In what has recently been a hot issue, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors agreed in its public meeting Wednesday, August 13, that, contingent upon some additions to the original resolution, they will support lighting the tennis courts at Darden Towe Park.

The public meeting heard support from several tennis groups, including the Charlottesville Tennis Patrons Association, while various neighborhoods from Forest Lakes to vocal Towe neighbor Clara Belle Wheeler expressed opposition.

“Once lights are there, it’s going to get bigger and bigger and bigger,” Wheeler cautioned the Board. “The city and county gave an assurance to never have lights at Darden Towe Park.”

Dave Emmitt, of a nearby subdivision, echoed that sentiment. “The community,” he said, “put trust (more)

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An early 1990s upgrade lit the softball fields at McIntire Park, but players have now been told that their days here are numbered.
PHOTO BY RYAN HOOVER

In the form of a public meeting Wednesday night, the next step in Darden Towe’s athletic field makeover will recommence.

Towe, the city-county owned park, has been in the midst of change for five months now. In a Board of Supervisors meeting April 2, the first indications of re-considering athletic field lighting emerged when a citizen requested the tennis courts be lit. However, due to a long-standing understanding on behalf of the City and County to leave Towe a “daytime” park— according to Towe neighbors— the fields and courts have remained dark. After amending the original use agreement to allow for lighting contingent on mutual agreement by the City and County, the opportunity to light Towe’s fields is very much achievable. Tonight, the future of the park’s athletic fields are in the hands of the public.

“I’m very anxious to hear from the public,” says Board of Supervisors Chair Ken Boyd. “The big question is, are the neighborhoods still against it?”

Tonight, the Board of Supervisors is holding an open public meeting to determine the next (more)

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Softballers steal the last moments of sunlight on the unlit Darden Towe fields.
PHOTO BY STEPHANIE GARCIA

Exiled from their historic home in McIntire Park by the Charlottesville City Council, local softballers scrambling for playing time face a new hurdle as an effort to light fields at Darden Towe Park faces stiff opposition from some neighbors.

“This is a rural area,” says Clara Belle Wheeler, owner of a farm adjacent to the park. “The City and County agreed verbally and in writing not to light Darden Towe. There were never to be lights at that park.”

Well, maybe. The original use agreement for the jointly owned park on the eastern banks of the Rivanna River indeed prohibits lighted fields during the park’s first three development phases. However, the City and County amended the agreement in June of last year.

“I think there’s a misunderstanding about what was stated in the original agreement,” says County Deputy Director of Parks and Rec Bob Crickenberger. “There may have been statements made or ideas out there that were not in the original agreement.”

Crickenberger says that the City and County can light the fields if both vote to do so. That’s what has Wheeler so worried. “I don’t see how the City and County can reverse their promise,” she says. “It would be a violation of that law and their moral obligation.”

However, not all neighbors share her concern– certainly not all (more)

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After two years of stalled attempts to light athletic fields in the county, the Board of Supervisors approved an amendment last night to a zoning ordinance that had previously made it “impossible to light the ball fields,” according to the County’s Manager of Zoning Administration, John Shepherd.

According to the county staff report, the zoning ordinance split the process of lighting a field into several steps, with athletic light poles considered “structures” in the dense planning committee language. As structures, the poles were restricted by building height regulations, and applicants had to appear before the Board of Zoning Appeals— which has stricter restrictions than the Planning Commission— to request a waiver or an exemption from the restrictions. This is where most proposals failed.

“The interpretation was that the pole height couldn’t be modified by the Planning Commission, which ultimately put an end to sports lighting,” Shepherd says.

The amendment, which was passed (more)

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July 2 marked the Board of Supervisors’ first chance to revisit Albemarle’s commercial open fire policy, nine months after a public outcry about a massive fire pile in the developing Belvedere community off Rio Road.

“This is something we put together in response to complaints board members have received from citizens,” says fire marshal James Barber. “My office investigates all of those complaints.”

On the Board’s agenda were two options: banning commercial open fires altogether, or putting them under stricter regulations. Proposals include demanding that brush fires take place in a pit and that (more)

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Nestled between hotels, banks, and a busy downtown street, Charlottesville’s latest island of green space in a sea of asphalt and concrete will open to the public next week. The so-called “pocket park” adjacent to Patton Mansion’s UVA Community Credit Union on West Main Street is at the end of its construction process, just in time for its original mid-July deadline, according to UVA Foundation CEO Tim Rose.

“Possibly next week all will be complete, including the mansion,” Rose said in an e-mail. The mansion underwent a face lift to remove the defunct Papa John’s annex and return the building to its historic facade. With the completion of a few final touch-ups, such as trimming the trees and replacing some concrete, the park will be ready for use.

As an addendum to UVA’s acquisition of space for (more)

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It’s good to be green. Just ask the Blue Ridge Eco Shop, which was honored last week by the Arlington-headquartered Virginia Sustainable Build Network as “Best Green Small Business in Virginia.” The less-than-one-year-old shop, located in Preston Plaza, sells environmentally-friendly home products and touts the motto “healthier living for you and the planet.”

Governor Tim Kaine was on hand for the award ceremony on June 25th, and Paige Mattson, who co-owns the store with her husband, Hawkon Mattson, says receiving the honor came as “an absolute surprise.”

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If you’re one of the lucky 1,000 ticket holders who will see President Bush speak at Friday’s July 4 naturalization ceremony at Monticello, you’ll get to celebrate your patriotism, but you’ll be slightly restricted in the ways you can show it. Out of the security concerns that come with the arrival of a sitting president, Monticello has banned the following items from its grounds for the Fourth: duffel bags, suitcases, and backpacks; umbrellas; lawn furniture; coolers; bottled and canned beverages; animals (except service animals); aerosols of any kind; fireworks and firecrackers; real or simulated weapons and ammunition; knives of any size; tobacco products; mace; radio or other noisemakers; flags, banners, and signs of any type.

This is a marked change from the way the annual celebration usually proceeds, with families bringing picnic lunches to the affair, the pervasive smell of bug spray, and the spectacle of lots of red, white, and blue waving in the air.

Local blogger and social commentator Waldo Jaquith goes to the naturalization ceremony almost every year, but says he’s going to skip this one. “I really (more)

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DES MOINES, IOWA— As the Des Moines River rose, the University of Virginia track and field team— in town to compete in the NCAA Track and Field Championships– joined citizens in daily ventures downtown to witness Iowa’s historic weather. Running downtown revealed overflowing sewer drains, restaurants desperately trying to stay in business while pumping water out of their basements and kitchens, and the ubiquitous sights of sandbags along streets, buildings, and bridges.

“Seeing the before and after effects of the flood was amazing,” says UVA third-year and newly-minted All-American discus thrower Billie Jo Grant. “To see how the city was affected economically, in addition to all the flooding, showed the depth of the effects natural disasters can have.”

The four-day athletic event was projected to bring in millions of dollars in revenue for local hotels and restaurants, and although the games would eventually go on, the evacuation of the some hotels, including the Embassy Suites along the Des Moines River meant that 12 schools (not UVA) had to find other accommodations.

Several teams, such as the University of Washington and the University of South Carolina, took time (more)

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A fire that started with a June 1 lightning strike 300 miles away in eastern North Carolina’s Great Dismal Swamp is now blowing smoke this way.

Currently Charlottesville’s visibility is three miles, says Steve Rogoski, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. He’s at Dulles International Airport and can see the smoke there, where the visibility is four to five miles. “Overnight, smoke may contribute to a little fog,” he says. A cold front coming in tomorrow from the west should dissipate any remaining smoke.

Charlottesville government spokesperson Ric Barrick says the city has received “numerous” calls from citizens wondering what’s burning. He recommends that those with respiratory illness limit their time outdoors.

“When we went on tour [at Monticello] this morning, they said it was smog,” says Gene Buczynski, who’s visiting this weekend from South Bend, Indiana. Buczynski hasn’t noticed the scent of burning wood in the air— and he says his nose is very good.

Others have caught whiffs of the burning forests, and the air quality in North Carolina is so bad that the state has declared a Code Red in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Triangle area, and a (more)

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