Tuesday, June 8
Home Depot off Fifth Street?
Albemarle County planners today discussed a new plan for a Fifth Street/Avon Street development, a 92-acre Coran Capshaw venture just beyond the City’s southern border. The development has been substantially reworked, dropping all of the housing units (up to 100) that had been planned under the belief that a retail-heavy development could serve as a “town center” for the surrounding neighborhoods. As a result, the retail square footage got a big boost, to 370,000 square feet from about 230,000 square feet. Though Capshaw’s team has yet to book any tenants, the plan calls for a “major” grocery store, drug store, bank, three or more sit-down restaurants and a home improvement store. The next step for the development is a public hearing, which should go down sometime this summer.
Wednesday, June 9
Dirty South
The Charlottesville-based Southern Environmental Law Center today touted a new report claiming that Virginia ranks eighth among U.S. states for its share of public health impacts caused by pollution from power plants. Three national environmental groups were behind the report, “Dirty Air, Dirty Power,” which said power-plant pollution leads to 1,000 premature deaths and 24,000 asthma attacks in Virginia each year. The findings were said to be based on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “own air quality consultants.” There are 15 coal-fired power plants in Virginia, according to the report. The one closest to Charlottesville is Dominion’s Bremo Bluff plant in Fluvanna County.
Thursday, June 10
New police shooting trial
On May 15, 1997, four Albemarle police officers responding to a 911 call entered Frederick Gray’s apartment in the Squire Hill complex off of Rio Road. In the ensuing confrontation, Officer Amos Chiarappa shot Gray two times, killing him. Gray’s father, Abraham Gray Jr., later sued the four officers and the department for the wrongful death of his son. Gray lost the suit in Albemarle Circuit Court. But today, the Virginia Supreme Court overturned the decision, stating that Gray’s legal team was wrongfully prevented from using written statements from the police officers during the previous trial. The appeal victory for Gray means Albemarle police will be back in court for another trial on the 1997 shooting.
Friday, June 11
Tinselville?
Charlottesville resident Barry Sisson, who helped produce the indie film The Station Agent, today told WINA listeners that he’s formed a local film production company called Cavalier Films Inc. According to the new venture’s website, Sisson and business partner Marc Lieberman’s new company will “produce story-driven and thought-provoking feature films with mainstream appeal on a low-budget.” Cavalier Films hopes to make movies with budgets in the $500,000 to $800,000 range with an eye toward following the low-budget road to glory of My Big Fat Greek Wedding and The Blair Witch Project.
Saturday, June 12
CHS Champs
The Charlottesville High School boys’ soccer team today brought home the team’s first ever State championship with a spectacular 6-5 win over Jefferson Forest, The Daily Progress reports. With the score knotted at 1-1 at the end of the third overtime, Nemanja Cetic, a senior midfielder, went down on a hard tackle and broke both his tibia and fibula. Despite the injury, CHS held on through the fourth and final overtime. Next came five penalty kicks for each team. The injured Cetic had been slated to take a penalty shot for CHS, but Reuben Baker volunteered to take Cetic’s slot. He and the other players from both teams all scored in the round, sending the game into sudden death. In this round, CHS goalie Nick Kell, who had been replaced for the first round of penalty kicks, blocked the first kick. Michael Negash from CHS then scored on his kick, icing the win.
Sunday, June 13
Big bucks on campus
UVA is hoping to land $3 billion in donations by December 2011, The Daily Progress today reports. The plan, which seeks to offset State-funding shortages and to emulate the fundraising tactics of Ivy League schools, will require UVA to reel in $1 million per day. According to The Washington Post, private donors accounted for 8.3 percent of UVA’s funding last year—more than the school received from Richmond.
Monday, June 14
Kerry-ing Virginia?
The numbers are close to final, and a Democratic fundraiser for John Kerry at the Charlottesville Ice Park on Saturday netted $24,200. Though a Democrat has not carried Virginia since Lyndon Johnson took the State in 1964, Larry J. Sabato, director of the UVA Center for Politics, says Kerry might not be wasting his time in Virginia. But, as Sabato says in his “Crystal Ball” e-mail, Kerry will likely only win Virginia if he wins the whole enchilada, by a “large popular vote margin, period.”
—Written by Paul Fain from local news sources and staff reports
Bang, bang, shoot, shoot
Celebrating D-Day with America’s most powerful symbol
On Sunday, June 6, Mike Binney crouched on the ground at the Rivanna rifle range, and aimed an M1 Garand, the rifle issued to American soldiers during World War II, at a paper target 100 yards away.
Clad in camouflaged cargo pants, Binney pulled the trigger and the rifle exploded like a cannon. A 30-06 bullet—a 147-gram, inch-long projectile pointed like a sharp pencil—ripped through the bullseye. Binney clicked open the gun’s chamber and out popped the spent casing.
“It’s D-Day, Sir,” says Binney, who came out to the range to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the invasion by firing guns similar to those that American soldiers carried on beaches of Normandy. “My father was a WWII veteran,” says Binney. “This is something I had to do.”
Few objects in American culture are held to be as sacred as the gun. Around here, the firearms faithful worship at the Rivanna Rifle and Pistol Range on Old Lynchburg Road, where shooting guns is an exercise of skill, a history lesson, a political statement and a religious ritual. And, it’s a pretty fun way to spend the afternoon.
On June 6, the American flag flew at half-mast over the range to honor the death of former President Ronald Reagan, and the parking lot sounded like a war zone. Claps of gunfire echoed from the indoor pistol range and a pair of adjacent fields where groups of men shot rounds of skeet and trap—two games in which shooters try to hit orange clay discs flung upward to imitate the flight of game birds.
On Sunday, Lake Monticello resident Tom Acker, who pitched for the Cincinnati Reds between 1956 and 1957, was enjoying his first round since hip replacement surgery. He went the first three rounds without missing a shot.
“Shhh,” he said, when asked about his perfect record. “That’s like talking about a no-hitter.” (Acker went on to complete the round without missing a shot, apparently not jinxed by my question.)
Most cars in the club’s parking lot on Sunday featured patriotic, military or Republican decals. In fact, Rivanna requires all prospective members to join the National Rifle Association, which boasts about 4 million members nationwide. Numerous postings on the group’s website (www.nra.org) paint NRA members as freedom fighters, persecuted by Democrats who would repeal the Second Amendment, ban all guns and prohibit hunting or competitive shooting.
The NRA’s rhetoric may sound hyperbolic, but many Rivanna members hold variations of such views.
Rivanna’s NRA requirement helps “combat the anti-gun people who want to take our firearms away,” says Calvin Dodd, a “life member” of Rivanna who joined both the pistol club and the NRA in 1953. Also, Rivanna, like most gun clubs, purchases otherwise unaffordable liability insurance through the NRA.
Club treasurer Paul Benneche says Rivanna has about 850 members and has recently been taking on about 100 new members each year. Membership for one year costs $75; the required NRA membership costs $35. Benneche says “maybe one person a year” decides not to join Rivanna when they find out they must also join the NRA.
Enough chitchat. It’s time to shoot some guns. At the rifle range, Binney offered to share his guns with a reporter, and club president Steve Sandow produced an M16 to contrast with the M1.
The Garand is heavy—about nine pounds—and when you squeeze the trigger the rifle’s kickback punches your shoulder like a fist. And it’s loud—it hurts my ears, even with the protective headphones.
“Back then, soldiers didn’t have earplugs,” says Binney. “Can you imagine a battlefield full of these things going off?”
There’s a touch of romance in his voice, and pretending to be at war seems like part of the thrill at the rifle range. It’s impossible, in fact, to aim and shoot a military rifle without imagining the battlefield.
Soldiers dubbed the M16 a “mouse gun” when it was introduced, since it is much lighter, quieter and easier to aim and shoot than the M1. This particular M16 is semi-automatic, firing one bullet each time you pull the trigger. Soldiers use the automatic version, which means the weapon will spray bullets as long as the trigger is depressed.
Sandow brought an array of pistols—a .357 revolver, a .22 caliber sport pistol, and a Glok 9mm. My favorite is the 9mm semi-automatic Beretta, the military’s standard-issue sidearm. The gun is sleek, black, heavy—perfectly designed and simple to use. After pushing 10 gold, blunt-tipped bullets into the clip and loading it into the chamber, I fire away at a paper target 25 yards out. The Beretta packs a forceful kickback, but the paper targets are too far away for me to tell how well I’m aiming. Beyond the visceral thrill of the explosion, the lack of immediate feedback makes target shooting a little boring.
Since I’m a weapons novice, I’m terrified by the fact that as I grip the pistol I literally hold the lives of everyone around me in the palm of my hand. The Beretta itself is neither good nor bad—it’s just a tool, a mechanical extension of the primal human urge to kill other people. What’s shocking about shooting guns is how easy it is.
It’s a point not lost on the club’s officials. Some shooters may come to the range with battlefield fantasies, but no one suggests that they’re playing with toys. In fact, Benneche says, the range recently asked local police to stop shooting at each other with “simu-nition,” or fake ammo, on the range’s 115 acres.
“We don’t want people pointing guns at each other out here,” he says. “You point a gun at someone to kill them. It’s not for fun.”—John Borgmeyer
Nameless no more
Coran Capshaw is officially unmasked as amphitheater developer
Coran Capshaw is usually the guy behind the scenes, the “unnamed investor,” the “silent partner.” For more than a year that’s been his relationship to a City project to redevelop the east end of the Downtown Mall. On Monday, June 7, however, Capshaw appeared in City Council chambers to publicly laud Council and promise he would do a good job running the Downtown Amphitheater.
“I think it’s going to be a great addition to the community,” said Capshaw. “We look forward to enhancing it with regional and national acts, and we want to expand the charitable activity.”
Council will spend the $6.5 million grant—with an option to ask for $2.5 million more—it received from the Federal Transportation Administration on a new east end plaza, featuring an ultramodern bus transfer station and a renovated amphitheater. Construction is scheduled to begin in October; the City aims to finish by next summer so as not to interfere with Fridays After 5.
In December, the City leased the amphitheater to its development arm, the Charlottesville Industrial Development Authority (CIDA). Last Monday, Council approved an agreement between CIDA and Capshaw to loan the developer $3.4 million (to be repaid at 3.7 percent interest over 20 years) to rebuild the amphitheater.
A fabric roof will cover the stage and much of the seating area—a combination of grass and hard surface. Portable chairs will be set up for some events.
Capshaw told the City he plans to hold about 40 events each year, including a “Fridays After 5-type event” during the summer, according to Aubrey Watts, the City’s director of economic development. Watts said the Friday shows would be “free or reasonable, depending on what makes financial sense” for Capshaw. When no show is scheduled, the entire amphitheater will be open for public use. The amphitheater project will appear before the Board of Architectural Review on Tuesday, June 15.
Some people at the meeting spoke against the project, mistakenly believing Capshaw would close the amphitheater to the public, but by the time Council got around to actually voting on the project, most people had left the marathon meeting.
Do-it-yourselfers
Also on Monday, Council gave City staff a tentative go-ahead to investigate a proposal from the State Department of Transportation that would allow the City to take over more road building responsibilities. Plenty of questions remain, however.
This year the General Assembly passed a law allowing VDOT to funnel State and Federal road money to localities, which would design, engineer and build roads. Council voted unanimously to investigate what such a change would mean for the City.
If the City opts into VDOT’s local control program, it could have the option of putting more road money into transit. “We’re not entirely clear we can do that,” said Councilor Kevin Lynch. “If we can’t, I don’t see a whole lot of benefit.”
Lynch believes the City could engineer and build roads cheaper than VDOT, but Peter Kleeman, a former VDOT engineer, told Council he wasn’t so sure the City would save money.
“It could put a very large burden on a small number of people. I don’t think it bodes well for having a high-quality product,” Kleeman said.—John Borgmeyer
Think fast!
Improv comedy speeds up with newcomers joining the scene
You had to pity poor Bob Taibbi. A member of local performance troupe The Improfessionals, he couldn’t win in a skit called “What’s Broken?” He had to figure out what the unseen broken thing was and what was wrong with it. The audience of about 35 at Live Arts’ UpStage Theater on Thursday night had suggested both answers, but Taibbi had been out in the hall at the time. He’d have to get clues to the solution by talking to and interacting with five other actors on stage.
The item was an electric rake. It was being destroyed from within by angry gods.
Improfessional originator Ray Smith gamely jumped from River Styx references to instructions about sacrificing black lambs. Still Taibbi stood, a little lost, trying to grab the handle of the narrative train speeding through the room.
The audience howled. This is improv comedy.
It went mainstream in the late ’90s on a Drew Carey TV show, “Whose Line Is it Anyway?” On that show, like its British predecessor, a group of actors responded with, ideally, lightning-quick wit to cues, often shouted out by audience members. Smith thinks “Whose Line” had a part in popularizing improv across the country.
Sure enough, the scene is growing here. The Improfessionals recently scored a regular monthly gig at Live Arts. Another improv troupe plans to set up shop in the next few months. Several teachers are giving classes here, and Improvaganza has been part of the annual Live Arts Summer Theater Festival for the past four years.
Jennifer Horne-Webster is bringing her Whole World Theatre here from Hawaii (she’ll be asking for volunteers and students later this month). The market is just lean enough, Horne-Webster says, to make Charlottesville a good new home. “All my friends here said it’s such a great art community, and hopefully it’ll really catch on,” she says.
She began her improv training at Cillia, James Madison University’s improv group, before interning at Atlanta’s Alliance Theater. She prefers the quick-thinking theater game because “it’s a great experience for everyone, [including] the audience. It’s an active experience rather than passive, watching,” she says. It’s also great for those looking to get on the stage: “It’s a creative outlet for people who aren’t sure what their creative outlet could be. It’s about being experiential.”
The attraction was about the same for Smith who studied improv with mentor Kerry Biondo and has also acted in scripted shows. The Improfessionals officially formed last year, but had been practicing together for years prior. Now they play out about twice a month at places like the Outback Lodge, Rapunzel’s and C’Ville Coffee, and practice weekly at a borrowed studio at McGuffey Art Center.
“The thing about improv that everyone always thinks is amazing is that we’re thinking up these things really quickly. We’re not,” he says.
“What we practice is removing the blocks from our minds, to free ourselves from boundaries [we build up in real life]…. Improv is an opportunity to be fearless, to say anything you want and get away with it.”—Eric Rezsnyak