Month: April 2010

Go to the ATM today, because you’re going to need cash for two excellent spring-is-here events: opening day at the city market and the Gordon Avenue Library’s annual spring book sale.

• WTJU’s new director is Burr Beard. He will replace Chuck Taylor, who retired on January 1 but stayed around until the station could find a suitable replacement. Burr’s being shipped in from Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, where he manages and directs the radio station at Lehigh Carbon Community College. He is apparently an accomplished hammer dulcimer player, so he’ll fit right in Appalachia.
• Listen to NPR on Sunday morning around 9:40am for a story about Devon Sproule and Paul Curreri.
• The Charlottesville Pavilion has released its full lineup for the summer, which is shaping up to be pretty impressive. The legendary Jimmy Cliff comes on June 6, Sinatra 2.0 beta Harry Connick, Jr., croons on June 16, and God among men B.B. King does his thing on July 17. There’s also the Fridays after Five schedule.
• The Village Voice has rated the best music-related April Fools jokes according to "believability" and "amusement."
• A conversation between Neil Young and Jonathan Demme appeared in the New Yorker this week. It seems Neil Young only likes to show his face through shoddy modern technologies.
• Yours truly is taking the weekend and heading to Harrisonburg for Virginia’s less fashionable (but just as good!) answer to South by Southwest, the Mid-Atlantic College Radio Conference, or MACRoCk. Plenty of Charlottesville and bands to be seen there, including Cosmonaut’s Ruin, Invisible Hand, Drunk Tigers, Borrowed Beams of Light. This writer will even be stepping out from behind the laptop tomorrow night.

The $1.9 million breach-of-contract lawsuit brought by local real estate company Frank Hardy, Inc., against Vineyard Estates, LLC, was settled out of court last night, says Ronald Tweel, lawyer for Vineyard Estates. The suit was scheduled for an April 2 trial date in Albemarle County Circuit Court, a date first announced in late February.

Tweel told C-VILLE that the settlement amount is confidential and both parties agreed to keep it that way. Hardy, who had exclusive listing agreements with Vineyard Estates, filed suit early last year when Vineyard Estates contacted a different real estate company to sell its luxury Meadows Estates development in Albemarle.

Earlier this year, Vineyard Estates—owned by Patricia Kluge and the North Carolina-based First Colony Resorts, and managed by Kluge’s husband William Moses—was also involved in a foreclosure sale for one of the parcels. At the foreclosure auction, Moses bought the parcel back for $3.67 million; the property is assessed at $2.7 million, according to county records.

Check back for updates on the settlement as they become available.
 

The Martinsville Bulletin reports that a 10-person commission comprising businessmen, educators and more will likely begin meetings this month to determine the future of the New College Institute (NCI), founded in 2006 in Martinsville. Steering the committee? None other than UVA President John Casteen, who will retire from his post on August 1. Casteen will co-chair the committee with fellow university president retiree Eugene Trani, who served 20 years as president of Virginia Commonwealth University.

NCI was established to serve the higher education needs of students in southern Virginia who are not within close range of other state universities. The commission will provide a report to the State Council of Higher Education, which will decide among other things whether NCI becomes an extension of another public university.

Casteen, who was recently named the speaker for UVA’s May 23 commencement activities, has plenty on his plate for the coming months. He will join the boards of directors for the Virginia Foundation for Community College Education as well as Altria Group, the parent company of Philip Morris. NCI currently offers several degrees and licensure programs through partnerships with UVA.

No. 1 Virginia opens up ACC Play on Saturday with Clash at No. 4 Maryland

Cavaliers begin ACC grind with first of four-straight weekends facing league competition

The No. 1 Virginia Cavaliers (9-0) begin Atlantic Coast Conference play on Saturday, visiting Byrd Stadium in College Park, Md., to battle the No. 4 Maryland Terrapins (6-1). Faceoff is slated for 8 p.m. and live stats will be available at VirginiaSports.com. For the fourth-straight week, UVa graces the No. 1 position in both the Nike/Inside Lacrosse media and USILA coaches polls.

The game will be broadcast in the Charlottesville area on WINA AM 1070 with John Freeman calling the action and Doug Tarring doing the color broadcast. ESPNU will televise the contest in HD with Carter Blackburn providing the play-by-play, while Quint Kessenich and Matt Striebel will serve as the color analysts.

Saturday marks the 62nd-straight season the Cavaliers and the Terrapins have clashed in an all-time series that began in 1926. Only Virginia’s 64-straight regular seasons playing Johns Hopkins is a longer consecutively played series.

Maryland narrowly holds the all-time advantage with a 44-39 mark, however Virginia has won seven of the last eight meetings, including last year’s seven overtime triumph. The Cavaliers’ 11-10 victory set a record at the NCAA Division I level for the longest game ever. Steele Stanwick led the way with four goals for the Cavaliers and Brian Carroll scored the game-clinching goal in the seventh overtime.

As Virginia opens up ACC play, the other league schools have completed their conference schedule except for playing Virginia. Virginia is 42-14 all-time in ACC openers and 20-8 when opening league play away from Charlottesville, Va.

Virginia has started the season with nine-straight wins for the third-consecutive season after defeating No. 12 Johns Hopkins on March 27, 15-6. Rhamel and Shamel Bratton, along with Matt White each scored three goals to pace the UVa attack. Shamel Bratton added two assists, while Adam Ghitelman saved 10 shots and Ken Clausen picked up a game-high six ground balls.

Chris Bocklet leads Virginia with 26 goals and 35 points on the season, while Stanwick holds the team lead with 18 assists. Carroll and Rhamel Bratton are tied for second on the team with 15 goals, while Stanwick has 12 goals and 18 assists for 30 points, which is second best on the squad. Freshman Matt White has 12 goals and has tallied at least one point in every game of his young collegiate career. Clausen has a team-best 35 ground balls and his 2.67 caused turnovers per game ranks No. 2 nationally. Ghitelman is saving 55.7 percent of the shots against him, while posting a 7.36 goals-against average.
Maryland head coach Dave Cottle is in his ninth year at Maryland and returns 28 letterwinners and seven starters off of last year’s 10-7 squad that lost to eventual national champion Syracuse in the NCAA quarterfinals. The Terripans remained at No. 4 in both the media and coaches poll after a narrow setback, 9-7, in Chapel Hill, N.C., against the No. 2 North Carolina Tar Heels on March 27.

Grant Catalino leads the attack for Maryland with team highs of 15 goals, 16 assists and 31 points. Ryan Young has added eight goals and 12 assists for 20 points, all marks are second-best on the squad. Rounding out the top scorers for the Terrapins are Jake Bernhardt, Travis Reed, Adam Sear and Will Yeatman who all have seven goals. Reed has chipped in eight assists for a team’s third-best 15 points. Bryn Holmes has picked up a team-high 36 ground balls and Brian Phipps is saving 52.0 percent of shot attempts between the pipes. Phipps also has a 8.63 goals-against average.

Virginia continues ACC play on Saturday, April 10, when the Cavaliers open up the New Meadowlands in the Konica Minolta Big City Classic against No. 2 North Carolina. Game time is 4 p.m. and it will be broadcast in the Charlottesville area on WINA AM 1070 with John Freeman calling the action. The contest will be televised live on ESPNU. Go Hoos!

(from the UVA SID Office)

Charles Wright, one of the crown jewels in UVA’s presitigious creative writing department, will retire in May. Wright won both the Pulitzer Prize (for Black Zodiac in 1997) and the National Book Award (for Country Music in 1983) and has taught at the university since 1983.

Wright gave what professor and poet Lisa Russ Spaar called a "valedictory reading" at the Dome Room in the Rotunda on Monday, which quickly filled to capacity. Meridian advisor Jeb Livingood says that Wright read a selection of works that spanned his career. “We didn’t really present it as a retirement reading, because it really wasn’t that,” Livingood says. “They locked the doors at 8. I hope that not too many people got locked out. Maybe we should have had tickets.”

Spring brings lovely blooms and rampaging ants—at least in our kitchen it has. We don’t have tons of ants, but we do have them, and they are big ones. Two days ago I opened a cupboard door, spotted about five, quickly smashed them, and then realized that I was breathing hard and feeling angry. This doesn’t seem healthy, I thought.

So I’d like to be rid of the ants, but I don’t think bare-hands killing is the answer. Nor, obviously, do I think I will buy some kind of poisonous substance and put it in the room where I prepare my food, as seemingly convenient as that might be.

Instead, I turn to this book:

I’ve had it for a while and it’s been a good resource in these cleanliness-related situations, giving alternatives to harsh products and energy-sucking behaviors. Plus it has all these goofy photos of ’50s-era suburbanites.

On ants, author Warren Schultz’s tips start out sounding labor-intensive. "Figure out where the ants are coming from…Your mission is to seek out and block their entryways." Is it wrong that I simply don’t want to bother? Further along, the advice gets a little easier to swallow: spray soapy water (it kills them and erases their chemical trails that other ants would follow). Make food more inaccessible. Sprinkle boric acid or diatomaceous earth (but not the kind they sell for swimming pools).

Maybe this weekend if I’m really bored, I’ll go ant-tracking and then seal up whatever tiny crack they’re coming through with caulk. But it’s highly unlikely. I won’t spray poison, but I’m still after a relatively quick fix.

Any other green ant control tips?

A dangerous pesticide was found in creeks in the city.

The Daily Progress reports that 40 to 1,000 times the levels of chlordane deemed harmful by the Environmental Protection Agency popped up in sediments at Meadow Creek and Schenk’s Branch. Chlordane was banned years ago.

According to the article, the city has been aware of the contamination, but no warnings have been made public.

“I would have expected them to do that. These concentrations of chlordane are clearly in excess of anything that might be determined safe,” said Peter deFur, professor at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center for Environmental Studies.
 

During last night’s public hearing on Albemarle County’s proposed budget and tax rate, the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a real estate tax rate of $1.04 per $100 of assessed value—an increase of roughly 30 cents. The increase follows a recent 4-2 board vote to advertise a 74.2 cent tax rate. Immediately following the vote, Board Chairman Ann Mallek cued up some music, Dennis Rooker high-fived Rodney Thomas, and the supervisors all left Lane Auditorium together to buy YMCA memberships and Lady Gaga tickets.

So, as you’ve gathered by now, C-VILLE doesn’t have much of a poker face. In fact, $1.04 was our little way of drawing attention to the 4/01 date—happy April Fools’ Day, everyone. (And, no, none of the above happened. Not even the Gaga tickets.) Below the photo, a real recap of last night’s meeting.

Art Stow (right), principal of Red Hill Elementary, addressed the Board of Supervisors alongside other county elementary school principals

All kidding aside, not a person at last night’s public hearing took the 74.2-cent tax rate as a laughing matter. The audience seemed evenly split between those pleased to have a tax break, and those who lamented the lack of an increase—and what some perceived as the board’s decision to ignore a large public outcry for a higher rate.

There were some words of thanks. John Frazee, co-president of IMPACT, commended the county for funding the Bright Stars program, and Jefferson-Madison Regional Library Board President Tony Townsend offered his appreciation for level-funding at local libraries. Most others, however, either praised the supervisors in the name of tax breaks or cursed them in the name of school funding.

Art Stow, principal of Red Hill Elementary, spoke in favor of preserving (rather than sharing) two principal jobs at county elementary schools, with the principals of Scottsville, Yancey and Murray elementaries beside him. Both Peter Loach of the Piedmont Housing Alliance and Valerie L’Herrou of the Albemarle County Housing Authority expressed concern that a decline in county support of affordable housing might be a disincentive to developers to contribute to proffers.

"By not funding affordable housing initiatives, we’re letting down developers who, in good faith, submitted proffers to the county," said L’Herrou.

Unlike the first public budget hearing, however, these comments were matched almost blow-for-blow by local residents who thanked the board.

"A recession is not the time to raise taxes. It is the time to examine spending and reassess needs," said Peter Wurzer, director of research for the Albemarle Truth in Taxation Alliance. The speaker who followed Wurzer said that she "worked very hard for, and am most pleased to see, Mr. [Rodney] Thomas sitting there." She added: "Higher taxes hurt us all. Kudos for a good job."

A 16-year-old Culpeper High School student has been missing for six days, says his mother. Brian Mitchell is 5’3" or 5’4", weighs between 120 and 130 pounds, and has blonde hair and blue eyes. His mother, Rebecca McCormick, says that he ran away from his Culpeper home last Friday, taking a black Carhart jacket with him.

"Brian is originally from the Appomattox/Lynchburg area and he may be trying to get back here where his friends are," says McCormick in an e-mail. A missing person report has been filed in Culpeper, and McCormick writes that she is "just trying to make any extra effort I can to locate my son and find out that he is safe." A photo of Mitchell is below. Anyone with information may contact the Culpeper Police Department here.