Perhaps it’s only appropriate that the same week Bob Dylan released his first album in five years, “a hard rain’s a-gonna fall” on the east coast. As Tropical Depression Ernesto bears down on Florida, Albemarle County officials are advising residents to brace for a rainstorm the likes of which haven’t been seen in some time.

Says County spokesperson Lee Catlin in a press release, “The greatest amount of rainfall will occur from Friday morning through Friday evening with tapering off Saturday morning. At this time, we are expecting 5-10 inches of rain.”

In addition to the potential for flooding, Catlin advises that those in Central Virginia should also be wary of tornadoes. “The greatest opportunity for a tornado will be Friday morning through Friday evening. At this time, Tropical Storm Ernesto is not predicted to stall over our area, but is predicted to pass directly over the Charlottesville/ Albemarle area,” she says.

The Weather Channel’s forecast for Friday indicates that as Ernesto makes its way up the east coast, Charlottesville will be directly in the storm’s path. In fact, the satellite map indicates that in a storm that should stretch from Chicago to Savannah, Central Virginia will get the heaviest rainfall.

Update, 9:47pm: In a release sent earlier this evening, City spokesperson Ric Barrick ups the rain ante. Quoting the National Weather Service, Barrick says that over 10 inches of rain could fall through Friday with some places getting 12 inches.

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George and Kathy Seymour leave Albemarle District Court on August 22.

PHOTO BY WILLIAM WALKER

She was just one family’s pet, but the death of Carmen the cat may soon have an impact on every resident of Albemarle County.

On September 6, County attorney Larry Davis will present to the Board of Supervisors a draft ordinance that, if passed, will strengthen the county’s laws on discharging firearms by creating “safety zones” around homes and other buildings. The move comes, Davis says, after prompting from Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos in the wake of Carmen’s April shooting in the posh Bentivar subdivision.

“When we were dealing with the cat killing case, and we went to try to get a warrant for discharging in a subdivision, we found that Bentivar and many others in the county were exempt,” says Camblos. “We thought that was absolutely wrong.”

While County code has long outlawed shooting in residential neighborhoods, many Albemarle subdivisions have been built in areas zoned rural, where shooting guns is permitted.
Bullets can easily travel between yards, and County Supervisor Chair Dennis Rooker says he fears for the safety of people in such neighborhoods.

“Camblos remarked to me that he was surprised to find there was no ordinance to prohibit shooting guns,” says Rooker. “That motivated me to want to get something done in this area. For the protection of residents in the county, we need to do something that’s reasonably restrictive.”

As the Hook reported in its May 18 cover story, “Claws and effect: Bentivar shooting sparks outrage,” Carmen was a three-year-old black cat who belonged to Klaus and Vanessa Wintersteiger and their two children. On the night of April 24, the family discovered her in the garage bleeding from bullet holes in her neck and front leg. They took Carmen to the emergency veterinary clinic, but learned that extensive surgery to amputate her leg and shoulder had an uncertain outcome, and they decided to euthanize her.

The next day, the Wintersteigers contacted the police, who, by that afternoon, arrested the Wintersteigers’ neighbor, businessman George Seymour, owner of the Import Car Store on Hydraulic Road and Emmet Street.

The case riled the community, pitting animal activists against those who believe the rights of property owners are trampled by free-roaming cats. Though Seymour admitted he’d shot the cat, he claimed it was in response to cats scratching the paint on expensive cars parked in his driveway.

When Seymour’s wife, Kathy, testified that cats regularly scratched the car paint, often costing the couple from $600 to $1,600 per car, titters erupted in the courtroom. One paint professional says cats can inflict damage, but he disputes that figure as the cost of repairs.

“I’ve never had to repaint from a cat scratch,” says Rick Lasocki, owner of Paint Perfections Unlimited. Cats, says Lasocki, “don’t have enough weight behind them to physically scrape all the way through the paint.”

Though he regularly sees “light little scratches,” Lasocki says the majority of the fixes require “five minutes of wet sanding and buffing.” The average cost: “about $60,” he says.

For Seymour, who was convicted of misdemeanor animal cruelty in Albemarle District Court on August 22, the cost of defending his paint proved much higher. He’ll spend 10 days behind bars and perform community service.

“I’d like to see the gun law change,” says Susanne Kogut, executive director of the Charlottesville Albemarle SPCA.

Not everyone is enthusiastic about the prospect of losing the right to shoot in the ‘hood, however. “It makes sense to some degree, but most people who have purchased property in the county enjoy that privilege,” says Vicki Hale, co-owner of Woodbrook Sporting Goods, “so I’m sure there will be some opposition.”

Camblos knows he’ll take some heat, but he says it’s worth it.

“I own guns, and I believe in a person’s right to own and use a gun,” he says. “But given the population of the county and the number of subdivisions that we have, shooting guns in one of those subdivisions should not be allowed.”

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In a somewhat confusing set of moves, Albemarle Circuit Judge Paul Peatross has opened a portion of the court file of the 15-year-old student charged in the school bombing case, this morning’s Daily Progress reports. It seems the Progress had much better success at prying open a portion of the so-called bomb plot case than did the Hook, whose editor/publisher won a hearing but no real access back in June.

According to the DP story, Peatross is releasing details from a plea hearing which suggest that the 15-year-old (now 16) Albemarle High School student (now out of school and jail) offered an Alford plea to a pair of lesser charges than the original double felony whammy of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to blow up a schoolhouse. The report suggests that good behavior might wipe his slate clean by age 18. (Bizarrely, the Daily Progress continues to report his name as if he were an adult.)

In contrast to his unsealing move on the plea, the judge in July ordered that the bulk of the file remain sealed and forbade the kid, his parents, prosecutors, and others from talking about the case, according to the Progress.

County prosecutor Jim Camblos must be pleased with that last development, as he had claimed that a “court order” barred discussion back in April when no such order existed. Three months later, the Hitler-birthdate-wary prosecutor now has one!

In August, one member of the alleged bomb plot won a non-guilty verdict from a 12-member jury in Circuit Court. Now, his family is considering a lawsuit over the prosecution.

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The fence that had long separated the 10th and Page and Venable neighborhoods was symbolically and practically cut open on Monday, August 28 in a ceremony at the new Hope Community Center on 11th Street NW.

The fence, which symbolized the city�s history of strained race relations, had forced school children from the largely African-American 10th and Page neighborhood to walk the six blocks around or scale the fence to get to Venable Elementary School�s playing fields. Meanwhile, no such barrier existed for children entering from the more affluent, largely white Venable neighborhood side of the school.

It�s important to remember that Charlottesville chose to close Venable rather than integrate after the Supreme Court’s 1954 historic decision in Brown v. Board of Education. And when a U.S. District court judged ruled in 1956 that Venable had to integrate, the city appealed the decision. It wasn�t until 1959, five years after Brown, that Charlottesville began to integrate its public schools by allowing three African American boys to enter Lane High School.

While the Hope Community Center should be commended for opening the fence, some might wonder why it took so long.

The Community Center, which is scheduled to open in about six weeks, will have a computer lab, offer drug and financial counseling, tutoring, special classes, and serve as a general meeting place for the community. There will also be room for a police substation.

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Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos, on WINA this morning to discuss the alleged bomber case, revealed a key factor in the decision to quickly arrest three youths suspected of conspiring to blow up high schools: “The ringleader was born on Hitler’s 100th anniversary of his birthday”– and the anniversary of Columbine.

The Third Reich founder became a more significant player in this local drama when Camblos mentioned again about the 17-year-old former Western Albemarle student, “Remember, he was born on Hitler’s birthday.”

The Hook discovered that Academy Award-winning actress Jessica Lange also shares that April 20 birthday with Hitler. She lived in Scottsville for over a decade, but was never implicated in a conspiracy to blow up anything.

Camblos defended the quick arrests of three teens: “This was a conspiracy caught in its very early stages.” As for gathering more evidence, for instance having police wiretap the suspects before making arrests, “That’s absurd,” Camblos objected. “The police didn’t want to miss someone who said, ‘I’m going to go down in flames for my compatriots.’”

Albemarle’s top prosecutor seemed chafed that someone on a radio show call-in show had said that everyone in the juvenile court is presumed guilty, and that Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Darby Lowe, who’s prosecuted the alleged conspiracy cases, has taken some heat. “Darby’s a very, very good prosecutor,” said her boss.

Saturday 8/26 update: Local �ber-blogger (oops– did we just use a German word?) Waldo Jaquith has a little fun with Camblos’ own birthday and concludes, with an astrologer’s help, that if the birthdate fits, you must convict!

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The chief of the Rivanna Water and Sewer authority told reporters yesterday that water use is spiking amid low rainfall conditions and that residents should voluntarily conserve or soon face the possibility of mandatory restrictions a la the summer of 2002.

RWSA Executive Director Tom Frederick, who has long warned that 2006 is droughty, says he’d like to see the daily water use fall to about 12.5 million gallons. That isn’t happening, however. He told WINA and the television newsplex that we set a dubious record on Wednesday: 14.1 million gallons used.

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