Supervisor Ken Boyd thinks it’s time to open the Meadowcreek Parkway to traffic, despite that it’s not finished being built, Aaron Richardson writes in the Daily Progress. The agreement between the city, the county, and the Virginia Department of Transportation stipulates that no portion of the road can open until it’s completed. The county’s portion was open briefly, so that VDOT could direct traffic along it to facilitate construction, but the effect of it was to dump all of the traffic directly in front of Charlottesville High School, which made the school’s administrators fear for their students’ safety. VDOT is yet to sign off on the project as completed. Boyd says that if the road isn’t opened soon, the surface of the road will deteriorate. There was no quoted response from VDOT spokesman Lou Hatter on Boyd’s claim. The Board of Supervisors is slated to vote on Boyd’s proposed resolution on the matter on Wednesday.
Monthly Archive for October, 2011
Some very weird information has become public about two of the three candidates in the 59th District House of Delegates race, Ray Reed writes for the News & Advance. (The 59th Distict includes southwest Albemarle, up to the edge of Charlottesville, and runs south from there.) Republican candidate Matt Farriss has been repeatedly convicted of weapons and DUI violations, and was the subject of an emergency protective order after allegedly breaking into a woman’s home. Lynchburg newspaper The News & Advance has tried to get Farriss to explain the many incidents, but he won’t talk to them. Then there’s conservative independent candidate Linda Wall, who admitted in a 2006 deposition that, as a teacher in the 1970s, she’d had a sexual relationship with a (female) student, for which she lost her job. By way of defense, she says that she was smoking a lot of marijuana then. (Five years ago I wrote about her testimony before a state senate committee in opposition to a bill that would prohibit state government from discriminating against people in hiring practices based on their sexual orientation.)
The third candidate in the race is Connie Brennan, Democrat and long-time Nelson County Supervisor. She ran unsuccessfully for the same seat in 2007. Disclaimer: I’ve given money to her campaign, and she is a friend.
Albemarle County has settled Gerry Mitchell’s lawsuit against them, the Progress reports. He filed suit two years ago after a 2007 incident in which he was struck by a county police officer’s patrol vehicle while crossing the street in his wheelchair, leaving him hospitalized and with permanent injuries. The value of the settlement is not public. Officer Gregory Davis, who was driving the cruiser, remains on the police force.
Erstwhile City Council candidate James Halfaday has been jailed on four counts of election fraud, according to a press release from the Commonwealth Attorney’s office:
The charges allege Mr. Halfaday used a false address when he certified his candidacy for City Council with the General Registrar for the City of Charlottesville.
While the investigation has revealed that Mr. Halfaday is not now nor was he ever an owner of Snap Fitness, Mr. Halfaday has not been charged with an offense related to this false statement at this time. The form filed by Mr. Halfaday did not contain certain language required by the Code of Virginia. As a result, election fraud charges concerning Mr. Halfaday’s statement of economic interest are unlikely.
It’s such an irony that Halfaday apparently so bungled his statement of economic interest that he may have accidentally prevented himself from being charged for lying within it. According to the Progress, the economic interest form failed to have the legally required warning that candidates aren’t allowed to lie.
None of this news is any surprise, of course: questions have been raised about Halfaday’s candidacy since shortly after he came in last place in the race for the Democratic nomination for City Council in August.
5:45pm Update: Lisa Provence has detailed coverage in The Hook. Halfaday was released from jail this afternoon, and is due in court tomorrow.
In 1994—the year that Fellini’s shut down—I was sixteen years old. That was the summer that I started to spend all of my waking hours downtown, and I knew Fellini’s only as something legendary that I’d just missed taking part in. The restaurant’s reputation for debauchery and its position as a hub of the downtown social scene were and remain legendary, but it’s remained in the realm of oral tradition until recently. Over the past two weeks, C-Ville Weekly has published a two-part series of J. Tobias Beard, “The (Mostly) True Story of Fellini’s” and Here’s Looking at You, Chief.” I found these to be fascinating reads, and learned both that Fellini’s was far more interesting than I’d ever known and that, if I had been able to hang out there, my parents probably should have been investigated by social services. I’m tempted to summarize the story here, to pique your interest, but I couldn’t possibly. It’s got sex, drugs, murder, crime, and a whole lot more, and concludes with Beard tracking down Chief Gordon in L.A.
This is the sort of story that, I’ve found, is a sort of a litmus test. One group of people will find this terribly exciting, and another will find it exhausting and self-indulgent. Chalk me up as an enthusiastic member of the former.
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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