Dave Norris announces his postcard tour of Charlottesville, plotting images of decades-old local postcards on a map of town. I love it! #
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Monthly Archive for April, 2007
Page 4 of 13
The BBC reports on today’s terrible shooting spree at Virginia Tech, with the entire story consisting of one long quote from Charlottesville’s Nikolas Macko. Nick is just fine, but very nearly was not. #
Sean McCord, a long-time nTelos customer, tried to upgrade his phone there the other day. nTelos wouldn’t let him buy a new phone without seeing his driver’s license. The store manager was unable to explain why, so Sean left, drove to Cingular, and now he’s their customer. Local businesses like nTelos should always be our first choice but, as Sean shows, they’re certainly not our only choice. #
Kevin Lynch announced last night that he will not seek reelection, Seth Rosen writes in today’s Progress. At last night’s annual Charlottesville Democratic Pasta Supper, Lynch said that two consecutive terms had been enough, but that he may run for Council again in four or six years after he can “recharge [his] battery and reconnect with people.”
Given Mayor David Brown’s inevitable announcement that he’s running for a second term, and Kendra Hamilton’s retirement at the end of her first term, this means that two seats are opening up. Suddenly every candidate has a 100% better shot at getting nominated at the June 2nd Democratic convention.
Privacy advocate B.J. Ostergren, who keeps a close eye on clerks of court throughout the state, has caught Charlottesville Clerk of Court Paul Garrett in what might most nicely be described as a lie, but I suspect it’s something closer to fraud. As Liesel Nowak reports in today’s Progress, Garrett had certified to the state on three occasions that he’d made land records available online when, in fact, he’d done no such thing. He’d also claimed that his office now had a website when, in fact, the domain charlottesvillevaccoc.org has been registered, but doesn’t even point to a website. On the strength of those claims, the State Compensation Board had provided Garrett with $21,600 and set aside another $30,860 for the project, but they’ve now withdrawn that funding. A spokesman for the city says that, in fact, the city is in the midst of the bidding process, considering three vendors for the project.
Garrett is a well-known and well-liked local Democrat who was most recently reelected in 2003, securing the nomination over challenger Vanessa Hicks, who promised to get the court’s records available online if elected.
As stunning as it is that Garrett would tell such a bald-faced lie to the Compensation Board, it does not speak well of the Compensation Board that they would not so much as click on his website URL to check whether or not it actually exists, or check on his claim that his office was providing remote access to land records.
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