted rape by coal tower
Police arrested three men today in connection to an attempted rape. According to Charlottesville Police Captain Chip Harding, the attack reportedly happened on Monday, around 10:30pm, on the train tracks between the coal tower and Douglas Avenue. Police say Howard Gail Edman, Jeremie Shane Williams and Corey David Turner allegedly approached and attacked the victim as she was walking to meet friends. A nearby pedestrian heard the commotion and called 911. When police arrived Williams was cradling the victim’s head; he was taken into custody at the scene. After the victim regained consciousness, she named her attackers by first name—alluding to an acquaintance with them, says Harding, and leading to the two other arrests.
Wednesday, June 15
Trey Anastasio opening for the Rolling Stones
Trey Anastasio and his band, 70 Volt Parade, will open for the Rolling Stones at Scott Stadium on October 6. Anastasio is the former leader of Phish, the legendary jam band whose fans have so far responded lukewarmly to 70 Volt Parade. Today chatter on JamBase (www.jambase.com) reflected the mixed emotions fans feel about their hero. “What’s it really about for you, Trey?” raged one fan. “Selling records? Being the man? Making money? Clinging to youth?” Others told the Trey-haters to step off. “Gotta say, this will probably be the best show of the Stones’ tour,” wrote a more optimistic fan. “Like any of you bastards would say no to an opening spot with the Stones.”
Thursday, June 16
Superintendent mania: Charlottesville vs. Albemarle
Tonight the Charlottesville City School Board appointed Bobby Thompson as acting superintendent as the City embarks on yet another search for a new leader. During a meeting tonight, the Board also revealed it paid former superintendent Scottie Griffin more than $291,000 to leave the school system three years before her contract officially expired, according to a report in
The Daily Progress. Also on Thursday, Albemarle County embarked on its own search for a new superintendent to replace Kevin Castner, who announced his retirement on Wednesday after leading the county schools for 10 years. Castner’s retirement may not be good news for the City. In recent years the City failed to hire a superintendent after a protracted search, then endured Griffin’s controversial 11-month tenure. Now, in addition to that baggage, the city schools must compete with Albemarle as they both search for a new superintendent.
Friday, June 17
Something fishy about Lake Anna nukes
Today local anti-nuclear activists celebrated news that a challenge to Dominion Power will be allowed to go forward. On Thursday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied Do-minion’s motion to dismiss a contention related to striped bass in Lake Anna. Three groups—Public Citizen, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, and the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League —argue that Dominion has not properly studied the impact of new reactors on striped bass in Lake Anna and the North Anna River.
Saturday, June 18
Covesville’s history recognized nationally
Covesville residents strolling through the town today could take pleasure that Covesville’s history has been officially recognized. The National Park Service has announced that the village, which was settled by Scotch-Irish and German immigrants in the 1740s, would be added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Sunday, June 19
Lots of interest in Habitat’s plan for trailer park
Today The Daily Progress reported that Habitat for Humanity of Greater Char-lottesville has solicited more than 400 groups, asking for ideas on how to redevelop a trailer park in Woolen Mills into an eco-friendly, mixed-use, mixed-income housing development. Contestants must submit plans for 36 affordable units, 72 market-rate condominiums and 10,000 square feet of commercial space by July 1.
Monday, June 20
RWSA to consult with Corps of Engineers
At press time City Council was scheduled to hear a report from the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority regarding the community water supply plan. The RWSA announced that on Wednesday, June 22, water officials will meet with the Army Corps of Engineers to discuss the details of the Authority’s four options for enlarging the local water supply—expanding the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir; expanding the Ragged Mountain Reservoir; building a pipeline from the James River; or dredging sediment from the South Fork Rivanna. The Authority has also applied for an extension on its operating permit for the Ragged Mountain Dam. The Authority is trying to decide whether to repair the existing dam or build a new, bigger dam on the reservoir.
Written by John Borgmeyer from staff reports and news sources.
Out of the blue
Toscano’s win begs the question: How do you like your liberals?
On Tuesday, June 14, David Toscano’s victory party at the Charlottesville Ice Park resembled a high school dance. You remember the scene—adults standing around, trying to talk over the booming music, while the cool kids are off somewhere else getting wasted.
In this case, the kids were up at Wolfie’s on Rio Road, eating barbecue with Richard Collins. Tuesday’s primary vote proved there is something of a generation gap among Charlottesville Democrats, as the party sought a candidate to run for the 57th District seat in the Virginia House of Delegates. Toscano won the three-way race handily, taking home 2,242 votes, with Collins taking second place with 980 votes. Toscano is heavily favored to beat Republican Tom McCrystal in the November 8 election.
Even though Toscano’s party offered bottles of Starr Hill beer chilling in plastic buckets, Collins captured the younger, Greener, leftier-wing of the Charlottesville Democratic party—youthful former City Council candidates Waldo Jaquith, Stratton Salidis and Alexandria Searls, for example, all supported his campaign.
Collins might have given Toscano a closer race, but homebuilder Kim Tingley collected 930 votes with his “more liberal than thou” platform. It was an incongruous message, perhaps, for a past president of the Republican-dominated Virginia Homebuilders Association. Tingley, in fact, performed best in Albemarle County (generally considered more conservative than the city) where he got 363 votes to Collins’ 248 in the eight precincts included in the 57th District. Alas, we couldn’t make it to Tingley’s party at his headquarters on W. Main Street. (“It was fun,” says Mike Pudhorodsky, Tingley’s press secretary. “We had food and music.”)
Toscano, however, won every precinct except Clark, where Collins won by five votes with a total of 84. Toscano’s victory wasn’t exactly a surprise, since the former mayor had obviously been garnering support for his campaign for a while. When Mitch Van Yahres announced his retirement from state politics earlier this year, Toscano immediately published a long list of City and County public officials who supported his campaign. He also scored endorsements from the Virginia League of Conservation Voters, the Virginia Education Association, the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors and The Daily Progress. He led all the candidates in fundraising with a total of $76,692 from 348 contributors as of May 31.
“When you’ve been in politics for 20 years, and people have voted for you before, that’s a huge advantage,” says Lloyd Snook, a Toscano supporter and former City Dem chair. “I was doing some work on the phone bank, and I talked to someone who said ‘David’s doing a great job. We should keep him where he is.’ They thought he was the incumbent!”
As a City Councilor between 1990 and 2002, Toscano always made nice with Albemarle County, which also helped, says Snook. “He was never in a flaming war with the County,” Snook says. “There was really no group that was mad at David,” he says.
Van Yahres, who stopped by Toscano’s party, said that if Toscano wins in November, as he is expected to, his toughest challenge will be negotiating a General Assembly where right-wing Republicans hold a lot of sway. “He’ll have to deal with the Christian Right,” says Van Yahres, who has cited bitter partisanship in Richmond as a reason for his retirement. “That’s not going to be any fun.”
In Toscano, area Dems seem to be saying they prefer a moderate liberal who will take a more compromising tone with Republicans, in the style of Virginia’s Democratic Governor Mark Warner.
“Charlottesville is not that much more liberal than the rest of the world,” says Snook. “And the way things are
in the General Assembly, no Democrat
is going to be able to do anything without the help of about 15 Republicans.”
—John Borgmeyer
Ready to rumble
UVA alum pens a unique history of pro wrestling
Local author Steven Johnson has an impressive resumé. He has a PhD from UVA in government and foreign affairs. He wrote about politics for The Daily Progress for many years. And he’s interviewed corporate heavyweight Jack Welsh, religious conservative Jerry Falwell, former Secretary of State Alexander Haig and…Abdula the Butcher.
Johnson, like a true “smart mark,” makes a perfect “call” in mentioning his last interviewee so nonchalantly. A call in pro wrestling parlance is a hidden gesture or muttered comment that a wrestler uses to tell his opponent what kind of move he’s about to make. This keeps the match from appearing scripted. A smart mark is a fan who views wrestling from more of an inside perspective than a regular fan’s perspective. Johnson is letting me know that he considers pro wrestling a legitimate subject to write about, but a humorous one as well.
“People always ask me, ‘How can you lower your standards like that?’,” Johnson says. “‘You wrote about politics and got your PhD. Now you go and write a book about tag team wrestling?’”
The book is The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Tag Teams, written by Johnson and co-author Greg Oliver, a Canadian journalist who has written about pro wresting for more than 20 years. It is an exhaustive history of tag-team wrestling from the 1950s to the 1990s that delves into every facet of the “kayfabe” or “work” of pro wrestling, terms used to describe the set of rules and codes that pro wrestlers have lived by for decades. In wrestling terms, of which there are so many that the sport has a kind of language all its own, Johnson and Oliver have broken kayfabe by revealing the trade secrets of a sport that has managed so successfully to blur the line between truth and fiction for so long.
Indeed, there is a faint hint of Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff here (without the airplanes, of course) in that it tells the story of a small, elite group of men whom the general public previously knew little or nothing about. As Johnson puts it, “The reporter in me believed that there was a real piece of Americana here that needed to be preserved.”
If you’re looking for in-depth, glossy bios of The Rock or Stone Cold Steve Austin, you won’t find them here. Tag Teams is more concerned with the history and origins of pro wrestling. For instance, there is plenty of evidence in Tag Teams that pro wrestling wasn’t always as noticeably fake as it is today.
For example, a 1957 bout in New York’s Madison Square Garden that pitted Dr. Jerry Graham and Dick the Bruiser against Edouard Carpentier and Antonino Rocca ended in a fan riot that made national news. “I’ll never forget this—it happened right over me,” wrote a sports writer for The New York Times. “Rocca…put his (Graham’s) head in a lock…and he ran him all the way across the ring and slammed the top of his skull into the ringpost…he got up…but he was bleeding like a stuck pig. There was blood all over the place, blood on me…blood everywhere.” At the sight of the blood—called “hardway juice” by the biz—fans rushed the ring and began throwing bottles, wooden chairs, umbrellas, anything they could get their hands on. The wrestlers were forced to throw fans out of the ring. It finally took about 30 New York City cops and the Garden’s security detail to restore order.
Tag Teams also shows that wrestling in the early days was practiced as much for love as money. For example, 1940s wrestling legend Jackie Fargo used to ride a Greyhound bus all night from North Carolina to Atlanta, living like a homeless person along the way just to make $7.50 a bout. But he loved the spotlight. “I had long blond hair and wore a bone in my hair and would do anything goofy,” says Fargo. “[I’d] pick up a big black lady, and sit in her lap and kiss her, stuff like that. Just a wild man.”
What’s interesting about Tag Teams is the way Johnson and Oliver have presented a scholarly history of the wrestling game without passing judgment on its legitimacy as a sport. Part violence, part harmless vaudeville, part skilled athleticism, and part real-life comic strip, pro wrestling in Johnson and Oliver’s hands becomes a kind of living American folktale.
So how did a political journalist end up writing a book about tag team duos like The Fabulous Kangaroos, Rip Hawk & Swede Hanson, The Love Brothers and The Dusek Riot Squad?
“There’s a lot of similarities between pro wrestling and politics,” says Johnson. “There’s a lot of hyperbole. Everything is painted in black and white, the good guys against the bad guys. I’ve seen speeches on the floor of Congress that would be perfect for a crowd of screaming fans. Likewise, I’ve seen wrestling promos that would play well at political conventions.”
Johnson agrees that it’s no accident that former pro wrestler Jesse Ventura and muscle man (though not a pro wrestler) Arnold Schwarzenegger made successful transitions into politics. Like NASCAR, pro wrestling is a cultural phenomenon born in the 1950s and its popularity grew under the radar of “educated” middle-class Americans, becoming a multimillion-dollar per year business whose audiences are now catered to by major corporations and political parties alike.
However, Johnson’s motives for writing Tag Teams run deeper than mere scholarly interest. Like a sophisticated theater critic admitting he likes to watch “SpongeBob SquarePants,” Johnson says he’s always had a child-like interest in pro wrestling.
“When I was 17, the first byline I had as a writer,” Johnson admits, “was a piece about pro wrestler Killer Tim Brooks.
“People are always surprised when I tell them I learned to write by reading wrestling magazines in the early ’60s and late ’70s,” Johnson explains. “They mixed truth and fiction in ways that were very sophisticated and entertaining at the same time. I learned how to set a scene from reading those magazines.”—Dave McNair
Mountain steering
How do retirees at Westminster Canterbury cope with Pantops’ rapid development?
The late afternoon sun fills the living room of a third-storey apartment, and a breeze blows in through the screened French doors off the balcony. The vista from the couch looks out to the west, across the Blue Ridge Mountains. Aside from the conversation inside and the occasional motor of a lawnmower outside, the apartment is perfectly peaceful. Idyllic, even.
But this million-dollar westward view won’t stay that way long. Pantops is a designated growth area for Albemarle County and it’s going to develop regardless of compromised viewsheds.
Jane and George (pseudonyms, because the couple would only talk on condition of anonymity) moved to their third-floor apart-ment in Westminster Canterbury early in 2003. For the most part, they love it.
But the 66-acre retirement community located atop Pantops Mountain off Route 250E, is now within a half-mile of a proliferation of car dealerships, big box pharmacies and chain restaurants. It’s a stark contrast to the Pantops of 32 years ago, when Jane and George lived in Keswick and there was nothing along Route 250 save a grocery store and pharmacy.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen down here,” says George, waving his hand toward the window.
“There are condos going up,” says Jane, referring to a plans for a new subdivision called Ashcroft West. “They’re not supposed to spoil our view, but they will change the view, certainly.”
With 450 Westminster Canterbury residents paying entrance fees anywhere from $200,000 to $600,000, with additional monthly fees ranging from $2,500 to $5,500, according to figures from officials at the retirement community, there’s an expectation of quality. But high price tags don’t save views or insulate residents from construction and traffic along Route 250.
“[Westminster Canterbury residents] are definitely concerned about the traffic,” says George. “Things are growing like topsy out here!”
Ken Boyd, who represents the Rivanna District on the County Board of Super-visors and is vice chair of that body, agrees that traffic is the big-gest problem out there…aside, that is, from funding the solutions to that problem.
On the broader scale, however, says Boyd, Pantops development might lack direction, but it has not gotten out of control. Nonetheless he allows that, “We in the County should have done a better job of master planning sooner.”
Though Pantops is seemingly built out, the master planning is only in its nascent stages. The County held three community meetings between October 2004 and January 2005 to field public input. Feedback focused on the need for more pedestrian- and bike-friendly areas, green space and, in general, a more manageable scale.
The master planning process has stagnated a bit due to internal staffing issues, but David Benish, chief planner in the County’s Department of Community Development, hopes to have a preliminary plan to present to the community by the end of the summer. That plan will be based on the “neighborhood” model, which plans residential communities around neighborhood centers like shopping malls or churches.
While strip malls and car dealerships may not be scenic, Scott Hillis, vice president of Westminster Canterbury, is quick to point out the obvious advantages for elderly residents of having pharmacies, grocery stores, health care, cleaners and so forth within a stone’s throw. Moreover, he also points out that Westminster Canterbury plants vegetation screens to protect viewsheds and minimize construction noise.
Jane and George concur with this assessment, although Jane says she dreams of an upscale restaurant setting up shop someplace nearby.
“Let me clarify,” laughs George. “She means an upscale Italian restaurant. She’s an Italianophile.”
Planning Commission, take note.—Nell Boeschenstein
Pantops development might lack direction, says County Supervisor Ken Boyd, but it has not gotten out of control. Nonetheless, he says, “We in the County should have done a better job of master planning sooner.”
Money matters
What are the City and County spending on our police departments?
Ah, money. As Pink Floyd says, “It’s a gas. Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash…”
Each year the City and County, whose fiscal years begin on July 1, divvy up their annual budgets. Given the important role law and order plays in our society, it’s worth a look at how much the City and County allocate for police administration from the general fund.
While the charts below show the City spends approximately twice as much per capita on its police department than does the County, the numbers might be a tad misleading, according to Lee Catlin, spokesperson for Albemarle County.
That’s because the County’s Police Department gets ad-ditional funds from federal and state-wide sources such as Homeland Security and criminal justice program grants. Catlin also points out that the capital budget provides funds for technology like video cameras in the patrol cars and radios.
As for Charlottesville, Police Chief Timothy Longo notes that as a result of a 2002 salary survey, Charlottes-ville found it rank-ed in the bottom third of police departments surveyed when it came to starting salaries. Thus, Longo’s energies have been directed at improving that ranking in order to recruit and retain the best officers.
In two years, he has budgeted for
a starting pay increase for officers,
going to $32,000 from around $27,000, and moving
Charlottesville’s ranking to the “high-middle” of the pack, according to Longo.
“We’re making progress,” he says, “but we still have a ways to go and need to concentrate on making [salaries] a
priority.”
—Nell Boeschenstein
Nature’s new calling
After seven years, art gallery says goodbye
Many a First Friday goer schedules his evening around what openings are when. McGuffey is always first, because its cheese and grape fest is early in the evening. Then it’s onto the Community Design Center, Les Yeux du Monde, Second Street and others. Nature Visionary Art is the final stop on the First Friday train—it stays open late, even if the hors d’oeuvres are picked over by the time you get there.
But come the middle of July, you can cross Nature off the art-walk circuit. Gallery owners and newlyweds 32-year-old John Lancaster and 27-year-old Laurel Hausler plan to officially close the doors to their 7-year-old gallery within the next month. The couple, who wed in September, are packing their bags and moving to Beaufort, South Carolina, where they plan to pursue their own art which, according to Hausler, is taking off.
“We both love the gallery and love having the gallery so it wasn’t something we wanted to give up easily. It’s just little things that slowly make it apparent you’re going in a different direction,” she says.
They chose Beaufort, a town much like Charlottesville in terms of size and artsy-fartsy-ness, as their destination for two reasons: First, because Lancaster, who grew up in Virginia Beach, wants to live by the ocean. Second, both wanted a home base that was more “deep South” than Char-lottesville. Hausler in particular stresses her attraction to the Southern mystique—the Spanish moss, the history, the mystery.
Since first opening behind the Jefferson Theater in 1998, Na-ture has blossomed along with the rest of Downtown’s art gallery scene. In its early years it was both gallery and scene of many a wild night. It was the marriage of art and social space that Lancaster describes as “a festive atmosphere,” and that many still remember fondly.
By 2002, the space itself had gone from raw to polished, and the attitude of the gallery mirrored that transformation: Nature was ready for its close-up as an official gallery space. Moreover, Hausler, who had moved to Charlottesville in 2001, joined forces with Lancaster and the two decided to narrow the gallery’s focus to outsider art.
Both Lancaster and Hausler are self-taught artists themselves, so the decision was the result of “where our hearts and allegiances lie, and it’s amazing art in general,” says Lancaster.
Lancaster and Hausler moved the gallery to its current space on Fourth Street SE in September 2003, and Nature’s redefinition as an outsider art gallery filled a niche that no other Downtown gallery offered. Since opening on Fourth Street, the gallery has represented upwards of 30 artists and has sold about four or five major pieces a month, says Lancaster.
While both have enjoyed running the gallery, all good things must come to an end, and it looks like nature has run its course with Nature. The space will continue as creative grounds of sorts when an Irish arts and crafts store moves in.
Bigger and better things may await Lancaster and Hausler, but we’ll miss them. Good luck, guys.—Nell Boeschenstein