It’s not just Glenmore: Mill Creek’s treasurer has been arrested for embezzlement, too. You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.
[...]Charlottesville’s Dr. Gregg Korbon told the story of how Brian C. Korbon Little League Field got its name on NPR this morning. John Borgmeyer named this as the best story recorded by StoryCorps here in 2005.
[...]Hollymead Town Center isn’t the paragon of pedestrian friendliness that it’s touted as, Erika Howsare writes in the current C-Ville Weekly. Years after the development went in, Howsare tried to take a stroll to the shopping center from the townhouses that make the place ostensibly mixed-use. It did not [...]
Local filmmaker Eric Hurt has won Organizing for America’s competition to create short films about the paucity of affordable family health care, Brian McNeill writes in today’s Daily Progress. A thousand films were submitted, with a blue-ribbon panel naming this one the best. It was shot at Riverview Park.
Del. Phil Hamilton lost his reelection bid earlier this month, I was relieved to see–voters saw fit to hand him his hat for lining his own pockets with taxpayer dollars (or so it appears). Democrat Robin Abbott won the Peninsula district with 54% of the vote. Like every other [...]
Angry protesters are driving away customers to businesses next door to Rep. Perriello’s office, and they’re demanding that Perriello relocate his office to a place where they can more easily picket him.
[...]The Victory Shoes façade has been illegally demolished, Dave McNair wrote in The Hook a few days ago. (Here’s how it looked when the shoe store was still in business.) One of the few remaining examples of art deco architecture in town, the building—just to the left of [...]
Teabagger Nigel Coleman on why he’s cancelled his plans to burn Rep. Tom Perriello in effigy:
I feel like I obviously handled this poorly, as far as the press goes. We really should have thought this through more … and seen how this was going to affect not only us, [...]
Adopt a needy family for Christmas. I’ve done this—it’s guaranteed elevation.
[...]West Main business owns are pushing for a charrette on the history of the corridor, Rachana Dixit writes in today’s Daily Progress. (For those who aren’t familiar with the process, Wikipedia provides a good definition. It’s basically when a bunch of stakeholders get together and try to collaboratively [...]
President George W. Bush has assented to participate in the Miller Center’s ongoing presidential history project, The Daily Progress reports. Every president since Carter has been interviewed—along with hundreds of administration officials—for their Presidential Oral History Program, which has used that extraordinary level of access to create an [...]
The Cavalier Daily is scaling back the number of issues they’ll publish each year, they announced in today’s lead editorial, going from 136 down to 131, or thereabouts. It’s a financial decision, a result of decreased advertising revenue, so they’re eliminating five Friday papers, the day that generates the [...]
My brother’s second “deer hunting for locavores” class starts on Sunday, and there are still slots available. It’s $50, with neither experience nor a rifle of your own required.
[...]Last night I watched With These Hands, a documentary about the closure of the Hooker furniture plant in Martinsville. Hooker sounds like it was a heck of a company. I say “was”—it’s still in business, but they moved all of their manufacturing to China, and it’s really the same [...]
Albemarle financial situation is worsening, the the $4.7M shortfall now up to $5.7M.
[...]This is a fun audio profile of erstwhile Toscano opponent R.B. Smith. Also, I like to say “erstwhile.”
[...]
Steve Shannon ran this ad in the last month of his campaign:
If those IP addresses are an indicator of Steve Shannon’s technical prowess, I don’t think he was going to catch those child pornographers after all. Here’s a screenshot, if you missed it:
This is a bit [...]
Democrats have won all of the Charlottesville elections, unsurprisingly. Delegate David Toscano easily defeated independent challenger R.B. Smith, James E. Brown bested independent Paul Best in the sheriff’s race, and Mayor Dave Norris secured reelection while ticket-mate Kristin Szakos joined him in defeating independents Bob Fenwick and Paul Long. [...]
Both Republicans running for the Albemarle Board of Supervisors have won: Duane Snow in the Samuel Miller district and Rodney Thomas in the Rio district.
Snow was in a three-way race against Democrat Madison Cummings and independent John Lowry, all vying for a seat vacated by [...]
As I watch the first of the results of the election come in, I’m struck by the wide variety of options of websites offering data. Until this election, we’ve been left obsessively reloading the SBE’s website, hopping around from precinct to precinct, district to district, trying to remember what the [...]
A PAC called “Albemarle Citizens Against Racism” political action committee just registered yesterday, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, with the stated goal of defeating Rodney Thomas. (He’s the Republican running against incumbent David Slutzky in the Rio district in today’s election.) In violation of state campaign [...]
I’m kind of excited about “Secretly, Y’all,” a new storytelling collective. On Nov. 15, a bunch of strangers will get together and tell stories on a theme of “crazy,” in the style of “The Moth.”
[...]For all of y’all blogging about the election on Tuesday on the sorts of blogs read by people who don’t read blogs like this one (that is, people who aren’t huge politics geeks), provide them with this where-to-vote widget, or just link to the version on Google’s site. [...]
There are all sorts of elections on Tuesday. Statewide, we’ve got the governor’s race (Democrat Creigh Deeds vs. Republican Bob McDonnell), the lieutenant governor’s race (Republican Bill Bolling vs. Democrat Jody Wagner), and attorney general (Democrat Steve Shannon vs. Republican Ken Cuccinelli). There are also a pair of House of [...]
In the name of Bradley Rees, we pray.
Dear God, we thank you for your bounty of stupid. In what promises to be a lousy month for Virginia Democrats, you have been fit to deliver to us Bradley Rees. In your wisdom, you have arranged for Rep. Tom Perriello to [...]
An ostensible baron and director of crappy 70s TV shows has been charged with stealing stuff from the Antiquer’s Mall. Let’s keep an eye on this story—I think it’ll be fun.
[...]Bryan McKenzie, seeking reaction to Rep. Perriello’s move towards supporting the health care reform bill, interviews only Perriello’s political opponents. Get this: they oppose his move.
[...]
The USPS Distribution Facility on Airport Rd.
As many people forecast, the USPS intends to scale back significantly their new processing facility on Airport Road, Bryan McKenzie writes in the Progress, moving that work to [...]
Three months after breaking the story that coal lobbyists forged letters to Rep. Tom Perriello, Brian McNeill headed up to Washington D.C. to cover a congressional hearing investigating the scandal. He was sent up to cover the story for the Daily Progress; Media General sent him up, rather [...]
Patricia Kluge is trying to sell her estate for a laughable, ridiculous $100M. She’ll be lucky to get a fifth of that.
[...]Earlysville’s Marit Gay just completed a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. Go Marit!
[...]Can we all agree that the notion of either gubernatorial candidate being a “jobs governor” (as McDonnell has branded himself) is fundamentally bullshit? A governor has a very limited capacity to create jobs. I will buy that it’s possible that a governor, over the course of four years, can woo [...]
Lawrence Halprin, the architect who designed the Downtown Mall, has died.
[...]There’s a little nugget in The Daily Progress’ unsurprising endorsement of Ken Cuccinelli for attorney general that I just want to post here, so that we can all look back on it in the years ahead, assuming that Cuccinelli wins next week:
Mr. Cuccinelli seems to have a better grasp [...]
I’ve had considerably less time to write in the past couple of months, because we’ve finally started building our house. At right is a photo of the groundbreaking, yesterday morning. Leading up to that, though, was months of design work, driveway construction, loan negotiation, builder selection, [...]
A Fluvanna BoS candidate owes $50k in back taxes to the county. That’s gotta be awkward.
[...]Stonehaus has taken over and is looking to lease out the Jefferson School as “Jefferson School City Center.” $13/sq. ft. The leasing packet has details (1.3MB PDF). Somehow this isn’t what I expected.
[...]It’s been a bad last few days here in Charlottesville.
Mother, North Garden farmer, raw milk advocate and local food activist Kathryn Russell died in a car accident on 29S on Thursday night. The owner of Majesty Farm and VICFA board member was crossing 29 on Plank Road [...]
The Democratic challenger to Delegate Rob Bell sent out a mailing earlier this week comparing him to a cheating husband, Brian McNeill writes in the Progress. Cynthia Neff’s glossy, 8.5″x11″ one-page mailer shows a bouquet of roses on one side, with large text reading: “It’s like a cheating [...]
Del. Rob Bell, quoted in today’s Daily Progress:
[W]e can all remember how negative mailings filled with innuendo and personal attacks helped defeat Virgil Goode in 2008.
Does anybody have the faintest idea of what he’s talking about? I’m not aware of a single such mailing going out. Rep. Tom Perriello ran [...]
The second part of Don Teschek’s two-part series on my great uncle Eddie Cassidy, for the The Andover (NH) Beacon. The prior installment was about his service in WWII, while this is about how he and his best friend built one another’s vacation homes when they got out [...]
Google Maps is showing county property boundaries. Bravo, Google and county GIS folks! (Via DP)
[...]Black students in Albemarle County high schools are graduating at a lower rate this year than last year, Rachana Dixit and Brandon Shulleeta report in today’s Daily Progress. Of the class that entered ninth grade in 2004, 5.4% of black students dropped out. Of the class that entered in [...]
With President Obama OKing medical marijuana, my reading of Virginia law tells me that it’s now legal right here in Charlottesville.
[...]Fun fact: medical marijuana is now legal in Virginia. With President Obama directing the feds to adhere to state laws in enforcement of anti-marijuana laws, that presumably leaves doctors free to prescribe it under §18.2-251.1, which the General Assembly passed in 1979.
[...]My great-uncle Eddie Cassidy—my maternal grandmother’s brother—died Sunday night at the age of 93. The Andover (NH) Beacon recently featured a profile of his service in WWII, the first of a two-part series. (The second is still to come.) The author is the grandson of Uncle Eddie’s lifelong buddy, [...]
VDOT has withdrawn their idea for a new Culpeper -> 64 running along eastern Albemarle. Perhaps they weren’t aware that Keswick residents have both money and power in spades?
[...]Mohawk is shutting down their Waynesboro factory, leaving 120 people out of work. That’s terrible news for W’boro.
[...]Over a million dollars in goods have been sold at the farmer’s market this year. Very impressive!
[...]General District Judge William G. Barkley has found Forest Lakes Arby’s owner Tom Slonaker in clear violation of the county’s zoning regulations, Tasha Kates wrote in yesterday’s Progress, fining him $1,000 per violation. For years Slonaker has festooned his business with advertisements for Arby’s and another, unlicensed business that [...]
Bob McDonnell just doesn’t think that people have anything to do with global climate change, and the AP’s Bob Lewis asked him some hard questions about it. Climate scientists are unanimous: the temperature is going up, and human are doing it. But McDonnell says he merely “thinks” that global [...]
Another week, another random Republican running against Perriello. The 5CD Republican Party is a mess. The candidate, Ron Ferrin, says he looked at the comically crowded field and thought “I felt I could do better.” He has a wonderfully awful website (check out that domain name) that was [...]
The Albemarle Planning Commission is set to oppose rezonings in the vicinity of Glenmore, Connie Chang writes for Charlottesville Tomorrow, because there’s simply not the road capacity to handle the traffic between there and Charlottesville. That’s good news for supporters of common sense. Traditionally, developers get to build whatever [...]
Shorter Bob McDonnell: I believe nothing that I said I believed. Except for that business about being able to fire queers. That I’m totally down with. But it has nothing to do with when I said that in my thesis, for reasons I can’t explain. Some of my best [...]
The National Book Award finalists were announced yesterday. I recognized and silently cheered for Colum McCann (full disclosure: I used to work for Random House). I scratched my head a bit over David Small being in the “Young People’s” category (such a dark, strange and beautiful graphic novel, [...]
Please take a minute to complete this survey about VPAP. They use this annual survey to help figure out what they’re doing right, what they could be doing better, and what we’d all like them to be doing that they’re not.
[...]‘Tis the season for harvesting and eating giant puffballs. I’ve given out a half dozen so far, and people really seem to like them.
[...]Albemarle BoS chair David Slutzky is toying with a significant overhaul to county taxation policy, Brandon Shulleeta writes in today’s Daily Progress, although he says it’s nothing more than idea, one that he’s not even sure that he’d vote for. The county provides a significant real estate tax cut [...]
Got stinkbugs? You’re not the only one. Remember that the annual lady beetle invasion is due sometime in the next two weeks, too.
[...]I simply don’t have the time to do this justice right now, but I don’t want to fail to acknowledge the cease-and-desist order that Norfolk sent to Vivian Page. Signed by Deputy City Attorney Martha P. McGann, it’s a bit stunning in its legal overreach. A kind interpretation would [...]
