4BETTER OR WORSE- The week in review

Published online 8:00am Thursday May 22nd, 2008
and in print issue #0721 dated Thursday May 22nd, 2008

Deadliest crash: Five family members die early May 18 on a Bremo Bluff Road in a car driven by Joseph Alfred Scruggs, 36, of Huntersville, North Carolina, according to Virginia State Police. Dead are Larry Jermaine Jones, 25, of Palmyra, and Bremo Bluff residents Carlton Eugene Washington, 47, Joseph Ross, 49, and Jason L. Ross, 27.

Best reason to buckle up and not drink and drive: See above.

Grandest gesture: At the urging of UVA students, City Council considers a resolution to prohibit and divest any investments that support the genocidal Sudanese regime of Omar Hassan al-Bashir. Currently Charlottesville does not have such investments.

Most awkward conflicts of interest: Three of the five members of the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority recuse themselves from voting on parts of the new $22.1 million budget because of conflicts of interest, according to Seth Rosen in the Daily Progress. City Manager Gary O'Connell, public works director Judy Mueller, and Albemarle County Service Authority director Gary Fern all sit out the vote at the urging of the authority's attorney, Kurt Krueger, because water rates could be to their main employer's benefit or detriment– a fact that hasn't deterred the rate-setters in the past.

Newest Monticello chief: Winterthur CEO Leslie Greene Bowman is tapped to succeed retiring Dan Jordan, starting November 1.

Latest UVA brain drain: Architecture and planning prof Kenneth Schwartz heads to New Orleans to become dean of Tulane's School of Architecture.

Latest Doug Wilder move: The former governor of Virginia and 77-year-old mayor of Richmond announces May 16 he will not run for reelection.

Latest federal largesse: Charlottesville Transit Service gets $14.3 million in state and federal funds to build a new bus yard south of town, Rosen reports in the DP. The city will chip in $1.3 million.

Least open to nuclear power: The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense Fund files suit May 9 to stop a third reactor at Dominion Virginia Power's North Anna plant in Louisa.

Heftiest sentences: Acting U.S. Attorney Julia Dudley announces a string of drug dealin' sentences handed out in Charlottesville Western District Court May 19: Illegal alien German Cesiliano Reyes, 26, gets 84 months for selling coke, Culpeper resident David Cheek, 24, will pull 100 months for selling crack, and Samuel Lee Simmons, 28, will spend the next 157 months– more than 13 years– incarcerated for dealing over 500 grams of meth, while his co-conspirators– Juan Manuel Cornejo Garcia, 24, and Brenda Sue Lucas, 43, get 135 and 37 months respectively.

Worst way to get a date: Former Virginia Employment Commission worker Freddie Cuevas is convicted of assault May 19 for kissing and hitting on a woman who came to see him February 28 to get unemployment insurance benefits, Annie Scholz reports for NBC29. Cuevas plans to appeal his 90-day (88 suspended) sentence.

Best way to divert angry preservationists: The Jefferson Scholars Foundation, which caused a brouhaha when it razed the historically significant Compton House to build a $21-million facility on Maury Avenue, announces $7.65 million in scholarships.

Best Bush visit: Jenna Bush Hager attends new husband Henry Hager's Darden graduation May 18, WCAV's Matt Holmes reports, one week after their May 10 nuptials in Crawford, Texas.

Least pastoral: Baptist minister Hobert Wayne Bryant, 55, is charged with robbing the Luray Dollar General May 8 while packing heat and wearing a dark knit hat and sunglasses, the AP reports. Police stopped Bryant's white Ford Taurus and found cash, a disassembled shotgun, and a 40-caliber semiautomatic shotgun. Bryant is scheduled to appear in Shenandoah County court July 21.