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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 ...
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.
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?
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.
How the Shenandoah County School Board Decided to Restore Confederate School Names
Proud and satisfied, or sad and embarrassed. However citizens of the commonwealth view Shenandoah County School Board’s recent decision, Virginia appears to be the first in the nation to restore Confederate school names, after years of vigorous community engagement, a controversial renaming process, and a change in board priorities related to race, diversity and inclusion.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.