The Charlottesville-Albemarle Regional Jail is just about full, Tasha Kates writes in the Progress, and they’re trying to figure out what to do about it. As in the rest of the country, incarceration rates have been climbing for over three decades, despite flat or falling crime rates. (The U.S. has a greater percentage of citizens in prison than any other country in the world.) The jail can fit 580 people, and averages 540 people each day. Now the Thomas Jefferson Area Community Criminal Justice Board is trying to figure out how to empty some beds. The clearest path seems to be to stop jailing the mentally insane and those merely addicted to drugs or alcohol. Other proposed solutions are to let defendants put their bond on a credit card and accelerating the process that moves convicted criminals out of the jail and into prison. Everybody seems to agree that expanding the jail is the solution of last resort.
cvillenews.com
Jeremy Borden wrote in today’s Daily Progress about the arrest of Alvin Lee “Butch” Morris for the 1988 murder of Roger L. Shifflett. It sounded like a pretty straightforward story: Shifflett was found shot dead in his Southwind Gas and Grocery Store one morning, his till cleared of $135, and now the 67-year-old Morris has been charged with it. The only question was how Morris was caught. But now comes the bizarre twist, explained by Lisa Provence in The Hook: the accused murderer is married to the victim’s widow, having helped to raise three of the victim’s children.
Morris left his wife just weeks after the murder. In a small-town twist, former county sheriff Terry Hawkins’ sister was Morris’ first wife, and Hawkins says that Morris was a suspect from the very start. The Hook has labeled this the “replacement husband” case and, for lack of a better phrase, I’m sticking with it.
The latest installment in the ongoing reservoir saga comes from Dominion Development Resources, who has offered to take all of the dredged-out dirt from the reservoir and put it in the old quarry off Rio Mills Road, Hawes Spencer writes in The Hook. The fourteen-acre quarry is seventy feet deep, so it could store a metric pantload of sediment. For those who had no idea about the quarry, it’s in the center of this map:
You’ll notice it’s immediately next to the reservoir — only about 3,000 feet away. DDR investor Charles Hurt owns the quarry, and would dump the sediment there as a part of a $24-29M deal to do the dredging themselves. My personal business dealings with DDR a year ago were ghastly (which I mention only because I’m one of the 350 clients they cite as evidence of their competence), but perhaps a job in the spotlight like this would be handled a little better. To catch up on the whole reservoir-dredging story, check out the sidebar on The Hook’s story, which runs down the whole history.
The Hillsdale Connector won’t be happening until at least 2014, Seth Rosen writes in today’s Daily Progress. The mile-long street, planned to parallel 29 for the benefit of local traffic, will run $30.5M. The slow-motion car crash that is the state’s transportation funding process makes any proposed road purely hypothetical. And how much will VDOT be providing in 2014? A whopping $332,000. Short of a radical rethinking of how we fund transportation in Virginia, it’ll be at least a decade before the Hillsdale Connector is built.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
foursix and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
-
Archive for Sideblog »
Recent Comments