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Democrats pour $400K into Virginia House races as key battlegrounds emerge
With control of the Virginia House of Delegates hanging in the balance, national Democrats are pumping another $400,000 into the fight — and putting their weight behind candidates they see as crucial to flipping Republican districts this November. The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), an arm of the Democratic National Committee focused on state legislative races, announced the new funding Wednesday along with a fresh slate of endorsements for candidates running in competitive districts.
Phillips: Virginia tobacco farmers are footing the bill for foreign competitors. This needs to end.
Virginia was once considered the largest and richest of the original 13 colonies, in part thanks to its flourishing tobacco farms. But the double drawback tax loophole, which foreign tobacco companies exploit to receive U.S. tax refunds, puts the entire American tobacco industry at risk. And while President Trump tried to end this loophole, the courts determined it was Congress who must be the ones to close it for good. Now, with the House of Representatives doing the right thing, we need our Senators to follow suit and help Virginia’s tobacco farms, many of them small family businesses, survive and flourish.
Yancey: Why Google’s data center project in Botetourt gets applause while others don’t
When Prince William County approved three rezonings for the Prince William Digital Gateway complex of data centers, neighbors went to court. When a developer proposed a data center complex near Chatham, it sparked six months of controversy before the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors voted down the project. When Botetourt County announced Tuesday that Google — yes, that Google — has bought 312 acres in the county’s business park for what was described as the first hyperscale data center project in the western part of the state, a room full of people cheered.
Promising federal bill could help curb Chesapeake Bay pollution
Legislation introduced in Congress by a bipartisan group of Virginia lawmakers offers a promising approach to ridding the Chesapeake Bay of the pollutants that threaten its future. Republican Reps. Jen Kiggans and Rob Wittman and Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott, all of the Hampton Roads region, have introduced the Chesapeake Bay Conservation Acceleration Act. Sen. Mark Warner and Sen. Tim Kaine, both Democrats, are sponsoring a version of the bill in the Senate.
Rockingham County school board removes more books from libraries
The Rockingham County school board removed two books from school libraries and discussed scaling back technology used in elementary schools at Monday night’s school board meeting. ... Three books were up for a vote Monday night, and the school division’s content review committee recommended that all three be retained. Nevertheless, the board voted to remove two of them.
Louisa wins 2nd big data center project in a month
Louisa County is selling its 697-acre Shannon Hill Regional Business Park to a Colorado-based data center firm, the second major data center firm to say it’s coming to the rural county in less than a month. EdgeCore Digital Infrastructure, which develops and operates data centers, bought the Shannon Hill land for $42 million. The site is 40 miles west of Richmond. Earlier this month, Amazon Web Services announced its plans for a $1 billion investment in a data center campus in Louisa ...
Henrico accepts Richmond mayor’s invitation to talk about water infrastructure
Richmond Mayor Danny Avula has invited the entire region to take part in a regional advisory group that will focus on righting concerns around their interconnected water utility system. He also asked the Henrico Board of Supervisors to meet with him, and Richmond City Council, for a joint meeting to talk about the utility. The Henrico Board of Supervisors released a statement Monday accepting the mayor’s invitation.
Audit finds ‘significant weaknesses’ with Richmond’s government purchasing cards
An internal audit of the city of Richmond’s purchasing card system found at least $5 million in “questionable expenses” and a lackadaisical approval and oversight system that made it difficult for the city to track and control what employees were buying with their city-issued cards. A report released Tuesday by Auditor Riad Ali said the “significant weaknesses” in city controls over the purchasing cards (known as P-cards for short) led the auditor’s office to refer millions in questionable spending to the city’s inspector general office, which has more power to investigate wrongdoing such as waste, fraud or abuse.
Audit: Richmond city credit cards used for $5M in ‘questionable expenditures’
City auditors on Tuesday morning released a damning assessment of City Hall’s purchasing card program that, among other things, identified $5 million in “questionable expenditures” made by cardholders between July 2022 and May 2024. That’s nearly one quarter of the credit card spending during that timeframe. Those transactions were referred to Richmond’s inspector general, who investigates claims of fraud, waste and abuse, auditors said.
Audit finds $5M in dubious Richmond credit card spending
The city of Richmond approved roughly $5 million in questionable purchases on employee credit cards over two years due to lax oversight, according to a just-released internal audit. That's roughly a quarter of all spending in the period through the city's Purchasing Card (P-Card) Program. City auditor Riad Ali's report, published Tuesday, found "significant weaknesses" in the internal review process and general oversight of the P-Card program, which was started in 2018.