Month: September 2005

Tuesday, September 6
Jefferson School finally making progress

Members of the Jefferson School Task Force and a local architect charted a future for the former African-American public school in a presentation to City Council tonight. M. Kirk Train of Train and Partners Architects presented designs for the refurbished Jefferson School, which will feature a library, event space and culinary school for Piedmont Virginia Community College and room for both temporary and permanent exhibitions. In December, the Virginia Department of Historical Resources will consider Jefferson School for historic designation, the first step toward getting the local landmark on the National Register of Historic Places.

 

Wednesday, September 7
Don’t wait for FEMA to save the day

Last night kicked off the first in a series of classes offered by the Community Emergency Response Team to focus on disaster preparedness. CERT, a national organization operating in Char-lottesville since 2003, trains the average citizen to survive without professional help for up to three days after an emergency, according to the Charlottesville CERT manager, Carol Hunt. Kaye Harden, the City’s retired emergency management coordinator, led about 20 people in an ominously titled two-hour class, “Intro to Disasters.” The eight-week class culminates in an exercise to test such skills as extinguishing small fires and administering basic first aid. Ron Wiley Jr., a former Boy Scouts leader, joined the class in order to help locally in the event of a Katrina-like disaster. “You can see so obviously down there that help is not going to be there immediately. Being prepared is part of the deal,” he said.

 

Thursday, September 8
Hitchens performs Hitchens at Monticello

Controversial journalist Christopher Hitchens took to Monticello’s West Lawn tonight as part of the “Evening Conversa-tions” series. Hitchens’ new book, Thomas Jefferson: Author of America, came out in May and he plugged it freely throughout his remarks. In his talk, Hitchens stuck close to the “anti-theism” he’s known for and spoke about the establishment clause of the Constitution, which separates church and state. Hitchens argued that secular society is “worth killing for and worth dying for.” This is why, he said, he supports the war in Iraq. That position has recently alienated him from many of his liberal friends and colleagues—a state to which he seems singularly well suited.

 

Friday, September 9
Children recover from Edwards’ pearly whites

Children squinted today as former vice presidential candidate John Edwards brought his trademark high-wattage smile to the Barrett Early Learning Center on Ridge Street. Edwards was there to help Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tim Kaine plug his education agenda. Kaine started to read Ms. Bindergarten Stays Home from Kindergarten aloud, but the kids had too much to say, so he gave up, suggesting instead, “Let’s just visit.”

 

Saturday, September 10
This disaster was just pretend

With a natural disaster in the news, local rescuers simulated a response to a terrorist attack in a drill at the Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport today. The scenario was a doozy—a plane shot down by a rocket launcher, with some toxic gas in the air for good measure. City, County and UVA emergency workers took part.

 

Sunday, September 11
Local architects designing 9/11 memorial

Landscape architects at the Charlottesville firm Nelson Byrd Woltz will help design a memorial to victims of Flight 93, which was hijacked by terrorists and crashed into a field four years ago exactly. Last year, the Los Angeles firm of Paul Murdoch emerged as one of five finalists in a design competition that included more than 1,000 submissions. In January Murdoch picked the Charlottesville firm to help create the memorial’s landscape, which will cover about 2,000 acres where Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. “I think someone recommended us to Murdoch. We were honored,” says landscape architect Warren Byrd. The landscape will include a mile-long arc of red maple trees that follows the plane’s flight path, ending at what Byrd calls “the sacred site” of the crash.

 

Monday, September 12

Catch him while you can, folks: Today begins the last days on the local air for WVIR NBC 29 anchor Adam Longo, who says he will leave the station following the 11pm newscast on Thursday, September 15. Longo has been with WVIR since October 2001, anchoring the 5pm and 11pm newscasts. He tells C-VILLE that his next stop is WATE, an ABC affiliate in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he’ll work as anchor and reporter. He says he’ll miss Charlottesville. “I’ve been able to talk to and meet so many people, either through stories or people stopping me at grocery stores who say, ‘Hey, it’s the news guy!’ And they appreciate what we do,” he says. Longo also confirmed that Thursday marks the last day for reporter Joe Holden (moving to Scranton, Pennsylvania) and Sara Gavin, Longo’s 5pm co-anchor, who’s heading to West Virginia.

 

Written by John Borgmeyer from staff reports and news sources.

 

Speech therapy
Recent racial incidents at UVA raise First Amendment issues

At the end of August, as students and faculty geared up for fall semester, there were six incidents on or around UVA Grounds in which African-American students were the targets of written and verbal racial slurs. An outraged University community quickly began to dissect the causes of the “hate speech,” giving rise to the legal question, What constitutes a “hate crime” or “hate speech,” anyway?

   In a country that lists free expression first among its constitutional rights, is it legitimate to sanction people who exercise the right our own Mr. Madison advanced for the nation?

   The University community banded together in response to the half-dozen reported incidents with ribbon tyings and e-mails of outrage. Counter-intuitively, students living on the Lawn posted signs announcing, “We will not tolerate intolerance.” The Alumni Association offered a $5,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest of anyone connected to “racial acts of vandalism, threats or other criminal misconduct.” Beta Bridge was painted black and white: One side said, “Reject hatred,” the other, “Stand together.” University President John Casteen even issued a taped video message on the importance of diversity.

   The Virginia Code does not define “hate speech”; however, direct threats in close proximity that are likely to “provoke a breach of the peace,” as Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman says, are considered illegal. Thus, racial slurs yelled from a car window (as happened at UVA) are hard to prosecute not only because the perpetrators are unknown, but because, technically, the law is often on the side of those assholes.

   UVA recognizes this.

   “It’s a fine line between a threat and, ‘We don’t like what they say, but it’s free speech,’” says Carol Wood, assistant vice president for university relations. “We’re telling students that they need to combat that [hateful] speech with their own speech.”

   If someone wants to punish “hate speech,” the law offers other options that pose no threat to the First Amendment, says Chapman, pointing to statutes on trespassing, vandalism and stalking as potential “ways to use the criminal law to get at the person who is communicating racially derogatory statements.” For example, if someone is on private property when they say the slur, then it could be considered trespassing. If an individual is a target on more than one occasion, then a stalking charge might be legit.

   UVA’s 12 Standards of Conduct (a guide to prohibited behavior) do not specifically address hate speech. While there’s been talk, says Wood, of adding a 13th standard to address “hate speech” per se, many believe that the existing standards can be invoked to that end already.

   Professor Michael J. Smith, who teaches political and social thought and who sits on President Casteen’s commission on diversity, offers a more hopeful analysis of recent events: He thinks the rise in reported racial incidents points to a greater awareness within the University community.

   “The community is not accepting [racism] anymore,” he says. “They’re making an effort to stigmatize this behavior.”—Nell Boeschenstein

 

Campus architecture —does it suck?
Profs lash out at faux historical builings

UVA’s School of Architecture is one of the most prestigious in the world. That’s why UVA’s architecture faculty wants to know: “Why has the University commissioned so much mediocre architecture?”

   On Wednesday, September 7, an open letter signed by 24 faculty members appeared in The Cavalier Daily student newspaper. The letter inveighs against the Board of Visitors and UVA administration for commissioning “faux Jeffersonian” buildings and resisting modern designs.

   Readers willing to wade through archi-speak like “apologetic neo-Jeffersonian appliqué” were rewarded with the letter’s cornucopia of design disses.

   “Is it desirable that a building built in 1990 be mistaken for one built in 1830? Is UVA to become a theme park of nostalgia at the service of the University’s branding?”

   Oh, snap!

   “We’ve been talking about this since I came to UVA five years ago,” says Assistant Professor Phoebe Crisman. “Now it has come to a head, and we want to raise it as a public topic.”

   The last straw appears to have been UVA’s decision to terminate its contract with the firm of Polshek Partnership Architects, which UVA commissioned in 2001 to design an Arts and Science building for the “South Lawn” project that is currently in development. According to a statement, to UVA “it appeared that in the prevailing environment, it would not be possible to reconcile the particular sensibilities of the primary constituencies at UVA with a design from Poleshek.”

   UVA architect David Neuman says, “This is an opportunity to have open dialogue about important issues.”—John Borgmeyer

 

Run, Richards, run
Former Councilor eyes State Senate

It’s still two months before voters will decide whether Creigh Deeds should be Virginia’s next attorney general, but local Democrats are already eyeing his seat in the State Senate.

   “We don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves,” says former City Councilor Meredith Richards. “The main thing is to work to get Democrats elected in November. After that, we need to ensure that the Senate seat remains Democratic. When the time comes, I may well offer my services.”

   Although no one has launched a formal campaign, Richards is one of three Dems to confirm her interest. If Deeds is elected Attorney General on November 8, Dem-ocrats would hold a convention to pick their candidate sometime around Thanks-giving. An election for a two-year Senate term would be held in December.

   Richards hopes that her experience with local and state transportation issues, as well as her previous statewide campaign, will give her an edge. In 2002, she ran an unsuccessful campaign to take the Fifth District Congressional seat from Republican Virgil Goode. Much of the 25th Senate District’s population lives in Charlottesville, Albemarle and Nelson, where Richards won 52 percent of the vote—a total of 18,316 ballots—in her run for Congress.

   Nelson County Supervisor Connie Brennan also says she “just might be interested.” The UVA nurse practitioner is a former school board member currently seeking a second four-year term on the Nelson County Board, but she suggests her connections in rural Virginia may give her an advantage in the 25th District, which stretches from Charlottesville west through Rockbridge County to Bath County.

   Mike Signer, a 32-year-old UVA law grad currently working for Governor Mark Warner, moved to Charlottesville from Richmond in May to seek the Deeds’ seat after working on the senator’s earlier campaign for the House of Delegates in the 1990s. Marshall Pryor, vice president of Albemarle First Bank, is also reportedly interested, but did not return calls. Former mayor Maurice Cox says via e-mail that “the interest is there on my part, but the timing couldn’t be worse. I’d rather support someone who shares
my values.”

   On the Republican side, Albemarle County GOP Chair Keith Drake has said he would not rule out running in what would be his first political campaign.—John Borgmeyer

 

Can Parkway foes still get traction?
Interchange funding opens strategic door

When Republican Virginia Senator John Warner secured $25 million to pay for the Meadowcreek Parkway interchange, proponents of the long-delayed road hoped the federal money meant it would finally get built. But after more than three decades of resisting the road, local environmentalists may not be finished yet.

   Local road expert Peter Kleeman has been writing letters to the Federal Highway Administration and the Virginia Department of Transportation, suggesting potential problems with the City’s plans to build the Parkway and the interchange. Kleeman says the City is not qualified to perform the environmental studies the project requires.

   Furthermore, the City is treating the Parkway as two distinct projects—the road and the interchange—each with its own environmental impact study. That could be a violation of federal law, Kleeman says. If the Parkway and the interchange are considered as a single project, Kleeman says, federal rules would require a complete study of potential alternatives. Even though at least three City Councilors have said they would not support the Parkway without the interchange, Kleeman says Council wants to keep the project segmented to avoid a study of alternatives. “Maybe the best solution wouldn’t be the Meadowcreek Parkway,” says Kleeman. A road running from Pantops to Route 29N might better solve traffic problems, he says.

   In a response to Kleeman’s letters, Kenneth Myers of the Federal Highway Administration said there’s no problem with the City’s administration of the environmental study. Myers also said that federal funding of the interchange does not “federalize” the entire Parkway project, and therefore a full study of alternatives to the Parkway is not necessary.

   Mayor David Brown dismisses this latest challenge to the Parkway. “To me, we’ve got an approved project,” he says. “VDOT and the federal government are giving us the money, so if they see an inappropriate use of their funds, they would let us know. I can’t quite fathom the issue.”—John Borgmeyer

 

Back to Square One
Rape cases still frustrate police and local blacks

Even when he’s in hiding, the serial rapist continues to cause problems. Charlottesville’s most famous criminal-at-large proves to be a major impediment in relations between the City’s police and African-American residents.

   In a press conference last week, Char-lottesville Police Chief Tim Longo apologized to 27-year-old Waynesboro resident Christopher Matthew and his family after Matthew was wrongly arrested and held without bond for five days as a suspect in a weekend rape investigation. The apology seemed to hold little consolation to Matthew’s supporters, however.

   “You can tell Chief Longo to kiss my ass. We’ve got nothing but negative feelings for him,” Tony said last Thursday. He owns Cherry Avenue Barber Shop, where Matthew works, and would not give his last name. Matthew, slumped in a nearby barber’s chair, declined to comment on the ordeal.

   Police arrested Matthew on Saturday, September 3, after a woman reported that as she was walking on Sunset Avenue she had been attacked and raped by a black man wearing a white t-shirt and jeans. According to Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman, the victim called 911 shortly after the attack and her description was broadcast to police patrol cars.

   Chapman says Matthew was walking “within a few blocks” of the incident when a Char-lottesville police officer detained him. Meanwhile, another officer brought the victim to that scene. Despite media reports suggesting the victim identified Matthew by voice alone, Chapman says the victim was sitting in a patrol car when she saw Matthew. She also heard his voice over the car’s radio. “It was not clear in the media,” says Chapman, “but the victim was able to see him and hear him.”

   After the arrest, some news reports suggested a rush to judgment. On Tuesday, September 6, for example, Cavalier Daily reporter Chris Hall quoted UVA spokeswoman Carol Wood praising police for apprehending the “perpetrator,” though Matthew had not been tried or convicted.

   Other reports speculated that police might consider Matthew a suspect in other recent rapes, and that police hoped to identify him as the serial rapist—speculations that police apparently did not deny. When Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge James Kulp denied bond, that further fueled speculation that police hoped Matthew—who has no criminal record in Charlottesville—could be tied to other unsolved crimes.

   On Wednesday, September 7, however, police received results of a DNA test that cleared Matthew of the Sunset Avenue rape. Following his release that night, Longo held a press conference on Thursday to say he was sorry—reminiscent of another scene in spring 2004. Then, Longo ordered his officers to collect DNA from any black man who might fit the vague description police had of the serial rapist, who has terrorized women in the area since 1997. The ensuing uproar attracted national media attention, and Longo backed off. In a cover story that fall [“Law and Disorder,” October 5-11],
C-VILLE explored the ongoing mistrust between police and black residents.

   That divide remains, even as police made a new arrest in the Sunset Avenue rape. On Friday, September 9, police arrested 37-year-old John Henry Agee of Charlottesville and charged him with the crime based on DNA evidence. Perhaps hoping to avoid further turmoil, police are keeping mum on Agee, issuing a release that says: “the department has no further comment with regard to this incident.”—John Borgmeyer, with additional reporting by Nell Boeschenstein and Anne Metz

 

Still at large
He’s hiding, but we know a few things about the serial rapist

Based on DNA samples taken from victims, the serial rapist has been definitively linked to seven rapes since 1997.

   The last linked attack occurred on August 18, 2004, on Webland Drive in Albemarle County.

   In early 2004, under pressure to find the serial rapist, police launched a DNA dragnet that focused primarily on black males. The department collected DNA from 187 suspects—none of which matched the serial rapist’s DNA profile—before calling off the dragnet that some called racial profiling under nationwide pressure.

   The police department is currently offering a $20,000 reward for any tip that leads to the suspect. Police describe the man as about 5’7", medium build, and with “very prominent” eyes.

 

Toll ahead
Are big-time builders Toll Brothers coming to the area?

The development community has been humming of late, and we’re not talking about bulldozer engines. Word on the street is that Toll Brothers—a huge building company specializing in McMansions—is looking to get a piece of Charlottesville’s lucrative real estate pie. If you thought Gaylon Beights’ planned Old Trail Community development of 2,000 track homes in Crozet was big, think again: Toll Brothers is a publicly traded Forbes Platinum 400 Company that owns or controls more than 60,000 home sites in 220 communities nationwide.

   Kira McCarron, chief marketing officer for Toll Brothers, said she could neither confirm nor deny the rumors that the mega-developer is actively negotiating for sites in the area. Should Toll Brothers come to Charlottesville, McCarron says, the company will be adding to its already substantial holdings in Virginia, currently concentrated in Fairfax and Loudoun counties. In the past two years the mid-Atlantic region has been Toll Brothers’ most profitable area of the country. Between 2003 and 2004 in the mid-Atlantic region, which includes Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Maryland, the company reported an enormous jump in revenue to $1.25 billion from $882 million, according to public filings. In
2004, total revenue nationwide totaled $3.89 billion.

   The building models run the gamut from Spanish villas to Colonial plantations to Frank Lloyd Wright rip-offs, christened with names like “The Constantina,” “The Chelsea Farmhouse” and “The Villagio.” The average price tag? $580,000.

   Big money and big-time builders aren’t new to the area: Ryan Homes, another national track home building company, has already set up camp in Culpeper and Louisa counties. Jeff Werner, a land-use field officer with the Piedmont Environ-mental Council, is concerned about the shoddiness of McMansion construction and what that means for the future of Central Virginia.

   “The current quality of suburban construction is disposable,” says Werner, speaking from experience with similar developments and as a former builder. “I sincerely don’t think that 130 years from now much of what’s being built in suburbia today is going to be around…Toll Brothers and Ryan Homes build a lot and fast. They’re about growth. Is this community ready for the scale of growth that these large-scale builders are going to bring? I don’t know.”

   Werner also raises the point that large-scale builders often have their own supply companies and contractors, meaning they might not employ local companies when they develop in an area. Sure enough, a call into Ryan Homes confirmed that when they built their Culpeper and Louisa developments, they used their own supply company.

   “There are consequences [for that],” says Werner. These big builders “are going to transform how local builders and supply companies do business. And that’s troubling.”—Nell Boeschenstein

 

What kind of high-rise would TJ build?
History vs. density on the Corner

On Tuesday, September 13, a joint meeting of City Council and the Planning Com-mission will consider a proposal to designate areas near the Corner as part of the Architectural Design Control District, giving the City’s Board of Architectural Review a say in any new construction in the area. The 87-acre zone comprising Rugby Road, University Circle and the Venable neighborhood includes about 250 architectural resources, about 80 percent of which could be considered historic. But the City’s recent rezoning of the area from medium- to high-density has property owners concerned.

   Wade Tremblay works both sides of the issue as owner of Wade Apartments and as a member of Charlottesville’s Board of Architectural Review. “Yes, there is a conflict between the zoning initiative and the ADC District expansion,” Tremblay says. “A lot of property owners are concerned. Now, it’s understood that an owner can redevelop a site, or sell it to someone who would. Were the pending changes adopted, too many of those rights would go away.”

   High density close to campus is good, Tremblay says, because people can walk to there instead of driving. The question would be whether some areas such as 14th and John streets will be excluded from the design control district, allowing current owners to demolish and develop without constraints other than current guidelines. “But if this is the core of your historic district,” says Tremblay, “it doesn’t leave much room for development. It’s going to be an interesting debate.”—Jay Neelley

Tuesday, August 30
Warner won’t challenge Allen

Today Governor Mark Warner announced he will not challenge Republican George Allen for his seat in the U.S. Senate. Recent polls indicated that the popular Warner—a Democrat who won the governor’s seat in 2001 and whose term expires in January—could defeat Allen. Warner is widely rumored to be considering a presidential bid in 2008, and political wonks say a battle with Allen would have been expensive, and perhaps costly to Warner’s image as a moderate Democrat.

 

Wednesday, August 31
Charlottesville helps Katrina survivors

Today the Charlottesville Fire Department announced it would send a communications inoperability unit to Louisiana and Mississippi to help with the relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina. The unit is self-sustaining and makes everything from telephone service to Internet available from even the most remote places, says fire chief Charles Werner. UVA’s pitching in, too. Today, the University announced it would open its doors to Virginia students enrolled at schools affected by Katrina. The students will be considered visiting students for the fall semester.

 

Thursday, September 1
Whole lotta shakin’ going on?

Today the website www.cvillenews.com reported that upscale hippie grocer Whole Foods could be relocating. According to its website, Whole Foods has a new 55,000 square-foot store planned for the intersection of Hydraulic and 29N in Char-lottesville. The new store is listed as a “relocation,” leading to speculation that Whole Foods plans to move from the Shoppers World center on Route 29N to the soon-to-be-built Albemarle Place, an 80-acre development that will include nearly 800 dwelling units and 1.9 million square feet of leasable space.

 

Jobs and poverty on the rise in Charlottesville

The Daily Progress reported today that during the past decade the Charlottesville area workforce grew 19 percent, compared to 16 percent statewide. According to the Chamber of Commerce, the region’s workforce grew to 96,170 jobs from 80,902 jobs between 1995 and 2004. Of those, the areas of “Trade and Transport” and “Leisure and Hospitality” saw the greatest jump, which may explain why yesterday the Progress also reported that over the past decade poverty has been on the rise in Char-lottesville. Just because there are some more jobs at Hardee’s doesn’t mean those people are making bank.

 

Police nab alleged bank robber

Early this morning Charlottesville and Albemarle police arrested Anthony Troy Williams, 42, and charged him with robbery and other offenses related to three local bank robberies this summer. The first occurred July 7 at First Citizens on Do-minion Drive; the second happened on July 13 at BB&T on Profitt Road; the third robbery was on August 19 at the Wachovia on Emmet Street. Williams is a former Charlottesville resident with no fixed address, and he is a “person of interest” in other robberies around Virginia, according to The Daily Progress.

 

 

Friday, September 2
We don’t want your stinkin’ war

On its answering machine this morning, the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice announces it will be taking a bus to Washington, D.C., on September 24 for an antiwar rally that activists hope will draw 100,000 people. According to today’s Washington Post, the National Park Service will probably allow demonstrators to encircle the White House—the first time in more than a decade that a mass protest will be allowed so near to the presidential domicile.

Written by John Borgmeyer from staff reports and news sources.

 

Attention shoppers, it’s not O.K. to speak your mind
Collins’ case asks, “Are shopping centers the latter-day town squares?”

One of America’s favorite exports is the postcard with a picture of a quaint New England town square complete with white steeple, tidy green and little shops all around.

   The town square is a powerful marketing tool. And suburbia—identified by its singular lack of a central gathering place—has long adopted the image for commercial ends. The most obvious local case in point: Hollymead Town Center, which is neither a town nor a town center (nor, it might be added, is there any holly to be seen).

   As commercial interests embrace urban-planning lingo for their marketing campaigns, the question arises of whether the constitutional rights to free expression the public enjoys in true town centers transfer to privately owned public gathering places.

   “People in this country love the idea of a town-square commons,” says Bill Morrish, an architecture prof at UVA, “but we’ve always been really nervous about the functions that happen in it: disagreement and the unexpected.”

   Commercial interests, says Morrish, want to work the “town square” marketing campaign both ways—to promote it as a place where people can congregate and get the things they need, yet also control how those people congregate and to what end.

   The issue popped up locally last spring, during the 57th District Democratic primary race. Retired UVA architecture professor and slow-growth advocate Richard Collins was running for the seat soon to be vacated by Del. Mitch Van Yahres. (David Toscano won that primary race.) Because his campaign didn’t have the funds to buy air or TV time, Collins relied heavily on leafleting to get his name out.

   At the beginning of May, Collins was leafleting outside Whole Foods in the Shoppers World shopping center on Route 29N. If there’s any place to reach the Democratic base, Whole Foods is it.

   However, Frank Lebo, president of Lebo Commercial Properties, which manages the shopping center, differed with Collins’ right to distribute his campaign literature in the parking lot. Lebo had Collins arrested on the grounds that no soliciting is allowed on the property. The same is true, says Lebo, for the other properties he manages in town—Rio Hill, Berkmar Crossing Business Park, Sherman Williams Shopping Center and Glenwood Station.

   “If we allow one guy to come on the property,” says Lebo, “then we have to open it up to white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan. We have a blanket policy: No political campaigning. No soliciting.” Lebo adds that insurance liabilities play a role as well and that not even the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts are allowed to fundraise on Lebo-managed properties.

   Collins filed suit against Lebo Com-mercial Properties in retaliation, arguing that his free speech rights had been violated. His argument? That shopping centers are latter-day town squares and thus fair game for free expression.

   As a result of a 1980 Supreme Court case, Prune Yard Shopping Center v. Robins, states are left to make their own decisions about whether free speech extends to privately owned shopping centers. At least six states—New Jersey, California, Colorado, Oregon, Massachusetts and Washington—have since addressed the issue, arriving at varying degrees of free speech allowances.

   The Collins case is the first of its kind in Virginia, according to Rebecca Glenberg, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia and one of Collins’ attorneys. The ACLU has teamed up with the neolibertarian, Charlottesville-based Rutherford Institute, to defend Collins. While the two organizations may not agree on much else, they agree on free speech.

   “No one is claiming that [property owners] are entirely without rights,” says Glenberg, pointing out that even the government can place time and location restrictions on free speech, as they did for the 2004 Democratic and Republican national conventions. What the ACLU and Rutherford Institute are opposed to, says Glenberg, is a blanket restriction on free speech in shopping malls.

   Rutherford Institute President John Whitehead echoes Glenberg, adding that, “As the corporations grow and replace towns and cities, unless you have free speech [at shopping centers], you won’t have free speech anywhere. The guys with the money will not go stand out and leaflet; they will buy airtime, and [this] helps the little guy.”

   So if not in shopping centers and parking lots, where else is there to get access to the car-bound suburban public? William Lucy, a UVA professor of urban and environmental planning, offers this suggestion: “Candidates could sit in the back seat of anyone’s motor vehicle and talk to them. And that’s probably not a good idea, right?”—Nell Boeschenstein

 

Cool aide
Meet Connie Jorgensen, political sidekick extraordinaire

Campaign slogans we’d like to see: “A vote for Mitch is a vote for Connie,” or, lately, “A vote for David is a vote for Connie.” Mitch, of course, is Mitch Van Yahres, for 24 years Charlottesville’s Dem-ocratic delegate to the General Assembly. Da-vid is David Toscano, the former mayor who wants Van Yahres’ job now that he’s facing retirement. But Connie…who’s Connie?

   Just the power behind the throne, that’s all.

   Actually, Connie Jorgensen is the straight-shooting legislative assistant who’s worked with Van Yahres since 1999, and who is now Toscano’s campaign coordinator. Should he win on November 8, as is widely expected, Jorgensen will become his legislative assistant.

   “I always figured that whoever got the job would hire me if for no other reason than that I know where the bathrooms are in the General Assembly,” she says.

   No doubt, being able to find the loo in Richmond qualifies her for the job, but just in case navigational skills alone are not enough, Jorgensen has a few other abilities.

   “We have good discussions about issues,” says Van Yahres. “That’s one of the main characteristics I like in my aides—someone who is not a ‘Yes’ person. I count giving me an argument as extremely important. And Connie is extremely knowledgeable about most issues.”

   Indeed, though her job encompasses constituent services and, as she puts it, “to keep stuff off of Mitch’s desk,” Jorgensen says her favorite part is working on policy. And Van Yahres, she says, made it easy for her to love her work.

   Of a typical work day, she says, “Quite frankly, we’d spend some time solving the world’s problems.

   “There is always a great give and take between the two of us. There are 140 different legislative aides and probably 140 different jobs,” she says. “Mitch always treated me as part of the team.”

   Jorgensen came to Van Yahres after two years of fundraising with Planned Parenthood (her husband, Ben Greenberg, is director of government relations for the statewide organization). In the years prior to that she was a member of the Air Force (straight out of high school in Sioux Falls, South Dakota) and a graduate student in Soviet politics (oops!). Jorgensen also teaches government at Piedmont Virginia Community College.

   Politics, she has learned, is really the fine art of compromise, Jorgensen says, something that she saw less and less in the General Assembly as the years wore on and a die-hard liberal like Van Yahres became marginalized. And though she admits to being “a little spoiled” at home, at work, she says, “sometimes you have to take half a loaf.”

   Toscano echoes Van Yahres on the question of Jorgensen’s abilities. “She’s very detailed and knows where to look. She’s thorough and feels passionate about the issues,” he says. “At the same time, she’s very personable.”

   With all her policy background, would Jorgensen herself ever consider a bid for office? No way, she says with a chuckle. “I’d be a crummy candidate.

   “The truth is I’m a homebody. I like being at home in my jammies with my cat. Can’t you just see the campaign poster? Me and my cat and my pink bathrobe.” (Just to double-check this assertion, we inquired about Jorgensen’s schedule the previous evening: massage, Lean Cuisine, “Law & Order,” bed by 9pm. Yup, that spells “homebody.”)

   But it’s clear that once the pj’s come off and Jorgensen dons her trademark stilettos, she’s all business. Recently, she helped Toscano draft the educational policy he hopes to push in the Assembly.

   “I’m happier now than I was when I worked for a Fortune 500 company in the ’80s,” she says, noting that the only aspect of her job she dislikes is her $32,000 annual salary.

   “We refer to this as a volunteer job with a clothing allowance,” Jorgensen says.—Cathy Harding

 

Outside the box
County rebuffs Wendell Wood’s big-box bid—for now

Developer Wendell Wood stood before the Albemarle Planning Commission on Tuesday, August 30, looking befuddled. Wood, president of United Land Corporation, wants the County to rezone 230 acres in Northern Albemarle to accommodate his plans to bring yet another big-box retailer to the 29N corridor.

   Unfortunately for Wood—who brought to Albemarle Wal-Mart and, more recently, Target—the County is spending big money on a plan for 29N, and the Commission told the developer he would just have to wait.

   Wood, however, brought a bargaining chip. He said an unnamed retailer would fund the extension of Berkmar Drive in that area, a road project the County also wants to see.

   “I have clients who are offering to build a road you say you want,” Wood said. “But they’re not going to spend the money if you’re going to tell us ‘no’ at the end of the day.”

   Wood claimed that unless the County acted fast to approve the rezoning, the offer might be rescinded. “I’ve been told this offer won’t be on the table six months from now,” says Wood.

   The Commissioners didn’t say “no,” but, much to Wood’s dismay, they didn’t say “yes,” either.

   The area Wood wants rezoned comprises 230 acres on the west side of Route 29N and south of the Hollymead Town Center (most of which was also developed by Wood). He wants the zoning changed from industrial service to mixed use, allowing development that Wood said would be similar to the Hollymead Town Center, including a big box “larger than 65,000 square feet.” The land is currently home to a mobile home park and a business.

   The Commissioners balked, however, because the County has sunk $650,000 into a pair of studies looking at land use and trans-portation on the 29N corridor. Two consulting firms—Community Design+Architec-ture and Meyer, Mohaddes Associates—are pulling down a total of $1.25 million from the County and the Virginia Department of Transportation. The County expects a rough draft of the land use and transportation plans in a year.

   With those studies in progress, the Commission declined to comment on Wood’s proposal.

   “For us to just jump over their heads now would be foolish on our part,” said Commissioner Marcia Joseph. “And verbal agreements from businesses don’t always become a reality.”

   The Development Initiative Steering Committee, which crafted many of the County’s current planning guidelines, recommends integrating industrial and mixed-use developments, but Commis-sioner Jo Higgins said Wood’s proposal didn’t “have enough meat” to warrant a specific response.

   The Commission said they would inform the consultants of Wood’s proposal, and it would be considered alongside the planning process—similar to the way the County handled Gaylon Beights’ Old Trail project proposed during the Crozet master planning process last year.

   That’s not what Wood wanted to hear.

   “When you have a real player who has the pockets, to ignore that would not be doing justice to the county,” said Wood, sounding a bit like a teenager who just can’t believe Mom and Dad won’t let him take the car.

   Commissioner Bill Edgerton said the Commission had broader concerns about additional big-box development. For one thing, the County doesn’t want to lose any more industrial space. Also, with Wood’s Hollymead Town Center recently opened for business, and more shopping centers approved for the North Pointe development on 29N, Edgerton said he’s afraid an overzealous County could invite too many huge shopping centers. The County could be stuck with vacant big-box wastelands. “I hope my fears are never realized, but these are big issues that we have to think through,” Edgerton said.—John Borgmeyer

 

Blues clues
The Prism becomes a UVA classroom

A lot has changed in the 39 years since The Prism opened its doors on Gordon Avenue, near UVA Grounds, as a respite for cigarette-smoking, music-loving counter-culturists who found the straight-laced mores of their peers too much to bear. Women, for one thing, are now welcome at UVA with each incoming class. And The Prism is now firmly ensconced among Charlottesville’s institutions—the “must play” venue for any folk or traditional musician who ambles through town.

   But one thing hasn’t chang-ed: The blues remain a living musical bridge to the Missis-sippi Delta. And The Prism, in conjunction with UVA, will offer continuing ed students a walk across that bridge starting later this month. “From the Piedmont to the Delta: An Acoustic Blues Journey” takes place Thursday evenings beginning September 22.

   Fred Boyce, who directs The Prism and is a widely respected banjo player, leads the course. He promises a “three-dimensional experience,” and he’ll provide it by bringing a guest lecturer to class each week, to be followed by a brief concert. Performers on Boyce’s lineup include local star Corey Harris, National Heritage Fellow and master blues guitarist John Cephas, and West Virginia blues artist Nat Reese, who performs styles typical of Appalachi-an coalfields.

   The diversity of musicians aptly reflects the many directions the blues has taken. Born of African-American frustration and disappointment in the Mississippi Delta, the blues was the sound from a South “redeemed” in the quasi-slavery of sharecropping and lynching. To be a bluesman originally meant to be free of the nickel-and-diming South-ern labor system, refusing work from whites in order to entertain African-Americans. Black bluesmen buttered bread from the community rather than the field.

   The blues came to belong to everybody, and many regions—from Chicago to Appalachia—brought their own touches to the sound. Though nominally the course is all about the blues, Boyce acknowledges that another of its aims will be to offer a view of the South as “a melting pot of cultural identities.”

   So far, registration for the course is at about 60 people. Get in early (www.scps. virginia.edu) if you don’t want to be caught singing the I-missed-the-boat-at-The-Prism blues.—Milton L. Welch