Former UVa employee Dena Bowers has sued the school for wrongful termination, Aaron Kessler reports in today’s Daily Progress. Bowers was fired last November for sending a private e-mail containing an NAACP analysis of the charter’s effect on medical center employees; the e-mail was subsequently forwarded by others to all classified staff at the College of Arts & Sciences. The firing was followed by a rally and much concern that this was a case of UVa trying to squelch staff concerns over the school’s change to a charter status. Neither the school nor Bowers will comment on the case.
cvillenews.com
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Megan Rowe has an interesting article in today’s Daily Progress about mobile phone carriers’ efforts to expand their networks in the area to fill in the blank spots. There’s an inherent conflict there — I wish I had GSM service at my house, but I don’t particularly want to have a tower in my viewshed. Phone companies are getting smarter about it, though, hiding their towers in church steeples and attaching them to electrical towers, making greater coverage less contentious. The topography of the county is such that 100% coverage will never be viable with existing technology, though, so don’t hold your breath.
Reader Charles Marsh sent me this: “Two weeks ago, around 10:00 on a Wednesday night, the Venable neighborhood was treated to intermittent blasts of exceedingly loud music which continued for an hour and a half period. The next day, we learned that the source of the music had been the new John Paul Jones arena, whose managers had run tests on the new state-of-the-art sound system. The cause for concern to Venable neighborhood residents is great. In every neighborhood meeting with arena planners over the past three years, our questions about potential noise problems have been answered with the promise that the arena would be acoustically insulated; noise pollution should be the least of our worries. But the music from a routine sound test in the arena could be heard loudly inside our homes and thus portends a long and difficult future for arena-community relations. The failure to keep this simple promise threatens the quality of life in a neighborhood that has been remarkably supportive of the universitys ambitious plans for growth.”
Did anybody else experience this? If the volume of concerts is going to be that loud, I think the resulting fight is going to be much worse than the Belmont/amphitheater volume problem.
Steve Whitaker hosts this week’s Charlottesville Blog Carnival, condensing a week of Charlottesville blogging into a sixteen-item digest for your reading pleasure. Not satisfied with the normal format, he’s invented a cool little numbering scheme.
Want to host sometime? (You should!) Drop me a line.
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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