Author Archive for Waldo Jaquith

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Gerry Mitchell Sues City, County for Wheelchair Collision

Published by Waldo Jaquith on June 17, 2009 in Law and Justice and Transportation. 7 Comments
Video of the accident, as filmed from the police cruiser. Courtesy of The Hook.

Gerry Mitchell has filed a lawsuit against the city and two police officers for $850,000, Courteney Stuart reports for The Hook. In 2007 Mitchell was struck by a county police officer’s patrol vehicle while Mitchell was crossing the street in his wheelchair, and then city police had the gall to go to the hospital—where the victim had been taken by ambulance—and ticket him for jaywalking. The charges against him were dropped a couple of weeks later, on a technicality, though one that city police may have been happy to identify. Mitchell says his health problems have worsened because of the accident, and that his attempts to settle with the city and the county have all been rebuffed.

Dominion Beta Testing Smart Meters Here

Published by Waldo Jaquith on June 16, 2009 in Business. 20 Comments

In a press conference downtown today, Governor Kaine announced that Dominion Virginia Power will be beta testing 46,500 smart power meters in Charlottesville and Albemarle, CBS-19 reports. The devices can communicate with Dominion in real-time, wirelessly, allowing both Dominion and customers to know at any time how much energy that they’re consuming. Not only does that make it easier for customers to conserve, but it will allow demand-based pricing, basically selling all energy via a real-time, automated auction, a sort of a never-ending conversation between our appliances and power stations about how much we need electricity right now and how much we’re willing to pay for it. More details about this are available on Dominion’s blog.

I’m so geeked about this that I will pay to use this service, if I have to. (I’m a big energy grid geek.) Here’s hoping that they’ll partner with Google PowerMeter for that extra touch of awesome.

“There were only two roads coming into town when I moved in.”

Published by Waldo Jaquith on June 15, 2009 in General News. 11 Comments

I like this story about 100-year-old Pernetha Gilbert. She speaks Gullah!

Casteen to Retire Next Year

Published by Waldo Jaquith on June 12, 2009 in UVa. Closed

In a press release this afternoon, the university announced that President John Casteen declared at today’s Board of Visitors meeting that he’s resigning his position next year. On August 1, 2010 he’ll conclude his 20th year as UVA president, and he’s taking that as his occasion to retire. It was widely speculated that he wouldn’t step down until the conclusion of the school’s $3B capital campaign, but the economic slump presumably made that goal move considerably farther into the future than perhaps he’d planned. The BOV will start their for a replacement next month.

Last-Minute Independent Candidacy Filings

Published by Waldo Jaquith on June 11, 2009 in Politics. 8 Comments

There are some notable candidacy filings emerging after Tuesday’s deadline. Independent Paul Long has secured a spot on the City Council ballot, Brian Wheeler writes for Charlottesville Tomorrow. The eleven year resident moved here from Pennsylvania, and works for the UVA Medical Center. He says he’s running on the decriminalization of drugs (which isn’t actually something the city can do), creating a regional transit authority, and financially supporting local organizations that are helping the homeless. Independent candidate Andrew Williams won’t be on the Council ballot after all, the Progress reports, after he didn’t manage to get the required 125 petition signatures to get on the ballot. He’ll be running as a write-in candidate. And, finally, Del. David Toscano has a challenger in the form of independent Robert Brandon Smith, who has secured a spot on the ballot, Brian McNeill reports in today’s Progress. The Belmont resident “works odd jobs as a carpenter,” McNeill writes, describes himself as a “militant green,” and says that his top priority is to “kill” the Meadowcreek Parkway. He also says that he’s “concerned about the curriculum of the university” and he’d “like to see homework abolished forever” in the local school system.

Given that Republicans have ceded these seats to Democrats, independent competition like this is inevitable.

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