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2024 elections in Virginia Beach will move forward under district system, judge rules
When voters in Virginia Beach go to cast their ballot this November, on the city level, they will vote for a mayor, an at-large school board member and a district council and school board member, if where they live happens to have race this year. Monday, a Circuit Court Judge denied a request that would have prevented that method of voting from being used, all as part of larger lawsuit seeking to undo the 10-1 ward system used in City Council and School Board elections since 2022.
Danville taking inventory of water service lines under EPA mandate
Danville Utilities is taking an inventory of public and private water service lines as part of an EPA mandate to remove lead from water systems across the country. All water service lines, public and private, that are found to have lead will have to be replaced in 10 years, according to the EPA mandate, said Danville Utilities Director Jason Grey. Danville Utilities is currently compiling an inventory for public lines — those leading from the water main to a property’s water meter — by going through its records, Grey said.
Bedford County School Board member’s assault and battery case dismissed
A Bedford County School Board member’s assault and battery case was dismissed on Monday. As previously reported, Matthew Holbrook was arrested in February of last year for assault charges after he said multiple tools and appliances were stolen from his property by a tenant he was renting a home to.
Yancey: Rural Virginia sees same population growth rate as Nashville. That growth just isn’t evenly distributed.
Nashville has grown so fast it’s no longer just Nashville. It’s now sometimes jokingly called Nashvegas. Far from being just a country music city, Nashville is now a corporate center, a health care center, home to teams in the National Football League, the National Hockey League and Major League Soccer. It’s considered on the short list of cities to get a Major League Baseball team once the next round of expansion comes. Nashville is one of the hot cities in the country right now, economically speaking. The latest Census Bureau figures show that since 2000, the Nashville metro area has seen 50,532 more people move in than move out. That’s the equivalent of Nashville adding a county about the size of Virginia’s Henry County. It also works out to a net-migration growth rate of 3% since the last census headcount in 2000.
Youngkin vetoes bills on contraception access, skill games, Confederate heritage rollbacks
Last week, Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed 48 more bills passed by the Democratic-led General Assembly, blocking legislation aimed at preserving contraception access, ending state perks for Confederate heritage groups and legalizing slot machine lookalikes known as skill games. Friday was the governor’s deadline to act on a final batch of bills the General Assembly had returned to him in April. Most of the vetoes dealt with legislation Youngkin tried to amend in ways the legislature opposed.
Loudoun Schools Abandon Delayed Start Training Plan Amid Parental Pushback
Just days after presenting a plan to the School Board to have 16 two-hour delayed school days to accommodate more than 36 hours of state-required teacher training, division administrators announced Friday they are changing course after receiving nearly 2,000 responses from the community. “After carefully reviewing the feedback and recognizing that the adjusted arrival schedule is not an ideal option for the majority of the families we heard from, we are reconsidering our approach,” according to the emailed announcement.
Attorney says he misled client into taking plea in Richmond graduation shooting case; judge rejects motion to withdraw
Room 301 at the John Marshall Courts Building was packed Friday afternoon as Amari Pollard, the man who pleaded guilty in February to the shooting death of Shawn Jackson after Huguenot High School’s 2023 graduation ceremony, returned to court. He was there for a hearing on his motion to withdraw, or to legally ‘take-back’ his guilty plea.
Virginia has history of underfunding school construction
... Richmond Public Schools has acknowledged it’s been playing Whac-A-Mole with infrastructure issues. The district created a facilities plan in 2017, but some schools — like Woodville Elementary — were and still are on the list for needed upgrades. RPS is just now developing a plan to build a new Woodville. Meanwhile, Chesterfield County’s long-term school facilities plan is carefully charted to build and renovate numerous school buildings over the next five years.
Dominion approved for 3 long-term battery storage pilots
Dominion Energy recently received state regulatory approval to use developing battery storage technologies that could have major implications for the commonwealth’s renewable energy transition. The projects include two battery systems at Darbytown Power Station, a natural gas plant in Henrico County. One will utilize an iron-air battery system; the other, a zinc-hybrid technology. An additional project to help power Virginia State University’s Multi-Purpose Center will use metal-hydrogen batteries. Battery storage is expected to double on the United States electric grid in 2024.
Boy Scouts love this scenic Va. river. Locals say they’re ruining it.
Anne McClung was tending horses in her 19th-century barn one day last summer when she noticed a change in the Maury River flowing swiftly nearby. She’s known the river all her 76 years, but it didn’t take a practiced eye to recognize clouds of silt in the normally clear waters. McClung could think of only one cause: The Boy Scouts. The National Capital Area Council of the Scouts, based in Bethesda, has maintained a campground and lake a few miles upstream from McClung’s home for almost six decades. In recent times, the Scouts have drained the lake every fall, causing sediment to pour into one of Virginia’s most iconic and well-loved rivers.