Tuesday, October 4
West Coast architects tapped for South Lawn
Today UVA architects began scrutinizing the work of Moore Ruble Yudell Architects, the firm selected to design the first four buildings of UVA’s new Arts and Sciences complex, known as “the South Lawn” project. Design for the South Lawn has been controversial: After the Board of Visitors fired the firm of Polshek Partnership Architects for designs the BOV apparently deemed too modern-looking, UVA architecture faculty publicly denounced the administration’s conservative approach to building.
Wednesday, October 5
School board referendum push is on
Like a new purple fungus, lawn signs in favor of a City referendum mushroomed across town and are newly noticeable today throughout Downtown, Venable and other neighborhoods. The push to switch from an appointed board to a democratically elected board began in earnest last school year when the seven-member body was sometimes deaf and sluggish in response to rising criticism about their hiring and handling of superintendent Scottie Griffin. At one point, Mayor David Brown called for the Board chair to step down, citing her meager communication skills. Griffin eventually quit, costing the City loads of money. In a classic case of strange political bedfellows, Jeffrey Rossman, who has donated thousands of dollars to Democratic Party candidates, and Rob Schilling, the City’s lone Republican Councilor, are drivers behind the elected-school-board campaign, which goes to city voters on Tuesday, November 8. Meanwhile, across the border, three school board races in Albemarle County, where voters decide the membership, are uncontested.
Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder
Today a UVA scientist released a warning about the dangers of absinthe, an illegal intoxicating liqueur popularized by artists such as Edgar Allan Poe, Pablo Picasso and Oscar Wilde, who claimed the drink heightened the senses and cultivated a creative state of mind. Absinthe is made from distilling herbs and wormwood, a plant that contains neurotoxins that are said to be similar in effect to marijuana. UVA toxicologist Chris Holstege says Internet recipes and last year’s remake of the movie Alfie are prompting an absinthe comeback, but Holstege warns that over time the drink can cause stomach problems and psychotic behavior.
Thursday, October 6
UVA law prof outsmarts Carlson
Props to UVA law professor Rosa Brooks for her performance today on Tucker Carlson’s MSNBC show “The Situation with Tucker Carlson.” The foxy lawyer gave her conservative, bow-tied host the smack down in a discussion about a study that correlates societal dysfunctions, such as murder and teen pregnancy, with extreme religiosity. When Carlson tried to counteract her argument, citing 20th-century crimes committed by secular regimes, Brooks pointed out that absolutism of any kind is itself a type of religion, which Carlson uncharacteristically admitted was a “smart point.”
Friday, October 7
Fluvanna woman killed in crash
A Fluvanna County woman is dead this morning after a late-night car crash on Route 53. At about 8pm on Thursday, 66-year-old Geraldine Swinney of Palmyra was driving west when she ran off the shoulder, overcorrected and crossed into the other lane, according to police. Swinney’s car was hit head-on by a pickup truck driven by 38-year-old Sheryl Horn, also of Palmyra. Horn was not injured. Police say speed and alcohol were not involved in the incident.
Saturday, October 8
Backyard activism takes all day
City planners, managers, and neighborhood junkies got together today for a City-sponsored “In Our Backyard: Neighborhood De-sign Day.” From 9am to 3pm, representatives from city neighborhoods met at six locations around Charlottes-ville to discuss community design concerns, strengths, weaknesses, ideas and opportunities in preparation for the revision of the Comprehensive Plan, slated to begin in December. For example, City planner Mary Joy Scala led the North Downtown community in a discussion at the First Presbyterian Church on Park Street concerning familiar issues such as the Meadowcreek Parkway, traffic and the high price of housing.
Sunday, October 9
Debate proceeds as planned
UVA politics guru Larry Sabato excluded Virginia Senator Russ Potts from tonight’s gubernatorial debate, sponsored by Sabato’s Center for Politics. Republican candidate Jerry Kilgore refused to debate Potts, who is actually a Republican but is running as an Independent; Sabato had said Potts could be included in the debate if he drew more than 15 percent in a public opinion poll. Potts, who is running at about 9 percent, sued Sabato and the Center last week, demanding to be included in what is the only televised gubernatorial debate. On Friday, U.S. Federal District Judge Nor-man K. Moon ruled in favor of Sabato.
Monday, October 10
Art that warms your bread
Today local art lovers woke up to make breakfast with the latest addition to their collections. Toasters, says Eric Norcross, “reflect human ingenuity.” In a small gallery off W. Main Street, Norcross, president of the Toaster Museum Foundation, hosted the Toaster Art Show and Benefit Auction over the weekend to help raise funds in support of the Toaster Museum. With any luck, it will open in an old Belmont house next spring. Dozens of toaster-related works created by local artists were auctioned off to hungry art lovers of every sort. “Any aesthetic movement is reflected in the toaster—art deco, streamlining,” says Norcross. “They’re very artistic in that way.”
Written by John Borgmeyer from staff reports and news sources.
Sound and fury
Who could have guessed a rock venue would be loud?
Widespread Panic’s performance at the Charlottesville Pavilion on September 20 seems to have been the last straw for some Belmonters ticked off about noise from the rock venue.
“I am angry about the noise, and I’m disappointed the City has allowed it to happen,” Hinton Avenue resident Julie Jones told City Council on Monday, October 3. “I miss hosting book club on my porch on Sunday evenings, I miss going to sleep at 10 o’clock, I miss taking a shower without hearing Widespread Panic while shampooing my hair.”
The line drew applause from several Downtown residents who showed up to echo Jones’ irritation. Some residents couldn’t make their point without hyperbole—several residents recalled Hinton Avenue’s past problems with nighttime gunshots, with one person saying, “Noise pollution is threatening to ghettoize the neighborhood” while another person said Hinton Avenue “was almost better with the gunshots and the rowdiness.”
Regardless, Pavilion General Manager Kirby Hutto says he’s working on the problem. In a letter to the City, Hutto says that the Pavilion monitors sound levels in the neighborhoods and hired two “acoustic consultants” to analyze the data. In the future, Hutto says the Pavilion will add landscaping along Water Street to buffer the sound; further, he says the soon-to-be-built transit center should block some sound.
In other City news, Council is finally considering an ordinance that would get rid of those annoying car-window stickers.
The stickers are a way for cities to collect property tax; recently, though, some cities like Richmond and Virginia Beach have stopped using them. Instead, the Department of Motor Vehicles will withhold vehicle registration for people with delinquent property taxes.
This has been a problem for local police who can’t tell whether an owner of a car with no sticker is breaking the local law or just visiting from another city.
According to City documents, eliminating the stickers would save about $42,000 each year. At their next meeting on October 17, Council will consider dropping the stickers and adding a “license tax” at the same rate as the sticker fees to local tax bills.—John Borgmeyer
Shiny, happy people
Exploring the ethical issues of mood microchips
UVA Medical Center recently began to use a new tool to treat the severest forms of depression: a chest implant that generates electric pulses to simulate a cranial nerve, thereby increasing production of neurotransmitters. Though this is used only in treating otherwise incurable depression, its existence raises ethical questions about the increasing intersection of human and machine. We spoke about these issues with Dr. Judy Illes, director of the Program in Neuro-ethics at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics. An edited transcript follows.—Will Goldsmith
C-VILLE: What ethical questions arise from an implant to treat depression?
Judy Illes: We’re starting to see a trend toward implantable devices—some are even falling within the domain that people are calling “roboethics,” which deals with these issues.
First thing that comes to mind is safety—how safe is an implantable device? What are the long-term effects? These are issues that go beyond the usual medical questions that are involved with any procedure that involves surgery. Another ethical issue is that sometimes these technologies can be very expensive, and distributive justice—the availability of this kind of technology to everyone—is always of great concern. We would never want to see neurotechnology, whether drug or implant, misused or coerced in any way.
How is this different from a pacemaker?
Heart disease has much more finite measurables that surround it than depression, a disorder associated with personal identity factors that have at least as much to do with mind as with physiology. I think that’s where there’s a level of complexity that comes into these discussions. Also, I doubt someone would have a pacemaker implanted unless there was a risk of death.
Is this different ethically from using drugs like Prozac?
I don’t know that treating depression with an implantable device has different ethical concerns than treating it with a drug. Science has always been looking for a way to treat mental illness, and chronically implanted electrodes may provide a lot of hope. But there does seem to be something more daunting about having an invasive procedure that implants an electrode in our brain or nervous system than a drug that we might take orally.
What are some fears if this is used to treat milder forms of depression?
There is a fuzzy line between enhancement and therapy. I think one of the greatest fears is in the gray zone of depression: Who is really depressed and who has transient depression? The complexity of the disease is really multifaceted from our mental, genetic and value make-ups. It might be normal variations in mood that are mitigated by this technology.
Many people who are concerned about man-machine interfaces are concerned that we’re all going to turn into cyborgs. The futuristic, science-fiction concern is that we all are going to be walking around with electrodes in our cranial nerves because we all have momentary, periodic episodes of feeling down.
Man with a Plan
Police Sgt. Mike Farruggio joins the Planning Commission
When City Council appointed Sgt. Mike Farruggio to the Planning Commission on October 3, they appointed the first—or at least the first in a long time—police officer to sit alongside architects, lawyers and planners on the advisory body. Council also reappointed Planning Commission chair Cheri Lewis, a local real estate attorney.
“It’s a balance that one tries to create,” says Councilor Blake Caravati, explaining why Council appointed Farruggio. “It has not only to do with life experience and education, but also connection to community and involvement in civic affairs …You want people [on the Commission] who are connected to the earth as well as these so-called vision people.”
Farruggio was chosen over other potential candidates that included, among others, two more architecturally inclined hopefuls. While Farruggio may not have had the training in theory that some of the other candidates boasted, Caravati stressed Farruggio’s involvement in his neighborhood—Fry’s Spring —as the bonus point.
Farruggio has lived in Charlottesville and served on its police force for almost 20 years, and he says he’s here to stay. He’s raised five kids here and since moving to the Fry’s Spring neighborhood about 10 years ago, he’s served both as the treasurer of the neighborhood association and as its president. At a recent forum sponsored by the League of Women’s Voters that preceded Council’s decision, Farruggio stressed maintaining the integrity of individual neighborhoods as the city grows, while his fellow candidates talked more nebulously about “historic character” and “sustainability.”
His experience as a police officer, says Caravati, has further informed his knowledge of the city’s neighborhoods.
Police Chief Tim Longo agrees.
“Police officers bring a unique perspective,” he says. “They see things from a different angle. They see safety and security more critically, and that will bring a unique perspective that [the Commission] may not have considered as thoughtfully in the past.”
Caravati and Longo also agree on Farruggio’s ability to build positive relationships, citing what each has observed from Farruggio’s experience on the police force and in his neighborhood involvement.
Farruggio was out of the office and could not be reached by press time, but there’s no question it’s a Farruggio lovefest in City Hall. What C-VILLE wants to know, however, is whether he’ll give Cheri Lewis a ticket if he catches her running a red light, or give Chief Longo a rezoning permit should he ever apply.—Nell Boeschenstein
Belvedere almost ready
Major subdivision may win approval this week
Developer Frank Stoner will have to wait at least a little while longer to start building his Belvedere subdivision off Rio Road. He’s been trying to win County rezoning for the project—which would put up to 775 residential units on more than 200 acres north of Charlottesville—since 2003.
On Wednesday, the Albemarle Board of Supervisors asked Stoner to make a few more additions to his plan. Specifically, the nearby Dunlora neighborhood is asking that more trees be planted between the two subdivisions to provide screening. The County also wants Stoner to make a plan for how he will protect the trees during construction, and how he will maintain them after building is complete. The Board will consider Belvedere again on Wednesday, October 12.
“I’m just ready for a vote. I think everybody’s tired of it by now,” Stoner says. He says Dunlora residents brought up their arboreal concerns at the last minute,
and that the Board of Supervisors “caved” to the political pressure.
“I think [Stoner] will work it out with the Dun-lora neighborhood association between now and next week,” says Supervisor Dennis Rooker. “I’m expect-ing it will get approved.”
That’s good news for Stoner, who has pointed to his struggles with Belvedere as evidence that the County’s Neighborhood Model for subdivisions is too complex and takes too long to be approved. Rooker says the Board will consider streamlining the process.
“I think there’s a less onerous way of making changes. Once a project is 95 percent complete, there should be a way to make changes to the plan instead of resubmitting the entire plan,” Rooker says. “We want to be efficient, but the reality is that when we’re providing for more than 750 units in an area surrounded by neighborhoods, we need to make sure we’re getting it right.”—John Borgmeyer
Talk of the gown
Local conservatives on the Miers nomination
On Monday, October 3, President Bush nominated White House counsel Harriet Miers to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the United States Supreme Court. Since then the media has been awash with criticism of Bush and his choice from a seemingly unlikely source: Republicans. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist lashed an acid tongue when he called Miers “unqualified” and her selection “a significant failure” on the part of the White House. To see how the controversy is unfolding locally, C-VILLE checked in with some local
conservatives for their thoughts on
the prospect of Justice Miers.—Nell Boeschenstein
Keith Drake, Chairman, Albemarle Repub-lican Party: “I trust the President and I trust his judgment. [If she’s] the most qualified candidate, who knows? Only time will tell. We put our trust in our elected leaders. We put our trust in President Bush and this is his pick. She certainly has had a close relationship with the President for many years. The bomb-throwers on the Left may call that cronyism; I would say the President benefits from knowing her extremely well.”
Bob Hodous, Chairman, Charlottesville Re-publican Party: “I’m not sure that I have any strong feelings one way or the other. I think now that the criticism is unfounded, although it may prove later to be true. I think a lot of times people who other people think are the most qualified…end up being the least qualified because of their strongly held views. [Robert] Bork, for example, was a brilliant nominee, but also the most controversial. I will not say that I support [the nomination], and I will not say that I’m against it.”
Steven Rhoads, politics professor, UVA: “Not particularly a wise choice. I think it’s kind of a shame the people have to look for nominations that don’t have a paper trail, and I think that’s what she has going for her. That might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but not much of one.”
Don’t bank on it
With new bankruptcy laws looming, debtors run to file
If you’re going to go broke, you better go fast. Soon, new legislation will make it more difficult to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. With the deadline looming, bankruptcy filings are at an all-time high while the old policy is still in effect.
A new bankruptcy law that goes into effect on October 17 prompted the recent spike in Chapter 7 filings. The tougher new legislation will require that the debtor’s in-come be below the State’s median in order to completely erase the debt. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Virginia’s median income for a family of four is $71,697.
According to the National Bankruptcy Research Center, the 68,287 bankruptcy filings made during the last week of September marked an unprecedented high. That bested the unprecedented high of the previous week’s 55,052 filings. Daily filings in September averaged 10,367 as opposed to 6,079 one year ago.
Locally, the filing trend mirrors the national numbers. According to David Tollison from the Lynchburg office of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, which keeps track of local filings, there were 60 bankruptcy filings in the Charlottesville area last month, compared to 26 from September 2004.
“I am being assigned more cases than I normally would [as a result of the impending law],” says local attorney
W. Stephen Scott. Scott represents both creditors and debtors, and serves as a bankruptcy trustee for bankruptcy court. He estimates that he’s getting 20 percent to 30 percent more cases than normal, and expects to see 100 to 150 more in the next couple months.
Scott, however, thinks that the panic surrounding the new law is misplaced.
“Most of the potential filers are not going to be above the income guidelines,” he says, “so we’ll just do the regular analysis that we’ve done under existing law.”—Nell Boeschenstein
Road raging
Route 29 drag racer gets nine months in the slammer
On Wednesday, October 5, 19-year-old Brandon Shifflett was sentenced to nine months behind bars for hit-and-run and drag-racing misdemeanor convictions. In addition, his license was suspended for six months and he was ordered to pay restitution to his victim, whose medical bills totaled $134,000, according to Albemarle Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos.
The incident occurred in March, at around 10pm, when Shifflett was drag racing down 29N by Colonial Auto Center.
“We’ve had a few [drag racing cases] of late. At 1am there’s not a lot of traffic up there,” says Camblos, referring to the Route 29 corridor.
Shifflett was sentenced by Char-lottesville Judge Edward Hogshire after Albemarle Judge Paul Peatross refused the plea agreement between Camblos and Shifflett’s defense attorney. Camblos said that Peatross offered no reason for refusing the agreement and that a chief judge appointed Hogshire in Peatross’ place.
Shifflett’s is another in an ongoing series of cases that seem to be affected by tensions between Peatross and Camblos. In February 2004, Camblos filed a complaint with the State against the judge, alleging that Peatross had treated him inappropriately. In one instance, there was a disagreement over the acceptance of a plea agreement.—Nell Boeschenstein
You get what you need
Rolling Stones blaze Scott Stadium
When the Rolling Stones an-nounced that their 2005-06 world tour would pass through Char-lottesville, locals greeted the news with an outpouring of hype and hate. There were those who vowed to get tickets no matter what the cost—after all, how could you miss the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band on Earth?
Then there were the haters. They made jokes about Viagra and Geritol, and scoffed at the idea of paying triple-digit ticket prices to see a bunch of millionaire geezers creak through 40-year-old songs. On Thursday, October 6, the “Rolling Stones: On Stage” tour hit Scott Stadium with guns blazing in a show that, without a doubt, lived up to the hype.
The party scene was in full effect in the neighborhoods around Scott Stadium, as young and old held cups of beer and mingled on lawns while vintage Stones tunes blared from houses and car windows. At about 7pm, a trio of police motorcycles rumbled down Stadium Road and swooped into the South Parking Garage, followed by a pair of full-size vans each bearing skinny, bed-headed figures visible behind the tinted glass.
“It was the band,” confirmed a pair of Albemarle County Police officers who led the motorcade. “All except Mick. He flew in on a helicopter.” That’s rock ‘n’ roll, man.
The officers said the band left Richmond on Thursday afternoon, and met the police escort at Zion Crossroads. Traffic was already heavy on Interstate 64, and as the motorcade sped toward the venue, Officer Robert McCormick said he noticed ob-jects flying toward the vans. Then a wo-man’s thong hit the windshield of Officer Mike Wells’ motorcycle. “It was green or blue,” Wells said of the panties. The whole experience, he said, “was pretty cool.”
The Stones’ enormous aura even seemed to inhibit opener Trey Anastasio, who has had his share of mammoth concert productions as the former guitarist for jam-gods Phish. Anastasio worked through an opening set that started at 7pm and lasted just more than a half-hour, while more than half the crowd was still stuck in traffic—about the only thing about the show that prompted griping. Others were milling about outside Scott Stadium during his set.
It was nearly 9 o’clock when the stadium lights went down and a roar of anticipation went up. Columns of eight-foot flames exploded from the front of the stage as the Rolling Stones launched into “Start Me Up” to open the show.
Singer Mick Jagger strutted and bounced to and fro around the stage with James Brown-like energy, and as he howled,
“Ya make a grown man cryyyyy,” it was clear that the night would be about living up to the hype, not the hate. At 62, Jagger’s voice is strong, and he has a performer’s gift for making everyone in a 60,000-seat arena feel like the show is just for them. All Jagger had to do was point, and whole sections of Scott Stadium leapt to their feet and “Woo-hooed” with feeling.
Guitarist Keith Richards looked like a wax museum figure come to life, but he and guitarist Ron Wood—who still appears like he can’t believe his luck—traded licks and cranked out signature riffs like “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Satisfaction” that sounded as fresh as they must have 30 years ago. The rock-solid Charlie Watts left no doubt as to why he’s known as the greatest rock drummer of all time. The virtuoso bass playing of Darryl Jones was a big reason the songs sounded so lively.
Waiting in line before the show, some concertgoers joked that Mick would probably call our town “Charlotte.” Not only did Jagger say, “Welcome, Char-lottesville,” after a rousing version of “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll,” but he also delivered shout-outs to the folks from Richmond, Virginia Beach and, of all places, Midlothian.
Pot smoke wafted through the air as the band launched into “Rough Justice,” the first song off their new album, A Bigger Bang. The song rocks as hard as any Stones classic, and Jagger’s lyrics still exude the if-it-feels-good-do-it sexuality that drove girls crazy.
After covering the Ray Charles hit “(Night Time is) The Right Time,” Jagger had just introduced the horn section when he disappeared momentarily, then came back to announce that “authorities” had alerted him to a “technical problem,” and the band would take a 10-minute break. Event staff started ushering the front rows out of their seats. It was either a bomb threat, or else the cops had just found Keith’s stash.
Later, police confirmed that promoters received a call at about 9pm warning that a bomb had been placed close to the stage. Despite the tense interruption, the 40 or so rows of fans that had to relocate complied with security and waited patiently for the show to resume. When it did, fans, now all back in their seats, were treated to vintage hits like “Get Off of My Cloud,” “Honky Tonk Women,” “Paint It Black” and “Brown Sugar.” With the sultry opening verse of “Sympathy for the Devil,” you can still see why parents once thought Jagger, sporting a fedora and a tightly tailored jacket, was Satan himself.
Following the show, fans crowded Starr Hill for an after-party to celebrate the triumph of rock over cynicism. “Char-lottesville’s a town full of haters,” said one fan. There is a school of thought that rock ‘n’ roll is young music for young people, and that bands should retire gracefully after the age of 30. Then there’s another school of thought, one the Rolling Stones spoke to through the sheer vibrancy of their performance, that says, “Oh yeah? Well, screw you.” Now that’s rock ‘n’ roll.—John Borgmeyer