Monthly Archive for March, 2009

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Planning Commission Approves Hiking Developer Fees

Published by Waldo Jaquith on March 12, 2009 in Development and Taxes. 3 Comments

Albemarle County is considering a significant increase on the cost of development, Brian McNeill wrote in the Progress yesterday. For example, right now they charge $720 to review a preliminary plat submitted by a developer. But a study of their own staff time has found that the real cost of that time is much higher, and so now they intend to charge $4,100 for the same procedure. The county went to the Planning Commission to get approval to raise those rates, hoping to cover 50% the costs incurred by developers, but the Planning Commission ended up approving covering 75% of those costs via fees, with the rest being made up by you and me in the form of taxes. Jay Willer, of the Blue Ridge Home Builders, complains to the Progress that developers shouldn’t have to pay for those costs, but that the rest of us should bear that cost on their behalf, which is rather the opposite of the libertarian stance generally taken by developers.

The Planning Commission only approved these increases by a one-vote margin. Now the matter goes before the Board of Supervisors.

Downtown Ponzi Scheme Busted

Published by Waldo Jaquith on March 11, 2009 in Business and Crime. 8 Comments

Federal agents raided the Water Street offices of John M. Donnelly today, Lindsay Barnes writes in The Hook, seeking evidence to support the indictment brought against him for stealing $11M from 31 investors in a Ponzi scheme. Tower Analysis Inc., located in the old train station next to the amphitheater, had agents descend on it and haul off evidence this morning. Donnelly approached some friends a decade ago, had them make small investments, and then used that money to raise more money. Each round brought more money, which he used to pay faux investment income to lower-level investors. (And if you can figure out how that practice can possibly end in anything other than ruin, you might have a future in running financial scams.) Along the way he made a million bucks in the past three years, claiming, awesomely that “using his background in astrophysics, Donnelly developed a proprietary model of financial markets using algorithms derived from the quantification of a fractal wave frequency model which he named Blue Logic.” See the SEC complaint for the nitty-gritty.

Incidentally, Donnelly’s wife is Deborah Donnelly, the fundraiser for UVa’s Curry School of Education. She’s not been accused of any wrongdoing, but given the nature of her job, that’s got to be awkward.

Post Looks Back at Balfour Case

Published by Waldo Jaquith on March 9, 2009 in General News. 63 Comments

In Sunday’s Washington Post, Gene Weingarten has a long, detailed, nuanced look at how 15-20 young children die each year after being left in a car accidentally. The main subject of the article is Lyn Balfour, the JAG school employee who accidentally left her nine-month old in the car two years ago. She was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter by a Charlottesville jury last year, after just ninety minutes of deliberation (including a lunch break). Weingarten explains the perfect storm of circumstances that made her forget, including emergency babysitting duty for a friend, staying up with her sick baby, the baby being in a different car seat than usual (and not visible in the mirror), driving her husband to work that day (unusually), dealing with two small crises via mobile phone on the way to work that morning, and her babysitter having a new phone. Balfour simply believed that she had dropped off her son at the babysitter’s, as she did every morning.

I’m ashamed and upset to have discovered that the author even quotes the single worst comment ever posted to cvillenews.com, one that I’d managed to forget, and now hope that I can forget again:

If she had too many things on her mind then she should have kept her legs closed and not had any kids. they should lock her in a car during a hot day and see what happens.
stupid people need to no longer exist when they do stupid things like this. she killed her kid, she should be punished and put away.

This article is awfully hard to read; consider yourself warned.

Phillip Brown Running for Sheriff

Published by Waldo Jaquith on March 8, 2009 in Politics. 19 Comments

BrownCharlottesville police sergeant Phillip Brown intends to run for Charlottesville sheriff, Scott Shenk reported in the Daily Progress on Friday. Not to be confused with James E. Brown, also a candidate, Phillip Brown has been with the Charlottesville PD since 1992. Brown is the third candidate to announce in the month and a half since Democratic incumbent Cornelia Johnson announced that she won’t seek a third term. All are seeking the Democratic nomination.

Spivey Slated for Release on Tuesday

Published by Waldo Jaquith on March 7, 2009 in Education and Law and Justice. 3 Comments

Child molester Jonathan Spivey is due to be released from the Buckingham Correctional Center on Tuesday, I see on the Virginia Department of Corrections’ site. The 49-year-old Charlottesville High School choral director and Mount Zion Baptist Church minister of music pleaded guilty to taking indecent sexual liberties with a minor, in his own office at CHS, and was sentenced to twenty years in prison in 2007. All but 21 months was suspended; perhaps the 4.5 month shortfall is from time served prior to sentencing. He was sentenced to five years probation after his release, and he’ll have to register as a sex offender.

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