Month: July 2006

The UVA Medical Center is planning to create a new long-term acute care hospital somewhere in Albemarle County. The venture will be a 50/50 partnership with Alabama-based HealthSouth Corporation, one of the largest health care service providers in the United States. The new 40-bed facility will serve the clinical needs of acute patients who require care for more than 25 days. The purpose is to consolidate such patients in one location with physicians and nurses who specialize in long-term acute care.
    The Medical Center is no stranger to private partnerships—it already has several, including an existing 50/50 joint venture with HealthSouth called UVA-HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital, a 50-bed inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation center at Fontaine Research Park launched in 1998. Although HealthSouth has recently been rocked by scandal, UVA appears confidant the corporate giant has successfully cleansed its tarnished past.
    In 2003, HealthSouth found itself mired in a $1.4 billion accounting fraud scandal, along with several class-action securities lawsuits. These troubles eventually led to a complete overhaul of the company’s senior management team and board of directors, followed by a $100 million civil settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Former HealthSouth CEO Richard M. Scrushy, who was acquitted in the fraud case (in a surprising blow to federal prosecutors), was convicted earlier this summer of bribing former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman for a seat on that state’s health care board.
    Despite HealthSouth’s recent history, Peter Jump, public relations director at the UVA Health System, says, “Our [current] partnership with HealthSouth has been very successful in providing care for patients that need physical rehabilitation services. Based on our experience, we have tremendous confidence that our [new] partnership will benefit long-term acute care patients.” Pending negotiation and final approval of the deal by UVA and regulatory authorities, Jump expects the new hospital to open sometime in 2008.

Ah, summer in Charlottesville. A perfect time for outdoor concerts, evening strolls on the Mall and the sort of public profanity that causes bystanders to ask, “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”
    Public swearing/intoxication arrests totaled 22 in the city two weekends ago. But Charlottesville Police Captain Bryant Bibb says those arrests were mainly for public drunkenness, not cursing.
    In the Virginia Code, swearing and drunkeness are joined at the hip. Any person who “profanely curses or swears, or is intoxicated in public” is guilty of a Class 4 misdemeanor, which carries a fine of up to $250.
    But careful, sailors. There’s also another law that prohibits using bad language toward others. You can’t use any “violent, abusive language” to someone “or any of his relations.” Swearing about somebody’s mother or cousin Jeb can fetch you a Class 3 misdemeanor, which ups the fine to a potential $500.
    Virginia has had public profanity laws on the books since 1950. Popular curses back then included “Aw, H-E-double-hockey-sticks!” and “gosh darnit.”
    Habitual trash-talkers can relax, though. It’s tough to get arrested for merely swearing. Captain Bibb says, “Just because a police officer hears somebody swear, we’re not going to put the handcuffs on them.”
    The real trouble comes if you swear while trying to remove the cap of your 15th Zima.

The family of Walker Sisk, who was stabbed to death in November 2003, has served his killer, Andrew Alston, with a $3 million lawsuit.
    Alston was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for stabbing Sisk, a 22-year-old volunteer firefighter, 18 times in a drunken altercation at the corner of 14th and Wertland streets. He was released from jail on June 21.
    The victim’s family and lawyers waited until Alston was no longer incarcerated to serve the suit. “If it was served while Alston was still in prison, then the State would have to pay for a lawyer to defend him. That’s not something we want,” the Sisks’ attorney, Bryan Slaughter, told C-VILLE in early June.
    The lawsuit claims “As a result of Walker’s death, Howard and Barbara Sisk have lost their only child, and therefore have suffered substantial damages and losses.” The suit seeks $2 million in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages.
    “Obviously for the Sisks, money is not what they’re after. They’re after any measure of justice, and they don’t feel like they got it in the criminal case,” says Slaughter. Alston was released from his three year sentence nearly five months early for good behavior. “This is all they have left,” Slaughter says.
    The suit has been filed in Charlottesville Circuit Court, and is in early litigation stages. The Sisks are waiting for Alston’s attorneys to answer the suit.

David Robert Brown, 35, was charged with grand larceny for stealing more than $1,000 from parking meters in the Water Street lot. Police caught him on camera around 1:45am Monday, July 17, tampering with meters.
    Meters were checked and cleared out by the City on June 13. When they were checked again June 30, about 30 meters didn’t have any change in them, so police set up a sting, a police source says.
    The ingenious pocket-change thief (and, one presumes, frequent Coinstar patron) used a manufactured key device to break into the meters, which were not permanently damaged. Officials are trying to determine how Brown, who is not a City employee, made the false key.
    Brown was charged with felony grand larceny, felony possession of burglary tools, and tampering with a coin-operated machine (a misdemeanor). He is currently out of jail on bond.

A man who says a Charlottesville Police DNA dragnet violated his constitutional rights may be joined by other victims in a class-action suit.
    Larry Monroe of Charlottesville was one of 190 black men approached for a DNA sample as police attempted to catch a serial rapist. During the investigation, from late 2003 to April 2004, 160 men provided saliva samples and 30 refused.
    Monroe’s attorney, Deborah C. Wyatt, says many men felt they couldn’t refuse the request for a DNA sample. “They didn’t feel free to say no,” she says.
    Wyatt claims that one man, after refusing to give a sample, was promptly arrested for being drunk in public, and then swabbed. “You say no and then things happen,” she says.
Monroe’s suit was originally dismissed from Circuit Court in 2004, but is now moving through motions in U.S. District Court. Judge Norman K. Moon is currently deliberating whether to allow other plaintiffs to join in a class action.
    The suit names the City of Charlottesville, Police Chief Timothy J. Longo and Detective James Mooney. It says men who were DNA swabbed were denied equal protection and were targeted because of race. It also claims that the dragnet amounted to an unreasonable search and seizure. Wyatt says officers approached men on the street and at their places of employment, with little regard for privacy, and often targeted men who did not match the rapist’s physical profile.
    Cases like this are well suited to class-action suits, Wyatt says, because additional defendants will be spared expense, and there’s a consistent ruling for all victims. In this case, each plaintiff would seek $15,000 from the City.
    Longo called off the dragnet, which was criticized as “racial profiling” by many, in April, 2004 Police were subsequently required to conduct preliminary investigations before swabbing, and inform people of their right to refuse when approached. None of the collected samples matched the rapist’s DNA, and he remains at large.

In recent years, Charlottesville’s Redevelopment and Housing Authority (CRHA)—charged with the oversight and maintenance of Section 8 and public housing—has been notoriously inept. Consequently, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has classified the City for the last three years with troubled housing status.
    To combat the embarrassing boondoggle, the City hired a new director for the CHRA, and on Monday night, July 17, he was ready to give a prognosis of his first year’s work to City Council. First, Councilor and CRHA Chair Kendra Hamilton had a few words. “We are relieved this is in the capable hands of Noah Schwartz, who is leading us out of the valley of the shadow of death,” she said. “We are very grateful for him.”
    “No pressure,” Schwartz replied to scattered laughs. He then ran through an exhausting litany of stats (with a $5.6 million budget, the CRHA manages 376 units of public housing at 11 sites in the city, and also administers 300 Housing Choice Voucher rental units to approximately 2,000 individuals), accomplishments (“What I’m most proud of is our customer service,” Schwartz said) and challenges (HUD doesn’t finance the agency enough to meet public housing needs so it is $100,000 short of revenue every year). As he talked, slides of happy public housing residents flashed on a screen behind him.
    “We have a lot more to do that we haven’t done,” concluded Schwartz, before ceding the floor to the council. New councilor Julian Taliaferro offered the first of many words of praise. “I’d like to commend you for the emphasis you’ve put on customer service,” he said. “People need to be treated with the utmost respect.”
    “We understand where they’re coming from,” Schwartz explained.
    “The first thing we have to do is get off the troubled status so we can get on firm footing,” Hamilton suggested.
    “I just love how you say things,” Schwartz gushed, drawing guffaws.
    New Councilor Dave Norris also congratulated Schwartz for his customer service before offering a broad compliment. “I commend you and your staff for righting the ship.”
    Mayor David E. Brown recounted a brief anecdote of how he once ran a soccer program for low-income kids before summing up the council’s overall affection for the new director. “You really have our support.”

On July 19, 2006, George W. Bush used his veto power for the first time in his presidency to trump a Senate vote which sought to extend federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research. His veto was widely expected, as he had made it quite clear in a 2001 statement that his preference was to largely restrict the scientific research. So how did Charlottesville’s federal representatives fare in this moral showdown? To pass in the Senate, many Republicans had to jump ship, with normally staunch Bush allies like Orrin Hatch and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist parting ways with the president.
    Virginia’s delegation provided an odd twist, as both senators reversed earlier positions. While Warner had commended Bush in 2001 for his policy of limited embryonic stem-cell research, he voted in favor of the Senate bill, saying that “subsequent years of experience in this area have demonstrated that the administration’s policy should be expanded.” George Allen, on the other hand, had earlier invoked language remarkably similar to the passed bill, but when it came time to vote withdrew his support, basing his reversal “on the advancement of science and studying the issue.”
    Over in the House, an attempt to override the veto predictably failed, with Rep. Virgil Goode backing the President. In May 2005, Goode voted against a house bill that mirrored the Senate’s. In a statement, the Charlottesville Congressman said that, while nearly everyone in Congress supports embryonic stem-cell research, there are disagreements about federal funding for the programs. He added that, if embryonic stem-cell research is as great as certain drug companies and speculators claim, “then I think that they should use their own money, and not taxpayer money.”

A mostly older crowd packed the meeting hall of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church on Wednesday, July 19, with one purpose: to impeach the president.
    The event, sponsored by the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice, was moderated by David Swanson, a board member of CCPJ and co-founder of the anti-war website afterdowningstreet.org. He kicked off the teach-in by introducing David Waldman, a nationally recognized blogger who has written at length about impeaching President Bush.
    Following the introductory speeches, a video produced by The Center for Constitutional Rights, a nonprofit human rights group, was shown. The short film cited unauthorized NSA domestic wiretapping, the war in Iraq, and the use of torture as valid reasons for impeaching the president.
    Swanson and Waldman both offered their take on the video and fielded questions from members of the audience, many of whom had traveled from out of town for the presentation. CCPJ is more focused, however, on taking local action. According to Swanson, the group will soon present a resolution calling for the impeachment of President Bush to Charlottesville’s City Council.