A quick bit of meta-news. cvillenews.com is no longer going to link to any of Charlottesville’s webpages, because it’s proved to not work. The addresses of their pages continually change, becoming increasingly bizarre each time. So a link to the Charlottesville Transit Service would have been (logically) http://www.charlottesville.org/transit/ a few months ago, the confusing http://www.charlottesville.org/displays/viewer8.asp?listid=4125&nav=&navM=21 as of a week or two ago, and today it’s (I swear I’m not making this up) http://www.charlottesville.org/default.asp?pageid=69BA9DD5-8CF7-4591-90EC-919ACDA784D1. This shifting landscape of URLs makes our links worthless almost as soon as we put them in a story, and updating them retroactively has proved not only exhausting, but also to be a merely temporary solution, because they simply change again. Consequently, no more links to the city’s sites. Please accept my apologies for the inevitable inconvenience.
Archive for February, 2002
As of today, Charlottesville Transit Service has some new buses on the roads. WINA describes them as “euro-style,” given their small size, bike racks and wheelchair accessibility. They also use clean-burning diesel, like some other city buses. Best of all, 95% of their cost is paid for by state and federal money.
School officials have decided not to allow the Albemarle School Board to consider the adoption of a sex ed film, entitled “Rubber Glove of Love,” for the curriculum. The film became available for viewing last week, as is required before being voted on by the board, and ended up prompting objections from parents. The 18-minute film portrays teenaged couple Jill and Bill discussing sex, and shows several potential scenarios, including one in which they decide to merely kiss, and another in which they go to the drug store and buy condoms and whipped cream. Asks concerned resident Bonnie Bossi, “Why not save yourself for marriage?” Kate Andrews has the story in today’s Progress.
The newly-created Albemarle County Police Oversight Committee has gotten applications for membership from nineteen county residents. Applicants include the president of Shoppers World, a former associate dean of students from UVa, the owner of Putt Putt, former sheriff Terry Hawkins and civil rights activist Rev. Dr. Henry Silva. The three-person panel will have input on police policies, and review non-confidental data. Peter Savodnik has the story in today’s Progress.
City Council candidate Bern Ewert has proposed a new design for the Meadowcreek Parkway that he believes is superior to the current plan. It calls for the road to follow the railroad tracks, sending the road between CHS and their athletic fields, and under a proposed bridge for Melbourne Road. Ewert says that his plan “clearly is much better for the environment and clearly is more efficient,” but BOS Chairman Sally Thomas argues that his design an expressway, not a parkway, and says of the current plan that “this wasn’t just a couple of people sitting down and doodling on a map. It’s been a very carefully thought-out design by some of the nation’s best designers of parkways.” The story, and a map of Ewert’s proposal, is in today’s Progress.
Full disclosure: this reporter is a candidate for Charlottesville City Council.
UVa, under pressure from the UVa chapter of United Students Against Sweatshops, has adopted a policy that requires licensed manufactuers of UVa goods to agree to a code of ethical conduct. That code requires public disclosure of factory locations, permitting members to form unions, no forced labor, protections for women’s rights, and a number of other things. Eric Swensen has the story in today’s Progress.
Six African-American high school-aged teenagers have been arrested and charged with a series of unprovoked assults of UVa students in the previous weeks. The two females and four males have apparently confessed, saying that they chose their victims because they were white. WINA has a brief story, but the full coverage can be found in Adrienne Schwisow’s story in Sunday’s Progress.
Big_Al writes: Interesting article about the Jefferson School debate in today’s Washington Post. It seems to spell out most of the issues better than what I’ve seen in the local media.
Full disclosure: this reporter is a candidate for Charlottesville City Council. I’m told that this coverage is courtesy of City Council candidate Alexandria Searls, who convinced the Post to come down here and do the story.
The McIntire Skateboard Park will continue to be free to its users. The park, which was created after the city banned skating on the Downtown Mall in the mid-90s, is expensive to operate, and it had been speculated that user fees might be necessary. Now that won’t be necessary, thanks in part to a $20,000 donation from Dave Matthews Band, Charlottesville’s newest philanthropists. The remainder of the necessary funding will be covered by the city and Albemarle County. WVIR had the news on this evening’s broadcast.
Council decided 5-0 on Monday evening to continue funding for Art in Place for a second year. The public art program has placed seven sculptures around Charlottesville in locations where they would receive the most exposure from passers-by, in an effort to make art accessible to the general public. Two of those sculptures didn’t last more than a few months prior to being removed due to vandalism. The city will be spending $10,000 to support the program for FY2002, expanding the number of installments to ten. WVIR had the story on this evening’s broadcast.
City Manager Gary O’Connell reported at last night’s City Council meeting that things are looking bad for the upcoming ~$80M budget. Due to state shortfalls, city schools will be losing $750,000, police $60,000, and social services programs $913,000. Library funding could be down by as much as 25% and funding for the state’s six-year transportation plan by 50%. Jake Mooney has the story in today’s Progress.
Due to increased property tax values in Albemarle County, the school system is receiving about $886,000 more than they had expected. The school board is proposing that this money be used to increase the size of the planned pay increase from 2% to 3% - 3.3%. The total increased income from taxes is $1.3M, but the county is getting $440,000 less from the state, so the balance comes to that $886,000 excess. Kate Andrews has the story in today’s Progress.
David Duke’s European-American Unity and Rights Organization is demanding that the six black high schoolers accused of attacking white UVa students be charged with committing hate crimes. Says a EURO rep, “there is a lack of fairness in enforcing the hate-crimes laws and if they are not going to apply it fairly, it shouldn’t be a law.” Adrienne Schwisow has the story in today’s Progress.
Just three weeks after he left C-Ville Weekly, Hawes Spencer’s new publication has hit the stands. The 43-page premiere issue is available at newsstands throughout Charlottesville. Most articles are available on their website, permanently archived, which means that we can link to them from cvillenews.com.
Full Disclosure: The Hook’s website was developed by Munk & Phyber, Inc., a company owned in part by Waldo Jaquith, who also runs cvillenews.com and is currently writing about himself in the third person.
Fifty University of Virginia employees have formed a union. The newly-formed Staff Union at the University of Virginia has allied itself with the Communications Workers of America. The SUUVa was created mostly by Labor Action Group members that wanted to pursue issues that pertained only to UVa staff. Eric Swensen has the story in today’s Progress.
Anonymous writes: This story in the progress shows hows the goverment tries to limit speech and how they are wrong, again.
US District Judge Michael has ruled that the county’s gag order against Officer Karl Mansoor was violated his rights to free expression. The agreement prevented Mansoor from criticizing the county as a condition of his employment. Adrienne Schwisow has the story in today’s Progress.
Every week, Mitch Van Yahres sends an update of what he’s been up to at the General Assembly. This week, his bill HB378, which allows cities to hold City Council elections in odd-numbered years, has passed the Senate, having already been approved by the House. Van Yahres also says that he’s going to start voting against all special interest license plates until “the Assembly can get a handle on the program.” Keep reading for his full update. I’d also be interested in getting comments from y’all as to whether we should continue to post his weekly updates on cvillenews.com.
Report from the General Assembly
Delegate Mitch Van Yahres
Friday, February 8, 2002
Every week during session I will send out an e-mail update of activity at
the General Assembly. I hope that this helps you understand some of what
is happening here. If you have any questions or issues that you would like
to see raised in this communication, e-mail me at
del_vanyahres@house.state.va.us. Also, please forward this message to any
other interested parties.
* Well, today I had my first bill pass both the House and Senate.
HB378, which will allow cities to hold city council elections in the fall
of odd numbered years, sailed through the Senate this week. Benefits would
include having city elections concurrent with state elections rather than
national elections and a cost savings to the locality. The law goes into
effect in July 2002.
* HB154 is my favorite bill this year. I introduced this bill after a
local physician contacted me about the amount of medication that nursing
homes were forced to destroy when a patient’s status changed. He wondered
if there wasn’t a way to donate these unused drugs to free clinics. I
agreed and had legislation drafted. It didn’t take long before I was
getting wind of opposition. So I postponed the first committee hearing on
the bill in order to work out the kinks. Before I could get to work on it,
several individuals who opposed the bill, but liked the idea, came to see
me. They had already met together and developed language that they could
all agree on. By the time this bill got to committee the following
organizations were working together: The Board of Pharmacy, Department of
Health, Department of Health Professions, Department of Medical Assistance
Services, the Virginia Pharmacy Association, Virginia Health Care
Association, Virginia Association of Non-profit Homes for the Aging, and
the Virginia Free Clinic Association. These groups are often at odds, but
this time they came together and found a way to collaborate. This bill
will not change the world, but it will help out a small part of it. In
this year’s difficult political environment, this is a great example of
government that works. HB154 passed the House today by a vote of 97-2.
* Every year more and more special license plate bills are introduced.
This year, new plates you can choose from include a plate with a picture of
a Holstein cow, one celebrating the Parrothead Club, another commemorating
the 250th anniversary of the Town of Smithfield, one bearing the legend
“Fox Hunting,” and many many others. Three of my colleagues in the House
and I have decided that the proliferation of special license plates has
gone too far and have decided to vote against all of them until the
Assembly can get a handle on the program. To date, it’s only the four of
us, but maybe someday?.
* This week the Republican-led House of Delegates today refused to
consider amendments offered by Dels. Jim Shuler (D-Blacksburg) and Karen
Darner (D-Arlington) to ensure that Virginia’s public schools are first in
line for additional revenues when the state’s economy turns around and to
add school construction and renovation to bond bills now making their way
through the General Assembly. Shuler’s amendment to HB 1284 would provide
the same amount of bond funding for public school (K-12) construction,
renovation, and upgrading — $900 million over six years ? as for new
buildings on college and university campuses. Darner’s amendment to HB
1285 would earmark future surplus revenues for a new “Education First”
fund. The current bill designates those funds only for college and park
projects listed in the Republican bond package.
* If you want to know more about these or other bills before the General
Assembly this year, try the on-line Legislative Information System. The
URL is leg1.state.va.us (www is not necessary). This site will provide you
a summary of the bill, the full text of the bill, its current status,
member’s votes in committee and on the floor, and other interesting
information. I encourage you to take advantage of this great resource.
Charlottesville school employees will receive a 2% pay raise, Kate Andrews reports in today’s Daily Progress. Due to the shortage of state funding, it had been anticipated that the planned pay raise would be cut to 1%. But the city schools will only be getting $17,286 less from the state while simultaneously receiving $1.5M more from the city.
Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy Longo has begun to backpedal on statements that the string of attacks by black teenagers on white UVa students were racially motivated, despite confessions from the arrested suspects. The topic became hot after David Duke’s white supremacy organization got involved on Thursday, demanding that the suspects be charged under § 18.2-57 B., which is Virginia’s hate crime statute. Reed Williams has a story on the matter in today’s Progress.
Police are searching for a suspect in a carjacking and a robbery that took place this afternoon. Around 1:30, a black male at MailBoxes Etc. on 29 North threatened a women with a knife before making off with her car. He’s described as 6′ tall, 200-250lbs and having a light moustache and beard. The car is a pewter-colored 2000 Cherolet Blazer with the plate “RIPPLFX.” The story is from WINA.
UVa is already selling off portions of their 7,000 acres that John Kluge donated back in May. The land is along Route 20 south, between Scottsville and Carter’s Bridge. It’s speculated that most of the land will go to private owners looking for an estate, and not to developers. Eric Swensen has the story in today’s Progress.
In order to facilitate the operations of their new 911 center, Madison County is naming all of their roads. They’re about 60% of the way done, and are seeking public input on the remaining 40%. When Albemarle did this, we ended up with road names like “Pinch ‘Em Slyly.” WINA has the story.
City Councilor Meredith Richards has issued a statement criticizing the city’s handling of the Jefferson School, specifically the closed meetings that have been held. It is standard for the city to have closed-door meetings regarding the sale of property, but Richards believes that the result of this is that “some in the community do not believe that we are acting in good faith.” Though Councilor Kevin Lynch agrees with Richards regarding the public image, Councilor David Toscano says of Richards’ statement that he’s “fairly disappointed,” and Councilor Blake Caravati calls it “really unbelievable.” Jake Mooney has the story in today’s Progress.
Piedmont Virginia Community College is adapting to the proposed state budget cuts, and doesn’t intend to have to lay off anybody in the process. They’re planning to adapt to the $378k in reduced funding by not moving forward with hiring plans, cut some summer classes, cut all department operating budgets by 5% and slow expansion of their popular Internet-based classes. Eric Swensen has the story in today’s Progress.
The Virginia Film Fest has announced the theme for this October’s event: “wet.” Richard Herskowitz, who runs the annual four-day event, explains that this means we’ll be seeing movies that include rivers, rain, showers, and even beverages. For the first time in a couple of years, Rogert Ebert is coming out to conduct his popular shot-by-shot dissection of a yet-to-be-announced film. WINA has the story.
writes: Ten people now arrested (that’s four more than reported locally), and some other, added details not reported locally. Here’s the link: http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20020214-5611591.htm. Have the local media dropped this story?
writes: I am looking for any information on where the waving man on 29 has gone? It has been months since I have seen him in the median waving at the passing cars.
I don’t actually know anything about a waving man, but this just seemed too cool and weird to pass up.
The worst-kept secret in town has been announced: Live Arts, Second Street Gallery and Lighthouse have teamed up to build the City Center for Contemporary Arts, a new structure on Second and Water to house all three organizations. The four-story, 27,000 square foot building is mostly used by Live Arts, with gallery space and classroom space for the other two organizations on the bottom floor. You’ll have to read Jane Dunlap Norris’ article in today’s Progress to get all of the detils on this impressive new building.
As Eric Pritchett is so fond of reminding us, we’re way short on rainfall, as we have been for months. Now officials are predicting that we may have to start restricting water usage if we want to make it through this coming summer. The article is in today’s Progress.
The Albemarle County School Board has submitted their annual budget to the Board of Supervisors, requesting $99.9M in funding. As a part of that discussion, the board agreed that no employee of the school system should make less than $8/hour, as 53 employees currently do. School staff will look into raising the pay of all of those individuals to come in line with the City of Charlottesville and UVa’s living wage standards. Kate Andrews has the story in today’s Progress.
In this week’s Hook (admittedly, the issue came out last Thursday), they report the results of the annual Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which is conducted among Albemarle middle and high school students. The most shocking figure in the survey is that 237 students reported carrying a weapon to school in 2000, which is 100 more than in 1999. The good news is that, reportedly, a lot of kids may be lying. Lisa Provence has the story.
City Council is considerating updating the Downtown Mall cafe regulations. The Mall is, during peak cafe season, packed with over two dozen cafes. Council may decide to double the rates to get a cafe permit, and may also cut off restaurants’ access to the Mall’s antiquated electrical system. They’ll discuss this at their meeting on March 4th. The story is from WINA.
UVa’s Declaration features a piece in this week’s issue about the C-Ville / Hook split that is really quite critical of each publication. Author Wesley Hottot points out that “[f]euding periodicals of any circulation below 200,000 are entertaining for approximately forty people,” declares The Hook’s status as “the product of Charlottesville’s top creative minds” to be “bullshit,” and that he doesn’t “see anything different, nothing consolidated, revamped, [or] improved.” You can read “Hooked” on the Dec’s website.
The Fluvanna Supervisors have passed a new law that makes anybody that kills a cow responsible for the inevitable clean-up. The law was prompted after a train hit a cow near Bremo Bluff — CSX paid for the cow, but didn’t bother to haul it off. WINA has the story.
Tomorrow, at 10am at Charlottesville High School’s Performing Arts Center, is the Democratic nominating convention for City Council. There are six candidates seeking two seats: Mayor Blake Caravati, Bern Ewert, Joan Fenton, Waldo Jaquith (me), Alexandria Searls and David Simmons. If you plan to attend, you should be there by 9:30. Child care will be provided on-site. As always, the most in-depth information on the race and the candidates can be found on George Loper’s site. Jake Mooney has the story in today’s Daily Progress. Jake Mooney and the Progress, by the way, wins this year’s “Best Council Coverage” award, which I just now invented.
Full disclosure: This reporter is a candidate for Charlottesville City Council. You know, in case you thought that was some other Waldo.
Mayor Blake Caravati and newcomer Alexandria Searls were the winners of today’s Democratic nominating caucus for City Council. Voting went for remarkable four rounds, and it was not until the third that the first winner, Blake Caravati, emerged. The entire event lasted nearly five hours. No doubt all of the relevant information will be on George Loper’s website soon, including the exact tallies for each round of voting. The City Council election will be held on May 8th.
The UVa Honor Committee has looked into 139 of the 158 cases resulting from Professor Louis Bloomfield’s plagiarism accusations last May. 25 of the accused left UVa after admitting their guilt, 13 were convicted at trial and expelled, two were found not guilty, and 80 of the investigated cases were dropped.The remaining few cases should be finished by April 1st. Eric Swensen has the story in today’s Progress.
Dave Matthews is now one of the county’s biggest landowners — he’s spent $5.3M to buy 1,261 acres of the 7,379 acres that local billionaire John Kluge donated to the University last May. UVa is selling off much of the land to fund the eventual development of the core of the property, and there were concerns that the land could be purchased by a developer. Matthews has announced that he intends to preserve farming and forest lands on his five new farms, and will place an open-space easement on the farms. Eric Swensen has the story in today’s Progress.
The Rev. Alvin Edwards’ Mt. Zion Baptist Church on Ridge Street is being sold to developer Gabe Silverman. The church plans to build on a 30x larger site on South First Street, and will break ground in April. Silverman isn’t sure of what he’ll do with the 8,000 sq. ft. church. The sale of the building is estimated to be completed in by mid-2003. Jake Mooney has the story in today’s Progress.
Big_Al writes: The Charlottesville Downtown Foundation released this year’s April 18-21 Dogwood Blues Festival lineup, which includes The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Luther “Guitar Junior” Johnson, The Radiators, and The Holmes Brothers. Local acts scheduled to appear this year include Code Blues (Charlie Pastorfield & friends), Tom Robbins & the Chicken Head Band, Jump Street, and the one and only Danny Beirne. A portion of the Festival’s proceeds benefits Greater Charlottesville Habitat for Humanity. Visit the Dogwood Blues Festival web site for more information.
Local activist Kevin Cox is starting a petition drive to change switch Charlottesville’s school board from appointed to elected. Cox believes that an elected school board would be more responsive than the elected board. He’s working from now until early August to get 1,800 signatures to create a referendum on the fall ballot. WINA has the story.
writes: From WINA: ‘An Albemarle County police sting operation to catch a car thief has netted an 11 year old girl from the Village Square subdivision. Earlier this week two cars were stolen in the area when residents left them running to warm them up in the morning.’ According to a Richmond report the girl weighs 180 pounds! Guess she not a little girl anymore.
Apparently, after the first two cars went missing, the police set up a sting in a running car and caught the kid. She’ll be charged with attempted grand larceny.
writes: I been watching this video on public access with Maurice Jones, Police Chief Longo, and select Charlottesville High school students. This tape is the “feel good” good hit of the year. The statements from the students follow the line of “I want people to know that CHS students aren’t like this (refering to the attack)” when the police actually arrested 10 CHS students. Chief Longo goes on to report that it’s the PRESS’S problem that this is getting blown out of wack. And that no outside group will intimidate him. Is it a valuable community service or self serving navel gazing?
This has been airing pretty regularly on public access — the assembly of a dozen of so CHS students’ exchange with Chief Longo is quite interesting. You can draw your own conclusion separate from the submitters’, though. :)
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