News | Brendan Fitzgerald

As the real estate value of Woolen Mills rose during the last decade, so too did the neighborhood’s concern for the pump station stench.

News | Brendan Fitzgerald

In January, when Fifth District Republican Congressman Robert Hurt opened his new Charlottesville office, Jefferson Area Tea Party (JATP) Chair Carole Thorpe told C-VILLE that the group planned to turn from the federal government to local issues. Representatives of the local tea party, part of the national swell of groups calling for reduced government oversight, [...]

News | Brendan Fitzgerald

Mere weeks before the auction that will convey Patricia Kluge’s wine empire to the highest bidders, 20 former employees of the Kluge Estate Winery & Vineyard continue to maintain the foreclosed property’s vines and facilities. The workers, says winery employee Tim Rausse, are touching up everything from a 34,000-square-foot carriage house to an unglamorous “modular [...]

News | Brendan Fitzgerald

 On February 13, 2008, Carmello “Pee Wee” Martinez was sentenced to four years in prison for his role in a shooting that left a local 16-year-old in critical condition. Reportedly a member of the Bloods street gang, Martinez had pursued an argument from the Herman Key Recreation Center on Market Street to the Blue Ridge [...]

News | Brendan Fitzgerald

The rotten awning on Ophelia Wells’ Fifeville home was patched last fall. In two months, repair crews organized and operated by AHIP—the Albemarle Housing Improvement Program—installed a new roof and siding. They also resolved plumbing and electrical problems and conducted a lead paint abatement program inside the house. The cost? Roughly $55,000—not an unusual cost [...]

News | Brendan Fitzgerald

In 1982, Virginia’s infant mortality rate was a staggering 12.9—the average number of infant deaths per 1,000 live births. The same year, Shawnte Rawlings was born to a 16-year-old mother in Garrett Square, the federally subsidized housing project in Charlottesville now known as Friendship Court. Shawnte Rawlings, 28, lives in the Westhaven public housing project. [...]

News | Brendan Fitzgerald

Last week, City Councilor Kristin Szakos broke a 2-2 vote on one of the most contentious elements of the $143 million water supply plan, which was first approved in 2006. In a 3-2 vote, City Council supported the replacement of the existing Lower Ragged Mountain Dam (pictured) with a new earthen structure composed of materials [...]

News | Brendan Fitzgerald

Until business colossus and “The Apprentice” star Donald Trump cuts checks for Patricia Kluge’s foreclosed properties—the 45-room Albemarle House mansion, the unrealized luxury real estate development Vineyard Estates and the 900-acre Kluge Estate Winery & Vineyard—the three parcels belong to three separate banks, which hold combined liens totaling $65 million. However, sources close to negotiations [...]

News | Brendan Fitzgerald

Charlottesville City Council and the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors seem to be closing in on a dam design for the Ragged Mountain Reservoir, a primary component of the long-debated $143 million community water supply plan. In January, council amended its water supply plan resolution to support a 30′ minimum height for the reservoir at [...]

News | Brendan Fitzgerald

Albemarle County’s infant mortality rate increased to 6.5 from 5.6. And while Charlottesville’s infant mortality rate has decreased, the city’s rate remains 43 percent higher than the state average for the period spanning 2005 to 2009.

News | Brendan Fitzgerald

Local residents and a number of children gathered at the corner of Eighth and Page streets on Thursday, February 3, to mourn the death of 30-year-old David Lee “Gundo” Cowan, the victim of this city’s first homicide of 2011. Flowers and dozens of tea lights were placed at a section of sidewalk, stained with a [...]

News | Brendan Fitzgerald

Barring a constitutional amendment from the General Assembly, more than 2,000 area students may soon learn the significance of the old adage: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” According to the U.S. Department of Agri-culture, 43 million citizens use food stamps. A new opinion, requested by Rep. John O’Bannon and penned by Attorney [...]

News | Brendan Fitzgerald

The UVA Patent Foundation recently announced that university inventors received 32 U.S. patents in 2010—a record number, according to Miette Michie, interim executive director of the foundation.

News | Brendan Fitzgerald

Albemarle County Supervisor Ken Boyd faced nearly two hours of ire from more than 100 county residents last week, over a proposal to redesignate 140 acres south of Hollymead Town Center into the county growth area.

News | Brendan Fitzgerald

In less than 48 hours, the waterlogged debate between Charlottesville and Albemarle County officials over the Lower Ragged Mountain Dam became measurably different for every person involved.

News | Brendan Fitzgerald

Nothing is dead on Davis Avenue, a cozy stretch of brick homes north of the Downtown Mall. However, you wouldn’t know it to look at the massive birds that roost in a group of trees nearby. A mob of turkey vultures roost in trees near Davis Field, north of the Downtown Mall. While Charlottesville and [...]

News | Brendan Fitzgerald

It appears that no house is a safe house for former winery owner Patricia Kluge, whose financial struggles continue. Last week, a county judge appointed J. Todd Willett, Director of Asset Services for real estate firm CB Richard Ellis, to “maintain the status quo” of Albemarle House, the property she acquired in her divorce settlement [...]