Your tax dollars, at work

Diane Behrens Worked for the county for: 33 yearsResides in: Greene CountyJob title: Executive director of support Services for Albemarle County Public Schools. Oversees building services, which includes maintenance and upkeep of building and planning for redistricting and new additions and buildings. Also oversees child nutrition programs, school athletic directors and school nurses.Best of times: […]

Be glad Virginia doesn’t…

More: Virginia: the scorecardFrom cost of living to number of strip clubs—how our state ranks with the other 49 In case you’re starting to think that 28th in tornado fatalities is just too high for you, consider the following other things that you don’t have to worry about in Virginia. We promise you’ll fly your […]

Sidewalk this way

Dear Ace: What’s with these newfangled sidewalks the city is putting in? Are they supposed to be artistic, longer-lasting or just cheap?—Connie CreteConnie: Even though Ace has cheerfully covered other readers’ sidewalk-related questions in the past, never has he had the opportunity to tell this (he thinks) uproarious story from his childhood. Allow him now, […]

Anywhere I Lay My Head

Of all the dingy movie theaters in the city, her rump had to walk into mine, clad in sheer pink panties beneath the opening credits of Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. Her name was Scarlett, she said, the color of her lips. A name and a color red enough to make your knees shake like […]

The Taming of the Shrew

I’ll admit it: The Taming of the Shrew boils my blood, and it’s all I can do to maintain my delicate reviewer’s composure and resist lobbing certain easily called-upon “–ist”s and “–ism”s like hand grenades. Anyone who’s seen Gil Junger’s 10 Things I Hate About You is more or less familiar with the play’s goings-on: […]

Planners consider rebalancing city density

In 2003, in an attempt to attract more development, the city increased the density allowed in swaths around the city. But after a wave of tall Downtown buildings won approval—and with the first of these, the Landmark Hotel at 200 E. Main St., finally under construction—the city seems to have bitten off as much development […]

Passing the BAR

The nine-story tower planned for the tiny lot at 600 E. Water St. that is currently used for C&O Restaurant parking won conceptual approval from the Board of Architectural Review last month, and as a by-right project, doesn’t need approvals from City Council. The building is slated to primarily house residential units, with some office […]

Homeless take to street while city looks for solutions

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), a chronically homeless person is “an unaccompanied disabled individual who has been continuously homeless for over one year.” There are certainly some of those in our area, people who have bottomed out for one reason or another and cannot get back up on their […]