4BETTER OR WORSE- The week in review
Biggest rip: A renegade July 13 storm shreds the fabric of the Charlottesville Pavilion before it's installed.
Most missing citizens: Charlottesville City Council votes July 18 to challenge a 2004 U.S. Census estimate that says the city has shrunk by 3,500 residents to a population of 36,600.
Hottest real estate: Albemarle County continues to lead the area with a median price of $277,475, according to the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors' 2005 second-quarter report.
Most manslaughter charges: Teri Janell Ejjamai, a driver for now-closed Safe Transport, is charged with three counts of involuntary manslaughter following an April 8 crash in Greene County that killed three senior citizens, Kate Andrews reports in the Daily Progress.
Best decision for Planned Parenthood: The new facility on Hydraulic Road doesn't have to shut its doors. Judge Paul Peatross rules against plaintiffs in the nearby Garden Court neighborhood who wanted Planned Parenthood's special-use permit and certificate of occupancy revoked, Jessica Kitchin reports in the Progress.
Best clarification: Boot-toting firefighters are not exempt from Albemarle's new panhandling law, and may not take to the streets to solicit donations, according to a County release.
Most recent UVA bomb threat: July 11 at Clark Hall in time for summer exams.
Priciest police: The Cavalier Daily reports that a rash of bomb threats at UVA in 2002 cost the university $18,000 a day, not counting state police, detectives, bomb specialists, and bomb-sniffing dogs.
Biggest golden parachute recall: The Virginia Retirement System's board votes to take back a $263,000 severance package already paid to a former director who was on the verge of being fired, the AP reports. Forrest Matthews Jr. gets the standard $15,000 package instead, but the state must recoup the money paid to Matthews and the taxes it paid on it.
Speaking of huge severance packages: Charlottesville's short-term school superintendent Scottie Griffin is one of five finalists to head the Fall River, Massachusetts, school system, winnowed from 21 original applications, Waldo Jaquith reports on cvillenews.com.
Fiercest phone book competition: Community Phonebook publisher DataNational Inc. files a $7.75 million lawsuit against the Yellow Book July 12 in federal court here, claiming the Yellow Book employees falsely told potential advertisers DataNational was going out of business, Liesel Nowak reports in the DP.
Worst summer trend: Parents carrying their children in the trunks of cars. Three mothers in Virginia have been charged in the past two months for transporting kids in the trunk. Most recently, Cheryl Ann Schoonmaker, 38, made her 8- and 10-year-old daughters take turns in a Nissan Sentra trunk during an 8-hour trip from Alabama to Loudoun County, while the family dog rode in the passenger area.
Worst cat tale: A Mount Vernon woman is found with 488 cats– 222 of them dead– in her home and her daughter's townhouse.
Oddest tractor trailer fire: A truck carrying rolls of paper drives on a flat tire, causing the paper to ignite on U.S. 29 south near Red Hill Road July 13.
Best hospital: UVA Medical Center again lands on U.S. News & World Report's annual list, this year for endocrinology, ear-nose-throat, urology, cancer, gynecology, digestive disorders, and neurology, and neurosurgery.
Best miss for over-publicized Charlottesville: Money magazine ranks our town a lowly #90 on its best-place-to-live list.
Funniest part: The only Virginia city in top 10 is Vienna at #4. Vienna?!