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By EM HOLTER,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)
With less than seven months to go before Richmonders elect a new mayor, six candidates have launched campaigns so far. As Election Day approaches, advertisements and campaign events are starting to pop up across the city — all of which are largely funded by campaign donations.
Here are the latest finance tallies reported to the Virginia Department of Elections for candidates along with their top donors as of Monday.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By JESS KIRBY,
Loudoun Times
(Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)
Echoing concerns from county residents and activist groups, county supervisors unanimously passed a resolution April 16 calling for NextEra Energy’s proposed transmission lines to be routed on existing transmission corridors rather than building a new path through western Loudoun.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By PAUL GOLDMAN,
published in
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)
Mayor Levar Stoney and City Council members — soon to leave office — are hellbent to use their waning power to put Richmond taxpayers on the hook for $280 million in unprecedented baseball stadium debt financing. Stoney unveiled his proposal on April 8. He and his Council majority say they will ram it through at a Council meeting on May 8. But having the right to do it doesn’t make it the right thing to do.
Paul Goldman is a lawyer, former chairman of the Virginia Democratic Party and author of “Remaking Virginia Politics.”
VaNews April 18, 2024
By PETER EAVIS,
New York Times
(Metered Paywall - 1 to 2 articles a month)
New John Deere tractors made their way last week through the sprawling port of Brunswick, Ga., their distinctive green paint glinting in the sunshine. Stevedores drove the tractors up a ramp into the belly of the Leo Spirit, a ship that would take them to Asia.
As orderly as everything looked, the tractor convoy was an example of the enormous lengths to which East Coast ports, railways, truckers and shipping lines have gone to remake supply chains after a container ship crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore last month. The bridge’s collapse closed most of the Port of Baltimore, which last year handled 1.3 million tons of farm and construction machinery and 850,000 cars and light trucks.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By HENRI GENDREAU,
Roanoke Rambler
Roanoke Assistant City Manager Brent Robertson has been demoted and city officials are staying tight-lipped about the circumstances.
Robertson, who also served as finance director, was stripped of his titles just as city leaders are finalizing a $379-million budget that went before City Council on Monday.
City Manager Bob Cowell appointed Chris Chittum, a longtime employee who leads the planning department, as acting assistant city manager.
Council approved that decision late Monday — but not before tabling the motion and returning after a three-hour closed door session to approve the measure unanimously.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By JUSTIN WM. MOYER,
Washington Post
(Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)
Montgomery County officials said Wednesday that they hope to reopen White’s Ferry — a centuries-old service between Maryland and Virginia that was shut down in 2020 amid a legal dispute — after the owner this week offered to donate it to the county.
Chuck Kuhn, chief executive of JK Moving Services, and his wife Stacy Kuhn — who purchased the ferry in 2021 — said in a statement Tuesday that they are offering to donate the ferry to Montgomery County “contingent on Montgomery and Loudoun counties working together to find a solution to gain access to the Virginia shoreline and reopen the ferry in a timely manner.”
At a news conference Wednesday, County Executive Marc Elrich (D) said it could take a year to get it reopened.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By BRENDA POGGENDORF AND JASON FERGUSON,
published in
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)
Virginia’s college-bound high school seniors and families each spring decide which college or university to call home for the next four years. Typically, students choose between in-state or out-of-state and whether to attend a large public university or a small nonprofit private college. While this selection process is complex enough for a high school senior, in 2024 prospective students and families are also experiencing new concerns about affordability brought on by complications from the latest, so-called “better FAFSA,” which stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The admissions process naturally combines excitement with anxiety and even some celebration or disappointment, but the federal government should not make it more difficult.
Poggendorf is vice president for enrollment management at Randolph-Macon College. Ferguson is dean of admissions at Longwood University.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By NATALIE ANDERSON,
Virginian-Pilot
(Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
The Hampton Roads Regional Jail Authority officially approved Portsmouth’s pitch to buy the now closed facility.
The jail, on Elmhurst Lane, opened to fanfare in 1998 with a capacity of 1,300. The publicly owned facility housed overflow inmates from Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Norfolk, Hampton and Newport News. But in October, the full HRRJ board — including city managers, sheriffs and council members from each jurisdiction — voted unanimously to close the jail April 1 after several cities began pulling back on the number of inmates housed there.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By SARAH RANKIN AND DENISE LAVOIE,
Associated Press
Democrats who control the Virginia General Assembly reached an 11th-hour compromise with Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin to extend the timeline for negotiations over the state budget, a move that lawmakers said Wednesday would offer a reset for what has so far been a bitter and unproductive process.
Lawmakers were meeting in Richmond for a one-day session to consider Youngkin’s vetoes and proposed amendments to legislation, including the budget. As recently as Tuesday afternoon, legislative leaders had indicated they were prepared to reject the substance of Youngkin’s proposed changes to the new two-year spending plan, a move that would have set up a likely budget veto, leaving lawmakers facing the looming prospect of a government shutdown if they failed to strike a deal by the start of the new fiscal year on July 1.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By THOMAS BAXTER,
Cavalier Daily
The Jewish Leadership Advisory Board, an elected organization of Jewish student leaders, criticized the (UVa.) Board of Visitors for politicizing the experiences of Jewish students at the University in an April 3 letter acquired by The Cavalier Daily. The letter came after the March 1 meeting of the Board of Visitors, where Bert Ellis, Board member and College and Darden alumnus, criticized the University and Rector Robert Hardie for their responses to allegations of rising antisemitism on Grounds.
JLAB is composed of students elected to govern the Hillel Jewish Leadership Council.
VaNews April 18, 2024
