New parkland (shown dark green) will be kept wild to buffer Meadow Creek.
CITY MAP

The County’s 1,200-acre Biscuit Run has been getting all the attention lately, after its would-be developers sold it to the state for $9.8 million plus an undisclosed number of tax credits. But Albemarle is not the only place where private land is turning public. The City of Charlottesville has announced the recent acquisition of 27 acres of parkland adjacent to Meadow Creek.

“This land is not going to be playgrounds,” says Chris Gensic, parks and trails planner for the city, explaining that the heavily-wooded tracts, much of the terrain in floodplain, will instead protect the creek and help get the city-wide trail system together.

Eighteen of the recently acquired acres lie behind the Seminole Square Shopping Center, donated by Ja-Zan LLC, the real estate corporation owned by siblings Jay Jessup and Suzanne Jessup Brooks, who also operate the Pepsi Cola Bottling Company of Central Virginia.

The remaining land is about eight acres near Holmes Avenue. The city purchased 2.3 of those acres for $10,300, and the remaining six were (more)

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Brightman arrived at UVA in December, 2004.
HAWES SPENCER PHOTO; UVA PHOTO INSET

Christopher Brightman, the man at the helm of UVA’s investment arm— which lost a billion dollars during the 2008 market turmoil— has suddenly resigned for “personal reasons” unrelated to the group’s operations, according to a published report.

Brightman, who, a little over a year ago, steadfastly declined to directly speak with Charlottesville reporters about the endowment funds he was managing, appears to be maintaining that silence. However, he apparently did tell a financial newsletter called Pensions & Investments that he plans to return to the investment world after resolving his unspecified personal issues.

In the late 1990s, the University of Virginia Investment Management Company, or UVIMCO, began earning market-beating returns by emulating Yale with high-risk, high-reward instruments such as hedge funds and private equity. Hired near the end of 2004, Brightman continued the strategy; but when the markets soured in the fall of 2008, he found himself (more)

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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 Yoo.

“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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Graycie the parrot is the subject of Jenny Gardiner’s latest book, which will not be called Parrothood.
FILE PHOTO OF GARDINER BY JEN FARIELLO

Sleeping with Ward Cleaver author Jenny Gardiner’s tale of life with a sharp-beaked parrot got her a book deal with Simon & Schuster— and threats about trademark infringement for the title, Parrothood: Twenty Years of Caring for a Vengeful Bird Determined to Kill Me.

New York African gray parrot breeder Patrica Barth asserted that she held the trademark to “planned parrothood,” and that gave her exclusive rights to the word “parrothood.”

Gardiner’s book comes out March 16, and it’s now called Winging It: A Memoir of Caring for a Vengeful Parrot Who’s Determined to Kill Me.

“I was completely within my legal rights, but with someone as (more)

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This is a late bloom for this UVA-area winter jasmine.
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

The heavy snowfalls and cold temperatures accompanying the Snowpocalypse and Snowmageddon are showing their effects. Charlottesville flower blooming and amphibian-growing have started later than usual, and in particular, the little tree frogs known as spring peepers have just begun peeping. Is this cause for concern?

“They’re going to have to get active pretty quickly to reproduce before predators get active in the ponds,” says nature writer Marlene Condon. “They really have a narrow window in which they can reproduce.”

Condon says that a quick shift to hot weather could limit the peeper populations, which serve the dual purposes of limiting insects and feeding hungry animals. Amphibians such as the peepers need a stretch of cool weather in order to reproduce.

“There are years,” says Condon, “when the conditions are just never right.”

Over in the world of flora, the bellwether winter jasmine at the corner of University Avenue and Rugby Road bloomed on Wednesday, March 10, the latest yellow eruption in (more)

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Pilot James Arvid Youngquist, 62, of Reston died in the Louisa crash.
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

Less than a week after a fatal plane crash at a front yard in Louisa, the National Transportation Safety Board has released a preliminary report which cites “a loss of engine power” and several recent bouts of trouble with the right engine of the twin-propellered Cessna which crashed March 4 shortly after take-off.

“The right engine had problems,” says flight instructor Skip Degan, although he seconds NTSB investigator Bob Gretz’s caution, uttered when interviewed at the site a day after the wreck, against drawing conclusions from such an early report.

Still, instructor Degan says the report’s emphasis on engine troubles and power loss, coupled with witness statements that the plane was discharging grayish black smoke and appeared to be rolling before a nose-down impact point to a chilling scenario: a stall-spin.

Degan, who examined the report but is unconnected to the investigation, notes that (more)

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A CTS bus downtown.
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

Perhaps the most fascinating part of the whole brawl-at-the-mall that caused Charlottesville Fashion Square to shut down for an hour on Friday night, March 5, is the statement released by Simon Malls. The release declares that unsupervised juveniles— said to number around 100 by NBC29— arrived via public transportation. The Newsplex doesn’t give a total for the crowd, but Charlottesville Transit Service buses appear to hold a little under 50 people.

Albemarle County Police Corporal Ken Richardson says that preliminary reports suggest total involvement (more)

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Mark Linkous was the subject of a February 28, 2002 Hook cover story.
ARCHIVE

He died once 14 years ago, but this time Mark Linkous won’t be coming back. The 47-year-old musician who performed under the name Sparklehorse and was known for his haunting melodies and poetic lyrics, committed suicide on Saturday, March 6 in an alley outside a friend’s home in Knoxville, Tennessee by shooting himself through the heart.

“It’s very distressing,” says his cousin-in-law, Tracey Linkous of Charlottesville, noting that Linkous had become increasingly withdrawn from extended family over the past several years and that he was devastated over the disintegration of his marriage. Linkous’ manager, Shelby Meade, confirms that the musician was in the process of divorce.

The subject of the February 28, 2002 Hook cover story, when he was living near the tiny Buckingham County town of Dillwyn, Linkous famously overdosed in London in 1996 and suffered cardiac arrest, but was revived after spending several minutes technically dead. Hospitalized for months, he regained the ability to walk with leg braces— but more importantly, he retained his ability to sing and write songs. While his work never achieved mainstream commercial success, it inspired (more)

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The Cessna Crusader burned after impact.
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

A preliminary report pointing to possible causes of the fatal front-yard crash of a private plane in Louisa could be posted later this week, following National Transportation Safety Board policy.

“It’s really day one of an investigation that takes about six months,” said NTSB official Bob Gretz. “We’re still in the fact-finding phase.”

Gretz, a senior air safety investigator based in New Jersey, made his comments on site March 5, a day after the twin-engine Cessna Crusader crashed shortly after take-off from Freeman Field in Louisa, a town about 20 miles east of Charlottesville.

The pilot, identified as 62-year-old James “Jay” Youngquist of Reston, died in the fire, which consumed the one-and-a-half story Cape Cod-style residence near Jefferson Highway, better known as U.S. 33. A man inside (more)

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Could this be you in November?
PUBLICITY PHOTO BY JACK LOONEY

You may be ready to say “I do”— but sometimes your wallet is not. For couples across the country, Charlottesville is quickly becoming the destination of choice for brides longing for whimsical Southern elegance, and with its countless vineyards and historical properties, luscious Blue Ridge backdrop, and talented community of local vendors, who could blame them? But while Charlottesville’s wedding industry is on the upswing, some local couples are not— which is why those same local vendors are teaming up to throw one lucky couple a dream wedding for free.

“Times are hard right now, and people aren’t doing as well, and there’s a war,” explains local photographer and project mastermind Jack Looney. “Everyone around here has big hearts, and as quickly as I could tell them what I was thinking, they were up for it.”

The idea for the Charlottesville Free Wedding Project stemmed from Looney’s own pro bono photography work— nearly fifty percent of his business, he says. After approaching (more)

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Front yard clutter? City zoning inspectors ordered this Cherry Avenue resident to relocate the satellite dish.
PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR

Satellite dish in my yard
Tell me more, tell me more
Who’s the king of your satellite castle?

We may not know exactly what Dave Matthews meant in his song “Satellite,” but last month Cherry Avenue resident Susan Blake had no doubts about what a letter she received from the city had to say about the dish in her yard: relocate it within a month— or face legal action with fines up to $5,000.

After losing her job with a construction company, Blake was looking for ways to save money, and switching from cable to satellite television was one of them.

“I was paying $62 per month for Comcast, but now I’m paying $27 per month for DirecTV,” says Blake. “That savings practically pays my electric bill.” Of course, those $27 offers are only good for the first year, but with things so tight for folks like Blake, many people are switching over.

However, that small piece of mind was shaken by the letter she received from (more)

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A 19-year veteran, Hopwood monitors Anchorage Farm January 26, the day Morgan Harrington’s body was found.
PHOTO BY COURTENEY STUART

One of the Albemarle County Police officers who shot Colby W. Eppard has left his job as part of a shakeup that appears to have resulted in the demotion of two other officers and a multi-week suspension for the Department’s top spokesperson, Lt. Todd Hopwood.

The information comes in response to a Freedom of Information request filed by NBC29 and fulfilled by County spokesperson Lee Catlin, who indicates that the officer who left, Caleb Marden, departed March 2. No cause was cited, but NBC29 asserts that at least one of the punished officers engaged in “inappropriate” behavior “while on the clock,” but the media outlet did not offer any specifics.

The recently demoted officers are Caroline Morris and Scott Cox, the latter of whom (more)

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Kay Peaslee is moving to Indianapolis and will take along her cat Yang Guifei– named for the most famous concubine of the Tang Dynasty.
PHOTO BY COURTENEY STUART

She covered news as the founder of the theObserver, a long-lasting weekly paper, and made news as an activist who, along with her late husband Alexander “Sandy” Peaslee, pushed for the controversial— but ultimately unsuccessful— reversion of  Charlottesville to town status. Now, Kay Peaslee is preparing to start a new chapter.

“I’m moving to Indianapolis, to be near my youngest daughter,” says Peaslee, sitting in her spacious downtown McGuffey Hill condo while her oldest daughter, Sarah Peaslee, packs boxes and sorts family photos in preparation for her mother’s Thursday, March 4 departure.

Now 87, Peaslee says the decision (more)

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Alexandra Fitzsimmons may not be able to return to Concepcion, where she teaches English.
PHOTO COURTESY ALEXANDRA FITZSIMMONS

Like most people in Chile, Alexandra Fitzsimmons was asleep when one of the largest temblors ever recorded rumbled to life at 3:34am. As her bed slid across the room as if inside a ship rocked during a storm, she pretty quickly realized that it wasn’t a dream.

“We’re very lucky,” says Fitzsimmons, 25, in a telephone interview from a friend’s apartment on a seventh floor in Santiago. There are cracks in the ceiling and chunks of drywall that have fallen out, but from the outside, she says,”You’d have no idea anything happened.”

Fitzsimmons considers herself particularly fortunate because (more)

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