Congressman Tom Perriello (D-Ivy, left) declined a request for federal funds for Larry Sabato’s Youth Leadership Initiative. Now Senator Mark Warner (D-VA, right) is lobbying his colleagues to save it.
HOOK FILE PHOTOS

Few political scientists are as tapped into the ways of Washington as the University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato. For his encyclopedic knowledge and predictive acumen, he has be come the go-to-guy for the national media seeking political analysis. Now, after decades spent watching Capitol Hill, Sabato needs an act of Congress to keep his brainchild alive.

“If we do not receive federal funds,” says Ken Stroupe, chief of staff of Sabato’s UVA Center for Politics, “we do not have a sufficient endowment to continue to operate this program.”

The program is the Youth Leadership Initiative, a national civics education program founded by Sabato in 1998, providing free teaching tools to 50,000 social studies teachers of all grade levels nationwide. Every two years, the program runs mock elections with students voting on the same candidates their parents will on Election Day, making for what the Center for Politics says is the nation’s largest mock election.

Since its inception, the Youth Initiative received most of its funding from a federal earmark introduced annually into the House of Representatives by Congressman Virgil Goode (R-Rocky Mount). After (more)

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This hole in the ground near the corner of Verona Drive and Olympia Drive in Fontana is all that’s left of Tuesday’s blast.
PHOTO BY LINDSAY BARNES

It was an otherwise sleepy Tuesday afternoon in the Fontana subdivision, which overlooks Darden Towe Park, as Carrie Hanley sat on her back porch to enjoy the the mild weather of June 16. Around 12:30pm, the only thing out of the ordinary was that just down the hill, as some workers were getting ready to blast their way through some rock in order to install a new sewage line.

So it came as little surprise when Hanley heard the low rumble from the detonation. What came as a surprise is what happened next.

“It was just like the movies,” says Hanley. “We just saw this big, black cloud coming toward us.”

Hanley says (more)

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Parachute, led by Will Anderson, left, now has a national following. Will fellow Red Light client Sons Of Bill, led by James Wilson, right, see similar success?
FILE PHOTO BY JEN FARIELLO/PHOTO BY LINDSAY BARNES

Two years after they burst onto the Charlottesville music scene, both Parachute and Sons Of Bill are both on their way toward achieving dreams of making a living from the craft they love. In each case, some of the success is due to Red Light Management, the Charlottesville company owned by Coran Capshaw to manage Dave Matthews Band, whose client list now includes everyone from country superstar Tim McGraw to legendary jam band Phish. Capshaw signed both Parachute [then Sparky's Flaw] and Sons Of Bill in 2007, with the hopes of taking both young groups to new heights.

However, with Parachute’s debut CD Losing Sleep hitting high on the Billboard Top 200 album chart in its first week in stores and Sons Of Bill’s sophomore album One Town Away ready to hit record shelves nationwide on Tuesday, June 23, it’s become clear that one size does not fit all in the House of Capshaw. Indeed, when it comes to (more)

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State Senator Creigh Deeds gets a hug from his wife Pam before speaking to supporters celebrating his victory in the Democratic primary for governor.
PHOTO BY LINDSAY BARNES

In the contest to become the Democratic nominee for governor this year, the polls were tight headed into the Tuesday, June 9 primary, but in the end there was no doubt. State Senator Creigh Deeds beat former Democratic National Committee chair Terry McAuliffe and former Alexandria delegate Brian Moran in overwhelming fashion, taking 50 percent of the vote in the three-way race, to McAuliffe’s 26 percent and Moran’s 24 percent.

Addressing his victory party at the Omni Hotel, Deeds told supporters that the broad support he received was a sign of a united party, poised to carry the governor’s mansion for the third election in a row.

“Whether it was in Abingdon or Arlington, Highland County or Henrico County, or right here in Thomas Jefferson’s hometown of Charlottesville,” said Deeds. “It was a vote to continue the progress we’ve made under Democratic governors Mark Warner and Tim Kaine.”

Deeds was visibly (more)

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According to the FDIC, the most likely answer to the question the Hook posed on its cover in April just got a little murkier with the FDIC now beginning to sell off failed lender Silverton Bank’s assets.
PHOTO BY TOM DALY

A month after it took over the operations of failed Atlanta-based lender Silverton Bank, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation will instead dissolve the bank as of Wednesday, July 29 and sell off Silverton’s assets in a fire sale— including the construction loan on the unfinished Landmark Hotel.

This means that now Silverton’s interest in the Landmark won’t be sold as part of a one-off package deal for all of Silverton’s assets, but will now instead be likely be bundled with a few of the other Silverton holdings in a smaller sale.

Among those assets is Specialty Finance Group, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Silverton Bank that actually holds the $23.5 million Landmark loan. In a letter obtained by the Hook, SFG assured its borrowers that it remains unaffected by the FDIC’s actions on its parent company.

“Silverton Bridge Bank [Silverton's new name under the FDIC] is separate and apart from SFG,” the letter reads, “and this announcement will not affect the SFG loan portfolio.”

While that’s technically true, the FDIC took over all of Silverton’s operations as of May 1— including those of Specialty Finance Group. As such, FDIC spokesperson David Barr says that the government will likely attempt to sell SFG lock, stock, and barrel to another bank in the near future.

“I would imagine that with a subsidiary like SFG, we’ll attempt to sell the whole thing,” says Barr, “but if we have yet to sell it by the 29th, we’ll continue to operate it.”

The news comes after reports emerged that D.C.-based private equity firm the Carlyle Group had been interested in buying the totality of Silverton and its assets.

Should the FDIC fail to sell SFG as a whole, the next step for the Landmark Hotel loan would be for it to be sold as part of a bundle of Silverton loans to either another bank or a private investor. Just who would want to buy a loan on which the owner has [allegedly] defaulted, particularly one presently tied up in litigation in two different states? According to (more)

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