When 180 acres are flooded to make way for the long-planned Ragged Mountain Reservoir expansion, the city will lose acres of public hiking trails. City Councilor Kevin Lynch wants replacement public land, but finding a location could prove tricky.
When 180 acres are flooded to make way for the long-planned Ragged Mountain Reservoir expansion, the city will lose acres of public hiking trails. City Councilor Kevin Lynch wants replacement public land, but finding a location could prove tricky.
Faced with a life-changing experience, people can change. That was the central argument of Kerry Cook's defense attorney during a three-day trial that unfolded in Charlottesville Circuit Court last week. On May 11, the jury sentenced Cook to nine months in prison for resisting arrest during a domestic dispute at Friendship Court back in August 2004. The fight ended when one of the cops shot Cook in the stomach, leaving him near death and in a coma for three weeks. Cook faced two other assault charges in the incident, but the jurors could not reach a decision on those charges. Cook, who has been in jail for 21 months on separate charges, will now serve another nine.
On May 5, Earl Washington got his due. After a two-week civil case in federal court, a jury awarded Washington $2.25 million, plus attorneys fees and costs, for the nine and a half years he spent on death row for a crime he did not commit.
An attorney for Kurt Kroboth, the former investment banker accused of donning a vampire mask and attempting to murder his estranged wife back in November 2004, has filed a motion calling into question the constitutionality of the sentence his client was handed on May 9. Judge William Shelton sentenced Kroboth to 25 years for attempted murder, with all but 10 years suspended. The defense had recommended a sentence of two and a half to five years; the prosecution recommended four and a half to eight years.
The federal drug and conspiracy case against Louis Antonio Bryant, the alleged drug dealer and ringleader of local gang the Westside Crew, continues into its second week of testimony on Monday, May 15. The first week prosecutors brought to the stand numerous police investigators, as well as former associates of Bryant\’s who had dealt with or bought drugs from him.
Chuck Taylor started at WTJU-91.1 in 1979, when he volunteered to DJ for Charlottesville’s first FM station. Just a few years later, he got involved in the station’s management (still as a volunteer), and in 1993 was hired full-time as WTJU’s general manager, although he continued to host a radio show until 1997. Born in the ’50s, Taylor has spent his adult life watching college radio’s rise.
On May 9, The Virginia Quarterly Reviewâa four-man publishing operation run out of the University of Virginiaâwon two National Magazine Awards, the industry\’s highest honor. VQR won for General Excellence in the under 100,000 distribution category, as well as for fiction, a category in which they were pitted against such tough competitors as The Atlantic Monthly and McSweeney\’s.
UVA can pretty much build what it wants, where it wants in Charlottesville. Even so, sometimes UVA has to slum it (like the rest of us) and rent.
The dog days of summer are just around the corner. And what better way is there to kill some time and beat the heat than participating in medical experiments?
An old political adage says that every election is either about “keeping a good thing going” or “throwing the bums out.” Dems hope that a handful of victories in the Commonwealth\’s May elections signals that voters are leaning towards the latter choice.