5.8 Earthquake Centered on Mineral

Published by Waldo Jaquith on August 23, 2011 in Weather. 15 Comments

An impressively strong earthquake shook up the central east coast just a few minutes ago, a 5.8 magnitude quake centered on Mineral, which is midway between Charlottesville and Richmond. Though we’ve had a few quakes of this size in the past few hundred years, it’s been a while since we’ve had one this big. We had one in 2001, a 4.5 in 2003, and a 2.7 in Nelson in late 2009, but a 5.8 is a lot stronger than any of those. The shaking was felt from North Carolina clear to New York. What was it like where you are?

5pm Update: Note that it was just in March when Dominion Power’s Lake Anna nuclear plant was named the 7th most at-risk nuclear plant, in the event of an earthquake. So what was the facility designed to withstand? “A magnitude 5.9–6.1 earthquake.” The plant’s reactors shut down automatically, but after the Fukushima nuclear plants reduced the surrounding area to a radioactive wasteland following their March earthquake, that’s not as reassuring as Dominion might think it is.

Huja, Galvin, and Smith Nominated for Council

Published by Waldo Jaquith on August 21, 2011 in Politics. 70 Comments

Democrats nominated incumbent Satyendra Huja and newcomers Kathleen Galvin and Dede Smith for City Council yesterday, Charlottesville Tomorrow reports, and ousted three-term clerk of court incumbent Paul Garrett in favor of challenger Llezelle Dugger. A record 2,524 Democrats voted in the all-day firehouse primary. Huja and Galvin were both clear preferences of a majority of voters—winning on the first ballot—but it took five rounds of counting via instant-runoff voting before Smith finally emerged as the third-most-popular candidate, narrowly beating Paul Beyer by 31 votes.

The three Democrats nominated for Council will now run against the five independent candidates (Republicans have yet again failed to put forth challengers) for the November election. Nobody else is running for clerk, making Dugger the presumptive winner.

6:30 PM Update: The unofficial tallies have been released. These are the numbers for council, and these are the numbers for clerk. What stands out here is that Dugger trounced Garrett and fellow challenger Pam Melampy, with 1,534 votes to Garrett’s 656 and Melampy’s 294. The numbers from the council race show that all three nominees were also the top three vote-getters in the first round of voting, indicating that the results may not have been different with a traditional balloting system.

Whom Do You Endorse?

Published by Waldo Jaquith on August 17, 2011 in Politics. 34 Comments

It’s that time again. This Saturday, Charlottesville Democrats will hold their primary at Burley Middle School from 9am–7pm, where people will be voting for the Democratic nominees for City Council and Clerk of Court. Any Democrat can show up at any point in the day and cast their ballot. (Note that Democrats use an instant runoff voting system now, which is a really great voting system that ensures that the most popular candidates win, rather than just the candidates that crack some incredibly low percentage required in a race with a lot of candidates. To see what the somewhat unusual ballot will look like, visit the Charlottesville Democrats’ website.)

This is your chance to convince people to support your candidates of choice. For Clerk of Court, the candidates are Llezelle Dugger, Paul Garrett, and Pam Melampy. And for City Council, the candidates are Paul Beyer, Colette Blount, Brevy Cannon, Kathleen Galvin, James Halfaday, Satyendra Huja, and Dede Smith. A lot of people haven’t made their mind up for clerk, and there are plenty of people who know one or two people who they want to support for council, and are looking to round up their list. Make a pitch for the candidates you’re passionate about. (For them, not against the other candidates. You do your candidate no favors attacking the opposition at this point.) Don’t support any of the Democrats? Then this as a chance to persuade people to sit out the primary and support one of the independent candidates.

Buyaki Running for Reelection

Published by Waldo Jaquith on August 17, 2011 in General News. 1 Comment

Albemarle School Board member Jason Buyaki is running for reelection. He was appointed in February to complete Ronnie Price’s term.

Remembering the Ridge Drive-In Theater

Published by Waldo Jaquith on August 16, 2011 in History. 11 Comments

My friend Rosanna Bencoach recently scanned in a few bits of memorabilia from the Ridge Drive-In Theater, which her father managed from 1953–1965, and she’s kind enough to let me share them here. Although I’m a generation too young to have ever gone there, I’m told the theater was adjacent to Hydraulic, between the bypass and 29, or basically where Kroger and Dominion Power are located now. Here’s a colorized black and white aerial photo, taken in the late fifties:

Ridge Drive-In Theater, Charlottesville, Virginia

You can also see scans of the April 1964 and August 1961 movie schedules, with features including The Facts of Life (starring Bob Hope and Lucille Ball), West Side Story, Flipper, and Gidget Goes to Rome.

Sideblog