Monthly Archive for November, 2010

NBC-29: Jones Offered City Manager Position

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 30, 2010 in Government. 102 Comments

Interim City Manager Maurice Jones has been offered the job on a permanent basis, Henry Graff reports for NBC-29. The city isn’t talking, as contract negotiations are said to be underway, and Graff cites only “two city hall insiders” as his sources. He goes on to say that “sources inside city hall say Jones is the choice and has been at the top of the list all along.” After last week’s Progress story saying suggesting that Richard Brown was the top pick, one person involved in the hiring process e-mailed me, insisting that the paper had jumped the gun, and that the offer hadn’t gone to anybody at that point. Assuming that Graff’s story is right, I suspect that we won’t hear anything else until the city makes this official.

12/03 Update: The city made it official in an announcement this afternoon.

Salvation Army Bell-Ringer Robbed

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 30, 2010 in Crime. 5 Comments

Somebody attacked a Salvation Army bell-ringer and stole the kettle of donations today, Jessica Jaglois reports for CBS-19. Outside of Sam’s Club early this afternoon,, a guy in a black leather jacket, jeans, and—weirdly—a bright green traffic vest approached the 43-year-old bell-ringer, pushed him to the ground, grabbed the kettle, and made his escape in the back seat of a gold Mercury Sable. It was captured on surveillance video.

Somebody’s getting coal in his stocking.

Supreme Court Turns Down Alcohol Ad Ban Case

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 30, 2010 in Law and Justice and Meta News. Closed

The Supreme Court has denied an appeal of the Cavalier Daily’s alcohol advertising case, Shirley Park writes in today’s issue of the paper. State regulations prohibit newspapers (at private and public colleges alike) from running ads for alcohol, or even ads that acknowledge the existence of alcohol. The Cav. Daily and the Virginia Tech’s Collegiate Times sued two years ago, in an effort to overturn the ban, with legal representation provided by the ACLU of Virginia. Although the district court ruled in their favor, the state appealed the case up to the appeals court, which ruled for the state. The Supreme Court turned down the case, as it does with hundreds of cases every year. However, the decision was remanded back down to the court, and the ACLU announced in an e-mail today that they intend to continue to pursue the case, so the matter is ongoing.

City, County Police Deploy License Plate Cameras

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 28, 2010 in Crime and Government. 4 Comments

City and county police are automatically running checks on every license plate that they see, Ted Strong writes in the Daily Progress. Each department has a single camera rig that’s attached to a police car—it detects the numbers on each and every license plate that’s within the cameras’ range and checks to see if it’s in their database of wanted vehicles. The city started using the system this summer, the county earlier this month. An electronic log of every license plate spotted by the system is retained—the city keeps the data for three months, the county for two. The system doesn’t scan for plates with expired inspections or registrations, for lack of a database to interface with.

City Names Manager Finalists—Brown Apparently Top Pick

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 24, 2010 in Government. 9 Comments

There are three finalists for city manager, Rachana Dixit writes in today’s Daily Progress: acting city manager Maurice Jones; Richard Brown, city manager of East Providence, RI; and Paula Hertwig Hopkins, the assistant city manager of of Columbia, MO. One of the three has been offered the job, but the city isn’t saying who. Dixit called all three: Jones and Hopkins say that they haven’t heard anything, while Brown wouldn’t talk. So, apparently, Richard Brown is the city’s top pick.

On his LinkedIn profile, Brown says that he’s held his current position since 2006 and that, previously, he spent fourteen years as manager of New London, CT and eight as manager of Petersburg, VA. He got his BA from UVA in 1974. A Rhode Island publication points out that this is the second job Brown has been a finalist for in the past year; the last time around it was for Plymouth, RI.

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