Council Passes Budget

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 12, 2006 in Politics and Taxes. 8 Comments

Council passed the city’s annual budget last night, John Yellig writes in today’s Daily Progress. In the process they further cut the real estate tax rate from the planned $1.00 to $0.99, the biggest rate cut in city history. That’s thanks to the 18.8% spike in real estate assessments this year. No services were cut with the new budget.

Republican Rob Schilling voted against the budget, as always, preferring not to participate in the process. He demanded more tax cuts but couldn’t locate any corresponding services to eliminate. Sounds like a lot like our leadership in Richmond and D.C., don’t it?

Charter School Proposal Withdrawn

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 12, 2006 in Education. 4 Comments

A year after submitting their proposal to the Charlottesville School Board, backers of a character school have withdrawn their proposal, Sarah Barry writes in today’s Progress. Bobbi Snow and Sandy Richardson had planned for a grade 5-8 arts-based school for at-risk kids. Twice the Charter School Review Committee rejected the proposal (wanting to see a curriculum defined and a proper budget), leading the school board to ask the pair to enhance their plans and resubmit the proposal. Citing frustration, they’re looking to propose the school to the Albemarle school system.

TJ Center Announces Muzzle Winners

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 11, 2006 in Politics. Closed

Charlottesville’s Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression has announced the winners of their 2006 Jefferson Muzzles, Liesel Nowak reports in today’s Daily Progress. The dubious honor goes to thirteen people and organizations this year, most notably President Bush and the Department of Justice.

My favorite winner would have to be the UConn students who heckled Ann Coulter to the point at which her presentation was drowned out by shouting; Coulter is an idiot, but that’s best proved by sitting back and letting her blabber on, not shouting at her.

Gray, WVIR Divide WB/UPN Spoils

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 8, 2006 in Meta News. 4 Comments

The recent merger of second-rate networks WB and UPN, forming The CW Television Network, put Gray Television and WVIR head-to-head in fighting for the rights to an affiliation in this market. The word on the street is that the results are in, and WVIR has clearly come out on top.

WVIR (with one channel now, NBC 29) has won out, no doubt because of their market superiority to Gray’s offerings (CBS 19, ABC 16, Fox 27), and will broadcast The CW on one of their digital subchannels. (Useful only to the six of you with digital TVs.)

News Corp, no dopes they, realized that many markets featured both WB and UPN and have created My Network TV, a new network for those stations that don’t make the cut for The CW. Gray is settling for that.

The planned launch date for both new networks is September 5.

Blogging Round Up

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 7, 2006 in Blogs. Closed

Here are some of my favorite Charlottesville blog entries from the past week.

Patience, tracking the renovation of her Belmont home, explains why so many houses in the neighborhood are stuccoed and about her efforts to de-stucco her own dwelling. Turns out stucco is basically concrete, and a real bummer to remove.

Bill Emory’s weekly “day of rest” photograph features his hands and those of his twin daughters on the grave of Rear Admiral William Hemsley Emory (1846-1917). I look forward to his Sunday photo every week.

Dave Norris isn’t happy about the second cross street on the Downtown Mall, pointing out that Council chose to ignore the Planning Commission’s 5-2 opposition to the street back in January. The new street will eat up $0.03 of each property tax dollar.

Elisabeth Epps posted a Flickr set of her recent accident on Millmont St., when she was hit by a car that crossed the center lane. I love that she took the time to snap a mirror photo during the ordeal.

Another Flickr series comes from Zion Crossroads EMT-E Jason See, who provides some great photos of a FedEx truck that caught fire in Louisa [1, 2, 3].

Colten Noakes speculates that the Preston Ave. Bodo’s is getting WiFi, though admits that he might just be starting a rumor.

Anoop Ranganath continues reviewing his dining experiences of the week. Bodo’s always good, el Puerto not so great, Basil pretty good, Amigo’s mediocre, South Street improved but uninteresting, Tea Time Desires enjoyable, Marco and Luca’s dumplings newly-questioned (they’re frozen?), China King Buffet not good, and Foods of All Nations the best of the week.

When I spot a great sunset or an amazing cloud formation, I can always count on Trish to snap a picture so I don’t have to. She doesn’t disappoint this week, with a lovely picture of the crazy storm that rolled into town Monday evening.

Jennifer is unhappy that the city is tearing down trees on Locust Ave. and that they’re not even going to replace all of them.

Dan Kachur just can’t hold back: he hates the Kroger on Hydraulic. Having worked in a grocery store, he knows: that place sucks.

Finally, Sally’s head just exploded when she had a realization: Bert & Ernie = Larry & Balky.

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