Author: lisa-littman

Albemarle County released a survey today to gather citizen input in their search to find a replacement for current Police Chief John Miller, who will retire September 30. The survey consists of six free response questions and will be open for two weeks. The county has yet to announce a date for the appointment of a new chief, but the deadline for applications is September 3.

Questions include an evaluation of the current state of Albemarle county police and the amount of experience the new chief should have. According to the job opening posted on the county’s human resources website, the salary for the new chief ranges from $85,826 to $137,320—a difference of as much as $50,000, based on the new chief’s experience and qualifications.

Miller has been the Albemarle County Police Chief for 21 years, during which time he worked with county police on cases including a 2006 plot to use explosives in Western Albemarle High School, Albemarle High School or both.

Charlottesville received $65,000 from Virginia Department of Criminal Justice for the Truancy Prevention Program, reports NBC 29. The city’s program launched three years ago and has resulted in 65 percent fewer absences for the roughly 18 students it helps each year.

Tonight, City Council will vote on whether to use the new money to expand the program to Walker Upper Elementary School. Check back tomorrow for more on the Truancy Prevention Program as well as council’s discussion of the city panhandling ordinance.

Youth-Nex, the UVA Center to Promote Effective Youth Development, hopes to become nationally known for suppressing psychological and social disorders in adolescents, according to a press release from UVA Today.

The center was created with a $4 million commitment from cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris USA. Philip Morris’ parent company, Altria, previously donated $25 million to UVA’s capital campaign in 2007, and also gave to the UVA school of law and Darden School of Business in the past. UVA President John Casteen joined the company’s board of directors in February.

According to the press release, the center plans to focus on preventing a wide range of behaviors including bullying, obesity and even smoking—despite the business of its donor. Professor Patrick Tolan from the Curry School of Education’s Department of Human Services leads Youth-Nex with 10 years as director of the Institute for Juvenile Research at the University of Illinois in Chicago, as well as two years as chair of the American Psychological Association’s Working Group on Children’s Mental Health. His studies include healthy development and risk prevention. A phone call made to Tolan regarding the nature of the center was not immediately returned.

Charlotte Patterson, a UVA psychology professor, conducted a study discovering that the sexual orientation of adoptive children’s parents does not hinder a child’s positive development, according to a press release.

The study, whose conclusions will be published in the August issue of the journal “Applied Developmental Science,” used a sample of 106 preschool-age children adopted at birth by heterosexual, gay or lesbian couples. Patterson found that the parents and teachers of adopted children of gay and lesbian couples believe that these children are developing and adjusting normally.

Patterson hopes this research will help more children find permanent homes in the future. “With thousands of children in need of permanent homes in the United States alone, our findings suggest that outreach to lesbian and gay prospective adoptive parents might benefit children who are in need,” she said.

Patterson is also a faculty member and research scientist at the Fenway Institute’s Center for Population Research in LGBT Health in Boston, and is known for her research on sexual orientation and family life and development.

The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at the University of Virginia will offer courses in Staunton this fall, reports Newsleader.com. Classes begin in September at the R.R. Smith Center for History and Art.

OLLI is a national not for profit organization that replaced the Jefferson Institute for Lifelong Learning at UVA in 2001. The institute offers classes covering topics from "History of Opera" and "Prisons in America: An Insider’s View" and targets retirees. Class sizes range from 20 to 80 students.

Formerly, many seniors made the trek from Waynesboro to Charlottesville in order to take classes, explained Joan Kammire, the director of OLLI’s Charlottesville office operations, but these students will now be able to attend classes closer to home.

The Valley location has already attracted many more members for the Institute—50 as of June. OLLI instructors work on a volunteer basis.

A Keswick house, allegedly bought with bribes paid to former Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian  and first lady Wu Shu-chen, is being seized by Federal authorities, reports the Washington Post. A forfeiture complaint filed in the U.S. District Court of Charlottesville accuses the couple’s son and daughter-in-law of laundering a portion of the presidential bribery money through Swiss bank accounts in order to buy the home for $550,000 in July 2008—nearly $130,000 above its current assessed value.

Last year, the Taiwanese president and his wife were sentenced to 20 years in prison for bribery, embezzlement and money laundering.
 

Community members had their final chance to provide feedback on the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority’s (CRHA) plans for neighborhood revitalization at a final master plan meeting Tuesday evening.

Westhaven resident Takiyah Jones, who has attended most of the CRHA neighborhood revitalization meetings, hoped to have one simple question answered: Where would she and her two children will live during construction?

CRHA Executive director Randy Bickers said current residents could relocate to new units built on vacant land during the first phases of construction and thereby remain under CRHA’s jurisdiction. Should these units prove too few in number, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) could provide residents vouchers for relocation within the housing market, although CRHA hopes to keep the dispersal of vouchers to a minimum. CRHA has also contacted local public schools to ensure that children who are moved outside of their present school zone would be able to stay at their current schools.

CRHA also wants to create more mixed income communities. Bickers said that making solely lower income housing creates “pockets of poverty” in the community. By mixing in tax credit and market rate units, the dynamic of the neighborhood changes and achievement scores go up, explained Bickers. But in order to create this new type of community while maintaining the current number of public housing units, the neighborhood has to increase in density.

Residents had different responses to increased density. Crescent Hall resident Overy Johnson and his wife, Adrienne, said they were glad that more families will have affordable housing, but added that redevelopment will take away much of the current recreational area for the children. Johnson repeated the importance of education and recreation for kids, and said, “Children want to go places, but they need a place to go”— a take on the New York City Police Athletic League motto. His wife echoed the sentiment, and said children need “to have some place to go beside the streets.”

While a time frame has yet to be set for the project, CRHA executive director Randy Bikers predicted construction should start within the next year.

The UVA Center for Politics, founded by prolific UVA pundit Larry Sabato, received a $90,000 grant from The Comcast Foundation for the Center’s Youth Leadership Initiative (YLI), according to a press release from the center. YLI develops free educational resources to promote interest among K-12 students in American politics and currently reaches approximately 50,000 teachers worldwide.

With the new grant, YLI will host teacher workshops throughout West Virginia over the next three years, according to the release.