4BETTER OR WORSE- The week in review

Published online 9:00am Thursday Jan 27th, 2011
and in print issue #1004 dated Thursday Jan 27th, 2011

Biggest development in the ongoing water war: City Council votes 3-2 January 19 in favor of a 30-foot dam at Ragged Mountain Reservoir, a vote that puts councilors David Brown, Satyendra Huja, and Kristin Szakos on the same side of the 50-year water plan as the county's supervisors, and leaves dredging advocates Mayor Dave Norris and Holly Edwards outnumbered.

Least surprising announcement: Former governor George Allen officially says he'll be seeking his old job in the U.S. Senate, the one now held by Senator Jim Webb, who unseated Allen in the 2006 race after Allen's infamously used the possible ethnic slur "macaca" to describe a Webb volunteer. Webb has not said whether he'll run again.

Saddest fatality: David Shipp Jr., 21, dies January 23 when his vehicle goes off Markwood Road and he and his passenger are ejected. Shipp is the son of Albemarle Clerk of Court Debra Shipp. Darrell Harris was riding with Shipp and taken to UVA Medical Center with severe but non-life-threatening injuries.

Worst loss for UVA's School of Architecture: Retired dean Harry Porter, 74, dies January 19 in New Bern, North Carolina. Porter was first chairman of the school's department of landscape architecture and first University Architect.

Worst fabrication: The guy who claimed his Jetta had been stolen at gunpoint January 15 is arrested for filing a false police report January 18. Braden C. Macpherson, 19, has been identified as the driver of the allegedly swiped car, which was found crashed on Carters Mountain Trail

Best/worst press for Gaylon Beights: The Old Trail developer sets record sales– 70– in 2010 in the Crozet subdivision, according to a January 22 Brian Wheeler article in the Daily Progress. The next day's paper has a Wheeler story about Redfields subdivision, also developed by Beights. Residents say the 58 acres Beights is trying to rezone to add 138 homes was touted as nature trails and open space in some of the early marketing materials, so they feel duped.

Oddest assault weapon: A lubricant aerosol spray is used in a robbery attempt around 1pm January 19 between UVA's Women's Center and the Old Medical School. The suspect attempted to spray and take a bag from the victim, who resisted and was not injured. The attacker, described as an African-American male between 5 feet 8 inches and 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighing between 190 and 200 pounds, and wearing black shoes, jeans, jacket, knit hat, and a surgical mask, fled on foot.

Most missing teens I: A black Jeep found January 19 at a rest stop off I-81 near Weyers Cave matches the description of the vehicle used by Olney, Maryland, youths Nicholas Balderson, 17, and his 16-year-old girlfriend Rachel Reilly. The couple disappeared January 12 and are still missing at press time.

Most missing teens II: Seventeen-year-old Buffalo Gap High senior Jazmine Rae Stevens is reported missing January 22 and believed to be with her boyfriend, Lewis Deke Cash, 22, who the Augusta Sheriff's office says could be armed and dangerous. According to the News Leader, Stevens turns up at her house the morning of January 24, and Cash is arrested without incident–- or weapons–- in a traffic stop that same morning on an unrelated assault and battery on a family member charge.

Biggest wedding crasher: Noise from various nuptials at Keswick Winery annoys neighbors, including Sissy Spacek, who tells the Albemarle Planning Commission January 18 she's a big supporter of Virginia wine, but moved 25 miles outside of Charlottesville to hear the birds and frogs and geese and not amplified music, Charlottesville Tomorrow reports.