News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA.
Will writes: It’s that time of the year! Time to tear yourself away from work, mosey down to your appropriate voting center, cast a few votes and make this country a better place. It takes just a few minutes, and if you don’t, the terrorists will win!
Gee, I didn’t know that any terrorists were running. Anybody want to make any predictions as to the outcome of the area races?
Vice Mayor Meredith Richards lost the Fifth District Congressional race to incumbent Virgil Goode in yesterday’s race with just 36.5% of the vote. Though Richards carried Charlottesville (with 66% of the vote) and Brunswick County (a poor, largely black district on the North Carolina border known primarily for Brunswick Stew), Goode won by 65% to 70%+ throughout the remainder of the district. Richards has gone on record saying that she intends to run again in 2004, though, as Democratic party chairman Lloyd Snook said, the percentage that she got is “not real encouraging.” Bob Gibson has the story in today’s Progress.
The loss of the car tax and the recent cut of state funds has left the county with a $2.8M deficit from their ~$200M annual budget. $2.7M of that is from decreased car tax revenues, a tax that provided a great deal of funding directly to localities. The county is trying to figure out what to cut, with $1.3M from the schools and $400k from the Conservation Easements Program making up a significant part of the current proposal. Peter Savodnik has the story in today’s Progress.
With reservoir levels up to 83.4% and nearly a solid week of rain in the forecast, it’s reasonable to assume that we’ll hit the golden 85% level in the next couple of days and maintain that level for a week, thus ending the water restrictions. (One climatologist thinks that the reservoirs will be at 100% within a month, WINA reports.) Despite this good news, water rates are about to double from their pre-drought levels. This is because the 50% cut in water usage has resulted in a 50% drop in water revenue, requiring that overall 100% increase in price. Thus, there is a direct correlation between consumers’ conservation habits and the amount of money that they must pay for water. In today’s Cavalier Daily, their lead editorial laments this conflict, going so far as to suggest that people ignore the restrictions and increase their water consumption to encourage City Council to lower the rates.
Jaunt has come under fire from private transportation company City Cab for favoritism, and Jaunt, in turn, has accused the state of strong-arming them into forcing them to use City Cab competitor Yellow Cab. The charges are being denied all around, but that’s not calming anybody down any. Courteney Stuart has the story in the current Hook.
As of this morning, the Albemarle County Service Authority indicates that the reservoir is at 87% capacity. Should it remain at 85% come Wednesday, November 20th, Charlottesville will likely lift its restrictions. Gov. Mark Warner yesterday lifted the August 30th statewide ban on the washing of cars and watering of lawns, reports the Progress.
The History News Network reports this week that Ann Lane, a prominent professor of history and the Director of Studies in Women and Gender at UVa, may have committed the sort of academic fraud on her PhD dissertation which, if she were a University student, would certainly warrant honor charges and, likely, expulsion. (Lane is quoted as saying that UVa’s strict honor code is “pretty stupid.”) Lane provided a rebuttal, in which she accuses HNN of “shabby journalism,” who, in turn, accuses Lane of half-truths, deception, and having covered up her charges of plagiarism. There has been past discussion here on UVa’s Honor Code that might be useful for reference.
Jeff Peyton, the publisher of The Observer for the past three years, has announced his resignation as of last Friday. In an e-mail, Peyton writes: “A new management [team] will be taking the local reins for Main Street Media Company as I depart to pursue other publishing ventures. I wish the Observers continued success under the new team.” There is no word as to what the cause of this is, or any further details as to the future of the weekly publication. Keep reading for the full text of Peyton’s e-mail.
Friends and colleagues:
As some of you may already know, my last day as publisher of The Observer and The Shenandoah Valley Observer was Friday, Nov. 15. Please send all correspondence to me at [redacted] from now on.
It’s been a great three years, and I am proud of what these newspapers have become. I was blessed with a terrific team of journalism professionals, and the Charlottesville and Valley communities are the beneficiaries of their fine work.
The Observer earned tremendous professional praise this year. With more than a dozen awards from the Virginia Press Association this year alone, The Observer became one of the most-honored weekly newspapers in Virginia.
A new management teak will be taking the local reins for Main Street Media Company as I depart to pursue other publishing ventures. I wish the Observers continued success under the new team.
Sincerely,
Jeff Peyton
mom133d writes: The Virginia Pep Band is celebrating “Pep Band Awareness Week” to well, make the UVA and Charlottesville communities aware of everything the band does and the current halftime situation they face. As part of the week, they are selling themselves on eBay here.
The athletic department says that too many people leave during half-time while the pep band is playing, but that featuring guest bands tends to keep people in their seats.
john_m writes: On Ivy Road, near Boars Head, is the Institute of Textile Technology. ITT is a graduate school entirely funded by the American textile industry, is home to one of the most comprehensive collections of English language textile information in the world, and has been in Charlottesville since 1944. On Friday , it was officially announced that ITT will be leaving town for Raleigh and a partnership w/ NC State. ITT provides a number of decent jobs (including mine) that will be gone sometime next year. This is another example of the decline of the American textile industry that has hammered the southern states and southwest Virginia.
I got a tour of their facilities just a couple of weeks ago, having previously known them only from their sign and building on 250. It was a bit of a shock to discover, after learning all about their beautiful facilities, that they would be departing in just a few months.
At tonight’s City Council meeting, the mandatory water restrictions put in place in September were called off. Now that two of our three reservoirs are full, with a total supply of over 90%, mandatory restrictions are no longer believed to be necessary, and have given way to mere voluntary conservation. In the same meeting, Council approved new water prices as planned, setting the winter rates to $55.47 per thousand cubic feet, a marked increase over the normal $22 rate. Councilor Meredith Richards made a point of saying that, although the reservoirs are full, our groundwater levels remains quite low, and thus we would be wise to continue to conserve. Elizabeth Nelson has the story in today’s Progress.
Two days after the city did so, the county has lifted their water restrictions. Albemarle had announced their intentions to remove them when the reservoirs were at or above 85% for one week, which they were as of Wednesday. The reservoir now stands at 91% capacity, with more rain in the forecast.
Jack writes: The New York Times (free registration required) has an article today entitled “36 Hours | Charlottesville, Va.” This article is unique in national coverage of Charlottesville as an upscale tourist destination, as the writer seems to have found the Downtown Mall. Unfortunately, no mention is given to essential tourist stops such as the White Spot or Matthew Farrell. Gems in this article include the assertation that “Jeans and quilted barn coats pass for chic in this horse-crazy town.” Note to self: mug homeless man for wardrobe.
DTag writes: The Hook has a news report in this week’s issue regarding the new zoning ordinance including regulation of sexually-oriented businesses, e.g. video stores and stores that sell sexually-related items. Jim Tolbert of Neighborhood Development and Lisa Kelley of the City Attorney’s office are taking the lead in drafting this legislation. A public hearing will take place on December 10. High points of the ordinance are the “1000 feet” rule and the definition of “adult use”.
Semi writes: Okay, not what you normally think of as UFOs, but a strange apparition. I work at UVA Hospital, and the sound of Pegasus coming in caused me to look up, and I saw the most remarkable thing (about 2:45 pm on 11/25 as I write this). A rainbow! But not your typical Hollywood horizon-to-horizon rainbow. This one was almost straight up in the sky and I could see both ends of it, like a big C. It was nearly 180 degrees, somewhere between 120 and 150. It was not a corona (or whatever you call those dark hued rings that appear round the sun); this was a full-fledged prismatic rainbow, bending away from the sun. Unfortunately, in the ten minutes it took me to walk back to desk and get to my computer, it was practically gone. To see it, go outside and look almost straight up, just a little south and east in the general direction of the sun. Did anyone else see this? Any meteorologists on this site who can explain it? Am I just flashing back to the sixties? Curious minds want to know..
Eighteen months after it started, UVa’s honor probe into 158 students has been closed. 48 students, or 30% of the accused, were found guilty by the Honor Committee or admitted guilt, and are consequently no longer at the university. The cases against 90 students were dismissed, and the remaining 20 were worked out in other manners. The students were accused of cheating on a single term paper in Professor Louis Bloomfield’s “How Things Work” course. They were caught after Bloomfield wrote a program, Copyfind, and used it to analyze similarities between every submitted paper. Copyfind is freely available for Windows and Linux for others to make use of. Kate Andrews has the story in today’s Progress.
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