4BETTER OR WORSE- The week in review
Closest crash to home: Citigroup buys Wachovia stock, priced at $52 per share a year ago, for about a buck a share. The North Carolina-based Wachovia purchased local institution Jefferson National Bank in 1997.
Least painful $191-million loss: UVA's endowment drops $98 million in August and $93 million in July, but that's less than two percent of its $5-billion endowment, which is positioned "as best as it possibly could be," according to UVA VP and COO Leonard Sandridge in an Aaron Lee story in the Daily Progress.
Most suspicious powder: Homemade signs with a suspect substance that turns out to be an irritant appear near the Klockner Pentaplast plant in Albemarle over three separate days, and Orange County resident Mark Dowdy faces five charges.
Most dropped charges: Albemarle Commonwealth's Attorney Denise Lunsford drops second-degree murder charges September 26 against Stacey Berry in the September 17 shooting at U-Heights Apartments. In Charlottesville, malicious wounding charges against Herman M. Green from an August 3 shooting of Brandon Anthony Dillard are dismissed at a September 25 preliminary hearing by Judge Robert Downer.
Harshest trespassing sentences: Protester Paxus Calta gets 15 days in jail for a sit-in and staging alternative tours August 7 at Dominion's North Anna Nuclear Power Plant. His co-defendants from the People's Alliance for Clean Energy, Sue Frankel-Streit and Spot Etal, are fined $1,000 with $700 suspended in Louisa court September 24 and all three are banned from entering Dominion property for two years. Three other protesters who pleaded guilty last month were slammed with $1,250 fines and will be filing appeals, as will Calta.
Worst alleged embezzler: Former Sexual Assault Resource Agency employee Damon Watson is certified to the grand jury in both Charlottesville and Albemarle for misuse of SARA credit cards– he's accused of buying a 32-inch LCD TV from Staples and renting a car from Enterprise– and doctoring payroll sheets. Tasha Kates has the story in the Progress.
Worst spate of embezzling: WINA reports that Charlottesville police are investigating separate incidents at SunTrust Bank at Barracks Road and at Marshall's.
Tastiest promotion: Domino's Pizza offers free pizza from its Seminole Trail location October 7 from 4 to 7pm if the Albemarle firefighter accompanying the delivery finds a working smoke detector. (We'd have called this the "safest promotion" had firefighters insisted on finding working photo-electric smoke detectors.)
Best national press: NBC's Today Show comes to UVA September 24, and Luke Russert remarks, "The smartest kids in the state go there...", which is touted on the UVA blog, but not the end of his sentence: "...so it's leaning a little bit toward Obama."
Best birthday: The Charlottesville-Albemarle Public Defender office celebrates its 10th anniversary October 2.
Best laundry: UVA's new $18.8 million Kellogg House, dedicated September 29, allows dorm residents to monitor washer and dryer use on the Web from their rooms.
Most improved grade: UVA leads the top 10 greenest schools in Virginia according to the College Sustainability Report Card 2009, which rates UVA a B overall, way up from its D+ in 2007.
Most confusing grade: Charlottesville and Albemarle schools are accredited by the Virginia Department of Education– but nine schools in the city and county systems fail to make adequate yearly progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
Third-friendliest city: Leon Logothetis, host of the TV show Amazing Adventures of a Nobody, puts Charlottesville on his top 10 cities for travelers on meager budgets relying on the kindness of strangers.
Most important deadline: Monday, October 6, is the last day to register to vote in this year's November 4 elections.
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