Author: c-ville-weekly-writers

uesday, July 13
Media General seeing green

Media General, the media conglomerate that owns The Daily Progress and Boxerjam, today announced a second-quarter earnings gain of 5.9 percent compared with the same period in 2003. But earnings fell short of analysts’ predictions, knocking the company’s share price down slightly. Richmond-based Media General, which owns more newspapers in the southeast than any other company, posted quarterly revenue of $225 million. It owns The Tampa Tribune, Richmond Times-Dispatch, 26 TV stations and more than 50 Web ventures. Company officials said TV ads, including political spots, were big boosts, while earnings from Media General’s share in a newsprint company were disappointing. In a mid-year report, Media General said Boxerjam—the local website featuring games, which the company purchased in June 2002—is signing up 700 new users daily. But company figures show that Boxerjam only earned about $216,000 in the first five months of 2004.

 

Wednesday, July 14
God gets the call

About 100 anti-abortion activists today formed a prayer circle in the Albemarle County Office Building to protest the impending Planned Parenthood office on Hydraulic Road, reports David Dadurka in The Daily Progress. Demonstrators drummed up support on a website, www.charlottesvillefamilyforum.com, which says, “We are determined that Planned Parenthood not have a ‘free walk’ in opening such a large facility, dedicated to performing abortions and promoting their ‘safe sex’ agenda to our children.”

 

Thursday, July 15
Holland hangs it up

UVA today announced that Terry Holland, former men’s basketball coach and athletic director, will leave his current job as a special assistant to UVA President John Casteen III at the end of August. Holland has been raising funds for the $129 million basketball arena that will replace University Hall. During his stint as the head b-ball coach (1974-1990), Holland racked up a 326-173 record—the most successful run in Cavalier hoops history, according to a UVA press release.

 

Friday, July 16
Fifth District forks it over

The campaign of Rep. Virgil Goode Jr., who represents Charlottesville and the rest of the Fifth District in the U.S. House of Representatives, today said it had $585,563 on-hand at the end of June, according to The Daily Progress. Goode’s coffers are almost 10 times deeper than those of Democratic challenger Al Weed, who has $60,000. However, Goode outpaced Weed in fundraising by a narrower margin in the second quarter, reeling in $166,742 to Weed’s $110,000, according to the DP.

 

Saturday, July 17
Another football arrest

A week after the UVA football team announced that Ottawa Anderson, its top returning wide receiver, was off the team due to off-field discipline issues, one of the team’s running back recruits is in trouble with the law. The incoming freshman, Ahmad Bradshaw, was arrested early Saturday and charged with underage alcohol possession and obstruction, reports The Daily Progress. Bradshaw allegedly fled the arresting officer, and struggled briefly while being apprehended at the Rotunda.

 

Sunday, July 18
No rest for Van Yahres

With the day-of-rest fiasco now resolved by a General Assembly special session last week, Virginia business owners could today rest easier that employees would not opt out of work to honor their religious right to a day off. The General Assembly voted 79-1 on Tuesday for the legislative remedy, with the lone dissenter being Charlottesville Del. Mitchell Van Yahres. In a press release, Van Yahres said the day-of-rest flurry was a rush to judgment in which lawmakers leapt to the defense of businesses without considering the facts or the potential impacts on employees. “All I hear is conjecture about how the day-of-rest provision might be abused, how employers will suffer and how the sky is falling! The response to this situation has sometimes bordered on hysteria,” Van Yahres said in the release.

 

Monday, July 19
More on embryos

Jonathan Moreno, director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the UVA Health System, has been appointed co-chairman of a new National Academy of Sciences committee on stem cell research. Moreno and 10 other scientists and bioethicists will devise a set of guidelines for stem cell research, The Daily Progress today reports. Moreno drew headlines in January 2003, when he refused to join a similar bioethics committee that the Bush Administration had assembled. At the time, Moreno told The Washington Post, “This administration cares about finding any way they can to advance their platform on the protection of embryos, in general, and on stem cell research, in particular.”

 

Love letters
Wireless generation flirts via text messaging

wireless companies are constantly adding gimmicky capabilities such as video games or cameras to their phones. Among the more entrenched of these seemingly superfluous add-ons is text messaging, the ability to type out little notes, usually within a 160-character limit, to then beam into other phones.

 “Texting” is huge in the United Kingdom, Japan and many other countries. In China, the government has begun censoring billions of text messages, according to The New York Times. The move might not be an act of mere paranoia, as the masses of text messagers—tagged the “thumb generation” by a Spanish newspaper editor—helped spur the 2001 ouster of the Filipino president and rally support for the recent election of Spain’s Socialist prime minister.

 However, most textsters, including those among the 166 million wireless subscribers in the United States, veer away from political upheaval and toward the tawdry. Millions of fans have texted votes for their favorite “American Idol.” And text messages have made a high-profile cameo in one of the biggest media stories of the year: the Kobe Bryant trial.

 With as many as 63 percent of American teenagers sending text messages, according to the Cellular Telecommunications & Industry Association, text messages are increasingly part of a flirt’s repertoire.

 Walt McGough, a rising senior at UVA, says many of his friends regularly send text messages. Though McGough is not a fan of texting himself, he hazards a theory for its use in dating, saying text messages are for people “who don’t want to risk having an actual conversation.”

 In a text message, one can be witty and discreet, whipping off a good line without hazarding a potential faux pas. In addition, it’s not as forward as a phone call, giving the object of affection the option of gracefully ignoring the texter.

 Andrew Leahey, also a rising senior at UVA and a C-VILLE editorial intern, says his ex-girlfriend recently tapped into the agenda-controlling potential of text messaging to contact him. Leahey’s ex, whom he hadn’t heard from in three years, was swinging through Charlottesville, and let him know of her visit with a text message.

 “She used it as a way of contacting me without actually contacting me,” Leahey says. Though Leahey calls text messaging “the coward’s way,” he grudgingly admits that “it works.”

 To better convey a message with a max of 160 characters, texters often get creative with their shorthand, as do chat room and instant message aficionados. The message, “got to go, at work” can be compressed to g2g @wrk. The lingo is part of “a whole slang language that’s evolved,” says UVA graduate and texter Mike Megliola.

 Text messages have also proved to be an ideal means of communication among the cheating set. The most famous display of texting infidelity came when British soccer star David Beckham, the studly hubby of Posh Spice, allegedly exchanged explicit text messages with his sultry personal assistant. An extreme example of this sort of impropriety is a D.C.-residing friend of this reporter, who would often furtively write several ladies from his cell phone—his fingers tapping with the speed of a Japanese teenager—sometimes even while in the company of his girlfriend. The privacy and discretion of text messaging was tailor-made for his form of sleaze.

 Charlottesville residents, however, may be less inclined than most to use cell phones for such nefarious purposes. This is because, according to well-placed observers such as Jamey Barlow, the sales manager at Digi-Tel Communications on Seminole Trail, and to informal polling conducted by C-VILLE Weekly, text messaging is not very popular locally.

 “People don’t really use it that often,” Barlow says of the text messaging option.

 UVA grad Megliola says he used text messaging while studying in Lyon, France, in 2002. But when he got back to the United States, he chose a phone that can’t even send text messages.

 “Life’s a little too short to be pushing buttons all day long,” Megliola explains.—Paul Fain

 

Energy crisis
Local activists say no nukes is good nukes

Thirty years ago, Elena Day protested America’s first foray into nuclear power. She sported buttons, handed out fliers, marched on the Capitol. She still takes her message to the streets—the green bumper sticker on her car reads “No New Nukes at North Anna.”

 In 1979, a near-catastrophic meltdown at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island galvanized public opposition to nuclear power. “It appeared the battle had been won,” says Day. “But people have forgotten about it again.”

 Now Day is back on the “no nukes” beat, trying to rouse public opposition to the Bush Administration’s plan to build 50 additional nuclear reactors in the United States—including, perhaps, two new reactors at the North Anna nuclear power plant in Louisa County. This time around, however, the battle could be much more difficult.

 According to Bush’s 2001 National Energy Policy, nuclear fission is poised to become a “major component” of the nation’s power supply. Nuclear fission occurs when an atom, typically uranium or plutonium, is split into two or more parts, releasing a huge amount of energy. Billing nuclear power as an “environmentally sound” power source, the document proposes streamlining the permitting process and adding a litany of federal perks to encourage construction of new plants, which could cost more than $1 billion.

 “It’s a pretty expensive way to boil water,” says Day.

 In 2002, Richmond-based Dominion, parent company of Dominion Virginia Power, became one of three companies to get in line for the government’s atomic largesse. Dominion is currently seeking an “early site permit” from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that would clear its way to build two new nuclear reactors on the shores of Lake Anna in Mineral.

 Perhaps anticipating controversy, Dominion seems to be hedging its bets. While Dominion spokesman Jim Norvelle says the company has made “no commitment” to building the new North Anna plants, he also notes that the site permit would be good for 20 years, and that Dominion is also seeking federal licenses to build and operate two new plants.

 There are already two nuclear reactors at Lake Anna, one dating to 1978 and the other to 1980. Both were originally licensed to operate for 40 years, and each license has been extended an extra 20 years.

 To fight Dominion, Day joined her friend, Abhaya Thiele, in a new activist group called People’s Alliance for Clean Energy. PACE has joined the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League and Ralph Nader’s group, Public Citizen, in opposing the plants.

 In December, Dominion will likely apply to the Louisa Board of Supervisors for permission to expand Lake Anna’s nuclear-waste storage capacity; also around December, there will be a public hearing with the NRC in Louisa, where people can comment on Dominion’s site-permit application.

 There are plenty of reasons people should oppose the new plants, says Thiele—enormous construction costs, possible water pollution, dangerous waste and the potential for accidents or terrorist attack.

 Norvelle says he won’t respond to PACE’s contentions point by point. Instead, he summarizes, “We have a very safe track record.”

 PACE hopes to rally public opposition while there’s still time to defeat Dominion’s application. Their best hope may lie not in marches, however, but in the voting booth. According to Public Citizen, the three companies that stand to benefit the most from the Bush Administration’s heightened interest in atomic power—Dominion, Entergy and Exelon—contributed nearly $1 million during the past three election cycles to standing members of the Senate Energy Committee.—John Borgmeyer

 

Hidden treasures
Sex toy parties for the “pleasure button” crowd

Twelve folders in primary colors and an open bottle of 2003 Coteaux du Lange rest on the coffee table in the living room of a small brick house near Downtown. Inside each folder is an order form and catalogue. Fifteen well-dressed, well-spoken, unmarried women in their mid-20s to early 30s lounge about on shabby chic décor.

 By the mantle stands Amanda, a 27-year-old “Romance Enhancement Consultant” for Tasteful Treasures, a Virginia Beach-based company that sells sex toys through representatives who make house calls to women only. Known as, excuse me, “fuckerware parties,” these gatherings are Tupperware parties for the post-Samantha Jones age.

 Dressed in a black t-shirt, Amanda has blond hair, sports the shag cut Meg Ryan made famous, and prefers to be known simply as “Amanda.” Waiting for her partygoers to quiet down, she bounces a purple dildo with a head at both ends (“for double entry,” she explains) against her blue jean-clad thigh.

 Fuckerware parties popped into national headlines last November with the arrest of Joanne Webb, a Texas-based consultant for Passion Parties (a Tasteful Treasures competitor) who was arrested on an archaic technicality for selling a vibrator to two undercover cops. The parties are especially popular in Bible Belt states where they are pitched as ways to strengthen the sexual relationships of committed, heterosexual couples—not as toys to enliven the sex lives of singles.

 Amanda, who had no prior interest in sex toys and wouldn’t describe herself as a “sexpert,” began consulting for Tasteful Treasures in April. She had been looking for a part-time job she could keep while working full-time, and sex toy consultant fit the bill. She hosts three to four of these a month.

 The party starts as Amanda instructs the women to come up with sexy names for themselves. “I’m going to be Always Ready Amanda.”

 The results—Creative C., Pleasing P., Wild W., Crooked C., two Kinky K.s, Available A., Easy E., Anal A., Nubile N., Even Easier E.—are relatively tame. Like Amanda, the women prefer anonymity. They have come for various reasons: curiosity and a good “hahaha,” and “to discuss with…friends the things everybody does but nobody talks about,” says Creative C.

 The icebreaker is 24 sex-life questions. Question No. 8: “Have you ever done position ‘69’?” Question No. 12: “Have you ever used whipped cream [or] chocolate syrup…during sex?” Question No. 18: “Have you ever had sex while you or your partner is driving?”

 “Actual sex?”

 “Actual sex. As in intercourse,” clarifies Amanda. “Like the interstate. At night. Cruise control.”

 Tonight’s special is the Crystal Dancer, a vibrator with ball bearings rotating inside it, on sale at $89, down from $99. “Unit” is Tasteful Treasures’ euphemism for “penis”; “pleasure button” is code for “clitoris.”

 First out, Hearts of Fire, a cream that’s “good for the pleasure button or the unit” during “oral favors.” Nymph Cream, also for the “pleasure button,” Amanda recommends, “if you like to ride horses or…motorcycles.”

 Not Yet cream elicits the most curiosity.

 “Use your finger and rub this on the main vein and he will last longer,” instructs Amanda.

 “Like his erection will last longer or he just won’t come so quickly?” asks Kinky K.

 “Both, both.”

 “Both?”

 “Yes.” Pens scribble hopeful marks on the order forms.

 After a 15-minute break, out comes the Waterproof G-Spot Dolphin. Demonstrating on herself, Amanda shows how the vibrator’s curved nose is shaped to hit you right “there.” The Dolphin, the Chocolate Dream, the Ultimate Beaver and the French Tickler make their rounds and the room is abuzz. Literally.

 “Now close your eyes and hold out a hand,” instructs Amanda. A succession of shrieks break out like The Wave around the room: The Pirate’s Cove is for him.

 “’Honey, I’m tired tonight. I got a Hungry Man in the fridge for you and a Pirate’s Cove in the bedroom!’” jokes Creative C.

 But the Pearl Butterfly, a white vibrator, with a pearl-filled shaft and a fluttering butterfly for the “pleasure button,” is the pièce de resistance.

 “It’s so pretty,” the women “ooh” and “ah,” as Amanda retreats to another room to take orders in private. The chocolate pie and 2003 Coteaux have been demolished. “What are you gonna get?” is the question on everyone’s mind.—Nell Boeschenstein

Tuesday, June 29
Not guilty

Donna Somerville, a wealthy Orange county widow, was found not guilty today in the 2001 poisoning death of her husband, wrapping up a two-week trial and a steady drumbeat of front-page stories in The Daily Progress. Because it was not a jury trial, Orange County Circuit Judge Dan Bouton made the call, citing discrepancies in forensic evidence as a factor in his ruling. “This was not an acquittal on a technicality, it was an acquittal on the merits, which is the most satisfying,” Bouton told Olympia Meola of the DP.

 

Wednesday, June 30
Day of rest?

Thanks to a goof made by the General Assembly, employees of any Virginia business that stays open on weekends can now legally refuse to work on Saturday or Sunday, choosing these days as a “Sabbath” or “day of rest,” according to the law. That’s right, your favorite bartender may exercise his religious right to stop mixing martinis on Saturday. The accidentally important legislation, the AP today reports, was part of a well-meaning bill to excise Virginia’s archaic “blue laws” that ban Sunday work. But the replacement law mistakenly omitted weekend work allowances for private businesses. According to The New York Times, worried employers have besieged State government offices with questions, and have gotten few answers.

 

Thursday, July 1
King David

One day after being sworn-in as a City Councilor, David Brown, a chiropractor and one of four Democrats on Council, was today selected as Charlottesville’s new mayor by his fellow councilors. Brown’s right-hand man is recently reelected Democrat Kevin Lynch, who was chosen as vice-mayor today.

New rival?

Perennial football factory University of Miami and cross-state rival Virginia Tech officially joined UVA in the Atlantic Coast Conference today. The badasses from Miami bring their tropical uniforms to Scott Stadium on November 13.

 

Friday, July 2
School choice in City

It’s official, almost, that parents of children attending Clark Elementary, located on Belmont Avenue, may now request that their children go to another City school this fall. The news, announced late yesterday, is due to preliminary SOL scores, which show that Clark has not made enough progress on the standards testing as mandated by the Federal No Child Left Behind Act. Robert Thompson, a school official whose task it is to get the ball rolling on school choice at Clark, says that nationwide about 15 to 20 percent of parents have typically opted for choice. But because Clark is in a “close-knit” neighborhood where many students live a short walk away from the school, Thompson says, “I’m hoping that we’ll have a small percentage” of children being sent to other schools. He adds, however, “we don’t know.”

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

 

The straight and narrow
H.B. 751 prompts gay rights outcry

Earlier this spring, Philadelphia made headlines with the city-sponsored television ads specifically designed to court gay tourists. “Get your history straight,” the tagline beckoned, “and your nightlife gay.”

 Like Philly, Virginia’s tourism industry capitalizes on monuments to freedom, and its policy toward homosexuality is attracting national attention. But that’s where the comparison ends: While the City of Brotherly Love strives to live up to its name, a new State law that nullifies same-sex partnerships has gay rights groups saying “Virginia is for haters.”

 Indeed, that’s the name of a website calling for a tourist boycott of the Commonwealth. The website, www.virginiaisforhaters.org, is just one of the many rips on Virginia that have surfaced nationwide since April, when the General Assembly passed H.B. 751 by a veto-proof two-thirds majority. Delegate Robert Marshall (R-Manassas), a conservative Catholic known for rolling back abortion rights, sponsored the measure.

 The bill amends Virginia’s 1997 Affirmation of Marriage Act, which prevents the State from recognizing gay marriages performed in other states. Marshall says he sponsored H.B. 751 to further prohibit the recognition of civil unions or domestic partnerships granted elsewhere.

 “Marriage is only between one man and one woman,” says Marshall. “Virginia will accept no counterfeits.”

 Democratic Governor Mark Warner has said he opposes same-sex marriage, but he said that H.B. 751 is unconstitutional because its prohibition of “any civil union, partnership contract or other arrangement between persons of the same sex” could “void existing contracts” and “have a host of unintended consequences.” Gay rights groups like Equality Virginia and other groups like the American Civil Liberties Union say the bill could affect wills, leases, child custody arrangements, medical decisions, business agreements and joint bank accounts.

 Warner’s attempts to amend the bill were rebuffed by the General Assembly. Republican Albemarle Delegate Rob Bell voted for the bill, while Charlottesville’s Democratic Delegate Mitch Van Yahres voted against it. State Senator Creigh Deeds voted for an early version of H.B. 751, but finally voted against it.

 In a letter to Marshall, Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore said H.B. 751 “provides a needed safeguard for the institution of marriage” and that the bill is “constitutionally defensible.”

 Kilgore’s stance will likely be tested, as a lawsuit challenging the bill will almost certainly be filed by Equality Virginia or by more powerful national groups like the Human Rights Campaign or the ACLU.

 “There are similar [anti-gay] efforts in other states, but ours is the furthest along,” says Claire Kaplan, a member of both UVA Pride, a campus gay-rights group, and Equality Virginia. “When one law like this passes, everybody watches it.”

 The bill has certainly focused attention on Marshall and Virginia’s historic reluctance to embrace social change. CNN, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and gay conservatives like blogger Andrew Sullivan and columnist Jonathan Rauch, who called the bill “Virginia’s new Jim Crow,” are just some of the national media that have criticized the it. Marshall says protestors interrupted his son’s high school graduation party.

 While Virginia basks in this ignoble glow, Kaplan says H.B. 751 may have a silver lining. Virginia has become a front line in the national gay rights battleground, which only gets more heated as the Bush Administration continues to push for a heterosexual marriage amendment to theNARROW continued from page 9

U.S. Constitution. Kaplan predicts the debate will enliven the State’s long-dormant gay rights movement. Last week, Equality Virginia held a rally at the Albemarle County Office building.

 “It takes something really barbaric to get people mobilized, especially in Virginia, which isn’t known for its political activism,” says Kaplan. “That’s the hidden blessing in this.”—John Borgmeyer

Het offensive

Now that H.B. 751 has taken effect in the Commonwealth, the State tourism motto “Virginia is for Lovers” strikes us as too ambiguous. Lest visitors and new arrivals get the wrong idea about what kind of love is sanctioned in the Old Dominion, this week C-VILLE offers some new mottos that might be more apt:

Virginia is for lovers (some restrictions may apply).

Virginia is for procreative sex, between married

heterosexuals, in the missionary position,

with the lights off.

Virginia…this ain’t Massachusetts.

Virginia, where abstinence makes the heart

grow fonder.

Virginia…thanks for not being gay

 

A low-watt tale
Do revised FCC rules affect the local TV scene?

Only an engineer with a law degree could fully understand the machinations of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). A bewildering degree of legalese accompanied a recent Federal appeals court decision to block the FCC’s relaxation of media ownership rules. And a visit to the FCC’s sprawling website to make sense of how this ruling might affect the local media market will likely call up azimuth charts and treatises on “electromagnetic interference conflicts.”

 But it’s clear that among other implications, the court’s decision on Thursday, June 24, reversed the FCC’s 2003 move to allow companies in small media markets like Charlottesville to own more than one television station. So that means the decision tanked Atlanta-based Gray Television’s plan to create a “duopoly” by bringing both a CBS and an ABC affiliate to Charlottesville this August, right?

 Wrong.

 Unless the company makes a play to buy the local NBC station, Channel 29, WVIR, or The Daily Progress, it’s still good to go under the FCC regulations. This is because the nascent ABC affiliate, WVAW, Channel 16, is classified as a low-power television station, which does not fall under the media-ownership limit. With only 150 kilowatts of radiated juice, Channel 16’s signal will be far weaker than Channel 29’s big beam of 5,000 kilowatts.

 “None of the rule changes had anything to do with low-power stations,” says Joseph Davis, a Manassas-based engineer who consults for Gray on FCC matters.

 However, just because WVAW is light on the wattage doesn’t mean television sets in Charlottesville and Albemarle will sport fuzzy footage on Channel 16 this fall.

 “It certainly covers the nucleus of the metropolitan area,” says Bill Varecha, general manager of both of Gray’s new local stations, of WVAW’s planned broadcast reach. With the maximum amount of power allowed for a low-power station, “in essence, it’s going to cover most of the area that the full-power does,” he says.

 Furthermore, as Varecha says, about 65 percent of TV viewers in the Charlottesville metro area receive cable television, and don’t need to rely on catching signals from towers on Carter’s Mountain. Gray plans to slide WVAW into the slot on Adelphia’s local cable currently held by Gray’s ABC affiliate from Harrisonburg, WHSV.

 So though Gray will not technically hold a duopoly in Charlottesville, they will run two of three network affiliates, assuming the new stations get up and running.

 Jonathon Rintels is a Keswick resident who runs the Center for Creative Voices in Media, a group that opposes media consolidation. Rintels says he’s not complaining about Gray’s grab for local airtime because the company is actually creating new media as opposed to buying a chunk of the existing market.

 “I think competition in a local context can only be good,” Rintels says.—Paul Fain

 

Oath of office
Now that Charlottesville has officially been designated the best city in the universe and all, it’s time to raise the bar.

Here are some suggestions for how Council could make Charlottesville even better over the next four years. The new Council will hold its first regular meeting on Tuesday, July 6.

1. Since there’s no water fountain on the Mall,  pass out straws at the Central Place fountain.

2. Two words: Strip club!

3. Scrap the $6 million computer system. Instead, give an abacus to everyone in City Hall.

4. Make use of Kevin Lynch’s tenure with Babba Seth and Rob Schilling’s bandtime with Glory Express…Dude, Council jam session!

5. Put a moratorium on upscaleboutiques until each neighborhoodhas a grocery store within walking distance.

6. Monorail, monorail, monorail!

7. Just sell the whole City to Coran Capshaw and get it over with.

8. Serve beer and peanuts on the free trolley.

9. Limit City Manager Gary O’Connell to one PowerPoint presentation per month.

 

Hog ties
Afton couple rescues pigs, puts them in therapy

Lorelei Pulliam didn’t start out to be a pig rescuer. Her passion found her, literally.

 Three years ago, a lone potbelly pig came out of the woods and attempted to join Pulliam’s herd of five horses, which she keeps on a farm about a mile away from her home in Afton. Pulliam and her husband, Ron, a child and family therapist, employ the horses at the Gallastar Equine Center, a therapeutic riding program for troubled and at-risk children.

 Apparently the runaway pig found the horses’ companionship therapeutic as well. And after a long process of earning the pig’s trust, Pulliam, 45, had rescued her first porcine pal, which she named Ranger.

 “He just showed up,” Pulliam says. “He escaped from a pretty yucky place.”

 Pulliam tracked down the house farm from which Ranger hailed, and, finding several of Ranger’s relatives living in squalor, she bought the whole family. The Pulliams now have 28 pigs living on their property, many of them directly from similar neglected homes or from Mini-Pigs, Inc., a pig sanctuary in Culpeper.

 The Pulliams regularly bring Ranger and his posse to join the therapy sessions for children. And last year, they placed 18 rescued pigs in homes around the area. Ranger, the don among the Pulliam’s pig pecking order, was recently featured on the Animal Planet TV show “Animal Miracles.”

 “He knows he’s the king of all pigs,” Pulliam says of the formerly emaciated and now somewhat portly Ranger.

 On a recent morning at the rural retreat, Pulliam calls out: “Pigs! Pig-pig-pig-pig. C’mon pigs!”

 Four potbelly pigs, all a deep charcoal color and the size of chunky bulldogs, come bounding around a bend and up a hill with remarkable speed. Pulliam reaches down to stroke one pig’s belly. The pig, Babe, immediately rolls to its side while its coarse neck and back hair perk up like a mohawk in response to the massage. As Pulliam says, pigs love to be petted, but only if they know and trust the person touching them.

 “They’re very aware that everyone wants to eat them,” Pulliam says. “You cannot train that out of them.”

 The pigs Pulliam rescues are neglected or abandoned, often because small farm owners get overwhelmed with caring for the fast-multiplying animals.

 A male pig is sexually active at two months and a female at four months. With a sow birthing an average of two litters of 10 piglets annually, an inexperienced pig owner can get in trouble quickly. As a result, the Pulliams spay and neuter their pigs when they arrive at the Afton compound. One time, however, a sow gave birth to seven piglets in the Pulliam’s bathroom, just days after being rescued.

 When the Pulliams get a new pig, they begin training it for life as a pet. The “great tamer” of pigs is food, Pulliam says, as well as their love of being scratched. But though she has been successful at training pigs to dig their lives as pets, she says the intelligent and social animals, which are happiest running and rooting around a big yard with other pigs, are too high-maintenance for most potential owners.

 “The first thing that we do is try to discourage people from getting a pig,” Pulliam says, adding that she only adopts out the animals in pairs or to owners who already have a pig.

 Charlottesville Police Officer Nancy Eismann adopted a pig, Matilda, from the Pulliams to give some companionship to Homer, her stately 14-year-old pet pig. Though Matilda and Homer took some time to hash out a living agreement, Homer is now a happier pig, Eismann says.

 Spending time with two farm pigs at the Pulliams’ place, both rescued from a starvation on a Lexington farm, makes clear the colossal challenge of living with Porky as a pet. Already 500 pounds each, Pulliam says the two pink pigs could grow to 1,200 pounds. Though potbelly pigs have been en vogue as pets—she says they were once the “new yuppie puppies”—mostly because they are smaller animals, Ron Pulliam says there’s “no guarantee” that a potbelly pig will stay a manageable size.

 But pigs are big hits in child therapy sessions. Among other benefits, Pulliam says, Ranger helps children learn about stereotypes. She says children are initially “grossed-out” when Ranger joins them for lunch, but that the polite pig with “excellent manners” always overcomes the kids’ preconceptions.

 “They’re the most sensitive of animals, locked in these funny bodies,” Pulliam says.—Paul Fain

Tuesday, June 29
Not guilty

Donna Somerville, a wealthy Orange county widow, was found not guilty today in the 2001 poisoning death of her husband, wrapping up a two-week trial and a steady drumbeat of front-page stories in The Daily Progress. Because it was not a jury trial, Orange County Circuit Judge Dan Bouton made the call, citing discrepancies in forensic evidence as a factor in his ruling. “This was not an acquittal on a technicality, it was an acquittal on the merits, which is the most satisfying,” Bouton told Olympia Meola of the DP.

 

Wednesday, June 30
Day of rest?

Thanks to a goof made by the General Assembly, employees of any Virginia business that stays open on weekends can now legally refuse to work on Saturday or Sunday, choosing these days as a “Sabbath” or “day of rest,” according to the law. That’s right, your favorite bartender may exercise his religious right to stop mixing martinis on Saturday. The accidentally important legislation, the AP today reports, was part of a well-meaning bill to excise Virginia’s archaic “blue laws” that ban Sunday work. But the replacement law mistakenly omitted weekend work allowances for private businesses. According to The New York Times, worried employers have besieged State government offices with questions, and have gotten few answers.

 

Thursday, July 1
King David

One day after being sworn-in as a City Councilor, David Brown, a chiropractor and one of four Democrats on Council, was today selected as Charlottesville’s new mayor by his fellow councilors. Brown’s right-hand man is recently reelected Democrat Kevin Lynch, who was chosen as vice-mayor today.

New rival?

Perennial football factory University of Miami and cross-state rival Virginia Tech officially joined UVA in the Atlantic Coast Conference today. The badasses from Miami bring their tropical uniforms to Scott Stadium on November 13.

 

Friday, July 2
School choice in City

It’s official, almost, that parents of children attending Clark Elementary, located on Belmont Avenue, may now request that their children go to another City school this fall. The news, announced late yesterday, is due to preliminary SOL scores, which show that Clark has not made enough progress on the standards testing as mandated by the Federal No Child Left Behind Act. Robert Thompson, a school official whose task it is to get the ball rolling on school choice at Clark, says that nationwide about 15 to 20 percent of parents have typically opted for choice. But because Clark is in a “close-knit” neighborhood where many students live a short walk away from the school, Thompson says, “I’m hoping that we’ll have a small percentage” of children being sent to other schools. He adds, however, “we don’t know.”

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

 

The straight and narrow
H.B. 751 prompts gay rights outcry

Earlier this spring, Philadelphia made headlines with the city-sponsored television ads specifically designed to court gay tourists. “Get your history straight,” the tagline beckoned, “and your nightlife gay.”

 Like Philly, Virginia’s tourism industry capitalizes on monuments to freedom, and its policy toward homosexuality is attracting national attention. But that’s where the comparison ends: While the City of Brotherly Love strives to live up to its name, a new State law that nullifies same-sex partnerships has gay rights groups saying “Virginia is for haters.”

 Indeed, that’s the name of a website calling for a tourist boycott of the Commonwealth. The website, www.virginiaisforhaters.org, is just one of the many rips on Virginia that have surfaced nationwide since April, when the General Assembly passed H.B. 751 by a veto-proof two-thirds majority. Delegate Robert Marshall (R-Manassas), a conservative Catholic known for rolling back abortion rights, sponsored the measure.

 The bill amends Virginia’s 1997 Affirmation of Marriage Act, which prevents the State from recognizing gay marriages performed in other states. Marshall says he sponsored H.B. 751 to further prohibit the recognition of civil unions or domestic partnerships granted elsewhere.

 “Marriage is only between one man and one woman,” says Marshall. “Virginia will accept no counterfeits.”

 Democratic Governor Mark Warner has said he opposes same-sex marriage, but he said that H.B. 751 is unconstitutional because its prohibition of “any civil union, partnership contract or other arrangement between persons of the same sex” could “void existing contracts” and “have a host of unintended consequences.” Gay rights groups like Equality Virginia and other groups like the American Civil Liberties Union say the bill could affect wills, leases, child custody arrangements, medical decisions, business agreements and joint bank accounts.

 Warner’s attempts to amend the bill were rebuffed by the General Assembly. Republican Albemarle Delegate Rob Bell voted for the bill, while Charlottesville’s Democratic Delegate Mitch Van Yahres voted against it. State Senator Creigh Deeds voted for an early version of H.B. 751, but finally voted against it.

 In a letter to Marshall, Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore said H.B. 751 “provides a needed safeguard for the institution of marriage” and that the bill is “constitutionally defensible.”

 Kilgore’s stance will likely be tested, as a lawsuit challenging the bill will almost certainly be filed by Equality Virginia or by more powerful national groups like the Human Rights Campaign or the ACLU.

 “There are similar [anti-gay] efforts in other states, but ours is the furthest along,” says Claire Kaplan, a member of both UVA Pride, a campus gay-rights group, and Equality Virginia. “When one law like this passes, everybody watches it.”

 The bill has certainly focused attention on Marshall and Virginia’s historic reluctance to embrace social change. CNN, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and gay conservatives like blogger Andrew Sullivan and columnist Jonathan Rauch, who called the bill “Virginia’s new Jim Crow,” are just some of the national media that have criticized the it. Marshall says protestors interrupted his son’s high school graduation party.

 While Virginia basks in this ignoble glow, Kaplan says H.B. 751 may have a silver lining. Virginia has become a front line in the national gay rights battleground, which only gets more heated as the Bush Administration continues to push for a heterosexual marriage amendment to theNARROW continued from page 9

U.S. Constitution. Kaplan predicts the debate will enliven the State’s long-dormant gay rights movement. Last week, Equality Virginia held a rally at the Albemarle County Office building.

 “It takes something really barbaric to get people mobilized, especially in Virginia, which isn’t known for its political activism,” says Kaplan. “That’s the hidden blessing in this.”—John Borgmeyer

Het offensive

Now that H.B. 751 has taken effect in the Commonwealth, the State tourism motto “Virginia is for Lovers” strikes us as too ambiguous. Lest visitors and new arrivals get the wrong idea about what kind of love is sanctioned in the Old Dominion, this week C-VILLE offers some new mottos that might be more apt:

Virginia is for lovers (some restrictions may apply).

Virginia is for procreative sex, between married

heterosexuals, in the missionary position,

with the lights off.

Virginia…this ain’t Massachusetts.

Virginia, where abstinence makes the heart

grow fonder.

Virginia…thanks for not being gay

 

A low-watt tale
Do revised FCC rules affect the local TV scene?

Only an engineer with a law degree could fully understand the machinations of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). A bewildering degree of legalese accompanied a recent Federal appeals court decision to block the FCC’s relaxation of media ownership rules. And a visit to the FCC’s sprawling website to make sense of how this ruling might affect the local media market will likely call up azimuth charts and treatises on “electromagnetic interference conflicts.”

 But it’s clear that among other implications, the court’s decision on Thursday, June 24, reversed the FCC’s 2003 move to allow companies in small media markets like Charlottesville to own more than one television station. So that means the decision tanked Atlanta-based Gray Television’s plan to create a “duopoly” by bringing both a CBS and an ABC affiliate to Charlottesville this August, right?

 Wrong.

 Unless the company makes a play to buy the local NBC station, Channel 29, WVIR, or The Daily Progress, it’s still good to go under the FCC regulations. This is because the nascent ABC affiliate, WVAW, Channel 16, is classified as a low-power television station, which does not fall under the media-ownership limit. With only 150 kilowatts of radiated juice, Channel 16’s signal will be far weaker than Channel 29’s big beam of 5,000 kilowatts.

 “None of the rule changes had anything to do with low-power stations,” says Joseph Davis, a Manassas-based engineer who consults for Gray on FCC matters.

 However, just because WVAW is light on the wattage doesn’t mean television sets in Charlottesville and Albemarle will sport fuzzy footage on Channel 16 this fall.

 “It certainly covers the nucleus of the metropolitan area,” says Bill Varecha, general manager of both of Gray’s new local stations, of WVAW’s planned broadcast reach. With the maximum amount of power allowed for a low-power station, “in essence, it’s going to cover most of the area that the full-power does,” he says.

 Furthermore, as Varecha says, about 65 percent of TV viewers in the Charlottesville metro area receive cable television, and don’t need to rely on catching signals from towers on Carter’s Mountain. Gray plans to slide WVAW into the slot on Adelphia’s local cable currently held by Gray’s ABC affiliate from Harrisonburg, WHSV.

 So though Gray will not technically hold a duopoly in Charlottesville, they will run two of three network affiliates, assuming the new stations get up and running.

 Jonathon Rintels is a Keswick resident who runs the Center for Creative Voices in Media, a group that opposes media consolidation. Rintels says he’s not complaining about Gray’s grab for local airtime because the company is actually creating new media as opposed to buying a chunk of the existing market.

 “I think competition in a local context can only be good,” Rintels says.—Paul Fain

 

Oath of office
Now that Charlottesville has officially been designated the best city in the universe and all, it’s time to raise the bar.

Here are some suggestions for how Council could make Charlottesville even better over the next four years. The new Council will hold its first regular meeting on Tuesday, July 6.

1. Since there’s no water fountain on the Mall,  pass out straws at the Central Place fountain.

2. Two words: Strip club!

3. Scrap the $6 million computer system. Instead, give an abacus to everyone in City Hall.

4. Make use of Kevin Lynch’s tenure with Babba Seth and Rob Schilling’s bandtime with Glory Express…Dude, Council jam session!

5. Put a moratorium on upscaleboutiques until each neighborhoodhas a grocery store within walking distance.

6. Monorail, monorail, monorail!

7. Just sell the whole City to Coran Capshaw and get it over with.

8. Serve beer and peanuts on the free trolley.

9. Limit City Manager Gary O’Connell to one PowerPoint presentation per month.

 

Hog ties
Afton couple rescues pigs, puts them in therapy

Lorelei Pulliam didn’t start out to be a pig rescuer. Her passion found her, literally.

 Three years ago, a lone potbelly pig came out of the woods and attempted to join Pulliam’s herd of five horses, which she keeps on a farm about a mile away from her home in Afton. Pulliam and her husband, Ron, a child and family therapist, employ the horses at the Gallastar Equine Center, a therapeutic riding program for troubled and at-risk children.

 Apparently the runaway pig found the horses’ companionship therapeutic as well. And after a long process of earning the pig’s trust, Pulliam, 45, had rescued her first porcine pal, which she named Ranger.

 “He just showed up,” Pulliam says. “He escaped from a pretty yucky place.”

 Pulliam tracked down the house farm from which Ranger hailed, and, finding several of Ranger’s relatives living in squalor, she bought the whole family. The Pulliams now have 28 pigs living on their property, many of them directly from similar neglected homes or from Mini-Pigs, Inc., a pig sanctuary in Culpeper.

 The Pulliams regularly bring Ranger and his posse to join the therapy sessions for children. And last year, they placed 18 rescued pigs in homes around the area. Ranger, the don among the Pulliam’s pig pecking order, was recently featured on the Animal Planet TV show “Animal Miracles.”

 “He knows he’s the king of all pigs,” Pulliam says of the formerly emaciated and now somewhat portly Ranger.

 On a recent morning at the rural retreat, Pulliam calls out: “Pigs! Pig-pig-pig-pig. C’mon pigs!”

 Four potbelly pigs, all a deep charcoal color and the size of chunky bulldogs, come bounding around a bend and up a hill with remarkable speed. Pulliam reaches down to stroke one pig’s belly. The pig, Babe, immediately rolls to its side while its coarse neck and back hair perk up like a mohawk in response to the massage. As Pulliam says, pigs love to be petted, but only if they know and trust the person touching them.

 “They’re very aware that everyone wants to eat them,” Pulliam says. “You cannot train that out of them.”

 The pigs Pulliam rescues are neglected or abandoned, often because small farm owners get overwhelmed with caring for the fast-multiplying animals.

 A male pig is sexually active at two months and a female at four months. With a sow birthing an average of two litters of 10 piglets annually, an inexperienced pig owner can get in trouble quickly. As a result, the Pulliams spay and neuter their pigs when they arrive at the Afton compound. One time, however, a sow gave birth to seven piglets in the Pulliam’s bathroom, just days after being rescued.

 When the Pulliams get a new pig, they begin training it for life as a pet. The “great tamer” of pigs is food, Pulliam says, as well as their love of being scratched. But though she has been successful at training pigs to dig their lives as pets, she says the intelligent and social animals, which are happiest running and rooting around a big yard with other pigs, are too high-maintenance for most potential owners.

 “The first thing that we do is try to discourage people from getting a pig,” Pulliam says, adding that she only adopts out the animals in pairs or to owners who already have a pig.

 Charlottesville Police Officer Nancy Eismann adopted a pig, Matilda, from the Pulliams to give some companionship to Homer, her stately 14-year-old pet pig. Though Matilda and Homer took some time to hash out a living agreement, Homer is now a happier pig, Eismann says.

 Spending time with two farm pigs at the Pulliams’ place, both rescued from a starvation on a Lexington farm, makes clear the colossal challenge of living with Porky as a pet. Already 500 pounds each, Pulliam says the two pink pigs could grow to 1,200 pounds. Though potbelly pigs have been en vogue as pets—she says they were once the “new yuppie puppies”—mostly because they are smaller animals, Ron Pulliam says there’s “no guarantee” that a potbelly pig will stay a manageable size.

 But pigs are big hits in child therapy sessions. Among other benefits, Pulliam says, Ranger helps children learn about stereotypes. She says children are initially “grossed-out” when Ranger joins them for lunch, but that the polite pig with “excellent manners” always overcomes the kids’ preconceptions.

 “They’re the most sensitive of animals, locked in these funny bodies,” Pulliam says.—Paul Fain

Tuesday, June 22
Affordable digs in Albemarle

Albemarle County has successfully negotiated its first batch of affordable housing in a new development project. Under a rule instituted in February, 15 percent of the homes in a new development must be affordable. But the new policy is flexible, and had yet to prod developers to build much in the way of new affordable housing. Today, however, the County Planning Commission approved a plan for a 59-unit housing development that hits the 15 percent affordable mark with nine townhouses that will be sold for under $180,000. But, as David Dadurka of The Daily Progress reports, the proposed development has some neighbors complaining about the denser, cheaper homes. The project is slated for Avon Street Extended, near the Mill Creek South subdivision, and is being developed by Vito Cetta.

Wednesday, June 23
Earl Washington case dismissed

A Federal judge dismissed Earl Washington’s lawsuit against his hometown of Culpeper and the six police officers who helped to wrongly convict Washington of murder. But Washington will still have his day in court. In a Federal suit pending in Charlottesville, an all-star team of civil rights lawyers contend that police officers coerced a murder confession from Washington, a black, retarded farmhand. Today, U.S. District Judge Norman K. Moon dismissed all the defendants except one—Curtis Reese Wilmore, a dead state police investigator. “This simplifies the suit,” says Steve Rosenfield, a Charlottesville attorney assisting in the suit. “Wilmore is the main figure.”

Thursday, June 24
Paying for roads

Virginia State Senator John Chichester, a Republican from Stafford, played a key role in this year’s budget standoff when he and a group of fellow Republicans backed tax hikes, creating a deep rift in the party. Speaking today at a Miller Center forum, Chichester said more revenue boosts were needed—and likely—to keep Virginia’s highways from going from bad to worse. The recently passed $1.4 billion tax boost included no new money for roads, and Chichester hinted that new road taxes could come as soon as next year, according to a Media General account of the forum. Highway money could come from boosts to gas taxes, among other sources.

Friday, June 25
Docu-drama

Michael Moore’s latest film, the much-ballyhooed Fahrenheit 9/11, opened in 21 theaters across Virginia today, including Vinegar Hill Theatre. The movie arrived with a massive amount of publicity, stoked as much by Disney’s decision to not distribute the film as by its startling footage of President Bush on September 11, 2001. People were lined up around the block at Vinegar Hill when tickets went on sale at 1pm. In just 90 minutes, all four of today’s shows for the 220-seat theater were sold out, says Reid Oechslin, Vinegar Hill’s manager. The Downtown art house has screened all of Moore’s documentaries. And, according to Oechslin, the cinematic provocateur himself once came to the theater to conduct a Q&A session for the release of his 1989 classic Roger & Me. “We’re down with Michael Moore,” Oechslin says.

Saturday, June 26
Falun Gong at City Hall

A small group of Falun Gong practitioners today held a demonstration at City Hall to mark persecution of the practice in China. Falun Gong, which is a spiritual practice involving exercise and meditation, was first taught in China in 1992. Since then, followers claim that the Chinese government has brutally repressed Falun Gong, sending as many as 100,000 people to labor camps. At today’s demonstration, four members of the Charlottesville Falun Gong Group moved through a slow series of stretches, all set to a recording of soft music and chanting.

Sunday, June 27
UVA student drowns in Potomac

The body of UVA student John Steve Catilo, 20, was today recovered in the Potomac River, The Daily Progress reports. On Friday, Catilo apparently fell into the river while trying to restart the engine on a boat. Catilo had been working as a crew coach for an Alexandria high school, and was on the river with many teenage rowers at the time of the accident.

Monday, June 28
Changing of the guard

City Council will likely select two new School Board members at tonight’s special meeting. The terms of two current members, including Chairperson Linda Bowen, expire on Wednesday. The Council, in the last session to include Mayor Maurice Cox and Vice-Mayor Meredith Richards, will choose from nine candidates, among them incumbent Julie Gronlund. School Superintendent Ron Hutchinson will also be stepping down this week.

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

 

“I love you, man”
City Hall gets gushy as Councilors bow out

In January 1996, when C-VILLE reported that Maurice Cox and Meredith Richards each had decided to enter that year’s City Council race, the paper’s “City Journal” section carried headlines on the biggest debate of the year: reversion.

 As middle-class homeowners fled to Albemarle, the City’s property tax base atrophied, social service costs swelled and studies predicted Charlottesville’s budget would soon run into the red. A political movement formed around the ultimately failed idea that Charlottesville should disband City Council, revert from an independent city to an Albemarle town and place its future in the hands of the County Board of Supervisors.

 Since then, national magazines have crowned Charlottesville a great place for golf, tennis, retirement and outdoor sports, and, most recently, the City added “Best Place to Live in America” to its accolades. Monday, June 21, marked the final City Council meeting for outgoing Mayor Cox and Vice-Mayor Richards, and they both invoked Charlottesville’s reversal of fortune as bookends to their tenure on Council.

 Although the City and County eventually rejected the reversion scheme, “most of what we’ve done on Council is an outgrowth of what we learned through the reversion debate,” says Richards.

 Both Cox and Richards came to politics after making names for themselves in neighborhood associations. Cox organized Ridge Street residents to help shape a development project in that neighborhood; Richards fought a developer who wanted to extend Shamrock Road to Fifth Street, making her Johnson Village neighborhood a cut-through. (Ironically, some critics now bash Cox for underplaying public input and Richards for supporting road projects.) Reflecting on their tenures, each says they tried to make Charlottesville neighborhoods attractive to people who could afford to move to the suburbs.

 Cox and Richards both saw government as an active force to change Charlottesville for the better. They were both popular Councilors who worked together to make UVA more responsive to City concerns; they pushed for a progressive transit system and partnered with developers to stimulate economic growth.

 While Cox earned more votes than any other candidate in 1996 and 2000, he drew more criticism than other Councilors, too, from conservatives who viewed his ambition as arrogance, and from members of his own party who accused him of gentrifying black neighborhoods.

 “There is no public mandate to lead,” says Cox. “I thought people would embrace innovation, but I’ve found that people have to be brought kicking and screaming.”

 Cox championed the idea that people should be able to live, work and play all within walking distance. While developers initially seemed skittish about mixed-use architecture, the style has proven profitable on the Downtown Mall. Under Cox’s tenure, mixed-use has spread to south Downtown, and a new zoning code will eventually reshape areas like Jefferson Park Avenue, Cherry Avenue, Fifth Street and Preston Avenue.

 “You have to rely on your own personal will to make change, because there’s never going to be a consensus,” says Cox. In August, he will begin a year at Harvard, studying politics and urban design on a Loeb Fellowship to the Graduate Schoolof Design. Cox vows to return to Charlottesville, and possibly politics. “I’d like to see if some of the lessons I’ve learned locally can be applied statewide,” he says.

 Despite his healthy instinct for change, Cox stonewalled his fair share of projects, too. As their tenure wound down, he often clashed with Richards over the Meadowcreek Parkway. His refusal to support the road often frustrated Richards, who arguably worked harder than anyone locally to change the Virginia Department of Transportation’s attitude toward Charlottesville.

 Richards first encountered VDOT in 1994, when she joined the City’s planning commission. That year, the commission deflected VDOT’s proposal for a huge interchange at Hydraulic Road. After joining Council in 1996, Richards immediately joined the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), and has worked on that transportation policy-making body ever since.

 “I began to understand the connections between transportation, land use and environmental health,” says Richards.

 Through the MPO, Richards helped convince VDOT to redesign the Meadowcreek Parkway from a four-lane monster to a two-lane road with parklike accouterments. Despite these concessions, Cox (along with recently re-elected Councilor Kevin Lynch) still refused to support the Parkway. Richards’ pro-Parkway stance helped derail her bid this year for reelection, and hard feelings still linger between the Councilors and their supporters in the Democratic party.

 Regardless of the Parkway’s future, Richards has made her mark—in June, Council tentatively went forward with a State plan to give localities more control over State and Federal transportation dollars. This may aid future Councils in implementing a project Richards has long championed—redeveloping the City’s bus system. Also, Richards has been working on a State rail line called the TransDominion Express, and she expects to see a line between Washington, D.C., and Charlottesville within two years.

 Last week, Governor Mark Warner appointed Richards to a State railway commission. She has also applied for a job as executive director of Virginia First Cities, a group she helped to found in 2002 to advocate for the Commonwealth’s historic urban areas.

 Monday’s meeting also featured more than 180 slides documenting the 32-year career of retiring planning director Satyendra Huja, as famous for his brightly colored Sikh turbans that cover his waist-length hair as his relentless drive to remake the City. The lovey-dovey June 21 meeting even featured some free verse poetics from City Manager Gary O’Connell, with Richards earning the most Whitmanesque line: “Meredith Richards—A Texan, a redhead…a lover of fresh oysters.”

Information, or infomercial?

Monday’s meeting also featured O’Connell’s answer to Republican critics who say the City is wasting money on a $6.6 million computer upgrade.

 “It’s going to be an exhaustive presentation,” said Cox as an introduction. Perhaps he meant “exhausting”—the infomercial, produced by O’Connell and municipal public relations director Maurice Jones, managed to consume nearly 20 minutes without directly answering any questions.

 John Pfaltz, a UVA computer science professor and onetime Republican Council candidate, and computer expert Jim Moore say the City should scrap its multi-million dollar system. On Monday, Moore said the City could get a similar system for $859,000.

 After enduring the Councilors’ extended stroll down memory lane, Pfaltz says he had hoped the presentation would explain why the City could not have purchased a cheaper system.

 “It was little more than a sales pitch,” says Pfaltz. “It really answered no questions.”—John Borgmeyer

 

 

Sideline savants
Are Hoo sports highlights a click away?

When the UVA football team fumbles the ball, even in a victory, there are plenty of fans who want the scoop. Did a lineman miss a block? Is the freshman running back (gasp!) a fumbler? These answers might be a mouse-click away this fall in the form of game highlights (and lowlights) from TheSabre.com.

The UVA fan website, already a popular link for recruiting news, game summaries and message boards, hopes to launch audio and video highlights from both football and men’s basketball games next year. The footage will be available to subscribers to The Sabre’s premium service, which costs $34.95 per year, says Matt Welsh, president of SportsWar, which owns The Sabre and a similar website for Virginia Tech fans.

 “Hopefully after a game, we’ll have something up in an hour,” Welsh says. “We’re practicing and working our way through it right now.”

 The Sabre will have competition, as AM radio station WINA, local and national television outlets, ESPN.com and UVA’s own website already air snippets from hoops and football games. Additionally, WINA and TV networks such as ABC often own the rights to broadcast the games live.

 However, Welsh, the son of former UVA football coach George Welsh, thinks there’s fan interest for more diverse UVA sports coverage. The Sabre’s advantage, Welsh says, is the “grassroots” approach of sideline-savvy sports writers, such as former Daily Progress writer John Galinksy, and the creative potential the Internet provides for in-depth coverage. For example, The Sabre just taped a 40-minute interview with UVA Athletic Director Craig Littlepage.

 “That’s something you’re not going to see anywhere else,” Welsh says.

 In addition, The Sabre won’t shy away from airing UVA mishaps such as penalties, coaching flubs and dumb fouls, all of which fans are unlikely to catch on UVA’s promotional site.

 “They’re going to show all the good plays. We might show a little bit broader perspective,” Welsh says.

 The Sabre, as a credentialed media organization, currently gets access to UVA athletes and coaches, as well as the sidelines. According to Michael Colley, UVA’s assistant sports information director, The Sabre is free to broadcast highlight footage in a “news-type format.” Colley and Welsh think there may be some limit to the amount of footage that can be used, but neither knows what those limits might be because, as Colley says, “that hasn’t come up yet.”

 Though Andrew Gottman, a ’96 UVA alum who lives in Dayton, Ohio, says he has logged onto The Sabre in the past, he adds that he wouldn’t pay for access to Web casts or other bonuses.

 “I can get highlights pretty fast on ESPN assuming the games aren’t televised anyway,” Gottman writes via e-mail, adding, “the basketball team is so bad that I wouldn’t pay anything to watch them anywhere.”

 UVA alum John Pulley, class of ’90, who is a fan of The Sabre, says he too is unlikely to drop $35 on a subscription, highlights or not. For Pulley, it’s not so much money, but the fear that he’d be crossing “that fuzzy line that separates avid sports fan from pathetic sports geeks.”

 Pulley’s hesitancy, however, seems unlikely among many of the rabid fans who post comments to The Sabre’s website. For the fans discussing “throwback” mini-helmets styled after the 1978 uniforms, one more sideline angle on a touchdown run might be a big draw.—Paul Fain

Tuesday, June 15
The Freshman 100

UVA today held a meeting in the Newcomb Hall Ballroom with about 100 local residents to discuss the school’s many plans for growth. Though the lengthy presentation by UVA architect David J. Neuman had the somnolent effect of an academic lecture, several specifics emerged. Neuman said the incoming freshman classes at UVA should grow by about 100 students annually, and though the school will build housing to handle the influx, most construction will focus on denser development within the current campus boundaries. Also on the agenda: the UVA Medical Center, which is getting a new parking garage, and an upgrade to UVA’s coal-powered heating plant. The $50 million improvements to the plant are to be completed by late 2008. The community meeting featured visual aids depicting before and after pictures of the plant, which, to a casual observer, appeared virtually identical.

 

Wednesday, June 16
Toast to Dublin

James Joyce’s epic, if not impenetrable, 732-page novel Ulysses was based on one day in Dublin, exactly 100 years ago. That centennial—called Bloomsday to honor protagonist Leopold Bloom—drew celebrations worldwide, including a reading at Gravity Lounge. The event, organized by the Irish American Society of Central Virginia and drawing a crowd of 65, featured hours of reading from Joyce’s work, the Irish band King Golden Banshee and many bottles of Guinness. Marie Moriarty, an organizer who wore the recommended spring frock and hat for the event, said she held the shindig at her house last year. At the microphone, Eric Wilson, a Washington and Lee English professor, began his reading by saying, “I also think Joyce is a better short-form writer. That may be heresy here.”

 

Thursday, June 17
Gunplay on Garrett

A man suffered minor wounds shortly after midnight when he was shot on the 400 block of Garrett Street. The unidentified victim was hospitalized, and Charlottesville Police report that at least one suspect remains at large.

School Board preps for new class

At its regular meeting this evening, the City School Board commended Chair Linda Bowen, who will retire on June 30. The following day, City Council will name the new board’s new seven-member contingent, which will be joined in charting the future of the 4,400-student system by incoming Superintendent Dr. Scottie J. Griffin. She will succeed Ron Hutchinson, whose two-year interim tenure as superintendent, also to end on June 30, followed a previous failed attempt by the School Board to hire a new superintendent.

 

Friday, June 18
Park and Locust slowed again

Drivers cruising the 250 Bypass encountered the familiar sight of closed lanes at the Park Street and Locust Avenue ramps as workers commenced bridge-painting projects expected to last at least three weeks. Last year, bridge repair work successively closed the ramps for several months each.

 

Saturday, June 19
Gillen sinks a deuce

Cavalier men’s basketball coach Pete Gillen has announced two additions to his coaching staff that might help dull the memory of the squad’s disappointing 18-13 record in the 2003-04 season. Improbably, both men, John Fitzpatrick of the University of Houston and Mark Byington of the College of Charleston, coach teams named The Cougars, adding to the hope that their presence will put some bite into Gillen’s style.

 

Sunday, June 20
County’s first murder of 2004

Two days after the bullet-riddled body of 23-year-old Shawn Gavin Hatcher was found near Oakwood Mobile Homes on 29N, Albemarle Police have identified 21-year-old County resident Daniel Bradley Limbacher as a suspect in the murder, the County’s first this year. Described as 5′ 10" and 150 pounds, Limbacher was last seen, police say, driving a 1996 Mazda four-door sedan as late as Saturday morning, the same day that the County force celebrated its 20th anniversary with festivities and public-safety demonstrations in the parking lot of Fashion Square Mall.

Monday, June 21
City computer $y$tem

A group of eight locals, mostly computer experts, has been raising hay about the cost and scale of the City’s $6.6 million new computer system, called CityLink. One of the group, Jim Moore, claims that Charlottesville’s new system is 10 times more expensive than what cities the size of Charlottesville typically spend on a computer upgrade and will cost $434 per household. “Computer systems are supposed to save money,” Moore says. Hefting its own math, the City fired back, claiming in a press release that CityLink is cheaper than a similar system used by Danville, and would pay for itself within nine years. At tonight’s City Council meeting, the City planned to issue an update on the contested computer system.

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

 

Bantu banter
Somali Bantu refugees navigate life in Charlottesville

Any parent could relate to the conversation that took place at a recent counseling session at the International Rescue Committee (IRC) office on E. Jefferson Street.

 “She doesn’t hear, she’s like a deaf person,” one woman, speaking through another Somali Bantu woman as a translator, said of her misbehaving daughter.

 However, the three refugee women face far more exceptional challenges than a willful child. The language spoken by Somali Bantus, Mai Mai, lacks a written component, so literacy is a novel concept for the new Charlottesville residents. Even the strawberries the two young children were munching on while politely weaving around their mothers’ chairs during the counseling session are no ordinary treat. It was the first time the women and children had ever eaten strawberries.

 The three women are among 48 Somali Bantus who have recently come to Charlottesville from a refugee camp in Kenya. Bilal Abanoor, 21, the first of the group to arrive, landed at the Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport on January 15. A winter storm shortly followed Abanoor’s arrival, giving him a transition from blinding dust to ice and snow. Since then, the English-speaking Abanoor, who spent 12 years in refugee camps, has gone to work as a translator and refugee liaison for IRC. He has also spent much of his free time riding the bus and walking around his new town.

 “Now I know most of the places in Charlottesville,” Abanoor says with a smile.

 Asked if he hopes to ever return to Somalia, which he left at age 9, leaving his mother behind, Abanoor answers: “For me, no. I will never be in Somalia. I don’t think so.”

 Though Abanoor says he might like to visit the refugee camps in Kenya, he is glad to be in Charlottesville, and says he’s more than content to learn about his new home and neighbors.

 The Somali Bantus are descended from slaves who were taken to Somalia from Tanzania and Mozambique in the late 1800s. A racial minority that has long been ostracized in Somalia, the Bantus have often been attacked, raped and killed in the warlord-fueled anarchy that ignited in that country in 1991. As a result, about 12,000 Somali Bantu refugees have amassed in camps in Kenya. At risk from bandits and disease and with no homes to return to, the Somali Bantus have been classified by the United Nations and United States as high-priority refugees. The U.S. State Department began resettling members of the group—with a big hand from nonprofit groups—in several areas around the country in 2003.

 “They don’t seem to have any nostalgia for Somalia whatsoever,” says Susan Donovan, IRC’s regional director. “The Bantu can’t wait to put it behind them.”

 Though the desperate, pre-industrial lives the Bantus faced in Somalia and in refugee camps make the adjustment to Charlottesville an extreme leap, it may also give them a leg-up on locals and other immigrants.

 “They have all this pent-up desire for education and to work hard,” Donovan says.

 The IRC, which receives only $800 from the State Department for each refugee it helps resettle, places about 150 refugees in Charlottesville and Albemarle each year. Donovan says the IRC helps the new arrivals find jobs, mostly menial work for the Omni, UVA Medical Center, Farmington Country Club and other employers. If the refugees work hard in these jobs for six months, the IRC will often help them upgrade to higher-paying, more skilled jobs.

 Tom Hubbard, the CEO of the Inova Solutions, a Charlottesville-based company that makes LED displays (including the one that fronts the City Center for Contemporary Arts), hired one of the Somali Bantus for a janitorial position. The new janitor does not speak English and had never seen a vacuum cleaner or an elevator before being hired. Inova employees staged pictures of someone vacuuming to help train the janitor.

 But despite the extra training effort, Hubbard says of hiring the refugee, “we’d do it over again,” adding, “he had no trouble adapting.”

 Over at IRC, Abanoor is clearly working hard to adapt to his new life. In addition to a full-time job with the IRC, Abanoor hopes to earn his GED this month, take a computer class and enter Piedmont Virginia Community College sometime soon. Furthermore, Abanoor’s t-shirt, sneakers and ringing cell phone are all evidence of his rapid acculturation as a young American.

 And, just two weeks ago Abanoor got his driver’s license, taking perhaps the most important step toward becoming a Virginian.—Paul Fain

 

Rock ’n’ roll, but no drugs
BAR approves Capshaw’s amphitheater, disses Walgreens

On Tuesday, June 15, the City’s Board of Architectural Review gave tentative approval to Coran Capshaw’s plan for a new Downtown amphitheater scheduled to open next summer.

 City Council had already signed off on the project earlier this month, transferring control of the amphitheater to its real estate arm, the Charlottesville Industrial Development Authority, which in turn leased the land to Capshaw and loaned him $3.4 million to develop the new space.

 Although the amphitheater project is a done deal, with construction scheduled to begin in October, board members had a chance to ask questions and encourage Capshaw’s architects—New York City’s FTL Engineering Design Studio—to tweak the design.

 The firm uses lightweight fabrics to achieve swooping, modern designs. Their design for the amphitheater includes a fabric roof stretched over an 80-foot metal arch. It will cover about 2,750 portable seats, including about 250 “VIP” seats where concertgoers will enjoy extra legroom and service from waitstaff conveying food and drinks. The protocols call for the portable chairs to be set up on the afternoon preceding an event and removed by the next day. There’s space for another 1,500 people on a grassy lawn.

 In his contract with the City, Capshaw claims that he will hold about 40 concerts a year at the amphitheater, including a “Fridays After 5-type event” during the summer “for free or at a reasonable cost,” according to Aubrey Watts, the City’s director of economic development. The rest of the year, the amphitheater will be open for public use.

 Capshaw also owns the Merrill Lynch building near City Hall. Although there are no public plans to redevelop that site, don’t be surprised to see some mixed-use combination of a restaurant and residential units appear on that site in the not-too-distant future.

 In particular, the BAR wondered about what kind of trees would be planted around the amphitheater, and whether pedestrians will be able to easily get from the Mall to the Belmont neighborhood. FTL will answer the questions at the BAR’s next meeting, on July 20.

 

Also on June 15, the BAR delivered a smackdown to pharmacy chain Walgreens, which asked the board’s permission to move a historic home to make room for a new location on Riverdale Drive.

 The BAR approved the company’s request to demolish newer portions of a 1912 farmhouse at 1328 Riverdale, but denied the company’s request to relocate the historic structure, saying Walgreens didn’t show enough concern for the house.

 “The application suggests no respect will be paid to the siting of the building,” said BAR member Katie Swenson.

 Walgreens’ representative, Ned Vickers, asked the BAR for feedback on tentative drawings of the pharmacy, which included a two-storey tower with a fake window, and a parking lot surrounded by a 15-foot wall reading “Welcome to Charlottesville.”

 The BAR roundly dissed the proposal. Yes, the City wants taller buildings, said member Joe Atkins, but the upper storeys should house offices or apartments, not ornamental windows. He also suggested Walgreens could save money by removing the wall, which the BAR found cheesy, and moving the parking lot behind the building.

 Chain stores like Walgreens, accustomed to building with the same style in every town, usually experience similar troubles when moving to Charlottesville. Chair Joan Fenton said Walgreens could talk to the BAR members individually to help the company figure out how to meet the City’s design standards.—John Borgmeyer

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

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