Monthly Archive for June, 2007

Page 4 of 4

Haskins Running for Council

Published by Waldo Jaquith on June 10, 2007 in Politics. 4 Comments

Dr. Barbara Haskins has filed to run for City Council as an independent. Charlottesville Tomorrow reports that the 26-year city resident is running because she was “outraged” with the last budget process, while Democratic Central reports that she’s a Democrat. Satyendra Huja, Holly Edwards and Mayor David Brown are the Democratic nominees for the three seats, and Democrat Peter Kleeman is also running as an independent.

Both Brian Wheeler and Lloyd Snook reported this on their respective blogs three days ago, but I’ve been on vacation, so I’m a little behind the times.

Traffic Rates Climb with Housing Prices

Published by Waldo Jaquith on June 10, 2007 in Development and Transportation. 2 Comments

In today’s Daily Progress, Brian McNeill looks at traffic data and finds that high housing costs are putting enormous pressure on a few roads that lead to the surrounding counties. VDOT’s numbers on travel time (516k PDF), comparing 2005 to 2001, show that traffic from the west on 250 increased by 25%, traffic from the north on 29 increased by 33%, and traffic on 53 doubled from 3,300 to 6,600 trips per day.

Huja, Edwards, Brown Nominated by Dems

Published by Waldo Jaquith on June 3, 2007 in Politics. 13 Comments

City Democrats chose Satyendra Huja, Holly Edwards and Mayor David Brown as their nominees for Council, Bob Gibson writes in today’s Progress. The really surprising thing was how the numbers came in: Huja received 304 votes, Edwards 279, and Brown 261. Linda Seaman and Jennifer McKeever came in with 188 and 149, respectively.

Huja as top voter getter is particularly surprising because he has absolutely no history with the local Democratic Party which, I think, speaks very well of those who showed up to vote. Traditionally, the party wouldn’t give the time of day to a candidate who hadn’t “paid their dues.” I have to speculate that he was the first choice of few, but second or third choice for an enormous number of people, which paid off handsomely. This remarkably diverse ticket will make a formidable team for the general election, although it looks like local Republicans can’t even muster a single candidate to go up against them. If they’re not going to field candidates, maybe it’s time to give a thirty party a default place on the ticket (the Green Party?) and make Republicans gather signatures on a petition in order to secure a place on the ballot. Peter Kleeman, who is basically a Green, has secured enough signatures to appear on the ballot, so this may well just be a four-person race.

Five Apply for Interim School Board Appointment

Published by Waldo Jaquith on June 2, 2007 in Education and Politics. 2 Comments

Five people have applied for an interim appointment to the school board, Matt Deegan reports in the Progress, a number one greater than the people who have filed to run for the four open seats. One of those applicant is Grant Brownrigg, who is simultaneously seeking election to the school board. That maneuver is not prohibited, but the five and a half month head start would seem to give an unfair advantage to an applicant who is also a candidate. Of the other four candidates, two (Susan Lewis and Charles Kollmansperger) have said they’re not interesting in running, and the other two (former board members Byron Brown and Muriel Wiggins) couldn’t be reached by the paper.

Two More School Board Candidates

Published by Waldo Jaquith on June 1, 2007 in Education and Politics. 1 Comment

Llezelle Dugger and Sean McCord intend to announce their campaigns for the Charlottesville School Board, the Daily Progress reports today. Sean made his interest known in mid-May, but this is the first time that Llezelle’s name has come up. (I’m friends with both Sean and Llezelle, and should be considered utterly biased in their favor.) Llezelle is an assistant public defender for the city and a mother of two young kids. If both declare, that would finally mean that there are enough candidates to fill the four seats that are open. It would be better still to have some competition in the race, though. The filing deadline is June 12. (Via Democratic Central)

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