Bob Gibson writes in today’s Daily Progress that the contest for Judge Paul Peatross’ now-vacated seat comes down to Republicans Cheryl Higgins and Jim Camblos. The other applicants might be perfectly fine, but they’re not a) Republicans or b) playing the political game. Legislative aides are awash in complaints about the possibility of a Judge Camblos — constituent calls are about opposing him, not supporting others, because he’s just that unpopular of a guy. Del. Bill Janis, an old friend of Camblos, fully intends to put partisanship ahead of good public policy, but Gibson figures that Dels. Rob Bell and David Toscano are probably undecided at this point.
If you want to express your feelings on the candidates, you can contact Del. Bell’s office (804-698-1058, DelRBell@house.state.va.us), Del. Janis’ office (804-698-1056, DelBJanis@house.state.va.us), or Del. Toscano’s office (804-698-1057, DelDToscano@house.state.va.us), depending on who your delegate is. Sen. Ken Stolle is the guy who ultimately calls the shots on this, since he’s the chair of the Senate Courts of Justice Committee, so those with particularly strong feelings would want to contact his office (804-698-7508, district08@sov.state.va.us). No matter who you call, you’ll be greeted by somebody whose sole job is to take calls like this — it just takes a minute, and can make all the difference. Unless your representative is Del. Janis. I can’t see how that’ll do anything.
I keep meaning to write about Albemarle County’s new web-based mapping system, but every time I get sucked into playing with it for an hour or so and then I don’t have time to write anything. It’s a map of the entire county with zoning classifications, school districts, soil classifications, watersheds, voting precincts, historic districts, hydrant locations, structures, driveways, elevation contours, bodies of water, 1ft aerial photography and a whole lot more. My wife and I are preparing to acquire land and build a house, and suddenly this data is all enormously useful. This system is really impressive, and the county deserves a lot of credit for making it available.
The Hook reports that Beth Duffy will be going on-air at one of Gray Communications’ stations in April. She left NBC 29 in March of last year and promptly started working in sales for Gray. Of course, they didn’t hire her for her sales skills — it’s just smart business for the new guys in town to woo anchors from the competition. With the non-compete clause of her contract expiring come March, and sweeps coming up in May, it’s a cinch she’ll be on the air within weeks.
Charlottesville police captain Chip Harding is preparing to run for Albemarle County sheriff, The Hook reports. He’s planning an announcement on Tuesday.
It’s been widely rumored that Sheriff Ed Robb — who took the job after being knocked out of the state senate by the late Emily Couric — has been planning on retiring and intends for Harding, a fellow Republican, to succeed him. Robb won last time around, despite getting less than half of the vote, because he faced a pair of independent challengers who divided up the remaining 51% of the vote. His tenure has not been a particularly impressive one, including declaring his deputy’s still-unexplained shooting a “hate crime” and proposing that we camouflage the jail so that terrorists can’t find it.
Larry Claytor, one of Robb’s opponents last time around, is widely expected to run again.
Media General’s new Our Great Oudoors looks strikingly similar to Blue Ridge Outdoors, The Hook points out. A side-by-side comparison makes it all the more clear — same dimensions, same full-bleed photograph, similar logos (vertical color fade, white border), and similar sans serif typeface promoting the contents within. I do believe the legal term for those would be “substantial likelihood of confusion.”
On his blog, Dave Norris addresses the question of whether our homeless population has migrated here to take advantage of our services. Using the results of the Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless’ annual census of the homeless, he’s found that the majority of the local homeless population is from the Charlottesville area, the overwhelming majority is from Virginia, and those that aren’t from Charlottesville have lived here for many years. (In fact, a much higher percentage of the non-homeless moved here than the homeless.) Quite simply, the homeless are far more likely to be locals than the non-homeless.
In today’s Daily Progress, Brian McNeill’s stalks (and bags) that most elusive of prey: objective coverage of other local media outlets, in the form of analysis of the two corporations vying for domination of the local TV airwaves. NBC 29 continues to crush the competition, according to Nielsen ratings, bringing this great bit from Newplex general manager Roger Burchett:
“As far as we’re concerned, it’s a book of useless numbers,” said Burchett, though he admitted that if his stations overtake NBC29 he’ll “treat the Nielsen ratings like gospel.”
This is probably the best local media coverage of local media since Coy Barefoot’s study of NBC 29’s news content in C-Ville Weekly back in the late 90s. Not that there’s much competition; media doesn’t often cover media and, when it does, it’s often snarky.
This time it’s for real: Somebody other than Jim Camblos has been selected by regional Republican legislators to replace Circuit Court Judge Paul Peatross. That somebody is Ivy resident, Republican, attorney, and former assistant commonwealth’s attorney Cheryl Higgins. The General Assembly still has to vote to accept the nomination, which is scheduled for tomorrow, but odds are vanishingly close to zero that they’d reject her.
The Republican majority figured this out among themselves, with some press announcing the arrangement even before some regional Democrats in the General Assembly learned about it. Three cheers for bipartisanship.
02/23 Update: Bob Gibson has a proper review of the outcome in today’s Progress.
TrvlnMn writes of Oliver Kuttner’s nine-story hotel proposal:
Kuttner opts to make money, chooses hotel option. Proves he was just paying “lip service” to the affordable housing issue. Perhaps the token gesture greased the wheels for BAR approval.
He had proposed building affordable housing, right on the Downtown Mall, but now it’s looking more like the nine-story hotel originally proposed by Lee Danielson some years ago.
City Councilor Kendra Hamilton won’t be running for reelection, Seth Rosen reports in the Progress. Hamilton was elected to Council in 2004 along with Mayor David Brown, and, along with Kevin Lynch, both find their terms up somewhat early this time around because the elections have been moved from May to November. Hamilton, a writer, says that she needs to spend more time on her vocation and finish up her PhD from the UVa English department. Neither Brown nor Lynch have decided if they want to run for reelection. It would be Lynch’s third term and, as he points out, “eight years is a while.”
As the only member of Council who isn’t a white man, Hamilton’s departure is sure to send some city Democrats into a tizzy trying to track down a black woman to replace her. Charlottesville attorney and blogger Jennifer McKeever hinted strongly at plans to run in a recent blog entry. Is anybody else planning to run?
A real estate agency has filed suit in federal court against Wintergreen and Roy Wheeler, accusing them of colluding in violation of state and federal anti-monopoly laws, Brian McNeill writes in the Progress. Mountain Area Realty says that they’ve been shut out of the market by the exclusive marketing relationship, and they’re seeking $6M in damages. The firm says that Real Estate III and Montague Miller have shuttered their Wintergreen offices as a result of the deal (Montague Miller disagrees). In a rare display of candor, Mountain Area Realty’s attorney says that attorneys’ fees on both sides will be “umpteen-jillion dollars.”
Real estate agent Jim Duncan figures this could have a far-reaching impact on any “exclusively marketed by” deals, while attorney Jennifer McKeever points out that having a monopoly isn’t actually illegal, and that the case should move through pretty quickly. Plus, the Sherman Antitrust Act has basically gone unenforced since President Bush took office; I can’t see that changing now.
Albemarle County Sheriff’s Deputy Roger Craig is running for the Democratic nomination for sheriff, the Daily Progress reports. He’ll be challenging Albemarle County police investigator Larry Claytor for the nomination; Claytor announced his campaign a couple of weeks ago. Charlottesville police captain Chip Harding is seeking the Republican nomination.
I’m told that Sheriff Edgar Robb, who is retiring, was backing Harding as his replacement, but that he also encouraged Craig to get into the race. That would explain Robb’s refusal to endorse anybody just yet, but it seems like an odd thing to do.
Craig’s candidacy is a bit of a puzzle — I just mapped his address in Google Earth, and he lives half a mile from the Albemarle border, in Orange County, just down the road from me, which would make him ineligible to serve in an Albemarle office. He started working with the Charlottesville Police Department in 1987, and he’s been with the Sheriff’s Office for 16 years, so I’m certainly not questioning the man’s commitment to law enforcement in Albemarle. Maybe he moved recently?
02/28 Update: Rob Seal writes in today’s Progress that Craig does live in Orange, but he and his wife own a house in Albemarle that they’ll move into in May in order to satisfy the residency requirement. That would certainly seem to settle things.
The Virginia Film Festival announced this year’s theme a few days ago, when I wasn’t looking: “kin flicks.” Film Fest director Richard Herskowitz made it known on his blog, and Jeremy Borden provides details in the Progress. It seems anything pertaining to family is up for grabs, which Herskowitz says was motivated both by a desire to get more families to attend and continue the discussion that began with last year’s gay marriage amendment. If you’ve got suggestions for films, Herskowitz is soliciting them as comments to his blog entry.
There’s been some informative discussion on local blogs about the Charlottesville Planning Commission and how they interact with the public. Over at Charlottesville Tomorrow, Brian Wheeler chronicles the planning commission’s February 15 meeting (complete with podcast audio) where:
the Charlottesville Planning Commission directed staff to prepare written guidelines strongly discouraging any communications between the Commissioners and developers or citizens with a position on a matter before the Commission. A motion to eliminate those communications entirely was considered then withdrawn. If approved, the City Planning Commission would adopt a style in sharp contrast to their neighbors in Albemarle County where these informal meetings with concerned citizens and developers are common practice.
Over at the new blog “Democratic Central,” responding to Charlottesville Tomorrow’s blog entry, Lloyd Snook weighs in strongly in favor of an open process:
When I was on the Planning Commission 20 years ago, I would meet with developers and citizens and neighbors and anyone else who wanted to talk about things. I wanted the most information possible. I didn’t want to have to get only the information that the staff gave me — not because I thought they were out to mislead me, but because they might not ask the same questions that I would ask.
[…]
This is not a jury system, where the decision makers can only base their decisions on what they learn in the courtroom. Planning Commissioners are generally thought of as legislators, and there are no restrictions on how legislators can gather their information.
I was asked to serve on the Charlottesville Planning Commission some years ago (I decided against it), but gave a lot of thought to it. I’ve got to agree with Lloyd Snook’s take on this, assuming that common sense is adhered to as Peter Kleeman suggests in a comment. Balancing open government and convenient government often isn’t easy; I’m glad there’s a public discussion about it.
City Councilor Kendra Hamilton’s announcement that she won’t be seeking reelection means that at least one of the three seats up for reelection will be open, and that’s brought potential candidates out of the woodwork. Over at Democratic Democrat, Lloyd Snook runs down the list of candidates, and figures that Mayor David Brown will run for reelection, Kevin Lynch won’t run if somebody he likes runs, and names five possible candidates: Satyendra Huja, Linda Seaman, Jennifer McKeever, Carolyn Shears, and Karen Waters. I’ve also heard that Holly Edwards is thinking about running.
Of course, they won’t all run if only one seat opens up. It’s just a hunch, but I’ll bet that Kevin Lynch won’t run if Holly Edwards runs — they’re both thoughtful and gregarious community activists.
I wrote a really long blog entry about indigent dental care in Virginia back in August after many hours of research into the topic, and came away convinced that we have a terrible, terrible system for dealing with what is a far bigger problem than I ever would have guessed. (For example, one in five Virginians don’t have a single tooth in their head. Wow.) For most low-income Virginians there is no relief for dental problems, and resulting health problems can easily leave them crippled or even dead.
Now comes news that the Monticello Area Community Action Agency is coordinating a dental program to serve these individuals, Brian McNeill reports in today’s Daily Progress. Private dentists and the Charlottesville Free Clinic will provide the actual care. It seems unlikely that they’ll be able to meet the significant demand (especially demand for adult dental care), but this is an enormous step forward for a very big problem.
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