Author: c-ville-weekly-writers

Did American soldiers commit war crimes during the invasion of Afghanistan? According to eyewitnesses, U.S. Special Forces supervised—some say orchestrated—the systematic murder of more than 3,000 captured Taliban soldiers in November 2001. That charge is the centerpiece of a documentary film, Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death, expected to be released in the United States within the next few weeks.

“There has been a cover-up by the Pentagon,” says Scottish director Jamie Doran, a former producer for the BBC. “They’re hiding behind a wall of secrecy, hoping this story will go away—but it won’t.”

Indeed, Massacre has already been shown on German television and to several European parliaments. The United Nations has promised an investigation. But thanks to a virtual media blackout, few Americans are aware that, on the eve of another war, their nation’s reputation as a bastion of human rights is rapidly dissipating.

American involvement in genocide?

The allegations stem from the uprising at Qala-i-Jhangi fortress, a dramatic event that marked the last major confrontation between U.S.-backed forces of the Northern Alliance and the Taliban government. Several hundred prisoners, including “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh, revolted against their guards and seized a weapons cache. Responding to Special Forces soldiers working with the Northern Alliance, U.S. jets used bombs to kill most of the rebels, but not before CIA interrogator Johnny “Mike” Spann and an unknown number of Northern Alliance soldiers were shot to death.

Eighty-six Talibs, including Lindh, survived the Qala-i-Jhangi revolt. Meanwhile, 8,000 more soldiers surrendered at Kunduz, the last Taliban redoubt in northern Afghanistan. Commanders loyal to General Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Uzbek warlord who later became Hamid Karzai’s deputy defense minister, had painstakingly negotiated the surrender of the Taliban from Kunduz and Qala-i-Jhangi.

As I observed while covering the Kunduz front last fall, Northern Alliance commanders promised to quickly release ethnic Afghans among the Taliban once they laid down their arms. Many immediately joined the Northern Alliance. The status of foreign nationals, the so-called Arab Taliban, was somewhat nebulous since they didn’t have hometowns in Afghanistan to which they might return after being released. In the end, Dostum guaranteed the lives of all 8,000-plus POWs. “Both British and American military officers were present” at the surrender deal, says Doran.

After five years holed up in the mountainous northeastern region bordering China and Kashmir, watching the Taliban capture 95 percent of Afghanistan, Dostum and other Northern Alliance warlords found themselves, after September 11, with a new best friend: the American taxpayer. Newsweek magazine reports that Special Forces commandos from the U.S. Fifth Group hooked up with Dostum in October 2001, offering hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, advanced weaponry and the use of the Air Force to strike the targets he indicated. Special Forces soldiers turned Dostum and his top commanders into America’s proxy army; the Afghans didn’t dare to disobey the source of that largess.

Although the Americans have been portrayed as tagging along with the Northern Alliance, Afghan forces followed their orders. U.S. troops were in de facto command of joint U.S.-Afghan operations, including Dostum’s actions in the north.

Five thousand of the 8,000 prisoners made the trip to Sheberghan prison in the backs of open-air Soviet-era pick-up trucks. But Dostum’s soldiers, furious about the Qala-i-Jhangi uprising and a Taliban ambush during the siege of Kunduz, were out for vengeance. They stopped and commandeered private container trucks to transport the other 3,000 prisoners. “It was awful,” Irfan Azgar Ali, a survivor of the trip, told England’s Guardian newspaper. “They crammed us into sealed shipping containers. We had no water for 20 hours. We banged on the side of the container. There was no air and it was very hot. There were 300 of us in my container. By the time we arrived in Sheberghan, only 10 of us were alive.”

“I didn’t see any atrocities”

One Afghan trucker, forced to drive one such container, says that the prisoners began to beg for air. Northern Alliance commanders “told us to stop the trucks, and we came down. After that, they shot into the containers [to make air holes]. Blood came pouring out. They were screaming inside.” Another driver in the convoy estimates that an average of 150 to 160 people died in each container.

When the containers were unlocked at Sheberghan, the bodies of the dead tumbled out. A 12-man U.S. Fifth Special Forces Group unit, Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) 595, guarded the prison’s front gates and, according to witnesses, controlled the facility in the hopes of picking key prisoners for interrogation and possible transportation to Guantánamo Bay. (This is how Lindh was singled out.) “Everything was under the control of the American commanders,” a Northern Alliance soldier tells Doran in the film. American troops searched the bodies for Al Qaeda identification cards. But, says another driver, “Some of [the prisoners] were alive. They were shot” while “maybe 30 or 40” American soldiers watched.

Members of OPA 595, interviewed for the PBS program “Frontline” on August 2, 2002, confirm their presence at Sheberghan but cagily deny participating in war crimes. “The prisoners were being treated the exact same way as Dostum’s forces were,” said master sergeant “Paul.” “I didn’t see any atrocities, but I easily could have. Some prisoners may have died because they were sick or ill, and Dostum’s forces just couldn’t give them any care because they didn’t have it.”

But even General Dostum admits 200 such deaths. And the Northern Alliance soldier quoted above says U.S. troops masterminded the cover-up: “The Americans told the Sheberghan people to get rid of them [the bodies] before satellite pictures could be taken.”

Ten minutes down the road from Sheberghan is the windswept scrub of Dasht-i-Leili. According to the Boston-based group Physicians for Human Rights, the 3,000 murdered Taliban POWs were brought to Dasht-i-Leili for mass burial. One witness tells The Guardian that a Special Forces vehicle was parked at the scene as bulldozers buried the dead. Despite a sloppy attempt to remove evidence after the fact, Doran’s camera sweeps over clothing, bits of skull, matted hair, jaws, femurs and ribs jutting out of the sand. Bullet casings littering the site offer grim testimony that some Talibs were still alive before being dumped in the desert.

Since 1999 both sides in the Afghan civil war had killed their prisoners in similar gruesome fashion, particularly in and around the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. And no one is defending the Taliban as a regime. “I have three daughters and the Taliban disgusted me,” says Doran. “But if we’re a civilized society, then when men surrender then they have to be given basic protection….These men were murdered in a grotesque fashion, summarily executed and kicked into large holes in the ground with American soldiers standing by.”

In recent months, Doran says, two witnesses who appear in his film have been brought to Sherberghan prison and executed by men loyal to Deputy Defense Minister Dostum.

The Pentagon refuses to investigate these charges.

Economic times are tight in Virginia. And when axes start falling on State budgets, funding for the arts is often the first to be slashed. The Charlottesville-based Piedmont Council of the Arts hopes to dodge the blow by proving that, in Director Nancy Brockman’s words, “The arts are a producing segment of the economy.” That is, the arts drive tourism, provide jobs and generate revenue at other businesses.

Two years ago, an economic impact study commissioned by Virginians for the Arts found that Virginia’s arts and culture are, in fact, a $1 billion industry. That impressive figure makes sense if you consider that it includes such tourist magnets as Colonial Williamsburg. Fully three-quarters of the $342 million spent by out-of-state visitors in 1999, for example, landed in the Hampton Roads area, which includes Williamsburg.

The Piedmont Council is now at work on a similar study, this one focused on central Virginia. It too will include landmarks that aren’t specifically arts-related: Think Monticello. If the new study looks anything like the old one, it will show “arts organizations” as a poor cousin to “museums”: 3,600 arts jobs in Virginia overshadowed by 8,900 positions in museums, for example. (Which category an “art museum” falls into isn’t clear, but more than half the total jobs are in Hampton Roads.)

In some ways, arts organizations (McGuffey Art Center, say) and cultural organizations (Michie Tavern) have about as much in common as football and hunting. They’re related, but do they belong in one big category? Jill Hartz, director of the University of Virginia Art Museum, says that functionally, arts and culture are intertwined. She points out that, in a January 12 New York Times piece about Monticello’s Lewis and Clark Bicentennial celebration, the UVA museum garnered a mention for its related exhibit of Native American art. “By having over half-a-million visitors every year at Monticello, we hope that they come to the University and find us,” she says.

Additionally, Brockman points out, there’s overlap in the content of arts and culture. “When you go to Colonial Williamsburg, what are you learning?” she says. “Architecture, artifacts inside the houses—those are designed articles, the work of someone’s artistry.”

Though there are plenty of aspects of Williamsburg that are more strictly historical, she adds, “I don’t know how you would sort that out—how when you buy a ticket you would say a portion of this is arts related and a portion is not.”

Fair enough. But is economic impact the right yardstick for the arts in the first place? According to Hartz, “You can’t look at the arts as a business. They’re not self-supporting. They depend on the patronage of people throughout our society.”

John Gibson, artistic director of Live Arts, says his organization “measures our impact in the number of children we educate every year, the number of people who participate in our productions as performers or audience members, the impact we make on the quality of life.”

Brockman says a discussion of economics doesn’t disparage these intangible rewards. Indeed, it paves the way for budget-minded bureaucrats to lay down the dough.

“We all know that art for art’s sake is very wonderful, and that should be enough,” she says. “But it’s not an ideal world, and there are many choices that have to be made.”

With Monticello raking in the tourists and making funding seem worthwhile, she says, less glamorous educational and therapeutic arts programs can continue to do their good work. “A rising tide raises all ships,” she says.

Gibson is keeping his eyes on the aesthetic prize. “While I welcome any good news about the arts and our impact on a community,” he says, “I don’t wait for the news to witness that positive impact.”—Erika Howsare

Look, it’s Snook

The City Democratic machine keeps its driver

As an evening snow flurry began on Thursday, January 16, City Democrats filed into the auditorium at Buford Middle School for a bi-annual meeting to elect new party officers. Donna Goings greeted people at the door, handing out blank slips of paper stamped with a donkey emblem.

“It’s my party platform,” she explained to the confused Dems, who turned the sheet of paper over in their hands, or tried in vain to open it. When they looked at her helplessly, she said, “Think about it.”

Goings hoped the last-minute stunt would give her the votes she needed to defeat Lloyd Snook in the evening’s featured contest, the election of a new Democratic party chair.

“It should be interesting tonight,” said Josh Chernilla, a young Dem who worked the crowd for support in his bid for the party’s vice-chairman seat.

Chernilla and other Democrats were abuzz because the January 16 meeting featured an actual contest for party chair––the lucky winner would be responsible for fundraising, organizing meetings, spearheading election campaigns and possibly accepting the blame for Democratic losses.

An effective chair, Dems say, has two qualities: the skills and the desire to do a good job. In the past, they say, it’s been rare that more than one person at a time possessed both qualities.

“Some people called me and asked me to run for chair,” said Goings. “I don’t think many people actually want to do it.”

Two years ago, Russ Perry and Lloyd Snook sought the office, but instead of running against each other they decided to serve as co-chairs. After Republican Rob Schilling defeated Alexandria Searls to win a seat on City Council last May, many Democrats blamed Snook and Perry for taking the election for granted and bungling her campaign. The Daily Progress quoted Mayor Maurice Cox as all but calling for Snook’s ouster, and the paper quoted Snook himself saying that anyone who wanted “the headaches” of the party leadership could have them.

“I was frustrated when I made that statement,” Snook said during the meeting. “I was depressed over the way the party was in schism.”

Although Perry declined to seek re-election, Snook says after taking “a longer view and a deeper breath,” he changed his mind about giving up control of the party.

Party leaders are chosen by 100 members of the Democratic City committee, which comprises party faithful from each of the eight voting districts in Charlottesville, plus ex officio committee members, such as former mayors.

Critics often call the local Democratic party a machine run by a few elders, while Dems counter that the party is actually controlled by “whoever is in the room” when decisions are made. Both descriptions fit Thursday’s election. The aging Boomer set dominates the Dem City committee (except for a few up-and-comers like Chernilla, who took the vice-chair seat uncontested), and this cast of characters is almost always “in the room” for most Democratic functions.

Before the final vote, both Goings and Snook addressed the committee. Goings spoke of her love for grassroots campaign legwork and distaste for George Bush. She explained the blank sheets she handed out by saying, “I want you to shape the vision for the party. I’ll be here to listen.”

Snook criticized the party for its recent laziness, apologizing to Searls for disorganization.

“In the 2002 election, we didn’t have the records from 2000,” Snook said. “We didn’t know that 250 yard signs wouldn’t be enough.”

Apparently, the committee accepted Snook’s apology. He was re-elected to chair the Dems for another two years.––John Borgmeyer

An excise exercise

Tax autonomy is on Albemarle’s agenda

Anyone walking into Room 241 of the County Office Building on January 15 would have been forgiven for thinking she was in the wrong place. After all, not only was the regularly scheduled meeting of the Board of County Supervisors whipping along at a breakneck pace (it was completed inside a half-hour), but the subject under discussion was how to raise more taxes. Yes, you read that right. How to raise more taxes.

During the uncharacteristically brisk meeting, the six-member Board unanimously passed a resolution to support a tax-change bill now under consideration in the General Assembly. If approved in Richmond, the bill will allow counties in the Commonwealth to levy taxes on cigarettes, meals and admissions without first gaining the Assembly’s permission or winning approval through a voter referendum. Such a move could help put Albemarle on a par with Charlottesville.

Currently State law favors cities when it comes to raising revenues. Charlottesville City Council, for instance, can raise taxes without Richmond’s approval—a holdover urban privilege from the time when counties, practically by definition, were rural and therefore offered fewer services to their residents. Coping with that outdated system, Albemarle, which in these days of “urban ring” development is hardly “rural” anymore, has long struggled to find additional revenue. The County’s budget for 2002 was $208,618,535. Most of that was derived from real estate taxes. Unwilling to increase that levy, the County wants the Assembly to give it power to dip into other purses.

“Owning property in the County does not go hand-in-hand with the ability to pay the actual property tax,” says Supervisor Dennis Rooker, who represents the Jack Jouett District. “Unfortunately, when the County needs money, it’s forced to look to real estate taxes.

“This bill is a way for us to present alternatives,” says Rooker.

Supes Chairman Lindsay Dorrier from the Scottsville District concurs: “We need to reduce our reliance on property taxes,” he says. “We need this option.”

Rooker says that Albemarle County, which is practically a textbook example of sprawl, simply cannot be categorized as “rural” anymore.

“Our counties are much more urban,” he says. “They require the services people in cities have.” Those include sidewalks and other amenities that make so-called mixed-use development possible. These days, the Supes are stressing that kind of urban-style development model over the rolling subdivisions of a previous era.

But despite the Supes’ high hopes for levy changes in the County, not everyone is willing to even give this bill a second thought. Larry J. Sabato, director of the UVA Center for Politics, says the chances of this bill passing are comparable to swearing in an all-Republican City Council—real slim.

“You have to understand that this bill is seen as a hidden tax increase by all the people who don’t want their taxes increased,” says Sabato.

“Although this bill has many advocates in Richmond from the more urban areas, it is an extremely tough road to get it passed,” he further says. “I would be shocked if it did.”

While the mere mention of “raising taxes” might make County dwellers uneasy, the Supes insist that no one wants to raise taxes. “This is simply a way for us to look at other areas,” says Dorrier, although it’s unclear why Albemarle leaders would push for the change in law if they were not interested in applying it.

For now, until the bill is approved in Richmond and the new fiscal year begins in July, Albemarle remains highly dependent on the real estate tax, which this year is 76 cents per every $100 of assessed value.

“This is not something we’ll be acting on this year,” says Rooker, “but there may be a time in the future.” —Kathryn E. Goodson

Just over the crest of the hill, you see a plume of smoke escape. Instead of the low, familiar, chugging sound, however, you hear infectious music, a sound you haven’t heard before. Slowly Old School Freight Train comes into view—and begins to pick up steam.

The band, which is based in Charlottesville, has recently enjoyed some significant recognition. It’s self-titled debut CD, released in February by Courthouse Records, a division of Richmond’s Fieldcrest Music, was listed with 32 others as a potential nominee for Best Bluegrass Album by the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences. Unfortunately, when Grammy nominations were announced earlier this month, the band was left out.

In any case, “bluegrass” is far too limiting a label for Old School’s distinct sound. The band’s name implies a certain weight and steadiness, along with ties to the past, but with the exception of a few straightforward numbers, the music mostly breaks free of traditional bluegrass licks to encompass many influences, with jazz the most obvious. Several songs also have a distinctly Latin flavor, which adds a tinge of the exotic to familiar lyrics about far-away horizons and balls and chains.

Old School’s five members—Ann Marie Calhoun (fiddle/vocals), Peter Frostic (mandolin), Jesse Harper (guitar/vocals), Ben Krakauer (banjo) and Darrell Muller (bass/lead vocals)—got together in the fall of 2000. Each brings different interests and influences to the table.

“Pete and I were doing bluegrass before the band, and Darrell and Jesse were doing more jazz and funk, and Ann was doing classical stuff,” Krakauer, a UVA music major, says. “So each of us was coming from a different place, and then we all listened to each other’s stuff.”

The group paid their dues playing numerous live shows, mainly in the Richmond area, and soon opportunities began to open up. The group earned second place in the 2001 Telluride Bluegrass Festival Competition, and in 2002 they opened for well-known bluegrass artists like Lynn Morris and the Lonesome River Band. Before long, they decided to take their sound to the studio.

The album is not perfect—Muller’s vocals are serviceable, but his voice is not particularly strong or distinctive, and some of the instrumentals go on too long—but it is a rewarding and interesting first effort.

Krakauer admits that the band feels “really good” about only half of the songs on the first album, saying that in some ways Old School Freight Train was still finding its identity as a band.

“We might like the other ones, but you listen to some of the stuff and we hadn’t totally realized where we were going,” he says. “I think on the next project we want every single song to be totally representative of what we’re trying to do.”

Krakauer says the group already has six or seven new songs for the next release, with seven or eight more to go. He described a songwriting process that is wholly collaborative.

“Any of us can write tunes,” he says. “If you write a tune, you have it and arrange it, and maybe you write parts for other people and maybe not, and then you bring it in and everybody else takes it apart. So it’s like a rough draft, and once we get it into the group it’s like a democratic process.”

Although they missed out on a Grammy this time, the band feels motivated to ride this train much farther. Krakauer says the band has an audition for a record label in Nashville in March (a label he declined to mention, for fear of jinxing it), and is looking forward to taking their show on the road.

“If anything, it’s motivated us that we can make it work,” he says. “I’m graduating this year, and we’re all hoping to be able to travel around and play a lot. It’s a lot more fun to play when people are coming out to hear you than at some bar where you’re just part of the scene, you know? That’s really exciting.”

Old School Freight Train will perform as part of the Mid-Winter New Grass Festival at The Prism on Saturday, January 18. See our music listings for details.

This little light of mine/I’m gonna let it shine.“ The rehearsal hadn’t officially started yet, but the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Mass Choir was already singing. On a frigid Monday night, January 6, a jumble of people filled the black box theater at Charlottesville High School. Tight clumps of fidgety teenagers waited in line to collect folders of sheet music. Church ladies in brimmed hats put on reading glasses to make out the notes. Out of the chaos of piano chords and excited chatter, Jonathan Spivey, choir director, launched into a spontaneous rendition of a gospel song everyone seemed to know, complete with improvised lyrics: “When I have to sing a high note/I’m gonna let it shine.”

People still in line for music started clapping and stomping, and the room filled with more than 80 voices.

Spivey, who teaches at CHS and frequently travels as a guest conductor, says the MLK choir is one of the highlights of his year. “There’s something about this group that just energizes me,” he says.

Having assembled the annual choir for the past 15 years, Spivey enthuses about the way it keeps growing. Originally a joint effort of several area black churches, including Mount Zion First African Baptist Church (where Spivey is choir director), the MLK choir expanded by word of mouth and soon began to look like a cross-section of the community. Anyone who wanted to participate was—and still is—welcome.

“The Unitarians joined in, the Episcopalians, the Jewish temple, the Quaker meeting house…” Spivey remembers. “High school and middle school kids started coming, and last year I added a children’s choir” organized through Cale Elementary School. Altogether, Spivey hopes for 150 members to participate in this year’s performance at the Charlottesville Performing Arts Center on Sunday, January 19 at 6pm.

The racially mixed choir also draws singers from surrounding counties. “What I was most impressed about is that people come from all ends of the community, and it really represents what Martin Luther King was all about,” Spivey says. “It’s not a black choir, it’s not a white choir.”

Spivey has assembled a musically diverse program to reflect the diverse group of singers. “I try to pick something for everybody,” he says. “There’s such a hodge-podge of music there.” The choir has only a few short weeks between the new year and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day to prepare—no easy task—but Spivey and his musicians seem up to the challenge. The performance will be part of a program featuring Rev. L. Tyrone Crider, a Chicago-based pastor and activist, as the keynote speaker.

As befits academia, the annual King Celebration at UVA on Monday, January 27 at 7pm at the Newcomb Hall Ballroom, will take a somewhat more critical approach. Diane Nash, a civil rights activist and a founding member nearly 40 years ago of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, will give the keynote speech, “Beyond Charisma.” Nash questions whether charismatic leadership is the answer to African-Americans’ struggles.

Still, the event will include celebratory elements, too: a performance by the Mahogany Dance Troupe, poetry readings, and a presentation by the South Asian Leadership Society about the influence of Gandhi on King.—Erika Howsare

Journey to Ben & Jerry-land

No rocky road between here and Burlington 

City Council has seen the future of Charlottesville, and it is…Burlington, Vermont.

In October, a delegation of City and County leaders traveled to Burlington for a “journey of learning,” and last week they delivered a report on their trip to City Council. The trip seemed to reinforce for the delegation a great deal of what they already knew.

Burlington and Charlottesville have much in common. Each has similar populations in the city and surrounding county. Each city is home to a large university and a pedestrian shopping district. The cities even have complementary hometown heroes on the national jam band circuit––Phish, from Burlington, and our own Dave Matthews Band.

The two cities have similar ideas emanating from their executive branches, too. Charlottesville Planning Director Satyendra Huja lauded Burlington for its spending on public art, bike trails and traffic calming, not to mention Burlington’s tax on downtown merchants, which goes toward the cost of colorful signs directing tourists to the shopping district. Sound familiar? According to the slide show the delegation delivered at Council’s regular meeting on Monday, January 6, there was no shortage of mutual congratulation and admiration among leaders in the two cities.

Burlington and Charlottesville share problems, too, and the local delegates took special interest in how the New England city provides affordable housing and how it cooperates with the University of Vermont. On this point, however, the delegates returned with the lesson that Vermont is friendlier to progressive ideas than Virginia.

For example, Burlington’s municipal government can review and approve––or disapprove––construction plans at the University of Vermont. Using this power, the city council was able to persuade the school to build more student housing by refusing to approve other projects unless UV cooperated. Here in the Commonwealth, however, State universities are not required to abide by local zoning rules, and the result is controversial projects like UVA’s Emmet Street parking garage.

Vermont also gives city governments more power over land use. For example, a Burlington ordinance requires developers there to incorporate a percentage of “affordable” units into new projects. Such a law would not stand up in a Virginia courtroom. Upon hearing that, Councilors did not miss the opportunity to slam Richmond.

“There are tools available in Vermont that are not available in Virginia,” said Meredith Richards. “Virginia gives our cities very little leverage in dealing with universities, developers and property owners.”

Here, City Council hopes to emulate Burlington in dealing with Charlottesville’s housing crisis. Andy Montroll, president of the Burlington city council, says his city is suffering a major housing crisis at all income levels. “It’s hard to say for sure,” he says, “but without a lot of the city’s efforts, it would be far worse.”

It seems, however, that Burlington’s most effective strategies will never fly in the Commonwealth, so it’s unclear what direction Charlottesville’s housing strategy will take. Even with somewhat more freedom than Charlottesville to control development within its limits, Burlington’s housing costs are still heading into the stratosphere while strip malls and McMansions continue springing up in the surrounding county, Montroll says.

It seems the two cities do have a lot in common.––John Borgmeyer

Holding pattern

Supes hear the case against helicopters and rear entry

Another meeting of the Albemarle Board of County Supervisors, another round of delayed approvals, parking battles and residents’ ever-present resistance to change. From the County’s proposed neighborhood model to a landowner’s request to build a heliport, the Supes heard many complaints about unwanted change when they met on Wednesday, January 8.

More than a dozen locals (practically a convention by Supes’ standards) protested against the off-street parking and loading requirements the County has put in place in conjunction with the neighborhood model it hopes to approve before the turn of the decade. The ordinance, as it stands, states that parking for developed or redeveloped sites must be located on the side or rear of the building. Business owners pronounced the ordinance as the death of retail, and residents expressed fears for their safety.

“I certainly don’t want to walk behind the store I just came out of in the dark,” one woman said.

Although Supervisor Sally Thomas reiterated the point of the new neighborhood model—to encourage pedestrian-friendly retail development—she did not speak for the entire board.

“The point of a convenience store to me,” said Supervisor Charles Martin, “is that I can pull up in front of the building, and run in.”

Using the new neighborhood model, County Supervisors plan to coerce, cajole and command developers into building smaller-scale residential and commercial communities. Tree-lined streets and sidewalks with a town center feel, they are hoping, will replace the strip-mall debacle called 29N.

But while the Supes professed agreement that parking should not be deemed unsafe for residents and shoppers, they seemed to be in a sharp disagreement about the true definition of “convenience.”

Ultimately, time constraints forced the Supes to abandon the topic. Perhaps they were tuckered out by the other spirited discussion that had ensued during the afternoon—a public debate about choppers. Not motorcycles, mind you, but helicopters.

Seemingly all of White Hall was on hand to oppose construction of a heliport by John Griffin, a part-time Albemarle resident. Griffin, who also lives in New York, appeared surprised at the neighborly turn-out concerning his 1,330-acre property.

“I am, in every way, against all types of pollution,” said Griffin, “including noise pollution. I just think it’s a little much for all these people to come down here over 72 minutes a year.”

The hour and 12 minutes in question is the amount of time that Griffin calculates his heliport would be in use annually, with six trips to and from White Hall. While that comes to nearly the running time of a Guns ‘n Roses double CD, neighbors made no such comparison. It was the precedent that had them bothered.

“There is really no necessity for your own heliport,” said one resident of Millington Road, where Griffin’s property is located. “This just says to all the wealthy in Albemarle ‘Why drive?’”

One Free Union resident said with the noise of chain saws, SUVs, hunters and airplanes, the peacefulness of her property has been destroyed. Enough would have to be enough. “I believe people who move to and buy land in Free Union,” she said, “do it for the peace and quiet.”

One brave Millington Road neighbor came out in support of Griffin, whose request had been denied by the County Planning Commission three months ago. “Pegasus flies overhead all the time,” she said, “but we would deny this man a few modern conveniences due to the precedent it’s setting?”

The Planning Commission, in a staff recommendation to the Supervisors, suggested a few stipulations for Griffin and his heliport. Griffin may not have helicopter maintenance, other than emergency maintenance, on the property. No other airborne vehicle may use the property and absolutely no lighting for the helicopter landing site will be permitted.

“I could easily not approve this,” said Martin, striking an ambivalent pose as it came time to vote on Griffin’s case, “but since it’s in Walter’s district, I’ll go with his decision.” Supervisors Walter Perkins and Dennis Rooker supported the heliport, but with a few restrictions.

“If you could agree not to subdivide your acreage,” said Rooker, “and control conditions on the flight plan, I think we could approve this.”

Griffin agreed.

What the County Planning Commission rejected, the Board of County Supervisors approved 5-1. Thomas was alone in rejecting Griffin’s request.—Kathryn E. Goodson

In the wake of last summer’s Enron and WorldCom disasters and other corporate malfeasance along the way, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have been busy trying to restore investors’ confidence. Their reach has extended to Charlottesville, where SNL Financial, a publishing company covering various financial services sectors, has had to think about adjusting its own way of doing business to appease the Feds. The NYSE and the SEC are trying to implement new rules to manage potential conflicts of interest that may hurt investors. Essentially, regulators decided that an equity analyst shouldn’t be allowed to freely discuss a company’s stock without mentioning that his or her employer also does investment banking or other business with that company.

In November, the NYSE proposed that when journalists use information from analysts, their publications must disclose any conflicts those analysts might have. For example, a paper could no longer report that Analyst X is recommending Acme Donuts, without mentioning that Analyst X’s employer is the investment banker for Acme Donuts. In addition, if a publication doesn’t comply, then the NYSE argued the analysts shouldn’t talk to reporters.

In Charlottesville, SNL Financial, which was founded in 1987 by Reid Nagle after he left his post as head money man for disgraced Wall Street high-roller Ivan Boesky, covers the banking, financial services, insurance, real estate and energy industries through daily electronic and print newsletters. Each newsletter has 200 to 300 subscribers. SNL’s subscribers tend to be professionals, including portfolio managers, investment bankers and stock analysts. SNL Publisher Alan Zimmerman recently spoke to C-VILLE about the new rule.

“I don’t think it helps us out,” he says. “I don’t think it helps the public out, I don’t think it helps Wall Street out, I don’t think it helps anybody out.” Given that SNL’s reporters and researchers talk to analysts every day, he has reason to be concerned. Many column inches in SNL’s newsletters are devoted to summaries of analysts’ reports on the industries that SNL covers.

Zimmerman says the NYSE has no grounds to tell a publication what to print. But, the NYSE has the ear of the SEC, which can regulate analyst behavior and make financial rulings. The NYSE can also require analysts who work with its member firms not to speak to reporters who don’t comply, thereby threatening the ability of a financial news organization to function. “In essence, they’re saying to a business like mine ‘Do what we tell you or we’ll cut off your sources of information,’” Zimmerman says.

In truth, SNL’s readers probably don’t require such disclosures. “Our audience tends to be pretty sophisticated,” says Zimmerman. “I would say they come into it knowing that every analyst is hopelessly conflicted.”

And then there’s the problem of checking compliance and defining what constitutes a disclosure. Would, for instance, a blanket statement suffice? Further, even if an analyst doesn’t work with a company he is discussing, he might be touting a stock to try and drum up future business. As Zimmerman says, “The fact of the matter is that every investment banker on Wall Street is always trying to get business, and the issue isn’t really the business that they’ve done but the business that they’re trying to get.”

On the one hand, then, there’s the issue of handing the disclosure problem over to reporters. There’s also the pesky matter of the Constitution and the First Amendment—rules limiting who the press can talk to and how sources should be identified probably won’t go unchallenged. So far, the NYSE doesn’t seem to see it that way. Edward A. Kwalwasser, a group executive vice president for the exchange, told The New York Times it was a non-issue: “We’re not saying what you can print. We’re just saying what our members have to do.”

Zimmerman disagrees: “I think that when the NYSE formulated this rule they really weren’t thinking about the Constitution or the First Amendment or how this would land on the ears of journalists in the United States.” Instead, says Zimmerman, the NYSE has suggested the rule in order to restore its own credibility. However, if the exchange keeps the rule and the SEC follows its lead, judges and lawyers will be left to decide its constitutionality.

If it gets to that point, Zimmerman foresees only one conclusion: “I would say it’s a no-brainer for a court to throw it out.”—Allison Knab

No-jet set

Disgraced CEOs, including an Albemarle resident, scrimp

On Sunday, December 15, in its Money & Business section, The New York Times chronicled how far many of America’s former top executives have fallen since it was discovered that they were robbing middle-class piggy banks to gild their own lairs. For goodness sakes, some of these guys have been reduced to flying coach. Coach!

Among the disgraced and downtrodden is Mark H. Swartz, sometime Albemarle resident and onetime chief financial officer of Tyco International, the conglomerate and former investors’ darling from which Swartz is accused of pilfering more than $600 million. According to the Times, Swartz, who was indicted in the spring and is free on $5 million bail awaiting a New York State trial in June, must limit his travels to Florida, where he maintains his primary residence, and New York City, where he meets with his lawyers.

Some, of course, would find that consequence fitting for a guy who purportedly spent shareholders’ hard-earned cash on building up his personal fortune and paying multiple mortgages. In fact, there might be those who think things could be a tad tougher for the former Tyco titan, whose company, as recently as January 8, 2001, was lauded by Business Week magazine for returning value to shareholders and adopting a management credo, which, at that time, was lauded for the now-laughable assertion that it “enforces accountability by setting tough goals.”

Also indicted with Swartz and similarly facing a cut-back in lifestyle is former Tyco Chairman and Chief Executive Officer L. Dennis Kozlowski , who also awaits a New York State trial, set for June 1. Kozlowski has to get a judge’s OK before even paying his electricity bill. The Times revealed that those bills alone in November totaled more than $2,000 for three of Kozlowski’s homes. In Nantucket, Kozlowski racked up $726 in electric charges; the figures were $1,047 for his Florida estate and $268 in Colorado.

Swartz’s and Kozlowski’s living expenses could decline considerably if prosecutors succeed in proving that they were at the helm of what the New York indictment described as a “criminal enterprise,” which was spun off from Tyco to divert funds and secretly sell millions of shares of the parent stock without attracting regulators’ notice. Further, prosecutors charge that Swartz and other defendants “provided incomplete and misleading information and omitted to give truthful information and necessary legal advice to the Board [of Tyco]…” Meanwhile, Swartz and his cronies “used their positions in the company to take corporate funds for themselves and their friends without permission or authority, and were able to conceal thefts and other wrongdoing by corrupting key employees…with lucrative payments to influence their behavior.”

The Associated Press reported on November 21, however, that “logistical problems” are plaguing investigations into aspects of the Tyco case. Translated, could that mean that Swartz might get off by dint of sufficient evidence? Even worse, might it mean that if Swartz avoids time in the slammer, he’ll be free to spend more time in the Blue Ridge?—Cathryn Harding

Art and violence

Rape victims break silence with creativity

Around noon on Friday, December 13, when the rain that had been falling all morning turned to ice, Stephanie Snell and Jessica Cochran gave up hope that many people would attend a vigil for victims of sexual violence held that day at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church on Rugby Road. But familiar with the realities of sexual assault, Snell and Cochran probably didn’t expect a packed house anyway, regardless of the weather.

Snell and Cochran both work for the Sexual Assault Resource Agency (SARA), which sponsored the 12-hour vigil; they say silence hangs like clouds around the true nature of sexual crimes in Charlottesville.

“I think there’s a combination of taboos,” says Cochran, a training coordinator at SARA. “Sex is hard enough for people to talk about. Then if there’s violence involved, it’s even harder.”

The vast majority of sexual violence is perpetrated by victims’ acquaintances or even family members, say experts at SARA. The tangled personal relationships involved in date rapes and incest mean that most sexual crimes are not reported to police. The atmosphere of secret and shame surrounding sexual assault means that victims are often condemned to suffer in silence, says Snell.

“When this happens, people need to know that it’s not right, it’s not their fault, and that they can get out of it,” Snell says. “But because of the topic, parents don’t talk to their kids about it. They talk about smoking and drugs, but not what to do if your boyfriend hits you.”

SARA’s vigil, held in one of the church’s side rooms, featured posters created by sexual assault victims.“We encourage people to do whatever they need to feel safe,” says Cochran. “Sometimes it helps to have a creative outlet.”

One 4-foot poster featured a blue watercolor god’s eye inscribed with a hand-written poem about incest by a woman doing time for murder whose words captured the many conflicting emotions enfolding sexual assault.

“I was the dirty girl and she was the cleaning brush,” it read. “I didn’t know how to make it stop. I wasn’t sure I wanted it to stop. I hated her. She was my best lover.”––John Borgmeyer

“This land is my land”

Vets oppose the City property grab

A rusting howitzer guards the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1827 on River Road. Above the building an American flag is flying, along with a black banner reading “POW-MIA You Are Not Forgotten.” Inside, there’s a dark hall with a low ceiling, like an empty cafeteria. Nashville singers dominate the Rock-Ola jukebox in the corner; a pair of pool tables are covered with green plywood boards striped for ping-pong; a Christmas tree blinks on the corner of a tiny stage. Framed patches and ribbons from military divisions like the 101st Airborne and the 24th Infantry hang on the back wall. The VFW has situated its reverence for all things military along the Rivanna River since 1953, when it purchased these nine acres of land.

Now the City wants to disturb the shrine by building improvements to the Rivanna Greenbelt trail network right on VFW property. And the veterans are preparing to wage battle in defense of their turf.

In November, City Attorney Craig Brown sent the group’s quartermaster Ed Ryan a letter with the following proposal: The City would pay VFW the assessed value of $4,565 for 138,000 square feet of riverside land to build a trail and parking lot. Or, the City would forget the parking lot, take 5,000 square feet for an access road instead, and give the VFW $3,000.

The VFW rejected the offer at a November meeting. “We think they’re taking too much from our members who fought for this country,” says Ryan. He says the members thought the offer was too low; they also objected to a parking lot, because it would abut the VFW baseball diamond and could become a hangout for miscreants.

“I don’t know why they’d want to build a parking lot on a floodplain, anyway,” he says.

Further, an access road would cut through VFW’s own parking lot, from which the group generates revenue of about $250 a month. “That’s important for our income,” says Ryan. “We’re not exactly a million-dollar organization out here.”

The City countered with a final offer on November 18. Citing a strict Federal deadline, the City said it would pay the VFW $1,350 for the 108,000 square feet it needs to build the trail. “If you fail to respond…or otherwise reject this offer,” wrote the City Attorney, “the City may acquire the easement through the exercise of eminent domain authority.”

Eminent domain allows the government to take private land for a public project––usually a road––at a cost determined by a court.

Ryan says most of the 285 VFW members are generally not opposed to the trail, and they don’t want to be seen as “standing in the way of progress.” He says the VFW feels disrespected.

“People can walk through here, we don’t object to that,” says Ryan. “It’s the City’s attitude that either we give up the land or they’re going to take it. That’s not fair to any veteran.”

The VFW got a reprieve during City Council’s regular meeting on December 16. The agenda asked Council to approve eminent domain proceedings against the VFW and another property owner on River Road, but the vote was postponed. The Federal deadline had been extended, and it wasn’t necessary to begin court action immediately. But Planning Director Jim Tolbert says the City will still take the land if the VFW refuses to sell.––John Borgmeyer

Ice, snow and frigid temperatures be damned, 275 well-heeled patrons and artists pile into the stately University of Virginia Art Museum on Rugby Road on Saturday, December 7. Anticipation, tuxes and formal gowns surround the 55 donated pieces to be silently auctioned at “Seeing Double,” the fete sponsored by the Young Friends of the Museum.

In its seventh year, this is the museum’s one and only annual fundraiser, and one of its most important social events, too, which tout le monde Charlottesville wants to attend. “It’s so much fun to float around here and see old friends,” says Ruth Hart, editor of Albemarle Magazine, who herself is floating around in a black (naturally) close-fitting dress. “Seeing Double” has its more mercenary aspects too: “I actually meet a lot of new clients at this event,” says caterer John Eddowes.

Other than funds from grants and annual gifts, the museum’s special programs depend on this fundraiser. That’s especially true in these lean times. “It is getting more and more difficult to fund something like a summer camp,” says Mike Alexander, director of annual giving at the museum. “Due to the state of the economy, we can no longer rely on big corporations to make large donations.”

Last year’s auction, “Favorite Things,” collected $14,000 for the museum, $8,000 of which went toward the museum’s 2002 summer art camp. It’s priced at $300 per child for a two-week session. More than half of the children who attend are designated for scholarships due to learning disabilities or social disadvantages. “We try to bring at-risk kids from around the City into the program,” says Alexander. “Kids who excel in art or just plain love it who might not get this chance anywhere else.”

With members of the sparkly crowd mingling like lights on a small-town marquee, it’s not easy to discern the hob-nobbers from the art lovers from the foodies from the people who just want to feel those tuxes on their backs one more time. By night’s end, the tickets of $40 and upwards amount to a $10,000 kitty.

As for the art, a lot of local stuff is available at a relative steal. Lubricated by the rich reds and whites of Barboursville Vineyards, many patrons eye the mixed media, metal sculpture, watercolors and photographs and want to buy them for prices ranging between $25 and $500. Your correspondent, in fact, bids $30 on a Beate Casati mixed media entitled “Double Merry Bird Bag,” but loses it to a higher bidder. Other well-known artists such as John Ruseau, Sharon Shapiro, Sarah Sargent, John McCarthy and Edward Thomas are accumulating substantial bids themselves, including a Sam Abell black and white photograph, which, by the close of the bidding, is going for nearly $1,000. Six pieces of art were donated by last summer’s campers themselves, raising more than $400 for next year’s camp.

As the tolling bell, which had been delayed 15 minutes by the hope of late-entry bids by John Grisham, strikes mild anxiety into the bejeweled, those who are placing last bids edge to the front with aggressive civility. Others crane, in a well-mannered way, of course, to see the best-selling author before he departs. Still others head upstairs to collect their new acquisitions. In all, it’s a bit of a crowd scene.

“Popularity for this event is definitely growing,” says Young Friends President Erica Goldfarb. “We had artists calling us to donate this year. And every single piece we had sold.”—Kathryn E. Goodson

Jailhouse rock

Jail board entertains, but can’t pay for inmate services 

As the scant crowd assembled for a meeting of the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail Authority on Thursday, December 12, probably none expected a musical performance would accompany the noontime proceedings. Superintendent John Isom had a surprise for them.

At first, all anybody knew was that Isom was wondering whether the jail had any money. Then something started beeping a festive tune. Everyone looked around, trying to figure out who forgot to turn off his cell phone. Sensing the source was near, Isom lifted a stack of fairly expensive reports on inmate overcrowding at the Charlottesville-Albemarle Joint Security Complex to see if the noise might be coming from under the piled binders, but no.

Then he noticed his tie. The flame of red polyester decorated with triangular green trees and happy snowmen that Isom wore around his neck also, he seemed to realize just at that moment, played Christmas carols.

Isom laughed and flipped the fabric over his shoulder, where it continued to chirp behind him as he returned to what he was saying: “The question is, do we have the money?”

Isom spoke in a way that told Pam Smith, executive director of Offender Aid and Restoration: No, we won’t pay you for the work you do. Thanks for asking!

For 30 years the non-profit organization OAR has provided pre-release counseling, life skills instruction, guidance in parenting and anger management for prisoners. “Pretty much whatever a person needs,” says Smith. She had hoped the Jail Authority would pay an OAR employee $16.48 per hour to spend 10 hours a week at the Joint Security Complex, with a total of $11,721 to cover work for the remaining fiscal year and 2003.

OAR is one of many human service agencies thrown into financial uncertainty during the State budget crisis. In fact, OAR’s major money source, Pre- and Post-Incarceration Services (PAPIS), will be completely eliminated as of December 31. Smith, like many directors, is scrambling to find resources wherever she can.

“My job has become full-time fundraiser,” Smith told the board. “I really don’t like doing this.”

OAR’s work to prevent recidivism is, in Isom’s words, “very valuable” to the jail, but there’s simply not enough money in next year’s $3.18 million budget to spend a few thousand dollars on something that might actually stop inmates from coming back.

Jail officials say as much as 90 percent of inmates are prisoners of the Drug War, yet there are few local treatment options. Smith says recidivism rates are hard to quantify, but in general inmates are 65 to 70 percent less likely to re-offend after they’ve particpated in OAR programs.

Charles Martin, who sits on both the Jail Authority and the Albemarle Board of Supervisors, stepped in with some good news for OAR. “I think Blake [Caravati, City Councilor] and I can take care of it,” he told Smith. Caravati also sits on the jail board; he said he would bring the request to his fellow City Councilors.

Isom and the jail board have their own money problems. They just spent $17 million to solve overcrowding, yet the new 389-bed facility is currently home to more than 500 people [For more on the jail’s inmate surplus, see EXTRA!, page 9]. At Thursday’s meeting, Isom suggested the board begin the process of expanding capacity yet again by requesting funding for another study, which some board members estimated could cost between $5,000 and $10,000.

Jail Authority Chairman Richard Jennings said the Board should consider “at least a draft plan” on what to do about overcrowding. “I’m just trying to get a conversation going,” said Jennings.

The nine-member group of City and County officials and appointed citizens that guides jail policy “isn’t like other boards,” says Caravati. “There are not a lot of closed meetings,” he says, which means the board only meets once a month to talk about running the jail.––John Borgmeyer

Albemarle Place skates through

Bad weather equals good timing for big development 

As reported in last week’s Fishbowl [“Place your bets”], the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors prepped themselves for the public hearing on Albemarle Place, a proposed 1.7 million square foot amalgamation of shops, theaters, restaurants and residences comparable to Georgetown or Reston Town Center. But on Wednesday, December 11 at the Supervisors’ regularly scheduled meeting, being “prepared” for the hearing didn’t seem to be an issue.

With ice and rain blanketing the City of Charlottesville and schools and businesses closed around the County, there wasn’t one member of the public present to object during the hearing. The only people represented in the audience were Bruce MacLeod and Frank Cox, the big kahunas behind the up-and-coming mega-development.

Looking out at the empty room, Chairwoman Sally Thomas said, “Well, this will be one of the longest plans passed in the least amount of time in history.” After quick nods and chuckles from the Board, Supervisors passed the Comprehensive Plan Amendment 5-0 for the future rezoning of one of the busiest corners of the County—Hydraulic Road and Route 29N.

Although the Supes congratulated themselves on a job well done, there are still important decisions to make about traffic. In less than 15 years, the Virginia Department of Transportation predicts the intersection of Hydraulic and Route 29N will be in total gridlock unless major improvements are made. City Council criticizes the Supes for approving large projects like Albemarle Place, but then not doing enough to plan for traffic problems. Council is interested in building an overpass at the intersection and refuses to cut the controversial Western Bypass from its road plans until the County embraces the City’s traffic vision.

Supervisors are looking to developers MacLeod and Cox to build some road improvements along with their stores.

“Now that our application is activated,” Cox said after the meeting, “we’ll be using the next six months to pursue some positive advancements with the Planning Commission and the Virginia Department of Transportation.”

Aside from transportation issues, included in the amendment was the increase of the basic “footprint” (amount of space any one store can cover) from 65,000 square feet to 70,000 square feet. As the Cox company admits, although pleased, they accept it with some reluctance.

“Of course we wish we didn’t have any size restriction on our incoming retailers,” said Cox, “but we know that what the County is really saying is ‘No more big box development.’”

But in the fight for more square footage, Albemarle Place’s developers (who have currently spent $25 million dollars on planners, lawyer’s fees and land) hope their project doesn’t get mired in City-County political squabbling.

“We’re simply hoping our project doesn’t get caught up in a planning dispute that delays progress,” said Cox.

If all goes smoothly in the next stages of approval, which are expected to last through the spring, Albemarle Place, which in the end will cost owners Landonomics, Inc. and Ezon, Inc. more than $200 million dollars, could be breaking ground as early as the end of 2003. And though no retailers will allow the release of their names or details until the project is fully underway, in as little as 18 months the first phase of Albemarle Place could be completed.

“Over the next 50 years,” said Cox, “ I believe you are going to see more and more projects following this model of new urbanism.”—Kathryn E. Goodson