wrytous writes: According to a prominent local architect, Piedmont Housing Alliance, in conjunction with the City of Charlottesville, has plans to develop the Grove St./9th St. SW/10th St. lot — across from the new Connected Community Technology Center — into a mixed-use retail/residential development. While work has not yet begun, the City appears to be soliciting design proposals. No official word yet from Piedmont’s Executive Director Stu Armstrong or the Fifeville Neighborhood Association President
Joyce S. Henderson.
Is this a good thing? I’m curious what Ms. Henderson will have to say about it.
A Cesna 150 crashed into the deck of a house at Wintergreen. Amazingly, nobody was killed. The husband and wife in the plane were only mildly injured. The Progress said that the folks that owned the house weren’t home at the time. Won’t they be surprised?
The City is holding a public hearing tonight about the expansion of pooper-scooper laws. The problem that they’re butting up against is that of enforcement: how do you ID the evidence? Ah, the glamor of being a Charlottesville City Councilor.
According to the AP, some residents think that the April Dave Matthews Band concerts at Scott Stadium will be a little too loud. I’m not aware of a concert ever having been performed at Scott Stadium, but I’m guessing that folks in the neighborhood would be used to football games being pretty loud. What is terribly obnoxious, though, are those terrible new lights they put on during the stadium’s expansion. They can be seen all the way from Stony Point; I’d think that the astronomy department would hate them.
The Progress is reporting that some county residents wore gags to last night’s City Council meeting, in protest of the highly-unusual gag order that prevents them from criticizing the proposed Ivy Landfill expansion. You can read the article on George Loper’s site, and don’t miss George’s insightful comments at the bottom.
Today, the Progress is reporting that Dave Matthews Band manager Coran Capshaw is in the process of purchasing the former ConAgra plant out in Crozet. That plant closed six months ago, leaving six hundred people without employment. Though there’s no shortage of white-collar jobs in Central Virginia, people who had worked at the plant for years had little choice of employment, based on their training. Thankfully, Coran is hoping to rent the space to another frozen food manufacturer. Coran has also purchased land behind Pantops, seven acres in Fifeville, and the old Bon Ton Café on the Mall.
cyberville writes: C-ville Weekly has a great story on the Death of Pavement and UVA alum Stephen Malkmus’ latest musical offering. Who else has a great local ancedote about these guys? They have truly been the darlings of inde rock for the past decade. I’ve run into Malkmus a few times when he played with Silkworm in Portland and Seattle (as the Crust Bros.) and he always speaks fondly of his days spent here…especially at WTJU.
Yesterday, Virginia Republicans revealed their redistricting plan, which carves Albemarle County into no less than four House of Delegates districts. Southern Albemarle County ends up, bizarrely, in the district of Delegate Watkins Abbitt, from Appomattox. (I couldn’t pick out Appomattox on a map.) Crozet, equally strangely, is in the district of Steve Landes, from Weyers Cave. The Progress quotes the never-shy Mitch Van Yahres as saying of the plan, “It is idiotic. It is just ridiculous.” Emily Couric asks, “Does that mean Steve Landes is going to come to Albemarle Board of Supervisors meetings and become active in Albemarle County?” I’m guessing that he’s not.
cyberville writes: A pretty cool, and at times hysterical, portrait of the surrounding cville community is featured in today’s cav daily. Encompassing Charlottesville is hyped up and made out to sound like these four teams of UVA reporters set off in four different directons and in the face of adversity managed to bring back the “killer” story. But all I see that ties these stories together is the craving for off-highway food. Though, I will admit, I did enjoy the colorful portraits of the people it depicted. But what was so hard about reporting these stories? It looks like these four teams chose the easiest, smarmiest, and fastest way out they could find.
It’s good to see UVA folks leaving grounds, especially with cameras.
About a week ago, as you might recall, Charlottesville’s SWAT team had a seven-hour stand off with some poodles on Nassau Street. (They thought there was a fugitive inside the house.) They ended up storming the house, complete with tear gas, kicking-down-of-doors…the whole nine yards. Well, the house is a shambles now, and the city is putting up the owners in a hotel. In the meantime, the city hasn’t cleaned the house, and ServiceMaster is having trouble cleaning it, because of the danger of gas residue. The Progress has the story, but, of course, they delete their news after 24 hours. So, what gives? Why are we treating city residents like this?
munk writes: So, it seems the Live Arts Gala has been set for June 21. $250 per person may be a pretty penny for the years biggest party, but it’s (probably) worth it.
I hope so. The last Nine Lives of the Arts cost just as much, and that was miserable.
County police led dog-sniffing dogs through WAHS and Henley on Wednesday, searching for drugs and weapons, WINA reports. (Gun-sniffing dogs?) They found nothing. Isn’t it creepy that kids lose all rights to privacy when they enter their schools?
The Virginia Senate has voted down a proposal by Governor Gilmore that would have increased teacher salaries by 3.5%. Why would this be struck down? Well, Gilmore tacked it into a totally unrelated bill. So unrelated, in fact, that Lt. Gov. John Hager ruled that it’s constitutionally illegal to do so. (That bill, by the way, was Sen. Emily Couric’s, and would have permitted some retired teachers to be rehired without disrupting retirement benefits.) What’s going on here? I’ve got my own theory, but discuss amongst yourselves.
Governor Gilmore, I’m guessing, wants to make good on his promises to increase teacher salaries. The problem is that it’s a promise that he knows he can’t keep, fiscally. (No doubt related to the budget arguments over the past five weeks.) So what does he do? He attaches the proposal to a bill that’s unrelated, knowing full well that his Lt. Governor will declare it unconstitutional, and strike the whole bill down. Then, when we’ve forgotten exactly what happened, he gets to say that he tried to get teacher salaries increased, but the bill was struck down in the Senate.
In order to get this bill taken up again, it will take a vote that requires a 2/3 majority. I’m guessing we won’t hear anything more about it.
UVa’s Board of Visitors has approved a tuition hike of $76, $50 of which is to support their sports program. Tuition will continue to go up by $50 per year until the sports program breaks even. UVa reports that, by 2010, the athletics department will be $47M in the hole. This, despite that UVa’s Capital Campaign, which ended just last month, raised an incredible $159M. Previously, millions were raised for the sports program, notably Carl Smith’s $25M donation. 21.4% of student activities fees goes to athletics. Is it possible that UVa is only planning to spend a small amount of their endowment fund on sports? [Note: This story has been updated. Read on to see the changes.]
The murder case against Charlottesville’s Michael Spicer is proceeding down in Tortola, becoming more incredible by the month. In the latest news, there’s been testimony regarding loss of evidence, lying under oath and tampering with the murder scene. The defense’s testimony begins on the 17th, which is probably when things will get really interesting. Spicer has been charged with the murder of Lois McMillen, a New York artist and model. Michael Spicer has long been well-known and liked in Charlottesville social circles. CourtTV has ongoing coverage of the story, if that tells you anything about the sensationalism factor.
Channel 29 reported this evening that the city is moving ahead with traffic calming plans, attempting to slow vehicles in 12-14 locations around town. We’ve already spent $120,000 on slowing down cars on Park Street, a project that has been met with much grumbling. There have been a number of comments on George Loper’s site [1, 2, 3, 4]. For some background on this, you can read the Progress’ February article. No timeline for the $570,000 project has been mentioned in the press.
Today’s rumors turned out to be true: the second Dave Matthews Band show has been cancelled, according to Ticketmaster. The Saturday show is still on, but the Sunday show is no more. It still hadn’t sold out, as of today, so that’s probably why it was called off. I guess there just aren’t enough people in Charlottesville to support two 50,000+ person shows. Too bad.
United Land Corp. owner Wendell Wood has filed suit against Albemarle County’s Board of Supervisors after they rejected Home Depot’s bid to build a 130,000 square-foot store on his land. The Board’s rejection of the planned construction was popular among anti-sprawl groups in the area. (Though it was rejected for environmental concerns.) Last June, Wood made #65 on Virginia Business’ “The Virginia 100″ list of the state’s wealthiest and most powerful people. Wednesday’s Daily Progress is the source of this story.
gabe writes: I’ve gotten three calls today from people complaining about the design of Barbara Shifflett’s new restaurant, Estatione on West Main Street. Is it really the place of city officials to question the aesthetics of an entrepreneur bringing new life and vitality to an area neglected by those same people.
The GOP redistricting that we mentioned last week is finished, according to the Daily Progress. Senator Emily Couric (D) no longer represents Crozet and Free Union; those precincts now belong to Emmett Hanger Jr. (R) of Mt. Solon. (Where?) Keswick and Free Bridge are represented by Edward Houck (D) of Spotsylvania. Couric said, simply, “I think it would be better for the people of Albemarle County to have one senator.” Says Rep. Hanger of his new district, “It looks nice on the map.”
jack writes: We’ve all been hearing whisperings for years about John Grisham running for public office in Virginia. But what would his chances really be? I’d love to hear what cvillenews readers think about his propects for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.
As an experienced attorney, he can easily make a case for qualifications and background. Obviously he’s got the name recognition issue taken care of. I don’t know that I personally am comfortable with entertainment to politics crossovers, but that has little to do with whether or not it could happen. Your thoughts?
The City of Charlottesville has launched their new website at charlottesville.org. The new site directs users to resident, business and visitor sections, and certainly looks a lot nicer. With the old, less-useful website, it was sometimes a little hard to take the city seriously when they talked about “building bridges to the 21st century” and “e-communities” and such. Kudos to whoever put this together.
munk writes: Looking at the Charlottesville site, I found the official Downtown Parking Study Recommendations. That’s the one that says, to alleviate the problem of parking near the mall, we should: increase fines, decrease time per space, make the spaces smaller, and have better signage leading to the 125 day-only spaces on the other side of Garrett Square. Oh, yeah, they also suggest a computerized ticketing system so you can’t move from one two-hour space to another. Do they not realize that some of us live downtown or spend sixteen-hour work days on the mall?
Charlottesville’s Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Speech has given out their annual Muzzle Awards. These are given out to individuals and organizations that have gone above and beyond the call of duty in limiting freedom of speech and the press. The only localish “winner” (this is not really the sort of award that one would want) was a high school in Henrico that banned symbols of the confederacy. The stories behind all ten winners are interesting, and well worth reading.
The Albemarle School Board approved a motion Thursday night that expressed their disappointment with the recent actions of member Gary Grant. He reportedly e-mailed a newsletter to his constituents in which he listed the names of teachers whose contracts have not been renewed beyond June. Board Attorney Mark Trank said, under questioning from Grant, that there is no policy that states that this is behavior is not permitted. WINA has the story.
The Charlottesville Downtown Foundation has announced their schedule for this year’s Fridays After 5, and it looks as good as ever. The lineup includes Hogwaller Ramblers, Dixie Power Trio, Terri Allard, Skip Castro, Jamal Milner’s Phatness, and about twenty more groups over the course of the summer. The first show is April 27th, two weeks from today, and Mandorico will be performing. And remember: it’s free!
We dropped the ball and missed Tornado Preparedness Day. Possibly because this site didn’t exist on March 27th, but that’s beside the point. We’ve got a civic duty to fulfill here, don’t we? Also, I really wanted to use that little weather icon. Governor Gilmore declared March 27th to be Tornado Preparedness Day, and the Virginia Department of Emergency Services has even put up a website all about tornado preparedness. We average, as a state, about seven tornadoes per year, and our records of them go back to 1776. The coolest one, of course, being May 13th, 2000’s, that whipped through town from Farmington to Albemarle High School and down to Route 29. Channel 29 news didn’t even mention it on the news, and later denied that it was a tornado. Something about microbursts. Anyhow, go get prepared or something.
jack writes: Have you ever noticed the American flag waving over Lee Danielson’s Downtown Ice Park? Have you ever noticed the fact that it never comes in at night? I have and I’m a little pissed off.
If you’re going to put up an American flag over your business, then go to it and enjoy. But at least have the decency to bring it down at sunset and take it in from the rain. The Ice Park’s flag stays up all night long and flaps coldly through every rainstorm.
Let it be clear that if a flagburning amendment were ever to be passed, I would be the first in line to burn Old Glory on the steps of the Federal Courthouse in protest. But nevertheless, I despise an act of plastic (or half-hearted) patriotism. Maybe there’s a local troop of Cub Scouts that could give the Ice Park a lesson in the proper use of the American colors.
I see this a lot around town. Local government agencies seem to be pretty good about how they treat the flag, though.
The Progress reports today that the local Emergency Communications Center will be switching to a $13M digital communications system that will permit Charlottesville and Albemarle fire, EMS, and police radio networks to all be tied together. Currently, they can’t communicate with one another. The downside? Joe Citizen can’t listen in with scanners, which is something done by a lot of folks in the area. According to the Progress, the FCC requires that the frequencies be available to the public, a standard that seems contrary to these plans.
The Progress reports that City Council debated the impact of the proposed development of the Sperry Marine property at the 29/Hydraulic intersection. An out-of-state deveoper wants to put in a big theater, some stores, a hotel, and apparently some residences, too. Though development of the property fits into the plans to develop Charlottesville’s urban ring, county supervisors and city councilors dislike the “big-box” stores that would be constructed. Councilor Maurice Cox expressed concerned about traffic, as existing roads would likely be unable to handle the load. Councilor Kevin Lynch, never shy about such things, said that the planned development was “exactly wrong.”
jack writes: CNN is reporting that Wachovia is merging with First Union. As you may recall, Wachovia was still foundering a bit from indigestion encountered on swallowing up Charlottesville’s own Jefferson National Bank and other banks like it. The new company will be called Wachovia Corp.
Wachovia has a number of facilities in Charlottesville and is an employer not to be sniffed at. The merger is being billed as one of equals (9 board members from each company), but any time you have a union on this scale you have to expect a certain amount of scrutiny by each corporation into the operations of the other. Risky loans might be sold, management methods may change. Most significantly for Charlottesville, redundancy is eliminated. Will regional headquarters for what were once two seperate banks be consolidated into one? Which will dominate? Charlottesville could be looking at an increase in Wachovia’s presence, with a corrosponding increase in employment, tax base and commercial real estate values. Or, we may get the axe in favor of a First Union facility out of town. Time (and an ear to the ground) will tell. Yeah, what he said. Read on for more.
In the craziness of the DMB concert this Saturday, don’t forget about the Charlottesville Downtown Foundation’s 4th annual Dogwood Blues Festival. Friday features the Tom Principato Band at the amphitheatre (admission is free), Saturday, a chili cookoff, and Saturday evening includes, incredibly, both John Mayall and Corey Harris ($5.) You really don’t want to miss this.
Wednesday, “Venus” opens at Live Arts. Live Arts’ description: “The true story of The Venus Hottentot, an African woman brought to Britain in 1810 to be exhibited as a freak. Her enormous posterior makes her the target of lust, disgust, and fascination in this unsettling modern morality play.” Time Magazine had an interesting story about this play just last year. Wednesday is Pay-What-You-Can Night, Thursday is $11, and Friday and Saturday is $14.
See if you can follow this one. Remember the baby switch at UVa in 1998? Well, it just got weirder. Carlton Conley, the biological father of Rebecca Chittum, is marrying the aunt (Pam Chittum) of the other swapped child, Callie Conley. Which means that his (adoptive) daughter is also his niece…or, no, that his biological daughter is his… Hmm. Well, suffice to say, these two little girls will one day do very well on Geraldo. The AP has the story.
The Virginia Home Education Association is holding the first-ever statewide home schooling conference here in Charlottesville. It will be held all day Saturday at the Covenant Church on Rio Road. Since I went to an alterna-school here in C’ville, I learned first-hand that there’s a pretty big home schooling community in the area that should be interested in this. WINA has the story.
In Brent Garland’s latest column in the Cavalier Daily, he does a good job of critiquing the Cav Daily’s site (albeit in a brief fashion), pointing out what’s good and what needs to change. He’s spot-on about all of the things that are good, but he forgot something that needs to change: they should permit people to directly reply to articles, like you can reply to this very article. If only every local media outlet would critique their on-line presences. I suspect that WVIR’s “Local News” section would receive less-than-glowing reviews. Don’t get me started on the Progress.
Mayor Blake Caravati, in an interview in today’s Progress, said that he favors bringing drunks to the Mohr Center (the detox house on East Market) instead of arresting them. Said Caravati, “[P]utting them in jail when they’re dead drunk doesn?t do any good.” Sounds like a good policy to me.
State senators and businessfolk have filed a lawsuit against Governor Jim Gilmore to stop him from cutting back the car tax. Gilmore’s large tax cuts have required UVa to halt new building plans, and have forced PVCC to stop funding a number of services, even things as basic as grounds maintenance. The Virginian-Pilot Daily has the story.
The UVa Department of Drama’s performance of The Who’s “Tommy” (you know, the pinball wizard) opens Thursday night. It runs from the 19th-21st, and then from the 25th-28th. All performances start at 8pm.
The Foxfield Races are next Saturday out towards Free Union. Admission is $20, parking is $15. A tip for you UVa students: Don’t miss out on the horses. They’re the big furry animals running in circles.
This story was updated 04/19/01 at 1:49pm. It originally indicated that Foxfield was “this Saturday” instead of “next Saturday.”
What with the debate over the Sperry property, cvillenews.com regular Jackson Landers has written a timely piece on the topic. This is the very first article in our new satire section (note the icon), a category to which Jack is likely to be providing a good bit of material. Read on.
Dear Big Development Company,
I’ve really appreciated and enjoyed the time that we’ve spent together. You’ve made me feel special in a way that no out of town developer has since Lee Danielson blew into town.
I know that you’re looking for a real commitment. You’re not going to be happy until you know that you can move right into that old Sperry Marine property. To spread your wings and build a multiplex theater, a hotel and some day even have a cluster of big box stores that we can call our own. I want those things too, but I’m just not ready.
When Sperry Marine left town, it left a big hole in my life. My head may be downtown, but my heart will always be on route 29, right across from the Post Office and kind of near Chi-Chi’s and Marshalls. That traffic light has been green for no one for a long time now. But I’m just not ready to move into a new relationship.
I don’t know if it’s just fear of commitment, fear of getting hurt again. You know how it is. You go through all the months of zoning and bulldozing and permits. Then the next thing you know, that special someone runs off and ‘merges’ with some high-tech corporate bimbo and it’s over.
So I’m sorry, Big Development. I’m just not ready to commit to this. I’ve been hurt too many times. All I can tell you is to remember that there are other fish in the sea. Try Northern Virginia.
Sincerely,
Charlottesville City Council
Paula Johnson, mother of one of the babies in the famous 1995 UVa baby-switch, has reached a settlement with the state. The settlement is valued at $2.3M, $475,000 of which goes to Paula Johnson. The remainder will go to her (non-biological) daughter, who will receive a series of payments until she turns 30. This settlement comes just one day before the Virginia Supreme Court was to rule on her $31M lawsuit against UVa. According to WVIR, she’s continuing with her lawsuit against the manufacturers of the bracelets that the babies were wearing. Maria Sanminiatelli, formerly (?) of the Progress, has the story from the AP.
Two Cavalier Daily writers have documented how to make local celebrities feel uncomfortable in several easy steps. Following their simple directions, you, too, can make Dave Matthews Band feel uncomfortable in their own home town. I think I’m going to go hurl bananas at John Grisham.
DMB fans have invaded Charlottesville for today’s show. The Mall and the UVa Corner are overrun; DMB bumper stickers abound. I, part of the problem, led over 100 people on (free) tours of the Downtown Mall. Several folks from the press attended. This can only lead to much embarassment for me. Traffic is pretty bad, and Miller’s t-shirts abound. The show starts in a few hours and then things should go back to normal. Anybody have any amusing stories of encounters with DMB fans?
UVa has introduced their new logo, the Cav Daily reports. More than 55 UVa logos are currently in use, so the new one should permit every department to operate under a unified look. We’ll be sticking with the “V” on cvillenews.com, I think.
Elizabeth Managan has an interesting column in the Cav Daily about the source of high textbook costs, and efforts at UVa to lower them. Often these textbooks are $80 - $120. Sometimes a textbook is nothing more than a photocopied 100 pages or so, which will set you back $50. It’s funny how often that these expensive textbooks are written by professors at the very college where they’re required. Worst of all is the system by which the school sells you a used textbook for $60, buys it back from you for $15, and turns around and sells it again for $60. Anybody have any textbook horror stories?
Looks like the county’s ready to make a commitment: the Sperry project, now called “Albemarle Place,” will start in June of 2002. It will open in spring of 2003, and include a 16-screen theater, a hotel, a grocery store, a 125,000 sq. ft. store, and 300 “residential units.” Maybe they can open it quicker, since we’re low on theaters, hotels and grocery stores. The story is in today’s Progress.
cyberville writes: Sheesh…talk about lack of any conclusive evidence, the murder trial of local resident michael spicer and three friends seems to be heading toward a speedy resolution–despite the fact that, ‘The trial, now in its sixteenth day, is on its way toward becoming the longest criminal trial in the history of this eastern Caribbean island since the first English settlers arrived in 1666.’
28-year-old University graduate student Alison Meloy was found dead in her home on Commonwealth Drive yesterday, the Cav Daily reports. County police believe her death was a homicide. Meloy worked as a teaching assistant for Larry Sabato’s Introduction to American Politics class, and was a 1994 graduate of Swarthmore. [Update: Keep reading to see tjposey’s clarification. He suspects that local news organizations are dramatizing the story based on the few available facts.]
At 10:45 Saturday morning, the Dogwood Parade will begin its annual trip around the Mall. It will head east on Water Street, north on seventh, then west on Market down to the County Office Building. As always, WVIR will be broadcasting the whole spectacle. Also, the Dogwood Festival rides will be open at McIntire Park through Sunday evening. This is a classic C’ville event, so don’t miss it.
As planned, the father of one of the switched babies married the aunt of the other, making him father to one and uncle to the other. The AP reports that the wedding took place on Saturday in Buena Vista. If memory serves, WVIR reported last week that Paula Johnson, one of the mothers, believes that the marriage is a setup to get custody of both children. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any weirder…
Overtime parking fees triple tomorrow, WINA reports. City Council raised those fees at their February 5th meeting. (Councilors Richards and Toscano voting against doing so.) It’ll now cost you $15 for parking too long, or $30 if you don’t pay within a few days. Yup, there’s nothing like raising parking fines to get people to come downtown.
County police are looking for help in the recent murder of a UVa graduate student Alson Meloy. The cops want to know about any sightings of her light blue ‘96 Nissan Sentra, which was abandoned behind the Pizza Hut on Greenbriar Drive. License plate ZRV-8100. If you know anything, the county police would like to hear from you.
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