UVA Law’s first female dean
Law school professor Risa Goluboff became the UVA School of Law’s first lady dean in the history of the almost 200-year-old law school July 1.
Violet Crown favors eminent domain
Violet Crown Cinema CEO Bill Banowsky chastised Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville chair George Benford for the June 22 DBAC letter urging the city to quickly settle with Charlottesville Parking Center and withdraw its threat of eminent domain. The letter doesn’t reflect the wishes of the DBAC membership and a DBAC board member who sits on CPC’s board has a conflict of interest, wrote Banowsky July 1.
Teacher in trouble
Former Jack Jouett Middle School/ current Nelson County High teacher Amelia Tat, 26, was arrested in Lynchburg June 29 on three felony charges—two of carnal knowledge of a minor and one indecent liberty while in a supervisory role—during 2015. Tat was also charged with one felony count of carnal knowledge of a minor in Lynchburg.
Beware the bobcat
It was originally reported that a mountain lion attacked 31-year-old Kyle Houghton July 1 while he was hiking the Blue Ridge Parkway’s Humpback Rocks with his girlfriend, but his mother has confirmed to the News Virginian that her son actually fought off a large bobcat, which he believed was stalking his 5-foot-6, size 0 companion. Such daylight attacks are extremely rare, and Houghton was given rabies shots.
That’s the stuff
Twenty-eight students from UVA’s McIntire School of Commerce took home the championship in the National Student Advertising Competition at Disneyland for their Snapple ad campaign focusing on what they called “that’s the stuff” moments of pleasure: snagging the best parking spot, getting back to the couch just as your favorite show resumes or matching every sock in your laundry pile.
More construction, same side of town
Work on the $14 million Hillsdale Drive Extension project, which has been discussed since the late 1980s and will run parallel to Route 29, finally began last week.
The new avenue will provide a three-lane roadway between Greenbrier Drive and Hydraulic Road, with one section narrowing to two lanes to squeeze through two buildings in Seminole Square.
Plans include a traffic signal at the Seminole Court intersection, a roundabout at the intersection of Zan Road, bike and ped lanes, as well as grassy areas that may or may not draw panhandlers like a moth to a flame.
The Greenbrier and Hillsdale intersection will require stop signs on the former, with the latter becoming free-flowing. VDOT will monitor the intersection and will determine whether traffic signals should be installed.
Quote of the week
“Our worst nightmare.”—Subject line in December 5, 2014, e-mail from Sabrina Rubin Erdely to Rolling Stone editors Will Dana and Sean Woods in which she says Jackie isn’t truthful or credible, and the magazine should issue a retraction for its gang-rape story, “A Rape on Campus.”
July 6 11:10 am headline updated.