Monthly Archive for November, 2007

Page 3 of 6

Councilors Propose Tax Rebate

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 14, 2007 in Politics and Taxes. 37 Comments

Dave Norris and Julian Taliaferro have proposed a cash tax rebate, Seth Rosen writes in today’s Progress. The junior city councilors held a press conference yesterday afternoon to announce a series of proposals, as detailed on Norris’ blog. With property assessments up year after year, and taxes along with them, the two Democrats are saying that enough is enough. They made four other proposals, too, including a greater emphasis on the performance of city spending, increased transparency in the budget creation process, a focus on cost savings & innovation and investing in city infrastructure. It remains to be seen whether the pair can get the support of a third councilor, or what city staff will make of it.

10:35pm Update: Charlottesville Tomorrow has notes and a podcast from the event.

Hook Reporter Subpoenaed

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 13, 2007 in Law and Justice and Meta News. 13 Comments

Remember the allegation of police brutality in the Water St. crosswalk incident? The Hook‘s Courteney Stuart has been subpoenaed as a witness because she wrote a story about it. Which is bizarre on a couple of levels: not only was she not a witness, but, as editor Hawes Spencer points out, “if a reporter has to go to court everytime they write a story to say that they wrote it, that would be a waste of time and it seems like a waste of court resources. Stuart has filed a motion to be dismissed as a witness, which the court will consider in the form of a hearing on Monday morning.

Arrests Made in McGowan Murder

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 13, 2007 in Crime. 102 Comments

MugshotsWINA is reporting this morning that a pair of arrests have been made in last week’s murder of 26-year-old Jayne McGowan. Two men — 22-year-old William Douglas Gentry, Jr. and 18-year-old Michael Stuart Pritchett, both of Caroline Street — have been charged with capital murder and are being held at the jail. Caroline St. is quite near to where the victim’s car was found, and also near to the victim’s home. A pair of handguns were found, which they believe were used in the crime, and police say that more evidence is being sought.

City Can’t Hire Cops

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 12, 2007 in Crime. 57 Comments

Try as they might, Charlottesville can’t seem to attract any police officers, Kate Harmon reports in today’s Daily Progress. The starting salary of $33,904, along with a $5,000 signing bonus, has snared a grand total of one police officer in two years. The city has seven vacancies now, so now they’re trying to entice cops to commute from Waynesboro.

The reason for the problem is pretty clear: housing costs. The median cost of a home in the city is $280k and $311k in the county. That’s a monthly mortgage, insurance and property tax bill of just a hair under $2,000/month, or about 80% of the officer’s post-tax income. Hell no.

Montessori: Too Ugly for Pantops?

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 12, 2007 in Development and Education. 17 Comments

Being told that your building plans are too ugly for Pantops is like being too drunk to fish: sure, it’s plausible in the abstract, but it’s not gonna happen. Or so you’d think. But the Montessori Community School’s building plans have been rejected by the Architectural Review Board for that very reason, Will Goldsmith reported in last week’s C-Ville Weekly. The LEED-compliant structure is designed to be low-energy and sustainable, employing such touches as passive solar heating and a rainwater-collecting gray water system. The ARB is put off by the shed roof, which is necessary to collect rainwater. One ARB member, apparently unfamiliar with passive solar design, suggests facing the building in the opposite direction, a hint akin to telling a farmer he should try harvesting his corn in February. As things stand, the school will have to substantially strip the structure of its sustainable features in order to more closely hew to the design standards of…uh…Giant.

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