The Albemarle County Service Authority is jacking up rates for sewer and water connections, Jeremy Borden wrote in yesterday’s Daily Progress, in an effort to pay for the enormous costs associated with upgrading the system to deal with growth. The Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority has taken the price of connecting to the water network up 62%, to $2,095, and the price of connecting to the sewer network up 82%, to $2,425. The total cost in Albemarle was $11,790 to hook a house up to the network, and now that’s $14,079. Homeowners’ alternative, installing a septic tank and drilling a well, isn’t a whole lot cheaper, and may well be substantially more expensive. And, of course, the alternative to the rate increase is to simply raise everybody’s property taxes, but that would hardly be fair.
Monthly Archive for May, 2008
The younger of the two Interstate 64 shooters has been sentenced to “an indeterminate amount of time at a state juvenile facility,” Tasha Kates writes in today’s Daily Progress. The 16-year-old Brandon Dawson could be in prison until he’s 21, but it’s up to the Department of Juvenile Justice when he gets out, and something closer to a year or a year and a half is more likely. Dawson pleaded guilty to five counts of shooting at unoccupied vehicles. The other shooter, Slade Woodson, has not yet been tried.
The Charlottesville-Albemarle Regional Jail is just about full, Tasha Kates writes in the Progress, and they’re trying to figure out what to do about it. As in the rest of the country, incarceration rates have been climbing for over three decades, despite flat or falling crime rates. (The U.S. has a greater percentage of citizens in prison than any other country in the world.) The jail can fit 580 people, and averages 540 people each day. Now the Thomas Jefferson Area Community Criminal Justice Board is trying to figure out how to empty some beds. The clearest path seems to be to stop jailing the mentally insane and those merely addicted to drugs or alcohol. Other proposed solutions are to let defendants put their bond on a credit card and accelerating the process that moves convicted criminals out of the jail and into prison. Everybody seems to agree that expanding the jail is the solution of last resort.
Jeremy Borden wrote in today’s Daily Progress about the arrest of Alvin Lee “Butch” Morris for the 1988 murder of Roger L. Shifflett. It sounded like a pretty straightforward story: Shifflett was found shot dead in his Southwind Gas and Grocery Store one morning, his till cleared of $135, and now the 67-year-old Morris has been charged with it. The only question was how Morris was caught. But now comes the bizarre twist, explained by Lisa Provence in The Hook: the accused murderer is married to the victim’s widow, having helped to raise three of the victim’s children.
Morris left his wife just weeks after the murder. In a small-town twist, former county sheriff Terry Hawkins’ sister was Morris’ first wife, and Hawkins says that Morris was a suspect from the very start. The Hook has labeled this the “replacement husband” case and, for lack of a better phrase, I’m sticking with it.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
foursix and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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