Don’t know anything about the candidates for City School Board to be elected May 2? Well, now you have no excuse. In addition to this week’s cover story in the Hook, City School Board candidate Charlie Kollmansperger is hosting a spot at the City Market on Water Street this Saturday, April 29 and has invited all School board candidates to attend. Although designed for City School Employees to meet the candidates, all are welcome. But if you’re a City School employee, get the there between 8:30am and 10:30am for the free bagels and coffee!
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It may take forever to see a customer service rep at the DMV, but when you do don’t try to bribe an agent to get an illegal license. Thanks to the DMV’s Zero Fraud hotline, you could get arrested on the spot. As the DMV reported recently, three individuals who tried to obtain Virginia licenses without proof of legal residence, and by attempting to bribe the customer service rep, were arrested in a sting operation after the rep called the hotline. These incidents demonstrate challenges that all our front-line employees encounter routinely, says DMV Commissioner D.B. Smit. “These incidents show how we are working together to eliminate fraud at the DMV.” Great, now if only they could eliminate those two-hour waits!

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The DMB is offering a $1.5 million challenge grant to help build the New Orleans Habitat Musicians’ Village, reports MTV News. The village would include Habitat for Humanity homes and house the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music. The money comes from a fundraising concert the DMB did in Denver with the Neville Brothers and the John Butler Trio. “This is our way to get the word out that there is more work to do, and ask people to step up to the challenge and make a donation to help,” the band said in a recent statement. If you want to help out, donations can be made online at habitat-nola.org, plus the DMB will match the donation dollar-for-dollar.

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VOTE HATFIELD & STEELE AND WIN! WIN! WIN! states a flier posted on vehicles at a Waynesboro steakhouse offering voters who promise to vote for two particular Council candidates a chance at $500 cash prizes, according to a story in this morning’s News Virginian. Incumbent Councilman Reo Hatfield and would-be Councilor Pat Steele, the alleged beneficiaries of the cash-for-votes deal, are reportedly not involved in the scheme, the brainchild of George F. Hartsook, president of a PAC called American Property Owners Association, which contends that the offer is legal. The story suggests that it is not.
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UVA’s football team elected four– count ‘em– four co-captains for the 2006 season. And with impressive restraint, Jay Jenkins’ Daily Progress article did not mention that sole junior captain-elect Chris Long is the son of Hall o’ Famer Howie.

The other captains are quarterback Christian Olsen, cornerback Marcus Hamilton and Wide receiver Deyon Williams.

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Albemarle County Schools released the numbers on how many students decided not to show up at school April 20, the purported date four teens were going to blow up Albemarle and Western Albemarle highs, as well as the 7th anniversary of Columbine and Adolf Hitler’s 117th birthday.

Absent 4/20/06

WAHS 34%
AHS 17%
Jouett 10%

Absent 4/13/06
WAHS 3%
AHS 4%
Jouett 5%

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The student-run Uva Judiciary Committee has brought charges against the 17 students who were arrested for holding a sit-in inside Madison Hall, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. The students, who were demanding higher wages for Uva’s lowest paid workers, are being charged with unauthorized entry and disorderly conduct and could face expulsion if convicted. The trial will take place next week.

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According to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, there are more rich people in Charlottesville (As if we needed the federal government to tell us that!). Figures released Tuesday say that personal income in the area grew by 7.9 percent between 2003 and 2004. In fact, it grew faster than any other area in Virginia! Robert S. DeMauri, executive director of the Thomas Jefferson Partnership for Economic Development, tells the Daily Progress that the numbers show the area “is certainly attracting people of wealth” but warns that “we still have an underlying issue in terms of having opportunity and availability of income for the widest cross section of people.” In other words, it’s money moving here making those numbers go up, not us.

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Famous grieving mom, Texas ranch squatter, peace activist, and general thorn in President Bush’s side, Cindy Sheehan will speak in Charlottesville on May 17 at the Martin Luther King Jr. Performing Arts Center. Sheehan made national news when she camped outside Bush’s Texas home to ask him why her son, Casey, who was killed in action in Baghdad in 2004, had to die. Since then, Sheehan has become a powerful, and controversial figure in the anti-war movement. The event is being organized by the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice.

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On Tuesday, yet another boy was attacked in the Garrett Square area by an alledged gang of “Bloods,” the Daily Progress reports. “He has a tooth that was knocked loose and what he has described is something very similar to what our first victim reported,” said Capt. J.E. “Chip” Harding. According to the Progress story, police have interviewed people who say the Bloods have made recruiting trips to Charlottesville, but are not yet ready to say the Bloods are in our midst.

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Blue Ridge Irish Music School is working on a lease agreement with Westminster Church for the former Prism space, the school announced today. The as-yet-unsigned deal would give BRIMS the space through (more)

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Last Friday near Garrett Square, a 15 year-old was beaten so badly he’ll need to have a metal plate inserted in his face, says Charlottesville police Captain Chip Harding in a Charlottesville Newsplex report. According to the teen, he was jumped by over a dozen members of the gang the�“Bloods” for refusing to join. Police can’t confirm whether or not the Bloods are really recruiting in Charlottesville, but they have arrested one of the attackers and charged him with the assault and for being a member of a gang. As was recently reported in the Hook.net, Charlottesville has its own gangs and AG Robert McDonnell was recently in town to launch a gang prevention program.

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The urban theorist who so famously asked a Charlottesville audience, “Where are the bicycles” has died at the age of 89. Jane Jacobs, who visited in 1996 to accept the Thomas Jefferson Prize in Architecture from UVA, died today at her Toronto home, the Associated Press reports.
Around the time of Jacobs’ Charlottesville visit, City Council (more)

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In the quest to topple incumbent Virgil Goode, local Democrats lent most of their weight last night to the candidacy of Nelson County wine-maker Al Weed, as they delivered him 12 of 17 delegates in Charlottesville and 31 of 37 in Albemarle, the Daily Progress reports in its print edition. Weed’s Democratic opponent, Bern Ewert, a former (more)

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The Democrat to go up against incumbent Virgil Goode in the 5th District Congressional race will be determined by caucus, and after Saturday, Nelson farmer Al Weed leads Ruckersville Parkway visionary Bern Ewert 25 to 5, according to a Weed release.

And that’s before going into tonight’s Super Monday, in which 10 jurisdictions have 113 delegates up for grabs. Albemarle’s 38 will be elected at 7:30pm in Monticello High, and Charlottesville’s 17 delegates will be elected at in the Buford Middle School cafeteria. Registration for wanna-be delegates starts at 6:30pm.

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It’s not everyday that a mime enters a newspaper office bearing gifts of balloons and a hoola hoop. But then again, it’s not every day that Cirque du Soleil announces it’s coming to the John Paul Jones Arena. The show is scheduled for August 1.
As anyone who’s seen Cirque du Soleil knows, (more)

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Here’s a shocking statistic for ya: according to a recent market analysis by the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors, 2,377 homes are for sale in their database…that’s more than double the homes for sale at the same time last year! Equally as shocking is the rise in the median price of a home: $285,000 in CAAR’s market area (Charlottesville, Albemarle County, Nelson, Greene, Fluvanna, and Louisa), up 27 percent from last year. In Albemarle County: $339,000, up 42 percent from last year.

Before you freak out, consider realtor and real estate blogger Jim Duncan’s calming analysis:

“We are seeing a shift in the market - that of properties returning to being considered homes and investments rather than strictly unending bank accounts. That’s a good thing.”

In other words, a return to reality.

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Tonight’s Jay Unger and Molly Mason show at the Prism Coffeehouse will be the last hurrah for the historic music hall, according to a lengthy unsigned open letter briefly posted on the Prism’s website on April 21. Although the news may come as a surprise to some, there was a clue that the end (more)

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Mere weeks after financial publications and data analysis firm SNL announced its purchase of a new property in Amhedabad, India and boasted of a near 100 percent increase in payscale for local employees over the past eight years, the company is on the block, according to a report in today’s online version of the U.K. newspaper, The Daily Telegraph. According to the article, SNL– founded by Reid Nagle in 1987– has tapped Bank of America to advise the company on (more)

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The indie-music site pitchforkmedia.com announced yesterday that alt-rock troubled genius Mark Linkous and his band, Sparklehorse, will release a new album this fall, the first since the band’s 2001 release, It’s a Wonderful Life.
Linkous, who was raised in Charlottesville and attended Albemarle High School, was the subject of the Hook’s February 27, 2002 cover story.
The recent pitchforkmedia.com article is quick to point out, however, (more)

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The man who shot Ingo, the police dog, is convicted April 20 and sentenced to 7 years for malicious wounding, and another 5 for felony possession of a gun, the Progress reports.

Robert Lee Cooke shot at Ingo– his defense claimed in self-defense– while fleeing a burglary in October 2004, paralyzing the canine cop, who was later put to sleep. Officer Andy Gluba shot Cooke twice, paralyzing him.

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…unless you have an iron gut and an ability to tune out the word “loogie” in a news report. But, yes, it’s true that a Fredericksburg-area teen has been charged for the #1 fear of fast-food customers: spitting in a the drink of a citizen who had made a complaint. According to the Fredericksburg Free Lance Star, 18-year-old Taco Bell employee Shaleesheya G. Ford, 18, of Stafford, is facing class 5 felony charges including adulteration of food and obstruction of justice.
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In an unrelated but also food-ish story, Charlottesville-area country club Farmington is rushing to investigate itself after at least 40 diners got sick after eating at the club’s Easter brunch buffet, according to a story in yesterday’s Daily Progress. Food-borne illness? Or just a case of finger-pointing country-clubbers?
The Progress points out that a virus rushing through families at Ivy’s Meriwether Lewis Elementary School took out a third of one fifth grade class for two days. Farmington has called in the health department to investigate itself.
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Last week’s Hook cover story on up-and-coming musician Robert Randolph touched off a major debate at the mecca of his instrument, The Steel Guitar Forum. There on that bulletin board, a debate raged over the story and comments Randolph made in it– i.e. “A lot of those guys in Nashville hate my guts.”
On day four of the debate, 82 posters had chimed in before the moderator restrained the wrangling. “I’m closing this,” he declared, “before someone gets hurt.”
It’s all still up there for your reading pleasure. As for your listening pleasure, there appear to be around 2,000 wildly gyrating humans down at the Charlottesville Pavilion hearing Robert Randolph & the Family Band playing (right now).
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The Albemarle school day is over, and despite massive absenteeism prompted by fears that unindicted co-conspirators of the four convicted teenagers would use April 20– the 7th anniversary of Columbine, Hitler’s birthday and the 17th birthday of the convicted Western Albemarle student– to wreak havoc, no bombs were reported going off, no guns were snuck in through metal-detectorless doors, and no student casualties were reported, although officials are braced for a rash of sunburn cases caused by today’s 85-degree temperatures that were ideal for hooking school.

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The free speech wall on the east end of the Downtown Mal was officially christened today. Although the slate wall was clean when the ceremony began, the crowd had covered it with comments shortly after celebrity presenters Mayor David Brown, John Grisham, Boyd Tinsley, George Garrett, and Dahlia Lithwick (Actor Morgan Freeman had also been invited, but he didn’t show) smashed the veritable champagne bottle with theirs. And what did the celebrity presenters have to say?

Grisham: “Is the war in Iraq worth all the oil we will never get?”
Brown: “Vote May 2 for Taliaferro and Norris”
Tinsley: “Remember the troops” (correction: 5:20pm. Thanks, Austin)
Garrett: “Better him than us”
Lithwick: “Close Guantanamo”

Year-later update: Janis Jaquith edits a video of the speeches. #

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