Month: April 2011

One year ago this week, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli launched an investigation to determine whether former UVA climate scientist Michael Mann violated the state’s Fraud Against Taxpayers Act. Mann, who received $485,000 via five federal and state grants for his research, is a popular target for global warming skeptics, who don’t like his temperature modelling.

Albemarle County Circuit Court Judge Paul Peatross ultimately ruled that the Attorney General failed to adequately show fraud—a ruling Cuccinelli successfully appealed to the state Supreme Court. Brian Gottstein, Cuccinelli’s communications director, says the court has not set a date, and at press time awaited UVA’s response brief, due by Monday, April 25.

However, in the heat of the moment, the American Tradition Institute (ATI) and Republican State Delegate Bob Marshall launched a nearly identical pursuit for the same items. In a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, ATI and Marshall requested all documents funded by Mann’s grants, along with the scientist’s correspondence with 39 colleagues and his computer programs and algorithms.

So, UVA complied. On March 16, the University began to cull Mann’s research and correspondence from a backup computer server—a massive stash of documents (see below). ATI paid the school $2,000 for an initial 80 hours of research; when, two weeks ago, UVA concluded its first round of review, it halted work and ATI agreed to overnight another payment.

ATI Litigation Director Christopher Horner says his group still awaits the first round of documents from UVA. Judging by the pace and the price of UVA’s research, ATI may be in for a long wait.

Counting UVA’s climate case

Total documents on UVA backup server: 34,062
Estimated time to review all
documents: 340 hours
Estimated cost of review ($25/hour): $8,500
“Potentially responsive” documents identified: 8,000
“Potentially responsive” documents reviewed: 1,000
Days elapsed since UVA began review: 41
Law students working on FOIA request: 3 

Circuit Court Judge Cheryl Higgins dismissed a lawsuit filed against City Council by the Charlottesville Area Fitness Club Operators Association (CAFCOA) last week. While the ruling could clear the way for a long-awaited (and much contested) YMCA in McIntire Park, a pair of appeals could inhibit financing for the $15 million fitness facility.

In November, Higgins threw out a similar suit brought by CAFCOA against Albemarle County. Both suits allege that local governments violated the Virginia Public Procurement Act and failed to seek competing bids for a fitness facility in the city’s largest public park. Albemarle County supervisors previously committed $2.03 million in funds to the YMCA, while Charlottesville councilors committed $1.25 million.

CAFCOA—whose members include ACAC, Gold’s Gym and Total Performance Sports and Fitness—has already filed an appeal in the Albemarle County case, and plans to do the same with the city. The group’s lawyer, Edward Lowry of MichieHamlett, said his clients were “obviously disappointed in both rulings, because we felt…that an open bidding process serves the residents of the county and the city best, because it allows both profits and nonprofits to compete.”

Filed last May, CAFCOA’s suit alleged that an advertisement in an October 2007 issue of the Daily Progress barred them from the bidding process. The lease, according to the advertisement, “is for the purpose of developing and operating a non-profit fitness and recreational center of approximately 70,000 square feet for the benefit of citizens of the City of Charlottesville.” Ultimately, the YMCA was the only entity to submit a bid.

“I cannot find [that] the purpose was to ensure that the city would only receive one bid,” said Judge Higgins, who ruled that the Public Procurement Act did not apply. “That may have been the practical outcome.” Higgins also stated that she didn’t believe the city tried to manipulate the procurement system. Kurt Krueger, chairman of the Piedmont Family YMCA, said the bidding process was “very transparent and fully inclusive.”

The ruling was celebrated by YMCA supporters who gathered in front of City Hall.

“This court decision today is a major victory for children and families of Charlottesville and Albemarle County,” said Mayor Dave Norris. “And, in particular, it’s a major victory for those children and families…who cannot afford the private gym memberships that are available in this community.”

CAFCOA members, however, said in a statement that they “respectfully disagree” with Higgins’ decision.

Krueger, who is also a partner at law firm McGuire Woods and has advised clients on the Public Procurement Act, tells C-VILLE that part of the financing for the facility is dependent upon the resolution of legal challenges.

“We have had discussions with a number of local banks who have expressed an interest in providing financing for us,” he says. “Each of those banks is concerned about the lawsuits and they are going to be concerned about the appeals.” Krueger adds that the YMCA board is considering a procedure that could expedite the appeals, but he remains tightlipped on the details.

The YMCA secured the ground lease for its McIntire Park facility in December 2007, at a rate of $1 per year for 40 years. Currently, drawings and designs for the facility are ready for bid, and the organization continues to raise funds privately. The lawsuits, says Krueger, “are the only things standing in the way of breaking ground and delivering this community the facility it desperately needs and richly deserves.”

Meanwhile, partnerships between the YMCA and local agencies are taking shape. Dr. M. Norman Oliver, director of the UVA Center on Health Disparities and a member of the YMCA board, says the YMCA has already had discussions with the UVA Emily Couric Clinical Cancer Center to offer rehabilitation programs for cancer survivors. “Everyone is on board and ready to go,” Oliver told C-VILLE. “We just need the facility.” 

Inside the crowded Long Beach Performing Arts Center, on a stage that hosted the likes of Microsoft founder Bill Gates and former U.S. military commander Stanley McChrystal during the preceding 48 hours, Albemarle County school teacher John Hunter interrupted his speech to take attendance.

“If Al Gore is here, I’m going to send my fourth graders from Agnor-Hurt and Venable elementary schools to see you,” said Hunter during TED2011, an annual conference featuring lectures from experts in the fields of technology, education, design and beyond. “Because they solved global warming in a week.”

Last year, filmmaker Chris Farina’s World Peace…and Other Fourth Grade Achievements premiered to a packed Paramount Theater. The film documents Hunter’s personal evolution as well as the longtime local teacher’s curious and inventive board game—a 4′ cube littered with pieces, governed by a lengthy global crisis dossier as well as the competing curiosities of his students.

“I allow them to go there and, through their own experience, learn in a bloodless way how not to do what they consider to be the wrong thing,” Hunter told a visibly rapt TED audience. “And they find out what is right their own way, their own selves.”

Hunter’s appearance at TED is a high water mark for both teacher and filmmaker. During the last year, Hunter and Farina traveled extensively to discuss the World Peace Game and film. While the TED conference landed the pair among other inventive figures—including Al Gore, who received a copy of the film—it also raises the question of where they will head next.

Farina, who said the film cost roughly $120,000 to make, says he would love to see World Peace broadcast nationally. “I would think by June 1, we should have a fixed commitment on that,” he tells C-VILLE by phone. Farina declined to name networks, but says, “We’ve been talking with a few different entities.” The film has already been broadcast internationally, in South Korea and Israel, and rumor has it that at least one major premium cable network is interested. For his next project, Farina says he would like to make a film about the Jefferson School, Charlottesville’s historic all-black school that is currently undergoing a multi-million-dollar renovation.

Following the March TED conference, attendees and presenters mingled at a picnic, where Hunter says he and Farina received loads of business cards—from would-be collaborators and developers, individuals who want to host the pair for a talk or work with them. (Hunter says he received multiple inquiries from programmers who want to develop a digital version of the World Peace Game.) The pair plans to travel for similar presentations at Google’s headquarters in California, the Aspen Institute and—frankly, the list goes on for some time.

However, Hunter says he “can’t afford to take a lot of time from the classroom.” And while he is thinking about the legacy of the World Peace game, and recently began the process of launching a nonprofit to help students develop tools “that decrease suffering and increase compassion through problem solving,” Hunter plans to remain at Agnor-Hurt.

“I’ll still play with them,” says Hunter, “if they’ll still play with me.”