Softball mom and travel league coordinator Anne Powell is pleased at increase in field access for girls teams– but is she alone?
FILE PHOTO BY WILL WALKER

While softball-playing patrons of McIntire Park have hit a home run saving the park’s two historic fields, an ever-growing population of users have yet to score with the park’s survival. Area girls softball leagues have sought equal playing time and field access in the city and county for years– and despite making some waves, are still relegated to stand aside for the adult and boys baseball leagues.

“We have access to McIntire– sharing it with the travel teams– and the city and county gave us two nights at Darden,” Robert Collins, Albemarle Fastpitch Softball league director says. “But that doesn’t even come close to solving our rec league problems. I don’t have enough fields to accommodate everybody.”

For an increasingly popular girls sport, the minimal access to Darden and McIntire have served only to show the girls the quality they could be getting (more)

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Parents raised about $82,000 for the building and the dock behind it.
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

Rowers and parents of rowers at Western Albemarle High School cheered today as the only Central Virginia school with its own crew team unveiled its new boathouse on the shore at Beaver Creek Reservoir.

“You have to go pretty far to find a school in the mountains with a crew team,” says parent volunteer Kathleen Jump.

The new facility, dedicated Saturday, May 30, also includes a floating dock. That means that the student rowers will have a much easier time getting their craft into the water.

“We kept them in the woods on slings,” says graduating senior Ansley Luce. “And we’d have to wade them in– sometimes in 60-degree water.”

The new boathouse was dedicated in honor of Myriam Pitts, who coaches both the men’s and women’s teams at Western.

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Escorted by an Albemarle deputy, Roderick “Guam” McDowell, 25, leaves Circuit Court on Thursday, May 28, a day before a jury recommended a sentence of 60 years.
PHOTO BY GORDON BLOCK

After two-and-a-half hours of deliberation, a jury found 25-year-old Roderick “Guam” McDowell guilty of first-degree murder and robbery in the April 12, 2007 slaying of William Godsey, the husband of Wood Grill Buffet night manager Sandra Godsey.

The victim was beaten over the head with a baseball bat until it shattered, and died 12 days later. While the courtroom was pindrop quiet during most of the trial, emotions ran high once the jury reached its verdict.

“How could you?” implored Godsey through tears, sitting on the witness stand during sentencing, moments before rushing out of Albemarle Circuit Court.

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Elliott Casey hailed the guilty verdict as “an inspiring day to the citizens of Albemarle County.”

“This case,” said Casey, “is a credit to citizens coming forward and telling the truth.”

Casey was referring to the six witnesses he called who had all been imprisoned with McDowell in the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail, where they all said McDowell had told them of (more)

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Capturing the market: Peter Van der Linde’s recycling facility, which opened last December, is already handling over 250 tons of trash a day.
FILE PHOTO BY JEN FARIELLO

Recycling entrepreneur Peter Van der Linde, who opened an $11 million state-of-the-art recycling facility in Zion Crossroads last December, recently did a round of local radio interviews, drawing attention once again to his ongoing legal battle with the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority, which has filed a $3.5 million lawsuit against him.

“If this doesn’t bother you, nothing will,” declared former Republican City Councilor Rob Schilling on his WINA radio program, saying he was “disgusted” by the Authority’s action against Van der Linde. “It’s wrong in every single way.”

After having toured Van der Linde’s facility, Schilling told listeners (more)

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Already, Hulu offers several DMB offerings including a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the band’s seventh studio album, including commentary from bassist Stefan Lessard, shown here.
HULU.COM

Hulu.com, the upstart free tv and movie service, plans to stream its first live concert, and the chosen act is Charlottesville’s own Dave Matthews Band.

The New York Times tells the tale of the June 1 concert at New York’s Beacon Theater.

While Hulu is streaming, cable music channel Fuse will reportedly do likewise– commercial free.

The band lost saxophone player LeRoi Moore last year after an ATV accident, so the new album will be the last to carry his distinctive stylings. The album is set for a June 2 release.

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Escorted by an Albemarle deputy, Roderick “Guam” McDowell leaves Circuit Court on Thursday, May 28 to return to the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail after the second day of his murder trial.
PHOTO BY GORDON BLOCK

The trial of Roderick “Guam” McDowell on charges that he robbed the Wood Grill Buffet and murdered the husband of a night manager in the early morning hours of April 12, 2007 enters its third day this morning. This comes after a day in which the Commonwealth called no fewer than five of McDowell’s fellow inmates at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail to the witness stand, none of whom had first-hand knowledge of the events of April 12, but all of whom say McDowell told them of his involvement in the homicide.

One by one, men whose names the Commonwealth requested be kept out of media reports due to their status as informants who have allegedly already received death threats said McDowell’s loose lips were what put them on the stand.

One described a night in which he and McDowell got into an argument over who got to use the jailhouse phone when he said McDowell threatened, “Get off the phone, or I’ll hit you in the head like I did the man at the Wood Grill.”

Another said he was playing poker with McDowell in jail when McDowell told him that (more)

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The sign, which the Newsplex captured for a broadcast story, no longer flies at the Landmark site.
CHARLOTTESVILLENEWSPLEX.TV

A sign suggesting that building might soon resume at the dormant Landmark hotel site caught the attention of officials with Bovis Lend Lease, but the construction firm says it’s just a hoax, one that’s as big a mystery to Bovis as anyone else.

“We’re not involved in the project in any way,” says Bovis spokesperson Mark Roy from the the company’s Bethesda, Maryland office. He notes that the sign shows a longer corporate name that was abandoned in 1998– though he says he’s amused by the stir, including a May 26 story on Channel 19.

“Obviously, you guys want the job done,” says Roy. “We’d be happy to do it. Tell the owner to call us.”

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Roderick McDowell, 25, is a former employee at the Wood Grill Buffet, accused of murdering William Godsey, the husband of a night manager, on April 12, 2007.

“He just kept beating him, and beating him, and beating him,” she said through tears, “and I just kept yelling, ‘Stop! That’s my husband!’”

Such was the painful recollection of Sandra Godsey, in Albemarle Circuit Court yesterday— the only living witness to the brutal murder of her husband William, after they were both assaulted leaving the Wood Grill Buffet on 29 North, where Sandra was ending her shift as the night manager in the early morning hours of April 12, 2007.

Two years later, former Wood Grill employee Roderick McDowell stands trial for that crime in which two men wearing all black clothing, ski masks, and sunglasses jumped the couple at approximately 1:30am, when Sandra was leaving with just over $1,000 in proceeds from that night to be deposited in the bank.

“I just threw the money at the one guy and said, ‘Here, this is what you want!’” she recalled.

While the first man reportedly ran toward his car, the other man continued to bludgeon William Godsey over the head with a baseball bat. So forceful were the blows that the bat eventually broke as Sandra ran over to block the blows to her husband. After an attempt to (more)

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Mahmood Pasha’s floating signs originally cost him close to $200, but will now cost the store owner $3,200.
FILE PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

Mahmood Pasha fought the law, but the law won.  As a result, the former rug store owner will pay for the most expensive balloons of his life.

“I definitely always love to obey the law,” Pasha said.  Unless, of course, it’s what he terms “a stupid law.”

During a nearly two-hour trial May 27 in Albemarle General District Court, the owner of the now-closed Rug Depot was found to have violated zoning code and fined $3,200.

Community planner John Jones told the Court that the code prohibits “floating signs,” any sort of floating or tethered device that “brings attention to the business that it is associated with.”  For example, balloons tied to a sign outside a rug store.

Jones testified that he first spotted balloons outside Pasha’s store, which was then operating at 2165 Seminole Trail on October 28. Jones testified that he told Pasha that day he was in violation and sent a formal notice of violation three days later.  Despite the warnings, Jones testified, Rug Depot continued to utilize balloons until the (more)

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Sonia Sotomayor.
GOVERNMENT PHOTO

As President Barack Obama attempts to fill the vacancy on the US Supreme Court soon to be left by the departure of Justice David Souter, a pair of UVA law professors foresee little confirmation trouble for the self-proclaimed “kid from the Bronx,” Judge Sonia Sotomayor, whose nomination was made public Tuesday morning.

According to UVA-based Constitutional scholar A.E. Dick Howard, Judge Sotomayor’s “simply impeccable legal credentials” and “impressive track record” make her clearly qualified for the job and an obvious choice for President Obama.

Even beyond her qualifications, Howard says, may be her “life story,” which includes being of Puerto Rican descent and growing up in a housing project in the Bronx, raised by a single mother after her father died when she was young.

“Sotomayor’s own story is different from those who came up from a life of relative privilege,” says Howard, who notes that, if confirmed, Sotomayor will bring the “empathy” Obama sought (more)

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This new concrete speed bump at Second Street NW has been gouged from passing vehicles.
PHOTO BY COURTENEY STUART

No one questions whether drivers should go slowly as they cross the Downtown Mall. But the speed bumps installed earlier this month as part of the pedestrian area’s rebricking are doing more than just slowing drivers down– they may be damaging the vehicles that cross and are becoming damaged themselves in the process.

“Even when you drive forward slowly, you still drag,” says J.R. Graves, who delivers prescription drugs for CVS pharmacy and drives across the Mall several times a day in either his Toyota Corolla or a Chevy sedan.

Graves says he isn’t driving fast over the bumps, and indeed, on Wednesday afternoon, May 20, a Hook reporter on the Mall handing out free CDs heard dozens of cars scrape one of the raised concrete devices.

There is visible evidence of the dragging. Less than a month after installation, gouges and black marks mar the surface of the concrete bumps at both the Second Street NW and Fourth Street SE crossings.

“It’s two inches too high,” says Sam Rochester, chef at the Downtown Grille, who says (more)

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For the first time in 30 years, the Ash Lawn Opera Festival will be held indoors.
FILE PHOTO BY JEN FARIELLO

After 30 years under the stars at Ash Lawn-Highland, the Ash Lawn Opera Festival is finally moving inside. Today, the opera company announced that its 2009 summer productions of  Camelot and The Marriage of Figaro will be presented at the Paramount Theater beginning on July 3.

So will Ash Lawn Opera take root at the Paramount?

“We don’t know if it will be a permanent home,” says opera company director Judy Walker.

Last August, the company announced with great excitement that it was partnering with music mogul Coran Capshaw in the renovation of the Jefferson Theater, and embarking on a $4.5 million capital campaign to fund an orchestra pit, dressing rooms, and advanced acoustics (which included a silent-running HVAC system) for the building. But six months later (more)

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In its first week of sales, Parachute’s debut album Losing Sleep made it to #40 on the Billboard albums chart.
PUBLICITY PHOTO

After nearly a year of anticipation, the numbers are finally in, and a Charlottesville-based band’s debut album is officially a hit. Members of Parachute learned Thursday, May 21 that Losing Sleep entered at #40 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart.

“It’s way better than we had expected,” says frontman Will Anderson. “We had a day off, so we were all in different places when we found out, and we were texting each other like crazy.”

The news comes a week after the album got an early release on the iTunes Music Store, and quickly shot to #1 on the digital vendor’s charts. This was due in part to the strength of the band’s second single “Under Control,” which iTunes offered as a free download for the week.

According to Anderson, seeing his band’s name atop of the iTunes chart was a stunning moment.

“When we went #1 on iTunes,” says Anderson, “that was a (more)

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