Mayor David Brown made official our sister-city relationship with Besançon, France on Friday, leading the French mayor to comment: “It is, for me, a very big moment of happiness today. Today is wedding night for our towns.” Besançon’s lacy undergarments apparently enticed us, its lesbian sister-bride, since an inbred half-French child-city is expected in nine months.
cvillenews.com
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
The Albemarle School Board is shocked — shocked — to find that Crozet Elementary has become overcrowded in just the past few years, Matt Deegan reports in today’s Progress. They’re at 125% of what the school can fit (428 kids in all), a result of the rapid growth in Crozet since the designated growth area started getting built up at a remarkable clip in the past decade. The bus rides are longer than ever, the roads are overcrowded, and the kids are learning in trailers. The solution? Building a new school in…2017. The band-aid is to expand the school’s capacity to 513 kids, at a cost of $5.3M, which should be ready in…2013. Raise your hand if you think that the whole of Crozet won’t have another 85 kids in seven years. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
This is why our current approaching to dealing with growth is stupid. We let the market dictate how fast and how much we’re going to grow, ignoring that it takes years for our infrastructure to catch up. So by the time we expand the schools (or roads, or water supply, or whatever), we’re right back where we were, treading water.
Budding rocket surgeon Elvis Gene Shifflett has been captured by police after a massive manhunt yesterday afternoon. Shifflett, wanted for attempting to kill his ex-girlfriend in Court Square last week, was pulled over by police yesterday for driving with two different license plates on either end of his car. He sped off, ditched his car on route 20 just south of Piedmont Virginia Community College, and took off on foot, prompting the police to order a lock down at nearby PVCC and MHS and shut down 20 and 53. Somebody told police that they’d seen a “muddy man” walking down a creek bed, which set them on his path. Police finally found him on Brookhill Ave at 6pm and shot him repeatedly; he’s now at the UVa hospital.
The Progress has a multimedia presentation that combines Matthew Rosenberg’s photos with narration by Lt. John Teixeira.
Charlottesville Friends have established a memorial to the 80 Virginians who have died in President Bush’s war in Iraq, Bryan McKenzie wrote in yesterday’s Daily Progress. They’ll display eighty pairs of combat boots to provide a sense of scale of the loss. The family of every soldier was contacted to obtain their blessing. There will be no signs or chanting — just the boots. It will be on display at the County Office Building on Friday, at the First Amendment chalkboard on Saturday and at Brown College on Sunday.
I see on CBS-19 that I’m not the only one dealing with a swam of Multicolored Asian Lady Beetles. These things look much like lady bugs (though with more color variation), but they are actually a totally different insect. Some jackass at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service thought it would be a good idea to import the critters from Japan in the 1970s, to eat aphids. They thrived, and now annually swarm — in our parts, they do so on the first warm day in mid- to late-October.
Two years ago I was caught unawares and the house was filled with thousands and thousands of them. Throughout the winter and spring they’d fly around the house, climb into the bed, bite us, release their horrible beetle-stink, and ultimate crawl towards the windows to attempt escape. We could vacuum up hundreds each day and never make a dent. Finally they all left in mid-spring. Last year I was prepared, and hatched a recipe to battle them. It was wholly successful and so now I share it with you, o sufferers of lady beetles.
Last year’s invasion began on October 31. They swarm the eastern wall houses, but generally only if they’re sunlit and more or less rock-colored. 
The well-lit, slate-gray eastern wall of my house was quite attractive to them. I had already thoroughly sprayed the entire wall with bifenthrin (Ortho Home Defense Max — I picked it up at Home Depot) a couple of weeks before, but I went over the entire thing again. Then I climbed up on the roof and hung two enormous blue tarps from the roof line, hanging them from nails I drove into the exposed wood. (Feeling quite smug about finally making use of the hammer loop in my jeans.) Finally, I doused the tarps in bifenthrin.
It worked really well. First, the blue of the tarps was far less enticing than the gray of the house, since blue is not a color that tells them “this is a rock outcropping that you can crawl under for the winter.” Second, even a light breeze stirred the tarps, which caused the ladybugs to fly off of them. Third, the tarp acted as a physical barrier to keep them out of the house. Fourth, even if they did get through the tarp to the house, that was sprayed. And finally, I even sprayed the windowsills of the two windows on the east side of the house, so that if they got inside they’d die just the same.
I felt safe declaring victory over the lady beetles come this past March, having spent the winter free of their nasty little bites, the orange fluid that they stain fabric with, and the general horribleness of sharing my house with thousands of insects. I followed the same plan this year, and spent some quality time on the roof yesterday and this morning hanging the tarps. Here’s hoping it does the trick again.
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 #
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