4BETTER OR WORSE- The week in review

Lamest legislature: For the second year in a row– in a state with crumbling infrastructure and roads unfunded– Virginia's General Assembly fails to come up with a transportation plan. "I don't think I've ever seen a group of people work so hard to do nothing," Governor Tim Kaine says during a July 10 press conference. "It was like a Seinfeld episode; I mean a show about nothing. In the House, it was a road session about nothing."

Biggest purchase of development rights: Albemarle takes advantage of state matching grants to plunk down $1.3 million to shift the 228-acre Clayton family farm bordering Beaver Creek Reservoir into the county's Acquisition of Conservation Easements program.

Latest visitors: Charlottesvillian Robert D. Hardie (Level One Partners LLC) and Virginia Beach real estate developer Helen Dragas are named to the UVA Board of Visitors. 

Best place for outdoors lovers: Charlottesville makes Outside Magazine's 20 best cities for "the greatest opportunities for living the good life," according to a release. Been there, done that in 2006.

Thirteenth best place to raise a family: Albemarle gets in on the best place to live action in a June 30 Forbes report, according to a County release.

Best place to treat your hormone disorder: In the week's spate of best-place listings, UVA Health System makes U.S. News & World Report's 19th annual best hospitals survey in seven specialties, with its endocrinology department leading the pack.

Worst mail carrier: Kim Colleen Malone, 41, is sentenced to two years probation for stealing mail while a U.S. Postal Service employee after residents on her Charlottesville route complained to postal officials that some mail was not being delivered.

Worst embezzlement: Two former Sperry Marine Federal Credit Union employees are convicted of taking out loans in other people's names, according to the Progress.

Most expansive: St. Anne's-Belfield seeks approval for a new, $30-million building on its Faulconer Road lower school and to grow from 300 to 550 students, the Daily Progress reports.

Best get: Charlottesville, Albemarle, and Louisa counties and the Virginia Housing Development Authority shower the Piedmont Housing Alliance with millions of dollars in grants to assist first-time home buyers, according to WINA. 

Best way to find out about Darden: Scott Clemente writes about his first year there in Business Week.

Best way to lower blood pressure: Sit in a chair with back support, feet on the floor and arms at heart level when having BP checked, which gives consistently lower results than legs dangling on an exam table, according to a study conducted by RN Melly Turner at UVA Health System. 

Ninth best small-town techies: The National Association of Counties names Albemarle the ninth best county of its size (150,000 or less) for delivering Information Technology to its citizens. 

Worst sleep over:  Slade Woodson pleads guilty to six felony counts in connection with shots fired in Waynesboro the night of the I-64 shootings. Jimmy LaRue has the story in the Progress.

Most bountiful crop season: USDA says Virginia crops are showing greater yields that usual this season thanks to recent favorable weather conditions, WINA reports.

Worst but least surprising home-sales prediction: Realtor and real estate blogger Jim Duncan warns, "We may not have seen the worst of what this cycle has to offer," but predicts we will finally break the "cycle" in 2009.

Smelliest drug find: According to a DP story, a Virginia teen is arrested in Culpeper on July 15 for possession of psychedelic mushrooms which he claims to have collected from "cow-pies" in local pastures.

Best removal from the Internet: Ex-Orange town manager Doyle W. Frye is charged with 133 counts of possession of child pornography and one count of conspiracy to commit sodomy., the DP reports.

Greenest way to navigate Albemarle County: Via segway. The new Seg-ville store plans to open in Old Trail Village in January according to the Newsplex. 

Greenest birthday: Albemarle County Office Building's green roof, reportedly the largest in Central Virginia, celebrates three years of existence, WINA reports. Since plugs were planted in 2005, it has become a self-sustaining ecosystem with blooming white flowers.

Wittiest t-shirts: Albemarle County residents Amanda Downing and Rolland Colella wear homemade "Darth Nader" t-shirts to hear presidential hopeful and alleged spoiler Ralph Nader speak at Gravity Lounge Sunday afternoon, the Progress reports.

Saddest lake incident: Jacob Andrew Davis, 19, of Spring, Texas drowns at Sherando Lake Saturday afternoon, July 12.

Biggest presidential expense: Albemarle spends an estimated $23,000 in security for President Bush's July 4 Monticello visit.

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