Charlottesville Tomorrow Replaces Website

Published by Waldo Jaquith on July 21, 2012 in Meta News. 8 Comments

Today Charlottesville Tomorrow launched a new website, and it represents a significant improvement over their old site. I suspect that nobody bothered with their main website, at charlottesvilletomorrow.org, since all of their stories went up on their Typepad-hosted blog, at cvilletomorrow.typepad.com. That disconnect didn’t serve them well, and the new site remedies that, putting a wide array of news front and center on the home page. Notably, the site is running on Armstrong, a still-in-development open source content management system created by and for internet-first media outlets.

(Disclaimer: Armstrong is funded by a grant by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, who awarded me a fellowship last year to develop The State Decoded.)

Sidney Tapscott Has Died

Published by Waldo Jaquith on July 18, 2012 in Obituaries. 5 Comments

Downtown fixture Sidney Tapscott has died. The sweet, cheerful 89-year-old was adopted many years ago by downtown regulars, and passed away yesterday in hospice. During the eighties and nineties he could be seen around the Downtown Mall with a push broom, wearing overalls and bearing a red bandana. The Albemarle native smoked a pipe, played the harmonica, and was the Hogwaller Ramblers’ number-one fan. (Their album opens with him singing, and then introducing “the Tennessee Ramblers.) The Blue Moon Diner—his home away from home—held a big birthday party for him every year. For photos and remembrances, see the Friends of Sidney Tapscott Facebook group, which has almost 1,500 members after just one day of existence.

Poll: Virginians Love Charlottesville

Published by Waldo Jaquith on July 13, 2012 in General News. 5 Comments

Public Policy Polling asked Virginians how they feel about a dozen major cities, and there’s none that they like more than Charlottesville. We’re seen favorably by 63% of those polled, with only 6% having an unfavorable opinion of us. Second place is Roanoke, with a 50/5 split. That’s based on an automated phone survey of 647 Virginian voters, conducted last week.

ACTA’s Role in Failed Sullivan Ouster

Published by Waldo Jaquith on July 12, 2012 in UVa. 13 Comments

Alex writes:

The Washington Post’s Daniel de Vise has a most interesting story on his blog regarding some events that possibly influenced the forced resignation of UVA’s president Sullivan. It’s entitled “Are Virginia College Trustees Groomed for Activism?” It may shed some light on some murky forces that may have encouraged Ms. Dragas and Mr. Kington’s ousting of Dr. Sullivan. Up until now there has been comparatively little scrutiny on the prelude to the
resignation.

My favorite remark by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni’s Ms. [Anne] Neal was, “I believe that the objection you encounter to ACTA’s role stems from those who like the status quo to be free of accountability or scrutiny.” She certainly has chutzpah. Ms. Dragas and Mr. Kington—seemingly indirectly egged on by Neal—mounted their coup in the dead of night and bristled at the attention they received. Not much accountability or scrutiny there.

I’ve had a strong hunch that Neal and ACTA were behind this failed coup, but I’ve got nothing more than circumstantial evidence to support that. de Vise appears to be on the trail.

City Pondering Problem Homeless People Downtown

Published by Waldo Jaquith on July 9, 2012 in Crime. 19 Comments

The city is having a tough time figuring out what to do about a small number of problematic homeless people downtown, Graham Moomaw wrote in the Daily Progress on Saturday. There are a few homeless people, most apparently not locals (unlike most of the area’s homeless population), who engage in drunken fights and nasty panhandling downtown, and downtown business owners are sick of it. It’s particularly problematic around Central Place. In response, the city has removed the benches from that block and stationed a police officer there on weekdays. As the owner of Zocalo told City Council, the problem isn’t homelessness, it’s people actually violating the law.

This reminds me of the periodic demands to beef up the city’s noise ordinance. It’s always in response to a single restaurant or venue that’s behaving badly, but because a law can’t target just one venue, we’ve got to talk about laws that affect everybody.

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