In this week’s sit-in in U.S. Representative Virgil Goode’s Charlottesville office, three more Code Pinkers refused to leave until Goode signs a pledge that he won’t support any more funding for the war in Iraq. Yeah, like that’s going to happen… So promptly at 4:25 today, Charlottesville police arrested this week’s sacrificial, pink-clad lambs: Jennifer Connor (left), Mary Grace and Priscilla Sonne.

“Mama, hug me before you go to jail,” said stilt-wearing Jenneca Graber-Grace, 10. More than 30 people came to protest the war in Iraq– and provide street theater and coordinating pink banners.

Last Wednesday, three other Code Pinkers were arrested for refusing to leave Goode’s office. Susan Frankel-Strait, Shelly Stern and Jeff Winder head to Charlottesville General District Court at 9:30am Thursday.

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Remember the run across the Sahara? Well, it ended last week, Tuesday the 20th actually, and we finally caught up with one of the guys along for the ride, former Charlottesvillian J. Tayloe Emery who penned an account for the Hook’s December 21 edition.

“They finished in 111 days covering over 4,000 miles from Senegal to the Red Sea in Cairo,” Emery said earlier today. “This is the first time in modern times that the entire width of Sahara has been run– and possibly ever.”

The expedition was called, obviously enough, Running the Sahara; and the saga of the three runners will soon be a film documentary, thanks in part to at least three Charlottesvillians: Emery, musician Peter Griesar, and National Geographic reporter Donovan Webster.

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The Dilemma Zone, a new Prism schism, and Planned Parenthood fights back

ON THIS WEEK’S COVER: The Dilemma Zone… are ‘photo red’ cameras the answer? This year, the General Assembly passed a bill giving localities, like this one, the chance to nab red light-runners without a judge and jury. As usual, civil libertarians get critical, but guess what, so might some safety advocates.

ALSO IN THIS WEEK’S ISSUE: This mold house blooms again… Sort of. The once fungus filled house on Wayne Avenue– aka “this mold house”– escapes the auction block thanks to a lawsuit by one of its residents against the people who sold it to her family. Lisa Provence has the story of the woman suing– without a lawyer.

AND: A new Prism schism… The holders of the Prism Coffeehouse (more)

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Diane Rehm will visit Charlottesville for a fundraiser on April 4.

PHOTO COURTESY WVTF

Listen up! Charlottesville’s airwaves may soon get a big dose of local content with the arrival of a Charlottesville news bureau for Roanoke-based WVTF, which also operates the popular Radio IQ– Central Virginia’s radio home for BBC News and NPR talk shows like the Diane Rehm Show.

It’s not hard to understand why the stations would be inclined to set up shop here.
“Charlottesville ranks number one for listenership and financial support,” says Glenn Gleixner, general manager for both stations, which have already been broadcast in Charlottesville for years.

WVTF(88.5, 89.3) alone has a 7.1 share in the Charlottesville market compared to a 5.5 share in Roanoke says Gleixner. That’s not even counting Radio IQ (89.7, 91.5)
“This community has been giving back to us over the years,” he adds. “Right now, we can (more)

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At his February 23 show at John Paul Jones Arena, Billy Joel opened the evening with “Angry Young Man,” a song that contains the lyric, “I believe I’ve passed the age of consciousness and righteous rage.” Then, moments later, one of the best-selling recording artists of all time let his audience know that he was conscious of what a local paper had written about him, and that it had sent him into a bit of a rage.

In what was probably the oddest bit of locally-related stage banter at a Charlottesville concert since Mick Jagger gave a shout out to Midlothian, Joel took a moment to say that the Roanoke Times had written something that, “makes you want to, uh, bang your, uh, head.” Later on in the show, before he and his band launched into a rendition of the AC/DC song “Highway to Hell,” Joel made a point to say, “This one’s dedicated to the Roanoke Times.”

So what were the offending words that drew Joel’s ire? (more)

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Recently, the Virginia Generally Assembly passed legislation allowing the use of cameras to nab red-light runners, a technology for which both County and City officials have shown support. In the March 1 edition of the Hook, we examine the debate over the use of red-light cameras, and specifically the argument that intersections might be safer simply by increasing yellow-light times.

As officials point out, the intersection of 29 and Rio is one of the places where cameras might be installed. However, in a web-exclusive accompanying our cover story, this Hook video shows that the light at the intersection of 29 and Rio routinely turns yellow before the second car in line at the stoplight crosses the intersection. Around 9:10am on February 12, when a reporter visited, a car ran a red light on each of the five light changes we monitored. In one case, as the video shows, a school bus (more)

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Yes, it’s true…Lee Danielson is bringing his old hotel project back to the Mall. Only it won’t be called The Landmark, as it was after being re-approved at a February 20 BAR meeting. According to Danielson, the 9-story boutique-style hotel planned for the old Central Fidelity Bank/Boxer Learning building will now be called The Beacon-Charlottesville.

According to developer Oliver Kuttner, who is selling the building back to Danielson after buying it from him last year when the developer’s financing for the hotel project fell through, the name change may have something to do with a hotel that Danielson and his partners developed in South Beach, Florida–a 73-room Art Deco hotel called The Beacon, which was built in 1937 and elaborately renovated from 2004 to 2006. Check it out here.

As for Kuttner, it appears the iconoclastic developer has grown weary of the process of building in Charlottesville, saying there are are too many “variables” in seeing a building through to completion these days.

“I love that building,” says Kuttner, who rescued the old mural in the bank lobby and sought to preserve the building’s history. “And I thought Lee had done a lot of good groundwork. It’s a notch above anything else being built in Charlottesville.”

Indeed, browsing the website of The Beacon’s architect, San Francisco-based Mark Hornberger, it appears the building is in good hands. His firm, Hornberger-Worstell, has designed spas, hotels, resorts, academic buildings, and residences all around the world, including California’s historic Hotel del Coronado. Particularly striking is the 27-story W hotel in San Francisco’s arts and convention district, which has a fitness center and a glass-covered swimming pool, but features lobby and bathroom designs as intimate and dynamic as anything found in a high-end private home.

Read more about the project in the March 1 edition of the Hook.

PHOTO NOTE: This photo shows the Downtown Mall before it was pedestrian, and the Central Fidelity Bank building before it took over the original Woolworth’s building next door and added the black granite facade in 1965. Now it’s poised to become the ritzy Beacon-Charlottesville.

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At the Board of Architectural Review’s February 20 meeting, final plans were approved for renovations to McGuffey Park.

“That’s an interesting project,” says BAR vice-chair Syd Knight. “It’s going to be a park unlike anything Charlottesville has seen.”

Indeed, as reported by the Hook in November 2005, the park will be a kind of “living sculpture,” replete with design “footprints” of a Victorian mansion and kiddie equipment named “the Kuma,” “the Argo,” and “the Spica.”

Designed by free speech wall architects Pete O’Shea and Robert Winstead[error--sorry], the park project has a determined group of North Downtown residents, called Friends of McGuffey Park, who are continuing to raise money for their vision, which could cost as much as $750,000.

Of course, not everyone was happy about changing the old park last time we asked around. Longtime North Downtown resident Frances Walton, 62, thought there were “better uses for the money,” like undergrounding utilities, and believed the push for the park was “generational,” spear-headed as it is by North Downtown’s new crop of residents, many of them young moms.

North Downtown resident Steve Murphy worried about the additional traffic the park might generate and, like Walton, wondered if the money could be better spent. “Why not build a new fancy park for poor people?” he quipped.

PHOTO RIGHT: A photo illustration of the new park by architects O’Shea/Winstead[error--sorry], with children on Spicas

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“It lives,” laughs Charlottesville Board of Architectural Review vice-chair Syd Knight, recalling the previous plans for a two-story CVS building at the intersection of Ridge/McIntire and West Main, which the BAR did not respond well to. “…with a different developer and a different configuration.”

On November 28, the BAR voted to reject a proposed design for the pharmacy on the site of RSC Equipment Rental, a project that had the developer and BAR members at odds for months. At issue was a “false” second-story design, the use of vinyl trim and columns, and the general appropriateness of the design.

“It was like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole,” said Knight at the time. “All the things about the building were not suited to the site.”

“The BAR down there doesn’t understand economics,” groused Richmond-based developer Rob Hargett, who admitted he’d grown impatient and angry with the BAR’s insistence that he follow their guidelines.

The new project, although spearheaded by a less contentious Richmond-based developer named Bob Englander, seems to have grown more ambitious.

At a February 20 BAR meeting, Knight says Englander talked about plans to build a 9-story mixed-use edifice on the site instead of the original three-story building.

“They’re trying to completely rethink the project, and do it right this time,” says Knight.

PHOTO RIGHT: This was the two-story plan for a CVS that the BAR rejected.

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The auction of the “mold house” at the courthouse today at 5pm has been canceled. The company in charge of auctioning the troubled dwelling declined to say why it had been canceled.

The house has been at the center of a spore war, in which the owners alleged in a 2005 Hook cover story that the previous owner, Steve Dudley, as well as the Real Estate III agent who sold the house, Sirlei Kaiser-Ramirez, among others, failed to disclose the presence of mold that would make the family sick.

Some of the parties to the transaction, including a home inspector, allege that they did properly disclose the potential mold problem.

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The controversy over Wintergreen Resort’s decision to partner with a big Charlottesville-based real estate firm has erupted into a federal lawsuit, according to a story in this morning’s Daily Progress.

Mountain Area Realty, which purportedly holds a 30 percent share of the market for properties at the Nelson County mountain playground, is claiming in the suit that the new partnership between Wintergreen and Roy Wheeler Realty Co. could monopolize the market.

The issue first came to light in September with a Hook story by Courteney Stuart.

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Two years ago, Larry Butler and Judit Szaloki had just purchased their first house after saving for years to enter the expensive Charlottesville housing market. At 5pm Friday, what was once their dream house will be auctioned off at the Charlottesville Circuit Court, and the family of six will continue the downwardly mobile slide that began when they set foot in the mold-infested nightmare at 2207 Wayne Avenue.

“We knew it was coming,” says Butler, who hopes that whoever buys it will rent it back to them for a couple of weeks.

Butler and Szaloki contracted to pay $246,000 for the 2,200-square-foot brick rancher off Angus Road that seemed perfect for their four kids and for Szaloki’s day care center, which had been a prime source of income for the family. Two days after they closed on the house (more)

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With the traditional spring primary season only a few months away, three-term State Senator Emmett Hanger (R-Mount Solon) is facing a challenge in his reelection bid for the Republican nomination from Buena Vista businessman Scott Sayre. Recently, GOP chairs in Albemarle, Rockbridge, and Staunton have publicly expressed their displeasure with Hanger, according to the News Virginian, saying he has “strayed” from conservative principles on taxation.

But Hanger, undaunted, tells the Hook he stands by his position on tax reform. “If you’re going to take the sales tax off food, eliminate the estate tax, and loosen the burden on local real estate, you have to make up that revenue somewhere,” he says. “My opinion has been that (more)

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The long-running race for the Albemarle circuit judge seat is over, and former prosecutor Cheryl Higgins has been chosen, according to Delegate Rob Bell’s office. That’s bad news for Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos who had advanced, over the non-endorsement of the local bar, to Richmond interviews. Higgins, now in private practice, becomes the first woman to sit on the bench in the 16th Judicial Circuit.

Even two days ago, it was unclear that the 12 legislators from the 16th district would be able to get their act together to choose a judge before the General Assembly adjourns. Higgins, Camblos, and Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Claude Worrell were invited to Richmond Tuesday for a perfunctory qualification before the Courts of Justice committee.

Bell will release a statement confirming Higgins’ appointment later today.

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A rush-hour pedestrian accident in midtown sent a man to the hospital this morning. The incident appears to have occurred around 8am when a bronze Chevy Tahoe struck the man as the eastbound vehicle was making a right turn from University Avenue to Jefferson Park Avenue.

At the intersection, officer G.A. Ames directed traffic around the accident. The victim, braced with orange supports around his head, appeared to be answering questions posed by members of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Rescue Squad and was transported at 8:15am.

The driver of the vehicle, a college-age woman, did not appear to be injured. After conferring with a police officer, she drove the vehicle, which bore New Jersey license plates, away from the scene.

At the time of the incident, direct low-level sunlight was beaming directly toward the driver, while the crosswalk on JPA was shrouded in shadow. Police have not released any information about the accident, including the severity of the victim’s injuries, whether the victim was in the crosswalk, or whether charges will be filed against the driver.

Update: Because a preliminary police investigation indicates the that the victim, 23-year-old Ethan Gruber, was in the crosswalk at the time of the accident, a failure to yield charge will be levied against the driver, UVA student Amanda Bagwill, says Charlottesville Police Sergeant Richard Hudson.

“I would just caution all drivers in the crowded parts of the city to be conscious of pedestrians in the crosswalk,” said Hudson, who indicated that as of this morning Bagwill, 21, had not yet been served with the summons.

The victim works for the UVA library system as a digital image specialist, according to virginia.edu, and according to UVA Hospital he is no longer a patient. Neither he nor Bagwill immediately responded to emailed inquiries. –update posted 1:25pm 2/27/07

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Three Iraq war protesters took seats on a sofa in Congressman Virgil Goode’s Charlottesville office and refused to leave when the office closed at 4:30 today. Arrested, presumably for trespassing, are, left to right, Jeff Winder, Sue Frankel-Streit and Shelly Stern, some of whom are “Code Pinkers.” Another dozen or so protesters milled around outside Goode’s office across from Gravity Lounge.

The war objectors requested that Goode sign a pledge to vote against President Bush’s request for another $93 billion to fund war efforts.

Esther Page, who runs Goode’s Charlottesville office, has seen occupations before, such as in 2003 when protesters refused to leave shortly after the war began. Today, Page closed the office and left promptly at 4:30.

“We plan to do this again,” promised organizer Jennifer Connor.

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Do we desire a streetcar, Snow job, Why was Camblos mad, and Publicist charged

FROM THE NEWSROOM OF THE HOOK NEWSPAPER ON THE DOWNTOWN MALL IN CHARLOTTESVILLE VIRGINIA, THIS IS THE HOOKCAST FOR THE WEEK OF… Thursday, February 22, 2007. ON THIS WEEK’S COVER:

Do we desire a streetcar… Is Charlottesville ready to rip up its streets and lay track and overhead wires and spend about $10 million to $15 million per mile? Read the story by Randy Salzman, and find out.

ALSO IN THIS WEEK’S ISSUE: Snow job: making the decision to close schools… How in the world did it ever come to pass that Charlottesville would take a more cautious approach than Albemarle. Yes, we’re talking about Friday the 16th, the date when Charlottesville public schools opened two hours late while Albemarle, a county three-quarters the size of Rhoad Island, was open for learning as usual. Why was Jim Camblos mad… He wants to be the circuit (more)

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The Courts of Justice committees in the House and Senate interviewed three candidates for Albemarle Circuit Court judge yesterday: Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos, former prosecutor Cheryl Higgins, and Assistant CA Claude Worrell. The invites to Richmond did not include the recommendation of the Charlottesville Albemarle Bar and the Madison Greene Bar associations, Charlottesville General District Court Judge Bob Downer. The local Bar also deemed Higgins “highly qualified.”

The Goochland resident who came from nowhere to toss his name into the hat to replace Judge Paul Peatross– Rich Savage– just as unexpectedly withdrew Tuesday, Bob Gibson reports in the Daily Progress.

According to Gibson, legislators don’t have a clue who the next Albemarle judge will be. Delegates in the 16th Circuit mostly favor Higgins while senators lean toward Camblos. Worrell could be the deadlock-breaking candidate if legislators can’t agree, reports Gibson. Worrell would be the circuit’s first black judge, Higgins would the the 16th Circuit’s first female judge, and Camblos would continue the long tradition of white male judges.

The Republican caucuses in the Republican-majority General Assembly are expected to defer to the choice of the 12 legislators in the 16th Circuit, says Gibson, but our local reps have no meeting planned in the three days before the session adjourns February 24, possibly throwing the selection choice into Governor Tim Kaine’s court.

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In Saturday’s paper, Daily Progress reporter Bob Gibson reveals the emergence of an eighth candidate in the running to replace Judge Paul Peatross on the Albemarle Circuit Court bench.

A legislative source declined to identify the secret candidate, Gibson reports, other than to say the wannabe judge is a lawyer who practices in Richmond and lives in Goochland County.

But the candidate is Rich Savage, who used to be with the Attorney General’s office and served on the State Crime Commission, according to State Senator Creigh Deeds.

As for Savage’s late-in-the-game entrance as a contender, “It happens all the time,” Deeds says. “It happens frequently when the parties don’t agree.”

The seven local lawyers who announced their interest in the seat vacated by Peatross January 31 appeared before a Charlottesville Albemarle Bar Association public forum December 14. The bar recommended Charlottesville General District Court Judge Bob Downer and former prosecutor Cheryl Higgins as extremely qualified for the bench. The Madison/Greene bar named Downer as its pick.

Delegate Rob Bell formed a citizens’ advisory committee which also hosted a public forum, but Bell declines to say which candidate the committee recommended.

According to Deeds, four candidates have been invited to talk to the Courts of Justice committee in Richmond Tuesday afternoon: Albemarle Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos and Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Claude Worrell in addition to Higgins and Savage.

Deeds refuses to name a favorite. “I support the Bar-endorsed candidates,” he says. “The Republican caucus will choose this judge.”

And if the legislators haven’t agreed upon a judge by February 24, Governor Tim Kaine makes the call.

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The folks at the Virginia Festival of the Book and their leader, Rob Vaughan, left, remind us Charlottesville’s grandest literary event is just around the corner. The March 21-25 fest will teem with hundreds of writers, and all but four events are free.

Forget about Doug Marlette, host of the opening lunch, and the Crime Wave lunch with Lee Child– those sold out long ago. But you can still schmooze with festival favorites Lee Smith, Hal Crowther, and Waltons creator Earl Hamner, who are hosting the March 24 Authors’ Reception at Carr’s Hill. Tickets are $25. And the March 21 Business Breakfast with minor-league baseball team owner/author Michael Veeck also has $25 tickets available.

You can see journalism legend Helen Thomas for free; she’ll be taking questions March 25. Hamner has a panel March 24 where he’ll be discussing his newest book, Generous Women: An Appreciation, with Hook favorite Donna “Archie and Amelie” Lucey. And March 24, Sesame Street’s Maria– Sonia Manzano– has two events.

Lots of locals are taking part in this year’s festival: Stefan Bechtel, who chronicled Hurricane Camille in Roar of the Heavens, Jim Tucker, who’s continuing the work of recently deceased past-life expert Ian Stevenson, former Albemarle magazine editor Martha Woodroof, now a WMRA reporter who’s written How to Stop Screwing Up: Twelve Steps to a Real Life and a Pretty Good Time, and Caroline Preston, author of Gatsby’s Girl, are just the tip of the literary iceberg.

Preston will open the festival at noon March 21, when the winners of the Hook short story contest chosen by judge John Grisham will be revealed.

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Sarah Crawford’s murder adjudicated, Sheriff Robb retires, Dreaming Isabelle wins, Robinsons go Supreme

ON THIS WEEK’S COVER: Charlottesville hands down a verdict in its first capital case in a decade. Sarah Crawford had shed 150 pounds and the man who’d terrorized her. But he found her. Now, he’s facing two life terms for rape and murder plus 67 years for the other charges. Courteney Stuart tells the story of a woman killed, just when she was seeking her freedom from her husband, Anthony Dale Crawford.

ALSO IN THIS WEEK’S ISSUE: Sheriff Robb retires Former FBI agent, and state senator Ed Robb will soon also be former Sheriff Ed Robb. One day later after that announcement, Charlottesville Police Captain Chip Harding, who spends much of his free time (more)

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Lassie isn’t the only dog that comes to the rescue. Charlottesville’s own Freckles received the Animal Hero Award award from the Virginia Veterinary Medical Association at an annual banquet in Roanoke on Saturday.

As the Hook first reported in July, Freckles came to the rescue of her neighbor, Charles Hitt, 91, who was mowing the grass when he was thrown from his tractor and trapped under a fence.

“Many times we hear of dogs saving their owner, but this was not her owner; it was her neighbor,” says banquet chair Dr. Steve Karras. “In today’s world, we can all (more)

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Cupid wing-clad Code Pinkers brought Fair Trade chocolate chip, heart-shaped scones to U.S. Representative Virgil Goode at his First Street Charlottesville office, which was last in the news when someone painted “bigot” on the window over the holidays.

The seven Code Pinkers– two more arrived late, showing why it’s always important to be on time when sending a symbolic message– taped “Be Sweet and Stop Funding the Iraq War” to his window, read a manifesto urging him to get out of the war in Iraq, and then “symbolically” ate the scones they’d brought for Goode because the office was closed.

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Three-term Republican State Senator Emmett Hanger is facing a challenger from his own party, Buena Vista businessman Scott Sayre.

Sayre plans to announce his candidacy February 19 for the 24th District, which stretches from Rockingham to Rockbridge counties, covers all of Augusta, Greene and Highland, and includes a snippet of Albemarle.

District Republican Party chairs claim that Hanger “has lost touch with his constituents,” according to the News Virginian. Albemarle Republican chair Keith Drake notes that Hanger is not involved in the county’s Republican events.

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Nearly a year after one UVA alum said goodbye to the window at Rockefeller Center to take a more prestigious post in the news biz, another will come to begin his career anew. Yesterday, NBC announced that starting in April, Cavalier gridiron great Tiki Barber will become the latest member of the Today show’s on-air team. But don’t think he’ll just be the sports guy. The recently-retired New York Giant said in a press conference yesterday he will act as a “correspondent” reporting on everything from “technology to education to parenting.” “My dream has always been to be on the Today show,” he said, and called ten-year veteran of Today Matt Lauer his “idol.”

Barber’s move from the locker room to morning show desk is not (more)

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