A Clark Elementary teacher died in a Newark shooting last night. CBS-19 reports that third-grade teacher Dawn Reddick was killed in the incident, in which two men and a child were also seriously injured. There are no suspects and no known motive.
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Monthly Archive for July, 2011
Independent candidate Paul Long is running for City Council, the Progress reports. The public transit advocate and university employee ran for the same office two years ago, finishing last with 7.5% of the vote. He is running on a platform that includes the decriminalization of drugs, having the bus system expand its area of service, and improving homeless shelters. He’s against the Meadowcreek Parkway. He’s running as an independent because he regards Charlottesville Democrats as too conservative (“Bush-lite Democrats”), putting him in the same company as socialist candidate Brandon Collins. He’s the fifth independent to declare his candidacy for the three seats. Democrats will pick their candidates on August 20, and the general election is on November 8.
Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds will be playing an acoustic concert at the downtown amphitheater, Red Light Management announced in a press release this morning. The performance will be on Saturday, August 20. All proceeds will support charities, via an online service that allows ticket buyers to direct their payment to nearly any 501(c)3 in the country. The duo last performed together in Charlottesville at the Jefferson Theater in 1994. Tickets go on sale at 10 AM on August 5th, via the amphitheater’s website.
Charlottesville is becoming gentrified, Graham Moomaw writes in the Progress, surprising nobody. That’s based on an analysis of neighborhood-level census data done by the university’s Weldon Cooper Center. Between 2000 and 2010, home values doubled, with the sharpest climb in valuations coming in historically black neighborhoods. The black population dropped by 1,600 people (about three percentage points, to 19.4%), while the asian and hispanic populations grew. The white population dropped by half a percentage point, to 69.1%. On the other hand, the black population is growing the urban ring. Belmont and Venable are growing faster than any other neighborhoods.
A press release from the Charlottesville-based Southern Environmental Law Firm raises an important point: Berkmar Drive Extended is supposed to go in the same spot where the Western Bypass is supposed to go, and building one or more bridges over the Rivanna River to carry both of those (and then having Berkmar go over or under the 2–3 on- and off-ramps) is going to be a bit of a trick. SELC had a traffic engineering firm produce a report on the topic, trying to deal with the fact that the Berkmar plan and the bypass plan aren’t reconciled in any way. The engineer concludes that “[u]nder any scenario, trying to fit two facilities in this space would be difficult and extremely expensive,” whether by having adjacent roadways sharing a bridge, a few underpasses/overpasses and a parallel bridge, or just a pair of bridges. (It’s tough to explain, but looking at the diagrams, it’s easy to appreciate the complexity of the problem.)
The Berkmar Drive extension, you’ll recall, is intended to be a part of a parallel road network to 29N, to transport local traffic. It’s a method of getting thousands of cars off of 29N at a significantly lower cost than a bypass. No doubt it’s possible to do so in tandem with the bypass bypass, but rushing through the bypass without considering basic questions like this probably isn’t going to make things go more smoothly in this department.
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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