Via Charlottesville Tomorrow, I see that the Woodbrook Neighborhood Blog has a long piece about how the neighborhood is divided over an Eagle Scout’s project to build a bench and a bridge over a county-owned lagoon as a part of a trail on public land. Blogger Dan Gould conducted a bunch of interviews, talked to county employees, took a bunch of photos, and even took an informal survey of landowners who live nearby. A lively discussion has ensued in the comments section. It’s a great piece of work about a parochial matter, the sort of thing that would surely have no place in a regional publication, but that anybody who lives in the Woodbrook area surely finds very interesting.
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Archive for the 'General News' Category
Some jackass strolled into the Kroger on Hydraulic carrying an AR-15 today, the Daily Progress reports, leading to at least one person wisely fleeing the store and calling 911. Police quickly arrived and detained the 22-year-old, before releasing him since, in Virginia, there’s nothing illegal about strolling around a grocery store carrying an assault weapon. Police figure this was an open carry demonstration. This is a thing, wherein people who know that it is legal to openly carry will go into crowded public places while carrying guns, on the theory that people will eventually stop being terrified and get used to this as a reasonable behavior. Basically, First Amendent : Westboro Baptist Church :: Second Amendment :: these jackasses. Anyhow, Kroger tossed the guy off their property and told him not to come back, since there’s nothing illegal about throwing a dangerous jerk off of your private property.
Charlottesville Tomorrow isn’t the only local media outlet with a new website—C-Ville Weekly has also had a total overhaul, complete with a new CMS. The weekly long had a custom CMS that had become awfully restrictive, but they’ve replaced it with a WordPress-based site (that’s what cvillenews.com has run on for many years) with Disqus-based commenting. Using a standard platform will make it easy for them to add new features, stay current with emerging technologies, and ultimately integrate it into their document workflow. (The Bangor Daily News has a famously amazing document workflow, which is entirely open sourced, that makes it a snap for their articles to flow both into their print layout tool and their WordPress-based website.) WordPress is liable to serve them well for years to come.
The one catch of the new website—and it’s a big one—is that they’ve failed to redirect their old URLs to their new URLs. That is, all of their old stories are still on the website, but every link on the web to every one of those stories is now broken. Here’s hoping that they have a plan to deal with that. There are some other bugs and oddities still to be resolved, but that’s just how it goes with a new website.
Public Policy Polling asked Virginians how they feel about a dozen major cities, and there’s none that they like more than Charlottesville. We’re seen favorably by 63% of those polled, with only 6% having an unfavorable opinion of us. Second place is Roanoke, with a 50/5 split. That’s based on an automated phone survey of 647 Virginian voters, conducted last week.
A couple of guys fended off a rabid black bear at Royal Orchard Farm on Tuesday, NBC-29 reports. (The Progress has a somewhat longer story.) The men were in a Gator—a small, open utility vehicle—when the bear attacked the vehicle, and then came after then. Armed with a shotgun loaded with birdshot, reasonably enough during spring turkey season, one of them shot the bear point-blank in the head. Said noggin was sent off to a state lab, where it was confirmed that the bear had rabies.
Royal Orchard is the farm of the Scott family (as in Scott Stadium), located just off 64 on the way up to Afton. When driving up the long, slow grade to Rockfish Gap, at one point a bridge goes over the interstate at a crazy angle. That’s Royal Orchard Drive, a road that exists solely to connect their farm to Route 250. The house is an honest-to-God castle. The Shenandoah National Park was built around the estate, because the family had the money and the political power to keep the federal government from seizing their land and from building Skyline Drive within their viewshed.
Sideblog
UVA’s Alumni Association has put together pair then-and-now Holsinger photos of Charlottesville, as recreated by Stacey Evans. (See also the Charlottesville Then and Now blog.) #
Surprising nobody, Halsey Minor has filed for personal bankruptcy. #
There are some serious obstacles to Trump building a golf course in Albemarle. #
The Northside library branch may move to West Rio—the old Phillips Building Supply. #
Trump Winery is rehabbing the old Kluge estate golf course, only now it’ll be open to the (paying) public. #
Monticello has been given $10M to refurbish the 2nd and 3rd floors and build replica slave quarters. #
C’ville Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman is running for a sixth term in office. He’s being challenged by a former holder of the office, Steve Deaton. #
The panhandling lawsuit is proceeding, in the plaintiffs’ favor. #
UVA architecture students have some ideas for how to stop hiding the Rivanna River in town. #
James Halfaday is back in jail after violating his parole. #
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