A motorist gets out of the way of the chase near Madison House on Rugby Road.
PHOTO BY CHARLOTTESVILLE P.D.

There has been an arrest in the case of the 85mph chase that resulted in a stolen car scalping a house on Rugby Road. About two months after the summertime incident, a 17-year-old city student was arrested, according to Charlottesville spokesperson Ric Barrick, who also— in response to a reporter’s request— released a tape of the chase, a 112-second video in which even the police car hits 85mph on the residential road.

In a related development, a work crew installed a guardrail Friday at the spot where the vehicle left the roadway to prevent such future dangerous aerobatics, but in so doing, the crew cut an underground gas line, causing a road detour lasting much of the morning.

Meanwhile, Friday, October 30 is also move-back day for (more)

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Kathryn Russell, bottom left, seen here a few years ago with her husband Wayne and some of their eight children and four grandchildren.
PHOTO FROM MAJESTY FARM WEBSITE

The local food movement lost one of their own last week, as Kathryn Russell, owner of Nelson County’s Majesty Farm and a founding member of the Virginia Independent Consumers and Farmer’s Association was killed in a traffic accident as she tried to cross Route 29 South at Plank Road on October 22. She was 54.

According to news reports, Russell was crossing 29 in a 1989 Dodge pickup with a crate of chickens in the back when she was hit by a van with two passengers inside. Police says neither alcohol nor speed was involved, and the two passengers were taken to the hospital with “non-life-threatening” injuries. Russell, however, who was not wearing a seatbelt, was thrown from her truck by the impact and killed instantly.

Russell leaves behind her husband of 36 years, Wayne Russell, as well as eight children and four grandchildren.

Russell, in addition to being a farmer, wife, and mother, was an outspoken activist for the local food movement. Like fellow farmer/activist Joel Salatin, Russell felt strongly that current government regulations on food production were (more)

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‘Everybody who’s anybody musically in this town played with Johnny Gilmore,’ says singer-songwriter William Walter.
PHOTO COURTESY WILLIAM WALTER

Acclaimed local drummer Johnny Gilmore has died in a fire, and his father was hospitalized after the blaze erupted Thursday night in the musician’s room at the Green Leaf Townhouses in midtown on Fifth Street, SW.

“I was talking to him an hour or an hour and a half before it happened,” says Rougemont Avenue resident Kenneth Jackson, who was visiting his sister in the unit adjacent to Gilmore’s in the nine-unit apartment complex. “He was sitting on the wall, and we were talking about music.”

Music was the 45-year-old’s life, say those who heard the (more)

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The City put up a new traffic pole the day after the August 7 accident. [More photos]
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

A stolen car speeding down Rugby Road Friday morning went airborne and plunged through a garage and then a house before shearing off tree limbs and coming to rest crumpled and upside-down in a suburban back yard— sans driver.

The August 7 wreck has perplexed bystanders. But neighbor Lucky Stone, who was awakened by what he first thought was 2:30am thunder, thinks he figured out what happened after the car took out a utility pole and pulverized a concrete curb.

“He smashed into the roof of the garage, and I guess that (more)

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Chief John Miller extols the virtues of photo-red cameras to the Albemarle Supervisors.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

The Albemarle Board of Supervisors unanimously approved installation of photo-red cameras in three of the county’s heaviest traveled intersections at its August 5 meeting.

“It’s just like having an officer sitting there,” Albemarle police Chief John Miller told the Supes.

Police tracked red-light runners at the intersection of U.S. 29 and Rio Road, one of the proposed photo-red spots, on June 29. In a 12-hour period, 121 drivers ran red lights, said Miller. U.S. 29 and Hydraulic, and Richmond and Stony Point roads are the other intersections destined for cameras.

Violators will receive three photos of their traffic transgressions, said Miller, and the cameras start clicking .5 seconds after the light turns red. A videotape of the violation (more)

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The public can weigh in on photo-red stoplight enforcement before the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors votes on installing cameras at three intersections– U.S. 29 and Rio Road, U.S. 29 and Hydraulic, and Richmond and Stony Point roads– at its Wednesday, August 5, meeting. Proponents say the cameras deter red-light running; critics claim the devices increase rear-end crashes. The public hearing portion starts 10:15am, and photo red, or “traffic light signal violation monitoring systems,” as it’s dubbed on the agenda, is the last item.

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This hole in the ground near the corner of Verona Drive and Olympia Drive in Fontana is all that’s left of Tuesday’s blast.
PHOTO BY LINDSAY BARNES

It was an otherwise sleepy Tuesday afternoon in the Fontana subdivision, which overlooks Darden Towe Park, as Carrie Hanley sat on her back porch to enjoy the the mild weather of June 16. Around 12:30pm, the only thing out of the ordinary was that just down the hill, as some workers were getting ready to blast their way through some rock in order to install a new sewage line.

So it came as little surprise when Hanley heard the low rumble from the detonation. What came as a surprise is what happened next.

“It was just like the movies,” says Hanley. “We just saw this big, black cloud coming toward us.”

Hanley says (more)

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Artist Gerry Mitchell, one year after the crosswalk incident.
FILE PHOTO BY WILL WALKER

First came the accident. Then the bad publicity. Now, 18 months after Gerry Mitchell was struck in his wheelchair by an Albemarle County police cruiser and then ticketed by Charlottesville police in the ER, comes the lawsuit.

Filed Tuesday morning, June 16, in Charlottesville Circuit Court, Mitchell’s $850,000 suit alleges negligence, malicious prosecution, and intentional infliction of emotional distress and names the City of Charlottesville, Charlottesville Police Officer Steve Grissom, who wrote the ticket, and Albemarle County Police Officer Gregory C. Davis, who was driving the cruiser that struck him in a West Main Street crosswalk on November 5, 2007.

“When you think about the cover up, what they did was so unnecessary and horrible,” says Mitchell, reached hours after the suit was filed. “They basically are not being (more)

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New columns adorn the Juvenile & Domestic Relations Court on High Street. The brick columns shown here have since been covered with white stucco.
PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR

In 2004, the City and County approved the renovation of the old Juvenile & Domestic Relations Court on High Street. The projected $12 million project also included a new 3-level, 91-space parking deck.

Today, the project is finally nearing completion, but at a cost that has rocketed to $19.9 million. That’s nearly three Downtown Mall renovation projects.

Built in 1902, the Colonial Revival building that housed the jail was originally Elks Lodge No. 389 and featured a library, a card room, a billiard parlor, and even a bowling alley. Early photographs of the lodge show the building with a big four-column portico on the front with a giant elk or deer head attached to its pediment.

A major fire in the late 1940s destroyed much of the building, and when it was later renovated, local architect Floyd Johnson chose not to rebuild the portico. Other distinguishing features include double fan arches over the front door and the window above, two pilasters corresponding with Doric columns, and a rusticated façade on which every fifth brick is indented.

What the Juvenile & Domestic Relations Court building looked like in 2002 .
PHOTO FROM CITY WEBSITE

Part of the reason the renovation has taken so long, and cost so much, is the fact that a section of the building collapsed during construction in March 2006. Construction was delayed not only by the costly mishap, but also by the costly litigation that followed.

“It’s the City’s position that it was the fault of the contractor and/or subcontractors,” said City attorney Craig Brown in May 2007. “But we’re hoping to have this whole thing resolved this week.”

Try two more years.

The City would eventually file a lawsuit accusing Kenbridge Construction and excavation company J.A. Walder of “cutting corners” to maximize profits on the City’s dollar, and claiming that the city had to hire a structural engineer to fix the building while Kenbridge refused to go back to work. Of course, Kenbridge fired back with its own lawsuit, accusing the city of supplying  “inaccurate or inadequate” plans, and then for good measure went after subcontractor Walder, accusing it of negligence. (more)

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