4BETTER OR WORSE- The week in review
Biggest turnover: Dem Congressman Tom Perriello is voted out of office November 2, and Republican Robert Hurt is the 5th District representative-elect.
Biggest pricetag: President Barack Obama's visit to campaign for Perriello cost the city and county at least $38,000, Rachana Dixit reports in the Daily Progress. Perriello's campaign says it will cover those costs.
Worst agony on I-64: Traffic backs up seven miles November 7 when a westbound tractor trailer overturns.
Worst car crash: Samantha Brackett, 22, dies in a single-car accident November 5 shortly after 5pm on Three Notch'd Road in Crozet. Brackett, who was not wearing a seatbelt, is partially ejected from the car and an infant with her has minor injuries.
Worst hit by drought: The USDA declares 59 counties in Virginia, including Albemarle and surrounding Nelson, Greene, Louisa, Fluvanna, and Buckingham, natural disaster areas resulting from the lack of rain and excessive heat. Farmers and ranchers are eligible for low-interest emergency loans.
Worst place to try to bum a smoke: Martha Jefferson Hospital announces it will no longer hire employees who puff or use nicotine, and they'll have to undergo drug tests to assure they fit into the hospital's tobacco-free initiative. NBC29 has the story.
Worst belly slicing: Cevi Jamar Wede, 33, gets nine months in jail for leaving a four-inch gash in his uncle's gut with a pirate-like cutlass in Waynesboro last spring, the News Virginian reports.
Worst armed robbery: A masked man comes into the Grady Avenue Quik Mart November 4, gets the money, then sprays something into the faces of two clerks, who are taken to Martha Jefferson. The suspect is described as a black male between 6' and 6'2", weighing 250 pounds, NBC29 reports.
Most popular defense strategy: Accused robber and convicted 1998 Shell clerk killer Carlton William Arnold asks for another lawyer November 8 for the charges he faces for allegedly grabbing a UVA student in September, taking her under Beta Bridge, touching her, and taking money. The Progress reports that prosecutor Claude Worrell says the request is a tactic to delay the case so the victim, who lives in another country, won't be able to testify. Alleged girlfriend-burner Cordrick Lewis Dade in Greene County also requests a new attorney–- after he pleads guilty to setting Yolanda Chambers on fire March 22.
Longest child porn sentence: Former Greene County man Gary Lee Rimmer, 56, gets 66 months November 8 for his 2006 online relationship with a 13-year-old girl in Florida. Rimmer pretended to be a 20-year-old, and sent the girl sexual items, and images of the girl wearing his gifts were found on his computer.
Latest Albemarle school bus accident: Four children and the bus driver are taken to the hospital November 5 after a collision on Whitewood Road near Hydraulic. According to the Newsplex, a Honda Accord wagon pulled out in front the bus headed to Jack Jouett Middle School.
Most delinquent: Leading the list of those owing back taxes are Patricia Kluge and Halsey Minor, Henry Graff reports for NBC29. Kluge, whose winery is set to be auctioned off December 8, owes Albemarle County $86,000 in real estate taxes, and Minor owes Charlottesville almost $63K.
Best review: The New York Times praises John Casey's "beautiful, elegiac new novel," Compass Rose, a continuation of his novel Spartina.
Best news for outdoors whizzers: Albemarle's new law forbidding public urination is not intended to send police searching for violators in their own backyards out of public view. The new ordinance approved by county supes November 3 is designed to curb public peeing at Foxfield without socking violators with a more serious indecent exposure charge, Commonwealth's Attorney Denise Lunsford says. Brandon Shulleeta has the story in the Progress.
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