Author: will-goldsmith

Last year, Virginia Senator George Allen received six trips, with destinations ranging from Las Vegas to Virginia Beach, from various nongovernmental organizations, according to the personal financial disclosure report he filed for 2005. The report ws released last week.
Perhaps these trips are part of the conservative Republican’s rising presidential ambitions—since 1999, Allen has declared only two other privately funded trips, both in 2004.
Allen also reported commercial rental property in Charlottesville worth more than $1 million, which includes a property at 109 E. Jefferson St, assessed at $583,800 in 2005. His real estate holdings extend to Albemarle County, where he and his wife, Susan, own 98.5 acres at Buck Mountain. Combined with his stocks and bonds, his listed assets are somewhere between $1.8 and $3.8 million.
Now that his November election rival James Webb has been selected, the campaign ought to heat up—Allen recently started airing his first television ad.
In related news, those searching for seedy partisan dirt on the current senator can visit the “Weasel Meter” on www.raisingkaine.com, a website for Virginia Democrats. The site editorializes on the Senator’s opposition to gay marriage, his presidential aspirations and his youthful misdeeds. Said misdeeds, culled from a tell-all book by his sister (and recently chronicled in a New Republic article), include throwing his younger brother through a glass door, repeatedly displaying the Confederate flag, and spraypainting his high school with racially charged graffiti. Good times!—Will Goldsmith

It’s a done deal—except for the deal. Both Charlottesville City Council and the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors last week approved Ragged Mountain Reservoir as the preferred alternative to meet water needs until 2055. However, the tougher questions about mitigation, money and phasing remain unresolved.
No one disputes that Ragged Mountain Reservoir should be the location for developing future area water supply. Environmental groups, including The Nature Conservancy and Piedmont Environmental Council have endorsed the Ragged Mountain option, according to Thomas Frederick, director for the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority (RWSA). Options previously discussed, such as developing a Buck Mountain reservoir or piping water from the James River, are deemed too environmentally damaging.
At issue now is how the City will be compensated for the 135 acres that will be lost when the 67′-high existing dam is raised an additional 45′. Not only does the City own the land, but it’s expected that future increases in water consumption will come from county, not city, growth. In fact, city water demands are lower now than they were in 1983.
City Councilor Kevin Lynch has proposed that compensation come in the form of land surrounding urban streams.
“We recognize that the permitting agencies would like to see the upstream areas preserved as part of this,” said Lynch at last Monday’s City Council meeting, “But we must also preserve the urban stream environment, even if that goes above and beyond the regulatory requirement.”
Lynch also wants to complete the project in phases, reasoning that, if all 45′ are added at once, current taxpayers will subsidize future development unfairly.
In the next two weeks, the Albemarle County Service Authority and the RWSA will need to add their approval before the plan is submitted to the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. Both Frederick and Lynch hope that the final details will be resolved by the fall, so that construction can begin by 2009.—Will Goldsmith

Qroe Farms, the company developing Bundoran Farm just south of Charlottesville, positions itself as an agriculture- and environment-friendly developer—one that often sacrifices housing lots in order to preserve surrounding forests, fields, streams and views. Their tentative plan for the 2,301 acres they own in Albemarle County calls for a relatively restrained 88 lots (the property could, by law, be zoned for 163). Furthermore, all lots will be locked into easements with every other property owner, and only a small portion of each lot is open to building, with the remaining land preserved for cattle farming and other bucolic activities.
Sounds great, but how has Qroe lived up to its ideals previously?
Well, Qroe has done 10 other projects—all in New England, and all several times smaller than the Bundoran Farm development. Nearly all of them have preserved 80 percent of the land for farming or forest, with the remainder developed into housing, roads or other buildings.
“There are no other development companies, to my knowledge, that actively try to preserve agriculture as part of the development,” says Dr. Bud Smart, Audubon International’s director of environmental planning. The group is consulting with Qroe on issues of environmental sustainability. Still, Smart allows that Bundoran could present some challenges for Qroe—maintaining good water quality, for example, might prove difficult.
Randall Arendt, a land use and conservation consultant based in Rhode Island, says what Qroe does is unusual, but not unique. He likens the company’s developments to “county estates.”
“People are quite pleased with [Qroe’s] developments,” says Arendt, citing neighbors and government officials. “But whether people like it or not, there are a limited number of buyers out there who can afford it.” Two-acre Bundoran parcels will sell for $400,000 to $700,000.
At this stage, Qroe is talking about including so-called workforce housing in the Bundoran project, but CEO Robert Baldwin concedes that the affordable housing aspect of Qroe’s projects has not always worked out. He blames State legislatures for the company’s previous difficulties—but he’s confident that Virginia—and Albemarle County in particular—will be more accommodating to Qroe’s version of affordability.—Will Goldsmith

City police set the bait—an unlocked vehicle with obvious iPod, cell phone, camera and watch—along Madison Avenue. Three minutes later they sprung the trap, after two teens on bikes swiped the iPod and cell phone, making it 30 yards before police arrested them. Police found two more iPods after a search. Both juveniles were convicted last week of petty larceny.

Police ran the sting operation in the UVA area on May 24, 25, 31 and June 1, in response to a spike in iPod thefts from automobiles. “We had no idea how successful we’d be,” says Charlottesville Police Lieutenant Gary Pleasants, who helped run the operation. Despite the quick success of the first sting, the others produced no arrests.
Since January 2005, thieves have taken 65 iPods from vehicles parked in Charlottesville, according to Pleasants. Police computer statistics show that car larcenies rose by more than 120 percent in May with most iPod thefts occuring in the vicinity of UVA.
Police don’t know where all the stolen iPods are going, though one of the youths arrested in the sting was filmed one week prior to his arrest selling iPods to a local pawnshop with the assistance of his mother. After being identified, the boy’s mother was arrested on Wednesday, June 7, on charges of larceny with the intent to sell and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Pleasants speculates the MP3 players are sold to friends and people on the streets, in addition to pawnshops. Evidence does not suggest an organized ring, but rather two to three petty thieves in a group—often with one working as a lookout while the other swipes the goods.
The best way to protect yourself (other than, ehem, not leaving your iPod in the car), is to hide it from sight. “There’s no question that if they see it, they’re going to take it,” says Pleasants, noting that thieves have smashed many windows to get access to iPods.—Will Goldsmith

If UVA really wants to be a top-notch school, it needs to show grad students the money. At least according to a policy presentation to the Board of Visitors on Friday, June 9, detailing the path of an outstanding research university. The message? Top schools attract top graduate students by paying them top stipends.
Rosanne Ford, associate vice president for research and graduate studies, showed the University’s bigwigs that, by several important measures, UVA lags behind other upper-echelon schools. While 35 of approximately 100 graduate departments at University of California-Berkeley rank in the National Research Council’s Top 10, UVA scored only five out of 50, a measly 10 percent—far lower than fellow state schools UC-San Diego, Michigan and Wisconsin.
So what can UVA do about it?
Raise stipends, says Ford.
Ph.D. students traditionally have their tuition, fees and insurance covered. What differs among schools is their annual stipend for living expenses. While history teaching assistants at Harvard receive approximately $17,000 on average, at UVA they receive less than $8,000. Even in biology, where stipends can exceed $20,000, the University still lags behind several other schools. All told, the average UVA grad student stipend is $14,849—though individual stipends range from less than $1,000 to more than $30,000.
“With inflation of wages and salaries, the amount of money it takes to fund graduate students goes up every day,” says Peter Brunjes, associate dean of graduate programs and research. “We have great students, some of the best in the world. But it’s a struggle to keep up, particularly with the privately funded universities that have more money than we do.”
During her presentation, Ford suggested that UVA follow Stanford’s lead and raise $200 million for graduate fellowships. Stanford has used those endowments to fund 300 graduate fellowships. The Board of Visitors will consider the issue as they prioritize goals for the upcoming capital campaign.
Ultimately, it’s not just about increasing grad students’ beer budgets, Brunjes insists—it’s about attracting the best students, thereby setting higher standards across the board. As he points out, “the best students do the best research, the best teaching and make the best colleagues.”—Will Goldsmith

Head Start Director Cynthia Bayless says the local demand for preschool is more than State and federal programs can handle.

The local Head Start, a federally funded preschool program, ended last month, but officials are already concerned about how they will meet the growing demand for next year’s classes. Head Start guarantees room for 213 area students, and so far the program has received 250 applications for 2006-07. Although Head Start officials expect to add more spots, they say that by August there will likely be a waiting list.
Experts say early childhood education is crucial, and the demand for Head Start is intense. In April, only a month before 2005-06 services ended, the program still had a waiting list of 182 children. Of that figure, 70 were “income eligible,” meaning they met federal poverty guidelines ($20,000 annually for a family of four).
Head Start provides preschool education for at-risk students in Central Virginia, and is locally administered by Monticello Area Community Action Agency (MACAA). Charlottesville and Albemarle school systems also have preschool programs largely funded by the Virginia Pre-school Initiative (VPI), serving 240 children in both school districts combined. Both Head Start and the VPI programs consider factors like family income, parents in the home, English proficiency and disabilities when admitting students.
“Between VPI and the Head Start program that we have now, there are still children unserved,” says Cynthia Bayless, Head Start director for MACAA. For those without access to either, the private alternative is expensive: MACAA estimates preschool costs, on average, to be $123 per week.
Governor Tim Kaine recently established a “Start Strong” council (which includes local philanthropist Patricia Kluge) to fill the gaps between VPI and Head Start. But that program, which the governor estimates at $300 million annually if fully funded, is years away, meaning that, in the meantime, many children may be starting kindergarten at a disadvantage.—Will Goldsmith