Wherever waters gather, be it bay or brook, monitors will soon don their hip boots to mark the 30th anniversary of the Clean Water Act. Charlottesville resident John Murphy hasn’t yet picked his site, but knows he’ll be somewhere in a "riffle" – the bubbly part of a stream – counting bugs. Between October 18 […]
Goodbye Bypass? Not just yet The Western Bypass may be dead, for now, but the unbuilt road still casts a long shadow over local transportation politics. Last spring, the nearly insolvent Virginia Depart-ment of Transportation cut the $180 million Route 29 Bypass from its six-year plan. Politicians from southern communities like Lynchburg and Danville continue […]
While contemplating the formation of a new educational center that would foster spiritual well being, cultural understanding and religious teaching, Heena Reiter was reminded, she says, of a song by the 17th century teacher Reb Nachman of Bratslov. "All the world is a narrow bridge," goes the rough translation, "the most important thing is not […]
Straying from the usual despairing discussion of water, the subject of Wednesday’s October 2 meeting among the Board of County Supervisors brought to light an entirely different kind of drought–the State budget. Piedmont Virginia Community College prides itself on making higher education accessible to everyone, but while its enrollment keeps rising (June 30 marked the […]
Better than most, Virginia Consort conductor Judith Gary understands that sometimes words aren’t enough. Wednesday, September 11 was one of those times. Gary leads the Virginia Consort, a 35-member chamber chorus she helped to found in 1990. As a memorial to those lost in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, she conducted the Consort in a performance […]
"I think we’re in a crisis,” City Manager Gary O’Connell deadpanned to City Council at its meeting on Monday, September 16. It was an uncharacteristically drastic statement for the understated O’Connell, reflecting the panic in City Hall as Charlottesville rapidly dries up. Last week City Council approved a series of harsh water restrictions [See Extra!, […]
The $10 million principle of the thing After tears, jeers and more tears, WVIR is ordered to pay up for its cracked reporting “Thirty-some years of my ambition to make something out of my life has been destroyed,” Sheckler wrote in court documents prior to the trial. “I have suffered so much mental anguish over […]