New news: We’re always hot on its trail. But when we stop to cool off, we start to wonder what old news is still burning. The following topics—ranging from the athletic fate of former UVA basketball guard J.R. Reynolds to the so-called Albemarle County teen bombers to the local government soap opera of Transferable Developement Rights—prove that some juicy stories never die; and they also don’t just fade away.
So sing along with us, What’s up with…
…George Allen and the rest of the Macaca-gate crowd?
Less than one year ago, George Allen was a shoo-in to win his re-election bid for the U.S. Senate seat he’d held since 2001. Then he called a Virginia-born, Indian-American volunteer for Jim Webb’s campaign an obscure and confounding racial epithet. Said volunteer taped and YouTubed the whole thing, and Allen lost the race. Allen’s loss also cost the GOP control of the Senate and turned an election that was thought by many to be a mere stepping stone on Allen’s path to presidential candidacy into a career-ender for our former governor. You might remember all this. It was in a few newspapers.
 You won’t hear George Allen shooting his mouth off in public now that he’s working behind the scences to bolster the campaigns of Virginia Republicans |
So what’s the old gang up to now? Allen’s rather feisty and outspoken campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, called “the next Karl Rove” by more than one publication back when it looked like he might steer Allen towards a viable run for the presidency, has moved on. In March, Wadhams, who declined to comment for this story, has been the chairman of the Colorado Republicans, a party that has been perhaps none-too-surprisingly ineffective in the Rocky Mountain state in recent years.
Allen himself, unelectable though he may have become, is likewise staying in politics, albeit in private, unelected positions. According to a statement on his website, he has filed paperwork to launch George Allen’s Good Government Action Fund, a statewide PAC that seeks to bolster the campaigns of Virginia Republicans who share Allen’s principles (if not his deep, racist vocabulary). The Young America’s Foundation, a nationwide group of conservative college students, has also named Allen Presidential Scholar at the Reagan Ranch, which the foundation has owned since 1998.
That leaves the ringer: “Macaca” himself, S.R. Sidarth. Despite the national furor over Sidarth, which included his being named Person of the Year by Salon.com and getting a special profile in Time’s 2006 Person of the Year issue, Sidarth quietly returned to life as a UVA undergrad in the fall of 2006. In May, he completed his degree, double majoring in computer engineering and foreign affairs. Sidarth could not be reached at press time because he’s currently on a summer-long trip to India with his family, but political gadfly and Sidarth’s faculty buddy Larry Sabato tells C-VILLE that the young graduate is considering job offers from the Bill Richardson for President campaign and the office of the Virginia State Secretary of Technology. “He’s in demand,” says Sabato. “Sidarth has a bright future in politics, for sure.”—Kyle Daly
Previous coverage:
Monkey business [September 22, 2006]
Allen concedes to Webb [November 13, 2006]
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…King Wilkie, local bluegrass wizards?
In 2003 King Wilkie stormed onto the local bluegrass circuit and quickly drew large audiences to venues like Miller’s and Starr Hill. Within a year their debut album, Broke, came out on Ralph Stanley’s home label Rebel Records and the International Bluegrass Music Association crowned them “Emerging Artist of the Year.” The young band seemed well on the way to becoming bluegrass royalty, as their name implies.
 King Wilkie is beginning to make lovely bluegrass noise again after the band seemed to fall quiet in 2005. |
In 2005, they released Tierra Del Fuego and then…the group fell quiet. Though they still occasionally performed live, the lack of a timely follow up to Broke seemed odd. Two years on and now we’re asking, “Hey, King Wilkie, what’s up?”
| Take a listen to "Angeline" from King Wilkie‘s Low Country Suite:
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They have an answer. It’s called Low Country Suite and it’s sitting on shelf at your favorite record store. Released on June 26, the group’s second full-length CD finds the band on new ground, expanding into subtle but exquisite songwriting, the fruit of what singer Reid Burgess describes as a chance to “get off the road, allow ourselves some time and space.”
“Hopefully it was sort of an evolution,” says Burgess of the revamped sound. “I think you can connect the dots. I mean, a lot of my favorite bands put out an album and then the next album you’re like ‘What the hell happened?’”
Whether it’s a Byrds-like country ballad, a hint of Dylan’s folk or the bluegrass sound that King Wilkie started out with, everything is carefully balanced on Low Country Suite, which was produced by Jim Scott, who has worked with big acts like Tom Petty and The Dixie Chicks. “We’re all so opinionated and we fight each other over creative control, over every note,” Burgess says. “Jim was great because it’s not like he had any overarching creative vision. He just jumped in as a member of the band and would fight along with us.”
The band’s return, however, hasn’t gone precisely as planned. They landed an opening spot on Mary Chapin Carpenter’s summer tour, but all of the dates were canceled after Carpenter suffered a pulmonary embolism.
The group hopes to make the best of the rest of the 2007, though. They recently played Satellite Ballroom here in town and will be touring the East Coast in the coming months. “We’re still going to get as many dates as we can through the end of the year,” Burgess says. “Then hopefully we’ll make a new record. Sooner rather than later, and we won’t take as much time.” If that plan stays true, King Wilkie will be right back on their path to Americana stardom.—John Ruscher
Previous coverage:
It’s all about us [December 12, 2006]
Surround Sound 2005 [December 12, 2005]
’04 Score [December 21, 2004]
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…the smell in Woolen Mills?
It might be one of Charlottesville’s more hip and historic neighborhoods—where new eco-friendly houses rub shoulders with a timeworn chapel and factory—but Woolen Mills just doesn’t smell too good. The culprit? That would be the sewage treatment plant on Moore’s Creek, whose odors have been irritating residents for years. Last fall, the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority agreed that as of February 1, they’d stop composting biosolids at the site. So did they?
 Now that biosolids are trucked from this treatment plant on Moore’s Creek to a facility in Richmond for composting, Woolen Mills residents can breathe a sigh of relief. |
Yes, they did; biosolids are now trucked to a facility in Richmond for composting. And resident Karl Ackerman says that means a “sharp acrid stink…is gone, thankfully.” But just because it smells better doesn’t mean it smells good. Ackerman says there’s a different odor that still hangs around, especially in certain kinds of weather: “When it’s socked in everywhere in town,” he says, “we get this pretty funky smell.”
See, composting biosolids is only part of what the RWSA facility is built to do. The biosolids are a byproduct of treating wastewater, and the latter process is still going on at Moore’s Creek. Ackerman says Woolen Mills neighbors have been bothered by this operation since before he moved E. Market Street 15 years ago. Biosolids composting—along with a vent located near the entrance to Riverview Park, another source of complaints—“are kind of discrete problems,” Ackerman explains. “The actual issue of the smell coming from the plant itself is one that really gets at the business of the RWSA.”
Here’s where the discussion turns to financials. If the old joke says that the pig farmer sniffs his pungent barnyard and proclaims that it smells like money, the Woolen Mills perfume smells more like a lack of dollars. “We need a real sense of what it’s going to cost to have a sewage treatment plant that doesn’t smell,” says Ackerman, who thinks the city and county should be prepared for rising treatment costs as populations grow.
RWSA director Tom Frederick tells us that the off-site composting contract is already costing $450,000 per year, and that the rates the RWSA charges the city and county went up correspondingly as of July 1. Still, the Authority is paying for an outside study, to be completed later this summer, “to make sure we have the necessary capital facilities to limit and control what comes out of our facility,” Frederick says. He won’t speculate on the outcome other than to say that additional capital improvements could result if the study says they’re needed.
Frederick says that, in terms of complaints about smells, he’s “not aware of any issues since composting stopped that we can confirm are the result of activities going on on our site.” Ackerman, though, says he and his neighbors are still holding their noses. “We’ve been living with this idea that a sewage treatment plant has to smell,” he says. “I don’t think that’s right. I think you can spend the money to reduce the smell so no one’s being bothered by it.”—Erika Howsare
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…J.R. Reynolds, former UVA men’s basketball phenom?
Former UVA guard J.R. Reynold’s NBA dreams might not have been snuffed out, but they’re definitely on hold. After a stellar college career, Reynolds faced shaky NBA draft prospects this spring. A classic perimeter ‘tweener (a shooting guard too short to play that position professionally but with doubtful point-guard skills), the 6’3" Reynolds was projected to be drafted low in the second round…if he was picked at all. Draft day came and went, but Reynolds’ name wasn’t called.
 Even a stellar season for UVA couldn’t make J.R. Reynolds’ NBA draft dream come true. |
Reynolds, who graduated in May, scored 1,683 points in his four-year career at UVA. Paired with Sean Singletary, he was part of the Cavs’ high-powered backcourt that propelled UVA to its most successful season in recent years, one in which the Cavs tied the University of North Carolina as ACC regular-season champs. Reynolds also led UVA into the second round of the NCAA tournament, the basketball postseason promised land that the Cavs hadn’t seen in five years. Despite all this, he wasn’t one of the 60 players drafted June 28.
But being passed over in the draft isn’t necessarily the end of a basketball career. Seventy-seven undrafted players finished last season on NBA rosters. Chicago Bull Ben Wallace and Sacramento King Brad Miller, both undrafted, developed into All-Stars. The Miami Heat’s Udonis Haslem, who shares an agent with Reynolds, played a key role in the Heat’s 2006 NBA Championship and was named to the 2003 NBA All-Rookie second team. Haslem played his way into the NBA via France, where he was a member of the very French-sounding professional squad Chalon-Sur-Sanoe.
Reynolds didn’t return phone calls and text messages requesting an interview. But Jim Davies, a member the UVA athletic media relations staff, says that according to an e-mail from Reynolds’ agent, Reynolds hasn’t signed with any NBA teams. Almost all signings, though, don’t happen until end of summer. The path to the NBA for an undrafted free agent like Reynolds is both winding and precarious, but still could very likely lead to a spot on one of the 30 pro teams.
Playing abroad is one option open to Reynolds if he doesn’t land a free-agent contract. Another is the NBA’s new Development League. Both are opportunities to not only stay on team’s radars, but also to refine parts of his game that gave teams pause during the draft. One of the predraft knocks on Reynolds, other than his lack of size, was his proclivity to turnovers, a rather large worry about a player who would have the ball in his hands a lot in the NBA. But Reynolds is also capable of instant offense. He’s been compared to Ben Gordon, the second-leading scorer for the Chicago Bulls, a shooting guard who’s also 6’3". Gordon, who averaged 20.4 last season, was the third pick in the 2004 draft.—Scott Weaver
Previous coverage:
Can J.R. Reynolds make it happen? [March 13, 2007]
James Richard "J.R." Reynolds [March 13, 2007]
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…the bomb-less Albemarle teen bombers?
In late January and February of last year, four teens, ages 16, 15, 13 and 13, were arrested in connection with an alleged plot to blow up Western Albemarle and Albemarle high schools. Though none of the teens were found to possess bomb-making material, all were convicted in juvenile court on various charges, including conspiracy to commit murder. The evidence against them? Some angsty-Myspace pages and AOL Instant Messengering. Not really the stuff of “imminent” threats, but the case proved that if you say the word “Myspace” to people over the age of 25, they tremble in their boots. And if you refer to Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris as anything other than very troubled young men, school principals and cops get uptight. Even worse, if you tell other kids’ parents and media types that they can’t know exactly what happened in juvenile court due to the privacy rights of minors, they get all bent out of shape and suspicious. In a nutshell: The convictions were just the start of the circus. Judges placed gag orders on attorneys, newspapers filed lawsuits for information and three of the teens (the 16-year-old, the 15-year-old and one of the 13-year-olds) appealed their convictions in open Albemarle Circuit Court, making the gag orders and the media lawsuits practically moot. By August, prosecutors reached plea agreements with the 16- and 15-year-olds and the 13-year-old who appealed was cleared entirely.
So where are they now? The 13-year-old who didn’t appeal his conviction, and thus maintained his privacy, presumably is still in juvenile detention. The 16-year-old who agreed to in-patient mental health treatment in exchange for a possible reduced charge upon the later of his 18th birthday or release from treatment (and compliance with other conditions), turned 18 in April. The 15-year-old, whose plea agreement provided for deferred disposition and possible dismissal upon his 18th birthday of a reduced charge of communicating an electronic threat, spent the year being home schooled. He turned 17 in May. Under the terms of his probation, the teen may have no unsupervised Internet access and no access to firearms. At his first six-month progress report, however, Judge Paul M. Peatross granted the teen’s request for permission to attend a church mission trip to Africa last February and agreed to consider his request to accompany his father to the shooting range.
As for the 13-year old who was cleared? That was Nathan Barnett, now named in these pages for the first time after his father, Howard Barnett, approached C-VILLE to follow up. Nathan just finished his first year at Albemarle High. His father says the teen did well scholastically but that the teasing from his classmates about the case “got a little rough.” And that’s no wonder—starting high school is tough enough without the “attempted bombing” baggage. The elder Barnett says Nathan is still dealing with the adverse publicity (he was arrested at Jack Jouett Middle School in front of his peers) and the stigma of being treated as guilty even though he ultimately was declared innocent.
As for the cops and prosecutors? They didn’t get off scot-free either. Howard Barnett says he plans to take legal action against the Albemarle Police Department and the Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office in connection with their handling of his son’s case.—Katherine Ludwig
Previous coverage:
Would-be teen bombers: Too much Information? [September 12, 2006]
Files opened, boy pleads guilty in bomb-plot case [September 5, 2006]
Teen cleared in bomb threat case [August 22, 2006]
Would-be Teen bomber gets out [May 30, 2006]
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…Jeremy Harvey, the two-time Mr. Betty Scripps?
A man who marries four times is either an incurable romantic or he’s up to something. At the very least, he’s a charmer. And when it comes to Jeremy Harvey, the onetime (make that two-time) Mr. Betty Scripps who, in April, married the girlfriend he had dumped to remarry his heiress ex-wife, all three descriptions could apply.
 Jeremy Harvey and all his Britishness has moved on to a new marriage, in lieu of tying and untying the knot with Betty Scripps (right) for a third time |
Harvey’s story first came to light in C-VILLE in February 2006, when, trailed by lawsuits from former employees of his small Albemarle investment bank, Quadrant Capital Group, he slipped out of town and the mini-mansion he was sharing with his girlfriend and her children and joined Scripps in Las Vegas for a quickie wedding. Ultimately his second go-round with the newspaper heiress and onetime Albemarle estate-dweller 19 years his senior lasted but three months. Reportedly, however, the divorce leaves Harvey with a half-million annual income for life and, coincidentally or not, it came at roughly the time his former employees’ suits were settled out of court. (Terms of the settlement prevent them from discussing the suits publicly.)
Harvey, 63, was no newcomer to aggrieved employees and lawsuits by the time he ventured from South Africa, and then the Jersey Islands, to the United States and the high-flying life that Scripps provided. Newspaper articles dug up by Harvey’s now-mother-in-law alleged that Harvey had been brought to court or had charges filed against him on 89 separate occasions before he even got to Central Virginia. Reportedly, he had debts in the range of $280,000.
But what he lacked in funds, he more than made up for with manners and that most devastating of charms, Britishness. Stan Manoogian and Jim Hoffman, former executives at Harvey’s investment firm who claimed his business practices cost them income and well-being, said as much at the time of the C-VILLE cover story. Hoffman described him as “incredibly plausible.” “He’s an Englishman, was married to a wealthy woman…and he had the trappings. He had the new Range Rover and the matching luggage and the matching picnic basket.”
No word on whether the accessories conveyed with his new marriage, nor on what his latest business plans might be. Meanwhile, Scripps, who repeatedly refused comment to C-VILLE on personal matters, seems to be guarding her privacy these days.—Cathy Harding
Previous coverage:
Jeremy Harvey returns to town [May 23, 2006]
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…statewide wine distribution laws?
In 2005, the raging party that had been the Virginia wine industry for 25 years came to a crashing halt. Since 1980, when there where only six wineries in the state, Virginia wineries had been granted the right of self-distribution, allowing them to circumvent the three-tier system of alcohol sales (wineries sell to wholesalers, wholesellers sell to retailers), a right denied to out-of-state wineries. By skipping the middleman, a Virginia winery could make the same profit on sales to retail stores and restaurants as it would if it sold straight from the tasting room. But by 2005 the number of wineries in the state had grown to 107. A half-million people visited those wineries annually, and yearly wine sales were at $44 million. A bender like that just had to end. Badly.
 Once handicapped by a court ruling, Virginia wineries can restart the party by self-distributing again to retailers. Only, don’t call it that |
Three out-of-state wineries filed suit in 2001 (along with what one magazine article referred to as “a handful of wine drinkers in Virginia”), claiming that self-distribution was unconstitutional as it gave an unfair advantage to in-state wineries. On April 27, 2005 the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in their favor. Faced with two choices—allow out-of-state wineries to deliver directly to retailers as well, or ban the practice altogether—the court chose the latter. Virginia wineries woke up seriously hung over. The industry’s economics had changed overnight.
Making wine in Virginia is prohibitively expensive; self-distribution helped to allay that expense as well as giving wineries a shot at exposure outside the tourist market. In the aftermath of the 2005 decision, most wineries decided to sign up with a wholesaler, and in doing so became just one wine among thousands in a sales rep’s portfolio, struggling for attention in a statewide market where Virginia wines make up just 4 percent of total sales.
But hold on, the party’s not over. In 2007, after a year of what you might call howling fantods on the part of the Virginia Wineries Association, a compromise of sorts has been reached. The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services will set up essentially a state-funded, dummy wholesaler, through which wineries can distribute (for a small, yet-to-be-determined fee) up to 3,000 cases a year. The three-tier system is maintained, and in-state wineries are technically not self-distributing. Meet the new system, same as the old system.
It remains to be seen whether most wineries will choose to work with the new state-run distribution company, stay with commercial wholesalers, or retreat to the hinterlands of the tourist and festival circuit.
Basically, since the 2005 ruling, the Virginia wine industry has partied on, adding 20-plus new wineries to total approximately 130. The July 2007 issue of Travel + Leisure Magazine lists Virginia as one of the top five “up and coming” wine areas in the world, the only U.S. state to be listed. The temporary loss of self-distribution will likely not permanently stop the flow of Virginia wine, but it may have slowed it down.—J. Tobias Beard
Previous coverage:
Legislative help for small wineries
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…Lacey Phillabaum, the eco-terrorist-turned-journalist?
C-VILLE was at the center of a veritable media frenzy last October. As it turns out, one of our own pleaded guilty to a crime of eco-terrorism and conspiracy to defraud the United States government. Lacey Phillabaum, a onetime C-VILLE staff writer (for only three months in early 2005), was part of group that set fire to and destroyed the Urban Horticulture Center at the University of Washington in May 2001. Now, Phillabaum has chosen to begin accumulating credit for time served in a corrections facility in Spokane, Washington, as she waits for her sentencing in October.
 For "crimes committed during a brief interlude in her life," according to an old friend, Lacey Phillabaum will likely serve between three and five years behind bars. |
“It’s always problematic when journalists go from covering the news to becoming the news,” C-VILLE editor Cathy Harding said in an interview to the Washington City Paper after word of Phillabaum’s involvement with the crime went public.
Phillabaum was anything but a beginning journalist when she arrived at C-VILLE. While on the West Coast, she worked for a number of publications before becoming the editor of In Good Tilth, a newsletter promoting sustainable farming in Oregon. She took the job at In Good Tilth in February 2001, only months before the arson at the University of Washington. Even after the incident, she went on to edit the publication for four years. Friends say her move to the Charlottesville area essentially wiped the slate clean, giving Phillabaum a chance to start over.
“I don’t think her relocation to the East Coast was her running away or trying to distance herself, but she clearly wanted to get away from that scene,” says James Johnston, a college friend who met Phillabaum at the University of Oregon in the mid 1990s. “Lacey was very serious and committed to a career in journalism. I think that she’s deeply sad that she’s not able to continue to pursue that career,” he told C-VILLE recently.
According to Harding, Phillabaum had solid references and showed no indication of an activist bias in her pieces. Johnston also says that Phillabaum’s involvement with these fringe organizations was out of the ordinary for the friend he had known for more than 14 years.
“The crimes that Lacey pleaded guilty to are crimes that she committed during a brief interlude in her life,” says Johnston. “It was very out-of-step with the rest of her life. They are mistakes she made that she is very regretful for. At this point, she’s just trying to get on with her life.”
Phillabaum’s plea agreement, however, clearly illustrates that she was part of a conspiracy that had planned to attack a number of targets throughout the Pacific Northwest. Much like the incident at the University of Washington, the conspirators planned to commit arson with homemade apparatus, making use of kitchen timers, matches, sponges and fuel-filled containers. For her cooperation with the authorities, she will likely serve a recommended sentence of between three and five years.
As for Phillabum’s future, those close to her say, on a supportive website, that she will continue writing and hopes to pursue a master’s degree while behind bars, if possible.—David Moltz
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…Transferable Development Rights?
Protecting the rural areas of Albemarle County—keeping those picturesque rolling fields where cattle roam from becoming the latest crop of McMansions—has long been a stated priority of the Board of Supervisors. The trouble is, though, how do you do so without pissing off landowners that want at the least the option of making money from developing it?
 Protecting rural areas without pissing off landowners is the ultimate challenge for Supervisor David Slutzk |
For several months in 2006, a transferable development rights (TDR) program was the hot new idea that just might save paradise from the parking lot. The supervisors had split 3-3 in September on the previous hot new idea, the so-called phasing and clustering plan, when one month later Supervisor David Slutzky put forward a proposal on TDR.
What is this intriguing new idea in the local development game? Take a farmer out in Covesville with 200 acres of land and little in the bank account. His insurance policy is his land—made more valuable by its seven development rights. But instead of selling his land, under a TDR system, he could sell those development rights to someone in a designated area—so that that developer could build more homes on land there, where the county says it wants growth.
It’s a nice, capitalistist solution, sure, but whether such a program can work depends on the system. In the one originally put forward by Slutzky, the developer could build two houses for every one right bought from the Covesville farmer. And an additional 1 percent of county land, or 4,645 acres, would be set aside as a new growth area to receive all those development rights. In exchange for such a program, the rural area would be downzoned to one buildable lot per 50 acres from one lot per 23 acres.
The Board balked at the plan at a December meeting, arguing it was moot as the proposal as drafted needed enabling legislation. Then that legislation was passed in the 2007 General Assembly with the help of Charlottesville Delegate David Toscano.
So with the law on its side as of July 1, what’s up with the TDR plan?
“It’s a proposal that’s on the table,” says Slutzky, predicting a “stakeholder dialogue” over the next six to 12 months. If the group can come to consensus, the plan will be taken to the Board.
The Weldon Cooper Center has agreed to sponsor the stakeholder discussions, with the first at the end of this mont—not a dime will come from county coffers. At the table will be the Farm Bureau and the Blue Ridge Home Builders Association. “Owners of rural land and builders are perhaps most affected by the conditions that would be put in place by the tradable development rights,” says Jay Willer of the Blue Ridge Home Builders. Also in the discussion are groups often on the other side of development issues, like the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Piedmont Environmental Council.
“If my proposal is changed dramatically and it works and it gets support and it gets implemented, hurrah,” Slutzky says. “I want the outcome. What I need is the rural area protected.”—Will Goldsmith
Previous coverage:
Localities look for more tools [February 9, 2007]
Would TDR plan protect rural areas? [January 23, 2007]
How dense can we get? [January 9, 2007]
The happy start of Slutzky’s trade plan [December 12, 2006]