Yearly Archive for 2006

Page 10 of 71

City Properties, Infrastructure Need Repair

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 12, 2006 in General News. 18 Comments

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.

Fire Knocks Out ABC 16

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 9, 2006 in Business and Meta News. 5 Comments

In a note on their website, ABC 16 says they’ve had a fire:

ABC16 is temporarily off the air, due to an electrical fire. Viewers with digital receivers should re-scan for channels and will find abc programming on digital 16.2.

Presumably it was a very small electrical fire, since CBS 19 and Fox 27 remain on the air. Hopefully nobody was hurt.

Webb, Goode Win Election

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 8, 2006 in Politics. 31 Comments

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.

Council Passes Anti-Amendment 1 Resolution

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 6, 2006 in Politics. 11 Comments

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.

Streaming Video of City Council Meetings

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 6, 2006 in Politics. 2 Comments

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.

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