Tuesday, August 23
It takes a village to build a town
Charlottesville resident Ed Cusick called it “the best of everything and exactly what we need for the county,” while Crozet resident Bill Sweeny said it was “an insult to the people of Crozet and will dramatically hurt the area.” Each was describing the controversial Old Trail Village under review at today’s Albemarle Planning Commission hearing. The Commission unanimously approved the plan by Beights Development Corp. that would bring 2,000 housing units and 250,000 square feet of commercial/recreational space to a 257-acre parcel just 1.5 miles from downtown Crozet. Developer Justin Beights touted the project’s 37-acre public park and architectural elements that follow the neighborhood model district.
Wednesday, August 24
Rice dodges another jail sentence
Today Darrell Rice—once alleged to be the “Route 29 Stalker” and accused of murdering two female hikers—struck a plea agreement to reduced charges in an abduction case. Rice is currently serving an 11-year sentence for attempting to abduct a female bicyclist in the Shenandoah National Park in 1997. In a trial that began Monday, Rice faced life in prison for the 1996 abduction of Carmelita Shomo, but today he pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful wounding, which carries a 14-month sentence that will run concurrently with the sentence he’s already serving. He is scheduled to be released in 2006. Federal prosecutors had sought the death penalty against Rice for allegedly murdering a lesbian couple hiking near Luray in 1996. When that case fell apart, Prince William County tried to prove Rice attacked Shomo and several other women on Route 29, but they backed away from such broad accusations in this week’s trial. Citing paltry evidence, today prosecutors accepted Rice’s “Alford plea,” which denies guilt but acknowledges that there is sufficient evidence to convict.
Left meets Right over free speech
Legal defense groups from both sides of the political spectrum have lined up behind local noisemaker Richard Collins, a former Democratic candidate for the House of Delegates. Lefties at the American Civil Liberties Union and righties at Charlottesville’s Rutherford Institute—which represented Paula Jones in her sexual harassment suit against Bill Clinton—together say Collins had a right to greet voters in the Whole Foods parking lot in May. Shopping center property manager Charles Lebo had Collins, 70, arrested and charged with trespassing. Collins’ suit, filed last week, asks the Albemarle County Circuit Court to declare it legal to campaign in shopping centers. “He was handcuffed and arrested,” says Rutherford president John Whitehead. “It blows
my mind.”
Thursday, August 25
DMB gives to Sri Lanka
Today the Dave Matthews Band an-nounced they would donate $250,000 to support the efforts of humanitarian organization CARE in Sri Lanka, which was devastated by a tsunami in December. The band will also match all donations made by fans to their website, www.dave matthewsband.com.
Friday, August 26
Police continue search for two rape suspects
Police today continued their search for two suspects in an abduction and rape that was reported early Wednesday morning. According to the Charlottesville Police Department, the victim was walking near the intersection of Rosser Avenue and 12th Street NW when the suspects approached her in their car. They then forced her into the vehicle, drove her elsewhere in the city and allegedly raped her. The suspects, both estimated to be in their 40s, were described as a black man, about 6′ tall, and a Hispanic man. At press time, the Charlottesville police did not consider this incident related to the ongoing investigation of the serial rapist but, as Sergeant J. Hatter said, “They’re still investigating.”
Saturday, August 27
A born entertainer is born
His wee body conveying a goldmine of artsy DNA, Leander Wilde St. Ours made his debut just after noon today with a command performance at Martha Jefferson Hospital. Weighing in at 4 pounds, 11 ounces, the youngest St. Ours is the progeny of experimental filmmaker and iron-works artisan John St. Ours and locally noted actress and director Melinda Hardy St. Ours. In the words of his proud papa, Leander “looks like some kind of Mafioso Kingpin, with the body of a snowpea.” Casting agents, take note.
Sunday, August 28
Jackpot fever hits again
With the 12-state Mega Millions jackpot now at $111 million, even Virginia Lottery cynics have a hard time saying “no” to a $1 ticket. The drawing will take place Tuesday night.
Monday, August 29
Casteen assails racists
Today town and gown alike were buzzing about racial incidents that began late last week at UVA and continued through the weekend. In a campus-wide letter sent via e-mail Sunday, UVA President John T. Casteen III wrote: “These troubling incidents—which thus far have been affirmed by investigations—share common characteristics: all have been vicious, deliberate, and secretive efforts to insult and abuse members of this community for the color of their skin. The perpetrators—whether students or non-students, on Grounds or off —who lurk outside a student’s room to write the words ‘Nigger/I hate Jesus’ on a note board or who shouts racial abuse from a passing vehicle do nothing to advance truth or knowledge and communicate nothing other than her or his desperate lack of fit in our community.” Casteen encouraged the UVA community to report all incidents to campus police and to continue to show intolerance for racist stupidity.
Written by John Borgmeyer from staff reports and news sources.
Having it both ways, and then not at all
Catholic and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tim Kaine fails the pro-choice test
On August 17, NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia announced their candidate endorsements for the upcoming election. Their major endorsements went straight down the Democratic Party line, save one: When it came to the gubernatorial race, NARAL declined to endorse the Dems’ man, Tim Kaine, who happens to be a devout Catholic.
“He embraces many of the restrictions on a woman’s right to choose that are opposed by NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia,” the announcement said. “We cannot therefore offer any endorsement in this year’s race for governor.”
The lieutenant governor and former Richmond mayor’s position on abortion is nuanced. He has a faith-based objection to abortion (same for the death penalty). Save
for dire circumstances, he’s opposed to third-trimester abortions. However, he says that if elected he would not criminalize first-trimester abortions, and would uphold
the current law. His views on the subject have even been compared in The American Prospect to those of George W. Bush.
In the Richmond Statehouse—which is known throughout the country as a wasteland for women’s reproductive rights, according to Planned Parenthood—Independent gubernatorial candidate Russ Potts is decidedly pro-choice. NARAL, however, declined to endorse Potts, though his views align with theirs, because he is chairman of the State Senate’s Education and Health Committee, and NARAL wants to keep it that way.
“Potts has served an extraordinarily important role where he is and it’s crucial that he stays [there],” says Ann O’Hanlon, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia.
O’Hanlon also points out that NARAL is behind Democratic lieutenant governor candidate Leslie Byrne 100 percent and “we expect people to vote the ticket.”
Yet, the inevitable concern is that Kaine’s ambivalence on this key topic, coupled with NARAL’s nonendorsement, will alienate the Democrats’ pro-choice base. Come Election Day, those swing voters could throw their hats in with the Potts camp.
“There are many constituents who wish that Kaine were able to take a stronger pro-choice stance,” says Sherry Kraft, co-chair of the Charlottesville Democratic Party. “It’s definitely a concern that’s out there.”
Kraft prefers to look at the glass as half-full, pointing out that Kaine supports family planning, birth control and sex-ed initiatives in the public schools. His Republican opponent Jerry Kilgore, by contrast, recently accepted the endorsements of the National Right to Life Committee and the Virginia Society for Human Life Political Action Committee, both of which believe life starts at conception and neither of which condones birth control.
The local Dems have not issued an official statement on the NARAL nonendorsement. But Kraft is considering organizing local party members closer to the election to pressure Kaine to articulate a stronger pro-choice position.
Joshua Scott, director of programs at UVA’s Center for Politics, agrees with Kraft’s assessment. He also says that while not getting NARAL’s endorsement doesn’t help matters, it isn’t everything.
“Media and candidates make more of endorsements than the general public,” says Scott. “It’s hard to say whether this gives the election to Kilgore. If Potts is able to pick up steam and if it looks like he’s in good standing come late September, he’s likely to benefit from a lot of pro-choice voters. However, if Potts fizzles out, those voters will probably vote for Kaine.”
Virginia has never had a Catholic governor. If Kaine is looking to reconcile his religious convictions with the political agenda of his party’s base, he might want to look to fellow Catholic Del. Mitch Van Yahres, who represents Charlottesville in the General Assembly.
“Van Yahres has an outstanding pro-choice voting record,” says Ben Greenberg, director of government relations of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia. “His votes reflect a true understanding of the reproductive rights issues.”
Scott, however, notes that the key difference between the two politicians is that Charlottesville is famously liberal; the entire state is famously not liberal. It’s expected that Van Yahres would support abortion rights. Kaine, says Scott, must walk a finer line, and his religious opposition to abortion could help him appear more moderate in Virginia’s more conservative areas.
Regardless, says Greenberg, “the individual who sits as governor will be vitally important in stemming the tide” that’s rising against reproductive freedoms in the Statehouse.—Nell Boeschenstein
Fear factor
Kilgore continues to dodge Potts with help from Larry Sabato
Jerry Kilgore wants to be a tough guy. The foppish Republican gubernatorial candidate wants voters to know he can’t stand immigrants, loves guns and isn’t afraid to execute convicts. So why won’t Kilgore step on stage with his challenger, Independent candidate Russ Potts?
Keeping with the Republi-can strategy of careful image control, Kilgore has debated Democratic challenger Tim Kaine only once, with another debate scheduled in Fairfax County on September 13. Kilgore has refused to debate Potts; a debate between Kaine and Potts is scheduled for September 30.
“The debate should be between candidates who have a legitimate shot of winning the election,” says Kilgore spokesman Tucker Martin.
Potts, who collected more than 24,000 signatures to get his name on the ballot, has a different take.
“Jerry-boy is a lousy public speaker.
He has no confidence. He has no knowledge of the issues,” says Potts. “He hates confrontation.”
The Center for Politics at UVA is now getting caught up in the debate over debates, too.
Larry Sabato, the ubiquitous political commentator who directs the Center, says he tried for months to get the three candidates on the same stage for a debate to be televised statewide. The Center proposed that Potts would be included if his poll numbers hit 15 percent—which is the standard the two major parties have set for inclusion in the presidential debates. Kaine and Potts agreed, but Kilgore balked and stalled before finally agreeing to the terms a couple weeks ago, Sabato says.
On August 18, the Newport News Daily Press ran an editorial criticizing Sabato for the 15 percent standard. On August 19, The Washington Post ran a similar editorial, accusing Sabato of burdening Potts with an “arbitrary” 15 percent benchmark.
The usually amicable Sabato immediately went on the offensive. In letters to the editors of both papers, Sabato made it clear that the 15 percent standard was not arbitrary. “When we consulted with legal experts before making our debate proposal this year,” Sabato wrote, “the one thing they insisted upon was that we should be consistent and not arbitrary, and therefore should maintain the same standard used for years and years…” Sabato’s letter compared Potts, a Republican Senator since 1992, to Libertarian candidate William Redpath, who was on the gubernatorial ballot in 2001 but was also excluded from the debates by the 15 percent standard.
The Washington Post re-sponded with a correction on August 22. On Saturday, August 27, the Daily Press ran an op-ed column from the Center correcting the error.
Not everyone is letting Sabato off the hook, though. The snarky bloggers known as Not Larry Sabato say comparing Potts, an experienced senator, to Redpath, a “man off the street,” is a false analogy.
“To compare it to the presidential race and their 15 percent threshold is also laughable,” NLS says via e-mail. “Presidential candidates are much more closely followed at an earlier date, making 15 percent easier to achieve for a credible candidate.”
Saying Sabato should have used his influence to get all three candidates on the same stage, NLS continues: “Voters deserve to see them all, and shouldn’t let an agenda of Professor Sabato wanting to be friends with the incoming governor stop them from that.”
Maybe next year. After the election, Sabato says he plans to arrange a meeting of press and broadcasters to set up firm dates for debates—no benchmarks, no haggling with campaign managers. “If a candidate doesn’t show up, too bad. The debate will be held with an empty chair,” says Sabato. “There will be a price to pay.”
Potts vows that he’ll hit the 15 percent mark. Meanwhile, he says Kilgore is already paying a price for dodging a debate.
“There’s no way he wins in the court of public opinion,” says Potts. “Whenever I’m out, people wonder, ‘Why won’t Jerry Kilgore debate you?’”—John Borgmeyer
Not another parkway!
Enviros express surprise at Van Yahres’ support for proposed road
When Bern Ewert cooked up plans for a 16-mile parkway as an alternative to the proposed Western Bypass, it seems he was hoping local environmentalists would embrace his idea as an eco-friendly way to ease congestion on 29N. So far, though, opponents of the much-reviled Bypass say they’re also wary of Ewert’s road—known as the Ruckersville Parkway—which is being promoted by Charlottesville delegate Mitch Van Yahres and local urban planner Gary Okerlund, too.
“At this point we don’t have enough information to judge, but there are a number of concerns we have,” says Trip Pollard, a senior attorney and land-use specialist at the Southern En-vironmental Law Center.
Pollard says he’s waiting for more information on how the Parkway might en-courage sprawl in northern Albemarle and Greene; he also wants to know how much the Parkway will cost and whether it would take away from other proposals to ease traffic on 29N.
In 1998, the SELC sued
the Virginia Department of Transportation, the Com-monwealth Transportation Board, the Federal Highway Administration and the U.S. Department of Transporta-tion over the Bypass; the suit delayed the road, and VDOT put the project on hold four years later when the agency ran out of money.
Plans for the Ruckersville Parkway are preliminary, Ewert says, but the road could solve some problems that many in Albemarle had with the Bypass. Because it would partially use existing roads, the Parkway could be substantially cheaper than the four-mile Bypass, which has been projected to cost as much as $250 million. Ewert says he wants the Parkway to exclude trucks and adopt a speed limit between 35 and 40 miles per hour. “The road could be designed to roll with the land” instead of plowing over natural features, Ewert says.
That sounds nice, says SELC’s Pollard. “But how could you make sure it
doesn’t have trucks? There will be a lot of pressure from downstate and from the federal government to put trucks on it.”
Much of the pressure to build a bypass here comes from politicians in Lynch-burg and Danville, who claim Charlottesville’s 29N bottlenecks hurt business activity in their cities. Last week, Republican gubernatorial candidate Jerry Kilgore announced his support for the Western Bypass, no doubt a nod to voters south of Charlottesville.
Jeff Werner of the Piedmont Environ-mental Council (which joined the SELC in their suit against the Bypass) says he does not favor any road project that goes outside the growth area that Albemarle has designated around the 29N corridor. “Growth belongs in the growth area,” says Werner. “We’re trying to resolve local transportation issues, not build a highway for Lynchburg.”
Werner says he was “a little disappointed, a little surprised” that Van Yahres, a staunch environmentalist, would lend his support to the Parkway. “Folks who opposed the Bypass for years are stunned,” says Werner.
But Van Yahres is just be-ing practical. “There’s going to be growth, there’s going to be increased traffic, period—whether this road is built or not,” he says. Citing the low speeds and possibility for bike paths along the Park-way, Van Yahres says the road would be environmentally friendly, even if it did wind through parts of the county not designated to receive growth.
Van Yahres has also been taking flak from Greene County supervisor Steve Catalano, who says he was “blindsided” by the proposal. “If you’re going to plan a bypass in my county and call it the Ruckersville Parkway, it might have been nice to get our input,” says Catalano. If the road bypasses Ruck-ersville, Catalano says it could hurt Greene businesses.
For now, Van Yahres and Ewert are raising money—$2,500 from one unnamed local business owner alone—to pay a local engineering firm, Draper and Associates, to do a more complete proposal for the Parkway. He says news about the road leaked out, and he hopes critics will chill until the study is complete. “We’re not trying to blindside anybody,” says Van Yahres.—John Borgmeyer
Beyond the limit
Could Fairfax DUI decision get more drunk drivers off the hook?
Labor Day is one of the drunkest days of the year, according to the Virginia State Police. As such, it kicks off the drunk season, er, make that the holiday season: Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve rank high in the drunk department, too. While there’s no doubt that drunk drivers are in the wrong, a recent Fairfax case has gotten nationwide attention because it may mean that during the pending season of inebriation people charged with DUI could get a new defense.
A couple of weeks ago in Fairfax General District Court, a judge bought a defense attorney’s argument that the State’s drunk driving laws are unconstitutional because they deny the defendant’s right to presump-tion of innocence. The lawyer argued that it cannot be presumed that a blood alcohol level of 0.08, the State’s legal limit, means someone is drunk. Why? Every-body metabolizes alcohol differently.
Almost immediately after the judge announced his decision, speculation began about whether this was a fluke or the start of a trend.
“This judge is not only wrong, but he’s way wrong,” says Charlottesville Com-monwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman, who thinks the case is an anomaly. “This decision is shocking in the extreme. The law is very clear and it’s not particularly recent and it will not be long before this reported decision is demonstrated to be of no merit whatsoever.”
Chapman’s office, in fact, submitted a brief to Charlottesville General District Court in relation to a case that deals with just this issue on August 23. Chapman’s office concludes that “presumptions” are “rational conclusions,” and therefore A-O.K. The case was still pending at press time.
A. E. Dick Howard, a professor of constitutional law at UVA, agrees with Chapman’s criticism of the decision, calling it both “idiosyncratic” and “quite misconceived.”
Howard likens the argument to this: Say that a person’s caught going 75 mph in a 55 mph zone. He then defends himself by pointing to a flawless driving record. His argument would be that, as applied to him specifically, the State’s laws are unconstitutional.
“The Commonwealth is entitled to say that the offense itself is going more than the speed limit,” says Howard. The offense is not about the individual per se, it’s about the law as it applies to everybody.
In terms of DUI in particular, continues Howard, this means that, “It’s not a
question of whether I have a larger body mass and therefore more alcohol in my blood than the next guy.”
Howard’s point is that if an individual has a blood alcohol level that exceeds the State’s limit, his condition is a presumed threat. Moreover, it’s the State’s prerogative to set that limit. Further, Howard asserts that other judges have not ruled like the Fairfax judge because most of them understand that doing so would lead to enormous public health and safety issues. That’s why, he says, this strange decision has garnered so many headlines.
But that doesn’t mean defense attorneys aren’t going to try the Fairfax argument out in other courts.
“If there’s any chance that it would help a client, then we would bring [the issue] to the court’s attention,” says Rhonda Quagliana, a local defense attorney with St. John, Bolling & Lawrence, LLP.
She allows, however, that the chances are slim that local judges will buy the Fairfax argument or decide DUI cases any differently in the future.
“If somebody wants to know if their DUI case is going to get dismissed because of what happened in Northern Virginia,
I don’t think so,” she says.—Nell Boeschenstein