Month: May 2013

Check c-ville.com daily and pick up a copy of the paper Tuesday to for the latest Charlottesville and Albemarle news briefs and stories. Here’s a quick look at some of what we’ve had an eye on for the past week.

Obenshain beats out Bell for AG nomination

Albemarle Republican Delegate Rob Bell won’t be running to take Ken Cuccinelli’s place as Virginia’s Attorney General in November, having lost the nomination to State Senator Mark Obenshain at the Republican Party’s convention in Richmond Saturday.

The 8,000 Virginia GOPers in attendance gave Obenshain 55 percent of their votes on the first ballot in their effort to select a candidate, according to press reports. Bell, a former Orange County prosecutor who has served in the Statehouse since 2002, had advertised his tough-on-crime chops in the runup to the nomination.

Obenshain, who hails from Harrisonburg, will join a Republican ticket headed by Cuccinelli, who officially became the party’s pick for governor over the weekend.

UVA giving campaign meets $3 billion goal

As its class of 2013 celebrated graduation weekend, UVA President Teresa Sullivan announced the University had met its lofty $3 billion goal in a 9-year-old giving campaign, according to a Daily Progress report.

The fundraising effort was one of the largest in the history of public education when it was initiated in 2004 under former president John Casteen, but like many capital campaigns initiated prior to the recession, it floundered when the economy took a nosedive in 2008. Inside Higher Ed reported in January 2012 that UVA’s campaign had become the first billion-plus effort to have its deadline extended without an increase in the total giving goal. But last year, Senior Vice President for Development and Public Affairs Bob Sweeney set a new spring goal for the close of the campaign. According to a UVA press release, donations from more than 220,000 individuals and corporations helped the University cross the finish line.

UVA has plans to launch a $5 billion bicentennial campaign in 2017, according to a financial report released earlier this year, and aims to double its philanthropic cash flow growth rate from 2 to 4 percent.

Barefoot launches local CBS TV show

Charlottesville radio show host Coy Barefoot has partnered with Charlottesville CBS 19 to launch a half-hour TV program with a focus on in-depth local news.

Barefoot is an author and the founder and host of the news and talk radio show “Charlottesville–Right Now!” on WINA, and has been partnering with Newsplex—home to local CBS, ABC, and Fox affiliates—since last year, when he created a weekly TV feature on Charlottesville and Albemarle history, according to a report in The Hook.

The new show, “Inside Charlottesville,” airs at 11:30am Sundays after “Face the Nation.” It’s not the only local news partnership announced this month. Online public affairs reporting website Charlottesville Tomorrow is launching a Kickstarter-funded education beat, and is partnering with The Hook and C-VILLE Weekly to publish school-focused stories in print.

Scottsville residents celebrate new and improved downtown

Scottsville’s town improvement project has been a decade in the making, and last Sunday, a ribbon-cutting ceremony and downtown celebration was held to commemorate its completion. According to NBC29, the improvements and additions include new street lights, signs, sidewalks, and trees downtown, and new bathrooms next to the farmers’ market pavilion.

The town-wide renovation also included converting an old jail building, across the street from the pavilion, into a new visitors’ center. The 10-year project cost almost $2 million, according to Albemarle County Supervisor Chris Dumler, and the second phase of the streetscape project was funded by the Virginia Department of Transportation.

Each week, the news team takes a look at upcoming meetings and events in Charlottesville and Albemarle we think you should know about. Consider it a look into our datebook, and be sure to share newsworthy happenings in the comments section.

• The Charlottesville City Council will hold a regular meeting at 7pm Monday, May 20 at City Hall. On the agenda is the second reading of a long-debated human rights ordinance, a public hearing on the adoption of the Comprehensive Plan, an ordinance and resolution on the Stonehenge planned unit development, and much more.

• The city’s Board of Architectural Review meets at 5:30pm Tuesday at City Hall. One interesting application among those on the agenda: A request to add a seating area at the Charlottesville Pavilion. 

• The Albemarle County Planning Commission meets at 6pm Tuesday in Lane Auditorium at the County Office Building on McIntire. Public hearing items on the agenda include the conversion of a house to a church in the Samuel Miller district and two cell tower requests.

• The Metropolitan Planning Organization meets from 4-6pm Wednesday at the Water Street Center. Up for discussion: the Unified Planning and Work Program (UPWP), the Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP), and plenty of other acronyms.

All three Charlottesville residents arrested last week for allegedly manufacturing thousands of fake IDs will remain in jail for the foreseeable future after each waived the right to a bail hearing in federal court Thursday afternoon. Meanwhile, details continue to emerge about the raid on a Rugby Road house that led to their arrests, including news of $1.3 million in cash taken from a safe and an inventory of 18 handguns, shotguns, semi-automatic assault rifles, and other weapons seized by feds.

Alan Jones, Mark Bernardo, and Kelly McPhee went before U.S. Magistrate Judge B. Waugh Crigler in back-to-back proceedings—the trio’s second court appearance since their arrests. They are all accused of multiple fraud counts, and face between 35 and 55 years in jail and fines of up to $750,000. While no future court dates have been set, U.S. Attorney Timothy J. Heaphy said his office is still gathering evidence, and expects to announce whether there will be trials or plea deals in the case within 30 days.

Jones has hired David Heilberg of Charlottesville defense firm Dygert, Wright, Hobbs & Heilberg, and McPhee has retained Andrew Sneathern of Sneathern & L’Hospital. Bernardo, who admitted to recently purchasing a Cadillac with $50,000 cash through a straw buyer, claimed indigency and is being represented by Frederick T. Heblich, assistant federal public defender in charge of the Charlottesville and Harrisonburg Division.

A number of McPhee’s friends and family were again looking on in the courtroom. Across the aisle from them sat Bernardo’s mother and two sisters, well-dressed New Yorkers whom Heblich said had traveled to Charlottesville in a show of support for his client. Bernardo’s mother wept silently into a tissue when her son was led out of court.

If Jones had family watching, they weren’t identified. He may end up relying on some outside support, however. Heaphy raised doubts about the 31-year-old University of Alabama graduate’s ability to afford his high-priced lawyer.

“I understand Mr. Heilberg is very expensive,” Heaphy said in his address to the judge, and investigators may question Jones’ sources of income, having already seized four bank accounts under various aliases believed to contain profits from a massive illegal ID manufacturing business.

“I’m uncertain of a legitimate source of income for Mr. Jones for a very long time,” Heaphy said.

For now, though, Heilberg remains Jones’ attorney of record. And more information about just how profitable the fake ID factory was are coming to light.

After leaving the courtroom, Heaphy said the amount of money seized in the wake of the raid is now up to $2 million, including $1.3 million in cash found in a safe in the Rugby Road house.

An inventory of other items taken from house released earlier this week along with the warrant issued ahead of the bust reveals feds found 18 firearms there, including handguns, a shotgun, and at least two semiautomatic assault rifles.

Also seized, according to the inventory, were a taser, numerous computers, cell phones, bags and binders of fake drivers licenses from all over the country, sheets of holograms used to manufacture the IDs, a bag of “green leafy plant like material,” a fake Connecticut license with McPhee’s picture, and photographs of McPhee firing a gun.

Heaphy wouldn’t comment on what agents have learned about the origin of the weapons cache, or whether the defendants are suspected of selling guns. And while he said he expects to file more charges, he wouldn’t say whether any other individuals are believed to have been involved in the fake ID ring.

And while he wouldn’t say whether more people are believed to have been involved, Heaphy said investigators are still tracking down leads.

“There’s a lot more to come in this case,” he said.