4BETTER OR WORSE- The week in review
Worst fire: Flames consume an apartment at 147 Woodlake Drive January 26, and when firefighters are finally able to enter the two-story residence, they find a body they believe is an unaccounted-for occupant. The state lab will perform an autopsy and identification.
Worst losses for UVA: James Murray Howard, former curator and restoration architect for Thomas Jefferson's Academical Village, dies January 4 at age 60. Popular sociology prof Steven L. Nock, 57, dies from diabetes complications January 20.
Most colorful protest since Code Pink sit-ins in Virgil Goode's office: Members of the People United, which, in fact, has some crossovers with Code Pink, register for a U.S. Border Patrol recruitment January 26 at the Omni, demand identification and throw to the floor and "arrest" some of their members before they're asked to leave, according to a Jeremy Borden story in the Daily Progress.
Latest gig for Maurice "Mo" Jones: The former communications director for the city, most recently employed as director of development at the Miller Center, has been appointed assistant city manager, working for his old boss, Gary O'Connell.
Latest gig for Bill Symons: The former city school superintendent takes an interim job heading Alexandria schools, replacing Rebecca L. Perry, who was released early from her contract January 18. The locks were changed as soon as she left the building, the Washington Post reports.
Foulest mouth: UVA basketball coach Dave Leitao uses the F-word on at least two occasions at the Florida State game, according to Seminoles fan and Floridian Robert F. Dollar Jr., who writes a letter of complaint to the DP.
Foulest odors: Rivanna Water and Sewer projects an $11 million minimum tab to get the stench emanating from the Moore's Creek Wastewater facility out of Woolen Mills, Seth Rosen reports in the Progress.
Most wretched: More than 150 Hollymead Elementary School students have been out the past week with winter vomiting disease, a.k.a. norovirus.
Best/worst news: Albemarle County real estate reassessments, which last year rose an average 14.9 percent, show a decrease in 2008 residential values– 2 percent on most single family dwellings and 4.6 percent on condos.
Biggest shortfall: Albemarle County schools are looking at about $2 million less than anticipated.
Biggest sting: Howard University soccer coach Joseph E. Okoh, 40, is busted January 25 when he journeys to Louisa to allegedly meet with what he thought was a 13-year-old girl he'd met on the Internet.
Slowest growth: Charlottesville's city population increased just 2.9 percent from 2000 to 2007 to 41,274, according to UVA's Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service. Bolstered by faster growth rates (particularly in Greene, Albemarle, and Fluvanna), our metro area population had the state's third-largest upward spike: 11.4 percent.
Rarest cartographs: The first maps to show the Pacific Ocean and Florida dating back to the 1500s are among those on display through 2008 at UVA Library from the collection of Dr. Seymour Schwartz, who has pledged a bequest of 225 maps and in return gets a map room named for him.
Best plug for the Virginia Quarterly Review: The Washington Post salivates over the current issue of VQR and its "first-person essays that convey the feel of a place–" Ramadi and Kabul– "in a way that newspaper stories seldom do" and Ted Genoways' transformation of a "staid old literary magazine" into a "great magazine."
Most likely to be Dem nominee: Hillary Clinton, at least according to Washington and Lee University, whose every-four-years presidential Mock Convention has been wrong just once since 1948.
#