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Yancey: Roanoke city manager’s departure comes as city council faces an unusual amount of turnover
The job of the next Roanoke City Council just got more interesting. But first, so does the job before city voters this summer and fall. City Manager Bob Cowell announced his resignation Monday night, at the tail end of the council meeting. Cardinal’s Tad Dickens has more details, such as they are. I’ll focus on the politics — and the future. Cowell’s departure comes as the Roanoke City Council is about to undergo an unusual amount of turnover. At least three, and maybe four, members of the seven-member council won’t be there next year. Mayor Sherman Lea and council member Trish White-Boyd are retiring. Council member Luke Priddy is resigning to take a job out of town. That guarantees three new members on the dais.
Kiggans blasts Veterans Affairs after missed deadline for Hampton VA Medical Center investigation
The Department of Veterans Affairs is under fire for missing the deadline to provide information on the Hampton VA Medical Center to the House Committee on Veterans Affairs following allegations of employee retaliation and substandard care. The House committee launched an investigation after lawmakers said they met with medical professionals and whistleblowers who work at the medical center in March to discuss the delivery of care after recent scrutiny. Led by U.S. Rep. Jen Kiggans, the House committee on April 9 requested documents related to disciplinary actions against employees, patient safety reports related to the medical center’s surgical department ...
Deaths, ill treatment at Riverside spark call for regional jail reform
Denise Gunn asked Chesterfield County prosecutors to go to court to revoke her son Kevin Wyatt’s probation last year, thinking he’d be safer in jail than on the street. He died in Riverside Regional Jail eight months later of an overdose of cocaine and fentanyl, she said. He was due to be released from the Prince George County facility in three weeks. When jail officials called Gunn, some 10 hours after her son’s death, they asked her if her son brought drugs into jail, she said. But he’d been there for months, she replied. How could he have?
Sen. Mark Warner meets with students and educators to discuss FAFSA issues
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) hosted a discussion at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, on Monday with students, school districts and universities about the issues they have been having with the revamped Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as FAFSA. Many of those who attended said the rollout of the new FAFSA has been very troublesome for students, families and schools for months. … Superintendent of Loudon County Public Schools Aaron Spence said some of the district’s students still do not know where they will be attending college in the fall, weeks after the typical May 1 deadline.
Documenting and preserving Virginia’s largest, most revered trees
Virginia is home to nearly 80 national champion big trees, consistently placing the commonwealth in the top five states with the most documented champion trees, or trees that have grown to be the largest specimens of their particular species. The Virginia Big Tree Program, coordinated by the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation at Virginia Tech, maintains a register of the largest specimens of over 300 native, non-native and naturalized tree species in Virginia.
An amphitheater and a sports complex spotlight quality of life as an economic development goal
On a recent warm evening in downtown Lynchburg, dozens of residents and area officials gathered to break ground on an amphitheater anticipated to seat up to 5,000. Just over a hundred miles away in Pulaski County, county officials are preparing to develop a major sports and recreation complex in a former candle factory. The two projects are among the region’s recent examples of economic development endeavors designed to add jobs not just by directly employing people but by improving their communities’ quality of life, with the goal of contributing to further growth down the road.
Shenandoah Valley free clinic highlights gaps in rural care
Sitting in a dental exam chair in the Augusta County Expo Center last month, Sora Knightley explained her situation to Dr. Harold Neal. … The pain in three of her bottom-left molars started about four months earlier and gradually worsened. After months of enduring because of dental anxiety and fears about the cost, the insured 19-year-old went to a dentist. They filled the main cavity, but she said they told her that insurance wouldn’t cover addressing the problems in the other molars. “It would have been around $2,300 just to get one tooth fixed,” she said. … Knightley was one of 402 people who visited Remote Area Medical’s Fishersville pop-up clinic that April weekend. The clinic offered free dental, vision and primary care, in addition to vaccinations, opioid reversal trainings and other services.
Virginia Establishes Commission to Study Black Communities Uprooted by Public Universities
Spurred by a VCIJ at WHRO and ProPublica investigation, the recently approved Virginia budget includes nearly $60,000 over the next two years for a commission to study the disruption public college and university expansions have had on Black communities. The statewide panel will probe historic land acquisitions and consider potential redress for Black families and their descendants. The commission will work with public colleges and universities to examine property transactions in majority Black communities, and determine “whether and what form of compensation or relief would be appropriate,” according to the state budget.
In rural Virginia, religious and community groups are stepping into a health-care void
Nearly 20 million people gained health-insurance coverage between 2010 and 2016 under the Affordable Care Act. But about half of insured adults worry about affording their monthly premiums, while roughly the same number worry about affording their deductibles. At least six states don’t include dental coverage in Medicaid, and 10 still refuse to expand Medicaid to low-income adults under the ACA. Many people with addiction never get treatment. Religious groups have stepped in to offer help—food, community support, medical and dental care—to the desperate.