The new faces of the GOP on the Albemarle Board of Supervisors are area old-timers Duane Snow and Rodney Thomas.
PHOTOS BY WILL WALKER

Four years ago, Creigh Deeds lost a statewide race to Bob McDonnell by one of the smallest margins– 360 votes– in recent history. In glaring contrast, his 18-point defeat to McDonnell November 3 marks one of the largest margins in a governor’s race since George Allen crushed Mary Sue Terry in 1993, 58 percent to 41 percent.

So resounding is the rout, both Democrats and Republicans are scratching their heads, despite pre-election polls predicting a McDonnell victory.

“Personally, I thought it would be closer than that,” says Fred Hudson, chairman of the 5th District Democratic committee and the number 3 Dem statewide. He attributes the staggering loss (more)

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About 15 feet above Ridge-McIntire Road, Randall Bowling eyes his Wednesday-morning handiwork.
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

Just two days after Halloween, three and a half weeks before Thanksgiving (not to mention seven and a half weeks before Christmas), City crews began installing holiday lights downtown on Monday, November 2— in what may be a new record for early decorating.

The lights, installed singly and in pairs on poles, are stylized snow flakes, illuminated by LEDs.

City spokesperson Ric Barrick says the lights are owned by the private Downtown Business Association, which added 16 flakes to its retinue this year and (more)

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Independent Bob Fenwick wants to defy the odds and get on City Council.
FILE PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

Independent City Council candidate Bob Fenwick is getting a lot of buzz– and support from a broad coterie of Republicans, Democrats, and independents. But is that enough to get him elected to Council in a city long dominated by Dems?

It’s hard enough for a Republican to get a seat on Council— ask Rob Schilling, who was elected in 2002, the first Republican in 16 years. For an independent running without even minority party support, what are the odds?

“It is virtually impossible,” says Schilling. “The last independent (more)

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“This case is about right and wrong,” says RSWA director Tom Frederick in a recent memo, accusing recycler Peter Van der Linde of “defrauding” the RSWA out of more than “a million dollars in tipping fees.”
FILE PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

After nearly two years of silence, the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority has finally responded in detail to public comments and media coverage of its $20 million RICO lawsuit against trash recycler Peter Van der Linde. Authority director Tom Frederick released a memo ahead of the RSWA Board’s October 27 meeting that includes some of the “substantial evidence” that Van der Linde “defrauded the RSWA in excess of a million dollars in tipping fees.”

According to Frederick, after the RSWA’s  “service contribution fee” was implemented in 2005, Authority officials began noticing sharp drops in the amount of area trash that Van der Linde was hauling, as reported to them by BFI, a development that Frederick characterizes as a smoking gun.

“During one twelve-month period from September 2006 through August 2007, Mr. Van der Linde’s companies declared zero tons from Albemarle/Charlottesville,” says Frederick, “a period within which there are multiple photographic records” of Van der Linde’s orange dumpsters in the area.

At the time, Frederick had his recycling manager, Bruce Edmonds, tracking and photographing Van der Linde’s containers. In the county, development director Mark Graham had instructed his building inspectors to keep track of the distinctive orange containers.

“They might think I’m a criminal, but do they think I’m stupid?” responds Van der Linde, who plans to issue his own memo to refute Frederick’s comments, point by point, at the Authority’s Tuesday meeting. “Do they really think (more)

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RWSA director Tom Frederick has enjoyed the support of his board, including Charlottesville Public Works director Judy Mueller.
FILE PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

Despite a request from a prominent critic of the controversial plan to replace three existing reservoirs with one that would adjoin Interstate 64, the study of the pipeline needed to make the scheme possible appears to be slipping past the local elections, according to a document submitted last month by the head of the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority.

“The review of the conceptual plan for a future South Fork to Ragged Mountain pipeline was estimated to be completed by the end of 2009,” Authority director Tom Frederick writes in a late September response to a reporter’s question. “RWSA entered into a contract in late August with the firm Wiley/Wilson to perform the review.”

Questions about how the $25,000 review is going could not be immediately answered, as Wiley/Wilson’s project manager, Tim Slaydon, is hiking the Appalachian Trail and not expected back (more)

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“This is a monumental waste of time and money,” says Bob Fenwick of the Waste Authority’s lawsuit against Peter Van der Linde, seen here on the trolley Van der Linde uses to give school tours of his recycling facility.
PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR

Independent City Council candidate Bob Fenwick held a press conference today at Peter Van der Linde’s $11 million Zion Crossroads recycling facility, at which he dropped off some trash of his own (concrete scraps, yard waste, and a broken weed trimmer) and called on Charlottesville City Council to rescind the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority’s $20 million RICO lawsuit against the recycler.

“We have two governments going after Peter Van der Linde using my tax money and my water fees,” said Fenwick. “Their staff attorney has been reported to be charging $515 an hour. This is a monumental waste of time and money.”

As an area businessman for 30 years, Fenwick said that Van der Linde’s struggle with the RSWA “struck a chord,” and like the YMCA plans for McIntire Park, seemed like another case of “government not following the will of the people.” Fenwick said he’s tried to find out the RSWA’s side of the story, but to no avail.

“Why doesn’t someone from the County Board of Supervisors or City Council stand before us and tell us why this lawsuit is a good idea?” Fenwick asked. “They have publicly accused this man of being a criminal, and now they hide from public comment.”

Fenwick also criticized the RSWA’s (more)

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“It is absolutely false that I supported flow control,” says BoS member Ken Boyd, calling it “more than a stretch” to suggest he ever did.

FILE PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

Two weeks after the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority Board discussed its interest in getting a flow control ordinance to bolster a revamped Ivy transfer station, Authority director Tom Frederick now appears to be backing away from such a move, which would have given the Authority monopoly control over trash collection and might have driven the Authority’s nemesis out of business.

On October 7, after news of the flow control discussion broke and Coy Barefoot and Rob Schilling took up the issue on their radio programs, Frederick appeared before the County Board of Supervisors to say that his staff was not presently pursing flow control.

“I have not been directed by the Board to work on a flow control ordinance,” said Frederick, summarizing what he told the Supes, “and am not working on one.”

Earlier in the week, Supervisor Ken Boyd, who also sits on the RSWA Board, called in to Schilling’s show to distance himself from flow control, a term he said he “was not familiar with” when (more)

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A controlled burn may include back fires.
PHOTO COURTESY VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF FORESTRY

Coming exactly a week before the start of fall’s wildland fire season, when state officials fear fire outbreaks among dried branches and fallen leaves, an October 8 open burn had several local citizens calling Albemarle Fire and Rescue after smoke wafted over Charlottesville.

It turns out, however, it was simply a controlled burn on 60 acres in North Garden, one that was pre-approved by the Virginia Department of Forestry.

“There ought to be some public service announcement,” says Elizabeth Tyler. “This could put an asthmatic in the hospital, or affect older people.”

“We’re not required to notify anyone other than the local fire departments,” says Forestry (more)

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Independent City Council candidate Bob Fenwick called on Mayor Dave Norris to “publicly repudiate” the RSWA’s $20 million lawsuit against Peter Van der Linde.
FILE PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

While our elected officials continue to support the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority’s $20 million RICO lawsuit against recycling entrepreneur Peter Van der Linde, two candidates seeking office are now speaking out against it.

Wednesday night, at the Free Enterprise Forum’s candidate forum at Burley Middle School, Independent City Council candidate Bob Fenwick, who says he is “appalled” by the lawsuit, called out Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris on the issue. While the Hook was not present at the forum, Fenwick summarized his statements after the meeting.

“As a citizen of the City of Charlottesville and not as a candidate I’m calling on Mayor Dave Norris tonight to strongly and publicly repudiate this lawsuit,” Fenwick said. “ And I don’t want to hear any baloney about the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority (more)

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This scam IQ test on Facebook asks unwitting test-takers for a mobile phone number and hides the part that says they’re going to get charged $9.99 a month for text message services.

No longer do scam artists need a credit card number. Now, they just need your name, phone number, and a mouse click.

Until he got a notice saying his phone was about to be cut off, Jim Cudahy didn’t know he was being charged an extra $14.95 each month on his Embarq bill, which he was automatically paying through a bank draft.

When he called to ask about the charge, Embarq said it was from a third-party provider for an additional voicemail account. The problem was: Neither he nor his wife remembered ordering anything of the sort.

After racking their brains to figure out what triggered the charge that had been on their bill for 10 months, his wife recalled signing up last December for an online grocery coupon.

And that’s when they learned about “cramming,” the practice of slipping unauthorized charges on telephone bills. (more)

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Eugene Williams has been fighting for civil rights for over 50 years, and even when City Council apologizes for past wrongs, he reminds them that the battle isn’t over.
PHOTO BY WILL WALKER

A public apology for the racial discrimination that closed public schools doesn’t go far enough, according to one man whose family was on the front lines of the struggle.

Charlottesville City Council approved a resolution October 5 that apologizes for its predecessors’ role in thwarting integration in the 1950s.

Civil rights activist Eugene Williams says the apology to the 12 African-American students who were denied admission to Venable Elementary and Lane High School in 1958 should include their parents and the parents of the more than 1,400 white students whose educations were interrupted by segregation as well.

“It affected the parents of 1,415 students,” says Williams, citing the number of white students displaced, (more)

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RSWA lawyer Kurt Krueger defined “flow-control” for Board members at their September 22 meeting.
FILE PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

Rivanna Solid Waste Authority director Tom Frederick has long contended that the Authority’s now $20 million RICO lawsuit against Peter Van der Linde has nothing to do with the competing trash facility the private businessperson opened last December, an $11 million Materials Recovery Facility that quickly captured the local market for construction debris and commingled recyclables. But on the eve of Van der Linde’s opening of an expansion that would also take household trash for recycling— a move that could potentially siphon off the Authority’s remaining revenue stream— the Authority is now discussing an option that could put the recycling entrepreneur out of business.

“If they hand over Ivy to Waste Management, Allied, or some other big company with a flow-control guarantee,” says Van der Linde, “I’m doomed.”

Unaware of flow-control? Don’t worry, several Board members, including (more)

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Council candidates Kristin Szakos and Mayor Dave Norris unveil their bike and pedestrian safety platform.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

Remember the short-lived yellow bike program in 2002, when the city backed free bikes that disappeared in short order?

Despite such innovative ideas, for a progressive city, Charlottesville gets below-average ratings nationally in its accommodations of bicycle and pedestrian traffic, say the two Democratic City Council candidates.

Mayor Dave Norris and Kristin Szakos unveiled their bike and pedestrian platform at a September 24 press conference, and called for painting the bike lanes green, adding showers at the Transit Center (more)

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