Monthly Archive for December, 2005

Page 5 of 5

Lake Monticello Sued for $7.1M

A couple who own property in Lake Monticello are upset that the homeowners association has shut down the campground. So they’re suing for $7,100,000.

It must a hell of a campground.

BoS Approves Annual Decals

The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors has approved a move to permanent window stickers for cars, WINA reports. They started talking about this a couple of months ago, and Charlottesville eliminated window stickers entirely in October. Neither Albemarle nor Charlottesville has changed the tax process at all, they’ve just eliminated the need to scrape off those damnable stickers.

No more decal wars?

Recent Growth Patterns

Brian Wheeler has put together a clever graph of Albemarle growth rates, looking at building permits for single-family homes. He’s found that 51% of new permits in the past two years have been for rural areas. Among non-rural areas, Crozet leads at 20%, followed by the Glenmore area at 10%. The whole of the northern growth areas combined yields just 10%, presumably because the construction there is sufficiently urban that single-family homes aren’t being built much.

Bowers Firing Reverberates

The story of UVa’s firing of Dena Bowers continues, with UVa saying Bowers wasn’t fired for what she said, but how she said it, dozens of people holding a rally for Bowers on Friday, and the Associated Press picking up on the story today. The document that she sent from her UVa account was an NAACP document reviewing some effects of the charter plan, but it was not labeled as being a non-university correspondence. When the e-mail was widely circulated by a recipient, some of the additional recipients apparently thought that the document reflected the views of the university.

The trouble with Bowers’ firing is that, in the minds of some charter critics, it confirms (rightly or wrongly) their fear that legitimate concerns about the landmark change in university autonomy were being swept under the rug or squelched. Worse still, some university staff have worried that their employment will be more tenuous than ever under the charter plan, with Bowers’ dismissal for a seemingly-minor violation being seen as a sign that that might just be so.

Racketeering Case Ends in Mistrial

A mistrial had to be declared in the racketeering and narcotics ring case today, after Judge Norman K. Moon discovered that three jurors were aware of the contents of yesterday’s Daily Progress article, “Man says RICO witnesses lying.” The jury was just about to begin deliberation. While the prosecutors wanted only the tainted jurors dismissed, the defense wanted the entire jury replaced; the defense won out, and the next trial will be held down in Lynchburg, where Judge Moon thinks the jury can be more isolated. Liesel Nowak has the story on the Progress website.

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