Tuesday, October 25
Winter starts early
Snowboarders started getting stoked today as a surprise storm dropped three inches of snow at Wintergreen Ski Resort and other local mountaintops. “This is just enough to make the trees pretty and get us all excited,” says Wintergreen’s Frankee Love. The snowfall disappeared before anyone had a chance to ride, but Wintergreen will soon begin making snow for its opening on November 26.
Kaine pleads with local voters
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tim Kaine was in Char-lottesville today, calling local voters and asking for their support in the election on November 8. Kaine has been trying to play up his ties with the popular Mark Warner, who, by Virginia law, cannot seek a second term as governor. Still, Kaine remains in a dead heat with Republican Jerry Kilgore.
Wednesday, October 26
Charlottesville and Albemarle are partners in crime
Today Charlottesville and Albemarle police announced that Elijah Edmunson, 42, of Vine Street in Charlottesville, would face a total of 17 charges in both jurisdictions related to a string of burglaries. In the City, Edmunson faces three charges of grand theft auto as well as charges for robbery, breaking and entering, possession of cocaine and receiving stolen property. The County police charged Edmunson with five other counts of forging stolen checks, and five other charges for robbery, breaking and entering and grand larceny. City police say Edmunson remains a suspect in “less than 10” investigations in Charlottesville, according to a report in The Daily Progress.
Thursday, October 27
Supervisor race wide open
The race for supervisor in Albemarle’s Rio District is wide open, according to survey results released by a new group called Charlottesville Tomorrow. The survey questioned 652 Rio district voters and found that 56 percent of them do not have a preference for either Re-publican candidate Gary Grant, Democrat David Slutzky or independent Tom Jakubowski, all running for the seat that David Bower-man will leave in January. The survey also found that traffic, growth management, drinking water and rural protection are the main issues for voters as they head to the polls on November 8.
Friday, October 28
Ralph Sampson busted
Today former UVA and NBA basketball star Ralph Sampson racked up a new statistic that’s more than 40 times his 7,039 career NBA points: the amount he owes in unpaid child support. Sampson, a former No. 1 draft pick who played nine seasons in the NBA, pleaded guilty to felony charges stemming from his failure to pay $300,000 in child support. USA Today reported that the plea agreement will spare Sampson up to 30 months in jail and $300,000 in fines, provided a judge accepts the negotiated plea at his sentencing on February 1.
Saturday, October 29
Neighbors, Region Ten hash out differences
Today about 40 people from the Little High Street neighborhood met with officials from Region Ten in a forum at the Charlottesville Design Center today. Neighbors complained about the public relation skills of Bob Smith. He runs the nonprofit Community Service Housing Inc., which acts as a development arm and landlord for Region Ten. Smith moved to build apartments for poor, disabled Region Ten clients on Little High before meeting with neighbors, touching off a public outcry. The forum, moderated by environmental activist and former UVA professor Richard Collins, included architect Kenneth Schwartz and UVA psychology professor Dick Reppucci. “Bob’s not an e-mail guy,” said CSH board member Joe Samuels, explaining why Smith didn’t communicate with concerned neighbors. “He’s very old fashioned.”
Sunday, October 30
Local stoners early for the only time this year
Foggy-headed folks showed up an hour early to everything today as they forgot that Daylight Savings Time ended at 2 this morning. Mass hangovers from Saturday night Halloween parties contributed to many failures to “fall back.”
Popular local preacher calls it quits
Friends and parishioners of Rev. R.A. Johnson gathered at Glenmore today to say goodbye. Johnson is retiring after 51 years leading the flock at Zion Hills Baptist Church. In the 1960s Johnson led a movement to desegregate Albemarle County schools, and he founded the local Pilgrim Baptist Church, where he still serves as a pastor, in 1965. Johnson remains active in local school politics, frequently speaking about African-American issues at City School Board meetings.
Monday, October 31
Happy Halloween!
Trick-or-treaters fanned out in all directions tonight, extorting candy from residents who would rather pay out a handful of chocolates than clean toilet paper out of their trees. Some adults enjoyed the last laugh, however, by handing out apples and raisins. Yuck!
Written by John Borgmeyer from staff reports and news sources.
Cooperation 101
City School Board learns to work together
Among the many criticisms that the City School Board fielded last year was this: The changes proposed by new superintendent Scottie Griffin didn’t seem to fit into a plan. The cry went up, Does anybody know where the school division is headed?
Well, that was then.
Griffin has been sent packing and the School Board, with a couple of new members at the table, is laboring to write a five-year strategic plan with the public’s blessing.
Last week, on Tuesday, Oc-tober 25, six board members, along with four senior staff and two paid consultants, sequestered themselves in the basement of City Hall to draft a mission statement. The session followed five community focus groups conducted by MGT of America, the Florida consulting firm that’s assisting with the strategic plan. After 90 minutes parsing phrases like “academic learning” and “lifelong learners,” the group settled on a variation of the mission statement in Green-wich, Connecticut: “To educate all students to their highest level of academic potential and to teach them the knowledge and skills to become cre-ative, productive and respon-sible members of society.”
Though some were chagrined at taking that much time to essentially edit someone else’s copy, MGT’s Fred Seamon assured the group that he’s worked with other boards that needed a full day to accomplish as much. A more seasoned observer could have amplified that encouragement; at long last the board was working together, not sniping, and their focus was on addressing the demands of the public and teachers.
Later that evening, MGT presented the draft statement and four preliminary strategic goals to a group of about two-dozen parents and staff at a community meeting at Mt. Zion First African Baptist Church. Parent Elisabeth Sloan, a regular at last year’s contentious board meetings, summed up the sentiment of many attendees. “I am really happy to see that we are not a divided community,” she said. “There were people sitting in this room from various socio-economic backgrounds, different educations, and we all seem to have a really unified vision about how to go. I think it was an incredibly positive meeting.”
The board meets again on Monday, November 14 to work on the strategic plan.—Cathy Harding, with additional reporting by Dan Pabst
Thank you for letting me explain my job
Helpful hints for the City’s new flak
Last week, Ric Barrick took over as the City’s interim director of public relations, replacing UVA-bound Maurice Jones. We at C-VILLE know how hard it is to jump into a new job, so we decided to help smooth Barrick’s learning curve with a few hints we picked up after watching Jones in action for the past six years. Jones offered his own advice for Barrick: “Be very, very nice to reporters.”
“Remember, journalists are people, too,” Jones says. “They’re just cranky at times from all of those late night meetings.”
There are no stupid press releases—only stupid people: Not every press release can be as memorable as “Charlottesville Rated Best Place to Live in America.” Sometimes all you can come up with is “Cold Temperatures Lead to Frozen Pipes.” On a slow news day, a sure-fire way to get coverage from the daily paper or the TV news is a release about schoolchildren. See Jones’ classic press release from August 30, 2004: “Clark Elemen-tary Visits Hot Air Balloon.”
Loose lips sink ships: As the City’s interim PR man, Barrick will be privy to all sorts of City Council secrets: Rob Schilling’s stash of Pantera records; the Mayor’s bobble-head collection; Kendra Hamilton’s “undisclosed location;” the secret nerve pinch that makes Kevin Lynch stop talking about roads. A good flak knows how to keep mum.
Get a Caravati-English dictionary: When Councilor Blake Caravati says, “We can put the cart before the horse and lead him to a carrot with a stick, but we can’t make the rubber meet the road,” what he’s really trying to say is that he disagrees with Rob Schilling.
Always look on the bright side: In the world of public relations, negativity does not officially exist. Accordingly, citizen discontent is not a problem, it’s an opportunity. When local malcontent Kevin Cox accused Jones, in an online City budget forum, of wasting tax money on television shows about the space shuttle explosion, Jones didn’t get mad. He got happy. His online response to Cox flipped the script with classic PR positivism: “Thank you,” Jones wrote, “for giving me the opportunity to explain my job.” Required reading.—John Borgmeyer
Breaking up with Tommy
Did someone crack Team Jefferson’s egg?
A local robotics team stocked with UVA brainpower recently returned from a high-stakes government mission in the California desert.
As previously reported in C-VILLE, engineer and UVA grad Paul Perrone and his Team Jefferson spent the past year building “Tommy,” an egg-shaped robotic car designed to complete the Grand Challenge —a robot race across the desert with a $2 million first prize. Alas, a 60-mph crash ended Tommy’s racing career and fueled Team Jefferson’s suspicions of foul play.
The Pentagon wants to incorporate unmanned robotic vehicles into the military, so the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency—the Pentagon’s experimental research arm—set up the Grand Challenge to spur innovation. Dozens of teams, many sponsored by other major universities like Stanford and Carnegie-Mellon, spent the past year building robot vehicles. In early October, DARPA invited 43 teams to the California Speedway to try out for 20 spots in the 170-mile race across the desert.
Even though Team Jefferson’s budget, at $80,000, was one-tenth that of other teams, Tommy impressed DARPA enough to win an invitation to the Speedway tryout. Tommy earned near-perfect scores until the fourth day of competition, when the vehicle crashed into a concrete wall. Not ready to give up, Team Jefferson worked for 48 consecutive hours, rebuilding Tommy’s demolished front end.
Even though Tommy returned to the race, and to a welcoming crowd, the bot was still “a wounded bird,” says Perrone. Tommy got stuck on a barrier, and Team Jefferson’s bid for the $2 million prize was through.
With Tommy now back in Perrone’s White Hall garage, the team is conducting an “auto-topsy” to find out what went wrong. Perrone says his suspicions of foul play were fueled when the team found a strange object at the site of Tommy’s crash—a servo, which is a part found on remote control cars and which no one on Team Jefferson recognized. Perrone speculates that someone tampered with Tommy and wired the servo to the engine, thus putting the car under remote control. “There’s plenty of motive, and a lot of money and jobs are at stake,” Perrone says.—John Borgmeyer, with additional reporting by Catherine English
