The Daily Progress from Charlottesville, Virginia • 1

Scottsville votes to be recounted REGION STATE B1 IT? gW Adem Petty killed In crash at track SPORTS C1 ra WT 4 I 33 Heat edge Knicks In overtime play SPORTS 01 Pti hj vo re ss SATURDAY May 13 2000 Established in 1892 A Media General Newspaper Charlottesville Virginia sot Area is close to gaining new commercial TV station By REED WILLIAMS Daily Progress staff writer After 14 years of grueling litigation and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs a second commercial television sta tion soon may enter the Charlottesville pic ture The ederal Communications Commission has approved the merger of two local broadcasting companies Lindsay Television and Achernar Broadcasting Co to construct Channel 19 The CC has also permitted the two entities to form the Charlottesville Broadcasting Corp Lindsay Television is owned by Walton Lindsay grandson of James Lindsay the founding publisher of The Daily Progress Achernar is owned by County resident and Washington attorney Margot Polivy Neither has any other broadcasting inter ests is probably the only sig nificantly sized community in the country that has one television Polivy said riday She said the station probably will be a The ederal Communications Commission has approved the merger of two local broadcasting companies to construct Channel 19 network affiliate but that has not been discussed in full detail attorney said he hopes to obtain a permit to build a headquarters that would allow the station to be up and running sometime next year The company plans to place the antenna on Carters Mountain in Albemarle County but has not decided on a site for a headquarters Polivy said Even after having followed a twisted legal road this was the longest running broadcasting case involving a new frequen cy on the docket at least two obstructions still exist or one there is already a Charlottesville Broadcasting Corp in the area which owns radio stations WINA AM WQMZ and WKAV AM mind if they gave the sta tion to us but not WINA general manager Dann Miller said of the new com pany An attorney for the CC said that as far as the CC was concerned it mat ter if two companies in different media share the same name real issue is that Charlottesville Broadcasting is a radio station operator and these people are proposing to be a tele vision said the CC attorney who requested anonymity they See TV on A8 State 1' sets new trash record Associated Press NOROLK Virginia import ed a record 475 million tons of trash last year despite aggressive attempts to limit the amount of out of state trash pouring into the state Waste from 28 jurisdictions including Puerto Rico and Canada was buried burned or recycled in Virginia the second largest importer of garbage according to federal rankings Only Pennsylvania imports more More than 4 million tons were dumped in seven regional landfills in Central and eastern Virginia according to a review of state envi ronmental records by the Virginian Pilot The 475 million tons is about 237500 truckloads of garbage Although Gov Jim Gilmore and state lawmakers have sharply crit icized New York City for sending its trash Virginia received more garbage from Maryland than from Great achievement DeTeasa Brown (center) of Charlottesville moves over her tassel signi fying that she has graduated riday at Piedmont Virginia Community The Daily ProgressLesfe Close commencement ceremony on campus The college gradual ed 303 students with degrees and certificates Story on BL Blaze calmer in NM Officials say area still unsafe Associated Press LOS ALAMOS NM The blowtorch winds and searing heat that fed a raging wildfire broke riday easing the threat to Los Alamos from a blaze that destroyed 260 homes damaged the nuclear weapons laboratory and forced 25000 people to flee The fire remained out of control in the nearby forests and canyons however and residents were told they could not return to their hous es for at least a week fire is not over with and nobody here is pretending it Gov Gary Johnson said The blaze began as a govern ment prescribed burn to clear brush but exploded in size fueled by dry weather temperatures around 90 and wind gusts of more than 50 mph Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said riday the gov any other state last year records show Maryland provided more than 14 million tons of household garbage sludge asbestos con struction debris and other types of waste New York with nearly 13 million tons was second data compiled by state reg ulators for a report due July 1 comes as Virginia is trying to find new ways to regulate the amount of trash the privately run landfills and incinerators accept 'With support the leg islature last year adopted laws banning garbage barges from largest rivers and cap ping the amount of waste heading into the biggest landfills But a federal judge threw them out in ebruary ruling such mea sures violate constitutionally pro See TRASH on A8 Mayor urges renaming streets The Daily ProgressLeslie Close Charlottesville Mayor Virginia Daugherty has requested that the Nlnth 10th Street Connector and 10th Street be called Hemings Street i By DAVIDE DUKCEVICH Daily Progress staff writer mayor has called for renaming two city streets in honor of the family that included Sally Hemings Thomas slave and likely paramour In an mail to city officials this week Virginia Daugherty wrote that Hemings family members many of whom worked in construc tion and the arts during the early 1800s to be remembered for their roles both at Monticello and in Charlottesville The name Hemings Street would be a fitting Daugherty said she plans to put mayor Virginia Daugherty said she plans to put her proposal to a vote at the City June 5 meeting her proposal to a vote at the City June 5 meeting adding another chapter to the national brouhaha over the third alleged affair with his mulatto slave See HEMINGS on A8 BI computer bug stops all US gun sales Database difficulty attributed to internal problems may not be cleared up until Sunday Associated Press WASHINGTON All gun sales have been halted nationwide since Thursday afternoon because an internal software problem in the BI criminal history database has temporarily halted instant background checks of gun buy ers the BI said riday The Interstate Identification Index a database that has the criminal histories of 36 million people stopped working late Thursday afternoon BI and contractor employees expected to have it working again by this evening or Sunday morning BI spokesman Paul Bresson said was an internal database problem not the result of a hacking or external Bresson said Without background check approvals gun dealers said that since Thursday afternoon they have been forced to tell their customers to wait for their guns until the system comes back up and the checks can be completed The computer failure made it impossible to check the criminal histories for past felony con victions that bar people from buying guns Also brought down by the software problem was the BI's automated fingerprint system known as IAIS for Integrated Automated ingerprint Identification System The National Instant Criminal Background Check System or NICS established under the Brady law to check whether prospective buyers are legally eligible to purchase guns depends on the Interstate Identification Index in its search for felony convictions Even though gun store owners in only about half the states file their background check inquiries directly with the BI the failure affected checks in all 50 states In states where gun dealers place background check requests with a state police agency that state agency checks the criminal histories by computer in addition to its own records before approving or disapproving the sale release any guns to our customers until said Art Harris owner of The Gentleman Hunter in Bethesda Md See GUNS on A8 Bush and Clinto enter gun control fray A2 INSIDE WEATHER Partly sunny and breezy Chance of rain High in upper 80s Clear tonight Low in upper 50s A8 NATION Mich Big Game winner spent hot dog change on ticket A3 BUSINESS Wholesale prices fall but ed still likely to raise rates C5 Business £5 Classified Comics B6 Editorial A6 Entertainment B3 Lottery B2 National news A2 Obituaries B2 Region State Bl Religion B4 Sports C1 World news A4 On the Internet: wwwdailyprogresscom 5 ernment would suspend bums in the dry Western states for 30 days Many of those who fled Los Alamos on Wednesday faced the anxiety of not knowing whether their homes were still standing The blaze swept through some homes like a flaming scythe while neighboring homes were left unscathed No one was injured however In a Red Cross shelter at a high school in Santa anxious resi dents crowded around TV sets watching round the clock news footage to see whether their homes were still there Others logged on to four computers at the shelter to scan a list posted on the county Web site of destroyed houses A few dialed their home num bers A busy signal was taken as a bad sign called our home and it was ringing and we called a few of our homes and it was ring ing We felt a good indication our houses are still said James Robinson who sat at the shelter with his wife and five chil dren the youngest 13 months old Relief workers had planned to escort some residents to their homes today to pick up clothes medicine and other belongings but later decided the town remained too unsafe Across New Mexico months of drought have left the state tinder dry More than 200000 acres have burned already nearly four times the total for all of last year and the fire season has just begun Roughly 200 miles to the south a fire in the Sacramento Mountains sparked by a downed See BLAZE on A8 Prescribed fires halted irest A8 Great achievement MB The Daily ProgressLesfe Close DeTeasa Brown (center) of Charlottesville moves over her tassel signi commencement ceremony on campus The college graduate tying that she has graduated riday at Piedmont Virginia Community ed 303 students with degrees and certificates Story on BL.