Author Archive for Waldo Jaquith

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City’s Assessment Numbers are Fudged

Published by Waldo Jaquith on March 4, 2012 in Development, Government and Taxes. 29 Comments Tags: .

According to some research by Samantha Masone for The Hook, Charlottesville is cherry-picking the data on which they base real estate assessment values. The city recently reported that taxable property assessments are down by just 1.22% for the year (PDF). In calculating that number, city assessor Roosevelt Barbour, Jr. rightly excludes all “invalid” transactions—that is, all transfers of property that are not based on market forces, such as a parent selling a house to a child. Also excluded? Foreclosures and short sales. By Jim Duncan’s math, such sales make up 20% of those in the area and, perhaps not coincidentally, those distressed properties almost inherently go for very low rates. Masone took a random sample of houses to see whether they made the cut for calculating the city’s 1.22% decline, and found that twice as many transactions represented a decrease in value as the inverse, but only a quarter of those at-a-loss transactions were counted as valid by Barbour’s office. This might help to explain the gap between the claimed 1.22% decline and the decline of 32.1% measured by Nest, the local real estate agency.

Whether this is a common practice (and whether it is legal or ethical) is a question that is not explored by Masone, and is worth considering. I’m unclear on whether this has any immediate effect on individuals’ real estate taxes. While assessments of individual properties don’t appear to be impacted by this practice, the information that is presented to City Council to determine whether the tax rate should be adjusted is quite a bit rosier than reality—a difference of 31 percentage points could well be the difference between a rate cut and holding the current rate steady. And that, of course, affects all city property owners.

Huguely Convicted of Second-Degree Murder

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 22, 2012 in Law and Justice. 15 Comments

George Huguely has been convicted of murdering Yeardley Love, every media outlet on the planet reports. After only a day’s deliberation, the jury convicted the former UVA student of second-degree murder for his role in the 2010 death of his girlfriend and fellow UVA lacrosse player. It became clear over the course of the two-week trial that a conviction was likely, but as unflattering portraits of both the accused and the victim emerged, with UVA’s culture of functional student alcoholism front and center, the speculation boiled down to whether Huguely would be convicted of first-degree murder, or second-degree murder. Huguely’s legal team presented alternate theories about the cause of Love’s death—without seriously challenging the notion that Huguely beat her terribly—including that she was smothered by passing out on a pillow soaked in her own blood and that she fatally combined alcohol and her ADD medication, presumably to create doubt in the minds of jurors that Huguely’s actions were the sole cause of Love’s death. The case captured the attention of national media, with dozens of journalists and their crews camping out at the courthouse for the trial.

Next up: Sentencing. Huguely is facing the possibility of life in prison.

10:50 PM Update: He’s been sentenced to 26 years in prison.

Halfaday Indicted by a Grand Jury

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 21, 2012 in Law and Justice and Politics. 2 Comments Tags: .

One-time Democratic City Council Candidate James Halfaday has been indicted for election fraud, the Daily Progress reports. In his candidacy filing he claimed to live in the city when, in fact, he lived in the county. He also claimed to be the co-owner of a local gym, but had nothing to do with it. Halfaday claims to be a 32-year-old, openly gay American Indian from Dumferline, Illinois, but at this point, it’s possible that none of that is true. It’s expected that he’ll plead guilty at his court date in a couple of weeks. Assuming that it’s § 24.2-1016 he’s been charged under, then he’s facing a year in prison or a fine of $2,500.

The Huguely Media Circus Begins

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 5, 2012 in Law and Justice. 9 Comments Tags: .

The city is doing its best to accomodate the 35 media outlets covering George Huguely’s murder trial, Ted Strong writes in the Progress. Nearly two hundred people will descend on the town for the two-week trial, which starts tomorrow. CBS-19’s Bailey Disselkoen reports that satellite trucks are already lined up near the court house, and Fourth Street will be closed for the duration so that the 15–19 plus-sized vehicles will have a place to park. The mechanics of having so many reporters in a small place present some real obstacles, but the city, the sheriff’s office, and the court are all trying to deal with those problems.

VA Supreme Court Takes Away Planning Commission Power

Published by Waldo Jaquith on January 29, 2012 in Development and Government. 4 Comments Tags: .

A recent Supreme Court of Virginia ruling has rendered Virginia planning commissions pretty much useless, Kurt Walters writes for Charlottesville Tomorrow. Kent Sinclair, an Albemarle County resident and UVA law professor, was unhappy after the Albemarle Planning Commission provided his neighbor with a critical slopes waiver that allowed a 103-foot-tall communications tower to be built on their land. Sinclair sued and, in Sinclair v. New Cingular Wireless PCS et al, the state’s highest court ruled that, under the state code, planning commissions simply do not have the power to provide waivers to violate zoning ordinances. Instead, planning commissions must simply approve or deny, then leaving it to elected bodies like the Board of Supervisors to grant (or not) waivers.

The filing deadline for legislation for the already underway 2012 General Assembly session has come and gone, so if the legislature is going to take any steps to address this, it won’t happen in 2012.

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