Author: will-goldsmith

A motion hearing in the child pornography posession case against former Albemarle High School JV girls’ soccer coach Raja Jabbour ended without a ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Norman K. Moon.

At stake was whether evidence obtained after an Ohio arrest in January 2004, including computer hard drives, would be admissible at trial. The defense team, which includes high-profile lawyer John Zwerling, argued that Jabbour’s arrest was improper. With an undercover Ohio cop from Tuscarawas County on the stand, attorneys on both sides spent hours poring over an expansive three ring binder of internet chats between Jabbour and the undercover, who posed as a mother of 12- and 7-year-old daughters.

Jabbour allegedly thought the woman would let him sexually “initiate” her daughters, and the prosecution highlighted several graphic chats on the topic. He drove to Ohio in January, with teddy bears in tow, where he was arrested outside a Pizza Hut. Yet Ohio prosecutors dropped the case for reasons that remain unclear. At the hearing, one of Jabbour’s attorneys, Andrea Moseley, led the undercover cop through chats that might suggest entrapment.

Judge Moon had issued no ruling by press time.

At last the ghost of a 150-year-old beech tree may be laid to rest. At their November 14 meeting, the City Planning Commission conditionally approved a landscape plan amendment for the Watson Manor project at 3 University Cir., a project that has been halted since its manager, David Turner, violated the site plan by cutting down an aging 48” caliper beech tree on the property.

“We did not respect the process, we did not respect the work of the commission,” said Joseph Davis, who has now assumed leadership for the Watson Manor project. Davis is a UVA professor with the Institute for Advanced Studies and Culture, which is renovating the rundown boarding house at 3 University Cir. for office space. “That was wrong, it was foolhardy considering our immense stake in that property.… It’s no understatement to say that the faculty of the institute is ashamed to be in the position that we’re in tonight.”

The City swiftly issued a stop-work order following the tree cutting in August, which Turner appealed to the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA). At that October 26 meeting, Turner’s attorney, Fred Payne, accused the City of violating the law by stopping site work.

But Turner resigned as project manager after the appeal was denied, and Davis exchanged sharp words and accusations for abasing apologies and reconciliation. The commission, facing the choice of either leaving the construction site in limbo by revoking the special-use permit or allowing the construction to proceed, chose the latter option with blessing both from City staff and University Circle neighbors.

“Our support for them was based completely on the new project person [Davis] and a very mature landscape plan,” said Karen Dougald, a representative of her “small but feisty” neighborhood. The neighbors negotiated for an 8” caliper beech tree to take the place of the old one. The Institute for Advanced Studies and Culture will also pay the neighborhood $5,000.

Some commissioners shared concerned of setting a lenient precedent that future developers might take advantage of. The City only levied a combined $200 fine—the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office didn’t want to press criminal charges.

The matter still requires City Council’s stamp of approval.

The following individuals gave $2,000 or more to candidates for the Fifth District U.S. House of Representatives in 2006, according to the Federal Election Committee. In the race between Democratic challenger Al Weed and Republican incumbent Virgil Goode, Goode lost Charlottesville and Albemarle but won the district overall by almost 20 percentage points.

What can we tell from who gave? The list of top donors for Goode includes a number of presidents, owners and CEOs. The list for Weed includes several attorneys, educators and a slew of retirees. High-profile developers like Wendell Wood, Hunter Craig and Charles Rotgin all gave to Goode, while high-profile celebrities like John Grisham and Boyd Tinsley gave to Weed. We guess sometimes the stereotypes are true.

Virgil Goode

Thomas F. Boland, Douglas E. Caton, John Dudinsky, Rosemary P. Galbraith, Leslie F. Gilliam, Richard Gilliam, Cindy Hewitt, Richard B. Hewitt, James L. Jessup Jr., C. Wilson McNeely III, James F. Rose, Charles Rotgin Jr., Fred Scott, Phil Wendel, Doris Wilsdorf, Marlene C. Wood, Wendell W. Wood

Al Weed

William J. Abbott, Michael D. Bills, Melinda Brown, Richard Brown, L. W. Deneveu, Robin Dripps, Llezelle A. Dugger, Lawrence R. Eicher, Catherine Goldschmidt, Vesta L. Gordon, John R. Grisham, Shea Grisham, Robert Hobart, Cri Kars-Marshall, Katie Kellett, Gary Kendall, Harold H. Kolb Jr., Anna T. Lane, William Lankford, George Leaman, Russell M. Linden, Anne J. Logan, Helen H. Logan, Mark B. Logan, John F. Marshall, Thomas B. McIntosh, Eugene J. Meyung, Catherine G. Peaslee, Lucia Phinney, Grace D. Riggs, Beverly Seng, S. S. Smith, W. M. Thompson Jr., Boyd Tinsley, John O. Wheeler, Roberta B. Williamson, Marie J. Woodward

The final site plan for a 300-unit residential development off Sunset Avenue, just south of I-64 on the western side of Charlottesville, has been approved by the County Planning Commission at their November 7 meeting. Developed by Athens, Georgia based Dovetail Companies, the “Woodlands” will bring more student housing to the outskirts of Charlottesville, joining Eagles Landing, Jefferson Ridge and College Park.

Woodlands’ preliminary site plan came before the Planning Commission in January because residents of the neighboring Sherwood Manor subdivision, downhill from the site, were concerned about drainage, sighting and lighting issues. But Woodlands’ engineers appear to have answered those concerns as Gary Leavel, president of the Sherwood Manor Homeowner’s Association, now endorses the project.

“We have found a few things that convinced us that the stormwater management issue would work itself out,” Leavel said at the meeting.

Not everyone’s concerns have been addressed. “It’s just more frustration for us,” says John Santoski, president of the Fry’s Spring Neighborhood Association. “One of the issues has been that these developments are taking place in the county but yet all that traffic comes through the Fry’s Spring Neighborhood.” He says his group plans to meet with the Jefferson Park Avenue Neighborhood and City officials to discuss the possibility of closing Old Lynchburg Road until some of the connector roads are built in the county.

Valerie Long, the local attorney representing the Woodlands development, says that they hope to break ground in three weeks and finish in time to be available to students next August. Dovetail Development has other “Woodlands” in the college towns where University of Georgia, Georgia Southern University, Texas A&M, Clemson University and University of Tennessee are located.

“The units are very high-end, they have a wonderful amenities package,” says Long. “They have a clubhouse in every one of their communities with a very nice endless pool, volleyball courts, basketball courts, tanning beds, saunas—they have even an office center.”

Long says they don’t plan to rent the units. “[The developers] tell me their most typical investors are the parents of students,” says Long. “They also have a lot of alumni who buy the units for coming back to football games, coming back to reunion weekends, just coming back to Charlottesville.”

It’s hard to say that either the House race or the Senate race was a surprise. Last minute polls had Virgil Goode far ahead of Al Weed and Jim Webb slightly ahead of George Allen. But the constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and any civil union was passed by a far greater margin, 57 to 43 percent, than the latest Mason-Dixon Poll had suggested. That poll had 49 percent for the amendment, 45 percent against and 6 percent undecided, according to The Daily Progress.

The amendment results were the only ones that caused “mild surprise” for Keith Drake, chairman of the Albemarle County Republicans. Though he had expected it to pass, he had expected the gap to be slimmer than it was. At the Republican’s election night party at Club Rio, Drake spoke early in jubilation to a momentarily excited crowd (otherwise pensively watching monitors and sipping dollar beers) that marriage is now protected from “liberal judges” who would “legislate from the bench.”

Why wasn’t the voting closer, as the polls suggested it would be?

“When you’re looking at ballot initiative and ballot measures, polls are often a little bit less accurate than your actual candidate versus candidate horse race,” says Matt Smyth, director of communications at UVA’s Center for Politics. He says that national issues led to crossing-the-aisle votes in the Senate race, but “when you focused things back on Virginia, the sort of natural trends they would have as more moderate, somewhat conservative voters came through.” Smyth notes that Virginia was close for a Southern state, where those amendments often pass with “possibly more than a 20 point split.”

In the end, Virginia could not muster the votes to become the first state not to pass an amendment “defining” marriage as between “one man and one woman” when offered the choice. Instead, Arizona took those accolades in a tight race—a fact that Smyth says might be a trend, either regionally or state-by-state, in 2008.

Charlottesville, at least, stands apart: Of all Virginia localities, it had the highest percentage voting against the amendment with 77 percent (the next highest was Arlington County, with 74 percent voting “no”). “I know Mayor [David] Brown is happy about that,” says City spokesman Ric Barrack. City Council passed a unanimous resolution against the amendment on the eve of the election at their November 6 meeting. In Albemarle County, 59 percent of poll-goers voted against the amendment.

No one quite knows if and when the unintended consequences that have worried opponents might rise to the fore, but one thing that’s certain is that we haven’t heard the last of ballot measure No. 1 in Virginia.

Despite glum weather and crowded polling stations, local voter turnout was significantly stronger than in the midterm election of 2002. Albemarle saw 59 percent voter turnout, up 14 percent, while Charlottesville had a respectable 50 percent turnout, up 11 percent.
Nationwide, voter turnout for a midterm election hit its highest mark since 1982, with 40.4 percent turnout, and set a record here in Virginia, where statewide 43.7 percent of registered voters cast a ballot, according to the nonpartisan Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University.

“Certainly that energy that was seen nationwide was seen here in Albemarle as well,” says Lee Catlin, County spokesperson. City spokesman Ric Barrack says he was pleased, but that City officials had hoped that turnout would be closer to 55 percent.

Despite some Associated Press reports of malicious calls (threatening some voters they could go to jail if they voted) and negative leafleting designed to discourage voters elsewhere in the state, neither County nor City had reports of such problems.
“We only had good news problems,” says Catlin, such as parking and traffic. Barrack echoed similar sentiments.

Sheri Iachetta, general registrar for the City, says of the election: “We were just as pleased as we could be.” The only other issue she found, beyond the long lines, was that some precincts got a slightly later start because vendors bringing the newly tested electronic poll books got lost. The poll books on the whole saved time, however, as it allowed on-site poll workers to find the proper precinct for confused voters. “The election officials loved it,” Iachetta says.

The official vote has been sent to the State, which will certify the results November 28.

Recent Registration and Turnout
            Locality             Registered    Total Voters    Turnout
2002    Albemarle         54,128          24,518           45%
            Charlottesville   22,104          8,700             39%

2004    Albemarle         58,479          43,884           75%
            Charlottesville   23,373         15,634            67%

2006    Albemarle         60,934         36,063            59%
            Charlottesville   23,564         11,849            50%

2006 Election Results
       
House of Rep.

                                     Charlottesville             Albemarle
       
        Candidate               Votes    Percentage        Votes       Percentage
       
        Al Weed (D)            8,824    74.6%              19,560    54.4%
        Virgil Goode (R)       2,880    24.4%              16,106    44.7%
        Joseph Otto (I)        102       0.9%                318         0.9%
        Write Ins                 21         0.2%                28           0.1%
       
Senate

        Jim Webb (D)           9,159    77.3%               20,821    57.5%
        George Allen (R)       2,575    21.7%               15,048    41.6%
        Gail Parker (I)               99     0.8%                      293     0.8%
        Write Ins                      19     0.2%                        36     0.1%
       
Marriage Amendment

         No                           8,949    77.0%                20,979    58.6%
         Yes                          2,670    23.0%                14,796    41.4%

Sources: Virginia State Board of Elections; City and County Departments of Voter Registration and Elections