Month: February 2006

Tuesday, February 21
Similarities uncovered between George Allen, chewed spinach

Politicalderby.com continues its 2008 presidential handicapping with today’s news that Virginia’s junior Senator, George Allen, has the No. 1 ranking “on the strength of very positive inside-baseball chatter.” The former Republican governor has held on to his ranking for the past couple of weeks. But the pundits on the site caution that the field is wide open: “With roughly 1,000 days to go before the 2008 election, picking a winner today is like predicting what you’ll pick out of your teeth after dinner on May 3, 2021.”

 

Wednesday, February 22
Link between weather and stating the obvious remains unbroken

It snowed briefly this morning and WCAV was on the scene with the story. “I woke up this morning and I wasn’t expecting to see this amount of snow,” one local told the station. Said another, “I figured it was going to be clear all the way home.” Still a third remarked that after witnessing some accidents, “everybody seems to be slowing down, so that’s a good thing.”

 

Thursday, February 23
Fewer students selling their souls because they can’t afford it

Law school applications are down 10 percent from the same period in 2004, according to a posting today on the Collegiate Times website. Some speculate that college grads are finding it easier to get high-paying jobs right out of college (but not in Charlottesville!), so they’re skipping the familiar law school hedge. But others say price is a determining factor, and they cite UVA Law School as an example. According to Collegiate Times, “in 2001, an in-state law student at the University of Virginia paid $18,090 a year. For the 2005-2006 school year, that price jumped to $28,300 per year.”

 

Friday, February 24
Virgil Goode’s dirty donor confesses

Mitchell Wade, former head of MZM, a defense-contracting firm, pleaded guilty today to bribing a California congressman and illegally funneling money to Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode, who represents Charlottesville and most of the impoverished Southside in the gerrymandered Fifth District, according to Reuters. Wade bribed decorated Vietnam War pilot and longtime California Congressman Randy Cunningham to the tune of $2.4 million. In regards to Goode, Wade acknowledged that he violated campaign finance rules by reimbursing MZM employees who donated to Goode’s campaign, as well as the campaign of Florida Congresswoman Katherine Harris. All the elected officials involved are Republicans. Reportedly, Wade said that neither Goode nor Harris knew of the illegal activity.

   Goode received at least $46,000 in cloaked MZM contributions. As the scandal first unfolded last year, Goode offered to repay any donations from MZM employees. In 2003, one of the years when Goode received MZM money, he shepherded $9 million in appropriations to an MZM facility in Martinsville.

   Wade also got cozy with a Defense Department official who worked in Charlottesville in the name of pumping up MZM’s bottom line. MZM hired both the son of a National Ground Intelligence Center official and then the official himself, according to later reports in The Washington Post, which identified him as Robert Fromm. NGIC is located in Albemarle County.

 

Saturday, February 25
Road games more dangerous than previously known

Thank you, Jerry Ratcliffe, Daily Progress sports editor, for finally helping us to understand why the UVA men cannot win a basketball game on the road. Anticipat-ing the Cavs’ 90-64 loss to Clemson, Ratcliffe writes today, “Life on the road in the ACC is filled with land mines…” UVA hasn’t won two ACC games on the road since the 2001-2002 season, sug- gesting that with all those bombs lying in wait, the Cavs should consider sending a scout out first.

 

Sunday, February 26
Charlottesville feels the power

Hundreds of locals turned out at Carver Recreation Center this weekend, according to WINA, hoping that a Hollywood casting agent would give them a lucky break. The casting agent for Evan Almighty, a sequel to Jim Carrey’s Bruce Almighty, took names, snapped pictures and generally raised many hopes for a role in the Steve Carell production, which will get fully underway in March.

 

Monday, February 27
Charlottesville-D.C. road trip could be cut to only three hours

Prince William County officials are considering a private offer to improve the intersection of routes 29 and 66, The Washington Post reports today. Though transportation is at the top of Gov. Tim Kaine’s legislative agenda, “some Northern Virginia officials say they have so little faith in the State’s ability to deliver that they have accepted or are considering offers from developers to pay for major projects,” according to the Post. Developer Brookfield Homes proposes to pay any cost to improve the intersection, which is marred by a rail crossing. The Faustian terms? Brookfield wants approval to build another 6,800 homes in that region—which, it seems worth pointing out, will increase traffic.

 

Caution: Ped Xing

COUNCIL HEARS MALL-CROSSING ARGUMENTS
Customer service rejected as a means to improve East End businesses

How difficult is it really to get to the Downtown Mall? Difficult enough that City Council met last week to hear comments on the Downtown Business Asso-ciation’s petition to open Fourth or Fifth streets as a vehicular crossing. The motivation: Business isn’t looking so hot on the east end of the Mall since the closing of Seventh Street in 2004.

   Proponents of the crossing stormed Council chambers in force on Tuesday, February 21, arguing that the very vitality of the Mall could be at stake. Several Downtown business owners laid on the anecdotes, claiming that customer complaints about inaccessibility have grown common. Owners believe that the crossing would greatly facilitate patrons’ ability to access all parts of the Mall, including the parking garages. “What has made [the Mall] a success is that it is a destination for people,” said Steve Blaine, Vice Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, “and the economic vitality of the Downtown Mall has been critical for that.”

   Despite pro-business contentions, many Mall denizens are impervious to change, citing 30 years of Downtown success without this crossing. Residents tried to convince Council to sample alternatives before resorting to another crossing. Suggestions included way-finding plans, greater signage and improved parking. Invoking the Planning Commission’s January 10 vote against this proposal, Mall-goers like Peter Kleeman demanded more compelling data, ensuring “reasonable protections of benefits to overcome the significant impact, risks and safety intrusions that a crossing might cause.”

   Council will consider a one-year trial and will work towards establishing criteria for assessing success prior to endorsement. Council is scheduled to vote on the matter at its next meeting, Monday, March 6.—David Goodman

 

Thanks, I’ll pass

SCHILLING LEADS WITH NON-VOTES
The King of Abstentions opts to run for Council again

On Tuesday, February 21, City Councilor Rob Schilling announced his intention to run for a second term in May’s citywide election, casting himself as the guy who’s been standing up against “business as usual.” Though he was referring to Council’s budgeting process, an assertion that was forcefully derided by fellow Councilor Blake Caravati in the next day’s Daily Progress, there’s one area where Schilling, Council’s lone Republican, definitely runs against the pack. By a margin as high as 4-1, Schilling stands out as the Councilor with the greatest number of abstentions.

   According to C-VILLE’s search into City records, during Schilling’s first two years, under Mayor Maurice Cox, he abstained on eight of 127 votes. The closest non-vote contender was Caravati, with two abstentions from July 2002 to June 2004. Cox abstained once; Councilors Kevin Lynch and Meredith Richards did not abstain at all.

   Since 2004 Council has had 52 major votes (C-VILLE did not tally votes on consent agendas). Schilling abstained seven times, followed by Kendra Hamilton with four abstentions. Caravati and Lynch have one each in this period; Mayor David Brown has not abstained on any vote. All told, Schilling has abstained on more than 8 percent of Council votes in nearly four years.

   Explaining his record, Schilling credits his abstentions to poor information. “I’ll never guess at something. That’s what I would consider poor public service,” he says.

   But his colleagues see something different at work. “I don’t think that other than Rob there’s been much precedent for people using abstentions,” Richards says.

   “You’re put there to be a legislator, a voice for the people,” Caravati says. “When you don’t take positions, especially when you take the excuse that you have no information, you’re not doing your job as a legislator.”—Cathy Harding, with additional reporting by Esther Brown and Nell Boeschenstein

 

On the bedfellow beat

TJPED REPORTS DONATIONS
County’s controversial new ally gets big bucks from big biz

After years of demurring on the offer, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors voted on February 8 to join the Thomas Jefferson Partnership for Economic Development (TJPED). Chummy with the Charlottesville Chamber of Commerce, the TJPED provides info to businesses that will potentially locate here. Critics worry the TJPED’s—and now, by association, the County’s—business alliances could give a boost to the number of “yeas” when it comes to who gets development go-aheads. Indeed, this edited list shows that commercial interest is alive and well at TJPED. These are some 2005 donations to the association, which were reported in February.—Meg McEvoy

 

University of Virginia: $35,000

Wachovia Bank: $25,000

The Daily Progress: $10,000

Piedmont Virginia Community College: $10,000

Dominion Virginia Power: $8,000

Omni Charlottesville Hotel: $7,605

Ferguson Enterprises: $7,500

Bank of America: $5,000

BB&T: $5,000

Colonial Auto Center: $5,000

Hunter Craig Company: $5,000

LexisNexis Publishing: $5,000

State Farm Insurance Company; $5,000

Great Eastern Management Company: $3,000

Albemarle First Bank: $2,500

Worrell Investment Company, Inc.: $2,500

Faulconer Construction Co.: $2,000

Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors: $1,000

Wal-Mart Distribution Center: $1,000

 

Assembly Watch

ON DECK FOR CITY: CHARTER CHANGE
Clearing both chambers, Toscano’s bill would make it easier for City to give low-income people a housing break

With the luck he’s having, maybe David Toscano, Charlottesville’s freshman delegate, should have bought a Powerball ticket. Last week two of his bills cleared House and Senate hurdles, now awaiting the signature of Governor Tim Kaine. One of those, an affordable housing measure, could open the door to significant changes in Charlottes-ville’s overheated housing market.

   Toscano’s bill changes the City charter to allow the government to make grants and loans to low- and moderate-income people to help with home-buying. It also will let the City offer tax deferrals to folks in the same categories who are already homeowners. It’s modeled after similar legislation affecting Alexandria.

   Toscano says good old-fashioned compromise helped get the measure through. “Some folks had a concern about powers of eminent domain,” he says. “We took out some of the language in the bill because we didn’t feel the City needed more powers of eminent domain.”

   Councilor Kevin Lynch foresees that with more precise tax-relief in its toolbox, the City will be able to target “low- and moderate-income homeowners who have seen the most rapid appreciation in their properties,” rather than enacting blanket tax-rate relief as Council did in 2005 when the property tax rate was cut by 4 cents to $1.05.

   Neil Williamson, who heads the business-friendly Free Enterprise Forum, frets that Toscano’s bill is more red tape by another name. “The Free Enterprise Forum is very much in favor of affordable housing,” he says. “However, we’re concerned the City might be building additional bureaucracy, whereas the private sector could adequately serve this function.”

   Harumph, says Lynch: “The Free Enterprise Forum and the realtor group are always in favor of affordable housing and preventing any legislation that would block it until someone asks them to provide it. Then they’re nowhere to be seen.”—Cathy Harding

 

To Cav and Cav not

SUPREME COURT PASSES ON COLLEGE NEWSPAPER CENSORSHIP CASE
Cav Daily can continue hot-button coverage of cafeteria trays unabated

Many college newspapers may soon have to run their articles by the dean’s office—but, thanks to its independent status, The Cavalier Daily will not be one of them. The Supreme Court recently declined to rule on Hosty v. Carter, allowing to stand the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals’ opinion that, like high school newspapers, subsidized college newspapers are subject to editorial control by the administration.

   But President John Casteen will not get a chance to vet his morning copy of The Cav Daily, because the paper is not subsidized by the University. This autonomy grew out of a 1979 conflict between the administration and the paper, according to current editor Make Slaven. “Our independence is critical to our credibility,” he says. “Even if you don’t have administrators breathing down your neck, it’s extremely difficult anyway to print honest news if you have somebody exerting control over you.”

   Former UVA president Robert O’Neil says, “It never occurred to me to intercede at all [with The Cavalier Daily].” Now, as director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, his organization joined a brief urging the Supreme Court to take the Illinois case.

   Yet the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case might be a blessing, O’Neil says. “Given the current make-up of the court, my fear is that they would have taken it to affirm the Court of Appeals, thus making nationwide the Hazelwood standard that now only effects three states—Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin.”—Will Goldsmith

 

Cruisin’ ‘n’ boozin’

THE UPSIDE OF SEMESTER AT SEA
Beckett and bikinis: An odd couple, perhaps, but the sex is great!

In January, UVA became the academic home base for the controversial Semester at Sea program, and on February 22 Spanish Professor David Gies was named as the program’s first UVA-affiliated academic dean. A cruise-ship-cum-college-campus, the ship sails around the world docking at different ports and offering an alternative to the traditional junior year abroad.

   Professorial whoopin’ and hollerin’ has since abounded over partying, safety and whether the academics on the Semester at Sea program measure up to UVA standards; the administration claims these concerns are overblown. C-VILLE, however, is looking on the bright side. Here are a few perqs students and profs can enjoy on board that they’ll never find when landlocked.—Nell Boeschenstein

 

–    Less is more: Whoever said itsy bitsy, teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikinis are not conducive to learning was just plain stupid.

–   What happens on Semester at Sea stays on Semester at Sea. It’s like having embassy license plates in Vegas!

–   Fresh, uh…fish?

 

 

In the John

JOHN PAUL JONES ARENA SKED ANNOUNCED
Sweaty men, pretty ponies among big-name acts

  A new $128 million stadium cannot live on basketball alone. That’s why UVA announced a few months ago that it was partnering with SMG—not Sarah Michelle Geller, but the stadium management group—to get butts in those 16,000 seats come the off-season. Last week SMG unveiled the first events scheduled for JPJ this year. From the circus to skating cartoon characters to beefy men rolling around in a totally not-gay way, everybody wins! For more information and upcoming events, check www.johnpaul jonesarena.com.—Eric Rezsnyak

  August 14: World Wrestling Entertainment (formerly the WWF) presents “Monday Night Raw.” The show will be taped and broadcast live on USA Network.

  October 18-22: Disney on Ice celebrates “100 Years of Magic.” It’s like the Ice Capades, but with more smiling, singing rodents.

  November 24: Lipizzaner Stallions. Oh, yes. There will be prancing.

  December 6-10: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey—The Greatest Show on Earth. Also, the most modest.

 

 

The big flap

UVA PROF FINDS ORDER IN CHAOS
Could “butterfly effect” explain TomKat union?

You know that “butterfly effect”—the theory that says tiny variations can lead to big changes? Now, anthropologists at UVA are taking the butterfly effect, which is actually a part of something called chaos theory, and applying it to the humanities and social sciences.

   On the Order of Chaos, a book of essays published late last year and edited by UVA professor Frederick Damon, takes the formula to the forefront of culture—a first, he says.

   Prior to his work, “nobody in anthropology had systematically used chaos theory.” He says, “I knew I was getting into something bigger than me.”

   Bigger than most journalists, too, so first let’s get to the basics.

   Chaos theory deals with nonlinear relationships, or problems that don’t have a direct cause and effect. But chaos, Damon cautions, “does not mean disorder. It means a certain kind of order.”

   In the book, anthropologist Christopher Taylor explains the Rwandan genocide by decoding the society’s dependence on the flow of liquids. He shows how blocking the flow of blood, semen and water caused a systematic crumbling in Rwanda.

   In other words, with chaos theory, political and governmental factors alone don’t sum up a society’s status. Broad cultural metaphors are common in chaos studies. In Damon’s own work on New Guinea, he explores “the island as a boat.”

   So, if the island is a boat, America is a…Chrismakwanzukkah sneaker display with matching iPods and red-white-and-blue streamers at Macy’s? Actually, Damon says, a cultural metaphor for the U.S. is a debated concept, since we’re all such rugged individuals.—Meg McEvoy

 

 

Now hiring

MORE THAN 500 JOBS OPEN AT UVA
Time to get off your mom’s futon

Flipping burgers isn’t fun anymore, and it’s getting harder and harder to explain to your date why you’re still sleeping in Mom’s basement. It’s time for you to get a new job.

   You’re in luck, because there are currently more than 500 jobs available at UVA, which with more than 11,000 employees is the region’s largest employer.

   Maybe you like bossing people around. One of the 60 administrative positions might be for you. For example, the school is looking for an “Assistant Vice-President for Equity and Diversity.” Oh, wait. This position calls for “the use of initiative and independent judgment…as well as the exercise of diplomacy and tact,” according to UVA. Maybe that’s not for you, after all.

   You could interpret for the deaf or advise students on study abroad, you can earn up to $77,720 as an engineer or start at $28,970 as a “biosafety officer.” Might we suggest a career as a “compliance officer”? It sounds as though all you have to do is make sure other people do their job. What could be more fun than that?—John Borgmeyer

 

 

Give me just a little more time

KROBOTH’S PUNISHMENT DELAYED
“Vampire” sentencing reset for early May

  Attempted murderer Kurt Kro-both was supposed to receive his sentence Tuesday, February 21. But when the time came his defense attorney, David Heil-berg, successfully argued in Albemarle County Circuit Court to delay his client’s sentencing another two and a half months, to Tuesday, May 9.

   Heilberg pointed out that, as the third attorney to defend Kroboth in the case, he’s been playing catch-up and hasn’t had time to bring in out-of-town character witnesses. The Commonwealth argued against the motion, citing a need for closure on the part of Kroboth’s ex-wife and victim, Jane Kroboth, as well as a simple desire to wrap up this case that has dragged on for two years.

   Kroboth, a former financial consultant, entered an Alford Plea (which does not admit guilt, but admits that there is sufficient evidence to successfully prosecute the charges), for breaking into the house of his ex-wife and attempting to kill her in November 2004. He was wearing a vampire mask and tried to chloroform her as she slept. When Jane woke, a struggle ensued. It ended when he left abruptly after Jane mentioned the couple’s children. Minutes later, police picked up Kroboth jogging down a road near Jane’s house.

   Jane Kroboth has also filed a civil suit, which is currently pending in Albemarle Circuit Court.—Nell Boeschenstein

 

 

Trying times

ALLEGED TEENAGE BOMBERS AWAIT EARLY MARCH TRIAL
Court-ordered evaluations required for three of four suspects

With parents on the verge of tears by their sides, three of the four teens accused of plotting to bomb two area high schools appeared in Juvenile and Domestic Re-lations Court on Wednesday, February 22. Speaking in a barely audible voice, Judge Susan Whitlock ordered all three to undergo 10-day psychological evaluations before their individual adjudications on March 8. The defendants include two 13-year-olds, a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old. In the juvenile justice system adjudication is the equivalent of a trial. While formal evaluations have now been requested, according to Albemarle Com-monwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos, none of the teens’ attorneys have requested an insanity evaluation.

   The fourth teen, a 13-year-old, arrested on February 16, has not yet been ordered to undergo evaluation because at press time his attorneys had not yet requested it. That teen, too, says Camblos, will be adjudicated March 8.

   The teens’ alleged plan was to bomb Albemarle and Western Albemarle high schools by the end of the year. They were allegedly conspiring via an Internet chatroom. Two shotguns and three computers were seized by police in connection with the investigation. All face charges of conspir- ing to commit murder and other felonies.

   All four will be tried as juveniles since they have no prior involvement with the juvenile justice system. If kids have not already been through the system, Camblos said, and have not had the chance to get help from the agencies and services in place, there’s no reason to try them as adults.

   The four teens are currently being held at the Blue Ridge Juvenile Detention Center.—Nell Boeschenstein

 

Trouble brewing

CHILDREN’S MENTAL HEALTH CENTER INVESTIGATED FOR SEXUAL ASSAULT
Ten to 12 people implicated in Whisper Ridge probe

Police Chief Tim Longo called a press conference outside the Charlottesville police station on Friday, February 24, to announce that his department has been investigating the Whisper Ridge children’s mental health facility—home to about 50 residents on Arlington Boulevard—since January on charges of sexual assault. Not specifying how many potential victims, nor how many potential perpetrators, Longo did allow that 10 to 12 people—both residents and employees—are part of the investigation.

   Leading up to Friday’s announcement, the police executed a search of the facility that lasted more than seven hours and resulted in the seizure of documents relating to the allegations. As of press time, no charges have been filed and thus the Chief couldn’t say too much in terms of specific allegations or possible next steps. He did call the issue “a serious matter,” saying that in the past, the department has received “a fair share of calls to this facility.”

   According to Longo, police have been in contact with the Virginia Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services, which is in charge of licensing for Whisper Ridge.

   The chief did not know whether potentially implicated employees are currently working at the home and when approached by a reporter on the subject, the woman at Whisper Ridge’s front desk appeared familiar with the investigation but said, “I am not allowed to talk about that. [The administration] doesn’t want any visitors today.”—Nell Boeschenstein

 

 

Grumpy old men

NEW ELDER CARE INVESTIGATIONS IGNITE OLD ISSUE
Mountainside and Evergreene allegations point to larger problem

As The Daily Progress previously reported, Mountainside Senior Living Facility in Crozet is being investigated and the Virginia Department of Social Services is considering sanctions after a State inspector reported some residents had not received insulin shots. The inspector also reported that CPR had not been administered after a resident had been found dead. CPR is mandatory anytime a person is not responsive. In addition, a pending trial in Greene County against Evergreene Nursing Care Center also alleges neglect. And this isn’t the first time local elder care has come under scrutiny. Last August, The Laurels lost its ability to accept Medicaid and Medicare after failing to meet State standards.

   According to the American Health Care Association, between 1992 and 2003, $5.2 billion in claims against elder care facilities were incurred. That’s because, as attorney Claire Curry says, elder care is “backbreaking.” Curry works at the Legal Aid Justice Center and is an elder care advocate. It’s not uncommon for nursing homes and assisted living facilities to suffer from inadequate staffing and high turnover. For example, a 2002 study by the AHCA estimated the turnover rate for directors of nursing at Virginia’s elder care facilities at 143 percent.

   “You need to keep people clean and dry and turn them every two hours,” says Curry. “[This] requires lots of hands-on work.”

   Curry relates a recent story, unrelated to the current situations with Mountainside or Evergreene, in which a daughter visited her mother at a nursing home, only to find her mother in tears, diaper soaked and saying she’d been in bed unattended until noon. The daughter confronted a nurse who conceded the situation, saying the home was short staffed.

   Some potentially good news in the General Assembly for elder care advocates, however, is that proposed legislation would improve the ratio of elder care ombudsmen to 1:2,000 from 1:3,946 . This would nearly double the number of people whose sole job is to field concerns from elder care patients and family.—Nell Boeschenstein

 

Noah’s arc

MEET THE NEW CHA DIRECTOR
Noah Schwartz on rehabbing public housing

Noah Schwartz is the newest director of the Charlottesville Housing Authority, the agency that oversees the City’s public housing stock and which has been under scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for three years running. Schwartz and his staff have been given just one year to improve CHA’s standing. Schwartz talked recently about what he was doing to get CHA back on its feet—both in the eyes of HUD and city residents.—Esther Brown

 

C-VILLE: What is it going to take for the Charlottesville Housing Authority to be successful?

Noah Schwartz: Housing is a big part of the anti-poverty issue. I mean, is our goal just providing housing, or should our goal be broader than that in addressing poverty issues? So that more of the folks that we provide subsidized housing to are able to participate in a wider range of housing options, so that they’ve got the training they need to get the jobs they need so that they have a broader set of choices? Are we working in partnership with the schools so that the 48 percent of our public housing residents who are under the age of 18 are getting the support they need? I think we’ve got to look at all of that if we’re going to be successful.

 

How do you see yourself accomplishing what past directors haven’t been able to accomplish?

I think we’ve got to have the intent to do things differently than we have in the past. You can’t just be there to punch the clock.

 

What would you tell public housing residents, for instance residents of Westhaven, who hear rumors of redevelopment in their neighborhood all the time?

I would tell them what I told them [three] weeks ago: Redevelopment is going to happen at some point, and when we’re ready to have serious discussions, you’ll hear it from me. There’s not a whole lot we’re doing with it right now.

 

 

Mixed messages

SCOTTSVILLE NIXES ZONING REINTERPRETATION
PUDs a dud, town council says

On Tuesday, February 21, the Scottsville Town Council voted down an ordinance that would have given the small town of 600 residents more control over future development.

   The Planned Unit Development (PUD) Ordinance provided for a creative interpretation of zoning density requirements. Rather than maintaining the same, uniform density of development within a given area, PUDs allow the flexibility to vary density within a development. The result is usually a combination of housing, recreation and shopping within one development.

   According to Councilor James Svetich (one of two councilors who voted for the ordinance), the PUD would have been a “tool” for the city to use in its future growth and development.

   However, Councilor James Hogan, one of three who voted against the PUD, argues that the ordinance went beyond just a set of tools. “This would have been a green light for the developer to go ahead and submit his plans for a 170-unit development,” he said.

   According to Hogan, growth of that size would essentially create a second city, destroying the unique qualities of Scottsville.—Dan Pabst

 

Time savers of the future

HOLLYMEAD CUTOFF COMING BY JULY
Go between airport and Target like a speeding bullet

Don’t pout when big-box development delivers yet another concrete wasteland where once was verdant green. Look on the bright side: Other than affordable tea cosies, shopping centers can provide another benefit—shortcuts around major intersections. (Exhibit A: Hydraulic Road, 29N and K-mart. Hey sport, why the guilty look?) Two short connector roads running through Hollymead Town Center may soon become preferred cutoffs between 29N and Airport Road.

   The connectors are two of a number of roads that have been part of County plans since Hollymead Town Center was approved in 2003. “[Building the roads] was a condition of building the town center,” says Hollymead developer Wendell Wood, who wouldn’t estimate what portion of the $11 million he’s spending on Hollymead roads is earmarked for these particular connectors. One road extends Timberwood Boulevard to Airport Road; the other, as yet unnamed, connects to the Deerwood subdivision. Some of the land in question is owned by Wood; other chunks belong to his fellow superdeveloper Charles Hurt.

   According to Wood, both roads should be finished by July. Asked whether drivers will use Timberwood as a shortcut to Airport Road, County planner Sean Dougherty says simply, “They will.”

   “They’re all State roads built to public standards and they’re built to accommodate that dispersion.” But, he adds, “Going through Deerwood, you can’t make too much of an argument for that.” Remember that next time you’re running late for a flight.—Erika Howsare

 

 

Phone home

LOVE ME, BUILD ME, CHAPTER 6
Another empty building finds fulfillment

 

Address: 1180 Seminole Trail

Area: 454,900 square feet

Owner: Seminole Trail Properties, LLC c/o Richard Hewitt

2001 Sale Price: $11.4 million

 

The old Comdial building is once again being put to use after a few empty years, this time by tenants including Mailing Services of Virginia, which relocated to the property in November.

   The super-sized building may have some unique issues. On March 1, 2005, when the County Planning Commission approved a special permit for a possible indoor gym facility to be located there, Planning Commissioner Calvin Morris recalled that the last time the Commission had looked at the building, they found an area that had “some real problems with contamination.”

   Seminole Trail Properties representative Tim Slagle responded by saying that the contamination in question was located behind the building where Comdial had had storage tanks that had leaked contaminants into the ground water. As of March 2005, Seminole Trail Properties was “in the fourth year of a six-year remediation plan with the State Department of Environ-mental Quality.”—Esther Brown

 

 

Mark your calendars

WHAT’S COMING NEXT

A week’s worth of opportunities to spout off

 

League of Women Voters. Jim Burton, Lou-doun County Supervisor speaks on “A Case Study in Unbridled Growth: What Hap-pens When a Community Grows Too Much, Too Fast?” Tuesday, February 28, noon. Monticello Event and Conference Center.

 

Earlysville Area Residents League. Discuss updates to the Places29 Master Plan from Thomas Jefferson Planning District Committee and County staff. Tuesday, February 28, 7:30pm. Broadus Wood Elementary School.

 

Albemarle County Board of Supervisors. Work session on the North Pointe development. Wednesday, March 1, 2:20pm. Room 235, County Office Building.

 

250 Bypass Interchange Steering Com-mittee, a.k.a. Meadowcreek Parkway ISC. Thursday, March 2, 4pm. Basement conference room, City Hall.

Tuesday, February 14
Casteen, the Younger takes on accidental shootists Reid and Cheney

Writing today on slate.com, John Casteen IV, a regular contributor to The Virginia Quarterly Review, enlists the recent shooting incidents of Vice President Dick “Fuck Yourself” Cheney and Virginia Delegate John “Invest in Kevlar” Reid to argue that Congress should act to counterbalance the heavy influence the gun lobby exerts on state-level politicians. “Left to its own devices, the Commonwealth of Virginia would require me to be a licensed dealer of cars if I were to sell more than five of them in a year; it wouldn’t, however, consider me a gun dealer even if I were to sell 100 guns in a weekend at a gun show,” he observes.

 

Warner delivers valentine to college leaders

Reporting in The Chronicle of Higher Education today, former C-VILLE staffer Paul Fain captures the lovefest greeting former Virginia governor and presumed Democratic presidential candidate Mark Warner at a West Coast gathering of college administrators. After what Fain describes as “an enthusiastic introduction” from UVA prez John Casteen III, Warner restated the concerns already voiced by meeting-goers: “Competition for ‘intellectual capital,’ particularly by colleges in India and China, poses an ‘enormous challenge’ to America’s ability to main-tain…the most educated, entrepreneurial work force in the world.”

 

Wednesday, February 15
USA Today lauds local overachievers

For 17 consecutive years, USA Today has named its All-USA College Academic Team. Today UVA senior Catherine S. Neale, who is also a student member of the school’s Board of Visitors, made the “third team,” and junior Edward Ross Baird drew an honorable mention. Neale, a Richmond native, has other head-of-the-class credits, according to University Relations: president of the Arts & Sciences Council; the first student representative on the UVA College Foundation; and a member of the student South Lawn Task Force, the UVA Master Planning Council, the Buildings and Ground Committee, and the Undergraduate Research Network. To which the C students, looking up from their Jack and Cokes responded, “What. Ever.”

 

Thursday, February 16
Rumors of its death have been greatly exaggerated

Blogging on his site, cvillenews.com, self-appointed local blogger-in-chief Waldo Jaquith anticipates his own irrelevance as more local blogs take hold: “I eagerly await the day when local media websites are so good, and the local blogging community so strong, that cvillenews.com no longer serves a purpose. I will happily shut down this site on that day, and I encourage area bloggers and media outlets to do what they can to hasten its demise.”

 

Friday, February 17
From the Department of Whine and Dine

Taking on the big issues of her time, Miriam Levy writes in to The Cavalier Daily today on the subject of…dining hall trays, a hot topic covered in an earlier edition [editor’s note: these are tomorrow’s leaders?]. “We all know that some of the food at the dining hall is less than appetizing,” she writes. “The solution is to not take it in the first place if you probably won’t eat it. Also, trays are not a necessity and having to do a little extra walking in the dining hall isn’t the end of the world.”

 

Saturday, February 18
“Idol” worship has local ties

He wanted to be in martial arts movies when he was little, according to his profile on idolonfox.com, but “American Idol” contestant and one-time Fluvanna County resident Chris Daughtry is engaged in another kind of combat right now, facing other “Idol” wannabes in the Round of 24. Daughtry’s story has landed on page 1 of today’s Daily Progress, but viewers have to wait until Thursday to see if he makes the next cut. We wish him luck, despite the fact that his favorite male artist is Rob Thomas.

 

Sunday, February 19
Zimmerman’s hot, but don’t anybody tell him

What’s an MLB manager to do when setting expectations for a smokin’ rookie like former UVA player Ryan Zimmerman? That’s the dilemma Washington Nationals’ Manager Frank Robinson faces with the 21-year-old third baseman, according to today’s Washington Post. “I don’t like to put numbers on a young player, because then they feel they have to achieve those numbers…[but] if at the end of the year he’s driven in 60, 65 runs, that’s fine,” the Post quotes Robinson. “But who’s to say he won’t drive in 70 or 75?”

 

Monday, February 20
Orr believes in poetry

UVA poet Gregory Orr reads his essay “This I Believe” on today’s edition of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” a segment of the show based on a program by 1950s journalist Edward R. Murrow. Orr, who has taught at UVA since 1975 and has nine collections of poetry among his numerous achievements, talks about how poetry has provided him an emotional outlet over the years.

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Who let the crocs out?
PET GATOR TO RELOCATE TO ORLANDO
Extra! Extra! Alligators make crappy pets!

The Wildlife Center in Waynesboro is currently housing a two-and-a-half foot baby alligator that was found in a trailer park off Route 29N at the beginning of November. The little lizard is now waiting to board his flight to Gatorland, a theme park and wildlife preserve in Orlando, Florida.

   Alligators—along with any other threatened or endangered species—are not kosher pets according to the Code of Virginia, so whoever was raising the tyke in his or her bathtub was breaking the law. Luckily for the culprit behind this particular pet alligator, he or she won’t face any penalty because no one seems to know who let this croc out. However, if there were a suspect, he would be facing a misdemeanor, subject to a $500 fine and up to six months in prison.

   According to the Wildlife Center, of the 2,369 wild animals that passed through their facility last year, only about a half dozen were considered endangered or threatened and illegal to keep as pets by Commonwealth standards. According to Center president Edward Clark, the most common legal issue is when people purchase non-native animals then free them into the wild. (For example, students who get pet turtles and free them at the end of the school year, or couples who purchase doves to let go at the end of a wedding.) Introducing non-native species into the wild is against State law.

   City Police Chief Tim Longo says that situations with wildlife almost never arise locally. Sometimes bears or deer wander into town, or a pig breaks loose from the Hogwaller stockyard. But alligators? Not so much.—Nell Boeschenstein

 

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Shiny, happy people
CITY COPS REACH OUT
Police department one step away from Kumbaya?

For your information, the police department isn’t just parking tickets and serial rapist investigations. In the past, many may have been the mysteries into how neighborhoods are patrolled and crimes solved. But lately the department has been making a concerted effort to be more accessible to the public.

   As one example, in the middle of February, the City Communications Department posted a survey on their website to gauge citizen satisfaction with the police department. It’s part of a larger phone survey that is being conducted citywide and asks questions such as “How safe would you feel walking alone in your City of Charlottesville neighborhood after dark?” Respondents can choose anything from “very safe” to “don’t know.”

   The goodwill extends to the media, too. A day after the citizen survey went out, reporters were cordially invited to a finger- painting—er, make that fingerprinting—party at which Sgt. Steve Dillon demonstrated the department’s new fingerprinting device that allows police to locate fingerprints in the daylight. Reporters were even allowed some hands-on play time with the cops’ new toy.

   They care about us! They really, really care about us!—Nell Boeschenstein

 

 

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It’s my life
CLAIRE KAPLAN TALKS PRIVACY AND THE INTERNET
Sexual assault expert plans a conference on the topic

Who’s watching you? With the government conducting unwarranted surveillance, the September death of VCU student Taylor Behl and subsequent arrest of a man she met through the website MySpace.com, and, most recently, the arrest this month of several Albemarle students allegedly planning a bomb plot via chat room discussions, issues surrounding privacy in the Internet age have been hot topics.

   Claire Kaplan, the director of Sexual and Domestic Violence Services at UVA’s Women’s Center, is helping plan a conference on the topic scheduled for May in Virginia Beach. C-VILLE recently sat down with her to discuss the issue. An edited transcript follows.—Nell Boeschenstein

 

C-VILLE: With the current youth culture being so comfortable with the Internet—sharing their names, their class schedules, their credit card numbers—are they aware of the dangers?

Claire Kaplan: Any information you put on the Internet is really there for the entire world to see. For kids, who do have a certain sense of invincibility, it’s hard to assume that creepy and bad people are going to be seeing this stuff. It’s, “I‘m just putting this up for my friends. They’re the only people that have any interest in me, so why would anybody else look at it?” and that’s part of the problem.

 

With sites such as MySpace and Friendster, what kind of information is too much information?

In a sense I think that almost anything is too much for kids, even seemingly innocent things like saying your interests are “collecting Neopets.” That could convey something to someone and they could connect to you through that interest for the Neopet. Then you may establish this friendship with someone who may be totally legit, but who may not be.

 

What sorts of Internet stalking or harassment issues have come through your office?

Posting someone’s phone number and picture on a sex website saying, “I’m looking for dates.” Taking [the photo] off MySpace and posting it so that the victim ends up getting all these calls from random men. People send e-mails from random addresses, sending threatening information. They create creepy websites about a person.

 

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Speaking of kids on the Internet…
POLICE ARREST FOURTH TEEN IN ALLEGED BOMB PLOT
13-year-old Jack Jouett student charged with two felonies

On Thursday, February 16, Albemarle County Police arrested a 13-year-old Jack Jouett student in connection with an alleged plan for an attack on two Albemarle high schools.

   The boy was arrested on “recently obtained information,” according to police. He is charged with two felonies: conspiring to use an explosive device to destroy a schoolhouse and conspiring to commit murder. The suspect is currently being held—along with three other teens arrested two weeks ago on similar charges—at the Blue Ridge Detention Center in Albemarle County.

   Police say the four teens chatted on the Internet about plans to bomb Albemarle and Western Albemarle high schools by the end of the year. The newly arrested student, whose identity, like the others, has not been released due to his status as a minor, joins another 13-year-old boy from Jack Jouett, a 15-year-old boy from Albemarle High School and a 16-year-old boy from Western Albemarle. All face charges of conspiring to commit murder and other felonies.

   “All current leads have been exhausted” in the case, according to a police statement. Police have revealed few details about the case, while parents speculate about the seriousness of the alleged chatter. The newly arrested teen will appear in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court on March 8, while the three other teens will be in court on Wednesday, February 22.—John Borgmeyer

 

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There goes the neighborhood
PHA DEFENDS 10TH AND PAGE STRATEGY
Group says rising assessments can be good for homeowners

Driving through the 10th and Page neighborhood just north of W. Main Street, near UVA, it’s easy to see the recent changes—specifically, the big, bright new homes that the Piedmont Housing Alliance built in the historically African-American neighborhood.

   The changes are visible on paper, too. Real estate assessments in 10th and Page rose 26 percent in 2005, due in large part to PHA’s new construction there.

   This year, PHA will complete a five-year partnership with City Hall to build about 35 new homes and townhouses in the 10th and Page neighborhood. While PHA officials defend the new construction as affordable housing that improves the neighborhood, critics wonder what it all means for longtime residents.

   “Affordable? For whom?” says Joy Johnson, a housing activist and critic of PHA. Not only are the houses “ugly” and inconsistent with the character of 10th and Page, says Johnson, they represent a subtle effort to push poor blacks away from the valuable real estate around W. Main.

   PHA houses, she says, promote gentrification. “It doesn’t look the same anymore,” she says. “It sends a signal that this is the new 10th and Page. You knew there was a change coming when a tanning salon opened up…most black people don’t tan.”

   Further, Johnson says that as new construction pushes assessments higher in 10th and Page, longtime residents may have trouble paying their rising property tax bills.

   PHA sells all their homes at market prices. Some are bought by affluent homebuyers, whose money helps PHA provide down-payment assistance of up to $50,000 for low- and moderate-income buyers, according to Peter Loach, PHA’s deputy director of operations. Recently three PHA homes sold in the neighborhood; two for low- income buyers at $219,900 and $229,900; a third sold at full price for $299,900.

   In total, PHA has sold 19 homes in 10th and Page, with 15 of the buyers qualifying for down-payment assistance.         Loach says the average PHA homebuyer receiving down-payment assistance earns 47 percent of the area median income as calculated by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development—which means the average “low-income” PHA buyer earns $27,944 for a family of four.

   Loach agrees that many residents are concerned about keeping up with the higher property tax bills that come with rising assessments. On the plus side, he says, people can borrow off the equity in their house, or sell it for a nice pile of cash.

   Meanwhile, Johnson wonders what the changing face of 10th and Page means for longtime residents of neighborhoods now coveted by developers. “This is precious land,” she says. “It sits in the scheme of UVA’s connection to Downtown and W. Main. When it comes time for redevelopment, the property owners are going to be sitting at the table, talking about what they don’t want next to them.”—John Borgmeyer

 

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Come together, right now
MPO MULLS REGIONAL TRANSIT AUTHORITY
County officials also urge an end to Meadowcreek Parkway delays

Charlottesville’s three-decade dance with Albemarle County over the construction of the Meadowcreek Parkway is but one example of how Virginia’s political system wreaks havoc with land use and transportation planning. Cities and counties are separate political jurisdictions in the Commonwealth, and that division makes it nearly impossible to make plans for the land and transportation routes we all share.

   Last week, the Charlottesville-Albe-marle Metropolitan Planning Organization (a committee of local leaders and planners) discussed the creation of a regional transit authority as one of the tools it needs to cope with these demands. Through an RTA, multiple jurisdictions could coordinate planning for regional transit.

   “Most small towns are thinking along a similar line,” says Harrison Rue, Director of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. By coordinating the transportation routes of the city, county and UVA, existing transit lines that overlap could be eliminated. Rue listed W. Main Street as a possible backbone route for transit, a single system that would link the University and the Downtown with trolley, rail or more efficient buses and then branch off to nearby neighborhoods.

   Also at the meeting, County Board of Supervisors Chair Dennis Rooker said that any more delays on the Meadowcreek Parkway could cost extra money, especially if land prices in the road’s right-of-way continue to climb. “We should make certain it moves forward before the inflation factor has eaten away huge chunks of the budget,” Rooker said.

   The MPO also plans to study how a “southern connector” road near the Route 20 corridor could accommodate the growth from the planned Biscuit Run development project, which could bring more than 4,000 new homes to Old Lynchburg Road.—Jay Neelley

 

 

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Calling all fledgling Trumps
CITY SEEKS TENANT FOR KIOSK
Are you a bold entrepreneur with a flair for helping tourists?

The City is looking for a sucker—ahem, entrepreneur—to take over the kiosk near Central Place on the Downtown Mall.

   According to a Request for Proposals, the City is looking for someone to conduct business in the kiosk and “provide public information to citizens and tourists,” with a special consideration for activities “keeping with the current use and spirit of the Mall.”

   We can only surmise that statement means the City doesn’t want to see the kiosk turn into a bar, as it was briefly when restaurateur Andrew Vaughn transformed the kiosk into an extension of nearby Atomic Burrito last spring. The experiment in open-air liquor vending was a Mall hotspot but closed after just a few weeks, apparently because Vaughn had not obtained permission from the State’s Alcoholic Beverage Control.

   The kiosk has been home to a variety of short-lived endeavors, with people peddling newspapers or bric-a-brac off and on since it opened in 1995. Ironically, the tiny kiosk was the first construction project from big-talking developer and former Charlottesvillian Lee Danielson, who ultimately built some bigger things—including Regal Cinemas and the Charlottesville Ice Park—in a partnership with investor Colin Rolph.

   Anyone interested in joining this illustrious capitalist tradition (and willing to shell out at least $1,500 to the City in rent each year) can make their pitch to Jim Tolbert, the City’s Director of Neighborhood Development Services.—John Borgmeyer

 

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Don’t leave me alone
LOVE ME, BUILD ME, CHAPTER 5
More empty buildings long for fulfillment

 

Address: 2000 Holiday Dr. (above)

Area: 24,400 square feet

Owner: Andrew Dondero, CEO of Holiday Drive, LLC and CFO of Lakeland Tours

2005 assessment: $2,561,400

Looks like this lonely edifice, known as the Lakeland Tours building, is getting some much-needed attention. Medical Auto-mation Systems, a Charlottesville company owned by Kurt Wassenaar that sells data management systems to hospitals, has taken over most of the building.

   The building was recently home to several tenants, including the Ash Lawn Opera Festival Company, Piedmont Housing Alliance, the Building Goodness Foundation, and the Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center. Everyone except Ash Lawn has moved out, though, as MAS has expanded to fill the building.—John Borgmeyer

 

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Livin’ on a prayer
LOCAL POLS ASK UVA TO INCREASE PAY
Deeds, Toscano sign on to “living wage” resolution 

Charlottesville’s decade-old living wage movement is getting a boost. This spring, the Staff Union at UVA (SUUVA) will present a new resolution demanding a “living wage” for all UVA workers to President John Casteen.

   The resolution—which calls for a wage that is tied to local cost-of-living figures, which this year clocks in at $10.72 an hour—already has a long list of supporters, including State Senator Creigh Deeds, Delegate David Toscano and the Virginia AFL-CIO.

   Toscano has been preoccupied with his own minimum wage legislation, which recently died in committee. “As a legislator, I’m trying to get wages up for the Commonwealth as a whole,” says Toscano, “but this petition is being encouraged, and I’m supportive of that effort.”

   However, while Toscano supports the resolution, he recognizes that, based on his recent defeat, this will be a tough issue to push through UVA’s Board of Visitors.

   The living wage movement has had some success. It began with the Labor Action Group at UVA in 1998. Within a year City Council granted all City employees a living wage, and in 2000 UVA raised starting wages to $8 per hour from $6.50—although the benefit was not extended to UVA’s vast supply of contract workers. Frequent living wage protests outside the Courtyard by Marriott on W. Main Street were stopped when hotel owners agreed to provide job training for some of their low-wage employees. The local living wage movement gave rise to SUUVA in May 2002, and has largely stalled since then.

   But momentum may be gaining. Abby Bellows, organizer of UVA’s Living Wage Campaign, says 25 student and community organizations and more than 800 individuals support the resolution, the purpose of which she says is “a mechanism to demonstrate the wide base of support; to communicate this to the administration, where the buck stops.”—David Goodman

 

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Grip and grin
WOMEN FIND SOLACE IN HUSBANDS’ HANDS
UVA prof confirms the wisdom of John Cougar Mellencamp

It was John Cougar Mellencamp who told us that “everyone needs a hand to hold on to,” and now a UVA scientist is telling us why.

   According to a recent study conducted by psychologists and neuroscientists at UVA and the University of Wisconsin and published in the journal Psychological Science, happily married women under acute stress experience immediate physical relief upon taking hold of their husbands’ hands.

   UVA psychologist and lead study author Dr. James Coan says that while “past studies have found a health-enhancing benefit in couples that are the happiest,” this “is the first study that’s really starting to look at the mechanisms in the brain that are responsible [for those health benefits].”

   In order to study how the brain responds to cues of danger, the women participating in the study were given multiple MRI scans, each of them knowing they could be subjected to a mild electric shock at any time during the scanning process.

   While both spousal and stranger handholding regulated the married women’s responses to threat cues, only the husbands’ hands decreased activity in the brain for “hyper-vigilance,” or the brain’s overreaction to dangers that aren’t really life-threatening. Coan says the regulatory influence of handholding is the brain’s way of saying, If I were alone, this would be really dangerous.

   Coan says that existing research provides evidence that “living together doesn’t seem to correspond with the same kind of [health] benefits as marriage does.” Still, in their ability to help us respond to threat cues, “social networks are very, very important to our health and well-being,” Coan says. “As a society, we’re in danger of emphasizing self-reliance too much, especially when it comes to dealing with stress and adversity,” he says.

   Similar studies are in the works with male participants and also with homosexual couples. “We are expecting to see the same kinds of results [in gay and lesbian couples],” Coan says. “A lot of homosexual couples go through a public commitment ceremony—I want to see if the same kinds of differences exist within homosexual couples as do with heterosexual couples.”—Esther Brown

 

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Kickin’ class
UVA ARCH PROGRAMS AMONG BEST IN NATION
Architecture and landscape architecture ranked third and fifth respectively

We always knew they were good, but we never knew they were quite that good. On February 10, DesignIntelligence, a magazine that covers the design industry, bumped UVA’s graduate architecture program up five notches in its 2006 rankings, naming it No. 3 in the nation out of 86 schools, behind only Harvard and the University of Cincinnati. The survey also ranked UVA’s graduate landscape program No. 5 out of 36, behind Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, University of Georgia and Louisiana State University. In 2005, the landscape program was ranked sixth.

   Architecture school dean Karen Van Lengen attributes the rise in ranks to two things: the school’s emphasis on environmental aspects of design and the comprehensive nature of the programs, enhanced by the fact that they’re housed under the same roof.

   “Very prominent in our school right now,” says Van Lengen, “is our capacity to approach the design of the environment in a comprehensive way…[that encourages] an understanding of the environment as a democratic landscape.”

   The rankings are based on a survey sent to employers in engineering, design and architecture fields, who were asked what graduates they’d hired in the past five years were particularly “prepared for real world practice.”—Nell Boeschenstein

 

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Dissertations you’ll never read
THE ENDLESS TALES OF CANTERBURY
Sifting through the discharge of higher education

 In our pathetic attempts to compensate for our dearth of graduate degrees, we at C-VILLE occasionally peruse UVA’s dissertation stash for fresh cocktail party fodder. However, among the dissertations we won’t be name dropping anytime soon is “Anger in the Canterbury Tales,” by John Lance Griffith.

   This is for two reasons. First: We can tell from the title exactly what the work is about. C’mon, John… seduce us!

   Second: Good God, haven’t we said enough about Chaucer already? What more can be said? This year alone, according to the Digital Dissertations Database, at least 16 dissertations covered the other English bard. Add that to everything that’s come before, which includes more than 2,000 Chaucer-related titles that pop up on Amazon, and you’ve got what the poet himself would have called “ye olde dead horse.”

   Perhaps the mark of a masterpiece is the endless analysis that follows in its wake, but before we ever read “Anger in the Canterbury Tales,” we’re going to first catch up on the stuff we slept through in college…for example, the tales themselves.—Nell Boeschenstein

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Assembly Watch
NRA-BACKED BILL PASSES HOUSE
H.B. 704 is bad news for local freedom haters

A Virginia General Assembly session wouldn’t be complete without some string pulling from the National Rifle Association. This year, the NRA’s marionette is Del. Clarke Hogan (R-South Boston), who got help from the Republican-friendly gun group to craft two bills—H.B. 704 and H.B. 705—designed to prohibit local governments from restricting the use of firearms.

   H.B. 704 would invalidate every local gun ordinance enacted prior to 1995. Last week the House of Delegates passed the bill 69 to 31; Albemarle Delegate Rob Bell voted for H.B. 704, while City Delegate David Toscano opposed it.

   The other bill, H.B. 705, would prohibit local governments from regulating the discharge of firearms. That bill has been killed in committee.

   Hogan’s bills reflect the NRA’s aim to rewrite State hunting laws in a way that erases the distinction between hunting (which is, by the way, a constitutionally protected right in Virginia) and shooting a gun in general. This would make it hard for local governments to stop gun clubs from setting up shooting ranges in suburban neighborhoods, recently a topic of debate in nearby Nelson County. The bills are good news, however, for that next-door neighbor who loves to get drunk and fire his .45 in the air on the Fourth of July. Let freedom ring!

 

Smoking ban passes Senate

Is tobacco culture dying in Virginia, the home of Philip Morris? The crop that formed the backbone of the state’s economy for centuries took a big dis on Monday, February 13, when the Senate voted 21 to 18 in favor of H.B. 648, which would ban smoking in many public places. The bill is expected to die in the House, yet its passage points to the growing influence of suburban voters in the Senate, where the vote crossed party lines and seemed to fall along urban-rural divisions. Senator Creigh Deeds, who represents Char-lottesville but lives in rural Bath County, opposed the ban.

 

Whew! Harsh pot bill dies in committee

A few weeks ago C-VILLE complained about H.B. 737, which would have imposed harsh penalties for a first-time conviction for simple possession of marijuana. Obviously fearing this newspaper’s wrath, legislators killed the bill last week.

   Introduced by Virginia Beach Republican Sal Iaquinto, the bill would have reclassified simple possession to a Class 1 misdemeanor from a Class 2, which could have put first-time pot smokers in jail for up to a year.—John Borgmeyer

 

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Book learnin’
CITY AND COUNTY SCHOOLS TALK BUDGET
Charlottesville trims fat while Albemarle beefs up

Last week the City School Board was looking for ways to cut its budget, while Albemarle’s was spreading the wealth.

   In the City, the central office job of director of school improvement, held by Laura Purnell—a central figure in last year’s debacle with now ex-superintendent Scottie Griffin—went on the chopping block during a board meeting on Thursday, February 16, in an attempt to balance the 17 instructional cuts (12 teachers and five assistants) being made across the district.

   Meanwhile in Albemarle schools, final budget tweaks were made Wednesday and the school board is ready to give their funding request to the Board of Supervisors. The County School Board expects to finance teacher raises through revenues from increased enrollment—Will Goldsmith

 

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Press releases we love
MR. BARRICK, DON’T LEAVE US!
When the City’s P.R. guy is away, reporters fend for themselves

On February 14, the City’s Interim Director of Communications, Ric Barrick, sent out an unwelcome valentine—a press release announcing he was going out of town for five whole days.

   A whole week without Barrick? Nooooooooo!!!!

   How are we reporters supposed to survive the wacky world of local news without our chief ambassador to the City? That means five days without the daily crime update where we look for our friends’ names. Five days without the updates on road closures that make our commute oh so hassle-free.

   Then, the kicker. Barrick suggested that, in his absence, reporters go directly to the source for questions without Barrick’s gentle touch. You mean, like, extra work? Oh, the horror! Barrick has been doing a bang-up job. He’s a rare flak who actually tries to answer questions instead of merely feeding us press releases. Hopefully this little tribute to Barrick will put us first in line for some juicy scoops when he gets back.—Nell Boeschenstein

 

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Get involved
IT’S BUDGET SEASON
Put your 2 cents into the City and County’s guiding documents

If you’re interested in what the hell your local government is doing all day, and how they’re frittering away your hard-earned tax dollars, you better be ready for budget season. In the coming months the City and County will be crafting their budgets that, starting in July, will set the government’s course for another year. If you care about what they’re doing, make sure you attend the meetings below. —Esther Brown

 

City of Charlottesville Budget Events

March 6: City Manager proposes budget to City Council

March 20: First public hearing

April 3: Second public hearing

April 5: Final City Council work session

April 11: City Council votes

 

Albemarle County Budgetary Events

February 28: County Executive’s budget document finalized

March 8: Public hearing on County Executive’s recommended budget

April 5: Public Hearing on Board of Super-visors’ proposed budgets and tax rate

April 12: Board of Supervisors votes

 

 

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Park it
SOME CITY PARKS READY FOR OVERHAULS
Svetz says pool redesigns in the works for Meade, Forest Hills

Spring is nigh, and soon it will be time to go play in the city’s parks and pools. Will they be ready? Last week C-VILLE sat down with Mike Svetz, the City’s director of parks and recreation, to get the lowdown on upcoming improvements to local parks. Below is an edited transcript.—Meg McEvoy

 

C-VILLE: What are the biggest demands on the City’s parks and recreation system?

Mike Svetz: People want more trails and pedestrian and bicycle connections through-out the community. Our two heavily used areas would be that of playgrounds, of course, and aquatics. They not only get used heavily by city residents but by county residents as well.

 

Are there any aspects of the parks that are currently underused?

I would say that we have a system that is aging. Particularly Forest Hills Park, as well as Meade Park. We’ve asked Council to move forward with redesign efforts with both of those parks, centering on failing pool infrastructure.

 

Do you currently have any plans in place to implement those im-provements?

A feasibility study is underway, and it should be completed early next summer.

 

What role do parks play in real estate values?

Typically real estate values are higher closer to parks, usually by 10 percent to 15 percent.

Tuesday, February 7
No sunny day for Groh

Cavalier Daily columnist Chad Gallagher got all “Sesame Street” on Al Groh’s ass this morning, asking if the curmudgeonly UVA football coach is worth the reported $1.7 million he’ll make annually as per his new five-year contract. “Bob Stoops (Oklahoma), Mack Brown (Texas), Charlie Weis (Notre Dame), Pete Carroll (USC), Al Groh (Virginia). It does not take Big Bird or Cookie Monster to realize that one of these names doesn’t belong,” Gallagher writes, pointing to the fact that all these top-paid Division 1 coaches have delivered their teams to BCS bowl games in the past few years—except Groh.

   “His only BCS bowls or ACC championships have been watched on the couch with a bottle of Aquafina,” Gallagher says. Sounds like somebody has been spending way too much time with Oscar the Grouch.

 

Wednesday, February 8
Luxury home contracts drop by one-third

The Washington Post reports today that Toll Brothers, Inc., the NoVa McMansion builder that has started to make inroads into Central Virginia, reported a 29 percent slide in contracts for its first fiscal quarter. Accordingly, shares of Toll Brothers’ stock dropped even further—the price has been declining since July—closing near $29 or half its summertime high. “Toll Brothers reported slackening consumer demand across much of the nation,” according to the Post. The company is rumored to be the wallet behind developer Hunter Craig’s purchase of the 1,353-acre Breeden property south of Charlottesville city limits.

 

Thursday, February 9
Hollywood mantra: Be the coffee table

Word went out today to area media, including cvillenews.com, that Evan Almighty, the Bruce Almighty sequel now in production in the area, seeks extras for a couple of scenes to be shot in Crozet. The movie will star Steve “40-year-old virgin” Carell and Morgan “I speak for penguins” Freeman. Blogger Waldo Jaquith advanced the notion that “if you play your cards right, you might be ‘discovered’ leading to riches, fame…and an early death…”

   Guess again, wrote TrvlnMn, sounding like a cynical veteran of movie sets. “That’s a Hollywood fable. As an extra you are human background furniture. If you’re noticed or noticeable on camera, then a) you’re not doing your job, b) the director isn’t doing his, c) the scene you got noticed in will end up on the cutting room floor.”

 

Friday, February 10

It’s like that book by Defoe except with scantily clad chicks who later show up in Esquire wearing even less

“Lost,” the desert island TV series, is a “cultural phenomenon-in-the-making like few shows before it,” writes Ben Sellers, onetime C-VILLE staffer and now reporter for the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star in today’s edition of that daily. And to make his case, he enlists a bevy of scholars, including UVA English professor Paul Cantor, who has done an academic analysis of “Gilligan’s Island.” “The key to the success of the island format is the microcosm idea,” Cantor said. “You get to put together a miniature ver-sion of society as a whole.”

 

Saturday, February 11
Two great tastes that taste great together

The basketball message board on thesabre.com, a Wahoo fan site, was lit up tonight after the Cavs posted their 400th win in U-Hall, an overtime victory made doubly sweet by coming at the expense of avowed rival Virginia Tech. “WAAAAAAAAHOOOOO0O,” wrote VaBeachHooFan, in a typical posting. Led by Sean Singletary and J.R. Reynolds, Virginia held Tech to 42 percent shooting.

 

Sunday, February 12
Dozens cry, let there be light!

WINA reports today that while more than 2,000 area residents lost power during Saturday’s snowfall, several dozen customers of Dominion Virginia Power can expect to remain inconvenienced until at least Monday morning.

 

Monday, February 13
Burn, baby, burn

If it’s household trash you seek to burn outdoors, be mindful that new laws go into effect on Wednesday, according to a report in to-day’s Daily Progress. Through April 30, open-air burning is restricted to between the hours of 4pm and midnight, with some exceptions. The law applies to brush fires, campfires as well as trash and other matter, and, helpfully, the law states that “fires must be attended at all times.”

 

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WHERE IN THE WORLD ARE THE WAHOOS?
UVA students trot the globe in record numbers

Here’s a way to deal with the shortage of housing on UVA’s campus—send those Wahoos abroad. Indeed, UVA students have been hitting the road in record numbers in recent years.

   UVA Study Abroad Advisor Mary Jo Bateman says that while “in general, students don’t want to leave UVA,” around half of UVA’s 13,400 undergraduates do study abroad before graduating, primarily during the summer months. In fact, according to Open Doors, an annual report published by the Institute of International Education, UVA ranks 17th among research institutions in terms of undergraduate participation in study abroad.

   Bateman says Italy continues to be a popular destination for students, and that while Florence and Rome remain favorites, cities like Sienna are becoming increasingly popular, particularly with the rise of programs where students can take classes in English. These programs allow students to study subjects other than language, Bateman says.

   Many students also opt to travel to English-speaking countries such as Australia and the United Kingdom. At the same time, language study continues to be the most popular type of program, with many students traveling to France and Spain. Asian countries are also increasing in popularity.

   When asked about study abroad trends post-9/11, Bateman says she believes that “if anything, there has generally been an increase” in the number of UVA students going abroad. Bateman is right—in the past four years, the number has doubled.

   The increase is partly due to a newly endowed $3,000 study abroad scholarship created from Continental Tire Bowl revenues. “I think we’ve got a terrific policy here at UVA,” Bateman says. “Students are able to take their financial aid with them and it is adjusted according to the cost of the program.”

   The increase in study abroad at UVA is reflective of a larger national trend. According to Open Doors, even as international student enrollment in U.S. institutions continues to decline, “the number of American students studying abroad increased by 9.6 percent in 2003/04, building on the previous year’s 8.5 percent increase.”—Esther Brown

 

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UVA CHAPEL SCHEDULED TO START REPAIRS
123-year-old local landmark needs a little TLC

In order to age gracefully everyone requires a little maintenance every now and then. Buildings are no different, and this time the nip-tuck patient is the UVA Chapel—the bell tower, specifically.

   According to Lynn Rush, a project manager for UVA’s Facilities Planning and Construction, the stone masonry on the tower has deteriorated, and UVA is looking around for a historic preservation masonry contractor who can repair the mortar and do some work on the roofing and ventilation of the tower as well. The repairs are scheduled to start in May 2006 and be done by December.

   Located on McCormick Road near Alderman Library, the Gothic-style stone chapel is a town and a University landmark. Designed in 1883 by Baltimore architect Charles Cassell, its stylistic flourishes include pointed openings, buttresses and gargoyles. It seats 250 people and is popular with the wedding set—so popular that if you want to get married there, you can throw your name into a lottery one year in advance and there’s still no guarantee that’s where you’ll get to spend the big day.—Nell Boeschenstein

 

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UVA TENNIS STAR WINS QUIETLY
Cool soph Somdev Devvarman named ACC Player of the Week

Some say it’s better to be lucky than good. Somdev Devvarman is lucky. Please, don’t misunderstand; the sophomore star of the No. 7 Virginia men’s tennis team is also good. As in, ACC Player of the Week (as of January 30), No. 10 ranked player in the nation good. He flies around the court and chases down more shots than Tara Reid. With all due respect to Ice Cube, get this kid on the court and he’s trouble.

   But he’s also lucky. He’s lucky that he chose tennis. Devvarman didn’t pick up a racquet until age 15, and even then it was just something to do, another sport to try. “Tennis was just, ‘O.K., I’ll play,’” he says. “I actually won tournaments because I didn’t care and the other guys were all into it. My dad said I should think about [pursuing] it and eventually we said, ‘O.K., it will be tennis.’”

   Devvarman, or “Sommy” as fans and teammates affectionately call him, maintains this low-profile approach to the game even while rising through the ranks of collegiate tennis’ elite. “I don’t want to sound cocky,” he says, “but [being named ACC Player of the Week] is not really a big deal to me. The ACC has a lot of good players—I just had one good week. I don’t want to get caught up in numbers and rankings, just to get better every time I play.”

   If he continues to do so, it won’t be long before Devvarman is making his rounds on the pro tennis circuit. For now, he plans on finishing out his college education and career.

   “I’m very fortunate,” says Devvarman. “I grew up in a little place in India and one fine day I’m at the prettiest school in the world on one of the best teams in the country. I feel very grateful. I’m just lucky.”—Steven Schiff

 

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NEWS FLASH: MEN AND WOMEN ARE DIFFERENT
UVA prof Steven Rhoads stirs the gender pot each week

UVA professor Steven Rhoads has shown up on the “Today” show and in the National Review. When he speaks, the crowd often spills out of the room. But if you enroll in his class “American Politics 514: Sex and Gender Differences: Biology, Culture, Politics and Policy,” you can hear Rhoads’ controversial lectures every week.

   Rhoads, a professor in UVA’s Depart-ment of Politics, made waves with his 2004 book Taking Sex Differences Seriously, which refutes the popular argument that the differences between men and women are socially constructed. Rhoads presents evidence that gender disparities are deeply rooted in biology—men are naturally more aggressive and interested in work that is abstract and technical, like science, while women are naturally better at nurturing children and creating relationships between people.

   Controversial, indeed. Rhoads says rollicking debates often emerge during class, fed by a wide reading list that includes The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan magazine, Maureen Dowd, Dave Barry and The Journal of Psychosomatic Research. There’s plenty to argue about—child custody, housework, the glass ceiling, women in combat, biological influences on occupational achievement, sexual harassment and divorce.

   We’re looking forward to Week 7: Courtship, dating, hooking up and cohabitation.—John Borgmeyer

 

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COUNTY BRACES FOR GROWTH NEXT DOOR
Development study to focus on Louisa, Fluvanna

Next month the Thomas Jefferson Plan-ning District Commission (TJPDC) will kick off a study that will look at growth planned for Louisa and Fluvanna counties, with an eye toward ways to mitigate traffic congestion, including on Albemarle roads that connect to those adjoin- ing counties.

   Fluvanna planners predict that the county will absorb much of the regional growth over the next five years. According to Census data and the Virginia Employment Commission, Fluvanna’s population grew to about 20,500 in 2000 from 12,429 in 1990—a 59 percent jump. That county expects another 8,000 residents by 2010.

   Louisa is also growing, expecting to add 5,000 new residents to its current population of 26,900.

   Many of those new residents will live in new subdivisions that combine residential and commercial development, such as the 1,000-acre, 1,200-home Spring Creek planned near Zion’s Crossroads in Louisa.

   “What we expect to see, obviously, is traffic impact,” says Albemarle County spokeswoman Lee Catlin. “If they’re living there, they’re working or shopping here. Pantops will feel that, and it also becomes an issue for Charlottesville.”

   Increased traffic pressure will likely prompt calls to widen Route 250 into Albemarle. But Harrison Rue, director of the TJPDC, says that in March his group will start using a $120,000 VDOT grant to study growth east of Albemarle. The study will focus on ways to accomplish TJPDC’s “smart growth” vision—clustering growth around existing communities and roads, and building a network of smaller connecting roads with financial help from developers.

   Rue says that such “smart growth” could save $500,000,000 by reducing the demand for new road construction in the region.—John Borgmeyer

 

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PLANNERS REFUTE DEVELOPERS’ CLAIMS
Pointing to obscure details, City says new historic zoning was no surprise

Two weeks ago C-VILLE quoted the owners of major student housing companies expressing unpleasant surprise over City Council’s recent decision to restrict demolition in the Rugby Avenue/Venable/University Circle neighborhood. Preserva-tionists responded with dismay at the developers’ point of view.

   One of their beefs is that developers should have known the restrictions were coming. In 2003, the City rezoned the disputed area to encourage tall, high-density apartment buildings. At that time, according to Jim Tolbert, the City’s director of Neighborhood Development Services, the City already had plans to eventually declare that area historic—thereby subjecting demolitions to review by the City’s Board of Architectural Review.

   As evidence, Tolbert points to Chapter 14 of the City’s 2001 Comprehensive Plan. Indeed, deep in the recesses of the “Implementation Strategy” chapter, the plan slates the neighborhoods for historic preservation. When he delivered a detailed report to Council on the 2003 zoning ordinance that created a high-density “University Precinct” near UVA, Tolbert told councilors he would prefer that historic designations be approved before they passed the new citywide zoning ordinance, according to minutes from August 4, 2003. However, he added that such concerns should not delay Council’s passing the ordinance.

   The minutes do not show that Tolbert said anything about specific conflicts between zoning and historic preservation in the University Precinct area. Indeed, a review of City Council and Planning Commission meetings indicate that nobody—not City staff, councilors, planning commissioners, nor the public—is on the record raising those specific concerns.

   The potential conflict between preservation and development did emerge however in Planning Commission subcommittee meet-ings, says Planning Commis-sioner Kevin O’Halloran, who was among a group of planners, developers and City officials that hashed out details of the University Precinct concept. O’Halloran says that the subcommittee recommended what would come to be seen as a compromise between preservationists and developers.

   “We talked about having a historic overlay district,” O’Hal-loran says. “It was decided that the area around 14th Street, the railroad tracks, John Street and Virginia Avenue would be the area of highest density.” He says the committee recommended that the BAR have approval over demolitions in all the Rugby/Venable/University Circle neighborhoods, except within this small area of maximum allowable density. So it seems that even informed developers could be reasonably surprised by Council’s decision to restrict demolition in the entire area.

   “In hindsight, I wish the Planning Commission and the City Council had insisted on having a historic district in place before passing the zoning ordinance,” says O’Halloran. “We should have hashed out these issues.”—John Borgmeyer

 

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THE PAST IS THE FUTURE IN ROSE HILL
Hot neighborhood could get historic tag

Rose Hill is hot. This year that neighborhood’s average real estate assessment climbed a wicked 39 percent in 2005, due in large part to new construction, according to the City. Home values could push even higher if City government goes along with Rose Hill’s request to become a historic district.

   In preparing changes to Charlottes-ville’s Comprehensive Plan, planners conducted meetings with neighborhood residents. In Rose Hill, people who met with the planners said they want the nonprofit Charlottesville Community Design Center to “empower residents and resist undesirable development,” meaning that as development progresses in the neighborhood they want the City to be “more accessible to residents.” Further requests include “more transparency” and to “work on [the] relationship with neighborhood associations.”

   The ultimate citizen check on development would come through historic designation, which could give the City’s Board of Architectural Review oversight over demolition and new construction in Rose Hill. The City’s document calls for government to study Rose Hill’s history and apply for national and state historic districts there—a move that would no doubt keep Rose Hill atop the list of assessment increases.—John Borgmeyer

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HOW MUCH MORE SHOPPING DO WE NEED?
Supes fret over prospect of big-box wastelands

Albemarle’s got a thing for history—and nothing says “historic” like the hollow carcass of an empty mega-store, rotting in a weedy asphalt lot.

   County Supervisor Sally Thomas worries it could happen, especially if Great Eastern Management Company proceeds with plans to build North Pointe, a massive 270-acre project on 29N.

   Supervisors held a work session on North Pointe on Wednesday, February 8. Of first concern was the county’s ability to absorb the ever-skyrocketing sum of commercial space, now at 1.4 million square feet including Hollymeade Town Center, Rivanna Village and North Pointe.

   Thomas was concerned that older shopping centers might go to ruin in favor of newer, shinier models. She questioned North Pointe’s impact on the county’s current water/sewer capacity and roads, for which Chairman Dennis Rooker saw the possibility of “significant capital expenditures” and possibly the need for a new school.

   Of major concern during the meeting was the sediment created by the project, and the need for basins to collect at least 60 percent of this sediment before runoff is allowed to drain into the Rivanna River. Commissioners also questioned the discrepancy between the staff report’s requirement to build at least 224 residential units (25 percent of the total residences planned for North Pointe) before construction gets underway on North Pointe’s 290,000-plus square feet of commercial, office and hotel space and the developer’s preference that 116 units, a mere 13 percent of proposed residences, be required.—Jay Neelley

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SIGNS OF THE CRIMES
How we broke the law in 2005

The New Year has come and gone, but the final numbers on how Charlottesville closed out the year in crime have just been tabulated. According to City stats, both property and violent crimes were up in 2005, compared to 2004. The County did not provide equivalent information, but in 2005 property crimes in the county outnumbered violent crimes 16:1 in Albemarle; in the city, property crimes outnumber violent crimes 7:1. City and county combined, there were 400 violent crimes and 3,967 property crimes. Here’s a detailed breakdown of reasons to lock your doors and keep one hand on your purse in 2006.—Nell Boeschenstein

 

Albemarle County

Violent Crimes

Murder: 2

Forcible Rape: 33

Aggravated Assault: 69

Robbery: 26

Total: 130

Property Crimes

Larcenies: 1,708

Stolen Motor Vehicle: 106

Burglaries/Breaking and Entering: 267

Total: 2,081

 

Charlottesville City

 

Violent Crimes

Murder: 2

Forcible Rape: 32 Aggravated Assault: 162

Robbery: 74

Total: 270

 

Property Crimes

Larcenies: 1,469

Stolen Motor Vehicle: 150

Burglaries/Breaking and Entering: 267

Total: 1,886

 

Sources: Charlottesville and Albemarle County Police Departments

 

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LETHAL WRECKER CITED FOR OVERCHARGING
Towing company has until February 19 to fight reimbursements

Lethal Wrecker has until February 19 to dispute 21 claims that the towing company overcharged drivers anywhere from $5 to $170 for tows. According to court documents, the 21 overcharges total $1,120.

   The case against Lethal has been ongoing since 2003 when complaints of overcharging first found their way to the City Attorney’s office. According to the Virginia Consumer Protection Act, towers cannot charge more than $95 for a single tow. After the February 19 deadline, and provided Lethal doesn’t put up a fight, says Lisa Miller, the paralegal working with Deputy City Attorney Lisa Kelley on the case, the court will have 90 days to certify the reimbursements. Miller anticipates the reimbursements will be for the same amounts the unfortunate drivers were overcharged.

   Since the story was first reported on February 6, Miller says that no new complaints have come through the office, and that Lethal has been complying with the Consumer Protection Act since the lawsuit was filed.—Nell Boeschenstein

 

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BELL CRAFTS BILL BASED ON RAPE LAWSUIT
Law would stop wrongfully accused from suing

Albemarle Delegate Rob Bell has introduced a bill that would prevent the wrongly accused from suing victims in rape cases.

   The bill would protect victims who act with a “good faith belief” that they have correctly identified their attacker.

   The bill was sparked by a September 2005 case in which a Charlottesville woman misidentified Christopher Mat-thew as her rapist. Matthew is now suing the woman for $850,000.

   Bell says he sponsored the bill in response to public criticism of the lawsuit. He worries such suits will create a “chilling effect” that sends this message to victims: “I know what happened but I’m not going to go to the police because if somehow I’m wrong I’ll get sued,” says Bell.

   Matthew’s attorney, Deborah Wyatt, called the bill a “knee-jerk reaction to the case” and said the bill would have “horrible” effects on the wrongly accused, who, she says, “I think we can all agree it’s probably young black men.

   “I have encountered many of these cases where women either negligently or by coercion or by bad faith…identify people falsely,” says Wyatt.

   Bell says false identification isn’t a “major problem,” however. His bill may not even affect Matthew’s case, says Wyatt, because he is attempting to prove the victim’s accusation was, in fact, in bad faith.

   Meanwhile, the bill to protect vic- tims from civil suits is moving through the House. On February 3, it passed the Courts of Justice Committee 18-4, with Charlottesville Delegate David Toscano voting in favor of Bell’s bill. —Meg McEvoy

 

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LOCAL COURTS UNPREPARED FOR HISPANIC NEEDS
Family and friends often translate in court

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the nation’s Hispanic population grew 3.6 percent from 2003 to 2004, accounting for about half the nation’s total population growth of 2.9 million people. Locally, the 2000 Census pegs Albemarle’s Hispanic population at about 2,300 people, although that number has almost certainly grown since then.

   Charlottesville Public Defender James Hingeley says the increasing number of Hispanics is putting a burden on the local courts.

   “You really see this when a defendant appears for the first time and needs to be advised as to their right to counsel,” Hingeley says.

   There are no Spanish-speaking public defenders in Charlottesville, and the shortage of interpreters often means that defendants must rely on their friends and relatives. Because the court has a duty to provide interpreters, in jury trials multi-ple interpreters often end up working in shifts.

   Court interpreters must gain certification. Police, however, are not required to use certified interpreters. In cases where individuals have apparently waived their rights, Hingeley says experience has taught him to “have some question about whether or not they adequately understand the right to counsel,” which concerns him, because “once an interrogation is done, that’s it.”—Esther Brown

 

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JUVENILE COURTS TOUGHER ON KIDS
Albemarle teens will face a strict atmosphere in court

The three teen suspects accused of plotting to attack two Albemarle County high schools will go to court at a time when the U.S. legal system is treating juvenile offenders more like adults.

   In a culture highly conscious of school violence and terrorism, both schools and the legal system in America are changing the way they deal with juvenile offenders, says UVA law professor Thomas Hafemeister.

   “Schools are supposed to be very vigilant and take very seriously any threat,” Hafemeister says.

   As an example, he cites the recent case of a 5-year-old who held his fingers in the shape of a gun, pointed his hand at a classmate and yelled, “Bang, bang,” during recess. The child was automatically suspended in accordance with a “zero tolerance” policy that gives schools the ability to remove students perceived as a threat to their classmates. “That decision was essentially upheld by the courts,” Hafemeister says.

   He says his “gut sense” is that in general courts are falling in line with schools’ crackdown on students accused of threaten-ing Columbine-style violence. Hafemeister says the legal system is now treating juveniles more like adults—a change due in part to the 1999 incident in Littleton, Colorado, but also due to statistics that in the mid-1990s indicated that juvenile crime was on the rise.

   “There was a message that played very well in political arenas, a message that we need to get tough on juvenile crime,” Hafemeister says.

   In Virginia and other states, a host of recent laws have sprung from the “get tough” posturing. In the past 10 years, Virginia has reduced the age at which a person can be tried as an adult, to 14 from 15; juveniles can now be held until they are 21, not 18; further, a juvenile’s crime record is not necessarily expunged when he reaches adulthood, as it had been in the past. A juvenile record can now be considered in relation to the “three strikes and you’re out” laws in Virginia that punish repeat felons with hefty prison terms.

   Furthermore, juvenile courts used to punish young criminals with “indefinite sentencing,” meaning they could be continually evaluated for evidence of rehabilitation. Now, however, juvenile courts impose sentences that must be served completely.

   The accused Albemarle teenage boys—ages 13, 15 and 16—all face charges of conspiracy to commit murder and are now being held at the Blue Ridge Juvenile Detention Center.

   “Even if they’re in the juvenile system, we treat children more like adult criminals,” Hafemeister says, even though juvenile crime have declined since the mid-’90s and are now lower than any time since 1980.—John Borgmeyer

 

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TOSCANO’S HITS AND MISSES
Freshman City delegate wins some, loses some, avoids wedgies

Freshman legislators don’t us-ually get wedgies or swir-lies—but their ideas often get beat up. When David Toscano succeeded longtime legislator Mitch Van Yahres this year as Charlottesville’s delegate, few expected the new guy’s bills to do much better than Van Yahres’ in the deeply conservative House of Delegates. So far, Toscano’s record is mixed.

   Toscano’s minimum wage bill went down in flames last week. His H.B. 1363 would have increased the state’s minimum wage, currently at $5.15 per hour, by one dollar every year for the next three years. It was combin- ed with another bill, and was killed in an employment subcommittee.

   Still, Toscano has had some success in his first session. Last week the House passed Toscano’s bills that would give Charlottesville more power to provide affordable housing for the elderly and handicapped; it also passed a bill that gives Albemarle more choices in how the County handles employee grievances. Prior to Toscano’s bills going to the Senate, his legislative aide, Jenny Hogan, summed up the session as “so far, so good.”

 

Hanger’s changes of heart

Last week, Augusta Sen. Emmett Hanger backed away from a pair of controversial bills he introduced earlier this year. One bill would have prevented illegal immigrants from obtaining in-state tuition to Virginia colleges. Another would have allowed some sex offenders to choose castration instead of long-term detention.

   Hanger amended his S.B. 677 to allow in-state tuition for undocumented students who graduated from a Virginia high school, who are seeking legal status and whose families have paid taxes for at least three years. He told The Washington Post he was swayed by the arguments of immigrant activists and his son’s fiancé, a Filipino immigrant.

   Also last week, Hanger asked the Senate Education and Health Committee to carry over his bill allowing castration until 2007, saying it is “not ready for prime time.”

   In a time of “my way or the highway” politics, how nice to see a legislator who can listen to the arguments and change his mind.—John Borgmeyer

 

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COUNCIL PUNTS ON DANGEROUS MUTTS
Will consider an ordinance after the Assembly session

Amidst the whines and snarls of the public over tax increases and affordable hous- ing, last week City Council discussed a newly proposed Animal Control Ordi-nance Amendment that would regulate “dangerous dogs.”

   This amendment comes as at the urging of victims of a handful of recent attacks, some of whom presented their tales to Council during its regular meeting on Monday, February 6.

   “Ultimately dog owners need to be held accountable for their pets,” said Holly Hatcher, a regular at Riverview Park who received multiple puncture wounds during an attack. She says a stricter ordinance will “better protect the good people and good dogs of Charlottesville.”

   The proposed amendment would, among other things, classify dogs into one of three increasingly nasty groups: ag-gressive, dangerous, or vicious. Depending on the complaint, a dog would be subject to investigation by an animal control officer who could then turn Fido over to the judgment of the General District Court. If the guilty pooch is designated into one of these categories, consequences range from man-datory leashing to termination.

   The new “aggressive dogs” section came under particularly harsh criticism. The designation is pre-emptive, defining “aggressive” essentially as a propensity for future attack. Professional dog trainer Eliz-abeth Beverly worries that because “the ability to accurately interpret ca-nine body language is held by a select train-ed few,” the designations would be placed in unqualified hands.

   Currently, there are a number of bills in the Gen-eral Assembly seeking to change State law regarding dangerous dogs. Council de-cided to wait for the Assem-bly’s votes before chang-ing Charlottesville’s dog policy.—David Goodman

 

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COUNTY JOINS “ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT” GROUP
Critics worry decisions on growth could be made in secret

On February 8 the Albemarle Board of Supervisors voted in favor of the County’s membership in the Thomas Jefferson Partnership for Economic Development. As a business advocacy group, the Partner-ship lists Charlottesville, UVA and five surrounding counties as members. All pay an annual membership fee of $12,500.

   The decision stirred considerable debate as critics of TJPED pleaded their case against joining what they see as a private sector council that might influence Albemarle’s public growth policies in favor of business interests. Citizen activist Liz Palmer warned, “Public policy could be formulated without a public forum.”

   Supervisor David Wyant, how-ever, called the Part-nership a “resource to improve the quality of jobs and meet the goals of the community.” Super-visors Sally Thomas and Dennis Rooker had their doubts, but they could not muster enough support to stop the County from joining the Partnership.

   Also on Wednesday, Supervisors granted approval for the Faulconer Construc-tion Company’s final site plan in Ivy. Previously the board had rejected Faul-coner’s plans, deeming Ivy’s roads too narrow for the construction company’s big trucks, but Faulconer sued in the fall and won.—Jay Neelley

 

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KAINE LEADS THE STATE IN PERQS FOR POWERFUL
Albemarle capitalist gets cozy with the new guv

Newly elected Virginia governor Tim Kaine has no excuses for not being well rested on the job this year. Before taking office in January, Kaine spent 10 days with his family on an exclusive, private island in the West Indies. The vacation, valued at $18,000, was a gift from local venture capitalist James B. Murray Jr.

   Murray is no stranger to political donations; $35,000 of his $40,000 in donations last year went to Kaine’s campaign, in addition to the vacation gift.

   Murray, who heads a Charlottesville venture capital firm, Court Square Ventures, has donated more than $340,000 to Virginia races since 1996. About 78 percent of that went to Democrats.

   Gifts to legislators are perfectly legal in Virginia—as they are in about half of the states—so long as legislators report them. State legislators received more than $300,000 in gifts in 2005.—Dan Pabst

 

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CITY SCHOOLS GET NEW LEADER
Board asserts there are no skeletons in Atkins’ closet

The long-awaited contention-free meeting of the Charlottesville School Board came at last on Wednesday, February 8 when that body named Rosa Atkins the division’s new superintendent. Giddy board members eagerly passed a unanimous motion to accept Atkins at an annual salary of $153,000 10 months after the disastrous 10-month run of former superintendent Scottie Griffin.

   Atkins has experienced student populations on the extremes—the very poor and the very rich, the very handicapped and the very bright—and this trait was widely praised. “The challenges [of Charlottesville schools] are appealing to me,” Atkins said. “It’s a diverse community with diverse student needs.”

   A 25-year veteran of Virginia schools, Atkins was a teacher and principal in the Richmond area. For the past two years she worked as assistant superintendent in Caroline County, a similar-sized system south of Fredericksburg. Board chair Julie Gronlund noted that the board had spoken with Atkins’ colleagues in all of her former districts. “She’s been described as thorough, engaging, focused—a good listener and a quick learner,” she said.—Will Goldsmith