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By JASON ARMESTO,
Daily Progress
(Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
In a second attempt to prevent construction of a seven-story apartment complex on Jefferson Park Avenue in Charlottesville, nine homeowners in the surrounding neighborhood are hoping a judge will side with them in a lawsuit. They claim that City Council “acted in an unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious manner,” when it approved a special use permit allowing a developer to construct a 119-unit complex on the 2000 block of Jefferson Park Avenue. ... The group’s first attempt at using the court to derail the student housing project was shot down when the city of Charlottesville, the defendant in the case, filed a demurrer, a pretrial defense challenge to the suit’s legal grounds.
VaNews April 30, 2024
By DAVE RESS,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)
A privately held water company that serves 107,000 people across Virginia and State Corporation Commission staff have agreed to rate increases averaging 32.88% for water service and 8.3% for sewer service. The agreement, which is subject to review by an SCC hearing examiner and the three SCC commissioners, is less than Aqua Virginia had asked for last year. ... Aqua operates 191 water systems and nine sewer systems across the state, including small facilities in Caroline, Charles City, Dinwiddie, Fluvanna, Goochland, Hanover, King William, New Kent, Powhatan and Sussex counties.
VaNews April 30, 2024
By WRAY FITCH AND ROBERT K. JENNER,
published in
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)
Last week, a prominent Northern Virginia church, The Falls Church Anglican, released the findings of its investigation into a former director of youth ministries who sexually abused children for more than a decade while serving as the church’s youth director and subsequently as director of adult discipleship. This horrific, years-long abuse by Jeff Taylor highlights the need for change in how Virginia enables survivors of childhood sexual abuse to seek justice against their abusers and the organizations that turn a blind eye. Survivors of childhood sexual abuse face immense challenges in coming forward and seeking justice.
Fitch is a partner at Baird Mandalas Brockstedt & Federico who represents injured individuals and victims of sexual abuse. Jenner is the founding partner of Jenner Law and focuses his practice on helping people affected by the harmful conduct of others.
VaNews April 30, 2024
By DWAYNE YANCEY,
Cardinal News
Texas likes to proclaim “Don’t mess with Texas.”
Don’t mess with Southwest Virginia, either.
I’m not sure what happens if you mess with Texas — I’ve never tried — but a writer for Axios Richmond tried to mess with Southwest Virginia by making a dismissive reference to “whatever the hell is west of Roanoke.” That led to me writing a column to defend the western part of the state, which in turn led to a reader in Arlington saying he’d never been to this part of the state, so I offered to give him some travel advice — yours.
VaNews April 30, 2024
By DEAN MIRSHAHI,
WRIC-TV
State Sen. Ghazala Hashmi (D-Chesterfield) has filed paperwork for a run for Virginia lieutenant governor.
Sen. Hashmi, a two-term state senator, has not formally announced a campaign for lieutenant governor. But the filing with the state she submitted is a needed step to take political donations and begin campaign work.
“Senator Hashmi isn’t offering any comments today, but big news is coming soon,” the senator’s office said in a statement Monday.
VaNews April 30, 2024
By AMY JABLONKSI AND CAITLIN MCCORMACK,
University of Richmond Capital News Service
Richmond and Virginia State Troopers arrested multiple Virginia Commonwealth University students Monday night, firing tear gas and pepper spray to break up a pro-Palestine encampment in a chaotic clash on its Monroe Park campus
The protest, similar to those at colleges across the country, was organized by VCU’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter. Chapter leaders posted a statement on the organization’s Instagram demanding that the university disclose its expenditure and divest from any companies and partnerships that profit from or support the “colonization and genocide of the Palestinian people.”
VaNews April 30, 2024
By AMY MATZKE-FAWCETT,
Virginia Business
With recent expansions nearly complete, and a new Southwest Virginia port under consideration, it’s been a busy year for the commonwealth’s inland ports. The industrial market from Hampton Roads to Richmond has expanded in terms of industrial space available, says Devon Anders, president of the Harrisonburg-based InterChange Group and chair of the Virginia Maritime Association’s Valley Logistics Chapter. Millions of feet of warehouse space being built near the Virginia Inland Port will allow the Port of Virginia to better compete against other East Coast ports, he says.
VaNews April 30, 2024
By LISA ROWAN,
Cardinal News
Police arrested 82 people, including 53 current students, late Sunday night and early Monday at a pro-Palestine encampment on the lawn of the Graduate Life Center at Virginia Tech.
All were charged with trespassing, a university statement said Monday afternoon.
This appears to mark the largest arrest of students on campus since May 12, 1970, when 107 students were taken in after occupying Williams Hall as part of a protest of the Vietnam War and the fatal shooting of four students just days earlier at Kent State University, according to university records and the Collegiate Times, the student newspaper.
VaNews April 30, 2024
By EM HOLTER,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)
The city of Richmond filed a motion in Circuit Court on Friday challenging a $250,000 whistleblower complaint that alleges the city withheld public information and unlawfully fired an employee to cover it up.
Connie Clay, the city’s former Freedom of Information Act officer, filed the 17-page complaint on March 1. In it, Clay alleges she was unlawfully terminated by Petula Burks, the city’s strategic communications and civic engagement officer, on Jan. 19 for “refusing to engage in illegal and unethical activities in violation of FOIA.”
VaNews April 30, 2024
By JAHD KHALIL, SHABAN ATHUMAN, AND DAWNTHEA M. PRICE LISCO,
VPM
Police at Virginia Commonwealth University used force to make an unknown number of arrests roughly 10 minutes after arriving at a protest on Monday night. Students and community members who had gathered were demanding the school disclose and sever financial ties with Israel — and call for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. … Students at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond began implementing a “liberation zone” early Monday, writing chalk messages of support for Palestinians and antiwar sentiments on the public campus.
VaNews April 30, 2024
