Month: February 2011

Categories
Arts

Everybody Wins

“Hall of Game Awards”

Friday­ 7pm, Cartoon Network
The title for this new awards show is somewhat deceiving. I initially thought it celebrated video or board games, but no, it’s a kid-oriented celebration of sports. The show might further glorify people who are paid ridiculous amounts of money to play games and sell Americans high-priced items they don’t need, but the childhood obesity situation in this country is out of control. If worshipping LeBron James (that’s a real person, right?) gets chubby kids off the couch, away from the chips, and onto the basketball court in an attempt to emulate their idol, more power to them. Skateboarder Tony Hawk hosts the shindig, and it will feature a special appearance by First Lady Michelle Obama, who will celebrate schools that have created healthier environments by promoting exercise and good nutrition. Love her.

“The 83rd Academy Awards”

Sunday 8pm, ABC
What a great year for movies. From Inception to The Social Network to Black Swan and even Toy Story 3, there were some damned fine films released in 2010, and I’m legitimately excited for this year’s Oscars. The Academy did something unconventional with the hosts this year, bringing in Anne Hathaway and James Franco in a bid to appeal to young viewers. Hathaway nearly stole Hugh Jackman’s song-and-dance opener in 2009, and Franco is so unpredictable that he may very well present the entire show in Esperanto. The big honorary award of the night will go to an up-and-coming director named Francis Ford Coppola. Turn in an hour earlier to see Tim Gunn host the red carpet segment.

“Bethenny Ever After”

Monday 10pm, Bravo
If an award existed for self promotion via reality TV, I’d give it to Bethenny Frankel. Frankel’s skinny ass came in second on the Martha Stewart version of “The Apprentice” back in 2005. A few years later she popped up as a cast member on “The Real Housewives of New York City,” and she became so popular that last year Bravo gave her the spin-off “Bethenny Getting Married?”, which chronicled the drama of her impending marriage and the birth of her daughter. After officially leaving the “Housewives” she came in second again on that dreadful “Skating with the Stars” show last fall, and now she’s back with ANOTHER show, this one following her struggle to balance being a wife, mommy, author, businesswoman, and, oh yeah, reality-TV star.

Categories
The Editor's Desk

Mailbag

It’s gettin’ hot in here

In regards to “Fanning the flames” [February 1]: In my opinion, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s investigation into state funding of Michael Mann’s climate change research at UVA is politically motivated. It’s payback for how the University treated former State Climatologist Patrick Michaels. Cuccinelli is sending a message that state colleges should think twice before fostering an environment hostile to academic and intellectual freedom.

If it’s about global warming, allow me to save taxpayer money and debunk the idea right now. Global warming is a three-part theory, a trinity of postulates.

1) The average temperature of the earth is warming.
2) Some or all of the warming is caused by man.
3) The warming is abnormal and bad.

Mann and Michaels agree on the first two points. But Michaels is not alarmed because his hockey stick temperature chart is much bigger.

If you go back only a thousand years, it looks like a hockey stick. But if you go back 3 million years, it looks like a straight line of ice with occasional heat waves. If you go back 300 million years, it looks like a hockey stick again but turned upside down because of the recent ice ages.

Only 1 percent of geologic time has been as cold as we are today. Earth is 99 times more likely to have alligators at the poles than to have ice. You might say, too much carbon dioxide has been bound into fossil fuels, causing the ice ages.

With cooling since the 1998 El Nino and growing scrutiny of the science, global warming morphs into: 1) We have cooling, 2) We want warming, 3) Warm is good and normal. CO2 is plant food. Plants provide all the oxygen. I leave you with this moral imperative.

If you truly care about the environment, you should generate as much greenhouse gas as you need so Mother Earth can warm back to normal and the polar regions can once again recycle CO2 into oil and natural gas for future generations.

Blair Hawkins
Charlottesville

RIP, socialism!

Kudos to Ken Cuccinelli and the Tea Party resurgence in Virginia and elsewhere. We are not and must never be a socialist country that sees its mission as feeding people and providing health care. How can you stop at health care? How about housing care? And transportation care? And jobs care? These Utopian schemes have been tried again and again, and they all fail eventually. People lose their incentive to produce goods and services if they aren’t prodded by necessity. How long would any of you at the C-VILLE newspaper if your boss just took off and stopped monitoring you? How long would your workmates remain productive? Margaret Thatcher said, “The problem with socialism is sooner or later you run out of other people’s money”.

Granted, for many years it looked really good. Europeans worked easy hours, took long lunches at charming cafes in fairytale towns, road great trains, ate superb chocolate, and enjoyed themselves hugely. But it was doomed, for their low birthrates and slack productivity caught up with them. There aren’t enough workers and flush corporations to pay the tab now.

I’ve lived for years in socialist countries from England across to Hungary, and this is a fact: Socialism is breaking down worldwide. Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain are bankrupt, and they’re losing their sovereignty as the IMF and the EU move in. The other large European Union countries, particularly France, face a very dicey future. Germany, though, is highly productive. They resent it that they’re paying the lion’s share of the EU costs.

China has told its people that they cannot count on womb to tomb government benefits, and will have to provide for themselves. We in America are about to face the worst fiscal crisis ever conceived, and the flim-flam Ponzi scheme of ‘progressives’ in both parties is about to be exposed as a very cruel hoax.

G. Cox
Charlottesville

Liposuction, the sonnet

I was very interested in your Valentine’s issue [February 8] advice from my colleague Steve Cushman on sonnet writing, particularly the suggestion about using the phrase “elective liposuction.” Like so, maybe?

My love could use elective liposuction.
A gift certificate is just the thing.
Her flesh would rise in value with reduction,
And once again my heart would wake and sing.
I do need to be careful how I put it.
You can’t predict how women take this stuff.
Would she just say, Why, thank you, dear? Or would it
Make her real mad? Still, if it does, well, tough!
She really does need to take better care
Of what I care so much about. Her beauty
Is not her own, but something she must share
With me, for one—and guarding it’s a duty.
I’ll put it to her that way! Then she’ll be
So grateful that I’ve helped her to please me!

I’m curious to know if any of your other readers responded to the same provocation.

Gordon Braden
Department of English, UVA

Categories
News

Paving imminent for dusty West Main lot

Three months after the city approved fixes planned for the unpaved and heavily trafficked parking lot adjacent to the Amtrak station on West Main Street, lot owners Gabe Silverman and Allan Cadgene have lined up a contractor, met with city officials and obtained a land disturbance permit to begin construction. According to city planner Nick Rogers, the owners “are shooting for a start date of sometime next week to begin the work on the parking lot.”

The West Main parking lot has been unpaved since owners Gabe Silverman and Allan Cadgene purchased the property in 1997.
According to city planner Nick Rogers, the owners “are shooting for a start date of sometime next week to begin the work on the parking lot.”

“Hurray!” says Peter Castiglione, co-owner of Maya Restaurant on West Main Street. “I’m excited. I look forward to seeing the dust disappear. It’s going to be a big improvement for West Main Street and Midtown.”

Castiglione has been at the forefront of the dust dust-up. Days before the developers met with city officials, Castiglione was ready to file a nuisance lawsuit against the developers. “What we will be suing them for is the condition of the parking lot,” he told C-VILLE at the time. “[The dust problem] needs to be abated. Otherwise it’s creating a public nuisance.” On a recent windy day, Castiglione says, the dust was out of control.

“Everything in a 50-yard radius from the parking lot is just filthy and disgusting,” he says. “The street is filthy, our restaurant is filthy.”

This was not the first time the restaurateur had threatened legal action. Last October, Castiglione, other area businesses and residents pressed the owners to resolve the dust problem. Silverman and Cadgene installed Durasoil, a synthetic and environmentally safe substance that can be sprayed directly onto the surface of the lot and allows for immediate use.

Castiglione says the first Durasoil treatment “was effective for maybe a couple of weeks.”

“It has been three months now,” says Castiglione. “The dust problem is back with a vengeance.”

In November, Silverman told C-VILLE that the paving contract was ready to be put out to bid. “I would hope that it happens in the next month or so,” he said. Silverman refused to comment for this story.

Rogers says the lot owners hired Digs, Inc., a local construction company, to work on the parking lot. “They told us that they believe it will take between 60 and 90 days to complete the work,” he says. “They will be working with our staff during the construction” with regards to inspections.

Lot improvements include paving, landscaping, a new storm water management feature, a rain garden located in the center island, and a controlled entrance on 7th Street.

Categories
News

Biscuit Run credits spur Assembly action

The legacy of Biscuit Run continues to reverberate in this session of the General Assembly, where two bills head towards passage, each tackling the implications of the state’s hasty acquisition of the 1,200-acre former development for a future state park.

After the Virginia Department of Transportation appraised the 1,200-acre Biscuit Run tract at $12 million, former investors Forest Lodge LLC submitted a competing appraisal that valued the property at $87.7 million. Forest Lodge is appealing its $11.7 million in land preservation tax credits.

Outraged by the deal, State Senator Creigh Deeds has championed reform of the land preservation tax credit program. Initially, Deeds says he was fine with the state’s decision to buy the Biscuit Run property for $9.8 million. But when he got wind that the investment group, Forest Lodge LLC, submitted an appraisal claiming the property was worth $87.7 million, “it was just something that infuriated me.”

Had the state tax department honored that appraisal, the private investors would have received $31.2 million in land preservation tax credits, on top of the $9.8 million in cash, for a property the Virginia Department of Transportation had appraised at a scant $12 million. Forest Lodge LLC would have received $41 million total for a property bought at the height of the real estate market in 2006 for $46 million.

“It called into question the entire credibility of the program,” says Deeds. It’s a program Deeds feels responsible for: As a state delegate, he carried the legislation that created the land preservation tax credit program in 1999 and he calls it “one of the most important things I’ve ever done.”

After review, the tax department reduced Biscuit Run’s fair market value to $39 million and issued Forest Lodge LLC $11.7 million in tax credits. The investors have appealed that ruling, but assuming the tax department’s decision stands, Deeds says he thinks the appropriate result was ultimately reached.

Still, to help restore credibility to the program, Deeds introduced Senate Bill 1232, which creates a process for the tax department to conduct additional appraisals if warranted. After the usual tinkering, the bill passed the Senate. Last week, a similar version passed the House, meaning it will likely become law.

“We think that’s a good thing,” says Rex Linville, who handles local land conservation for the nonprofit Piedmont Environmental Council. In his view, the changes won’t encumber the process for most people making land donations. “It’s a kind of low-cost way of trying to put more accountability in the program.”

Deeds initially toyed with forcing public disclosure of land preservation tax credits, but reconsidered.

“If you’re going to disclose one tax credit, shouldn’t you disclose them all?” he says. “It was too much to think about.”

A bill introduced by Delegate Watkins Abbitt, whose district includes southern Albemarle, tackles a different Biscuit Run issue—the state park’s “donut hole,” a 36-acre tract in the middle owned by Elizabeth Breeden and several LLCs she manages. House Bill 2167 allows the state to exchange that tract for other land, either in the state park or nearby. It has passed both House and Senate.

The swapped land will be of the same value, but not necessarily 36 acres. Breeden’s land has numerous development rights, but if she takes other Biscuit Run land, she won’t have any unless she goes through a judicial proceeding. The state could also buy land “in proximity” to trade with her.

Categories
Living

Rocking the rules away

Nobody’s been rocking Charlottesville as long as the party band leader Bennie Dodd. So when Bennie Dodd raises his hand at a meeting about Charlottesville music, you listen. “I remember years ago, back in 1976. The Mall didn’t even have anybody,” said Dodd. “We could play out of Stacy’s Music, and you wouldn’t even see anybody.”

At a meeting last week at CitySpace, Director of Neighborhood Development Services Jim Tolbert struck a compromise with the local music community to make hosting music by-right for businesses—potentially doing away with the expensive process of applying for a special usepermit. But not so fast: The plan goes before the Planning Commission March 8, and City Council in April.

In the intervening 25 years, zoning code has struggled to keep up with where music is played, even as music in those places has became a part of local identity for musicians like Dodd. That rift set the stage for a CitySpace discussion last week, where the city’s lead planner outlined a proposal that would make hosting music by right for local businesses. In short, most businesses that have been hosting music may be able to keep hosting, no special use permit necessary.

That doesn’t mean Director of Neighborhood Development Services Jim Tolbert is talking about a free-for-all. It’s just that in meetings over the past month, representatives from the local music community convinced him that, given existing laws that regulate capacity, alcohol and noise, there may be no need for another layer of confusing rules.

As the law stands, many businesses that host music must apply for a special use permit—the application fee alone costs $1,500. (Four businesses currently hold such permits: The Jefferson Theater, The Southern, The Paramount and Club 216.) Bailee Elizabeth, a local musician who helped start a blog to track changes to music laws on the city level, said she thought the city should refund those fees. Tolbert said the city would consider it.

Tolbert says the city tried to deal with excessive noise at Belmont restaurant Bel Rio without hurting the music community. “It wasn’t that simple,” Tolbert said at a meeting last month at Random Row Books. “What we tried to do…is to say that those places where [music] is purely incidental to the meal are restaurants,” like Hamiltons’ and Aberdeen Barn. “Those places where you go to listen to the music, they’re not. They’re the restaurant/music halls.” But those definitions fall short when it comes to, say, C’ville Coffee, a restaurant that happens to unobtrusively host music three or four nights a week.

If the Planning Commission accepts the proposal next month, and City Council adopts it in April, it won’t matter. (Tolbert says that Belmont watering hole Beer Run, about which the city has received noise complaints, may be the only restaurant that will have to apply for a special use permit to host live music.)

But throw Belmont into the picture, and things get a little fuzzy. Adam Frazier owns The Local, which hosts the regular open mic C’ville Songwriters and regular Wednesday acts. But the 55dB noise restriction in that neighborhood is effectively as good as a music ban. He said that repeat noise violations at the erstwhile restaurant/night club Bel Rio were isolated to Bel Rio, and that Belmont restaurants are being unfairly punished for that restaurant’s indiscretions. “If we were offending our neighbors on a regular basis—I’m a neighbor myself—I’d shut it down,” he says. “It’s not good business practice.”

“You’ve got a law that now, as it exists, if you’re being annoying to someone they can call,” says Frazier. “There’s already an ordinance that you can enforce if it is in fact a nuisance to a neighbor.”

But Tolbert encouraged the crowd to keep concerns about Belmont separate, offering to take up the two issues—what permits businesses need to host music, and the Belmont noise juggernaut—separately. “Ninety-nine percent of the changes we’re talking about making now, everyone is going to support. As soon as we throw Belmont in there, we’re going to run into a buzzsaw,” Tolbert said at the meeting.

But judging by the tone of the meeting, that crisis is headed straight for a buzzsaw­ that’ll send dB-meters into the red. But until we hit it again, remember the words of Dodd: “I’d like to see it where everybody can be happy, everybody can win, where we can have our music, and people in areas like Belmont can sleep at night.”

Categories
Arts

Unknown; PG-13, 109 min; Regal Seminole Square 4

In Berlin on business, an American man arrives at his hotel only to discover that he’s left an important briefcase at the airport. Without even telling his wife, he summons a taxi and hurries away. Won’t he be sorry. The taxi plunges off a bridge and the man wakes up in a hospital four days later, without his precious briefcase. And for that matter, without his wife, who no longer recognizes him and has apparently let another man take over his identity.

In Unknown, Liam Neeson plays Dr. Martin Harris, who flies to Berlin for a biotechnology conference and ends up losing his wife and identity. Typical!

These things usually have a perfectly implausible explanation, often having to do with deadly espionage. Anyway, being Liam Neeson, the man doesn’t take it lying down. Well, O.K., there’s this one scene where he’s been sedated and strapped onto a gurney by a medical professional who obviously could give a hoot about the Hippocratic Oath. But after that our man is up and about, determined to get to the bottom of his dilemma.

Let it be said that given a wife played by January Jones, of “Mad Men,” with her usual vacancy, and a taxi driver played by Diane Kruger, with just a tad more élan (not much is required), he might have considered taking advantage of his situation. Other involved persons include Aidan Quinn as the apparent impostor, Bruno Ganz as a seasoned ex-Stasi investigator, and Frank Langella as a mysterious acquaintance from back in the U.S.

It’s almost touching—but not quite—to find Neeson grappling with identity theft. Remember in Schindler’s List when he regretted not having done more to help? Remember in Taken when he killed more people (without regret) than most Nazis ever did? Remember in Clash of the Titans when he had a big beard and phosphorescent armor and was Zeus? Good, because there is not much to remember in Unknown.

Of course, there is the matter of his honor. Possibly. The movie isn’t sure. It’s distracted. It has a rickety twist to protect. Judging by the steely gray European atmosphere, the ominous wrong-identity plot, and the peppering of skeletally pretty blonde actresses, Unknown aspires to be an old-fashioned thriller like they used to make back when there was an East Germany.

Its denouement, however, would seem to result from a quick study of 1980s action movies (a study of 1980s Roman Polanski movies might have been more useful). It also has a few colorful, choppy flashbacks, put in for effect and for explanation. The writers are Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell, adapting Didier Van Cauwelaert’s novel Out of My Head, and the director is Jaume Collet-Sera, whose previous forgettable wintry thriller with a twist was 2009’s Orphan. Editor Tim Alverson seems to have cut every scene as if trying first to conceal and then to apologize for what it contains.

This much can be revealed: The American man’s reason for being in Berlin was a biotechnology conference; the espionage is agricultural. More than once, someone explains that what’s really at stake here is “a new strain of corn.” Indeed.

Categories
Living

Breakfast of champions

You don’t have to be an alcoholic to enjoy an extra kick in the pants in the morning. Whether you’re taking a hair of the dog after a debaucherous night, or simply taking the edge off a Tuesday morning, having an adult beverage before noon is perfectly acceptable in the Working Pour rulebook.

 

But, as do most things that provide guiltless pleasure, drinking at breakfast happens across the pond more than it does here (at least the kind that doesn’t involve a brown paper sack). Our standard brunch drinks, like Mimosas and Bloody Marys, have escaped the evil eye of judgment, but are also only offered regularly on Sundays after church, on Mother’s Day or some other occasion with built-in restraint. Should we continue to consume like weekend warriors, or take notes on everyday moderation from countries with merrier breakfast traditions?

In the United Kingdom, a pint often accompanies a “proper” fry-up (eggs, bacon, potatoes, tomatoes, baked beans and toast). With a breakfast this hearty, the digestive quality of a lightly carbonated, fermented beer is almost necessary. (Never mind that the custom began with Irish potato farmers fueling up for a long day in the fields, rather than the inertia that is likely to follow with partakers today.)

In southern France, home of the country’s longest-living citizens, breakfast may include orange juice with Cognac in it or a glass of anise-flavored Pastis over ice. In Burgundy, eggs are often poached in Beaujolais, and what pairs better with that than a glass of the same?

In Italy, a country whose zeal for life is as coveted as its cuisine, morning shots of es-presso are commonly spiked with Sambuca or grappa. Or, a fluteful of Moscato d’Asti —lightly fizzy, low in alcohol and fruity enough to stand in for fresh fruit—makes for a delectable start to a dolce vita day.

The majority of us openly indulge our merciless caffeine addictions every morning, so why feel shame from an occasional spirituous breakfast? It certainly makes waking up on the right side of the bed a whole lot easier. And, as Confucius said, “Somewhere in the world, the sun is over the yardarm.”—Megan Headley

Breakfast club

Want to drink in the morning, but don’t want to do it alone? Here are a few of the places in our fine town willing to serve up a guilt-free, weekday drink well before noon.
Beer Run (156 Carlton Rd. #203, 984-2337)
Blue Moon Diner (512 W. Main St., 980-6666)
Cavalier Diner (1403 Emmet St., 977-1619)
Riverside Lunch (1429 Hazel St., 971-3546)
The Tavern (1140 Emmet St., 295-0404)
Tip Top Restaurant (1420 Richmond Rd., 244-3424)
The Villa Diner (129 Emmet St., 296-9977)

Like a Rock

As sincerely as we strive to understand such viticultural truths as the “effects of canopy light environment on powdery mildew,” your hard-drinking, er, hard-working correspondents at The Working Pour usually hit the Virginia Vineyards Association technical meeting and trade show for more general industry updates. That’s why we were on hand when a couple hundred grape growers convened last Friday at the Omni.

And the news, like the unusually springy day, was sunny. To wit, October Virginia Wine Month is a success! The state’s wine marketing board, invigorated by a newly fattened promotional budget exceeding $885,000, pushed the drink-local movement heavily last fall. The results: Sales of Virginia wine increased by close to 15 percent in October compared to the same month in 2009. And why not? We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: There are some great Virginia vintages to enjoy (we’re looking at you, Chester Gap Cellars Viognier, among others).

Virginia First Lady Maureen McDonnell joined the meeting to present the Grower of the Year award to outgoing Rock Stephens, who’s busy chairing the Virginia Wine Board when he’s not tending 10 acres on the eastern shore. Salut!—Cathy Harding

Winespeak 101

Alcohol content (n.): The amount of alcohol present in wine, normally expressed as percentage by volume (“% vol.” on the label). A wine at 12 percent vol. therefore contains 120ml of alcohol per liter of wine. Most table wines fall between 9 percent and 15 percent.

Categories
Arts

Checking in with Jamal Millner

What are you working on right now?
Well, I have a project with Hillary Fox, who is a local singer. We play soul and rock and country-type things, and we’ve been working on getting a repertoire with that. Otherwise, I’m always working on my own music. I have a strange project coming up with Mike Taylor and Mark Graham. It’ll be jazzy—we’ll play the occasional chord that has more than three notes in it—but it’s not jazz.

Local guitarist Jamal Millner has played or played with a long list of noted musicians: R.L. Burnside, Vusi Mahlasela, Buddy Guy, Ali Farka Toure and the Dave Matthews Band.

Tell us about your day job.
My day job is teaching at Piedmont. I teach guitar and I’ve got other classes there as well. I’m also doing mastering and mixing for individuals and shows. I’ve been working with a radio show called “BackStory with the American History Guys,” which is at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. I have a few other things that aren’t music, but most of my other clients are musicians.

What is your first artistic memory from childhood?
My first gig. I had a little kid guitar and my parents used to go to lots of shows. Even if they didn’t want a musician, they would have gotten one. I saw Taj Mahal when I was about 4 and I went up and got on stage with him and played my plastic guitar. Many years later, I had some sort of rapport with these Appalachian musicians who were around where we lived at that time, some of the last African American people there who played Appalachian music, so I played banjo as a kid. I played in a film with Taj Mahal called Banjo Ben, but it’s out of print now.

Tell us about a piece of art that you wish were in your private collection.
I went to the Picasso museum in Paris and they had all kinds of really cool things, but I’d like any of his guitars. He had hundreds of them. Well, maybe they’re not ones you could actually play. I mean, the only other thing he painted or sculpted more of than chicks and guitars were bulls.

If you could have dinner with any person, living or dead, who would it be and why?
I’d like to meet Johann Sebastian Bach. He has to be one of the greatest musicians and artists of the whole of human expression, but he was also a regular guy who had to watch his kids and play crappy gigs and work at churches where people didn’t appreciate his work. He seemed to have a happy life, though. His music is Baroque, which is supposed to be old fashioned, but to me it sounds so modern. Timeless, I guess. To me it doesn’t sound like any particular period. Like disco.

Have you been inspired by any recent concert or exhibit?
At the Virginia Film Festival they had this documentary about the Freedom Riders, and I took my kids to see it, who are from the end of the 20th century. Even knowing about what went on, I wasn’t familiar with the amount of brutality that those people had to deal with. It didn’t make it grotesque, but it really conveyed the level of danger, and the courage those people had. Maybe we should take better advantage of the things they battled to get.

Locally, who would you like to collaborate with?
There are so many super-talented people around. I would like to collaborate with a number of other different artists who aren’t musicians, like visual artists or animators, people who could make installations. I could easily work with Rob Tarbell, because I walk by him every day. He makes art with smoke.

What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?
Given the current situation, discover some very easy, clean way to generate lots of power, or a way to stop using a whole bunch of it. There’s no way for my art form to be green right now, so if I could figure out a way of doing that I’d like to. We can’t all be in U2, making enough to afford thousands of solar panels. It’d be hard to do that as an acoustic musician.

Categories
News

The Trump Card

Until business colossus and “The Apprentice” star Donald Trump cuts checks for Patricia Kluge’s foreclosed properties—the 45-room Albemarle House mansion, the unrealized luxury real estate development Vineyard Estates and the 900-acre Kluge Estate Winery & Vineyard—the three parcels belong to three separate banks, which hold combined liens totaling $65 million. However, sources close to negotiations say The Donald could move quickly to purchase all three properties from the banks—and could potentially keep Kluge and husband William Moses involved in winery operations.

Albemarle House

At a foreclosure auction last Wednesday, local attorney Steve Blaine and Washington, D.C.-based business advisor Les Goldman cast a few bids on Trump’s behalf for Albemarle House, former residence of Kluge and Moses and subject of a $22.8 million Bank of America lien. Blaine, who described Kluge, Moses and Trump as “social acquaintances,” said a deal for the properties “could happen readily, if there’s a deal to be had.”

Trump has also been in touch with Farm Credit of the Virginias, which holds a $34.8 million lien on the Kluge Estate Winery & Vineyard and bought the property back for $19 million at a December foreclosure auction. William Shmidheiser III, an attorney representing Farm Credit, says he spoke with Trump on several occasions and Trump’s questions “indicate serious interest” in the properties.

“Farm Credit would love to sell the former Kluge real estate to him or to anyone—at a price,” says Shmidheiser. The question, according to Shmidheiser, is whether Trump and the banks can agree on price points. In the case of the Kluge Estate Winery, Shmidheiser says Farm Credit is willing to sell the property and business—“the wine, equipment and real estate”—for $20 million.

On Wednesday, Blaine and Goldman cast bids between $2 million and $3.6 million before Bank of America bought Albemarle House back with a $15.26 million bid. The pair previously made a $1 million opening bid at a Vineyard Estates foreclosure auction in January; locally based lienholder Sonabank purchased the property for $4.9 million.

During the last two decades, Trump placed multiple hotels and casinos into bankruptcy protection and staved off personal bankruptcy by reducing a reported $900 million in personally guaranteed debt. The Trump Organization’s real estate portfolio includes the private Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, and The Estates at Trump National, a collection of multi-million-dollar homes near Los Angeles—some sold, some still available, according to the development’s website.

Asked whether Trump, Kluge and Moses were coordinating an effort to preserve the winery, Albemarle House and Vineyard Estates, Goldman told C-VILLE there was a “potentially cooperative effort,” but emphasized that no such effort is absolute or final at this time. However, he added, cooperation among Kluge, Moses and Trump “could provide [Kluge and Moses] with the opportunity to continue to be involved with a big part of their life’s work.”

“And that could be a way to address the problems that have developed as a result of the recession and having overbuilt this facility,” said Goldman. “It’s unfortunate, but maybe some aspect of it could be saved in somebody else’s hands, and they could still be some part of it.”

Another purchaser isn’t entirely out of the question. “There isn’t a day since November 15 that I haven’t talked to somebody that expresses an interest in the Kluge Estate Winery & Vineyard,” says Shmidheiser. In the case of Albemarle House, Trump reportedly holds a right of first refusal on Albemarle House via an interest in a 200-plus acre tract of land currently held in the John W. Kluge, Jr. Trust. A separate seven-acre tract was moved into the Kluge, Jr. Trust in September, and is the subject of a fraudulent land transfer suit filed against Kluge and Moses by Farm Credit.

The Donald vs. The Kluge

Age
Trump: 64
Kluge: 62

What’s in a name?
Trump: Ex-wives keep his name
Kluge: She keeps her ex-husband’s name

Signature beverage
Trump: Trump Super Premium Vodka: "Quintuple-distilled in Holland"
Kluge: Chelsea Clinton sipped her winery’s Blanc de Blanc sparkling wine at her wedding rehearsal.

TV/film work
Trump: “The Apprentice"
Kluge: The Nine Ages of Nakedness

Press credentials
Trump: Referenced in 1990 People article: “Marriage with a Midas Touch”
Kluge: Ditto

Media confidence
Trump: “America is missing quality leadership. I am well acquainted with winning."
Kluge: “Put your notebook away. Just enjoy your dinner and drink my wine.”

 

 

Republican lawyer announces candidacy for Webb’s Senate seat

The interest in Jim Webb’s Senate seat is growing. Democrats haven’t named an official candidate yet (although names mentioned so far include former Governor Tim Kaine and former Congressman Tom Perriello). However, Republican David McCormick, a Hampton Roads lawyer, announced today that he intends to throw his hat into the race. McCormick, reports the Washington Post, chose to announce his candidacy on George Washington’s birthday.

According to his website, McCormick received a business degree from Baylor University, a Master’s degree in Business and Human Resources from Amber University and a law degree from Regent University Law School. (Notable alum: Republican Governor Bob McDonnell.) His website reports that he volunteered for several Republican campaigns and served on the Finance Committee and City Committee for the Republican Party of Virginia Beach.

Just like Republican contender George Allen, McCormick announced his candidacy with a video. "I plan to make a difference in Washington by four time-honored values," says McCormick. "Honesty, efficiency, accountability and thriftiness." (That’s "HEAT.") If elected, says McCormick, "I will bring the heat and turn up the heat in Washington." In addition to Allen, McCormick will campaign against Jamie Radtke, chairwoman for the Virginia Federation of Tea Party Patriots.
 

Post your thoughts below on the current candidates and who you think should join the race.