Author: c-ville-weekly-writers

Deadline blues

Hawkins fails to file, Mitch marches on

Blair Hawkins made a last minute decision not to deliver his Republican nomination speech at the local party’s mass meeting on June 2. For one thing, he missed the filing deadline of May 27 at 7pm and couldn’t be nominated, period. For another thing, other than the railing against the evils of urban renewal, ever-dramatic, never-delivered speeches are Hawkins’ only platform.

In an e-mail to Mitch Van Yahres dated March 15, Hawkins announced his intentions to seek the Republican nomination for the 57th District in the Virginia House of Delegates. But somewhere in his preparations to unseat the longtime Democratic incumbent, Hawkins forgot to turn in his paperwork with a $500 check.

“Frankly, I think [area Republicans] are happy I’m not running,” said Hawkins while passing out a copy of his silent nomination speech at the meeting.

“I don’t own property or a business,” he wrote. “I have no money, power, or influence.

“I don’t have a network of cronies to whom I owe political favors.”

According to Hawkins, what he did have to offer was ideas—eliminating funding for the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority was one and a bill stating “annexation requires voter approval of those to be annexed” was another. Of course, in order to introduce a bill, one does have to meet a deadline or two.

“Frankly, when no one filed, it was certainly a bit of a shock,” says Keith Drake, chairman of the Albemarle GOP. “But pure and simple, Hawkins missed his filing deadlines.

“You start fudging the rules, and everything breaks loose.”

As far as Hawkins’ political career is concerned, he claims his main priority now is to breathe new life into political theater. The next stop on his one-man show is scheduled to be the Independence Day Parade in Scottsville.

If he can make it on time, that is.—Kathryn E. Goodson

 

Striving to be average

Supes give themselves a raise to be on par

June 4 was a red-letter day for the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors. First, members of the County School Board deemed the day “Board of County Supervisors Day,” thereby awarding each member one 100 Grand candy bar for each year of completed service. (Supervisor Walter Perkins, for example, got 1,600 Grand.)

Then, to really get the party started, they gave themselves a raise.

Effective July 1, annual salaries for the Board will increase 2 percent to $11,890 from $11,657. Come January 1, their compensation will leap again to $12,104.

Supervisor Sally Thomas was quick to point out that in comparison to other counties in the State, compensation for Albemarle supervisors is below average.

“We’re at 76 percent of what we cost the citizens of Albemarle County,” said Thomas, comparing Albemarle to other counties in 100-percent terms.

“In fact, we’re below average in almost everything.”

A sole citizen stood to oppose the Supes’ salary increase, describing himself as an average senior citizen of the County living on a fixed income.

“I oppose this because I don’t think any of you said, ‘Gee, this is a really swell-paying job,’” he said. “Are they any of you who ran, who didn’t know what the job paid?”

The Board took turns defending their yearly salary increase, beginning with Supervisor Charles Martin who voted against a raise years ago.

“It just occurs to me that over the years what we give to ourselves,” he said, “we give to the County.”

Chairman Lindsay Dorrier agreed. “This Board is very well balanced,” he said. “This increase encourages the average citizen to run for the Board.”

Still, that outspoken average citizen continued to question the Board’s rationale, “especially if some of you are going to be running for re-election,” he said. Throughout his comments, Thomas observed with a silent smirk.

“And why are you smiling, Sally?” he demanded.

To which Thomas gave no reply. —Kathryn E. Goodson

 

Home movies

Young refugees commit their experiences to film

A young woman lingers in a rug shop because it reminds her of her native Afghan-istan. A West African teenager looks with affection and wonderment at his two younger brothers, who already seem to have forgotten Togo, the country of their birth. An Ethiopian girl watches her mother dance in the kitchen while making dinner. A Bosnian girl deals with new surroundings and the death of her father, while another wistfully watches home-movie footage of her going-away party.

These are moments from five carefully crafted documentaries about the refugee experience, made by immigrant teenagers living in Charlottesville. All good documentaries give the viewer a glimpse of something new, and these more than answer that call by showing us our own City from probably unfamiliar perspectives.

Placing cameras in the hands of these young refugees was the result of collaboration between Light House, a local film mentoring program, and the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian agency dedicated to assisting refugees.

“The IRC had teamed up in other cities with youth media centers and done other sorts of similar projects,” says Shannon Worrell, a mentor in the project and Light House’s founder. “This just seemed like a complementary collaboration, because it seemed to be happening in more than one place, this idea of refugees making films.”

IRC Regional Director Susan Donovan adds, “It was just one of those Char-lottesville things where the synergy just kind of happens all at once.”

The five students—Tadlch Wubet, from Ethiopia; Sahar Adish, Afghanistan; Tea Andric, Bosnia; Joe Gbeblewou, Togo; and Sanja Jovanovich, Bosnia—are all between the ages of 15 and 17. Donovan chose them from among Charlottesville’s many refugee families “basically based on who could get there,” meaning who could spend virtually every Saturday for the first three months of the year working with mentors on their documentary assignments.

In addition to Worrell, Charlottesville-based filmmakers Paul Wagner and Temple Fennell, and counselor Nora Brookfield acted as mentors, offering the students technical guidance and advice. The program roughly followed the structure of most Lighthouse initiatives: The students were given access to digital cameras and editing equipment (mostly iMac software), and, with the mentors’ assistance, navigated a series of filmmaking projects.

The course culminated with each student creating a short documentary (about five minutes long) about his experience as a refugee since coming to Charlottesville.

“By and large, they had not had any experience or practice in making films, so it was a new thing for them,” Wagner says. “It’s one of those things where in some ways they’re very much like the kids we normally work with—they’re young, they’re bright, they’re excited about it. But what’s amazing is their stories are so different and so dramatic compared to the more typical high school kid.”

Andric, a dark-haired, well-spoken Charlottesville High School graduate who will attend UVA next year, says the “students were free to be pretty artistic.

“You choose everything,” she says. “You make your own decisions.”

Andric worked with Wagner on her film, Regret. “I was lucky to have him as a mentor,” she says. “You can feel, and see, and sense that he knows what he’s doing.”

The films will be shown at a premiere event at Vinegar Hill Theatre on June 16, with the filmmakers and their families attending. For most students, it will be the first time they have shown the film to those closest to them.

Andric, for one, is nervous, “because all the movies that we made are a little bit personal.

“It was hard, but I knew it was going to be hard,” she says in the voice-over on her film. “It’s definitely not easy to change everything in one day. But I don’t regret. Not at all.”—Paul Henderson

 

Skirting the issue

Reigning drag queens come out for AIDS benefit

It was Sunday, and Miss Jennifer D’ville was in the spirit. Dressed in a flowy white pantsuit and an eye-catching brooch, she writhed, throwing her body and soul into her performance, pointing to the ceiling, to the floor, mouthing the words “This battle is not yours! It belongs to the Lord!” as choirs and organs pulsated in the background. Her finely styled curls unfurled, bouncing about her head in a tangled mess. The crowd didn’t care. They were transfixed, swaying, some dancing in the aisles, more approaching the stage where she stood front and center, and dropping tithings at her feet. Hallelujah.

D’ville was working it for a higher purpose, in this case AIDS/HIV Services Group. The reigning Miss Charlottesville was one of 13 drag performers who lent her considerable talents to “A Wonderous World,” ASG’s fund-raising show Sunday, June 1 at Club 216 that netted more than $5,000 from the 120 attendees to support the community organization.

To be sure, D’ville’s performance fell to the subtle side of drag numbers. Most of the other gals on stage went the more traditional route, pulling out booty-shaking numbers or tear-jerking ballads by modern divas like Kylie Minogue, Faith Hill and, alas, Celine Dion.

But it wasn’t your typical drag show, either. Some surprised, like Lucky Supremo’s sensual yet demure mariachi number. And some entertained unintentionally, like poor Miss Harrisonburg-at-Large whose ultra-short skirt kept riding up throughout her performance of “All Fired Up,” as helpful audience members tried to keep her candy all covered up.

Indeed, being helpful was the point of the evening. The funds raised through ticket sales and tips for the performers (who combed the audience in attempts to “match” pledges by various donors) went to ASG, now in its 16th year of offering services to sufferers of AIDS and, more importantly, educating to prevent the spread of the disease.

During the show executive director Kathy Baker took the mike, thanking everyone for their generosity but adding that, “16 years ago I hoped organizations like ASG wouldn’t be around anymore. But now we know that’s not true.”

That’s especially the case since, Baker says, HIV and AIDS infection rates are rising again worldwide, including in Virginia. The State reported that in 2001, the most recent year for which figures are available, 981 new cases of HIV infection were reported.

The reasons for increasing infections, Baker said after the show, are many. Some people see the long lives AIDS patients are currently able to achieve through various drug regimens and misconstrue it as a cure. Not so, Baker says. “Living on those treatments effectively is like living on chemotherapy for the rest of your life,” she says. “You might not lose your life as early [as AIDS victims did in the past], but you will lose life you would have had.”

She also says that a loss of “institutional memory” about the disease is partly to blame, as 50 percent of new victims are under age 25, and didn’t have to bury their friends when AIDS first erupted.

It all makes ASG’s existence more crucial, and the funds netted from “A Wondrous World” better spent. While last year ASG ran into scandal over alleged mishandling of its former shelter for AIDS patients, Baker says ASG and its client services continue to expand. It has to. For one thing, no other organization has stepped in to do a better job.

“The demand has been growing and we’ve worked very hard to grow in a way that’s appropriate in the demand,” she says. “We’re working to bring the com-munity up to speed regarding prevention, creating targeted programs for high-risk populations including youth, street outreach, African-American men and women, the Latino population and men who have sex with men,” she says.

“As long as AIDS is here, so will we be.”—Eric Rezsnyak

 

Tropea in hot water

Water crisis come to a boil 

Things got snippy the last time Council talked water. On May 19, Council bickered over raising water rates to pay for costly expansions to the local water supply. At that meeting, Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority Director Larry Tropea listened, clearly exasperated, as Council questioned how the RWSA collects and spends money. Finally, Council refused to support the higher rates.

When the proposed rate hike came before Council again on Monday, June 2, everything seemed peachy. City staff promised to investigate Council’s questions, including adjustments to the water rate system that would promote conservation by charging less as people use less. Currently, the RWSA relies on customer fees for all its revenue, so it must raise rates when usage declines. During the drought, many complained that the present system penalizes conservation.

Council unanimously supported the higher rates with no squabble. Behind the scenes, however, tensions in the RWSA hit a rolling boil.

Tropea was conspicuously absent from the June 2 meeting. Sources close to the Authority said Tropea had been clashing with the RWSA board of directors, and it was likely that Tropea may resign or be fired. Then, on Wednesday, June 4, the Daily Progress reported Tropea had taken a “paid administrative leave” while the board considers his employment situation.

Former RWSA board chairman Richard Collins helped hire Tropea two years ago; they worked together through last summer’s drought before Collins was replaced this winter by homebuilder Michael Gaffney. Collins says Tropea and the RWSA board––made up of public officials from Charlottesville and Albemarle––were often at odds over control of the RWSA.

In the past, Collins says the RWSA and its sister corporation, the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority, had been mostly controlled by Bill Brent, director of the Albemarle County Service Authority, and Judith Mueller, director of the City’s department of public works. The board hired Tropea––who managed Pennsylvania’s water resources for that state’s former governor, Tom Ridge––to lead the RWSA and the RSWA through a natural resource crisis.

When Tropea arrived, the region’s growth was threatening to outpace its water supply, a condition critically exacerbated by recent drought. Furthermore, the RSWA faced huge deficits after the Environmental Protection Agency forced it to close the Ivy Landfill, which brought in revenue through tipping fees, last year.

In Pennsylvania, Tropea had presided over a traditional bureaucratic chain of command. But here he answered to City and County political leaders. Collins believes Tropea’s desire for decisive action was often hampered by City-County disputes over how to divide the cost of expansion projects.

“Tropea was always wondering ‘Do I have the money? Do I have the support?’ He felt those answers were never clear,” Collins says.

Tropea and RWSA board members declined to comment.

Other sources say that Tropea didn’t give enough deference to his political bosses in the City and County, especially now that, for the first time, vast public expenditures will be required to keep the RWSA and the RSWA running.

“His sense of how to do his job went crossways with how the board had always worked in the past,” says Collins. “I don’t think he recognized how difficult it all could be.” —John Borgmeyer

No sizzle, f’shizzle

Sparks fly over shutdown of July 4 fireworks 

This year, the home of Thomas Jefferson may have to celebrate the Declaration of Independence without the traditional pyrotechnics, but not due to lack of effort from local concerned citizens. When Ray Caddell heard that Charlottesville may not have a fireworks display on July 4, the real estate broker described in Century 21 ads as “The Hardworking Nice Guy” went ballistic.

“Every dinky town in America figures out how to have fireworks on July 4,” he says. “How can the City of Charlottesville talk about not having fireworks? It’s embarrassing.”

Last fall, the Charlottesville Downtown Foundation decided it could no longer afford to host the City’s traditional fireworks display in McIntire Park. The CDF lost more than $20,000 in July 2002, says board member Joe Teague, and the cash-strapped non-profit just couldn’t afford to take such a hit this year.

“Last year it stressed all our resources, both finances and manpower,” says Teague. In the past, the CDF has relied on local businesses to help pay for events like Fridays After 5 and fireworks through advertising and sponsorships. “Nobody’s spending money on promotion right now,” says Teague. “Groups like ours are having to regroup and retrench.”

In addition to abandoning the costly fireworks display, earlier this year the CDF announced that for the first time it would charge admission to its Fridays After 5 concert series on the Downtown Mall partly to fund other activities. CDF board members say that, for now, there are no more events on the chopping block.

Still, the fireworks news got a group of local businessmen “up in arms,” says lawyer Bill Tucker. He and Caddell, along with community activist Tom Powell and WINA executive Dann Miller, are calling on their friends in high places to contribute money and elbow grease to keep the rockets’ red glare. At press time, the group had raised about $12,000, and on Wednesday, May 21 at 10 am, the law firm Tucker, Griffen and Barnes will convene a meeting for anyone who wants to volunteer.

Whatever Band-Aid might ultimately be applied this year, the future of fireworks in Charlottesville is in doubt. There’s some disagreement about who is responsible for putting on such pubic events. Tucker and Caddell say the City and County governments should take up the responsibility, while City Manager Gary O’Connell, says the City isn’t “in the fireworks business.” Teague hopes a committee will form with the sole purpose of putting on Independence Day displays.

“It’s a tough project,” he says. “It would be great if a nucleus develops out of this. It needs to go to the next level.”––John Borgmeyer

 

 

Debt service

The water authority empties its pockets, crosses its fingers 

Next year the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority will spend more than $22 million to update and expand the local water system. This summer, however, water officials will be keeping their eyes skyward and their fingers crossed.

The construction projects will expand the water supply and repair existing infrastructure, most of which is more than 50 years old and too dilapidated to meet current regulations, according to an RWSA report. Over the next 10 years, RWSA could spend as much as $80 million on capital projects. Funds will come from a combination of bank loans, rate increases and a $24.5 million bond from the Virginia Resources Authority, a State agency that finances local government projects. RWSA Executive Director Larry Tropea is bracing himself for the task of nursing a series of expensive, complex projects through a maze of government regulations and private contractors.

According to an April 28 report from the RWSA, the board of directors in the past has criticized Tropea’s staff for not providing them with timely, comprehensive information. The 2004 budget calls for hiring five new employees and eliminating two vacant positions.

“For an agency the size of Rivanna, managing $20 million projects will take a lot of work,” says City Manager Gary O’Connell, a RWSA director. “Things don’t just happen. You’ve got to stay on top of them. There are some issues about making sure things get done from here on out.”

Tropea says he’s confident his staff will meet the challenge.

At press time, it seemed likely that on May 19 the RWSA board would approve a plan to borrow $6 million from Bank of America to fund engineering and research on plans to expand the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir by raising the dam and dredging sediment from its bottom. Tropea says that project is “making steady and deliberate progress” through the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. Among other things, the RWSA must present the DEQ with reports on the James River spineymussel––an invertebrate whose endangered status derailed plans for a new reservoir in the early ’90s––as well as the potential harm to wetlands and historic sites that could result from raising the reservoir level by four feet.

The $24.5 million VRA bond will be used mainly to pay for infrastructure improvements. The bond will have a “huge” impact on rates, according to an RWSA report, because it will increase the Authority’s total outstanding debt to $77.6 million from $52 million. The report says debt service will cost more than $7 million next year, accounting for 44 percent of the Authority’s 2004 budget.

All this borrowing will mean higher water and sewer rates. Currently, the Albemarle County Service Authority is negotiating with the City’s public works department on exactly how the two jurisdictions will divide that cost. ACSA director Bill Brent says new County residents likely will bear most of the cost through higher connection fees, but that doesn’t mean Charlottesville will be off the hook. At press time, it seemed certain that Council, on May 19, would increase water rates and fees to help the RWSA pay for new construction and service its debt.

A bigger South Fork reservoir remains years away, so water officials pray the rain doesn’t dry up this summer. Tropea says a wet winter and spring have filled reservoirs and recharged groundwater, therefore he doesn’t expect to see mandatory water restrictions this year. Also, consumption could be trending downward: average daily consumption in April was 9 million gallons, compared to 10.5 million gallons in April 2002. Early this month, however, daily consumption climbed to 9.8 million gallons.

“We’re starting out in good shape,” says Brent. “But we don’t know what’s going to happen. It might not rain again until September.”––John Borgmeyer

 

 

Father figure

Josh Stewart-Silver preaches real-life daddy daycare

Father’s Day might be weeks away, but it’s never too early to show some appreciation for dear ole dad. Josh Stewart-Silver knows that well. While he makes a living as a residential counselor at Region 10, his real job in life is being a father personally and professionally. A dad to five, he also directs the Charlottesville Fatherhood Initiative.

With the intuition that many men want to be good dads but lack knowledge and support, Stewart-Silver restarted the dormant Charlottesville Fatherhood Initiative two and a half years ago “to help other men find the rewards and values of being a father.” He educates fathers on how to do their jobs and raises public awareness of fatherhood’s many challenges. Numerous programs address the problems of women and mothers, but Stewart-Silver sees a lack of analogous programs for men.

The heart of the issue lies in learning how to act “as a protector of your family and still find the rewards and values in being a father,” he says. But lack of preparation and know-how can be an obstacle to many well-meaning fathers. To that end, the CFI runs a variety of programs. They range from fatherhood boot camp, in which veteran fathers give expectant dads some idea of what to expect from fatherhood and how to cope with everything from diapers to mommy’s hormonal changes, to the Good Dads Program, a comprehensive system to provide skills and support to unemployed or underemployed fathers so that they can contribute positively to their families.

In his own home Stewart-Silver feels that playing the role of dad has meant protecting his kids, ages 11 to 22, from the insidious threats posed by the modern American consumer culture. He claims that this system targets kids as young as 3 years old and “focuses on getting them hooked on media, products and things…trying to make them be a certain way.” As an alternative, the Stewart-Silver family entertain themselves the old fashioned way—by interacting with each other. The children are mostly restricted from mainstream vices like television and video games.

That “deprivation” has seemingly done his kids good. His three youngest children, who joined him for an interview, seemed remarkably well adjusted, thoughtful and happy. They seemed to get along very well with each other as well as with their parents. Close but not sappy, they all seemed to genuinely enjoy each other’s company.

Though Stewart-Silver has strong ideas on fatherhood and family life, he avoids being dogmatic. “Parenting takes all forms,” he says, and he places great importance on the conscious and careful consideration of what a parent should be. In the end, though, Stewart-Silver feels “the big thing about parenting is enjoying your kids.”—Josh Russcol

Che behind the camera

Johnny St. Ours returns with his guerrilla film crew

Local “guerrilla” filmmaker Johnny St. Ours will soon be hosting the second summer session of his Guerrilla Film Unit Self-Taught Boot Camp. Anyone who is interested can show up at his studio behind Spencer’s 206 on South Street, shoot a movie on a chosen topic and play it to the group two weeks later. St. Ours, who can be reached at ironcaveartisans@yahoo.com, took a moment to field some questions from C-VILLE on the guerrilla aesthetic.

 

C-VILLE: What’s your idea of a perfect guerrilla film?

St. Ours: I think my favorite “guerrilla” film is a Turkish one by the name of Yol, which I seem to remember translates into “the journey of life.” It was made by an escaped Turkish political prisoner who, after immigrating to France, stole himself back into Turkey to shoot this film where it was meant to take place. If you look while watching you will see that the people in the film are not paid extras, but real live Turkish people. I would assume the same is true of the police and soldiers in some of the scenes. A dangerous film to make, admirable also because of its reality in the heart of the filmmaker.

 

What’s the biggest challenge posed by working with such constraints?

People. Filmmaking is not something you do by yourself in a darkroom or woodshop, you need a team of competent and energetic folks you can trust and rely on. Not always an easy thing to find. That is a big reason for the Boot Camp’s origin—I hope that through the common experience of trying to get a movie done, some of us Charlottesvillians will start helping each other out in useful ways.

 

Do you see yourself following in a tradition established by any other filmmaker?

I’m not the most literate filmmaker, so I don’t know specifics, but if this ship went down, I’d jump in the lifeboat with the early pioneers of film, folks like Sergei Eisenstein, who overcame society’s pessimism with a lot of thought and effort, not unearthly budgets and technological gadgetry.

 

What kind of people show up to a guerrilla film session?

Losers, masochists, bored people, and people stuck in the middle of going somewhere else for the most part. The thing we all got in common: We feel like we got a story to tell, feel it strong enough to hurt ourselves getting it out.

 

Why make movies?

Back in the “old days,” maybe folks gathered around the campfire at night and exchanged songs, stories. Well, since people started listening to the radio more than their fellow, the folk tale has been on the decline. Now I don’t usually go singing the praises of some new tech or economic scene, but with cameras doing what they’re doing and costing what they’re costing, we have a window here, a time that maybe we can make something that people will listen to again. It ain’t gonna last forever, especially if we drown the art house theaters in crap, so we better get good and quick as we can, and by our own development. There are no teachers at the GFU, no film studies programs, it is self-taught—come there and learn without giving up your folk. But if you start singing Hollywood’s song on my roof, I hope I won’t be the only one to tell you how much the world needs that breed of bullshit.

But really, I’d have an awful good time saying it, so come on down, and tell me what you think of mine. ’Cause if any of these films were really good, you wouldn’t see them here.—Paul Henderson

 

City goes Prospecting

“Criminal” neighborhood is up for grabs

Clutching a copy of City Council’s May 5 agenda, John Kiess rapped on the door of a duplex on the 700 block of Prospect Avenue on Saturday, May 3. The young, white, Americorps volunteer glanced nervously at Eddie Howard, the lifelong Prospect resident accompanying him through the neighborhood.

“It’s all you,” says Howard. “You got the information.”

“Yeah,” says Kiess, smiling. “But you got the word.”

From inside, a voice hollers for the visitors to come in. Class pictures of children adorn the living room walls, and in the kitchen three men and a woman are sitting around a kitchen table. Above the din of party music, Kiess explains to the residents how City Council wants to buy up the rental properties on that stretch of Prospect Avenue, to fix them and resell for owner-occupants. He reads from City Planner Satyendra Huja’s report to Council, which claims “there have been a lot of public safety problems in the neighborhood. Part of the problem arises from renters who are involved in criminal activity…This is especially a problem in the 700 block….”

“You might be getting a 30-day notice,” Howard further explains to the incredulous renters. “We’re trying to tell you what’s going on. The City is blaming you for the problems, then they’re trying to tell you what to do. We know how that goes,” he says, and his audience nods in agreement.

The news doesn’t play well with the people around the kitchen table, who ask that their names not be used for this article. The woman says she has rented at this address for 11 years. She’s especially incensed by the City’s implication that she and other renters are to blame for Prospect’s bad reputation. She says the young people who hang out and deal drugs in front of her house don’t live on Prospect.

“I see them park their cars, get out and just stand around,” she says. “None of them live here. The police know that. I’m always calling the police telling them to get out here and take care of this, and now the City wants to put it back on me?”

Although the City didn’t inform Prospect residents that Council would be discussing the proposal, housing activists canvassed Prospect residents during the preceding weekend to try to get them to turn out for Council’s May 5 meeting. Much of that evening’s public comment period was eaten up, however, by Mayoral proclamations honoring the Public Works Snow Crew, Water Conservation Month, an RWSA employee, Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Month and Business Appreciation Week.

During the public comment period, Watson Morris, who owns several duplexes on Prospect that have been targeted by the City, said he has good tenants and doesn’t want to sell his property. Later, Huja said no one would be forced to sell.

Prospect resident Yvonne Shackleford was a teenager in the late 1960s, when Council undertook its first “redevelopment” project and bulldozed the black neighborhood known as Vinegar Hill to make room for commercial development.

“Once again, someone in strategic planning has decided that it is O.K. to uproot yet another black community,” she told Council. “If this is so important, why were the residents and owners not notified that this was being discussed?”

Huja says he couldn’t approach residents until Council approved the plan, which it did unanimously on May 5. He says current renters may apply to purchase the homes from the Piedmont Housing Alliance.

The City will invest $100,000 in the nearly $800,000 project, with most of the money to be lent by as-yet-unspecified area banks. In the past, according to PHA director Stu Armstrong, the Alliance has worked with “almost all the banks in town.” Huja says a private donor “with an interest in the project” has contributed $150,000.

Developer Keith Woodard, who denies being the private donor in question, owns about 18 acres between Prospect and Fifth Street, where he plans to build about 300 new housing units mixed with office space and some retail. Before he starts building, however, he’s “waiting for a few things to happen,” he says, like “sidewalks, better lighting and more concern for the neighborhood.”––John Borgmeyer

 

 

Power plant to the people

Unions and candidates protest Tenaska

Although it has yet to create one watt of energy, Fluvanna’s Tenaska Power Station continues to generate controversy. After weathering packed-auditorium protests, candlelight vigils and two lawsuits, the natural gas plant, which broke ground last year, has now run afoul of the Richmond Building and Construction Trades Council.

Rallying outside the Pantops Liberty gas station on Tuesday, May 6, union organizers and laborers protested the fact that Tenaska’s construction contractor, Gilbert Southern, is hiring primarily transient, out-of-state workers. Allegedly, only 20 percent of workers on site are Virginians.

“It’s kind of a no-brainer,” said Charlottesville City Councilor Meredith Richards, who is rumored to be considering a second run for Congress and who spoke at the rally. “Tenaska sold this project based on the fact that it’s supposed to be good for the economy… . Well, this is the first chance they’ve had to make good on their promise, and they are blowing it.”

Tenaska literature claims the company “works with its general contractor to assure that as many job hires as possible are qualified local people… . We want to be a part of the community, and there is no better way than to have people with local roots working for us.” Virginia workers are evidently still waiting.

“I’ve been out of work for a year, getting ready to lose my home, unemployment has run out, raising my grandkids,” says a Fluvanna welder. “I need a job bad. They won’t even consider me.” He shakes his head. “I see cars going to the doggone plant every day and no Virginia tags on them. It gets under your skin…I don’t understand it.” Nor do most of those concerned.

Rally organizers insist it’s not about unions. “It’s a Virginia thing,” says Benny Sowers, the IBEW Local No. 666 organizing coordinator. “We went to them when they first came to town…so far we’ve been stonewalled.” No one knows why.

Virginia, now at 4.3 percent unemployment, lost 20,000 jobs in the first months of 2003. The Fluvanna plant’s two-year construction will employ as many as 600 laborers, totaling $70 million in wages. “Times are tight,” says a local pipe fitter. “It’s a damn shame that somebody has to come here from out of state and take our jobs when we’ve got people unemployed here.”

A stagnant economy is not the only dilemma for these idle hands. An electrician from southern Virginia explains: “Right now we’re having a harder time, because they changed the EPA laws, which means we don’t have to clean power plants.… It’s been hard on all the trades from the iron workers to the pipe fitters.”

Senators George Allen and John Warner have written letters to Tenaska, as has Governor Mark Warner, to no avail. “Tenaska is trying to get the next plant built in Buckingham County,” says Richards. “As a result of this effort, Buckingham may be more interested in part of the deal being you hire Virginians.”

—Brian Wimer

 

 

Breaking the mold

Supes consider the cookie-cutter development model

Enlarged development plans blanketed the wall behind the Board of County Supervisors during their May 7 meeting. The sketches represented North Pointe, a 269-acre development including 664,000 square feet of commercial space and 893 residential units. But while the plan’s renderings of large blocks of green space, sidewalks and tree-lined parking lots looked great on paper, the theory behind it, according to the County Planning Commission, did not.

That’s because the project “does not reflect the neighborhood model,” Elaine Echols, an Albemarle County planner, told the Board. The model, which has become the cookie-cutter development plan for Albemarle, encourages pedestrian travel, green spaces and interconnecting streets. For some Supervisors, it’s also become an apparent crutch for the planning commission.

“Do we really only have one way of doing development,” Supervisor David Bowerman asked Echols during her report, “the neighborhood model?”

“To a reasonable extent, yes,” was the answer from Supervisor Dennis Rooker. In that case, said Bowerman, in the future developers should be informed of the stringency of the neighborhood model ahead of time.

According to the Planning Commission’s report, North Pointe, set to be located at the corner of Route 29N and Proffit Road, lacks neighborhood-friendly streets, relegated parking and quality open spaces. Furthermore, the commission questions the proposed mix of housing types within the residential portion of North Pointe. But Charles Rotgin, Jr., one of the plan’s developers, along with Violet Hill Associates, Virginia Land Trust and the Estate of Edward R. Jackson, believes the planning commission’s bias has gone too far.

“We’ve come to recognize that the Planning Commission consistently disapproves of certain things important to many developments,” said Rotgin to the Supes, listing large stores, cul-de-sacs and buildings and residences with front parking. This, he explained, was the developers’ deciding factor to leapfrog the Commission, and bring the North Pointe plans straight to the Board.

“What we’re requesting here is some guidance,” said Rotgin. “Are things like cul-de-sacs going to be allowed?” But Rooker, like others on the Board, wasn’t prepared to make any decisions on the North Pointe development.

“We cannot do the work of the Planning Commission here,” he said. “This is problematic.”

The lengthy debate whether to handle the North Pointe issues themselves, or send them back to the Planning Commission for further review, ended in a motion to boomerang the plan back to the Commission. Still, the question of whether North Pointe will join the ranks of the neighborhood model remains outstanding.

“We have to remember that this is the biggest rezoning to come before the Board in 20 years,” said Rooker, “not including Glenmore.”—Kathryn E. Goodson

 

Strip show

Local cartoonist places among national finalists

The proverb says that slow and steady wins the race. Case in point: Low-key local cartoonist Jen Sorensen, creator of the political strip “Slowpoke” (which runs in this paper), has been named a finalist in the 2003 Association of Alternative Newsweekly Awards’ Cartoon category, for strips syndicated in four papers or fewer nationally.

Sorensen says she was shocked to be named one of the top four choices, along with “La Petite Camera” by Garrett Gaston, “Suspect Device” by Greg Peters and various strips by Chris Ware. As for why she thinks the judges smiled on her work, “Well, I like to think it’s funny,” she says.

“I value humor and I think there’s kind of a need in the market for a new, funny strip,” she adds. “I like the ones out now, but there hasn’t been a new one in a little while that offers social commentary and political humor in a funny sort of ‘Simpsons’-esque way. But that’s my own completely biased personal viewpoint.”

Plus, says Sorensen, “Slowpoke” is “the leading cartoon in PCPP—Pointy-Headed Characters Per Panel.”

This is the first year Sorensen has been eligible for the AAN honor, although she’s previously won accolades, including a 2000 Xeric Grant. Given out by Peter Laird, the creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the grant helps independent cartoonists self-fund their publishing pursuits. Sorensen used the money to collect the first several years’ worth of her strips.

Sorensen started “Slowpoke” at the end of 1998 and it began running in the now-defunct Richmond weekly Punchline before getting picked up in the Funny Times and then C-VILLE Weekly in 2002. Now she runs in a total of six papers.

While Sorensen can’t yet know where she’ll place when the awards are announced June 8, she hopes that whatever her prize is, it will aid her goal of getting the strip in more papers.

“I think any cartoonist’s dream is to be able to make a living off their work,” she said. And while she likes her freelance work, such as drawing covers for this paper and contributing to magazines (Legal Affairs, National Geographic Kids and Nickelodeon Magazine), “The strip is sort of the main thing that is closest to my…oh, I don’t know. Just don’t use the phrase ‘closest to my heart.’”

—Eric Rezsnyak

 

 

The mouse that roared

The Paramount’s fundraising confection stands out in a sea of capital campaigns  

The market has gone kaput, unemployment is on the rise and the days of fundraising pie-eating contests are behind us. What then is an arts organization to do to round out its capital campaign? Three local cultural groups face that problem in Charlottesville these days, with three different results.

Yes, it’s an untimely hour to be soliciting donations, yet The Paramount Theater, the City Center for Contemporary Arts (C3A) and UVA’s performing and fine arts center are each in the homestretch of massive fundraising campaigns for new buildings. With the goal to blanket major and minor contributors alike, all face a similar task: To distinguish their campaign from the other guys’.

“You always want to send materials that look nice, especially when you’re a non-profit organization,” says Moira Kavanagh Crosby, who directs the C3A $3.8 million campaign. “You never want to send the wrong message, even if you do have the resources.”

Crosby’s marketing efforts—including the blue and orange, cluttered, double-sided sheet mailed to up to 7,000 people involved with the building’s upcoming tenants—speak of “the transforming effect” the three-occupant building will have on Charlottesville’s cultural landscape. The Water Street building will be the new home to Second Street Gallery, Live Arts and Light House.

Similarly, the Paramount, within the pages of its Little Golden Book-style mailing sent to 7,000 affiliates of the theater, also speaks of transformation, but with phrases like “moving us into the realm of imagination.” And the Paramount tries to make good on that promise by writing its appeal literally in storybook style.

UVA, in its simple case statement—a comparatively austere seven page, black-on-white letter aimed almost exclusively at high-rolling donors—also pitches transformation. The added bonus at Mr. Jefferson’s University? Enrichment of the economy. “We intend to create a new environment to enrich the cultural, educational and economic life of the University and the surrounding community,” reads the fundraising missive for the $47 million project. (Earlier this month, Carl and Hunter Smith validated the sober approach with an announced gift of $22 million for the project.)

With nearly identical messages, the campaigns must strive to be memorable. UVA aims to be memorably low key, says UVA Art Museum Director Jill Hartz.

“We do things fairly quietly as far as fundraising goes,” she says.

By contrast, the most recent two-color mailing by C3A stresses the familiar theme “time is running out.” “To complete construction on schedule this fall, we urgently need to reach our next campaign milestone of raising $150,000 by July 1,” it reads. ”To do this we need your help.”

The Paramount’s $14 million campaign, titled “How Charlottesville Got Its Theater Back” aims to be memorably heart-rending—and achieves indelible sappiness on the way.

The dwarfish, four-color booklet depicts the story of Murphy the mouse, a theater resident who has hopelessly waited all these years “for the show to begin.” The community-minded “we can do it” approach is overdone, yet undeniably the small book holds a certain power.

“Everyone remembers the history of the Paramount,” explains Paramount Executive Director Chad Hershner. “That’s why we wanted to tell it through the eyes of a child.”

And according to marketing executive and Murphy creator Jane Goodman, the somewhat silly concept not only evokes strong emotions of the past, but brings in the donation checks, as well.

“All fundraising material you see these days is full of the same dribble drabble, with ‘This is how much money we need,’” says Goodman. “This concept was a novel idea because not only does it evoke childhood memories of the theater, but it’s a keepsake.

“People never throw it away.”

—Kathryn E. Goodson

Homebuyer beware

VDOT’s road-expanding project threatens Fontaine Avenue 

On April 16, a State appraiser showed Monica Vieira approximately how much of her front yard will be appropriated by the Virginia Department of Transportation.

“I kept saying, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’” Vieira says. She and Kevin Kotlarski bought the house at 2316 Fontaine Ave. for $210,000 in December, after deciding against a bungalow on nearby Monte Vista Avenue.

“We really liked the character of this place,” says Vieira, standing beneath a towering pine tree. “I had all kinds of plans for fixing up the yard.”

Her landscaping agenda changed last month, when a VDOT official said the agency wants to purchase some of her land to widen Fontaine Avenue. Vieira and Kotlarski will lose several feet of lawn, including the pine tree, where their property borders Montpelier Street. If property owners along Fontaine don’t sell their land, VDOT can take it by eminent domain.

Furthermore, City Council in June likely will approve zoning changes to allow taller buildings on Fontaine. Drawings from the City’s comprehensive plan show a U-shaped apartment building where the Vieira and Kotlarski’s house now stands.

Had they known about the impending changes, would Vieira and Kotlarski still have bought the house?

“That’s a good question. I ask myself that every day,” says Kotlarski.

“We certainly wouldn’t have paid so much for it,” says Vieira.

The home’s previous owner, Michael Carmagnola, knew about the construction plans before the sale. “I was aware there were discussions about that, but I thought VDOT had put those plans on hold,” Carmagnola says. “I don’t recall if we had a specific conversation about it, though. I’m sorry that they’re upset.”

Kotlarski says talking with Carmagnola is “on the agenda.”

“We’re waiting until our emotions aren’t so much on our sleeves,” he says.

For now, the couple, along with other Fontaine residents, is directing its feelings at City Hall. On April 21, Vieira made a tearful appeal to City Council to stop or scale back the construction plans. Hans Gerstl, Jr. has been holding meetings with residents and City officials at his Fontaine Avenue restaurant, Ludwig’s Schnitzelhouse.

“My mother and father started this business in 1970, and I lived up upstairs as a child,” says Gerstl. “I’ve seen all the nice homes on Jefferson Park Avenue turn into apartment complexes. We’re determined that’s not going to happen in our neighborhood.”

The Fontaine project, however, actually began during Gerstl’s childhood. In 1974 City Council first requested that VDOT widen the road, which is an important thoroughfare for UVA football traffic and one of the “entrance corridors” Council has long targeted for redevelopment. VDOT’s original designs called for a five-lane road, which residents thought was too massive. In 1996, a task force of City officials and Fontaine residents agreed that VDOT would instead make Fontaine three lanes––two travel lanes and a turn lane. The State also agreed to build sidewalks and plant trees. VDOT said it would pay half the cost to put utility lines underground, but City Council ruled that only commercial districts like Downtown and West Main require clear skies, and refused to pay for the undergrounding on Fontaine.

Since then, residents have come and gone in that neighborhood. “All the residents who sat on that task force no longer live on Fontaine,” says Councilor Meredith Richards, who works with the State on local road projects.

If Council were to back out of the project now, it would have to pay VDOT nearly $800,000 for engineering work that’s already been done. “That’s extremely unlikely,” says Richards.

Because major road projects are typically approved in one decade and built in another, new residents can feel ambushed when construction begins. As Vieira and Kotlarski can attest, homebuyers can’t rely on sellers or the City to warn them about projects that might be lurking in their neighborhood. Sellers want to seal the deal, and, say critics, City leaders keep residents in the dark so as to minimize political turmoil.

Kotlarski says he wants to delay VDOT’s land acquisition as long as possible in hopes of scaling back the widening project. Councilor Richards says the project may be “tweaked,” but will not be significantly changed.

Somehow Vieira has found the situation’s upside. “One good thing about this,” she says, “we’ve had all these meetings and we’ve gotten to know our neighbors pretty quickly.”

––John Borgmeyer

 

Two of a kind

Two of three local banks report profits 

During the past two months, most local banking news has been dominated by one story, the $2.4 million check-kiting scheme perpetrated by Ivy Industries against Albemarle First Bank. But recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission by Albemarle First and other locally owned banks indicate it’s not all bad news out there. “This is chapter one of a long story—and so far, so good,” says Virginia National Bank President Mark Giles, assessing his bank’s performance last year.

VNB and Guaranty Bank each experienced solid growth in 2002, according to annual reports recently filed with the SEC. Both posted earnings, too, in contrast to Albemarle First, which lost 22 cents per share for the year and, which, besides the Ivy Industries’ fraud, grappled with the lingering after-effects of aggressive lending and poor underwriting in previous years.

VNB grew assets by nearly $30 million in 2002, to stand at $170.6 million and earned 41 cents per share. Loans were up and VNB’s loan loss reserve was a healthy 1.07 percent of outstanding loans. Loan loss reserve refers to the allowance for bad loans that a bank builds into its financial calculations.

“It’s an unfolding story,” says Giles. “We’re ahead of where I expected us to be in all areas, and we’re still growing into our capital, which will take a couple of years.”

On May 1, VNB stock closed at a price of $18.50 per share, on the low end of its 52-week range.

Last year VNB posted a small dip in mortgages and consumer loans. Giles says that alteration doesn’t reflect a specific bank policy: “I can’t imagine why in 2002 anybody would get a car loan when they could get one from GMAC with 0 percent interest. It’s not so much our intention as it is the way the world has evolved.”

Guaranty Bank showed the most dramatic progress of the three locally owned banks, earning 89 cents per share in 2002. On top of that, this year Guaranty has already paid out a cash dividend to shareholders and has announced a second dividend to come. While assets have steadily decreased in the past two years to stand at $209 million at the end of 2002, this is positive news for the bank. Guaranty has undertaken a steady process of reform after entering into an agreement in October 2000 with the Federal Reserve Bank. Generally, a written agreement between a bank and the Fed indicates that regulators harbor some reservations about whether the bank is being run in a safe and sound fashion. As part of the agreement, Guaranty revised a number of its policies and realigned its loan portfolio. Its real estate-related loans have been on the decline, while its commercial business loans have seen steady growth.

Guaranty President William E. Doyle, Jr. says it’s all blue skies for Guaranty: “There was a very rapid ramp-up in lending practices and a high concentration of real estate-related loans,” he says.

“We were on a rapid-growth track, and the bank just didn’t have the procedures and personnel in place to take care of that,” Doyle continues. “There was a conscious decision to downsize the bank, not with a target in mind, but to focus on profitability as our primary objective.”

Indeed, commercial business lending currently comprises 51 percent of total loans outstanding at Guaranty, and residential mortgages decreased by half in 2002 from the previous year to $20.1 million. Its overall loan loss reserve last year was 1.36 percent.

Guaranty’s shares closed on May 1 at $14.76, at the high end of their 52-week range.

While Albemarle First posted a loss last year, its total assets climbed to an all-time high of $101.1 million, nearly a 12 percent increase over 2001. The bank’s loan loss reserve was 1.58 percent, reflecting the risky loan portfolio that has troubled the institution. Albemarle First President Thomas M. Boyd, Jr. predicts 2003 will be the start of a turnaround, even as the lender copes with fraud: “We’re working on our loan portfolio and the size of the troubled loan portfolio will decrease this year.

“Later on this year,” he continues, “things will improve greatly.”

Albemarle First shares closed on May 1 at $8.24, in the middle of their 52-week range.

—Aaron Carico

 

Batesville P.O.

Town faces identity crisis last business goes on the block

A dilapidated barn slouches along the side of Plank Road. The overgrown entranceway of Lochwood Farm waits quietly, not a car in sight. Just 100 feet beyond the farm’s tilting brick pillars, a small sign reads “Welcome to Batesville, established 1741.” It’s the only indication that this rural Albemarle area has a name, not to mention a community. But with the closing of the only general store in the area, Page’s Store and Post Office, locals wonder how long Batesville’s identity will stay intact.

“We wouldn’t have a community out here if it weren’t for the store,” says Rose Page, who owns the barren and musty remains of Batesville’s Page’s Store, “or the Post Office for that matter.”

Opened in 1914, Page’s Store and Post Office was originally purchased by Rose’s father-in-law in 1913. His son, Charles Page, took over the store in 1939, also becoming postmaster. When Charles married Rose in 1942, she became the store’s bookkeeper, making certain the full line of meats and produce were in stock, the horse collars and shoes were ordered and the monthly bills for freezers and televisions were being paid.

But when their son Charlie, who began working in the store in 1970, decided not to run it any longer, the Page family store closed its doors in 1994—on its 80th anniversary.

“We had all grown up in the store,” says Charlie, whose grandfather and father prided themselves on providing Batesville with everything from groceries to baby clothes. “There wasn’t anything the store didn’t sell at one time or another,” says Rose.

From January 1996 to July 2001 a local retired couple occupied the store carrying, according to Rose and her son, “a miniscule amount of stock in comparison to ours.” For the few years to follow, the 200 local postal boxes would continue to be filled by the new Postmistress Debra Fitzgerald. The need for a place to quickly grab a gallon of milk would not.

“The community’s identity is in this space,” says Charlie. “If we lose the post office for example, then Batesville’s mail will filter through Charlottesville or Afton, and Batesville will no longer exist.”

Furthermore, if no one purchases Page’s Store any time soon, it could face the fate of many other retail locations in rural Albemarle being changed into single-family residences.

But that’s progress, a movement nearly as incomprehensible as the laws that govern it. An arcane ordinance at best, the present RA—or rural areas district zoning—hovering over Page’s Store hasn’t been updated since 1969, a time when most rural general stores survived as “stores” under grandfather clauses.

But RA zoning laws, born out of concern for preservation of rural agricultural activities and water supply, can go into effect if the store isn’t occupied within two years. Page’s Store’s grandfather clause will then expire, and so will the only retail operation in the village.

“Page’s was a legal nonconformity, and we allow it to stay in that existence,” says John Grady, manager of zoning permit review for the County’s Building Code and Zoning Services. As a nonconformity, Page’s Store is declared incompatible with the RA zoning district in which it’s located unless it is discontinued, removed or changed. If it’s vacant for more than two years however, then it must go back to residential to fit into the original zoning ordinance. Some in the village claim this alone is pushing retail opportunities right out of town.

“There were once five stores here,” says Charlie Page, “now they’re all homes.

“This was once a self-contained, self-sustaining village.”

Currently listed at $285,000, the Page’s Store building does include the post office, which is due to renew its lease in 2005. If renewed, the new owners of Page’s Store would also be the proud owners of the local post office at least until 2010.

Still, while locals fight to keep the last remaining vestige of business alive and well in the community, not every Batesvillian understands the need to live in the past. Carol Marvel, three-year Batesville resident and the current Postmaster relief for the Batesville Post Office, is one of them. A Postmaster by trade, she’s not necessarily wedded to the Batesville Post Office, or store.

“Batesville is on some maps, and I don’t know why,” says Marvel. “It must be from something in the past, and I just haven’t found it yet.”

Marvel, like others, sees no need for the store, or the rural mentality. “Maybe some feel more secure in staying within the little community, but we have our big city problems here, too,” says Marvel, whose husband is the Pastor of Batesville United Methodist Church. “They just get shuffled under the rug a little more.”

Although Page’s Store has seen a small amount of retail action as of late (local artisans held sales there during Thanksgiving and Christmas of last year), there’s still some debate as to whether this July will officially marks its second year of vacancy.

“If we lose the grandfather clause,” says Charlie, “there’s never a chance to get it back.”—Kathryn E. Goodson

 

Cupola hoopla

Mt. Vernon turret moves north to 7-Eleven

Fans of historical preservation have a new friend: The 7-Eleven at Woodbrook Village Shopping Center on Route 29N. Now you can catch a glance at the bygone days of Charlottesville while picking up a Coca-Cola Slurpee. How so? Management for the shopping center on April 25 imported the stately cupola formerly perched atop the Mt. Vernon Hotel.

The hotel on 29N near the Route 250 Bypass exit is undergoing demolition to make way for electronics superstore Best Buy. While others in town opposed to big box development did the normal Charlottesville thing—they held meetings—Van der Linde Homes, the new owners of the Woodbrook strip mall, decided to preserve a part of the 55-year-old structure by saving the ornamental roof piece.

According to Patty Cornell, property manager at Woodbrook Village, it’s all part of the shopping center’s mission to bring “a little bit of Williamsburg to Charlottesville.” (Among other Woodbrook Village businesses are Amigo’s and Paint Plus. We’ll have to look for them on our next trip to the colonial tourist destination.)

Cornell says that the cupola transfer was precipitated by Van der Linde Homes’ owner Peter van der Linde’s desire not to lose a piece of what is the City’s past as well as his own. “Mr. van der Linde stayed there when he was a kid and first moved to Charlottesville,” Cornell says, adding she did the same. “It’s got such a history to it and it’s such a beautiful piece of architecture that we though it would make a beautiful addition to the shopping center.” (See photo, page 5.)

Van der Linde made arrangements with the Mt. Vernon owners and voila, the cupola now sits atop the gas-and-grocery while the Woodbrook’s carpenters intermittently fix it up. After that it will be relocated again to the top of the Pakistani/Indian eatery Taj Mahal. As an added bonus, Cornell says the light that briefly beamed from the cupola may be reinstated after renovations (apparently years earlier the airport forced the Mt. Vernon to quell the light since the megawatt bulb interfered with planes).

Cornell says the shopping center would be open to incorporating other historical artifacts, but only if they fit the Williamsburg theme. Perhaps they could find a home for poor Aunt Sarah from the Pancake House, which is also in the line of Best Buy’s construction. We hear she makes a mean flapjack. What’s more colonial than that?—Eric Rezsnyak

 

Write turn

West Main typewriter still key after 50 years

West Main Street, like most City streets, carries the whiff of technology. Cars stop and go while their occupants devour precious cell phone minutes. Joggers adjust headsets and catch their storefront reflections mingling with Sprint offers for the next wave of wireless. Still, efforts to turn the street into a high-tech corridor have crashed so far like an overtaxed hard drive. Nowhere is this more evident than on at the intersection of 10th and West Main where low tech decidedly has the upper hand.

That’s the corner that for 50 years has been home to the Charlottesville Office Machine Co., a business that has weathered the whims of City officials, developers and, lately, the digital world. The view through the window is itself a trip through history: Remingtons with the intricate workings of a baby grand piano, slim portable Olivettis, hefty Selectrics.

Inside, owner Ted Wood cheerfully explains that even in the age of the PDA, his customer base is “almost everyone.” It’s not just Grandpop who’s browsing Wood’s shop for a machine, ribbon or repair.

According to Mike Moore, a national service manager for office equipment company Olympia, typewriter buyers range in age “from 16 to 80.” And with the average price for typewriters ranging between $300 and $800, Olympia has no plans to phase out the machines, Moore says.

Not that Wood’s prices fall into that bracket exclusively. He sells plenty of second-hand machines, too. Apparently, “The older they are the quicker they sell,” he says.

Still, much of the store’s business is in repairs, an increasingly rare service. Customers lug their ailing machines from as far away as Washington, D.C.

First trained in his craft in 1955 on sturdy Underwoods, there’s little that by now Wood hasn’t encountered in the way of keyboards, platens and return carriages. In 1987 Wood bought Charlottesville Office Machine, which he shares today with his wife, Shirley, and son, David.

While Wood believes typewriters of all makes still linger in the shadows of most offices, cranking out government forms and more, he’s heard the statistics: Smith-Corona went bankrupt, IBM no longer manufactures typewriters…. (Even company man Moore admits that the rigor of Olympia’s typewriter sales has everything to do with “the demise of competitors.”)

Yet Wood has a survival strategy, namely his son. Besides selling elegant Royals and charmingly dated-looking electric models, David fixes computer printers and fax machines—a market with a clear present and foreseeable future. This not only keeps business rolling. It frees up dad Ted to do what hardly anyone else in Virginia can: tune up the Underwoods and refurbish the finicky IBMs.—Sheila Pell

Switch hitters

Two candidates pick parties and abandon Independents

Blair Hawkins and Eric Strucko, among the most recent candidates to announce their intentions to run for office in November, have something in common: Both lost their previous runs as Independents—Strucko for the White Hall seat on the Board of County Supervisors in 1999 and Hawkins for City Council in 2000.

But on April 21, Strucko announced his second go ’round for Walter Perkins’ White Hall seat, this time as a Democrat.

“Last time, I thought running as an Independent would be the best way for me to reach across party lines,” says Strucko. “This time, I feel comfortable running as I am.” And well he might: He has a long list of public service stints to his credit, such as regional planning committee DISC and Albemarle’s housing committee. On top of which, he is as yet running unopposed.

Vice President of Business Planning and Financial Operations for local financial services firm AIMR, Strucko sees the County finances as his starting point.

“I want to make sure the County budget has prioritized spending needs with an eye to saving tax dollars,” he said during his announcement, also stressing the importance of expediting the County’s neighborhood model plan.

While Strucko’s campaign announcement on April 21 at the County Office Building was businesslike and promising, Hawkins chose to announce his intentions—and political party switch-over—straight to his opponent.

In an e-mail to Mitch Van Yahres dated March 15, Hawkins announced his intentions to seek the Republican nomination for the 57th district in the Virginia House of Delegates.

A rascally write-in candidate for City Council in 2000, Hawkins knows earning the Republican nomination is his first battle. Then he can tackle the problem of unseating the 77-year-old Van Yahres who, after 22 years in the House, is clearly comfortable right where he is.

“In my speech at the convention,” Hawkins writes, “I will paint the campaign as a historic contest between a man who voted for urban renewal and a man whose family was displaced and disempowered by those votes.

“The election will be a referendum on the Fifth Amendment.”

Van Yahres’ reply was evasive, according to Hawkins: “He said he looked forward to a stimulating campaign.”

Hawkins insists his main intention is not necessarily to win, but to at least pave the way for someone else. The 39-year-old also wants to get Van Yahres talking again.

“I want Mitch to explain Garrett renewal and threats from the City to annex the County,” says Hawkins. “Even though all I really expect back from Mitch is the usual silence.”

In Hawkins’ mind, City annexation of the County and urban renewal are the two issues that explain every aspect of current-day local government. Indeed, he wants to introduce a bill that would extend the right of self-determination to County residents. That, he says, would make it impossible for the City to profit from threats to annex the County. “Ultimately, this would improve City-County cooperation,” says Hawkins.

So far, not all Republicans are supportive of Hawkins’ announcement. While some are calling Hawkins a very recent Republican, others are concerned running such an amateur will not make the party look good.

“My election is a long shot, but my main purpose is to discredit Mitch and his ideas,” says Hawkins. “The weakening of the Democratic party strengthens the opposition.

“It’s way past time for a change.”

—Kathryn E. Goodson

 

 

This space not for rent

Council rebuffed for ignoring renter woes

As a UVA student, Jennifer Isbister held the rosy view of Charlottesville common to undergraduates and others who live removed from the City’s underbelly. After she graduated and began working here as a social worker, however, she says her feelings about the town have changed.

“Now when people ask me about Charlottesville, I tell them it’s a world class city…for the upper class,” Isbister told City Council during its regular meeting on Monday, April 21.

Seeing firsthand how low-income residents struggle with the housing market––and the City’s apparent disinterest in their plight––changed her mind, she says.

Mayor Maurice Cox invited Isbister to stay for a “reality check,” to be provided by Satyendra Huja, the City’s director of strategic planning, in his annual housing report to Council. His report described how the City is encouraging middle-class home ownership, including gentrification and financial incentives for some first-time home-buyers.

Isbister’s comments and Huja’s report illustrate the growing disconnect between officials and residents on the topic of “affordable” housing. In Isbister’s view, the big problem is that rents have climbed much faster than wages. As a result, the poorest residents must work multiple jobs and spend significant portions of their income on housing. But when the Council looks at housing, they are most interested in City Hall’s own pocketbook.

For the past 10 years, City leaders have treated low-income renters as a financial liability, because they add to municipal expenses by enrolling kids in school and applying for social services while paying less in property taxes than middle-class homeowners. The City’s strict concern for property taxes derives from the State code that makes property taxes the primary income for most cities and counties.

For 20 years, the flight of middle-class homebuyers from City neighborhoods to County suburbs has threatened Charlottesville’s economic health. Consequently, many of Council’s decisions are designed to increase the City’s appeal to middle-class homebuyers.

According to Huja’s report, 60 percent of the City’s 16,850 housing units are renter-occupied, and two-thirds of renters spend more than 25 percent of their income on housing. Between 1990 and 2000, the median rent in Charlottesville rose to $530 from $468.

Homebuyers, however, enjoy more public assistance than renters. Last year, Council spent $1.37 million from the City’s general fund and channeled another $38 million of public and private money into home-ownership initiatives.

The City’s 2003-04 budget sets aside $95,729 to be used as rent relief for the elderly and disabled. Currently, there’s a two-year wait to receive Federal Section 8 rent assistance in Charlottesville.

Cox’s “reality check” perhaps refers to the facts of the free market and City-County politics. “There’s not much we can do about affordability, other than increase supply,” says Cox.

Council’s real housing strategy seems to be calling on Albemarle. Last year, about 1,700 new homes were built in the County. The County’s real estate department couldn’t say how many of those were assessed below $100,000, but Councilor Kevin Lynch says it’s probably not very many. Speaking to the composition of the region’s real estate market overall, Lynch said, “If two-thirds of the County’s new homes were in that price range, we might be more affordable.”––John Borgmeyer

 

O give me a yurt

Local woman takes up “cyberbegging”

Panhandling is so 2002. Anyway, Jenevieve Piel is too sick and too shy to sit on the Downtown Mall with a tin cup. Instead, the 53-year-old massage therapist is “cyberbegging” to help her escape homelessness.

Piel runs a website called help4jen.com, on which she solicits donations to help her buy a yurt––a modern version of traditional nomadic homes in central Asia, whose simple design seems to fit Piel’s crunchy, holistic style. She plans to live on her cousin’s land in Texas, where she will write books on pain management and studying nutrition. Piel says she turned to cyberbegging, as it’s known on the web, when chronic back pain forced her to stop accepting new clients for the “connective-tissue therapy” she provides from her home.

A self-proclaimed “shopaholic” named Karyn Bosnak pioneered the trend of cyberbegging one year ago when she started www.savekaryn.com to get herself out of debt. Not only did she collect more than $20,000, she also landed a book deal after showing up in the New York Times and on the “Today Show.” Now, cyberbeg.com lists hundreds of websites requesting that surfers “help me get out of debt,” “help me pay child support,” “send me to law school” or “help me get out of the porn industry.”

“When my friends heard about Karyn,” says Piel, “they said ‘Your story’s better than hers. She got money for being stupid. You got screwed over by the government.’”

The story there begins with Piel’s claim that she was poisoned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1980, when she worked for the agency monitoring the population density of fruit flies in Southern California.

“I found the first medfly before the huge outbreak in California,” she says. “If I had known all the trouble it would cause me, I would have flushed it.”

Without her knowledge, Piel says, the USDA included the toxic pesticide Dibrom in the traps she used to catch the flies. After six weeks of working with the pesticide without protection, she began feeling disoriented and dizzy. During one spell, she says, she fell off a steep curb and ruptured a disc in her back.

The Dibrom also left her with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, which renders her allergic to almost everything––including the ink on this newspaper.

Piel had always been interested in alternative medicine, so she ignored her doctor’s advice for back surgery and treated herself by visiting chiropractors and ingesting 50 grams of Vitamin C daily. The pain improved for a while, she says, but has recently returned.

“I don’t regret not having surgery,” she says. “Nine out of 10 people I talked to said their pain was worse after surgery. I believe from personal experience that the healing ability of the body is truly awesome.”

Piel arrived in Charlottesville in 1998, coaxed by a sister who lives in Nelson County. “It was O.K. the first year, then the rents just got out of control,” she says. Currently, she struggles with a rental apartment in the City.

Because of her back condition and allergies, Piel is ineligible for health insurance, as well as many jobs. As for her own work, which she describes as “sensing through the fingertips where things aren’t sliding and gliding” to discover the source of pain in another person’s body, she has had to cut back on that, too.

So far, Piel has collected $2,743 over the web. She saves the money, she says, in a special “housing fund.” That’s a long way from the $40,000 she says she needs for her yurt and moving expenses.

“It’s very hard for me to put myself out there, but that’s what I have to do,” she says. “I don’t know if my body will let me work much longer. I’m asking people to invest in my future, and they’ll have the satisfaction of helping other people get out of pain.”––John Borgmeyer

 

 

Garden weak

Pumping the media, Kluge forgot to water the flowers

Any press is good press, so the saying goes. But not any press release is a good press release, as was proven afresh on April 22 when, succumbing to a forestful of faxes and daily phone calls, we answered the summons to view the gardens at Kluge Estate Winery & Vineyard. In honor of Garden Week, C-VILLE had been invited—no, begged (beseeched, really)—to witness the beauty and scope of owner Patricia Kluge’s “impressive oasis” south of Ash Lawn-Highland. Indeed, we were beside ourselves with the prospect of touring the gardens of the woman who is described by her hand-picked media specialist as “one of America’s most prominent women.” (Just in case you missed that episode of “America’s Most Prominent,” all you really need to know is that Kluge, a regular on all the best guest lists, is the ex-wife of Albemarle County gajillionaire John Kluge.)

But maybe something was lost in the translation. For where we had been promised visions of “succulent plants as well as drifts and puddles of the textures and jewel colors that these many varied plant species exhibit,” what we found instead could most generously be described as a trio of impressive stone obelisks punctuated with a pair of old boots serving as cacti planters.

Trying to keep hope alive, we turned our attention to the nearby herb garden, planted for the benefit of Kluge Estate executive chef Dan Shannon. For that, our expectations had been moderated, as we were promised that the rectangular raised beds would exemplify simply “an artistic arrangement of varying colors and textures.” And yes, we did encounter wooden beds, which, with their lean content, we reckoned would be picked over by Shannon in a week’s time. (Maybe Mrs. Kluge dines out a lot.)

To be fair, the four walls of the Albemarle House Conservancy contained numerous impressive tropical plants, such as a rouge plant and a banana-less banana tree. Perhaps the gardens would justify the 13 phone calls after all. Oops! Guess not. Our guide informed us shortly after we entered that the tour was over. After only 20 minutes. Perhaps, we reasoned, “estates” just aren’t what they used to be.

Certainly the dominance of the gift shop on grounds would suggest that the days of the leisure class now accommodate a little commerce, too.

Heading back into town bereft of all hope for a succulent garden experience, we were soon beckoned by a tiny white sign labeled “Garden Week.” We followed a winding driveway and evidently crossed the invisible line separating the grandeur of Mrs. Kluge’s world from the grandeur of Mr. Kluge’s world. At the end of the road, past a row of topiary horses, bears and giraffes, we discovered ourselves on the grounds of John Kluge’s Movern gardens. The oasis, at last, was unearthed. For there, we feasted on rows of trees, tulips, rose bushes and dramatic sculpture accenting the eight-acre garden. There was even a goldfish-filled wading pool, covered in floating lilies.

And neither a media specialist nor press release was anywhere in sight.

—Kathryn E. Goodson