John Yoo was in Charlottesville to explain the torture memos– and talk about his new book.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

The Miller Center of Public Affairs has a long tradition of luring influential people to speak to engaged citizens, but this genteel practice degenerated on Friday, March 19, at an appearance by the lawyer who wrote the infamous “torture memos” that the Bush Administration used to justify waterboarding terrorist suspects.

While irate audience members shouted at the interrupters, the Center’s programs director, George Gilliam, scolded disruptive protesters during the talk by University of California at Berkeley law professor John Woo.

“I would like to thank George again for duplicating a Berkeley atmosphere,” joshed Yoo, as the tension mounted.

Yoo has just written a book called Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George W. Bush. His theory is that those considered the best presidents (more)

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Will Texas push Jefferson back to Monticello?
FILE PHOTOS BY HAWES SPENCER

Because one influential education board is swayed by Christian fundamentalists, all American students may soon receive a smaller dose of the Sage of Monticello.

That’s the concern, after the Texas Board of Education voted Friday, March 12, to replace Enlightenment-guided Thomas Jefferson with the more Bible-guided Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, and Sir William Blackstone as the thinkers whose ideas helped precipitate some of the political revolutions of Jefferson’s day.

Texas, along with California, is widely seen as setting national textbook standards due to their voluminous population and consequent buying power.

And that’s upsetting to Charlottesville-based historian Coy Barefoot. The author of the 2002 book Thomas Jefferson on Leadership, Barefoot contends that Texas is twisting history and tearing (more)

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A February sunset over Fashion Square.
FILE PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

Two of the bolder allegations in the recent brawl-at-the-mall that temporarily shut down Charlottesville Fashion Square were that brawlers arrived ready to rumble and traveled for that purpose via public transportation. However, a schoolmate of some of the alleged fighters claims the role played by public transportation— as well as the intentions of the participants— have been overstated.

“It was never a coordinated show of force,” says Federico D. Venegas, a 16-year-old sophomore at Charlottesville High School, who says he found no evidence of any premeditation. Instead, Venegas contends that what happened around 7:30pm on March 5 was more like the fighting of yesteryear.

“A couple of kids got mad at another couple of kids,” says Venegas. “Someone says, ‘I have a beef with you,’ and somebody says, ‘Let’s take it outside.’ And everybody followed them out.”

Indeed, the students did take it outside, but (more)

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No one told Maurie Sutton her street would be no parking when she bought a lot there in 2007.
PHOTO BY COURTENEY STUART

The neighborhood already reeling from getting declared a no plow zone in December just got another unhappy surprise when residents learned that they can no longer park at the end of their cul-de-sac. Now, some residents of this south-of-downtown neighborhood say they don’t know where they’ll park.

“I have a roommate, a 23-year-old nurse who works nights,” says resident Maurie Sutton. “She’s going to have to walk through a neighborhood that isn’t safe.”

And safety isn’t the only concern at Roy’s Place, (more)

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“Someone knows something,” says Dan Harrington, pictured here with wife Gil on March 17 in front of John Paul Jones Arena. “They need to come forward.”
PHOTO BY COURTENEY STUART

Her parents desperately wish it weren’t so, but they say they’re convinced: Morgan Harrington suffered before she was killed.

On the five month anniversary of the Virginia Tech student’s disappearance and less than two months after her remains were discovered in a remote area of a southern Albemarle County farm, her parents, Dan and Gil Harrington, spoke to reporters in front of the John Paul Jones Arena, where Morgan attended an October 17 Metallica show the night of her disappearance, to beg anyone with information about the case to come forward and to urge caution in the Charlottesville community.

“A monster walks among you,” Gil Harrington says, calling her daughter’s killer a “violent, sadistic and dangerous man.”

Although a medical examiner quickly ruled 20-year-old Morgan’s death a homicide after her body was discovered January 26, police have been silent in recent weeks and have released no further information on her cause of death.

However, her parents, both medical professionals, say signs of violence were obvious on their daughter’s remains, which were released from evidence and returned to them in February.

“He chooses to kill in a savage and brutal way,” says Gil Harrington, an oncology nurse, of her daughter’s killer, “to break her bones before he murdered her.” Dan Harrington, a psychiatrist, confirms (more)

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The Battle Building will transform West Main’s streetscape.
Odell & Associates

“Building, but not sprawling” was the headline of a recent UVA Magazine story on the school’s $308 million build-a-thon this year— in the face of a recession and UVA budget cutting. But next year one massive project will dramatically alter West Main’s streetscape (something UVA has long been threatening to do): the $141 million, 7-story, 200,000 square foot Barry and Bill Battle Building at UVA Children’s Hospital, which is scheduled to go up on a temporary parking lot beside the 12th Street Taphouse from 2011-2014.

The new building, which will serve as an outpatient surgery and (more)

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So long, Larry.
PHOTO COURTESY POLLSTAR

John Paul Jones Arena officials announced March 16 that Jason Pedone, assistant general manager for the venue since 2007, has replaced Larry Wilson as general manager. Wilson, who has been GM since the arena opened in 2006, has taken a loftier GM position for SMG— the management company that operates the Arena on behalf of the University— in Jacksonville, Florida, where he’ll manage six venues in the city.

“Larry leaves us in a great situation,” says Pedone, who served as the director of event services for SMG at Reliant Park, home to the NFL’s Houston Texans, before coming to Charlottesville to assist Wilson. “My goal,” he says, “is to keep a good thing going.”

Indeed, despite some early skepticism about whether or not such a small community could support such an arena, Wilson lured many of the world’s top touring acts to town, including The Police, Metallica, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Billy Joel, Justin Timberlake, Eric Clapton, and U2, with acts like Larry the Cable Guy, Lipizzaner Stallions, and The Wiggles thrown in for good measure. Under Wilson’s management, the arena was named Pollstar’s Best New Major Concert Venue 2006.

Wilson also managed the Paramount Theater in town, but Pedone says (more)

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Unshoveled sidewalks like this one on Water Street were common this winter.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

Even though snow blocked sidewalks all over town for weeks following major snowstorms in what was a record-breaking winter, no one has been convicted under Charlottesville’s ordinance requiring snow removal from public sidewalks.

Police declined to issue citations following the December 18-19 Snowpocalypse because the city had done such a poor job clearing its own sidewalks.

The snow removal ordinance hit another hurdle this week when judges dismissed charges against five people and businesses, including McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Yellow Cab, who were cited in February for not shoveling.

Defense attorney Andre Hakes argued in Charlottesville General District Court March 12 that Virginia’s Dillon’s Rule, which says a locality can only adopt laws that are allowed by state law, does not give the city authority to make (more)

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Medical personnel attend to the victim, whose pelvis was shattered in the incident.
PHOTO BY REID DAVISWORTH

The monster truck emcee struck and rolled over by one of the trucks in the Friday, March 12 show at John Paul Jones Arena remained hospitalized in serious condition at UVA hospital on Tuesday, March 16, and according to a representative for the company responsible for organizing the weekend’s two shows, the prognosis for the injured man, Ken Dickinson of Lyndhurst, is bright.

“I had the pleasure of speaking with him Saturday at intermission,” says Zane Rettew, safety and entertainment director for Checkered Flag Productions. “They expect him to make a full recovery.”

According to Rettew, Dickinson (more)

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Virginia Foundation for the Humanities president Rob Vaughan will not have to announce the demise of the Book Festival this year.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities escaped a House of Delegates proposal to eliminate its state funding the same week its most widely known program, the Virginia Festival of the Book, runs.

“We were never not going to survive,” says VFH president Rob Vaughan, “but we were going to be impoverished.”

The Charlottesville-based organization did not come out of the budget process unscathed, losing $290,000 on top of $550,000 that had already been cut from its current $3.8-million budget. And Vaughan credits the Foundation’s supporters for lobbying legislators.

“I was really delighted with the number of people who said they called, and they called (more)

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