The red lights on Rio Road Westbound will not be monitored by cameras.
PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR

As recently reported, while weather and utility work delayed the installation of red-light cameras at the intersection of Rio Road and 29 North, Albemarle County’s high-tech attempt to curb red-light running will finally commence on Friday, November 12. There will be a 30-day grace period, during which violations will only be observed, but after that County police will start mailing out $50 tickets based on photographic and video evidence the cameras capture.

However, there’s one important detail that hasn’t been reported: the cameras won’t be monitoring the entire intersection. Say what?

According to a joint County/VDOT engineering safety analysis on the intersection, three cameras will monitor only two approaches: the through lanes of 29 Southbound and the two left-hand turn lanes, and the through lanes of Rio Road Eastbound and the left and right turned turn lanes.

“We are obviously hoping for a ‘halo effect’ that will impact driver behavior at all approaches to the intersection,” says county spokesperson Lee Catlin.

According to County police Lt. Ernie Allen, the camera systems can only be installed (more)

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Emmett Boaz worked as a gunsmith, and was a competitive pistol shooter for about 10 years.
FILE PHOTO BY JEN FARIELLO

Ask people how they want to die, and the two most common answers will be in their sleep or doing something they love. Renaissance man and longtime disc jockey Emmett Boaz, 63, has gone the second way— at the soundboard of radio station WTJU. He had a heart attack shortly after beginning his 6:30am show on Saturday, November 6.

Although best known for his traditional music show, “Leftover Biscuits,” which he hosted since 1996, the endeavor just skimmed the surface of Boaz’s range of knowledge and skills. In 2003, the Hook ran an issue in which Boaz was quoted in almost every story, with Boazian observations on topics as diverse as development, music, and colonics.

Born in 1947, the Covesville-raised Boaz grew up on his family’s apple orchard, and he received a degree in English literature from Marshall University in West Virginia.

He was drafted and served in the Army in Vietnam during that war. Later, he put his James Madison University master’s degree into a teaching career, but, as he told the Hook in 2003, “If I’d stayed teaching junior high, I’d have killed somebody.”

Boaz— who seemed to love Elizabethan drama and guns with equal passion— was also well-known for the 15 years he spent as the manager of the 7-Eleven store at Woodbrook Drive, where he described his duties mostly as “throwing drunks out of the place.”

What struck many of his colleagues at WTJU was the depth of his knowledge of traditional music, which encompasses old time, early country, bluegrass, and roots-era music.

“It was his voice that drew me in,” says Leftover Biscuits co-host Peter Jones. “Emmett had a deep, Southern accent that would bring you in. He told stories from his childhood, and memories associated with a song.

“He downplayed his knowledge,” continues Jones. “He even played up his Southern corn pone.”

“Don’t let my father’s accent fool you,” says Emmett Boaz IV, who’s here from Fairbanks, Alaska. “He didn’t need (more)

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Hook cover image.

Since their daughter’s mysterious death on a winding country road, the parents of Justine Swartz Abshire have made no secret about who they believe is responsible. But four years after the lifeless body of the 27-year-old school-teacher was discovered following what was initially reported as a hit-and-run accident, there’s been no arrest in the case.

That hasn’t stopped the woman’s parents from suggesting she was more likely beaten to death than hit by a car— and filing a $5 million civil suit alleging not only that Justine’s husband Eric Abshire is a killer but that he didn’t act alone.

While Abshire has long maintained his innocence and vowed to help catch his wife’s killer or killers, a bankruptcy filing shows that contrary to previous public statements that he wouldn’t attempt to financially benefit from his wife’s death, Eric Abshire did, in fact, go after some of the estimated $1.3 million in insurance money.

“His version of events is implausible,” says Justine’s father Steve Swartz, vowing to avenge his daughter’s death through any legal means available.

“The battle lines are drawn,” says Swartz.

Multiple conspirators

If Eric Abshire has long been the focus of the police investigation— and the Swartzes suspicion—the recent lawsuit offers some further insight into what Steve and Heidi Swartz believe actually happened to their daughter. In the suit, they accuse not only Eric, but also his brother, Jesse Abshire, the mother of two of Eric’s children, his cousin, and six unnamed co-conspirators.

The four individuals named “remain at the center” of a criminal investigation, the suit alleges, because they conspired with the unnamed individuals that caused the death of Justine Abshire via “unlawful actions.”

What were those unlawful actions? The suit doesn’t say, and while Eric Abshire, who appears to be representing himself, has not returned a reporter’s repeated calls for comment for this story, he has denied culpability in the past, and the attorney for brother Jesse Abshire calls the suit “without merit.”

“There are no allegations whatsoever,” says Jesse Abshire’s attorney, Lloyd Snook, essentially accusing the Swartzes of a fishing expedition.

“They filed the suit hoping that something might come out that they might be able to base their suit on,” says Snook.

But according to legal analyst David Heilberg, such vagueness is typical in the early stages of a civil action. He says plaintiffs typically “hold their cards close” early in the litigation process to avoid giving defendants a chance to craft a defense prior to depositions, in which they give sworn statements.

Eric Abshire, in white sweater, and his brother Jesse Abshire, to his left, are both targeted in the wrongful death suit.
FILE PHOTO BY JAY KUHLMANN

Indeed, on their lawyer’s advice, the Swartzes decline to share all their reasons for targeting as many as nine people in addition to the supposedly grieving widower. With painful clarity, however, they do share recollections of the days surrounding daughter’s death.

Devastation
It was the telephone call that every parent dreads. At 3am on the morning of November 3, 2006, the Swartzes were awakened at home in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Their elder daughter, a kindergarten teacher at Culpeper’s Emerald Hill Elementary School who was working toward her master’s degree at UVA, was dead, the caller told them, hit by a car sometime after midnight. (more)

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The Forest Lakes Arby’s sign gets replaced with an American Flag.
PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR

Forest Lakes Arby’s owner Tom Slonaker has never been shy about promoting his business while expressing his libertarian beliefs, a tendency that’s got him in some hot water with County officials over the years, and those beliefs appear to have helped create a new restaurant concept.

Slonaker has repeatedly defied a County zoning ordinance prohibiting commercial flags (an ordinance that has been in place since 1969) by hoisting an Arby’s flag in front of his restaurant, along with signs for another business he owns. In 2003, Slonaker even hosted a “rally around the flag” event by handing out little Arby’s flags for people to put on their cars, and portraying the situation as a property rights issue.

Later, he claimed the sign ordinance was enforced unevenly against businesses along 29 North, and he filed a civil suit against the county with the help of the Rutherford Institute, which argued that Slonaker’s First Amendment rights were being trampled on.

Last year, however, a judge ruled that Slonaker had violated the sign ordinance and slapped him with $1,000 fines for several violations.

Meanwhile, Slonaker has also been having issues with Arby’s corporate rules, which have not allowed him to (more)

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ATF Agent John Stoltz (left) claims he’s being stalked.
PHOTO FROM I HEARTE JADE WEBSITE

Let’s say you’ve just had federal agents come by your house. For many, the last thing thing they’d do next is swing by another agent’s house and take photos. Yet authorities say that’s what Elisha Strom did.

Police portray the red-tressed 35-year-old as an unrepentant stalker who terrorizes men in blue with online musings and photos on her blog. But to Strom, the most recent escapade— for allegedly stalking an agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms— it’s just another bogus charge intended to get her to take down the site, I HeArTE JADE.

The most recent contretemps arose in August when Strom was arrested for allegedly stalking ATF Agent John Stoltz. In his August complaint, Stoltz accuses Strom of stalking him from February 2008 to August 17, 2010. He notes that her website includes photos of him, his car, his license place, and his residence to bolster his allegation.

“Due to Strom’s postings, I fear she or someone viewing the website will locate and kill or harm me and/or my family,” writes Stoltz.

Strom claims she hasn’t seen Agent Stoltz since July 2009, but she readily concedes that she (more)

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Stanley Nelson discusses his documentary after the screening of Freedom Riders.
PHOTO BY DEBRA COHEN

At 10am on Saturday, with a day of screenings left to go, the Virginia Film Festival broke its all-time box office record, Festival director Jody Kielbasa announced before The Last Picture Show.

Bigger and better was the unofficial theme at this year’s fest, Kielbasa’s second but the first on which he really could impose his vision. (Last year, he inherited the “Funny Business” theme, a festival tradition that had pretty much run its course, and which he immediately ditched.)

Attendance jumped 25 percent over last year to 23,750, as did ticket sales, ringing up at $90,158.

Kielbasa also unveiled a new logo that says both Virginia and Blue Ridge Mountains, although one wiseacre we know sees a bondage theme in the celluloid wrapped around the state.

And Kielbasa did make us suffer, with more movies— 132— than ever before, making it even harder to choose what films to cram into the November 4-7 fest.

Innovations we liked a lot: The emphasis on contemporary foreign films and the “Six from ‘60,” a way to screen classic movies from 50 years ago. We’re hoping next year has “Six from ‘61.”

Adding a box office at the Main Street Arena on the Downtown Mall made it really convenient for us at the Hook a block away.

And Culbreth Theatre used to be a wasteland for food options. This year, the upgraded Fine Arts Café made it possible for famished filmgoers to find the sustenance to carry on.

Attracting star power has always been one of the toughest lots of (more)

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Schenk’s Branch fed into a gold fish pond on the Rock Hill property before the 250 By-pass cut through.
PHOTO COURTESY DANIEL BLUESTONE

As platoons of volunteers uncover the old bones of the Rock Hill gardens, the historic Park Street estate that’s now the overgrown back yard of the Monticello Area Community Action Agency (MACAA), also unearthed has been the property’s complex history as a genteel country estate, a unique experiment in landscape design, a segregation era school, and a victim of growth.

The restoration effort has been largely organized by former City Council candidate Bob Fenwick, who, along with other preservation-mined folks, wanted to draw attention to the property so that the City and the FHWA, the Federal Highway Administration, follow through on an agreement, according to a May 2010 memorandum, to restore the garden and add it to the park system as part of the new 250 interchange project.

The Rock Hill property in the late 1950s.
PHOTO COURTESY DANIEL BLUESTONE

“It’s important as the home of the violin playing brother of Jefferson’s master builder, James Dinsmore’s, and as (more)

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Tom Perriello concedes to boisterous supporters.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

In one of the most closely watched congressional races, Democrat Tom Perriello conceded defeat to Republican challenger state Senator Robert Hurt shortly after 9pm on November 2.

“It’s been my honor to serve the people of the 5th District,” said Perriello to a packed room of the party faithful at Siips. “I’ve given it everything I’ve got.”

Freshman incumbent Perriello trailed Hurt throughout the race, and despite poll numbers putting him within the margin of error, Hurt showed a healthy lead of 10 percent as soon as returns started coming in.

Once all the ballots were counted, (more)

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Laura Mulligan Thomas.
FILE PHOTO BY JEN FARIELLO

The director of the Charlottesville High School Orchestra, a group whose students have been launched into Taylor Swift’s and other internationally acclaimed bands, will find herself performing cello onstage with a popular singer-songwriter headlining a show at Old Cabell Hall: A Fine Frenzy.

“I’m so excited,” says Laura Mulligan Thomas. “I’ve wanted to do this all my life.”

Normally confining herself to the classical arena, Thomas leaves the world of note-by-note work tonight as she joins an act known for heartbroken love songs— and the possibility of improvisation.

Thomas says she received MP4s of the six songs which she’ll accompany, including “The Minnow and the Trout” and”Almost Lover,” the latter an indie radio hit, just four days ago.

“It sounds like we’ll be winging it,” says Thomas, while driving over to the same-day rehearsal, “so that’s half the fun.”

~
A Fine Frenzy performs Tuesday, November 2 in UVA’s Old Cabell Hall at 8pm. Tickets cost $12-$24.

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West Mainers have called the dusty Amtrak parking lot a “blight” on the neighborhood.
FILE PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

It looks like Amtrak parking lot owners Gabe Silverman and Alan Cadgene have finally begun taking steps to pave the pot-holed dirt and gravel Amtrak station parking lot they own, which some West Main business owners say has become a health hazard to customers because of the dust.

Silverman has been publicly promising to pave the Amtrak parking lot at least since 2004, when he proclaimed it “was going to happen.” In January this year, Neighborhood development chief Jim Tolbert told the Hook that Silverman and Cadgene had told him they were going to pave the lot “as soon as the weather is appropriate.”

Eight months later, some West Main business owners have decided that it’s been bad behavior, not bad weather, that’s left the parking lot unpaved. For instance, Maya restaurant owner and Midtown Association member Peter Castiglione called the lot a “blight” on the neighborhood. Indeed, as an early morning photograph taken by the Hook shows, the dust from the lot can nearly block out the view of West Main. Along with several other business owners, Castiglione finally decided to talk about a lawsuit against Cadgene and Silverman to get them to finally do something about their dust. Not to mention the sizable potholes that have plagued the lot.

Apparently, Castiglione got the duo’s attention. He says that Cadgene suddenly promised to treat the parking lot with a product called Durasoil, a synthetic-organic fluid that controls road dust. Preparation for the Durasoil began on the morning of Tuesday, November 2.

“They have been very responsive since our lawyer (more)

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The McIntire Recycling Center gets an extra lease on life.
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

Despite recent cuts to its operating schedule and limits on what it will accept, the McIntire Recycling Center will continue to get the support of Charlottesville taxpayers— about $28,000 until the end of the calendar year— even while its usage has plummeted as more convenient options abound.

The City Council voted its position Monday, November 1 after the County of Albemarle, which also funds the operation, issued a request and City Public Works Director Judith Mueller explained how usage was dropping.

The Ivy Landfill closed in 2001, leaving the RSWA with no revenue stream other than a tax on all area waste, but a lawsuit settlement ended that.
PHOTO BY RSWA

“The tonnage is down,” said Mueller. “For the current calendar year, it’s going to be about half of what it was in 2007.”

Mueller told the four present Councilors (Councilor Holly Edwards was absent) that even though the City offers free curbside recycling pickup, about a third of the McIntire’s traffic still comes from City residents.

A private firm called Van der Linde Recycling continues to accept the items banned from McIntire.
PHOTO BY ALAN SMITHEE

“There’s a social atmosphere at McIntire that many people consider very special,” explained Mueller.

Yet two councilors gave other reasons why city residents should support McIntire, which typically sees people unloading materials from inside gas-chugging automobiles after painstaking sorting— a growing rarity in this area ever since a private firm began operating a MRF so efficiently that it won a City contract to sort and process the stuff left at curbside.

“We recycle so much,” said Councilor Kristin Szakos of her own household, “that we only put out garbage about once every four weeks. Ours is one of those cars coming in and unloading everything.”

Councilor David Brown pointed out that only by sorting can citizens and companies ensure that their old office paper becomes new office paper. “You can’t use newsprint or cardboard to make this,” said Brown, holding up a sheet of office paper.

The operator of the McIntire Center, the Rivanna Solid (more)

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