Category: News

Charlottesville’s population isn’t getting any younger, and the area’s reputation for a high quality of life is driving not only growth in general but also an influx of people over 60 from across the country. Indeed, 12.5 percent of the Charlottesville-Albemarle population in 2000 was 65 or older, compared to 9.7 percent in 1990.

 

Ned and Fran Morris, formerly of New Jersey, can describe exactly what propels that growth among senior citizens. When they were looking for a place to retire, Ned says, they knew they wanted to continue to live with four seasons.

"But we didn’t want to have to put up with the New York winters," Ned says. "And we knew we wanted a community with good medical facilities, hopefully with a college or university."

Advertisers know that Charlottesville fulfills the Morrises’ wishes almost perfectly. In the Fall 2002 issue of Virginia magazine, a publication of the UVA Alumni Association, for instance, there’s an ad placed by Westminster-Canterbury of the Blue Ridge, the retirement community where the Morrises have lived since 1990. The full-page ad beckons senior citizens to move into one of Westminster-Canterbury’s cottages or apartments. One selling point is the security of lifelong care, something every Westminster resident is guaranteed.

Yet the ad’s true focus is something else: the quality of life outside Westminster around Charlottesville itself. The marketing piece highlights opportunities that senior citizens have here for cultural activities and intellectual stimulation, which many other medium-sized towns cannot offer. The region shines in this ad as a mecca of learning, nestled in a spectacular natural setting.

"Charlottesville has become a real destination for retirees," says Kevin O’Halloran, development director at Westminster-Canterbury. The ad in Virginia magazine is just one of many targeting retirees around the country. It drops tantalizing names: summer Shakespeare at Barboursville, UVA football games, and—of course—Monticello.

Retirees coming to Charlottesville may indeed find an enjoyable new home awaiting them. Yet, for many other seniors, there is no guarantee of basic services, much less lifelong learning. A growing population and shrinking economy have people worried about the future of aging in Charlottesville.

 

 

Occupying a lofty perch on Pantops Mountain, Westminster-Canterbury’s main building could almost be an upscale hotel. "You think of a nursing home as a grim, sterile place. That isn’t the case here," O’Halloran says. Framed art—original drawings by the daughter of a resident—bedecks a hallway. Gracious common areas include a full-service dining room, complete with linen napkins at each place setting. Outside the building, residents have an eye-level view of Monticello.

Westminster is what’s known as a continuing care facility. Its 300 residents sign contracts guaranteeing them housing, food and medical care for life. Most arrive during what O’Halloran calls the "second phase of retirement." In other words, they’re ready to be done with the responsibilities of home ownership and they’re looking for a secure future. The average age of new residents is 75. At this stage, usually healthy, they live independently in cottages or apartments and drive their own cars. "They want to plan ahead and make sure everything is taken care of so that their children don’t have to," he says.

The Morrises, who moved first to Crozet from New Jersey in 1979 when Ned retired from a marketing career, say their Westminster cottage feels like home.

"The people are great, and it’s beautifully run. You can be busy every minute of the day, there’s so much going on," says Fran.

As residents age and begin to need help with basic activities like dressing and eating, they move into Westminster’s assisted living facility, which has nurses on each floor. Later, they may move again, into full-time nursing care or a specialized Alzheimer’s unit.

With Westminster providing various levels of care at a single site, it can accommodate couples whose needs vary. "We had been here about three years when I found out I had to have my hip operated on," Fran says. "I was over in the health center, and Ned didn’t have to go across town to a nursing home to see me when I was convalescing."

Westminster residents enjoy on-demand transportation around town. They can join bus tours to plays and lectures or take special classes for seniors taught by current and retired UVA faculty at the Jefferson Institute for Lifelong Learning. And their living quarters are hardly cramped: Many have two-bedroom cottages or apartments.

Naturally, all this costs quite a lot. Westminster is a non-profit organization affiliated with the Episcopalian and Presbyterian churches, and its revenue mostly comes from its residents. To move into an apartment here, a single person would pay an entrance fee of at least $180,000; couples wanting larger cottages shell out considerably more. On top of the entrance charge, monthly maintenance fees range from $2,000 to more than $4,000.

The Westminster Fellowship Fund can cover the entrance or monthly fee for people with limited means, and a few residents receive full assistance. The fund also provides a form of insurance for residents who have unexpected money troubles.

The Morrises have no doubt that for them, the cost has been more than worthwhile, and say that the monthly fee is comparable to the cost of living independently.

"I know it’s staggering to contemplate writing that first check for the entrance fee," Ned says. "But most people, by the time they reach the age to come in here, they own their home, and that money is usually more than is required for whatever unit they want to live in here. It’s upscale, but it’s not expensive."

 

 

Kathy Crosier, who handles community relations at the Jefferson Area Board for Aging, agrees that Charlottesville is a good place to grow old. She says the area offers a wealth of resources JABA can tap to help serve the elderly, and that a commitment to volunteerism is what mobilizes these resources. "We’re very fortunate in this area that there’s such an outreach from the community," she says.

She tells the story of a woman in JABA’s adult day care program who spoke only Japanese. "We were able to contact someone at UVA who found people who spoke Japanese, and they came and visited with her once a week," Crosier says. "If you were in an isolated area, you might not be able to tap into that. Even the most unusual thing, we can usually find someone to assist us."

With its broad mission covering a long roster of programs for the elderly, JABA needs to be adept at drawing assistance from whatever sources it can. A mostly publicly funded agency serving Charlottesville plus five surrounding counties (Greene, Louisa, Nelson, Fluvanna and Albemarle), JABA’s constituency includes all elderly people and their caregivers. "We serve people that may have means, and people that don’t," Crosier says. JABA’s mission is simple and far-reaching—to determine the needs of the elderly, and fulfill them.

Among the services JABA offers are health insurance counseling, home safety assistance (installing handrails in the shower, for example), meal delivery and in-home care. There are even volunteers available to help seniors decipher byzantine medical bills. Joyce Gentry, an information specialist at JABA, says "Some people look at a bill, and say ‘I don’t have a clue; it’s five pages long. What do I pay?’ We have someone who can help them look at that and determine, ‘This is what you pay.’ It gives them peace of mind." JABA is so well known as a go-to information source for seniors that, says Crosier, "People call Joyce for directions to the airport."

JABA also operates senior centers in each of the five counties it serves and is working to open adult day care facilities around the region. Walking through the day care center in JABA’s main office north of Charlottesville, Crosier says that in some ways day care is one of JABA’s most important programs.

"It’s all about creating that quality of life and making the elderly feel useful," she says. "You still participate in life, and you still give back and do things, even though you have physical limitations."

Clients in the day care program can become part of a hand bell choir, arrange flowers donated by Whole Foods Market or help make quilts, some of which hang on the walls of the Charlottesville center’s spacious great room. Outside, there’s a pleasant enclosed patio where clients grow vegetables, which they then cook in the center’s kitchen. Crosier greets a group of about 10 clients making cookies; an activities director handles the oven to help ensure safety.

The day care center has been in this location for five years, and the new building was designed to be more effective at meeting clients’ most pressing needs. A two-bed infirmary has exit doors opening directly to the outside.

"That keeps everybody in day care away from the situation, and they don’t all panic and get worried," Crosier says. "This is a state- of-the-art facility, and when they were planning this building, this was the dream thing, to have an infirmary separate."

Back in the great room, the center serves lunch and two snacks each day. They’re substantial enough to provide all the nutrition clients need for the day, says Crosier, which is especially important for those who live alone. "They may go home and just have tea and toast or cereal," she says, "so at least you know they’ve eaten here and had a hot meal served to them."

With an inexpensive hair salon, therapeutic tub room, geriatric physicians and physical therapists on site, the center functions as a mini-town where seniors can access many services at once. This is just as helpful to family members and caregivers as it is to seniors themselves, Crosier says.

"We wanted to do kind of like a one-stop shopping theme, so while that caregiver is taking her respite break or going to work, she can drop Mom or Dad off [at day care], and if they have a doctor’s appointment, the doctor’s nurse will actually take them for their appointment, then call the family member and give them an update."

Though the agency is involved in affordable housing for seniors (Woods Edge, an apartment building for seniors in Charlottesville, and Mountainside Senior Living, an assisted-living facility in Crozet), JABA is primarily committed to giving seniors the services that will allow them to remain at home as long as possible. "That’s where we find people are happiest," says Gentry.

More than 600 volunteers make JABA run smoothly. Many are able to offer more than just their time, bringing useful skills and experience to JABA programs.

"I think the University is one of the plusses in the community," Gentry says. "We do have people of means here, and also we have people who are very knowledgeable about a wide array of information."

 

 

Crosier and Gentry are each positive about the success JABA has had in its 27-year history. Yet they acknowledge that there are limitations to what JABA can do. Many of its services are free, and the ones that are fee-based operate on a sliding scale. Day care, for example, costs $50 per day, but many clients pay $5 or nothing at all.

"We serve everyone," Crosier says, "and any profit that is made would be just to balance out these programs for the indigent."

The day care program successfully serves about 75 registered clients and has no waiting list.

Other JABA services operate on shakier ground, with seniors who cannot afford to pay left on waiting lists. With State budget cuts looming, even successful programs like day care are threatened.

"When funding sources are cut, that means the indigent will have a waiting list because there won’t be scholarship funding available, or it might be more limited," Crosier says.

Gentry believes that, with budget cuts, the biggest gap that may open in JABA’s services will be with in-home care.

The uncertain plight of some JABA clients clearly is a far cry from a comfortable life on Pantops Mountain. The cost of health care can be an impossible burden.

"It’s not unusual, if someone has a $500 to $600 per month income, and they have a prescription that costs $200 to fill, they don’t fill the prescription," Crosier says. "That’s very common for us to see."

Even seniors who find a way to pay for assisted-living or nursing home care often encounter serious problems in the quality of care they receive. Angela Johnson is JABA’s ombudsman, in charge of investigating and resolving complaints about long-term care. She says the most common complaint is that a resident’s care plan is not being fulfilled. For example, a care plan may include "pressure ulcer [bedsore] prevention for a person who has been identified to be at risk: turning every two hours, hydration, nutrition and personal hygiene." A turn chart is meant to document how often the resident is turned. Yet visiting family members may repeatedly find the chart empty, or worse, their loved one soaked in urine.

Johnson believes that the root of this problem is the typically low wage paid to nursing home staff. Certified nursing assistants have demanding jobs and notoriously high turnover rates.

"The bottom line seems to boil down to staffing, the availability of staff to turn residents every two hours. If you have three people caring for 30 people in a shift, is it realistic to expect that to truly happen along with the other responsibilities they have in the provision of care?" she asks. "In some of the smaller assisted-living facilities, those people are even responsible for cooking and cleaning, along with resident care."

 

 

If JABA faces challenges now, those challenges promise to expand in the future. With baby boomers heading into their retirement years, health care costs rising and Social Security on uncertain ground, the future of aging is of national concern.

"You have all this drain now on the economy because of elderly who need support and services, and it’s only going to increase," Crosier says. "This isn’t a situation that’s just isolated to us, it’s across the nation." Indeed, throughout JABA’s jurisdiction, the Virginia Employment Commission projects a 25 percent increase in the over-65 population by 2010.

JABA’s planners are trying to chart a course for the future that will maintain its current level of service for a burgeoning population. Again, a shortage of nurses and nursing assistants is of critical concern.

"We just have to be as innovative as we know how to meet needs," Gentry says. "It’s not going to go away. We’re either going to meet those needs or we’re going to be in a bad situation."

She worries about elderly people on fixed incomes finding their way through a more austere financial landscape. Those at the lowest income level qualify for Medicaid, the Federal- and State-funded program that provides health insurance to very low-income people, but those with slightly more income are most at risk, according to Gentry. That’s because they can’t get aid, yet can’t afford to pay for services themselves.

"Those are the ones who are vulnerable, because they’re caught, and there’s not very much offered to them," she says.

At Westminster-Canterbury, O’Halloran agrees that aging boomers will cause major shifts in years to come.

"I think we’re seeing the beginning of that now," he says, gesturing to a huge construction project visible through his office window. Westminster is adding a 250-bed addition to its independent-living apartment building, including a new dining room and many other common areas.

"We found there was a very strong desire, and all the apartments were reserved before we broke ground," he says.

Despite that evidence of overwhelming demand, O’Halloran is optimistic about the future.

"We feel the expansion will serve the needs of seniors in this population for the foreseeable future," he says. "I believe we have a great many talented people in the community who are thinking long-term to ensure this continues to be one of the great places to live for all ages, including seniors."

Asked if Charlottesville lacks anything major in their eyes, the Morrises look at each other, laugh, and shake their heads. "Really! I can’t think of a thing," says Ned. Westminster-Canterbury seems to fulfill its promise of high-quality care in a beautiful, well-rounded city. But not everyone is able to claim a piece of this dream.

"I get lots of calls from around the country where people say ‘I’m interested in living in Charlottesville, but I need to know about low-income housing,’" JABA’s Gentry says.

"And I say you’ve come to the wrong place. Our resources are very limited for low-income housing; subsidized housing has waiting lists. There’s not enough of it," she says.

"So if you have a good situation where you’re living, you’d better hold onto it."

"Welcome to our cheese manufacturing facility," Christine Solem says pointedly. She’s standing in her cozy, well-worn kitchen north of Charlottesville, where she and John Coles have run a small goat and vegetable farm since 1973. Outside, their 24 goats wander around a large, partly wooded enclosure.

Solem and Coles, in fact, make goat cheese in this very room; Solem’s arch remark reflects her disdain for regulations proposed by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services that would put her kitchen under the same rules as an industrial-scale dairy farm. Right now, her operation is unregulated.

These days, the debate over food safety rages at a fever pitch. The presumed threat of bioterrorism lends even greater seriousness to the business of preventing contamination. Yet infectious disease – frightening as it is – isn’t the greatest danger, according to some. Proponents of small-scale and organic farming say that in the rush to prevent disease, we are risking something even more important: our connections to our food and, in some ways, each other.For Solem and Coles, the debate begins with a practical question right in their kitchen. The new milk regulations from the VDACS would require a slew of changes in their cheesemaking, and the biggest is a requirement to pasteurize the goat milk before making it into cheese.

"That’s unacceptable," Solem says. "That would ruin the cheese we make."

It seems odd to think that pasteurization – the process of heating milk to kill bacteria – would be bad, but it’s only necessary, according to Solem, if you need the milk to stay fresh for a long time. Large dairies, which often ship their products hundreds of miles, and supermarkets, which prefer milk with a long shelf life, rely on pasteurization to prevent contamination with diseases like E. coli and salmonella.

Solem says, however, raw milk contains beneficial bacteria – part of the immune system – that normally out-compete pathogens. Pasteurization kills these beneficial bacteria, too, leaving the milk sterile but "dead" – that is, vulnerable to any new pathogens that come along.

Solem and Coles say that pasteurization isn’t necessary, despite conventional wisdom to the contrary. They contend that because they make their cheese in frequent, small batches, it’s safe from contamination.

"It’s always fresh cheese; it’s never stored milk," Coles says. "The chances of things happening to it are so much slimmer."

He believes that pasteurization has been the subject of misleading publicity by the government since the 1940s.

"When you’ve got 60 years of lies, it becomes truth," Coles says.

Solem says that the largest salmonella outbreak in U.S. history, which occurred in Illinois in 1985 and affected at least 16,000 people, was caused by pasteurized milk.

If the regulations proposed by VDACS are implemented, Solem and Coles will have to buy an approved pasteurizer, which they say could cost up to $12,000. They’d also be required to build a new building for milking their goats, pay for testing of their cheeses and modify their kitchen (or build a new one) to comply with other regulations. Altogether, they say this will cost $50,000 – a sum that would effectively put them out of business, given their annual cheese revenues of $5,000-10,000.

John Beers, a VDACS supervisor who’s been involved in writing the proposed regulations, says that the department is just trying to bring Virginialaw in line with federal guidelines for food safety developed by the United States Department of Agriculture. He says that bringing unregulated operations under State oversight would "give people the guidance they need to properly handle milk before they process it." Guidelines covering cleanliness, cooling and storage of milk are "commonsense things you would do anyway," he says. For example, the regulations require producers to separate the various steps of cheese-making ("paraffining cheese, rindless block wrapping, curing cheese, cleaning and preparing bulk cheese and cutting and wrapping cheese") by building separate facilities for each operation, or by conducting them one at a time.

Solem says she doesn’t need VDACS’ guidance, and that she’s been fighting with the department for years for what she believes is her right to produce cheese and sell it directly to consumers. In 1999, agents of VDACS showed up at her farm, without calling ahead, and asked to inspect her facilities. She refused, they came back with a warrant. Virginia’s 16th Judicial Court later ruled the search was unconstitutional.

After taking some pictures and a few samples of goat cheese, VDACS charged Solem with six violations of the Virginia Food Laws. Solem says microscopic inspection of the cheese had revealed a tiny hair and one insect part. Other violations involved the state of her kitchen, which was less than pristine.

Against the charge of uncleanliness, Solem says, "How many people’s houses would look really, really nice if someone came in at any minute and inspected? I had been away all weekend, it was just a really bad time," she says, noting she wasn’t making cheese at the time the inspectors arrived.

Asked how they ensure the safety of their product, Solem and Coles have a disarmingly simple answer: "We just clean up before we make the cheese." Their self-imposed safeguards include sanitizing their equipment, sterilizing the cheesecloth and – most tellingly, they say – tasting every batch of cheese. Coles points out that he has a 20-year history of selling goat cheese, often to repeat customers at the Charlottesville farmers’ market, and has never had a complaint about safety.

 

 

The key is that they sell their products directly to the people who will eat them, Coles says. That situation creates a type of personal accountability that larger agricultural operations don’t have.

"Everything that we put out, we have a pride in and, if something happens, the person knows right where they got the food," he says. "It doesn’t go through a middleman, and it doesn’t get shipped to California."

Solem and Coles are members of a new watchdog group that opposes State regulation of small farms and food producers. The Virginia Independent Consumers and Farmers Association is taking on VDACS and other regulatory agencies over what it feels are inappropriate safety regulations. Members recently gathered at Wayne Bolton’s farm in Green Bay to chart a course of action.

Over a meal they’d mostly grown themselves – hamburgers, sliced organic tomatoes, goat cheese – a group of about 15 discussed how to halt the progress of pending regulations through the General Assembly and VDACS. Besides the milk regulations that would affect those with small herds of goats, VICFA is concerned with a broad set of safety rules developed by the federal Food and Drug Administration, which Virginia is considering adopting as State law.

This Food Code aims to ensure the safety of any food sold or given away in Virginia, providing standards for everything from the temperature of delivery trucks to the labeling of wild mushrooms. For example, the Code states "Raw shell eggs shall be received in refrigerated equipment that maintains an ambient air temperature of 7ºC (45ºF) or less." The problem with this, VICFA members say, is that by defining "food establishment" as broadly as it does, the Food Code ends up placing undue restrictions on smaller operations: farmers’ markets, on-farm sales, even church kitchens. "This would eliminate our lunch here today," said Bolton in amazement.

That may be a stretch, but VICFA identifies a real threat to its members’ livelihoods in the prospect of conforming farm kitchens to standards that are scaled to corporate-sized budgets.

Though the tone of the meeting was at times distinctly libertarian (one project involves setting up a hotline for farmers being "harassed by bureaucrats"), the group doesn’t necessarily oppose regulation on principle.

"You need regulations when food is being sold and re-sold," Solem says, referring to supermarkets. She says, too, that she and Coles are required to have their goats certified annually, to make sure they’re free of diseases like tuberculosis. They see this regulation – and the $200 expense that goes along with it – as entirely reasonable.

The key, they say, is to have small farmers recognized as a distinct type of operation, one that fundamentally is less in need of regulation than big agribusiness. For example, they are asking VDACS to include a clause in its proposed milk regulations that would make an exception for small farmers selling cheese directly to consumers, either on their farms or at farmers’ markets.

VDACS’ Beers doesn’t feel this amendment is reasonable. "I’m perfectly willing to be flexible as long as the public’s health and safety aspects are met," he says, "but where a requirement is there because it prevents or reduces a risk, I’m not willing to say the exemption is okay."

He adds that inspections of small farms in the past have revealed contamination in milk products, including insect parts and pathogens.

"I’m quite concerned about what goes on where there is no oversight," he says.

 

People who run food businesses from their homes are the most likely to feel cramped by state oversight. Lisa McEwan owns Hot Cakes, a Charlottesville catering company. Though her business is small and independent – she has only one location and has run it herself since 1986 – she doesn’t feel unduly restricted by safety regulations.

"This business I run is oriented to deal with regulations from day one, not trying to do it as a home-craft kind of business," she says.

Occasionally, she finds safety regulations annoying. "They drive me crazy sometimes," she admits. "I don’t care if somebody’s hands havebeen on my loaf of French bread. I’m comfortable with food. But I do try and keep an open mind and understand where regulators are coming from."

She says that when she visits other restaurants, she likes knowing the regulations are in place. McEwan has noticed an increase in awareness of food safety issues and believes that the potential for danger actually has increased over the years, mostly in the manufacturing process.

"If we could process our food differently, there would be a far lower risk of E. coli and things like that," McEwan says. "I know that the intense, speed-related, factory way that we do our slaughtering definitely makes beef and poultry more hazardous."

The cramming of many animals into small spaces, a common practice in industrial farms, does increase the risk of bacterial contamination, according to pro-vegetarian organizations like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

 

 

VICFA members would agree with McEwan about the risks of so-called factory farming. They are businesspeople looking to preserve their livelihoods by fighting specific political battles, but it’s no accident that VICFA members also share an interest in sustainable agriculture – raising food without pesticides, genetic modification, antibiotics or hormones. Deeper issues about the future of food are at play, they say, in the struggle over regulation.

Joel Salatin, owner of the innovative "beyond organic" Polyface Farm, is VICFA’s president. At the September meeting in Green Bay, he read from a characteristically blunt letter he’d written to new VICFA members: "Under the guise of food security and the war on bioterrorism, government agents are being used as pawns by multinational corporations to regulate alternative food out of the marketplace and eliminate freedom of choice in the food system." The letter also refers to conventionally grown food as "irradiated, genetically altered, and pathogen-laced."

A litany of woes, to be sure. Agriculture is an enormous industry and organic proponents say the large scale of conventional farming is at the root of many evils. The argument often boils down to quantity vs. quality. Solem cites the example of industrial tomato producers. Many use a technique that causes all the tomatoes to ripen at the same time. This is useful in terms of cost and efficiency, but compromises taste, Solem says.

Fabienne Swanson, manager and chef at Veggie Heaven, concurs that the best-tasting tomato is one that ripens naturally.

"We get local organic tomatoes ripened on the vine," she says. "I always prefer them when they’re right out of the garden and ripe."

Rather than cutting costs and pursuing ever-greater yield, Coles adds, "We’re concerned mainly about producing a quality product."

Ironically, efficiency of scale may end up compromising not only quality, but safety, too, Solem believes. In industrial dairies, she says, the sheer amount of equipment that must be sanitized means there are more opportunities for infection. By contrast, she holds up an ordinary saucepan. "Here’s what we have to clean," she says.

Awareness of these issues isn’t limited to the farming community. Heather Karp of Charlottesville approaches the subject as a concerned consumer, a trained chef and a sometime nutrition educator. She’s currently building a private clientele as a "food coach" – a consultant for people trying to make major diet changes. She, too, is suspicious of large-scale agriculture, particularly the practice of planting enormous quantities of a single crop.

"I don’t think that food is about quantity," she says. Clearly, America has no shortage of food, Karp says; in fact, "We have a frightening plague of obesity in this country."

Critics of industrial agriculture say there are plenty of threats to physical health posed by the quest for efficiency. Practices like irradiation (zapping food with radiation to kill pathogens), genetic modification (which is very widely used on two staple crops, corn and soybeans) and treatment of livestock with antibiotics are all fodder for national debate. Yet there is another risk, deeper than physical well-being.

Wayne Bolton hints at it during the VICFA meeting: "When we sat down to the table at breakfast, and I was 4 or 5," he says, "we had a platter of eggs on the table, a bowl of gravy, ham, bacon – all of it came from the farm. I guess this whole group is striving to get back to those old days."

In other words, there are larger social and cultural meanings in our relationship to food. Food has the power to affect our health as whole persons, not just as animals. If all we eat is processed food, shipped to us from factories hundreds of miles away, are we losing an important part of our culture?

Karp stresses the idea of connection to farmers, to those we share meals with, to the food itself.

"I think it’s part of my human nature to have a relationship with the food that I’m buying, eating, preparing, with gratitude," she says. In the joyful acts of cooking and sharing food, she says, there are benefits that are almost spiritual in nature.

Karp likes to buy her food at groceries like Integral Yoga and Whole Foods Market, and she also frequents farmers’ markets, where she values the chance to directly interact with those who produce food. She believes more and more people are becoming interested in buying food from sources besides conventional supermarkets.

Solem and Coles agree: "How can you compete with a farmer who just picked a fresh pepper that morning and takes it right there?" Solem says.

Instead of focusing on unattainable dreams of wiping out conventional agriculture, however, VICFA members say they are simply interested in providing an alternative. "We aren’t saying that agribusiness shouldn’t exist, because how else are you going to supply cities?" Coles asks. Indeed, a total return to the pastoral utopia for which Bolton pines seems unlikely in light of the breakneck pace of growth in Albemarle, which often causes farmland to be parceled into subdivisions. Karp, too, realizes that change happens incrementally, and many people don’t have the luxury of making the same choices she’s made. "I love the smaller scale of things, but I’m not in a huge metropolis with three hungry children working an eight- or nine-hour day."

 

 

The issue of choice, finally, may be the crucial question. Coles says that many of his customers at the farmers’ market specifically seek unpasteurized cheese, in part because they prefer its taste.

Sonia Fox of Charlottesville is one such customer: "Their cheese is delicious, and that’s a primary factor. It actually tastes a lot like the fresh cheeses in France," she says, adding "I prefer to use raw [unpasteurized] milk products whenever I can because they’re more easily digestible."

If Coles is no longer permitted to sell his cheese to Fox, he – and VICFA – believe the rights of both parties have been violated. Nationally, the debate over irradiation and genetic modification often focus on choice, too. Critics of the practices say consumers have the right to know – via prominent labeling – exactly what processes their food has gone through.

The exception VICFA wants to insert in the milk regulations would require small farmers to declare their products uncertified and uninspected, so that customers can decide for themselves if they’re willing to risk the purchase. Beers says that, so far, during the public comment period on the proposed milk regulations, the only comments his office has received are from those who oppose regulation.

McEwan, though, is skeptical of exempting small farms, saying there has to be some recourse if health problems do occur. "I think people like buying from that local person and like that intimate relationship, but if they had a serious problem, they would want to feel like they could go to some responsible party."

Solem counters that small farms have already proven themselves to be safer than their industrial counterparts, and says that money, not a concern for public safety, is behind the increase in regulations.

"The real reason is that big business has got a real foothold in VDACS," she says. The lines are still long at conventional groceries, but Solem and Coles believe that the growing interest in alternative food sources is threatening to large-scale producers.

Karp says it’s unfortunate that trends in food, like so much else, ultimately boil down to money, but she’s interested in working within the existing model to effect change.

"Capitalism has given and developed some incredibly wonderful things, but there has to be the balance," she says. "You’re not going to turn the whole country into people who support small farmers and want organic, but I think there has to be room for this variety."

In case it escaped your notice, there’s an election scheduled for November 5. We don’t blame you if you’ve been out of touch on this subject. Even dedicated pols might find themselves bored by a campaign season that features empty platforms, absent candidates and geeky legislative reforms.

For instance, who is there to care about in the current U.S. Senate race? Virginia Democrats couldn’t even field a challenger for the 24-year incumbent, Republican John Warner. His independent challengers, lacking the financial backing of a major party, have had a tough time competing with the Senator, a longtime GOP darling.

Incumbency has also given 5th District Congressman Virgil Goode (R-Rocky Mount) extra traction against his Democratic challenger, Charlottesville City Councilor Meredith Richards. Goode enjoys closer relationships with deep-pocketed political action committees [see EXTRA page 9], and his "Aw, shucks" demeanor plays well in the predominately rural 5th District. So far, Richards’ campaign strategy has been to use Goode’s conservatism against him, criticizing his stance on abortion rights and environmental issues.

It could be a good strategy in liberal enclaves like Charlottesville. "I’ll be voting against Virgil Goode," says 41-year-old Pete Manno, flipping through a newspaper at the Blue Moon Diner a couple of weeks before the election. "I’m definitely anti-Goode."

Manno says he will also vote in favor of the two bond amendments on the ballot, which would permit the General Assembly to borrow money for parks and for capital projects on college and university campuses. UVA officials have gone to a lot of trouble to promote the bond referendum, saying that although there’s no real opposition to it, they fear the bond won’t pass simply because voters are unaware of it.

Manno says he’s "a little irritated" by what he calls UVA’s panhandling. "They own half the town, and they’re crying for money?" he says. But the school’s fears may be well-founded. While many of the diner’s Monday-night patrons said they will vote, they also professed unfamiliarity with the candidates or issues on the November 5 ballot.

One patron named Jessi says she’ll vote next Tuesday for "whoever’s strongest on the environment."

"But I don’t know the candidates," the 18-year old says. "Who are they? Tell us about them."

You asked for it. Here is the C-VILLE voter’s guide – all the information you need about what’s at stake on November 5. While we can help you make an informed choice, only you can get your booty off the couch. Stand up, Charlottesville, and cast your ballot. The guide begins on page 12 of this weeks’ C-Ville Weekly.

Daily we have waitedby the fax machine for a dousing of the region’s bad news, expressed in terms of percents and millions of gallons: 54.2, 7.091; 53.2, 6.905. These are, of course, the terms of the drought (reservoir level and regional usage), which, even after a healing, gentle rain, have not fundamentally changed since August. Charts, graphs, Wet Ones and paper plates…Will this disposable reality never end?

You’ve heard of chronic fatigue syndrome? We’re all in danger of contracting crisis fatigue syndrome.

Let it never be said, however, that C-VILLE shirks its public duty. (We might redefine it once in a while, but that is another matter.) To that end, we present this week a partial guide to getting through the water shortage with, we hope, your good humor intact. We have put together some of the region’s finest minds to celebrate our arid condition, be it through a liberating session of shrub-hydrating outdoor urination or a new stick of floral-scented underarm deodorant. Also in our guide: the truth about bottled water. We taste-tested two dozen varieties so you won’t have to.

And then there are the hearty artists behind the newly mounted Fringe Festival, who, like desert cactuses, have kept the concept of "wet" (this year’s curatorial theme) tucked deep inside while they deal with dry conditions on the outside.

Rounding out our survival guide on page 63, Natalie Estrellita wrestles with many of the crisis’ imponderables: If we’re running low on water, she slyly inquires, is it still possible to tap dance?

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Liquid Diet

C-VILLE’s experts put the bottled water regime to the test

Drought conditions may be plaguing the area’s aquifers,but inside local supermarkets there’s a flood of bottled choices. To do your part you know you should be drinking water from a plastic jug, but which one? Bottled water ranges in price from 50 cents to $1.60 per gallon, but you can’t choose simply on the basis of that because your taste buds don’t care about the cost.

Still, between rushing to the waterless car wash and striding the length of the Downtown Mall to find the one restaurant that will still let the public use its lavatories, not to mention collecting soapy dishwater to feed your scrawny houseplants, who has time to try the many varieties of pre-packaged potables?

Never fear: C-VILLE Weekly has assembled a crack team of highly trained aqua-logists to test 28 varieties of non-flavored, non-carbonated bottled water under strict laboratory conditions. Each of our eight panel members tasted the samples blindly. Between tastes, they were offered a palate cleanser of the most pristine variety: Molson’s. The water experts were not permitted to leave the room until the entire assortment was sampled, which, in time, gave a second meaning to the notion that they were holding water.

Kroger Drinking Water

Isn’t it all "drinking" water, you wonder? In a manner of speaking, yes, but what distinguishes Kroger’s variety is that it’s, and we quote, "from a municipal source." Our judges’ comments included "It tastes kind of thick;" "It has a bad bottom note to it;" and "It tastes like a fleece sweater."

Triton Purified Drinking Water

"Tested daily, exceeds all standards" proclaims the label. While it didn’t earn the resounding thumbs-down of the Kroger variety, it wasn’t exactly a runaway hit, either: "This tastes like something that would hang around in my cat’s bowl for days;" "It has flavor;" and "I have a hair in mine" were among the comments.

Food Lion Drinking Water

Also bottled at a municipal source (from Abington, according to the label), this water prompted some of the judges to break into the theme song from Caddyshack . One declared it was "better than Evian." Another said it was "pungent."

Giant Filtered Drinking Water

Here’s your source, Charlottesville: The "Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission Water Supply." And here is the comment from your panel of taste-testers: "It tastes like it should." Go figure.

Harris Teeter Purified Drinking Water

North Carolina drinking water at its finest, this stuff was a certified loser: "Absolutely horrible;" "bitter;" and "rancid," were representative comments. Finally, one judge broke her silence: "Can I have a palate cleanser?" she asked.

Dasani Purified Water

This Coke product is "enhanced with minerals for a pure, fresh taste." And while one analyst declared its aftertaste to be "clingy," everybody else gave it a 10.

Aquafina Purified Drinking Water

And, in this corner, the Pepsi entry into the water field. Also highly appreciated by the panel of experts, this one was said to have "the least foreign flavor."

Charlottesville Municipal Water

It seemed only fitting that we should add City water to the mix, but we sure couldn’t slip it past our experts. "It’s chlorinated," they exclaimed, "it tastes like pool water." "This is definitely City water," said one, "and I’m going to need a lot of palate cleansing after this."

Amelia Springs Water

Drawn from an underground source in Amelia, this stuff was a hit in the office, er, lab. Among the judges’ remarks: "No aftertaste;" "I like this one;" and "Throw it in the back of your mouth, swish it around and you’ll taste the snow."

Deer Park Natural Spring Water

The source is Hoffman Spring in New Tripoli, Pennsylvania, and the positive comments were unanimous. "It’s simple and clean," said one taste-tester.

Shenandoah Spring Water

Straight from the Valley, it was one judge’s favorite because it "had the least taste of all." To which another connoisseur added, "It tastes like light beer."

Dannon Natural Spring Water

Funny, not one person suggested it tasted like yogurt.

Iceland Spring Natural Spring Water

Ranking dead last among the international contingent, this spring water, which proclaims itself "from the virtually untouched land of the Midnight Sun and the Northern Lights," was deemed to "taste like paint." The general consensus: "Yuck." 

Canadian Naturelle Spring Water

Everybody now: "Blame Canada, blame Canada." Really, it’s not Canadians’ fault if they cannot defend their own national borders. But what explains the taste of this water? "It’s funky," said one analyst. "It’s moldy," said another. One person declared it "halfway decent," and another began to complain of bloating.

Evian Natural Mineral Water

It may be "from the Alps," but our team thought it was more like Alpo. "Nasty, nasty, nasty!" "It has a bad back taste." "It tastes like YMCA showers."

Volvic Natural Spring Water

Also from France, the name of this product, when revealed, provoked a lot of gynecological puns that would be inappropriate for a family newspaper. Not quite as reviled as its Gallic compatriot, this water earned a couple of murmurs of "It’s OK," along with the question, "Did you pee in this?"

365 Spring Water

365 is the store brand for Whole Foods Market and its spring water is from Harpersfield, New York. There was nothing special to report about what most agreed was a neutral water. One person labeled it "flat." Another said "I can taste the corporate mind-control devices in this one," but we think maybe a peek at the label prompted that remark.

Poland Springs Natural Spring Water

It’s actually from Maine, not Poland, but one smarty-pants (we really think this guy was peeking) announced, "This one tastes Polish." We have no idea what that means, but another very finicky expert called it her favorite. "It tastes how water should taste," she said.

Laure Pristine Spring Water

We think the palate cleanser must have been getting to the judges by the time they tasted this product of the Great Smoky Mountains, because one said it was "a little oakey, a little buttery."

Kroger Spring Water

The spring in question is located in Richmond and the taste, according to the experts, was simultaneously "very neutral," "better than swamp water" and "kind of metallic."

Giant Natural Mountain Spring Water

Three separate Pennsylvania springs supply the water that was disliked by all and described by one as "hot tub water."

Pocono Springs Pure Mountain Spring Water

Another entry from Pennsylvania, this one fared no better with our judges. "Tastes like chemicals," said one.

Harris Teeter Natural Spring Water

North Carolina is the source, which one taste-tester declared superior in principle to France. "It tastes better than Evian," she said.

Food Lion Pure Spring Water

The label does not reveal the source of the lion’s fluid, but one person opined that it "tastes like water at the beach."

Triton Spring Water

What is it about North Carolina and water? Sometimes we love it, sometimes we don’t. The taste was described as "sweet," "organic" and "earthy."

Crystal Springs Spring Water with Fluoride

The water comes from Georgia, but there’s no word on the source of the fluoride. It was described as "tart" and tasting like "tap water." Duh!

Trinity Natural Mineral Dietary Supplement

The water is "collected" in Idaho, according to the label, and it should remain out west, according to our folks. Summing up, one person slyly declared it was "WNRN water." Ha ha.

Fiji Natural Artesian Water

Packaged in a lovely floral bottle and hailing from Viti Levu, this exotic libation inspired divergent remarks. "It has a bitter aftertaste," one expert said. "I feel like I’m getting the most nutrition from this one," said another.

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Bathe less – smell better!

How to disguise the drought’s personal effects on a budget

My friend "Lynn" showers twice a day. She keeps a stock of Victoria’s Secret body lotions, Bumble & Bumble fragrant conditioners, Bath & Body Works moisturizing sprays, designer colognes and various deodorants cluttered around her bathroom for any time she deems necessary to "freshen up." It takes her most of the day before she’s ready to leave. My other friend "Ryan" bathes as infrequently as possible. He proudly sports the scent of "ew, de Ryan," and people generally know he’s coming before they hear or see him. Most of those who share his philosophy prefer to live free and wild and "how nature intended us to be."

Considering the current drought conditions, I admire the restraint Ryan shows in water usage. He always seems happy and comfortable. At the same time, I notice the way Lynn draws people to her – how nostrils seem to dilate in her presence. My budget constraints prevent me from emulating her spending habits on toiletries, but my social desires stymie me from accepting Ryan’s routine. I have $20.02 for products that will simultaneously reduce water consumption and still let me feel as sanitary as a cotton ball dipped in alcohol.

I’m on a mission. My first stop is a local grocery store. Apparently, somebody had the bright idea of enlarging those fun travel wipes into portable antibacterial washcloths for the entire body. A pack of 32 costs $2.59, so I can stock up on an eight-month supply. I can hardly wait to bust one open and swash myself from head to toe like I’m waxing a finely tuned vehicle. Vroom!

Speaking of smooth operators, depilatories may be the best alternative to running a faucet over a razor. Three or four of one popular brand can be mine for $5.39 each, and I might get Ryan to sing "Legs! She knows how to use them," whenever I walk into a room. Fortunately for my wallet, I happen to be blessed with a naturally hairless body, like a bald eagle I tell you, so I can save for other items.

These handy facial cleansing, make-up removing towelettes , for example, are on sale at $1.99. I do indeed have sensitive skin, and all those lifestyle magazines discourage using soap on our kissers. Yes!

Stridex offers face wipes "to go" for $5.29. No more blemishes while I’m on the run. Lynn will be so jealous when she sees my new radiant complexion.

You know, sometimes you are what you wear, and I wouldn’t want anyone to think I’m a compost heap or, on a good day, a food disposal. Perhaps I should invest in these dry cleaning sheets to throw in with my soiled, yet stain-treated, apparel. They seem reasonably priced at $9.99 for enough to wash 24 garments.

Oh! Waterless hand sanitizers kill something like 99.99 percent of germs (but hey, who’s counting?), and an 8-ounce bottle sells for $3.49. I could buy five of them and zap any critter who so much as looks at me funny.

Well, I’m out of time, kids. If only I could stand on this soapbox (wink) a little longer to teach all the Ryans and Lynns of this world how to compromise. Smell you later.

This isn’t Mayberry.

Slipping away are the days when store owners know you by name, you can pay on a tab and deals are made with a handshake. For one Charlottesville Mom-and-Pop shop, holding on to that ideal is more than a nostalgic whim: it’s a matter of principle and necessity.Look while you can. On the corner of Emmet Street and Barracks Road, across the way from the chain of multinational stores, you’ll see a remnant of yesterday – the humble, folksy Meadowbrook Shopping Centre.

"When we first moved in, Mrs. Mary Wheeler wanted to keep the shopping center like it was: an old-fashioned hardware store, an old-fashioned drug store and an old-fashioned grocery store that makes local deliveries," recalls Jean Anderson of Anderson’s Carriage Food House, one of a dozen stores in the Meadowbrook center. "After we moved in, she had a stroke and, shortly afterward, passed away." Suddenly, the old-fashioned hardware store was gone. Things started changing. People started moving.

"Meadowbrook was probably the first shopping center I can recall in Charlottesville," says Ronnie Kite, owner of Meadowbrook Hardware. In 1954 it was built by Harry Wheeler on a field behind Carol’s Tearoom and a filling station. In came a drive-up restaurant called Gus’ (now The Tavern), Meadowbrook Pharmacy, the hardware store, a car wash and a laundromat.

According to those who worked there, it was more than business, it was community. To this day, for instance, Meadowbrook Pharmacy still delivers within a three-mile radius. The Andersons let patrons pay on a tab and make home deliveries to the elderly. Meadowbrook Hardware, which relocated to Preston Avenue in 1998, keeps up the tradition of knowing its customers. "If we don’t know the names, we recognize the faces," says Kite.

When Harry Wheeler passed away in 1981, his wife, Mary, took over the running of Meadowbrook. "Everybody loved Mrs. Mary," says Jean Anderson.

"Tough lady, but a good landlord," adds Tavern owner Shelly Gordon.

Mary Wheeler was famous for her page-and-a-half leases. "It basically said if you didn’t pay by the 10th, she had the right to evict you," recalls Gordon. She also demanded the lessees use their own names, not their business’ names on the contract. "Made it personal," says Gordon.

All of which makes the recent suits in Charlottesville circuit courts truly hit home. The court docket speaks for itself: Meadowbrook Shopping Centre, LLC v. Ronald Kite, Meadowbrook Shopping Centre, LLC v. Fred Lundmark, Meadowbrook Shopping Centre, LLC v. Edwin and Jean Anderson.

"It’s been a nightmare," says Jean Anderson, sitting among piles of legal papers in the back of her family’s store. In 1999, Meadowbrook, under the new stewardship of Mary’s daughter Clarabell and William S. Rice Real Estate, attempted to terminate their lease. The Andersons fought to stay – a right they maintain is theirs by law.

"We’re good tenants," Jean Anderson says. "We try to keep it clean. My husband goes around the parking lot and sweeps up the cigarette butts…We try to do exactly what old Mrs. Wheeler asked us to do." Nonetheless, Meadowbrook insists they must go.

 

The case hinges on a conflict of clauses. Paragraph four of their boilerplate lease states that either Meadowbrook or the Andersons may terminate the lease by serving the other with written notice. But addendum nine of their lease states that, after their first five years, the Andersons have three consecutive five-year options to continue the lease – last September, they exercised that option.

The Andersons’ lawyer, Garrett Smith, says the addendum supercedes the old clause. Meadowbrook lawyer Robert Blodinger sees no conflict in meaning, contending that the options are only viable if the landlord doesn’t terminate the lease first – which it attempted to do last August. During the preliminary hearing, Judge Edward Hogshire commented, "Isn’t that a little bit of a stretch?"

Property manager Rice agrees that the Andersons have a long-term lease. When asked about the Anderson’s future, he said that they are entitled to that spot. Moreover, he said that there is no plan for a new tenant at Andersons. When the discussion moved to the recent litigation, however, he appeared to change his tune. "Talking about the case is off limits," he insisted. Clarabell Wheeler and her legal counsel declined to comment, surprised that local media is even interested in tracking the case.

For some, though, this court battle is about more than words on a document. It’s about livelihoods – and tactics.

"They have done everything in their power to make us leave," says Jean Anderson. "Mean, mean things." These allegations are laid out in the Andersons’ 25-item Breach of Contract countersuit, which charges, among other things, that Meadowbrook agent Bill Rice has repeatedly harassed, disrupted and damaged the Andersons’ business by falsely reporting unfounded violations of health and safety laws to state and local officials.

It also alleges that Meadowbrook was aware of roof leaks and negligently failed to fix them. One example is a large chunk of ceiling that swelled and caved in over a food case and stayed unrepaired for five weeks (and remains so at the printing of this article). Rice claims, "When we find a problem, we react to it promptly," but, when asked specifically about the hole in the ceiling, Rice replied, "condensation."

"I’m not going to tell you what I really think of Clarabell Wheeler or Bill Rice," says Mrs. Anderson. The Andersons apparently are not alone: One anonymous Meadowbrook tenant said something unprintable about Rice – another hint of the underlying dislike some feel for recent upheavals at Meadowbrook.

Corky Pace, of Pace Painting, who left after Meadowbrook doubled his rent in 1998, says he couldn’t get along with the new corporate management. Pace says money wasn’t really the problem. "I left Meadowbrook because I didn’t like what was going on and I didn’t like Bill."

Other former tenants apparently felt likewise. Pace recalls speaking to Dave Cooke, who owned Cooke’s Laundromat: "I saw Mr. Cooke out there and Bill’s name comes up with a few adjectives next to it."

Last August, one Meadowbrook business prevailed against its lessor’s contentions. Meadowbrook attempted to evict Pet Barn for an alleged code-violation. They took it to court and lost. Now, Meadowbrook is appealing the case. Plus, they have demanded that Pet Barn get rid of Ally, its pet alligator. A line in the lease prohibits pets on the premises. Of course, the store is called "Pet Barn," which would make one doubt the aptitude of whoever drafted the lease. Fred Lundmark, the store’s manager, declined to comment.

Pet Barn, too, has an option to renew its lease – as do most of the proprietors in Meadowbrook – but not all of them share the Andersons’ travails.

"We’re happy as a clam" says Mary Humphrey, owner of Cottonwood, one of Charlottesville’s premier quilting stores, where the Quilters Guild meets every other Tuesday.

"They’ve always treated me fairly," says Willie Lamar, owner of Meadowbrook Pharmacy. "My lease is solid," he adds. Although, it, too, will be up in three years, with an option to renew for five more years.

John Cassell of Great Graphics discount framemakers is more than generous in his praise. "[Meadowbrook] did a great job: new electrical work, redid the front, asphalted the drive – made a major improvement in the space." Meadowbrook is, indeed, shaping up.

 

Currently, Meadowbrook is in the midst of a quarter-million dollar facelift including new facades and, it seems, new businesses. The most recent addition is Spring Street, a hip women’s clothing boutique, slated to open October 15.

Ostensibly, the revamped Meadowbrook would have no place for shops like Meadowbrook Hardware, which left in 1998. When the hardware store’s lease expired, a new lease was drawn up in less-favorable terms. The rent was increased and, more importantly, Meadowbrook would no longer allow tractor trailers in the parking lot…without which the hardware store could not operate.

"If [the new lease] had been anywhere reasonable, we still would have been there," says owner Kite. The store almost disappeared completely. "Could have just closed down and sold out," says Kite. "Had a lot of people working for me for a number of years…I thought we could move and reopen and keep on. So we did."

Meadowbrook pursued Kite with a suit in 2001, alleging he owed money for repairs to the property. The case was ultimately declared a non-suit and stricken from the docket.

Kite doesn’t see much future for mom-and-pops like his. "Small businesses like this, if you were starting out today, here, you’d have a hard time. Having been at it going on 41 years now, that’s helping us continue on."

Shelly Gordon’s Tavern, too, hangs on such tenuous threads. Under Mary Wheeler, he could get by. "Now [Meadowbrook] is nothing but a damn business. My lease goes up compounded 5 percent every year. It gets to the point of no return. Nobody’s going to be able to afford it."

Gordon attributes the change to Rice, who, after an elderly Mary Wheeler transferred ownership of her 4.5 acres to Meadowbrook Shopping Centre, LLC, instituted six-page leases and escalation policies. "A little heavy handed," says Gordon, "trying to sue people to kick them out of here." It’s nothing like the old days. "Mary used to come in here and be very gracious. We’d hug and all that stuff. Since Mary died, Clarabell hasn’t been in here once."

The Tavern has three years before it faces its option to renew for five more. Gordon is not optimistic. "I don’t think the Tavern will be around for another eight years," he says. "Mom-and-pops, I think they’re a thing of the past."

What may fill their absence? Rumors abound. Rite Aid, CVS and Walgreen’s allegedly bid on Meadowbrook property. Rice contends, however, that no sound offers were made. Moreover, he says that Charlottesville’s mom-and-pop institutions are not in danger of vanishing. "There are no plans whatsoever for the Tavern and Andersons," says Rice. Although, he "wouldn’t turn down a CVS or Walgreen’s."

"If the offer’s big enough, [Clarabell Wheeler]’s going to sell out," predicts Gordon. "If so, everything is going to be changed around, an office building put up and a CVS or a Rite Aid."

What then happens to the Andersons? Cassel from Great Graphics sees a simple resolution: "They have to buy Andersons out. Andersons has a lease. They’re going to be hard pressed to get rid of them. Obviously, if you’re willing to write a big enough check, it’s a done deal."

 

One of the key pieces remaining in this puzzle is the parcel directly on the corner, occupied by another definitive mom-and-pop, ALC (A Local Choice) Copies. Their property is owned by Dave Matthews Band manager Coran Capshaw and therefore must be negotiated separately if a large buyer wants the entire corner. ALC owner John Chmil is glad to not be in the Andersons’ shoes. "Coran has been great," he says.

Jim Morris, who manages Capshaw’s Meadowbrook property, says not to expect anything to happen in the space. "ALC should be there for a while." He was not at liberty to discuss the matter further.

Ultimately, Chmil acknowledges the inevitability of a larger business replacing his. "We’ll be here until the wrecking ball comes." He adds, "But I don’t know why Charlottesville needs another CVS."

The Andersons, too, see the writing on the wall. "A year ago, we were so tired of all of this we would have taken a little bit of money and left," says Jean Anderson – $250,000 to be exact. "We’d like our moneyback that we put into this. At one point, that’s all we were asking for." Now, it’s gone too far. "It has cost us a lot of money, legal fees every month for the past three years."

"We’re exhausted," adds Jean’s son Ted, who helps run the store. "If we didn’t have the stress and financial burden through the last four or five years we could have taken all that energy and finances and put it back into the business."

Jean Anderson elaborates, "I’m not going to let somebody kick me out on the street when it took 23 years to get here. Ed and I are close to retirement age. I’ve got three children that work here, there’s no way I’m going to let them go on the street." She puts her fist down. "We’ll fight this. If it takes every penny I’ve got, I will fight on, because I’m not wrong. I’m right."

Shelly Gordon hopes it won’t come to that for the Andersons or for the Tavern. "I don’t know if Clarabell is really sincere about holding onto her father’s treasured memories or whether she’s going to see the light." Only the upcoming months will tell.

But Ted Anderson paints a picture all-too-common for today’s mom-and-pop shops: "I am almost 40-years old. I have three kids. And I don’t know where I am going to be next year…If everything falls through, I guess I’ll get a job in corporate America." If worst comes to worst, perhaps CVS, Rite-Aid or Walgreen’s will have an opening. And then this won’t be Mayberry at all.

George Garrett is a storyteller and has been since his age was measured in single digits. It was then that Garrett says he decided he wanted to be a writer, even though he had no clue, at the time, what it meant to be one.

Today, after more than 60 years practicing his craft, Garrett has learned something about creating stories. In the introduction to his 1998 book, Bad Man’s Blues, Garrett writes that the "intricate, subtle, and shifty relationship between fact and fiction" is a puzzle that has always piqued his interest; it underlies much of his creative work.

Garrett’s life and work have been versatile and prolific. He is an athlete, soldier, scholar, writer and teacher; he’s written fiction, essays, plays, literary criticisms and Hollywood scripts, everything from four-line poems to a trilogy of historical novels that took 30 years to complete. In August, Garrett was selected by Virginia’s General Assembly as the Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth, and he’s currently the Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing at UVA.

Garrett says he never figured out exactly where fact meets fiction, but he’s never been the kind of writer who needs a finish line. To Garrett, the most important thing is always the act of spinning history and imagination into stories that impart us something. Last week, he talked to C-VILLE Senior Staff Writer John Borgmeyer about writing, war, boozing it up at UVA, and his brief career as an African-American writer. An edited transcript of that interview follows.

John Borgmeyer: How has the writing scene changed since your career began?

George Garrett: Young writers always see themselves as a continuation of the old generation, when in fact, the world is always changing. I don’t know where things are going, but one of the facts about the scene is that creative writing programs are springing up all over the country. Therefore, the overwhelming majority of American poets are employed by colleges and universities, community colleges and, more and more, high schools. So they’re almost all teachers. Nobody knows if this is good or bad. We don’t know yet. Certainly, to my mind it duplicates an ancient situation where monasteries were the sources for poetry through the Middle Ages and on up through the Renaissance.

If you look at literary history, there have only been a few very short periods of time when it was possible for writers——at least the kind we’re talking about——to make a living. For example, in the Victorian age both poets and novelists became quite well-to-do. Books were like movies and television are these days. Today John Grisham or Stephen King might make out OK, but you have to figure that an advance for a Grisham book is probably five times the total lifetime earnings of William Faulkner. There are probably about a dozen writers right now whose salaries are approximately that of a junior executive, so it’s not a highly profitable thing. But it never has been, except for these little windows of time.

A lot of people think it might be a good idea for writers to dissociate themselves a little bit more from institutions. The question is: How much freedom do writers give up for the security of being involved with a university? But in the meantime, for the first time in recent history these writers aren’t starving to death.

Academic creative writing has been absolutely positive for the students. I’ve noticed the kids never really understand how much work they’re doing, because it seems like fun reading other students’ manuscripts. Some may become great American novelists; most won’t, but they’re learning, reading, writing——that’s worthwhile.

How did you get involved with UVA?

I went to Princeton on the GI Bill. I had no clear, confident plan. When I got out, I was just drifting. I must have had 15 different academic jobs, moving from one thing to another. The longest were the two times I’ve been here at UVA. I came here in 1962, ostensibly to start the first creative writing department. When I got here I discovered people had been teaching what we call creative writing in disguise for years, in what was called Advanced Composition. But the students wanted more, and there was no place for them to go. Students were leaving here at that time to go places that gave credit for creative writing. So they hired me to start the beginning of a program.

How has UVA changed since the 1960s?

I was here from 1962 until 1967, then I was gone until 1984. During that gap I was running all around the country. When I came back, the University had changed considerably in certain ways. For example, it was co-educational. The one thing that did was raise the level of academics. You can’t make points with the opposite sex by being dumb in class, so all of a sudden it was OK to be interested in the subjects, and in fact it was a better way for you to make friends.

Before co-education, the big thing was the "Gentleman’s C." Your classes weren’t supposed to interfere with real life, which was on the front porch sipping a julep or crawling around in the Mad Bowl. So the co-educational thing turned out to be a wonderful benefit for the University. It got much more serious.

I think UVA is a much more academic institution than it was. But I don’t think its totally escaped the long shadow of a party school. You know, it didn’t surprise me when they had that big dope bust three or four years ago. What was funny about that was the pressure from the administration. Several guys from our program worked in the information office, and they were under pressure to come up with a story that will get us in The New York Times. So the day of the drug arrest they sure enough got on the front page of the Times.

A thing happened to me when I came back here. I had not been in Charlottesville for 17 years, and when we came from Michigan, where I was teaching, I rented a house on Fendall Avenue from a friend. I have this dog, a big hound, and when I arrived the first thing I did was take him for a quick walk. So I’m walking along with the dog on Winston Road, where I lived in the ‘60s, and a guy comes out on his porch with a drink in his hand——a drink as dark as iced tea——he sips that thing, looks at me and then he says "Hiya George. I haven’t seen you around for a while." I didn’t have a clue who he was. Seventeen years, and he hasn’t seen me around for a while.

Charlottesville is changing and unchanging. The night before I left Charlottesville in 1967, we had some big party and got totally sloshed. On the way home I insisted on stealing a traffic cone. The next day, we left and I put the cone behind the house, right by the fence. Seventeen years later, I come back, and that thing was still there. That figures. Whoever owned the house must have thought if they moved it the whole thing would fall down.

Then there are the traditional things. The football team is always spooked. Every year we have the same sort of season. Its always "two years from now, we’re gonna be a power," meanwhile we’re likely to lose to Wake Forest.

You’ve written a lot about the intellectual constraints of political correctness, especially in universities. Do you see that sort of thought-policing at work in the current conversations about war?

Yes. I have the advantage of having been alive and alert during World War II. It’s shocking all the aspects of what you might call military censorship that were in place. One small example is that it was almost the end of the war before we found out any of the facts about what happened at Pearl Harbor. They sank the whole Pacific Fleet that day, except for the aircraft carriers, but we didn’t know that. Thinking about it now, I don’t know what the reaction of the American public at that time would have been. They might have said, "Hey, fuck it, let’s get out of here. Let’s make a deal, let the Japs have the Philippines if they want it." So with great deliberation the leaders of the government from both parties did not tell the American public what happened. And, when Pearl Harbor happened, we had 30,000 American soldiers in the Phillipines and they were just written off. There was no way to supply them, no way to reach them and most of them died. Today we would have The Washington Post discussing what to do about those 30,000.

For better or worse, World War II was fought in almost total ignorance. That’s a very great difference from now. You’ve got people talking, everybody’s a military expert. So it’s quite a bit different. I don’t know if it was better or worse; it may inhibit the military quite a bit——which could be good or bad.

But you know, they did the same thing early on in the Afghan thing. The press was crying for footage, so they had a whole lot of footage of guys dropping in and parachuting on an airstrip. Ranger action where they landed and shot up the place a little bit and then left. A little bit later, they discovered that the major operations were going on someplace else. I mean, it was nothing. The real action was going on way across the country somewhere, where they dropped in Special Forces and nobody knew about it until now. I think the press has more power now than then, and they’re more intensely skeptical and critical than they used to be in World War II. A lot has happened since then.

What do you see as the duty of a writer?

Pretty simple from my point of view. The writer is to tell the truth as accurately and honestly as he can, which is a little tricky.

What’s happening more and more is that in the last 20 years or so, American writing has been dodging some of the big problems and settling in on very safe problems, where the issues have pretty much been resolved. You get lots of domestic drama and dysfunctional problems. That’s all well and good, but American writers are ignoring some of the really big and basic problems.

What are the big and basic problems, as you see them?

Well, if you were reading novels about America you would not be aware, for example, except in some kind of slapstick version, of the huge nature of white collar and corporate crime, and the gap between rich and poor that is seriously compromising the plausibility of a democratic government. Our votes don’t count very much, yours and mine. Right now I don’t see any writers where this topic appears in their fiction. It’s too hot a topic. And you’ve got agents and publishers who don’t want anything too controversial——or they want it safely controversial. You know, in half these novels people don’t even go to work. So there’s something lacking.

Who are some of your favorites right now?

I’m interested in writers who haven’t received a lot of attention, former students. There’s a wonderful black writer, a young guy, Percival Everett, who teaches at the University of Southern California. In one of his novels, Eraser, the hero is this black writer who’s been accused of never being black enough. So he goes, "Well, I’m going to remedy that. I’m going to move to the urban ghetto and really learn my stuff." So the hero writes this novel that’s really crap, full of bogus rhetoric and stuff, but he becomes a big success, and the next thing you know he’s a national hero. It’s very funny. Everett can get away with that better than you and I could, but he’s still considered very daring.

We’re in an era without any big stars. That’s good, I think. It’s not a horse race, and it shouldn’t be. Everybody tries to make it into a horse race, the whole Oscar and Emmy syndrome. We can do without that in literature.

Are there any particular works that you go back to when you need inspiration?

I guess I could give you the standard answer William Faulkner always gave. He used to say he liked to spend his time with the old masters, and people would very seldom ask, "Like what?"

I keep going back to Chaucer and Shakespeare and Swift. What I try to do now is, if I’m working on a novel of prose, I mostly try not to read novels. And if I’m working on poetry, it’s probably not a good idea to be reading it all the time, because you pick up all the other poets’ habits.

Is it to your advantage as a writer to be accomplished in a variety of forms?

No, it’s not. It’s slightly disadvantageous as a matter of fact, because, as in everything else, a brand name figures in. They always want to know what’s most important to you, so you can be categorized as a poet who happens to write fiction or a fiction writer who happens to write essays. But that’s boring. I’ve been trying to do the maximum. It’s probably foolish, but it’s been more of a pleasure for me.

When you sit down to write, what kind of process do you go through? Do you have a point or a structure in mind first, or is it more improvised?

You know, it varies completely. The only thing that has been a rule in my life is that I want to try everything at least once to see if I can do it. It’s probably ridiculous, but the one thing I’ve done is I’ve tried not to repeat myself. Faulkner did 25 novels or so, and no two of them were alike in structure or strategy, all completely new, very rich in voices.

You always give yourself a challenge. That’s a peculiar American thing that I think comes out of a democratic country. There are fabulous writers in Great Britain, but those guys all sound exactly alike. They all went to the same school, probably learned from the same teacher how to do a sentence and they can’t escape that. Whereas we in the States have so much language variety you can never catch up with it all. You can never really master American speech. Ever since Mark Twain made it possible to use American speech, it’s been a whole different kind of literature.

You’ve been labeled as a Southern writer. What does that mean to you?

I don’t buy into that. We’re all part of one country. Especially now, with all the creative writing schools, there are Northern writers who come to live in the South and Southern writers who go North. It’s not an easy category the way it was, say, in the 1930s where you wouldn’t confuse Faulkner as being anything but a Southern writer. People of that generation didn’t move around anywhere near as much as they do now. There are anthologies out there that have writers with no connection to the South, other than they’ve written a story that takes place in Georgia, listed as Southern writers. I’ve been listed as a black writer twice by mistake, because I had a story about a knife fight in a public school. It was something out of my experience that I had witnessed, so it never occurred to me to mention race at all. I got a letter from two African-American writers in Chicago saying, "We read your story and we want this for our anthology of African American literature." They assumed anyone who talked and acted like the characters in my story was a black guy, that they would be the only ones fighting with knives. I didn’t ask any questions. I had a brief career as a non-black black writer.

What sacrifices have you made for your art?

None that I know of. I sincerely believe everything is a trade-off, so I don’t anticipate things being different than they are. What I don’t think people have the right to do, and I’d rather not do it if I can help it, is drag others into sacrificing for your art, like dragging your kids and family through some miserable life so Daddy can write another half-decent book. They might take a dim view of that. Self-sacrifice is a choice. There’s an awful lot of writers who created some wonderful stuff, but a lot of them have hurt people around them. The question would be, "Was it worth it?" I don’t think so.

Do you think about how you want to be remembered?

I think of my books as my children, so I tend to favor the ones who’ve had a tougher time of it. The wounded child is the one who needs attention. I would like to do better, keep growing, keep learning until I cash it in, which is getting closer now than I used to think. I always remember what Groucho Marx said: "What did posterity ever do for me?" I’m not sitting on any one accomplishment; I would rather not repeat myself. I’m going to try new things.

What advice do you have for young writers?

Persistence. Some writers, particularly the young ones, feel that it’s somehow not right to know the rules of the road and how the game is played. They sort of expect to do the work and have somebody else take it from there, but there isn’t anybody else. I think they owe it to their talent to know as much as they can about the whole literary scene, so it won’t baffle and defeat them.

By the same token, young writers should develop the possibilities of a day job somewhere to support this habit. I’ve never thought that it’s a good idea to say I’ll give myself three years, and if nothing happens I’ll become a brain surgeon. I think you have to give your life to it, and take whatever comes to you. Writing is not for a living, it’s for a lifetime. Luck has a lot to do with it, but you can get to a place where you transcend luck. If you can live with good luck and bad luck, if you can forget it and get on with your work and not become a slave to fortune, you’re home free.

Do you ever have moments of self-doubt?

That’s something I encounter every day. I think it goes with the territory. When you sit down at the desk you feel there’s a very good chance you’re wasting your life because there are other things you could be doing. Being in the Peace Corps in Africa would probably be more helpful, so there’s a lot going against you. You have to overcome that every day by some kind of hypnosis, whatever you can summon up. You’ve got every good reason to doubt, and that’s real, and it can be heavy. There is not enough reward and acknowledgment to change that. I’m sure that if I woke up tomorrow and the Swedes called me up and said, "You’ve just won the Nobel Prize," within 15 minutes I’d think, "They’ve made a terrible mistake. Who the fuck am I?"

Does it matter if the work is relevant? I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t think the urgency or value of fiction or poetry is determined by the number of people who may or may not read the work. If you think about it, reading is an interchange between two people. You’re hoping to reach a reader——singular——and if you reach thousands, that’s all well and good. But to understand writing in terms of "how many" is to put it in competition with "Ally McBeal."

Ideally, do you think there should be a clear line between art and commerce?

No. At the time Shakespeare was writing, the drama he was writing was not considered a high art form. Art changes with fashion. The things that were high art in Shakespeare’stime——things he would have loved to have done——were pastoral poems, pages and pages long. They’re not around anymore, but it was the top of the heap then. Mediums change, and time changes the status of mediums. You can’t let that worry you. You’ve got to have certain things you love to do. If you happen to have the talent to write great movie scripts, you’ll make a good living. The good movies are probably the great literary art form of our time, because they can do things in terms of color, sound, action, words, that can’t be done in novels or short stories. The work of a few passionate souls is considered high art, but then a lot of it is crap and highly commercial.

What’s the most important skill you think a writer should have?

Writers can learn by trial and error what their weaknesses are. The temptation is to stick with your strengths and dodge the weaknesses. But I think what you’re aiming for is to have everything balanced, so an outsider can’t tell what’s hard and what’s easy for you.

One of the key things is to exercise your imagination, so you can imagine what it’s like to wear other shoes. In terms of history, one of the biggest mistakes is judging people in the past on the basis of modern thinking. It takes a little effort, but if you can imagine what it’s like to be a character different than yourself, that’s the beginning of a kind of wisdom as a writer. And it helps for certain practical things. I spent some time in class last year on how to send out a manuscript, and I discovered that very few of them imagined what it was like to be an editor at the other end. It’s practical, but it’s also very vital——the ability to cultivate the understanding of the other persons’ point of view. It’s a great liberation. Art and writing should be liberating, not inhibiting. Anything that serves to inhibit your life and art is the enemy of what you’re trying to do.

In The Right Thing to Do at the Time, you write about your father taking on the Ku Klux Klan as a lawyer in Kissimmee, Florida. In the last lines, your father says, "If they want to stop me now, they’ll have to kill me. And I don’t think they’ve got the guts for it."

Then the narrator writes, "Then he laughed out loud. And so did I, not because it was funny, but because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time."

Somehow that speaks to our situation today, where there are so many reasons to be fearful and pessimistic. Where do you find laughter?

In surprising places, I think. I was out of town at the time, in Maine, when C-VILLE published two little poems of mine. Somebody wrote in that I was homophobic because I use the word "sissies." I thought that had to be some kind of joke, because the more you think about it, the dumber that is.

When he returned home to Charlottesville after earning a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design, Joshua Galloway wanted to keep up with his drawing, so he enrolled in an advanced drawing course in the evenings at Piedmont Virginia Community College for three years in a row. With the help of Elizabeth "Chica" Tenney, his drawing teacher and mentor at PVCC, Galloway went on to exhibit his work at places such as the McGuffey Art Center. Today he is pursuing a master’s degree in architecture at UVA. Galloway is not alone in utilizing the resources within PVCC’s art program as a stepping-stone for his career; his is but one example of how PVCC’s artsSure, PVCC is well regarded for its nursing program and as a stalwart source for workplace skills, but its standing as an arts source may not be as readily appreciated. That, however, has been changing, especially since the dedication of the V. Earl Dickinson Building in 1999–complete with music labs, composition studios, two galleries, five practice rooms, a ceramics studio equipped with three kilns, art studios, a black box, a 500-seat theater and a lakeside outdoor amphitheater. The structure has been nothing less than pivotal in allowing the arts to blossom at PVCC.

PVCC has gone "from nothing to a basket of riches," says S. Kathryn Bethea, a professor in theater and music. Indeed, promotional posters around town attest to the 2002/2003 bounty: artist workshops, master classes, faculty music recitals, ballet performances and children’s theater.

Carrington Ewell, the administrator for the PVCC Fine and Performing Arts Series, says the eclecticism is deliberate. "I try to find something for everyone," he says.

"PVCC is a crossroads in the community, one of the few places in the community where everyone comes together from six counties. There’s no one else in town doing music and dance and theater and films and visual arts and lectures and master classes. I consciously book and represent the widest possible mix of cultures," Ewell says, "the whole gamut of disciplines and artistic traditions." The combination of the Dickinson’s stellar facilities and Ewell’s programming has enabled PVCC to essentially quadruple performances, now up to nearly 150 per year.

As well as being a regional arts venue, the Dickinson building is a performing arts studio for a growing student body–more than 500 this year. Enrollment is up about 80 percent during the past five years. The college offers certificates in painting and drawing. The visual arts, theater, drama and music degrees are two-year programs for students planning to transfer to a university or seeking professional development in the arts. Those students who transfer do so most often to UVA, James Madison University, Virginia Commonwealth University, Maryland Institute College of Art or Mary Baldwin College.

The arts faculty, which too has grown during the past several years, is a richly diverse and well-plugged-in group. Tenney, for instance, has worked with the arts at PVCC since 1976, and she identifies PVCC’s "main mission" as "community connection." Tenney herself was among the founders of McGuffey Art Center. She serves on the board of Second Street Gallery and is involved with Art Reach, a non-profit organization affiliated with FOCUS that targets children who could benefit from having more art in their lives.

Tenney is one of 22 on the arts faculty, a number that has literally tripled since1997.

At $339,000 annually, total arts education funding, including salaries, supplies and personnel costs, accounts for about 3 percent of PVCC’s $11 million budget. Yet, measured by intangibles such as community outreach, rising public profile and growing popularity of class offerings, the small investment yields a large return. Still, PVCC, like other state educational institutions, faces the threat of severe budget cuts. Dr. Frank Friedman, PVCC president,

cannot go into details about possible pending budget cuts except to say that the impact would be felt "across the board."

Evidence of Tenney’s goal to get her art students immediately "connected with the Charlottesville arts community" is everywhere. She’s trying to create partnership events with local arts institutions such as the UVA Art Museum and Fayerweather Gallery, as well as Dot-2-Dot, a new gallery on Water Street. In November, PVCC’s Art Gallery will have a joint exhibition with Les Yeux du Monde gallery, featuring the paintings of John Borden Evans. There is a lot of "cross pollinating," Tenney says. "Carrington and I are working hard on that."

PVCC’s past few seasons are testament to such work. New Lyric Theater, Live Arts and Shenandoah Shakespeare have brought their productions to the Dickinson building. The arrangement worked out well for Live Arts when it brought its March production of The Wiz to PVCC, says Live Arts General Manager Ronda Hewitt. "We played to near capacity crowds the entire week," she says. "The facility was really state of the art." Indeed, PVCC has been a full-ranking member of what Tenney terms the "explosion of arts in Charlottesville" following the renovation of the Downtown Mall. Almost in concert, there were the births of the McGuffey Art Center, the PVCC art program, the UVA Art Museum, Second Street Gallery and Fayerweather Gallery, each supporting the other yet filling different niches within the community.

Over the past quarter-century, this network of arts institutions has only expanded. Downtown Charlottesville is seeing the opening of new galleries, such as Dot-2-Dot; Live Arts, Second Street Gallery and video documentary studio Light House are constructing a new building on Water Street; and the 1,000-seat Paramount Theater is in the midst of a City-supported restoration. It’s not just the love of the footlights or watercolors that’s driving this renaissance, either. As City Councilor Kevin Lynch notes, the local arts institutions are "economic engines," which help to support local restaurants and businesses and are integral to the livelihood of the community. Indeed, John Gibson, Live Arts Artistic Director, maintains, "Downtown Char-lottesville is becoming the arts destination for the region."

And while PVCC, located south of town on Route 20, is not exactly Downtown, "every theater is part of this network," Gibson says. "We have a common goal, which is bringing people together."

The community came together in turn to support PVCC when its art department (still the largest among its arts programs) was housed in the college’s main building, where inadequate space hindered its growth. Clifford Haury, the dean of humanities at the college, says that when the community saw PVCC’s need for a more functional space, given the quality of its teachers and the work being produced there, the response was simple: "How can we support you?"

The answer was the $7 million Dickinson building, which allowed Haury to instantly double course offerings. The demand was there; Haury discovered that, with a "loyal contingent of people," PVCC was able to quickly fill those courses.

Unlike Live Arts, which is entirely privately funded, or a venue like Starr Hill Music Hall, which runs off door receipts, PVCC is at the mercy of State funding. In fact, most of the money for the Dickinson building came from Richmond. These days, that relationship means potential trouble for the school–and its arts programming. Recently, Governor Warner required State-funded schools to submit proposals outlining 5 percent, 7 percent and 11 percent budget cuts. "We’re looking at having to live through severe cuts," says Robert Chapel, who chairs UVA’s drama department. "It will definitely affect our programs, especially during the academic year, and it will trickle down to affect production."

Over at PVCC, the irony isn’t lost on anyone involved in the arts. Just when PVCC’s class offerings and arts programming is catching on in the region, outside forces may hinder their growth. "If we have to cut at the highest level," Ewell says, "the college will be dramatically changed. It’s pretty frightening and, right now, it’s the not knowing that’s scary."

Regarding potential cuts, Haury says, "If our money were restricted, we might have to cut the number of course offerings in order to keep the program up. We’d see what’s essential and what’s not.

"Much of our money is in personnel," he continues. "Ninety-five to 96 percent of our money is in people, not in things." This could jeopardize the arts programs, as the "name identification is phenomenal" and this reputation for quality instruction is a big part of what draws students and community members to PVCC. However, there is a bright side: Haury says, "The community college system has one advantage." Just adopt an "entrepreneurial perspective"–make sure that classes have a sufficient number of students to pay the instructor. Such an attitude "may be a cushion for us in a budget cut," he says.

Councilor Lynch views potential budget cuts through the prism of all that PVCC has offered to the community in the past, namely its "role as a grassroots economic development." In terms of community colleges, PVCC "is certainly one of the most aggressive in the area.

"When you look at their relationship as an educational institution with the City," Lynch says, "it has really been nothing but a positive relationship. If their past performance is any indication, they have a consistent track record of delivering goods."

In fact, Lynch is sharply critical of cuts in educational budgets. "To cut investment in the work force in order for a short-term balance sheet gain is incredibly short-sighted," he says, "and I have faith that our legislature will be able to see that. It will be difficult for a respectable legislature to justify cutting it. These are the future tax payers of the Commonwealth."

Live Arts’ Gibson comes to a related conclusion: If budget cuts were to hinder PVCC’s capacity to deliver quality arts programming to the public, he says, "the community will be poorer. Charlottesville is hungry for theater and welcomes it in every possible venue."

Meanwhile, back at the Dickinson building, there’s no hint of budget-cut anxiety as the new season gets underway. Students of all ages, economic backgrounds and experience levels settle into their classes and the show goes on.

"We are letting people know what art can do in your life," Tenney says. "It is a positive force, a hopeful activity. In difficult times, people need art more than ever. It is such a key factor in the quality of your life, in the quality of a civilization. It bring richness to your life."

Kevin Lynch arrived in Charlottesville from his hometown of Alexandria in 1980 to study at UVA. Twenty years later, he won a seat on City Council as a “Democrat for Change” advocating an alternative-transportation platform. Midway through his first Council term, Lynch is a Council representative to the Metropolitan Planning Organization and a member of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. An avid biker—cycles and motorcycles—Lynch, who is 40, is self-employed by day as an electrical engineer and software contractor. With the Western Bypass all but extinct now and as Council resumes its consideration of Route 29 interchanges and the construction of the Meadowcreek Parkway, C-VILLE Editor Cathryn Harding met with Lynch to discuss his ideas for transit and growth in the region. An edited transcript of that discussion follows.

C.H. – How did you become interested in transportation issues?

K.L. – It started when I was in the Federation of Neighborhoods. In 1994, the Metropolitan Planning Organization did a southern transportation study and it recommended four-laning a lot of southern neighborhood streets, taking parking off of Avon Street, Monticello Road, Fifth Street and Ridge Street to put more cars through for the development of the southern area of the County. I live on Locust Avenue, and it was right about that time when Locust Avenue was connected with Water Street. We saw a real increase of traffic when that happened. The traffic went from being daily commuter traffic to 24/7 traffic. It really got worse at night. Even though the traffic wasn’t as heavy, it was a lot faster because people were using it as an alternative to Park Street.

    I was starting to get involved with other neighborhoods, particularly the neighborhoods around the Mall and realizing how we have this common interest in making sure the central City neighborhoods stay healthy. All of a sudden, the Belmont and Ridge Street neighborhoods were under this threat from the traffic generated by the southern growth of the County. My experience on Locust Avenue told me that if it was bad for the south side of the town, it was going to be bad for the north side of the town. I started to see regional traffic as a real threat to the City neighborhoods.

The discussion about the Meadowcreek Parkway started to kick into gear again right around that time. You were identified pretty early on as somebody who was against the Parkway.

When I saw the Parkway, my first reaction was that I was in favor of it. It would be a straight shot to Route 29 and I thought that it would be nice to jump around the 29 congestion. But, what I realized after going through this with the southern neighborhoods is, it wasn’t going to solve a congestion problem; it was going to create a congestion problem. It wasn’t being built in isolation, it was being built along with a program to intensively develop the northeastern quarter of the County.

    It has become clear to me over time that the way the transportation model has developed in this region is something of a hub-and-spoke model. Any neighborhood street that goes out of the City, like Avon Street Extended, Park Street, Monticello Road, Ivy Road, Barracks Road and Old Lynchburg Road, is developed by the County with a bunch of one-way-in, one-way-out subdivisions, all using the City street as their point of access and the City as the intersection. That’s not something that was clear to me until I started working with other neighborhoods on common transportation issues. Then I saw the Meadowcreek Parkway as just another spoke that would create problems for all of us in the hub.

So Charlottesville goes from being a “world-class city” to a world-class intersection. If you are critical of certain kinds of growth patterns, what are you in favor of?

A lot of things. There was a quote that sticks in my mind: Roads aren’t built to relieve congestion; they’re built to create opportunity. That’s very much true. So you have to decide where you want the opportunities to be. To me, that means you focus on 29, focus on making the 250 Bypass East and West more efficient, focus on the corridors that we have in the City that we’ve designated as areas where we want to see more development, like Cherry Avenue, Preston Avenue, Main Street. If you don’t want to see sprawl development, then you don’t want to build a bypass because a bypass generally encourages and subsidizes sprawl development.

    On the other hand, I’m as much against building a bypass to the east as I am building one to the west. Part of my issue with the County has been that I think they’ve been hypocritical in how they treat the 29 Bypass, which would go through wealthy neighborhoods. Yet, they are pushing for Phase 2 of the Meadowcreek Parkway, which is essentially the same as the Eastern bypass that VDOT studied and rejected back in the ’80s. Why would we want to create development opportunities in the watershed of the Rivanna and dump all of the traffic in the City?

    They say they don’t want a bypass, but really they don’t want a western bypass through their houses. I don’t blame them; I don’t want a bypass that goes through my house, either. But I think if you’re going to use the environment as an argument, then you have to be consistent. You have to acknowledge that Meadowcreek Parkway Phase 2 is as damaging if not more so to the Rivanna watershed. Even though no one in this area drinks that water, we swim in that water, there are three City parks that are downstream of that, we fish there, we eat the fish out of there and people downstream drink it. It’s environmentally irresponsible to say we can’t touch the western side because we drink that water, but to hell with the eastern side because somebody else drinks that water.

    I think it makes a lot of sense to look at the 29 corridor and make that work more efficiently.

What would that look like?

There are a lot of forms that it could take and we’re about to do a study of the corridor to get a better understanding of our options. One model that I’ve always thought would be an attractive solution is Highway 101 in Santa Barbara, California. It is probably the most attractive urban expressway that I know of. Twenty years ago, it was just like 29. It was a series of lights and it was a congested mess. Then, the California Transportation Department started the process of eliminating lights there. It carries a large volume of traffic, and it’s not just an expressway. It also has a secondary network that parallels it. And, in Santa Barbara, the business interests along the highway have prospered because they still have good access and much more volume. Highway 101 moves a significant volume of traffic, yet it feels like a parkway running right through the City. Perhaps your readers will know of some other good examples that might work here.

    It’s been since 1988 that Charlottesville has done an origin-destination study. So I’d like to see a new origin-destination study. We’ve grown quite a bit in 14 years in patterns that weren’t necessarily expected.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the sentiment that Council expends a great deal of effort on studying stuff.

I feel that way, too. I agree absolutely that we spend too much time studying things. Part of that is because whenever there’s a study and the conclusion is something that some group of people doesn’t like, there will be another study to prove that the first group had some hidden agenda. Sometimes that is the case, but I think the Metropolitan Planning Organization can hold out a neutral position and make it clear that we’re not asking for a study to prove something we already support. The MPO is the most objective group around when it comes to transportation matters. It doesn’t necessarily have an agenda other than that people should move around the region as efficiently as possible and that we want to reduce reliance on the automobile and support sustainable development.

At a recent meeting of the MPO, Meredith Richards had hoped to nail the coffin shut on the 29 Bypass. It was reported that you were not comfortable representing that as City Council’s point of view. You wanted to take it back to Council and not let the MPO take that vote right at that moment. Some people were hinting that there are politics at work there.

Well, certainly individual members have agendas. And no group is free from politics. As I see the function of the MPO, it needs to represent what the regional consensus is. If this doesn’t include the consensus of City Council and the County Board of Supervisors, the MPO will become dysfunctional. Meredith and I weren’t elected to the MPO; we serve as Council representatives. If we’re going to advocate the City position or the County position or our own position or the environmental position or the Western Albemarle County position, we can do that, but we still have to have a buy-in from both jurisdictions.

As you became involved in the neighborhood politics that you mentioned earlier, how did you decide that Council was the best setting for the kind of destination-directed transportation policy you’ve been talking about?

I felt there was this move among the development community to super-size Char-lottesville. That didn’t necessarily fit in with what I wanted to see Charlottesville become and what I think my neighbors want to see Charlottesville becoming.

It was your sense that Council was the place where neglected voices could be best represented?

Yes. Although “politely ignored” is probably a better phrase than “neglected”

And do you find, more than two years into it, that you’re giving voice to these concerns? Is that voice is being heard?

Sometimes. One of the first things that happened that I feel very good about after I joined Council was that I was able to get the trolley going.

    That idea had been out there for a while, but it wasn’t happening. So I campaigned on it. It didn’t take too long to make it happen. So I view that as a very positive thing. I think it’s been hugely successful. When I see it jam-packed on a Friday afternoon and people coming Downtown, I feel like we’re making progress. When you ask what am I in favor of, I really do think that trends in alternative transportation are the way to go.

Would you elaborate on that vision?

There are two parts of that vision. First, rather than an eastern or western bypass, I see a network of roads in the urban ring, which allow people to move around the urban ring without having to drive into Charlottesville.

    I think that it’s high time that the County acknowledges that it’s becoming an urban area. You’ve got this urban area, which is essentially a city the size of Charlottesville surrounding Charlottesville and using Charlottesville neighborhood streets to get from one part of the County to the other. I think that is wrong. We need some connectivity within the urban ring.

    Second, within Charlottesville, I think we can do a lot more to make our own transportation choices more efficient. Very few people are going to ride the bus because it’s the right thing to do. There has to be a reason to do it, and it has to work for them. For different people, alternative transportation means different things. For me, it means getting more bike lanes because there are roads that are dangerous to bike on. It means getting a more efficient bus system.

    I’d like to see at one point—and this would be far down the road—I’d really like to see a transit-on-demand model where, if you wanted to go somewhere, it would be like a share taxi. You’d get picked up right at your house and go to where you need to go. It’s like letting someone else do your driving for you.

    A lot of people love their cars, but most people would rather not drive if they have to go somewhere in the City. It’s more relaxing to be the passenger. You enjoy the City more as a passenger than you do a driver. So as far as the transit model goes, if it’s really going to be effective, people have to think of it just the same as letting someone else do the driving. In order for that to happen, it has to be competitive in terms of time, and that gets back to the ideas that I’ve been putting forward.

    How do we take a system that we have right now, which has really been designed for the captive rider, and move toward a system that makes it work for the discretionary rider?

Is there a model of this that you’ve seen work somewhere?

Yes, Portland is a good model. There’s a high-speed corridor and you can get transit to that corridor.

    Certainly, the faster and more reliable you can make this service, the better it’s going to work. If money weren’t an issue, I would say we’d have some sort of light rail system that would go from one end of the Downtown Mall along West Main Street and then go up through 29 maybe as far as the airport. Neighborhood buses would provide door-to-door service to the nearest rail stop. While you’re waiting for that ultimate configuration to take place, I see a series of increments that would ultimately get us to an efficiently functioning system. To start, I think it would be helpful to identify a corridor, and a number of a people are working on that. From the studies that I’ve seen, it makes sense that the corridor would look something like an L. It would start at the east end of the Downtown Mall, go down to the Corner and then head out 29, roughly the same route that the No. 7 bus takes.

    The second step would be to reconfigure our current bus system so that we have a backbone bus route, like the trolley, running in the corridor at 10-minute intervals with neighborhood feeder routes taking people to and from the backbone. I think we can provide much better service with our existing busses by going to a backbone/feeder model. Next, we give those buses that ride the backbone some priority in how they move through traffic. Right now a bus could hold a yellow light. I’d like the bus to be able to turn a red light green the same way that the emergency service vehicles can. Or we could synch the lights to the buses. That way, people would see the buses and they know that if you’re on the bus, you get to move and move fast. It’s all about giving transit the competitive advantage.

Would these buses be using the transfer station proposed for the east end of the Mall?

I see the east end transfer station as one of a series of stations. I see a fundamentally different approach to that eastern end. Rather than bringing all the buses there and doing all the transfers there, that would just be the eastern-most stop on the backbone. And there would be, maybe, four to six stations like that along the backbone, with neighborhood feeders going out to the adjacent neighborhoods.

You can coordinate these bus lines up to a point, but that urban ring you described is inhabited by a lot of people who come in and out of Charlottesville. How do you work that out with a County that you’ve characterized, in part, as being difficult to work with?

We do have a lot of similar values, although I’m concerned that many County people who look at an efficient transit system would say, “Well, that’s a really good idea as long as I don’t have to pay for it.” And that’s a fundamental problem I think the County has to grapple with. Suburban development has all of these external costs that aren’t properly accounted for in the tax rate so they show up in other ways, usually in a degradation of quality of life. The County hasn’t come to grips with the fact that it’s not a rural county anymore, although what it has is essentially is a rural tax rate. Seventy-six cents works fine if you’re a rural area, if you’re agricultural. There is this aesthetic that the County has that it wants to believe it’s a rural community, but the reality is that it’s in many ways as urban as Charlottesville is. The County is just a lot stingier about paying for services that improve the urban quality of life.

You sound pretty pessimistic about this.

Not in the long term. I doubt that the County is going to have that sort of shift in its self-perception any time soon, but I think it will happen over time as the County continues to urbanize and cosmopolitan voters assert their priorities. Sooner or later, I think they’ll realize that, compared to all the intangible quality-of-life costs of suburbanization, the real cost of running a decent transit system doesn’t look too bad. I have been encouraged by recent talk about the idea of creating a transportation district that would have auxiliary taxes that would be used to run transit. I would personally like to see us tack a few cents on to the gas tax, especially since Virginia has one of the lowest gas taxes in the Country. I think that fits better with the County model of fee-for-service. Put the tax on the automobile user rather than the property owner. It might sell, I don’t know. I’ll throw it out there and see how many cranky calls I get.

Where does UVA fit into this plan?

UVA is interesting because it causes a lot of transportation problems, but, at the same time, it shows us a solution. All the UVA kids have cars and they’re parking all over the place and they drive them all over the place—except when they go to one place, right? And that’s UVA itself.

You mean that to go to class they take the bus?

Right. The car just doesn’t work on the UVA grounds, and they’ve set it up that way on purpose. They have a bus system that works, and they’ve really discouraged students from parking their cars on Grounds. Even for their employees, UVA parks them all out at U-Hall and brings them in. When you’re on the Grounds, it’s really an attractive place to be because there are no cars.

    In some sense, it recreates the same feeling of having the Downtown Mall. The reason people love the Downtown Mall is because there are no cars on it. It’s just this very pedestrian thing. You know, cars have these hard edges all around.

    Look at how UVA students use the trolley. After hours, catch it around Second Street. It comes and drops 30 kids on Second Street. It works for them. So then the question is how do we grow on that? If it went to Barracks Road, would they also use it? Would City residents use it?

So, is there optimism about the diversity that can result from bringing different people into the City by different means underlying your ideas?

Yes, that’s probably true. Someone who wants to represent Charlottesville, which I do, has to appreciate that diversity. That’s one of the great things that I like about Charlottesville: It is a diverse place. One of the things that made me very optimistic is when we started our comprehensive process two years ago; we had a real big neighborhood focus and a real big emphasis on getting the community to turn out, which they did. One of the things about that that I was almost a little bit surprised by, but certainly very gratified to see, is that almost unanimously the people who turned out wanted to see more alternative transportation. They wanted to see public transit, they wanted to see transit that worked for them, they wanted to be able to interact with the rest of the community.

    I think there is something about Charlottesville that brings those sorts of people here. I consider myself to be an extrovert and, as you say, I have some optimism, a multi-cultural optimism. But I don’t think that is something unique to me as an individual. I think there is something about Charlottesville that projects that feeling. That is what drew me here in the first place, and I see a lot of other people like that expressing the same values.

    There is this large untapped willingness and desire to be more of a community and to have more interaction. That is what makes me optimistic about the idea that something like transit could work or that expanding the Mall in either direction could work. I don’t really consider myself a visionary person.

    I’m an engineer. What I think I’m good at is seeing what other people want to do and figuring out ways to implement that.

Ah, fair November. After months of pent-up frustration with the local government, an informed citizen who has done weeks of research and attended myriad local meetings, and who truly understands each important issue can go out to the polls and cast a ballot that has the equal value of an ignorant yahoo who only cares about making Smokey and the Bandit commercial-free on NBC29. Oh well. Here are some meetings to look out for in November.

Albemarle Board of Supervisors. County Office Building. November 1, 6pm.
Charlottesville School Board. Charlottesville High School. November 2 & 16, 7pm.
Charlottesville City Council. City Hall. November 6 & 20, 7pm.
Albemarle Board of Supervisors. County Office Building. November 8, 6pm.
Charlottesville City Planning Commission. 610 E. Market St. November 9, 5pm.
Albemarle School Board. County Office Building. November 9, 6:30pm.
Charlottesville City Planning Commission. City Hall. November 14, 6:30pm.
Board of Zoning Appeals. City Hall. November 16, 4pm.