An unidentified man was hit and killed by a train on Shamrock Road, Stephanie Satchell reports for CBS-19. It’s not clear how long ago he died, or even known who the man is. Police do believe that he was killed after being struck by the train, rather than beforehand, but that seems to about all that they know right now. 09/09 Update: He committed suicide, police say.
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Monthly Archive for September, 2009
Page 4 of 4
Developer Wendell Wood is upset. He bought a big chunk of rural land—meaning that he can’t develop it, which he’s known since before he bought it—but he had Walmart sign a contract to build a new store there. And then the county wouldn’t let him because, again, it’s zoned rural. He claims Walmart offered a “minimum of $8 million to $9 million…to do what’s called ‘at-site work,'” which Wood implies would have gone entirely to help cover the $25M bridge and road that would be necessary to even get to his parcel. Where is this land? Why, it’s right next to Walmart—on the other side of Sam’s Club, just across the river. Why build another Walmart by the old one? Because they want to replace the old one with a bigger one, leaving the old shell behind. Wood says he’d take over the current location, but one look at Albemarle Square will tell you there’s not a lot of demand for existing big-box stores. So why would anybody support this? Because the Places29 plan calls for building roads parallel to 29, including extending Berkmar, the road in question, and if Walmart could actually toss in $8M-9M towards the cost of road construction, that would be good to get. Brandon Shulleeta dug up all of this for the Daily Progress, and I think it’s got the potential to prove to be a big story. He tried to get Walmart’s side of this, but they’re not talking, so this information is all coming from Wood.
If this all sounds a bit familiar, Wood pulled something very similar a few years ago on the NGIC land, just a bit farther up 29, and successfully got the BoS to agree to convert 30 acres of rural land into develop-able land—which, to date, they have not acted upon—which would turn nearly valueless woodland into a multi-mullion-dollar parcel with a prime location, backed up by phone call to Ken Boyd (who won’t say who he talked to) saying that NGIC would pack up and leave town if the county didn’t go through with the deal. Much like Walmart, NGIC wasn’t willing to talk to the press about those claims, either.
You’d think that this would be the end of it, but BoS member David Slutzky is apparently on Wood’s side, Shulleeta writes, working to designate Wood’s land as developable. (Want to build a new house for your grandkid on your rural land? You’re out of luck. Wendell Wood wants to put in a Walmart? Come on down!) Given the lack of funding for new transportation infrastructure, it looks like all of this is academic anyhow. Whether $25M or $250M, there’s just no money to build roads or bridges.
USA Today has a feature entitled “24 hours in the ER” that happens to be set at the UVA Medical Center. It’s meant to be a slice-of-life piece, showing what happens during a random day in a single hospital, as a way of showing what’s going on with our nation’s healthcare system.
The conservative Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors has endorsed challenger Rodney Thomas over incumbent David Slutzky in the BoS race, Sean Tubbs writes for Charlottesville Tomorrow / The Daily Progress, despite having endorsed the Democrat last time around. During Slutzky’s inaugural 2005 run, CAAR chose him over Republican Gary Grant, garnering him some $20,000 in campaign contributions from the group. The local group is giving $10,000 to the Republican, no small amount of money in a BoS race.
This is, incidentally, the first Charlottesville Tomorrow story that I’ve noticed in the Progress under their new arrangement.
Erika Howsare profiles the jail’s re-entry program in the current C-Ville Weekly. Locking people up for years and then loosing them on the public without any sort of transition hasn’t really been working out, so the eight-week-long New Beginnings Transitional Re-entry Program is an effort at the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail to prepare a small number of prisoners for life on the outside—teaching them how to get a job, avoid the temptations of their old life, and support their families. The program can accommodate only a very small number of the prisoners, and its effect on recidivism isn’t particularly stellar (a 50% rate instead of 55% for the general population), although that hasn’t been properly measured just yet. Howsare profiles some of the inmates going through the program, avoiding presenting them in the sort of black-and-white, good-and-evil terms that would have been easy, but wrong.
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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