Monthly Archive for August, 2008

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CPC Sued Over Open Lot Bidding Process

Published by Waldo Jaquith on August 12, 2008 in Business, Government and Transportation. 9 Comments

There’s increased suspicion of secret dealings between the city and the Charlottesville Parking Center, Rachana Dixit writes in the Daily Progress:

A rejected bidder for the Charlottesville Parking Center’s assets is filing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the city, the latest development in an ongoing saga on whether the city will attempt to purchase CPC’s shares.

Spencer Connerat, formerly of Collective Resources Corp. and a CPC stockholder, said the suit is an attempt to force the city to specify if and when it inked a confidentiality agreement with the CPC. Such an agreement would be needed to allow the city to bid on CPC’s assets.

Connerat claimed city officials did not disclose the agreement’s date, and have not responded to his requests to get the information. The action was sent to the city’s General District Court last week.

All of this is over the open, paid lot on Water St:


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The Hook has been following this story for a while, and Hawes Spencer recently wrote about CPC’s odd rejection of a pair of private bids, leading some to suspect that CPC expects the city to come in with a higher price. The lot first went on the market three years ago, and Spencer called shenanigans on the whole thing last spring. So the suspicion that this isn’t entirely on the up-and-up isn’t totally out of the blue.

Progress Profiles The Schilling Show

Published by Waldo Jaquith on August 12, 2008 in Meta News and Politics. 19 Comments

Bryan McKenzie wrote about former city councilor Rob Schilling’s show on WINA yesterday in the Progress, highlighting how the Republican is using his knowledge of city government to act as an outside agitator. (I’m a sucker for local media articles about other local media outlets.) The Schilling Show is firmly conservative and anti-establishment, and features the sort of guest lineup that you’d expect—Agnes Cross-White, Rick Turner, Ken Boyd, Keith Drake, etc. The city Democrats quoted in the piece are less than thrilled with the show, describing him and his show as “full of ridicule” and “a lot of hot air stitched together by a fair amount of blatant demagoguery.” Recent interviews are archived on the page’s webpage—decide for yourself.

CHO Staging Faux Plane Crash

Published by Waldo Jaquith on August 11, 2008 in General News. 10 Comments

On C-Ville’s “This Just In” blog, Chiara Canzi writes that CHO is looking for people to pretend to be victims of a plane crash as a part of a emergency preparedness drill. I drove by the airport the other day and saw that they had a simulator set up at the far end of the runway, which is presumably what they’ll be using for this. If you’re interested in being made up to look like you just survived a terrible accident, the Office of Emergency Management is the place for you. And, for god’s sake, post the photos to Flickr.

The Return of TDRs

Published by Waldo Jaquith on August 6, 2008 in Development and Politics. 21 Comments

Supervisor David Sluzky has started pushing transferrable development rights (TDRs) again, Charlottesville Tomorrow reports. The Weldon Cooper Center is hosting a series of discussions about whether creating a development-rights market would be helpful in shaping growth in Albemarle County. The meetings are including stakeholders from all of the major local groups interested in the topic. Now that state law has enabled the county to do so, Sluzky has renewed his efforts to establish such a system, despite the BoS’ prior disinterest. I’m not smart enough to know if TDRs are a great idea, but I know I’ll be the first in line to sell my development rights.

County Fair in Doubt

Published by Waldo Jaquith on August 4, 2008 in General News. 35 Comments

The Thoughtful Skeeballer

Ticket sales were down this year at the Albemarle County Fair, which wrapped up yesterday—they sold 11,000 tickets, rather than the 16,000 that they generally sell. Though pretty hot (which was nothing a little lemonade couldn’t help with), the weather was otherwise sunny and nice this time around, so it’s not clear to what to attribute the decline in attendance. After a series of rained-out fairs for some years, they’ve finally had a run of dry weather in the past few years, but it hasn’t been enough. Adam Rhew reports for NBC 29 that fair organizers are thinking about running it only every other year, since they think they may have actually lost money this year.

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