In what a group of water watchdogs fear could be a harbinger of harsher things to come, County water bills will spike 20 percent this year, if rates proposed by the Albemarle County Service Authority win approval. The increase would combine with last year’s 30 percent jump to mean customers would pay 55 percent more than just two years ago and nearly triple what they paid in 1999.

“It’s ridiculous,” says longtime Albemarle citizen Lucy Bennett. A catering company employee, the 24-year resident of Minor Ridge Road cites soaring fuel and other bills and says she’d like to sign a petition to roll back water rates. “Everything’s draining us right now,” she says.

The rates, recently advertised in the Daily Progress legal notices and posted on the Service Authority’s website, show water climbing 11 to 13 percent. But the bulk of the increase comes in sewer rates, which will jump 29 percent. For a family using 5,000 gallons per month, an amount in the mid-range of the three pricing tiers, the monthly bill would climb from $59.31 to $70.92— an annual hit to the pocketbook of $139.

“No one likes rates to go up,” says Service Authority director Gary Fern, who points to two causes: a rise in wholesale rates set in March by the area’s (more)

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Is there something in the nonprofit water that has directors of local cultural institutions dropping like cherry blossoms to pursue the ubiquitous “other opportunities”?

Long-time Second Street Gallery executive director Leah Stoddard becomes the latest to mysteriously disappear, turning in a resignation May 5— without the usual two weeks or more notice that typically accompanies cordial departures. By May 6, she was no longer listed on the gallery website.

“I have resigned,” Stoddard confirms from home May 7. As for the lack of notice, “I can’t really talk about it,” she says.

Stoddard joins the Paramount Theater’s former director Edward Rucker, who tendered his resignation May 2 “to pursue other opportunities” after a 10-month tenure and University of Virginia Art Museum director Jill Hartz, who was shown the door in December and then landed a job heading the University of Oregon’s much larger museum. (Not to mention cultural icon Mac McDonald.)

“She wanted to pursue other options and spend more time with her family,” offers acting director/membership and outreach coordinator Catherine Barber, who notes that (more)

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Less than a year ago, after a national search that produced 71 candidates, the Paramount Theater heralded new executive director Edward I. Rucker, a Charlottesville resident, as a man of “vision, enthusiasm, and experience.” The best person for the job, Paramount chair Gary Taylor said at a July 19, 2007 press conference introducing Rucker, was “right here.”

Well, Rucker’s not there anymore. He resigned May 2, Taylor confirms, less than 10 months after his arrival. His departure, after two weeks’ notice, creates a powerful sense of deja vu. Less than two years ago, in September 2006, the Paramount’s original executive director, Chad Hershner, who oversaw the 1931 theater’s nearly $16 million renovation and 2004 reopening, also suddenly resigned. Hershner, who resurfaced as vice president of advancement at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center in Appleton, Wisconsin, did not immediately return the Hook’s call.

Like Hershner’s, Rucker’s resignation “was definitely unexpected,” (more)

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It’s been at least two decades since Muhammad Ali last called Virginia home, but tonight, for at least one night, “The Greatest” was back in Charlottesville. Here to visit his longtime friend and attorney Ron Tweel, the three-time Heavyweight Champion of the World and his wife Lonnie stopped into new restaurant Maya on West Main to have dinner. The champ and his wife were accompanied by Tweel’s family, including son-in-law Christian Kelly, chef and co-owner of the restaurant.

Before their private meal, Ali, clad in a blue UVA polo shirt, posed for pictures with an excited Maya staff (click on the thumbnail at left to see their smiling faces). Due to his Parkinson’s Disease, Ali did not speak to any of the assembled, but did flash his trademark, wide-eyed stare at one point during the photo shoot, to the amusement of all who saw it.

Ali once owned property in Nelson County in the mid-to-late ’80s and could sometimes be seen around Charlottesville, even having a bite to eat (or maybe just shuffling papers) on the Downtown Mall. Presently, the 66-year-old boxing legend lives in the Phoenix area.

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The 16-year-old Crozet boy charged with 15 counts in connection with the March 27 shooting spree that closed down Interstate 64 pleaded guilty today to eight charges in Charlottesville Albemarle Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.

Handcuffed, shackled, and wearing the standard issue blue juvenile detention garb, the teen sat alone in front of the court and looked down while his attorney, Dana Slater, conferred with Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Darby Lowe, pictured left. His mother watched him from the front bench, and supporters filled the first two rows.

The youth pleaded guilty to five counts of malicious shooting into an occupied vehicle, two counts of shooting into occupied dwellings on Greenwood Station and Dry Bridge roads, and one count of firing from a vehicle on Miller School Road.

“He has accepted responsibility for his actions,” Lowe told Judge Susan Whitlock. The prosecutor asked for a deferred disposition on the three non-I-64 charges pending a psychiatric (more)

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The Washington Post is at it again–praising the Charlottesville food scene. Just a week after Post writer Roger Piantadosi facetiously claimed that we had more restaurants per capita than France, and called us “insanely committed foodies,” Post writer Jane Black writes, “the food here is far better than it should be in a place with about 40,000 year-round residents and 20,000 broke college kids” and called Mas “without a doubt my favorite Charlottesville restaurant.” Mas, Bang, Kate Collier of Feast!, Albemarle Baking Company, Ten, and Rev Soup are all included in a nifty slide show.

Black doesn’t miss much in this food tour, and her final words are enough to make us blush.

“Across the board, Charlottesville’s food scene is inventive, diverse and brimming with talent,” Black writes.” It’s enough to give Monticello a run for its money.”

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So what happened last night at the big dredging confab called by Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris? Well, the two-man team from visiting engineering firm Gahagan & Bryant repeated its pitch from the previous night for how dredging could be knocked out in a matter of months, not years– certainly not 50 years, as Aaron Keno (in photo), the Gannett Fleming engineer who has been blamed for portraying dredging as an expensive, ineffective 50-year nightmare, contends.

Although he avoided mention of his own prior cost estimates, which have prompted such diverse parties as the Sierra Club, netrepreneur William Crutchfield [RTF], and Albemarle supervisor Dennis Rooker to reopen the topic, Keno got paid to reiterate his view last night, but perhaps the biggest shocker was off-topic.

Water plan architect Ridge Schuyler revealed that his Nature Conservancy has received a 340-acre donation adjacent to the City’s Ragged Mountain Natural Area that could become a fabulous new park with access from Route 29.

“At the end of the day,” said Schuyler, “we hope to have a 1,200-acre park with full public access.”

For all its charms, the 980-acre Natural Area must now be reached via a long, winding, and graveled Reservoir Road, and it’s bisected by Interstate 64. Schuyler envisions an architecturally significant “gateway” pedestrian bridge that (more)

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With so much attention paid to the race for the White House, former governor Mark Warner (D) came to Charlottesville today to remind voters that there is another office on the ballot in November, and that he’s running for it. With Sen. John Warner (R, no relation) opting for retirement instead of a re-election campaign, Mark Warner laid out the reasons why he should fill the vacancy– namely that he seeks to end the partisan tone in Washington. “You’ve got to recognize that good ideas don’t come with a ‘D’ or an ‘R’ attached to them,” he told the crowd of about 300 people. “I’ll work with anyone to make sure all Virginians get the same shot that I got.”

Warner summarized his platform on the range of issues facing the next Congress, including his formula for stimulating the struggling national economy. “India and China are not playing for second place in the 21st century,” he said. “We need a national competitiveness plan in this country,” which Warner said should include having “the most educated innovative workforce in the world,” “grappl[ing] with health care,” and “re-invest[ing] our crumbling national infrastructure.”

Warner also devoted some of his stump speech to the war in Iraq. “The Iraqi government is sitting on $70 billion in oil revenues right now,” he said. “The only way we ratchet up the pressure on them is to begin to bring our troops home.”

Asked after the speech if that means tying war funding to a timetable for withdrawal, Warner said, “I don’t believe you can set a date,” he said, “but I do think we have to make sure it’s not an open-ended, 100-year engagement.”

In a possible preview of (more)

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The windows of Greenberry’s coffee shop are often filled with newspapers sitting on the bar inside, but a jittery customer noticed another kind of paper in the window this past weekend: an ABC notice announcing the coffee shop’s bid for a beer and wine license. For Greenberry’s legions of loyal customers– who can now find Greenberry’s goodies at 15 locations from North Carolina to New Jersey– the news could come as a fright. Is the coffee being left behind in favor of full service food and beverages?

“Not at all,” promises Greenberry’s owner, Sean Simmons, who with his wife, Roxanne, opened the flagship store at Barracks Road 16 years ago and has quietly built a coffee empire– so quietly that the Washington Post failed to mention the business in its recent round-up of Charlottesville coffee shops.

And by Charlottesville’s standards, Greenberry’s is an empire. (more)

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Coming off the success of last year’s #1 album, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, Washington state indie-rockers Modest Mouse are coming to the Charlottesville Pavilion Sunday, June 29 at 7pm. Tickets go on sale this Friday at 10am.

Modest Mouse seemed like an overnight success when their hit single “Float On” snuck onto Top 40 radio and even American Idol in 2004, propelling the band’s album Good News for People Who Love Bad News to sell over a million copies. However, the group has been at it since 1993, when vocalist and rhythm guitarist Isaac Brock formed the band with bass player Eric Judy and drummer Jeremiah Green and lifted the name from a Virginia Woolf short story.

Since then, the lineup around Brock, Judy, and Green has changed, but the hard-driving, literate rock core has stayed the same, although the sound is now augmented by former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, who joined the band in 2006, and multi-instrumentalist and one-time member of Charlottesville’s (more)

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