Monthly Archive for August, 2008

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Johnston Students Walking to School

Published by Waldo Jaquith on August 21, 2008 in Development and Education. 2 Comments

Many Johnson Elementary students can now walk to school, Rachana Dixit writes in today’s Daily Progress, thanks to the Safe Routes to School program. Two new trails were put in recently, resulting in “throngs of people” using the paths to get kids from Johnson Village to the school yesterday. Not only is the exercise great for kids, but reducing the demand on the bus system is always helpful.

08/23: Actually, the city had a neighboring developer pay for this, in collaboration with the city—not Safe Routes to School.

LeRoi Moore Passes Away

Published by Waldo Jaquith on August 19, 2008 in General News. 35 Comments

Dave Matthews Band saxophone player, Charlottesvillian, and all-around wonderful human being LeRoi Moore died a few hours ago. Band management issued a statement this evening:

LeRoi Moore, saxophonist and founding member of Dave Matthews Band, died unexpectedly Tuesday afternoon, August 19, 2008, at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles from sudden complications stemming from his June ATV accident on his farm near Charlottesville, Virginia. Moore had recently returned to his Los Angeles home to begin an intensive physical rehabilitation program.

LeRoi was 46 years old.

Food Banks Running Low

Published by Waldo Jaquith on August 16, 2008 in General News. 16 Comments

Cart for the Food BankLocal food banks are in a bad way, Scott Shenk writes in today’s Daily Progress, facing strong increases in demand with corresponding increases in donations. Both the Emergency Food Bank and the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank report increases of 200-300% over this time last year, forcing them to cut off supplies to needy families. Things are toughest in the summer, since kids don’t have access to the daily subsidized breakfasts and lunches that they do during the school year. The need, of course, is for more people to donate food.

The Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, which covers about a third of Virginia, gets a lot of their food from grocery stores, while the church-run Emergency Food Bank relies heavily on individual donations and canned food drives. I called and asked a few months ago, and the BRAFB isn’t really keen on people just showing up with food, but you can contribute at area grocery stores. [Update: The BRAFB says you’re welcome to bring food to them, too, despite what they told me.] I’m partial to the Emergency Food Bank, who is thrilled to have people arrange to come by with a sack or two of canned soups, boxes of cereal, tins of tuna, etc.—e-mail them to arrange a contribution, if you’re able to help.

The Downtown Brick Replacement Debate

Published by Waldo Jaquith on August 14, 2008 in Development, Government and Taxes. 40 Comments

Old Mall BricksIt looks like the debate over the Downtown Mall bricks got interesting when I wasn’t paying attention. Dave McNair writes in this week’s Hook about the question of why the city isn’t reusing the existing bricks to rebrick the Mall. Since the new surface will use bricks of the same dimensions as the current ones, and since the city’s own estimate is that 80% of the bricks are in good shape, it stands to reason that they could be reused. McNair points out that a similar project in Columbus put high school students to work de-mortaring bricks to prep them to be laid anew. I’m yet to see a price tag on the actual cost of new bricks, only the $7M figure for the entire overhaul, but it seems like an option well worth exploring.

Downtown’s Empty Storefronts Not So Empty

Published by Waldo Jaquith on August 14, 2008 in Business. 3 Comments

I’ve heard people remark about the large number of vacant spaces on the Downtown Mall recently, something we haven’t seen much of since about fifteen years ago. Henry Graff reports for NBC-29 that the real estate might be empty, but it’s spoken for. Only 3% of all Downtown Mall spaces are vacant, while everything else that looks shut down is undergoing renovations or have leases pending.

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