Month: March 2011

Clean air comes first

Air pollution is nasty business. A friend who lives in Salt Lake City–where smog often gets trapped in the big valley where most of the urban area lies (a la Los Angeles)–says that cleaner air is the top reason she would consider leaving.On certain days there, residents are advised to stay indoors because of elevated ozone levels.

Charlottesville Tomorrow has a piece about how local planners are confronting the possibility of tighter federal scrutiny when new transportation projects hit the drawing board. If our air is found to be dirty enough, we’ll be subject to rules that say any new project has to actually improve air quality. This will, of course, slow down planning (would the Meadow Creek Parkway then take 60 years to build?). 

Such a status, for a locality, is called "non-attainment," a label our area may apparently earn within two years. Other non-attainment areas in Virginia currently are Richmond, Hampton Roads, Fredericksburg and the NoVa suburbs. Is anyone else sobered to learn how close we are to joining this club?

Doubtless the business community here will be unhappy at the prospect of further red tape. But this is the Clean Air Act, people–it’s kind of like the Smithsonian of environmental law. You gotta respect it. I, for one, will gladly wait longer for new roads if it meanscleaner air to breathe. I don’t want to be pushed to the brink of leaving home just for a decent lungful of oxygen. And I happen to believe that new roads eventually attract new traffic anyway.

McDonnell asks General Assembly to approve Rotunda renovation funds

Along with fully funding state police overtime, calling for increased state contributions and a chunk of General Fund change to support the Virginia Retirement System and, oh, $43.8 million in total budget amendments, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell has another request: fund the Rotunda repairs. At the end of February, the General Assembly cut a proposed $2.6 million in state funds (which would leverage another $2 million in private donations) to patch the UVA Rotunda’s leaky roof. The building needs an estimated $50 million in repairs.

McDonnell’s proposed amendments would restore $2 million to the budget to renovate the Rotunda roof. The General Assembly reconvenes next week to further discuss McDonnell’s amendments.

UVA alum donates $5 million for new track and field facility

The UVA Athletics Department announced a $5 million pledge from alumna Amy Griffin. The donation allows the Virginia Athletics Foundation to proceed with the design and construction of a new track and field facility that is expected to cost nearly $14 million.

 

Although an additional $725,000 is needed before construction can begin, the athletics department hopes that crews will break ground on the track in June. So long as construction starts this summer, the facility should be ready in time for UVA to host the 2012 Atlantic Coast Conference’s Track and Field Championships next spring. The current conceptual design calls for lights, team locker rooms, a scoreboard, and seating for 1,500.

The UVA Track and Field program is one of the oldest in the nation and boasts several standout athletes on its 2011 roster. Last week, Anthony Kostelac was named ACC Men’s Indoor Track and Field Freshman of the Year after he finished the season undefeated in the 800 meter sprint. His teammate, sophomore Robby Andrews, was the 2010 NCAA champion in the 800 meters, and also earned the ACC Indoor Freshman of the Year title in 2010. On the women’s side, junior All-American Morgan Gay led Virginia’s distance medley relay team to a third-place finish at the 2011 NCAA Indoor Championships.

University benefactor and former Cavalier volleyball player Amy Griffin graduated from UVA in 1998. Griffin previously contributed $1 million to the UVA Volleyball program to assist the installation of sand volleyball courts on Nameless Field.

Charlottesville Pavilion may become the nTelos Wireless Pavilion

Will the Charlottesville Pavilion become the nTelos Wireless Pavilion?

"It is my pleasure to announce to you that we have secured a naming rights sponsorship offer from the nTelos Wireless Corporation for a 5-year term beginning with the 2011 concert season," reads a letter from Charlottesville Pavilion General Manager Kirby Hutto to the city’s Office of Economic Development.

"It is our hope to immediately rename our venue the nTelos Wireless Pavilion," reads the letter, dated March 24. Hutto was not immediately available for comment.

The Pavilion had scheduled a press conference for today, but it was postponed so that City Council could consider the change at its April 4 meeting. The Pavilion rescheduled a press conference for Tuesday, April 5, where it will also announce the performer for this year’s Free Clinic Benefit. 

According to the Council’s agenda, the city leased the land at the East end of the Downtown Mall to the Charlottesville Industrial Development Authority (now called the Charlottesville Economic Development Authority) in 2003. The authority, in turn, subleased the land to Charlottesville Pavilion, LLC, which serves as the venue’s operator.

That sublease stipulates that the operator can change the Pavilion’s name, provided that it doesn’t contain "lewd or pornographic terms" or the "name of a tobacco company." Charlottesville City Council must reach a decision within 30 days.

nTelos, a telecommunications company based in Waynesboro, also has a naming agreement with the nTelos Wireless Pavilion in Portsmouth, Virginia.

The Portsmouth venue’s logo.

Does it matter if venues bear corporate names?

Virginia Tech fined $55,000 for slow response to 2007 shooting

Four years after student Seung-hui Cho shot and killed 32 students and faculty members on the Virginia Tech campus before taking his own life, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) has fined the school $55,000 for not warning students in a timely manner. According to a letter from the DOE to Virginia Tech President Charles Steger, the school waited for more than two hours to notify students following the first shootings on campus.

The Associated Press reports that the fine is the greatest amount officials can impose on the university for a violation of the Clery Act, which requires institutions of higher education to disclose information about campus crimes and emergencies to students. All institutions that participate in federal financial aid programs for their students are subject to the legislature.

“While Virginia Tech’s violations warrant a fine far in excess of what is currently permissible under the statute, the Department’s fine authority is limited," Mary Gust, director of the panel that ultimately decided on the penalty, wrote in a letter to Virginia Tech.

The university, however, intends to appeal the fine.

“The only reason we want to appeal this is that it gives us the process to explain how a notice given on one campus can be OK if it’s this long, and a notice given on another campus is not OK if it’s this short a time period,” University spokesman Larry Hincker is quoted as saying. “As best we can tell, it’s whatever DOE decides after the fact.” Virginia Tech has until April 29 to file an appeal.

According to the article, Virginia Tech argues that the DOE did not specify what constituted a "timely" reponse to a campus emergency until after the 2007 shootings.

To read more about the Virginia Tech shootings, click here.

Categories
Living

Small Bites

Familiar territory

Second verse, same as the first? The new tenant in the former Rise Pizzaworks space is giving us déja vu. Slice, from the folks behind Vinny’s New York Pizza & Pasta, is bringing pie-by-the, er, slice back to Barracks Road.

Local pie fans still feel the sting from the loss of Rise, which closed in January after a menu revamp failed to drum up more business. Originally conceived as a custom slice spot, Rise switched to premade slices to make the ordering process more straightforward.

Slice will continue that same business model, but the similarities stop there. The new eatery will serve sandwiches, too. Plus, we hear they’ll offer a stuffed pizza. Stay tuned for more information.

Atlas open

It’s official: Pint-sized espresso bar Atlas Coffee is open for business. The owners of the Fontaine Avenue coffee spot began renovations to the former Jackson-Hewitt Tax Service space late last year and, after much construction and renovation, poured their first official cup last week.

The itty-bitty business, open Monday-Saturday from 6:30am-2pm, brews Shenandoah Joe coffee and offers locally made donuts and pastries. 

Categories
The Editor's Desk

Mailbag

In response to your March 8, 2011 article “Cry for Help,” we would like to correct the statement that the community’s Safe Sleep program provides mothers with car seats to hold infants while they rest. The Charlottesville/Albemarle Health Department offers two separate programs—the Child Safety Seat program and the Charlottesville Area Safe Sleep program. The safety seat program provides free car seats to families who qualify; parents/guardians attend a short class to learn the correct placement and use of the car seat. The Safe Sleep program is aimed at reducing the number of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) cases in our community through educational programs. Portable cribs are available through agency referrals to families who qualify by income and risk factors.

The Health Department does NOT recommend that infants be put to sleep in car seats. The safest place for infants to sleep is alone, on their back, in a crib, in a smoke-free environment, without soft bedding or toys of any kind. Please contact the Health Department (972-6200) for more information about either one of these programs.

Peggy Brown Paviour, MS, CHES
Thomas Jefferson Health District
Charlottesville

Just the facts, Dan

I recently read Dan Catalano’s article titled “Procedural hijinks in the General Assembly” [The Odd Dominion, March 8]. I then wondered if his job is to report the events in the General Assembly from an objective point of view or from his biased point of view. It was quite apparent that he feels that his job is the latter. He presented the Republican measure as an anti-abortion measure. One could have viewed this measure as a pro safety measure for those seeking abortions.

Something that bothered me in his article was that the “Republicans sneakily attached the controversial amendment” without substantiating his assertion. I assume that after the amendment was attached, there was an opportunity for all to read it prior to voting. If that was the case, then it was not sneakily attached. If Mr. Catalano is correct, and it was sneakily attached, then he should have backed up this claim, by explaining exactly what made it sneakily attached. Much of the problem with today’s reporting and discourse has to do with making statements, often made just because of one’s ideology, without evidence to support the statement. Dan Catalano is certainly guilty of making a statement, and then failing to back it up with factual evidence. Regarding the question “Should abortion clinics be regulated as hospitals,” hospitals are regulated. I would offer that abortion clinics should be regulated in a manner to provide the abortion clinic patient an environment that is as safe as if they went into a hospital for that service. If evidence was provided that could show that a person’s health was more at risk in an abortion clinic than it was in a hospital, then I would say that abortion clinics should be regulated as hospitals. The patient’s safety and health should be the most important factor for consideration.

John Pedersen
Fluvanna County

Corrections

Due to reporting errors, last week’s Feedback column misidentified the sponsor of Mike Bisceglia’s Runcast. It is Ragged Mountain Running Shop. In the same column, Bisceglia’s co-host for the podcast “Outside the Box with Mike and Leon” was also misidentified. He is Leon Oliver. C-VILLE regrets these errors.

Categories
Living

Visit from a fair-weathered wine

When I first tasted “Les Rials,” the implausibly delightful and inexpensive white sipper that jaunts over from the southwest of France each spring and lasts only as long as our pool passes and suntans, I wondered why I hadn’t heard of it before. It turns out that very little is known about the history of this wine. So I went sniffing for more information. After all, I love any wine that gives me a justifiable reason to drink a lot of it with a sense of urgency.

Usher in sweet summertime with a medium-bodied “Les Rials,” like this Domaine de la Chanade from Market Street Wineshop.

“Les Rials” (pronounced “lay ree-all”) is produced in the red wine-dominated Côtes du Tarn, nestled amidst the Pyrenees in Gaillac, France’s oldest wine-producing region. Grape-growing in this farming region replete with vineyards, orchards and gardens dates back to the Romans in 125 BC, but it was the Benedictine monks of the Abbey of Saint-Michel who began regular cultivation of the vines in 972 A.D.

The grape that makes “Les Rials” is a 1,000-year-old white wine varietal called Loin de L’Oeil (Len de L’Ehl in local dialect), which means “far from the eye.” The name comes from the grape bunch’s long stalk, which situates it near the front of the branch and thus far from the bud (or “eye”) of the branch and the bunch. Most likely blended into the sweet whites popular in England, Flanders and Holland in the 17th and 18th centuries, Loin de L’Oeil became 30 percent of the blended Gaillac whites by the 19th century. It wasn’t until the past 20 years that growing improvements resulted in a wine good enough for the grape to stand alone. Realizing that Loin de L’Oeil’s biggest flaws (over-production, early ripening and tendency to rot easily) could be used in their favor, winemakers began clipping the bunches and leaving them on the vine just through the region’s Indian summer, concentrating the normally weeks-long process of noble rot (see Winespeak 101) into just a matter of days.

The resulting wine is medium-bodied, off dry and bursting with every flavor from orange to passion fruit, but with the torched sugar, creamy finish of crème brulée. Incredibly versatile, “Les Rials” helped us celebrate the inaugural use of the BBQ with hot dogs, sweet potato fries and Asian cole slaw. Another night, it got along famously with tortilla chips and spicy guacamole. I already have visions of grilled asparagus, stuffed zucchini blossoms and heirloom tomatoes dancing in my head. I realize that I need to pace myself though, lest I leave none for my faithful followers. Domaine de la Chanade’s “Les Rials” 2010 is available at Market Street Wineshop, Orzo Kitchen and Winebar and Whole Foods for $9.99 a bottle. If it’s gone when you get there, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Bottle smart

Richard Hewitt

Always wanted to learn about wine, but can’t get past the first page of your Oxford Companion to Wine? Keswick Hall sommelier Richard Hewitt will offer the first of a four-part wine appreciation course on Saturday, April 9. Join him at 10am for an in-depth tasting of blended wines from around the world. In the afternoon, watch blending in action at Virginia Wineworks and then try your hand at a custom blend using local grapes. The course, at $175 per person plus tax, includes a light lunch. Call 979-3440 for reservations.

If you can’t make the full-day course, remember that every Thursday from 4 to 5pm at the Fossett’s bar, Hewitt hosts a tasting of Virginia wines. For $10, you get the view, the wine and the facts.

Winespeak 101

Noble rot (n.): a form of fungus (Botrytis) that grows under wet conditions on ripe wine grapes. If conditions stay wet, the fungus destroys the grapes; dry conditions, on the other hand, partially raisin-ate the grapes, introducing a welcome infection which results in very sweet, concentrated wines.

Categories
Arts

Checking in with Miki Liszt

What are you working on right now?
I’m working on new material for a piece that I’m going to do to the Persian drumming of Djamshid Chemirani. Over the past 10 years or so I’ve been exploring my roots in Iran. I did a solo called “Under the Veil” and then developed that into a group piece. This is more a high-energy movement piece using Persian music.

Miki Liszt says she founded her dance company before there was any local institution that supported dance. “But now, happily, there is a dance minor at the University of Virginia and there are many small dance companies in the area, from ballet to jazz—and a couple of contemporary dance companies.”

Tell us about your day job.
My day job is running Miki Liszt Dance Company, which is based at McGuffey Arts Center. I started the company about 26 years ago to support dance and dancers in the area, but in particular to support contemporary dancers. Part of that support falls into programs, such as the First Friday Dance Series at McGuffey, which supports independent choreographers and dance companies. Then there’s the component of supporting young dancers, which is reflected in the Community Children’s Dance Festival, which will be in its 26th year next year.

What is your first artistic memory from childhood?
I was tiny, very young, and I was taken to see the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado and it was Alexander Danilova and Igor Youskevitch performing works from Swan Lake, which I remember vividly today. It was an amazing experience.

Tell us about a piece of art that you wish were in your private collection.
Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring.” I’m a big fan of the Dutch Masters. I have a very broad interest in art; I love to go to art museums and some I particularly enjoy because of their architecture. We spent a couple of summers in Holland and so I would take our children to the museums quite a bit.

How do you prepare for work?
Much of my time I spend training technically. From the outside, it’s hard to imagine how much time you need to spend to stay trained so you can execute whatever you want to do on stage. I train in a number of different ways. I do Bikram yoga, and I take as many dance classes as I can in as many styles as possible. And then I have my quiet time working on my own material and then, of course, there’s the rehearsal time that’s spent with other people: collaborators, dancers. That pretty much fills up the day.

What is a concert, exhibit or show that has recently inspired you?
We were recently in Paris and went to the Théâtre National de Chaillot, where we saw a performance of Orphée, which is French for Orpheus, by co-choreographers Dominique Hervieu and José Montalco. It was the most seriously thoughtful and challenging, physically and intellectually, because they juxtaposed artificial and physical limitation by, for instance, putting a woman on point shoes next to a man who had pogo sticks under each of his feet next to an amputee on crutches. It was the most powerful use of physical limitations I’ve ever witnessed. There are clips of it on YouTube, I think.

Favorite artist outside your medium?
Can I name my kid? He is absolutely my favorite artist outside of my medium. His name is Greg Liszt and he’s in a band called The Deadly Gentlemen and also with Crooked Still. He’s a banjo player, and just an outstanding composer, performer, musician, producer, poet and songwriter. He’s ferociously willing to take risks on stage and in the music he writes, and I really admire him for that. He performed with Bruce Springsteen.

What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?
I have to say, the fear of failure has never stopped me in the past. I mean, being in contemporary dance in Central Virginia for 26 years?  

Categories
Arts

The stuff of legend

“Body of Proof”

Tuesday 10pm, ABC
Dana Delaney is much missed on “Desperate Housewives,” but you can’t blame the magnetic ginger for wanting a show of her own. In this new procedural (I know, I know…) she plays Megan Hunt, a hotshot neurosurgeon who becomes a medical examiner after a car accident pushes her out of the OR. Solving crimes is admirable, but I’d like to point out that Marvel Comics character Dr. Stephen Strange became the master of the mystical arts after going through pretty much the exact same origin set-up, so Megan might be setting her sights a little low. But medical examiners are usually pretty badass on the “Law & Order” shows, and Delaney is just generally awesome, so this could be good. The show also stars hot Aussie Peter Dunlop as a cop-turned-ME and Jeri Ryan, who somehow continues to get regular acting work despite being awful at it.

“Taxidermy USA”

Thursday 10pm, Discovery
The zeitgeist works in mysterious ways. Ever notice how multiple movies or TV shows with nearly identical premises pop up at the exact same time? Like Deep Impact and Armageddon, the comets-will-destroy-us-all flicks of 1998? There are other examples, but for now, prepare for the age of the taxidermy reality series. Yep, that’s right, shows that go into the ins and outs of stuffing dead animals. In addition to this special, which focuses on three families of taxidermists that stuff everything from African lions to black bears to house cats, there’s another show coming up on the History Channel in a few weeks that’s devoted solely to taxidermists in Alaska. Dude, people are weird.

“The Borgias”

Sunday 9pm, Showtime
Now that “The Tudors” has wrapped up all of its wife-swapping costume drama, Showtime has moved on to another of history’s most infamous families. “The Borgias” tells the (gloriously embellished) story of the family of the same name, Spanish outcasts who clawed their way to the height of power in Renaissance Italy. Award-nominated actor and noted scenery-chewer Jeremy Irons plays Rodrigo Borgia, the patriarch who manipulated himself into the papacy despite the fact that he lied, cheated, whored, and worse. His equally ambitious and morally ambiguous kids were no prizes either; a pair of warring mistresses just adds to the drama, and today the dynasty is renowned for its corruption and ruthlessness. In other words, this should be lots of fun.