Tuesday, November 22
Breedens sell land, get rich overnight
Two months after C-VILLE reported the rumor, The Daily Progress today confirmed that the Breeden family has officially sold their 1,353 acres of prime property just south of town to Forest Lodge LLC. Price tag? An eye-popping $46.2 million. The man behind the LLC is developer Hunter Craig, who has filed plans with Albemarle County showing he intends 4,790 units for the acreage under the name Fox Ridge. C-VILLE reported last week that McMansion developers Toll Brothers, a powerhouse in the concretization of Northern Virginia, is rumored to be backing Craig. The Breedens, local artists known for their communal suppers and the Art in Place program, have been connected to the land since the mid-1970s when David Breeden’s father bought the property. Papa Breeden was well aware its value would skyrocket, and always planned to sell the parcel and divide the profit among his heirs. Warning: At a buying price of more than $34,000 per acre, that’s a lot of Art in Place.
Lime Kiln closes doors
The Theater at Lime Kiln announced yesterday that the outdoor venue in Lexington—home to a popular summer music and stage series—will suspend operations as of December 31 due to insufficient funds unless $175,000 can somehow be raised before then. In an interview with The Roanoke Times, Board Chair Mary Sayre explained that the theater is currently $190,000 in the red. Thirty percent of that was accrued in the last year alone.
Wednesday, November 23
Allen visits unknown Indian city
Senator George Allen won’t sit idly by as potential 2008 presidential competitor Mark Warner hogs all the empty press release glory. Today the conservative Republican and former Virginia governor made media outlets aware of his recent visit to India, part of his “Security, Innovation & Freedom mission” in Asia. According to the press release, Allen “visited the cities of New Dehli [sic] and Bangalore…to learn more about opportunities to strengthen America’s relationship with the world’s largest democracy.” Allen met with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and “held several technology-based meetings,” which we can only hope included proposals to introduce spell-check software to the Senator’s system.
Thursday, November 24
1,300 runners earn their gravy
Just as stuffing must back up turkey and whipped cream must join pumpkin pie, so must the Turkey Trot, a 5K fundraiser run, precede the annual feast. This morning 1,300 runners and walkers got their virtue on, but only one man and one woman can say they ran it the fastest of all. Hari Mix led the men with a finishing time of 15:34 and Eliza O’Connell led the women with a time of 19:52. No word on whether they later cleaned up the kitchen in record time.
Friday, November 25
Southern consumers take the lead
National retail sales reporting for today’s mondo shopping day calculates the value of receipts at $8 billion, according to ShopperTrak’s National Retail Sales Estimate. While that’s off by less than 1 percent from last year’s figure, retailers reportedly aren’t panicked as this year’s calendar packs an extra Saturday into the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas season. Local shoppers, who hit the big boxes as early as 5 this morning, have something to show for their merchandise muscle: According to ShopperTrak, the South leads other U.S. regions in shopping.
Saturday, November 26
Oh, did UVA play today?
Miami handed the Cavaliers another defeat—their second consecutive after last week’s humiliating loss at home to Virginia Tech—and Al Groh’s squad ended its season in the losers column for only the second time in 19 years. Some news reports looked for the silver lining, pointing out that at least the Hoos gave the Hurricanes a game, but The Washington Post got to the heart of things: “[The Cavs] are expected, in the coming days, to get an invitation to a largely unrecognizable bowl that will mean little except to the most diehard of fans.” Maybe with his recent five-year, $1.7 million-per-year contract, Groh can ease some of the pain and fly the faithful to East Jehovah, Arkanssippi, or wherever the hell the “bowl” game will be played.
Sunday, November 27
More locals to take a shot at health
The Thomas Jefferson Health District has expanded eligibility for flu shots, and that’s good news to anyone 50 or older who can get immunized at the Charlottesville-Albemarle Health Department on Rose Hill Drive starting tomorrow. Others who already qualify for the $28 shot include pregnant women, babies and toddlers, and anyone with a chronic medical condition.
Monday, November 28
Signed, sealed, delivered
The Virginia State Board of Elections certified the election results from the November 8 statewide elections in which Democrat Tim Kaine won the governor’s seat over Republican Jerry Kilgore, and Republican Bill Bolling won the lieutenant governor’s seat over Democrat Leslie Byrne. And if that alone doesn’t show that the voters had a hard time deciding which party they favor in the executive branch, consider the race for attorney general, the closest in Virginia’s history. At press time, Republican Bob McDonnell still held a .01 percent victory over Democrat Creigh Deeds, though Deeds has yet to concede and already plans to request a recount. Deeds has set up a team to spearhead the request, and both Deeds and McDonnell have established transition committees in Richmond.
Written by Cathy Harding from staff reports and news sources.
Good nukes?
Friends of Lake Anna make nice with Dominion
A bid by Virginia Dominion Power to build two new nuclear reactors on the shores of Lake Anna in Louisa County has prompted backlash from environmentalists and anti-nuclear activists. Recently, however, a nuclear-friendly group of Lake Anna homeowners persuaded Dominion to change its design for the reactors in a way that may help minimize the reactors’ effect on water temperature.
Dominion currently operates two nuclear reactors at Lake Anna. They are cooled by a “once-through” system, which means water is pumped from the lake to absorb heat from the reactors; afterward, the water is dumped back into the lake. The problem is that it comes back 25 degrees warmer, prompting environmentalists to complain that the warmer water could negatively impact the health of fish and other animals.
During a public meeting with Dominion, Lake Anna resident Harry Ruth learned that a third cooling tower using the “once-through” system could raise water temperatures by 7 to 8 degrees throughout the 13,000-acre lake, with water temperatures hitting 113 degrees in some areas.
“That caused an awful lot of concern with a lot of folks,” says Ruth. “You’re
not supposed to go in a hot tub if it’s over 104 degrees.”
So in August Ruth formed a group called Friends of Lake Anna that he says represents 2,650 people in Louisa County. They lobbied Dominion as well as State and local public officials, and alerted the press. In September, State Health Commissioner Robert Stroube released a letter warning that heated water could pose health risks to people with heart conditions, cardiovascular problems and young children.
On October 25, Dominion agreed to design the proposed third reactor with a “wet cooling” design, which takes in water from the lake, cools the reactor, then allows the water to evaporate instead of returning to the lake.
Brendan Hoffman, an organizer for the anti-nuke group Public Citizen, applauds Dominion’s redesign but says the wet cooling method “still has substantial impacts.”
“It will still cause lake levels to go down, and it’s more expensive,” says Hoffman.
Still, Ruth is encouraged by the results. “We’re cautiously optimistic,” he says, noting that Dominion has not yet finalized its wet cooling design. While Dominion has ignored anti-nuke protests, Ruth says that his groups’ friendlier approach helped them get quick results from the behemoth energy company. “My experience in dealing with people is that if you try to treat people in a nice way, they’ll respond. If you attack them, they’ll just get their defenses up.”—John Borgmeyer
Work stops on Little High
Neighbors gain ground with Region Ten
After weeks of wrangling, residents of Little High Street have won some concessions from Region Ten, a local nonprofit that helps people with mental illness and substanceabuse problems. This fall, they started renovating an apartment complex at 1111-1113 Little High St. to house about 40 low-income people with mental disabilities.
As previously reported in
C-VILLE, members of the Little High Area Neighborhood Asso-ciation protested Region Ten’s development. LHANA spokes-man Mark Haskins says the neighborhood was expecting high-end apartments on the site, and that Region Ten stonewalled their requests for information about
the project.
Councilor Blake Caravati, who lives on Little High, told C-VILLE that Region Ten director Phil Cambell was not used to “the Charlottesville way” of getting things done. Around here, neighborhood residents want to control development in their part of town. Little High residents say they want the Region Ten apartments to look upscale and to include programs that could keep the handicapped residents from disturbing the neighbors.
Campbell might be coming around to the Charlottesville way.
On Monday, November 14, Region Ten officials emerged from a closed meeting and “came up to us and said we’re going to see a real change now,” says Haskins.
That week, Region Ten stopped construction on new apartment buildings. Re-gion Ten will continue renovating the existing apartments on the site, but will not build anything new “until we get things ironed out,” says Region Ten Board Chair Barbara Barrett.
“This was a big step for them, and we see the fact that they stopped work as a positive sign,” says Haskins. “The fact that we’re talking doesn’t mean we’ve resolved the issues, but it does mean there’s a possibility a solution will be reached.”—John Borgmeyer
Simmer down
The local housing market takes off its sprinting shoes
While the local housing market is hardly freezing, it’s also no longer boiling as it has for the past six years, according to statistics from the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors. Instead, it looks like the market is settling to a simmer.
In 2004, sales in the Charlottesville area rose 15 percent. CAAR predicted earlier this year that the market was primed for another record year of “high demand and low supply.” Unfortunately, local suppliers and demanders haven’t been working together the way CAAR and CEO Dave Phillips may have anticipated.
In the past two quarters, the housing market has been flooded with new merchandise. In April there were 1,092 homes on the market; two and a half months later, there were 1,368 homes on the market—as Phillips put it in his report, “the highest number we have seen in several years.” Two and a half months after that, there were 1,681 homes listed for sale—500 more than at the start of 2005.
“We’re starting to see the pendulum starting to swing back the other way,” says Phillips. “Instead of a significant seller’s market…this could mean that buyers and sellers will be on more equal footing.”
Moreover, as previously reported in C-VILLE, the luxury housing market is also slowing. In the third quarter of 2004, 50 homes in the area were sold for more than $1 million; in the third quarter of 2005, only 33.
Phillips anticipates in his latest report that the growing supply will level out prices—which have been going up in Charlottesville at double-digit rates for four years—and increase the average number of days a house stays on the market.—Nell Boeschenstein
“Politics of fear” 101
“Peacemaker” Hamilton lashes out over race comments
When 73 percent of Charlottesvil-lians who voted cast their ballot for an elected school board on November 8, supporters of the referendum declared it a bipartisan victory. Last week, however, an unusually contentious row between two City Councilors suggested that the issue of an elected school board remains fraught with political tension.
On Monday, November 21, Council took up the issue during its regular meeting, three weeks after the overwhelming vote to change Charlottesville’s school board from an appointed to an elected body. Now the City must decide whether those elections should be conducted by wards, at-large or some combination of the two. Council held a public hearing on the issue during last week’s meeting.
Both Democrats and Republicans had a hand in fueling partisan rivalries.
On Sunday, Sherry Kraft, co-chair of the City Democratic Party, circulated an e-mail to Charlottesville Democrats bearing the title “Rallying The Troops.” Kraft wrote, “There is concern that Republicans may be organizing a large turnout to advocate for a ward system, with the ultimate goal of changing to a ward system for City Council elections.” Many Dems suspect that the local GOP wants to hold Council elections by ward so that a Republican-friendly ward could be carved out to help break the Democratic dominance on City Council. A school board elected by wards is the first step in that plan, some Dems allege.
The next day, however, Kraft sent another message: “We certainly do not intend to disparage people of either political party who, in good faith, hold varying opinions on this issue.”
Councilor Rob Schilling, first elected in 2000 as the Council’s lone Republican, made an elected school board one of his campaign promises then. Last year, in the wake of widespread discontent over the school board’s handling of controversial superintendent Scottie Griffin, UVA history prof Jeffery Rossman joined forces with Schilling to get a referendum for an elected school board on the November ballot.
Throughout the campaign for an elected school board, both Rossman and Schilling dismissed conspiracy theories about a Republican agenda, and suggested that the school board issue was one of “the public” versus “the elite.” Going even further, both Rossman and Schilling have insinuated that Charlottesville’s appointed school board was tied to Virginia’s Jim Crow history. Schilling has been quoted as saying that appointed school boards have a “sordid and shameful history,” while Rossman has been quoted saying the recent referendum “is the last nail in the coffin of traditional southern Democratic Party paternalism here in Charlottesville.”
While there was no organized opposition to Rossman and Schilling, Council Democrats were heard throughout the campaign to say that Charlottesville’s appointed school board helps ensure racial diversity. Currently two African-Amer-icans sit on the board.
Interviewed by C-VILLE, Rossman now says he “wasn’t trying to associate our appointed school board with school boards 80 years ago.” Schilling, meanwhile, said during Monday’s meeting that “it is important to be aware of the shameful history of appointed school boards, in general, in Virginia.”
On Monday, self-described “peacemaker” Kendra Hamilton, a rookie Councilor, took off the gloves. Accusing Schilling of playing “the politics of fear” and attempting to “defame Council,” Hamilton said, “When [Schilling] casts himself as the only Councilor who cares about the black community, I have to question his purposes. I never thought that I, as a black woman, would be reduced to explaining to a bunch of white people that I know what I’m talking about.”
An argument between Schilling and Hamilton ensued as Mayor David Brown banged his gavel and vainly shouted
for order. After all the fireworks, Coun-
cil voted 4-1 to hold at-large school board elections in May, and continue seeking public comment on whether to carve Char-lottesville into wards.—John Borgmeyer
Literary history
Lewis and Clark fans use poetic license
in search of historic designationFor several years, a group of local bigwigs have been trying to build a monument to Lewis and Clark and their “Corps of Discovery” in Darden Towe Park near the Rivanna River. Dubbed the Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center, the building would be “an interpretive facility geared to children of all ages” and include a historic-looking observation tower, according to the group’s president, Francis McQ. Lawrence.
Because Darden Towe Park is in the county’s rural area, the Lewis and Clark center requires a zoning classification that is allowed in rural areas (buildings zoned “industrial,” for example, are not allowed in rural areas).
The Lewis and Clark group is seeking a “historic center” zoning for the Explor-atory Center, which would allow them to pursue a special-use permit to build in Darden Towe Park. Lawrence, a lawyer, put his argumentative skills to work in a recent letter to the County making his case that the Center should receive a “historic center” zoning designation. Lawrence’s November 8 letter to County planner Rebecca Ragsdale is excerpted here.
On Tuesday, November 22, Lawrence admitted to the County Planning Commis-sion that some of the arguments were “a stretch.” Still, the Center did receive “historic center” designation, and the commission voted 5-2 to approve the Center. It now must be approved by the Board of Supervisors.—John Borgmeyer
“The site is on and includes the Rivanna River, a site with archeological and
cultural remains which is both connected to and adjacent to Monticello
and Shadwell.”
“The Rivanna River was at the center of the Monasukapanough Village… There are numerous sites along the Rivanna from Albemarle to Fluvanna County that show this early pattern of usage by the Monocan Nation.”
“Tower signage and interpretive programs will underline the relation between the known and unknown experience of mountains, then and now.”
“Eighty percent of the Corps 8,000-mile trip was on water and more than 25 boats were used. A major theme of the center has been and will be boats, boat building and boatmanship.”
Degree of separation
“I mean to push Darden up the ranks,” says new dean
High touch, high tone, high octane. Those are the buzz words Robert Bruner, newly confirmed Darden School of Business dean, uses to distinguish UVA’s business school from the rest. Bruner’s one-year interim term was recently extended to five years, and he is excited to have the helm at what he terms “an inflection point in the life of the school.” C-VILLE met with Dean Bruner to discuss his plans for Darden and the business of teaching business.—Will Goldsmith
C-VILLE: What are some of the upcoming shifts here at Darden?
Robert Bruner: We are launching a major five- or six-year capital campaign, which will fundamentally change the game of the school, giving us the resources to dramatically increase our scholarships, our research infrastructure, and programs that will enhance the life of students at the school. It’s a people and programs capital campaign, not one of bricks and mortar. We’re also launching our new MBA for Executives Program, aimed at business practitioners in their late 30s who obviously want to continue to work yet get the degree necessary to prepare for the next phase in their career.
I read that you have an upcoming trip to Asia as part of your outreach. Where are you going and what are you looking to do?
My trip will take me to a variety of places, roughly in the order of Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore, Bangalore, Bombay and New Delhi. The itinerary recognizes that we have a strong franchise in every one of those countries, and every country has a different message and a different contribution. We look for ways in which students and business practitioners can contribute to us and our way of thinking and also ways in which we can reach out to those countries and provide a perspective and set of skills that will have a beneficial impact on business life there.
Concerning women in business school, is there a push to attract more candidates?
We know from academic studies that business decisions are better made when the group is diverse—it’s an element of best practice and we seek to model that to our own students. No strong business school can merely be content with waiting for good applicants to apply, and we need to reach out and recruit women more actively. I’ve been on several trips already to speak to special consortiums, interest groups and companies that are often sources of highly talented applicants.
How much do rankings, such as U.S. News & World Report, affect the school?
I think the rankings are important—they affect the applicants to business school as well as our ability both to recruit faculty and to attract donors and corporate partners. I mean to push Darden up the ranks. That said, what matters is what is happening at Darden to suggest strength and growth, whether our school is teaching people to work with integrity, whether our school is an exemplar of diversity and fair dealing. If we can say yes to all those things, I will always be proud of Darden.
Do you think business school has grown in popularity since we elected our first MBA president?
The facts are that the entire MBA education field has contracted somewhat since 2000. This is, I believe, the result of the recent recession, the business scandals and the demographic shift in the United States—the Baby Boom has finally moved through graduate school, the echo boom is about to arrive, and here we are in the trough. But I believe there is a huge need for what business schools do and what they teach. John F. Kennedy said a rising tide lifts all boats. Economic prosperity depends on the discovery and dissemination of best practice to all corners of the market. I’m highly confident that whatever variations over the past few years, we’ll see a buoyant need for MBAs for the foreseeable future.
Money talks
Casteen grows the endowment, and his piggy bank gets fatter, too
UVA has made no secret of its ambitions to secure its perch among top public universities. On the endowment front alone, by its own calculations the University, at $2.8 billion, now ranks fifth among publics. Even more impressive, the endowment has grown 381 percent since 1989-90, when funds held by UVA and its foundations to-taled only $567 million.
Spearheading the gargantuan growth is President John T. Casteen III, who came on board in 1990. While the pride of a job well done might be enough to satisfy the prez, he hasn’t exactly been denied other fruits for his labor. In 1990 Casteen was hired at a starting salary of $147,769. By 2003-04, according to a report in The Washington Post last week, Casteen was earning a base of $385,000, representing a 161 percent in-crease in his standard of living across 13 years. Additional compensation, such as bonus-es, deferred compensation and benefits, brought Casteen to $526,490 in 2003-04—and that’s not even counting the housing, car allowance and cook that UVA provides for him.
That puts Casteen well ahead of public peers in the region, lifting him to a level akin to presidents at private universities, such as George-town. To which we can only say, How’s the air up there, John?—Cathy Harding
Neighborhood watch
A large portion of Charlottesville’s sex offenders live in Belmont and Woolen Mills
The Virginia Sex Offender Registry, http://sex-offender.vsp.state.va. us, maintained by the Virginia State Police, updates local precincts when sex offenders change address. And that’s the extent of the monitoring of sex offenders who have served their time, according to Det. Sgt. Paul Davis at the Charlottesville Police Department. Anything more would violate their legal rights.
According to the Registry, currently 79 sex offenders live in the Charlottesville-Albe-marle area. Of those, 13 are in jail, 34 live in the county and 32 live in the city. Of the 32 living within city limits, the greatest single concentration is the 13 who live roughly in the Belmont and Woolen Mills neighborhoods.
While this concentration hasn’t seemed to affect housing prices in the neighborhoods, a standard clause in real estate contracts addresses Megan’s Law and encourages buyers to visit the sex offender registry.
It should be noted that “sex offender”
is a broad category. Det. Davis points out that the Registry can be misleading because, for example, two people may
be having consensual sex, yet if one is under 18, then her partner could be convicted of statutory rape and forever be listed in the Sex Registry.
The map printed below approximately locates where in Belmont and Woolen Mills the sex offenders live according
to the State Registry. Keep in mind that the map is an approximation—the indicators on the map are more to identify a street than a specific address.—Nell Boeschenstein
Beer or deer?
Sportsmen, take our quiz before heading out with your rifle
Virginia law allows deer hunting in most parts of the Commonwealth from late November to early January. In honor of hunting season, beer companies such as Anheuser-Busch are printing cases of beer with bright orange labels, designed to stand out among the leaves. Hunters can carry these visible beer boxes into the woods without worrying that a fellow sportsman will mistake their beer for deer. At
C-VILLE, we’re serious about beer safety. Before you and your beer head off on that hunting trip, take the following quiz to make sure you can tell the difference between beer and deer. It’s not as easy as you might think.—John Borgmeyer
1. Walks on four legs.
2. Comes in an aluminum can.
3. Tastes best ice cold.
4. Looks good mounted above your fireplace.
5. It’s illegal to drive with one in
your hand.
6. Makes your wife or girlfriend seem more attractive.
7. Smells like urine, tastes like fur.
Answers: 1. deer; 2. beer; 3. beer; 4. deer; 5. beer; 6. beer or deer; 7. deer or Milwaukee’s Best.