Author: chiara-canzi

Michaels Bistro reopens with few changes

Raise your Belgian beers! After a short hiatus, Michael’s Bistro is back in business—with minor changes.

The Corner eatery started serving lunch today after C-VILLE reported its sudden closing on July 18 due to disagreements between co-owners Chuck Adcock and Michael Crafaik. Now, with a brand new wait staff and a few sandwich substitutions on the menu, head chef Matt Lechmanfki, also a recent hire, is looking ahead.

“The big changes will come in early to mid-September when we drop our fall menu,” said Lechmanfki, who added that the Bistro plans to offer a seasonal menu. There is no additional news on management matters at this time.


Michael’s Bistro reopened today after it closed two weeks ago due to management disputes and a search for new staff.

The Tavern reopens following salmonella inspection

Even the most favored eateries are not immune to national trends. An investigation by NBC29 has revealed that The Tavern restaurant is the source of a salmonella outbreak that has affected at least a dozen people.

Of the nine confirmed cases and five others with probable salmonella symptoms, most are UVA students who savored the famous – or is that now infamous? – Tavern breakfast. According to the investigation, the restaurant owner voluntarily shut down last Friday to reeducate his employees about food safety,  given that The Tavern is no stranger to health code violations.

The inspection by the Virginia Department of Health reports that many employees did not wash their hands after coming back from breaks or before handling and preparing food; some raw hamburger meat stored directly over ready-to-eat food at sometimes improper temperatures and cleaning staff did not sanitize pots and pans before reusing them.

The Health Department has not yet identified the single source of the outbreak, though senior epidemiologist Elizabeth Davies says the department is following some leads. This is the first case of a salmonella outbreak at the Tavern for more than 20 years.

The Tavern was open this morning for breakfast but the owner would give no comment to C-VILLE on this story.

Unpaid tab leads to fight on the Downtown Mall

Not bad for a Friday afternoon after all. Earlier today the C-VILLE office was witness to a full on, cane-swinging, tackle-to-the-ground fight between a restaurant patron and a Henry’s waiter on the Downtown Mall.

Apparently, as C-VILLE’s own Josh Rhett saw it, the customer didn’t have any cash on hand and offered to pay his $13 tab with a check. The waiter responded that Henry’s is a non-check accepting establishment and turned to help other customers.


The restaurant patron remained on the ground while interrogated by police.

At this point, the customer, seeming to wait so that the waiter wouldn’t see him, started walking out without paying at all. “The waiter saw him leave and ran after him, and then [the customer] swung his cane at him,” says Rhett. The waiter at that point tackled the customer to the ground and yelled for help.

The police showed up to sort it all out. See above.

Two men prepare for life after drug court

The confident strut, the dark khakis and the blue tie do little to hide the smile Devin Schneider is proudly sporting this morning. His swagger is unchanged by the metal detector. It is an important day for him, a day he said he’ll remember for a long time. He is drug-free and has been for a whole year.

Roughly a year ago, Schneider was arrested for possession, though he won’t tell a reporter of what,  while studying at the University of Mary Washington. He pleaded guilty and was admitted to the Charlottesville/Albemarle Drug Court Program, where he was held responsible for his behavior and his sobriety. He submitted to daily drug tests, made weekly court appearances, attended intensive substance abuse rehabilitation and got a full-time job.


Devin Schneider graduated today from the Charlottesville/Albemarle Drug Court Program.

Schneider struggled at the beginning, getting sanctioned for relapsing into alcohol use, thus prolonging his stay in the program. But one night, as clichéd as it may sound, his life changed.

“Jimmy and I were in the same treatment group, and he needed a ride home, so I drove him and we just clicked,” says Schneider. James E. Crenshaw III is a fellow graduate of the program, but unlike Schneider, he was an inspiration to drug court officers from the start.

Crenshaw’s stellar performance was attributed to his determination to be a good father and son. His drug court officer shared his journey, praising his courage to admit he felt isolated and alone and his plans to go back to school and get a degree in computer science. “I plan on staying out of trouble and catching up on my child support,” says Crenshaw.


James Crenshaw was a model drug court participant with no relapses during the program.

Today, they both stood tall in front of a packed courtroom receiving praises from Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Edward Hogshire and featured speaker, Bob Gibson, former Charlottesville reporter and current president of the Sorensen Institute.

Gibson has covered the local court system for 31 years, attending many drug court graduations, meeting many former addicts and writing about them in The Daily Progress.

“This program allows people the opportunity to change their lives and gives us a chance to celebrate life,” he said. “The only job advice that I can give you is to work at what you like doing, do what you have a passion for.”

The drug court program is an alternative to incarceration, a more successful one at that, says Jeff Gould, drug court administrator. Schneider and Crenshaw were among the four graduates of the program, which enrolls 45 to 50 people. Gould is proud to say the program is not only more efficient in recovery rates than incarceration, but also in its cost: the state spends on average $22,000 on a year of incarceration versus a quarter of that in drug court. “This has a significant impact on tax payers too,” he says.

After graduating, Crenshaw and Schneider walk out of the courtroom hugging family, friends and dreaming about the future. Crenshaw’s mother holds Schneider close and looks him in the eye. “You gonna stay out of trouble and stay clean, you hear?” Schneider smiles and dives into a warm hug.

Both graduates are already planning their future. “I am going back to Mary Washington and [will] study economics,” says Schneider. “But my dream is to be a sports journalist.” Crenshaw’s dream, on the other hand, involves traveling—if not physically, at least in his thoughts. “I want to go on an island and hang back in the sun.”

Tired of evictions, Albemarle Sheriff Harding hopes letter will help

Albemarle County Sheriff J.E. "Chip" Harding announced today that the number of evictions in the county has risen 40 percent since 2006. By this time two years ago, there were 203 evictions, compared to 264 at this point last year and 285 this year. Most of those evicted are renters.

"In the Sheriff’s Office, it makes us feel terrible evicting people," says Harding. "How can we help?"


County Sheriff Chip Harding says his office will give a letter with information on emergency resources to those being evicted.

In his statement, Harding credits the current state of the economy for the leap in evictions and expects the numbers to continue to rise. "I think we’re seeing more and more evictions as the economy continues on this down swing," he says. Of the people the department ends up evicting, some are just “down on their luck" and "need somebody to give them a one time injection."

To that effect, Harding says many foreclosures and evictions could be avoided if residents are knowledgeable of the local resources, and his office will start giving residents a letter with information on those resources when it begins the eviction process.  The letter has contact information for organizations that provide short term financial assistance, such as Love, INC, MACAA CARES and the Salvation Army. Piedmont Housing Alliance has counselors specially trained in assisting with foreclosures.

But if all else fails, Harding has a clear message: "If you need help, call me." He can be reached at 972-4001.

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Prof explains why sad children learn better

Happiness doesn’t always conquer everything. UVA psychology professor Vikram Jaswal and colleagues at the University of Plymouth in England studied children there and found that happy children don’t perform as well as sad children. With the help of video clips from The Lion King and The Jungle Book and the music of Mozart and Mahler, the researchers tested how a group of children’s state of mind related to their ability to perform detail-oriented tasks. Jaswal, who is also director of UVA’s Child Language and Learning Lab, discusses the surprising findings.


“We certainly do not want to suggest that children should be made to feel sad before going to school or before taking an exam,” says Vikram Jaswal.

C-VILLE: What did your research find about children’s moods?

Vikram Jaswal: We found that 6- and 7-year-olds and 10- and 11-year-olds who were “induced” into a happy mood had more difficulty locating a shape hidden within a larger figure than those who were induced into a sad or neutral mood. Moods were induced by having children watch a short clip from an animated film or by playing a piece of music in the background while they searched for the hidden shape.

What has been the overall consensus about children and happiness before your study?

It seems like happy children should make the best learners. In fact, there is some evidence to suggest that when creative thinking is required, happiness may be optimal. But even before our study, there was evidence that happiness is not always optimal in adults and there were some hints that happiness may have a hidden cost in children as well.

What does this research mean for child development research?

Emotions tell us something important! Negative emotions signal that something is not right—paying attention to details might help us to figure out how to change the situation to make it better. In contrast, positive emotions indicate that things are going well—if things are going well, we may not need to exert the effort to analyze the situation in detail.
It is important to keep in mind that the style of thinking triggered by happiness has been shown in other research to be beneficial in children, and adults, when creativity or thinking about the “big picture” is required. What our study shows is that artificially inflating a child’s mood may make it harder for them to pay attention to details, which could be important in many school contexts.

How about children who are neither happy nor sad?

One important finding is that children in a neutral mood did just as well as those in a sad mood. We certainly do not want to suggest that children should be made to feel sad before going to school or before taking an exam.

C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.

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Gas prices drive contractors to new ideas

It’s a by now familiar sentiment: “We are definitely on a strict budget with gas.” But the person saying it is not a stressed mini-van mom trying to double up on trips to the pool and Kroger this summer. Those are instead the words of Ted Horn, executive vice president of Martin Horn Inc., the general contractors whose proliferation of trucks and workers around town is as much a sign of the summer in Charlottesville as sudden afternoon thunderstorms. “We have made changes in our fleet of company cars,” he says. “We now own six hybrids and we switched all of our diesel trucks to bio diesel.”

With at least 17 major projects currently underway in the area and roughly 140 employees, Martin Horn certainly isn’t immune to the effects of escalating gas prices. Neither is R.E. Lee & Son, Inc., another local contracting firm. “Sure, the prices are affecting us,” says Vice President John Barret. “They are affecting how we do business as everything else is these days. It’s bad for construction companies too.” R.E. Lee, though, has no changes planned for its labor force.


Ted Horn, executive vice president of Martin Horn Inc., says his company is looking at moving to a four-day work week and has moved to bio diesel because of the rising gas costs.

But it’s not just the cost to the company that has Horn concerned, either. Employees drive to job sites all across the region, and the commute is…what’s the word we’re looking for here?…costly.

The firm has been looking at switching to a four-day work week, the so-called 4-10, from a five-day work week, cutting the weekly commute by 20 percent.

“We are definitely looking into it, and it’s up to our superintendents,” Horn says. “They are the guys that run the whole job out there in the field.”

Past that, there’s the ol’ pile-in strategy. “We are going to input all of our employees addresses on Google Maps so that we see who lives closer to which job site,” Horn says. “We want fathers and sons and brothers to carpool as much as possible.”

C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.

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GI bill an expected boon

In the late 1960s, UVA’s Dean of Admissions John Blackburn received veteran benefits to attend college. He enrolled at Western Maryland College and, with the help of the government, graduated from there and continued to graduate school. Blackburn, like many other veterans, took advantage of the GI bill, a 1944 mandate that was designed to educate World War II veterans for a career after service. Under the bill, veterans are given a monthly allowance for tuition and books at a school of their choice.

But though almost half of the 16 million WWII vets used the original bill, the benefits for later generations have failed to keep pace with rising tuition costs.


“There are going to be a lot of veterans in the United States who are going to be happy with the United States Senate,” said Virginia Senator Jim Webb. Last week, the Senate passed a war-funding measure that included his updated GI bill.

Second-year UVA law student Scott Jones served two tours in Iraq before returning to school on the GI bill. “The money we get doesn’t help that much,” says Jones. “In my case, it just pays for rent.”

Under the current bill, veterans who have served as active-duty officers for more than 36 months receive $1,101 per month while they are full-time students. The total amount allotted to education benefits over four years is less than $40,000.

“With my tuition at $36,000 a year, what I get is practically nothing,” said Jones. “The problem with the bill is that it has not kept up with education inflation, the rise in tuition in the last 30 years and it’s really hard now.”

That’s why Virginia Senator Jim Webb proposed the “21st Century GI bill,” which would provide comprehensive education benefits to post 9/11 veterans. The government would cover 100 percent of tuition and expenses at the state’s most expensive universities. It would also provide allowance for essentials based on federal cost-of-living estimates and, as an incentive for private institutions, the government would cover all scholarship funds and match dollar-to-dollar the tuition of the priciest public university in the state.

On June 19, the House passed a measure that includes $62.8 billion for Webb’s GI bill, and the Senate approved the measure last week. President George W. Bush, who originally opposed the bill, is expected to sign the bill into law this week.

“With that bill, I think everyone can go to college and not worry about debt too much,” said Jones.

The likely passage of the new GI bill is probably good news for UVA. Although UVA doesn’t track the number of veterans who are currently enrolled, nor is actively recruiting them, the Department of Institutional Assessment and Study estimates that in the Spring 2008 semester, 99 students received some type of veteran benefits.

Jones says he can see a distinct growth in the number of veterans at UVA over the years. “When I first enrolled in law school here in 2002, I was almost the only one with military experience,” he says. After returning from a stint of active duty, “there are definitely a lot more veterans in law school now than before.”

Blackburn says he is surprised UVA doesn’t have complete data on veterans, but he is pleased to hear that the number is growing.

“We are always open to them,” he says. “They are always highly motivated people and they deserve all the help from the government. The bill is a great thing. I used it and I am grateful.”

C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.