Author Archive for Waldo Jaquith

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Whom Do You Endorse?

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 5, 2011 in Politics. 40 Comments Tags: .

Here’s what you’ll be facing when you go to vote on Tuesday.

Let’s start with Charlottesville. You’ll be voting for Senate of Virginia, House of Delegates, Clerk of Court, City Council, School Board, and Soil and Water Conservation Director. All but one of those races are contested, so pay attention. For Senate, incumbent Democrat Creigh Deeds is being challenged by Republican T.J. Aldous Jr. For House, incumbent Democrat David Toscano is being challenged by independent Robert Brandon Smith III for the second consecutive election. The Clerk of Court seat is open, with Democrat Llezelle Dugger being challenged by Pam Melampy, an independent who Dugger defeated in the Democratic primary earlier this year. For City Council, there are three Democrats (Kathleen Galvin, DeDe Smith, and incumbent Satyendra Huja) and five independents (Scott Bandy, Brandon Collins, Bob Fenwick, Paul Long, and Andrew Williams)—pick any three. For School Board, there are seven non-party-affiliated candidates running for four seats: Colette Blount, Ivana Kadija, Steven Latimer, Amy Laufer, Guian McKee, Jennifer McKeever, and Willa Neale. And while there are two incumbent candidates for the two Soil and Water Conservative Director positions (Rich Collins and John Conover), nobody is challenging them.

Onto Albemarle. We’ll be voting for Senate of Virginia, House of Delegates, Commonwealth’s Attorney, Sheriff, Soil and Water Conservation Director, School Board (at-large, Scottsville, Rivanna, and White Hall), and Board of Supervisors (Scottsville, Rivanna, and White Hall). Only some of these are contested. There are two Senate races in the county: incumbent Democrat Creigh Deeds is being challenged by Republican T.J. Aldous Jr., and incumbent Democrat Edd Houck is being challenged by Republican Bryce Reeves. (If you don’t recognize Houck’s name, don’t feel bad—redistricting earlier this year put a big chunk of Albemarle in his district.) There are three House races: incumbent Democrat David Toscano is being challenged by independent Robert Brandon Smith III for the second consecutive election; incumbent Republican Rob Bell has no challenger; and Democrat Connie Brennan, Republican Matt Farriss, and independent Linda Wall are all vying for the open seat formerly occupied by independent Watkins Abbitt. For Commonwealth’s Attorney, first-term incumbent Democrat Denise Lunsford is unchallenged. For Sheriff, first-term incumbent Republican Chip Harding is unchallenged. For the at-large school board seat, Cynthia Burket, Joe Oddo, and Ned Gallaway are all running against each other. In the Scottsville, White Hall, and Rivanna districts, there is just one candidate apiece (Steve Koleszar, Barbara Massie Mouly, and Jason Buyaki, respectively). Finally, for the trio of Board of Supervisors races, there’s an open seat in Scottsville (Republican James Norwood vs. Democrat Chris Dumler), Democratic incumbent Ann Mallek is unchallenged in White Hall, and a challenge in Rivanna (Republican incumbent Ken Boyd vs. Democrat Cynthia Neff). Albemarle County provides sample ballots for each precinct, which is worth looking at in advance.

Note that redistricting has resulted in some very confusing precincts in Albemarle county—four of them are split. That means that you and your neighbor may vote in the same precinct, but be voting in wholly different House or Senate races. If you’re in the Free Bridge, Jack Jouett, Stony Point, or Woodbrook precincts, you should double-check in which state-level district you’re in. To find out more about these elections and candidates, see Cvillepedia’s “2011 Election” entry.

There are a lot of down-ticket races that folks don’t know much about and, thanks to redistricting, even some top-of-the-ballot candidates that are mysteries to a lot of people. So I hope you’ll take this chance to explain who you’re supporting and—more important—why. Convince us to support your guy.

Albemarle in Top 3% of Country by Income Disparity

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 4, 2011 in General News. 41 Comments

The always-excellent Pro Publica has used 2010 census data to determine which U.S. counties have the greatest income disparity, and Albemarle County turns out to one of the most severe cases in the nation. Of the 818 largest counties (by population), only 13 have more income inequality than Albemarle County. 97% of sampled counties have more income equality than we do.

This is measured using the Gini coefficient, a basic statistical method of measuring the inequality of distributions, in this case applied to incomes as reported in census data. One extreme would be a county in which everybody makes exactly the same amount (Loudoun County is the closest to this out of all sampled counties) and the other extreme would have the entire population with no income at all, except for one guy who receives all of the money. We are, apparently, closer to the latter.

Bronfman Farm Manager Acquitted of Embezzling

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 1, 2011 in Law and Justice. 2 Comments Tags: .

Edgar Bronfman Sr‘s former farm manager, Michael Nemeyer, has been acquitted of eleven charges of embezzling from Bronfman, Hawes Spencer writes for The Hook. The 52-year-old had been accused of stealing $115,000 from the noted millionaire over the course of two decades of managing Georgetown Farm, in Free Union, a beef and bison farm which shut down in 2004. The jury found him not guilty on all charges, apparently leaning on the fact that Nemeyer had initially volunteered that he owed the money to Bronfman, describing them as loans. There was a lack of criminal deception and, thus, no embezzlement. One juror even argued that the case never should have made it as far as the criminal justice system.

Disclaimer: I lived next door to Georgetown Farm as a kid, I’ve had connections with members of the Bronfman/Hoffman family for many years, and Mike Nemeyer paid me a few bucks to fix his computer when I was in high school and kindly donated ~$200 to help fund my hike of the Appalachian Trail in 1996.

Boyd Wants to Open Meadowcreek Parkway, Now

Published by Waldo Jaquith on October 31, 2011 in Politics and Transportation. 23 Comments Tags: .

Supervisor Ken Boyd thinks it’s time to open the Meadowcreek Parkway to traffic, despite that it’s not finished being built, Aaron Richardson writes in the Daily Progress. The agreement between the city, the county, and the Virginia Department of Transportation stipulates that no portion of the road can open until it’s completed. The county’s portion was open briefly, so that VDOT could direct traffic along it to facilitate construction, but the effect of it was to dump all of the traffic directly in front of Charlottesville High School, which made the school’s administrators fear for their students’ safety. VDOT is yet to sign off on the project as completed. Boyd says that if the road isn’t opened soon, the surface of the road will deteriorate. There was no quoted response from VDOT spokesman Lou Hatter on Boyd’s claim. The Board of Supervisors is slated to vote on Boyd’s proposed resolution on the matter on Wednesday.

Strange Lineup of Candidates in the 59th

Published by Waldo Jaquith on October 27, 2011 in Politics. 2 Comments

Some very weird information has become public about two of the three candidates in the 59th District House of Delegates race, Ray Reed writes for the News & Advance. (The 59th Distict includes southwest Albemarle, up to the edge of Charlottesville, and runs south from there.) Republican candidate Matt Farriss has been repeatedly convicted of weapons and DUI violations, and was the subject of an emergency protective order after allegedly breaking into a woman’s home. Lynchburg newspaper The News & Advance has tried to get Farriss to explain the many incidents, but he won’t talk to them. Then there’s conservative independent candidate Linda Wall, who admitted in a 2006 deposition that, as a teacher in the 1970s, she’d had a sexual relationship with a (female) student, for which she lost her job. By way of defense, she says that she was smoking a lot of marijuana then. (Five years ago I wrote about her testimony before a state senate committee in opposition to a bill that would prohibit state government from discriminating against people in hiring practices based on their sexual orientation.)

The third candidate in the race is Connie Brennan, Democrat and long-time Nelson County Supervisor. She ran unsuccessfully for the same seat in 2007. Disclaimer: I’ve given money to her campaign, and she is a friend.

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