All is not well in Schuyler, the home of the real-life Walton family. Jim-Bob and John-Boy are feuding over drugs, money and sex, resulting in Jim Hamner being kicked off the board of directors of the Walton’s Museum. Lisa Provence has the story in the current Hook.
Archive for July, 2002
Tonight’s City Council meeting will be the first for newly-inducted Councilor Rob Schilling, and will also result in a new mayor. The mayor, who is elected by Council, serves two years. Our current mayor, Blake Caravati, will turn over the reins to whomever is appointed this evening. It is widely assumed that Councilor Maurice Cox, a six-year veteran of Council, will emerge as the new mayor. The meeting, as always, starts at 7:30pm, and will be broadcast on public access.
At long last, Media General has launched a new Daily Progress website. Their site, first launched in January of 1997, has been unaltered since its creation. It used to be that they would delete their stories every night around 1am, replacing them with the stories from the new day’s issue. This approach meant that linking to stories was impossible, as the links would expire within 24 hours. This is a phenomenon known as “linkrot,” and makes it difficult for sites to ever really be integrated with the rest of the web. (cvillenews.com, for example, has been unable to link to Progress stories.) The newly-redesigned site appears to permanently archive all site stories, in addition to containing more than the five stories that the old website was limited to. Congratulations to the Daily Progress for joining the ranks of The Cavalier Daily, The Hook and WINA in having a useful website.
writes: I went out to the Giant grocery store on Pantops and watched the fireworks from there. It was a great view — in fact, it seemed as though we could see fireworks over in Waynesboro or Staunton (you could see the mountain with the fireworks behind it). Looking at the paper and the list of fireworks, it also appeared that we could see the fireworks at Graves Mountain Lodge from there. There were some fireworks that might have been at Earlysville but I wasn’t sure and maybe some at Crozet (you could tell the difference between the Crozet area fireworks and those over the mountains). If anyone else has any suggestions on where I was seeing fireworks, I’d appreciate hearing about it. For a while I thought I was even seeing some faint ones from Harrisonburg. The crowd at the Giant was really nice and it was a fun way to see the fireworks.
I, too, enjoyed the view of Charlottesville, Crozet, and a few other mystery displays from just outside of town. Can anybody ID the various celebrations visible around town?
The City has dropped their plan to include the creation of public bathrooms in the renovation of the Downtown Recreation Center. The bathrooms would have provided much-needed relief to attendees of events at the Downtown Amphitheater — notably Fridays After 5 — that are currently restricted to portable toilets. The bathrooms are no longer included in the plan because the city estimates that they’ll cost $500,000 to install, well over the city’s budget limit for the overall project. Jake Mooney has the story in today’s Progress.
The Rivanna Trails Foundation is bumping heads with a landowner Shirley Presley. Presley doesn’t want people walking across her property, the edge of which has been used for the Rivanna trail, which forms a loop around the city. The non-profit Rivanna Trails Foundation may need to purchase a right of way, but they’re not sure that they can afford to set that precedent. Presley has erected a barrier to prevent people from crossing her land, so the RTF has set up a temporary detour. Courtney Stuart has the story in this week’s Hook.
Jack writes: Throughout Charlottesville and surrounding Albemarle County, few notable events have occurred in the last week. Analysts note that the infrequency of news is striking in comparison with the same period in previous years.
Throughout Charlottesville and surrounding Albemarle County, few notable events have occurred in the last week. Analysts note that the infrequency of news is striking in comparison with the same period in previous years.
Hawes Spencer, editor of a local weekly newspaper shared one view on the trend.
“Sometimes there’s a whole bunch of stuff going on and we can hardly keep up. But lately, stuff’s pretty quiet. There was that bear that somebody saw last week. A pretty small bear, but it was still a bear. And that was almost news, I guess. I wish Matthew Farrell would do something again. Just dance around with a sign or something. That would work.”
While journalists like Mr. Spencer are taking a generally negative view on the lack of news, local citizens have expressed less concern for the trend.
“There’s still the funnies every day, ain’t there?” remarked Luanne Shiflett, a 24 year old cashier at Food Lion. “Plus I read the classifieds. And the personals- not like I, you know, just to see if somebody else might have, ah…I gotta take over register six for Dwayne now.”
“I don’t read no papers no more,” said retiree Leroy Thomas from the porch of his home on Harris Street. “Get the hell off my lawn!” Things are kind of slow. Maybe it’s the heat. Maybe we’re all worn down after the council race, the CHS/UVa attacks, the C-Ville/Hook schism and the Ivy Road parking garage debates. I don’t know. Thankfully, here we just put up stories when there’s something to talk about; there’s no need to put out an issue every day or week, regardless of whether or not there’s anything to write about. Anyhow, keep reading for Jack’s take on the matter.
Former UVa Medical Center employee Rudolph Johnson, after pleading guilty last March to sexually assaulting two psychiatric patients in their hospital beds, has been sentenced to ten years in prison. After the assaults in the spring of last year, the hospital fired nine employees that had been convicted of felonies in the past, touching off protests against the firings before they ultimately settled with the fired workers. The assaults also prompted investigations into the psych. ward by Medicare, which were ultimately resolved. Adrienne Schwisow has the story in today’s Progress.
dsewell writes: Anyone trying to reach Cvillenews.com from a *.virginia.edu host today is greeted with the following message:
Access Denied
Access to cvillenews.com from all of the University of Virginia is temporarily denied. This is because of the actions of several users that have been abusing the site quite extensively for the past few months, to the point at which it’s made it impossible to continue to provide access to virginia.edu.
So in theory I shouldn’t even be posting this news item. Luckily I still have a nonexpired account on one of the few ISPs to offer shell accounts, so I am clunkily reading Cvillenews using the good old Lynx browser.
Anyway, what happens to a community discussion board when its largest participant is out of the game? Is this censorship? Or is it more accurate to label as de facto censors the idiots that are causing problems?
07/11/02 Update: virginia.edu has been unblocked.
Belle writes: The Lewis Mountain Neighborhood Association has filed a petition with the Commonwealth’s DEQ, calling for a delay in this month’s planned ground-breaking for UVa’s Ivy Rd. parking garage until more study can be made on the traffic impact in the area of Ivy Rd. and Emmet St. As Eric Swensen’s story in today’s Progress illustrates, discussion of traffic there opens a Pandora’s Box of controversial issues, including: the proposed Northern Connector, access to the Arena and the Arts Precinct, the VDOT gag order, and strained relations between the City, the County Board of Supervisors, and the University. (One interesting point Swensen missed is that the University has just purchased the (current) gas station property Ivy and Emmet, which might just come in handy should they want to upgrade that intersection.)
A study by the Action Alliance for Virginia’s Children and Youth has concluded that a Charlottesville single-parent family with one pre-schooler and one infant needs an income of $35,695, or $16.90/hour. This is more than twice the $8/hour figure long promoted by living wage activists. (Though, to be fair, the living wage campaign assumes two wage-earners; this study assumes one.) The full report is available as a PDF. Bob Gibson has the story in today’s Progress.
This evening, I hastily brought forth the Impending Upgrade(tm) and switched the software that runs cvillenews.com. (For the geeks out there, it was running PHP-Nuke, and now it’s running PostNuke.) I’m distinctly unhappy about this, but it had to happen. I’d hoped to be able to upgrade quite smoothly. Instead, we’ve got an ugly beige site with all kinds of weird options remaining to be configured and/or removed, new URLs that don’t even map to the old ones (translation: broken links), and I had to move the site to a new server yet again. The big change that this brings about is the end to anonymous posting. For the full scoop, click the headline, or however the heck you read the attached stories now. Note: If you already have an account, there is no need to create a new one; your old one will work just fine.
The software that I’d really hoped to switch to was Slash, or perhaps PostNuke when it got up to version 1.0. (It’s at v 0.714 right now, meaning it’s not ready for prime time.) But PostNuke is the option at hand right now, so it’s the one that we’re going with. Sucks to be us.
The biggest change in this upgrade is the demise of anonymous posting. I’d hoped that this wouldn’t ever be necessary, but ongoing abuse by a single individual has made this necessary. Consequently, user registration will be required in order to post from now on. The user registration system on PostNuke isn’t a whole heck of a lot better than it was on PHP-Nuke, so my apologies to those that will struggle with the registration process. The idea behind requiring registration is that an e-mail address is tied to each account. An e-mail address creates accountability, and also makes it possible to ban abusive users, more or less. At some point, we may try going back to anonymous posting, but I’m afraid that it just doesn’t seem possible right now.
It appears that, to some degree, collaborative post-rating is possible with PostNuke. This is A Good Thing(tm), because it means that setting those little scores by each post will not just be done by me, but by a bunch of my hand-selected minions that will surely collectively work to carry out my evil deeds.
Finally, I’m concerned that some comments may get lost in this transition. If I see any comments that were posted to the old site during this transition period, I guess I’ll cut and paste them over here or something.
When you see stuff that’s broken, please e-mail me or reply to this story (that is, if you have an account) and I’ll do my best to take care of it.
Belle writes: The City of Charlottesville has filed papers with the DEQ, asking that more accurate information about the affect UVa’s planned garage would have on local vehicular traffic The Lewis Mtn. Neighborhood Assoc. made a similar request this week. City Mayor describes the garage as a “fundamentally flawed idea” and the City Planning Director alleges that the planned garage placement would violate VDOT regulations. Eric Swensen has the story in today’s Progress.
City Council intends to discuss changing the 29 & Hydraulic intersection to a grade-separated interchange at an August 5th hearing, WINA reports. SELC has long been a proponent of a change of this nature at this and other major intersections, since it could smooth the flow of traffic along Route 29 and help reduce the demand for a bypass.
A fire escape was removed from the Paramount Theatre recently, which historically served as the entrance for blacks into the theater. Its demolition was inadvertently approved by the Board of Architectural Review after a presentation on the Paramount was shortened for time, and the detail was lost in the shuffle. A Paramount board member blamed a lack of dialogue between Martinez & Johnson Architecture, the city and the developers for the loss of the culturally-significant entrance. Elizabeth Nelson has the story in today’s Progress.
Sheriff’s deputies in Central Virginia are on the lookout for Anthony Slaughter, of Stanardsville, who is accused of abducting his girlfriend, Terry Wooddell, at 4 am yesterday morning. He reportedly kidnapped her at gunpoint while the woman’s 64-year-old mother attempted to fight him off. Slaughter has a history of this — in 1988, he kidnapped a 14-year-old girl from her home, held her for 19 hours, raped her repeatedly, and threatened to kill her before releasing her. Reed Williams has the story in today’s Progress.
The Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control has announced that they will conduct a hearing on Monday regarding the revocation of Foxfield’s liquor license. Underage drinking, public drunkeness and disorderly conduct has been an ongoing problem after the twice-annual races. There is some question as to whether or not the race organizers even need a liquor license, given that they don’t serve alcohol, but merely allow attendees to provide their own. Peter Savodnik has the story in today’s Progress.
The financial filings are in, and Republican Congressman Virgil Goode has it all over Charlottesville’s Meredith Richards in the congressional race, WINA reports. Goode has $430,000 in cash on hand to Richards’ $43,000. It’s been said that this first filing would be important to her campaign, given that potential major donors often hold back until they can see if the candidate’s fund is sufficient that they have a shot at winning. It should be interesting to see the analysis of where this leaves the Richards campaign.
ColinC writes: A convicted child rapist accused of abducting his ex-girlfriend from her Augusta County home was arrested Sunday. The ex-girlfriend, Terry Wooddell, was missing since Wednesday, but has returned uninjured to her home. The Daily Progress reports that Anthony Slaughter was arrested Sunday in Madison County after tips to the FBI and others led them there. From 91.9 WNRN
ColinC writes: The Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority will decide today if it will give approval to a long-term water plan for the area. Executive Director Larry Tropea says the main focus of the plan is conservation. It also calls for raising the height of the South Fork of the Rivanna Reservoir by 4 feet, reducing sediment. The plan will cost millions of dollars. WINA reports.
In today’s Progress, Claudia Pinto has an interview with Carl Carter, perhaps better known as the guy who dresses like a clown and plays keyboard on the Downtown Mall. He can be found nearly every day of the week, tapping away on his keyboard, playing violin or playing with wind-up toys. Says Carter of his work, “It’s very political. For me, it’s about freedom of speech.”
Indie writes: There are two articles this week in the C-Ville Weekly that take a look at local nightlife. Many times I hear, “There’s nothing to do in Charlottesville.” So what’s missing (in terms of nightlife)? Do we need swankier restaurants? A couple of clubs? An expanded downtown scene? Or do we really have it all?
Jim writes: Why is this OK? “High-achieving black youths take classes to help them both as students and citizens.” This program seems to be commendable with outstanding goals - but all children need programs like this - not just specific racial groups. The implication is that only black children are at need - isn’t this racism? Our society ostensibly strives for equality and minimizing or reducing discrimination, but our local educational system supports this program? “Brown, one of Walker’s assistant principals, founded the program two years ago to promote unity and interest in school among his students.” This quotation leads one to believe that this program is for all students - is this a matter of irresponsible reporting?
Paul writes: Are there a lot of telephones in C’ville out after that storm last night? I called Sprint from work this morning and someone said their computers were out, so she’d write my info on a scrap of paper and they “were telling everyone that hopefully someone will be out to check on it by end of business tomorrow.” The “service representative” said that she had no way of knowing if a lot of phones were out because the computer was down. She wasn’t local because she didn’t know there had been a storm.
Of course, if people’s phones are down, they can’t dial out to the Internet to post to cvillenews.com…
Daily Progress staffer Jake Mooney is leaving the Daily Progress to attend the Columbia School of Journalism. His name is familiar to any cvillenews.com regular, and to anybody that pays attention to the Daily Progress bylines. Consequently, Jake’s having a party Thursday night at 10pm, and you’re all invited. It will be held at the Linen Building, the industrial brick building on the southeast corner of Meade and East Market; the entrance is in the back. Extra credit to anybody who shows up with their user name pinned to their lapel.
Entergy Wholesale Operations, who had planned to construct a 1,000-megawatt power plant in Louisa, has abandoned their plans to do so. They were received quite badly at a public hearing last year, and subsequently withdrew their application in early December. It was thought that they would re-file, but it’s now believed that Entergy’s plans are dead. About 30 power plants are still proposed to be constructed in Virginia. Austin Graham has the story in today’s Progress.
A jury has found Corey Faison not guilty of sexual assault, WINA reports. Faison, a 22-year-old Albemarle resident, was charged with a bizarre sexual attack of a woman in Free Union. Perhaps more notably, he was beaten during interrogation by several Albemarle County police officers, which was one of the events that created demand for the recent creation of the Albemarle Police Advisory Committee.
Belle writes: In response to the most recent episode in the ongoing kerfuffle about the semi-annual Foxfield Races, several locals living near Foxfield Races have responded by saying: Please Stay In My Backyard. Their reactions, and more updates, are to be found in today’s Progress story by Peter Savodnik.
Anti-abortion protesters spent yesterday in various locations around Charlottesville, waving 5′ photos of bloody fetuses and declaring that “Planned Parenthood…destroys Christ.” The graphic approach is part of their Virginia-wide “Face the Truth Tour,” intended to shock people into sympathy with the cause But, said one anti-abortion supporter that witnessed the scene, “I’m pro-life but against this. It’s kind of funny to say you’re for life, then do this kind of thing.” One lone person protested the protesters, waving signs reaading “honk if you love porn” and “free gay porn.” Sarah Bouchard has the story in today’s Progress.
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