Slade Woodson has been sentenced to 15 years in prison, the Daily Progress reports. One of the pair of teenaged route 64 snipers, Woodson pleaded guilty to fourteen charges related to firing a .22 into homes and vehicles on the night of March 26, 2008. The total sentence was actually 150 years, but Judge Cheryl Higgins suspended 135 years. This is apparently on top of the two years he was already sentenced to on six other charges.
In today’s Daily Progress, Brandon Shulleeta writes about a pair of rural landowners with a family subdivision who are upset that they can’t divide their land one more time. Ronnie and Janie Matheny had seventeen acres, but they divided it up to give some land to their various kids. Now they want to carve off two of their 4.9 acres for their grandson, but they’re all out of development rights. So they had to appeal to the Board of Supervisors for special dispensation to break the rules, who turned them down in a 4-2 vote, Lindsay Dorrier and Ken Boyd dissenting. Boyd says that an exception should have been made. Republican Rodney Thomas, who is challenging incumbent Democrat David Slutzky, is making a campaign issue out of it, saying that he “more than likely” would have granted an exception to the Mathenys.
The trick here is that all family subdivisions are for family members, so allowing anybody to build more houses than zoning permits because “it’s for family” basically eliminates the notion of limiting the number of development rights in a family subdivision. There may well be criteria under which exceptions should be granted, but if those criteria run counter to the notion of family subdivisions, then they cease to be a logical way to divide up land.
By way of acknowledging conflicts of interest, I a) own land in a family subdivision and b) recently had Ronnie Matheny and his son come out to my land about drilling a well, which I expect to hire them to do.
Bob Gibson explains the possibility of a special election for David Toscano’s seat in the House, unlikely though it may be. #
The BoS will fund the Hatton Ferry through the summer while seeking permanent, private funding. (Via The Hook) #
Neighbors of the new public pool on Meade Park aren’t thrilled about its lack of parking, Gordon Block writes for The Hook. The pool complex can accommodate 225 people, but the parking lot—which appears to basically use all of the available land—can only fit 36 cars. There’s plenty of on-street parking, but folks who live in houses on and around Meade Avenue use those spaces to park their own cars. No problemo, though—City Council intends to limit some spaces to residents, and provide permits to folks who live nearby, once they’ve observed how much strain the pool places on existing parking. But some residents are angry that the pool will open this weekend without the permitting program already being in place.
Given that Council already has plans to solve the problem, it’s not clear that there’s anything to be done here. It’ll be interesting to see if this is actually a problem tomorrow.
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