Higgins Tapped for Judgeship

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 22, 2007 in Law and Justice and Politics. 20 Comments

This time it’s for real: Somebody other than Jim Camblos has been selected by regional Republican legislators to replace Circuit Court Judge Paul Peatross. That somebody is Ivy resident, Republican, attorney, and former assistant commonwealth’s attorney Cheryl Higgins. The General Assembly still has to vote to accept the nomination, which is scheduled for tomorrow, but odds are vanishingly close to zero that they’d reject her.

The Republican majority figured this out among themselves, with some press announcing the arrangement even before some regional Democrats in the General Assembly learned about it. Three cheers for bipartisanship.

02/23 Update: Bob Gibson has a proper review of the outcome in today’s Progress.

DP on TV Stations

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 19, 2007 in Business and Meta News. 9 Comments

In today’s Daily Progress, Brian McNeill’s stalks (and bags) that most elusive of prey: objective coverage of other local media outlets, in the form of analysis of the two corporations vying for domination of the local TV airwaves. NBC 29 continues to crush the competition, according to Nielsen ratings, bringing this great bit from Newplex general manager Roger Burchett:

“As far as we’re concerned, it’s a book of useless numbers,” said Burchett, though he admitted that if his stations overtake NBC29 he’ll “treat the Nielsen ratings like gospel.”

This is probably the best local media coverage of local media since Coy Barefoot’s study of NBC 29’s news content in C-Ville Weekly back in the late 90s. Not that there’s much competition; media doesn’t often cover media and, when it does, it’s often snarky.

The Homeless Population is Local

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 13, 2007 in Blogs and General News. 5 Comments

On his blog, Dave Norris addresses the question of whether our homeless population has migrated here to take advantage of our services. Using the results of the Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless’ annual census of the homeless, he’s found that the majority of the local homeless population is from the Charlottesville area, the overwhelming majority is from Virginia, and those that aren’t from Charlottesville have lived here for many years. (In fact, a much higher percentage of the non-homeless moved here than the homeless.) Quite simply, the homeless are far more likely to be locals than the non-homeless.

Media General’s “Blue Ridge Outdoors” Look-Alike

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 12, 2007 in Meta News. 1 Comment

Media General’s new Our Great Oudoors looks strikingly similar to Blue Ridge Outdoors, The Hook points out. A side-by-side comparison makes it all the more clear — same dimensions, same full-bleed photograph, similar logos (vertical color fade, white border), and similar sans serif typeface promoting the contents within. I do believe the legal term for those would be “substantial likelihood of confusion.”

Chip Harding to Run for Sheriff

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 7, 2007 in Law and Justice and Politics. 12 Comments

Charlottesville police captain Chip Harding is preparing to run for Albemarle County sheriff, The Hook reports. He’s planning an announcement on Tuesday.

It’s been widely rumored that Sheriff Ed Robb — who took the job after being knocked out of the state senate by the late Emily Couric — has been planning on retiring and intends for Harding, a fellow Republican, to succeed him. Robb won last time around, despite getting less than half of the vote, because he faced a pair of independent challengers who divided up the remaining 51% of the vote. His tenure has not been a particularly impressive one, including declaring his deputy’s still-unexplained shooting a “hate crime” and proposing that we camouflage the jail so that terrorists can’t find it.

Larry Claytor, one of Robb’s opponents last time around, is widely expected to run again.

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