Author Archive for Waldo Jaquith

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Democratic Primaries Today—Remember to Vote

Published by Waldo Jaquith on June 9, 2009 in Politics. 4 Comments

Here’s Democrats’ day-of reminder that the primary is being held today. You’ll be choosing between Sen. Creigh Deeds, Brian Moran, and Terry McAuliffe for governor. (By way of reminder, Sen. Deeds represents Charlottesville.) And for lieutenant governor the choices are Mike Signer and Jody Wagner. (There’s a third name on the ballot, but that candidate actually dropped out weeks ago, after the ballots were printed.) Polls are open until 7:00 PM, and you vote at the same polling place where you always vote. The Deeds fans among us can join him at The Omni this evening for what will quite probably be a victory party, starting at 7:30 PM.

Turnout is light, I suppose, but so far it’s really a lot better than most people had hoped. Albemarle is reporting 4.9% turnout of registered voters (so basically double that to get the turnout of Democrats) as of 1:00 PM, and I though we’d be lucky to get that for the whole of the day.

Creigh Deeds and Family
Sen. Creigh Deeds and family stand on stage at The Omni after he accepted the Democratic nomination for governor.

10:35pm Update: Sen. Creigh Deeds has won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination by a very strong majority, garnering twice as many votes as his opponents. In Albemarle he got 79% of the vote, and 76% in Charlottesville. Jody Wagner won the lieutenant governor nomination handily, defeating Mike Signer with 74% of the vote statewide, with 55% of the vote in Albemarle and 66% in Charlottesville. Sen. Deeds will go on to face Republican Bob McDonnell in November’s election, while Wagner will face incumbent Republican Bill Bolling.

Downtown Blanketed with WiFi

Published by Waldo Jaquith on June 8, 2009 in Government. 3 Comments

The Downtown Mall has WiFi now, Rachana Dixit reminds us in the Daily Progress today, and people are digging it. As a part of the completed overhaul of the Mall, the city is spending $29k/year to blanket the area with free high-speed wireless. The same thing has been done in cities across the country in order to encourage tourists to linger and businesses to locate in the vicinity. I’ve used it just once so far, on my iPhone—you’ve got to click through a license agreement in your browser to get started, but from there it was just like at home, only faster.

Child Shot While Asleep in Bed

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

A fourteen-year-old was shot while asleep in bed on Sunday morning, the Daily Progress reports. At 4:09 AM, the home, two apartments, and a vehicle on Prospect Avenue were all hit by gunfire. The unidentified child was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. There haven’t been any arrests.

Restauranteur Says He’s Suing Over Sign Ordinance

Published by Waldo Jaquith on June 7, 2009 in Business, Government and Law and Justice. 27 Comments

Tom Slonaker, the owner of the Arby’s at Forest Lakes, says he’s suing Albemarle County for “discriminatory” enforcement of sign ordinances, Tasha Kates writes in today’s Daily Progress. Slonaker has sought for years to evade the county’s zoning restrictions on how garish the signage for a business can be, and is continually caught and cited for violating the sign ordinance. (In 2003 he had an advertisement fashioned into a flag, and when caught for that, he claimed that the county was anti-flag, hoping to win popular opinion by impugning their patriotism.) Slonaker doesn’t intend to sue over the appropriateness or constitutionality of the laws, but rather because he believes that his business is being targeted while others are allowed to violate the same standards.

School Board Candidates Running Unopposed

Published by Waldo Jaquith on June 4, 2009 in Education and Politics. 20 Comments

Karl Ackerman writes:

November 2009 marks the third election for the Charlottesville City School Board. Three members were elected in the first cycle in 2005 (Ned Michie, Juan Wade, and Leah Puryear), with six candidates running. Four members were elected in the second cycle in 2007 (Kathleen Galvin, Colette Blount, Llezelle Dugger, and Alvin Edwards), with seven candidates running. This year three slots are open and, to date (June 9th is the closing date for nominating petitions), there are only three candidates running for the three open positions—the three incumbents: Michie, Wade, and Puryear.

When they declared their candidacies earlier in the spring they announced that they were running as a team.

Our School Board elections are non-partisan. When candidates (especially incumbents) run as a team, they effectively skirt this provision by making it nearly impossible for a single candidate to win.

I don’t think Michie, Wade, and Puryear teamed up with the goal of limiting their opposition. But this is what they have effectively done.

The School Board is a tough job. It needs to be an elected job so that voters have a measure of accountability that was missing with an appointed School Board, and led to a number of terrible decisions in Charlottesville (the “pairing” of Walker and Buford, the hiring of Scottie Griffin as superintendent). How to get good people to run for this job? I think School Board members themselves need to take an active role recruiting their successors. Michie, Wade, and Puryear haven’t done that. By running as a team they have effectively shut out the competition.

I think their move will weaken the authority of Superintendent Rosa Atkins just at the moment when she needs a great deal of community input and, ultimately, support to bring about the many changes, including possibly closing a school, called for by the recent efficiency review.

If anybody wants to run for Charlottesville City School Board—or better yet, three people who might consider running as a team—please give me a call. I’ m sure many folks in Charlottesville would love to see us avoid a Soviet-style election come November.

I haven’t followed this race at all, but if these three candidates wind up running unopposed, that certainly doesn’t wouldn’t support the notion that elected school boards would lead to vigorous competition and thus a better school board. Candidates should never go unopposed in a general election, I don’t care who they are.

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