Month: August 2011

Kathy Galvin, Democratic candidate for City Council, thinks the tone of the local political debate has become divisive and its substance has over-emphasized a handful of hot-button issues.

“Our citizens want us to debate the issues, they want public input, but they also want us to get to work, make strategic decisions and get things done,” Galvin said in a press conference today at the Transit Center on the Downtown Mall. “But we have come to a low point, I believe, in our local discourse that sadly mirrors the rhetoric … and the paralysis at the federal level in Washington D.C.”

To Galvin, some candidates have adopted a “bunker mentality about a particular issue or set of issues.” Unsurprisingly, those issues are the construction of the Meadow Creek Parkway through McIntire Park and the controversial community water supply plan debate. (For the most recent updates on both projects, click here and here).

At a recent City Council Democratic candidates forum, the ‘Greener, Smarter, Stronger by Design’ candidate, threw her support toward the parkway and also endorsed the construction of a new, earthen dam as opposed to a dredge-only approach for the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir.

More after the photo. 

Democratic candidate Kathy Galvin and her supporters on the Downtown Mall. Chiara Canzi photo.

Candidates Colette Blount and Dede Smith were the sole opponents of the Meadow Creek Parkway. Blount and Smith also supported a dredge-only approach, along with Brevy Cannon and James Halfaday. Just like Galvin, Incumbert Satyendra Huja and local developer Paul Beyer support the construction of a new dam. (For more on the forum, click here).

By being so “single-issue oriented,” candidates are missing an opportunity to discuss other more important issues in the city, says Galvin, which range from poverty to affordable housing to the construction of a new school for middle schoolers to the improvement of public transportation.

Although Galvin was surrounded by Democratic heavy-hitters–– among them former Charlottesville mayor Kay Slaughter–– Stratton Salidis, a member of the Coalition to Preserve McIntire Park and vocal opponent of the parkway and of a new dam, came to the event to protest Galvin’s stance on both issues.

“I am here because it’s easy to say green, but I don’t think that voting for a road through a school and a park is not a very green thing to do,” he told C-VILLE.


“This notion that somehow talking about these issues is distracting from meeting these more important social justice issues, well, I think that these are very important social justice issues and the money that is going towards these projects could go to these other needs.”

Local advocate Stratton Salidis opposes the construction of an earthen dam at Ragged Mountain and the construction of the Meadow Creek Parkway. 
"To say that you are for building for people rather than cars and to support a road through a central park, I think it’s a major discrepancy," he says. Chiara Canzi photo.
 

The ABA Journal chose John Grisham’s The Confession as winner of the inaugural Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, an award founded to recognize how awesome Lee makes lawyers look in her classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird.

"The prize will be awarded annually to the published book-length work of fiction that best exemplifies the role of lawyers in society," says a release. The Confession, the local author’s 22nd novel, is a fast-paced legal thriller about a man guilty of murdering a popular cheerleader, who counts his lucky stars while the wrong guy gets sent to death row.

After learning that he’ll get struck down by an inoperable brain tumor, the guilty man sets about trying to convince lawyers, judges and politicians that they’re about to put an innocent man to death.

Just another day at the office for America’s lawyers.

Grisham receives the spoils—which include a copy of TKaM signed by the reclusive Lee—at the The National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on September 22.

"Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law" was ignored.

 What’s your favorite legal thriller?

I’ve been browsing a book today by the name of How to Live Well Without Owning a Car, kindly lent to me by a person I interviewed. She, of course, lives car-free. I, of course, do not. I’ve been feeling a bit stupid while reading paragraphs like the following:

"Let’s consider what would happen if you invested your money, instead of spending it on a car…That AAA average annual cost to own a car of $8,410 invested at an 8 percent annual return over thirty years would be worth $1,043,251. So if you adopt a car-free lifestyle over the long term, quite possibly you could become a millionaire."

Egad! Is that all it would take?

The book includes a handy worksheet for calculating the cost of owning your car. As the author is at pains to point out, your car payment is only one facet of this expense. Also on the worksheet: parking meters, oil changes, tickets for expired tags, and tolls. No big surprises there.

But get this–you also have to account for the costs of arcane stuff like jumper cables, car iPod adapters, satellite radio subscriptions, clothes you ruined while changing a tire, and rock salt for your driveway! Among other things.

At least I can say that we do not spend our money on air fresheners, in-car organizers or license plate frames. We’re probably saving at least $20 a year giving up that stuff.