Author Archive for Waldo Jaquith

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County Considering Consolidating Three Schools

Published by Waldo Jaquith on September 17, 2009 in Education and Government. 9 Comments

The Albemarle County School Board is trying to decide whether they should shut down Red Hill, Scottsville, and Yancey elementary schools, Brandon Shulleeta writes in today’s Daily Progress. All three are in need of some significant infrastructure repair, and it’s not obvious whether they should each be renovated, or if they should be shut down and replaced with a single school big enough to accommodate the 525 students. The board’s waiting for a recommendation from superintendent Pam Moran, which is expected next week. There’s a hearing later this month, and a decision is planned for October 22.

Though this might be an infrastructure consideration, inevitably it’s got lots more rolled up in it—how big schools should be, the racial diversity of the schools, how far kids have to ride on the bus, etc. The cheapest option will likely prove to be consolidating the three, but that’s not necessarily the option that will lead to the best education for future students. Expect a ruckus.

A Look Back at the UVA Baby Switch

Published by Waldo Jaquith on September 17, 2009 in General News. 1 Comment

It’s been over a decade since the UVA baby switch. (New to town? See Time’s 1999 story. The whole thing is too complicated—and bizarre—to explain here.) The UK’s Daily Telegraph has done a followup story on the two girls, who are now fourteen years old. Callie Conley and her (adoptive) mother, Paula Johnson, are both interviewed by the newspaper, while Rebecca Chittum and her (adoptive) grand/mother, Rosa Chittum, characteristically demur, so this is all from Conley’s perspective. For more, see Mike Allen’s 2008 look back on the decade anniversary of the whole affair in the Roanoke Times.

Gray Television’s 5th Anniversary in C’ville

Published by Waldo Jaquith on September 16, 2009 in Business and Meta News. 12 Comments

It’s been five years since Gray Television launched CBS-19 and ABC-16 here in Charlottesville. (Here’s the original cvillenews.com story.) If asked, I would have guessed it’d been, like, a week and a half. We were all relatively fresh off the C-Ville Weekly / Hook split then, seeing some of the results of competition in our weeklies, and I think hopes were high that the new stations would have a similarly beneficial on the staid NBC-29. Five years later, I’d be curious to hear what folks think about CBS-19, ABC-16, and Fox-27, especially their news coverage, and how they’ve affected NBC-29 and the overall news coverage in town. I can’t get local TV stations—there’s a mountain between me and town—so I’ve never actually seen any of their broadcasts, only online excerpts.

BoS Approves Charging for Ambulance Service

Published by Waldo Jaquith on September 10, 2009 in Government and Taxes. 7 Comments

The Board of Supervisors has OKd charging for ambulance service, Sean Tubbs reports for Charlottesville Tomorrow. Strictly speaking, the county isn’t charging for ambulance service, they’re simply giving permission to the Hollymead and Monticello fire stations to charge for service if they see fit, as well as the volunteer rescue squads. The county anticipates that the costs will be picked up by people’s health insurance, with Dennis Rooker saying that this allows the county to “obtain some fees for services that are generally picked up by third parties other than our citizens.” About a third of the state’s localities have similar arrangements. The BoS hasn’t specified how much that may be charged. This is only the first of a series of steps necessary to put the fees into place, so there’s no charge right now.

Council Asks Legislature for Gay Employment Protections

Published by Waldo Jaquith on September 10, 2009 in Government and Law and Justice. 10 Comments

City Council has unanimously agreed to ask the General Assembly to prohibit discrimination against state employees based on sexual orientation, the Progress reports.

Right now state law makes it perfectly legal for state agencies to fire somebody for being gay (or, for that matter, straight), although both Gov. Tim Kaine and his predecessor, Mark Warner, have issued executive orders enacting such prohibitions, though the current executive order will expire with Kaine’s term in January. (Kaine’s executive order was his first action in office, in fact.) The Republican candidate for governor, Bob McDonnell, opposed Kaine’s executive order, and issued an opinion against it in his capacity as attorney general in 2006. Executive orders don’t have the legal strength of a law—in March Martinsville’s Virginia Museum of Natural History fired a man for being gay.

The General Assembly is no stranger to debates over the topic. I sat in on a debate over a bill that would prohibit such discrimination back in February of 2006 and, while it was hilarious, it made it pretty clear to me that a bill like this won’t pass so long as Republicans control the House of Delegates, regardless of what Charlottesville City Council wants Richmond to do.

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