Residents of the Willoughby subdivision were invoiced in August for dues to a homeowners association that many did not know existed. The letter began the transfer of control of the Willoughby Property Owners Association (WPOA) from R.D. Wade Builder, Inc., to residents. Yet instead of pro-democracy plaudits, the shift has stoked resistance and even fears of criminal activity among residents.
Residents of the Willoughby subdivision—located in southern Charlottesville off of Fifth Street SW, with some lots in Albemarle County—were recently asked to pay dues for a homeowners association that some did not know existed.
The WPOA was formed when construction of Willoughby, located in the southern portion of Charlottesville off of Fifth Street SW, began in 1978. Wade Builder bought and developed about 150 lots and assumed control of the WPOA in 1985. Since then, Wade Builder owner Randy Wade and a local attorney constituted the association’s board of directors, which can levy dues and penalize property owners who violate association rules.
Instead of using the association, however, Wade Builder maintained and insured common areas, such as stormwater basins, and operated the board with its own funds at a cost of about $5,000 to $10,000 per year, according to Wade Builder’s Michael West. Elections were never held for new board members. Hence, the association was invisible to residents.
But Wade has left the construction business and wants to relinquish control of the WPOA. The current board members will resign and be replaced by two to nine Willoughby property owners elected at a meeting in March 2011. The invoice that shocked residents, West explained, was merely intended “to get funding for the new board members to have some resources going forward.” It also followed the dues established in 1978: $15 per quarter.
Yet the seeming emergence of a foreign power spooked some residents, who banded together online and in person. Jeff Maurer, who bought a house in Willoughby 10 years ago, found no reference to the WPOA in his deed and closing documents. If he had, he says, he might not have chosen Willoughby.
“There’s a lot of common property that needs to be maintained,” concedes Maurer, “and I’d be willing to chip in, but I don’t like the idea of a board being taken over by any two people and forcing their whims on us: what color I paint my house, if I hang wash out on a line.”
He and like-minded others grapple with their next steps. They have contemplated a legal fight to dissolve the WPOA, claiming that it violated its own by-laws about elections and term limits. Maurer even questions Wade’s motives. “Obviously, he didn’t keep control of the board from the goodness of his heart.”
West dislikes such allegations. “We gave a lot more than we got back,” he said. “We manage rental properties in Willoughby and want to make the transition as smooth as possible. Getting a neighborhood board in place will make what’s already a nice community better.”
If a legal challenge fails or proves too costly, resistant residents might hesitate to run for the board. Says Maurer, it would be nice to get elected and change the by-laws, but if they can’t, “I don’t want to legitimize it. But I myself don’t even know what I’m going to do.”
C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s fight against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) turned personal in late April, when Cuccinelli demanded UVA turn over documents, computer code and correspondence related to the research and grants of Michael Mann, a prominent climate scientist at UVA from 1999 to 2005.
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli may have pushed UVA too far. President John Casteen announced last Friday that the school hired law firm Hogan Lovells to help formulate its response to Cuccinelli’s request for documents related to Michael Mann’s climate research.
“We have had Freedom of Information Act requests before that touch on these kinds of things, so we know the extent of stuff,” said Patricia Wiberg, chair of UVA’s Department of Environmental Sciences. “But it seems somehow different coming from the Attorney General.”
She added, “We’re still hoping the administration will make some formal response—I think that would make a lot of people feel better.” While the UVA Office of Public Affairs did not reply to requests for comment, President John Casteen announced last Friday that UVA hired law firm Hogan Lovells to guide the school’s response to Cuccinelli’s request.
Mann was among the first scientists to show clearly an increase in global temperatures starting around 1900; the EPA has relied on such research to regulate greenhouse gases. Many observers decry the investigation as witch-hunting that squanders tax dollars and stifles research.
Mann is a frequent target of climate change skeptics, so much so that Congress requested the National Academy of Sciences review his work in 2006. Minor criticisms aside, that review upheld Mann’s methods and conclusions. Mann attracted attention again in November 2009, after hackers stole e-mails from a British university that seemed to imply Mann and fellow scientists conspired to exaggerate climate change.
That so-called Climate-gate triggered more inquiries. British investigations concluded the climate scientists may have been tactless in their correspondence and hesitant to share data, but they had not tampered with science. Penn State University, Mann’s current employer, has its own investigation.
“Let me be clear,” spokeswoman Annemarie Mountz emphasized May 13, “we’re not looking into the science, we’re looking into the conduct of the scientist.”
Then came Cuccinelli. While the attorney general seeks fraud in the research process, he remains agnostic about the scientific accuracy of the results. When asked by C-VILLE to clarify the Commonwealth’s reasoning for pursuing Mann, the Attorney General’s spokesman Brian Gottstein repeated a prior statement. “The revelations of Climate-gate indicate that some climate data may have been deliberately manipulated to arrive at pre-set conclusions,” said Gottstein. “The use of manipulated data to apply for taxpayer-funded research grants in Virginia is potentially fraud.” Gottstein added that the Attorney General had granted UVA’s requests to reduce the extent of material sought and to extend the deadline to July 26.
Nonetheless, the investigation upsets UVA’s Department of Environmental Sciences. Professor Howard Epstein believes people now must think twice about their research. Wiberg doubts that fraudulent data could have survived the peer review needed to win significant grants, of which Mann won five while at UVA. “To have a proposal get through that process suggests the quality of the science is high and meets expectations for the significance of the results,” said Wiberg.
The UVA Faculty Senate, Union of Concerned Scientists, American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have condemned the investigation as threatening academic freedom. Even one of Mann’s staunchest critics, Steve McIntyre, condemned on his blog Cuccinelli’s “repugnant piece of overzealousness.” James Moran, U.S. Representative from northern Virginia, likewise chastised Cuccinelli for trying “to silence those with whom you disagree.”
The pattern of pestering climate researchers worries Michael MacCracken, the first executive director of the federal U.S. Global Change Research Program and a past president of the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences. In an e-mail to C-VILLE, he wrote, “The lawsuits and FOIA requests have become a significant distraction to the work of quite a number of key people. This could get to be a very serious drain on time, and what is to stop requests to non-scientists or any of a wide number of people receiving federal dollars, like me getting Social Security or Medicare payments?”
Ironically, replying to Cuccinelli’s demands won’t be hard, says Wiberg. Mann took most of his material with him, and his e-mails, centrally stored, can be sifted easily.
C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
This year’s Jefferson Muzzle Awards, an annual birthday tradition from the Charlottesville-based Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression that recognizes the previous year’s most egregious acts of disregard for the First Amendment, are steeped in two key points.
One is that whatever venue or means or incentive a government provides for expression, it should allow all opinions equal access. Governments can’t create a vanity license plate program, for example, only to rule that some words should be squelched. They can’t offer incentives to movie producers and then capriciously decide that some films are unworthy of support based on their content. As Robert M. O’Neil, the director of the TJ Center, says, “Unless very unusual circumstances warrant different treatment, the presumption is that all those similarly situated should be treated comparably.”
Second, censorship evolves with culture and technology. That doesn’t mean it goes away or worsens, say O’Neil. “Those who seek to restrict free speech or free press may be increasingly ingenious but we could not comfortably generalize that the state of free speech has become better or worse over time. It’s simply different.”
Different how? Here’s a look at the 2010 Muzzles.
Virginia Department of Corrections
Virginia’s prison inmates can’t do many things: enjoy evening strolls around the neighborhood, have weapons in their cell, or listen to religious sermons on CD. Kyle Mabe found that out the hard way when he requested a free copy of “Life Without a Cross” from a ministry in Kentucky.
Mabe was beginning his sentence at the St. Brides Correctional Facility in Chesapeake, and when he requested the CD last September, he was told, “You can receive only music CDs, no sermons on CDs.” When Mabe filed a complaint, he was rebuffed. The reason? An earlier memo from the Department of Corrections Deputy Director that prohibited audio recordings of anything other than music. “Bad Romance” would be a go, but Great Expectations a no.
Mabe filed more grievances and appeals until he was told at the end of October, “You have exhausted all administrative remedies.” That’s when the Rutherford Institute, a civil liberties nonprofit based in Charlottesville, stepped in. In February 2010, it sued various DOC officials on Mabe’s behalf for hindering “his exercise of his Christian religious beliefs.”
It was not the first time the Rutherford Institute had challenged the State Department of Corrections. In 2009, the DOC shut down the Books Behind Bars program, operated by Charlottesville’s Quest bookstore on West Main Street. The 20-year-old program delivers donated books to prisoners, most of whom want dictionaries, the Bible or the Qu’ran. When Books Behind Bars volunteers most likely failed to remove a paperclip and a CD from some books, the DOC accused the program of establishing a conduit for contraband. Rutherford stepped in, news media picked up the story, and a month later the DOC relented.
Mabe’s lawsuit may have had a similar effect. In a letter to the TJ Center, DOC Director Gene Johnson stated, “Effective June 1, 2010, inmates will be able to order religious spoken word CDs in the same manner as they order music CDs.” Although the DOC won’t comment on current lawsuits, spokesman Larry Traylor told C-VILLE, “all policies are ultimately the responsibility of the Director and the Director does not fashion or change policy based on anything but law, security and other legitimate concerns of the operation of a large agency such as the Department of Corrections.”
In deliberating on this Muzzle, the TJ Center concedes prisons “should and do have the authority to prohibit prisoners’ access to information that could cause disruption or create a risk of physical harm.” Yet the sermon Mabe requested doesn’t pass that litmus test. Hence, the Muzzle is awarded “for violating an inmate’s Constitutional rights of free speech and religious freedom.”
PARODY THIS
Florida Congressman Alan Grayson demanded Attorney General Eric Holder prosecute the woman who parodied his website, claiming the sit was "fundamentally dishonest and fraudulent" because its creator lived outside his Congressional district.
U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL)
As if prosecuting terrorists, closing Guantanamo and investigating threats against sitting governors weren’t enough for U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Congressman Alan Grayson wanted him to pursue a taunter.
In a four-page letter to Holder in December, the Democratic Congressman requested that the Justice Department prosecute Republican Angie Langley for parodying his website, congressmanwithguts.com. Grayson’s red, white and blue site features a video montage of Howard Dean and others praising the Congressman’s toughness. Langley’s site, mycongressmanisnuts.com, apes the style but adds a symbolic streak of yellow. Her video montage begins with Grayson trying to stop someone from videotaping him.
Grayson should have a soft spot for parody. On the House floor, he caricatured the Republicans’ idea of health care reform as “Don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly.” Yet Grayson alleged Langley’s parody was “fundamentally dishonest and fraudulent” not because Grayson is or isn’t nuts, but because Langley lived outside Grayson’s Congressional district. Hence, “my” was clearly a lie. “I am not her Congressman,” Grayson wrote, “and I have never been her Congressman.” Grayson wanted her to serve five years in prison and pay a fine.
“The right to criticize public officials without fear of government reprisal is a fundamental component of the First Amendment,” says the TJ Center. “As such, elected officials should both expect and tolerate criticism.” Grayson gets the Muzzle for urging extreme action “against a vocal critic for alleged violations of Federal Election law that, even if true, represent minor transgressions.”
Texas State Legislature
Don’t mess with Texas. Period. Don’t even make a film about people who messed with Texans.
MOVING PICTURE
Waco filmmakers wanted to spend $30 million in Texas—until the State Legislature said it wouldn’t hand over a 15 percent rebate because the movie about the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidians’ compound portrayed "Texans in a negative fashion."
Movie producer Emilio Ferrari learned this lesson last May. Ferrari’s feature film Waco depicts the fiery federal siege of the Branch Davidians’ compound in 1993. Ferrari told a reporter that Waco was America’s “biggest tragedy, after 9/11. And this was by Americans against Americans. I think people have a right to know what happened.” Consequently, Ferrari and his staff conducted thousands of hours of research and consulted “every expert on Waco.”
His team also wanted to spend $30 million filming in Texas, which should have made the state rejoice. In 2007, the state legislature created the Moving Image Industry Incentive Program to draw more media production to the Lone Star State. The 15 percent rebate on in-state production costs had helped mostly commercials and only one movie when Ferrari applied.
The program declines projects that advertise for the state government, are obscene, or made by students for course credit. Additionally, “The State of Texas is also not required to make payments to projects that include inappropriate content or content that portrays Texas or Texans in a negative fashion.”
The Texas Film Commission ruled that Waco contained errors and could harm the state’s image. “For denying motion picture production companies tax breaks if their proposed movies portray Texas or Texans in a negative fashion,” the Texas State Legislature gets its second Muzzle.
Oklahoma Tax Commission
NOT O.K. in OK
The TJ Center reminded the Oklahoma Tax Commission that the First Amendment doesn’t allow government officials to "create an open forum for the public at large to express itself but then only allow the expression of messages that they approve."
Everything is really not O.K., in Norman, Oklahoma. Keith Kimmel, 28, applied for a vanity license plate that read “IM GAY.” The Oklahoma Tax Commission, which oversees the Motor Vehicle Division’s cash-cow program, turned down the request because it prohibits plates that “may be offensive to the general public.”
Kimmel cried foul and filed suit this February. “I want to tell people who I am and what I am,” he told local news media. “I’m openly gay. What better way to tell everybody than to put it on the back of a car?”
The Tax Commission retorted that license plates remain state property, “not the private billboard for the person to whom they are issued.” But the Commission had permitted other state license plates to proclaim “STR8FAN” and “VIBR8R” and admitted it had no standard policy.
This apparent caprice, observes the TJ Center, “is almost a textbook example of what the First Amendment does not permit. Government officials cannot create an open forum for the public at large to express itself but then only allow the expression of messages that they approve.” The Muzzle is “for administering the state specialty license plate program in a viewpoint discriminatory fashion.”
Whatever happens in the courts, Kimmel will never get his plate. Tulsa police arrested Kimmel at a gay bar March 27 and brought him to a hospital. Kimmel formally complained that the police had insulted and beaten him; he was found dead at a friend’s home on April 2, the cause of death still undetermined.
UNINHIBITED BICYCLING BEAUTY
The Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board said no-go to sales of Cycles Gladiator wine because its label—a reproduction of an 1895 advertisement by a French artist—depicts a "person posed in an immoral or sensuous manner."
The Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board
Maybe you’ve never seen a woman bicycling naked, and if you live in Alabama, the chances that you will became much smaller last year. The Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board banned sales of Cycles Gladiator wine because the label featured a nude nymph flying alongside a bicycle with winged pedals. The Alabamans thereby earned their Muzzle Award “for utilizing a paternalistic, highly subjective, and most likely unconstitutional approach to evaluating the advertising of alcoholic products.”
The banned label reproduces an 1895 advertisement by the French artist Georges Massias. The Gladiator was a line of bikes begun in 1891, and Massias’ original prints have fetched $50,000 at auction. Reproductions can be bought as dorm room posters or on mugs, t-shirts and the Hahn Family Wines’ bottles in all 49 nymph-friendlier states. The central California vineyard picked the image, according to its website, because it “captures the grace and uninhibited beauty of our hillside vineyards.”
The Board may have nothing against hillside vineyards, but it does have an aversion to uninhibited beauty. The Board’s attorney told the Associated Press that a “person posed in an immoral or sensuous manner” could not be used to advertise alcohol. The Board banned another Hahn Family Wine after enlarging the label many times over revealed that a woman’s nipple was visible through her gauzy garment.
Nonetheless, the TJ Center notes, “the U.S. Supreme Court has determined that works of artistic merit cannot be considered ‘obscene’ or ‘harmful to minors’ solely because they depict nudity. While people may disagree on this issue, the First Amendment does not allow the government to automatically take sides in the debate.” Alabama’s ban has boosted Cycles Gladiator sales and generated a new marketing slogan: “Taste what they’re missing.”
FULL COVERAGE
Chicago Alderman James Balcer called in "graffiti blasters" to paint over a mural—without consulting either the mural’s artist or the owner of the private building on which it was painted.
Chicago Alderman James Balcer
The Governator may have found his match in the Alderman-ator. James Balcer, 11th Ward Alderman in central Chicago, heard about a private mural he didn’t like so he called in the “graffiti blasters” to blow the offending art into uniform brown oblivion. “Yeah, I’m the alderman here,” he told Chicago Public Radio. “I was told about it and I O.K.ed it and I stand by it,” he said of the mural’s purging.
The mural in question depicted three police cameras, which resemble blue and white boxes and are ubiquitous atop poles throughout the city. One of the mural’s cameras featured a trophy deer head, another a skull, and the third a crucifix. Mural artist Gabriel Villa had been asked by the building’s owner to paint the wall for a local arts festival. Villa said his intention with the mural was to get people talking.
Apparently, some people did just that. Balcer said he received a few complaints from residents and police as the mural neared completion. Balcer had the mural painted over in an early morning raid without consulting Villa or the building’s owner, whose son was organizing the festival.
Balcer also erroneously claimed the mural needed a permit. He then called the mural “a threat to this community.” Well, the Constitution doesn’t give public officials the right to erase art wherever and whenever they want, so the TJ Center recognizes the Alderman “for failing to appreciate this constitutional principle and his city’s own permit requirements.”
Administration of Southwestern College, Chula Vista, California
Southwestern College so cherishes its students’ and faculty’s right to express themselves that it has designated a special “free speech patio” for that purpose. Reserve the patio in advance, and complain all you want. Don’t stay, however, if you want to avoid dire consequences. Just ask three sanctioned professors.
Last October, protesters originally assembled at the free speech patio to decry cuts to classes and funding. They then spontaneously marched to President Raj Chopra’s office, where a line of campus police awaited them. The President’s office was empty, the professors drifted away, and the crowd dispersed.
That night, however, each professor got a surprise visit at home: a cop and the director of human resources. The latter bore a letter that placed the professors on administrative leave and banned them from the campus and its resources, including e-mail, until their presence at the rally had been investigated fully.
Southwestern spokesman Chris Bender told C-VILLE, “This campus is covered with posters expressing people’s views—we make no attempt to take those down. Those are not the actions of a college that limits free speech. The issue at hand was public safety, and it’s a shame the Jefferson Center has confused protecting free speech with protecting people from getting hurt.”
Nonetheless, “for promulgating and enforcing a policy limiting even peaceful and non-disruptive protests to a designated ‘free speech’ patio,” Southwestern College gets a Muzzle.
S.K. Johnson, Principal Orange (CA) High School and the West Fargo (ND) School Board
According to his accounts, S.K. Johnson, a California high school principal, found a pre-release copy of Pulp, the final project of the school’s journalism class. The cover pictured a bare back tattooed with “PULP” in Old English type and a panther, the school’s mascot. It related to a story inside about tattoo trends around the predominantly Hispanic campus. Also inside was a list of things to do before graduation, such as skinny dip. After a custodian purportedly saw Johnson with the magazine and asked if he was reading one of those “gang-tattoo magazines,” Johnson ordered all 300 copies to be confiscated and locked in his closet. “It was not an easy decision,” he told a local newspaper, “but we have an image of our school that I want to uphold.”
The trouble is, California’s law against censoring school publications requires people like Johnson to prove the publication is “obscene, libelous, or slanderous” or “so incites pupils as to create a clear and present danger” to the law or orderly conduct of school. After a State Senator and legal groups complained, Johnson let Pulp out of his closet—in July.
In Fargo, North Dakota, a similar drama unfolded. Jeremy Murphy of West Fargo High School seems like “Glee”’s Mr. Shue, except he orchestrates the student news, rather than show choir. Former students raved about his advising of the yearbook and the school newspaper The Packer, which under his stewardship won regional awards for best overall school newspaper and journalist of the year.
Yet all that ballyhoo quickly became boo-hoo. A student editorial in May 2009 criticized the school administration for decision-making that “shows a lack of restraint and consideration from administration officials to gauge the outcome of the people being affected. More time should be spent contemplating and going over the issues with those involved rather than jumping hastily into action.” Ouch. Such rhetoric and pesky reporting had become too much for the administration, which sacked Murphy for a “difference in philosophy.”
Although schools do walk a fine line between maintaining an educational environmental and protecting students’ rights, the West Fargo School Board and S. K. Johnson share a Muzzle “for actions that reveal little regard for teaching First Amendment principles.”
Puerto Rico Department of Education
Profanity and sex allegedly led to the removal of five books from the U.S. territory’s 11th-grade Spanish curriculum and school libraries.
In September, Puerto Rico’s Department of Education banned the books by reputable authors because of crude language. Governor Fortuño, backing up his DOE, claimed, “The books are not being banned,” rather the DOE is determining “at which level they can be read.”
Under pressure, the DOE reconsidered four of the five banned works after a “revision” to remove the vulgarity. It’s not clear, however, who’s doing the revising and how, or who even promulgated the bans in the first place. But even changes to language can’t redeem a memoir by Juan Antonio Ramos, which the DOE will not reconsider. Said a DOE spokesman to a local news organization, “You can have good books with bad words, because they reflect the reality out there. But this book can be a screenplay for a porn movie.”
As the TJ Center says, “banning venerated literary works on a vague premise of age-level inappropriateness is unacceptable.” Hence, the Muzzle.
HE’S LEFT THE BUILDING
Elvis impersonator Bill Jablonski risks arrest by Las Vegas police because he continues to hang out on Vegas sidewalks so tourists can get their picture taken with The King.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department
Elvis impersonators beware: Keep the jumpsuit and sideburns in the casino or risk arrest on the Vegas Strip.
Impersonator Bill Jablonski told a Las Vegas reporter, that tourists “come from all over the world looking for an Elvis.” He hangs around the street to help them out. He doesn’t want their money; he just thinks it’s fun. He cries when he talks about the girl in a wheelchair who just wanted a picture with the faux Elvis. Is that too much to ask in Vegas?
Apparently, yes. Las Vegas police have regularly detained and threatened to arrest buskers and street performers for obstructing sidewalk traffic and operating without a license even though the courts say the cops aren’t allowed to do that. Sidewalks, streets, and other spaces are “public forums” for the free exchange of ideas. About the only thing cities can do to peaceful people in such places is to regulate aggressive panhandling.
The ACLU has sued on behalf of the performers, just as it previously sued on behalf of people who wanted to distribute flyers or preach along the Strip. An ACLU attorney said of the Las Vegas police, “They think each new type of expression they can suppress, and we have to go to court for each of those, and the results are always the same.” The TJ Center also takes up the cause, granting a Muzzle “for continually harassing street performers in contravention of their established First Amendment rights.”
At a time when many people are looking for work, UVA is still looking to hire its first ever Executive Director for Technology Transfer and Ventures. The role represents UVA’s broader attempt to increase revenue from and recognition for its inventions and innovations.
Thomas Skalak, UVA’s vice president for research, says that the role of Executive Director of Technology Transfer and Ventures is “to recognize one of our primary missions is dissemination of knowledge to move new ideas, inventions, and discoveries that come from faculty, students, and scholarly research into society.”
At the September 11 Board of Visitors meeting, UVA’s Vice President for Research Thomas Skalak gave an update on changes to UVA’s process for technology transfer. Whenever a UVA student or professor invents or discovers something, the university transfers intellectual property rights to a nonprofit organization, the UVA Patent Foundation (UVAPF). The UVAPF and its staff of about 20 people then help patent those ideas and license them to companies in exchange for a fee. But as the minutes for that BOV meeting noted, “Patent Foundation revenues have dropped at the same time that research grants for faculty have increased.” In short, UVA was getting less bang for every research buck.
That downward trend had been occurring more or less steadily since 2001. Even though the UVAPF generated $4.6 million in revenue in 2008, it struggled to break even. According to the minutes of the meeting, whereas the top universities generate revenue from technology transfer worth about 10 percent of their research investments, and the average university nationally generates 2 percent, UVA in 2008 only generated 1.4 percent. Hence, UVA overhauled its system to give more money back to the inventors and the departments or labs that housed them in the hopes of spurring more innovation. So far, it has—with 12 patents, 65 deals and 178 disclosures in 2008. In 2009, 25 U.S. patents were issued and 57 deals with companies and institutions were also recorded and 162 invention disclosures were reported.
But finding someone to lead the way to further improvements and to help court corporate buyers for UVA ideas is crucial, too. “The basic idea of this role,” says Skalak, “is to recognize one of our primary missions is dissemination of knowledge to move new ideas, inventions, and discoveries that come from faculty, students, and scholarly research into society.” The job posting itself calls the process “science and scholarship serving humanity.” Skalak hoped to have an Executive Director for Technology Transfer and Ventures by the end of October. So far, that hasn’t happened.
The position appeared on UVA’s Human Resources job site just before the September BOV meeting. It also made the usual rounds of classifieds for academics, such as the Chronicle of Higher Education, as well as the Wall Street Journal or the website Technology Transfer Tactics. Ideally, the applicant has a science PhD, significant university research experience, knowledge of how start-up businesses and intellectual property work, and the ability to raise capital. The ad stops just short of asking that candidates also play the violin. “The person,” Skalak explains, “will be the primary face of the university with external private partners to build relationships.”
Gary Helmuth, who leads the executive search for UVA HR, did not reply to several requests for information about how many people have applied and when the search might conclude. However, the position is listed as open till filled, with a start date of the 2010 academic year. Meanwhile, says Skalak, “We do believe that the definition of this process and the search have already created national recognition that UVA is a leader in the area of innovation and research.”
C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.
On a windy, overcast Wednesday morning around 8am, traffic already piles up at the intersection of Route 250 and McIntire Road. Most of those idled drivers can see the Charlottesville-Albemarle Rescue Squad (CARS) building and its parked fleet of white and neon orange emergency vehicles. The volunteer rescue and ambulance service responds to about 30 calls a day, most between 8am and 8pm, whether traffic accidents, chest pains or shootings. The vehicles roll from the CARS parking lot to thread their way through the crowded intersection.
Currently, the average response time for the Charlottesville-Albemarle Rescue Squad (CARS) is 9 minutes, 95 percent of the time. But sometimes responses are unusually slower, because the dispatcher will need 10 to 30 seconds just to figure out the nature of the emergency. The traffic at the intersection of 250 and McIntire Road, futhermore, does not help. The proposed 250 Interchange may change this scenario, but it’s not yet clear how—other than that CARS will likely exit further up McIntire Road as the Interchange eats up space. “We exit directly into the intersection in front of all the traffic. We also have the possibility to control the traffic signals,” says CARS Chief Dayton Haugh.
Right now, explains CARS Chief Dayton Haugh, “We exit directly into the intersection in front of all the traffic. We also have the possibility to control the traffic signals.” Exiting the station, then, is not as difficult as it first appears. The proposed Meadowcreek Parkway 250 Interchange will almost certainly change this scenario, but it’s not yet clear how—other than that CARS will likely exit further up McIntire Road as the Interchange eats up space. “It’s entirely possible the Meadowcreek Parkway may improve response times north of town. It’s really going to depend on the design of the intersection and which way we go. But I don’t know that I have the perfect answer,” says Haugh.
At public meetings, the design of the Interchange has been criticized for a variety of reasons, but at the November 16 City Council meeting, Mayor Dave Norris, who said that he will vote against the project, was still concerned with the rescue squad exit, which, as it is now designed, will force each ambulance to back track to McIntire Road.
Haugh has talked to VDOT and the City about possible answers. He most recently met—last Thursday—with Mayor Dave Norris and Councilor David Brown. Neither VDOT nor the City, however, was available to comment to C-VILLE on how the interchange’s design considered CARS, or how the interchange might affect CARS during construction or after completion.
Nonetheless, aside from weather, traffic most systematically influences CARS emergency response times. If the design reduced overall traffic, the change in where ambulances enter the road may be less crucial.
But overall response time is vital to people in emergencies. After being dispatched for calls in the city, CARS currently arrives at the scene within 9 minutes 95 percent of the time, according to data Haugh collects and regularly analyzes. But sometimes responses are unusually slower, because the dispatcher will need 10 to 30 seconds just to figure out the nature of the emergency. If the call comes in while the crews are asleep, it adds a few more seconds for everyone to wake up. Calls to the county vary more, but even there, the average response time is around 9 minutes.
Comparing individual response times can become tricky, because each call is different. Unlike fire trucks, which leave from the same stations every time, “about one-third of the time, we’re leaving from a hospital, so it doesn’t tell you if the response times are getting better or worse,” Haugh says. But over time, CARS response times have been surprisingly consistent. The question is how, if at all, the interchange will change that.
He is the CEO of the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank Network, whose Charlottesville branch is located at 1207 Harris St.
Tanya Sperl, who is now a volunteer at the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank Network, was once a client. “Coming to the food bank is more than just getting food. It’s getting hope, relieving the stress,” she says. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the number of Americans who are struggling to put food on their family’s table has increased to 14.6 percent from 11 percent in 2007. For families with children, the percentage is even higher at 21 percent.
The food bank is a bulk supplier to local churches or organizations, such as the Salvation Army, that operate food pantries and soup kitchens. The food bank also helps schools distribute snacks to kids and individuals, who can go directly to the food bank one time. There they’ll receive about 62 pounds of food for a family of four, help applying for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly called food stamps, and a list of nearby pantries and kitchens.
Through those outlets from Charlottesville to Lexington and Winchester, the food bank expects to distribute 18 million pounds of food this fiscal year. That’s nearly double the amount of two years ago and translates into 1.8 million meals in the Charlottesville area alone.
“When it comes to clients,” adds the food bank’s Director of Communications Ruth Jones, across its entire region, “we’ve seen the clients go from about 65,000 to 70,000 people served each month, to 83,000 to 90,000 people each month. Over the next few months, we expect to serve close to 100,000 people in one month’s time.”
According to numbers released by the United States Department of Agriculture, the number of Americans who are struggling to put food on their family’s table has increased to 14.6 percent from 11 percent in 2007. That’s one in seven Americans, the highest rate of “food insecurity” since 1995. For families with children, the percentage is even higher at 21 percent.
So far, government contributions and donations from food manufacturers, grocers, and individuals have handled the Food Bank’s strain. Even a one-dollar donation provides three meals because of the food bank’s buying power and its efficiency. According to Zippin, 94 percent of funds go directly to food, and food is typically served within three days of arriving at the food bank. “Keep giving, keep giving,” Zippin says. “We need every can. We need every dollar. I rue the day when the generosity of our donors lapses or government support shrinks.”
The surge in the hungry also strains Charlottesville’s Department of Social Services, which administers SNAP, and is handling its highest-ever load. In September, 5,099 city residents—almost 1 in 8—participated in SNAP. That’s a 3 percent increase in just two months, and a 29 percent increase since July 2007. People also seem to need more time getting back on their feet.
Tanya Sperl is a volunteer at the food bank and she says, “Coming to the food bank is more than just getting food. It’s getting hope, relieving the stress.” She should know. Sperl first came to the food bank as a client and now talks to people from the other side of the counter. Many suffered personal tragedies that suddenly forced them to choose between food or rent or medical care for themselves or their children. She gives the example of a woman who came after her husband was injured and disability payments and food stamps had yet to begin.
“I’ve seen lots of people who are still working, bucking up and trying,” Sperl says. “It’s not people being lazy or unintelligent about how to spend their time.”
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Patience has become a necessary virtue for residents of Fifeville’s Fifth and Dice streets concerned about traffic safety. They have yet to see tangible progress while the city concludes a new traffic assessment.
Fifeville residents are awaiting the results of a traffic assessment, but they are still concerned about traffic safety. Stephanie Gist of Fifth Street has watched narrowly avoided accidents from her window. She raised the issue, but she hasn’t noticed anything different since September. “We had electronic traffic counting strips in the neighborhood for about a week,” she says. “No word from anyone what they’re for.”
In September, C-VILLE reported on the hazards for cars and pedestrians trying to traverse the narrow, crowded roads. Stephanie Gist of Fifth Street had watched minor and narrowly avoided accidents from her window, including a girl almost struck on her way to a school bus. Yet aside from seeing a letter to the editor, Gist hasn’t seen much since September that shows anyone cares. “We had electronic traffic counting strips in the neighborhood for about a week,” she says. “No word from anyone what they’re for.”
Meanwhile, the traffic hazards persist. At the end of October, Gist watched two cars unable to pass each other on Dice Street. One car backed up the entire block to turn around in the middle of Fifth Street, which could have created massive gridlock at rush hour. She also saw at least five fire trucks responding to a call behind Main Street struggle to cope with the dog-legged intersection of Dice and Fifth streets. “I know the problem must have come on their radar then,” she says of the city.
The width problem has been on the city’s radar, especially since City Council approved Southern Development’s plan for a mixed commercial and residential complex on the corner of Cherry Avenue and Ridge Street The site is diagonally across the block from Gist’s house and could add 50 housing units plus an underground parking garage, which could significantly affect traffic. Hence, the city decided to study Fifeville’s current traffic before making any changes, which explains the counting strips Gist witnessed—and her waiting.
That traffic study, according to city’s Director of Communications Ric Barrick, is wrapping up. A consultant who helped collect data is preparing to present preliminary results and recommendations to the city. After that, Barrick says, the city will meet with the neighborhood to solicit input on the ideas. That meeting is currently scheduled for the second week in December.
Charlottesville Police Department’s Crime Analyst Kristin O’Connell adds that the police also have information on traffic safety for the area. However, several other large projects prevented her from being able to organize the data in time to respond to C-VILLE’s request. She could not say if the traffic woes of Fifth and Dice or Fifeville as a whole were statistically any worse than other parts of the city.
Nonetheless, Gist knows what she and her neighbors would say at a neighborhood meeting: “It’s vital the excessive speeds traveled by the cars be addressed. Also a vital factor is the extremely narrow width of the two streets, Fifth and Dice.” Yet she won’t hold her breath. “I’m still disillusioned that there is only notice being paid to our problem now that there is the new development. Addressing this issue is a condition of the development. We citizens on our own, and our complaints, didn’t warrant change.”
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“Do you know what the biggest cause of failure is for artificial hearts?” Paul Allaire asks. “People closing the door on the wires when they get out of the car.” A professor of mechanical engineering at UVA, Allaire approaches the world this way: How do things work, why do they fail, and how can we improve those things so that they better help people?
Mechanical Engineering Professor Paul Allaire is collaborating on a vertical-axis wind turbine. He describes it as an eggbeater versus the more common propeller. It generates less electricity, but it costs only $100,000. A big turbine can generate 3 to 5 MW of electricity and costs $8 million. “The typical power rating for a farm,” Allaire says, “is 8 to 10 kW. If you had a 20-50kW wind turbine, then you could run it three times a week, store the energy in a big battery, and save yourself a lot of money.”
Allaire’s most recent patent, filed just last week, helps blood flow smoothly through artificial hearts. That even flow reduces the chance of clots and stroke. Allaire wants to add sensors and a back-up battery, so that if you do cut the wires in your car door, the heart keeps pumping and sends a wireless S.O.S.
In the same week as his patent filing, however, Allaire entertained U.S. Congressman Tom Perriello and other local politicians who wanted to check out his wind turbines. His meeting garnered news reports up and down the state. Allaire, recently appointed director of UVA’s Jefferson Wind Energy Institute, is collaborating on a vertical-axis wind turbine. He describes it as an eggbeater versus the more common propeller.
“We really need two kinds of turbines,” Allaire explains. “Big wind and little wind.” Big wind propellers normally sit offshore or other places where wind speeds regularly reach 30 miles per hour. One big turbine can generate 3 to 5 MW of electricity and costs $8 million.
In contrast, an eggbeater can work in winds of 15 miles per hour, like those that stream over the Appalachian Mountains. It generates less electricity, maybe 20 kW, but it also costs only $100,000 and looks no worse then a cell phone tower. “The typical power rating for a farm,” Allaire says, “is 8 to 10 kW. If you had a 20-50kW wind turbine, then you could run it three times a week, store the energy in a big battery, and save yourself a lot of money.” A half dozen homes could band together to do the same thing.
So, how do hearts resemble turbines? Air flows over a turbine, blood through the pump of an artificial heart. “I was working on neither of them 20 years ago. I was working on something called magnetic bearings and heard about artificial heart pumps.” Magnetic bearings levitate in rotary machines, like turbines and heart pumps. Since levitating bearings don’t touch anything, they waste less energy and don’t wear out.
Allaire confesses that when he graduated from Yale University with bachelors and master’s degrees in engineering in 1964, “I really had no idea what I wanted to do. I wanted an adventure, which was not in Vietnam, so I joined the Peace Corps and got assigned to teach engineering in a small engineering college in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I had never traveled anywhere in my life before.”
Allaire had grown up in Windsor, Connecticut, about 40 miles up the road from Yale. He had been good at math and science and liked understanding how things worked—or didn’t. Hooked by his foreign travel and teaching, Allaire decided to become a professor. He graduated with his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Northwestern University in 1971, during what he describes as “another economic downturn. The only job I could get was teaching at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, so my wife and I went there.” He arrived at UVA the next year.
Thirty-seven years later, he is still here—and very much all over the place, from the Engineering School to the Medical School to meeting with Dominion. “I get to work with some very smart people,” Allaire concludes. “I love what I do. I get to play with all this stuff.”
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If you’ve been putting off buying that seven bedroom, nine bathroom country manor with several hundred acres of land, you might want to stop procrastinating: It’s a buyer’s market.
Built in 1740, 0 Gordonsville Road tops the price list at $18 million: It includes a manor, three additional cottages, a carriage house and 16 stall barn.
Local listings for estates $5 million and up have roughly doubled compared to normal times. In Charlottesville and Albemarle, a dozen such properties are now for sale, many established in the 1700s and 1800s on sprawling farms in Keswick. Indeed, a 10,000-square-foot house at 0 Gordonsville Road tops the price list at $18 million. The Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors’ (CAAR) website shows the property comes with three cottages and stables and abuts 15,000 permanently protected acres of land. Down the road, $12.5 million could buy you Keswick Vineyards. The 393-acre property includes the 43-acre vineyard, the main house from 1911, and a guest house with home theater and exercise space. Unfortunately, “the market seems rather flat,” says Keswick’s General Manager Stephen Barnard. The property has been listed since the summer without eliciting any interest.
Keswick Vineyards, built in 1911, sits at $12.5 million and it includes 43-acre vineyard, tasting room, Gunnite Pool, three-bedroom guest house, exercise room and home theatre.
According to Realtor Justin Wiley, whose company Frank Hardy Inc. handles many upper-echelon properties, sales prices have sagged. He explains sellers may not advertise reduced rates, but they are accepting lower bids, sometimes 30 percent lower, similar to much of the rest of the real estate market. “I think prices will continue to come under asking price until some sellers begin to see where the price ought to be. More people are definitely looking. Maybe we’ll see more offers,” says Wiley.
Statistics from CAAR as of September 25 showed 3,502 active listings for the entire local market, which extends into Fauquier, Goochland, Augusta, and other counties. Of these homes, 134 sold this month for a median price of $262,000 after 133 days on market. That pace is a bit slower but at slightly higher prices than August. In the $5 million and up range, in contrast, the entire CAAR region has 33 homes for sale. They have been sitting on the market for an average of 403 days, and for September, none has been sold.
Not all the lavish properties, however, may stay as they are if they are sold. For a $14.95 million property on Woodlands Road, one selling point—or caveat—is the absence of a conservation easement. Meanwhile, an 86-acre farm pinched between the Mosby Mountain and Redfields subdivisions just south of Charlottesville has, according to its listing, “Development potential as well…. County has indicated higher zoning would be approved.”
Yet, mere looking in the luxury bracket reflects progress. “This time last year was completely dead,” Wiley says. The usual buyers from outside the Commonwealth, occasionally even from Europe, were staying away, although Charlottesville and Albemarle typically fare better than other high-end markets in Virginia, such as the Chesapeake Bay area. Now his phone is ringing again. “Look at what $10 million buys you in Albemarle versus the Hamptons or Palm Beach. It’s a much better value here.”
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Virginia law does not limit the amount an individual or corporation can donate to political campaigns, but it does require candidates to disclose donations. The September 15 filing reveals that from July 1 to August 31, in elections for the Charlottesville City Council, Albemarle Board of Supervisors and House of Delegates, money was flowing but most campaigns are still hoarding their war chests.
Four-time Republican incumbent Rob Bell has raised the most money locally: $82,258 from more donors than anyone else. His ending balance is $570,251.
Not surprisingly, the House of Delegates races have attracted the most cash and in-kind contributions. These races cover a much larger area than local ones, thus bringing in more money.
In the race for the 57th District seat, Democratic incumbent David Toscano brought his total balance to roughly $112,000. In contrast, Independent challenger Robert Brandon Smith III wound up the summer with $0. While Smith could not be reached for comment, Toscano told C-VILLE that “people raise money at different times in an election. When you get an opponent, you raise money so that you can reach out to constituents, inform them about the important issues, seek their input, and publicize that there is an election and get them to vote.”
In the 58th District, Democrat Cynthia Neff is challenging Republican four-term incumbent Rob Bell. Neff, however, has yet to challenge his fiscal resources. By about a factor of five, Bell’s coffers are the area’s biggest. His campaign’s balance changed to $570,251 from $582,210 as he spent around $94,000 for the summer and pulled in $82,000 from more donors than anyone else. Neff had less than a third of that fiscal flow from fewer locations across the state, but that doesn’t mean Bell will rest on his laurels.
“The races have become more expensive,” he explains. “If the race becomes one of the marquee races in the state, the money’s there if we need it. But we’re still knocking on doors every Saturday and working very hard.”
Neff, meanwhile, is overall pleased with her fundraising. “Of course, it’s hard not to look at what other campaigns are doing around the commonwealth, and how our numbers stack up. It’s always interesting to see who is donating money to whom,” she says. Furthermore, the average size of her donation reflects “the $5 and $10 checks we receive from people that, while they might not have a ton of money, are invested in the future of the area and are willing to chip in what they can.”
Dennis Rooker, running unopposed for Albemarle County Board of Supervisors Jack Jouett District, has amassed the area’s fourth largest political balance sheet, topping $71,000. Fellow incumbent David Slutzky (Rio District) came in with the largest average contribution for the summer—$5,000 from the property management firm Tiger Investments LLC. Slutzky raised another $2,079 and spent $4,089 to end August with about $39,234. In comparison, Republican challenger Rodney Thomas continues the race for the Rio District seat with $7,463.
In the race for the Samuel Miller District, an endorsement from the retiring Supervisor Sally Thomas did not lift Madison Cummings’ haul above the field’s. Democrat Cummings received about $1,700 and spent more, to end August at $7,531. Independent John Lowry had slightly more success, but since he began the summer with less money, was left with $4,862. Republican Duane Snow, in contrast, was the big earner—and big spender. His total balance stayed around $1,000, but he managed to receive $5,335 and spent almost as much.
Finally, in Charlottesville, Democratic running mates for City Council Dave Norris and Kristin Szakos each spent $501, although Norris raised $2,185, just more than triple Szakos’ results. Norris heads into the fall with $2,178 and Szakos with $1,149. The closest Independent contender, Bob Fenwick, continues with $1,112, the remnant of pulling in $1,533. Paul Long managed to raise $465 and spend $320 of it, while Andrew Williams filed a statement of no activity, leaving his coffers with $225.
Tracking such numbers has never been easier, since the nonprofit Virginia Public Access Project started doing the legwork to compile financial disclosures at vpap.org for local campaigns starting in 2007.
For Bell, “When the reports come out, obviously you see how much other candidates raise because it’s important to see what resources they have, how many people are supporting them, and so on.”
Toscano appreciates the transparency. Neff concurs. “It’s important to the process that we have as much openness and accessibility as possible, that know where campaigns get their money, and what sort of special interests they might be beholden to,” she says.
C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.
The TJ Center reminded the Oklahoma Tax Commission that the First Amendment doesn’t allow government officials to "create an open forum for the public at large to express itself but then only allow the expression of messages that they approve."
Elvis impersonator Bill Jablonski risks arrest by Las Vegas police because he continues to hang out on Vegas sidewalks so tourists can get their picture taken with The King.
Mechanical Engineering Professor Paul Allaire is collaborating on a vertical-axis wind turbine. He describes it as an eggbeater versus the more common propeller. It generates less electricity, but it costs only $100,000. A big turbine can generate 3 to 5 MW of electricity and costs $8 million. “The typical power rating for a farm,” Allaire says, “is 8 to 10 kW. If you had a 20-50kW wind turbine, then you could run it three times a week, store the energy in a big battery, and save yourself a lot of money.”
