Monthly Archive for September, 2010

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Kuttner Wins X-Prize

Oliver Kuttner’s X-Prize team has won the top award, the AP reports. The $10M prize is being split three ways, with Kuttner’s Edison2 team getting $5M, a North Carolina company getting $2.5M, and a Swiss team getting the remaining $2.5M. Kuttner has no intention of manufacturing and selling the car in its present form, but he does intend to plow the winnings into R&D to create a consumer-friendly version. Over one hundred teams entered the contest, which is funded by Progressive Insurance, spending two and a half years building and testing their cars.

Harley Miles Appointed to County School Board

Harley Miles has been appointed as the interim Albemarle County School Board member, the Daily Progress reports. After Brian Wheeler announced his resignation last month, fifteen candidates applied for the seat. After an awkward process of whittling down the candidates, Miles’ selection was announced last night. It’s not clear whether he’ll serve out the remainder of Wheeler’s term—which runs through next year—or whether the courts might require that a special election be held.

The Recycling Center’s Days May Be Numbered

Some folks are thinking seriously about shutting down the McIntire Recycling Center, Brian Chidester writes in this week’s C-Ville Weekly. With Van Der Linde Recycling’s single-stream waste management system, use of McIntire is declining as waste haulers start telling customers that they can just dump everything in their trashcans. The city contracts with Van Der Linde now for hauling household waste, but still has the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority handle recycling. The question is whether that RSWA relationship is going to continue for either the city or the county, or whether Van Der Linde will underbid the RSWA and simply eliminate any need for a recycling center. Come December, the city and county will need to figure out if they’re going to stick with the RSWA. If they switch to Van Der Linde, things will get interesting.

John Kluge Has Died

Philanthropist and businessman John Kluge died yesterday in Charlottesville. The famed businessman ranked as the wealthiest American from 1989-1991, a run cut short by the rise of Microsoft. Nine years ago he donated his estate, Morven, to UVA, and auctioned off most of the estate’s contents in 2005. He lived mostly in Florida in recent years. Perhaps as locally well-known as him is his ex-wife, Patricia Kluge, and his widow, Tussi Kuttner. John Kluge was 95 years old.

Halsey Minor Threatens to Sue The Hook

Over at The Hook, editor Hawes Spencer has been writing about the latest in the slow-motion collapse of the whole Landmark Hotel / Halsey Minor / Lee Danielson thing, with the news of the moment being the Chapter 11 filing by Minor Family Hotels LLC. Within that piece, Spencer mentions that Minor started threatening The Hook with a lawsuit, and links to two e-mails [1, 2] that Minor sent to the newspaper in early July. The first one, sent July 2, reads:

Hawes you are the $7.5 mm man — so far. If it was not for you printing the outrageous comments from Lee and SFG I would not have done so well in court. You have clearly destroyed the value of the hotel with your series of inaccurate and in inflammatory stories based on completely false facts. SFG was horrible, and Lee was just as bad but with the hook accepting falsehood after falsehood as gospel you have made obvious the damages the bad actors can have in undermining a project and an important economic driver to a city like Charlottelsville.

As I said. Christies down $12.5.mm for fraud. Lee bankrupt. SFG bankrupt. You write one more story that is libelous and I have no choice but to go after the third leg of the stool, the Hook. Tell your people to quite inventing facts. Say you are sorry. Haas, I am suing you plain and simple to clear my name with one more nasty false story. Christies can afford to underestimate me. You cannot.

And the second one, sent July 3:

Hawes, trust me. When your down people start to pile on. You are just such an individual which is why you are generally disliked around town.

You need to publicly apologize to me. Divorce and a libel suit are not going to be a good plan for you.You apologize publicly or I am coming after you for lying about me when I was fighting my battles, which were for the sake of the city, not to sell sleazy papers.

The difference between you and I is you bug the fuck out of me, but I on the other hand can and will crush you if you don’t make amends for being such a lying asshole for the last 18 months — you, Lee and the FDIC. Your world is getting small fast and if you choose to take me on too you are not going to believe how far down the bottom really is. I crushed the jerks in my way. Good luck to you.

Wow. Those are scorchers. Minor never specifies what he believes to be falsehoods in The Hook’s coverage, so it’s tough to know what the merits are of his claims.

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