2005 October archive at cvillenews.com

Archive for October, 2005

Downtowners Angry about Concert Noise

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October 4, 2005 in Development, Law and Justice and Music.

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A couple of dozen downtown residents showed up at last night’s City Council meeting to protest what they say is excessive noise coming from the new Charlottesville Pavilion. On concert nights their windows rattle and sleep isn’t possible — the shows go too late and are held too often. The amphitheater manager says they’re working on the problem, and city staff has taken to monitoring noise levels throughout the city at 10-minute intervals during concerts. John Yellig has the story in today’s Daily Progress.

We seem to be on a ~3-year cycle of interest in noise ordinances. In 1998, a restaurant named the Jewish Mother was in the present location of the Blue Light Grill. They featured live music upstairs, which was played very loudly with the windows open until the wee hours of the morning, meaning that those of us who lived within a block or two couldn’t sleep. The business went under before a noise ordinance could be passed, and so interest in such a law was dropped. In the summer of 2001, we all went through the process again, culminating in Council passing a downtown noise ordinance, starting at 10pm Sunday-Thursday and midnight Friday-Saturday. If it’s ever been enforced, I haven’t heard about it — perhaps that’s about to change.

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No More Window Stickers?

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October 4, 2005 in Taxes and Politics.

City Council is considering eliminating the property tax window stickers that we all have on our windshields, John Yellig writes in the Progress. Cities across the state are following the lead of Virginia Beach, who ditched the stickers to let the DMV enforce payment at the time of vehicle registration. The city stands to save $42k/year by making the switch, plus untold staff hours that go into dealing with the damnedable little things. A vote will come at Council’s next meeting, in two weeks.

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Mobile Site Version

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October 4, 2005 in Site News.

By request, I’ve added a version of cvillenews.com for mobile internet devices. It’s really nothing more than a really lightweight version of the site.

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Faux Documentary to Open in C’ville

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October 4, 2005 in Entertainment.

Fictional documentary “CSA: Confederate States of America” will be opening in Charlottesville, David Maurer writes:

[Kevin] Willmott wrote and directed the faux documentary, which examines the previous 140 years of American history as if the South had won the Civil War. The modern-day CSA has “Dixie” as the national anthem, slavery is the norm, women can’t vote and any religion not based on Christianity is about to be banned.

By making a movie about “what ifs,” Willmott said he wanted to reveal a sometimes hard to look at view of “what is.” He does this with documentary-style interviews, fabricated movie segments, old government information films, television commercials, stock footage of real historic events and generous amounts of humor.

The movie got a great response at Sundance last year, leading to its simultaneous opening in Charlottesville and Memphis. It’ll show at the Regal on the Downtown Mall on Friday. “CSA” appears to borrow heavily from Harry Turtledove’s ongoing Southern Victory series, which popularized the alternate history genre and focused on the same topic as the movie.

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Albemarle May Change Window Stickers

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October 5, 2005 in Taxes and Politics.

It’s not just Charlottesville — Albemarle may be making window sticker changes, too, WINA reports. But while C’ville is considering abandoning the annoying car decals, Albemarle wants to make them long-term, perhaps even permanent. The county supes like it, and they’re awaiting an ordinance for them to vote on.

I have to admit that the point of a permanent window sticker is lost on me — if I stop paying my personal property taxes, is somebody going to come to my house and scrape the sticker off? Maybe I’m missing something.

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Columbia’s New Mayor

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October 5, 2005 in Politics.

If you haven’t heard of the town of Columbia, don’t feel too bad. The town of 50 is in Fluvanna, 20 miles east of Scottsville. And as of September 20, it’s got a new mayor — 30-year-old Liz Layne, the town’s first female mayor. How’d she get into office? Simple: she was the only one to apply. Megan Rowe has the story in today’s Daily Progress.

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57th HoD Forum Held

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October 6, 2005 in Politics.

The Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership sponsored a debate last night between the two candidates vying to represent Charlottesville in the House of Delegates, David Toscano and Tom McCrystal. The moderate Democrat and the moderate Republican spent a lot of time agreeing. The major difference between the two seems to be their party affiliation: McCrystal argues that, as a member of the majority party in the GA, he will be able to accomplish things on behalf of Charlottesville, while Toscano believes that he’ll be able to reach across party lines.

Bob Gibson’s got the story in today’s Progress. Better still, Sean Tubbs has an MP3 of the whole event up on the Charlottesville Podcasting Network.

FWIW, McCrystal is a long-time cvillenews.com reader and Toscano isn’t.

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Rolling Stones Bomb Threat

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October 6, 2005 in Crime and Music.

Tonight’s Stones concert at Scott Stadium was abruptly halted shortly after it began, after a bomb threat was called in. The Daily Progress was the first to report this, via their Stones show quasi-blog, writing:

Mick Jagger announced that the band had been told by authorities they needed to take a 10-minute break because of a technical problem.

Afterward, several police officers appeared on stage with dogs.

Several thousand people seated on the field were evacuated, and the dogs sniffed around the stage and the field in front of the stage.

On their 11pm broadcast, NBC 29 reported that it wasn’t until an hour later that the show started again; clearly, the problems were not technical in nature. Bomb threats became a nasty habit at UVa in 2002, but hadn’t been an issue for the past few years. The Stones intend to play a full show, despite, planning to wrap up shortly after midnight.

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EARL BoS Candidate Forum

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October 6, 2005 in Politics.

The first of five Albemarle Board of Supervisors candidate forums was held on Tuesday. Sponsored by the Earlysville Area Residents’ League, 75 people attended the growth-centric discussion. On their blog, Charlottesville Tomorrow provides the audio from the forum.

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BoS Approves Belvedere

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October 13, 2005 in Development and Politics.

The Board of Supervisors has approved “Belvedere,” a 207-acre, 775-unit development because, frankly, there’s really just not enough traffic on Rio as it is. It’s on the 29 side of Rio, midway between CATEC and Fashion Square Mall (Google Map), adjacent to Dunlora. Stonehaus Development has been trying to get the rezoning approved since 2003, but was repeatedly turned down for their lack of affordable housing and failure to comply with VDOT road standards, along with eight other problems. Those concerns have apparently been addressed to the satisfaction of the BoS. The site plan (PDF) shows a basic suburban development — cul-de-sacs, no meaningful mixed use, all streets curved to mask the fact that all the houses look the same. More information is on Stonehaus’ website.

I look forward to seeing how the BoS and Stonehaus define “affordable.” If I were a betting man, I’d wager that I’m not likely to be able to afford one.

Jessica Kitchin has the story in today’s Daily Progress.

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Rooker/Schoenwald BoS Debate

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October 13, 2005 in Politics.

Both candidates for the Board of Supervisors in the Jack Jouett district, incumbent independent Dennis Rooker and Republican challenger Christian Schoenwald, debated at a forum held at Jack Jouett Middle School on Monday night. Topics addressed included rural protection, the business community, the neighborhood development model, growth areas, property tax assessments, transportation, and development. Happily, the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors sponsored the recording of the event for the Charlottesville Podcasting Network. It’s available on the CPN website, and is 1:23 long. If you live in the Jack Jouett district, you’ve got no excuse for not listening. Do friends in the district a favor and e-mail them a link to the debate, so they can cast an informed vote.

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BoS Races Roundup

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October 18, 2005 in Transportation, Development and Politics.

As November 8 draws closer, there’s more and more action in Albemarle’s Board of Supervisors races, as well as those in the surrounding counties.

In an overview of the races, Kate Andrews and Megan Rowe write in today’s Progress that every race in Central Virginia is about how to handle growth. In Greene, Orange, Fluvanna, Louisa, Nelson and, of course, Albemarle, candidates are debating how to best handle the influx of new residents and all of the issues that are brought about by or exacerbated by this. While it’s been an issue in past races, this is the first time it’s been a major issue. It’ll likely be the defining issue of area elections for years to come.

And the Daily Progress’ Jessica Kitchin looks at the three Rio candidates in Albemarle. Rio is the only district that’s really competitive, since the seat has been vacated by David Bowerman, leaving Republican Gary Grant, Democrat David Slutzky, and independent Thomas Jakubowski all vying for election. (Jakubowski is, to my surprise, the only blogging BoS candidate. The blog hasn’t been updated in months, but it’s a nice effort.) Kitchin explains each candidate’s position on growth and transportation needs, which they presented at last night’s forum at Woodbrook Elementary. Impressively, the Progress provides a link to the podcast of the event provided by the Charlottesville Podcasting Network.

Finally, the newly-created Charlottesville Tomorrow is providing a summary of candidate information, including, helpfully, transcripts of some of the debates. Don’t miss the biography provided by BoS candidate Christian Schoenwald, a candidate who says he’s too busy to provide information about himself to mere websites. He must be planning on winning by a landslide to shun such coverage.

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Council Eliminates Window Stickers

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October 18, 2005 in Taxes and Politics.

Last night, City Council made it official — no more personal property tax decals in windshields, as proposed. That was quick.

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Pavilion Not Subject to Noise Ordinance

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October 19, 2005 in Music.

In this week’s Hook, Courteney Stuart writes about the Charlottesville Pavilion, in which she mentions that the amphitheater isn’t subject to the noise ordinance:

Belmont residents complained at a September city council meeting about “windows rattling” during many– if not all– Pavilion shows, and called for the City to enforce the noise ordinance. That law limits noise in the downtown business district to less than 75 decibels between the hours of 10pm and 6am. In residential neighborhoods, nighttime noise must not exceed 55 decibels.

Because the Pavilion falls outside both the Downtown Business district and residential areas, the ordinance does not apply.

If the Pavilion isn’t able to reign in their noise pollution, I suspect we’re going to see demand for a noise ordinance with teeth. Though I can’t claim to know much about the entertainment business, I do know that most venues around the nation that Dave Matthews Band plays at have a rigidly-enforced 11pm curfew; in some places, if they go over, they have to pay a per-minute fine. That might start looking pretty good here.

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Census Readjusted Upward

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October 21, 2005 in Development and Politics.

In April, the Census Bureau announced that the population of Charlottesville had dropped sharply, decreasing by 8.7% in just four years. A few months later, City Council challenged the Census Bureau on those figures and, yesterday, the feds admitted fault. In fact, there was a 1.6% increase of the population in that period, Sarah Barry reports in the Daily Progress. It appears that the calculation problem lay, as cvillenews.com commenters speculated, in the proper inclusion of UVa students, which is a perennial problem for census-takers.

So for those of us who said that the census may well be right and we, for one, welcome our new census overlords…we suck. And for those of you who got it right, don’t rub it in too much.

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PACEM Expands Services

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October 23, 2005 in General News.

There’s a strong correlation between chronic homelessness and substance abuse problems. This presents itself as cruel irony to some homeless citizens in the area — of which there are approximately 175 in Central VA, in total — who find that they can gain access to the Salvation Army shelter if they’ve been drinking, but aren’t eligible to stay at the Mohr Center unless they’re drunk. It is to help those who fall between the two that People and Congregations Engaged in Ministry (PACEM) was founded by local activist Dave Norris last year. They were open last year from November 15 through March 18, working with 36 congregations in the area to provide shelter in a season when sleeping outside could lead to serious illness or death.

PACEM opened a month early this year, thanks to increased support, and opened for service on the 15th, John Yellig reports in today’s Daily Progress. They’ve also gotten a pair of grants, one that is letting them expand into providing emergency shelter for women and children, and a second that will let them hire a caseworker.

The program seems to be working. A Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission survey taken last January reported a 40% drop in people who said that they couldn’t find any shelter, and a 61% drop in people who had difficulty finding shelter.

10/24 Update: Be sure to check out Dave Norris’ great comment explaining PACEM’s mission.

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Supervisor Candidates Talk Environment

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October 23, 2005 in Development and Politics.

All but one of the six candidates for the Albemarle County BoS — Dennis Rooker opponent Christian Schoenwald wasn’t there — attended a candidate forum sponsored by a half dozen local environmental/growth organizations. All of the candidates agreed that population growth has got to be managed — the disagreement was on the matter of how. Though Jessica Kitchin has a story in today’s Daily Progress, better to head over to Charlottesville Podcasting Network and listen to the two-hour podcast.

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Charlottesville Tomorrow Candidate Interviews

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October 23, 2005 in Politics.

Charlottesville Tomorrow has blogged their candidate interviews with all six candidates for Board of Supervisors, complete with the audio of the interview. Those are: Sally Thomas, Gary Grant, Thomas Jakubowski, Dennis Rooker, David Slutzky, and Christian Schoenewald.

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City Schools ISO Geeks

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October 24, 2005 in Education and Business.

The Charlottesville School Board has OKd two new technology positions, WINA reports, which is the kind of thing that gets me excited. They want one person to maintain CHS and BMS student records and another — this is the cool one — to run the city schools’ website. So, local geeks looking for work, consider applying for this gig.

Picture this: city school blogs. Get the new superintendent, a couple of principals, and a handful of teachers blogging. Aggregate all of those and put them on the front page of the city schools’ website, and I’ll include them in the Charlottesville blog aggregator, of course. Whoever the new supe turns out to be, a blog is going to make them seem a whole lot more accessible to the people of C’ville. That’s something Scottie Griffin would have benefitted from.

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Bloggers Wanted

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October 24, 2005 in General News.

There are now 75 local blogs listed on Charlottesville Blogs, with a few more being added every week. (I’m really hoping to break 100 by the end of the year.) In fact, there’s so many posts every day that Joe isn’t so overwhelming anymore. ;) I subscribe to the Charlottesville Blogs RSS feed, and I read it every day — I can’t tell you how much I enjoy it. The topics are as varied as the perspective and while I can’t say that the bloggers are entirely representative of the overall spectrum of the population, it’s definitely getting there.

I’ve noticed a big gap in the offerings, though, and I think it’s something that smart local business owners would do well to take advantage of.

Jim Duncan provides a great example of how a blog can be beneficial to its author and to the community. Until he’d started blogging, I’d never heard his name. Now, if you asked me to name three real estate agents in the area, I don’t doubt that I’d name him. The few hundred subscribers to the Charlottesville Blogs RSS feed may well do the same, as would whatever number of people read his site regularly. The benefit to me is that I now have a sense of area real estate — I understand what the trends are, how we’re impacted by national market changes, and I think I get how real estate fits into the large picture in Charlottesville.

More professionals should be taking advantage of this. I want a Plan 9 blog, where employees tell me what they’re listening to and, while they’re at it, what sales are on at Plan 9. I want a Market Street Wine Shop blog — reading Clinton Johnston’s blog (which I love — it’s the most personal and, I daresay, funniest local blog) is half of it, but I also want wine recommendations, I want to know what great port they just got in and how it was with dinner last night. I want a Cary’s Camera blog, which would feature photos by some of their customers, advice on techniques, explanations of some of the work they do and technical tips on photography. And so on.

Experts gain a lot, I believe, by giving away bits of their expertise in this format. It creates a new customer base, it gives something of value to the community, and it is bound to help forge ties between unlikely groups of people, which is always great. If you have some expertise that would be interesting to share in occasional bite-sized chunks, it’s time to hop on the blogging bandwagon.

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Collins Trespassing Case Advances

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October 25, 2005 in Law and Justice and Politics.

Erstwhile House of Delegates candidate Rich Collins got what he was looking for in court yesterday: a trespassing conviction, Liesel Nowak reports in today’s Daily Progress. Collins was arrested for trespass for campaigning on private property in mid-May, leading to his civil suit against the property owner, joined by the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia and the Rutherford Institute in his case.

His criminal conviction is required in order for him to appeal the case up to the Virginia Supreme Court, the only state court that can set new precedent in the matter, hence his happiness at being convicted by Judge Stephen Helvin. The judge believes it likely that the court of last appeal would rule against Collins, but added: “If I were on the Supreme Court, I’d rule in your favor.” Helvin confessed that he’d thought the case would be an easy one, but that upon consideration, he found himself favoring Collins. “It’s not an easy issue. For someone born in the shadow of Monticello, this is one time I wouldn’t mind going up to talk to the guy on the hill.”

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A High-End Post on an Upscale Blog

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October 26, 2005 in Meta News and Development.

The bad news: there’s still a serious shortage of affordable housing in Central Virginia.

The good news: “High-end neighborhood comes to Greene!”

I wonder if I’m “high-end” enough to live there? Is “high-end” like “upscale”? Because I don’t think I’m upscale. Or…wait…isn’t “high-end” just developer-speak for “expensive”?

Here’s my theory: “Upscale shopping center” translates to “rich white people can shop here and feel safe,” and “high-end neighborhood” means “rich white people can live here and feel safe.” Which is good for them, but where should I live?

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Free Ads Working Again

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October 29, 2005 in Meta News.

Because I’m a big dope, I broke the free ads sidebar thingy when I moved the site to BNSI a month ago. This explains the depressing lack of use that the system has gotten in the past month. So if you’ve tried to advertise and gave up when it didn’t work, try again. My apologies.

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Neighborhood Model’s Costs and Benefits

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October 30, 2005 in Development.

In today’s Daily Progress, Jessica Kitchin has a lengthy article exploring the costs and the benefits of Albemarle’s Neighborhood Model of development. The concept of the new urbanist approach to development is to lower the cost of living and raise quality of life for residents, but creating such neighborhoods is more expensive, in part because developers simply aren’t accustomed to building anything other than McMansion after McMansion. The county’s requirement that 15% of Neighborhood Model construction be “affordable” only further muddies the financial waters. I think the most interesting bit of the article is this:

Affordable housing is defined as safe, decent housing where costs don’t exceed 30 percent of the gross household income. The county’s policy addresses those with household incomes at or below 80 percent of the area’s median income — this year, 80 percent of the median is $53,360. At a 6 percent interest rate, Albemarle County Housing Director Ron L. White estimated, the average family making that could afford a $175,000 mortgage.

Albemarle’s median home value, meanwhile, is $280,000. Many attribute the skyrocketing home values - which went up 45 percent from 1990 to 2000 and have risen 74 percent since 2000 - to the market in a high-demand living area.

Kitchin does a good job of exploring this dynamic, interviewing all the people that play a role in the local housing process. The Progress should have features this in-depth more often.

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Orange Municipal WiFi Announced

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October 30, 2005 in General News.

In June, word came out that Orange County was considering blanketing the area in wireless internet service and, in today’s Daily Progress, Kate Andrews writes that Orange is going wireless. At first, service will only be for use by the Orange and Gordonsville governments, but the $411k project may end up being expanded to providing access to homes and businesses. Orange County isn’t exactly a hotbed of high speed access, and businesses aren’t fighting over the sparsely-populated market — this may be the only way for many residents to get decent bandwidth.

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Burglary up 400%

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October 30, 2005 in Crime.

Burglaries for the month of October are up 400% over the same month last year, and it’s not clear why, Bryan McKenzie reports in today’s Progress. (It’s also not clear why Bryan McKenzie is writing a straight news piece.) There were 16 reported burglaries in October of ‘04, and 62 for the not-quite-done October ‘05. Many of this month’s reports are of occupied homes at night, which is the sort of crime that easily escalates into assault or murder.

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Ivy Landfill Sued for 2003 Death

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October 30, 2005 in Law and Justice.

In April of 2001, Ivy residents were angry about being placed under a gag order preventing them from criticizing the Ivy Landfill. Two years later, landfill manager Wayne Stephens was killed when cutting an oil storage tank open — it exploded. In August of 2003, OSHA cited the landfill for serious violations of federal workplace safety regulations. Now Stephens’ widow has filed a $16M lawsuit against the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority, claiming that her husband would not have died if residents were permitted to voice their safety concerns, Liesel Nowak reports in today’s Daily Progress.

This case was already dismissed by Judge Norman Moon in August, but attorney Deborah Wyatt has strengthened her client’s case and refiled it, hoping that new evidence will permit the case to go forward.

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Videogame Industry Not Quite Dead

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October 31, 2005 in Business.

In the late 90s, Charlottesville was a major player in the videogame industry. Kesmai and Boxerjam led the pack, but there were a bunch of smaller publishers in the area. First Electronic Arts bought Kesmai and killed it, and then Boxerjam declined (due to the death of banner ad revenue, on which they were wholly reliant, in the early 00s) and was bought by Media General, who couldn’t bring it back to life. But a few Kesmaites went on to establish new gaming companies, like Video Gaming Technologies, Castle Hill Studios, and PeopleSpace. In today’s Daily Progress, David Hendrick describes the rise, fall, and the mini-resurrection of the Charlottesville gaming industry.

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Gubernatorial Candidates on 29 Bypass

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October 31, 2005 in Transportation and Politics.

TrvlnMn writes: “The candidates for state govenor take positions of
varying degrees on a much needed (?) U.S. 29 bypass during typical election year campaigning and illustrating they are both willing to jump (probably blindfolded) into the quagmire that is the area’s transportation and development issues. From today’s article in the Daily Progress:”

Jerry W. Kilgore supports a U.S. 29 bypass around Charlottesville…

[…]

“I would be willing to work with this region to determine the site” of a U.S. 29 bypass route, Kilgore said this month. “I think it’s time to get it started.”

“I think it’s important for this region and it’s very important for the regions south of here,” the GOP candidate said.

Democratic candidate Timothy M. Kaine holds very different views on transportation and criticized the Charlottesville U.S. 29 proposed western bypass route as outdated because development has overtaken that route’s usefulness.

Kaine expressed interest in a much longer parkway route proposed in recent months by Del. Mitchell Van Yahres, D-Charlottesville, that would take the northern end of a parkway around much of northern Albemarle’s development along U.S. 29….

I wouldn’t be surprised if the candidates’ positions on the bypass swayed some votes in Albemarle.

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