Author: Scott Weaver

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“Enormous Task” still needs leader

For the past three months, the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority (CRHA) has been trying to fill a new position, director of redevelopment. After running ads regionally and in national publications like The Washington Post, the position is still unfilled.

As the search continues, the city and CRHA face what Noah Schwartz, executive director of CRHA, has called “an enormous task”: redeveloping the city’s public housing stock into mixed-income, mixed-use communities built to environmentally friendly standards. The redevelopment director would serve as the lead person in the master planning and development processes.


Noah Schwartz is still searching for the right person who will head up mixed-income redevelopment of the city’s public housing.

“They’ll be the staff person who’s charged with the day-to-day operations of those activities,” he said in a November interview. “For example, I assume they would staff the redevelopment committee, organize that whole process.”

The position pays in the $50,000s —an amount that seems low, though Schwartz notes that CRHA is a small housing authority. Funding for the position will come out of its general budget.

“Certainly in the next month, we’d like to have it filled,” he says. “Whether they start that quickly, I don’t know.”

Given the tasks of radically redeveloping the city’s public housing stock, finding models nationally for mixed-income projects and writing grant proposals for Charlottesville’s ambitious public-housing vision, the future director will certainly play a key role. He or she will also likely face a certain amount of skepticism from the community, especially in light of its past forays into redevelopment, specifically the destruction of Vinegar Hill and the construction of Westhaven, the city’s oldest cache of public housing.

“Westhaven at the time, in the ’60s, was a vast improvement for a lot of those folks,” Jason Halbert, the vice-chair of the CRHA Board of Commissioners, said in November. “And they remarked as such. For some people, it was a tragedy to see the African-American community of VH destroyed. It could have been handled much better, obviously.


Holly Edwards, who had her first meeting Monday as city councilor, said residents must have choices in the redevelopment process.

“We’re hoping that through really intense focus on the process of redevelopment, through master planning, through community outreach and education and communication, that we can avoid those problems of the past and do this in a way that will benefit everyone. So we’re trying to hire a redevelopment director to help us manage that process.”

The process is already beginning. Schwartz says that CRHA has held four community meetings, in which residents raised questions about the timeline for the project, the effect it will have on resident services and if for-profit developers that CRHA could potentially partner with will really be looking out for residents.

But relocation is the most immediate question. What happens to residents when the current housing comes down?

“It’s really a bit out there, but what I was able to respond with is what other communities have done,” says Schwartz. “If you look at Richmond, they’ve offered folks opportunities to move into vacant units they have at other housing authority properties. They may issue temporary vouchers. There’s a number of different ways that it can be handled, so we’ll have to look at what fits our community best, and what our residents want to do and what we’re capable of doing.”

Transitioning its housing stock is bound to be a tightrope walk for CRHA. Halbert said that many people are suspicious of the process, “and rightly so.” But he pointed to the benefits of change. Through energy-efficient and green design, Halbert said, the new stock of housing would mean lower utility bills for residents and CRHA, on which the authority spends about 15 to 20 percent of its budget.

But does the plan have the potential to fall back into the old ways of Urban Renewal? On election night, newly elected City Councilor Holly Edwards said the city must be careful that it doesn’t.

“We have to make sure we learn lessons from those old ways,” she said minutes after hearing the news of her victory. “We don’t want to call it ‘mixed-income’ and it’s really gentrification. We don’t want to call it ‘diversity,’ but really, it’s urban renewal.”

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

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Police release video of Mitchell accident [January 8; with video]

 
On January 7, Albemarle County police released video footage from the dashboard camera of Officer Greg Davis that shows Davis hitting local painter Gerry Mitchell as he was crossing W. Main Street. The video shows Davis’ car waiting at the southbound red light on Fourth Street, then turning left onto W. Main before violently striking Mitchell and throwing him from his wheelchair.

The incident was in the jurisdiction of Charlottesville city police, and the footage also appears to back their claim that Mitchell was crossing the street while the illuminated red-hand symbol was still lit. After Davis’ cruiser hit Mitchell, the video shows him and a bystander help Mitchell back into his chair and move him out of the street.

Albemarle police are still conducting an internal investigation into the accident. Police Spokesperson Lieutenant John Teixeira said that the decision to release the video while the investigation continues is an “unusual step” and that police Chief John Miller made the decision to go public with the footage during the investigation.

“We normally don’t release video or audio during an ongoing investigation,” said Teixeira. “But we know this has caused some concern in the community and we wanted to address those concerns.”

During a 10-minute impromptu press conference, Teixeira apologized for the accident three times. Mitchell has said repeatedly that he wanted an apology, though city police have yet to offer him one. Teixeira also took the opportunity to speak out against what he called “conspiracy talk” or rumors that officers had been covering for each other in Mitchell’s case.

“When you hear the conspiracy talk, or talk about the blue wall, there’s none of that,” he said. “None. And I think that may have led to the decision to release this tape.”

Teixeira said that he expects the internal investigation to conclude in two weeks and that Davis was not disciplined after the accident. “He’s a very good police officer,” he said. “This had affected him on a personal and professional basis.”

Along with Teixeira’s apologies, Miller issued a written statement, saying, “We regret any situation involving one of our officers where a citizen is injured, and we are sorry that Mr. Mitchell was injured in this incident.”

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

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Break a chance to secure the halls

It was just what the UVA Facilities Management needed: a little peace and quiet to do some drilling and hammer banging in New Cabell Hall. Just days before Christmas, and with the student holiday exodus complete, the building’s halls filled with the racket of renovation.


Doorways like this one in New Cabell Hall will have new locks when students return, so that they can lock themselves in the classroom—good for both stopping would-be killers and engaging in private "studies."

The holiday break is the perfect time for projects that would otherwise disrupt classes and make the commute between classrooms even more congested. As the University Grounds themselves were student bare, Spike Weeks, contracts manager for Facilities, walks up and down the halls of Cabell, sizing up the improvements being made to the 55-year-old building. New Cabell is due for major renovations if a state bond is approved that would contribute $77.6 million to its renovation.

Over the break, Facilities employees are replacing locks, frames and doors in 33 New Cabell classrooms, finishing the job to change out all locks, which they began this summer. Jay Klingel, director of business management services, says that they were able to change most locks during the summer, but "there were a number of doors that would not accept this type of hardware." Thus, the new doors and frames.

"This is the difficult part," says Weeks, whose graying beard reaches down almost a foot below his chin. He is sporting a Harley-Davidson cap and wire-rim glasses. Standing in front of a classroom doorway, where a new metal door frame has just been installed, he points to the line where the gray metal meets the painted white cinderblock. "They had to cut this block out. Look how clean this is."

With the new locks, students and professors are able to lock themselves in the classroom, something the old lock didn’t permit. This particular feature gained added attention, and importance, after the Tech shootings, where victims weren’t able to lock classroom doors from the inside, leaving entire classes vulnerable to the gunman.

"After the Tech incident," Weeks says, "it came about that we want people to be able to go in and lock the doors."

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

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Ink goes dry on another print pub

What began in 1971 as The University Register ended on December 7 as Inside UVA. The University’s print-edition PR vehicle ceased publication last month when the last 14,500 copies rolled off the press, ending its 36-year run.

In the middle of the front page, surrounded by stories about hydrogen-storage materials, equitable compensation and a photo of John Casteen looking requisitely pleased, a story headlined "Dear Readers" gently explains the death of the biweekly newsletter. Citing recent state budget cuts and an "increased emphasis on sustainability," Carol Wood, assistant vice president of public affairs, wrote: "After much deliberation…we have decided to stop producing the print edition of Inside UVA."

Jeffrey Hanna, the senior director of university relations, echoes Wood.

"It’s largely, if not entirely, a budgetary issue," he says. "We were given a target for budget cuts, and this was the major casualty in our department. By eliminating it we’re saving about $75,000 and not having to eliminate any staff positions."
 
Hanna also pointed to UVA’s "increasing emphasis on sustainability," an issue that he says universities and colleges around the country are also dealing with. He had just talked to officials at the University of Washington, he says, who were debating the issue of print publications versus online editions.

That debate is over for Inside UVA. Information that had, in the past, appeared in print will be available on the Web on UVA Today, something that had already been happening. In fact, once stories found their way in print in Inside UVA, they had generally been published for days, if not a week, on the Web. That duplication had increasingly made the immediacy of the print edition obsolete.

"In the process of making the transition, we’re doing everything we can to make sure we’re offering the same information," says Hanna, "and to get that information to the community in different formats and through different channels."

But what is gained through the split-second, cold efficiency of the Web comes at a price—namely the warm, all-in-one package of a print publication trumpeting all the news that’s fit to print (for good PR).

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

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State juggles ed and prison spending

The state will need to build one new prison each year for the next six years at a cost of $100 million for each new facility, according to a November report [pdf] on adult corrections released by Virginia’s Senate Finance Committee. Add to construction costs the $25 million it takes to operate each facility each year, and you’re left with a huge pile of money—funds that Charlottesville’s JustChildren Program argues would be better spent on education.


Angela Ciolfi, staff attorney for JustChildren, says that Kaine’s budget makes "headway" but that the education funding is, at best, maintenance.

Angela Ciolfi, a staff attorney for JustChildren, points out that one in 44 Virginians are in jail, prison or some other sort of state supervision. "We’ve got to start investing earlier," she says.

In the midst of the budget crunch, Governor Tim Kaine announced his two-year budget. And while Ciolfi says that the state isn’t making enough progress on teachers’ salaries—Virginia is currently ranked 31st in the nation—she says, "In a time of limited fiscal capacity, it’s definitely a strong budget for students."

As the state moves into the 2008 legislative year, JustChildren had three priorities for the biannual budget: full re-benchmarking for state education funding, preservation of funding for at-risk students and the expansion of the Virginia Preschool Initiative (VPI). Ciolfi says that Kaine’s budget makes "headway" on all three priorities and calls the VPI expansion "smart and cautious," but says that the education funding is, at best, maintenance.

"Re-benchmarking is basically paying for the same goods and services that are provided by schools, and have been provided by schools, with today’s dollars," Ciolfi says. "It’s not adding any policy changes. The budget is pretty much the same as before with at-risk programs, so there’s no progress, but we’re at least not sacrificing that."

The new budget comes at a time when the number of state and local prisoners continues to grow. According to the Finance Committee’s report, in 2005 Virginia ranked 20th in the country in per capita spending on corrections. Ciolfi says spending more on education is a better investment than paying to house inmates.

"With all the research that says education is a strong preventive factor in keeping kids from falling off track, it’s kind of like [underfunding education] is going to cost Virginia more later if we don’t invest now," she says.

According to the Justice Policy Institute [pdf], a Washington, D.C. think tank, those states that have high levels of educational attainment also have lower crime rates than the national average.

"What we would like to see is for the state to figure out how much it actually costs to provide every child with a meaningful opportunity to pass the Standards of Learning test and graduate with their class, and then set the Standards of Quality at that level," Ciolfi says. "And that’s not what we do."

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

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City man kills girlfriend, himself

A day after Christmas, a dispute between two city residents ended in deadly violence. On December 26, Sanada C. Monroe, 21, was shot and killed inside her apartment at 810 Hardy Dr. by her 19-year-old boyfriend.


The Westhaven community suffered a tragic outburst of violence on December 26 when Khalil Akeem Powell, 19, shot and killed his girlfriend, Sanada C. Monroe, 21, inside her apartment. Powell then killed himself.

Khalil Akeem Powell shot Monroe, then left her apartment and walked to the building’s parking lot. There he shot himself once in the head. According to police, there were a number of witnesses to both shootings. Monroe and Powell were taken to the UVA Hospital, where Monroe was pronounced dead.

According to city spokesperson Ric Barrick, a neurologist pronounced Powell clinically brain dead on Wednesday, December 27, at around 2pm. Though he didn’t have any brain activity, Powell was then placed on a respirator because he was an organ donor.

"His mom is in a federal penitentiary, and it was difficult getting in touch with her," says Barrick.

Powell was later taken off the respirator and pronounced dead, said a UVA Hospital spokesperson. Barrick says that he expected that to happen sometime Thursday afternoon, but the hospital spokesperson couldn’t confirm that.

Detective Jim Mooney of the Charlottesville Police Department says he is unsure if Powell was living in the apartment with Monroe. The police do know Powell was a Charlottesville resident because of Powell’s past run-ins with the law. According to The Daily Progress, Powell was out on bail after stabbing Robert Banks, Jr. in the head with a butcher knife. There was a warrant out for Powell’s arrest on the day he killed Monroe.

"His exact address I wouldn’t know," says Mooney. "In fact, I would say he has no fixed address."

The December 26 shootings were the city’s third murder this year. Two occurred around the same place: the 800 block of Hardy Drive. On June 21, 28-year-old William Miller Herndon, a Charlottesville resident, was found unresponsive with multiple gunshot wounds. He later died at UVA Hospital.

On November 9, the body of Jayne Warren McGowan was discovered in her apartment by her co-workers. Police later arrested William Douglas Gentry, 22, and Michael Stuart Pritchett, 18, and charged them with her murder.

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

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Nukes, Fines, C.A.R.S., Pigs and parks

More 2007 year in Review

The year of the blueprint (not the bulldozer)
2007 development news in review

Rape, murder, kiddie porn and more
2007 courts and crime news in review

One new school, gobs of cash, but no A&S dean
2007 UVA news in review

Our government—federal, state and local— made its usual range of controversial decisions this year, on topics ranging from hog slaughter to nuclear reactors.

McIntire still the biggest city park—for now

Ten years from now, Charlottesville might be able to look back and point to 2007 as the year things really changed for McIntire Park. Odds are, the Meadowcreek Parkway, which is supposed to cut through the park, still won’t be built. But thanks to a late-December decision by City Council, a YMCA is coming to the city’s biggest park.


A $14 million YMCA facility will take the place of a softball field in McIntire Park.

After a sometimes contentious debate over whether the city should give up cash and park land for a YMCA, it’s now a done deal. The debate, which ranged from issues such as whether the city would be outsourcing its Parks and Rec programs to the number of swimming pool lap lanes, finally came to rest nearly eight months after an initial meeting in May sparked it.

Of course, eight months is a blip when compared to the 40 years the Parkway has been in the works. In 2007, the city took what is essentially the last action needed to move the Parkway to completion. In October, it voted 5-0 to grant the Virginia Department of Transportation a temporary construction easement, though it tacked on three conditions. One of those conditions, that the interchange at 250 and McIntire Road be above grade, is dependent on a "separate" project, the 250 Interchange.

That same month, the public got a look at the final two designs for the Interchange, and designers got an earful from locals who opposed the Parkway as a whole. That opposition got a boost in November, when the Virginia Department of Historic Resources sent a letter to the city saying its analysis of the Interchange’s impact wasn’t wide enough. The city promised to meet with the interested parties soon, and the saga continues.

Pigs arrest butcher: Double H debacle

When police officers, dressed in flak jackets, raided the Double H Farm and arrested owners Jean Rinaldi and Richard Bean in late September, the local food debate ratcheted up a notch or 18. C-VILLE detailed the beef between local farmers and state bureaucracy in the cover story "Food fights," specifically Kathryn Russell’s Majesty Farm in North Garden and the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS). But when VDACS officials put the two local farmers in handcuffs, the debate turned from philosophical to legal.
 
Bean and Rinaldi were arrested for selling uninspected meat. Bean, who’d spent much of his life as a butcher, had been killing and butchering his hogs at his farm after the licensed facility he’d been sending them to shut down. Faced with the soaring prices of shipping hogs for slaughter—not to mention the price of slaughter itself—Bean decided to do what he’d spent years doing, butchering the hogs himself.


Double H farmers Jean Rinaldi and Richard Bean weren’t smiling when arrested by state police at the behest of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

Fast forward three months: Originally charged with four misdemeanors each in Nelson County, Bean and Rinaldi pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor as part of a plea bargain that sentenced them both to a year of probation and a $1,000 suspended fine. "We just have to work with VDACS step-by-step," said Rinaldi. "We’re going to behave now because we don’t want any more trouble."

Bean and Rinaldi still face charges in Charlottesville—seven misdemeaners each and a felony—stemming from the sale of their meat at the city’s farmers market. State Senator Creigh Deeds is working on a General Assembly bill that would help address the issue. And as the debate over local-food regulations continues, you can bet Charlottesville is bound to be one of its hot spots.

Of tea bags and ambulances: local taxes and budgets

Around the city and county, taxes are no laughing matter. So Christian Schoenewald, vice chair of the county GOP, was at least partially serious (we think) when he raised a tea bag, thus invoking the Boston Tea Party, as he called for lower county real estate taxes. But he got some serious results. Last April, the county Board of Supervisors lowered its real estate tax rate to 68 cents per $100 of assessed value from its previous rate of 74 cents.

The Albemarle Truth in Taxation Alliance, organized by Schoenewald and county GOP chair Keith Drake, led what could be considered a low-grade citizens’ revolt, raising hell at Board meetings, while the city only bumped its considerably higher tax rate down by just 4 cents to 95 cents, despite a $9.9 million budget surplus.

And just where is all that money going in the city? Besides consulting fees for road projects (see McIntire Park), the city spent some cash—$1 million to be exact—on more ambulance service, a move that was strongly opposed by budget watchdogs and, paradoxically it may seem, the Charlottesville-Ablemarle Rescue Squad (CARS).


Keith Drake’s 58 cent revolt pushed county supervisors to drop tax assessments.

The new service will operate out of the city fire department and will be staffed by eight new firefighters and medics. City councilors pointed to lagging response times by CARS, something that the all-volunteer group denies is a problem. Typical Democrats: tax and spend (on life-saving equipment).

Bad driver fees: A fine by any other name would smell as putrid

The abusive driver fees that the Virginia General Assembly approved last February have become so famous—or infamous—that they warrant a Wikipedia entry. But will they be around next year? After the political blowback (and lawsuits) the fees generated this summer, don’t count on it.

The fees, which range from $750 to $3,000, only apply to in-state drivers. State lawmakers, petrified of collecting money for transportation with anything called a "tax," came up with the fees in a fit of credibility-straining naming. They avoided calling the fees "fines," since all fines must go to Virginia’s Literary Fund.

After they went into effect, legal challenges began popping up around Virginia. In September, an Arlington County judge ruled that the fees were unconstitutional. Two other district court judges found the same, though both were later reversed by circuit courts.

The Charlottesville-based Rutherford Institute threatened early to challenge the constitutionality of the fees, arguing that they violate the guarantee to equal protection. In July, Rutherford’s founder and president, John Whitehead, sent a letter to Governor Tim Kaine and the state’s attorney general as a warning that the Institute intended to challenge the fees’ constitutionality.

It got its chance this fall in Charlottesville General District Court. Judge Robert Downer wasn’t buying it, though, and ruled the fees were constitutional. Rutherford attorneys filed a notice of appeal in the city’s Circuit Court.

State legislators in both the House and Senate have proposed bills to repeal the fees, though surely they’ll also find some creative new way to spell t-a-x.

Lake Anna: New nuke debate heats up

It was a good year to own a nuclear power plant and an even better one for plans to build more reactors. Just ask Dominion Power, the company that owns and operates the North Anna Power Station and its two nuclear reactors. A couple of days before Thanksgiving, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave Dominion an early Christmas present (both the NRC and Dominion celebrate Christmas, right?): an early site permit to build a third nuclear reactor.


Dominion Power was granted an early site permit to build a third reactor at the North Anna Power Station.

The early site permit doesn’t mean Dominion can start construction on the third reactor—only an approved combination license, for which Dominion has applied, can do that. But it does mean the company can begin to clear the land in preparation for a reactor.

But before the early site permit could be issued, there had to be a meeting with the community in October, and that meeting was filled with people on both sides of the issue, pro- and anti-third reactor. While proponents tossed softball questions to NRC officials, opponents called for Dominion Project Director Marvin Smith to speak, which he eventually did, grudgingly, saying only that Dominion hadn’t yet decided on a new plant and had no plans for a fourth reactor.

While the kerfuffle over the proposed third reactor brewed, Dominion continued to discharge warm water into Lake Anna, a controversial practice that neighbors say is fouling up local aquatic life. The Virginia State Water Control Board apparently disagreed, and issued Dominion a variance provision to keep on dischargin’. Environmental groups have filed notice of appeal.

Findings 2007

After spending 2004 ranked as the best city in the nation, Charlottesville dropped to No. 17 in 2007, just behind Olympia, Washington, and just ahead of Flagstaff, Arizona. Charlottesville was ranked No. 1 out of 171 metro areas as the worst place for racial discrepancy in lending as surveyed by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition—local African Americans receive high-cost loans almost four times more frequently than whites. George Allen has a blog. The city remained a strictly Democratic oasis when the three Dem City Council candidates easily defeated two independent challengers. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Dennis Kucinich all said, in person, that Charlottesville is ready for change. The city mayor wants the city to stop buying bottled water. The city will close Crow Pool. City Council raised its salaries 40 percent, the first increase in five years, while county supervisors gave themselves a 4 percent raise. The city Transit Center had its Grand Opening after months of being open. Women in prom dresses and one man in civilian clothes protested the Sacagawea statue on Columbus Day. McGuffey Park re-opened with futuristic playground equipment, much to the chagrin of The Hook.

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

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Armed robberies spike as holidays near

The holidays are upon us, and it’s the season of giving. Like giving that nice man pointing a loaded gun at your head your wallet immediately. Fa-la-la-la-la.

Maybe it’s the pressure to make up for an entire year of being a dirtbag with some kick-ass presents for those closest to you. Maybe it’s the rising prices of videogame systems. Maybe the supposition that people turn into even bigger dicks around this time of year is true. But one thing is for sure, ’tis the season for armed robberies and credit card theft and fraud.

Albemarle County Police spokesperson Lt. John Teixeira says that county police are investigating three armed robberies and one armed home invasion that occurred in a span of three days. On the evening of December 9, a Hispanic male was robbed at 2200 Commonwealth Dr. The next night, another robbery of a Hispanic male occurred in the Southwood trailer park. Hours later, a Shell station was held up on Ivy Road. The home invasion occurred at Townwood Court.

"I would consider that a spike," says Teixeira. "We don’t normally have that many armed robberies in Albemarle County. So to get this many within the short period of time is disconcerting."

But not entirely unexpected.

"Sometimes we anticipate a rise in person and property crimes around the holidays," he says. "We’re concerned that Hispanic males are being targeted because they appear to carry large amounts of cash on them."

Armed robbery isn’t the only method for thievery. On December 10, Richmond sheriff’s deputies arrested Sharon Wells, 47, for failing to appear on a traffic charge. But after checking state records, officials discovered that Wells had more than 100 outstanding warrants against her, 49 of them in Albemarle County, most of them for credit card theft and fraud.

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

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UVA Law student to feds: Told you so

Score one for UVA law students. In one of the cases that the UVA School of Law’s Supreme Court litigation clinic helped bring before the Supreme Court, the justices ruled 9-0 in favor of arguments crafted by the students in the clinic.

The case, Watson v. United States, revolved around the question of a single word. A federal provision criminalizes the "use" of a firearm during a drug trafficking offense and imposes a mandatory consecutive sentence of at least five years. Michael Watson, a Louisiana resident who accepted an unloaded pistol as payment for 24 doses of OxyContin, was sentenced to 10 extra years because he "used" a gun in the drug deal.


Law Professor Daniel Ortiz helped the students in his Supreme Court litigation clinic master the style necessary to persuade the highest court in the land.

But is accepting a gun as payment "using" it? The Court said, in effect, "Nice try, Government, but no."

Dan Ortiz, one of the clinic’s three instructors, told C-VILLE in October that the students did all the initial research. "They would do all the final production work, putting the thing together, making sure all the citations were in order. There’s a very complicated style manual that you have to follow. And they mastered that."

Mark Stancil, another instructor, says he is pleased by the Court’s decision, but not completely surprised.

"We thought we had the better of the arguments," says Stancil, who lives in Charlottesville and has a full-time appellate practice in Washington, D.C. "We’re very pleased. I mean, it was a resounding victory."

As for the 9-0 decision, that was a little surprising, he says. "You never count your justices before they hatch."

With the term "use" not clearly defined in the provision, the court looked at what it called the "plain language" use of…well…"use." In one of the more memorable turns of phrase in the decision, Justice David Souter, writing the majority opinion, said, "A boy who trades an apple to get a granola bar is sensibly said to use the apple, but one would never guess which way this commerce actually flowed from hearing that the boy used the granola."
Indeed.

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

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Farewill Lynch, Hamilton

It was nearly 7pm, time for one of the year’s last City Council meetings to begin, and the crowd hushed in anticipation. Four councilors sat on the dais. The fifth, Kevin Lynch, was nowhere in sight.

Mayor David Brown looked at the audience and said, "You’re all quiet, but Kevin’s not here yet." He then let a little smile play across his face. "Everyone should clap when he comes in."

Soon after, Lynch walked in to a smattering of applause.


Gone, but not soon forgotten: Kevin Lynch and Kendra Hamilton. City Council meetings are liable to be more boring without thee!

Applause for Lynch and Vice Mayor Kendra Hamilton will soon die down for good. Both are ending their terms on City Council—Monday night was their final regular meeting—to be replaced by Holly Edwards and Satyendra Huja.

Council will be the poorer for not having Hamilton and Lynch perched on its dais. Who but Lynch, we ask you, will pick apart every detail of an issue until it has somehow magically transformed into another issue? And if, by chance, someone steps into that role in the new Council, who, if not Hamilton, will shoot that person brief but exasperated glances as the monologue roles on?

Lynch will be missed for his seemingly effortless ability to spin an aphorism out of a long discussion, such as this one he whipped on Council at the end of a debate over draconian punishments for speeders: "In Saudi Arabia you can be stoned for adultery, but people still do it." To which Brown shook his head and replied, "Kevin, we’re going to miss you on Council."

That’s for sure. And Council will also miss Hamilton, who in her four years managed to steer the wonkiest of discussions back to how decisions made late on Monday nights would affect the citizenry of Charlottesville. From her seat to the left of Brown and behind her ever-present Mac laptop, Hamilton raised important questions on everything from the proposed surveillance cameras on the Downtown Mall to who will really benefit from a new YMCA.

But some might not miss the two as much as the rest of us. For example, county officials probably won’t shed too many tears at Lynch’s departure, since he was the most consistent voice to regularly point out the county’s shortcomings, especially on transportation and infrastructure issues.

And those who choose to use the public comment time at each Council meeting to lob firebombs at the councilors will probably be happy to see Hamilton go. With regularity, she was the one councilor who chose not to grin and bear misconstrued facts and out-right falsehoods embedded in accusations, who took the time allotted for councilors’ responses to straighten out the weak arguments of the poor saps.

So step up, Edwards and Huja. To stay awake during late night Council meetings, C-VILLE needs some sharp tongues to fill the void Lynch and Hamilton will leave behind.

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