Month: November 2006

The City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County aren’t particularly well known for playing nice in the sandbox of Central Virginia (at least on some issues), but the two governments have decided that if they want working mass transit—the kind more commuters will actually use—they should collaborate. A trial run of that “working together” thing will happen Wednesday, November 29, when City and County leaders will meet to plot the next steps for a regional transit system.

Creating a working transit system for the area is a goal for Supervisor David Slutzky. "It’s a heck of a lot chaper to built a good transit system than to build tons of roads," he says.

Since 1975, the bus system has been Charlottesville’s baby—the City, which spent $1.4 million this year running it, has simply sent the County its share of the bill (roughly $350,000) for the bus routes that extend beyond city limits. But this year, both local governments signed a “resolution of intent” to establish a regional transit authority.

“The fact that the City and the County have agreed unanimously to go forward and do this is stunning in the history of this thing,” says David Slutzky, a County supervisor.

But making history is not the driver in working together: The County bill rose significantly this year, so now Albemarle wants some say in how the organization is run.

“We’ve always wanted to [expand the County transit system],” says Supervisor Ken Boyd. “We just were reluctant because of cost and because of the uncertainty of not having any control of our own destiny.” Both City and County authorities say they likely will spend more on transit next year.

“It’s a heck of a lot cheaper to build a good transit system than to build tons of roads,” says Slutzky.

Two questions remain: How would the joint authority, if it comes to pass, convince riders to take the bus? The system is notoriously inefficient and under-utilized as it is. Secondly, can UVA (which, by contrast, has a heavily utilized bus system already in place) be counted on to join the effort?

“If we can get a system where the City and County are in agreement, UVA will probably join in,” says City Councilor Kevin Lynch. “We’ve at least been anticipating that [the City-County agreement] would be the most difficult part, so we’re doing that first.”

Say you’re a developer. To make construction more profitable, you want to build more houses than zoning allows on your property. To do that, you have to get local government approval. And to get local government approval, you know that you need to cough up something for “affordable housing,” be it units that meet those criteria or cash that goes into a housing fund for down-payment assistance or nonprofits like Habitat for Humanity.

Cheri Lewis of the City Planning Commission is eager for an ordinance to move forward that would give developers more incentives to build "affordable housing.

But that’s only if you’re developing in Albemarle County. There, it’s understood (if not legally required) that you must proffer as affordable 15 percent of your housing units (or the equivalent cash) when applying for something special like a rezoning. Projects in the city, such as the recently approved nine-storey luxury condo project on Avon Street that needed a special-use permit for added density, have no such requirement.

Throughout the year, several City leaders have been trying to change that. This spring, City staff drew up an ordinance that would provide developers the incentive of increased density if they include affordable units. Under the current draft of the ordinance, a developer could add 20 percent more housing units as long as 12.5 percent of the total housing units in the project are affordable to a family earning 120 percent or less of area median income ($66,500). The goal is to get more houses on the market that sell for $190,000 or less.

“Everybody has recognized this is one tool we want to adopt in the City for sure to help the affordable housing issue,” says City Planning Commissioner Cheri Lewis, who has made affordable housing a personal priority.

Yet six months after the ordinance was first composed, it has yet to get a public hearing from City government.

“We started working on this affordable dwelling unit ordinance in the first quarter of this year,” Lewis says, “and it’s too bad we’re going into the last month of this year, and it hasn’t moved forward.” It doesn’t help that the City attorney who has been leading the project, Lisa Kelly, has now taken a job elsewhere.

The ordinance still needs a work session with the Planning Commission. After that, it needs a turn with the newly created Housing Advisory Committee before it gets a public hearing before the Planning Commission and City Council.

Planning Manager Missy Creasy says she expects the ordinance to move forward in the next few months.

But even if the ordinance does get passed, it still doesn’t approach the standard Albemarle County has set.

Says Lewis, “I question why the City isn’t taking proffers to address our affordable housing issue when the adjoining county that operates under the same enabling legislation surely can and is doing so.”

When she was in the third grade, Debbie Wyatt heard about the firing of an old man from her neighborhood A&P store. This was more than 40 years ago, long before age discrimination laws took hold.

“I told them I’d never shop there again,” she says.

Following a $4.6 million win in the Frederick Gray lawsuit, defense attorney Debbie Wyatt announces she’s taking no new cases. But will her retirement by the real deal E.M. Forster kind or the ephemeral Jay-Z variety?

Wyatt hasn’t stopped being troubled by injustice. These days, she is juggling some of the highest-profile civil rights cases in the area. The man wrongly accused of raping a UVA law student? Wyatt is representing him. The man shot by an Albemarle police officer after killing his police dog in a robbery? Wyatt is co-counsel for a $2.35 million lawsuit. A class action suit on behalf of the black men swabbed in the serial rapist DNA dragnet? Wyatt represents them. The woman suing UVA for her firing? Yup, she’s got Wyatt.

A big victory came recently when Wyatt won $4.5 million for the estate of a victim of a 1997 Albemarle County police shooting.
But, just as the 28-year veteran of the local legal scene is seemingly hitting her stride, Wyatt is beginning her retreat. She may be winning some important battles, but Wyatt says the war is tiring her out.

Wyatt refers to attorneys on the other side as “opponents;” plaintiffs and defendants are lightly referred to as “good guys” and “bad guys.” There are two kinds of lawyers, according to Wyatt—those who get emotionally involved in their clients’ cases, and those who detach and treat it like a job. “I think I’m the first kind,” she says. She’s not one to back down, but the system itself can be exhausting.

Hearings for her current case load will continue well into next year. But Wyatt has pledged to take no new cases and hopes to wrap up and take time off.

Her office, which overlooks Court Square, attests to a variety of interests outside the law. Wyatt’s paintings adorn the walls, artifacts from her travels—“or eBay”—decorate shelves of legal books. In her retirement, she’ll take her painting more seriously—she’s currently into German Expressionism—and perhaps start a gallery. She’d also like to write about some of the problems she’s observed with the legal system.

Some members of the legal community think Wyatt will just take a sabbatical and then return to the law. Wyatt says she can’t guarantee she’ll stay retired, either. She’s afraid she’ll be bored or her “brain will turn to mush.” And, as much as the system frustrates her, this tenacious defense attorney might miss fighting the battles too much.

When UVA’s Darden School of Business announced last year that it would offer an M.B.A. for Executives program—an opportunity for those already in the business world to earn a degree in 22 months—it was putting its lofty reputation on the line. In an already saturated marketplace of schools with similar programs, UVA was getting an acknowledged late start. Nearby schools such as Virginia Tech and the University of Maryland have offered similar programs for years.

Don’t want to leave your job to get the M.B.A. you’ve always wanted? For a meere $96,000, you can bust your chops during the week, visit Darden on the weekends, and find yourself a graduate 22 months later (whether you still have a spouse is another matter).

But six months into the UVA program’s launch, it has established such success that its severely time-pressed students—who spend between 80 to 100 hours weekly on school and work—now hit the road with administrators to reel in potential recruits.

“All last year there was so much uncertainty,” says Barbara Millar, the program’s executive director. “I think [this] shows that we’ve delivered on the promises we’ve made. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be helping us.”

The program nabbed 85 applications and brought on 54 students, higher than the projected 45. It boasts recruits from AOL, Capital One and Philip Morris, and has snatched students from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which offers three M.B.A. executive degrees.

“It’s so competitive,” Millar admits. “In Charlottesville, we needed to create something special.” That translated to a holistic approach to business in a case-study format. Students attend two- or three-day sessions every three weeks and engage in distance learning with faculty via teleconferencing, the source of the program’s only reported early hiccups.

“I found the program the most fun I’ve had and [the most I’ve] had to work in a long, long time,” says Jayson Rieger, a project manager for local biotech company Adenosine Therapeutics and now a Darden student. Rieger has a science background, and sees the executive M.B.A. as “a learning experience with priorities for career advancement.”

What certainly doesn’t seem fun about the program is the cost: UVA charges a cool $96,000 for tuition (the national average for Executive M.B.A. program tuition is $50,000). To dampen that shock, Rieger, like many participants, has help footing the bill from his company.

For more information, go to: www.darden.virginia.edu