Monthly Archive for January, 2007

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Council to Reconsider Precinct Boundaries

Published by Waldo Jaquith on January 17, 2007 in Politics. 13 Comments

I heard on WINA that City Council intends to look at the boundaries that define each of the eight voting precincts in the city. They’re going to establish an advisory panel to examine the existing boundaries and look at how they could be improved. If I recall correctly, the boundaries were established long, long ago, when the city was physically smaller. As the city grew, annexing land from the county, the precincts were expanded out to encompass the new area. At this point they’re functionally arbitrary, and badly in need of reconsideration. Any changes will have to be approved by the Department of Justice, to make sure that they’ve been established fairly. Good on Council for taking this step.

Hey, remember that election study that was released two years ago? An elected mayor? Instant runoff voting? Whatever happened to that?

Mallek Seeking White Hall BoS Seat

Published by Waldo Jaquith on January 12, 2007 in Politics. 34 Comments

Earlysville resident Ann Mallek is running for Board of Supervisors, Charlottesville Tomorrow reports. Though she hasn’t made her formal announcement yet, she confirmed her intention to unset freshman White Hall district supervisor David Wyant at last night’s Crozet Community Association meeting. Mallek is the first new candidate to announce for this November BoS elections. Rivanna representative Ken Boyd and Scottsville representative Lindsay Dorrier’s seats are also up this year.

Kuttner May Build Affordable Housing

Published by Waldo Jaquith on January 10, 2007 in Development. 25 Comments

In last week’s C-Ville Weekly, Will Goldsmith wrote about Oliver Kuttner’s planned work on the old Central Fidelity bank. In it, Oliver says that he’s considering doing something audacious:

Kuttner wants several floors of retail by opening up the basement as a courtyard along the side street and creating a second floor of retail fronting the Mall. He plans four apartments above the retail in a first phase of redevelopment. The second phase will be a larger structure closer to Water Street that nears the nine-storey limit, which will contain either a 72-room hotel–or affordable apartments at around $500 a month.

$500 apartments on the Downtown Mall? That’s awesome. Oliver would be a minor hero if he did that.

(Via Dave Norris)

New Site: Richmond Sunlight

Published by Waldo Jaquith on January 10, 2007 in Law and Justice. 13 Comments

Please excuse a quick self plug. I launched a new site yesterday, Richmond Sunlight, that makes it simple to keep up with the General Assembly. Their 2007 session started today, and they’ll carry on for the next 45 days. The site is blog-like and heavily collaborative: you can post your thoughts about a bill in the form of comments, vote on whether or not you think a bill should pass, pingback from a blog, tag bills with relevant keywords, etc. Take it for a spin. I hope you find it useful.

The 4,612 Things Stolen in C’ville Last Year

Published by Waldo Jaquith on January 8, 2007 in Crime. 13 Comments

The Daily Progress Rob Seal reported yesterday on some of the items reported stolen to Charlottesville police in 2006, revealing that some mighty unusual things are stolen each year.

The Charlottesville Police Department was kind enough to provide me with a copy of this list, and I reproduce it here for your listening and dancing pleasure. It makes for some bizarrely fascinating reading. I don’t know what’s weirder: that some of these things are stolen, or that anybody bothers to call the police to report them. If I had some more time on my hands, I’d keyword these and turn them into a tag cloud.

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