In August, when a bunch of inmates tried to escape from the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail, a few of them rescued a guard being held hostage by the group and tried to end the uprising. Their efforts did not go unnoticed by other inmates, with whom they’re no longer particularly popular. One man, Marshall Shelton, has been told by fellow inmates that if he’s sent to prison, he’ll be killed for his actions. The $10 reward that he received from the jail superintendent may be insufficient to justify that danger. Liesel Nowak has the story in today’s Progress.
Archive for December, 2004
Charlottesville drummer Scottie Williams (well-known as “Scottie B.”) and and activist Anson Parker have raised a minor ruckus as a result of a beautifully-executed piece of street theater during the recent Jefferson Thanksgiving Festival in Court Square. In costume, Williams portrayed a slave by the name of “Bilal,” while Parker portrayed auctioneer “Cornelius A. Banker,” with Williams standing on a block with “Slave for Sale” painted on it. (Court Square was where slave auctions were held from the late 1700s through the mid 1800s.) Parker worked the crowd, encouraging people to bid on him, while across the street, a more whitewashed portrayal of Jefferson-era Thanksgiving festivities was offered as a part of the official festival. The NAACP has lodged a complaint with the City, and UVa Dean of African American Studies Rick Turner has accused Williams of allowing himself to be exploited; Williams says that he just wants to remind people of the true history of Charlottesville, rather than pretend that it never happened. Courteney Stuart has the story in today’s Hook, Anson Parker has a write-up on CvilleIndyMedia, and a video (180MB) of the goings-on is available.
City Council has asked City Manager Gary O’Connell to draw up a pair of budgets, one maintaining the $1.09 real estate tax, and one dropping it to $1.07, and also to look into raising the car tax to make up any shortfall. Assessments are likely to increase by 11% in the city, but that still leaves a $3.2M shortfall, because of a drop in personal property tax (because the state cut the car tax, which is really a local tax, without funding the difference) combined with legally-mandated expenditure increases. John Yellig has the story in today’s Progress.
A really nasty accident blocked the 29 bypass in both directions this evening, WINA (and several submitters) report. Specifics aren’t available just yet, but since all four lanes were blocked, traffic had to be diverted, creating a ripple effect that left gridlock throughout the city, miles away from the accident scene. Three people are hospitalized with serious injuries. Anybody have any details?
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights is investigating UVa’s affirmative action admissions policy, the AP reports. The investigation is based on a complaint filed by the parent of a white, male student from New York, who was denied admission to the incoming 2003 class. The father alleges that his son would have been admitted if he had been “a girl or a minority,” but it’s not clear how he knows that. The complaint is the first since the Supreme Court ruled in favor of UVa-styled affirmative action programs in 2003, in Grutter v. Bollinger, simultaneously striking down affirmative action admissions policies that are quota-based in Gratz v. Bollinger. (I’m writing a paper on these two cases for finals right now, which is how I’m justifying not actually working on the paper right now.) The complaint against UVa was filed in May of 2003, before the court ruling. 12/09 Update: Kate Andrews has the story in today’s Progress.
The Daily Progress is poised to begin requiring an invasive registration process to read stories on their website. It’s well beyond anything I’ve ever seen before for a news outlet: they require an e-mail address, password, full name, street address, year of birth and ZIP code, and in registering, one must agree to receive spam — there is no opt-out function. Not just spam from Media General’s 27 daily newspapers and 26 TV stations, but from any of their advertisers. The mind reels. Registration is not possible without a valid e-mail address. As of this writing, it’s still possible to use the website without registration, but the “please register to read stories” banner appearing intermittently on the front page makes clear that this will be changing very shortly. If they don’t want people to use their website, they should just shut it down. This is just boneheaded.
Albemarle County has received a $23,450 grant from the Virginia Department of Conservation and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay Program to fund the installation of a green roof on the county office building. (The structure need to be re-roofed, anyhow.) Rather than using traditional roofing materials, the new roof will essentially be a lawn on top of the standard rooftop. Green roofs have become popular for environmentally-friendly construction, because they keep the structures cooler in the summer, warmer in the winter, and handle runoff that would otherwise have to be dealt with through channelling. It won’t be whole roof, just 20%. Replacement will be done next summer. Liesel Nowak has the story in today’s Progress.
As has been long planned, Dave Cupp is leaving WVIR 29, and Friday will be his last day. His been with the station for 26 years, and served as news director for a mighty long time, but is leaving to follow his wife to Cambridge, where she’s worked at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for the past couple of years. Cupp’s departure comes a a little over a year after the departure of Robert Van Winkle, another WVIR veteran, who is now with WBBH, WVIR’s Florida sister station (both are owned by Waterman Broadcasting). As has been noted repeatedly, WVIR is hemorrhaging talent, and their new competition from WCAV (CBS 19) and WVAW (ABC 16) isn’t going to make things any easier, to say nothing of the proposed Fox station and the elusive WCVL cable station. John Yellig has the story in today’s Progress.
dsewell writes: This week’s cover story in The Hook details another lovely imbroglio that Thomas Sullivan is getting into with his neighbors on Blenheim Road, in this case with the long-established Lower Sherwood Llama Farm. He’s not only grabbing their name, he’s demanding they remove their sign.
I’ll admit my bias on this story: I came to know Paige McGrath and her mother JoAnn through their work on the Wes Clark campaign (Paige’s “Llamas for Clark” walking llama signboard on the Downtown Mall was the high point of the local campaign). But politics aside, they’re good folk, active in the llama farming community, exhibitors at the county fair–basically, being good citizens of rural Albemarle. Whether or not the letter of the law upholds Sullivan’s actions, he’s playing the petty tyrant. (Of course, he’s hardly the first owner of a large estate in Albemarle County to be gifted with more money than scruples.)
Real estate developer Richard Spurzem, the single largest shareholder of Albemarle First Bank, has formally proposed that the bank sell out to a larger bank. The bank was founded in 1998, at a time when local banks were all being bought up by national banks, at the same time as Virginia National Bank. While VNB has added locations and grown steadily, Albemarle First has lost value, with last year’s Ivy Industries $2.4M check kiting scandal doing nothing to help. Shareholders may end up casting a vote on the proposal at the annual meeting in May. David Hendrick had the story in Saturday’s Progress.
Charlottesville chiropractor Irv Cox received an e-mail from his daughter, Stephanie, telling the remarkable tale about how she survived the tsunami when it struck Railay Bay, where she was on a docked ferry. She and her fiancee, along with a growing crowd of people, fled ashore as a trio of gigantic swells nearly overcame them, escaping to the jungle before being evacuated the next day. John Yellig has the story in today’s Progress.
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