The trailer for Evan Almighty is now available. It’s very weird seeing the instantly-recognizable Crozet view of the Blue Ridge in the movie, though I expect it’ll be weirder still seeing so many familiar faces as background characters.
Archive for November, 2006
A new regional library will be built in downtown Crozet, the County Board of Supervisors decided on Wednesday. They chose that site rather than the old school site, where Charlottesville Waldorf is now. The county has already set aside $6M to replace the tiny old railroad depot that they’re in now.
Spending $6M on a new building is nice, but how about the BoS ponies up a little extra cash so that the branches can be open reasonable hours? The county hasn’t increased spending on library operations to keep pace with inflation and cost-of-living increases, so the hours just have to keep getting cut back. The Crozet library doesn’t open until 1pm on Monday and Tuesday, closes at 5pm Wednesday through Saturday, and isn’t even open on Sunday. Northside opens at noon on Monday and Tuesday and is only open for four hours on Sunday. What’s the point of a $6M library if it’s locked and darkened? (Greene County, I’m looking at you.)
Man, “Waldorf” is a word that just freaks me out to write. I type “Waldo” and keep right on going…with an “rf.” Waldorf Waldorf Waldorf. Woah…dorf.
Adelphia has begun the transition to Comcast, John Yellig writes in today’s Progress, the result of Comcast’s$17.6B acquisition of Adelphia that went through this summer. Much like the current Sprint/Embarq switch they’ll gradually rebrand everything and move people on old plans onto new plans. They promise everybody rainbows and ponies and that we’ll all just be the best of friends, they just know it. I’m confident that we’ll all soon think of ironic applications for the trademark-verb “Comcastic” very soon.
Y’all know there’s an election tomorrow, y’all know you’re picking sides in the U.S. Senate race, between Republican George Allen and Democrat Jim Webb. But don’t forget that there are three proposed amendments to the state constitution.
Amendment 1 has gotten lots of attention — that’s the proposal to prevent two people (of any sex) from forming a contract that provides any of the privileges of marriage. Its advocates say that it would bar gay marriage, although it’s already illegal. Its opponents (including me) say that it’s a terribly-written bill that’s way too far-reaching, and will create huge hassles for folks like you and me who are looking to start a business, buy real estate, create a living will, or engage any many other routine legal transactions.
Amendment 2 would permit churches to incorporate. Currently the state constitution bars church incorporation, but the courts have ruled that unconstitutional. The goal is to make the constitution (code law) match the courts’ interpretation of it (case law). If anybody objects to this, I don’t know who they are.
Amendment 3 would allow localities to partially exempt real estate value from taxation for the purpose of rehabilitation or conservation. The amendment itself would do nothing — it would only give localities the power to provide tax breaks to encourage development if they decided to do so. Again, if anybody objects to this, I don’t know who they are.
Bob Gibson explains these in more detail in today’s Progress.
City Council now has streaming video of Council meetings, according to an extremely brief press release on the city’s website. I’m watching it now, as Council debates a resolution in opposition to the proposed constitutional amendment regulating marriage. The volume is really low, but the video is clear and sufficiently large. It’s great for those of us who don’t have cable but still want to watch meetings from the comfort of our homes. Here’s hoping they end up archiving the video so that it’ll be possible to link to past meetings, excerpt video or audio for reproducing elsewhere, etc.
City Council unanimously passed a resolution opposing Amendment 1 this evening. That’s the so-called “gay marriage” amendment that voters will be asked to consider on tomorrow’s ballot. Every councilor spoke against the amendment, with their reasons for opposition ranging from fairness to the over-broad language of the bill. Councilor Kevin Lynch asked that it be opposed because it would harm the legal status of his relationship with his long-time girlfriend — the amendment’s over-broad language would affect unmarried couples gay and straight alike.
The results are in from last night’s midterm elections, and the big news is that Democrats have taken back the House of Representatives and seem quite likely to take back the U.S. Senate. The votes are still being counted in Montana and, yes, Virginia, though past voting data for the remaining precincts make it extremely likely the Democrats will win in both states, since they’re currently ahead by a margin difficult to overcome.
Here in Virginia we’ve elected Jim Webb by a 0.3% margin, passed Amendment 1 (the “marriage” amendment) with 57% support, and reelected every single incumbent congressman, including our representative, Virgil Goode.
Here in Albemarle Webb defeated Sen. George Allen 57/42, Al Weed defeated Goode 54/45, and Amendment 1 was defeated with just 41% of the vote. In Charlottesville the gap was even larger: Webb got 77%, Weed got 75%, and Amendment 1 got just 23% of the vote. From a quick review of statewide voting data it looks like Charlottesville defeated Amendment 1 by the largest margin in the entire state, and would certainly be in the top 5 in the percentage of support for Webb.
Many of the city’s infrastructure and buildings are starting to age out, John Yellig wrote in yesterday’s Daily Progress, necessitating millions of dollars in impending repairs and upgrades. Roads, sidewalks, the central fire station and city hall all require costly improvements. (City Hall is hideous. I wish we could tear the thing down and start over again. Who thought it’d be a good idea to construct city hall without windows?)
The article doesn’t mention two of the more costly projects due: the central library and the Downtown Mall. The beautiful old building that houses the library on Market Street is badly in need of some serious renovation that the city can’t put off much longer. And the Downtown Mall is crumbling under the weight of vehicular traffic it was never meant to bear, though a fellow in the city engineer’s office told me some years ago that the whole structure has aged badly, and much of it needs to be torn up and rebuilt.
Seems to me spending money on new maintenance-requiring capital improvements (expanding the Downtown Mall down side streets, revamping West Main) isn’t a great use of money right now, unless they’ll lead to increased city revenues sufficient to offset those costs.
Kevin Lynch makes an interesting suggestion in the article: differentiating between commercial and residential properties for the purpose of taxes, such that they can be taxed at different rates.
William Beebe today pleaded guilty to the rape of a UVa student in 1984, Kristen Gelineau report for the AP. Beebe famously confessed in writing to his victim out of the clear blue sky last year, leading to his arrest and then claimed that he did no such thing, despite having, y’know, confessed. The state’s end of the plea deal will have him serving two years in prison.
9:30pm Update: I should have noted that while Beebe pleaded guilty to the rape, the charge to which he pleaded was sexual battery, not rape. Beebe made a statement on his plea today, and The Hook provided the video.
Kudos to The Hook for both recording video and making it available via YouTube.
Albemarle Supervisor David Slutzky is launching an online referendum system to regularly poll his constituents, Brian Wheeler writes at Charlottesville Tomorrow. At a website he calls Talk to Your Government he will accept mass feedback — votes, presumably — from registered voters that are within the Rio District in order to get a sense of what his constituents want.
Given that online polls are notoriously useless, I’m not sure that this will tell him much about the will of the voters, but it’s an interesting idea.
I got a good bit of e-mail when it was announced that “Larry the Cable Guy” would be performing at the John Paul Jones Arena. Some folks were upset that the stand-up comedian’s anti-intellectual, anti-gay, anti-Muslim, racist schtick was being given an audience by UVa. On the one hand, yeah, fair enough. But on the other hand, I think Charlottesville may devolve into liberal self-parody by getting all upset about the guy. (Speaking of liberal self-parody, everything I know about him comes from a feature article The New Yorker had about him a few months ago.)
Well, C-Ville Weekly apparently agrees that this ain’t right — J. Tobias Beard has a critical look at Larry the Cable Guy in the latest issue, and clearly doesn’t like what he sees.
MAACA has put on their annual three-day poverty diet over the past three days, in which participants voluntarily spend just $2.83 on food. The idea is to give participants an understanding of what it’s like to live on the budget allotted to food stamp recipients.
This time around, local blogger and CHS student Michael Strickland participated. He kept an audio diary over the course of the three days, talking about what he was eating, how he felt, and how he did with his budget. And it’s available via the Charlottesville Podcasting Network, natch. It’s interesting and enjoyable — I’d love to see more people working with CPN’s Sean Tubbs to create this sort of original audio webcast.
Albemarle Circuit Judge Paul Peatross will be retiring come January 31, Bob Gibson reports in today’s Daily Progress.
But the real story here is his replacement. Much as word of Del. Mitch Van Yahres’ retirement set aspiring politicians’ eyes agleam last year, Peatross’ retirement is have the the same response among well-known lawyers. Gibson writes that Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos, C’ville General District Judge Robert Downer, Daniel Meador, deputy prosecutor Richard Moore, and assistant prosecutor John Zug are all likely to angle for the position.
Judgeships are not elected, but are appointed by the General Assembly. Having sat through some judgeship appointment votes at the Republican-led GA, they basically all sail through, voting for whomever the Courts of Justice committee has supported who, in turn, often supports whomever the local bar association supports. Interestingly for us, both Del. Rob Bell and Del. David Toscano sit on Courts of Justice. Del. Toscano has called for an open and fair process this time but, frankly, that’s just not going to happen under the current leadership in the General Assembly, who’s actually taken to killing bills under secret votes by a half dozen people in the dark of night.
I don’t know about y’all, but I find the prospect of Judge Camblos terrifying. Jim Camblos is not a man known for his good judgment and definitely not known for being on an even keel or, for that matter, simply being nice.
If you support an open, fair selection process and you’re represented by a Republican (Del. Bill Janis, Del. Rob Bell, or Del. Watkins Abbitt), contact your representative and let him know. If there’s anybody you’d like to see as judge — or anybody you really don’t want to see as judge — contact your representative (of whatever political stripe) and let him know, particularly if you’re represented by Del. Bell or Del. Toscano.
Today a Charlottesville jury awarded $4.5M to the family of a man killed by police at Squire Hill in 1997, Liesel Nowak reports for the Daily Progress. Twenty-six year-old Frederick Gray was unarmed when fighting with police after they entered his home. They attempted to subdue him with pepper spray and a baton, but police said that he had incapacitated three of the four officers and the remaining officer was forced to shoot and kill him. Sgt. Amos Chiarappa had previously come out on the winning end of a civil trial in 2003 and was even cleared by police.
The case pitted well-known local attorney Debbie Wyatt, who argued that there was a racial component to the case (given the the victim was black and the officers were all white), against Sen. Mark Obenshain, who argued that the inconsistencies in the case did not merit ruling against the officer. Obenshain was elected to the 26th District (in the valley) in 2003. His sister stepped down this week as chair of the Republican Party of Virginia, and their father was a powerful and well-known Republican leader in the state until his 1978 death in a plane crash.
VDOT has approved the Proffit Road Bridge to handle up to 16 tons o’ vehicle, John Yellig reports in today’s Progress, a four-ton increase that will allow Stony Point’s firetrucks to cross it.
They stopped sending trucks over it in 2002 when they realized that sending their 15.5 and 16.5 ton trucks over a bridge with a fifteen ton weight limit wasn’t a great idea. After the bridge was replaced this summer, the SPVFC was annoyed to discover that the weight limit had been dropped to twelve tons. Though they don’t normally respond to fires west of the bridge, they figure they should have the option. Now they do, at least for their smaller truck.
There have been a pair of interesting articles in the past few days about the hundreds of refugees resettled in Charlottesville by the International Rescue Committee. The first is what I guess qualifies as propaganda, an article by the State Department, and the second is Bob Gibson’s pieces from yesterday’s Progress. I knew that refugees were being relocated here, but that was the extent of my knowledge. I had no idea that we’re unusual in the scope and scale of our role in that process, that our schools take a big hit on those kids thanks to No Child Left Behind, or that nearly 100% of refugees are self-sufficient within four months of arriving here.
Give these a read — it’ll give you a new perspective on C’ville’s role in the international community.
The U.Va library’s Geostat Center makes available maps of Charlottesville from 1907 and 1920, and they’re pretty great. 
The detail and level of description is what really makes it. The room-by-room rendering of the Woolen Mills’ Pantop Academy, for instance, notes that there are night and Sunday watchmen, that it’s heated by steam fueled with coal, and that there’s a 20,000 gallon water tank. Businesses’ names aren’t given but, instead, they’re described. Downtown, Sal’s was a barbershop, CVS was a telegraphy shop, the corner of 3rd SE and Water was a carriage shop and a wheelwright, the Jefferson Theater was the Jefferson Theater (”moving pictures”) and Timberlake’s was Timberlake’s. (Not everything has changed.) All are accompanied by metadata so they can be loaded into mapping software, for that extra touch of awesomeness.
There are a good number of local businesses wondering how to reach the thousands of people who read local blogs; here’s how to do it.
Some folks have taken to advertising here via Blogads (the image-and-text vertical rectangles often found at right), but there are now a couple of other local blogs that are newly part of the Blogads network. Sean Tubbs’ Charlottesville Podcasting Network starts at $10 for a one-week run of a full-sized Blogad, and nailgun (the excellent and popular local music blog) starts at the same rate. Also, I’m now accepting them over at Charlottesville Blogs for $15/week.
I think local businesses would do well to give ‘em a whirl.
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