Month: July 2006

It sure is good to be a Charlottesville pet. In addition to organic puppy chow, natural goose down beds and those adorable matching outfits (à la Paris Hilton), lucky local pets are getting a new high-tech veterinary hospital.
    Two veterinary clinics have teamed up to build a larger practice at Rio Court East. Village Animal Hospital and Charlottesville Animal Hospital will combine to form Charlottesville Veterinary Hospital, which will offer better facilities than the area has seen previously. The 7,000 square-foot hospital will include a surgery suite with sterilized air conditions, space for tele-medicine research and even a hydrotherapy unit for pet rehab.
    Veterinary medicine is moving towards more human-quality conditions, says Dr. Al Smith at Village Animal Hospital. The closest facility for this type of care currently is about 50 miles away in Manakin.
    Jay Kessler, chief operating officer of construction firm R.E. Lee & Sons, which is managing the project, says they’ll begin building around August, after the site plan is approved by the Albemarle County planning commission. The project’s budget is about $2 million, Kessler says, and should be completed in about eight months.
    The hospital will serve private clients and take referrals, but don’t expect to see too many SPCA mutts in the hydrotherapy tub.

Local mogul Coran Capshaw has committed to donate $6,000 a month for a work crew to improve landscaping around the entrances to Albemarle County. The program will allow inmates to work for “time off” from their sentences.
    Inmates who are jailed for non-violent crimes for sentences less than two years qualify, according to Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail superintendent Colonel Ronald Matthews.
    Albemarle County Sheriff Edgar S. Robb has been a proponent of the idea, in consideration since winter of 2005, Matthews says. Robb could not say how long Capshaw’s monthly pledge will last because, according to a member of that office’s staff, “this office does not conduct interviews with the C-VILLE Weekly.” Matthews could not say whether Capshaw approached the department or the other way around. Capshaw could not be reached for comment.
    Capshaw’s contribution will cover ongoing costs. A guard will be paid $16.34 per hour to oversee the inmates, who will earn $3 to $5 per day and will work in what Matthews calls “easily identifiable” uniforms. Inmates can use the money to pay fines or buy items at the jail’s canteen.
    They can also work time off their sentences, with time calculations varying for local and state inmates. Local felons must serve 50 percent of their sentenced time, state cons must serve 85 percent.
    Albemarle already uses inmate work crews for parks and recreation projects, in addition to this new program for entrance corridors. Matthews has worked in other jurisdictions, such as Hampton and Sussex, where road work crews are a success: “It gives them a chance to get outside, get some fresh air. The community benefits because they have a crew that’s providing the service at a greatly reduced price.”
    The County needs a vehicle for the work crew, tools and supplies before work can begin.

A man was killed in a single-vehicle accident after robbing Cavalier Pipe and Tobacco in the Barracks Road shopping center last week—another reminder that it’s always a bad idea to flee police in your car.
    In this case, the officers hadn’t even mounted a chase. Albemarle police spotted a Jeep Cherokee driving without its lights on in the Barracks Road area. When an officer signaled to the driver, Shawn Lewis of Hopewell, the truck speeded up. Officers followed the vehicle down Preston Avenue, where it struck a tree near Washington Park. Lewis was killed instantly. Police later found stolen merchandise from the tobacco store in the vehicle.
    Albemarle police would not disclose their policy on car chases. City police policy allows car chases, with some restrictions. Officers must “weigh the need to apprehend a fleeing criminal suspect…against the hazard presented by the pursuit.” Shooting at, or from, a moving vehicle is considered “deadly force,” and—sorry, “Cops” fans—police can’t drive the wrong way against traffic, the policy states.
    Officers can use roadblocks, as well as a tactic called “boxing in,” where two or more police vehicles cut off a suspect. Not exactly an action movie, but hey—even in Charlottesville, chases are serious stuff.

Few are the reasons we would interrupt an architect on charette, that deadline-crazed period just before a design is due, but when we heard that Judith Kinnard was getting ready to meet Brad Pitt, well, we had to give the UVA architecture prof a call.
    O.K., she’s not exactly getting ready to meet Mr. World Leader Pretend, not until her design gets to the final round anyway, but she and several colleagues were busy last week preparing their entry for an architectural competition that he’s sponsoring to benefit New Orleans’ flood-ravaged Ninth Ward. Pitt teamed up with Global Green, an environmental organization best known for its efforts to stem climate change, eliminate weapons of mass destruction, and provide clean drinking water to the one-third of the world’s population that does without it. In branching into architecture (long a favored Pitt cause), Global Green sees an opportunity to advance the issue of sustainable development in New Orleans—still in a shambles eight months after Hurricane Katrina. Here at C-VILLE, we see it as a chance to get one degree of separation closer to Shiloh’s daddy, and oh yes, we commend any and all efforts to restore dignity and livability to the Crescent City.
    Kinnard and another UVA A-prof, former Charlottesville Mayor Maurice Cox, along with a former student, Justin Laskin, and landscape architect Pete O’Shea are taking a “modernist” approach to the assignment, which encompasses six single-family homes, 12 apartments, a day care center and a community center in a single city block. Additionally, they foresee using recycled materials salvaged from flood-wrecked structures.
    Kinnard and Cox are old hands in the competition biz, but Kinnard says the Hollywood element has enhanced this charette. “Brad Pitt has been interested in architecture for a long time,” she says. “I heard through the grapevine that a huge number of people registered for the competition. I think his name certainly adds a bit of interest.”
    We have no idea what she’s talking about.

As UVA’s School of Nursing plans to expand, its leadership is receiving some high accolades. Nursing School Dean Jeanette Lancaster was recently named a finalist for the “100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare,” a survey sponsored by Modern Healthcare Magazine. Final results of the survey won’t be announced until August, but Lancaster is already flexing her muscles. She’s spearheading the push to expand the Nursing School’s enrollment by 25 percent, an effort that includes the new Claude Moore Nursing Education Building (which broke ground in April) and renovations of McLeod Hall. In the following edited interview, Lancaster speaks about nursing and other changes coming to the health care system.—Stephanie Henderson

C-VILLE: What does it mean to be a powerful person in the health care industry?
Jeanette Lancaster: The power is not mine but rather belongs to nursing and the organization I am president of—the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. I plan to speak on behalf of nursing, to increase our voice as an invaluable component of the U.S. health care system. Nurses are the largest population of health care professionals.

How is the health care crisis changing the nursing industry?
Society is changing so dramatically. It is no longer enough to work in a hospital and only speak English. There is a great need for students and clinicians to understand cultural differences and have a more global perspective of health care. Additionally, the U.S. and many other countries are seeing a nursing shortage that has no end in sight. Simultaneously there are shortages of many other health care professionals and a physician shortage seems imminent.

Fifth District Congressman Virgil Goode is trying to make political hay with the debate over illegal immigration, but so far his litany of bills isn’t going anywhere.
    In the current congressional term, Goode has co-sponsored 11 bills and three resolutions that target illegal immigrants. All the bills, however, are stuck in committee and did not pass the House. For instance, H.R. 698, the Citizenship Reform Act of 2005, would end the process of granting automatic citizenship to the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens. “Allowing the babies of illegals to be automatic citizens is another magnet for illegals to invade the United States,” Goode recently told the Danville Bee.
    “That’s bogus,” says Al Weed, Goode’s Democratic opponent in the November elections. “Under the 14th Amendment any child born in the U.S. is a citizen. And if the mother of the child is here illegally, she will be deported. I think it is an effort to tap into nativist aspects in America."