A Charlottesville Circuit Court jury last week acquitted a 32-year-old man accused in the April 2005 punching death of a Westhaven man.
Sean Orlando Scott was acquitted of voluntary manslaughter for an incident involving the victim, Gregory Eugene Johnson, 51, and his two nephews. The Daily Progress reported that Johnson had buried his mother earlier that day, and was bringing his nephews to visit a friend in the Westhaven complex. The nephews reportedly became drunk, and then brawled with Scott after he approached them. Johnson, attempting to break up the fight, was struck once by Scott, at which point he fell and hit his head. Johnson suffered a fractured skull and died four days later at UVA Hospital.
Trina Brown, who was Johnson’s friend and a witness in the case, wrote a letter to the court defending Scott. “When Sean [Scott] realized that it was Mr. Johnson he had hit, he ran straight over and looked down on him and said, ‘Man, I am sorry. I didn’t know it was you.’”
Scott’s defense attorney, William Thompson, argued that Scott acted out of self-defense and that his actions lacked the malice necessary for a manslaughter conviction.
City Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman says self-defense was a likely factor in Scott’s acquittal. “The issue isolated in the case…was that, given the circumstances under which the blow was struck, was Mr. Scott, as the events appeared to him, reasonably in fear of sustaining bodily harm?” In such cases, a jury must also find that the defendant did not use excessive force when defending himself.—Meg McEvoy
Author: meg-mcevoy
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Heritage Rep theatre announces season
While other facilities on Grounds sit half-empty during the summer, the busy bees at Heritage Repertory Theatre (HRT) keep UVA’s Culbreth building buzzing for six weeks of rotating shows.
“This building is here to do theater,” says UVA drama Professor and HRT Producer Martin Beekman. “The drama department and the University have a commitment to doing that during the summer.”
Founded in 1974, HRT is one of only two local outlets (Ash Lawn Opera Festival being the other) where actors, musicians and crew can earn a steady summer paycheck, Beekman says. Utilizing equity actors from all over the country (including a sizable contingent from New York City) while also employing what Artistic Director Robert Chapel calls the “crème de la crème” of student actors, HRT can be relied on for a season that has a soft spot for classic musicals, peppered with new work that’s making a splash.
This season, HRT drops anchor with a pair of much-beloved musicals: South Pacific (June 22-30) and the Stephen Sondheim masterpiece Sunday in the Park with George (July 21-29). Less familiar are Enchanted April (July 7-15), a Tony Award-winning play about three women who escape to Italy sans husbands, and Don’t Hug Me (July 18-29), a reportedly hilarious musical about a chilly backwoods Minnesota restaurant and the karaoke salesman who warms it up. And, to round it all out, there’s the unapologetically silly Nunsense (July 1-8), which Chapel says is “just good ol’ wonderful fluff.”
Known for the high quality of its productions, HRT also scores well in the butts-in-seats category. Between 13,000 and 17,000 audience members buy tickets each summer, says Beekman. Sixty percent of revenues come from said ticket buyers, with the rest from private donations. The net budget this year is over $600,000.
But, although HRT functions as “its own thing” (indeed, some in the audience may never set foot on campus for any other reason), UVA is still the real doll when it comes to funding, Beekman says. “All you’d have to say is, who pays the electric bill?” And, with all those names up in lights, that’s an important question indeed.—Meg McEvoy
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Woolen Mills dam ready to come down
A major portion of the historic Woolen Mills dam will come down to make room for spawning shad, but some neighbors are not happy about it.
The Rivanna Conservation Society (RCS) is now accepting proposals for a “historical review of the Woolen Mills Dam” to gather data about the privately owned dam the RCS has sought to breach since around 2000.
RCS has been cooperating with the dam’s owners, and Albemarle County issued a demolition permit in March. The RCS plans to remove approximately 75 percent of the dam and keep the rest for “historical interpretation.” The Woolen Mills dam, built around 1830, was part of Charlottesville Woolen Mills, a textile factory which manufactured cloth for Confederate uniforms in the Civil War and remained a major economic driver through the turn of the century before closing in 1964.
Matt Rosefsky, RCS executive director, says the plan is to use “interpretive displays,” such as kiosks with photographs, to capture the dam’s history for the public.
The RCS plans to do away with most of the dam for ecological reasons—specifically the health of the American shad population. The dam breach would allow existing fish populations to return upriver to spawn.
”The driving force [for breaching the dam] is ecological, and it has other benefits as well,” says Rosefsky. “We’re going to be breaching it so that paddlers can canoe downstream and fish can swim upstream,” he says.
Though RCS documents show general neighborhood approval of the project, a few residents have voiced concerns.
Roger Voisinet, longtime resident and one of three riverfront homeowners in the Woolen Mills neighborhood, wrote a letter to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission in April 2006, asking that they stop the project. Among his concerns: decreasing water levels after the dam breach, destruction of the neighborhood’s historic character and a lack of independent studies on the ecological effects of the dam breach.
Proposals for the historical assessment will be accepted through June 16; RCS documents predict it should take about 30 days.
RCS has submitted a permit application to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, Army Corps of Engineers, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Virginia Department of Historic Resources, and the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
If the permits come through as expected, Rosefsky foresees the dam breach taking place in late summer or early fall.—Meg McEvoy
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A-School set for new additions
Architecture school Dean Karen Van Lengen says new additions to the A-school will alleviate the overcrowded Campbell Hall.
The UVA Architecture School will begin construction this summer on two additions that will add 20,000 square feet of office, classroom and exhibition space to the school, while also preparing Campbell Hall to mesh with the incoming Arts Grounds.
The East Addition will be the new “face” of the Architecture School, with sides facing Rugby Road and the soon-to-be-built Arts Grounds. A tall mini-tower will have reception space and jury space for student exhibitions. It will also provide a direct entrance to an auditorium.
The South Addition will add 26 new offices and more lab space. “We have been in a very tight situation for many years—so they’re going to alleviate that,” says Architecture Dean Karen Van Lengen.
The real facelift will come in the form of landscaping designed by the local firm Nelson-Byrd-Woltz Landscape Architects. New terraces and improved passageways to the Art Museum and Rugby Road will improve the dreary topography on the hilly site. The landscape design fits in with a larger scheme to create an arts and architecture hub at UVA. The Architecture School additions will take 18 months and should be completed in spring 2008. Most of the project’s $11 million budget has come from private donors. The Arts Grounds project is still in the fundraising stages.—Meg McEvoy
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Repairs slow going at Jefferson School
Jefferson School’s historic designation has kept much-needed improvements on the back burner.
The Jefferson School’s historic designation may have saved it from demolition in 2002, but its national historic status also means improvements are slow going.
Roof repairs have been completed, and a structural report was submitted to City Council last week. The report shows the brick façade needs re-pointing and mortaring, a project officials say will be more expensive and time consuming than projected.
The building’s historic designation makes improvements a more sensitive matter, says Assistant City Manager Rochelle Small-Toney. Improvements like re-pointing the bricks, at a projected cost of $1 million, must adhere to guidelines from the federal Secretary of the Interior and the National Parks Service, or risk voiding essential tax credits.
Total projected costs to renovate the Jefferson School currently sit at $30.5 million, while the City estimates $8 million in tax credits will offset costs.
The City is currently prequalifying contractors for the masonry project, which Small-Toney says will take about 12 months once Council moves forward. Also in the works is another historic designation for the school. The City will amend its historic designation application to include the old Jefferson Graded Elementary School, which occupied the site until it was demolished in 1959. The elementary school wasn’t included in the original application due to a lack of archaeological studies of the site.
The City will excavate over the summer and hopes to have approval for the amended application by December. Funding will be solicited from the Virginia Department of Housing and Redevelopment for the archaeological work.
Small-Toney doesn’t anticipate the process will hold up improvements to the building.—Meg McEvoy