We say zee-bra, she says zeb-ra. Actually, we say crosswalk, and the one iconically depicted on the cover the Beatles’ Abbey Road album is now a protected English landmark, thanks in part to a former Charlottesville resident.

Even a crosswalk?

“We list anything that has special architectural significance,” says Emily Gee of English Heritage, Britain’s department of historic structures, which on December 22 landmarked the Abbey Road zebra. Earlier last year, the governmental body put the Abbey Road Studio, where the Beatles recorded the album, on its list.

Gee says the photograph for the 1969 album was Paul McCartney’s idea, and the London street was closed down for 15 minutes so the four former Liverpudlians could take their now-immortal stroll.

More recently, a debate erupted about whether a crosswalk was an architectural structure, says Gee. Ultimately, preservationists determined that the lamp poles on either side counted as structures.

“And the paint on the street is a chemical structure,” informs Gee. “We checked.” And of course the crossing met (more)

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Three years after ground was broken and two years after lawsuits began flying, the towering skeleton of the planned Landmark hotel crept one inch closer to completion Wednesday, January 19, when a Georgia judge ruled against Halsey Minor on all counts in litigation between him and his lender.

“It was game, set, and match in favor of the bank,” says Connor Crook, attorney for another party in the morass, a company controlled by Lee Danielson, developer of the 101-room luxury lodging. “All claims are now resolved between those parties, pending any appeal.”

Appeal indeed, says Halsey Minor, a tech industry titan with a knack for waging litigation long after the first gavel has fallen.

“The decision was a travesty of justice,” Minor says in an email, “and will be reversed.”

The bank— Atlanta-based Specialty Finance Group— was suing Minor to recover the $10.5 million it fronted the project as part of a loan package that was to have eventually reached $23.6 million. The bank— now owned by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation— claimed that Minor defaulted; Minor counter-claimed that the bank and developer colluded against him.

Last June, Minor won a measure of support for that claim when (more)

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It had been over 40 years since Jimmy Gunn had been behind bars, and he was terrified of going back. He began telling friends that it wasn’t fair that a 60-year-old with myriad health problems couldn’t serve his 30-day marijuana sentence on house arrest. He even called the Hook to complain about what America’s war on drugs was doing to him. And six days after entering the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail, he was dead.

But a marijuana sales conviction last fall coupled with a 1969 possession conviction may have given authorities little option.

Gunn had a history of poor health. He was bipolar, took medication for panic attacks, and relied on an inhaler to treat his emphysema, according to friends and family.

Still, to his friend Teague Herren, Gunn seemed healthy enough when Herren drove Gunn to court on December 9. They were hoping the judge would consider a motion for home electronic monitoring and a restricted driver’s license. Instead, Gunn was taken to jail.

“I dropped him off at court, and a week later he’s dead,” says Herren, “for a pot charge.”

Gunn was an artisan carpenter whose work graced the home of the late Dave Matthews Band saxophonist LeRoi Moore. But after a bout of cancer, Gunn had relied on disability insurance, and friends suspect he supplemented his income by selling pot.

According to his attorney, Jessica Phillips, who filed the motion requesting home monitoring, Albemarle Circuit Court Judge Cheryl Higgins and the Commonwealth’s Attorney were open to Gunn serving his time at home as long as the jail said he qualified.

It seems that in 1969 Gunn was convicted of possession of marijuana for five grams of marijuana, which is roughly the equivalent of a “dime bag,” ten dollars worth of pot. Then it was a felony. Today, it would be a misdemeanor.

Phillips checked with jail officials, and says she was told Gunn was wouldn’t qualify for house arrest due to his prior conviction, even though though it was handed down during the Nixon Administration. And even though he was in very poor health, according to Gunn’s ex-wife Debbie Davis.

“He wanted home arrest,” says Davis. “Given his age and his health, and given it was only for pot, I don’t understand why he wasn’t given it.”

Gunn’s recent legal troubles began last year after he sold marijuana to an undercover officer. After that, the Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement Task Force raided his house and found approximately four pounds of pot in dozens of plastic baggies, according to an inventory sent to a forensic lab. An old shotgun added an additional charge: possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

Anyone who is convicted of a reefer offense in Virginia automatically loses his driver’s license for six months. That posed an additional hardship on Gunn’s ability to get his medications. He’d lived in the same Barboursville cottage for 30 years, but after his October 6 conviction, he was evicted.

When they learned that Gunn’s death followed the confiscation of his ever-present inhaler, some of Gunn’s friends initially cast blame in the direction of the Jail.

Other jail deaths: Four other inmates have died in the jail or after they were taken to the hospital in the past 10 years, according to information provided by the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail.
Kenneth R. Banks was in for six months with a sentence revocation/probation violation. He’d been playing basketball in the recreation area September 1, 2009, and was found unresponsive on the ground. He was taken to UVA Medical Center, which notified the jail he died of cardiac arrest.
Jane A. Barbour had been sentenced to 90 days for possession of alcohol by an interdicted person, which means she’d been forbidden to have booze as a result of  other offenses. She came into the jail on June 6, 2006. Two days later, she was found face down and unresponsive in her cell, and pronounced dead by the emergency medical technicians. Official cause of death: accidental choking.
Lloyd L. Fitzgerald was serving a 10-day sentence on the weekends for a DUI when he was discovered dead in his cell when breakfast was served March 13, 2004. The coroner called it cardiac arrest.
Walter B. Ditchkus Jr. was brought in on a public drunkenness charge and tried to hang himself February 13, 2001. He was taken to UVA Medical Center and died February 21, 2001. The jail does not have a cause of death in its records.

However, Colonel Ron Matthews, the Jail superintendent, notes that Gunn had been placed on suicide watch December 12 because he’d tried to harm himself with a plastic fork. It was shortly after 11pm the next day, when Gunn told an officer that he was cold, says Matthews.

“Five minutes later, the officer finished his work and went to check on him,” says Matthews. “He was unresponsive.”

According to court records, Gunn was in a coma when he was taken to UVA Medical Center and placed on a respirator. On December 14, the charges against him were dismissed, and his family and friends were able to see him. The next day, he was taken off the respirator and died.

Prisoners with medical issues “get better care in jail than they do out on the street,” says Colonel Matthews. When inmates are on suicide watch, they aren’t allowed to have items that they could potentially harm themselves with, like inhalers, and they’re checked every 10 to 15 minutes, he says.

“As an administrator,” says Matthews, “that’s the worst thing that can happen when someone under your care dies.”

The medical examiner determined that Gunn died from a pulmonary embolism— a blood clot from the leg that blocks the main artery to the lungs.

Gunn’s emphysema would not have been a factor in the pulmonary embolism, says Dr. Samuel Coughron, who was Gunn’s doctor and who had prepared a letter for the jail detailing his patient’s condition.

“In general, when something like this happens, you’re screwed,” says Coughron. “You’re dead before you hit the floor.”

Jimmy Gunn’s family and friends still are grappling with his death, and some remain concerned about whether an inability to get his medications and inhaler could have played a role in his death.

“It was a needless death,” says Teague Herren. “He wasn’t suicidal.”

–updated 11:30am with Gunn’s November call to the Hook

–edited 11:25pm on Sunday, January 22

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In September, Charlottesville City Council took a stand in favor of dredging to create more local water supply. But on Tuesday, January 18, the same day that one Albemarle Supervisor alleged that dredging might unleash potentially damaging fumes, City Council took a vote that appears to give Albemarle County and the Nature Conservancy what they want: a mega-reservoir to focus the local water supply in a massive lake that would hug Interstate 64.

Talking about the sacrifices made by previous generations, City Councilor Satyendra Huja— long the issue’s acknowledged swing vote— gave an impassioned speech in favor of building a large dam in the Ragged Mountain Natural Area. A moment later, fellow Councilor David Brown made a motion favoring the construction of a 30-foot increase in the height of the existing dam, a project that might require clearing 160 acres of mature forest. Councilor Kristen Szakos followed suit with a thumbs-up of her own.

Mayor Dave Norris and fellow Councilor Holly Edwards voted against the dam plan. But what does it all mean?

“Ratepayers will have to pay a lot more,” said a clearly perturbed Rebecca Quinn, a water resources engineer who has been speaking out in recent months, asserting that future water projections are based on outdated data.

“It may not be a steak and lobster plan,” said Quinn recalling some language once employed (more)

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For former billionaire’s wife Patricia Kluge, the auctions, the lawsuits, and the loss of the winery bearing her name combined to make 2010 seem to be a very bad year, an annus horribilis as the Queen of England once quipped. Unfortunately for Kluge, 2011 may be worse.

Last year, Kluge put her jewelry, furnishings, and even her clothes up for auction in a bid to stave off creditors. Yet in December, she and her husband, a one-time state wine leader, lost their 960-acre winery to foreclosure, crushing the couple’s dream of bringing high-quality Virginia wine to the national market.

Now, another auction looms. Albemarle House, the mansion where Patricia Kluge once entertained kings, princes, and U.S. presidents in haute grandeur, has been foreclosed upon.

“That house was built at a time when an inkling of that style existed,” says architect David Easton, who designed Albemarle House. “The issue in this day and age: It is not 1900.”

On the steps
Creditors have slated February 16 as the day (more)

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A new gym opened its doors two summers ago riding a wave of research asserting that short-but-intense bursts of exercise trump moderate-but-longer sessions. Eighteen months later, CrossFit Charlottesville is going so strong that it has tripled its footprint in the old National Linen building on Market Street.

“It’s not for everyone,” acknowledges co-founder Kyle Redinger. “But if people make it two or three months, they never leave.”

Now, says Redinger, he’s expanding to a younger demographic, with twice-weekly fitness class for children ages 5 to 12. The concept of the kids classes, which begin January 26 and cost $69, is similar to the grown-up version: relatively intense and varied movements. But while adults may grab heavy weights, the kids classes aren’t for turning children into mini-Schwarzeneggers.

“It’s a lot more body weight, more gymnastics,” says Redinger, who notes the classes will be taught by Gretchen Kittelberger, a former collegiate gymnast who recently obtained special training and certification for the kids’ classes.

Redinger attributes the success of the adult CrossFit program to its social nature, as the workouts happen in groups with no mirrors, no TVs, and— although there’s music playing— no one plugged into iPods. And in an industry that profits from no-shows, a recent internal survey Redinger cites shows his clients (more)

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There were two car fires in Charlottesville on Friday, January 14, bringing the two-day total to three, as debate rages about the cause of the one that destroyed a driver education car at the Albemarle County gas pumps.

“We do seem to have more vehicles burn this time of year,” says Charlottesville Fire Chief Charles Werner. “I don’t know why that is.”

However, ever since a scary experience in the 1980s, Charlottesville resident Steven W. Shifflett has held a theory about car fires— at least the ones that occur at gas pumps. And his theory runs contrary to the contention of the Charlottesville Fire Marshal.

Shifflett says he learned the hard way when he stopped for fuel at the Wilco station on U.S. 250 on Pantops Mountain on his way to a party one cold New Year’s Eve 25-30 years ago. While waiting for his tank to fill, Shifflett says, he was combing his hair while wearing a wool sweater and coat, a set of circumstances that may have stoked the static electricity in his body.

As he reached for the fuel nozzle, Shifflett saw “the largest spark I have ever seen” shoot between (more)

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A trusty looking for a snack from a vending machine in the lobby of the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail led to the facility being locked down for a week.

Metal rods were discovered missing from the vending machine in the lobby January 6 in an area only available to jail employees and trusties, says the jail’s superintendent, Colonel Ron Matthews.

“To be on the safe side, we closed down the jail and did a 100 percent search,” he says. The missing 16- to 18-inch rods did not turn up, and the individual suspected of having access to the machine denied having a snack attack.

“We stopped all inmate movement,” Matthews explains. “We were looking for something that could potentially injure someone.”

That meant that for approximately 530 inmates, all recreation and visitation came to a halt. At a jail built to house just 329 inmates, the lockdown left some inmates crammed into a 5′ by 8′ cell with up to three other people.

The inmates were only told that they were locked down for security reasons with no further explanation, according Marjorie Sunflower Sargent, who received a letter from a friend incarcerated there.

“We are very stressed out,” Kevin O’Connor wrote to Sargent. “Some people experienced panic attacks and others traumatic psychological and emotional consequences… What the hell is going on? Please help us.”

To Sargent, a human rights activist, locking so many people in an overcrowded facility is “unconscionable.”

When a search did not turn up the vending rods and a week had passed, Matthews tried a new strategy.

“We offered him immunity,” he says. The trusty ‘fessed up that when he tilted the vending machine to get candy, the rods came out. He said he threw them in the trash and they were taken out with the regular trash.

On January 13, the lock down ended.

As for the inmate responsible for his fellow prisoners being locked down for a week— how safe is he?

“He won’t go back to the general population,” says Matthews. And he has the option of going to another facility.

The jail superintendent says this is the second lock down he’s had since coming here in 2004, and observes, “That’s part of corrections life.”

–updated January 17 with the more common spelling of “trusty.”

Updated January 18 with the Marjorie Sargent and Kevin O’Connor remarks.

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While Albemarle County officials have insisted that the new red light cameras are safety tools, not money generators, the first 26 days of active enforcement seem to show a tidy profit.

Between December 12 and January 7, according to figures just released, 412 tickets were mailed to offenders. At $50 a ticket, that represents potential revenue of $20,600.

In a release, County Police Captain John Parrent said he was pleased by “what appears to be a positive impact” on the intersection of Rio Road and Seminole Trail; and that, he said, “translated into improved traffic safety.”

However, the County offered no data on the number of intersection accidents, if any, since the cameras went live, how any new accident rate might compare to a pre-camera time period, or any data on how many tickets were for “rolling stops,” a relatively benign infraction when answered by posting time.

Under the County’s agreement with Australia-based camera vendor Redflex, the company gets to keep the first $10,000 of monthly ticket revenue while the County keeps any overage for its general fund, an arrangement that’s received fire from the Rutherford Institute. In a report, the civil rights organization slams such systems as “revenue-raising devices” that create an improper financial incentive.

Specifically, the Institute contends that the arrangement violates a Virginia law prohibiting municipalities from making corporate deals in which compensation rises with the penalties. During a County budget meeting in April 2009, County Supervisor Dennis Rooker appeared to confirm such suspicions when he lauded the system not only for safety but also as a “revenue enhancer.”

Indeed, while Redflex’s profit is limited to $10,000 a month, the County can make as much as they want after they meet the 200 monthly ticket threshold needed to meet that $10,000 limit, an incentive that appears to benefit Redflex as well.  However, Annie Kim, a senior assistant attorney with the County, told the Daily Progress recently that the contract with RedFlex “fully complies with state code.”

That’s a claim Rutherford Institute president John Whitehead says he’s eager to challenge. “If we get a good client,” he says.

County data indicate that the system itself also has some problems. It seems that 998 drivers triggered (more)

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Recently disclosed details of the Biscuit Run state park deal have prompted more than public outrage— they may have prompted an investigation into the transaction that some allege was a government bailout of wealthy investors at taxpayers’ expense.

“I can tell you and therefore reassure the public that the Biscuit Run matter is being reviewed by appropriate parties,” writes Brian Gottstein, spokesperson for Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, in an email. “I cannot say any more than that without potentially compromising an investigation.”

As reported in the Hook’s January 6 cover story, “Bad Men? New numbers show spiraling costs of Biscuit Run,” the owners sold the 1,200-acre property to the state for $9.8 million in December 2009. Several months later, the Virginia Department of Taxation issued $11.7 million in tax credits, more than doubling the price. The former owners— who include developer Hunter Craig and music mogul Coran Capshaw— have appealed to the state to issue millions more.

Meanwhile, the new governor— a Republican who initially endorsed the deal— now appears to be distancing himself from something arranged by his predecessor, Tim Kaine, who heads the Democratic National Committee.

“The acquisition of this land occurred during the Kaine Administration, not this one,” writes Bob McDonnell’s spokesperson, Stacey Johnson. “This Administration was not involved in that process.”

The process, according to documents anonymously mailed to the Hook around Christmas, includes (more)

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Since his release from prison two years ago for the infamous 1989 graduation rape, Jeffrey Kitze has had a hard time getting a date. Returned to prison last year for unwelcome dating overtures, he was found guilty Monday, January 10, of stalking a Charlottesville woman.

Singles are often told that volunteering is a good way to meet people, and that’s the avenue Kitze tried following his January 2009 release after serving 20 years for raping and beating his sister’s UVA Law School roommate. Kitze donated time to the Virginia Organizing Project, but it was the attention he lavished on a fellow volunteer at a group called Food Not Bombs that resulted in the stalking conviction.

Wearing prison stripes, Kitze, 49, did not testify during the three-and-a-half hour trial, but according to the victim, he had plenty to say to her.

She told the court she first encountered him while riding her bike on Water Street in October 2009. He allegedly remarked that he knew her name from watching her on public access television and said the two would have plenty in common even though she was in her 20s.

Kitze soon started showing up at Food Not Bombs events. While cooking with the woman one day, he said she wouldn’t believe how old he was.

“I bike 100 miles a day,” the victim quoted the lovelorn Kitze. “I’m in shape. I have a beautiful body.”

By November 2009, she saw him walking by her then-residence on Nalle Street in the Fifeville neighborhood.

“Here,” she said in court, “was the (more)

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With snow moving east or on the ground by the time you read it, this guide may already be too late. But if the snow gets your attention, then maybe this will help you salvage some semblance of health, sanity, safety, and fun— at least for next time. The Hook news team has over 100 years of combined experience living in Charlottesville, and we thought we’d share with you some of what we’ve learned.

The value of a local hardware store - You may think you’re prepared with a single shovel, but sometimes they break. So, like the sad sacks who procrastinated in buying theirs, you could find yourself queuing up for supplies. Or driving around and wrecking. Recommendation: buy extra shovels and stuff. Consider this: just as two bodies seem to create more than double the usual BTUs inside a sleeping bag, two snow shovels may prompt enough competition to perform more than twice the usual shoveling. Even if you push back your purchase, you may be in luck. Last winter, during the height of Snowmageddon (the February dump), Martin Hardware on Preston Avenue took delivery of 1,000 shovels to meet the demand. While it’s quite possible that Lowe’s will have its own sleighload of shovels, Lowe’s doesn’t feel like a hike-to location— unless you’re squatting in the nearby Chik-fil-A. For your convenience, we called area hardware stores (more)

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Reporters hoping to catch a glimpse of George Wesley Huguely V, the wealthy college lacrosse player who became a striped-jumpsuit-wearing inmate, were denied another opportunity on Monday, January 10, as his lawyer won a third continuance in the case in which Huguely is charged with slaying his ex-girlfriend.

“Judge, I can say that both sides have been moving with diligence,” declared Huguely lawyer Fran Lawrence. “There’s just a lot of stuff that’s still out there.”

Lawrence noted that the defense team, which also includes Rhonda Quagliana, has yet to examine about 20 of the approximately 112 items arrayed in the case against their client, a 23-year-old whose previous spurts of violence went unpublicized until he allegedly erupted last spring in a fatal rage.

On May 3 inside an apartment on 14th Street, Charlottesville police found the lifeless body of Yeardley Love, a fellow lacrosse player. They arrested Huguely, who lived next door, after he allegedly confessed to repeatedly bashing the young woman’s head into a wall of her bedroom and then returning to take her computer and toss it in a dumpster.

Lawyer Lawrence has termed the incident a tragic accident, and he seems eager to win a round in the public relations battle. On Friday, January 7, Charlottesville’s top prosecutor revealed (more)

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This picture tells the story: snow sticking to rooftops but not to streets, so don’t cancel your events, people!

However, the National Weather Service is predicting that the Charlottesville area could be on track for a major snowstorm on Tuesday. It all depends on how the storm, now located over the American midwest, twists and turns on its voyage eastward.

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Charlottesville’s top prosecutor has just revealed a new pack of charges against the silver-spooned scion of a Washington family who stands accused of killing an ex-girlfriend, a crime that shocked the University of Virginia and reverberated across the nation due to the golden lives cut short by the killing.

George Wesley Huguely V will face the five new charges— felony murder, robbery, burglary, statutory burglary, and grand larceny— at a 10am video feed to the Charlottesville General District Court on Monday, January 10, according to a release from Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman.

Hastening to note in the release that Huguely remains presumed innocent until proven guilty, Chapman also (more)

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After spending nearly three weeks behind bars, accused wife-killer Eric Abshire was forced to wait seven hours past his scheduled hearing time before he was led into the Orange County Circuit courtroom at around 5pm on Thursday, January 6 for his first appearance in what appears already on its way to becoming a lengthy legal process.

Wearing handcuffs, leg shackles, and the orange-and-white-striped uniform of the Central Virginia Regional Jail, where he has been held since his December 17 arrest on first degree murder and perjury charges, the 36-year-old Abshire painted a bleak picture of his finances as he asked Judge Daniel Bouton for a court-appointed attorney.

Standing erect and speaking in a steady tone, the former dump-truck operator said he worked full-time until his arrest, and he denied having any assets, including a vehicle. His checking account balance, he said, is $120. (As previously reported, Abshire— who allegedly attempted to secure $300,000 of his late wife’s life insurance proceeds— declared bankruptcy in May 2009.)

(more)

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If you’re one of those who bet that Albemarle Place, the mega-village to be built on 65 acres behind the 7-Eleven on Hydraulic Road that was approved in 2003, would never get built, well, you’d have won that bet, technically.

During a work session and presentation before the County Board of Architectural Review on Monday, January 3 representatives from Edens & Avant, the Columbia, South Carolina-based development company that took over the project, unveiled a plan to scrap the Albemarle Place name and call it Stonefield.

Edens & Avant reps could not be immediately reached for comment, so it’s unclear why the company decided to change the name. However, if the problems and bad publicity that have plagued the project are any indication—the change in developers, the discovery that the aging sewage infrastructure the development would hook into, politely called the Meadowcreek Interceptor, didn’t have the needed capacity (that’s in the process of being replaced at a cost of $24.5 million, and should be completed by August 2011), the economic downturn, and the simple fact that the name “Albemarle Place” has been attached to a non-existent place for so long—it’s not hard to guess why.

As already revealed, the development will feature (more)

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2010 was a busy year for John Grisham. Not only did he come out with another legal thriller, The Confession, but he also found the time to write a novel for young adults, Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer.

And now he wants to see what you can do. He has again accepted the challenge of wielding a gavel in the literary world by judging the Hook’s annual short story contest.

Prizes and such
The idea that one of the world’s top-selling authors wants to read your work should be incentive enough to enter, but wait, there’s also the $1,000 in cash prizes.

The grand-prize winner receives $550, second place $250, and third place $150.

Next comes the fame. The grand prize-winning story will be published in the Hook in late March when lots of literary types are in town for the Virginia Festival of the Book.

In addition, all three winners will be officially saluted at the opening event of this year’s Festival on Wednesday, (more)

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The two occupants of a single-engine Cessna airplane are dead after after a mid-air collision with a medevac helicopter near the Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport in the Augusta County community of Weyers Cave.

Jacob H. Kiser, 19, of the Rockingham County town of Grottoes, and Jason A. Long, 32, of the Shenandoah County town of Edinburg, died at the scene, according to a State Police release.

Police say the accident occurred at 2:27pm Friday, December 31 as the helicopter, known as “AirCare 5,” was returning to its base at the Airport after taking a patient to the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville. Although one skid on the copter was damaged, it landed with no injury to the occupants, a pilot and two medical personnel.

The four-seat Cessna Skyhawk, however, suffered serious damage and crashed. State police have notified both the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration, and investigators from both agencies have arrived on the scene.

The medevac craft, a 2005 Eurocopter, is owned by a firm called PHI, Inc. which operates across the U.S. and 43 foreign countries. On board was pilot Paul Weve, co-pilot and flight nurse Joseph Root, and flight nurse Carolyn Booke.

According to an updated release, the 1967 Cessna was registered to Michael Price of Elkton, but Price was not aboard (more)

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When Aaron B. Tobey decided to exercise his First Amendment rights by displaying the Fourth Amendment on his chest while going through security at the Richmond International Airport, he expected that he might be detained for further questioning.

“He was astounded he was arrested for disorderly conduct,” says his father, Charlottesville accountant Robert Tobey.

At the airport conveyor belt, Aaron, 21, removed everything but his shorts to reveal what he’d scrawled on his torso: “Amendment 4: The right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated.”

“He thinks like I do,” says Robert Tobey, explaining that his son, a graduate of Western Albemarle High School and now an architecture student at the University of Cinncinnati, finds that new airport security procedures that force passengers to choose between a full body scanner that produces what some consider a virtual strip search or an invasive body pat down are “security theater,” says Tobey père.

The account of the incident, first reported in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, said Aaron stripped down to his underwear, but his father says it was just a pair of running shorts. And the elder Tobey, who took part in protests during his own youth, contends that his son acted respectfully and complied with the security procedures. But apparently the Transportation Security Administration was not amused with (more)

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Patricia Kluge and Bill Moses close out 2010 with another foreclosure in their future, this time on five lots in their 24-lot Vineyard Estates subdivision.

The parcels in Meadow Estates, phase one of the high-end gated subdivision in southern Albemarle, total 122 acres and are assessed at $6.9 million. Vineyard Estates LLC owes $8.2 million, according to a property auction notice.

Partner First Colony Corporation from North Carolina went bankrupt, a demise that precipitated the first foreclosure of the year, when the 6,600-square-foot Glen Love Cottage, the only house built in the subdivision, according to county records, went on the block in March. Kluge and Moses bought back the property, assessed at (more)

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Any homeowner seeking a loan or a refinancing might be wise to hire Patricia Filer. If her appraisal of Biscuit Run is any indication, she has an ability to find value above and beyond what the market will bear.

Biscuit Run— a massive undeveloped neighborhood saddled with debt and trapped by an unforgiving housing market— appeared to be rescued by a year-ago deal that hinged on a mysterious appraisal. When Courteney Stuart penned her investigative cover story two months ago, she theorized that the only way the tract’s wealthy investors could have paid off their delinquent loans and retained their investment was finding an appraiser willing to value the place four times higher than one arm of the state did.

Apparently, they found such an appraiser in the form of Filer at Orange-based Piedmont Appraisal Company. A story by freelance reporter Will Goldsmith asserts that Filer valued the land at $87.7 million.

“That’s a big number,” says State Senator Creigh Deeds. “That’s just a big number.”

But as Goldsmith reports (more)

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The man who lived under a cloud of suspicion for 41 years as the main suspect in the murders of two young women at an ice cream parlor has sued the City of Staunton and as many as six unnamed individuals for more than $200 million for what he describes as decades of harassment that continued long after evidence cleared him.

A year after the 1967 crime at High’s Ice Cream, Bill Thomas was tried and acquitted of first degree murder in the death of 19-year-old Constance Hevener. However, he remained under indictment for another 40 years for the same-night killing of 20-year-old Carolyn Perry. In his suit, Thomas, who now lives in southern Augusta County, makes several shocking allegations.

Among them, he claims that the lead investigator for the Staunton Police, Dave “Davie” Bocock, knew the day after the double-slaying that Thomas was innocent and that Bocock also knew who did it: High’s employee Sharron Diane Crawford.

The suit alleges that Detective Bocock engaged in a cover up because he was romantically involved with Crawford and may have fathered more than one child with her. Surviving family members have refused DNA testing, even as relatives of the victims have pleaded for an explanation. Further, the suit states, Crawford, in a 2008 deathbed confession, told investigators that immediately following the murders, Bocock— who died in 2006— had helped her bury the murder weapon on his property.

The case rocked Staunton two years ago when the deathbed confession became known. Now, the case stands to further strain this picturesque Shenandoah Valley city because the current mayor, Lacy B. King Jr.— a 32-year police veteran and former deputy police chief— is named in the suit.

While acknowledging that Bocock was demoted (more)

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While private sector construction nearly ground to a standstill in 2010, thanks to that bit of trouble American banks have been having, there were still a few standout additions to our physical world worth noting this year.

UVA’s South Lawn

After years of pre-publicity and considerable controversy, UVA’s big production number, the $105 million South Lawn Project, opened to much fanfare, but flopped at the box office.

Indeed, as the Hook asked in a cover story on the project, should the grassy area on the South Lawn, just a little longer than a tennis court, qualify as a “lawn”?

What began as a tremendously ambitious project when the University chose visionary architect James Polshek was eventually pared down by cost worries and fears among the UVA Board of Visitors that the design might not be “Jefferson” enough. In 2006, the University parted ways with Polshek and went looking for a new architect, a decision that prompted a protest from UVA’s architecture faculty. In 2005, over 30 faculty members signed an open letter condemning the University for perpetuating “faux Jeffersonian architecture” and characterized the direction the design was taking as “apologetic neo-Jeffersonian appliqué.”

When UVA hired California-based Moore Ruble Yudell to design the South Lawn, some faculty threw up their hands.

“This,” declared architect and letter signer Jason Johnson after seeing renderings of the new design, which featured familiar pergolas and red-brick columned exteriors, “is a disappointment on every possible level.”

After it was finished, University Architect David Neuman defended the project from the mixed reviews. “The South Lawn design was inspired by the integration of site planning, architecture and landscape that characterizes Jefferson’s Academical Village,” he said, “and we feel this project has been fully successful in living up to that inspiration.”

But some faculty members were adamant.

“It’s clumsy in its detail, its massing, its materials, its fenestration pattern, its effort to hide its bulk, and its relation to the street,” says one A-school faculty member. “On the interior, I look up and down those halls, and I feel as if there is a colonoscopy awaiting me behind every door.”

Not everyone, though.

“They did a pretty good job,” says UVA architectural historian Richard Guy Wilson. “I think it picks up the palette of the Academical Village, but doesn’t mimic it.”

Wilson, no stranger to bashing other recent designs, also likes the fact that the South Lawn offers places to gather outside the classrooms, in its light-filled conservatory area and gardens, and on the grassy terrace itself, which he sees as an extension of the experience Jefferson wanted to create on the Lawn.

Indeed, the jewel of the South Lawn— if there is one— may be the Conservatory, a semi-circular meeting place between Gibson and Nau Halls, which includes a Starbucks, a grassy courtyard, and seating on three levels.

Monticello

At Monticello, the upper floors of Jefferson’s home were finally opened to the public for the first time, including the mysterious third-floor Dome Room. In May, new Monticello boss Leslie Greene Bowman proudly displayed the parts of the residence that Jefferson designed for the enslaved workers who moved about the house relatively unseen, serving food, changing linens, and emptying chamber pots.

In addition to rooms for Jefferson’s granddaughters, and two narrow, almost-spiral staircases that allowed slaves to enter all the floors of the house from the basement, Bowman introduced the Dome Room, a beautiful chamber that features a Mars yellow Palladio-inspired “temple” with circular windows and an oculus skylight with beautiful views, but no apparent function.

“It was mostly constructed to be seen from the outside,” said David Ronka, Monticello’s manager of special programs. “But we don’t know what the purpose of the room was.”

It did for a time, however, offer a passage to a secret hiding place for Jefferson’s granddaughters, where they could escape the constant activity within the house.

Other changes included a new chrome yellow paint job for the dining room, the color Jefferson had chosen in his later years (after 75 years of Wedgwood blue), the newly renovated wine cellar, and the restoration of the South Pavilion, which served as living quarters for Jefferson and his wife during the two-year construction phase of the main house. All of this accompanied a new exhibit in the cellar level called “Crossroads,” which sheds light on the intersections between Jefferson, his family and guests, and the enslaved workers.

“We’re trying to make Monticello a more lively and entertaining experience,” says Susan Stein, Monticello’s senior curator.

Wood’s “cabin on the hill”

That’s how developer Wendell Wood characterized the 20,000-plus square-foot residence he was building atop Carter Mountain. However, not only is it one of the biggest houses ever built in the area, it’s also perched on the highest part of Charlottesville’s biggest mountain. Indeed, as Wood has now cleared a considerable number of trees around the property, it’s hard to miss.

“Have I seen the house?” asked Piedmont Environmental Council officer Jeff Werner. “Who hasn’t?”

While folks like Werner, former County Supe Sally Thomas, and current Supe Dennis Rooker believe the mammoth house is a scar on our mountain viewsheds, for Wood it’s the fulfillment of a life-long dream. As a kid, Wood says, he used to ride his bike up there and fantasize about someday calling it home. In 1982 his successes as a real estate developer allowed him to buy the 29-acre tract.With the recent purchase of 272 acres below the mountain along Route 20, he says, he now owns 700 acres of the mountainside.

“This is something I’ve wanted to do for 30 years,” says Wood, 70, resigned to the fact that people have begun to talk about the house. “And I’m not getting any younger.”

Waterhouse

Finally, after five years, it has commenced: architect Bill Atwood’s $20 million Waterhouse project, a six-story mixed-use complex of offices, retail space, and apartments atop a parking garage that will span the gap between West Water and South Streets. Demolition began in October.

Originally, Atwood had a vision for a massive pedestrian village, complete with two nine-story towers, an underground parking structure, and a park of sorts that he hoped would “reinvent the block” by rescuing the beauty of the Lewis & Clark building from its isolated perch with a compatible neighbor along the streetscape. But when the economy tanked, so did the vision.

“Fundamentally, the world has changed,” says Atwood, meaning that the money for such creations simply isn’t available. “It’s so difficult to get things done these days.”

Casteen dedicates his last building

One of his goals during his presidency, joked former UVA president John Casteen at the dedication ceremony for Bavaro Hall, the $37 million addition to the Curry School of Education, was to see an open field where Bavaro Hall now stands. “I failed,” he deadpanned. What a card! Of course, the reason everyone chuckled: during Casteen’s presidency, UVA built or bought 134 buildings. It was kind of like George Bush saying he always wanted to see Saddam Hussein turn Iraq into an amusement park. Bavaro Hall— executed in neo-Jeffersonianism complete with brick columns and hints of Boston’s Faneuil Hall— transforms a stretch of Emmet Street by blocking the old view of Ruffner Hall.

Landmark Hotel

What a mess. What an eye-sore. The abandoned hotel project was actually included in last year’s round up, but since it went up two years ago, the 11-story shell of the planned Landmark Hotel continues to loom large over the Downtown landscape, a victim of delusions of grandeur, short-sightedness, hubris, a bad economy, and the ongoing legal battle between Halsey Minor, the hotel’s owner, and Lee Danielson, the hotel’s former developer.

When will it ever get built? Will it ever get built? Unlikely. Since Minor’s company Minor Family Hotels LLC declared bankruptcy, the worthless shell of a half-finished building has belonged to the bank that funded its construction, and if they wanted to sell it now, they would most likely have to accept much less than Minor owes them. Earlier this year, it was discovered that some people were squatting on the upper floors of the structure. And as those who’ve passed by it during heavy rain storms have noticed, it also has the distinction of being Charlottesville’s only 11-story urban waterfall.

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