new planning commissioners offer views

The Charlottesville Planning Commission will welcome three new members at their October 10 meeting, and all three hail from different parts of the city. The respective residence of the new commissioners speaks volumes about their interest in the planning commission.    The first appointee, Fifeville’s Jason Pearson, is executive director of the Green Blue Institute, which […]

red dirt alert!

The enormous hole in the ground at the corner of Jefferson Park Avenue and Valley Road is a sign of progress, according to Will Bynum, project manager at Kjellstrom & Lee. K&L, the contractor that brought you the tennis facility at the Boar’s Head Inn and an addition to the maternity-services wing at Martha Jefferson […]

UVA woman killed on Parkway

On Tuesday, October 3, police identified a body found over the weekend near an abandoned car on the Blue Ridge Parkway as that of UVA graduate student Elizabeth Michelle “Lizzy” Hafter. Her parents had last heard from her the previous Friday, when she told her mother that she was going to the mountains to study and enjoy the weather.

Man assaulted at Barracks Road

A 19-year-old driver was assaulted October 3 at Barracks Road Shopping Center after letting a strange man into his car at the 7-Eleven at U.S. Route 29 and Hydraulic Road. The teen ran from his attackers, who attempted to abduct him even after he handed over his wallet and car keys.    Around 8am, City spokesman […]

Federal Court of Appeals visits UVA Law

The U.S. Court of Appeals (of which there are only 12 in the country) visited the UVA Law School on October 3 and heard four cases handed up from the Fourth Circuit, which comprises Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. The court’s first hearing in Virginia was an opportunity for the law […]

Indie doc attacks state prison

The “ultimate bed and breakfast,” as Virginia’s former director of corrections Ron Angelo called the prison system, isn’t a pleasant stay. Such was the theme of an independently produced documentary Up the Ridge, which examines the “supermax” Wallens Ridge State Prison, located in the southwestern tip of Virginia. Several dozen locals turned out October 4 […]

Crackdown on parking scofflaws

Charlottesville is now officially a less cool place to live for those who laugh in the face of parking regulations. A loophole that essentially doled out no punishment for unpaid parking tickets has been closed, following an October 2 City Council vote that remedied the glitch.    Under the old procedure, appealed tickets would get forwarded […]

Facebook nation

It was a muggy August day on the UVA Lawn; administrators hoped the weather would hold for the Convocation ceremonies that were about to welcome the Class of 2010. The breeze fluttered programs placed on rows upon rows of folding chairs. Slowly, some traveling in packs from dorms, others filing in groups of two or three, the class of 2010 arrived in waves of t-shirts, shorts, sundresses, ball caps.

Facebook—The Language

Facebook (n.) 1. A social networking site that originated at Harvard in 2002 and opened slowly to a few university communities, then all colleges and, recently, to all users. Old-schoolers refer to the site as “The Facebook,” in reference to the site’s original location at www.thefacebook.com. As it became more popular, the site streamlined to […]

YRU SOVN?

Dear JST: Ah, the vanity plate. Nothing makes a bolder statement about a person’s individuality and relationship with his or her car—except, perhaps, the fake bullet hole decal-han the vanity plate.