News in review

Tuesday, June 1
What’s that in your backpack?

During the fall semester, 425 UVA students will be toting a $2,000 Microsoft Tablet PC, according to a story published in Business Week today. However, the UVA students won’t have to fork over a cent for the notebook-sized PCs, as Microsoft, which has had trouble moving the Tablet since its November 2002 debut, is distributing them in a marketing ploy. Business Week reports that Edward Ayers, dean of UVA’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is gaga over the nifty computers, which allow users to write on the screens. But there’s a downside: giving students Internet and instant messaging capabilities in the classroom.

Wednesday, June 2
Show me the money

The Albemarle County Supervisors today named a new bean counter and also voted to give themselves a raise. Richard M. Wiggans, Albemarle’s new director of finance, will take over July 1. He will replace Melvin Breeden, who was brought on to handle the County budget only nine months ago. Wiggans comes from Texas, where he was a budget guru for the cities of Cedar Park and, previously, Arlington. As part of next year’s budget, Wiggans will tally the Supes’ new salary, which will increase by $363 to $12,467

Thursday, June 3
Gotta light?

WINA reports that late tonight, someone broke into Haney’s Market on Seminole Trial and heisted $9,000 worth of cigarettes. Albemarle Police say the thieves broke a window to get at the nicotine-laden stash. As police investigate the theft, a new report suggests that local teenagers are less likely to be the perpetrators of this sort of crime. The study, from the Virginia Tobacco Settlement Foundation, found a 28 percent decrease in smoking rates among Virginia’s high school students from 2001 to 2003. The latest results showed 21 percent of those high schoolers surveyed said they’d smoked a cigarette in the last month while only 6 percent of middle school students admitted to lighting up.

Friday, June 4
Breastfeeders say back off

During today’s drizzly lunch hour, about a dozen mothers and their babies were out on the Mall to rally for the right to breastfeed in public. The demonstration was in response to the recent plight of Suzy Stone, 30, who claims she was told by an employee of Atomic Burrito restaurant on Tuesday—her birthday—to cease suckling her wee one in front of other customers. Stone says she wasn’t trying to target Atomic Burrito with the protest, but to instead spread the word that public breastfeeding is acceptable, and legal. “I just don’t want it to happen to other mothers,” Stone says while holding her 6-month-old daughter, Phoenix. A short stroll away, two small signs were posted at the restaurant: “Atomic Burrito unconditionally supports the rights of mothers to breastfeed within the restaurant specifically and in public generally.”

Saturday, June 5
Prank gone too far?

Albemarle police are investigating an over-the-top vandalism binge that occurred early on Saturday morning at Monticello High School’s football field. According to The Daily Progress, the vandals fired up a backhoe and knocked down both goalposts. They also rolled the earthmover over chairs that had been lined up for the school’s graduation ceremony later that morning. Though the graduation took place, it was moved to the school’s gymnasium.

Sunday, June 6
Last pitch for UVA

The UVA baseball team today wrapped up one of its best seasons ever with a loss to Vanderbilt—the conclusion of a four-game weekend of NCAA tournament baseball on their home turf. The 7-3 loss to Vandy eliminated the Cavaliers from the regional tourney and gave the Commodores a slot in the super regional in Austin against No. 1-ranked Texas. The Cavs finish the season with an impressive 44-15 record. On Monday, UVA baseball fans should keep an eye on the Major League draft as several players could get the call, including shortstop Mark Reynolds and pitcher/ first baseman Joe Koshansky.

Monday, June 7
Public input on School Board

Two spots are open on the Charlottesville City School Board this year. One seat was held by Julie Gronlund—who is seeking to re-up for another term—and the other will soon be vacated by retiring Board Chair Linda Bowen. The City Council appoints members to the School Board, but today holds a hearing to let the public have its say about the nine aspiring Board members, who include Ned Michie, and Kenneth Jackson, recent Republican candidate for City Council.

—Written by Paul Fain from local news sources and staff reports

 

Friend of the damned
“Grandmother” of the State’s anti-death penalty movement is honoredMarie Deans keeps a quote from Albert Camus on her refrigerator: “I would like to be able to love my country and justice, too.”

 “I feel the same way about Virginia,” says Deans, who has spent the past 20 years entrenched in the Commonwealth’s capital punishment system, “but the State makes it hard sometimes.”

 The difference between “justice” and the “justice system” is glaring on Virginia’s death row, and few people have worked as hard as Deans to make capital punishment fairer. Since the early ’80s the Charlottesville activist has worked as a mitigator on more than 250 capital cases and 90 habeas petitions, helping defense teams uncover facts about the social history and mental condition of accused murderers.

 “She’s the grandmother of the death penalty movement in Virginia,” says Jack Payden-Travers, director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. Payden-Travers credits Deans with helping get VADP off the ground, and for being one of the first people to work for capital punishment reform in the State.

 Deans, who was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, says her opposition to the death penalty stems from a politically active family and her Lutheran upbringing. “You can’t justify your sins by the sins of others,” she says.

 In August 1972, her convictions were tested when a prison escapee from Maine shot and killed her mother-in-law, Penny Deans. In 1976, Deans founded Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation, and today the group still works to counter the argument that executing criminals brings peace to victims.

 After her mother-in-law died, “people would say, ‘We’ll catch him and fry him.’ We didn’t want that,” says Deans.

 She joined Amnesty International just as that group was taking on the death penalty issue. She first visited death row to talk to J.C. Shaw, a schizophrenic and convicted killer. He had dropped his appeals and, ironically, the warden at South Carolina’s death house—who opposed the death penalty—hoped Deans could convince Shaw to renew his appeals. Opposition to execution, even inside the prison system, “wasn’t unusual for that generation,” says Deans. “They didn’t want to execute him at all.”

 She found a different attitude when she came to Virginia in 1982, at the request of the Southern Coalition on Jails and Prisons.

 When Deans moved to Richmond, no groups were monitoring Virginia’s death row—no one knew who was awaiting execution or whether the convicts had lawyers. Then, as now, the State routinely appointed underqualified, underpaid and overworked lawyers to defend the indigent. Moreover, the system rewards mechanics over substance: As long as the State goes through the motions of a trial, Deans says, it will ignore evidence that undermines the outcome of a trial.

 That kind of willful ignorance kept Earl Washington, an innocent man convicted of a 1982 Culpeper murder, on death row for nine years until Deans helped free him. Washington, who is retarded, is currently suing Culpeper and Fauquier County police in Charlottesville’s U.S. District Court, and his suit reveals a shocking string of investigative and prosecutorial errors.

 But without Deans, who moved to Charlottesville five years ago when her son began attending UVA, Washington probably wouldn’t be alive today. Convinced that he was innocent, Deans worked on his appeals and finally recruited lawyers Bob Hall and Eric Freedman to take Washington’s case. On Thursday, June 3, the American Association on Mental Retardation lauded Deans and the legal team who freed Washington at its annual convention in Virginia Beach.

 “I don’t think of myself as saving his life, I just did the job that needed to be done,” says Deans. “It was very rewarding to see him get out, and I’m sorry it took us so long.”—John Borgmeyer

 

 This time, however, Werner was speaking as an individual, and had a different message to impart.

 “I don’t have a dog in this fight at all,” Werner said, before describing that he had been “misinformed” about the identity of a resident who had come to him with worries about radiation from the proposed tower, which is to be built by Gray Television to broadcast new CBS and ABC affiliates in Charlottesville.

 Werner said the concerned neighbor claimed to be a turkey hunter who was afraid of being zapped by potentially dangerous radio frequency radiation from the tower. When the person displayed detailed knowledge about TV antennas, and of the brewing feud between Gray and NBC 29 WVIR-TV, Werner got suspicious. After questioning the person, Werner learned that the concerned citizen had “done some legal work for someone who does have a dog in this fight”—presumably NBC 29.

 “There is an intense interest in delaying [the tower],” Werner told County Supervisors. “I would encourage you all to get to the bottom of it.”

 In the end, the Supes sided with Gray and approved the 190-foot tower design for the new CBS and ABC affiliates, but not before hearing concerns from a lawyer from NBC 29, and a former director of engineering from the station, Sid Shumate, who filed incredibly detailed complaints about radiation from the CBS tower.

 It’s clear that NBC 29, which is owned by the Florida-based Waterman Broadcasting Corporation, takes the challenge posed by the two upstarts seriously. Gray only has until August 15 to begin broadcasting on Channel 19 or it loses that FCC license—an exceptionally tight timeline, acknowledges Tracey Jones, Gray’s regional vice-president of television. A tower delay at the Albemarle County Office Building could have been a major disaster for Gray, and NBC 29 apparently tried to help make that delay happen. But for now, it looks like Gray has cleared its regulatory barriers for the two new stations, and can focus on building a tower and broadcasting studio.

 “I absolutely have full confidence that we are going to make it on the air with a signal,” Jones says. “The decisions are within our control.”

 The stakes for NBC 29 are advertising dollars in a TV market it has long dominated. Susan Payne, president of Payne, Ross & Associates, an advertising and marketing firm in Charlottesville, says there is a buzz among her clients about the new television stations. Payne says some local advertisers who focus on Charlottesville and Albemarle might not need to reach customers across the broad region that NBC 29’s newscasts cover, which stretches as far as Staunton and even Buckingham County.

 “Some of my clients would welcome a more targeted broadcast,” Payne says. “I think this area is ripe for competition.”—Paul FainThe call of nature

Outsiders meet through the Outdoor Social ClubLast October, 29-year-old Jason Heuer moved to Charlottesville from Northern Virginia. By March, he was more than ready to join a social club. Disillusioned with what he calls “the whole bar scene,” Heuer found that other venues, such as The Blues and Brews Festival at the Downtown Amphitheater, offered “not a whole lot of opportunity to start conversations with people you don’t already know.”

 After hearing a plug for the Outdoor Social Club on radio station WNRN, Heuer attended the group’s inaugural open house on March 20. There he was heartened to find no fewer than 80 fellow would-be outdoorsmen and outdoorswomen crowded into the clean, well-lighted clubhouse, which is also the living room of club owner Matt Rosefsky’s apartment. “When the list of adventures was announced,” Heuer says, “I signed up then and there.”

 So did 30 others. Less than three months later, the OSC boasts 77 members, surpassing the most optimistic expectations of Rosefsky, a recent Darden graduate. College students, roughly a quarter of the club, pay yearly dues of $150; nonstudent memberships cost $198 (you can pay by the month, too). Most “adventures” carry additional equipment and guide fees, at a discounted group rate.

 When asked if he approaches the club as a place to find dates, Heuer answers, “definitely.” He favors this venue over Internet matchmaking services because it allows “a face-to-face first impression” as well as the common ground of doing something fun together, particularly an outdoors activity, which he believes “attracts a certain kind of person who’s kind and open.” Heuer rates the white water rafting trip in West Virginia “an absolute blast.” The less rigorous grill nights and cooking club also rank high on his list and he looks forward to the upcoming evening of paint ball at the Splat House.

 The club also offers overnight backpacking, camping and kayaking trips to Virginia Beach and varied sites in West Virginia every weekend throughout the summer.

 Group outings appeal to more and more people in Virginia and around the world. For instance, Adventure Club, Inc., has served 125 members a year in the Tidewater area since 1992, offering opportunities president Ed Herndon describes as “two-thirds adventure, one-third social.” Tandem skydiving and wilderness camping alternate with “adventure dining” at area restaurants. Herndon, who says he joined the club in 1993 to stop dating because he was so dissatisfied with that experience, married a fellow adventurer several years later—one of three weddings spawned by the club.

 Cindy Marks, a 39-year-old single mother, says she joined the OSC because “after living in Charlottesville for five years, I still feel like an outsider.” While she hopes to meet men, Marks chose Rosefsky’s club over dating services because she prefers “some common ground of values or interests” before introducing herself to a stranger. “I’d much rather be in an environment where the singles thing is not what it’s all about,” Marks insists.

 It remains to be seen whether Rosefsky can make a living managing the Outdoor Social Club. Adventure Club, Inc., which started as a for-profit venture with one full-time, salaried employee found itself running at a deficit; as a non-profit club run by the volunteer efforts of members who pay a low yearly fee of $25, it has flourished.

 Rosefsky has put his finger on the heartfelt and marketable demand to feel part of a like-minded community, and his club’s swelling ranks thank him for it. Says Marks, “Even if I don’t meet someone, I’ll get out of the house, and I’ll learn something. This is the only way I’ll ever get in a kayak.”—Phoebe Frosch