Tuesday, August 10
DMB in hot (fetid) water?
The Chicago media was agog today with stories about a weekend incident in which a Chicago River tour boat, while passing under a bridge, was doused with a nasty discharge from a bus overhead. One eyewitness claimed to spot the offender’s license plate, which allegedly belongs to one of the Dave Matthews Band’s tour buses, according to the Chicago Tribune. Though DMB was in Chi-town during the weekend, the band’s bus driver told the Tribune that his rig was parked at a hotel at the time of the drenching. Both Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and the Illinois attorney general were not amused by the incident, which made several people ill, and today promised an investigation. The Tribune conducted an online poll in which 36 percent of respondents said the incident was made worse because they are “bombarded with enough of [DMB’s] crap already.”
Wednesday, August 11
The unseen Observer
Newspaper readers had one less publication to peruse today when The Observer, a 26-year-old community weekly, failed to appear on the racks. Kimberly Robbins, who purchased the debt-saddled paper for $1 in January 2003, announced the paper’s demise in an e-mail, saying that “many years of poor corporate management, [a] slow economy and some tough competition, have brought us to this point.” C-VILLE’s parent company, Portico Publications, Ltd., had entered into ultimately failed negotiations with Robbins in recent months to purchase the paper.
Thursday, August 12
Big price tag on small town life
Housing Virginia, a nonprofit representing real estate agents, lenders and developers, today launched an affordable housing campaign in Charlottesville. Their goals: to dispel myths and spark policy solutions to the housing crunch. The group picked this area for the pilot campaign because of Charlottesville’s rapidly climbing median home prices, which jumped to $215,854 for the first six months of 2004—a 10 percent increase from 2003 prices. A local teacher described the struggle she faced in buying a home at the campaign’s kick-off, which was held today at Clark Elementary School.
Friday, August 13
Channel 19 crackles to life
WCAV CBS-19, the first of two new TV stations that Atlanta-based Gray Television is bringing to Charlottesville, made its morning debut today after going live at 8:34pm last night. Though the channel was not yet hosted on local cable, and still has no local news programming, area residents with an antenna could catch the usual lineup of CBS shows on Channel 19. With the broadcast, Gray beat its FCC deadline for a signal on WCAV by three days. On an August 6 conference call with shareholders, Gray President Bob Prather said, “Our Charlottesville construction is on track… We think the market looks more promising the more we look at it.” Though Charlottesville is the smallest among the 27 TV markets in which Gray broadcasts, Jim Ryan, Gray’s chief financial officer, said during the call that the two new affiliates should “produce several million in cash flow a few years down the road.”
Saturday, August 14
Hostage drama at jail
Four inmates at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail this morning took two prison guards hostage in a failed attempt to break out of the overcrowded jail. The inmates freed fellow prisoners in an attempt to spur an uprising, but none of those freed stepped up to help, according to an account in The Daily Progress. After a while, the hostage takers, realizing they would not escape, unsuccessfully requested cigarettes and an audience with TV reporters. Eventually, two of the inmates who had been freed turned on the four wannabe escapees and rescued the one remaining hostage, ending the four-hour standoff.
Sunday, August 15
Charley skips town
Hurricane Charley, a Category 4 hurricane that slammed the Gulf Coast of Florida, had local authorities on edge on Saturday. Anticipating possible flooding, the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority lowered the water level in the Sugar Hollow Reservoir. But the Charlottesville region was left cool and clear in today’s aftermath, experiencing no impact from the storm, which weakened and turned east on its northward trip, completely missing this area. Hurricane fans need not fret, however—at least two more tropical storm systems are churning over the Atlantic.
Monday, August 16
The tax man moveth
As of today, the local branch of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has new digs. After moving out of the Federal Building, next to the Omni, the IRS will open its new office at 401 E. Market St. today. Stop by to see revenue agents or just to complain about where the hell your tax dollars are going, anyway.
—Written by Paul Fain from local news sources and staff reports
Wired for profit?
From the ashes, again, Value America vet plugs into the wireless market
First Avenue Networks, a small company headquartered on Court Square, recently announced a plan to throw down an estimated $105 million in a stock trade to acquire the assets of Teligent, a floundering Northern Virginia tech firm specializing in wireless technology. Dean Johnson, First Avenue’s president and CEO, is no stranger to high stakes business, having served as the chief financial officer for Value America during its stellar initial public offering.
Value America went down in flames, as did MuseumCompany.com, one of Johnson’s later ventures. But Johnson has struck gold before, most notably with American Quality Cable, another local wireless company. If the so-called fixed wireless broadband on which First Network depends ever takes off, Johnson’s latest company could be sitting on big bucks.
Some tech analysts and, more importantly, Wall Street, approve of Johnson’s recent high dollar gamble. First Avenue Networks’ share price, which was around $3 in May, jumped to $8 after the July transaction before leveling off at $5.85 per share.
Michael Disabato, a senior director of the Burton Group, a Utah-based information technology research group, calls First Avenue Networks’ July 8 purchase of Teligent’s wireless licenses and operations a “nice move.”
First Avenue Networks’ broadcast domain is on two channels with smaller wavelengths than that of AM, FM or UHF, sitting on the spectrum between conventional radio and infrared light. Potential uses of these fixed wireless frequencies include the rapid transmission of large amounts of data over short distances, including wireless cable, high-speed Internet and cell phone traffic—all at prices that could undercut fiber-optic cables and DSL.
With its new holdings, First Avenueholds Federal Communication Commission (FCC) licenses for the recently regulated radio spectrum in the top 75 U.S. markets, creating “ubiquitous coverage” around the country, according to the company. First Avenue has indicated that it intends to lease space on the airwaves to telecom companies.
“This is pretty cool,” Disabato says of fixed wireless broadband. Though hills, buildings and other obstructions can impede the transmissions, he says the spectrum can carry data-loaded signals over about a 30-mile radius.
“There’s an untapped market of underserved rural areas that are trying to get wireless Internet,” Disabato says, adding that telecommuters or even big city businesses looking for a cheaper alternative to T1 lines could also choose fixed wireless broadband.
First Avenue Networks CEO Johnson, speaking through a PR firm, claimed to be too busy to schedule an interview withC-VILLE Weekly. His company has indeed been active of late, engaging in a late July FCC auction for more fixed wireless licenses, winning the Denver/Boulder, Colorado, market with a bid of $62,400.
But though First Avenue’s FCC licenses could prove to be valuable assets, the company has yet to start raking in money, reporting only $27,000 in revenue for the first half of this year.
Lance Wilson, the director of wireless research for ABI Research, another national tech analyst firm, says he’s “a little bit guarded” about fixed wireless. The technology received a great deal of hype during the late ’90s, with Teligent’s then president in 2000 telling a crowd at a San Francisco conference that “somebody in this room will be the next Microsoft,” according to a Wired News account.
Wilson, who attended similar conferences, says Teligent and others were toast shortly thereafter, having been priced out of the market due to reliability concerns about the technology. He says fixed wireless transmissions, unlike cable and DSL, can be influenced by weather, passing airplanes or foliage.
“I think those bugs have been worked out,” Wilson says. “But they need to reconfirm that with the business community.”
If First Avenue Networks follows Teligent’s ambitious business plan, which sought to build a nationwide wireless network, Wilson says, “they don’t standa chance.”
To avoid Teligent’s fate, Johnson has told trade press publication America’s Network Enews that his company won’t attempt to be “the end-all, be-all.”—Paul Fain
Run for cover
Old amphitheater awning could get new life in Augusta
By day, Kevin Armstrong cuts hair at Staples Barbershop in the Barracks Road Shopping Center. In his spare time, he likes to throw rock concerts in the boondocks. And if all goes according to plan, he’ll recycle a familiar piece of Downtown Charlottesville architecture to rock ‘n’ roll the next stage of his career.
Last month, Aubrey Watts, the City’s director of economic development, came in to Staples for a haircut. Ever the entrepreneur, Armstrong picked Watts’ brain about the fate of the Downtown Amphitheater. In October, construction will begin on a fancy new amphitheater to be run by Dave Matthews Band manager Coran Capshaw. The extant awning will go to the highest bidder, and Armstrong hopes he’ll be it.
“I could just see it out at my place,” says Armstrong, who wants to renew his concert series on several acres he owns in the St. Mary’s Wilderness area in the George Washington National Forest near Vesuveus, in Augusta County.
Al Elias, the City’s finance director, says there probably won’t be a lot of competition for the old awning, but by law the City must sell property through a widely advertised sealed bidding process.
“We’re hoping to have bids out in the next two weeks,” says Elias. “I don’t think we’re going to get a big response.”
The City purchased the 63’x43′ awning in 1996 from Anchor Industries in Evansville, Indiana, for $30,000. It could be expensive to haul the canvas and metal structure away, so Elias isn’t expecting that the City will get much money out of the deal.
“We just want it taken down and taken away,” says Elias.
Should Armstrong win the awning, he’ll truck it to his place in Augusta, about an hour from Charlottesville. He says his parcel is surrounded by federally protected woodland, and it features a trout-stocked stream and a waterfall.
“It’s a great place to see a show, if you’re a person who enjoys camping and the outdoors,” he says.
Armstrong made a name for himself in the ’90s, hosting regional bluegrass and reggae acts—along with big-name rockers like The Black Crowes and Tim Reynolds—in Buckingham County. In 2001, however, Armstrong booked the Confederate flag-waving David Allan Coe, a controversial country artist who penned the Johnny Paycheck hit “Take This Job and Shove It” along with the lesser known “Cum Stains on the Pillow.” Claiming the show could lead to “over-exuberance and intoxication,” according to The Daily Progress, the County nixed Coe’s performance. Armstrong moved Coe to Augusta County’s Expoland in Fishersville.
If he gets the awning, Armstrong says he doesn’t foresee a problem getting Augusta County’s permission for big shows on his property. “It’s all coming together,” he says.—John Borgmeyer
Herd on the street
At the city livestock market, objects from the country may be closer than they appear
Dressed in a Hokies t-shirt, with her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, 11-year-old Hanah East leans over the railing of the breezeway, anxiously pointing to a large Holstein sow sprawled out on the dirt floor below. Her grandfather, Bob East, Sr., towers beside her and allays her momentary concern with a quiet, “She’s tired, honey.”
Just like every other Saturday, the Easts have come from their farm near Stuart’s Draft. Today, they hope to sell some cows—seven Holsteins to be exact—and to maybe pick up another one or two if the right animals come along for the right price. The Charlottesville Livestock Market is the place to make it happen.
Located at 801 Franklin St., in the heart of the city’s Hogwaller neighborhood, the market has been hawking cows, pigs, goats, sheep, horses and chickens at its 2pm auctions every Saturday afternoon since the 1940s. Current owner John Falls, a career livestock dealer, bought the place 25 years ago. His daughters, Darlene Mawyer and Susan Pleasants, help him out with the books, and on an average Saturday, the family takes care of business for around 200 animals.
“The cows I’m selling have been milked out, so they need to go to slaughter,” explains East. This means the animals are no longer producing good milk, which usually happens when they are 8 or 9 years old. Depending on the cow, they’re sold by the pound or by the head and can total anything from a couple hundred dollars to a couple thousand.
Angus, Charolais, Herefords and Holsteins are the basic breeds in the stockyards this Saturday. Their unrelenting lowing fills the building, a two-storey structure consisting of a maze of dilapidated pens filled with cattle on the first floor, and walkways, offices and the 7Up Restaurant upstairs. It’s all built around the auction ring, and city living or no, the place smells like a barnyard.
East shrugs, laughs and dismisses the idea that the market is out of place in the middle of Charlottesville. “It’s been here since I was a boy…They used to have sales that would last all night long and way into Sunday morning.”
Today, about 40 people sit around the sunken auction ring, sipping soda, keeping an eye on the merchandise and casually following the unintelligible shtick of auctioneer Dick Whorley, who’s been at the job for 40 years.
“Onethirtyonethirtyonethirtyonedollar thirtyone…” The grizzled Whorley wraps his tongue around this information like a twister. A cow sold by the pound trots into the ring with a yellow number on its back and trots back out again “sold to the man in the overalls/red cap/blue shirt” 40 seconds later. Whorley jokes that he learned to talk that fast because “I was supposed to have been born a girl,” which earns him uproarious guffaws from his friends.
The auction ends as quickly as it began. The Easts have sold their cows but aren’t taking home any new ones. Most of the farmers don’t hang around long. It’s hay season and they have to get back to their fields. But they’ll all be back next week. Livestock’s what they do, even if they have to come into town to get it.—Nell Boeschenstein