Charlottesville-based Musictoday, founded by Dave Matthews Band management in 2000, has sold a majority stake to event and venue management company Live Nation, Jane Dunlap Norris reports in today’s Daily Progress. Musictoday employs 200 people out at the old ConAgra plant, which band manager Coran Capshaw bought in 2001. Musictoday sells tickets and merchandise online, which dovetails nicely with Live Nation’s line of business. The two businesses also will be in a better position to combat the nemesis of each, Clear Channel. Musictoday has sold out to their spiritual nemesis, Clear Channel Entertainment, which was renamed Live Nation earlier this year. Live Nation == Clear Channel. Bummer.
Archive for August, 2006
Sean writes:
According to The Daily Progress, Crutchfield at Rio Hill is now offering electronics recycling. There will be a nominal fee (the article mentions $15 for an air conditioner, $10 for a TV) and Crutchfield employees will help unload large items. Thomas L. Frederick Jr., executive director of RSWA, is quoted as saying that the new Crutchfield recycling center could keep 15 to 20 tons of electronic equipment out of landfills each year. Eligible items may be dropped off during regular business hours: Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.
I just called Crutchfield and they told me that they’re taking that holy grail of recyclables: computers. It’s illegal to toss ‘em in the trash, but you’ve got to drive to Richmond to recycle them. Not anymore: $8 for the computer, $5 for the monitor (CRT). Totally worth it.
This weekend, August 4th through the 6th, the Commonwealth of Virginia has authorized retailers to sell certain school items tax free. There are price limits for items and not all retailers are guaranteed to participate.
The Albemarle Board of Supervisors has overruled planning commission and approved the North Pointe developed this evening, NBC 29 reports. North Pointe was unanimously rejected by the planning commission in 2002, and again shot it down in 2003, each time finding the plan untenable. The Board of Supervisors clearly disagreed, with Dennis Rooker and Sally Thomas being the two dissenters. (David Slutsky has some explaining to do, I expect — he was elected on a platform of opposing this sort of thing.) The 270 acre development will go on the corner of Proffit and 29, across the street and just north of Wal-Mart.
The addition of North Pointe will bring us one step closer to realizing our dream: continuous sprawl running from Barracks Road clear up to Ruckersville.
The Board of Supervisors approved “Cascadia” last night, Charlottesville Tomorrow reports. The vote was 5-1, Dennis Rooker dissenting. The 61-acre suburban development on Rt. 20, just north of Pantops, which will be bolted onto Fontana, a similar recent suburban development. It will include 330 houses and condos.
There was also a 5-1 vote against the 38-home Westhall development in Crozet, with four supervisors saying that the infrastructure in Crozet won’t support it and objecting to the growth on general principle. Ken Boyd said that he’s convinced Crozet is growing too much, citing the “need to draw the line.” Dennis Rooker was not pleased with Frank Stoner’s $3,000/unit proffers, suggesting something closer to $25,000 would be more like it. Bafflingly, David Slutsky was the lone vote in favor of the development. (Did I miss a memo?) The whole thing amounted to a sea change in the BoS’ take on growth — Charlottesville Tomorrow podcasts the audio of the discussion.
How do we know when we’re done growing? When we run out of space?
The Albemarle County Fair is on. Though as Christina Tkacik says in today’s Progress, the heat isn’t real conducive to attending the fair, I say that just means you need to get another Sno Cone and hop back onto a fast-moving ride. My wife and I went last night (and I took some rockin’ pictures) and checked out the livestock and produce, did some people watching, played with baby ducks, shared a funnel cake and checked out all of the rides. It’s just 10 minutes south of town. Admission is $6 for adults and $2 for kids. It runs through Saturday.
I was crunching some numbers on historic cvillenews.com comment rates today, so I figured I’d stick ‘em on a graph and share them, on the off chance that anybody cares. This first one has two Y axes, plotting both the number of blog entries each month and the number of comments each month, spanning from the site’s 2001 beginning through July. It’s on a log-lin scale, with both Y axes logarithmic. You can click on it for an enlarged version.
This second graph, likewise log-lin, plots the X:1 ratio of blog entries to comments, again aggregated by month. A 1:1 ratio would mean that blog entries that month had, on average, one comment. A 75:1 ratio would mean that blog entries averaged 75 comments.
It’s interesting that, as time goes on, the fluctuation of comments more accurately trends the fluctuation in blog entries — that’s me learning what people like to talk about and focusing on posting those sorts of stories. Stepping through some of those comment peaks, generally they reflect some sort of big event going on — the coal tower killings, the 2002 City Council elections, the group of CHS students attacking UVa students, etc.
Opponents of the Meadowcreek Parkway — myself included — have long complained that the road is just a wedge that would be used to pry open the park and develop the land. But proponents came up with the parkway concept, meaning that the road would travel straight through the park without any possibility of intersections, driveways, etc. Now WINA reports that “an unnamed developer is offering to pay for a section of the Meadowcreek Parkway that goes through his land…in exchange for having access to the road for a project he’s planning.” My supervisor, Ken Boyd, says it’s worth considering, because it would save the county the expense of buying any of his land for the right-of-way.
Even ignoring the abdication of the parkway concept, accepting such a proposal would be against the entire point of the road: an A-to-B, no-delays-possible express route from downtown to uptown. It’s allowing development that has made the 29 250 bypass steadily less effective — every traffic light, feeder road, fast food joint and gas station creates cross traffic and the very delays that made people want to bypass 29 250 in the first place. Why would we do that to the Meadowcreek Parkway?
This is why we can’t have nice things.
The Charlottesville School Board Election Task Force has recommended that we either modify our at-large election process for the school board or move to a mixed-ward system, John Yellig reports in today’s Progress. The group presented six options back in May, and has simply removed four of those options. The model most like our current at-large system would require that four of the seven seats represent four residential districts of the city. The mixed-ward system would elect three members at large and four by ward. It sounds the same, and that’s because it just about is: the only difference is that, apparently, residential districts would be drawn differently than wards.
Now it’s up to City Council to consider the task force’s recommendations and determine how future elections should work.
Charlottesville City Councilor Kevin Lynch has been quite taken with the story of UVa Professor and State Climatologist Patrick Michaels taking money from utilities. He raised some interesting questions in his comments on the story, and ended up spending a great bit of time investigating the history of Michaels ostensible position as State Climatologist. Funny thing — it sure looks like he is not, in fact, State Climatologist. What follows is Kevin’s article on the topic, the first in a two-part series.
Continue reading ‘Does Virginia really have a State Climatologist?’
City Councilor Kevin Lynch has been investigating UVa Professor and State Climatologist Patrick Michaels. Having already demonstrated that Michaels is likely being less than truthful in claiming to be State Climatologist, he’s turned his attention to the ethical considerations that accompany Michaels’ solicitation of contributions from power companies. Kevin’s article follows, the second in a two-part series.
Continue reading ‘Conflict of Interest and the State Climatologist’
In this week’s Hook, Lisa Provence has a great look at past C’ville mayors, from Dutch Vogy (’68-’70) clear up through today’s David Brown. She interviews every one of them about the highs and lows of their time as mayor in with Hotseat-style questionnaire. Interestingly, every living former mayor still lives in Charlottesville.
Some assclown stuck these things along the road all over Albemarle County. I see a dozen when driving from Stony Point to Free Union. It’s illegal (§18-4.15.7), as it should be, and it’s promoting a scam, which is very illegal in itself. (See the National Consumer Law Center’s report, “Dreams Forclosed: The Rampant Theft of Americans’ Homes Through Equity-Stripping Foreclosure ‘Rescue’ Scams.”) Do these “We Buy Houses” and “Lose Weight Fast” jerks get prosecuted by our esteemed commonwealth’s attorney Jim Camblos, or this one of those optional laws? Should we all call 989-2622 to wish these spammers well?
Jim Duncan hosts the Charlottesville Blog Carnival, listing his favorite blog entries of the past week. This past week was a particularly good one, giving Jim some rich material to work with.
The Census Bureau has released the first part of their 2005 American Community Survey data for the Charlottesville area (including C’ville, Albemarle, Greene, Fluvanna and Nelson), which is information about regional social trends. Aaron Kessler reviews those trends in today’s Daily Progress, devoting a separate article to the growth of Spanish in the area. 8% of us speak a language other than English at home, with 40% of that group (~5,000 people) speaking Spanish. The next batch of ACS figures will be economic data, due out at the end of the month.
I hope y’all will tolerate a bit more navel-gazing. I’ve been curious which media outlets that I link to the most, and how that’s changed over time. A database query and some quality time with Excel later…
That’s a stacked, filled line graph totaled to 100%. Click to embiggen.
The spike in Progress links came when the Progress started archiving stories. And the recent disappearance of WINA links comes from their new website eliminating their archives, wiping years of great news records off of the internet. The Progress definitely gets the bulk of links at this point, but once I get in the habit of reading CBS 19 via their RSS feed and C-Ville Weekly now that they have archives, I certainly hope to widen the scope of sources.
A jury has found not guilty the 13-year-old accused of conspiring to “blow up” AHS and WAHS. He was the youngest of the kids arrested in February, and had previously been found guilty in a closed trial. It became more obvious over the months that these were trumped-up charges, mere showboating on the part of Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos, and the jury clearly agrees. As Liesel Nowak explains in today’s Progress, it became clear over the course of the trial that this boy didn’t even know two of the other students with whom he was charged with conspiring. Along the way he had to spend two months in jail and was expelled from school. Private schools won’t even talk to him. Perhaps it’s time to get that expulsion rescinded, so he can get back to his life?
Lisa Provence also has a run-down of the trial in The Hook, and there’s coverage of the decision on their blog.
The students and their families will descend upon town this weekend, so if you want to go anywhere in town, don’t. Remember, too, that area schools start up on Monday, so expect to be stuck behind buses if you’ve got a morning commute.
My morning commute extends from my bedroom to my living room, so I figure I’ll be OK.
Howard Barnet and his 13-year-old son were guests on Coy Barefoot’s “Charlottesville Live” on Thursday, one day after the boy was acquitted on charges of conspiring to attack two county high schools. Sean Tubbs podcasts the interview on Charlottesville Podcasting Network. It’s a must-listen for anybody following the case. The guests reveal that the kid had no attorney at his intake hearing, that it was four days until his parents were allowed to see him, and that the computer evidence used to convict him in his first trial was so lame that it was never even entered as evidence in the second trial. The senior Barnet, when asked about Commonwealth Attorney Jim Camblos, said that, under him, Albemarle “looked more like a fiefdom than a county.”
The worst thing to come out of all of this may be the lesson to parents and kids: never talk to police officers, and always demand a lawyer. We may end up with a generation of kids taught to fear police.
The 13-year-old acquitted of plotting to attack two local high schools was permitted to return to school today, Liesel Nowak wrote in Saturday’s Progress. He was expelled from Jack Jouett after being convicted in juvenile court, but after his acquittal in a proper trial last week he met with AHS principal Matt Haas to prepare to start school. That may well close this chapter in the boy’s life so that he can move on.
NBC 29’s Paul Merrill interviewed Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos about the widespread criticism of Camblos’ handling of the smoke bomb case, and Camblos isn’t exactly contrite. The big news is that he intends to run for reelection next year, but there are some choice quotes from the piece, with my favorite being, on the recent acquittal in the case: “We were disappointed with the decision, but the system works.” If he was disappointed — meaning that he believes boy should be in prison right now — wouldn’t that mean that the system doesn’t work?
What’s amazing is Camblos chalking up the concerns of y’all on cvillenews.com as nothing more than whines. If a single person has defended Camblos in this entire kerfuffle, since all information came to light a couple of months ago, I’m yet to hear of them. The fact is that he’s screwed this case up royally, and is in the process of screwing up the case against the other three kids.
I’ve got to put together a Camblos’ Greatest Hits blog entry. It’s quite a remarkable list. If Camblos “gets grief after every trial,” as he says, perhaps it’s time he figured out that might have something to do with him doing a lousy job.
George Seymour, the owner of the Import Car Store who shot and killed his neighbor’s cat earlier this year, has been sentenced to ten days in jail, fifty days suspended, The Hook reports. Though Seymour could have received a harsher punishment had he been charged with a felony, Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos failed to file those charges for reasons he won’t explain. Camblos got Seymour’s wife to admit, on the stand, that he had previously shot and killed their family dog. What a bastard.
The first time in my memory that Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos found himself subject to widespread criticism was after the June 1998 accident on Route 29. Louis Deane and her young granddaughters, Renee and Cheyanne, were killed when 19-year-old UVa student Sarah Roth lost control of her car, colliding with Deane’s car and knocking it clear across the grassy median, where it landed upside down in the northbound lane and was hit by another car. Roth blamed the accident on an insect in the car. Camblos announced two weeks later that Roth would not be charged with anything — she didn’t receive so much as a traffic ticket, to say nothing of an involuntary manslaughter charge. The widower, Edward Dean, was angry and confused by Camblos’ decision, as he remains to this day. I have been told that the girl was a close relation of Republican Senator William Roth (R-DE), but I have no means of verifying that.
In April 2002, McIntire School of Commerce Associate Dean Michael Atchison fell asleep at the wheel, ran a stoplight, and struck the car of 29 year old Yu Ching Yeh at 55 MPH. Unlike in the Deane case, Camblos brought charges against Atchison, charging him with involuntary manslaughter. The trial ended as soon as it began once it emerged that Camblos simply hadn’t gotten around to subpoenaing a key witness. The case had to be dropped, and Atchison could not legally be retried.
Then there’s the bizarre 2003-4 story of Deputy Stephen Shifett. He claimed to have been up and shot by a black man, and arrested two suspects that fit his description. As it turned out, he shot himself, for reasons that remain a mystery. In the process, though, a manhunt was launched and Sheriff Ed Robb declared the attack to be a “hate crime.” When the truth came out, Camblos refused to charge Deputy Shiflett with anything, preventing any sort of an investigation from going forward. Camblos said that he simply couldn’t file charges unless Shiflett confessed, and that there was nothing he could do. Camblos got called on his shenanigans by the Progress, who found that he’d never previously had a problem filing charges against people who’d filed false police reports but didn’t confess. In response, Camblos claimed that he’d been investigating it all along. The Progress, dubious, filed a FOIA request for the investigative report, but it was denied. So then Judge Peatross had to intervene after Camblos continued to do nothing, ordering the investigation’s files to be opened to attorneys involved in the case. If it was ever discovered why the hell Shiflett shot himself, that’s news to me. Camblos was successful in blocking the investigation.
Edward and Angela Bourne were driving home to Buckingham County on Route 29 in June of 2005 when they found their car surrounded by six speeding vehicles. The cars forced them off the road, and Angela Bourne was attacked. Her husband defended her, only to be bludgeoned. She tried to help him, but another man restrained her. Eventually their attackers left them, and the couple had to be hospitalized for their injuries. Camblos refused to press charges. The reason, he said, was because the attackers were from Maryland, and extradition requires a felony. Camblos didn’t believe that forcing the Bournes’ car off the road and taking turns beating them qualified as anything more serious than a misdemeanor, apparently figuring that none of the occupants of those six cars would ever cross into Virginia again. The Bournes were angry and confused, and Edward Bourne expressed particular anger with Jim Camblos.
And then, of course, we have the most recent smoke bomb trial, in which the charges themselves turned out to be grossly exaggerated, and we also saw Camblos lie to the press, telling them that they were subject to a gag order and threatening to go after any publication that provided details about the case.
And all of that is just what comes to mind most readily. I vaguely recall some other cases — charging the wrong guy in that Trophy Chase murder, something about a rape case — that I can’t remember well enough to look into. I’d certainly welcome any recollections about other cases that he’s made a hash of or, of course, any corrections to what I’ve written here.
Representatives Rob Bell (R-58) and David Toscano (D-57) held a public discussion downtown on Wednesday evening, as Bob Gibson wrote in yesterday’s Daily Progress, and the wide-ranging talk proved pretty interesting. The format was basically that of town hall meeting, a function that isn’t held nearly enough. One interesting bit is that both legislators supported examining a change in law to prevent kids from being interviewed by police without an attorney present, if their parents request one, as happened to the kid recently acquitted in the smoke bombing plot. The event was put together by The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, and is part of a weekly series being held at the chalkboard; last Wednesday my mother spoke, and next Wednesday WINA host Coy Barefoot will be speaking.
Sean Tubbs was on the scene, and has the audio at Charlottesville Podcasting Network.
I listened to Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos on WINA this morning. It was, in a word, lame. Hosts Jane Foy and Jay James — both of whom are friends and whose work I enjoy — handed one softball after another to Camblos, never following up on his often-bizarre responses. No calls were permitted. I had fully intended to restrain myself from writing anything about the interview, figuring enough is enough, but there was one moment that has earned me more e-mails and phone calls today than anything else about this case.
Camblos said that the oldest kid in the case (”the ringleader”) was born on the 100th anniversary of Hitler’s birthday and the anniversary of Columbine. I held my breath during the sentence, thinking where can he possibly be going with this?. And then he did it — Camblos concluded the sentence with: “we took that very, very seriously.”
Whaaa? I’m not quoting anything out of context here: Camblos made a single statement in which he asserted that this kid was a suspect because of the date on which he was born. The Hook picked up on the same bit, pointing out that Jessica Lange was born on the same day. Presumably Mr. Camblos will be having her arrested shortly.
There were lots of forehead-slapping moments in this interview (like Camblos’ repeated insistence that “they were all convicted,” and his claim that investigating suspects before arresting them is “not the real world”), but I just couldn’t let this one go without remark.
A clap on the back and a hearty handshake to the first cvillenewser who can discover Mr. Camblos’ birthdate. I’m hoping that Molly Cliborne will indulge us by explaining what crimes Mr. Camblos may be guilty of by virtue of his birthdate.
9:39pm Update: Thanks to everybody for their help — we’ve got it. Suffice it to say, it appears to have been a very dark day in world history on many, many occasions. More on that tomorrow.
08/26 Update: WINA, God love ‘em, has two audio extracts of the interview on their site: talking about the case on the whole, responding to criticism. And, finally, the Hitler clip. Bonus points to the first person to remix that into a dance tune.
08/28 Update: Charlottesville Podcasting Network now offers the audio of the entire interview.
Because Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos is dabbling in astrology — claiming yesterday that a suspect’s birth date is indicative of his likely guilt — Charlottesville’s own blogging astrologer Molly Cliborne has been so kind to provide a reading for Mr. Camblos. His birth date is December 29, 1945. That, Molly writes, makes him subject to addiction and a gambler by nature. Helping nothing, December 29 is a dark date in history: Thomas Becket’s slaying, the burning of Buffalo, the Wounded Knee Massacre, The Second Great Fire of London, the Hotel Roosevelt Fire, the Eastern Airlines Tristar crash, the LaGuardia bombing, and the Lima fire all happened on that date.
Keep reading for Molly’s wry reading o’ the planets.
There’s a six foot tall chain link fence that separates 10th and Page from Venable. Its function — and surely its original purpose — is to separate the poorer people in the former from the wealthier people in the latter. The Hope Community Center is going to ceremonially cut the thing open at a ceremony this afternoon, John Yellig writes in today’s Progress. The fence is more of a symptom than a problem, but the symbolism is terrible — it sends entirely the wrong message to people in both neighborhoods. Opening it up is a great idea.
My stream disappeared a couple of weeks ago. I’ve lived here for a couple of years now, and this is the first time that the little brook has simply disappeared. For the second summer running my wife and I have a good-sized little garden, and this year I’ve had to water it every day — very rarely does enough fall out the sky to do the trick.
Josh Barney wrote in the Daily Progress a couple of days ago that the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority is starting to get worried — water usage is way up, and the rain’s just not coming. The reservoirs were hit for a record 14.3 million gallons on Friday, while they’re down to storing 82% of capacity. Neither is any reason to panic, assuming that we get a nice rainy fall.
I’ve been keeping an eye on stream flow levels, using the USGS’ National Water Information System, and they just keep dropping. The Rivanna is down to 1.13 ft/sec discharge, compared to the 12-year mean for this date of 293 ft/sec. The last time that it was this low was 2002, when we were in the throes of drought. The Moormans is even worse: 0.363 ft/sec, the lowest it’s been this time of year in the eighteen years it’s been monitored. Normally it’d be 143 ft/sec this time of year. Ground water levels keep dropping — it was at 29.75 feet a month ago, and now it’s at 31.25 feet. It’s once it starts dropping below people’s wells that there’s trouble.
The good news is that there’s a hurricane on the way. If we’re lucky, Hurricane Ernesto will weaken over land and dump a few inches of rain on us, which will help to recharge the reservoir. It’ll take a lot more than that over a much longer period to recharge our ground water, but it’d be a start.
08/30 Update: 6″-12″ of rain is forecast to fall on Friday, the remnants of Hurricane Ernesto. I believe I’ll be taking credit for this reversal for fortune.
The train wreck that is the Whisper Ridge Behavioral Health System (née The Brown Schools, née The Millmont Center — they change their name regularly in hopes that their misdeeds won’t be associated with them) has just come off the tracks — five recently-sacked employees have been indicted for the sexual abuse of the children in their care there, Rob Seal reports in the Progress. These aren’t just any employees — the two who have been named are Director of Operations Bianca Nicole Johnson and Mental Health Specialist Bryan Antwann Vaughan. Johnson is charged with taking indecent liberties with a child, while Vaughan is charged with forcible sodomy and taking indecent liberties with a child two counts of sexually abusing a child while in a custodial or supervisory role. The unnamed accused, two women and one man, face similar charges.
Police have had an investigator working on this case full-time for six months now. In the meantime the number of residents there has dropped from sixty to just six. I’ve got to wonder what the parents of those six are thinking.
2:36pm update: Turns out the charges against Vaughan reported by the Progress were wrong, though the penalties for the real charges are identical.
Consider this a public service announcement: Lethal Wrecker is changing their name to After Five Towing. They’ve gotten such a terrible reputation that apparently they figure a name change will allow them to leave it behind. (From the Whisper Ridge School of Business?) The company is also planning to file for bankruptcy, not because they’re going under, but to avoid having to pay up after being caught overcharging their victims, as well as to avoid paying up in the $20M suit recently filed by a man left crippled after his car was crushed by a Lethal tow truck.
I think I may have to run PSAs on the site periodically to remind people that After Five Towing is one and the same as Lethal Wrecker. I’d hate for anybody to forget.
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