The Cavalier daily :: Friday, April 13, 1973 :: University of Virginia Library

Electric barbed wire fences
will surround the whole area,
and four 50-foot guard stations
will be erected at strategic
points. The University Ave.
side of the Rotunda will be
entirely bricked over, including
present windows and doors, for
security reasons. The
characteristic Jeffersonian
columns will remain, however,
"for aesthetic effect," Mr.
Holton said.

The Lawn will serve as an
exercise yard for inmates who
reside in Lawn rooms. Each
room will be extensively
renovated. East Lawn will
house felons and
uncontrollable prisoners, while
misdemeanor offenders,
juveniles, and short-term
prisoners will reside on West
Lawn.

A high wall will be
constructed at the south end of
the Lawn to prevent escapees.
Ceremonial processions down
the Lawn at Founder's Day
and Final Exercises will no
longer be held.

Officials for the penal
facility have not yet been
named, although Mr. Main has
been suggested as a candidate
for warden. The counseling
system will reportedly be
extended into the prison.
Rotunda Hostess Mrs. Mary
Hall Betts has been invited to
"stay on" as a matron,
although she has indicated that
she may take a job at the new
"mini-Rotunda" which has
been constructed on Rt. 29
North in the Barracks Road
Shopping Center parking lot in
order that visitors to the area
during the renovation may see
what the Rotunda formerly
looked like.

The University did not
receive an expected federal
grant for the Rotunda
restoration scheduled this
spring because of drastic
spending cutbacks. The grant is
frozen and will be unavailable
for an undetermined amount
of time.

However, University
administrators had already
vacated their Rotunda offices
for the expected restoration,
and the Rotunda thus lay void.

Green Springs residents
have fought Gov. Holton's
plans to build a prison there
for three years, and he
reportedly "was sick and tired
of the flack" he was receiving.
"Anyway," he sneered, "I was
really mad that I was not
chosen President of the
University."

Mrs. Hiram B. Ely,
spokesman for Historic Green
Springs, Inc., said she was
"appalled at Mr. Holton's
flagrant breach of decency" in
moving the prison site to
Charlottesville. "To put it at
Green Springs was destructive
arrogance, but to build it at the
Rotunda is blatant
desecration," she said.

Gov. Holton apparently had
written to former University
President Edgar F. Shannon Jr.
several months ago, warning
him of his intentions of putting
the prison at the Rotunda but
Mr. Shannon requested that
the plans be postponed if he
could obtain easements for the
affected University property
based on historical value.
However, Mr. Shannon could
only obtain easements on 99
per cent of the property
surrounding the Rotunda. The
Jefferson Society reportedly
refused to place Jefferson Hall
under easement.

Since Mr. Shannon's efforts
were unsuccessful, Mr. Holton
said he was "unwilling to do
something that everyone is not
unified on," and promptly
announced that contractors
had been engaged for the job.

Observers accused Mr.
Holton of backwards logic, but
he avoided the criticism by
departing for Antarctica on a
trade mission for the state of
Virginia.