4BETTER OR WORSE- The week in review

Published online 8:00am Thursday Jun 14th, 2007
and in print issue #0624 dated Thursday Jun 14th, 2007

Most outraged: Dr. Barbara Haskins joins the City Council race as an independent, citing her outrage at councilors' willingness to shell out $1 million to buy and staff ambulances rather than work with Charlottesville Albemarle Rescue Squad, according to a Bob Gibson story in the Daily Progress. Haskins, 55, is a psychiatrist who teaches at UVA and is employed at Western State Hospital.

Least competent: Shooting suspect Indio Martinez, 17, is found incompetent– again– to stand trial June 6 and will be transferred to a treatment facility, Liesel Nowak reports in the Progress. Martinez is charged in the March 2 shooting of a teen on Prospect Avenue. Last year, he was found unrestorably incompetent in the beating of two teens who refused to join the Bloods, a gang of which police say Martinez is a member, and released. He was also deemed incompetent on B&E charges in 2005– and released.

Greatest escape: Handcuff-clad Salvadore Sanchez flees the back of a State Police cruiser June 5 near Afton Mountain and remains at large at press time. Sanchez was pulled for allegedly driving 91 mph on I-64 without a license.

Worst security breach: Hackers gain access to the names and Social Security numbers of more than 5,700 past and present UVA faculty. The university discovered the breach May 29, and is working with the FBI. UVA is offering a year of free credit monitoring to the identity theft victims.

Worst fire: A trailer is destroyed June 11, and fire officials believe an electric water heater sparked the blaze on Slate Mill Branch Road that leaves a family of four homeless.

Worst luck: A tractor trailer hauling a load of mirrors flipped over on eastbound I-64 at the U.S. 29 interchange June 11 and tied up traffic for seven years. Okay, for most of the day.

Worst Chick-Fil-A fracas: Tennessean Eric Kebble is arrested June 7 and charged with malicious wounding at the fried-fowl restaurant after a male with multiple serious injuries is taken to the emergency room at UVA Medical Center.

Easternmost tour: Locally based country rock band Sons of Bill has been selected by Armed Forces Entertainment to travel to Guam, Korea, Japan and Okinowas and entertain the troops from July 1 - 31.

Latest School Board candidates: Lynette Meynig becomes the fifth candidate vying for one of four open seats on the Charlottesville School Board, a race in which it once looked like no one would run. And in the county, Patrick Wood challenges Brian Wheeler for the at-large seat on the Albemarle School Board.

Closest call: UVA hangs on to and extends the contract of baseball coach Brian O'Connor, who was being wooed by Florida.

Longest commute: Marc Turner's two-hour-and-42-minute drive from his paralegal job at Tysons Corner to his home in Charlottesville for the sake of better pay and cheaper housing is detailed in the June 3 Washington Post Magazine story, "Driven to Extremes."

Biggest oops: Fourth graders in Bedford glimpse a few seconds of hardcore porn following the credits at the end of an instructional video, the News-Advance reports. School officials blame the video reproduction company, and say the elementary school has had the tape for about four years, but no one had ever run it past the credits.

Best making lemonade out of lemons: TerraCycle donates five cents for every 20 ounce plastic bottle collected and uses the otherwise costly-to-recycle bottles to package liquefied worm poop as plant food. Henley Middle Schooler Will Gibson recycled 280 bottles since May and earned a $14 donation to the Nature Conservancy.